Warren Spector on Human Revolution: "I screamed at the television as I played" - by SDF121
henke on 27/3/2012 at 15:27
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
You DO realize you're in the overwhelming minority on these issues, yes?
On TTLG,
perhaps. Among gamers in general? I don't think so.
Muzman on 27/3/2012 at 15:51
Quote Posted by demagogue
One of the TDS devs (Krypt) confessed to us that somebody internally re-wrote the engine basically on his own initiative, IIRC to get the dynamic shadows in, and they got themselves committed to it before everyone realized what a crack job he'd done and it gave them tech woes from then on, through DXIW and TDS, and it was a constant battle just to get it to do what they wanted. It gives you the impression that Harvey wasn't in total control of his shop and things started spinning out.
As ZB said, they reportedly fired the guy not too long after, leaving them with no support for the half rewritten engine at all. That can't have sped things up. Doesn't seem like the most sensible move.
The part that always baffles me (and I go on about it lots) is the old demo videos an screenshots of much larger spaces, all with the dynamic shadow engine. Even with a high powered development PC, how could they not notice? The thing can barely pull 20fps at 640x480 in the finished game on release. Development is complicated with lots of details we don't know, but that is pretty bizarre.
There were other oddities people noticed as well, like apparently it would load all the dialogue in a given level into RAM every time. All of it! Say what you will about IW, it's certainly chatty. Even with low sample rate mp3s that's going to mount up in a game like that.
It's part of why even now I can fire up Red Faction Guerrilla, start a game and can have driven down the road a little in the time it takes to load up Invisible War on the same machine. One seeks to show me a couple of alleyways or two small floors of a building; the other a suburb of Mars.
Yakoob on 27/3/2012 at 16:14
Quote Posted by Muzman
Even with a high powered development PC, how could they not notice?
It could have been a case of "we got it working and it looks sweet! We'll optimize it as we go." But of course, by the time they realized it
can't be optimized any further (not without Carmack on team or rewriting half the engine again) they already had so much content built for it there was no real way of turning back.
ZylonBane on 27/3/2012 at 17:07
Quote Posted by Muzman
There were other oddities people noticed as well, like apparently it would load all the dialogue in a given level into RAM every time. All of it!
If true, most likely due to the XBox. Gotta cache everything so Joe Couchgamer doesn't have to wait for the DVD to spin up during conversations.
demagogue on 27/3/2012 at 17:13
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
Fixed. "Crack" as an adjective means excellent.
Also, the guy who re-wrote the renderer quit or was fired midway through the project.
Bluh, I had the term crackpot in my mind, since IIRC that's the kind of impression that post gave me about him. But I did remember that he was let go afterwards. I can't imagine going rogue is a good way of endearing yourself to a team effort. And IIRC deadline pressure was also a factor once they got much farther along in the process and the tech woes were getting apparent.
Pyrian on 27/3/2012 at 20:19
Did Deadly Shadows really pioneer loot glint? 'Cause it's all over the place nowadays. Just a trailblazer of a game, I guess. :devil:
The jail level idea was fantastic - just the notion that the first time the guards caught you, they'd haul you off to the paddock and you have to break out. Without it being enforced in any way.
I've never understood what all the fuss is about mana points universal ammo.
Coffee Wars, while rather banal (and how many RPG's don't have banal sidequests?), was totally worthwhile solely for how much it annoys ZylonBane.
I'd've been fine with the optional third person and even approved of the body-awareness if it hadn't somehow been coupled with making the controls all screwy. Given that such things have been implemented just fine in other games without that issue, I think the control issues are much more relevant than the optional third person. It's also much more "optional" than in DX:HR!
ZylonBane on 27/3/2012 at 23:07
Quote Posted by Pyrian
I've never understood what all the fuss is about
mana points universal ammo.
Then you must be exceptionally dim, because the "fuss" with universal ammo has been explained over and over and over, continuously, since the game's release.
henke on 28/3/2012 at 07:19
It probably has been explained but I can't say I remember the explanation either.
The universal ammo didn't have an impact on how I played the game so I didn't think about it. If someone is going to write a long post on a forum explaining why it's so terrible, chances are I won't pay much attention to it. I don't need to know why the thing I've been enjoying is terrible to someone else.
