Messages

[you would be blind]

If it would be total time freeze, the movement of air, and movement of LIGHT should be stopped too.

If light is frozen, photons wouldn't move, and not touch photosensitive area of CCTV camera. Therefore, camera wouldn't record anything. Also, electrons wouldn't move so camera wouldn't have electricity work. Or data to send to recorder. Also, light wouldn't bounce off from you, so you would be invisible to humans anyway.

I'm not sure what happens to the the air and light you collide with when walking. If it's not moving, air friction should be MUCH stronger, so you're somewhat swimming through air. Also, if you move at speed like this (momentarily?), friction on you feet, clothes and everything else would be extremely high. Which means you could generate smoke and get burns over your body. Of course, until you've far away with the money, smoke isn't still yet visible, it would appear after time starts going again. And what about energy movement, like heat? Would this be frozen too?

Taking money out of the till: How would this work? Imagine that you're pulling till open REALLY quickly - in normal life: what happens? It's metal and quite heavy, so gets extreme inertia and flies far away from your hand. If done quick enough, it even gets very hot. And you might be unable to hold it.

Now imagine it EVEN quicker- quicker than light, quicker than bullet, cannon shell... time? This example should say that stopped time is an eternity of some sort, you can't say how fast something happens. If you're pulling the till open, it goes faster than cannonball, so it should fly through shop wall, or maybe - since frozen time is unmeasurable and the speed of it would be cosmical, or rather unmeasurable also - it would fly through five city blocks and three mountains maybe? And, of course - through your hand.

But how could you see the till? Or where it is? The light isn't moving, the light rays reflected from till won't go into your eyes?!

In frozen time, you would be blind. Or when walking, seeing unexplainable mess from light that you're collecting with your eyes while walking through it.

Just like invisible man would be blind, if his eyes let light rays through them, he couldn't see. And if light would collide his pupils, everyone could see his eyes, so he wouldn't be totally invisible. Invisible man is a story Hollywood continuously sells to stupid people. It's a classic example.
Time freeze is quite similar.

It's hard to imagine someone moving while time is frozen. I somewhat don't believe it's possible. Our physics relies on time. Human isn't single entity but heavy mass of atoms.

Then again, I skipped most of my physics classes...

Let's repeat:

Click Start > Run
Type:
services.msc
hit enter

Locate "Messenger" in services list
double-click
Set "startup type" to "disabled"
Stop the service

No worries! 

I liked it! Graphics and atmosphere is really superb.
For some crits, the intro was longer than game! And, it was quite messy, I didn't understand much, even though I've played previous one too. But that added to mysterious atmosphere, anyway 

The artist is very good and I'm sure They could do just as well with higher resolutions and if they couldn't, he could just have someone that works better in higher resolutions. As for using the pixel art style, I think Game makers would be better to make there own style instead.

It doesn't really work that way. Being a good artist at low-res graphics doesn't make you decent one in hi-res. That's totally another story. Low res is about pixel placing: How you use every one of those 64000 pixels you have. With only 20-30 pixels, you can add something new, or make a drastic change in your art.

With high resolution, individual pixels lose their importance, and pixeling becomes painting. Now you have big canvas, and longer strokes to work with. You have to focus on whole image now, instead of building it from tiny chunks. Try this yourself, and you'll understand better.

Also, when I am drawing background for my games, I work much faster drawing the backgrounds out on paper, scanning them onto my computer, then coloring them then making it all on my computer.

Paper-drawn and scanned graphics is a specific style. To be honest, without heavy retouching, a lazy one. For me, it sounds like a graphics factory. When I compare paper-drawn-scanned image against one that has born and finished entirely on computer, I'd say latter is at most times better. But if you edit your drawing so heavily that it comes as good as computer-drawn, why use paper after all? Working "faster" doesn't mean "better" here.

Your comparasion in your first post isn't fair: Monkey Island 2 has limited (and ugly) palette and doesn't use antialiasing. I'm sure that if color and style choices were equal, the difference between those 2 images would be MUCH smaller.

Think AGAIN:


versus


What about low-res now? I'm sure that very many people would agree that despite lost detail, lower one is still very cute

personally i don't think HL2 was worth the delay

Depends on what do you mean with this "worth". If you mean another good, memorable fps game which also redefines genre a bit, I don't see how it wasn't worth waiting. HL2 had it all, jawdropping graphics, big guns, drum and bass music tracks fitting like a glove where needed... 

But if you mean good sci-fi shooter which is better than it's prequel, well, Valve totally ruined the desperation and mystery around Half-Life universe, with all those childish decisions like handholding girl NPC and robot dog and wacky professor and his pet headcrab and all this not really serious attitude in what should be more than serious world. The way friendly NPC's talk and act is like a parody of something serious. In that case, it wasn't worth it, yes. If Freeman would state at some point "yeah, come get some", it WOULD be Duke Nukem... guns and aliens are already there, isn't that so? 

Omg, he looks totally Bruce Willis.

Speech voice is more or less the same, I like it.
I hope it'll be out soon. No game has taken so long time to make, and no game has proven itsself worth even 3-year delay (except HL2), not to speak about longer time.

AGS: You never finish anything. Ever.

That's pretty good. Lacks a bit detail yet, though.
Edges of lights should be softened a bit.


* Lowered saturation
* Increased contrast
* Added a bit reds and greens, lowered blues
* +2% monochromatic noise

Really really watery coffee. I was out of coffee today, so it tastes more like milk and sugary water than coffee.

To me, either americans did or did not go to moon, don't mean a thing.

I fail to see this as big step for humankind. Every big scientific breakthrough was, is and will be used against people, I mean, for military purposes. Sputnik WAS a breakthrough, all planes and ships rely on GPS navigation now, and I can finally believe that earth is round, thanks to Google maps.

It's weird how humans are always better than their inventions. My grandparents always said that a lock is meant for animals, it can't keep people from entering anywhere. What human creates, it can destroy. This is true and applies to almost every human invention. Even with hundreds of satellites around globe, US military forces still cannot find these terrorists in mountains, planes still crash and ships get lost. And police still cannot effectively find stolen cars.

How important is a dusty flag on the moon? Should I even bother to believe or not believe it? Where did it advance us? I see that nowhere. Despite jawdropping amounts of money NASA spends daily on space programs, it still haven't generated anything really, globally practical for people. Africans still die because AIDS and hunger, Islam fundamentalists still strike every now and often, balance of power in the world is still very-very bad, with 3 major countries having fate of everyone else depending on the sanity of their current or next leader.

How much could this money NASA spent fight those problems and many others I didn't mention? How much it could really make difference?

Wow, we placed a flag on the nearby rock.
Go USA!

EDIT: Of course, for Americans, as their patriotism is often tested with moronic leaders (who like war), this should be important to maintain patriotism.

Hm, OpenID sounds very much like what I have in mind... really working version of what I thought of.
The main point is same: Why register everywhere instead of only one place?

It doesn't seem to support much sites though... I guess they did beat my idea with a year or so...
Damn you, Brad Fitzpatrick. He sounds quite stupid too, making this as another free hippie open-source project. Doesn't strike as a trustworthy man too (see photo), maybe he read my thoughts?

Strangely, there's project starting date nowhere to be found?

Ah, back to drawing board then.

-very long post ahead!-

Registration. Username. Password. E-mail activation.
Repeat.
And again.

I'm totally tired of this digital burden that's for some unknown reason so hellishly popular nowadays.
Want to see my brand new cool forum with 2 registered members? Sign up!
Want to download this little piece of crap game you will delete after trying 3 minutes? Sign up!
Want to read my stupid blog? Browse our catalog? Read news? Just make sure you will never return to this site? Sign up!
Want to simply ask a question about something? One question? Sign up!
Want to simply SEARCH our forum for one tiny thing? Sorry, search is available for registered members only. Sign up!
Forgot your password? Click here!
Aaaagh!

One stupid, meaningless, unimportant entry in MySQL database makes web programmers put me through electronic nightmare or hundreds of forgotten usernames and passwords, e-mail activation, and overall mess.

Especially since these entries are mostly useless. Which is why should use genuine password for this next piece of crap forum/stupid web/whatever so if something happens, not all other hundreds of digital identity pieces wouldn't be gone. I really, really, really hate this tiny "sign up!" link in almost EVERY web page. Well, if I really have to sign up. But guest-friendly sites are fading away at rapid speed.

Now anyone that uses web actively, say you haven't felt atleast once same way.
Can I sleep safely, knowing that on at least 100 sites, I've registered and entered personal info?
Most of which I don't ever remember and never return?

For example, there's that new cool 3D game engine up on devmaster.net, so I download it, don't understand a thing, and to find answer to my first very basic question, I try to search engine community forums, which won't happen if I don't sign up, so I - sigh-- sign, find that engine is once again totally pointless, unfinished and overpriced, and never return.
Thinking about this, 100 registrations are maybe highly underrated number, I've been "online" for 10 years quite actively already. Even though I've developed some "default" usernames, passwords and e-mail addresses for least important sign-up events, there's still more than 20 I think, and I don't remember most.

Even worse, I find myself bumping quite often into places where I have had registered already, and I don't remember which one of those numerous "default" settings were in use this time. For example, I have over 5 GameSpy accounts, atleast 3 GameSpot ones, cannot count FileShack ones.... And still can't login into any of these, because I'm quite tired of making new accounts, and can't remember what data did I use when registered 5 years ago.
---

Anyway, I was thinking about it and came up with somewhat controversial idea -- universal e-ID.

Like one big service that's universal and every site uses. Well, as an addition for classic signup.
I imagine server farms at Google scale, MD5 encryption and other sci-fi stuff... The base line should be that you log in into your e-ID and you can use it everywhere, like on MSN, eBay, MySpace, web banks, chatrooms?, Steam and  AGSForums, for example. Probably as a client-software - so you log on as soon as you boot your machine up or something, and all affiliated sites would automatically detect if you're logged into you e-ID. Client program thingy would be for security, I guess -- nobody trusts cookies... and for things like ICQ and MSN Messenger and Steam and GameSpy Arcade and so on, which are actually programs in your computer, this would work better too.

Even with my limited knowledge, I still imagine that every more serious website has it's own variables about member so classic sign-up won't go actually away, it just simplifies login. eBay still holds data in their server about your bids and comments and so on, but authorizing login data would come via e-ID servers. They would simply add e-ID authorizing possibility bit to their system. I don't have enough knowledge about networking to give my idea more serious shape, but I still believe that this project is totally possible to create.

I even think I foresee some potential flaws in my flawless plan   

1. Of course, internet is a perverts' paradise. So here could come first criticism to my idea: individual sign-up guarantees anonymousness up to some scale, so boys who play girls in anime/furry forums, foot fetishists, lonely old men and all other likeable fellows I didn't mention won't be using e-ID... but no-one cares anyway, since traditional sign-up stuff still stays on place.

2. Single identity is a strong security risk. Yes, e-ID should employ uberhigh levels of security for maintaining identities, as I said, complex encryption with additional science fiction, cavity-search its employees on daily basis and software better than CIA uses... but this is still doable.

And come on, is using same password for many sites more secure? Like you're doing now? I know you're doing this, no need to lie. Oh, you added "1" to the password. Very clever indeed.

3. e-ID itself. Now, this is real science fiction: While progressive governments have heavy data on their citizens, e-ID - being universal and thus international would have things on people even CIA couldn't track. Reminds me of X-Files -- the human being registry.
Well, and that's a serious dent in my plan, which needs to be reworked somehow.

But if whole thing works as software in people's computer, I think that e-ID servers wouldn't need to know the data at all. Like, data moving between client's software, e-ID server and affiliated website could be encrypted heavily enough so the password and username would actually be known to person only. You enter your user/pass, encrypted thing goes to e-ID, it somehow knows it's you, and sends another encrypted bulk to AGSForums, which knows that this bulk means that you proved to e-ID that you are you and they back this up. And -- "You have logged in!". But I cannot think this thought further due lack of knowledge on the subject.

Any thoughts?

Even if my idea is totally stupid, I wouldn't be surprised if after few years someone simply steals it, modifies to something real and becomes a billionaire. Microsoft?

But if you like the idea, know(someone who can/how to)  make this work and have a rich relative to fund a crazy project, let's team up and get rich... even if monthly e-ID fee is $1, well, if there's billion, or atleast a million frustrated internet users, I see bright future.

Just for cases of troubles like these (and some not like these) there are millions of websites offering wide varieties of high quality cracks. Just google "Photoshop elements 2.0 crack OR serial".

Wide varieties of malware and porn links, you meant?

Extremely bad suggestion. Do not do it. Well, you did, but everyone else, don't do it. I still doubt if you didn't get more than you asked for.

I mean, if you didn't do it already and bothered to post here instead, then crack/serial world is most likely unknown to you.
That basically means that I can bet reasonable amount of money on fact that first crack/serial site you find like this, comes with adware and trojan viruses.  A big flashy button with "click here to download your serial", a little javascript or activeX, and good-old-fashioned what-just-happened...?!

Let me say something:
If you're going for cracks or serials via search engine, you'd better know damn well what you're doing.
All sane people search for cracks and serial keys from P2P software, where you can search for a TEXT file, which by default cannot have viruses and is quick to download. If it's an exe file -- keygen, skip it.

Get Limewire, eMule, DC++ or any other widely used P2P thingy -- OR -- simply search for torrent of PS Elements and usually, torrentsearch sites have comments section on torrent, where usually someone asks for serial aswell. This takes a bit of luck to find, but P2P is surefire method.

I know that this is not a good thing to say in AGS Forums, but I still had to do it.
It's somewhat like parents giving condoms to teenage kids... Better be safe than sorry.

And yes, Arr!

rapidshare.com is a really bad idea.

Walking around in room extremely slowly and sketching down leg positions have helped me. Main problem with mostly used walkcycles in games is that they're too energetic: I mean, people don't really wave their hands crazily around when walking and don't take so large steps. This applies to MrColossal's walkcycles too.

Easiest way to get walkcycle right is make a sketchy animation with stickman, and give feet different color. Stickman is quite easy to edit so you'll find suitable walkcycle quickly.

ProgZmax proved that good basic walkcycle won't need more than 6 frames, of which 3 are copy of first 3, with simply another foot. Adding extra 2 frames will make it perfect - well-made 8 frame walkcycle will usually work for ANY character unless it's really tricky and cartoony one. Another very good thing for learning is cartoons: I looked at some Family Guy episodes frame-by-frame and it's quite strange way how they achieve so fluid motion with really low frame count.

As ProgZ said here, first 3 states must be drawn first: The start, the end, and the middle. Then add the states between those.

It's quite easy actually, once you've made 5-10 walkcycles in your life.

Oh... and don't  worry about buying "good" games that finally result bad... That happens in the best families... I bought SimCity Societies.

Ouchhh-hhh!!!
That's why demos were invented!
Well, and P2P networking... *ahem*

Yes, how can it possibly compete with the likes of The Longest Journey or Gabriel Knight 2?!

Heh, your sarcasm is true. But I didn't even manage to play through first 5 screens of GK2... Well, in this case, Shadow of the Comet fits in this list like a glove: Just the title of the list should be changed -- "50 worst games ever"   

You didn't notice it was "horrible" the first time around?

Well, it was quite a lot of years, games and game generations ago. Also, it was before AGS, which means before getting some ideas of a good and bad game and how they differ.

But pairing your suggestion with Cruise for Corpse, which I find quite cool game - even though a bit difficult, makes huge contrast.

Anyway, Shadow of the Shame... er, Comet is available on abandonia. I suggest you to drop the nostalgia factor, have clear head and healthy criticism --- and try it again. Maybe it shatters some good old impressions you might had.

Shadow of the Comet?

I just finished it for 3rd time in my life -- few days ago, for that "nostalgia's sake" and I don't recall much more horrible adventure games on PC!

If it's a game "you should play", then for sake of knowing how NOT TO make an adventure game.

Stupid, inexcusable, disorienting maze? Check!
Or maybe two? Forest? Check!
Random deaths around every corner? Check!
Horrible, abysmal controls? Check!
Pixel hunting? Check!
Illogical puzzles? Check!
Totally linear and unforgiving gameplay? Check!
Totally unbalanced graphics, with ugly photo scans, comic-book art and pixelart all together? Check!
Arcade sequences based purely on trial and error? Check!
No way back if you made an error... unless you save in every 30 seconds? Check!
Timed puzzles? Check!
All kinds of other adventure game bummers, for example, head-aching navigation around screens, unknown hotspots, lack of hints, etc? Check.


I know that I'm no fan of H.P. Lovecraft nor his monster gibberish, and many are, but this game runs quickly out of excuses to exist. Even though atmosphere really kicks arse.

There are games that can be critcized as much, but they almost always make up for it, take Dreamweb for example: For about the same amount of problems, it still rewards you with really good cyberpunk story and atmosphere, some of best music tracks found in an adventure game, and very original game system and layout overall.

Ah, and I don't see Grim Fandango anywhere near even first 10 of the games "you should play". There's so much better games to pick from.

Never ever use any anti-virus software you haven't heard a word about or that came up with googling for "free anti spyware" etc. Evil antivirus software is the Trojan horse of all trojan horses.

There's sites that you can trust, and hundreds that you cannot.

Loads of free and commercial stuff that CAN be trusted are in better-known places, for example, look at this
http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloads31.html

You could get much better help if you opened msconfig>startup as I suggested and made few screenshots of your startup list.
Also, Spybot S&D has quite effective startup check tool, you can click on items and get descriptions what is what. I think you have to enable Advanced Mode in Spybot S&D to find the list.

An investment into heavily-awarded and known antivirus software (Kaspersky Antivirus, PrevX, McAfee, etc) would work much better than loading your machine with tens of free ones. All antivirus/malware programs rape CPU and RAM quite heavily, so it's better to choose one strong instead of many weak ones. I wouldn't go for Norton though, all tries to live along with it made me feel sorry afterwards and relieved after raging uninstall.

Windows reinstall is something I never do if it's a virus or spyware. Every virus infection IS treatable, damage is irreversible only when virus is evil enough to delete system files or mess with hard disk partition/tables.

Step one: give this bastard a name. You have to figure out, which infection(s) do you have.
Step two: Google for "<bastard name> removal" or something similar
Step three: Remove this/them manually or with particular remover you might find
Step four: Install few virus killers (even shareware/disabled ones) and scan with them all. You can remove most of them later. Almost all anti-malware software does a scan and gives results, even if they won't remove problems before buying the software. But having problem info, you can move on and find free things to remove those.

Also, make sure that you don't have half-crappy programs installed. Many seemingly nice little games or software pieces come with ad-support. Simplest thing to determine one of those is that it generates extra shortcuts on your desktop and start menu list. For example, you download a free puzzle game, and it also generates some shortcuts on desktop which link to some homepage and bear description like "try FREE games!", "Free music download" and other idiocy like this. Even though game is real and nice.

System Restore is a digital piece of science fiction and I find it useless, causing more problems than it would reverse. Unless it's a work computer and never gets anything new installed. I mean, Excel and Solitare machine.
---

Internet is a minefield. If you didn't know it before, please do now.
Ah, and seeing that you're female... for the love of God, keep away from unknown IM addons, like 1000 free emoticons, moving pictures and stupidity like this. My sister loaded her machine with about 100 different toolbars and instant-messaging bits (mostly stupid smileys and sound packs for MSN) and this generated over 1700 names of different malware, it took 3 nights to clean her computer up afterwards. Many trojans are not harmful by themselves, but open ports and doors to all others, installing rapidly all kind of malware via internet while you're not aware of this. After this, every popup window that jumps up might execute another dangerous script, and soon you'll be sunk in this mess.

It's good idea to use Firefox for internet browsing and fortify it with NoScript addon. It's a bit hassle to "allow" every website you casually use for it later, but it pays back really well with increased security.

Also, how did your sound go away? I totally believe the internet connection bit: Heavy infections start to burden your ports and ISP and many ISP's simply disconnect you for this automatically. Atleast, mine does. Or, virus blocks incoming signals from ISP, writes crap over hosts file and tries to take over the connection, this is another known case. But sound card, I never encountered a virus that might do that. Sounds like you messed up by yourself at some point.

Heh, it's like sneaking infront of you:

Look at the vertical line on left where 2 blue disks share one white edge. Your mind tells that there is no moving, since you can clearly see these two disks. No moving.

Now even a slight eye movement from these joined disks makes image move again. Like it's waiting for you to be distracted...

Anyway these illusion things make me dizzy. I accidentally created one of my own when messing around with rendering in 3ds max. Unfortunately the file's gone... Maybe it was even an original illusion!