VicenteCartas

[quote who="vieuxchat" reply="104" id="2473637"] Fireball and Iceball are just examples to show the gameplay problems a single "magical" defense can raise. [/quote] Not a good example, because we can expect developers to avoid having the same spell with different graphics. If we have damage types, but they do a holy spell that blesses your unit with +1 to attack, and a nature strength that gives your unit +1 attack also (not damage, but attack, so no resistances are involved

[quote who="Nights Edge" reply="10" id="2473660"]I feel the greatest failing of Java, which is a result of its lack of function passing, is that it lacks proper set logic: you do everything with loops instead. Until I came to C# and played with Linq I had no idea about Select (Map), Aggregate (Reduce), Where (Filter), and their various relations (list comprehensions etc.). I have since found that this sort of thing is standard in most other programming languages. Using loops makes the code lo

[quote who="Nights Edge" reply="8" id="2473580"]I do think C# is a big improvement on Java, but there are also other languages in a similar vein on both platforms which are better still: Scala and F# both open up some of the more useful parts of functional programming, but you also write bog-standard OO in them to reap the benefits of shorter, neater syntax and a better type system.[/quote] While I like F# a lot, support for it is much worse than C#, and that's a big problem :( There

[quote who="vieuxchat" reply="95" id="2473508"] But what about a fire elemental with high magical resistance ? Will he be able to stop "Iceball" because he have a high magical defense ? That is the sort of things that hardcore gamers fear. Moreover if there isn't different effect between an iceball and a fireball what is the point choosing between them ? You can specialize in fire or ice, it will be the same gameplay-wise, you'll be able to do the same things. Same things ? So it isn't r

[quote who="the Gorgon" reply="87" id="2472912"]Really good post, I completely agree with NTJedi. The examples with the mind flayer, succubus etc are pertinent and good: there is no way you can easily create such units in the game if there are only 4 stats. Adding more stats doesn't need to make the game too complex. Is creating a character in classical RPG D&D too complex?[/quote] Yes, it's too complex for a strategy game. [quote who="the Gorgon" reply="87" id="2472912"]R

[quote who="joasoze" reply="28" id="2471333"]The translation argument is rather weak. Lots of countries buys games in English and arnt used to translations. Like Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Holland, parts of Eastern Europe, large parts of Asia ++. Just give us the original versions please. [/quote] That argument is not weak in Spain, games not translated will sell far less than translated ones. I suppose the argument is stronger in the southern part of europe and n

[quote who="-alpha666-" reply="13" id="2472413"]I am not sure if it is related but, I found it really effective to be able to define primary stats and secundary stats in XML ( for exemple, let us take vitality as base stats and hit points as a secundary stat ... meaning it calculated by a formula from the base stats) . To define a comportement fully on xml, it is possible to add even the formulas in XML.Here is an example of what is possible to make ( the engine is in C#)<br /

[quote who="Raven X" reply="57" id="2472250"] I'm only talking about combat magic, VicenteC. When it comes to combat damage, everything will just be the same thing with a different animation if they don't do something with it. [/quote] Then probably they'll avoid that: maybe one school has area damage spells and another single target spells, maybe some spells cause friendly fire and others doesn't, maybe some spells do less damage but are harder to resist,... Is no

[quote who="Raven X" reply="34" id="2471620"] If they don't use some kind of additional system then once the player learns the most damaging spell they can they will just spam that spell over and over again in combat so long as they have the mana to do so. [/quote] If magic was going to be like you say (which probably won't), it doesn't matter that there are different damage types or not: if the only possible choice for the player is between damaging spells, magic alrea

Nice work Boogie :) If I may add, it may be interesting to read Steve Yegge post on prototype-based design, which is more or less the formal name of what you have done :) http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/10/universal-design-pattern.html Designing things like that makes them very very extensible (good for modding and for prototyping). He talks a little about how it helped in his own gam

I have Nikon ViewNX working perfectly on W7 :) Not sure what's Nikon CaptureNX :(

[quote who="Wieke" reply="11" id="2471225"] quoting post The campaign is going to be much much more story driven than originally conceived. Cut-scenes between each chapter written by our friends at Del Rey. This, imho, is by far the most promising bit. [/quote] Agreed, this one was a surprise :) The other points are very nice too.

Zune here or Creative Zen, both are pretty good. I have also an iPod, but it's the one I like the less of the three.

[quote who="Denryu" reply="15" id="2470012"]I will say this about Sid and his "10 rules" - The rules themselves may be correct, probably are, but in my not so humble opinion, Sid Meyer, Peter Molyneaux, and Will Wright, all made some absolutely amazing games. Then they started realizing how great they were and started writing "the 10 commandments of game design" or in other ways became addicted to self-admiration, and frankly, their game design and creativity went right in the toilet. It

The X-Tatic 5.1 headset is amazing :) (for Skype, gaming, everything) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sharkoon-X-Tatic-Revision-Certified-Headphones/dp/B000GIXISM I know in the USA they go with another name, but I don't remember it...

[quote who="Bellack" reply="12" id="2469366"] In what way are they easier? [/quote] The conditionts to determine if an opportunity attack can be performed are easier.

[quote who="Bellack" reply="17" id="2469213"] I seriously doubt a MMO based on a little known Anime show is going to compete with WoW in popularity. [/quote] I don't think Naruto can compete with WoW, but calling it little known is misinformative given that Google and Yahoo list Naruto as one of their top 10 searches this year (Google in entertainment and Yahoo in global). http://www.google.com/int

[quote who="Bellack" reply="10" id="2469188"] I take it that D&D 4.0 does not have Attacks of Opportunity? If so then that is yet another reason not to play it IMO. [/quote] DnD 4e has attacks of opportunity, but the rules are much better (clarified and easier to use).

[quote who="KellenDunk" reply="13" id="2469083"]I don't understand how WoW got so popular. Of the MMO choices I had available to me in 2004 it was the worst one. Dark Age was far superior.. I think it was just the timing. It came out just as people were getting computers that could handle that kind of game, and broadband was becoming ubiquitous. [/quote] You may not like WoW (I know I don't like it), but design wise it was far superior than Dark Age and than anything

[quote who="Callagan111" reply="11" id="2468769"] It might be the only thing that can really compete with World of Warcraft. [/quote] Nothing can compete with WoW right now, it's a mistake to try to go head-on against it. Look at AoC and WAR (and WAR was based in a pretty important and sucessful franchise).

[quote who="GW Swicord" reply="3" id="2468698"] My point was that with a game like Elemental, the text is not the relatively simple thing it is for a productivity tool--it's content with at least as much story/flavor value as it has functional value. Plus, I very strongly agree with a few other posters around here that what you name a given chunk of code can be as much or more important to how an end user experiences the code as are the underlying mechanics. Perhaps more importan

Text in general goes to external (non-code) resource files as it has to be localized. There the localization team/writers/whatever fill it, so coders won't be involved if the text looks too modern or not, that's out of their responsability...

I like also another of the "Sid" rules that Soren Johnson gave in his blog: - One good game is better than two great ones. ( http://www.designer-notes.com/?p=119 ). The explanations for the rules are pretty interesting too.

[quote who="Thoumsin" reply="34" id="2467351"]Do Microsoft detect that i have 2 other OS on my computer and punish me for it ?[/quote] No they aren't, although probably they should just for you.

[quote who="Thoumsin" reply="28" id="2466998"]Microsoft don't invent anymore...[/quote] Microsoft has a part called "Microsoft Research" where they invent and research looots of things. If you look at some of the most important conferences in the world, there are several papers from Microsoft nearly all years (SIGGRAPH, SIGCHI,...).