shinglescat

[shinglescat]

One of the things that Stalker 2 did good is the lore reveal, major lore pieces reveals, LOOKING AT YOU VEILGUARD, drip fed throughout the game, with more stuff remaining either not fully explained or outright still mystified.

So far, the writing is fine, and I liked the main quest and the stuff at the end. Went with the Y ending. Not gonna lie, killing both protags from the past games felt right, and I legit expected Degtyarov to make his entrance to be murdered next.

Too bad the game is riddled with bugs, and I had to restart one fucking quest several times because an npc wouldn't want to speak to me OR i couldn't save anymore. I'll wait for patches to continue playing it, because at this point it's worse than Cyberpunk was in its release state - I can handle driving around on a bike in T-pose with dicks out, but game progression breaking bugs and atrocious performance is where I draw the line. At one point of the game I just decided fuck it and started cheating left and right because without cheating it's near impossible to finish the game.

One thing I don't like is how they have very emotional (supposedly) moments to hit the player with a bunch of bricks, and then.... they sorta drop the ball, very anticlimactic, they just don't push it deep enough, they just do nothing. The only time I felt a knife in the chest was during the convo with already dead Strider.

Fucking piss, they killed Strider, I'm still mad about it, I can't believe they've done it, he was the only one I cared about in this game, holy shit, I was dead set on storming castles for the guy.

On a side note, I ship Skif and Richter. Richter looks like he's about to tell Skif he loves him every time he opens his mouth lmao.

[shinglescat]

For something that I waited for longer than Veilguard, Stalker 2 is a fucking disappointment. 15 years... for this? I never thought this would happen, tho something told me it actually would happen, but I opted to ignore it.

[shinglescat]

shit actually before moving on to stalker 2 i wanna do everyone dies pt of davg. i wonder if i can speedrun this thing in one night

[shinglescat]

d o n e tomorrow's stalker 2

[shinglescat]

Yanno, i think if dragon age was ever to get a sequel or a reboot in another age, Varric would still be the narrator, or at least he'd have a presence in games beyond mentions in codices.

Cuz something tells me, the way that dagger shines in that cut scene, there's a bit of him in there, and he's gonna return in a spirit form or some sorta Mythal-like essense. Or lmao, even full blown benign possession again.

[shinglescat]

I'm on 2nd playthrough of DAVG, just finished Taash's conversation with their mother.

First time I told Taash to embrace rivaini culture, and this time I did the qun. And guess what, having seen both options I see the entire quest line in an entirely new light and I understand both Taash and Shathan better. And I fucken got goosebumps from that convo, cuz that shit hit home.

The main critique still stands. I wish they would not use modern language, cuz the moment the word is said, it just throws you out of immersion. And it served as a cheap rage bait for idiots to trash the game. Shathan literally uses aqun athlok to describe what Taash is feeling. Shoulda come up with a different word, i dunno, vhendalen for elven or amari for tevene.

[shinglescat]

nuked twitter, shoulda done this earlier

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rook has the vibes of someone who would target a big crowd to rip a noxious one on his own accord

[shinglescat]

Fuck me, Veilguard was awesome.

THE SOUNDTRACK THO SUCKS ASS

[shinglescat]

One thing that currently annoys tf out of me with davg is...

SOUNDTRACK

Dear lord, why did they hire Zimmer??? And the whole music direction, it hurts. I want Inon Zur back, forgive me i shat on the cacophony in dao and da2 D:

I keep waiting to hear dai-like music, Trevor Morris going at it again with that lost elves theme or anything else, but instead, it's some generic superhero stuff.

It's like nails on a chalkboard.

Inquisitor creation part was the most welcome. Hearing some og dai tracks was like a breath of fresh air.

It's too much. It's way too epic in the typical action movie way. And the electronic parts? I mean, i understand there's a place for that given we've Tevinter now and the ancient elven tech.... BUT STILL.

OUT. OF. PLACE

NAILS. ON. CHALKBOARD

[shinglescat]

Turns out, my lower back, legs, and pelvis are all healthy, and there is nothing wrong.

It's just long forgotten cerebral palsy manifesting.

Thank fuck, cuz i can, now officially, put it back where it belongs with my dear tizanidine.

[shinglescat]

i'm gonna swear by sibutramine.

fuck the controvercy, it rules.

zero side effects on 10mg a day, and adhd symptoms fucking GONE.

[shinglescat]

A complete remake of DA2 would be perfect, especially given the fact that it's a story told by Varric - he coulda forgot to mention certain things or he coulda embellished some. The entire thing wouldn't hurt the overall story and other media too much cuz he's the unreliable narrator, but it would improve things in a huge manner. And make it entirely from Hawke's perspective, without Varric's bullshit. The game's a prime candidate for a remake from all point of views. EA, I'm out here ready to throw money at you.

[shinglescat]

fastest preorder this side of the earth, let's fucken go bitches

[shinglescat]

Hello! Thank you for all of your great work!Have a little question about the terms of use!  I've saw in your mod page that "You are allowed to do whatever as long as it stays on your hard drive and doesn't become public". May I ask if share screenshot is included in "become public" too? For exemple, if I could port the assets to Baldur's Gate3 for personal use only (won't upload the file)and share the screenshot?Thank you again and please allow me apologize in advance if this is offensive!

Hey, screenshots are fine, it's the sharing of actual assets that I'm against. Feel free to port stuff to bg3, but dont go crazy with sharing the actual mod.

[shinglescat]

Some notes regarding pro 3D, accumulated by yours truly:

For the love of god, learn basic things like topology, edge flow, polygonal modelling and subdiv, because jesus christ, that's like the basicest of basic stuff, and if you can't understand it - it's high time to learn it. Learn modifiers too, they are usually almost 1 to 1 identical in function from software to software. Cloth sim and sculpting are cool and all, but the old ass modelling methods are still alive and kicking and they are the most required things ever. I mean yeah, you can sculpt yourself smth and be like "here i made this hard surface armor", but bruv, you have to retopo it now like a dumbass and you have to spend even more time torturing yourself, esp if you don't know the basics and if you get feedbacked from the higher ups. Better spend time to learn topology now to just speedrun things later. And it's not as destructive. Easy. Fast. No bullshit. GOOD GEOMETRY IS KING. If you want to go gamedev or vfx, it's not enough to be good at sculpting and design (unless you have a dedicated person for the technical stuff), it's important to have a solid base.

Learn where to cut corners. Do not half ass where you shouldn't half ass, half ass where it's not necessary for things to be perfect. Learn how to spot these opportunities. Half assing saves time and effort, but only when you're capable of it and only if you are experienced in it. It's not always that you'll be asked to do immaculate perfect things - more often than not you'll be asked specifically for half assing, to save on time and costs.

Learn how to do uvs, seriously. Learn how to make straight grid islands for optimization. Learn about the texel density and how to make use of most space available. Learn about overlapping.

For the love of everything that is holy, BE INDEPENDENT. Learn to see, like legit, learn it, it's a skill of its own: spot the shapes, spot the volumes, the sizes, distances, angles, curves, everything. Learn how to see errors yourself, learn how to apply feedback. Learn to read and listen! If you don't understand something, don't be afraid to ask again to clarify. As a lead, I can only suggest you to change certain things to look better and review your stuff to allow you to go to the next stage; if you can't see issues yourself, and I have to guide you and give you feedback every iteration - it's easier for me to take over and do things myself. Well, fair enough, there are cases where guiding and feedbacking every iteration is valid, but these cases a extremely rare. I had to give so much feedback in the past few weeks, I'm legit nearly fucking dying: feedback this, explain that, overpaint everything, chew out the concept and spit it out for modelers... And it takes hours, and I've a ton of shit to model and texture myself, and there are SEVERAL PROJECTS I HAVE TO DEAL WITH. And in the end, when I had to take over, I just completely remade the assets from scratch, cuz no way in hell I'm shipping the jank.

Take time to get to know your software. Do bullshit. Press buttons. Make it crash. Just know where's where and what does what. Don't make your seniors give you step by step explanation of how to work in any given software.

Learn how to bake properly. This is like the easiest shit, but I swear people be just not seeing errors in their bakes, and I have to pixelfuck, pinpointing issues. If one baker sucks, go to the other, and then other, or try to adjust your model, try cage, anything. Last time i had an issue with bakes, I tried it both in SP and Blender. And I had my lead try bakes in the new SP. Guess what? In desperation I went to xNormal, and fuck me it blew me away, baking things exactly as I wanted them. Old as hell and reliable as well. Pay attention to the normal map format, pay attention to the coordinates! Pay attention to a good looking ambient occlusion. If something doesn't bake right away, feel free to make a composite map of several bakes.

Learn to hear and to read feedback. Learn to apply it. Do not disregard anything. If you're a scatterbrain, use lists to keep track of everything. If you don't understand something - it's fine to clarify information.

It's okay to have questions and doubts, and do not hesitate to voice anything. It's even better if you have a shitton of questions. The more questions you ask, the more confident we are in you. Please, don't present yourself as a super-duper-hella-pro-9000 with 1mil years of experience and complete understanding of how the universe works and why - this guarantees you are seen as ignorant and instantly sets off red flags.

Language is important, google translate can only help you so much. You should be able to comprehend the common lango, at the very least have some writing and reading skills. At best you should be able to listen to people talk and you should be able to understand the spoken words.

[shinglescat]

2.5 months into working with a studio.

Not gonna lie, loving every bit of it. Working on one of my fav franchises rn, doing cutesy stuff - a style absolutely alien to me, with my kid self screaming from excitement - if you would have told me at 4 years old that I'll be working on it, I'd probably explode.

This is absolutely my shit.

Impostor syndrome is real, tho I'm successfully fending it off.