• 1Mar 11

  Test Drive Unlimited 2 Improvements

  Cars
  
  * Toggle for damage. It's cosmetic and makes no difference to the way the car handles anyway.
  * Toggle for dirt. As long as you're adding toggles...
  * Reverse gear is useless. First, it takes too long to shift into reverse and second it requires too much throttle to keep it in reverse resulting in copious amounts of unnecessary wheel spin.
  * Some gauges in cockpit view are shown in the off position. If they aren't going to function at least make them static in the normal operating position.
  * While in the cockpit view have the look behind button make the camera look at the rear view mirror instead of switching to an external camera.
  * Windshield wipers?
  * In the States it's the law to turn on your headlights with the windshield wipers.
  * Remove the artificial speed restriction on two wheel drive vehicles when off-road.
  * We need better parking management. I'd like to be able to move any car to any house quickly and easily.
  * Replace turn signals on the d-pad with traction control/cruise control/headlight toggles.
  * Manual override of automatic transmission gear selection. Sometimes I need to override with a downshift.
  * Never, under any circumstances, should the game put the car in neutral. If I need neutral allow me to override with a downshift from first gear.
  
  DLC
  
  * Paying real money for DLC only to have to pay in-game money to use it is cause for the carpet-bombing of your offices.
  
  Gameplay
  
  * Inconsistent difficulty. Winning against the AI is easy, winning against the clock is markedly more difficult. It's obvious the AI didn't set those times, humans did. Bring the AI up, take the times down or meet somewhere in the middle to find a consistent difficulty.
  * Traffic and other players cannot fade in and out of existence. Trying to navigate traffic at speed is challenging enough as it is.
  * Allow the race intro voiceover/camera pan to be skipped. No one wants to sit through that more than once or twice.
  * Add a rewind feature because restarting sucks.
  * I want to be able to sell any car at any time, no restrictions on reward cars or the amount of money I have. Any car at any time, period.
  * Duel phone calls only need to happen once. ONCE.
  * Where are the C2 and B2 championships?
  * I want to be able to re-race championships and cups for the same reward I won the first time.
  
  GPS
  
  * Toggle for the GPS voice.
  * A per car or by class toggle for avoiding dirt roads. I'm not driving my Enzo down a dirt road, sorry.
  * The 0.5 mile announcements are not necessary.
  
  Map
  
  * Show the area dividing lines on the map. This would make any area-specific tasks so much easier.
  * If I have a long trip to make I usually like to skip to any undiscovered portions of the road along the route. The GPS line obscures the color of the road making it impossible to tell if the road has been traveled or not.
  * Unexplored dirt roads should be dashed to make them easy to differentiate from paved roads.
  * Our 'bread crumb trail' is not needed unless we truly go off road. When on a road all it does is mask the color which could be confusing if you're trying to discover roads.
  * A change direction button for the fast travel arrow would be nice. Whatever decides which way that arrow points is wrong almost 100% of the time.
  
  Sound
  
  * Why do we hear the sound of tires on a wet road only when braking?
  * Why am I hearing other players talking? The open mic chatter has to stop.
  * Why does every transmission make that horrible noise when shifting? I'd take that to a mechanic ASAP.
  * Why does every car have supercharger whine? Or is that the transmissions? What is it exactly?
  
  UI
  
  * Consistency is key. In some places we use the left stick to navigate the menu, in others it's the bumpers. Pick one and use it everywhere or better yet let us use either one.
  * Toggle for third person camera auto-center. Make the free look actually free and snap to center only if I leave the camera pointing forward.
  * Manual control of the camera during a sale in the dealerships please.
  * Consolidate challenge and championship rankings onto one screen. The difference is a single column, combine the two and saves us a button press.
  * The event descriptions covers the course line on the map. Move the description to a static screen position so we can move the course line into view or perhaps make the description semi-transparent.
  * There is an unnecessary button press to select the location again between removing and setting a GPS target.
  * Why can't I check my messages on the road? I've got millions of dollars worth of cars and property but I don't have a smartphone?
  • Posted Mar 1, 2011 9:04 am GMT
  • Category: Games
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• 9Feb 10

  Star Trek: Online Improvements

  Sector Space
  

  
  
  • Add the ability to turn off the grid and the "support poles" under the systems.
    
  • Add the ability to plot a course to a destination outside of our current sector block.
    
  • Add the ability to select a transwarp destination from a list of appropriate places we've discovered.
    
  • Add the option to disable being automatically loaded into a Deep Space Encounter.
    
  • Add a Resume Course button/command that we could use after manually changing course around an Enemy Signal Contact or stopping to shop at a trader or whatever else.
    
  • Add the ability to navigate to a system by clicking on it directly in Sector Space.
    
  • Add the ability to view sectors on the map other than the one we're currently in.
    
  • Remove any conversations initialized by roaming traders. There's no reason for a dialog box to pop up telling us they're too busy when we didn't initiate any conversation to begin with.
    
  • Remove the docking dialog box that pops up when we beam to our ship from Starbase 39 or DS9. I'm leaving the system, not entering.
    

  
  
  Space Missions
  

  
  
  • There must be a solution to players who go AFK in DSE's besides having the enemy spawn camp. After the first squadron is destroyed kick them to sector space if they haven't made any control input.
    
  • The DSE reset timer is much too long. People change instances instead of waiting around for the timer to reset.
    
  • Remove collision from anomalies.
    
  • Remove level banding for players in Fleet Actions. Level band the rewards instead.
    
  • Increase the sensor range. Detection range at 30km and identification range at 16km is nowhere near canon and is also inconsistent with sector space.
    
  • Add more ship devices besides batteries. I find batteries to be vendor trash.
    
  • Batteries drop far too often as loot.
    
  • Unlock pitch and roll so we can fly in real 3D. I want to be able to pull off an Immelmann or loops.
    
  • Use port/starboard/fore/aft instead of left/right/front/rear when announcing shield conditions.
    
  • Distance/object scales are way off. If something is shown as 5km away on sensors it's really only a few ship lengths away according to the Mk I eyeball.
    
  • Add the ability to pause the zone like we can ground zones.
    
  • Change Sol System so that we zone in within docking range of the Earth spacedock. Why make us fly for two more seconds before docking?
    
  • Sensor scan ship animation should only last as long as the Interacting bar or vice versa. Alternatively, get rid of the Interacting bar altogether since it's redundant.
    
  • Add the ability to set a rate of yaw and keep it there, like the speed setting, so us cruiser captains don't have to hold down A or D all the time in turning battles.
    
  • Our crew is incapacitated much too easily.
    
  • All ships have 200 power. Where is the benefit cruisers get from having large warp cores?
    
  • Add shield/hull damage from collisions on higher difficulties.
    
  • Add movement to some of the asteroids in any given asteroid field for an added challenge.
    

  
  
  Ground Missions
  

  
  
  • Improve the enemy AI. Currently there isn't any I.
    
  • Improve the animations. They're not very fluid. There seems to be a lot of them missing as well such as running with our weapons drawn.
    
  • Why does the bat'leth disappear from our hands when out of combat? None of the other weapons do this.
    
  • Add the ability to make commands like fire on my target standing orders instead of reissuing them for every new enemy.
    
  • Change turrets so that they respond to the fire on my target command.
    
  • Fix the beasts attacking after their death or at least the sound of them attacking.
    
  • Building interiors are scaled too large by a factor of three or four.
    
  • Ranged enemies should stay ranged, not charge in to fire at point blank range.
    
  • Bridge officers do not move to attack turrets like they do humanoid enemies.
    
  • How can an engineer order an orbital strike while inside a building or underground?
    
  • Fix the exploit attack laser sight when attacking doors. It shoots off at a crazy angle.
    
  • There are often times when subspace interference prevents us from beaming people or things on board yet we can beam down to the surface? Gameplay reasons, I get that, but still.
    

  
  
  Stations/General
  

  
  
  • Split up the skill point pool in space abilities and ground abilities. As it is now there's only enough points to adequately level space or ground abilities, not both. I suggest changing the way we earn skills points: earn space skill points for space activities and earn ground skill points for ground activities.
    
  • Add the ability for us to set our teaming options based on mission type. Plot missions: no teaming, patrols: open teaming, exploration missions: invite only, etc.
    
  • Log out Character should do just that and take us to character select, not log out the entire account.
    
  • Add the option for auto-looting drops and only show loot buoys if our inventory is full.
    
  • Anomalies are worthless to those not interested in crafting. Some non-crafting anomalies would be nice.
    
  • Why do we have to pay for our own rank pips? Add an option to make the pip change automatic when we and our bridge officers increase in rank.
    
  • Simplify the currency system by reducing the number of types or at least explain the various types and how to acquire them.
    
  • Better documentation for skills and items. I want to know everything there is to know. For example, the phrase "examples include" needs to be removed and replaced with every example there is.
    
  • Add the option to skip the tutorial on new characters.
    
  • Add a walk toggle.
    
  • Identify ships in-game by their unique registry numbers and allow us to use the same ship name across multiple ships.
    
  • Why do we beam on to and off of our own bridge? Load up the bridge with us sitting in the captain's chair.
    
  • Bridge architecture is scaled too large just like building interiors.
    
  • Add ship class choice during character creation. Why do all classes have to spend the first ten levels in the same ship?
    
  • Add built-in team/fleet voice chat.
    
  • Fleet starbases.
    
  • Use the replicator to recycle any item you want into an amount of a generic raw material. You can replicate anything you've recycled and in doing so it uses up an amount of raw material.
    

  
  
  GUI
  

  
  
  • Add a Back button when talking to remote contacts so we don't have to exit and reopen the window.
    
  • Split the scan area button into scan area for: anomalies/enemies/objectives buttons.
    
  • Add cursor options or a cursor find button because I'm constantly losing it against the background.
    
  • The item comparison popup doesn't compare against all equipped items for that slot, just the first two.
    
  • Stop adding things to and rearranging my hotbars. The only thing the game should ever do to our hotbars is remove powers that are no longer available due to changing bridge officers, respecing, etc. Never, under any circumstances, should the game add things to or rearrange our hotbars.
    
  • Add a new ability indicator to the hotbar so that I know I have a new captain ability, but don't add it to the hotbar automatically.
    
  • There's no need to have all my ship weapons in the hotbar when they've got their own section of UI. These are also automatically added back to the hotbar after I remove them.
    
  • Add an option to turn off the keyboard shortcut text on our hotbars. As it is now I have to arrange my abilities on the bars without shortcut text in order to maintain a clean look.
    
  • Add class-colored bezels to the icons if we switch to the three hotbar mode. This will allow easy distinction between tactical, engineering and science without the portraits.
    
  • Change the power level preset buttons to match the system icons.
    
  • Add an Auxiliary preset button.
  • Sort remote contacts alphabetically, a random order whenever you hail Starfleet is annoying.
    
  • Add the recommended player level to remote contact mission offers. [Captain 4]
    
  • Add a means for us to see what each remote contact offers (story mission, patrol, PVP, etc.) simply by looking at the list. [Captain 4] [Patrol]
    
  • Add the option to disable the orange tips permanently.
    
  • Floating shop icons need to be more descriptive: what do they sell? what do they use as currency? We should be able to tell these things without having to speak with them.
    
  • Add location names to the local map (Exchange/Requisitions/etc.)
    
  • We need much better sorting and search capabilities in the exchange. Add sorting by price at an absolute minimum.
    
  • Color code the item names in the exchange to correspond with their rarity.
    
  • Quick order/strategy buttons for communicating with our auto-grouped team: fire on my target, I need help, follow me, etc.
    
  • Add all location information (sector block, sector, system) to the mission tracker when appropriate.
    
  • Why does the K key take us to the ship tab when we're in space? The ship has no skills so take us straight to to our captain's tab.
    
  • Opening the bank should open our inventory as well.
    
  • Add a New Mail indicator to the HUD.
    
  • Enable the same zoom levels at the ship tailor as we have in sector space.
    
  • Increase the light level at the ship tailor. Eliminate any shadows.
    
  • Add a Set All button for both Style and Pattern at the ship tailor that would set all pieces of the ship to our desired selection.
    
  • Divide the speed bar into recognizable divisions: 1/4, 1/3, 1/2, 2/3, 3/4, Full
    
  • Posted Feb 9, 2010 6:30 am GMT
  • Category: Games
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• 21Jan 09

  Far Cry 2 Respawn Issue

  From an interview with Clint Hocking, Creative Director, Ubisoft Montreal in the February 2009 issue (#190) of GameInformer magazine, page 14:
  
  

  :

  SirSlaysALot: Why did you decide to include respawning enemies at all the guard posts?
  
  CH: This issue was raised by one of the programming leads late in the development cycle, but my feeling at the time was that it was not an issue.
  
  I knew it was happening, but the number of places in which it was noticeable was small. In fact, the number of places where you notice it is small - it is just that they almost all happen to be very close to safe houses that are frequently visited en route to and from major objectives, meaning that almost every player encounters these few places in almost every mission.
  
  We didn't do anything intentionally to make it that way, but we also didn't do anything to fix it, and that was my fault because I misestimated the severity of the issue.
  
  In hindsight, having read numerous reviews of the game, this issue seems to be the single largest problem with the game, and it is frustrating for a lot of the players.
  
  It makes me a bit sad to think that this one slightly mishandled, moderately scoped technical design issue seems to have such a powerful influence on the overall perception of the game when I feel we did so many things well.
  
  I guess that's the challenge of making hugely ambitious games - you're juggling a lot of plates and it's very hard to pull off the perfect finish.
  • Posted Jan 21, 2009 7:50 am GMT
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