What are you playing?

[Jaedar]

Yeah I was getting pretty tired of the combat once I reached Webwood, but once I turned up the difficulty it got interesting again. I guess I'll set it to Hard next time I get tired of it

dem spiders not so bad eh?

[Jonas]

Oddly no. They don't bother me at all.

Not completely sure why, but I think it's a mixture of the perspective, the highly stylised art and animation, and the relatively low power level of those spiders.

Just reached the plains today. I quite like them! Look forward to doing some more questing across them tomorrow.

[Hassat Hunter]

Well, just finished Borderlands. Didn't really expect to be only lvl 36 when there are 50 levels. But I suppose that's for re-playing the game? Not really want to do such though, so what DLC is advised to me to start first? No idea how to start the Claptrap adventure, I seen the movie at the end of the game. Do I need to go to the starting village?
(I seem to lack the "all quests in New Haven achievement", which seems to indicate I missed a quest... but where could it be???)

Also finished Majesty 2's latest DLC recently. Still some "extra missions" left to do, but after a super fun DLC it was kind of bothering to have a final mission where I had to reboot (the game) 50 times and save equally amounts of time to pass it. And risk savegame's not saving, adding to the timetable. Never had crashes in any other missions

Oh well, guess it's time to see how high a completion percentage I can get in Just Cause 2, and maybe finish it too...

[Jetsetlemming]

I beat Alan Wake and its first DLC. I'll go back and play The Writer eventually, but the last third of the main campaign and The Signal really soured me. Alan Wake's gameplay just isn't that fun, and coupling Max Payne stylistic elements with unfun gameplay just makes the gameplay even worse, like it's a cancerous growth over what should be an actually good game.

[bobby 55]

Well, just finished Borderlands. Didn't really expect to be only lvl 36 when there are 50 levels. But I suppose that's for re-playing the game? Not really want to do such though, so what DLC is advised to me to start first? No idea how to start the Claptrap adventure, I seen the movie at the end of the game. Do I need to go to the starting village?
(I seem to lack the "all quests in New Haven achievement", which seems to indicate I missed a quest... but where could it be???)

If you play all the DLCs you might get to level 50, I've got a level 60 save and haven't finished the Knoxx DLC in it's entirity. That's with a second playing of the main game though.

Maybe you missed a Claptrap rescue? Since they're not posted on a board, and one or two a kinda tucked away from the critical path.

You know you have to use the fast travel thingy, Nu-U, to initiate them (the DLCs) I guess? I think you select Tartarus Station to kick off The Claptrap Robot Revolution.
The Claptrap adventure starts after you speak to someone after arriving at Tartarus Station.

[Hassat Hunter]

Been a while since I played Just Cause II, and it showed. Auch.
Found the 100th drug deal. Was expecting something (at least a VO recognising I got all)... nope, nothing special

Oh well, at 92% currently and counting...

Could be. Checking FAQ on location then .
And yeah, I know the other DLC had that, didn't realised it was the same for claptrap, duh. Still pretty long list, and I don't know of the top of my head which station is which DLC. Which would you recommend first for a lvl 36?

EDIT: Apparently missed the one in Old Haven, fixed it... completed! Also seemed the only one I missed for 42 inventory slots. Now what to do next...? Can you go back from playthrough 2 to 1 if you gained some XP with it to do the DLC not even harder than they already are?

[Jonas]

So I'm about 50% through Kingdoms of Amalur (God, that fucking name). It's still persistently generic. I get that Salvatore likes to go with mostly traditional fantasy, with a few original twists, and I'm desperately trying to focus on those twists, but I keep getting distracted by how generic everything is.

At the very least, there are no orcs.

I've also idly started playing King's Bounty on my new laptop (it's well suited for trackpad play). I'm not sure how far I'll play, as all I've read about it indicates that it falls apart and becomes a tremendous slog in the last half, and I don't want my memories of the consistently excellent Armoured Princess tainted by the wobbly original installment.

[Jetsetlemming]

Learning XNA. It's surprisingly easy to get something impressive right off the bat- within 30 minutes of starting to read tutorials, I had an un-animated sprite walking around a flat background in a window based on keyboard input. Getting beyond that is a bit rocky, however- there's been many revisions to XNA, and with them have come quite a few syntax changes, and there's no conclusive guide to XNA 4.0 (the current version) that I can find. Also in XNA the Vector classes (for non math/programming people a vector is a point on a graph or grid- it's how you determine basically how anything is anywhere) cannot be modified via Properties, only with direct access to a variable. If I don't want to publicly expose the variable, and only have the Property, I'd have to do something like

Code: Select all

sprite.Location = sprite.Location + new Vector2(sprite.Location.X, 10);
or, more simply (but less legibly, perhaps):
sprite.Location += new Vector2(sprite.Location.X, 10);

If I want to, in this example, move a sprite 10 pixels down in my window (0,0 on the grid is at the top left corner, so higher Y values are lower on the screen. It's weird, I know, but every single thing I've used in C# has worked this way...).
This has led me to taping a ton of movement/alteration methods on my Sprite class for anything to do with Vectors, like MoveUp, MoveLeft, SpeedUpY, ReverseX, etc (speed is also a Vector2 value), that interact directly with the local private class variable that the Sprite.Position makes outwardly readable.

Also they have a bunch of different Vector classes (Vector, Vector2, Vector3, Vector4) depending on how many axes you've got. I don't know why that can't just be one monolithic Vector with overloaded constructors and unused null axis values, maybe to conserve memory or something. The cost of having one or two null value ints on a variable has to be incredibly tiny, like measured in bits, not bytes, but I guess if you've got shittons of vectors (which you very well might in a game) then that might add up to stressing an xbox or something.

[bobby 55]

Been a while since I played Just Cause II, and it showed. Auch.
Found the 100th drug deal. Was expecting something (at least a VO recognising I got all)... nope, nothing special

Oh well, at 92% currently and counting...

Could be. Checking FAQ on location then .
And yeah, I know the other DLC had that, didn't realised it was the same for claptrap, duh. Still pretty long list, and I don't know of the top of my head which station is which DLC. Which would you recommend first for a lvl 36?

EDIT: Apparently missed the one in Old Haven, fixed it... completed! Also seemed the only one I missed for 42 inventory slots. Now what to do next...? Can you go back from playthrough 2 to 1 if you gained some XP with it to do the DLC not even harder than they already are?

I think once you've commenced playthrough two the difficulty is ramped up in both the regular game and the DLCs. I believe it's mainly that you lose health faster more than anything else. The DLCs are easier if you do them at, say, level 25 and under. I'd do The Zombie Island of Doctor Ned first. It's pretty straight forward, albeit with some difficult moments. In my opinion the Secret Armory of General Knoxx is the most difficult of the DLCs in singleplayer.

[Jonas]

Learning XNA. It's surprisingly easy to get something impressive right off the bat- within 30 minutes of starting to read tutorials, I had an un-animated sprite walking around a flat background in a window based on keyboard input. Getting beyond that is a bit rocky, however- there's been many revisions to XNA, and with them have come quite a few syntax changes, and there's no conclusive guide to XNA 4.0 (the current version) that I can find.

You might want to get a hold of Riemer's XNA 4.0 book, I used that to get started, and it's pretty good. In fact the menu system we're using is still fundamentally based on my implementation of his menu tutorial

I think my least favourite thing about XNA is that you can't define parameter defaults in an object definition - sorry if that's not the right terms, I still suffer from never having taken a basic intro to programming type course, so I can more or less code, but I still don't have the glossary under control. What I mean is, like:

Code: Select all

private void Thingy(string title, int number, bool flag = false) {}

You can't set that bool to false there, for some reason. It really annoys me

Also our game has turned out to be like 75% GUI, so we'd really benefit from a visual interface scripting tool of some kind. My kingdom for Scaleform, basically.

[AEmer]

@ Jonas

You used the vernacular correctly.

It's a relatively common restriction to be unable to set default values in the header. Python allows it, but it's fundamentally bad form, and it has issues with method name overloading.

To understand why, consider the following: Parameters are passed in different ways in object oriented languages. One way to pass parameters is by value, and another is to pass by reference. The distinction is determined by the type of the parameter.

Objects are generally passed by reference, whereas simple data(ints, floats, bools) is passed by value. In other words, if you call the header in question with the boolean value being true or false, it's the value that's passed on, so if you do something like flag = false; or flag = true; within the code, it's not going to change the value where it came from (changing the value of a parameter? Also bad form, and sometimes not allowed, depending on language).

But what if flag was a BoolObject - a class containing the class variable flag = true, but otherwise being empty.

In that instance you _would_ be able to pass data into the boolobject, and it could potentially have influence in other places in your program, by putting in the line "flag.flag=false;". This isn't actually bad form; in certain situations, it's good form. But if you could assign a default object, you don't know if it's referenced in another location, or if you just created it.

In other words, all data that's passed by referenced couldn't be assigned default variables, because you wouldn't know what object you were mucking around with. Simpler, then, not to have that option, not even for pass-by-value types.

The other issue is with method overloading. You may not be aware, but you can have multiple methods with the same name, so long as they have different headers. This is particularly useful when library classes are being constructed: The same method name can be called in multiple ways, but look similar, in code that utilizes the library.

But what about the default values? If someone called your method without that last boolean, then what should happen? Should it be appended? Or should it tell you that you didn't call the method correctly, that you were missing a parameter? It weakens the structure of the language slightly, so it's not allowed that often.

The solution is simple, and elegant: If you want default values in your headers, for parameter 4, simply overload it with a 3-parameter method of the same name, and have it call the 4-parameter method with the 3 first parameters and your default value, and return the result the 4-parameter method returns.

[gamer0004]

The Baconing. It's funny and I really like the art style (cell shading and some other stuff). The gameplay is a bit too casual for my taste but it's good fun for s few hours.

[Hassat Hunter]

Well, I found all settlements in JC2 (+1 apparently).
Still need to complete 2 (+1). As you may have guessed, the capital. Docks is completed, park is 100% but uncompleted, other 2 are 97%. Can't really be bothered finishing them up... spend enough time getting them that high.
Also done all challenges bar 12 (the "I have no idea what the hell they expect from me" freefall ones).
Collected all 300 collectables (and this time I got confirmation... by them saying "soon you have all skulls"... I JUST PICKED UP NUMBER 100 out of 100! Idiot...)

Still have a ton of unmarked sabotages (mobile radar for example) and items to gather, but meh... 95%, so it's time to start these final 2 missions and make an end to it...

[bobby 55]

Well, I found all settlements in JC2 (+1 apparently).
Still need to complete 2 (+1). As you may have guessed, the capital. Docks is completed, park is 100% but uncompleted, other 2 are 97%. Can't really be bothered finishing them up... spend enough time getting them that high.
Also done all challenges bar 12 (the "I have no idea what the hell they expect from me" freefall ones).
Collected all 300 collectables (and this time I got confirmation... by them saying "soon you have all skulls"... I JUST PICKED UP NUMBER 100 out of 100! Idiot...)

Still have a ton of unmarked sabotages (mobile radar for example) and items to gather, but meh... 95%, so it's time to start these final 2 missions and make an end to it...

You have a commendable work ethic.

Also, I re-read your question about Borderlands. If you loaded a save from your first playthrough then yes, the DLCs shouldn't be as hard as if you played them during your second playthrough.

[Jetsetlemming]

Learning XNA. It's surprisingly easy to get something impressive right off the bat- within 30 minutes of starting to read tutorials, I had an un-animated sprite walking around a flat background in a window based on keyboard input. Getting beyond that is a bit rocky, however- there's been many revisions to XNA, and with them have come quite a few syntax changes, and there's no conclusive guide to XNA 4.0 (the current version) that I can find.

You might want to get a hold of Riemer's XNA 4.0 book, I used that to get started, and it's pretty good. In fact the menu system we're using is still fundamentally based on my implementation of his menu tutorial

I think my least favourite thing about XNA is that you can't define parameter defaults in an object definition - sorry if that's not the right terms, I still suffer from never having taken a basic intro to programming type course, so I can more or less code, but I still don't have the glossary under control. What I mean is, like:

Code: Select all

private void Thingy(string title, int number, bool flag = false) {}

You can't set that bool to false there, for some reason. It really annoys me

Also our game has turned out to be like 75% GUI, so we'd really benefit from a visual interface scripting tool of some kind. My kingdom for Scaleform, basically.

Jonas are you defining Thingy as a method there? Signatures are where you define what information this method needs to be given (the Argument) to that method whenever it's called. It's for unknown values that are dependent on where and when the method is called. If you want a false bool in that method that is always false, you can define that inside the method just fine.

Code: Select all

 private void Thingy(string title, int value)
{
    bool flag = false;
    while(!flag)
    {
        flag = true;
    }
}

Speaking of whiles, I learned last night that you can reverse them:

Code: Select all

bool flag = false;
do
{ 
    //code
} while (!flag);

This makes the code in the curly braces execute once before the while's conditions are met. This ensures that it will always run once, even when the while's conditions to complete are met before you reach it.

Edit: Speaking of reversing things, you can do something neat with for loops as well:

Code: Select all

for (int i = -1; i < array.Length; ++i)
{
array[i] = value;
}

This makes i increment at the START of the for loop, instead of at the end. This makes it so that when i is equal to the value of array.Length, the loop ends, instead of looping one last time, thus potentially giving you an index out of bounds exception. You can accomplish essentially the same thing with

Code: Select all

for (int i = 0; i < array.Length - 1; i++)

Except looking snazzier in the former method.