general gaming

[random steppe]

True, but it's also the best revenue split in the industry to my knowledge

Also I believe that the bag of cash thing wasn't just anyone

It was particoular titles they specifically offered that to

[little badger]

So it’s PVP and Campaign?

[rose rose]

It is hard to beat a 100/0 split

I imagine the upfront payment thing will exist concurrently, but anyone can choose to opt in to this new thing.

[random steppe]

That did push Steam to adopt a better split already, let's hope this keeps improving the industry, competition is good no matter how much people bitch an moan about EGS

[rose rose]

I concur

[teal cliff]

I want EGS to improve it's damn platform

I don't want to only use steam it's just that steam is the only platform that doesn't suck to use

It'd be a lot cooler if EGS worked better, I have a dozen or so games on there I want to play.

[dire gate]

Honestly I could have been more supportive for Tim and Epic if they didn't go the whole "we are the crusaders trying to save the industry from evil corporations" stance

[gaunt marten]

The upfront payment deal remains with lower guarantees, and the new deal is here to attract a different sort of developer who would not have taken the guaranteed minimum: developers confident they'll sell plenty of copies.

[random steppe]

To be clear, they aren't good, they have a good impact on the industry in some ways but they also pioneered some pretty bad monetisation pratices with Fortnite
I just don't see any form of nuance in the conversation when Epic is involved

[astral steeple]

i mean

their monetization practices arent as bad compared to other games

cough pubg mobile and call of duty and overwatch cough

[random steppe]

Same for the exclusivity stuff, it's bad in some ways, it's good for the devs, some games might have been made worse, or not made at all without those deals, but at the same time it sucks they had timed exclusive deals on one platform

Reminder that Hades launched on Early Access with a bag of money from Epic and it's probably one of the reasons Supergiant could afford to make their most ambitious game yet

And Hades is squarely one of the best games of all times, that exists in part, thanks to Epic

I would make a similar argument for God of War, the Mario games etc...It's not simply a net negative
They are operating under a very similar model, which I don't like that much but I must admit produces good results sometimes

[random steppe]

There are worse pratices but that's not to excuse the bad pratices that are there.
Especially given Fortnite has a disproportionate effect on the industry being as big as it is, and aimed at a young audience, but yeah you aren't wrong.

[dire gate]

Honestly I sometimes did hope EGS to become a more legit threat against Steam

[random steppe]

One thing I will shit on EGS for, is that the software is absolute dogshit

[astral steeple]

fort isnt exactly aimed at a younger audience though

the actual audience is teens and adults

it just happens a lot of kids play it

which happens with most games that get popular

it was like that with cod 10+ years ago

[little badger]

Abby they finally fixed it @bronze abyss

[random steppe]

What the fuck, it's been years, and I don't even care about social features on it, but how it did become so much slower while adding barely anything to it? Are they mining bitcoin? What are they doing with that thing?

[rose rose]

This might have been true when it launched, but it clearly isn't now

[astral steeple]

even nowadays its still aimed at teens and adults

just look at all the m rated collabs theyve been adding lately lol

[random steppe]

I mean regardless who it's aimed at, it's true that their main audience is kids and they heavily monetise them, which is bad.

[dire gate]

I don't even have Epic account so I can't talk about the quality of EGS client, my dent is more like how they tried to (and maybe still are trying to) argue that they are trying to save the industry from evil corporations or smth, and some people genuinely believe it

[random steppe]

Are they Roblox bad? Not even close to it, but it's still bad

[rose rose]

If they weren't targeting children they wouldn't go out of their way to let children under 13 play

[dire gate]

Peaked when they went the whole dispute against Google and Apple

[random steppe]

I couldn't care less about what they say, I look at what their effect on the industry is

And to be fair, while that dispute was silly, it's also true that opening up those platform would have been consumer friendly in some ways.

Of course any corporation will try to frame what they are doing as being morally good, everyone does that

[astral steeple]

they dont even actually want kids under 13 playing

at one point, when fall guys went free to play, a bunch of kids fort accounts got locked cause they set their birthday on fall guys to under 13

so they made the parents have to give permission to actually unlock the account and set it to a safer cabined account with a lot of restrictions on it

[rose rose]

I will support the notion that trying to break Steam's monopoly and Apple's mandatory 30% App Store cuts is in fact morally good

Even if they have ulterior motives

[slim thorn]

it was such a weird corporate slap fight all around

I couldn't bring myself to care much about either outcome once I understood wtf was even going on

[dire gate]

I don't know about "morally" good, but I do also think that it was a genuinely meaningful something

[dire gate]

I mean to be honest theirs felt more like a...propaganda.

[fresh bane]

time to go back out into The Zone, Stalker
I don't know why it has so many dislikes, it looks great to me and doesn't look like they strayed too far from the usual Stalker experience

[visual hill]

the better store app is called Heroic 😛

it does GOG and Amazon Games as a bonus

[bronze abyss]

those seem like minor issues,glitches are meaningless when people can install mods and not be punished at all

[thorny loom]

@wind stump lmao nerd

https://store.steampowered.com/app/742420/Saints_Row/

Steam

Saints Row

As the future Boss, with Neenah, Kevin, and Eli by your side, you’ll form The Saints – and take on Los Panteros, The Idols, and Marshall as you build your empire across the streets of Santo Ileso and battle for control of the city. Ultimately Saints Row is the story of a start-up company, it’s just that the business The Saints are in happens to ...

Price

$19.79

▶ Play video

The failed reboots on steam now

[random steppe]

It's PR, it's all PR, everytime every gaming corporation says shit like "our commitment is bring the players the bext experiences" it's PR
Of course your are going to frame what you are doing as consumer driven, even if it isn't.

EA microtransacions are for "pride and accomplishment"
Blizzard WoW token is to allow players to play without paying the montly subscription...etc

[little badger]

The van glitch was there for years

[random steppe]

Also wrong reply

[random steppe]

I meant to reply to this

[dire gate]

idk, maybe it was more like obnoxious fans being trouble, since you don't really see people go "Oh EA is a good company, their transactions are good for you"

But I often feel like those obnoxious fans were exactly what Tim Sweeney wanted to create

[slim thorn]

there must be a pro-EA cult somewhere on the internet

[dire gate]

maybe lol

[visual hill]

If it exists, there is a cult for it.

[white phoenix]

ponies

[dire gate]

"But you should support Epic, they are good and they are fighting against those evil companies for us! They want to save us from this evil market!" lol as if

[bronze abyss]

mayhaps,but the issue is minor to the degree its mostly irrelevant in practice,especialy when theres directly related issues that give same results but with even more power and less effort

[quiet swift]

I on rare occasion defend some things (though not the obviously bad) purely because i work there and get paid and success means more bonus and stuff

[dire gate]

Can't blame that

[gaunt marten]

Yes you work for the devil so it's okay

[slim thorn]

if nothing else, working for/at X usually means you know more of the context surrounding why X made the decisions they did, which often include some defensible ones

even if you've somehow managed to stay 100% unbrainwashed

[random steppe]

I think it might be because EA has no positive effect on the industry

[little badger]

I just hope in 6 the items aren’t as expensive.

[dire gate]

You can't say like that Ixrec, X is a company

[random steppe]

While opening Apple, Google and Steam can have good effects

[slim thorn]

I realize that now

all too late

[bronze abyss]

nah items being expensive is good since the main selling point of GTAO is the grind

[random steppe]

Same as giving good revenue splits to devs

[bronze abyss]

and honestly thats the one thing ill give credit for,GTAO was set up well to be a grind fest

[dire gate]

Yeah I can see that, it just felt more like stupid wartime propaganda shit

[random steppe]

Yeah but isn't being contrarian to the positive effects just because they are wording it in PR speak just as bad as blindingly supporting it because you believe the PR speak?

Shouldn't the support be conditional on it being good on the facts?

[dire gate]

I never said that I don't support their decisions?

[slim thorn]

ideally we'd just avoid all the PR-speak announcements in favor of substantive news sources

[little badger]

Yeah it’s good but payouts need to better. It’s double on biker this week.

[random steppe]

Yeah I'm just saying that their being annoyingly sanctimonious about why they are doing it, shouldn't really matter at the end of the day

[bronze abyss]

they dont really,they are well balanced currently

[dire gate]

It's just hard to be not doubtful when they make a fucking 1984 ad

[bronze abyss]

id say early game is rough but in reality it only is if youre completely clueless about the game

[gaunt marten]

A news source that does their research doesn't exist

[bronze abyss]

otherwise its a breeze

[little badger]

I meant for 6 and yeah they got buffed recently.

[white phoenix]

did they seriously do that

[gaunt marten]

Apple made the original 1984 ad

[astral steeple]

the 1984 ad epic had made was literally to directly mock apple's

it was parodying theirs directly

[dire gate]

Which is hilarious in many ways

[white phoenix]

lol this funny has so many layers to it

[dire gate]

For context, I think the original 1984 ad is stupid in retrospect, but that worked quite impressively ngl

[white phoenix]

it's hilariously ironic in retrospect

[quiet swift]

You'd think that but usually i know it after the press. There are internal meetings but it's just "we're working on this and we're planing on selling millions and this is our company policy/roadmap" so i just tune it out and play games during that

[slim thorn]

ah, your place is that big

[quiet swift]

I'm in the "World Wide Customer Experience" center. Basically the centre for customer support

[dire gate]

Honestly aside everything, the whole Epic-Apple legal dispute was a fucking clown show

[quiet swift]

So nothing that really affects anything

[dire gate]

I still cannot truly understand what Epic was even thinking

[astral steeple]

their whole thing was getting apple and google to drop the 30% stuff

thats what they were thinking lol

[dire gate]

Well I would assume there were better ways to do that instead of self explosion

[quiet swift]

Epic didn't want 30% of their profits going to Apple and co because it was on their store, and wanted to be able to have a store in their own app (the game) to get the full profits

[astral steeple]

i mean yeah its their game

apple shouldnt get that much from any game no matter what

[quiet swift]

Technically speaking that's what it is on Steam too

[astral steeple]

well yeah they went after steam as well

[quiet swift]

Like 30/70 is mostly industry standard

[dire gate]

I do admit that the end result was pretty positive for users, but the way how Epic started it was

...weird

[astral steeple]

steam got pushed into the whole thing

Roblox did as well

also like

they sacrificed a huge chunk of their playerbase within the whole thing

all IOS players are still stuck on chapter 2

which was back in 2020

[dire gate]

They 'sacrificed'

From outsiders perspective, it was Epic themselves who pressed the "explode this" button

[random steppe]

I think the best argument against 30/70 is that it used to be the split when we were talking about retail stores, but now the distribution is much less expensive beign digital, so perhaps the store should get a smaller cut.
But unless there is a pressure from someone trying to be more competitive by slicing their cut, it's unlikely the industry will be moved in that direction.

And Epic is doing some of that, even tho they are doing it in order to get a larger market share.

Not out of the good of their hearts

Which is fine, it's still good as long as it moves the industry in the right direction

[dire gate]

Overall Epic is weird

That's my feeling about them

[astral steeple]

lol

[fresh bane]

Didn't Epic also violate the terms of service knowingly before going into that whole legal battle with Apple?

[gaunt marten]

Well yes, the terms of service about the cut itself

That's what the legal battle is about

[astral steeple]

well yeah they did that because roblox had already done the same thing prior with no repercussions

[random steppe]

Yeah they did violate it on purpose in order to cause the legal battle in the first place.
Which I mean, it's not inherently bad.

[slim thorn]

yeah, the whole way they framed it felt like a child's understanding of civil disobedience: say no to the big bad adult establishment loudly enough and with enough righteous fury in your heart and surely they'll see the error of their ways eventually

[random steppe]

They framed it as a form of protest.
Which I mean, I get what they were going for, it was probably decent PR for them to make Apple act and make them look like the ones trying to be super controlling of their platform, because they are.

[fresh bane]

I'm pretty sure they could've probably struck a better deal without pretty much igniting a tnt charge on their face and acting surprised when it blows up, I didn't see that situation ending any other way other than the way it ended

[random steppe]

Also because the way they did violate it, was by giving a discount to their customers, which was not a bad move.
It was a "if we didn't have to pay Apple this much money, we could give you V-bucks that much cheaper" which is obviously disingenuous, it's their currency, they decide how much they are worth, but it's good PR

[fresh bane]

I also don't buy the whole act that they were doing it to stick up for the little guy and stick it to the big corpo, pure bs, they don't care, I didn't care for either side in that whole situation in the slightest

[slim thorn]

especially when there was tons of evidence that "act surprised when it blows up" was their explicit gameplan well beforehand

[random steppe]

Oh yeah none was surprised

I don't even know if they did act surprised

[slim thorn]

well, act indignant at least

act as if there was something cruel and unusual about it

[fresh bane]

They played the victim when they were the ones who started shit in the first place

[random steppe]

I do think that the revenue split is pretty shit on those platforms, so I don't think it was inappropriate of them to act indignant.
I don't think it was genuine but still, I do echo that sentiment

Just because a rule exists, it doesn't mean it's a good rule.
Breaking it is not inherently a bad thing

[slim thorn]

yeah, if they'd started the conversation like mature adults I'd likely have agreed with that premise

[fresh bane]

They could've gotten a better split if they actually negotiated well and it probably would've actually created a good precedent for other devs

That logic doesn't fly when it comes to contracts and money with these big corporations though

[random steppe]

Eh, I think this was actually more principled

[slim thorn]

and if they'd broken the rule as an explicit protest after trying to talk it out and getting allies and stuff

[fresh bane]

In what world did anyone expect the situation to end well for Epic?

[slim thorn]

but they way they actually did it was so clearly trying to false flag their fanbase into attacking Apple

[fresh bane]

That's not how you do bussiness, it's like a child acting surprised when their tantrum got them grounded

[random steppe]

Because it's true that someone the size of Epic could negotiate a different split, but the way they did it it was framed to lower the split for everyone, which is a more principled stance than "i got mine, fuck you, this rule is shit but it doesn't apply to me anymore"

[fresh bane]

The point is less about their specific deal and more about getting a better deal in the platform that would've allowed others to also negotiate for that deal rather than blatantly breaking a contract and ToS and then being shocked when that has repercussions

[slim thorn]

that's part of what was so odd about it; the ulterior motives were so transparent, yet they chose the chaotic world-burning route instead of the straightforward corporate negotiation you just described (or the hypothetical corporate negotiation with other devs/publishers who'd also be happy to argue for a better split)

[fresh bane]

It's not protest it's just dumb

[astral steeple]

iirc prior to the whole thing Apple had been super stubborn about negotiating a lower split

For like years

[random steppe]

Yeah maybe that was the logic

[fresh bane]

Breaking their ToS sure isn't gonna make them reconsider

If anything it's only gonna make them more strict about it

[random steppe]

To be clear, you keep calling to the ToS but their ToS is indeed shit

At least in my opinion

[fresh bane]

I never argued about whether or not their tos is or isn't shit

I don't care about defending Apple I'm shitting on Epic for being stupid about it

[slim thorn]

at the time I don't remember finding anything about prior attempts to negotiate with Apple, but I dunno if I tried that hard

[random steppe]

I mean, if it's shit, challenging it is good

[rose rose]

I'm pretty sure nobody can negotiate a better split with Apple. Many have tried.

[random steppe]

Now they were bad at it, and the law didn't say what they thought it said

But I wont lambast them for breaking a bad rule

Fuck Apple

[rose rose]

Apple will give up many other concessions, but they stand immovably firm on the 30% split.

[slim thorn]

yeah, I don't think any of us are saying either side had true moral high ground there

[fresh bane]

Neither of them have any semblance of a moral high ground both are scummy greedy corporations to me

[slim thorn]

at most that one of them was more professional and competent in their corporate amorality

[astral steeple]

Remember when Apple tried to sell 700 dollar Mac wheels lol

And an 1000 dollar monitor stand

[thorny loom]

The cheese grater stand

[rose rose]

They still sell a thousand dollar monitor stand, though that doesn't seem super relevant.

Also a colleague of mine has six of those monitors.

[random steppe]

I don't mind that much about overpriced products as long as people know what they are buying.

And it's not the only option available on the market

[dire gate]

I'm not sure if you can argue that after spending that much money on Fortnite

[mossy flume]

I'm both jealous and terrified of this man.

[rose rose]

Got that big tech money

Also he previously worked at Apple so I assume there were decent discounts.

[mossy flume]

Ah, that does tend to bring hefty discounts.

[thorny loom]

Bargin bin apple

Have you friend buy me a dinosaur

[astral steeple]

I mean there's a big difference between 14 grand on cosmetics that I use everyday vs an overpriced Apple product that won't last very long to begin with lol

[dire gate]

Uhh

[rose rose]

Fourteen grand?

[white phoenix]

14 WHAT

[thorny loom]

Yeah we had this discussion before

[fresh bane]

[mossy flume]

I'm sorry, what?

[slim thorn]

oh hi, welcome to the subtext everyone

[bleak lintel]

Don't Apple products usually last a long time.

[astral steeple]

Plus with the Apple stuff that's a one time payment

The cosmetics are over the course of 2019 till now

So Like 4+ years

[rose rose]

Also I am pretty sure the thousand dollar Apple monitor stand will actually outlast Fortnite.

[slim thorn]

my iPhone has lasted maybe a decade?

[mossy flume]

They do indeed last a very long time.

[white phoenix]

least insane fortnite player holy shit

[dire gate]

So this is my point you can see here; people will pay for what they think is worth

[random steppe]

I think it's the same thing.
Value is relative to you wanting that thing, and you current income.

Them buying 6 overpriced monitors and the amount of value they are getting from them is for them to decide

Personally it's not a purchase I'd make

[slim thorn]

sorry, 7 years, my iPhone has lasted 7 years, but I still don't need to replace it

[thorny loom]

Ive known people who spend 40k + on in mobile game microtransactions

[white phoenix]

oh well, it's their money to use

[rose rose]

The monitors are not actually particularly overpriced, just overkill.

[thorny loom]

At least with ari their getting something back other than digital Monopoly money

[rose rose]

(the stands are overpriced though)

[astral steeple]

i make enough that it really doesnt make a difference with me buying cosmetics

even after paying my rent and buying food and essentials, etc

its a hobby for me

cause i pretty much play every day

[thorny loom]

Long as you arnt hurting yourself it’s whatever

[mossy flume]

My Apple devices get replaced once every 3-5 years and they still have a lot of life left in them when I do replace them, I just choose to upgrade because I want to and can afford to.

[astral steeple]

theres worse stuff that someone could be buying than fort cosmetics lol

[thorny loom]

Yeah.

[rose rose]

I mean I guess certain drugs would be worse.

[mossy flume]

This Macbook Pro I got a few months ago will last me five years, easily.

[dire gate]

I can respect you spending 14k for Fortnite cosmetics, but I can equally respect someone spending 14k for apple products

[thorny loom]

Meth

[mossy flume]

I still use an old Apple Watch Series 5, I've just gotten the battery replaced in it. And still don't plan to upgrade for a few more years.

[random steppe]

I don't like apple phones because you can't instal external APK on them, which admittedly I don't do often but I want the freedom of doing.

And if you aren't into the ecosystem with your phone I don't think it's worth to buy other apple stuff, or at least that has been my experience

[astral steeple]

i currently use an s20 fe

before that i was using a s7 since 2019

[bleak lintel]

I believe they're being forced to allow sideloading although we have no details.

[rose rose]

Probably in Europe only

[astral steeple]

pretty sure the whole sideloading thing is europe only right now

[rose rose]

But we shall see how that plays out

[dire gate]

At least now iPhone has USB-C

[rose rose]

I suspect Apple will be much more protective of their App Store cuts then they were of Lightning

[dire gate]

should have been for few years

[mossy flume]

I guess the only thing I would consider sideloading for would be emulators, but I learned a very long time ago that emulators on a touchscreen only device are a terrible experience.

[random steppe]

Can I just say after years of Micro-usb how good it feels to have a USB standard that wasn't made by Satan?

[rose rose]

I would sideload the Pebble app and that is about it.

[thorny loom]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2499890/Steel_Division_2__Men_of_Steel/

Steam

Steel Division 2 - Men of Steel

The combat soldier of World War II takes center stage in Steel Division 2: Men of Steel. From the elite to the weary, the historical fighting men from across the European front get their chance to shine in the latest major expansion for the acclaimed real-time strategy game. The exciting new divisions in Steel Division 2: Men of Steel are based ...

Release Date

Aug 28, 2023

[mossy flume]

And I already have excellent hardware options for retro gaming

[astral steeple]

ngl i still prefer the original usb that the s7 uses than type c lol

[rose rose]

Though even with sideloading, things that old no longer run on modern phones.

[thorny loom]

On topic of phones

[dire gate]

Old USB were spin-1/2 particles, you had to rotate them twice until it fits

[thorny loom]

I got an android emulator on pc working well

Now i can play games on my phone on my pc

[dire gate]

Wasn't Windows 11 getting an inherent google play store and application emulation or something

[slim thorn]

in my case, I think we bought this iPhone back when the Android options were nowhere near as competitive as today, and even now I can't seem to find any Android phones as small as an SE (which is one of the few non-default things I care about in a phone)

[astral steeple]

w11 annoys me ngl

i still prefer w7 way more

vista too

8.1 was decent cause the metro menu

10 i dont like much either but im stuck with it cause its what my laptop uses

[random steppe]

With Windows it's really fun.
There isn't any good current Windows editions.

Windows releases are only good in hindsight

[thorny loom]

It does yes

[random steppe]

Microsoft is a master at making you miss what you don't have anymore

[thorny loom]

But with an android emulator i can also use phone exclusive apps or emulate a rooted phone

[slim thorn]

doing software dev for a living slowly turns all these weird psychological realities of a large customer base into second nature

my favorite is when someone has an idea that makes me go "that will make our app objectively better, but some users will hate it, so we'd better get buy-in from business first"

[random steppe]

Usually I can get around any windows release and I learned to put up with whatever quirk the current one has.
One thing tho I am constantly vexed in Windows 10 and 11
Why the hell is the search function so bad?

[dire gate]

People often have this
"This is better"
"But it is different"
Moment

[slim thorn]

I only really want the search to turn up application names, and it does do that

for something like searching all my documents for a phrase, I'm already used to doing that some other way, so the fact that windows is still bad at it is... actually I'm just assuming it's bad, I don't know how many windowses it's been since I tried

[random steppe]

My experience on this is "sometimes"

Very often I search for some app I know I have installed, and it's just not there

Then I manually scroll through the start menu, find it, because I was right, and add it to the big icons so I don't have to do that anymore ever again

[slim thorn]

huh, it's never done that to me

[random steppe]

And yeah, searching for files is just a terrible experience
And I'm mostly annoyed by the fact is that it worked in every Windows edition prior to 10

they had this working already

What happened?

[slim thorn]

oh, I don't remember file search ever being good

it just became less and less of an issue as more of my life got internet-ified slash cloud-ified

[random steppe]

It was good enough, as in, it actually found the files

Now it just doesn't

it was slow a bit finnicky to set up but it was functional

I do agree that I use it much less often now, so that's a fair point

[slim thorn]

these days it almost feels like a novelty when I do something with my filesystem (at home)

the most common reason is some show I torrented or game I'm emulating, but even then I mostly access it via qBitTorrent or RetroArch, rarely ever do I look at the files directly with Explorer

[gaunt marten]

Then there's me

https://i.imgur.com/l5nZ7nk.png

[slim thorn]

Archipelago is special, yeah

[visual hill]

I spend a ton of time in a file explorer, Dolphin is by far my favorite. Search is pretty bad though, fzf is often a better use of my time

[slim thorn]

fzf?

I should also clarify I do a lot more filesystem stuff when programming, although that's primarily git commands in a terminal rather than Explorer

all right, back to Death's Gambit

[gaunt marten]

Everything

https://www.voidtools.com

Makes it so much easier to find any file you want without a file structure

Just remember the name of every file

[mossy flume]

Or metadata or whatever.

[gaunt marten]

Yeah

[mossy flume]

File extension is enough, it can do logical operators

That's a tool I download on every Windows computer I use because the native search is utterly useless.

[visual hill]

fuzzy finder, https://github.com/junegunn/fzf

[mossy flume]

macOS spotlight is pretty great, but if I need to find something it's not getting I'll use fd https://github.com/sharkdp/fd

[wind stump]

The greatest line in a video game.

[uneven epoch]

angry urianger noises

[wind stump]

THOU SHALT PISSETH OFF BEFORE I LAYETH A CURSE UPON THY MOTHER

[thorny loom]

Ngl. I feel like this was something bethesda games were needing

https://www.pcgamer.com/starfield-has-a-new-game-mode-with-unique-and-exciting-twist-in-case-the-sheer-size-of-the-game-isnt-enough-to-keep-you-playing-for-hundreds-of-hours-anyway/

[mossy flume]

To hear Bethesda tell it, Starfield is very much like space as perceived by Douglas Adams: You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is.
Clearly Bethesda never played FFXIV

[random steppe]

Yeah listen, whatever the game companies say, it's pretty much always not to be believed.

What they shown is promising, that's all I'll say, now I just want it to come out to I can figure out if I like it or not

[slim thorn]

even previews written/recorded by independent parties I've found are rubbish at telling me if I'll like a game or not before it's fully released

[random steppe]

I think they are pretty good
They don't tell the full story and they do focus on the more cinematic parts of a given game, which could be decieving depending on the genre, but you can usually figure out if you at least like the idea of what you are doing in the game

Like, there is really no way to for example, convey how well the balance is handled in a rpg

And that could easly break the game for you

Or how well the story is written in a story heavy game.

[dense crypt]

almost 10 minutes until armored core 6

[random steppe]

wait it releases at midnight?

Oh fuck, I need to top up that download speed, I was expecting that tomorrow evening

Well I'll mostly play tomorrow evening anyway but still

I can maybe squeeze the intro

[gaunt marten]

Really? https://i.imgur.com/4H9vk8k.png

I died with like a sliver left on the boss

[gaunt marten]

Fuck, it happened again https://i.imgur.com/BkduKNo.png

[astral steeple]

https://twitter.com/QooApp_EN/status/1694558021119336745

QooApp (@QooApp_EN)

Project Mugen Reveals 1st Trailer Previewing Spider-Man-Like Exploration and Action Gameplay

Check out the amazing trailer for Project Mugen, a mobile and PC open-world RPG showing its many traversal mechanics, and cool combat!

▼ More
https://t.co/zEFMV7gqeG

#ProjectMUGEN

Likes

3882

Retweets

458

▶ Play video

Twitter · Aug 24, 2023, 3:51 AM

lol they just straight up stole the insomniac spiderman web swinging and combat mechanics

[random steppe]

What is this meant to be?

As a game I mean

Is this some gacha trash or something like that?

[white phoenix]

mobile

probably

[astral steeple]

from all thats been shown it basically just looks to be a complete clone of the insomniac spiderman games but with anime characters instead

[random steppe]

The movement system for sure, I don't know if the rest of the game is going to be similar to it

My mind goes to gacha whenever I see an anime game with a bunch of characters, 80% of them being girls

But I fully admit that I might be wrong

It's not that I think it's bad that they copied the movment system, it's great, more games should use it

PLS give me an Attack on Titan game that does just that

[astral steeple]

inb4 a mlp game that uses the movement system and combat lol

[random steppe]

A MLP game should use the Dragonflight/Guild Wars 2 mount movment system if anything

I don't even play WOW but that looks fun as hell

[quiet swift]

Not to say that Dragonflight is bad but dragonflying is arguably the best new feature

[green fulcrum]

This is pretty cool, ngl: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87w6hzyYehA

The griffon, jackal, and roller beetle are just plain awesome.

And the siege turtle is just plain weird and I love it

Lol, the mounts even have idle animations, and one of the animations for the raptor is to shake its body violently like a wet dog...while you're still on it. It then turns its head to you and your character gives it a "dude, wtf" gesture with their hands.

[quiet swift]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blH7uM-ffA0 not any special mount movement, but this one is just funny because a) whale, and b) it's an eight player mount

[astral steeple]

https://twitter.com/iFireMonkey/status/1694890508986818600

iFireMonkey (@iFireMonkey)

According to @LeafsMatrix who has now properly stated Ahsoka and Khaby Lame would be coming to Fortnite, Todoroki from My Hero Academia will be coming to Fortnite in the future.

Likes

852

▶ Play video

Twitter · Aug 25, 2023, 1:52 AM

yoooooooo

[mossy flume]

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/nintendo-switch-gets-official-denuvo-support-to-curb-pc-emulation/1100-6517127/

Well, look forward to Switch emulation becoming more difficult in the future

And thus losing the substantial performance improvements for these games

[gaunt marten]

I don't wanna look forward to it

[mossy flume]

Please look forward to it

But yeah, ugh. So many games perform so poorly on Switch hardware that you almost need to play them on an emulator to get a decent experience.

Will be sad if I can’t play Metroid Prime Remastered 2 and 3 in 4K. Or Prime 4.

[gaunt marten]

It really sucks that Nintendo is doing all they can to prevent their games from being preserved

[mossy flume]

Yep

Also not looking forward to Denuvo causing even more performance problems on the Switch itself.

And the Switch 2 being underutilized because of this

[fresh bane]

lmao the people who would emulate without paying for the game themselves wouldn't pay for the game anyways, and this can potentially turn people into piracy especially if it affects the performance or if it gets in the way of emulation for people who are legitimately emulating the games on PC by actually buying the rom themselves

I guess I just hope not every game/dev uses it, though considering the next Nintendo console is gonna come out I wonder if this even matters

[dire gate]

Uh

Well

As far as I can see it feels like an overreaction

What I see is just Iderto announcing "Denuvo now officially available on Switch"

It's not like Nintendo announcing "we will work with Iderto and import Denuvo to all our games"

[gaunt marten]

Yeah, hopefully it's limited in implementation

[mossy flume]

Right, I assumed that went without saying

[gaunt marten]

@slim thorn https://i.imgur.com/zBZkzQe.png

Cusith's reward!

[thorny loom]

Already made a statement regarding this but for the most part it will be irrelevant for games already relased as people will just use patches prior to denuvo implementation

Now going forward and the switch 2 probably but itll be fun to see how fast it gets cracked

[gaunt marten]

It keeps happening https://i.imgur.com/7ROqGv6.png

[harsh kestrel]

Somehow, some way, people on the internet will find a way for these games to be emulated better in the future

[gaunt marten]

That's not always the case

[harsh kestrel]

It is more often than you honestly think. I've seen a video where someone put every game literally ever onto 96 Terabytes worth of hard drives including stuff like arcade games and imports

[gaunt marten]

96 terabytes is not enough for even a hundredth of how many games there are

Not every game ever has been archived successfully. Thousands are still lost with no known copies

[wind stump]

'tis sad but true

[robust steppe]

So i get an xbox 360 and Ghost Recon: Future Soldier and i load the latest save and guess what?
||FORCED STEALTH SECTION||

[dire gate]

AC6 is out btw

[wind stump]

UM.

[quiet swift]

Chotto matte

[wind stump]

I SWEAR IT BOOTED UP LIKE THIS

I NEED A LITTLE HELP

okay rebooting the game fixed it

[graceful bridge]

https://bit.ly/DI-CultoftheLamb

DLC packs are on sale too

[dire gate]

Pretty cool game, grabbed it during Devolver franchise sale

haven't played a lot yet

[teal cliff]

I would play it but I do not like being mean to my cult members

[icy crescent]

Finished the story, pretty ez

[wintry canopy]

Big Fish.

[random steppe]

Yeah. I'm being absolutely destroyed in it, it's exceptional

[white phoenix]

How does it play? Is it just dark souls with mechs or something more?

[mossy flume]

Beeeeeg

[random steppe]

It plays more like a more modern, better polished version of the previous ACs

There are some elementes that are a bit dark soulsy, like the 3 repairs you have that gets restored at certain checkpoints

And you have a more dedicated dodge button, but it doesn't feel like a Dark Souls

You can be flying most of the time, the combat is a lot more 3d, and based in avoiding projectiles

And finding moments to land your own

So like, maybe 85% Armored Core and 15% Souls

Unlike souls the game is mission based, so not a big area you explore but smaller areas you go in to do certain objectives

So far the game offers a pretty decent variety of gear, and mission objectives, and I'm still in chapter 1

Of how many I'm not sure

From what I heard the story is decent lenght and has branching paths

How much it changes the story I'm not sure, still haven't got to one

[white phoenix]

interesting

[mossy flume]

Dunno if anyone actually uses the #1032767535805902888 channel so I’ll repost this here. Details of Factorio’s expansion pack have been officially revealed today. It’s called Factorio: Space Age and will be arriving in 2024 as a paid expansion.

https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-373

[white phoenix]

So many games coming out, i feel like i gotta look into at least one of them to get

[random steppe]

Also it shouldn't be left implied, it's pretty difficult
I think I will have no huge problems finishing it but it's not of those games I'll have the skill to S rank every mission or some shit, unless the game offers some pretty broken build I could use a crutch later on

[thorny loom]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1285360/Alien_Hominid_HD/

Steam

Alien Hominid HD

Alien Hominid HD, the award-winning 2D side-scroller from The Behemoth, is now available for Steam! With hand-drawn graphics, excitingly fast gameplay, and the humor that started it all, loading up this title is like traveling decades back in time, with improved visuals and the same hardcore gaming experience.Navigate your surroundings by jumpin...

Release Date

2023

[gaunt marten]

@slim thorn are you free? I can show you Death's Gambit ending A (or at least parts of it)

I already cleared the rest of the game and stopped at that point

If you're busy, I'm available for the rest of tonight until midnight your time, then I'm available other days.

https://www.twitch.tv/playstationruns

PlayStationNation Marathon Day 1! - #PSNMarathon

[slim thorn]

I'm back from work now

pizza will be arriving shortly but other than that I'm free

[gaunt marten]

Nice

I guessed you might work a nine to five, but since it's 6:39, you must close at 6ish and take a 40 minute commute

[arctic fern]

Sorry but for some reason this phrasing makes ne picture that "cheese is available" smbc comic
I don't know why

[gaunt marten]

It's a fantastic comic

[arctic fern]

It is

[wind stump]

I require a source

motherfuckin CHONKER of a dood i hacked into

[wind stump]

help this game's writing is too good

i dunno why but "random and unspecified god" sends me

[slim thorn]

very Shinto

[river veldt]

shinto ?

oh this sounds interesting

[wind stump]

I blame Touhou

[rare dew]

I feel like even Shinto would invoke a specific god/Kami?

Or all of them at once

[river veldt]

arent there literally a million or something

[wind stump]

I think there's seven million or so

[rare dew]

According to Google, Japanese folklore claims there are 8 million Kami

though it should also be noted that the number 8 million is also synonymous with the idea of infinity/eternity, so there may be infinitely many Kami, from the greatest Kami like Raijin, the Kami of thunder, storms and lightning, or the Kami of that particularly nice rock at the bottom of your garden

[river veldt]

ooo

right there's basically kami everywhere according to shinto right ?

[rare dew]

Yep!

Kami are everywhere, and in damn near everything

Wikipedia describes them as "the deities, divinities, spirits, mythological, spiritual, or natural phenomena, or holy powers that are venerated in the Shinto religion."

I think I read that calling them "gods" isn't... wrong but nor is it strictly correct? They're sort of personifications of "supernatural" forces, or forces of nature beyond the understanding of people at the time - like thunder, lightning, rain, rivers and lakes or even those weird creaking and knocking noises your house makes in the middle of the night

and there's a lot of overlap with the concept of Yokai, which are... basically the same thing but representing the less helpful/more actively malicious forces of the universe and general monsters: I think the major difference is that kami are actively venerated, and can bring good fortune if so venerated but can be destructive and vengeful if ignored. Yokai are just generally a nuisance if not actively harmful. Sort of like the difference in Christian mythology between angels and demons, but with way more nuance (and not one side being wholly good with the other wholly evil)

[quiet swift]

https://twitter.com/oyaji93/status/1695032270648942997 The ultimate in warfare

オヤジ草（異世界パークラ2巻5月31日発売/ぬきたしアンソロ7月21日発売） (@oyaji93)

アーマードコアを吸い込んだカービィ。これでいきます。#PS5Share, #ARMOREDCOREVIFIRESOFRUBICON

Likes

6043

Retweets

3453

Twitter · Aug 25, 2023, 11:16 AM

[thorny loom]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXelFSJn8aY

[quiet swift]

[dense crypt]

Ah shit, here we go again

[slim thorn]

note that this aspect is similar to many pre-Abrahamaic western religions, like Greco-Roman mythology's "nymphs" and "dryads", which we don't hear about nearly as much as their "gods", "demigods" and "heroes"

[slim thorn]

this is a famously specific wording, but the number is probably not meant to be taken literally: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/八百万

Noun
八百万(やおよろず) • (yaoyorozu)
(Shinto) eight million, used to depict the number of kami
a myriad; a multitude; a countless large number or amount

Derived terms
八百万(やおよろず)の神(かみ) (yaoyorozu no kami, “all the deities”)

it's like how everyone says the "40 days and 40 nights" in the Noah's Ark story probably isn't that literal

[river veldt]

ITS NOT ?

[slim thorn]

pretty much, yeah

most of the actually-old stories I've heard about youkai seem to end with "Bob did a naughty thing, and thus a youkai ate him"

[river veldt]

are there many Japanese people named Bob

[slim thorn]

nah I was just using an English placeholder name because I'm lazy

[river veldt]

o

[wind stump]

there's a shit ton of people named Sakura

[slim thorn]

naming women after flowers, birds, gemstones, and other pretty nature stuff seems to be universal

[rare dew]

I think Toshi is like Japanese "Steve"

[river veldt]

hello Toshi

[slim thorn]

even MLP G5 has an alicorn named after a gemstone

[slim thorn]

so backing up to what I was originally getting at with my "very Shinto" quip

for a whole bunch of subtle reasons that I'm not qualifed to fully explain, Shinto is a lot less hung up on specific lore and specific assigned duties of its deities and deity-adjacent figures, and more about the general vibes of respecting nature and divinity and purity

a specific anecdote I've heard before is that when a westerner visits a Japanese town and hears about the local kami they built shrines to, they might understandably ask what it's the kami of, and many locals will just shrug; often there is an answer but it's not as important as we expect it to be

[arctic fern]

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2014-10-19
Cheese is available

[slim thorn]

incidentally, of these reasons, the one I do somewhat understand is that early Japanese history has some major conflicts between religious institutions and the ruling clans/emperors/etc (not entirely unlike the kings vs churches narratives we hear about in European history); basically the religious institutions lost, and there's been an element of state-sponsored religion ever since (albeit stronger and weaker in various eras), starting at least as far back as the Kojiki describing the emperor as a descendent of the kami

[wind stump]

beautiful

brings a tear to my eye

[gaunt marten]

Top left @slim thorn

[random steppe]

In the meantime I'm having the trial by fire like in every From Soft game in which I reached the first hard boss and I'm maybe at my 20th attempt and went from dying in the first 12 seconds and thinking it's impossible, to almost killing him and bringing him to one sliver

Might not be a souls game but sure it's a From game

[gaunt marten]

Other titles https://i.imgur.com/tUeZa5R.png

"..."
"Do you enjoy watching Sorun suffer?"

And so on

[mossy flume]

Yeah, it gets pretty aggressive about it. Pretty sure I mentioned it before but Chrome will now sometimes be marked as malware.

Not every time though, I've noticed, but I've seen it happen twice now

[gaunt marten]

https://i.imgur.com/g5TqpbG.png

[river veldt]

Midnight why did you reply to a message that's half a year old

[slim thorn]

because I linked it in #science-and-tech

[river veldt]

oh

well that's what i get for having channels muted

[rare dew]

Ohh... o.o Neat! So "What they're the Kami of" is much less important than that they are a Kami

[slim thorn]

and that they're ours

at least as I understand it

I'm sure I'm getting some important nuance wrong there

[fresh bane]

Might as well be 'the kami of this specific place surrounding the shrine'

what always fascinated me about shintoism is how little 'rules' there really are, to the point where I've even read some don't even consider it a religion because it's just how native japanese people live and see the world

it doesn't function or appear as what you'd think a religion to be

I'm willing to bet people who aren't necessarily believers or anything still participate in cultural practices like Hatsumode

[slim thorn]

indeed, these days it's just "stuff we do" in a cultural sense, without any "pope of Shinto" or whoever establishing specific Shinto dogma or any of that other systematization we're used to

[river veldt]

i kind of like that

[slim thorn]

(unless you count the peak of State Shinto when it was all about worshipping the Emperor but that's like all of the rule 2)

coming from what we're used to, it is refreshingly chill

[wind stump]

I know this is just Shinto talk in general and not Touhou's take on shinto specifically but

[river veldt]

toho

[slim thorn]

(when you're unaware of the whole "the people who systematized it all died horribly! " historical context)

[river veldt]

o

[slim thorn]

yeah there's a reason that stuff is in Gensokyo now

[fresh bane]

touhou's take on shinto is ''what if all the youkai were cute girls and they blew each other up with magic missiles''

[wind stump]

I don't have a "Shinto Hijack Lol"

[river veldt]

in what

[wind stump]

the fictional land where Touhou takes place

between fantasy and reality or some sort of glitter term like that

[river veldt]

oh

sorry i dont k now anythfing about touhou

[wind stump]

nw it was me just being silly

[slim thorn]

the important detail I'm referencing here is that in Touhou lore, Gensokyo is a place where forgotten things end up, in a very literal sense

like, there's a dude in Gensokyo who collects retro human tech like old video game consoles, and humorously has no clue how they actually work

[fresh bane]

and to my knowledge is the only guy there too

[river veldt]

does he have a Gameboy

[slim thorn]

and the whole Touhou 10: Mountain of Faith plot is about what happens when a particular shinto shrine ends up there with some actual gods

[wind stump]

oh right i meant like things being forgotten is them "passing into fantasy"

[slim thorn]

separate from the one that's been there forever

[wind stump]

It's funny because MoF introduces like 3 new gods completely unrelated to them who've just been hanging out on Youkai Mountain forever and I only realised this when a fanfic pointed that fact out.

or at least two
not sure about the funny speeeen girl

[slim thorn]

then 12 makes the religion mismatch extra fun by introducing the buddhist monk girl and her youkai fan club because that's totally how that works

western fans calling her "youkai jesus" unintentionally adding an extra layer of meta absurdity to it all

all right, it's Blasphemous 2 time

[fresh bane]

I can't believe I haven't even seen anything related to Blasphemous yet

a metroidvania with some souls stuff in there coming from a spanish indie dev and in pixel art you'd think I'd be all over this game

[slim thorn]

indeed, I think all the real gamers are busy with baldur's portcullis or armored midpoint or whatever

[random steppe]

There are so many games that I've had to go "yeah no, maybe October, or September if Starfield is shit"

[river veldt]

ive been playing Minecraft Dungeons

very fun game

[slim thorn]

so in the first game my primary weapon was Mea Culpa, this time I get a choice at the start, and the one I chose is... Ruego Al Alba (I pray at dawn?) yeah that sounds about right

[dense crypt]

Armored midpoint lmao

[fresh bane]

Oh, no, I meant I can't believe I haven't even seen/watched anything about Blasphemous

no gameplay or streams or even played it myself

because it looks like a game I'd love

[slim thorn]

reinforced bullseye: embers of that one famous river

tbf it did take me a long time to get around to Blasphemous myself

[dense crypt]

Well-dressed centerpoint: left the stove on again

[slim thorn]

nearly everyone who'd be into it gets to stuff like Hollow Knight first

but it's still in my top 5 non-Metroid Metroidvanias so I couldn't say no to playing Serious Insult Dos right after release

[fresh bane]

hollow knight is another game I know literally nothing about but people seemed to go crazy over it

[quiet swift]

Not only is the first on sale, there's a demo available for it. I tried it and quickly realized it's not for me. Too exacting on needing to parry and not enough damage, though I assume the latter part is due to being super early game

[slim thorn]

yeah, you always feel relatively weak at the start of these games until you

[fresh bane]

https://tenor.com/view/dmc5-royal-guard-dante-gif-18448900

I play DMC so, not a problem for me

[slim thorn]

indeed, I wouldn't expect Nire to have trouble with the skill floor

meanwhile I'm dying to the tutorial boss because my eternal penance is being unable to parry my way out of a paper bag

[quiet swift]

Official Evo moment #37

[robust steppe]

New social deduction game, now with a playable demo
https://twitter.com/TownofSalemTwo/status/1695089010085937224?t=yvzaqlMmM344UrQTtQHq7g&s=19

TownofSalem2 (@TownofSalemTwo)

Town of Salem 2 is now officially released on Steam and has a Free to Play Demo!
https://t.co/l4UQJ0YFQT

Town of Salem 2 transports you back to the age of the Salem Witch Trials. Become a Town member using your abilities and deductive skills to weed out evil from the town, or…

▶ Play video

Twitter · Aug 25, 2023, 3:01 PM

[slim thorn]

alternatively, I am an idiot, I'm supposed to be sliding instead of parrying

got it in one after I realized that

[arctic fern]

i heard they were making town of salem 2

im not sure what its bringing to the tableof social deduction games that the original didnt, or the original original games like mafia or werewolf

[graceful bridge]

We don't appear to have a forum for it, but if anyone play's No Man's Sky, there's a bunch of Twitch drops available over the next few days (each one is only up for 24 hours, the first day is already gone).

[arctic fern]

people play no mans sky?

[random steppe]

It's a good game

[graceful bridge]

I've heard it improved tremendously over the last year or so. They just put out another major patch this week.

[random steppe]

It's not enough simmy for me but I enjoyed the time I played it

[slim thorn]

I've always heard that No Man's Sky got way better after its release, partially because of updates and partially because everyone still paying attention no longer had unrealistic expectations

[mossy flume]

They did a lot of work to improve the game with a lot of content updates

All of them free

[fresh bane]

The story of No Man's Sky is pretty wild especially having been there during the period of ''this game is the biggest scam of all time'' and now the game being the best comeback story of all time because it improved so much and people started to really love it once the team actually showed that they weren't intentionally scamming people and really did put in a shit ton of effort and work into making the game better and improving relations with the community

[mossy flume]

Yeah, I think they got an award for community support because of it

[fresh bane]

The guy that was going around doing interviews hyping up the game definitely talked too much and promised way too much out of the game but I don't think he had any ill intentions, I think he probably didn't realize the effect of all the things he was saying would have and their ability to fulfill those promises so it was a pretty dumb but not intentional move from his part

[mossy flume]

Yeah, Sean, the project lead

He got too excited

He was just overenthusiastic and didn't have the right PR skills

Ever since the initial backlash he just completely shut up and almost never talks publicly anymore

I agree I think he was coming from a place of genuine enthusiasm and didn't quite get how far his word would reach

I was disappointed for sure, but NMS is a genuinely fun game. It's just so involved that I haven't really been able to budget the time to really sink my teeth into it fully.

[fresh bane]

He might have not had any PR skills at all but he had some good discipline, when the initial massive backlash was going on I remember reading from somewhere after the comeback story that he had told everyone on the team to just literally not care about the backlash and to not make any posts or comments about it and just work on the game and make it better pretty much letting their work speak for itself

I don't blame him for not wanting to speak publicly again he probably realized he just doesn't have the skills for it

[mossy flume]

Yeah

Or maybe there was an internal fight

[fresh bane]

let's all say it together now, don't have your devs do the PR

[mossy flume]

I remember the bit where the entire NMS dev team just vanished off the face of the earth

They must've been utterly overwhelmed

Like their office was abandoned and nobody knew where they went

[gaunt marten]

The panic room

[mossy flume]

They were just MIA for months and one day they just went "Yeah, we know. But here's how we're going to fix it." and over the years they did.

[mossy flume]

Honestly, probably hiding from all the death threats and harassment.

But yeah, I think they did well in the end.

[quiet swift]

[mossy flume]

I like her tongue is also on fire

[quiet swift]

Portrayal of a NMS dev at that time

[mossy flume]

Yep

Can't imagine how emotionally hard that must've been

[fresh bane]

which is why it's impressive to me how they managed to just shut up and block it all out and just work on the game and improve it because they genuinely cared, the one instance where waiting for all the hate to die down was acceptable because they were actually doing stuff during that time

it's weird but nice to see how much it dissipated because at the time you couldn't escape the discussion about it so I have no doubts that they at least received death threats on mass during that time knowing how people are like

https://youtu.be/8g2YqU-_GtA?si=UdbFeh3zRpQzQn0k

[mossy flume]

I should actually play this game for realsies

I just dip my toes into it every now and then and go "wow this game's big I dunno what to do"

[graceful bridge]

But yeah, be sure to get the Twitch drops. Free ships and other stuff.

[mossy flume]

Did they ever make the Normandy available again in any way other than the big questline?

I started that questline and realized that would take me a lot of time to complete on my own

[bleak lintel]

It comes back now and then as an event, you can usually complete it really fast because people will put up bases and such you can use.

I think you can also edit your user file and unlock the event items.

[static bluff]

It's... been longer than I thought since I tried this game out

[river veldt]

lol

goddd

i should replay Half Life 2

one of the greatest games ever imo

[chilly mural]

Is there a green demon challenge in hl2?

[river veldt]

i dont think so

[chilly mural]

[fresh bane]

it's crazy to me that I never played HL2

But I played and grew up on virtually every other significant Valve game from HL1 onwards as a kid

HL1, CS1.6, CSS, Portal 1 & 2, TF2, L4D, Gmod

[chilly mural]

No csgo?

Was that after your time?

[river veldt]

i actually haven't played through Half Life 1 all the way

[white phoenix]

CS Condition Zero snubbed

[fresh bane]

No csgo was only 10 years ago I was 10 at the time I just didn't grow up on it or play it the same way I did the other ones

[chilly mural]

Nire is so young

[flint iron]

Valve must've inspired some present 3d game devolpers with just how used the engine was back then

[chilly mural]

[white phoenix]

Day of Defeat... forgotten

[chilly mural]

DoD of Defeat

[fresh bane]

I'm 20

[chilly mural]

Nire has their whole future ahead to draw horse girls

[white phoenix]

same

[chilly mural]

[flint iron]

Twilight is staring right into the pinkie pie cake decorations soul

[fresh bane]

I've been drawing horses since I got into mlp around like 2014 I even had an OC and everything

[river veldt]

ive played HL2, Episode 1 & 2, Portal 1 and 2, a bit of TF2, and Gmod

[fresh bane]

the whole experience

[river veldt]

i believe that's it

[chilly mural]

The entire jerma experience

[static bluff]

ye this is pretty fun

i dunno why I stopped playing it

[river veldt]

lots of people don't like Water Hazard but i love it

[visual hill]

March 2020 moment

[static bluff]

oh i just beat that section I think?

[visual hill]

CS:CZ is the one I boot up the most when I want to play old CS for funsies, it doesn't have a ton of players but it has enough players to find a populated game

it is technically the definitive GoldSrc CS, but the context surrounding it made it the least liked game

[white phoenix]

well goddamn, someone who actually plays that one

never thought I'd see the day lol

[visual hill]

(Valve removed bots from CS 1.6 in the Steam version, only to have them as a CZ exclusive. Bots were a big deal back then)

this is why cracked CS 1.6 versions have bots but not a legit Steam version 🙂

[river veldt]

this game is nearly 20 years old and it's still gorgeous

[white phoenix]

I played cz just to see what it was, only on singleplayer with bots

[river veldt]

also yeah i think you did good job 🙂

[white phoenix]

it was kinda fun to be able to command them with voice lines I guess

[visual hill]

the Deleted Scenes singleplayer is worth checking out, even with its lack of polish

there's nothing quite like it to be fair, CS's tight gunplay works quite well in singleplayer

if you play Half-Life 1 afterwards, you'd wish you could have any kind of spray control for instance

[white phoenix]

Yeah I think I tried them all out because I got the valve complete pack, which is dirt cheap these days

[river veldt]

oh yeah i bought that too

[visual hill]

I tried Half-Life raytraced earlier this week, got stuck in On a Rail as usual

the pre-Black Mesa version of that chapter is not kind

[river veldt]

On a Rail sucks :(

[visual hill]

I only found the easter egg underpass, now with a sultim-t reference (the mod's author) on top of the usual "Killer" or whatever it is

[river veldt]

there's this one bit where it's like

a tube

and there's a bunch of marines

and you have to go in the tube and it takes you up

i hate it

[fresh bane]

Apparently I had bought and started playing CSGO back around 2017 which sounds about right, which fucking sucks because it went f2p in 2018

[visual hill]

but you got a Loyalty Badge and MP5-SD Lab Rats

(and prime status)

[river veldt]

i havent touched CSGO yet because i dont want to get called a slur

[visual hill]

Prime Status never goes on sale nowadays, while the paid game did go on sale back then

[visual hill]

you can play with a premade stack of players you know, and turn-off in-game chat

but I agree it's not great for logistic reasons

[fresh bane]

I don't even remember if I got those since I stopped playing a while ago

[visual hill]

I would totally be down to play with people here

[fresh bane]

I don't even have 100 hours on the game

[river veldt]

👀👀👀

[white phoenix]

I have 100... and that's it

[slim thorn]

"not even 100 hours"

[static bluff]

I've never played it

[white phoenix]

literally haven't played it in 2 years lmao, sold all my skins for some game

[river veldt]

it looks fun from what ive seen

[white phoenix]

I would only boot it up if I really wanted to test my aiming

cause csgo's like the aiming game

[river veldt]

is surfing still a thing

[visual hill]

I have 977.3 h

heh, still not 1,000

yeah, it is, there are a lot of surf community servers

[white phoenix]

I never really "got" how csgo's bullets work

[visual hill]

some people have waaay more than that, even on a shorter timespan than me (I started in September 2016)

if you want to improve at the game, watch TheWarOwl's tutorials, they're old but still relevant today

[fresh bane]

For online games like these it really is a small number of hours, I only started playing Apex Legends around 2021 and I have 230 hours on that game

[white phoenix]

I keep on having to crouch because that's the stance I know that's going to guarantee the bullet is going at the crosshair, and also the spray patterns and stuff

[river veldt]

i remember watching those awful toxic commentary videos from like 2016 and CSGO surfing was always in the background

[fresh bane]

And for an older game like TF2 I have 655 hours

[static bluff]

lol i just picked up a paint can, and launched it, and it splatered paint on the wall

[river veldt]

so good

man when Valve makes games they're really good at it huh

[fresh bane]

Half Life 2 is ''okay but have you seen our physics engine?'' the game

[white phoenix]

half life is just valve's tech demos but a full game

[river veldt]

yeah tech demos with amazing gameplay story and characters lol

[slim thorn]

oh I'm aware, it's one of the reasons I know I'd never enjoy any of them

[river veldt]

i love the Source aesthetic so much

nothing beats it for me

it's probably just nostalgia though

[slim thorn]

I have no strong feelings on the way the Source engine looks compared to any other engine, other than some vague nostalgia because duh

[river veldt]

i was obsessed with Gmod gameplay videos back in like 2014-2015

[slim thorn]

that and when I played Stanley Parable it was impossible not to notice and that only made it clearer what was being mocked

[white phoenix]

I'm meh on it because I never really grew up with valve games, but what they did with the graphics on later games like csgo and portal 2 are spectacular

[river veldt]

i forgot Stanley Parable was made in Source tbh

i honestly think Half Life 2 and the Portal games have visually aged flawlessly

[white phoenix]

portal, sure, but hl2... ehhh

[slim thorn]

I've never had an eye for graphics so I'm sure I wouldn't care

[white phoenix]

portal is helped by the fact that it's all sterile environments and robots

[slim thorn]

I suspect some of the physics puzzles aged a bit now that physics puzzles are bogstandard, but the gravity gun stuff still knocks nearly every other game with a physics engine out of the water, because level/encounter design matters

[white phoenix]

the textures on hl2 are... rough

[river veldt]

grabs you

[static bluff]

I don't think it's that bad.

like, look at the water stains coming from that vented area

Really good attention to detail

[visual hill]

better than Doom 3 😛

worse than UT2004 though (which didn't use cutting-edge graphics features, so it made up for it with good textures and models)

[river veldt]

where even are you

[white phoenix]

Sure, but the quality, like you can see on the gun

[slim thorn]

I never really notice texture quality unless the game tends to involve a lot of rubbing my face against the walls

[river veldt]

i really need to replay HL2

[white phoenix]

and the models are a bit rough too, the wall is a sharp edge

cause at the time you couldn't really handle that many polys anyway

[visual hill]

Doom 3 was originally planned to have much higher-resolution artwork, but the move to real-time lighting required compromises

that's why the final result is just "Quake 3 but slightly better" in terms of artwork detail

[slim thorn]

I wanna say just outside Eli's hideout? but it's been forever and this particular vent grate isn't that memorable lol

[fresh bane]

https://youtu.be/Bdbhr2pZUgg?si=NRDHSVHR6YUZgzwK

[static bluff]

Yep

what ixrec said

I jsut got hte gravity gun from eli's hideout

[river veldt]

did you like Dog

[slim thorn]

see, when I say Half-Life 1-2 had god-tier level design, that's what I mean

[static bluff]

yeah I made a basket wijth his ball

[fresh bane]

Of course Hl2 is going to look outdated today, even though it still looks perfectly fine just like RE4 looks perfectly fine, but for the time it wasn't just great it was completely cutting edge

[slim thorn]

play it once over a decade ago and I can still place most random hallways

[fresh bane]

It's fucking impressive to say the absolute least for 2004

[river veldt]

Dog is great

[visual hill]

Ah, you're finally awake

wait, wrong game

[river veldt]

i love Dog

🙏

[fresh bane]

Nowadays people say ''that looks like a ps4 game lulz'' like an insult because of how far we've gotten with visuals, of course a source game will look 'rough' today

[white phoenix]

I mean, yeah, it probably was, I wasn't disputing that, but it hasn't really "visually aged flawlessly" is my point

[visual hill]

Infra made Source 1 look really good, along with later CS:GO maps

[river veldt]

graphics peaked with Half Life 2 /hj

[visual hill]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaGF7DeFF4Y

[slim thorn]

graphics peaked before I started playing video games and it's been nothing but weird since

[visual hill]

(note: I can't watch videos, I literally got banned from viewing videos unless I use mpv :^)

death is upon us

[light gate]

they'll have to pry it out of my dead cold hands

[white phoenix]

oh no

[fresh bane]

literally 1984

[visual hill]

I can't even watch my own videos

[slim thorn]

meanwhile I'm impressed by Blasphemous 2 having the budget to fully animate its cutscenes

[white phoenix]

they're coming for us

[visual hill]

it also fucks up on playlists, making each video play for 3 seconds before going to the next one (so I can't read comments)

[white phoenix]

what adblocker are you using, I haven't gotten that yet

[slim thorn]

video loads fine for me, I'm just using ublock origin

[rose rose]

It's an a/b test

It will work for most people, for now.

Eventually I assume it will roll out to everyone.

[white phoenix]

Yeah I assume so, cause youtube has always done that with newer features, not everybody gets it instantly

it is funny seeing new youtube features suddenly appear right in front of your eyes when you refresh though

[fresh bane]

no game does, but source games have aged really well to me, I guess I'm ambivalent to it because I grew up on ''bad'' looking games and I never had cutting edge games or pcs so I never cared about visuals, really if you slapped some better lighting or ray tracing on Half Life 2 it would improve the look by a lot because the game already looks so good, lighting is such a vital part of making a game look good
https://youtu.be/aM_gzfAMdNs?si=ORMcTP1m4P9wE8-4

[slim thorn]

yeah any competent service will be doing staged rollouts at least

[fresh bane]

this RTX project does more than just lighting but I couldn't find any mod or project that only adds better lighting to the game without changing other stuff

[slim thorn]

my anecdatum was not meant to be read as a claim that "they're not touching ublock origin"

[light gate]

RTX project looks pretty weird

It doesn't feel right.

[fresh bane]

they changed a lot of models and textures that's why

it's not only a ray tracing overhaul it's a full visual overhaul

[light gate]

Couldn't they just upscale the images using NVIDIA's Super:TM: AI Upscaler?

[fresh bane]

Apparently not, I don't know

[rose rose]

It'll be interesting to watch Google actually go to war against ad blockers. I don't believe they ever have in this way before.

[fresh bane]

this is what they wanted to do I guess

[slim thorn]

I was about to say that's a lot more than a "remaster" if they're redoing half the models and textures

[fresh bane]

I was going to say remake but since it uses the same engine I didn't want to say it

[slim thorn]

it's become a much more nuanced spectrum lately

[white phoenix]

the name "remaster" kinda got relegated to just being a higher resolution release these days
I think I remember remasters of games being actual full visual overhauls, but still based on the original code/engine, like the cod mw remasters

[fresh bane]

Remaster seemed better to me because it's the same game the same engine, this is just a mod and it's not adding anything new or porting the entire thing over to a new engine and stuff so remastered seemed better to me

if this was being done on Source 2 I'd say it's a remake

[slim thorn]

then again the original, literal meaning of "remaster" is becoming obsolete now that decent PC games let you bump the texture quality and a million other settings super high anyway, so I guess it's only natural we'd start using "remaster" for a somewhat more involved update that doesn't go as far as "remake" usually connotes

[fresh bane]

I wouldn't say that considering Spiderman ps4 released a remaster not 5 years after the game came out

which was and still is ridiculous to me

[white phoenix]

yeah freaking sony with their remasters a few years after the fact lol

and then a tlou remake

[fresh bane]

which was more broken than the original game

[slim thorn]

oh, was it exactly the same other than higher quality texture/audio files?

[visual hill]

uBlock Origin

[white phoenix]

oh boy, this is the end

[slim thorn]

yikes

[visual hill]

raytracing support, changed time of day in some scenes ("just looks better I guess" :P), changed Spider-Man's likeness

[slim thorn]

lol

[white phoenix]

and that peter face debate continues to this day

[visual hill]

I'm fine with the new face, not sure why people are so attached to the old one

[fresh bane]

I hate it so fucking much

[white phoenix]

I thought the old face was a great mix of all the live action peters, but the new one looks more like tom holland

still, I think if the new one came first, people would be hating on the old one

also, the new one fits yuri's facial capture better, which is one of their reasons for changing it

[fresh bane]

There is a legitimate criticism about the new face not fitting well because all the mocap and animations were done with the original in mind obviously

[slim thorn]

I'm just mildly confused as to why they felt the need to change it at all

[fresh bane]

I don't know

[slim thorn]

I like how Toff just said almost the opposite of what you said

[visual hill]

when I heard about the change, I assumed it was because the original actor got into MeToo reasons

[fresh bane]

Not exactly, the new game might fit better but they retroactively added the new face to the original first game

[visual hill]

but it's probably not that

it's just an assumption I tend to make every time nowadays

[fresh bane]

https://youtu.be/DP5S4LxFSFI?si=rZVd1P-zlkg7BpIM

nothing like that, no

they say they changed it because it fits Yuri Lowenthal's motion capture better

I just don't know how they didn't figure out that before and only caught that now

You can't just fully recreate a character's design who people got attached to and expect it to be fine even if it was a legitimate reason, there's really no deep motive for people being upset other than people know Sony's Spiderman as that face and not the new one and they're just attached to the one they know and recognize as Peter

I also do share the opinion that it doesn't fit the vibe of this older Spiderman who has been doing this for a while and he looks like he's 20 (and suspiciously similar to Tom Holland)

[quiet swift]

https://www.comicbasics.com/why-did-insomniac-change-peter-parker/

[slim thorn]

maybe dumb question: only a tiny minority of people who play PS4 Spider-Man are going to play both the original and the remaster, right? so most people won't experience it as a "change" except via internet articles?

[visual hill]

I've only played remastered on PC

[fresh bane]

that doesn't seem to be the case considering how much outrage there was that one of the people at insomniac had to address it

[slim thorn]

I played it when it was new and there was no remaster

[fresh bane]

also people don't just play anymore, a lot of people just watch these games from streams or let's plays

[slim thorn]

that doesn't tell us anything about how many people actually played or will play both versions lol

you know that's not how angry people on the internet work

[river veldt]

i think the outrage is silly

[rose rose]

I honestly feel like most people wouldn't even notice unless they actually played them back to back.

IIRC they use the new face in Spider-Man 2, so in theory anyone who played the original would experience the change upon playing the sequel

[fresh bane]

my point is that whether people actually play both versions they will still see the change because those who didn't play it before will still know what he looked like and those who play after will have to put up with the new face because that's how he's like in Miles Morales and what he will be like in Spiderman 2

[white phoenix]

I did a double take upon seeing his face in the spider man 2 trailer, not going to lie lol

[rose rose]

Assuming they remember what a guy who mostly wears a mask looks like after five years

[slim thorn]

ok that's a fair point with the sequels

[fresh bane]

they also changed Mary Jane's face too which is wild

because she looks nothing like she did before

[slim thorn]

I mean I'd never remember that but I can't remember a face to save my life in reality or in media

[white phoenix]

oh yeah lol, she aged like 10 years

[rose rose]

I would also never remember that

[fresh bane]

she looks like she's a 45 year old mother of 3

[river veldt]

my sibling in face blindness

[slim thorn]

ok, fair, that looks weird even to me... at least in this particular image

[fresh bane]

Sony Spiderman MJ was one of my favourites too I thought she looked really cute despite people hating her

[thorny loom]

https://www.pcgamer.com/amd-says-bethesda-can-add-dlss-support-to-starfield-anytime-it-wants-they-have-our-full-support/

[river veldt]

i like her new one more i think ngl

[fickle garnet]

Im finally picked up and am now downloading Armored Core 6 after waiting all fucking day because my sister chose to ignore me when i asked her if she could drive me to gamestop and its not gonna be done for like 5 hours so i cant even play it today

So i have to wait an extra fucking day to play it

[visual hill]

I finished Kirby and the Forgotten Land's post-game mode

[fickle garnet]

It came with a cool keychain as a pre order bonus

[river veldt]

https://www.tumblr.com/zhjake/629007141805686784/what-if-fusion-suitbut-make-it-more-giger-y

double posted cause i just think it's so cool

[mossy flume]

Accurate

[unreal idol]

Anyone got AC6 yet?

[fickle garnet]

Im downloading it

Would've been able to play it earlier if my sister didn't ignore me when i asked if she could drive me to gamestop

[unreal idol]

I'm thinking about getting it once I save some more

[gaunt marten]

AeldenCringe6

[rose rose]

It's going well.

[gaunt marten]

Oh looks like more virtual machine shenanigans

[mossy flume]

I’m still trying to launch it

EAC is blocking it from launching

[gaunt marten]

Oh this is normal hardware?

[rose rose]

Yes

[mossy flume]

Does this game even have multiplayer? That would be news to me

Yes

[gaunt marten]

Weird

[mossy flume]

Normal hardware with no pirated software or anything

[fickle garnet]

Yeah it has multiplayer

[mossy flume]

TIL

[gaunt marten]

Hardware enforced Stack Protection

[fickle garnet]

You can do missions co-op

And 1v1 battles i think

[mossy flume]

Well I disabled that and it didn’t work

Verified files and it passed. Rebooting it again.

It rebooted repeatedly today

[rose rose]

I am not a fan of anti-cheat that requires the disabling of security features

[mossy flume]

Online connectivity to EAC passed

Yeah I’m very unhappy about that

[sacred grove]

See this is why Linux won't be viable for gam-- oh

[rose rose]

This is why people should just buy consoles

Shit works

[mossy flume]

Rebooting after disabling security features worked

Get your shit together, FromSoft

[gaunt marten]

I don't think they ever had

[mossy flume]

Given that they don’t have difficulty settings for these single player games, yeah, it’s clear they don’t have their shit together.

[rose rose]

That is why Armoured Core wasn't even on my radar.

"cool, another game from the Very Difficult Game people: pass"

[mossy flume]

It’s an incredible level of absurd bullshit to where I think it’s more than fair to simply cheat the game.

[rose rose]

I believe the traditional solution is to get good

(I am too scrub to be invested in this solution personally)

[gaunt marten]

I think it's more than fair to cheat in any single player experience regardless of difficulty or circumstances

[white phoenix]

I was interested in elden ring for about two seconds until I saw that it was fromsoft back when it was announced

[rose rose]

I would agree with that too, though I suspect the anti-cheat we had to disable security features for would beg to differ.

Also in "having their shit together": the game supports controller input, but all the tutorial prompts reference mouse and keyboard controls.

Regrettably, my controller doesn't have a middle mouse button

[mossy flume]

Yeah, EAC makes it difficult to use trainers

Which is probably half the reason why it’s there

[rose rose]

That said, bad UI is a fromsoft staple so I assumed that going in

[mossy flume]

Basically my experience with every FS game. “Oh this looks awesome, finally something I’m interested in during this presentation- oh it’s another fucking FromSoft game.”

[white phoenix]

yeah, how do they make so many games at the same time lol

and every time I try to look up what the fuss is all about, I just can't get a grasp of it

[mossy flume]

There will probably be a cracked version with EAC ripped out floating around on torrents down the line, at which point it would be easier to use trainers

I’m at least able to get the first boss down to 1/4 health, but no better than that

The tolerances are far too tight.

FromSoft and their fanbase: “Either play frame perfectly all the time or you’re literally retarded.”
Man fuck this shit.

[river veldt]

hey

let's not use that word please

[white phoenix]

Yeah, I'm not going to have much fun if all the game is is being hard, I'm not subjecting myself to that

[gaunt marten]

Oh do you guys get to use the cool new Izzy word warning?

Is that why there's three mods here?

[mossy flume]

I use that term in an extremely specific manner, exclusively as a self-reference.

[rugged flax]

Apparently WeMod already has AC6 cheats

[mossy flume]

And it somehow doesn’t get broken by EAC? That was quick.

[rose rose]

It seems plausible EAC only cares in multiplayer.

Or they just got permabanned from Epic multiplayer

One of those

[rugged flax]

in use by 11.8K and last updated yesterday

[white phoenix]

wow, and the game just came out

that is quite the number

[gaunt marten]

AC6 is the four biggest release of the year so far

[random steppe]

Wait you can co-op?? That's great news

[fickle garnet]

Im pretty sure yeah

[gaunt marten]

But the moment you go online people can invade you

[random steppe]

I think that it has up to 3v3 pvp but honestly I couldn't care less about pvp

[mossy flume]

Pffft, the game actually has grayed out the quit button. SAO moment.

[random steppe]

Oh actually it doesn't seem like it has Co op

Just pvp

If the Internet is to be believed

[mossy flume]

Aw, lame

[fickle garnet]

Oh i thought it did

[random steppe]

Yeah Co op missions would have been fun

At least it seems like the net code for pvp isn't too much trash

[mossy flume]

Ah, I see, the trainers just crack EAC

[gaunt marten]

If I recall correctly, some Dark Souls games try to stop you from quitting if you're about to be invaded

You can still alt+f4 but not quit to main menu

[mossy flume]

Well it just threw out my progress for force-quitting and then told me that it would toss your progress if you do that when I booted it up again

So they definitely have opinions on this

[rugged flax]

anyways, just bought Starfield. Fanatical has it on sale for 17% off
Standard edition comes out to only $58

[white phoenix]

super curious to see if starfield actually holds up their promises or if it's going to be all lies and a disaster of epic proportions

[rugged flax]

well in a few days come on over to #1117577147167539220 and we shall find out together

[white phoenix]

I'll be watching the reviews and the threads with great interest

[gaunt marten]

In dark souls if you quit while an invader is present they warn you the next time you play. After a few times (maybe fiveish? It never happened to me) they put you in a penalized pool of players and you have to use an in-game item that you get after a while to bring yourself back to the normal pool

It's a really weird system and my least favorite part of the game is how little control you have over online invaders (unless you play in offline mode, but this makes it so you can't play cooperatively)

[random steppe]

I am not sure what's even happening in MA game, there aren't invasions and you don't unlock pvp until the end of chapter 2

[gaunt marten]

That's weird

[random steppe]

I don't even know if it has any sneaky multiplayer features

I should check

[mossy flume]

Hype

[random steppe]

Nevermind, Google is shit now

It's just AI written article on AI written article

[white phoenix]

just put reddit after it

[random steppe]

Actually I know it doesn't have invasions 100%

You can pause the game

[mossy flume]

Yep you can pause it

[random steppe]

Invasions is the reason you can't pause the game in souls

[mossy flume]

It just wouldn’t let me quit, possibly because it was still in a prologue state

[random steppe]

Oh, it wanted you to get to the garage

Makes sense

[mossy flume]

Yeah probably that

[fresh bane]

In Dark Souls it was a very common occurence for people to just alt f4 immediately when getting invaded which made it pretty much nearly impossible for invaders to actualy... invade
the way they changed that for Elden Ring is that now you don't get invaded anymore unless you're currently in co-op or if you actively summon invaders for pvp

npcs still invade but that's npcs not other players

[gaunt marten]

I don't mind if invaders can't invade

Unless you specifically mark yourself with a big "invade me" sign you should be able to play unbothered.

[fresh bane]

that would be the human/embered mode in dark souls

[gaunt marten]

No

There should be a mode that does not give you any gameplay changes at all except allow invaders

Don't mix it with other features

That's the problem

[fresh bane]

Well the way they design their games is to mix everything with the gameplay and all the features

[gaunt marten]

It works for the other features but not invasions because malicious invaders are common

People who intentionally want nothing but to ruin other people's games

[rose rose]

I always sort of assumed that was the point of invading

It didn't seem like a compelling point but it did seem like the point

[gaunt marten]

The games do have a "consensual PVP" mode already

[random steppe]

I don't think that they are common, most of invaders just want to pvp and kill you, the "ruin your fun with the game" by using griefy tactics is a very slim minority.

[gaunt marten]

It's like invasions but you call it

[fresh bane]

I think the way they handled it on Elden Ring is fine

If you have a particular set of invaders or just the one guy bothering you he'll only invade you if you have friends with you so you have a better chance, otherwise only npcs can invade you

[random steppe]

If for you being killed by an invader is ruining your time is one thing, but they can't know that

[fresh bane]

The entire point of invasions is that you don't consent to it

Otherwise it defeats the purpose of the entire concept

[gaunt marten]

When I played Dark Souls 3 I got around one every ten, and some were so bad I had to go offline permanently to protect my computer because they were abusing unpatched vulnerabilities.

[fresh bane]

It's meant to 'ruin' your experience in the sense that they're an active threat constantly haunting players

[rose rose]

Possibly it's just not a very good concept

[gaunt marten]

It's less "kills your character" and more "ruins your save permanently."

[fresh bane]

Maybe, but that depends on the player and you can just go offline which is always an option

[random steppe]

I think I literally was never invaded through the whole playthrough of ds3 except in that location in which it is forced

[gaunt marten]

If you go offline you can't play with friends

[fresh bane]

If you have friends then you're not alone to fight off invaders

[mossy flume]

I’ve historically solved this problem by simply removing the system’s internet connectivity

Which shouldn’t be necessary

[rose rose]

But then, "not a very good concept" is my opinion of almost everything From Software does, so I just don't play their games.

[gaunt marten]

I don't have friends who are good at the game. I'm the only one who can fight and I'm not that good

[quartz pawn]

Anyone play Quake 2?

[slim thorn]

6

[thorny loom]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2314720/Chillas_Art_Parasocial/

Steam

[Chilla's Art] Parasocial | パラソーシャル

Parasocial | パラソーシャル is a Japanese horror game about a live streamer.Key Features:Immersive experience: An atmospheric, believable environment intensifies the horror experience.VHS film aesthetic: VHS aesthetic emulates the look and feel of CRT screens, including phosphor screen trail and bleeding, VHS tape noise, interlacing, and jitter in the ...

Price

$7.99

▶ Play video

[slim thorn]

...I have no memory of typing 6 here wtf

[mossy flume]

Time to go to bed, then

[slim thorn]

I just woke up lol

[slim thorn]

iirc Genryu's been enjoying it, you might've seen MA hated it, a.k.a. standard Fromsoft reception so far

[random steppe]

It's exceptional so far

Still very early in the game

The bosses are really fucking hard, my perception is above average difficulty for a From Software game but it might very well be because it's been a very long time since I played an AC game so I lack both the muscle memory and the system mastery that I developed in souls games

Like, I could probably mount some more grenade launchers and make things go a bit more smoothly

[mossy flume]

It’s pretty fun aside from the bosses IME

[slim thorn]

that's a big aside lol

[random steppe]

I think I spent 2-3 hours at the final chapter 1 boss.

One thing tho, the checkpoints are pretty generous

If you want to S rank the missions you can't die but if you are just playing they make things a lot less of a problem

[mossy flume]

We need more mech games in general.

[random steppe]

Big agree

[mossy flume]

They keep getting shut down.

Although Hawken is supposed to be coming back in a surprising move

[random steppe]

Boosting towards an enemy, dodge sideways a grenade they lob you, and deck them in the face with your laser sword feels so good too

So fucking smooth

[mossy flume]

Yep