Games discussion

The place for chatting and discussing subjects unrelated to Wesnoth.

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Astoria
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Re: Games discussion

Post by Astoria »

Am I the only one playing Skyrim?
Formerly known as the creator of Era of Chaos and maintainer of The Aragwaithi and the Era of Myths.
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vodot
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Re: Games discussion

Post by vodot »

LightFighter wrote:Am I the only one playing Skyrim?
Morrowind once ate my life for a year. Henceforth I abstain from Bathesda ;)
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powershot
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Re: Games discussion

Post by powershot »

What about the free online game, NITROME MUST DIE:http://www.nitrome.com/games/nitromemustdie/

Super Awesome! :D
My new account is: Power_Pixel_Wannabe. Yea. Yea.... Why are you still reading this? What the heck m8? You have some kind of problem? Yea. I draw. NO I'M NOT 5 ANYMORE!!! Little brats.
The heck m8? I thought you left... No seriously... go... serious...
ok bye m8. I'm serious.
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Re: Games discussion

Post by Insinuator »

LightFighter wrote:Am I the only one playing Skyrim?
Why do you think this forum suddenly went silent? :D
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Re: Games discussion

Post by Colouredbox »

I've found an online multiplayer in-browser flash Worms-a-like 2D turn-based game called Territory War Online.
For me it works nicely as a little casual game when you feel like throwing grenades at people, nothing fancy or complicated and no download needed.

Another game I've picked up is Gang Garrison 2, it's basically a 2D demake of Team Fortress 2.
Waiting for cheesedwarfs to be added to ageless.
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Astoria
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Re: Games discussion

Post by Astoria »

I picked up Saint's Row 3 today, and it is the least serious game ever made.
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Re: Games discussion

Post by Captain_Wrathbow »

Civilization IV Complete Edition with Rise of Mankind: A New Dawn mod. Makes for the most awesome games of Civilization ever.


BTW, I'm thinking of getting Civ V, but it's gotten quite mediocre reviews; many people are saying that the AI is horrible and the game has been dumbed down too much. Has anyone here played it, and if so, what are your thoughts, personally?
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Re: Games discussion

Post by Insinuator »

Captain_Wrathbow wrote:BTW, I'm thinking of getting Civ V, but it's gotten quite mediocre reviews; many people are saying that the AI is horrible and the game has been dumbed down too much. Has anyone here played it, and if so, what are your thoughts, personally?
I played it for a considerable period of time. At first glance, I loved the interface. It is very intuitive and easy to learn. In fact, I think the whole game is designed to be very easy to learn. Additionally, I believe complaints against the AI are hollow. The AI seems as good as any other Civ game I've played, and I've played them all. This is not to say it is spectacular, and it can be manipulated, but that should be expected of any strategic AI.

After playing for a while, however, I began to notice what I see as flaws. First of all, there is no unit stacking. This leads to very simple and relatively short battles. Second, the research seems boring. There is a natural progression for research that to me lacks the thrill of discovery and advancement of previous Civ games. Third, the variety of units has been scaled back, leading to rather uniform armies and navies.

Overall, the game lacks replayability because it is has become so simple. But I quite enjoyed the first 20 hours or so.
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Re: Games discussion

Post by Captain_Wrathbow »

Over-simplification is sad. The complexity and in-depth-ness was what I always loved about the Civ games. When I want to play a simple game, I play something like Wesnoth. But I always enjoyed Civ because it was complex.

Thanks! :)
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Re: Games discussion

Post by aklotz »

I found one of the big problems of the Civ games in general (havent played 5) is that finding multiplayer is just really unreliable. If you have a degree in networking IT this probably doesnt apply but most people who pay $50 for a 'game' dont necessarily want to spend hours accessing firewalls and routers to set up the ability to play vs. other players. The addition of Steam does try to modify that to ensure that players are playing vs. an actual player, with the hope that they will be able to track any mods that player is using for advantage, but the game is still flawed in that it is not comprehensive enough to reward intuitive human controllers over lineally computing controllers, aka AI.

The tricky part yet to discover is that a computer program requires bounds which lends itself to a possible 'linearity' or line of maximum utility. It is true that if you want to play Civ vs. AI it can be a difficult matchup to master for a human, but frankly you are more of a bug checker for the programmers than anything. Too frequently due to cost, the workaround for "good AI" in videogaming is simply that the computer pre-cogs valuable resource locations on a map and does a beeline. The 'exploration' step required of any human player (and a lot of the excitement in Civ) is just removed. Algorithms, programming and AI can be mostly distilled down to 'list checking' and the 'prioritization of listed variables'. Being able to see the map enables a computer to 'travel down the linearity of the tech tree' faster. Playing Civ against the top difficulty is not really for players, its more for programmers.

The Civ games in general could be deeper, but not in the sense of micromanagement, of which algorithms are infinitely superior to the majority of humans. The Civ games could be deeper in that to research or improve from a certain technology (say communism or the printing press) the player would actually need to read (and secure the resources required, human, physical, uh there are probably more) and understand basic theory about the technology then demonstrate its execution in the game. Currently there is a lot of 'next turn' button pushing that is in fact encouraged--the true simplification of the game. I never found that knowing something interesting about one of the techs ever really helped change the paradigm or reaction of other players since my assumption is that the 'way the game works' is that the techs just simply give a monetary bonus, production bonus, cultural bonus or unit bonus that the programmers have deemed appropriate and is the same in every circumstance--aspects so analytically behind the scenes that only a computer with knowledge of the entire field can take advantage of. Vis a viu-- the knowledge a player has should be paramount to the micromanagement of lists. My hope is that Civilization is putting R&D into developing this aspect of the game, rather than continuing down its known path.
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Re: Games discussion

Post by Insinuator »

aklotz wrote:The tricky part yet to discover is that a computer program requires bounds which lends itself to a possible 'linearity' or line of maximum utility.
There's a lot of stuff you said I take issue with, but because I don't care enough to address them all, I'll stick with this one. How would YOU make a better AI? One that is not "linear". That's how all AIs function, as far as I know.
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Re: Games discussion

Post by aklotz »

Its not an expert opinion and i'm no expert. I simply think its better to play against other people than against AI mostly because they can teach and speak. Nothing surprising. AI is too superior at doing certain tasks, even having to 'cheat' in a sense when compared to a human and then it just comes up short everywhere else. Its just the fact that the entire architecture is analytically driven and can be distilled down to such. Regardless of how skilled a real opponent might be there is an obvious point where the human player must become more like a computer (using analytics or supportive programs) and simply mimic the way a computer would solve the problem to beat an Artificial intelligence model. I dont necessarily understand why this is so important to advancing civilization (not the game).

Point is i never figured out how to beat Civ AI on the highest setting so I never even got that far. I dont really want to learn that much about computers when there is sunshine and beautiful women in the world!!!!!!
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Re: Games discussion

Post by uncleshelby »

Has anybody played KQ? Great RPG. Sadly, it's unfinished and development has been dropped.
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vodot
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Re: Games discussion

Post by vodot »

My real complaint with freeciv/civ is that the strategy that is required (see below) to win competitive multiplayer/high-level AI games is not at all apparent from or encouraged by the manual, high-difficulty AI, in-game-text, GUI, realism, "feelings", etc. It's simply unapparent until stumbled upon.
Spoiler:
So the player might be "having fun" in the traditional sense (which is enough for most players) (I sure do), but you're never actually "getting better" in the competitive-civ-sense until you're studying how to more rapidly and efficiently bring about the above sequence.

Also: Humans are computers, no? I've always thought that multiplayer games are just matches between one miraculously complicated computer and another. While it is interesting and emotionally stimulating to think of human opponents as completely different from AI opponents (i.e. "alive", "learning", or some other esoteric concept), what makes them ultimately more exciting is rather that they are simply so much more difficult— and therefore vastly more rewarding to defeat.
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Re: Games discussion

Post by Insinuator »

aklotz wrote:Regardless of how skilled a real opponent might be there is an obvious point where the human player must become more like a computer (using analytics or supportive programs) and simply mimic the way a computer would solve the problem to beat an Artificial intelligence model.
There is some truth in this. That's why I almost always just play on the average difficulty level. Once a game begins just boosting the AI with resource bonuses or the like, it becomes less interesting. But even Wesnoth does that. I don't think there is much hope of improvement in the near future.
vodot wrote:While it is interesting and emotionally stimulating to think of human opponents as completely different from AI opponents (i.e. "alive", "learning", or some other esoteric concept), what makes them ultimately more exciting is rather that they are simply so much more difficult— and therefore vastly more rewarding to defeat.
Except humans CAN & DO learn. It's not an esoteric concept. It's very common and very simple.

For humans, that is.

For computer's it is impossible. The best an AI can do is draw on the parameters input into it. Processing anything outside the scope of it's reality is incomprehensible. In fact, the comparison of human and code is so overly simplistic that it is difficult to even contrast them. The AI's only world is the game. It plays the way it is told to play. Even the best AI's have hardly any capability to react; rather, they act. Humans can take their experience from real life, from other games, from their friends, and apply those things to the game.

Compare a computer to a human, fine. But comparing a human to a computer is more than insulting. It's misleading.
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