general gaming

[fresh bane]

just like Dead Space did

[random steppe]

Yeah it's a remake, but it's as if they ported the design documents to modern day and said "do this game again"

Rather than reimagining it in modern lens

[fresh bane]

Well that's because not every remake needs to be a reimagining, they're remakes not reimaginations

[random steppe]

Not saying they do, just saying that it's a lot closer to the older game, making a remaster perhaps a bit redundant

Definitely more than 2 and 3

[fresh bane]

For RE1 specifically, maybe not, but it'd still be nice for anyone who for whatever reason would want the original RE1, I still believe the remake makes the original obsolete by virtue of how it's identical with much better features and visuals

I would've wanted the remakes of 2 and 3 to be just like that, but we didn't get that, so I still wish they'd at least remaster them

[rancid herald]

I feel like none of these terms have true meaning anymore

[fresh bane]

They do, people always argued about the specifics but they do

[rancid herald]

part of this stems from the fact that games aren't records. For something like a remastered record (it's my understanding) you take the original recordings and make a new record from them. a rerecording would be making a whole new recording, even if the song is the same. But with games it's usually not possible to take the 'original recordings' and just make a new game from them that's more polished. When they did the spyro thing they didn't have access (or something) to the original game files, and the original game files probably weren't compatable with modern systems to start with

[quiet swift]

(eeysh, after reading spoilers for the other phantom liberty choice, || there's really no 'good' ending for this or the main game, is there|| )

[random steppe]

Yeah, if Edgrunnder didn't clue you in, ||Night City doesn't exactly have success stories, just a gradient of ways to end up dead in a ditch||

Some are more meaningful than others, but still...

[thorny loom]

Heh

https://vxtwitter.com/AndrewHulshult/status/1743039322406691283?s=20

[quiet swift]

I mean, I did already finish the game once when they had the... 1.1 or something? The big 'fix' patch before phantom liberty's 2.0. I went through most of the endings there. ||was hoping the 'cure' from PL didn't have the whole coma thing all over again||)

[wind stump]

@uneven epoch i'm playing Borderlands 1.5 with my ex and for some reason their character reminds me of Silver if she was a cowgirl... and not a cat, lmao

[uneven epoch]

praise b to spiky hair

[astral steeple]

https://vxtwitter.com/Dexerto/status/1743331530670555384

Tf

[rancid herald]

you going to buy it, Arianna?

[astral steeple]

Nah

Not worth it

[quiet swift]

What my FF11 mithra char used to be

[astral steeple]

Don't even have that much money right now anyways lol

[river veldt]

i dont think ive even seen that amount of money in my life

[quartz pawn]

Looks like they should be in .hack

[quiet swift]

A bit, yes

[static bluff]

oh man.. hadn't thought of .hack in ages

[wind stump]

who the cutie on the left?

[quartz pawn]

That's Mimiru and Tsukasa.

[quiet swift]

Tsukasa on the right, is the MC of the show

But yeah people talk about Sword Art Online and all that, but this was like a whole decade earlier or more

[quartz pawn]

if you haven't seen .hack//SIGN defo recommend. It's a cool isekai mystery.

And the music is god tier.

[quiet swift]

The music is beyond god tier

Two tracks especially, though the rest is great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W_tLuHFCzY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B588Yp8uF0

[quartz pawn]

My two favs are In The Land Of Twilight Under The Moon and To Nowhere

[quiet swift]

They even had like 4 ps3 games that continued the story, kinda. DIfferent characters though

[quartz pawn]

*PS2

[quiet swift]

Are you sure? I don't think I ever had a ps2 but I played them

Oh huh, i guess so

[quartz pawn]

and there were 7 in total. The first 4 are based on The Twilight Bracelet and G.U. is a sequel.

[quiet swift]

I think i never got around to the GU stuff

[quartz pawn]

G.U. were the edgy games lol

[little badger]

https://fxtwitter.com/gfuelenergy/status/1743362256430121048?

[wind stump]

gfuel cringe
gamersupps supeirority

does gfuel have ShyLily?

[bronze abyss]

fair point but do you have monster hunteR?

[sour hill]

When is my coffee gonna do a valorant collab?

[little badger]

Remember this is coming out soon! https://youtu.be/p3xp-SnZDoY? @wise frigate

[thorny loom]

https://www.pcgamer.com/after-10-years-survival-game-rust-is-finally-getting-backpacks-but-pets-will-not-be-released-this-year/

10 years!

[little badger]

I seen that earlier only seems like yesterday since it came out

[visual hill]

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

[visual hill]

(I'm playing there right now :p)

[little badger]

Oooh nice.

[little badger]

You winning?

[visual hill]

nope 😛

[little badger]

You got this.

[visual hill]

I just noticed this in chat, lol

[rancid herald]

oh shit he's about to get you for plagirism 1!!

[wise frigate]

:0

It gonna be super expensive tho

[little badger]

It’s going to be on game pass

[fresh bane]

the saddest part is, || in the context of Edgerunners hearing this song always made you think ''ah fuck these characters are totally gonna die aren't they, but in the context of the game I just think ''oh fuck V is absolutely 100% going to die isn't she'' ||

[arctic fern]

as cool as the ability to see your dates in your various apartments is, theres no new real voice lines and the animations get a bit stale after the first time you do it
also they prminantly appear as a yello exclamation mark in your quest log making it that much harder to tell if you actually have a quest or you just want some poontang
plus they will contact you semi-regularly about dates

if there was some more interactions with them, like in one of your apartments you can play the guitar, would be neat if they played with you or interacted with you in some way

but its all fairly generic

[fresh bane]

I did not like the notification being permanent even though I understand that it's meant to be just a thing you can do whenever, it wasn't really marketed as a selling point or this huge complex mechanic and it was just kinda added as a nice bonus so I'm not too mad about it

[arctic fern]

oh sure

its nice

just wish it was a bit more

[fresh bane]

I am still disappointed that there's not a really big point to it just like with showering and going to sleep on your bed, it's just a thing to do for roleplaying purposes, though it makes it awkward that everytime you engage with your partner V will say they wanna talk a bit and it's all just dialogue options you already talked about

[arctic fern]

yep

[fresh bane]

I would've liked some random new voice lines even if it's just completely random inconsequential stuff, just small talk

[arctic fern]

some comments about how nice your place is for example

[fresh bane]

''Damn V, you live like this?''

[arctic fern]

"v, how many homes do you have? you know i rent a trailer, right?"

[fresh bane]

It's that merc money

I do like that this one apartment I bought has a pool table that you can at least interact with as a bonus that the other default apartment doesn't have

V will always fail that pool and flip it off though

[arctic fern]

yep

its a neat little bonus but its more annoying than good once the novelty wears off

[fresh bane]

I'm not super bothered by it because it feels exactly like what it probably is which is an after thought and a bonus, but just like with many other things in the game I do wish there was more and I wish it was more in depth to justify even having it

But it was still nice as something to do the one time, there's still some interactions you get when doing stuff around the apartment that I liked and felt pretty wholesome and nice to just do for a bit

Wish it had just a bit more stuff like this, I really liked this little interaction

I also don't know if it's exclusive to her apartment or if it happens anywhere else but it felt really appropriate that I went for this dialogue in her apartment specifically right after finishing her quest

[arctic fern]

i forgot where her apartment was!

thats what the update is missing, the ability to arrange a date at their homes

damn freeloadrs, coming over to my place, eating my food

[fresh bane]

Her apartment gets marked as one of yours which I really liked, you can come by whenever and I'm thinking she's always hanging out there

Didn't check out what stuff you can do other than just hang out but still nice that you essentially move together

The whole date thing was probably done as a way to get your partners to come over to your place rather than you having to visit them all the time maybe, I wanna say

[quiet swift]

First date I invited her back to was my corpo plaza apartment

[arctic fern]

Really? Because it was never marked on my screen

[thorny loom]

https://store.steampowered.com/sub/127633/

[quiet swift]

it always gives me the option of all apartments i own there

[fresh bane]

You can see on the minimap that it shows the apartment icon, if you romanced her and she gave you full access it should show up as one of your apartments on the map

should be on the lower east side of Watson in the Kabuki area

also I just checked and apparently there's an enhanced Judy romance mod that adds a few things Judy can do like hang out in different parts of the house, shower and even go to bed on her own at night time

I haven't done any mods just yet, I'm still trying to go for the vanilla experience, but after a while and considering I'm probably nearing the last act of the game I might try it out

Wonder why they didn't just kinda yoink that for the new date updates, maybe they will try to do something like that in the future considering they added a whole metro system last update so they're still chipping away at this game

[arctic fern]

i planned on looking at mods at some point, yeah

but i still dont think i've done everything i want to do... yet

[strong pebble]

I have this it's weird a bit

[fresh bane]

I need to do Phantom Liberty first anddd.... uuuhhh that's... that should be it, really

Only main quests left and maybe once I hit the point of no return I'll just install some mods and go wild and then finish the game

[visual hill]

well, looks like you were right in the end. 😛

[bronze abyss]

pub stomping in the finals is so fun

literaly just started the game tonight and already destroying mfs

[arctic fern]

https://youtu.be/9lpTfVxwwSU?si=js5RFXMs86alGAZB

[untold laurel]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVLoiDE8C_M

Heh

[little badger]

[wind stump]

Elite Defender continues to be the best Monkey in the game

[wind stump]

Ayyy, first Impobbable clear!

and yes i know, Elite Defender didn't carry, heresy

[dire gate]

time for the ultimate challenge

[wind stump]

haha
no

[dire gate]

I mean

it's not that hard

tbh

It seems you don't even hardcore farm anyway

[wind stump]

yeah because i like playing the game casually, lmao

probably could do it with the drone guy tho
he seems really good at saving cash with his perma camo detection

[dire gate]

a little bit of farm still helps a lot casually

But if you never use farms, chimps is not that harder compared to impoppable

[wind stump]

means i can invest in Elite Defender 2-0-5 without worrying about DDTs as much

(And 5-0-2 as well, ofc)

[static bluff]

Lol what the heck this looks amazing

[dire gate]

Imagine if Nintendo didn't drop the idea of CD-based console and worked with Sony just as they planned

[static bluff]

That'd suck

[dire gate]

one of the most impactful what if scenarios in gaming history

[static bluff]

I love what became of the PlayStation. I can't imagine a better payout of events

[dire gate]

Yeah I also don't believe that it could have been better

However bad Sony is, it is still better to have a whole new and legit competitor

[static bluff]

Totally

Rare Jay and MrOnosa coming to an agreement 🤝

[dire gate]

lol

[wind stump]

finished episode 6 of Umineko

[dire gate]

2 more to go

Almost there

I think 7 was when it starts to get even weirder

[little badger]

https://fxtwitter.com/eurogamer/status/1743676867830223043?

[gaunt marten]

Whether it's made by AI or not shouldn't really matter

If you have issues with the image, you should have them regardless of who or what made it

[young creek]

They dont have an issue with the art they have an issue with companies making free art themselves instead of paying artists

[gaunt marten]

Paying artists to work for you is not something that's expected of everyone.

[young creek]

Well that is people's problem with it

[random steppe]

If you are selling something, you should own the rights of all the intellectual property that went into creating it

[gaunt marten]

Why?

[random steppe]

It's like when in RE4 it turned out some of the pictures that went into creating the textures of certain doors, were stolen from a photographer.

Because you are stealing shit

And stealing is bad

[gaunt marten]

It's not stealing if you don't own the intellectual property. It's stealing if the intellectual property belongs to someone else.

For example, you can sell Winnie the Pooh stuff even though you don't own the intellectual property, because it no longer belongs to anyone.

[random steppe]

Yes, that's what I mean.
The AI models are trained with stuff that's not owned by the people training them, as such the pictures are created with stolen work.

[gaunt marten]

It's true, but the legality of that has not yet been determined

[random steppe]

I am not arguing of legality, I'm arguing for morality

I don't think these people are saying it's illegal either

[gaunt marten]

In that case, I view training neural networks on the artwork made by others as moral, because it's analogous to looking at their art and studying it to improve.

[young creek]

I always thought that was a weak argument I think the main thing that this debate revolves around is AI replacing humans in yet another field

[random steppe]

That's also bad, but also, if you train your ai model with stuff you own, it's your own business.

None can really say much about it, it kind of sucks, like automating a mcdonald kind of sucks for the employees, but it's like, your bussiness.

Every other situation we agree that taking other people art to sell it for your profit is bad, this is the case that people have to jump through hoops to justify theft

Because it's kind of cool that AI can make pictures

[gaunt marten]

No, it's because the process of learning is the same

You don't categorize other humans studying artwork and producing something inspired by it as theft

[random steppe]

It's not the same, the AI model lacks the ability to create something new, unlike humans, it can just remix stuff it has seen and mash it together

[gaunt marten]

That's categorically incorrect.

Neural networks are defined by their ability to generalize

They're not like regular software

[random steppe]

Can an AI model create a car if it was never fed a picture resembling a car

[gaunt marten]

Yes! Provided it has a clear goal it wants to achieve

[young creek]

if you describe the car really well im sure it can

[random steppe]

I really doubt it would get anywhere close to it

[gaunt marten]

A general image generating model probably can't.

A model that designs vehicles can

The issue with general image generation models that prevents them from producing a car with no knowledge of it is that they simply are not smart enough to simulate the world well enough to come up with the concept.

With more resources, this can change.

[random steppe]

I am largely fine if someone want to use that stuff for their own personal thing, if you want to sell it as a commercial product, you should own or pay for every piece of the pie.
Same as the door in RE4, there is no change from me.

The picture that went into generating the door texture might be 1/100000th of RE4, but you don't get to steal it just because it's a tiny piece of what went into creating the whole.

[gaunt marten]

Then why are you not going after human artists for learning from other art?

[random steppe]

There is a difference between a human and a machine, inherently

[young creek]

AI will just get better and better and chatgpt will replace customer support and AI art will replace freelance artists. The ethical side won't win against free labor and a thousand times the efficiency.

[gaunt marten]

Why is there a difference?

[random steppe]

Because there is.
Especially for art, the human observer and interpreter is what creates the concept in the first place

Art is famously hard to pin down, but without humans art wouldn't exist, that's the one thing that can be said, since it's a construct we decided exists because of what it does when it passes through our brains.

[gaunt marten]

Okay, so is the image posted by Wizards of the coast, assuming it was made by AI, not art? If it's not art, then what's the problem?

[random steppe]

Well humans and some aliens if their breain works like ours, but we can't know that for now

It is art, it's made by stealing other piece of art and running through a machine

Which is my problem

[gaunt marten]

Why is that stealing though?

[random steppe]

Because they don't own it, and they didn't have permission to pass it through the machine to generate their piece of art

[gaunt marten]

Why do they need permission to do that, but humans don't?

[random steppe]

If you use something you don't own, without permission, that's stealing

[gaunt marten]

Humans don't steal when they look at art and make something like it.

[random steppe]

Yes, because they aren't a machine.

[gaunt marten]

Why is it different when done through a machine?

[young creek]

Because machines do it so much better than humans, but we dont want them to replace us

[gaunt marten]

Yeah, that makes sense!

[random steppe]

I think we are going in circles, you asked why people have a problem with it, I think I explained it clearly enough

[young creek]

its entirely an ethics thing

[gaunt marten]

So... Decouple the resources from the art

[random steppe]

I also don't know if I agree that machines do better work than us in creating art, so far I've seen little of AI art that I felt was worthwhile.
It's getting homogenised so fast, I don't know if they started feeding AI art back to the algorhitms but that's what it feels like.

I mean the machines do a better work than me, that much is true, but it's not hard

[young creek]

Well apparently people cant even tell if the art on MGT cards is made by AI or not

and its just going to get better and better

[random steppe]

IDK, I feel it got worse

[gaunt marten]

It's true. Magic the Gathering already has AI style art before stablediffusion even existed

[unreal idol]

Is wizards using AI to make MTG art

[gaunt marten]

Promotional art

[unreal idol]

Games over

[gaunt marten]

https://fxtwitter.com/eurogamer/status/1743676867830223043

[young creek]

They said they didnt

[gaunt marten]

They're denying it

[unreal idol]

It'll be dead in 4 years tops

Well they're lying

[gaunt marten]

They definitely would lie!

[young creek]

This thing is just getting started though let's see where we are in 2-5 years

[unreal idol]

Yeah this is like a huge red flag

MtG is basically dead at this point

[random steppe]

IDK, I was under that impression when the fad started, now I feel like it started to decline and it'll plateu

[unreal idol]

Why is every major card game dev ran by insane people except seemingly pokemon?

[strong pebble]

You guy are talking about what I was thinking!!! Like there are laws and if someone draws a Rainbow Dash and sells it can company be mad?

[unreal idol]

What do you mean by fad?

AI art or MTG?

[gaunt marten]

AI art

[random steppe]

The AI craze

[unreal idol]

Ah I misread. It's early

Yeah idk it's all ugly

I've seen one or two really good ones but the human eye can spot fake ness really easily

[gaunt marten]

The situation sucks because of the structure of capitalism, that makes it so people must perform labor in order to survive, even if they already provide other benefits.

[random steppe]

For language models I see them getting better, in fact that's almost assuredly the case, for AI art, I feel like they cannibalised the whole internet, it was kind of interesting for a bit, then they started eating AI generated art, and now it's kind of very homogeneous already, and if it goes in that direction it's only going to get worse.

Maybe I'm wrong, it's kind of the vibe I have, but there could be breakthroughs.

[unreal idol]

I agree with gen

I'm personally hoping proper regulations are put into place so AI art doesn't fuck things up even more

[random steppe]

That's a process that I though would take 20 years, and it went by in 2

[young creek]

AI art didnt even exist 2 years ago and we had this explosive progress and you think it will just stop improving? I dont think technology works like that

[unreal idol]

It's hit a wall fast and hard

[young creek]

Remember that rock paper scissor thing that was crazy

rock paper scissor anime

[gaunt marten]

AI generated imagery did exist for a long time

Almost as long as computers did

[young creek]

but it was ass

now its suddenly really good

and it will for sure get better

[gaunt marten]

Yeah, the current revolution in quality is due to advancement in neural networks

[unreal idol]

I struggle to call it really good. It's definitely improved but I'm uncertain

[random steppe]

We'll see, maybe I'm wrong as I said.
We'll see in another 2 years if they got more or less homogeneous

[unreal idol]

Most of it looks really off

[gaunt marten]

Thanks, Wikipedia https://i.imgur.com/FKWSHCQ.png

[wind stump]

FRANCIS FUCKIN BALLIN

[random steppe]

Oh it will definitely get better at generating photorealistic pictures, that much is almost assuredly the case.

Which is scary in many ways but interesting

[strong pebble]

I think someone should generate image and then fix it Photoshop

[young creek]

People are very dismissive of it because of the ethical side which I totally understand. And because they are dismissive they will say it looks bad. I've seen a lot of great looking stuff that would be considered awesome if a human made it, but people say it's trash because a machine did.

[gaunt marten]

There are people who do this.

[young creek]

All the top upvoted examples on derpibooru are horny

this isnt that horny https://derpicdn.net/img/view/2022/11/10/2985385.png

[gaunt marten]

True but that's because derpibooru is a porn site

[young creek]

really good art thank you machine

[random steppe]

Some stuff is good, especially landscape and far away shots.
It's mostly because the rules of how to shot a good landscape picture are so rigid and employed homogeneously across all of it, that it's hard to fuck it up.

When you get closer, it looks technically impressive but often feels souless, not always, but most of the time.

[young creek]

https://derpicdn.net/img/view/2022/11/27/2996326.png

Look it even signed it in the corner like a person

how cute

in elvish

[gaunt marten]

Yeah, model is too small to actually learn writing

[random steppe]

Yeah technically impressive, but it does feel like every other AI pony art I've seen

[gaunt marten]

That is true.

A lot of pony AI art is samey

[unreal idol]

Samey is the best way to describe it

[young creek]

the coloring feels pretty similar on a lot of them.

[gaunt marten]

This is in part because of the training guiding it into prioritizing one style, and in part because it's not good at generalizing

(Despite the fact that it was made to generalize in the first place)

[random steppe]

That could change, the fact that it's homogenising more is my current feeling but I might be wrong, I don't actually know any of this shit.

What's left is to wait and see if I'm wrong on that.

[strong pebble]

This is AI??

[gaunt marten]

There are services that offer actually differing images

[young creek]

yeah

[unreal idol]

It's like identifying fae shit

Count the knuckles, count the fingers, check the shadows

[young creek]

there werent any obvious issues I could see with any of the pictures I posted

[gaunt marten]

Here are a few images I asked an anime-style model to generate:

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/149207484224110593/1174487202022043699/image0.png?ex=65a85ef1&is=6595e9f1&hm=94a9d36ebb310f361ad507656a06fa7debedbb64a9d665cb6c46afe2dfee7b9b&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=467&height=683

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/149207484224110593/1174487202743451738/image1.png?ex=65a85ef2&is=6595e9f2&hm=77fae4ca60c974f87a61ea0a3aa1a4b6c380d4761e15247c6959abbf89ade839&

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/149207484224110593/1174495067889729556/image0.png?ex=65a86645&is=6595f145&hm=54d5d463519ece9886ccce8b0c30ea58301d560d5d5eff00339136b62f7aaa5d&

[young creek]

Please delete the rabbit with feet

[gaunt marten]

That's all three

She's a mouse but the AI didn't know how to draw her

Well, a rat

[young creek]

Meow I see

[gaunt marten]

Point is, the style can be samey, but someone can prompt for a different style if they like

It just happens that most people don't think of that

[random steppe]

For me it will always come down with the fact that there is no intent behind most of it

[gaunt marten]

Well there was intent behind these images. I specifically asked for certain elements and composition

[random steppe]

Yeah but most of it is just random noise

[gaunt marten]

True!

[young creek]

If you put it on magic the gathering cards the intent is to have something that looks cool and fitting for the card

[gaunt marten]

Random noise is generally how diffusion style models operate

[random steppe]

There are a thousand tiny choices an artist does when making that priestess picture for example, the decorations on the dress, the style of the church, what's on the glass behind.
Some of those choices are intentional in AI art, most of them are random noise.

Some of them are random noise in human art (I've seen it this way, so I made it this way, but IDK why) as well but I feel like AI art loses a lot more of that.

[young creek]

Oh yeah for sure

[random steppe]

It happens to be pleasing to the eye random noise, but still.

[young creek]

In the future I'm sure you can also make your prompt much more specific for all those details as well

well you already can but

[random steppe]

Maybe, maybe not.
We'll see what the limitations are.

[young creek]

Technology always gets better!

[gaunt marten]

I generally spent around ninety minutes iterating for each of the images until the AI produced something I considered pretty enough. I could have been a lot more specific but I felt like results were already pleasing.

[random steppe]

Sometimes in some directions, but not always in the direction we'd expect.

A good example is search engines

Now they are shit, can't find shit, they just point to randomly generated sites that give you generic infromation, and feed you a shitton of ads.

The technology got better...at generating ad money

Not at actually doing what you'd want it to do

[young creek]

I can't relate to this problem at all

do you have an example of a search not giving you what you want

[gaunt marten]

I do feel like google is less good nowadays

(It's better if you block ads though)

[young creek]

The sponsored links you get at the top without ad block are VERY annoying

but I have ad block

if you dont have ad block I suppose I see where you're coming from!

[random steppe]

I don't even think that's the problem, let me think of something to search, which is really hard on the spot

[gaunt marten]

It's true. I'm trying to think of something to search that shows a clear problem and I can't

But I know for a fact google can be unhelpful with some things, and it didn't used to be like that

[unreal idol]

I'll put it this way, we are using AI to make art and using humans to make labor. Should be the other way around

[random steppe]

My most common example is trying to find info about a game that just released, and just be served a bunch of ai generated articles by content farms.
The only way I get a straight answer nowdays is to add reddit to the search

[unreal idol]

Or worse you get awful reddit posts

[gaunt marten]

Also this problem

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

[unreal idol]

Or fandom posts

[young creek]

We have machines doing most labour

[gaunt marten]

Even with ad block on, if I want to learn about venetian blinds I have to search for "venetian blinds wikipedia"

[young creek]

so thats not really true

[gaunt marten]

That is true, most labour is either machine-assisted or entirely done by machines, but way too much labour is still done by humans

[young creek]

A lot of labour machines / AI cant do yet but that will keep improving as well

[unreal idol]

Not a single person at my job uses AI for anything

[gaunt marten]

Yeah, but I bet they use computers

[unreal idol]

Sure. But I'm not talking about computers I'm talking about AI

[gaunt marten]

Okay, a database system for a furniture store usually counts as AI

[unreal idol]

How?

[random steppe]

To be clar, technological advancment is good, but it's good to remember that it doesn't actually try to solve for human comfort.
It tries to solve for revenue generation, which sometimes coincide with human comfort or interests, but sometimes it doesn't (like for search engines)

[unreal idol]

Our inventory system was literally made by hand and importing spreadsheets

That's not AI

[gaunt marten]

It performs tasks intelligently in the same way a human would. A spreadsheet is AI

Your definition of AI is lacking. You are talking about modern neural networks

[unreal idol]

A spreadsheet is not AI

[gaunt marten]

It's AI by definition

[random steppe]

Yeah I don't think it's how people define that in any way

[gaunt marten]

That's how computer scientists define it

[unreal idol]

I somehow feel like we are talking about two different things

[random steppe]

We aren't computer scientists

[gaunt marten]

I am

[random steppe]

Good for you, but also, we aren't having a discussion in an academic setting

[gaunt marten]

Oh, in that case, have fun. I'm going to play videogames

[young creek]

The entire AI art bad debate is centered around us being worried human artists will become redundant though. I dont think we want AI to take more jobs before we're living in a perfect society with universal basic income.

[unreal idol]

That is also true

[random steppe]

I rewrote a message 6 times, and realised it can't be written without it being way too political

[unreal idol]

AI can be an important tool toward achieving this but I'm not optimistic about it currently

[unreal idol]

I tried to type "is" 6 times and my phone kept trying to correct it to "I'd"

This clearly means the world is not ready for AI

[random steppe]

My problem with autocorrect is that it's trained on my broken ass version of english

That's an Human Intelligence problem

[unreal idol]

I live in a dumb part of the country you speak better English than half the people I encounter

Either way, we need to keep a gun to AI's head for the foreseeable future until we figure it out

If companies get too shifty eyed then pull the trigger

[random steppe]

I'm at the exact spot of the bell curve of english knowledge in which i fuck up all the time, but also I know the language well enough to know that I fucked up.
It's hell.

[unreal idol]

[rancid herald]

I was thinking the other day that a good use case for an AI would be to put it on the underside of search engines and have it assess whether or not a website is trying to game the SAO

[noble glacier]

For all the Stellaris enjoyers, has anyone tried the Ancient Caches of Technologies mod?

[little badger]

https://fxtwitter.com/steam/status/1743724113762328910?

[wind stump]

*for the 3 people who don't own it

[white phoenix]

Valve complete pack is stupid cheap on sale these days

[little badger]

https://fxtwitter.com/insidergamingig/status/1743735636698239138?

[rotund forge]

Not my thing. That leaves 2 people

[fresh bane]

god dammit

getting killed on one of these super late floors sucks 10x more than if I died in floor 30 or something

[gaunt marten]

Suffering from success

[fresh bane]

I don't see playing Bloody Palace as success, I hate my life

It gets legitimately really difficult near the middle

Fighting for my life out here

[gaunt marten]

You made that sandwich

[fresh bane]

At least now I finally got Nero's BP past stage 20 so I can just fight some of the bosses whenever I want, really bums you out when you get so far and you just die in 2 hits because you made a mistake and got too greedy

[gaunt marten]

Now lie in it

[fresh bane]

lie in the sandwich?

[gaunt marten]

Where else?

[fresh bane]

I don't think that's how that goes...

but alright

🥪

[thorny loom]

https://vxtwitter.com/wizards_magic/status/1743047445410468242?s=46&t=bVzXPIZvXYyJJoEkCfgMsQ

Original image

[fresh bane]

https://vxtwitter.com/DaveRapoza/status/1743682164833517966

https://vxtwitter.com/thorsten_denk/status/1743598355626819655

also this too

[random steppe]

I think this is the most obvious part

What's happening there? No way an artist does something like that on purpose

At any rate, to put things into perspective, this is a promotional picture not card art, so it's bad but not as bad.

Honestly given that, if they weren't lying about it, it would probably be defensible.

I wouldn't agree with the defense but it wouldn't be completely insane

[fresh bane]

Even if it's ''just'' for a promotional picture there's so many amazing artists out there desesperately looking for jobs that you could hire...

Today it's promotional art, maybe the day after it'll be official character art, key art, concept art, etc

[sour hill]

That is wild that they just lied like that

[random steppe]

Yeah the not admitting it is the wild part

[fresh bane]

Sucks how artists have infamously always received pretty eh treatment and pay for their work and we didn't even get to a point where artists have have it good before companies start deciding they just don't need them anymore

It just kinda sends the message that they see artists as disposable now and don't want to waste money on them if possible

[random steppe]

The only thing I can think of, is that the community team have no idea

[fresh bane]

Worst part is, it absolutely does not matter whether or not people like this
A lot of people say we need to be more vocal about these things, that if we complain enough they will listen, nope

[sour hill]

I mean, that's kinda just how it is with employees in general most of the time

If you're not C suite you're a resource

[fresh bane]

I mean yeah but I don't wanna get into who has it worse or what not but yes, the conversation is just about artists specifically

Any artists not just visual ones, and in any industry

[random steppe]

It's true about any labour

On the spreadsheet labour is a cost

and the optimal thing to do is to try to pay as less as possible for costs while keeping productivity constant or upping it

If you are maximising revenue

Same reason as to why in the gaming industry, QA is the first thing that gets cut to the bone

That and customer support if you can offload it to automated systems

[fresh bane]

I know, I wasn't trying to imply that only artists are treated like this, just that it's always been infamously terrible with some minor exceptions
the gaming industry has that problem with a lot of other workers, I've heard more than one shitty story from people working in QA

Programmers also tend to get overlooked a lot too I think

[random steppe]

Programmers is a weird one

Because game designers aren't easly replaced, especially after you spent years integrating them in your productivity cycle
So that one I feel like has a negative impact on revenue eventually, but in ways that are hard to measure and look good on the spreadsheet on the short term.

And the industry has historically been very good at finding scapegoats when suddently, players stop playing their games, so it's rare that they connect firing competent teams to a drop in players, and sack the person making that decision

There is only one genre that can play the "players don't play our games, even if we make them" card and that's Real Time Strategy

All the others are coping

[fresh bane]

I don't know much about how programmers and game designers have it, I don't know if I'd say they 'have it as bad' as other artists in this industry but whenever the whole voice acting thing happened and then the writers stuff happened after I remember people bringing up programmers and it kinda stuck with me

Of course it's not like this is the only industry that has these problems when it comes to its workers not even close, it just bums me out starting to see more and more companies trying to sneakily move the line and get comfortable with completely replacing artists after so many talk about how hard it is pretty much since the beginning

It's like, were you struggling before? were you underpaid? overworked? don't worry, you don't gotta worry about none of that anymore because we're not even going to hire you in the first place (and we'll be using all your work you've done from before for our AI database, thank you)

That's another point I saw professional artists bring up when the whole AI thing was blowing up initially, how if this becomes standardized it then means you essentially have to start competing against yourself now too because of how incredibly unethical these AIs are with feeding on so many artworks from so many artists completely without permission, probably also including your own, and making it even harder

It's just a mess really

[thorny loom]

@random steppe i believe you had interest in Midnight sun?

[dense crypt]

Midnight SuS

[strong pebble]

Do you think it's true that Fortnite doesn't have bots anymore

I killed one guy today and he was like a bot and it said his name was Anonymous and a number

[fickle garnet]

Fortnite still has bots

[strong pebble]

They said they don't now but I don't know

[astral steeple]

theyve never said that they got rid of bots

theyve always been in the game since 2019

[strong pebble]

Oh I think I heard wrong

[fresh bane]

https://vxtwitter.com/JoJoesArt/status/1743745530021191812

what is it with all this AI posting by companies like, today

holy hell, and Wacom of all things

[minor gorge]

[mossy flume]

I don't understand what that circled number means

[fresh bane]

It's not the point, it's probably just to point out that so many people already saw the post and they can't just delete it and act as if it didn't happen

https://vxtwitter.com/henken_second/status/1743827599309287527

https://vxtwitter.com/godbirdart/status/1743753518320902351

[mossy flume]

"art theft generator"

Wacom's marketing division certainly has some explaining to do. That's a pretty badly done dragon, too.

[slim thorn]

even ignoring the loaded question of whether AI should be used for something like that

it was at least incredibly tone-deaf from a PR standpoint

this is exactly the kind of thing you should be trying to stay neutral on in the consumer's eyes

[mossy flume]

Very much so

[light gate]

I think I over did it.

I love how Cal just pulls his hand like if he was cool.

[mossy flume]

https://dragon.style/@kistaro/111706733652061084

[light gate]

Well that’s unfortunate.

[gaunt marten]

Just a reminder that you don't own any data you can't back up. Buying physical cartridges and game cards isn't enough if they're using technology that inevitably deteriorates over time.

[mossy flume]

The WiiU's firmware NAND also has this problem and the console will brick if not powered on regularly enough.

[gaunt marten]

Yep. A lot of people think buying physical means you actually get to keep the thing

It's DRM that prevents you, not whether the media is physical or digital

[mossy flume]

I've become paranoid enough to backup my ROMs of all my physical games in a format that's long-term stable.

[slim thorn]

plus, many of the games I played when I was younger were region-locked, so I wouldn't have been able to bring them here

[mossy flume]

(This involves a lot of piracy, of course, but there's nothing else we can do)

[gaunt marten]

https://xkcd.com/488/

xkcd: Steal This Comic

I spent more time trying to get an audible.com audio book playing than it took to listen to the book. I have lost every other piece of DRM-locked music I have paid for.

[slim thorn]

at least for me digital versions of stuff have always lasted a lot longer, not to mention if you're okay with piracy much easier to re-acquire later

although I am relatively lucky that most of the infamously bad DRM was done to stuff I don't personally care about

[gaunt marten]

Yeah. Problem is good DRM is still DRM, and it's only a matter of time before the verification process fails

[dire gate]

Unfortunately no protection at all is also not the greatest solution ever

[gaunt marten]

It is for me as a consumer

[dire gate]

[slim thorn]

if you approach this from "piracy is a problem", then DRM sure looks like a solution, but any form of it that paying customers notice will only encourage more piracy

[dire gate]

Oh I am definitely not defending DRM

[slim thorn]

it has to be at least as seamless as the Steam DRM that's probably on dozens of my games that I've never specifically checked because it's caused no problems yet, and I play most games once

[dire gate]

But it's not like they can just let it be

[slim thorn]

I mean, they can

lots of companies sell DRM-free digital products

[dire gate]

Something should be done, just the solution we found right now isn't really great

[gaunt marten]

A lot of companies selling DRM-free stuff are thriving

Nothing should be done

[dire gate]

Well I guess there was a slight mistake I made, anti-piracy measure isn't really the same with DRM

You can encrypt everything and yet make it DRM-free

[gaunt marten]

Right. As long as a person who legitimately paid for something has the ability and the right to back it up, modify it and use it at will, and that is not made inconvenient, it's fine

[dire gate]

idk about modify part but overall yeah

I guess it shouldn't matter if the person keep it for themselves

[gaunt marten]

Well imagine that you bought a videogame, and thirty years later your backed up copy can't run anymore because it was designed for a different computer architecture

You need to be able to modify it so it runs

[slim thorn]

careful, this is how the GPL was invented

[mossy flume]

Decompilations are great projects, but unfortunately that doesn't scale

[dire gate]

The issue of programs that works different with most products is that the product itself is also the property

[gaunt marten]

I'm not sure I understand

[dire gate]

When a company makes a new car, they make the concept of the car, and then sell the manufactured physical copy of it.

When a company makes a new game, they basically sell the entirety of what they made

It's not like they sell a car with its blueprint and manufacturing procedure

[gaunt marten]

Right. That makes sense, so what's the implication?

[dire gate]

So the issue comes from if the sold code should be considered as "a sold product" or "a part of the intellectual property"

[slim thorn]

oh right, IP law makes this distinction between the copyrighted work and the specific product instances made out of that work, which becomes impossible to pin down with any precision in a software context

[gaunt marten]

If you don't publish the changed product, the distinction does not matter here

[slim thorn]

that's half the reason the (L)GPL are so headache-inducing if you have to figure out what they mean for your project

[dire gate]

That is why I said I guess it shouldn't matter if the person keep it for themselves

[gaunt marten]

Oh, then I understand

[slim thorn]

right, as far as I know nobody has laws restricting "private use" of a legally obtained product (distinct from the usual restrictions on stuff you do with anything)

[dire gate]

But meanwhile this is exactly why Nintendo and users are fighting against each other for many fan projects

[gaunt marten]

Fan projects are beyond the scope of DRM

[dire gate]

"We just modified what we bought, it shouldn't matter"
"Oh no no no, you modified the code we created, that is not a good idea"

Yeah I made a small mistake

DRM-free shouldn't be a matter in such perspective

As I said, they can encrypt everything and make whatever protection measure to their code and still make it DRM-free

Now, console exclusive games are a whole different matter with DRM

So honestly DRM really has nothing to do with the original post

[gaunt marten]

DRM also includes mechanisms that try to prevent you from circumventing encryption

If you own the device, you can grab the version after it's disencrypted to run in the device

[dire gate]

Ok I see

So I think one thing about companies and DRM is that DRM is a great legal tool against piracy for them

Because it becomes illegal as soon as someone tries to circumvent DRM

Which I guess is logical for companies

I think code encryption should be allowed, but online DRMs or "locking systems" are bullshit

I'm fine with companies not wanting me to open up their code. I'm most definitely not fine with them not allowing me to use the code I bought from them.

[slim thorn]

TIL the Epic Games Store has this little detail:

EU residents have a right at law to withdraw from a purchase of digital content, without giving any reason, for a period of 14 days after that purchase. Click here to find out more. However, in order to proceed, you expressly consent to waive your right to withdraw from this purchase and acknowledge that by giving this consent you will lose this right after downloading the software and playing for 2 hours.

I wonder if they know about Brexit

[dire gate]

Legal texts are so weird

"You have a right but also if you are going to buy this that means you waive your right"

[slim thorn]

"but you keep this subset of the right that we chose for you"

[gaunt marten]

Valve does the same thing. Two hours, two weeks

Before that point, you can ask for a refund at any time and it's automatically granted

[slim thorn]

ah, I must've clicked through that years ago and don't get it any more

[gaunt marten]

They don't tell you about it unless you ask for a refund

[little badger]

https://fxtwitter.com/thegameawards/status/1743833592609059085?

[gaunt marten]

https://i.imgur.com/2P3Rehf.png

Without prejudice to any statutory rights you may have, you can request a refund for your orders or purchases on Steam in accordance with the terms of Valve’s Refund Policy http://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds/.

For European Union and United Kingdom consumers:

EU and UK law provides a statutory right to withdraw from certain contracts for physical merchandise and for the order of digital content. You can find more information about the extent of your statutory right to withdraw and the ways you can exercise it on this page: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8620-QYAL-4516.```

https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/369C-3E9F-76FD-DEDA

[slim thorn]

The EU/UK statutory right of withdrawal ends 14 days after your purchase or the moment you start downloading the content and services for the first time (whichever is sooner).

At the same time, Steam voluntarily offers refunds [...] for digital games we allow you to try them for up to two hours

ah so it's exactly the same

gtk

[gaunt marten]

Which indicates it's probably a legal minimum that's convenient to comply with

[slim thorn]

the Steam text seems very clear that their legal minimum is 0 hours after you first run the software

but maybe there's something in another region

[dire gate]

So it is a right but not enforced or something like that?

[slim thorn]

it sounds like two hours after opening the game is more of an industry standard that no one's enforcing yet

and the existing legal requirement of "14 days after purchase" only applies to unused goods, if you never install and run them

[dire gate]

online digital content, if you have already started downloading or streaming it and you agreed that you would lose your right of withdrawal by starting the performance

(14 day apply exceptions)

[slim thorn]

which makes it pretty clear the 14 days rule predates digital distribution of software

[dire gate]

So the right only covers until you download/run the content

And then the company can add that little sentence saying "you are agreeing to waive your rights"

So that they can just say "lol you started it, now no refunds"

[slim thorn]

right, I think that's what I said

[dire gate]

Yeah I searched how it exactly works

[slim thorn]

well don't leave out the "but we also offer refunds after that"

[dire gate]

https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/guarantees-returns/index_en.htm

[slim thorn]

ah from that angle

[dire gate]

So

1. if you agree to waive the rights and started the game, the legal time limit just goes away
2. if you did nothing after buying it, you have 2 weeks of free refunding without any reason whatsoever
3. after everything, you have minimum 2 years of guaranteed fix/refund if the thing is faulty or not work properly

(By the legal perspective)

2 hours trial is probably the "good enough compromise" the companies agreed upon

Still sounds funny; "You have rights. Now give up your rights."

[slim thorn]

I appear to have dramatically underestimated how long it takes to install Alan Wake 2

is EGS that much slower than Steam at downloading large games? RE4 remake was also dozens of gigs

[gaunt marten]

Steam has data servers in many countries, as well as a mechanism to download games from the local network and other peers

I don't know much about how Epic works

https://store.steampowered.com/stats/content/

Right now they have about 3.5 terabits per second going to Europe

https://i.imgur.com/mfAO75C.png

With the UK making a good part of the global bandwidth https://i.imgur.com/GTVKns0.png

[quiet swift]

I have noticed it takes a while. Not necessarily to download but to verify installation or whatever too

[slim thorn]

oof

[dire gate]

Funny how I searched "is egs slower than steam" and the first thing that showed up is a steam community post saying "egs is miles faster than steam"

[gaunt marten]

Yeah, it's highly reliant on your connection

[visual hill]

I always get Unreal 1 vibes when a game introduces you to its waterfalls section.

[gaunt marten]

What game is this?

[visual hill]

Dinosaur Planet, with the community fixes it's been pretty stable so far

I'm also trialing a 60 FPS patch with a full playthrough, and am documenting issues as I go: https://gist.github.com/Calinou/477bc38e6c7b70231eb19ca5f9969d57

[gaunt marten]

I see

[visual hill]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whmytUe_ef8

on original hardware, the game is capped to 30 FPS but often hovers around 15 FPS, so this is a big improvement

[little badger]

PC game Cali?

[visual hill]

N64 🙂 This is the game that became Starfox Adventures on GameCube

some elements are shared (with a different storyline and gameplay order), some elements are completely exclusive to this version

[static bluff]

Starfox Adventures sure was something

[visual hill]

this game was never officially released, but Forest of Illusion did their thing™ in February 2021 and the community has been patching up the build since

[little badger]

[visual hill]

it looks great by N64 standards, maybe the best-looking 5th-gen console game I've played

[visual hill]

people dunked on it on release, but I played it in 2021 and thought it was pretty good

playing Dinosaur Planet now brings me nostalgia about me playing SFA 3 years ago.

[little badger]

This is how much this costs at one of my local game shops

[quiet swift]

So much more going on and, well, lifelike than the clubs in starfield

[arctic fern]

yep lol

[hushed onyx]

What game?

[quiet swift]

Cyberpunk 2077

[hushed onyx]

Thought so but wasn’t sure.

[little badger]

https://fxtwitter.com/eurogamer/status/1744013863433978281? @green fulcrum

[little badger]

https://fxtwitter.com/eurogamer/status/1744020275014873153?

[slim thorn]

#AlanWake2: can't complain about these graphics on a laptop

reminds me of when I visited the Lake District, but with more trees

[random steppe]

I started that one as well, but I'm going slow

I really like what it's doing

[gaunt marten]

I like the funny decision of making your mind palace always loaded in memory, but your actual map not loaded unless you press start

[random steppe]

It's not really much of a mistery game, as in, you don't have to do much deduction yourself, but the systems for that really allows you to follow the story on a deeper level than just exposition

That's some cool shit

[random steppe]

True but you gotta admit, the transition it's so smooth and cool to look at between the two that it totally makes sense why they'd do it that way

[gaunt marten]

It does

They should just fit the map in too, I think

[random steppe]

Very fair

[quiet swift]

[slim thorn]

I also appreciate how the in-game map gets all sorts of notes scribbled on it as you bump into stuff, I really liked that in Silent Hill 2 and now I'm surprised that I can't think of any other examples

[river veldt]

Firewatch

[gaunt marten]

I'm usually satisfied when the game allows me to just write notes or symbols on the game map

No need to do it automatically for me, though it would be nice

Crystal Project has both, but the automatic part has to be unlocked and is pretty limited

Etrian Odyssey was a fun one

You're expected to draw the whole map yourself as you play

Using the DS stylus

[slim thorn]

it does depend on the kind of game

in narrative-driven ones like this which are ultimately very linear, I like it automating the scribbles and making them feel like what the characters would've drawn in-universe

[gaunt marten]

Yeah

[thorny loom]

This video Relevant as always even 6-7 years later

https://youtu.be/OA8xrgLqQZ8?si=heLn2DjhGeS8-EKh

[thorny loom]

I mean given that their remaking mgs 3 they might as well

[thorny loom]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/601360/Portal_Revolution/

Steam

Portal: Revolution

Portal: Revolution is a fan-made mod for Portal 2 which plays before the events of Portal 2 in the dead and decaying Aperture facility.Over 40 new puzzlesThe campaign contains 40 brand new puzzles making use of new test elements and presents existing mechanics in a new way not seen in Portal 2. Resurrected "Pneumatic Diversity Vent" element New ...

▶ Play video

[visual hill]

this looks pretty nice, I heard about it before but I'll try to give it a try

[noble glacier]

Since the Paradox channel is dead

I found an actually functioning up to date pony mod for Stellaris.

[arctic fern]

the paradox channel isnt dead? its just quiet right now

[quiet swift]

An easy way to revive a channel is to... post in it. :X

[gaunt marten]

I do think the paradox channel just has too many different games in it

[arctic fern]

same

[random steppe]

I have seen a few but most of them were just portraits or minor stuff

Still cool but it would be nice to have a package of ships for example

Those are 3d models and require animation tho, so it's a tall ask

[harsh kestrel]

The fact that the game talked about above and EA with Apex using AI to create in game art instead of hiring someone is honestly sickening and worrying

[little badger]

https://fxtwitter.com/nvidiageforce/status/1744026128082182150? @mossy flume

[slim thorn]

it’s interesting just how much AW2’s combat and inventory feel like the RE remakes (which is not a bad thing at all)

and survived the boss fight first try with only one HP left, the optimal survival horror experience

[random steppe]

It's definitely a lot more survival horror compared to the first one

Which I played recently, and was much more loose as a gameplay experience

This one feels like the narrative is a step up in many ways, but the gameplay is the one that really comes into its own

[astral steeple]

lol what

apparently apex legends is charging 360+ dollars for a deathbox skin for their final fantasy collab

like the crate thing that drops your loot you had when you get eliminated

[slim thorn]

this is another Control reference, right?

me only half-remembering AW1 and Control is probably a plus for the way they're telling this story

[quiet swift]

I'm pretty sure he was in Control, yes

[slim thorn]

the real horror

[wind stump]

me

[slim thorn]

speaking of survival horror tropes I like, the wording used by the save file just made some of the plot click into place for me

haven't had that since... Signalis probably?

[visual hill]

AW and Control make a ton of references to each other

[strong pebble]

What do you think it is

[little badger]

It’s new graphics cards.

[strong pebble]

Bababa

[random steppe]

The most obvious answer would be the RTX 4080ti we were expecting the announcment for

[green fulcrum]

We always think a new release is around the corner aaaaaaany day now. We've been like that since the Reignited Trilogy was released. Activision, please! Don't give us hope only to take it away from us again!

When the day comes that a new Spyro game is announced, I will rejoice to the heavens above. Until then, I will hold my peace.

[gaunt marten]

Right. Vague teasers are not very good

[green fulcrum]

It isn't even a teaser, it's just a random tweet to celebrate the new year. The problem is that it's a tweet from the Spyro account, which almost never comes online unless something's gonna happen. Last time that happened though, it was just some DLC for CTR Remastered.

[river veldt]

this reminds me of the great Mario watermelon scandal of 2019

[gaunt marten]

Explain

[river veldt]

in August of 2019 Nintendo posted this cute render of Mario eating a watermelon. and then the floodgates opened of people claiming it was hinting at a Super Mario Sunshine remake or Super Mario Odyssey 2

(note: this isn't the exact render, the real one had a nice background, but this was the one i could find the quickest)

[gaunt marten]

I wish my jean shorts were this thick

[river veldt]

here's the real one with tweet included

[green fulcrum]

Tbf, with that "sunshine" bit at the end, and knowing how cheeky Nintendo is, I can see why there was confusion.

[light gate]

Nintendo PR Twitter person: gonna make a banger of a tweet by referencing Sunshine for a happy summer towards everyone!

Gamers: OH MY GOD SUNSHINE 2 CONFIRMED?!?!? AAAAAAAH-

Nintendo PR Twitter person:

This is why easter eggs need to be super subtle.

[little badger]

It would be nice if a new Spyro game would release but do you think since Microsoft now owns Activision they will make it Xbox exclusive?

[light gate]

They will.

Do not even doubt that.

[green fulcrum]

No they won't. Spyro's been multiplatform for years. He won't become an exclusive.

They'd lose soooooooooo many sales if they did.

[light gate]

Bethesda was gonna release Starfield on Playstation, then they got acquired and became an Xbox title.

Right now Xbox is bleeding because it offers almost nothing except Game Pass and their usual Halo / Forza games.

Like when I got my PS5 in December at GameStop, I found like three folks also looking to buy one. Meanwhile the Xbox alley was pretty much alone.

2013 is one year to never forget Microsoft

https://youtu.be/bTAKSBvuT-A

[green fulcrum]

Trust me, if they make games like Crash, Spyro, CoD, and other titles Xbox-exclusive, there will be riots in the streets. Microsoft may be greedy but they aren't stupid.

Spyro will be multiplatform, trust me.

[light gate]

Riots? By whom?

CoD literally has a ten year license for playstation, after that its exclusive to Microsoft.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/16/23792215/sony-microsoft-call-of-duty-cod-deal-signed#

[rotund forge]

It was probably a cheeky hint to 3d all stars which came out shortly after that tweet was posted lol

[thorny loom]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2420110/Horizon_Forbidden_West_Complete_Edition/

Steam

Horizon Forbidden West™ Complete Edition

RISE ABOVE OUR RUINJoin Aloy as she braves the Forbidden West, a deadly frontier that conceals mysterious new threats. This Complete Edition allows you to enjoy the critically acclaimed Horizon Forbidden West™ in its entirety with bonus content, including the Burning Shores story expansion that picks up after the main game. - Brave an expansive ...

Release Date

2024

▶ Play video

[quiet swift]

Already wishlisted, come on 2024 let me play iiiit

[strong pebble]

Playing with mouse and keyboard feels uncomfy

I want them far away if I use one hand on keyboard

Like on left side and right side

[mossy flume]

I'll pretty much always play with gamepad even on PC unless I don't have a choice

[quiet swift]

Depends on the game for me, mostly i'll go mouse/keyboard but some are definitely flat out better with gamepad

[hasty patio]

Didn't realize that mobile was that high.

[dire gate]

I assume it counts Switch as non-handheld console

[strong pebble]

Mobile is the biggest because everyone has a smartphone

[dire gate]

You guys not have phones?

[fresh bane]

ayyyyyy
this such a cute sequence
(FF9 ending spoilers)

yeeeeeeah he gets a moment too

[flint iron]

https://youtu.be/xNj2tT9tM9Q?si=1_diedLpZ-IKhl15
They have an awesome theme

[fresh bane]

Whole game has a great soundtrack

I think I have only played very few games that have such a memorable main menu track, overworld track, battle track

[light gate]

I don’t think I like RDR2.

Just what are the chances of instant failing a mission after finishing said part of the mission?

[fresh bane]

Rockstar with the classic ''you blinked when we didn't tell you you could blink, you failed the mission'' game design

[light gate]

Game design can be hard.

[strong pebble]

That never happened to me that's super weird

Wait it says the law was alerted

[light gate]

Yeah, its a scripted sequence.

[mossy flume]

Yeah, that's never happened to me in RDR2

[light gate]

You're supposed to tell the guy to stfu and leave, but for whatever reason I hit that astronomical code goes wrong moment™️.

[mossy flume]

Yeah, some unrelated NPCs that just happened to spawn at the wrong time

[light gate]

Also I don't even know how to keep the camp up.

"Gather resources"

Where?

Game:

So I spent like an entire hour with my horse looking for creatures and resources, found only plants and got insta-killed by me falling off a small cliff that I couldn't see.

[strong pebble]

You messed up before finishing the goal

[light gate]

Which part did I mess up?

[strong pebble]

I don't know I've seen only when law came upset

You need to be very careful in this game

[light gate]

It literally is part of the mission for the wanted system to trigger.

I replayed the mission three times.

[strong pebble]

I don't know its the only game I finished two times and it never happened to me

But i know I have to be carefull a lot

[light gate]

One for the bug, one for me accidentally shooting the guy I'm supposed to save, and the last time was successful.

[strong pebble]

Accidentaly

[light gate]

No for real, it was accidental.

I couldn't remember the controls.

[strong pebble]

No okay but the law didn't like it

[light gate]

So I thought that pressing the right trigger I would punch, but turns out I was wrong.

It was the square button, and sometimes the square button works, other times it does not because you have to time it.

So its just frustrating having this lack of feedback lol.

But yeah so far I enjoyed the following.

God of War - Sick game so far.
Jedi Fallen Order - Way too much fun with the lightsaber
Teardown - voxel go boom

[strong pebble]

Right trigger is quick draw 🔫😆😆

[slim thorn]

oh yeah, for maybe a decade now there's been a trend of certain companies investing more in the mobile side while the kinds of gamers I talk to bemoan how much less they invest in "real" games these days

Konami being perhaps the most extreme case

[fresh bane]

Mobile gaming is absolutely huge, I'm not surprised it's that high on that chart of revenue, especially in these last few years mobile gaming is incredibly successful especially after it became pretty much standard mobile game design to include microtransactions

[slim thorn]

at this point I see it as effectively a different world that I'll never be in

the actual games making up that revenue just don't interest me

[light gate]

Mobile gaming is rough.

Some games are great, but they're hidden in depths of manure.

[feral tulip]

reminder of the absolutely absurd control scheme for console versions of ultimate custom night

[fresh bane]

It's not even about mobile games being good or not, the reality is that they're just incredibly successful and make tons of money

The game can be absolute trash but, somehow, they just make loads of money

[light gate]

'somehow' its a lot of psychological tricks.

That flashy sparkle gives dopamine.

[flint iron]

I saw some games that were too generous and ended up having to shutdown because of it

[light gate]

I've seen worse.

Way worse.

[feral tulip]

well yeah but for a non shovelware popular game?

[light gate]

Wait five nights is shovelware?

[feral tulip]

not what i said lol

[light gate]

Anyhoo, here is one game I tried and absolutely hated.

[feral tulip]

obv shovelware games usually put no thought into control schemes

[light gate]

Age of Empires 2 on console is a trainwreck.

At least Halo Wars made sense.

[slim thorn]

also, most of the "mobile games" that do appeal to me get PC ports later

like Monument Valley 1-2 or The Room 1-4

[strong pebble]

It has an advantage over PC version, you can set your whole city to focus on one of four recourses with two buttons

[light gate]

I mean that advantage goes away fairly quickly when combat is a concern.

RTS's are known to be fast and strategic.

[strong pebble]

But i haven't played it a lot i really don't like when a game wants me to take care of soldiers instead of being one

[light gate]

Well that's the charm in AoE2 ironically enough.

Make boat loads of units, and watch it battle it up.

[strong pebble]

Wait I think you can play with mouse and keyboard

[light gate]

On the console version?

At that point you might as well make it a PC.

I guess that's nice if true.

[strong pebble]

Yes you can!! Like Sims 4 and Fortnite and Call of Duty and Halo Infinite Multiplayer

[light gate]

I mean, I guess its cool but now you'd have to put the keyboard and mouse on a plate if playing on the couch.

[strong pebble]

And The Finals

I don't know I play Xbox like PC

Sims 4 is the best

[light gate]

And now that I think about it, how do they solve the multiplayer problem of having users with xbox controllers and mouse & keyboards?

That sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

[strong pebble]

It's in two ways. Some games say you can play only versus the same and some games say use what you want

But if a game says only use one you have to agree

[light gate]

How is that even determined?

[strong pebble]

By asking or telling

[light gate]

What stops someone from making a fake controller that is a keyboard and mouse?

MS what are you doing?

[strong pebble]

You have to agree or not

When you touch a mouse

It changes looking for players like in Headbangers Rythm Royale

If it's single player then it just works it doesn't ask you

[light gate]

I mean people could just lie.

But I guess.

It would be funny if this controller worked though.

Now that would be a real problem

[strong pebble]

It's for typing you can just use a keyboard

[light gate]

I know what it is.

I just know that some folks would go crazy to mod their equipment.

360 era really was the wild west. heck even the og xbox

[strong pebble]

Then just use mouse and keyboard if you're playing hard online games

Like Fortnite ranked

Or Apex Legends or Warzone

[mossy flume]

The real Wild West was the Nintendo Famicom.

[thorny loom]

@fresh bane lmao

[mossy flume]

https://www.gameinformer.com/2024/01/01/40-years-later-nintendos-famicom-is-still-ahead-of-its-time

[thorny loom]

https://vxtwitter.com/wizards_magic/status/1744056808254173447?s=20

[light gate]

oh the famicon

the hundreds of clones

The amount of hackery.

[thorny loom]

Big shock. The ai looking image was actually made using ai

[thorny loom]

Nice

[light gate]

NETWORK SYSTEM

[mossy flume]

Ahh, the external company that makes the promo art for them used AI without telling them.

[light gate]

Thing looks like a freaking blade runner flying cop car

Spinners

[strong pebble]

I was thinking that's what happened

[mossy flume]

Yeah, that was my bet too.

[slim thorn]

makes sense

[strong pebble]

But also how did they not see it

I think they were super busy

[fresh bane]

The tech bros obsessed with ''embracing the new emerging technology!'' in the replies to these tweets are getting really tiresome and annoying, it's especially funny when you see their profile picture or bio and you can tell they're some business guy or someone completely and utterly obsessed with NFTs/Crypto/AI or all three at once

They didn't see it because these things are completely outsourced

[mossy flume]

Probably, and they’re likely familiar with their vendor and was confident in their work

[fresh bane]

But also they were trying to defend it at first so it seems like damage control to me

[mossy flume]

So they didn’t feel the need to second guess them until the vendor fessed up

It wasn’t purely AI, it’s just AI assisted.

They’re probably going to amend the contract to require that they don’t do that

[light gate]

AI assisted, and somehow not even good at that.

[mossy flume]

shrug I didn’t see any problems with it

[strong pebble]

Midnight Aegis is Aegis from a PS1 game?

[mossy flume]

No

[strong pebble]

Okay

[mossy flume]

It’s just the Latin word for shield. That’s all it’s referring to in this case.

[strong pebble]

I'm going to have Latin in high school

It's like Shining Armor

[fresh bane]

came across this game for like 6 bucks on gog and since I had it on my radar for a while and I'm fresh off of FF9 I thought... sure I'll yoink it
I'm probably gonna start playing this next and see how I like it

if I don't end up liking it it won't be a huge loss at least

[fresh bane]

okay I booted it up just to tweak around with the settings for whenever I start playing and it apparently has a full cinematic before you even get to the main menu
pretty good though, some really good shots and direction in here

also hey there's the best girl!

[gaunt marten]

https://fxtwitter.com/PC_Focus_/status/1743587148941410400

Hey buddy, give us the keys to the house. No, we're not going to do anything untowards with them. We'll just put a camera that looks at you to make sure you're not cheating.

[fresh bane]

Not surprised, Valorant also does a similar thing by granting the game pretty ludicrous access to your computer

Glad I don't play anymore

[light gate]

I don't think there is any other way than doing that.

Honestly, cheating is such a complicated issue.

If you don't go towards kernel levels, cheaters can pretty much bypass with enough fooling around. If you do go towards kernels, the privacy issue is risen.

it sucks

[gaunt marten]

It's not just privacy that's the issue

This sort of thing is a security compromise

[light gate]

Yeah that is also true, it could be abused.

Like SecuROM, SafeDisc...

And those were just drivers mainly.

Maybe its time for an open standard for games in anti-cheat?

I think Microsoft has something called playfair but its proprietary

[gaunt marten]

At this point the best solution I can think of is they can sell their own hardware that you play the game on exclusively

[light gate]

Well that would just be a console.

A very crappy console.

[gaunt marten]

Yep! It would be safe and privacy respecting and the separation would ensure security

[light gate]

And nobody would play the game.

I don't think anyone wants that.

[gaunt marten]

Another plus

[light gate]

Okay you got me there.

Maybe in the future secure enclaves, psp's, tpms are gonna get better and may allow some sort of overwatch protocol.

But honestly it sounds a bit crazy.

[gaunt marten]

I don't want that to happen

Videogames are not worth this

[light gate]

I mean it could be worse.

We could force gamers to buy a small adapter that basically acts as this hardware overwatch verifyer.

And be forced to upgrade it every three years

God I feel like C Suite fellas would love having me throw these ideas.

[slim thorn]

I'm sure they've considered all of these before

[light gate]

Yeah but we can make it 'revolutionary'.

'innovative' and 'pushing gaming forward'

[slim thorn]

I have no clue what to do about anticheat issues in fully public matchmaking; it feels like the only good answer is to encourage private servers, as seems to be working fine for Minecraft and for our Archipelago stuff, but clearly not everyone's interested in that

obligatory repost:

https://64.media.tumblr.com/d55e06bfcb5360e275dedbbe82204a95/7de6ba77f8f663ae-a1/s1280x1920/69681e2b97014c2b072db0781dffa62cf57a4584.jpg

[light gate]

Well that's because not everyone can spin up a private server.

When you deal with shit like CGNAT, and having to deal with router configuration... most don't bother.

Its a reason why public matchmaking exists.

[slim thorn]

I'm not saying every player should become an actual sysadmin, that's obviously ridiculous

[gaunt marten]

A lot of platforms provide easy matchmaking for private servers

[slim thorn]

I'm referring to the many existing pieces of software that do networking/multiplayer stuff with an option to be the host/server/etc for this interaction

[gaunt marten]

Like Steam does

[slim thorn]

like how all video chat software designates one of the participants in a call as the "host"

[light gate]

It depends, Steam Networking sometimes works but CGNAT breaks anything.

[gaunt marten]

https://meow.social/@rinidisc/111711281630824983

[light gate]

I like when games offer steam networking / no port forward requirements.

It is hell on earth when there are no options.

[gaunt marten]

The original risk of rain

I'm so glad the remaster is basically hassle free

[light gate]

There is a remaster?

[gaunt marten]

Risk of Rain Returns

Has a little bit of new content but mostly polish

[light gate]

Ah, its Windows only.

Figured.

[gaunt marten]

That's Gearbox for you

[light gate]

Yep.

Not even a Linux build, wow.

[harsh kestrel]

They just need to release another Borderlands game already lol

[light gate]

Gearbox really is the reason why I do not trust Homeworld 3 to be good.

I don't even know how the company stays afloat still.

[dire gate]

I can't really even imagine some games working on private servers

like, idk how League would work if it uses private servers

[slim thorn]

it's not clear to me that those games "work" on public servers

but I don't play them

[dire gate]

Massive random multiplayer matchmaking games or MMO games simply requires a huge shared server

Ranked mode(competitive mode) requires a rather public server where everyone access together and compete

So it can't work like minecraft or terraria or stuff like that

[quiet swift]

https://www.gamesradar.com/obsidian-and-bioware-veterans-explain-how-retailers-killed-the-isometric-rpg-truly-vibes-based-forecasting/

[random steppe]

Don't make me tap the sign

[gaunt marten]

True

[random steppe]

Joking aside, they do say that, and might be right for the early 2010s, but Steam became popular towards the end of that decade so I don't know if you can blame that to retailers rather than development studious just switching their focus to different genres

Maybe assuming the genre was dead without checking

[gaunt marten]

I definitely think big studios would hire at least one economist to make sure

[random steppe]

You would think that, but also Square Enix spent at least a decade telling us turn based games couldn't work anymore and absolutely wrecking all their franchises in an attempt to reinvent themselves

Which was bizzarre

[gaunt marten]

Cue me playing 250 hours of one turn based JRPG this 30 day period alone

[thorny loom]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJL3zfGbiwU

[gaunt marten]

Oh it's a mod

[random steppe]

And capcom spent the same decade telling us horror games couldn't work anymore

Before noticing that wasn't true, and they made re7

Rember when they tried to turn resident evil into a pvp shooter?

To be fair tho, that nonsense was recent

[gaunt marten]

I don't remember

[random steppe]

And I must assume the result of an undetected gas leak

The recent one is calle re:verse or something like that

They did try the co-op shooter route, with Raccon city operation or something like that, I don't think that was pvp tho, it was more an attempt to copy l4d, still part of their "single player games are dead" arc tho

[gaunt marten]

Yeah

[random steppe]

Gaming companies deciding the main game they make doesn't sell anymore and trying to pivot to something else is my favourite

[gaunt marten]

We cranked up the price and somehow we're making less money!?

[random steppe]

In the meantime you have Larion in the corner, and you get the feeling they would be making crpg even if none fucking bought them.
I literally have never seen their CEO without armor, he probably sleeps with it on.
Fucking nerds.

Zero shits given

[dire gate]

TPC be like: Change? what? We make game we sell game we make pokezillion money

[quiet swift]

You say that, but there seems to be a resurgence of RTS in 2024-2025

[random steppe]

Well they are trying to make them

If they sell well is still up in the air

[bronze abyss]

its for the better,its currently one of the very few fps without a cheater issue and only complaints seen about the anticheat where from when it was new

[quiet swift]

Homeworld 3, Stormgate, Tempest Rising, Sanctuary Shattered Sun, just to name a few of the ones i'm looking forward to

Someone on reddit made a list, I don't know some of these

[bronze abyss]

if anything,i wantall competitive games to switch to a similar anti cheat,it does its job properly and is more stable than easy anti cheat or other dogshit anti cheats that dont even fucking work

[random steppe]

You don't see a risk for companies switching to that solution when we get like... 2 major gaming companies hacks a year?

The problem with that kind of anticheat, is if you give the keys to your PC to someone, they better be really damn good at security, and historically gaming companies are really bad at it

[bronze abyss]

if not giving it to other companies then literaly just expanding riot's vanguard is imo genuinely the best option right now

[random steppe]

I am not super knowledgeable about Riot infosec, it might be reasonable

I think what I would prefere is, maybe require to have it installed to play ranked

But allow people who play casually to not install a possible security risk on their PC to play 20 minutes of aram once a week

[bronze abyss]

that could probably work,though i imagine the side without it wouldnt be alive for long without it

[random steppe]

It's alive right now without it

[gaunt marten]

Playing other games?

[dire gate]

Tencent be like "Mmm riot games I heard you installed hacking tools to every player's computers" /j

[proud warren]

the new vampire survivors dlc just feels like 1 giant modded shitpost

[quiet swift]

Essentially

Only one mission left...

Aaand one just popped up

[proud warren]

you may not like it, but this is what peak survivor looks like

[wind stump]

I wonder what this V.B.F.G. be in reference to.

[proud warren]

lmao, I actually killed red death with this set-up, and it just, dramatically zoomed towards (what would be) my character

[dire gate]

White Hand is a special event that takes place once the character has either defeated the Reaper after damaging it with Infinite Corridor or Crimson Shroud, or defeated certain major plot-relevant bosses which are as follows Ender, Avatar Infernas, or Je-Ne-Viv. It may also spawn during the battle with The Directer should the player have any revives.

[proud warren]

[dire gate]

[proud warren]

gotta love perma-stats

is almost l33t tho

[dire gate]

[proud warren]

[gaunt marten]

Today I learned of https://pokereg.net

Pokemon Regulation is a rom hack that attempts to maintain as much of the vanilla experience as possible while also allowing players to challenge themselves by applying special rules to the gameplay. Upon starting a New Game, you will be asked to provide a regulation code before your adventure starts. You can generate regulation codes on this page. We also have a Discord Channel.

https://i.imgur.com/KDItBo5.png

Very neat for challenge runs. @unreal idol might be interested

[unreal idol]

Eh, maybe. I was never a fan of playing that way

Thanks for letting me know about it though

[gaunt marten]

What way?

Everything on the page is optional, so you can choose which ways you prefer to change the game, if you want anything other than vanilla

[unreal idol]

I'd have to look it over

[hasty patio]

https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-launches-geforce-rtx-40-super-series-999-rtx-4080s-799-rtx-4070-tis-and-599-rtx-4070s

[thorny loom]

Gpus!

@visual hill

https://www.pcgamer.com/nvidia-is-finally-releasing-the-ray-tracing-everywhere-all-at-once-rtx-remix-creator-toolkit/

Jan 22nd its suppose to go live

[static bluff]

me trying to justify spending a grand on a gpu I don't need

[hasty patio]

Never hurts to wait and see what reviews give out/what other companies push.

That said, a 4070 with a near-performance of a 3090 and a lower power draw is tempting.

[thorny loom]

^

Also with the supers will probably get price cuts in the regular models

[gaunt marten]

https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/crystal-project-switch/

Switch version demo is out

Full version Jan12

[thorny loom]

Is this a final fantasy spin off

[novel pine]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/561153801114091521/1193967248113672212/Produce.mp4?ex=65aea3a6&is=659c2ea6&hm=c8e2d11c0de77f5993051b0b018b210dcbba45b81e4095d3f49d9c78345a8cce&

[thorny loom]

Yeah not playing that

[novel pine]

its not for everyone

the first ones really jank

[thorny loom]

You should probably provide context to what it is before dropping a link like that

People will assume its spam if not

[novel pine]

what the hell are you talking about

[gaunt marten]

Yep! Similar to Final Fantasy 5 with less focus on story, more focus on exploration.