roarroar

>But if you're writing an iOS game, an HTML 5 web app, a utility that automates work so you can focus on the creative fun stuff, then you don't have to fall back on the existing, comfortable solutions that developers before you chose simply because they too were trapped by the patterns of the solutions that came before them.

This isn't really true at all. It's very difficult to go against the existing standards. If you think the standards for the web are stupid then you're simply out of luck. Back to the desktop with you. What about all the hardware being optimized for C? How many people work in some language they hate because there's money in it and they have to eat?

The systems we have aren't designed for high level programming. Right from the start you are hobbled by this choice. Then someone decides to water things down further by enforcing a high level language on anything running in the browser environment so you don't even get your nice "raw performance" for the things the hardware is actually good at. And this high level environment isn't a a good one, even considered within the constraints set by the hardware! Then there's C - an awful language even for the hardware tailored for it, but many are stuck using it for one reason or another?

To say that asm.js and WebGL are "narrow in focus" is like saying x86 is "narrow in focus". They're general-purpose primitives that can be used for a wide variety of purposes. UDK, Unity, Gamemaker, Construct all export to HTML5. Flash has achieved a huge degree of success, so if it goes away maybe the next contender will be less damaging, but the mistake can be remade at any point, and with the power of asm.js/WebGL almost any framework can be ported.

People have always abandoned the pure, semantic HTML way as soon as the power has been there to do so. Sometimes this has been for good, sometimes for evil. You need to either turn it into a general purpose computing platform (Mozilla have been fighting this for a long time and finally lost) or leave it as a pure document browser (in other words, an application rather than a platform). But since people always want cooler, shinier things delivered faster, and the web provides fast, sort-of-safe delivery, there will be pressure from many places to start trying to eat up some of the native pie, which is how we got here in the first place.

The web people got everything wrong. They pushed a ton of waffly high-level rubbish trying to hang onto a restricted, comprehensible model, but in the end they had to cave and stick all the powerful stuff in anyway, and on a C-machine that means something like C (hence asm.js, which is a C compile target). And what we've ended up with is, frankly, pretty shit. The whole idea of nice, semantic HTML only works as a restricted application with no client-side programming facilities. Maybe in 30 years someone will have the sense to lift it out into the "user land" of the browser where it belongs.

And you think asm.js/WebGL will be any different? The more powerful the browser gets the more open to this kind of abuse it will be. Live with it.

What is true of any new system? I don't know what point you're trying to make.

>My complaint is that neither of these things is coming back in a relevant way.

Where is this directed? It sounds like a criticism of Lisp, Forth, Self, etc, but please correct. The fact that the ignorant masses flocked to C and Unix doesn't grant them one _iota_ of merit. C isn't even a good low-level language. And look at the most popular platform of them all - the web browser, if you want a good laugh.

So.. stay with the shit model forever? Good idea! NaCl is part of an effort to fix all this bullshit, and it's at least sort of going in the right direction.

Too bad. The browser is becoming general purpose with asm.js, WebGL etc. You can't hold back progress.

What's so great about the "security model" of the browser? It's a patch work of horrible decisions.

Jesus, another gender-hustling article. Getting past that, it's not clear that in general the changes were beneficial. They increased the variety of facilities in the local park which, surprise surprise, increased its utilization. We have a similar park down the road from us and it's great. Other than that can we say it really worked? For example:

>Circular, grassy areas dot the courtyards, allowing parents and children to spend time outside without having to go far from home.

What is the overwhelming benefit of this? Is there a problem walking to the local park? Perhaps they don't have enough parks - in which case surely increasing the number and quality of parks is the correct remedy. Is Vienna really so violent that people should be encouraged to hide away around their houses even more than they already do? Courtyards are nice, but maybe they should detail why this is a net benefit before trying to tout its success.

This bit of double-think is mildly entertaining:

>Planners also run the run the risk of reinforcing stereotypes in attempting to characterize how men and women use city space.

The entire purpose of the project was to come up with generalisations about women and then code that into infrastructure projects, but they're so cowed by the PC thugs that they can't even say it plainly - even though the project presumably meets with approval of the same PC police. Yeesh.

You didn't answer my question.

Depending on your requirements the remote end can be responsible for ensuring that you receive and acknowledge the wake up. Once you hit your own timeout you might do any number of things, not necessarily repoll the other end.

Web crowd continues to struggle with the concept of interrupts, what else is new?

Also a side question: does me commenting in this thread make it less likely to sink? Because this is the kind of submission that needs to be aborted in the womb.

Plebs are never assessed on merit because they don't have any. So you get better treatment for one pleb or another pleb because of what school they went to or their gender, but in the end it's all just interchangeable plebs anyway. If you have real talent ("tech bloggers" need not apply) and a bit of a spine then that is going to be the dominant factor in your success. But we see so many stories these days about how various little plebs aren't getting some perceived due that it's becoming a degenerate force.

It may be incorrect, but how is it "regressive"? This is a common argumentative tactic: to suggest that one side (your side) is on the side of progress. Can you disprove it?

When will we get over this complex? Who cares if a bunch of easily-swayed people go here or go there? Reserve your little social engineering projects for hard barriers. The field is already overrun enough with Johnny-come-lately dilettantes without legitimizing the idea that we need to pander to people who have zero passion for computers. When did computing become the property of the rabble and their endless clamoring for personal advantages ("rights", "equality")?

Yeesh. Why take his personal experience as some kind of denial of your existence? This article wasn't about you. And citing the membership of a subreddit against him is irrecoverably flawed, since niche Internet collectives aggressively select from the extrema.

>System agnostic, immersive, inclusive, what not. Love it.

Yay! Let's cheerlead the democritisation (read: degeneration) of computer programming! The "open", democratic people got everything wrong, which is why the browser has such a laughable hodge podge of features. Hooray for people who took web programming instead of OS design at college. WOOO!

The sole reason for Xen etc is that people were too lazy to do microkernels in the first place. It is exactly the same thing as we are seeing in the web browser with all the low level primitives like asm.js and WebGL: the good ideas inevitably start to creep back in (even if in a crap, watered-down form at first) given enough time. In fact, we could easily have proper MMU sandboxing in the browser by now if we were running proper microkernels. Instead we'll pay big performance and complexity overheads to do it in userspace.

>Demon Firesage isn't particularly weak to fire. And what does it matter? You don't need a fire weapon to kill him.

Does this contradict me? I mean, I don't even disagree with it, nor can I see how you would infer that I would from my comments - except by guessing. How many bits of hidden and often counter-intuitive information do you suppose there are in Dark Souls? Demon Firesage is an EXAMPLE of how badly coordinated it is. The fact that you can still beat the boss is completely beside the point. How about: the location of all the fire embers, which is impossible to know by any means other than running around? But hey, I don't NEED the embers I can beat every boss by skill alone, so it doesn't matter how poorly arranged they are. So why even bother to put them into the game at all? Hopefully you can now see how silly this line of argument is.

>You also don't need to parry Gwyn to beat him, so why does it need to be spelled out?

First, I didn't say it needed to be "spelled out". Why do you feel licensed to put words straight into my mouth? Just sticking a sign on the door saying "parry him" is stupid, and a good example of why the lazy soapstone sign system is poorly conceived. One better way to handle this would be to make it so every character (no exceptions - unless there is a CLUE for the exception) with a certain characteristic is parryable. Or you could have disparate hints that can be combined to obtain that information. And so on. Just sticking random stuff like that in there and waiting for people to stumble into it is the kind of thing that is good for autistics who want to collect useless information, not people who want to experience an open fantasy world where decisions are meaningful.

Demon's Souls is more polished in spite of following the same basic design approach - because it is smaller and simpler, and so there is less room for inconsistency. For example, for the most part the boss dependencies go down five straight lanes. This is simpler and less interesting than Dark Souls' more complex boss dependencies, but it is very consistent. Bosses come at regular intervals and the archstones are warpable in the same way all the way through the game.

I mean, this ought to be the most elementary thing but some people in this thread just can't get it into their heads. What is the most interesting map for a small village? The answer: no map. You want to wander a bit and discover some things for yourself. There isn't much room in that sized place for things to become too messy. Does that apply to a city? No! Even with a quite a detailed map a city will always have nooks and crannies. But without a map or some directions you'll just wander around with zero clues as to where the interesting stuff might be. Of course, in a real city you can just ask people for directions, which is more interesting than using a map. But you can't do this sort of thing in Dark Souls, and that is the core of the problem.

>The game isn't really about trying a bunch of stuff until you find the "right" way to beat an area. If you think your best bet is to go everywhere and pick up every item, then you don't have a very good understanding of the character building mechanics.

What is the game "about"? It's about exploring interesting areas while fighting monsters. And part of the exploration is discovering detail like items, monster placements, bonfires and traps. But it is not done all that well, because most of the discovering comes about by way of trial-and-error. If you can't see that discovering things foreshadowed by clues and an organized system of placement is more interesting than stumbling upon stuff at random, then you should play more video games before commenting on them on the Internet.

>Although there is often a message by the door that says Try Parrying.

Which is sheer laziness. If From had put in their own hints then they could calibrate the level of detail in the hints so that the player gets just enough information to be HINTED without sticking neon signs on every hidden item or illusory wall. I mean, if your defense is "sometimes you get lucky and there's a sign telling you the answer directly", then I can only laugh right in your face.

>There are plenty of other games that hand-hold and don't have the time investment requirement of Dark Souls.

This is the classic conflation comment. You conflate my irritation with the disorganization and time-wasting of Dark Souls with an aversion to time investment and a love of hand-holding. In fact, I love to put lots of time into a game that I like. I like Dark Souls and have invested 200+ hours into it. I like to invest my time in things that are _enjoyable_. And Dark Souls has faults that detract from the experience relative to Demon's Souls, which is a less ambitious but more polished game. Just as Tetris is a far more polished game than Dark Souls even though Dark Souls has far higher potential and is overall the better game. It's like intelligence: a person with IQ 140 has the potential for not just cleverness but also stupidity far in excess of, say, a dog. The dog is a more polished animal mentally than many people, because there's only so far wrong it can go in life.

>I feel like Dark Souls respects the player much more than those games, because you truly do have the freedom to make your own choices.

Well, this just goes to show how little you've thought about this. It's only a "decision" in the most degenerate, worthless sense unless you have enough information to make a good one. That is the entire point of my posts in this thread. And far from respecting you it is in fact simultaneously (a) making a fool out of you by giving you the illusion of meaningful choice, and (b) showing contempt for your time by including so much trial-and-error.

Again for the people who still don't understand that I like this game, you need to realize that only an ambitious and interesting game can harbor these sorts of flaws.

>I don't use fire weapons and every time I've beaten the fire sage, I've done it by reading its actions and responding appropriately - and this in particular is the absolute strength of the game.

So why bother with all the fancy environments (which are extremely costly to produce)? Why bother with all the character builds? What a load of garbage. The combat is in fact clunky and repetitive. You wouldn't play this game if it was just boss battles, which just goes to show that it's not the key strength of the game. The key strength of both games are the environments, with the boss serving the SECONDARY purpose of providing a climax.

And the point of my post is not that Demon Firesage is impossible without fire weapons. I've beat it without fire weapons, and it is one of the easiest bosses. My point is that the game is poorly organized and in many ways counter-intuitive. And Demon Firesage is a perfect example of this. So what is your rebuttal? Are you even making one? Do you have a brain? You look like someone who is so in love with Dark Souls that when someone (A FAN OF THE GAME NO LESS) criticizes it you run in all butthurt looking for something to take issue with, barely bothering to read what was said before replying.

>It really isn't 'designed for use with a wiki'

It has the URL of the wiki on the back of the PS3 case. So does Demon's Souls. They very clearly intended players to have the wiki available. Did you think I came into this thread not knowing it was on the PS3? Motherfucker I own it on the PS3 as well as the PC. It is quite possible to finish the game without the wiki. But the point of a game is to be ENJOYED, not finished. And the level of trial-and-error present in Dark Souls detracts from the experience. This doesn't apply in Demon's Souls because it's just that much simpler and smaller. Are you going to respond to this, or just post more reactive bullshit about Demon Firesage, which was an EXAMPLE?

>I relished the challenge that the game provided, a game that rewards skilful play more than decking your character (and I'm not particularly dextrous).

Good for you. Maybe you'll get around to making a point in this reply?

>You seem intent on min/maxing.

I'm not "min-maxing" anything. There's no need to "min-max" Demon Firesage. It's not a hard boss.

>but it doesn't make it a shit game because you didn't like developing that skill.

Are you a fucking imbecile? I finished this game 3x. I will probably finish it again. It is a nice game, and nowhere near as hard as the hype would suggest. But it is very poorly organized, and overall a less polished product than Demon's Souls. So here's a crazy idea I just had: maybe next time read the top-level comment so you know the general point being made and respond to that, instead of reactively scanning deep into the thread to find something to take out of context. And then maybe you will succeed in responding to something I actually thought or said. Like the fact that it Dark Souls is a messy game oriented heavily toward trial-and-error. So please just read what I said in this post, understand it (this is important when talking to people), and then respond to this last about messiness and trial-and-error, because (in spite of the fact that you are too stupid to see it), everything else I've written is just a minor elaboration on this one point.

>Did you bother to even consider that you had written ambiguously?

All speech is ambiguous. You're expected as an adult to try to understand other people. You failed to understand me, and looking back at my post it ought to be obvious that you didn't read it carefully at all. The connection with the preceding sentence (a given in any paragraph you dunderhead) does not amount to "everyone does NG+ on their second play through". Nowhere is this written or implied. It's simply pure lazy reading on your part, eager as you are to take issue with what I said. And if you're going to come back with me with this sort of bullshit, maybe you should have some kind of real issue with what you now realise I actually said. But no, we get...

>I mean seriously, your criticisms of the game are just generic whines because you've encountered a hard one.

I've played through both games 3 times each. I didn't find them overly hard. Dark Souls is harder, and some bits were tough. I like that. And alternating bosses is exactly how I dealt with the harder bosses. None of this conflicts with my criticisms at all. Do you have some kind of argument to make? Or are you just upset that in your rush to piss on my post you grossly misinterpreted it? The point stands: the first play through is largely about bumbling around wasting your time. It is disorganized. It lacks clues. Do you have an answer to this, the thing I actually said? It seems it's very hard for you to change your P.O.V. to a superior one, one that can actually be defended with an argument, rather than garbage attacks like accusing me of "whining" because the game is "too hard". In fact, I don't think it's all that hard at all! Which is why in this very thread I spoke about how easy it is to beat the game with vitality builds, which is what I did on my first play through. The only "whining" here is that you didn't read my post, were butthurt by my retort, and without responding with an argument - one that contradicts something I actually said.

You're being very selective. What is the hint that Demon Firesage is weak to fire? What is the hint that Gwyn is parryable - unlike every other boss in the game? etc

Do you bother trying to understand what was meant before replying? How, after reading my post, was your take away "everyone plays NG+" (something anyone who plays the game knows is false)? The point is that people replay the game knowing what is to come, with everything already foreshadowed, and consequently being able to make much more informed choices. Whether you happen to be on NG+ or not is completely independent of this statement, and wasn't intended to be implied, which is why I said "second third playthroughs" in that sentence not "NG+". It's like you read just one phrase out of my post and responded to it out of context to prove some kind of point.

So what's your argument? You think it's kind of like Zelda? So what? Did you even read what I said? It's problematic in Dark Souls precisely because of how big and complex it is. Demon's Souls is cut out of the same clothe - but it is smaller and simpler, so these things don't become a pressing issue. None of the qualities you list, e.g. having access to deadly areas, are against what I'm saying.

It has nothing to do with "guest logs, way points and real time navigation". None of that is necessary to fix the game. I can't play games like Skyward Sword where there's some asshole computer jumping out of your sword dropping the most ball-achingly obvious hints. What's needed are carefully placed clues, of which there are very few. I think it's fair to say that the game is deliberately counter-intuitive in ways that serve only to waste your time.

What's not true? I didn't say you were forced as some kind of hard requirement to use the wiki - just that the use of the wiki forces you out of the game and that it is clearly designed to be used in conjunction with a wiki. It should be taken as read that it can be played without it. I mean, who wrote the wiki? The requirement for guessing and repeating segments is just so high that it detracts from the experience. This isn't about knowing every little detail for "min-maxing" either - it's about basic organization to make discovery of information systematic rather than being a sheer time sink. So tell me: how do you figure out that for the Demon Firesage - located in a fiery area, covered in fire - the weakness is.. fire? Trying a bunch of stuff, in this case totally counter-intuitive. What reason would you have to think Gwyn can be parried, when no other boss in the game can be? By trying a bunch of stuff and stumbling upon it since, again, it is counter-intuitive. In other words: by having complete and utter contempt for the value of your own time.

It completely takes away from the sense of fantasy, as well. The whole point with these open world games is to feel like you have the freedom to make your own choices. But if you know that your best best is to go everywhere and pick up every item you can then it feels like janitorial work, not a grand adventure.

It reeks of autism. You know it's bad because it forces you out of the game to look at some web page. It's basically showing total contempt for the aesthetics and fantasy of the game in favor of the endless cataloging and retrieval of pointless information.

A Fire Uchigatna+6 or +7 makes Four Kings easy if you have 20 estus flasks and plenty of vitality. Since this weapon doesn't scale with stats you barely have to alter your build to use it. I'm not saying it's the only viable build, nor the only fun one. I'm saying that the builds aren't exactly a work of genius, which is I suppose unavoidable when on your first run there are basically zero clues as to what's to come. For example, how are you supposed to know that Four Kings will need high DPS? A better way to do all this would be to foreshadow every boss in some way. For example, NG being a very cut-down version of the game with simplified, shorter areas and weaker bosses, with NG+ being the real deal deal. This is basically how everyone who really loves the game plays it anyway: bumble around through your first play-through, then on the second and third goes you can start making more conscious choices, since you have some idea of what's to come.

>Dark Souls is just plain better.

Nope. It has a worse frame rate, just for a start. All the qualities you list are laudable, but they don't even come close to addressing "every other respect". For example, Dark Souls requires you to pick up way more items than Demon's Souls. More items is good - but not if it turns into a tiresome exercise in collection.

Okay, so it's bulletproof for PvE.