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Wolfenstein II Part 2: Broken Technology

By Shamus Posted Thursday Feb 8, 2018

Filed under: Retrospectives 149 comments
Wolfenstein II Part 1: IntroductionPrevious Post
Next PostWolfenstein II Part 3: Legacy Problems

Like I said last time, my goal here is to illustrate how this game has a lot of overlooked shortcomings and half-baked gameplay systems that should be fully-baked by the third entry in a series. But before I can argue with the critics, we need to talk about the PC launch. So let’s get that out of the way. Let’s talk about…

Technology

To get the framerate up to playable levels, I had to turn the visuals down to 2009 levels of detail. And yet the game still struggles to keep up. Where is all the power going?
To get the framerate up to playable levels, I had to turn the visuals down to 2009 levels of detail. And yet the game still struggles to keep up. Where is all the power going?

The game launched as a broken mess on the PC. I’ve spent hours reading the forums and I’ve never been able to find a pattern in any of it. There doesn’t seem to be a single unifying problem that caused the crashes, headaches, slowdowns, glitches, and bugs. There were people with low-end hardware that could run the game and people with high-end hardware that couldn’t. The problems impacted both AMD and NVIDIA hardware.

I get it. Developing for the PC is hard. This is doubly true if you’re one of the first AAA games to use the new Vulkan API and you’re still working the bugs out. While I always insist that for $60 the publisher is obligated to perform the due diligence required to make the product usable for the customer, I might be more inclined to give the publisher a bit of slack if they had shown even a sliver of competence after launch.

The timeline went like this:
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Wolfenstein II Part 2: Broken Technology”

 

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Wolfenstein II Part 1: IntroductionPrevious Post
Next PostWolfenstein II Part 3: Legacy Problems

149 comments

 

This Dumb Industry: Violence and Science Fiction

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Feb 6, 2018

Filed under: Column 277 comments
The Death of Half-Life 3Previous Post
Next PostThis Dumb Industry: Charging More for a Worse Product

Mr. BTongue (also known as Bob Case around these parts) just released a new video on videogame violence as a follow-up to his first video on videogame violence. This new video pokes at some longstanding flame wars regarding the American military, politics in games, the supposed obligations of artists to the societies they operate in, and diversity. But it’s also got some stuff about The Iliad in it and that’s always fun:


Link (YouTube)

I’m wary of pulling on any of the threads in his video. I think there are a lot of interesting discussions to be had here, but this ain’t my first visit to the internet. I know that before we even get started we’ll end up with some partisan announcing, “I HAVE STRONG OPINIONS ON AMERICA AND THE MILITARY AND I’M GOING TO MAKE YOU AGREE WITH ME BY DROWNING YOU IN OUTRAGE AND LINKS TO SOURCES IDEOLOGICALLY ALIGNED WITH MY POSITION.” And then we’ll end up in the same old Red vs. Blue ditch where all internet discussions go to die. As usual, a few people ruin it for the rest of us.

So let’s just skate past that stuff and talk about…

Spec Ops: The Line: The Discussion: The Return

It’s funny that Btongue brings up Spec Ops: The Line now, since we were just talking about it in the comments of the most recent post of Wolfenstein II. Some people disliked the game. In their view, the game traps you in contrived scenarios where you only have one option and many seemingly reasonable alternatives aren’t available. Then it turns around and condemns you for those actions, and seems to condemn you for wanting to play the game in the first place. I really liked the game, but I also understand where the critics are coming from.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “This Dumb Industry: Violence and Science Fiction”

 

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

The Death of Half-Life 3Previous Post
Next PostThis Dumb Industry: Charging More for a Worse Product

277 comments

 

Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy

By Shamus Posted Sunday Feb 4, 2018

Filed under: Random 67 comments
The Best of YouTube: Andrew HuangPrevious Post
Next PostThe Best of YouTube: Raycevick

A few days ago we got a new installment of Errant Signal where Campster talked about Getting Over It, which seems to be the game everyone was watching and nobody was talking about last month. (I mean nobody in the gaming press. Maybe you talked about it with your friends, but I wasn’t there for that. It’s getting less coverage than PUBG, is what I’m saying.)


Link (YouTube)

If you missed it:

Getting Over It is a game seemingly made from random crap from the typical asset store. That’s the equivalent of making a movie using only stock footage. The game embraces this hodgepodge approach to design and makes it central to the game’s visual aesthetic. You play as a nameless naked man in a black cooking pot who uses a sledgehammer to pull and shove his way up a gargantuan mountain of trash. That’s no story, no characters, no context, no score, no unlocks, no save points, no enemies to fight, and no achievements to earn along the way. There’s just you, your hammer, some really fiddly climbing controls, and Bennett Foddy’s calm narration ruminating on difficulty and punishment in games as you ascend to new heights and tumble back down in bitter defeat.

I haven’t played it. I’m pretty sensitive to frustrating challenges with big setbacks as punishment. I’d get too angry to have fun. But like a lot of people, I enjoy watching the game. It’s a cruel task with a lot of pitfalls, where the environment is engineered to make falling down a deeply costly mistake. In fact, let’s look at the map of the whole game:

(Spoilers?)

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy”

 

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

The Best of YouTube: Andrew HuangPrevious Post
Next PostThe Best of YouTube: Raycevick

67 comments

 

Wolfenstein II Part 1: Introduction

By Shamus Posted Thursday Feb 1, 2018

Filed under: Retrospectives 183 comments
No Man's Sky One Year Later: A Few Good ThingsPrevious Post
Next PostWolfenstein II Part 2: Broken Technology

This game came out to critical praise. The trailers looked good. Outside of the technology problems on the PC, there’s wasn’t a lot of negative press. But then the game was 50% off just one month after release, which isn’t something you normally see with successful games. Yes, that was a black Friday sale and those are always a little crazy. But even so, I didn’t see any other 1-month old AAA games going on that sort of deep discount. Was this an anomaly, or was the publisher struggling to sell this game?

I have no idea, but after playing through a couple of times I can say there is definitely something off about Wolfenstein II.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Wolfenstein II Part 1: Introduction”

 

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

No Man's Sky One Year Later: A Few Good ThingsPrevious Post
Next PostWolfenstein II Part 2: Broken Technology

183 comments

 

Database Abuse

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Jan 31, 2018

Filed under: Projects 117 comments
Audio Editing for PodcastsPrevious Post
Next PostWelcome to Steamworks

The conventional wisdom is that WordPress is really database intensive. I’ve never seen an official critique of it or a proper comparison between WordPress and some other CMSContent Management System or publishing platform. This is just the sort of thing I see dismissive blowhards say on forums or StackOverflow. “What did you expect? WordPress puts a heavy load on a mySQL server.” I never really questioned it myself.

But last week got me thinking about it again when I tried to move this website to DreamHost. Is WordPress really that bad? How many dB queries does it take to create a single instance of the front page? How does that compare to other platforms?

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Database Abuse”

 

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Audio Editing for PodcastsPrevious Post
Next PostWelcome to Steamworks

117 comments

 

What’s New?

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Jan 30, 2018

Filed under: Notices 75 comments
Welcome To the New SitePrevious Post
Next PostShamus Stream

Besides sulking, ranting, and pacing restlessly while my site was down, I spent the last several days updating bits of the site that have been neglected for ages. Most of this is probably only interesting or useful for new readers, but just in case you’re curious what I did:

There’s a new front page. Yeah. When was the last time anyone looked at that thing? I don’t even know.

Also, I updated the favicon for the site. I liked the old one because it was a blue die, but it looked terrible when mashed down to 16×16, which seems to be the norm these days. The new one isn’t as cool, but it’s more visually clear.

I’ve revamped the System Shock novel. Some PHP updates broke it ages ago, but now it should work as intended. Also I got rid of the archaic IFRAME-based design.

Heads up, you’re not at the end of the post. The next thing after the jump is an image of the thing we usually see below a post, which makes this feel like the end. But keep scrolling.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “What’s New?”

 

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Welcome To the New SitePrevious Post
Next PostShamus Stream

75 comments

 

1 And 1 Equals Zero

By Shamus Posted Monday Jan 29, 2018

Filed under: Rants 90 comments
7 Bits of Misguided AdvicePrevious Post
Next PostWelcome to the New Site

Well, it’s been half a year since I added something to the “rants” category. I guess we’re due. I should warn you that while I normally try to keep things civil and family friendly around here, this post is going to be pretty raw. This last week has been an ordeal of frustration and dismay and I’m pretty fucking salty about it, is what I’m saying.

I’m sure you noticed that my site was down for almost a week. This is the longest stretch of downtime my domain has experienced since I launched it in 1999. Blame for this is divided thus:

To be fair, you could probably bump my blame percentage as high as 6 or even 7.
To be fair, you could probably bump my blame percentage as high as 6 or even 7.

First, some background: There are two parts to webhosting. One, you need someone to hold onto your domain name. Two, we need someone to host your files and databases to make the site go. These two things don’t NEED to be hosted by the same company, but in the past I preferred to keep them together to keep billing simple. My wife runs a lot of sites and a lot of domains. She uses a different service, but we like to keep the total number of hosts and registrars as low as possible so we don’t have a bunch of chaos trying to figure out what bills go with which sites / domains. Putting my domain and web hosting on the same account seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

When you go to a webpage, there’s a multi-step process that takes place. First you request the domain from your DNS: foobar.com. Then the DNS serverYes, I’m aware that this is a case of RAS syndrome. goes, “Say, who is in charge of the domain for foobar.com? That’s AlyxHosting.” So then it asks AlyxHosting for the IP address where you can find foobar.com. AlyxHosting replies with an IP address where you can find the site. Let’s say: 12.34.56.78.

It turns out that 12.34.56.78 is owned by the webhosting company BarneyHosting. BarneyHosting sees the request come in at 12.34.56.78 for foobar.com. BarneyHosting has a great big datacenter full of machines in racks. It knows that foobar.com is stored on machine #19 in directory /user/foobar/www/. So then it looks in that directory and sends you the files.

This explanation is simplified enough that I’ve probably pissed off a bunch of professional sysadmins, but there’s no way they’re more pissed off than I am. Let’s move on and hope they forget about it.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “1 And 1 Equals Zero”

 

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

7 Bits of Misguided AdvicePrevious Post
Next PostWelcome to the New Site

90 comments

 
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