Friday, December 24, 2004
Merry Christmas, everyone!
As a very special Yuletide Treat - and a bona fide RagnarTornquist.com exclusive - I've procured a couple of New! Exciting! Sexy! screenshots for your viewing pleasure. You can't find these anywhere else.
The first shot is from Jardin des Roses in Casablanca, the street that Zoë lives on. It's a quiet residential street, filled with traditional houses, cozy alleyways, and - as the name implies - rose bushes.
The second screenshot will appear in this blog at some point between Christmas Day and New Year's Eve, so check back for that. In the meantime, have a peaceful and rewarding holiday!
(Oh, and I'll try and make higher resolution versions of the screens available somewhere after the second shot has been posted.)
As a very special Yuletide Treat - and a bona fide RagnarTornquist.com exclusive - I've procured a couple of New! Exciting! Sexy! screenshots for your viewing pleasure. You can't find these anywhere else.
The first shot is from Jardin des Roses in Casablanca, the street that Zoë lives on. It's a quiet residential street, filled with traditional houses, cozy alleyways, and - as the name implies - rose bushes.
The second screenshot will appear in this blog at some point between Christmas Day and New Year's Eve, so check back for that. In the meantime, have a peaceful and rewarding holiday!
(Oh, and I'll try and make higher resolution versions of the screens available somewhere after the second shot has been posted.)
Comments:
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Mr. Tornquist, you are too good to us. You've mad me quite a happy little games on this day before Christmas.
Hey,
I always liked going to April's place in Stark in the first The Longest Journey game. That place had a great, realistic atmosphere and I'm looking forward to seeing the place where Zoe lives. It's hard to make out the detail in this screenshot because it's too small.
I always liked going to April's place in Stark in the first The Longest Journey game. That place had a great, realistic atmosphere and I'm looking forward to seeing the place where Zoe lives. It's hard to make out the detail in this screenshot because it's too small.
We certainly are a starved lot, what with all this drooling over a less than sexy screen shot. It's a doorway, with a pot and a sign; excitment to the point of head explosion!
It would not be nice to be based on the source engine.
I hate Valve now that online activation means I can't buy Half Life 2.
Otherwise Mr. Tørnquist has spoiled us all and I thank him for it.
This city seems to be far more closed in than Venice was in the first game, but that is probably the limitation of the technology.
I hate Valve now that online activation means I can't buy Half Life 2.
Otherwise Mr. Tørnquist has spoiled us all and I thank him for it.
This city seems to be far more closed in than Venice was in the first game, but that is probably the limitation of the technology.
I feel sorry for the five people in the world that have a good enough computer to run Half-Life 2, but no means to acquire an internet connection.
The source engine doesn't require activation, look at Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines.
The source engine doesn't require activation, look at Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines.
Erm... Half Life 2 works fine on lower end computers, much more so than Doom 3 for example. I'm running it smoothly on a 1.5 GHz AMD with a GeForce 3 and 1 GB of RAM so there's nothing to worry about there.
I think an adventure based on Source could be very interesting. There's some discussion about it here actually:
http://forums.adventuregamers.com/showthread.php?t=5758&page=1
I think an adventure based on Source could be very interesting. There's some discussion about it here actually:
http://forums.adventuregamers.com/showthread.php?t=5758&page=1
Did no one else find the hidden pixel in the pic which allowed you to download a playable version of Chapter 1 of Dreamfall?
Source is a beautiful engine (embarrassingly, I've only seen HL2 via screenshots - but I have V:TM-BL), but in the wrong hands (I'm looking at you, Troika) it can get very annoying.
As many have commented (http://www.gamebanshee.com/forums/showthread.php?t=53330), a FPS engine in the hands of RPG designers can be a cumbersome thing. I have decent specs on my PC, except for a woeful 20Gb HD, that suffers from major stutter when out in the open streets, and the load times almost allow me to go out for a smoke when moving between areas. I am, however, upgrading to a 200Gb HD in a week or so, and hope that that helps a bit.
That said, gameplay is fairly awesome, allowing for it to be an RPG with heavy influence from the Adventure genre and real-time Action. For the more conservative among us, you could eliminate the genre-bleed and just do the Adventure stuff. Easy. Imagine Omikron: The Nomad Soul without the 1on1 Fighter or FPS bits.
As many have commented (http://www.gamebanshee.com/forums/showthread.php?t=53330), a FPS engine in the hands of RPG designers can be a cumbersome thing. I have decent specs on my PC, except for a woeful 20Gb HD, that suffers from major stutter when out in the open streets, and the load times almost allow me to go out for a smoke when moving between areas. I am, however, upgrading to a 200Gb HD in a week or so, and hope that that helps a bit.
That said, gameplay is fairly awesome, allowing for it to be an RPG with heavy influence from the Adventure genre and real-time Action. For the more conservative among us, you could eliminate the genre-bleed and just do the Adventure stuff. Easy. Imagine Omikron: The Nomad Soul without the 1on1 Fighter or FPS bits.
The capacity of the HD should have no effect on performance unless the HD is close to being full.
Bloodlines is a buggy game, Troika has a history of this on any engine. They however did patch up most of the bugs, and quickly.
Bloodlines is a buggy game, Troika has a history of this on any engine. They however did patch up most of the bugs, and quickly.
^^Hard disks are the most significant speed bottleneck in modern computers. Hard disk data access timing is measured in milliseconds (thousandths of a sec) while system memory for example is measured in nanoseconds (billionths of a sec). This is the natural speed disparity between storage devices that use moving parts, and solid state storage devices. In fact, as nonvolatile memory becomes cheaper and more compact, computer storage will gradually evolve into a medium that finally operates on a more appropriate speed scale.
Until then, get a faster hard drive. The improvement in how fast everyday tasks load can be dramatic. While having a decent CPU and at least 512 RAM is important nowadays, most consumers only pay attention to a few specs when shopping for a system. It's like exaggerating the importance of horsepower for cars or megapixels for dig. cameras.
BTW, a faster hard drive won't boost your frames per second, but it will cut down on your level load times. Remember to defragment regularly, too.
Until then, get a faster hard drive. The improvement in how fast everyday tasks load can be dramatic. While having a decent CPU and at least 512 RAM is important nowadays, most consumers only pay attention to a few specs when shopping for a system. It's like exaggerating the importance of horsepower for cars or megapixels for dig. cameras.
BTW, a faster hard drive won't boost your frames per second, but it will cut down on your level load times. Remember to defragment regularly, too.
Although access time is important, transfer speed would be more important.
If you're going IDE, I assume you are, then you're probably switching from a 7,200rpm to another 7,200rpm drive with nearly the same transfer speed.
SCSI might be obsolete and expensive but might be your only option for fast tranfers, nearly as fast as SATA. Also RAID 0 could boost speeds a lot.
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If you're going IDE, I assume you are, then you're probably switching from a 7,200rpm to another 7,200rpm drive with nearly the same transfer speed.
SCSI might be obsolete and expensive but might be your only option for fast tranfers, nearly as fast as SATA. Also RAID 0 could boost speeds a lot.
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