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Vth_F_Smith

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Posts posted by Vth_F_Smith

    Hawx Mods

    in Simulation games

    Posted · Edited by Vth_F_Smith

    I think you'll find this interesting:

    Over at the german Ubi Forums, a member developed a tool which you can use to download / backup custom skins. :)

    BTW: If you like the movie STEALTH, you should have a look at this! :)

    HAWX Modding inicache

    in Simulation games

    Posted · Edited by Vth_F_Smith

    The "Ini Cache with Extra Camera Mode" doesn't seem to work on my rig. The game starts, skips quite a few intro movies (I got rid of most of them) but it never switches to the menue, instead it seems to be in a constant loop at the loading screen. :(

    Any ideas?

    Oh btw. I'm using Vista and WinRar to open/encrypt the file. :)

    I can upload an inicache with the change in for you to try if you want?

    http://www.mediafire.com/?tnmymgnztin try that

    rename inicache.bin to inicache.bin.bak drop in the DataExtraCamera.pak file

    Thank you, it works like a charme now. :thumbsup:

    HAWX Modding inicache

    in Simulation games

    Posted · Edited by Vth_F_Smith

    The "Ini Cache with Extra Camera Mode" file doesn't seem to work on my rig. The game starts, skips quite a few intro movies (I got rid of most of them) but it never switches to the menue, instead it seems to be in a constant loop at the loading screen. :(

    Any ideas?

    Oh btw. I'm using Vista and WinRar to open/encrypt the file. :)

    Ubisoft buys rights to "Tom Clancy" name

    in The Video Gaming Industry Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Vth_F_Smith

    Thanks for the clarification. I wasn't aware that they left it up but butchered. Still it shows that persons or even a whole website/magazine can be "bought" - like Jeff's opinions or writing style or not (I didn't particularly)

    Honestly, I didn't care about it. Maybe my reaction would have been different if it would have happened to Geoff Keighley from Gametrailers (who really does a great job reviewing games in my opinion - very professional) but it wasn't and to be honest I don't think Gesterman leaving Gamespot has been a great loss (but that's personal preference). 0:)

    Ubisoft buys rights to "Tom Clancy" name

    in The Video Gaming Industry Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Vth_F_Smith

    Does anybody actually read game magazine reviews of upcoming games anymore? I thought it was an established fact (or at least everyone knew) they were paid to give those good reviews.

    Sorry but as someone with a bit more of background knowledge, I've got to say: That's simply BS. None is getting paid for reviews. Do you have any idea what would happen if some of the gaming magazines would really getting paid for a review and someone would find out? No gaming magazine publisher would risk that and definitely not a single one of the major game publishers either. It's an urban legend and actually more far away from the truth than a certain President from getting the Nobel Peace Prize. :rolleyes:

    Every reviewer has a different opinion and reviews as well as previews, are only meant as reccommendations. Some people don't even read any reviews / previews and buy the game simply because of the style of the cover (which is probably the worst thing you can do).

    However, I'm looking forward to play GB - as it seems to have a lot of potencial but I'm also looking forward to see what's going to happen with the rest of the Clancy inspired games.

    When it comes to Splinter Cell, I'm hoping that Ubisoft will finally realize that it's better to set the Standard than to go by it, as they seem to do that at the moment. Dumping down a game might result in a better accessibility but it definitely won't make the game more fun - they should have learned that lesson from SCDA's multiplayer which simply was horrible in a lot of ways (I spent over 500 hrs playing SCPT's multiplayer demo as well as additional 500 on the final multiplayer of SCPT / SCCT's multiplayer but only 100 hrs at max in SCDA's multiplayer, simply because it didn't manage to motivate me as much as SCPT's/SCCT's which were unique and awesome in every aspect).

    That said, they finally have introduced the Community Developers, which gives me a little more hope, especially considering Kimi is now at RSE. :) I'm still a bit concerned about R6 though. They should have realized by now that R6 Vegas style is not what we want to play on the PC and Therien's statement during the Livechat over at Eurogamer pretty much implies, that with the next game they will try to appeal a bit more to the PC Community ("We might have a few ideas on how to improve the current situation though"). I admit, though that this statement doesn't say a lot about what we can expect.

    @HF

    I didn't say Sam would color his hair, I only said that a lot of "old men" tend to color their hair and therefor I don't pay that much attention to it when it comes to Sam - although the grey sidewalls were nice. I have to disagree with you about a few other things though.

    #1

    There was a actually a reason to make him visually younger. People expect from Tom Clancy games at least a bit more realism than from other games, so if they would have kept his age, the character would have become unbelievable the more games they release with him as lead character, plus they would sooner or later come to a point were Sam would have to die a natural way. While the latter would be realistic, you don't want to let a character die you've build up all these years, to become the ultimate symbole for the franchise, that's why Ubisoft decided to freeze his age in SCDA (one of the few right decisions they made for this game). In general ages in videogames are not that important (for example Super Mario would be an old man by now definitely not capable of rescuing Peach / Toadstool in another game and another and another...).

    #2

    Sam actually didn't live in a world that's only right or wrong, his world was actually more grey than you might have realized it. In Pandora Tomorrow you not only had the choice offered to ignore a direct order, Sam also did some pretty impressive and political critic statements related to real world events like "There's only one nation fighting the entire world" which actually proofed that he thinks a lot more about the situation than a soldier who's only carrying out his orders.

    Ubisoft buys rights to "Tom Clancy" name

    in The Video Gaming Industry Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Vth_F_Smith

    Let me reiterate that there may be cyborgs and clones in MGS, but don't kid yourself that Splinter Cell is any more realistic.

    As for Splinter Cell I like it. Alot. But I knew they were going off the tracks even before Chaos Theory released. There was a video interview with Mathieu Ferland and in it he remarked how Sam no longer would have gray hair. I knew that was the beginning of the end. The first compromise. Even though Chaos Theory had some really great gameplay, I could see the handwriting on the wall.

    EMP to temporarily knock out lights, no gray hair, all of it. It was easy to see the soul going out of that game in order to appeal to a different crowd. The thing is the changes they were making were not really what the 'crowd' wanted.

    Initially Sam was going to have an entire head of gray (white) hair but they settled on the sidewalls. It's a shame they didn't see the uniqueness in that look. When there are 16 year old girls playing Splinter Cell and saying they shouldn't have taken the gray hair away then it is pretty clear it is just one more misstep by a company that is making a routine out of self mutilation of their best work.

    I think I have to correct you here (no offense). It's an urban legend that only 12-16 year olds play SC, in fact I know a lot of adults who are playing SC and by adults I mean 45+. BTW: I never said SC is more realistic than MGS (although MGS isn't based on prototype equipment / guns like SC) but it has a more realistic touch when it comes to political scenarios etc. It's realistic enough to me, to like it but I still like both series MGS and SC because both of them are unique, especially the lead characters. :)

    That said, Kojima san simply does a great job when it comes to telling a story and giving characters emotional depth, because he cares for them or rather make his Team care for them and that's something Ubi still has to learn.

    However, I give Montreal a chance with SCC - especially because they made the best titles so far. I'm just a bit concerned because some of their decisions I know of are questionable and might not have been thought from the start to the finish (again I don't mean the gameplay) but I hope they've learned from past mistakes (and maybe also from epic games like Mass Effect).

    Let me reiterate that there may be cyborgs and clones in MGS, but don't kid yourself that Splinter Cell is any more realistic.

    As for Splinter Cell I like it. Alot. But I knew they were going off the tracks even before Chaos Theory released. There was a video interview with Mathieu Ferland and in it he remarked how Sam no longer would have gray hair. I knew that was the beginning of the end.

    I think that was a necessary decision because otherwise Sam would have been a bit too old. Besides people who are getting older, tend to color their hair - so that didn't really bother me. The OCP module on Sam's five seven didn't change anything if you decided not to use it. Actually that's something I'll never understand - people from the SC forums complaining about gadgets. I would probably understand that if Ubi would actually force you to use gadgets like the OCP, but SC has never been that way - you could always choose how you want to deal with a situation. For example, the first time I played SCCT, I played through without even letting the enemies noticing me - without touching them or knocking them out / killing them. Only sneaking by using the right timing and / or move. The next time I played it, I used some of the equipment (sticky shockers, airfoils, sticky cams etc.) another time I simply wanted to try some stuff, threw frag grenades, whistled knocked people out, "shaved" their throat etc. That's what I always liked about SC - you can play it the way you want while the devs simply provide you with a set of tools.
    EMP to temporarily knock out lights, no gray hair, all of it. It was easy to see the soul going out of that game in order to appeal to a different crowd. The thing is the changes they were making were not really what the 'crowd' wanted.
    Depends on which crowd you're talking about. I actually liked what they have done with SCCT because you had even more options. :)
    Initially Sam was going to have an entire head of gray (white) hair but they settled on the sidewalls. It's a shame they didn't see the uniqueness in that look. When there are 16 year old girls playing Splinter Cell and saying they shouldn't have taken the gray hair away then it is pretty clear it is just one more misstep by a company that is making a routine out of self mutilation of their best work.
    As I said, the hair color doesn't really bother me, as long as they keep the main character's personality intact, I agree that the gray sidewalls were nice, though but Sam's current look is also interesting, especially since in the original concept Sam was supposed to have a beard - kinda back to the roots. :D

    However it wouldn't make much sense to keep him that way all through the game because in order to avoid getting captured or even killed, it's necessary to change the own look as much as possible - Montreal knows that. :)

    Then again, he no longer looks like on the IGN screenshots we've seen so far - he looks a lot better now! ;)

    Ubisoft buys rights to "Tom Clancy" name

    in The Video Gaming Industry Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Vth_F_Smith

    I dont really get how mgs can be better than SC, the enemy is blinder, the storylines are whacked out beyond all sanity.

    There are robot ninjas everywhere, machines thats sounds like cows and it's WAY to japanese in style, no thanks, I'll pass.

    Realistic or not, I rather be playing splinter cell anyday...

    MGS is definitely not more realistic than SC - at least not in every aspect and with Conviction SC will start using the line-of-sight stealth, which will make the SCC become even better (if properly used).

    SC and MGS are both great but storywise MGS has always been able to give you that I'm-watching-a-damn-good-action-movie feeling, while SC had only a few really intense times (SC1, SCCT as well as SCDA Xbox) but never reached it's full potencial. They simply made Sam a great and interesting character in SC1, but after that and SCCT ignored what made him that hero (he's been not only a soldier, but also a father, a man with a very close friend inside at 3E, a man he previously served with and he's been also a husband that lost his wife) and instead of using these facts to give Sam even more depth for example through Flashback Cutscenes or emotional events (and no, SCDA hasn't been emotional except the last cutscene of the Xbox version), they basically thought he wouldn't have enough and wanted to start from scratch. The idea of making him loose his daughter, closest friend etc. was simply wrong and obviously has only been made because of the popularity of 24 which had a similar scenario.

    I'm a Splinter Cell Fan from minute 1 and I don't understand why Shanghai and Montreal were that blind. Sam didn't need any more depth, he would have had enough if they would have concentrated their efforts on his past and emotional layer instead of coming up with the cheesy story of SCDA. That's exactly what made SCDA a failure, there hasn't been the slightest emotional touch in the 360 version and only a bit more in the Xbox version. When I heard about the story (during my time at the marketing dept.) I thought a love interest could become interesting, considering Sam lost his daughter before that mission, but the way they integrated Enrica in the storyline was awful because you didn't see how Sam slowly starts to create a relationship with her and THAT'S what MGS is great at - deliver a character that shows his emotions and use them as a basis to evolve. -.-

    The point is, NONE inside the company obviously cared about Sam as a character in SCDA they only took the most popular TV shows and decided to use various events from them, to make the game more dramatic (and it could have worked if they would have asked themselves before that "How would Sam react? What could his thoughts about that be? What do we need to show to make him more life like" etc). The entire SCDA storyline made absolutely no sense at all but only screwed up the SC continuity (which is obviously why they decided to ignore the events from SCDA in the upcoming SCC by setting the story 2 years after SCDA without even explaining what happened to Sam during these two years - Kojima wouldn't have made that because it's a so damn obvious mistake).

    Don't get me wrong, I have the highest respect for Ubi Montreal's work on the Splinter Cell franchise, but some of their decisions in the last time are VERY questionable (no, I don't mean the new gameplay but decisions which are not yet public) and obviously none of them seems to know anything about Sam as a fictional character or at least consider bringing the one back into the team, who knows more about Sam than anyone else because he created the character (John Thomas Petty) not even as consultant.

    You simply can't give a game's main character more depth while staying authentic to the SC franchise, without getting the people involved who created the character in the first place. Clint Hocking even consulted J.T. during his work on Chaos Theory (which was a huge success and is still considered as the best SC game ever - besides the original) but J.T. hasn't been involved in SCDA and most likely won't be in SCC which is major mistake in my opinion. I'm willing to give them a chance to prove me wrong with SCC but based on what I know, there have already been made some decisions that are questionable at best. The game will be great I'm sure, but I'm not sure if it's main characters will be.

    Some film companies do have continuity assistants which basically make sure that every evolution in a film / series makes sense, is logical and based on the characters past experience / past events - THAT'S what Ubisoft desperately needs in my opinion - people who are able to UNDERSTAND the main character and think like him. So far I can only see people within the company who are using Sam's character as a symbol, not his essence.

    SC could easily be as cinematic as MGS (which is still something Ubi tries to achieve) but without people who really understand the characters from a storytelling point of view, they won't succeed, it's that simple. They need someone who thinks like an author or actor (Michael Ironside is not only a great voice talent but would also be a great consultant when it comes to Sam's character) instead of people who think like a marketing employee (no offense). They need someone who loves the characters and thinks a lot about their personality as well as the relationships to other characters before writing it down. They need a hardcore fan inside the Dev Teams ('s because this problem is not exclusive to SC), it's as easy as that but unfortunatly they will never realize that. They're obviously routine-blinded. :(

    Back to topic.

    I don't necessarily think it has to be a bad thing that Ubi now finally owns the rights to Tom Clancy. To be honest, I'm carefully optimistic but they will never reach the full potencial of the T.C. brand if they continue to make the same mistakes they've done in the past (SCDA), that's for sure.

    Patch 1.05 Released

    in GR:AW 2 (PC) - General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Vth_F_Smith

    Erm... the language files are overriding through the local folders. So the only way they would have another language is if they have assigned another language in their conext.xml file. Which would happen if they run a mod in a local folder for example, which doesn't contain all their language files copied over the mod itself. Which also could lead to conflicts.

    Ah, makes sense. I'm gonna relay that to them. :)

    So basically all they need to do in order to fix this would be to correct their language setting in the context.xml or copy their language files over to the mod (if they're running one), right Wolfsong? :)

    Patch 1.05 Released

    in GR:AW 2 (PC) - General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Vth_F_Smith

    Is anyone else encountering a language problem with the patch? I heard that for quite a few people in the german forums, the ingame language settings are messed up. So one time you start the game, you hear your Team talking in English, the next time in German etc.

    [good ai mods ?]

    in GR:AW 2 - General Modding Topics

    Posted · Edited by Vth_F_Smith

    does anyone know of any good ai mods for ghost recon advanced warfighter 2.one that mayb makes ai do more flanking and just b smarter and more mobile??

    I did that once with my ROM Mod for GRAW1 - worked nicely. :)

    However for some reason the changes I made to the AI in GRAW2 have mostly been ignored by the game's engine. One day by comparing the two AI XML files (the one from GRAW1 and the one from GRAW2) I realized that some of the AI code which was available in GRAW1 has been removed in GRAW2 and I have the feeling it was necessary for the new order and RoE system in GRAW2 to work. That change simply made the AI a lot more dumb than it was in GRAW1.

    At first I tried to add the missing parts to the XML file - that caused the game to crash. Then I tried to use the entire AI XML file from GRAW1 which also caused a crash, then I tried to modify some values of the game -> crash. :(

    Feel free to try my R.O.M. (click on my signature) and make some changes to the AI XML.

    Let me know as soon as you achieve something - I stopped working on it long ago. If there would be a way to combine the R.O.M. mod I created for GRAW1 with the new order / RoE system in GRAW2 that would certainly make the game more enjoyable but I doubt thats even possible due to the missing AI code. :(

    File structure

    in GR:AW 2 - General Modding Topics

    Posted · Edited by Vth_F_Smith

    It seems the file structure is different compared to the one which was used in the first GRAW. I edited something inside the HUD but the change doesn't show up in the game although everything else seems to work! :(

    Or did I miss something?

    SP Demo mission lacks any challenge

    in GR:AW 2 (PC) - General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Vth_F_Smith

    big deal. have u SEEN the AI?

    The AI in the retail version is much better than the one in the demo version! :)

    No it wont.

    I didn't say it MIGHT be better, I said it IS better than in the demo and I didn't say that just for fun! :whistle:

    Although....IMO they should be a little faster when it comes to take cover but I think it'll be easy to change that! :)

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