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He seems a little touchy about "noobs," but I wouldn't worry about it. He doesn't quite seem to understand that you're the costumer here, not him.

It looks like you can grab a fully-functional demo of program off the downloads page. Not really what you're looking for, I realize, but at least your could play around with it and see if it does what you want.

This program seems pretty resource intensive. Were you looking for something this high-powered? VERGE seems like a popular system, if you haven't come across it already.

I look for an engaging premise and atmosphere, and puzzles that aren't forced or "stale" (use A on B to get C, use C on D to get E, use E ....). Something that is fresh and original. My favorite games generally "feel" professional, or could be if the proper resources were put into them. I also tend to stay away from fan games or "remakes." I don't know, more of a personal choice than a criticism on those games.

Graphics need to "work," which doesn't necessarily mean glitzy or professional. Jessica Plunkenstein is an example off the top of my head (though I think the look of that game was an intentional choice).

Game play usually isn't an issue. Since everyone tends to use the Sierra or Lucasarts GUI, this is pretty much the baseline. I'm personally not a fan of the Sierra GUI, although the Lucasarts GUI isn't perfect either. Seeing something new is usually kind of nice (well, if it works, that is!). I wouldn't mind seeing a parser if someone could actually make one that doesn't feel "tacked on." Easier said than done, I guess.

Bottom line? It all comes down to being The F'ing Man!

My point was just that the logic isn't so simple as ... 2 females (ditto) = arousal x 2

OK, I misunderstood you. Yeah, I agree with you .... just picturing an army of hotties with men everywhere dropping like flies as their libidos can't handle "arousal X 10,000". 

It depends really. I think there is definitely a point when...the size exceeds the attractiveness. But just because they are large doesn't mean they are unattractive.

Yeah, I agree. My point was just that physical attraction, or the concept of beauty, is to a certain extent hard-coded into all of us. No matter how happy of a relationship you're in, or what your values are, I think every man at some level will be aroused when a beautiful woman goes by. Now that doesn't necessarily translate into action - fortunately we have free will, and people make all kinds of choices and trade-offs (conscious or otherwise) when it comes to who they settle down with. But many are the "righteous" men who will see a hot, provocatively dressed woman and think "what a slut" while ogling them all the while!

Maybe(?) I'm a loser, but for some reason I found that very relaxing to watch.

For a while, I thought you were going to draw a hookah pipe for Guybrush and the cannibal to share. But, it ended up just being LeChuck.

Uh, C&C? Um ... move Guybrush to the left and make him a little smaller. That way you can fit a full-sized LeChuck in the middle (and all three can share a hookah pipe! ).

Domino, check out this page. I believe it's a win32 (and linux) port of the build engine.

If you look around the site, he also has ports so you can play Shadow Warrior and Duke3d natively in win32 environments. Another one (that I've tried out) is EDuke32.

You still have to have the original games to use these. Bsaically you replace a couple of the original files with these new ones and you can launch the programs directly in WinXP.

Heterosexual pornography, made and marketed for the average Joe Sixpack, gives us the fantasy of "Lesbianism" as an act rather than a lifestyle. Sure, these girls will engage in various sexual acts together but they'll also invite any wandering Joe who happens past to join them.

I think this is the real attraction, vice the actual act of lesbianism. In general, men are much more stimulated by visuals than woman. Hence the success of the porn industry. And what's better than one gorgeous woman? Two gorgeous woman! (or three, or four, or ...) Look at how lesbians are portrayed in popular culture: two provocatively-dressed, drop-dead bombshells that can't keep their hands off each other, and just waiting for some stud to get in the middle. And of course, in the man's fantasy, that "stud" is himself.

I think if a man actually bumped into some lesbians, the reality wouldn't be erotic at all. Not to put Sir B on the spot, but look at his comment about the "butch" ladies, who probably wouldn't even give a man a or first look (it's ok B, I agree with you. ). I'd say that's closer to reality than pornstars making out.

Sexuality and arousal have a lot more to them than simple visuals. Situation and circumstance are very important.

Of course. If it was just about looks, men would never settle down. But come on, even when you're in a relationship, are you telling me you don't look? (I do .) Fundamentally it's how men are wired. And the unfortunate truth is, I think a fair number of men - actually, I know a few - will cheat on their wives/girlfriends to be with a beautiful woman. (I don't!)

What the hell defines an attractive person? .... Honestly I'd rather look at a flat-chested chick that I at least know is REAL than look at some plastic Barbie doll. But like I said...it's all personal preference.

But you're assuming that the big-chested women has fake boobs. All things being equal - or heck, even if you just knew they were real - who would you prefer? I'm not trying to put you on the spot either, monkey, I'm just trying to level the playing field. Heck, I agree that big, fake boobs are unattractive. But is it because they're big, or because they look fake?

I'm not trying to be unhelpful here, but why not just make a photocopy of the pages you need? Every library I've ever been in has had a photocopier.

Or if you wanted to be particularly mischievous, the copier doesn't work and you just rip out the pages you need.

I don't find spam to be an issue for me in this forum. I only come to this forum when I need help with a game, and then it's usually the result of a search. I get in, get what I need, and that's it. So I don't generally bump into spam (though no doubt some of that is due to the diligence of the moderators). Obviously there are people that do check in here regularly, but offhand I'd say restricting guests isn't necessary.

Of course, the flip side is, I've never had to ask for help. I've always found that my question has already been answered if I do a search for it. So restricting guests may not be the end of the world either (although I've never paid attention to how many questions are asked by guests).

Ultimately I'd say it's up to the moderators. I think Pumaman's intentions are good, and I agree that it seems kind of wrong to punish everyone because of a few bad apples. But if it's too much of a burden for the moderators to keep up with the spam, then you should do what needs to be done.

My enjoyment of the one-liners is tainted because they're all "borrowed" from movies and such. A substantial amount from the Evil Dead series.

Yeah, I actually played this game before seeing Army of Darkness. When I finally saw it, I felt like I watching some kind of live-action Duke.

Has anybody tried the hi-res pack?

No I'm not! Either time to kill, or land of babes had him seen from behind peeing and the sound effects of peeing were played! I've never seen him go for a crap!

ManiacMatt, I was just messing around. He may piss on something in those games, but I've only ever played Duke Nukem 3D. If you want to see it, check out this video I found on YouTube. It shows all the cut scenes from the end of each episode. Episode 2, where he takes the crap, starts at 0:40. Enjoy!

The new lighting is much better!

I'd say the ramp is too steep. Check out an example.

Also, you might want to move those center set of boxes to the back wall. Right now they will block the character from view, and with their central location right in the middle of the screen, they take up a lot of real estate. I don't know, this might be a conscious decision on your part.

Just out of curiosity, how does the coal get in and out of those grates? I was thinking the room might be a little more interesting if, instead of boxes, the coal was stored directly in this room. I don't know, just a thought.

Way to shoot me down, Rincewind. 

Yeah, I looked at that thing probably longer than I should have and got "Bloodwing" out of the first line. Then I looked at the name of the image: "Mistigo Varggoth Darkestra." I was pretty close , but even looking at it now, I still don't see it.

Anyway, to keep this somewhat on topic: I'll admit (grudgingly) that in certain circumstances there are unreadable logos (rules are made to be broken, right?). But hopefully the difference between Rincewind's example and what monkey_05_06 did are clear. I wouldn't necessarily suggest attempting a logo like Mistigo Varggoth Darkestra's unless you really know what you're doing!

I remember a moment in Duke Nukem where he fights a boss and then threatens he's going to kill him and then piss on his corpse.

Yeah, it's the boss of the 2nd mission. When the boss first appears, he yells "I'm gonna rip off your head, and sh*t down your neck!". Then after you kill him, there's a cut scene where he rips the head off, lowers his pants and sits down like he's on a toilet. He even opens up a newspaper!

I can also remember the funniest line in the game - maybe I remember it because I only heard him say it once, and I was so suprised because I thought I had heard all of his quotes. I fired an RPG into a room full of those damn facehugger things, blowing a bunch of them up. Duke yells, "Let God sort 'em out!" I think I had to pause until I stopped laughing.

Another good one (from the deathmatches): "Your face? Your ass? What's the difference!"

... but I'm 100% sure he takes a leak on someone when he defeats them.

You're not getting confused with Usual Suspects, are you (Kaiser Soze pissing on the fuse)? 

Believe it or not, this was the first FPS I ever owned. I never did beat it.  I think I lost interest because the 2nd and 3rd missions were kind of repetitive, whereas the 1st mission had some really great levels. But I did play in some awesome deathmatches in college.

I actually loaded this onto my computer recently and used some OpenSource program to make it run in XP (I think it may also improve the graphics a bit). But after having played Unreal and Half-Life, I couldn't get back into it.

Anyone think Duke Nukem Forever will ever actually be finished?

The cool thing is, you can actually buy a lot of these old games from 3DRealms.  Nice to see some companies haven't forgotten their classics.

Yeah, but the downside is you can't just grab them off an abandonware site. 

Really I was hoping for some C&C more on the text than the background. The background's unimportant.

If you take another read, you'll see that MashPotato and Ben304 both offered suggestions on how to change the text. And the background is important if it makes your logo unreadable, as it does here.

Also, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss Ben304's sample logo. I think it looks quite professional and is a good example of how to incorpate a visual element into a name. I'd recommend googling other bands and looking at their logos to see what different techniques have been used.

I think the Guns 'n' Roses logo might be a particularly good example for you. My memory of it was gothic script with crossed pistols on a bed of roses. The reality is a bit different. Despite the fact that the name is completely separate from the graphic and uses a very simple font, it leaves a lasting impression of a rather more complex design.

As far as the "from the", it's at its natural alignment based on the size of the font ....

These two examples (took about 10 minutes) are also "technically correct" (aligned vertically and horizantally) yet have been "stylized" to shift emphasis away from "from the":

     

I'm not making any great claims about these, but hopefully they'll give you some basic ideas.

... "difficult to read" look is really exactly what I was aiming for.

"Difficult to read" is not a serious design choice. It's like saying, "I'm going to design a game with bad game play." A logo may certainly be artistic, but ultimately its purpose is purely functional and singular: getting people to see and remember your name.

Actually, JBurger I think you originally had the right idea with the coastline. Unless you're trying to show big waves crashing onto the shore, I think the way you have the water "thinning out" at it washes up onto the beach is more accurate.

However, I think the foam should be a thin but intense white strip running along the beach, with the water being pretty much completely blue right up to that point. I guess ikari captured some of that in his edit, but I think he made the waves a little too billowy. Also, I'd get rid of some of the white cloudiness/haze in the water as you move away from the coastline. Finally, you might also think about making the water a slightly lighter shade of blue as it comes into the shore (as the ocean bottom gets shallower and shallower). I'm not sure though, since it's dusk in this picture, it might not be necessary.

Here are some random pictures I googled, so hopefully you can see what I'm talking about:
http://www.ibiblio.org/gio/iw3c2volunteers/www2003/www2002/coastline.jpg
http://www.sonoma.edu/photogallery/Images/huge/sonoma_county_views/coastline.jpg
http://k43.pbase.com/u21/srijith/upload/16937132.coastline_1.jpg

Actually, now that I look at it a little closer, there might be a little bit of a perspective issue with the coast. The lighthouse, sitting up on a cliff, should be the closest thing to the viewer, with the beach farther away and lower down. But it doesn't really look like it. I'm not really enough of an expert to suggest how to fix it. Perhaps removing the waves by the lighthouse (I'd think the cliff would completely block the coastline from view) and thining out the foam along the beach (so it looks farther away) might improve things.

Finally, let me just say what a beautiful picture this is. Makes me wish I was down by the beach now! (Well, if it was warmer here ....)

I'm not experienced in animation either, so this took me forever to do. 

Seems like there was a lot of anger being vented on some of the other forums, so I was inspired to do something along the lines of "can't we all just get along?"



Hmmm, I guess not ....

Looks good. But the arms and legs aren't really moving with the same intensity. He's really pumping away with his arms, but just kind of lifiting his legs off the ground. Maybe more motion/intensity in the legs - bring the knees a little higher up.

Yeah. I guess there's not much difference, but I think maybe its a slight improvement.

Nice looking tree, and sprite!

Now that you've darkened the shadows at the top of the tree trunk, I'm wondering if maybe it would look a little better if you also darkened them a little at the bottom around the roots. Not much, just a few pixels. It might give a little better sense of depth.