Ozzuneoj wrote on 2024-08-09, 03:13:

Also, not going to lie... I am a bit jealous of your ability to write so fluently and descriptively in what I'm assuming is your second language. If I tried to explain my early days of computing to someone in, say, Mandarin... it'd be very bad. 🤣

Nah, my English fluency has been deteriorating even since I returned from California in 2005. While I can still find videos to listen and texts to read, the spoken part suffers the most as I don't have any native speaker to talk to anymore, and VOGONS is one of the only two places I can and must write in English now.

Both my computing and language learning experiences were very atypical: my Mom bought an Apple IIe clone in 1984, followed by 80386 in 1990, when most of my friends had FamiCom/NES. My gaming history was interrupted for a short time when the FDD of that Apple IIe clone died but Railroad Tycoon soon hooked me on, followed by Civilization and Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss two years later (after upgraded to VGA and SBPro2), when my friends were busy playing Japanese games (mostly action games) on SNES or Sega Mega Drive/Genesis. Strategy games and RPG in English dramatically increased my English vocabulary. And I've never owned any video game console even to this day.

I started reading PC Magazine in high school with the translated edition but it was full of translation and printing errors. Then one day my Mom brought me two issues of PC Magazine US edition from Cave Books (a famous bookstore dedicated to foreign language books back then) in FULL COLOR. After realizing the price was only a little bit more expensive than the localized edition I subscribed directly from US, followed by PC Gamer a while later.

So I have most of my gratitude to Mom for my English, followed by Sid Meier and Warren Spector. 😉

Veeb0rg wrote on 2024-08-09, 04:03:

I used dialup to get onto the internet!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHZ7A8DFPNo

US Robotics Sportster with green background surrounding LED lights! Is it a 28.8K or 33.6K model?

Remember to contact The 8-bit Guy for tech support for your AST Computer. 😉

dormcat wrote on 2024-08-09, 05:48:

And I've never owned any video game console even to this day.

Omg what a travesty. Your P's should be brought up on charges 🤣

I didn't have a computer or a console growing up. I did obtain an Intelevisiom as a hand me down when I was 18 or 19. Bought an Atari Lynx a few years later. But my first puter was a Tandy 1000 in late 1985. I discovered BYTE magazine a week or 2 after I got it and realized what I could get for the same money. So returned it. Didn't buy another for 1.5 years, which was a Tandy 2000 🤣. And another year and a half later bough an ITT XTRA XP, a 286 hybrid that ACTUALLY RAN IBM SOFTWARE. Someone gave me a Commodore 64 in those years, it died, bought another 1, a 64c actually. Played a number of really stupid games on that. One was the Mars Saga. Aka known as Moons of Titan I think for IBM.

oldhighgerman wrote on 2024-08-09, 14:08:

dormcat wrote on 2024-08-09, 05:48:

And I've never owned any video game console even to this day.

Omg what a travesty. Your P's should be brought up on charges 🤣

I found that comment quite offensive as I was simply telling the truth.

Most console games were just not my cups of tea. While I enjoyed playing Moero!! Pro Yakyū (Bases Loaded in US) and Super Mario Bros. 1 + 3 (no, we didn't have that so-called "2", which was actually Yumekōjō Doki Doki Panic with Mario sprites, in East Asia) with my friends with FamiCom, I didn't find scrolling shooters or beat-'em-up particularly interesting, which in turn led to less practicing and became a downward spiral. Lacking any battery-powered file saving system on earlier games was also a limiting factor.

Fast forward 1.5 decades or so: Many game reviews and my friends praised Biohazard / Resident Evil 2 for its horror atmosphere, particularly the "door opening animation" that built up the mood (or hiding CD loading time). When I got a chance to play it in early 2002 I was already a System Shock 2 veteran who had endured the opening "sickbay decompression" scene dozens of times while wearing headphones with EAX sound effects. Now you could imaging how "horrifying" RE2 on TV screen was to me; talk about disappointed after overhyped. 🙄

Had a similar experience with Anachronox: no, it's not a console game, but it borrowed tons of elements (semi-real time combat in particular) from JRPG on consoles, notably Final Fantasy series, and received much praise from JRPG fans overseas. Gave it a chance because of those praises and being an Ion Storm game a year after Deus Ex, best game of 2000 and arguably the best first-person ARPG ever. Much to my disappointment, though, was its LOOONG combat animations that you couldn't skip, fancy for a couple of times but got old really fast. That and the decision of removing entire voice acting except cutscenes -- man that was 2001, eight years after Day of the Tentacle CD edition! Its tedious menus and weird resolution limitations (only 640x480 and 1280x960 available; solved in the Steam or GOG versions though) made things even worse.

Sorry for the babbling; just have to let out some steam.

I was entirely kidding.

Did you miss where I said I never owned a console either?

I would nonetheless recommend checking out consoles games (emulate if you wanna stay on PC), I have been play PC and consoles all my life, there's gems on both sides.

Looks like a case of humour not translating well 😀

Why would someone actually believe I wanted their parents arrested for not buying a game console is beyond me. While in fact I'm more inclined to bring charges against a parent that allows unrestricted access to a console. Doesn't mean I hate games. But too much of anything is too much.

Maybe it's not soich a translation issue, but rather cultural. Not in Taiwan AFAIK but in other countries they put whoop arse on people semi publicly.

And I will publicly apologize if my humor offended anyone.

Not that I'll stop 😉

Console games (vintage ones) often have a smoothness to them. Everything basically works as it should. Arcade and console games, in my experience, are nearly always superior to computer versions (emulation aside). But Alien Syndrome on the C64 stands out in my mind as superior to the arcade version.

In many cases for consoles i simply care about experiencing a unique story, there's a lot of well written games on consoles just like there a re a lot on PC, the more the merrier.

Stories only belong in games in so far as they support the game mechanics. I don't need any more relationship simulators masquerading as RPGs.

I can almost never remember stories in video games. I suspect this is due to stories being inconsequential to the game itself, and that video game dialog is almost universally terrible.

Well that's your opinions, i know i loved the story in arcanum, planescape, half-life, red dead redemption 1\2, silent hill, bioshock, fallout new vegas and so on and so on... there's a ton of them.
I don't like extremes, i prefer balance and i find carmack's opinion that a story in a videogame it's like a story in a porn to be extremely limited, in a medium that permits writing, we should be happy to get a good story whenever possible.
Obviously i want a story that works in a game with good gameplay but i'm not against a game with a good story because i reject everything new (yes there's a lot of shit being released nowadays in the AAA field i know), i personally love reading and i always search for good writing in any medium.

Recap this A-Trend S3 ViRGE and also add a red heatsink 😁.

dominusprog wrote on 2024-08-10, 19:46:

Recap this A-Trend S3 ViRGE and also add a red heatsink 😁.

The attachment IMG_20240810_173628.jpg is no longer available

The red heatsink alone is gonna up it up up to 1.56FPS. (mine is a joke but maybe it's true 😀)
Smart choice 😉

Looks way nicer than stock, good job!

Nexxen wrote on 2024-08-10, 21:11:

The red heatsink alone is gonna up it up up to 1.56FPS. (mine is a joke but maybe it's true :)) Smart choice ;) […]
Show full quote

dominusprog wrote on 2024-08-10, 19:46:

Recap this A-Trend S3 ViRGE and also add a red heatsink 😁.

The attachment IMG_20240810_173628.jpg is no longer available

The red heatsink alone is gonna up it up up to 1.56FPS. (mine is a joke but maybe it's true 😀)
Smart choice 😉

Looks way nicer than stock, good job!

I dare say that the heat sink will improve the performance by 3 times, can't be wrong when char azanble says it's a fact.

iraito wrote on 2024-08-10, 21:31:

Nexxen wrote on 2024-08-10, 21:11:

The red heatsink alone is gonna up it up up to 1.56FPS. (mine is a joke but maybe it's true :)) Smart choice ;) […]
Show full quote

dominusprog wrote on 2024-08-10, 19:46:

Recap this A-Trend S3 ViRGE and also add a red heatsink 😁.

The attachment IMG_20240810_173628.jpg is no longer available

The red heatsink alone is gonna up it up up to 1.56FPS. (mine is a joke but maybe it's true 😀)
Smart choice 😉

Looks way nicer than stock, good job!

I dare say that the heat sink will improve the performance by 3 times, can't be wrong when char azanble says it's a fact.

🤣 🤣

iraito wrote on 2024-08-10, 19:22:

Well that's your opinions, i know i loved the story in arcanum, planescape, half-life, red dead redemption 1\2, silent hill, bioshock, fallout new vegas and so on and so on... there's a ton of them.
I don't like extremes, i prefer balance and i find carmack's opinion that a story in a videogame it's like a story in a porn to be extremely limited, in a medium that permits writing, we should be happy to get a good story whenever possible.
Obviously i want a story that works in a game with good gameplay but i'm not against a game with a good story because i reject everything new (yes there's a lot of shit being released nowadays in the AAA field i know), i personally love reading and i always search for good writing in any medium.

This is a probably a topic that needs its own thread. I agree with Carmack's opinion in that respect, especially since a lot of the game medium is antithetical to storytelling (including arguably the very idea of gameplay itself).

But this probably needs its own thread to fully explore.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-08-10, 21:57:

I agree with Carmack's opinion in that respect, especially since a lot of the game medium is antithetical to storytelling (including arguably the very idea of gameplay itself).

Strong disagree with Carmack from me.

There are some excellent story heavy games, like the already mentioned Planescape Torment, Life Is Strange or The Last Of Us (the first one). The gameplay doesn't prevent players from getting immersed in the story and appreciating it.