Zillla The God

Video Games | Technology | Game Development | Media

[zilllathegod]

Thoughts on the new Halo: Campaign Evolved reveal.

[theomeganerd]

Halo Infinite Concept Artworks

[zilllathegod]

Initial thoughts on Halo: Infinite (after test flight 2)

These are my initial thoughts on halo infinite after the second test flight. I will update with more as I think of more things but this is just off the top of my head.

GOOD

Feels and looks like "Halo" which has been an issue for 343 with halo 4 and to some extent halo 5

In general feels fun to use everything and run around

Graphics look great especially the textures and reflections. Finally a game that looks better than Halo: Reach (H2A, H4, H5 did not)

Training mode and bots are my favorite addition and will blow the lid off the skill-gap when things get going because we can actually practice for the first time without having to create custom maps etc

I love the refocus on sandbox gameplay instead of prescribed gameplay, for instance not having loadouts and instead relying on weapon pickups.

No spartan abilities, this is a good thing, everything centered around equipment

Grapplehook is an excellent addition to the sandbox and is going to account for some epic plays

Possibly the best looking and feeling BR in the entire series

Best looking sniper in the series, finally a design to challenge reach

Music is going in a diff direction than previous halos and I really like it , reminds me of division

The commando is the best evolution for the DMR I can think of, keeps it semi-auto with zoom but add auto to punish slow enemies and for suppression, very nicely balanced gun

The banished are a cool enemy faction and I am looking forward to using their stuff more than the promethean stuff in halo 4/5

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT

Sad to see no covenant equivalent to the battle riffle as this tends to be the best precision weapon in the game ( carbine and needle rifle)

Pistol is weak but they kind if force you to use it a lot

AR.... AR is strong and looks nice but I don't like the effect it will have on the meta where it forces us to use the AR or pistol

Needs BR starts especially on behemoth. People hate BR starts because they are bad with the BR and hate getting crushed by vets, but this is literally the bread and butter of halo

Frame rate and performance issues on good hardware makes me worried

BR aiming is perfect but pistol and sniper are heavily flawed

Not sure how I feel yet about the enemy highlighting ...its not horrible but its also not the best

In general the demo has increased my excitement by a lot. The videos and pictures really don't do the game justice. I think the potential is there for the best modern halo since 2010 and I think 343 should be proud of what they have done. Definitely some details to work out but I am hype.

[ask-cloverfield]

Halo Infinite flight good, runs poorly but could just be my computer showing age and the sandbox is very fun.  

[zilllathegod]

I keep hearing the performance is an issue for people, even with really good rigs. I hope they get that polished up before launch. 

[zilllathegod]

Do girls have it easier as content creators?

In a nut shell, maybe in the short term but ultimately no, girls don’t have easier and its really a waste of time to worry about it anyway if you are making your own content. Your time is better spent elsewhere. 

[i-am-not-leaving-you-here]

How we all feeling about Halo Infinite

Please just leave your feels in a reblog or just as the number in the Tags 

Amazing looks way better then last year

Need more news/info about it 

its alright 

Looks worse by last time 

Only care about campaign 

only care about multiplayer 

afraid of the “Free to Play” (Multiplayer) 

Its missing something 

[monitorchakas]

1,2, 5 and lowkey 7

[zilllathegod]

Looks better than last year...people keep saying no more red vs blue for team PVP though in favor of skins and cosmetics...a lot of games I play are like that, destiny, battlfied etc....but I’m not sure how to feel about it with halo, I like the red vs blue but I see what they are going for 

[zilllathegod]

Gamers don’t have to be toxic

[zilllathegod]

E3 2021 Broadcast Schedule (Eastern and Pacific times)

Just admit you’re excited. Its that time of year again so keep up with the timing. There are other things going on now too like summer games fest and steam next fest. 

[zilllathegod]

Mass Effect Trilogy Mission Order

With the release of the Mass Effect Legendary edition I decided to gather a mission list so I can guide myself through the games efficiently. This guide should include the base missions and the DLC. Through the years I have glanced at list like this during my playthroughs so I figured if it was useful for me it may be useful for the internet also.

*Planet scanning between missions

Eden Prime

Therum

Feros

Noveria

UNC Side Missions - Citadel side missions (loads of cool stuff) - (Garrus/Tali/Wrex) specific missions

DLC: Bring Down the Sky

Virmire

Ilos/Endgame

*Planet scanning between missions

Prologue / Freedom's Progress

Citadel - Pick up Kasumi from DLC

Omega - Pick up Zaeed from DLC

Omega: The Scientist

Kasumi: Stolen Memory - Kasumi's loyalty mission rewards you with the Locust SMG, a really nice SMG.

Dossier: Archangel

Dossier: The Convict

Dossier: The Warlord

Horizon - will automatically trigger. Don't miss the Particle Beam weapon on the ground about halfway through the level, it's really nice for dealing with the Praetorian enemies.

Recruit Tali

Dossier: The Justicar - While on Ilium, you can talk to Liara to get some help but don't start the Lair of the Shadow Broker stuff yet.

Dossier: The Assassin

-- Now you've got all your recruits, so start doing loyalty missions.--

Tuchanka: Mordin's Loyalty - I always recommend keeping the data, as it opens up way more branches of story in ME3, but it's ultimately up to you.

Tuchanka: Grunt's Loyalty

Collector Vessel - This triggers after you complete Horizon and then 5 other missions. So now.

Illium - Miranda's Loyalty

Aeia: Jacob's Loyalty

Citadel: Garrus's Loyalty

Citadel: Thane's Loyalty

Illium: Samara's Loyalty

Zaeed's Loyalty - Warning: If you want to go Paragon during this mission you've got to beat a really high Charm check to keep his loyalty. I usually just look the other way on this one and hate myself for it later, to make sure he stays on board.

-- The next missions all involve high Paragon/Renegade checks, so we save them for now --

Pragia: Jack's Loyalty - Afterwards, you'll need to break up a fight. Use your Paragon or Renegade option to keep both characters loyal.

Quarian Fleet: Tali's Loyalty - This mission has a big impact in ME3. To keep her loyal, use Paragon/Renegade options whenever possible, and don't use the data to defend her innocence. If you sent Veetor with Tali back on Freedom's Progress, and Kal'Reegar survived Tali's recruitment mission, you can successfully use the "Rally the Crowd" option to get the best outcome here. Otherwise, you'll need to use Paragon/Renegade all the way through to make it happen. Hopefully your scores are high enough for that, which is why we saved it for here.

DLC: Overlord - This is a good point to put this in. You've just killed a lot of geth, so let's go kill some more!

DLC: Normandy Crash Site - If you picked this up, now is a good time for a nostalgic flashback before you head off on a suicide mission. -- POINT OF NO RETURN: Make sure everyone is loyal and you've done any side missions that you want to --

Mnemosyne: Reaper IFF

Geth Base: Legion's Loyalty - Take Tali for interesting dialogue. This mission's decision also plays heavily into ME3. Afterwards, you'll need to break up another fight. Just like last time, use Paragon/Renegade to keep both characters loyal.

Normandy Interlude

Omega 4: Suicide Mission - The following composition always gets everyone out alive for me, but again, it's your call, and I know there are other workable options as well: Fire Team Leader (Garrus), Tech Expert (Tali), Escort (Mordin), Biotic Expert (Samara). Take Miranda to the final fight for some interesting dialogue, and be sure to always leave Grunt, Zaeed, and Garrus to hold the line. They have a higher internal success score for that job, so it'll help make sure your whole team makes it out.

DLC: Lair of the Shadow Broker - This should be played right here, as the information you get from it is integral to ME3

DLC: Arrival - Very last, as ME3 picks up right afterwards

Prologue: Earth

Priority: Mars

Priority: Citadel I - During this mission, players can visit Ashley or Kaidan and Thane at the hospital, recruit the reporter Diana Allers, and recruit either Dr. Chakwas or Dr. Michel.

Normandy: First Visit

N7: Cerberus Labs & Citadel: Alien Medi-Gel Formula

Priority: Palaven - Following this mission, return to the Citadel to deliver items.

Aria: Blood Pack

Aria: Blue Suns

Aria: Eclipse

Citadel: Hanar Diplomat (Kasumi)

Grissom Academy: Emergency Evacuation (Jack) & Citadel: Biotic Amp Interfaces - This mission must be completed ahead of Priority: Citadel II or there are dire consequences. Players can also choose to complete this mission as soon as they receive it.

Priority: Eden Prime (From the Ashes DLC) - Players can recruit Javik as a squadmate.

Meet the Diplomats & Priority: Sur'Kesh (Mordin)

Attican Traverse: Krogan Team (Grunt) & Citadel: Krogan Dying Message

Tuchanka: Turian Platoon - Players need to be careful, as three missions will be available on Tuchanka. They should not choose Priority: Tuchanka yet. Immediately following this mission, players need to go straight to the next mission to avoid disastrous consequences.

Tuchanka: Bomb & Citadel: Cerberus Automated Turret Schematics

N7: Cerberus Attack & Citadel: Improved Power Grid

N7: Cerberus Abductions & Benning: Evidence

Priority: Tuchanka

Players can find items for characters on the Citadel in the following systems: Apien Crest: Banner of the First Regiment Kite's Nest: Pillars of Strength Ismar Frontier: Prototype Components Shrike Abyssal: Prothean Obelisk

N7: Cerberus Fighter Base & Citadel: Heating Unit Stabilizers

Priority: Citadel II - Players should make sure they have spoken to Thane at the hospital ahead of this mission.

Mesana: Distress Signal

Ardat-Yakshi Monastery (Samara) & Citadel: Asari Widow

Citadel: Aria T'Loak (Omega DLC) - Once players choose to join Aria's fleet at the Citadel, they will not have the option to return until the full DLC is completed.

Arrae: Ex-Cerberus Scientists (Jacob) & Citadel: Cerberus Turian Poison

Citadel: Volus Ambassador (Zaeed)

Priority: Perseus Veil

Priority: Geth Dreadnought

Rannoch: Admiral Koris & Citadel: Target Jamming Technology - When landing on Rannoch, players need to be careful not to choose Priority: Rannoch. Players need to make sure to rescue the Admiral, no matter what, to have the best chance at a compromise between the Geth and Quarians.

Rannoch: Geth Fighter Squadrons (Legion) & Citadel: Reaper Code Fragments

N7: Fuel Reactors & Citadel: Chemical Treatment - Players should be sure not to confuse this mission with the one to Destroy the Reaper Base. Following this, Shepard can return to the Citadel to deliver items.

Priority: Rannoch - To broker peace between the Geth and Quarians, the following conditions must have been met: Tali and Legion must both be alive; Tali was not exiled in Mass Effect 2; Legion's loyalty mission was completed, and the Heretics must have been destroyed; Shepard must have broken up the fight between Legion and Tali in Mass Effect 2 without taking sides (i.e., using Charm/Intimidate); Shepard must have four bars of Reputation; Koris must have been rescued on Rannoch; Shepard must have completed Geth Fighter Squadrons. If any of these conditions were not met, players will be forced to choose a side.

Players can find items for characters on the Citadel in the following systems:

Nimbus Cluster: Library of Asha Athena Nebula: Hesperia-Period Statue Irune: Book of Plenix Valhallan Threshold: Prothean Data Drives Argos Rho: Kaklisaur Fossil Silean Nebula: Rings of Alune Dekuuna: Elcor Extraction Dekuuna: Code of the Ancients Hades Nexus: Obelisk of Karza Hades Nexus: Prothean Sphere

Priority: Citadel III

Priority: Thessia - Bring Javik and Liara for additional lore and a few important discoveries.

N7 Communication Hub & Citadel: Cerberus Ciphers

Priority: Horizon - To ensure Miranda survives, players need to do the following: Shepard must talk to Miranda on the Citadel Docks; they must warn her about Kai Leng in the Specter office; Shepard must have met with Miranda in the apartment on the Citadel and given her access to Alliance resources.

Citadel: Dr. Bryson (Leviathan DLC)

Citadel: Shore Leave (Citadel DLC) - Avoid leaving the Citadel until after the party

Priority: Cerberus Headquarters - This is the Point of No Return. Following this mission, players will go straight into the endgame.

Priority: Earth  - For the best possible outcome, players need 3,100 EMS prior to this mission.

[zilllathegod]

Rise of Skywalker sucked 

[zilllathegod]

Raising a laptop from the dead

So a while back I came into possession of an old laptop that belonged to my mother. She had a Compaq Presario c700 and complained that the performance was becoming unbearable to the point she decided to completely replace it. I was able to swipe the machine before it ended up in the trash and after using it I realized she was right, the computer was effectively unusable because of its performance.

Two big things stuck out to me: - The 1.8ghz Intel Celeron CPU (ancient) - The 1 stick of 1gb ddr2 ram

This was considered a budget computer in 2008. 1 GB of RAM and an ancient Celeron CPU, no wonder it ran like crap...

I didn't want to throw it away necessarily though so I google'd if anyone had any luck upgrading it. What I found was that yes in fact many people have had luck upgrading the c700 and it actually had a lot of potential for improvement if you were willing to piece some parts together. I found a giant multi-year ongoing thread on notebookreview outlining other experiences and recommendations http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/compaq-presario-c700-upgrades-and-facts.237042/

After reading what other people had done I knew I would need to upgrade the RAM and the CPU. Once I found the motherboard model it was easy to see what was compatible for a CPU upgrade, the key was just making sure there weren't any quirks. The CPU I landed on was an Intel Core 2 Duo T9300m running at 2.5ghz. Considerably more powerful than the Celeron processor the laptop came with. I found one on ebay from Shenzen, China for pretty cheap (a place where you can get basically anything like this). A comparison:

There was one issue with the RAM. There appeared to be an 8GB maximum because of the presence of two input slots. I figured get two 4GB DDR2 chips to equal the max of 8GB..wrong. There is some issue inherent to the design of the motherboard that limits the capacity of one of the RAM slots, meaning nothing would work if the capacity was ABOVE 1 GB! ..A ram slot that was limited on purpose to only accept 1GB... I found this out only because of the forum thread. This meant that to reach the maximum I would need to find a single 8GB chip but apparently there were issues with that as well. I found that most people were getting 4GB cards and sticking with that. I wanted as much RAM as I could so I wanted to get a 4GB card and anew 1GB card for a max of 5GB RAM.

The RAM installation was pretty easy, since all it involved was opening the back and putting two cards in the slots. The CPU upgrade was more complicated since it involved disassembling the laptop entirely to get ot the motherboard. On the motherboard I then had ot remove the old chip and insert the new one, then reassemble everything. The pictures I took weren't necessarily intended to be shared on the internet but rather as a form of documentation so I could keep track of my steps.

When I was done the computer ran much faster and much more efficiently, allowing me to install Windows 10 and actually use it. This is significant because by this point in time Compaq assumed the user would have totally trashed this machine. I think in total I spent around $100-$150 on replacement parts and in the end got a computer that is viable more than a decade after its release. I have successfully worked and gamed on this computer and am considering upgrading it further with a new SSD hard drive. I don't think I could ever use it as a main computer because the inputs are very old at this point but with some upgrades it has proven its worth way beyond what the manufacturers had intended.

[zilllathegod]

Video game franchises CAN make good shows and movies if given a chance

[zilllathegod]

Backwards Combability Matters | Sum It Up

[zilllathegod]

I think they are related

[zilllathegod]

Mass effect 1 or 2 are the best games bioware has ever made.

[zilllathegod]

UNIX terminal command cheatsheet

I’m spending more time with Linux these days which means heavy terminal use. Since it is such an important part of using the system correctly I wanted to keep a running list of commonly used commands for reference (this list doesn’t include that many flags for instance). I will probably add to this as I do more things but these seem to be biggest foundational ones. 

pwd

pwd prints the name of the working directory

cd

cd takes a directory name as an argument, and switches into that directory

ls

ls lists all files and directories in the working directory

cp

cp copies files or directories. cp file1 file2 will copy file1 to file2

cd ..

To move up one directory, use cd ..

mkdir

mkdir takes in a directory name as an argument, and then creates a new directory in the current working directory.

mv

To move a file into a directory, use mv with the source file as the first argument and the destination directory as the second argument

cat

cat allows us to create single or multiple files, view contain of file, concatenate files and redirect output in terminal or files.

touch

touch creates a new file inside the working directory. It takes in a file name as an argument, and then creates a new empty file in the current working directory. Here we used touch to create a new file named keyboard.txt inside the 2014/dec/ directory.

grep

grep stands for “global regular expression print”. It searches files for lines that match a pattern and returns the results. It is case sensitive.

rm

rm deletes files

rm -r

rm -r removes a directory recursively ...SCARY as hell.

man

man command shows the manual for the specified command

chmod

chmod ugo file changes permissions of file to ugo - u is the user's permissions, g is the group's permissions, and o is everyone else's permissions. The values of u, g, and o can be any number between 0 and 7.

cat

cat command allows us to create single or multiple files, view contain of file, concatenate files and redirect output in terminal or files.

>>

>> takes the standard output of the command on the left and appends (adds) it to the file on the right. Example: cat glaciers.txt >> rivers.txt

<

< takes the standard input from the file on the right and inputs it into the program on the left. Example: cat < lakes.txt

|

| is a “pipe”. The | takes the standard output of the command on the left, and pipes it as standard input to the command on the right. You can think of this as “command to command” redirection. Example: cat volcanoes.txt | wc src: http://cheatsheetworld.com/programming/unix-linux-cheat-sheet/

[zilllathegod]

FizzBuzz Implementation: JavaScript & Python

FizzBuzz is a good, and popular, exercise for thinking about foundational programming concepts like iteration and control flow. On top of that I like implementing exercises in different languages because it helps me explore details. 

The prompt for the exercise : Write a program that prints the numbers from 1 to 100 and for multiples of ‘3’ print “Fizz” instead of the number and for the multiples of ‘5’ print “Buzz”.

I'm not going to 100, maybe 30. In order to pull this off I will need iteration, if/else statements, and the ability to do some math operation, just off the top of my head. These types of operations are programming features that many languages share (the ones I'm concerned with especially). The catch will be the details of the implementation.

Pseudo-code, and pre-code commenting

Lately I've been making use of pseudo-code for pre-coding problem solving. I've also been using my pseudo-code as a baseline for commenting on the fly and personally think its working well for me (no one has complained to me). It is probably worth looking into some comment standardization, but every time I do I never find what I'm looking for, I digress.

start a loop with a counter on each step examine the counter if divisible by 3 print "Fizz" if divis by 5 print "Buzz" otherwise print number

Very simple. I can check for divisibility with the modulus operator %, which returns the remainder of two numbers after dividing them. Dividing 3 or 5 by the counter should return 0, thusly indicating divisibility. At that point I could print a certain output.

JavaScript

/* start a loop with a counter on each step examine the counter */ for (let i = 1; i <= 30; i++) { //if divisible by 3 print FIZZ if ((i % 3) === 0) { console.log(i + ": FIZZ"); } else if ((i % 5) === 0) { //if divisible by 3 print FIZZ console.log(i + ": BUZZ"); } else { //otherwise print number console.log(i); } }

Output

0: FIZZ 1 2 3: FIZZ 4 5: BUZZ 6: FIZZ 7 8 9: FIZZ 10: BUZZ 11 12: FIZZ 13 14 15: FIZZ 16 17 18: FIZZ 19 20: BUZZ 21: FIZZ 22 23 24: FIZZ 25: BUZZ 26 27: FIZZ 28 29 30: FIZZ

For the output, when there is a match I added a string concatenation so that I could see the value next to the string, even though the prompt asked to replace the number (this causes a rabbit hole moment later). There are some other ways to do this, like with a switch statement for instance, but this is just with simple if/else statements. I am curious how this would be implemented in python though.

Python

The first difference I run into is that JavaScript has syntax that lets you create more open-ended , numerically-based for-loops while python makes use of "for / in" loops that iterate over pre-determined sets of data (JavaScript has for/in loops as well). The for/in syntax can also be open-ended but you would need to reference your pre-determined data set properly. With this being the case, if we had the ability to create a custom a numeric data set then we could use that with a for/in loop to create an open ended loop (the kind we need to do the exercise).

Fortunately Python has a built in range() method for returning a custom, sequenced, numeric, data sets.

range(6)

Output

0 1 2 3 4 5

The output is a 0-indexed sequence as long as whatever argument was passed into it.

So with the range() function and a for-loop we can write for loops in a similar way to JavaScript:

for i in range(20): print("hey " + i)

output

Traceback (most recent call last): File "<string>", line 2, in <module> TypeError: can only concatenate str (not "int") to str

Error...but why?

Rabbit hole moment

Well that example wont work because in python you can't directly concatenate integers and strings, like you can in JavaScript (apparently!). Luckily there is another built in function called str() that converts numbers to strings (like toString() in JS). So...

for i in range(20): print("hey " + str(i))

Output

hey 0 hey 1 hey 2 hey 3 hey 4 hey 5 hey 6 hey 7 hey 8 hey 9 hey 10 hey 11 hey 12 hey 13 hey 14 hey 15 hey 16 hey 17 hey 18 hey 19

Now putting that all together, using a python for/in loop, referencing a custom sequence with range() , adding a string concatenation for extra practice, and completing the fizzbuzz implementation

#start a loop with a counter on each step examine the counter for i in range(31): #if divisible by 3 if (i % 3) == 0: #print "Fizz" print(str(i) + ": FIZZ") #if divisible by 3 elif(i % 5) == 0: #print "Buzz" print(str(i) + ": BUZZ" ) #otherwise else: #print iterator print(i)

Output

0: FIZZ 1 2 3: FIZZ 4 5: BUZZ 6: FIZZ 7 8 9: FIZZ 10: BUZZ 11 12: FIZZ 13 14 15: FIZZ 16 17 18: FIZZ 19 20: BUZZ 21: FIZZ 22 23 24: FIZZ 25: BUZZ 26 27: FIZZ 28 29 30: FIZZ

It works but there are a few things I noticed. The sequence from range() always starts at 0 and is unchanging, unlike a counter variable in a JS for loop which can begin the count at any number , like starting at 5 and moving 5 spaces to 10. In my example I use the iterator variable as the output variable as well, but if I wanted to change the display I would need to add str(i +1) to the output or something like that.

Overall this was very informative for me and I have a better grasp of iteration and syntax in python.