Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Warp wrote:
So now we can add scientology to the endless list of things you believe.
Yeah, there's a reason why some sane countries have outlawed Scientology. They've seriously done just about every insane thing you can imagine: slave labor, locking up people with a serious illness, preventing them from getting treated, they've harassed individuals who left the church and journalists investigating them, they've defrauded the government, and the list just goes on and on. This isn't just some weird conspiracy theory I'm spouting here, this is all extremely well-documented.
Scientology is basically a massive international extortion racket. Given that the entire thing was dreamt up by a science-fiction writer, it's kind of difficult to believe it has any followers at all.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
It would be incredible if you could somehow skip Paramonia and Scrabania. An invincibility glitch sounds like one way to do it. :) Does it have something to do with the climb down glitch being used in the wrong place?
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
[12:48pm] Patryk1023: H3LL0!?
[12:48pm] Patryk1023: wowo, quiet here again
[12:48pm] Patryk1023: :P
[12:49pm] dada_: that's IRC for ya
[12:50pm] Patryk1023: dada_: I KNOW THAT!!!!!!!!
[12:50pm] Patryk1023 left the chat room. (Quit: Patryk1023)
[12:51pm] dada_: IRC and lack of patience do not go well together :-)
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Yeah, I thought so. I presume that by disk 2 especially everybody will be strong enough for The End to not be necessary.
It would be nicer to see some good tactics against final form Ultimecia than The End, though.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Aktan wrote:
There is also the order of when it has been resized. If the resize happens before the colorspace conversion to RGB, that's not a good thing since there will be more color loss. If the resize happens after the colorspace conversion to RGB, then all the color is there with as you said, minor interpolation.
If I had to guess, I'd say it probably occurs after conversion to RGB. Not exactly sure how to properly test that, though. Just resized another test pattern in a Flash video container (one with a 1x1 grid of red/blue pixels) and it appeared exactly the same as a bilinear resize. I'd appreciate any information on how I could properly test this.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
sgrunt wrote:
I would prefer control over the scaling process rather than allowing an unknown algorithm of YouTube's to take precedence, given YouTube's penchant for low-quality output.
Yeah, when I mentioned this on IRC you said the same thing. Really, I don't get why you'd just dismiss this so easily. It's not like it's impossible to simply try and see what happens rather than concluding that it's "an unknown" and therefore not worth pursuing. As I already told you on IRC, this isn't "Youtube's algorithm", it's done in realtime by the Flash Player.
So, I went and checked which algorithm the Flash Player uses: it turns out to be a simple bilinear resize.
I guess it entirely depends on how you encode things to begin with. If all you're doing is a nearest neighbor rescale to, say, 12x the original size followed by an interpolated rescale to correct the aspect ratio, it probably doesn't matter all that much whether you use Lanczos4 or bilinear. (But again, I don't know much about this topic. I'm not an encoder. Just saying it might be worth checking this out.)
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Flygon wrote:
Dada just simplified HD encoding for everyone. I for one welcome this new robot overlord.
It's been around for a while and I think some other encoders with their own Youtube channels are already using it. (I don't remember where I first saw that tag being used but I'm sure it was on a video by someone from here.)
Grunt was skeptical about it when I mentioned it on IRC but I think it's worth some testing with original-sized uploads.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
By the way, on Youtube it's now possible to add a special tag that will stretch the content to 4:3 (yt:stretch=4:3). The stretching is achieved in software (non-destructively) by simply rendering the decoded pixels to an area of a different size. Might want to give that a try the next time you upload something there. Here's an example.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
MUGG wrote:
Dada, have you played RollerCoaster Tycoon?
Yes, and I love it. I remember like the third level was this gigantic forest that you could build a theme park in. I always just played that one level. And kept building until it was entirely full. I should download it again.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Yeah, this is just a fad. Let it happen, it will pass and nobody will be bothered by it. I honestly cannot understand why anyone would want to rise up and valiantly combat the unruly flood of "ask me" topics.
A forum moderator's raison d'être is mainly to ensure that discussions are on-track, devoid of obnoxious bickering between specific members, to encourage thoughtful discussion and to participate in a constructive way. Other than that they should just kind of let things happen and not take action unless it becomes clear that people are bothered by someone or something.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
DarkKobold wrote:
Dear Dada
I've been meaning to ask you - is your avatar from transport tycoon or railroad tycoon? I played the crap outta the former!
Transport Tycoon Deluxe. Actually, the open source recreation of it: http://openttd.com/
You absolutely have to give it a try sometime. This open source version has different graphics and sounds but you can put the originals in there too.
Built a ton of stuff with this game (that's actually an old screenshot from about halfway through).
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Don't worry, I don't think you offended anyone. If anything I'm glad you're capable of listening to others and reevaluating your own beliefs. A lot of people don't have that capacity.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Yeah, it's pretty indefensible that you'd make your own "ask" topic, then lock someone else's because "there are too many of them". How is your reason to create this topic any better than Flygon's?
As a moderator, it's your job to ensure that discussion topics like this are possible, and to use your leverage to steer the discussion into a constructive direction. Locking something in advance because "it's going to be trolled" is like a doctor killing a patient "because he might get sick".
No disrespect of course, I like you but I'm just saying you might want to consider reneging on that decision.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Brushy wrote:
Dada wrote:
Dear Brushy,
It's been a long time since the release of Monkey Island 2, the game in your avatar. Talk about how gaming has changed since then and what you miss about the old days.
That's not a question, but I suppose it doesn't need to be.
There's not much to do here at work so I decided to compose an answer to this.
So, old video games. Me being relatively young and talking about old video games might seem a bit weird. But I like old video games. I'm not sure why exactly though. I'll try to gather my thoughts into this post but I won't promise they will make sense though.
First thing that comes to my min is graphics. Games are nowdays sold by how realistic the graphics are. I couldn't care about this at all. I prefer cartoonish and non-realistic graphics in games. Monkey Island 2 has the best graphics of all time in my opinion. The pixel art is great and clever and the backgrounds are just gorgeous. Crysis... Meh. I can look out the window if I want to see realistic nature and people. Spyro the Dragon has better graphics in my opinion, although they're fairly early 3D. They just look nice and serve the game well. Game developers concentrate too much on non-gameplay elements in general in my opinion.
The gameplay is too guided and linear nowdays when compared to the olden days. Tutorials take up a lot of time and game developers underestimate gamers all the time. This is not always a bad thing and might help introduce new people to video games, but I rarely have the feeling of achievement and discovery when playing modern games.
Action games suffer from michaelbayism. Explosions and slow motion all that seem to make a good game nowdays. I dislike senseless and meaningless effects.
People usually think that old games are played purely because of nostalgia. I disagree with this as I play a lot of old games because they have beautiful graphics, excellent and solid gameplay, inventive level designs and they're just fun to play! The first three games that come to my mind are Mega Man 2, Super Mario Bros. 3 and Monkey Island games.
There, I hope this didn't come out as a rant. I do enjoy many modern games and I will compose a list of my favorite games later. If Dada wishes to know more, please ask more specific questions.
Also, I apologize for possible typos. I used my phone to write this message.
You know, you and I aren't that different in our attitudes towards games. For reference, how old are you again? I myself am 23 and started playing games at around 4, so I'm just old enough to clearly remember the DOS era (started off on a 8086 with monochrome CGA monitor).
But my favorite era is the early to mid 90s in PC games. That's also when Monkey Island II, one of the masterpieces of that time, came out. I totally agree with you, you don't need all that much to make a beautiful game. What you need is talented people who enjoy their work and who are willing not to make the next multimillion dollar cash cow, but a beautiful work of fiction they can all get behind.
Not to belittle the people who work in the industry these days. They're all also extremely talented and hard working individuals, but it's become much more of an industry than a craft.
Sorry for rambling since this is your topic and not mine, but I liked your answer and I'm glad there are people here who agree with the notion that it's not just all about nostalgia.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Warp wrote:
Dada wrote:
And another problem with that is that it's physically impossible under any theory of time travel (that I know of).
I'm not so sure of that. The equations of General Relativity seem to show that in certain circumstances odd things can happen. For example, the math seems to show that if you put two rotating black holes close enough to each other, there's an 8-shaped path around them that if you traversed it, you would end up in your own past. (An ergosphere is a region around a rotating black hole, outside of its event horizon, where weird things happen...) I assume that it's currently unknown if this results in a real time travel or if something else kicks in, but I also assume that it would be a rather infeasible way of doing it anyways.
That sounds really interesting. I guess it's like you say, though: rather infeasible. You might be able to get to your own past, but the question is whether you can remain in one piece.
But another thing I was alluding to when I said that it wasn't possible, is that, well, in your own past there should be a you. Another you that is. And the universe you came from would lose you permanently (from the time at which you left, of course). I sincerely doubt you'd be able to return to your original universe.
Still, massively interesting prospect. I hope we can actually test this someday.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Dear Brushy,
It's been a long time since the release of Monkey Island 2, the game in your avatar. Talk about how gaming has changed since then and what you miss about the old days.
That's not a question, but I suppose it doesn't need to be.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
DarkKobold wrote:
However, that involves getting into a non-mandatory fight, and there will be a mandatory fight with a Catepillar later in the game (maybe?).
When exactly is the mandatory Caterchipillar fight? I don't remember it. You might be forced to fight one during the Cid/NORG panic in Balamb Garden if you go to a certain room, but you can avoid that.
