#general gaming

1 messages · Page 232 of 1

unreal idol
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I havent heard anything bad about them

teal sonnet
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team cherry is 3 dudes

wind stump
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they kept silksong delayed for like 7 years, but you know, the game is good so eh

slim thorn
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they've gotten the weirdest kind of backhanded compliments this year for things like not raising prices and not charging for DLC, when they probably didn't even consider the alternative lol

unreal idol
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Right now the big fuck seems to be focused on Larian and on E33

teal sonnet
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It is 3 dudes that made MILLIONS

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they chillin af

slim thorn
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did E33 actually do something bad, or are you talking about the people upset it won so many awards

river veldt
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i dont think Silksong was delayed it just never came out until septmeber

wind stump
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IMAGINE RELEASING THE GAME YOU ANNOUNCED HUH-

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slim thorn
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Silksong was delayed yeah

river veldt
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o

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more like Silkbong lmaooooooo

slim thorn
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though the semantics are a bit of a mess since originally it was just supposed to be a "Hornet DLC" for Hollow Knight

unreal idol
teal sonnet
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some stopid people are tying to find stuff to be mad about E33

slim thorn
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huh, ok, well, that also sounds like people upset at it being good?

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hardly the first time the *RPGs have noticed the genre is undefinable

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even the original pitch for E33 described it as a mix of J and W RPG stuff

teal sonnet
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some people was upset that E33 used ai stuff for placeholder textures etc

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AI stuff being used as placeholder is what should be used for

unreal idol
teal sonnet
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how is that bad

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just have something to fill the blank while the artists are cooking the actual stuff

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if they kept it and used as the main thing, then yeah

wind stump
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nah all games have to use the missing texture texture

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teal sonnet
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Plus helps a lot to get things right like lighting, vibes, etc how will look like

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just saves a lot of time

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and people just found out about that cause they forgot to swap some textures on release

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that they patched right after for the real ones lol

cerulean herald
fresh bane
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hilariously relevant excerpt from Woolie and Pat's podcast this week
the short answer is: no.
the long answer is: no, and get used to it because it's going to get worse and it's going to happen to all the things you like

slim thorn
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was it actually a "controversy" or just "one of the translation firms turned out to suck so they got a better one"? I've seen that happen with multiple indies, it seems like a simple inevitability of not being fluent in all 20+ languages you want to sell to

cerulean herald
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but that wasnt directly Team Cherry's doing exactly

teal sonnet
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yeah that was not team cherry fault at all

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they hired a company that sucked ass

random steppe
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I mean, how would an australian dude even evaluate a chinese mandarin translation?

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You kinda have to let it rip and see if there are problems after the fact

wind stump
teal sonnet
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they the ones who lost needing to pay again for another company to re-translate

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translation is not cheap at all

wind stump
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At least they're aware of "giving a shit does nothing but harm me"

unreal idol
fresh bane
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I subscribe to Woolie's mentality of ''do whatever you gotta do to protect your sanity''
if all this stuff bothers you so much you really couldn't enjoy anything that's ''tainted'' by this stuff, then hey, do that, if you'd rather say fuck it everything's tainted so I don't care anymore then hey, go for that rdwut

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Me personally, I have enough old school games i want to play to last me a lifetime, so if it ever gets to that point... I'm gonna be fine

slim thorn
cerulean herald
slim thorn
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"quite a while" also sounds like it's missing some perspective here

random steppe
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To be clear, the way Larian was doing it, didn't take away any work from the artists they employ, so I feel like people that bring this stuff up in relation to that situation aren't listening to what is being said.

slim thorn
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the game's only been out a few months, and translations take time

teal sonnet
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fun fact that is WAY more views than the heccin super bowl

slim thorn
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which I can't even fault them for assuming, but it does mean there's nothing to discuss

cerulean herald
wind stump
random steppe
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If you can't trust Larian and how transparent they have been with the BG3 development, you probably can't trust anyone in the industry ever, so no amount of transparency is gonna help you feel more comfortable playing anyone game's ever.

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Like, if they came out tomorrow and said "We are stopping our use in AI even if the amount we were doing it" why would you trust them at that point

teal sonnet
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I just feel like, if the end product is not AI slop

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it all fair game

unreal idol
random steppe
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Well. I do care how the employees are treated.

teal sonnet
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finding ways to not waste time and limited money, should be the way

teal sonnet
fresh bane
# slim thorn oh no Nire and PK made it quite explicit earlier they don't care what's being sa...

I haven't really given an opinion on the whole Larian thing so much as I've just been sharing the actual accounts of what the Larian CEO and publishing director have said and then gave my opinion on the usage of AI as a whole/the response people had to the Larian thing
the only part where I said I don't trust Larian is just pointing out that they've given vague and inconsistent descriptions of their usage of AI and the extent of it, that's all

random steppe
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Even if the end product is not AI slop if a company fire half their artists I do think it'd be pretty shitty, but this is no the case.

teal sonnet
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yep

fresh bane
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I didn't really want to get into discussions about AI and my personal opinion because I feel like everyone at this point already made up their mind and it'd be useless for me to just scream my opinion at others who probably already made up their minds on which side of the fence they stand on on this whole topic

wind stump
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Which, fair.

gaunt marten
fresh bane
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I mostly just shared the news as extensively as I could because it's Larian and I knew it was gonna make rounds so I wanted to share the full context so others could make up their minds based on the entire actual news

gaunt marten
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It's an ocarina of time randomizer tournament where if you get hit you die, and you need to do various tasks to get points before you do

slim thorn
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eh, they didn't seem "vague and inconsistent" to me, except insofar as there doesn't seem to be an established industry term for the so-early-its-not-even-concept-art phase, though even that one poster you cited came up with "mood board"

wind stump
gaunt marten
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It's great background audio

random steppe
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I think it's also fair to point out that, if you want AI to be implemented in a way that isn't detrimental to the games and most importnatly to the employees of those companies, you are gonna need to have the good companies to set a good example, because the moment you treat all AI implementation as equally bad, there isn't an incentive for the company to not go to the most distopian verison of it, if it saves more money.

visual hill
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the economy being tough means this is doubly true too

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having a job is very much a HODL thing right now, and probably in the next 3-5 years

teal sonnet
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Yeah they can just say fuck it and go full deep on it, if the reception will be the same

fresh bane
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Well, for me it's really easy, I just won't support it, but that's for me
I'm not really going to ''reward'' ''good'' AI usage, there were already a ton of things gaming companies were doing people were against before AI was even this big of a thing, assuming they're not going to go for the most dystopian implementation of anything as long as it saves money/makes them more money is the wrong idea to have because they're always going to regardless of any ''good'' usage of that same thing or not, or whether X or Y company set a good example or not
I know that's not going to be the majority of people's stance or course of action but that's how I'm probably gonna be doing it

cerulean herald
# slim thorn the game's only been out a few months, and translations take time

so there were only 2 translators for the Chinese version (who worked on it before the games' release, one of them breaking NDA by talking about it before release), and the issue was they used sorta an equivalent to shakespearan old english, but in chinese, which made it hard for speakers of the language to understand
https://www.loekalization.com/blog/blog/2025/09/05/silksongs-real-final-boss-the-translator-who-broke-his-nda-and-wrote-like-a-dead-poet/

they fixed the translation shortly afterwards, but the second attempt was also pretty bad, so in the end, Team Cherry decided to use fan translations https://steamcommunity.com/app/1030300/discussions/0/603045243319975841/

slim thorn
fresh bane
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I already don't buy every new hype game that comes out, it wouldn't really be much different for me

slim thorn
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I mean none of us do that I think

random steppe
# fresh bane Well, for me it's really easy, I just won't support it, but that's for me I'm no...

assuming they're not going to go for the most dystopian implementation of anything as long as it saves money/makes them more money is the wrong idea to have because they're always going to regardless of any ''good'' usage of that same thing or not, or whether X or Y company set a good example or not

I think this doesn't hold true for every company, Larian could have a bunch of MTX for BG3, it would make a lot of money I'm sure.

fresh bane
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If we ever do get to the point where things get to such a state where every single company is utilizing AI in one way or another and it's just the thing every company and every game is expected to do, then I guess in that hypothetical scenario yes I'd probably not be spending any money on any game
of course we'd have to get down to the nitty gritty of what ''using AI'' even means because like I said before there are certain technologies and software that would probably classify as AI that I'm fine with, but I think we all understand what we mean at this point when we say ''AI'' despite the fact that it's technically not the correct term, or at least not the specific correct term

slim thorn
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I'm not convinced we do since right now it feels like probably everyone is using AI in some little tiny ways, many of which likely are genuinely harmless, and the internet reactions to ones that get "exposed" are probably not correlated with where harm is being done

random steppe
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It's a new tool, some people that work there are gonna want to explore what it can do, I don't even think it has to be a mandate from the higher ups that forces it on the creatives of the company (even though I'm sure in some instances it will be that)

slim thorn
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I can actually vouch for that one; at my own office it was my coworkers clamoring for the option to use AI development tools

random steppe
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I do think there are worries with it, and there should be rules on the way to use it ethically, but I don't think it never being used in any capacity is a realistic imposition that will last.

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And I would rather have companies that so far at least, shown a decent amount of ethical resilience to the industry bullshit to set an example for what that could look.

quiet swift
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If it's being used like someone using a hammer, that's fine with me. If it's being used as a full blown robot holding the hammer as well, that's replacing the person and that's not fine. At least that is how i see it.

random steppe
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Also because having those people involved in the discussion, hopefully will also infleunce how the tool gets developed going further.

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Like, if EA and Activision were the main users of this tech for gaming, I feel like within 10 years we'll have the towers from the Matrix with all the artists shoved in the pods to feed the AI generative model.

river veldt
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what the hell Red Dead Redemption is on Netflix

robust latch
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wait its not just a game?

river veldt
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no like

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Netflix has games and RDR is one of them

robust latch
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lol TIL that netflix is more then streaming tv

mossy flume
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Netflix has a game studio

random steppe
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Well if the WB aquisition goes through, more than one

mossy flume
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Yep

robust latch
unreal idol
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TIL Netflix makes games too

quiet swift
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Netflix was trying to be a game pass of sorts and it's pretty much failed, no one is going there. They did have a studio but I think they've shut it down

mossy flume
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It's possible, I haven't heard much about it in a while

quiet swift
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Ah, not shut down

robust latch
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i have never actually used netflix

quiet swift
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But yeah if they get WB then this might change. Though they have outright stated that the gaming division of WB "holds no value" or something of the sorts

robust latch
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i did for a time use quickflix which was an AU company that shipped dvds and blurays

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but yeah never jumpedx to the whole streaming services thing

mossy flume
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They could just sell that division afterwards

quiet swift
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Summary from a video that covered this a few days ago:

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mossy flume
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Sounds about right

hushed onyx
slim thorn
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in that context it was meant to be every game developer, not literally every individual person

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(though even my VSCode autocomplete at my day job has some AI in it these days, which is sometimes helpful)

hushed onyx
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Oh, I thought you did mean every individual person especially with your comments about how people at your work use it.

hushed onyx
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(Okay, and showing the type signatures of functions so that I don't have to go look them up elsewhere)

slim thorn
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I'm actually looking for a source on the earlier claim that some Larian employees disagreed with the CEO statements, and I did find two angry tweets, but they had so little information we don't even know what they're claiming is being done with AI that's so bad; every other article appears to be merely copy-pasting the CEO statement or the angry tweets

so it does still seem to come down to how much benefit of the doubt, or presumption of guilt, you apply to the statement we do have, in lieu of any detailed evidence from an independent source

fresh bane
# slim thorn I'm not convinced we do since right now it feels like probably everyone is using...

Well, if I have to get specific then, the interview with Larian's CEO that he himself linked at in his tweet is a good example of what I am completely fine with, I am not tech savvy enough to know if this is specifically categorized under machine learning or AI, or if there's any meaningful distinction between the two, all I know is these types of usages I'm fine with:

Vincke said Larian currently uses machine learning systems to help automate game-development tasks that "nobody wants to do."

"It's the obvious things, like a motion capture cleaning or voice editing or, something very specific. Retargeting. So that is basically if you play with different species, you want to be able to reuse an animation on a different species that are in different size, and then they're doing certain interactions with others," Vincke explained.
what I'm not fine with, is what he said they use it for in the tweet and what the publishing director also implies they use it for in his tweets afterwards
We use AI tools to explore references, just like we use google and art books. At the very early ideation stages we use it as a rough outline for composition which we replace with original concept art. There is no comparison.
If what he's saying is essentially: we generate concepts early on that the artists then use as a base for their own/use as reference, I'm not fine with that. A lot of people are probably fine with that because ''well, it's not on the end product so what's the big deal?'', the problem isn't just whether an AI generated texture makes it to the end result or not, the same way it's not the problem whether Amazon's AI dubs sound good or bad and it sounding bad is the entire reason why people should be mad. The problem is that the entire concept is tainted from the get-go, all the decisions that go into what you even choose as material to get inspired by are active creative choices you have to make(...)

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what the vibe, aesthetic or artstyle of the project is even gonna be, any particular works that inspire you. Those are all important choices to make in that ''super-early pre-production stage'' of a production for anything. A lot of things straight up simply wouldn't be if people weren't directly making choices of what to be inspired by, and when you offload that important task into a generative AI model you completely lose that because of how that technology inherently works in the context of generating images. This is something that is already a thing even without AI, a lot of professional artists actively discourage other artists from using things like Artstation or Pinterest for their portfolios, because what you end up with is artists with styles and game studios with games that all end up looking the exact same. It's a very similar thing to how a lot of people have this idea for AI implementation where you ''cut out the boring part'' of writing text for NPCs, or text in notes or journals in a game, and it's such a wrong statement almost everytime it's clear people who say it just don't actually do that work for a videogame or a project or are uncreative people, because those are exactly the types of details in something like a videogame where every single person is going to handle that task differently, every game and writer is going to have a different flair, that's where creatives get to distinguish themselves and you get to do fun creative stuff. It's literally the whole point that you're just sidestepping by offloading that entire process to something else that's just going to have no actual regard for the same inspirations you have, has no inspirations of its own and no cultural or artistical context, and is just going to ape other people's work together into a contextless mush of nothing. When you yourself go look up some other artist's concepts or artwork, you decide what you wanna take with you for your own work(...)

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a generative image model can't decide that, it just can't do that. And if I wanted an entire game's concepts to be made by an AI where an artist just sort of gives the concepts a makeover I'd just go ask Grok what his ideas for a medieval game are like and call it a day.

quiet swift
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Line breaks are a thing rdwut

fresh bane
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I've actually had a pretty alright example of an AI technology I'd be fine with in the context of animation for example, something that is actually a menial boring task, like for example a software tool that would automatically color in any finished animation cels for you
The artists could make their very own selection of color palettes the system could choose from, the linework would already be done, and they can quickly verify everything's looking good afterwards when they go shade the frames, that way the artist can actually be involved in the creative parts of the process and not have to do the actual boring menial tasks that animators are probably horribly tired of having to do, especially considering how overworked and undercompensated they are

hushed onyx
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I was watching a video recently that mentioned research finding that while individual creativity went up from using generative algorithms, collective creativity went down.

slim thorn
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ooh, how do they measure that?

fresh bane
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But instead of getting implementations like that, we're getting: ''what if we just told the AI to do the whole thing and have some poor guy clean that mess up?''

fresh bane
random steppe
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If what he's saying is essentially: we generate concepts early on that the artists then use as a base for their own/use as reference, I'm not fine with that
Ok so, it's not clear to me why this stage becomes problematic once AI gets involved for you.
Like, the process of creating a moodboard involves literally taking images from google, form movies, from other games, from pretty much the whole of pop culture to create your own aesthetic.
How is an image generated by a random AI any more problematic than an imaged served to you from the google algorhitm for that specific purpose.

hushed onyx
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It was an aside to the overall thrust of the video.

slim thorn
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so, some of that I feel still comes down to how we interpret the CEO's statement, since again we don't have any statements from anyone else describing what the actual process is, and it's clear you're reading it far less charitably than I am

hushed onyx
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I just recalled it because it perfectly fit the context of this conversation.

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That being said, I know the paper was open access so I'll track it down and link it.

slim thorn
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but I think the more interesting point is that I don't personally see how much of your argument applies only to AI, and not to the "google and art books" and every other form of search/secondary source/compilation that existed pre-AI

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we do choose what to get inspired by, but we will always have fundamentally limited choice in what we get exposed to, because there is finite time to go looking for things by any means

random steppe
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a generative image model can't decide that, it just can't do that
I agree, it's the humans that are about to develop the game that make the choice, the ai generated image is creatively worthless, what the artists at Larian take away from it and then create after is the art part.

slim thorn
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an interesting question would be whether AI is actively worse at this kind of job than a traditional search engine, but I don't know if anyone's attempted to do that comparison in an impartial way

hushed onyx
slim thorn
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(unless WG can find that source)

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lol, oh well, thanks for trying

hushed onyx
rancid herald
fresh bane
# random steppe > If what he's saying is essentially: we generate concepts early on that the art...

How is an image generated by a random AI any more problematic than an imaged served to you from the google algorhitm for that psecific purpose.
precisely because it's a random image generated by a random AI that it has absolutely no value to me as part of a creative process. It doesn't have any prior inspirations at all from anything before, there's no context to that image, any small creative decisions that could've led to that image being actually interesting are completely stripped away when you decide to use a generated image that has no real discernible details to it, it doesn't really understand how the things it's doing actually work. If you used generative AI for the concept stage of some sci-fi guns, it's basically useless, the AI doesn't understand how guns work, what the AI is going to spit back at you is essentially worthless. If all you want is to just have an image that evokes a certain feeling, then just use a damn google image, use a fucking frame from the lord of the rings or whatever it is you want to use it for, especially if it's something you're putting up on a board that nobody's ever going to see and it's not going to be part of any actual finalized concept arts
It's less that the generated AI image being there offends me and I'm mad that it's there, it's moreso that I find absolutely zero creative value in it and I think it defeats the entire purpose of the technology for it to even be there, especially if it's going to get absolutely completely replaced in the end. All that tells me is that you could've just cut that whole part of the process out and have had a quicker more efficient process, because if at the end the AI image gets completely replaced, it was basically next to useless, and that's really why it's ''''problematic'''' to me. It's not problematic because oh mah gad it's AI!!! it's ''problematic'' because every single time I find that its implementation was basically worthless

hushed onyx
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It says it was a preregistered study trying to discover whether using LLMs led to higher or lower creativity as defined by Novelty and Usefulness in the introduction. The actual evaluation was done by humans blinded to whether the stories used LLMs or not and asked to evaluate Novelty, Usefulness, and a few emotional characteristics.

rancid herald
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If you used generative AI for the concept stage of some sci-fi guns, it's basically useless, the AI doesn't understand how guns work I'm not sure certain science fiction does either

quiet swift
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I remember blizz folks saying that one AI use case they've been doing is the old, oooold gear from vanilla. Since the engine capability has changed, but the number of polygons and whatnot from older gear has not, they've been using ai to do some of the upscaling/correction of artifacting that happens, and normall this would be something done by a person and it's extreeeeeemely tedious and not in any way creative work, as it's not changing the gear just making repetitive minor tweaks until it looks good

hushed onyx
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So basically the actual measurement of "creativity" is a weighted average of human poll responses.

rancid herald
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Do you have a tank with an off center barrel? congrats, it's no good

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that sort of thing

random steppe
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It's less that the generated AI image being there offends me and I'm mad that it's there, it's moreso that I find absolutely zero creative value in it and I think it defeats the entire purpose of the technology for it to even be there, especially if it's going to get absolutely completely replaced in the end

I value that these people about to develop a game saw something in that image that inspired them enough to be put in there.
And I value what they'll take away from it and filter through their human brain to create after.
That's the human component that I feel lacks from the AI generated slop.

quiet swift
slim thorn
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I feel like your walls of text are waffling between responses to AI-for-placeholders and AI-for-googling and AI-for-actual-content, which makes it really hard to decide what to respond to, especially since I suspect we all mostly agree on most of these things when we strip away phrasing differences and emotion levels

random steppe
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I think all of it is about ai for concept art developing

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I might have misread something though

fresh bane
# rancid herald ``` If you used generative AI for the concept stage of some sci-fi guns, it's ba...

Whether or not it's accurate to how a gun actually works isn't exactly the point
That one magazine-fed revolver from Cyberpunk absolutely makes no sense at all, but there is an intentionality to its design that you would not have if an AI came up with that design and you just went with it. The shape of it, the size of it, the proportions of it, where each thing goes, why the revolver even looks like that at all, whether you make the revolver cartoonishly big with square ish proportions, whether you make it look like a fancier hi-tech design, whether you want a cleaner futuristic look, something maybe more industrial, whatever, it's all those things that go into it

slim thorn
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well, placeholders vs reference search vs concept art is perhaps the most important distinction to get clear about in this specific conversation, and that's the one being muddied atm

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e.g. that whole "if you used AI at all then it is in the final product somehow" sub-argument obviously doesn't hold water if it's strictly for placeholders, but it's very true if AI made the real concept arts

hushed onyx
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Although the assessment of the similarity of different stories in the paper was actually done by AI rdsnrk Basically they computed how "far" the stories were away from each other in an abstract word space. Although there was a lot of overlap, the stories written with AI assistance were definitely more similar to the LLM version than the human-only stories, and according to their statistics more similar to each other as well, although the effect is not especially large (~9 or 10% of normal variation).

random steppe
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Yeah, my main question remains "is this taking away work an actual paid artist would have made?"
If the answer "well, no, they still do the concept art, this take the place of a Google search or a back of the napkin drawing made by a random writer" that is fine by me.

slim thorn
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granted, for the placeholder case, I do think it would be nice to tell the AI to slap a giant PLACEHOLDER stamp over the whole thing; that should be feasible even if you need it to have vaguely correct size/color/etc to tune your graphics engine around before the artist is done with the real art

random steppe
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And I do think to some extent, if you are making a placeholder texture, that is probably not rewarding work, like, making something you know it's going to be replaced, just to see how it looks in the scene. IDK, that feels like something the artist himself would want to use Ai for, if not that a standard asset from a pack, that sounds understandable to me but I don't have a super strong stance on that.

robust latch
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my steam replay

image.png
rancid herald
fresh bane
# random steppe > It's less that the generated AI image being there offends me and I'm mad that ...

The AI generated slop is still there, it's the whole basis for what the 'human component' is doing afterwards. If you're going to make a space game or a medieval fantasy game then just be inspired by other works in the genre, or not at all, mix it up with something else that inspires you and create an unique aesthetic, maybe it'll stick. That whole part of coming up with the idea in the first place, being inspired by other things that other people have done and mixing it all up with your own tastes and your own experiences is the entire foundation of the idea that you can polish up and pretty up later. If the end result of that generated AI image would've been the exact same as simply gathering up a bunch of material as inspiration from google or art books then again I find it to be worthless, it's a part of the process that could've been cut out, and you can even argue using it for that purpose takes away from possible inspiration you could've had because now you're thinking of the generic AI generated mush in front of you instead of any cool ideas you may have had for that concept. Again, coming up with those ideas in the first place is the whole point, setting up the mood for a project coming together with other artists to share the things you were inspired by, trying to connect the concepts together and have a unified vision is the entire point. I simply don't want to play a game and have no interest in a piece of art where the initial concepts were generated by AI that an artist just copied over later, I find absolutely no point or no value in it, and like I've said before I think that arguably a better usage for this technology would be to have the actual concepts generated by the artists and then use that technology to render out those concepts, at the very least in that scenario they actually did most of the heavy lifting creatively

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I know that ''well, they're gonna re-do them later'' but I don't care that they will, because the whole foundation is already tainted at that point, I don't particularly care whether the concepts that end up in the concept artbook of the game were made by the artists because they didn't come up with it, I see no point and no value in it, and again, if the end result of what they do end up making is something that doesn't even resemble the original AI generated concept, then that entire part of the process was worthless

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Either way, it ends up giving me nothing of value, I don't get anything out of it, I simply don't feel like it belongs

slim thorn
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this feels like a repeat of the previous wall of text?

random steppe
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We will have to agree to disagree that them taking inspiration in part from AI works taint the whole thing, but I see your perspective.
In my mind they aren't "redoing it later" but are doing something new that is not the thing the Ai spat out but their own work same as if you take inspiration from a painting to make your own you aren't remaking the painting but doing your own art about the painting if that makes sense

mossy flume
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We get it, you hate generative AI.

random steppe
#

Of course you can have your own opinion about it, it's not less valid than mine, especially about a topic as subjective as art

fresh bane
#

I'm not particularly looking to get into any fights or snarky back-and-forths about this topic which is precisely why I didn't want to get into it before and just shared the Larian news, if I wanted that I'd just make a post about this on Twitter, so I'm just going to ignore that, but yes, ultimately like I said before I think by this point a lot of people kinda just made up their minds already about which side of this they fall on so I didn't find it worth it to get super into before, and if it's something we just sort of fundamentally disagree on then that's really about it I guess

light gate
#

Its complicated.

fresh bane
#

Nothing else to really do about it if we disagree and I'm not particularly interested in pointing fingers at others and demonizing them if they do think whatever AI usage is fine or whatnot

random steppe
slim thorn
#

well, again, we're trying to get underneath the angry rhetoric to see if there's a real difference of opinion worth examining (beyond just a difference in preference for injecting anger into the rhetoric)

#

e.g. I'm still confused about whether you're actually claiming that an AI placeholder the artists don't even look at taints the artists' work

quiet swift
fresh bane
slim thorn
#

whereas we probably agree that google is currently better than AI at searching for references; I don't think this fundamentally has to be the case, but I certainly don't trust current AI to be as broad and impartial as a current search engine

random steppe
#

I am not sure for the placeholder, but Nire point is that having AI generated art in the exploration process do end up tainting to some extent the final product.

rancid herald
#

a lot of what's on google these days is ai anyway

slim thorn
#

right, but I think it matters which part of the process

light gate
#

AI fake websites are extremely dangerous

random steppe
#

Taint predictive text, taint, not taunt, 4 times you corrected me

slim thorn
#

especially since this all started with a PR statement about which part of the process it was being used in

random steppe
#

I am the human and I will write what I want to write you stupid phone

mossy flume
#

Let me know once there's demonstrable harm from the described use case.

light gate
#

Ehhhh

fresh bane
# random steppe I am not sure for the placeholder, but Nire point is that having AI generated ar...

Basically. I tried to explain that part of my mentality on the topic as much as I could and I may have repeated myself a lot, but it's because I also agree that there's a lot of AI-panic nowadays, so whenever anything AI is mentioned people on the internet go absolutely insane, so I wanted to explain as best as I could that it's not so much the AI technology in itself I have a problem with, just what it means for the process I'm interested in

#

or, the process that's relevant to the entire origin of the discussion in the first place

light gate
# light gate Ehhhh

If there is some wisdom I learned, its that with enough time… anything can happen.

mossy flume
#

Panicking over hypothetical scenarios never goes well.

slim thorn
#

anything can, but not everything will; there are also a lot of hypotheticals that never panned out and were quietly forgotten about

rancid herald
#

tbh the real reason this is happening is in the extended transcript

fresh bane
#

Because like I said before there were some mentions of AI tech that the Larian CEO even mentioned that I was completely fine with, and I think others would be fine with as well, but when you make a tweet saying ''yeah we use AI'' on twitter of all places, you're not gonna get the best response

rancid herald
#

where he talks about golden eggs (or something)

slim thorn
#

yeah the "golden egg" excerpt was by far the most worrying, but it's also hard to tell how much of that is the interviewer railroading him

rancid herald
#

I don't think there's much railroading at all

#

take the whole Ark... uh whatever that game is

#

arc ?

slim thorn
#

the version I read had him getting cut off mid-sentence and stuff

rancid herald
#

here's a game that came out with AI voices and sold really well

#

E33 had ai stuff and sold really well

#

You may have heard of it

random steppe
slim thorn
#

iiuc E33's not the best example because that was an accidental placeholder texture they replaced with "real" textures after it was spotted

fresh bane
#

Well, what he said in the interview transcript is actually tied to what I meant earlier when I said I find the implementation of AI in this stage of production to be worthless. Even the Larian CEO said that it didn't particularly increase production speeds or anything, and that it wasn't really particularly huge, but that they have to use any new technologies because otherwise as a company you risk getting left behind if that technology ends up proving to be a big thing
When even the CEO said that this technology wasn't really particularly that much of an improvement, what I get from it is that there was no point in it at all

random steppe
#

If anything, they were underestimating the issue

light gate
rancid herald
#

I mean, we're talking about people being upset about the possibility of concept artists looking at genAI images to make their concept art, which is then in turn turned into the actual meaningful art that gets into the game

fresh bane
# slim thorn the version I read had him getting cut off mid-sentence and stuff

https://bsky.app/profile/jasonschreier.bsky.social/post/3ma5dqbmgm22o

Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier.bsky.social)

If I had known the two paragraphs about genAI in my article today would be so controversial, I would have expanded them a bit! Here's a rough transcript of the relevant portion of my interview with Swen Vincke, so everyone has all the context. (Full article here: www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet...)

Reposts

591

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400

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184

Bluesky ·
quiet swift
#

I was asked explicitly about concept art and our use of Gen AI. I answered that we use it to explore things. I didn’t say we use it to develop concept art. The artists do that. And they are indeed world class artists.

We use AI tools to explore references, just like we use google and art books. At the very early ideation stages we use it as a rough outline for composition which we replace with original concept art. There is no comparison.

The way I see it, it sounds more like "hey Chatgpt, i want to create a mood board of men in armor doing jumping jacks, but also cats in jogging suits. Find me pictures of each and give them to me in one answer/one pdf". If you do that in a google search manually, that'll take longer to sort things out

random steppe
rancid herald
#

His point, though, is that tomorrow some chinese company (or even an american company) could see the game of Divinity and use genAI to push it out the door before they can. If this happens, and it's successful, every investor is going to be looking at companies like Larian and asking why they didn't do this as well

fresh bane
# quiet swift > I was asked explicitly about concept art and our use of Gen AI. I answered tha...

Well, the thing you're describing about it being used more as a way to sort already existing images vs completely generating them and relegating that entire process to the AI are different things, which again in part the CEO is at fault here for, like I said before, not being super clear on what exactly the usage here is
Because:

''We use AI tools to explore references.
could mean: we basically use it to sort through our library of already existing material or google images, or it could mean: we generated all the images and then put them on the board

#

it also could mean either of the two more considering they said they also use AI tech for things like powerpoint presentations

slim thorn
#

yeah more clarity would be nice

fresh bane
#

So he could actually be saying that they basically use it as a way to sort through their already existing material, but it could also not mean that

rancid herald
#

Like, I tell you, someone is going to make a science fiction or fantasy RPG with AI interactivity with the romance options and it's going to be wild

slim thorn
#

especially clear statements from anyone besides the CEO, to reduce the "but he's a CEO so we can't trust him" tangent

quiet swift
#

I'm pretty sure they're aware of just how poisonous gen ai is in present discourse (as this conversation shows), so this to me seems to be the former, but the lack of clarity makes it hard for the average person (and the hater) to be sure it's not the latter

fresh bane
#

and if they did use it that way, I'd have no problem at all with it because it's true that organizing material like that is very boring and adds nothing to anything

rancid herald
#

no more getting married on the basis of repeatedly giving the same npc the same gift

#

izzyscrunch KOTOR.

quiet swift
slim thorn
#

yeah we probably are on the same page about the use cases then

rancid herald
#

it doesn't surprise me

quiet swift
fresh bane
# rancid herald Like, I tell you, someone is going to make a science fiction or fantasy RPG with...

Well, that's another thing people kinda fantasize about using AI for, more interactivity with characters in videogames. And I don't think it works the way people think it works.
This kind of tech was done before also, and it was used very well on that super popular game Facade that came out like 20 years ago that every Youtuber was making videos on early on, and it's actually really interesting to see. I think the developers of that were actually thinking of making a sequel and it was in production.

quiet swift
rancid herald
slim thorn
#

Facade, there's that name again... I've still never actually seen this game

fresh bane
#

But the problem with that is that, you can't have a fully AI generated super interactive character in your game, it just doesn't work like that, because at that point you just have Grok in the game. You have to have some degree of already existing material that you can use a machine learning system to sort through and give it more interactivity, but basically you can't just have a magical character in a videogame that can tell you anything

#

I mean, you can, but again, it's just like having Grok, or ChatGPT in the game

rancid herald
#

I can't believe I forgot fortnite's darth vader

fresh bane
#

The Facade example is interesting in this regard and I'm actually interested in seeing how those developers use AI systems to improve on that original idea, I hope that they can implement it in a way that makes sense and kinda show people a realistic usage of this sort of tech for that purpose, because a lot of people on the internet basically just want every NPC to be like ChatGPT and things just don't work like that

#

Yeah, because then you end up with racist Darth Vader

#

Exactly

rancid herald
#

Darth Vader was always racist

slim thorn
#

chatbot-as-NPC does sound thoroughly uninteresting, yeah

fresh bane
#

Well I mean... yeah

rancid herald
#

it's lore accurate

fresh bane
#

I guess so, yeah

light gate
#

Like it just felt wrong.

#

I don’t know why.

#

I mean I do but

rancid herald
#

right, but fortnite isn't exactly imploding

slim thorn
#

I guess ultimately I'm still not sure what to do about any of this besides the old reliable "don't play bad games" (to the extent feasible)

#

it's not like I could've done anything to stop the rise of predatory monetization, I was never even tempted to buy into any of that, much less actually did

quiet swift
#

(in case folk were wondering about the vader ai in question)

mossy flume
#

Oh yeah, that was such a stupid thing

rancid herald
fresh bane
# slim thorn chatbot-as-NPC does sound thoroughly uninteresting, yeah

It's the kind of thing where I see a lot of people on the internet say that this is the next big step in making interactive characters on games and get really excited about the fantasy of having Cloud react to every single thing you're saying in the game when you're playing FF7 and it's just... not how any of this works, and it wouldn't at all be what they expect probably.
What you end up with, or you would end up with, is essentially a chatbot that is wholly uninteresting, retains nothing of the personality of the character, at worst you can easily manipulate it into saying whatever you want it to say, and takes away the opportunity to have a writer actually come up with various interesting wacky responses a character could have to any given situation, which again, is kinda what Facade did under the hood with its systems, and that was in 2005! Made by like, two guys

random steppe
#

I do think the Darth Vader thing was okay ethically, and it did have some pretty funny result outside of the inappropriate ones

#

Like, Darth Vader addressing Hatsune Miku or Goku by name will never not be contextually funny to me

quiet swift
rancid herald
#

Darth Vader describing the plot of kingdom of hearts

quiet swift
#

Make him describe how the FATE franchise works

fresh bane
#

Sora, Donald and Goofy enter the room as Anakin is about to slay the younglings

mossy flume
rancid herald
#

"Gosh Vader, that doesn't seem very nice!"

quiet swift
#

Insert Goofy 'I'd fuckin' do it again' meme here

fresh bane
#

I was gonna make a joke about Sora trying to stop Vader from killing the jedi talking about friends and the light and love but I realized midway that's literally just what Luke does in ROTJ

#

so it wouldn't be too funny

slim thorn
#

to be fair, I don't think it was Luke's speech that got to him, but Luke refusing to finish him off followed by the Emperor's needlessly slow and cruel choice of execution method for Luke

fresh bane
#

well, now that that whole thing is over (laugh track)
I'm gonna do a little run of Hades 2 and see how far I can get

image.png
quiet swift
fresh bane
# slim thorn to be fair, I don't think it was Luke's speech that got to him, but Luke refusin...

It's a bunch of different things really but it's funny to see it in a super simplified way (the same way people have this same meme about Naruto's talk no jutsu when the reality is more nuanced than that)
I've also seen star wars nerds fight each other talking about whether Vader was actually weaker than Luke, because of how ever since ESB Vader was feeling really conflicted and was too ''distracted'' in a way, I think seeing Luke refusing to even fight at all was that last drop that tipped the glass over

rotund forge
rancid herald
#

takes a big draw of the joint it all makes sense maaaaan

#

the timeline is like... a circle maaaaan. but in a lineeee

slim thorn
#

gotta admit I've seen enough on this topic to be skeptical out of the gate rdsnrk

rancid herald
#

"the timeline has branches because the Great Deku tree has branches. In this video I was conclusively demostrate that the timeline is in fact the Greater Deku Tree and we're all just inside of it"

fresh bane
#

and in the center of it all... Tingle

fresh bane
#

I have that giant multiple hour long video on how much TOTK sucks but I haven't seen it yet because I fear I kinda just agree with that video and I already know exactly everything it's gonna mention

#

but it has been a long time since I completed TOTK so it might be time to watch it now...

#

I was under the impression that we already knew what 'da timeline' for the new games was and that it was basically just a soft reboot of everything and mostly doing it's own thing but maybe I'm wrong on that

rancid herald
#

give it to chatgpt and have it summarize it

fresh bane
#

Grok please help

slim thorn
#

I was under the impression the new games didn't particularly care what the timeline was and that's why basically every possibility is contradicted by something in them rdsnrk

river veldt
#

saying TotK sucks seems pretty hyperbolic rdsnrk

rancid herald
#

it sucks so hard, like a black hole drawing me back in

#

just when I think I'm out, here I am, TOKing again

fresh bane
#

I think back when we were playing TOTK me and Ixrec got into a pretty comprehensive discussion of our respective feelings on the game and how I felt about TOTK overall

#

it's somewhere back there in the logs

rancid herald
#

I feel like Tears completely exploded the zelda lore community

#

which is funny

rancid herald
river veldt
#

am i weird in thinking that the timeline makes complete sense rdwut

fresh bane
mossy flume
river veldt
#

i remember reading the Hyrule Historia when i was like 11 and being like "yeah this makes sense"

rancid herald
#

a lot of upset about the idea that it might be the founding of hyrule

#

(Zelda nerds and not realizing there's only one LoZ story told multiple times; name a better duo)

mossy flume
#

The timeline is weird in that it’s a retroactively construed concept. It doesn’t make too much sense because the Zelda games were not originally made with a timeline in mind. That showed up laaaaate in Nintendo’s thinking.

The answer they came up with is interesting and it’s probably the best idea for a timeline that could be made.

#

But BotW and TotK re-merging the timeline and basically blowing everything up to soft-reboot the franchise was probably the smart move, assuming a coherent timeline is now desired on their part

#

But yeah, I dunno, they’ll probably just keep doing what they’ve been doing because it works

fresh bane
#

I think if I remember correctly, my reasons for not liking the game were super summarized basically that the game has basically no story, and a lot of its concepts really just end up going absolutely nowhere, you never really get to actually see Hyrule being rebuilt which is what I was kinda hoping to see, it's a shameless carbon copy of BOTW down exactly to how the game starts and what your objectives are, there's a really weird dissonance with the game's story compared to BOTW where it feels like TOTK is less of a BOTW 2 and more of a BOTW 2.0, because so much of BOTW is straight up ignored and how much of the game's concepts are literally just everything you do in BOTW but you just do it again, down to everything being coated in an evil goo except now it has a different name

#

really some of the highlights of the game was precisely that it felt like BOTW 2.0, so I kinda liked some of the characters' abilities better, some of the designs are also better, the dungeons have an actual aesthetic to them this time around, and some of the actual powers are way better

#

the sky and the underground were about as shallow of a concept as ever though, I usually hear people say this about some games and it always feels like it's a bit exaggerated, but it really did feel like needless padding, especially when BOTW's map was already pretty big from the get go

mossy flume
#

It was a DLC expansion that got so large they turned it into its own game rdwut

fresh bane
#

The only sky section that was actually super fun was the Rito section and that's because they based that entire area around it so that made sense and it was actually pretty alright, but I feel like you could cut down like 60% of the sky islands and make only certain areas be underground and it would've been a massively better concept

mossy flume
#

But yeah, I agree. A few parts of TotK feel weird as a concept

#

But it’s fun anyway

river veldt
#

true

mossy flume
#

BotW: Director’s Cut is sorta how I treated it

river veldt
#

i actually really liked the depths i thought thhey were fun, idk why they focused so much on the sky stuff in marketing though

mossy flume
#

I feel like it was worth exploring all the ideas that it had

fresh bane
#

Oh I think it's the better version of BOTW for sure, I put 100+ hours into it and I'm gonna put 100+ hours into recovering that 100+ hour savefile now that I'm replaying TOTK

#

but, I can see why someone would think it sucks and I agree it kinda sucks especially compared to BOTW

mossy flume
#

I just don’t think it’s worth trying to think too hard about making the stories between games make sense with each other, because Zelda as a franchise doesn’t.
It’s a sequel, but also a reimagining, but also an expansion. Just try not to think too hard about it, I guess. rdwut

fresh bane
#

I don't know about it being actually a soft reboot of the franchise though, I'm pretty sure whatever next game comes out they're just gonna ignore BOTW's lore

#

I mean, Echoes came out and it had nothing to do with BOTW in the slightest

mossy flume
#

“This engine is so cool, man” - Nintendo, probably

#

(And to be fair, it is)

river veldt
#

it's some sort of wizardry they did to get all those physics working

mossy flume
#

Echoes is weird in that it’s a “sequel” to a remake

river veldt
#

i never played Echoes is it good

hushed onyx
#

I want a Zelda game that has neither Zelda, nor Link, nor Ganon, and is just Rito. All Rito. Only birds rdsnrk

mossy flume
fresh bane
#

I think we mentioned this when we were playing TOTK but I was genuinely impressed with the physics in TOTK, the way chains work, the way ropes work, last night I was doing a shrine and there were some ropes holding up a bridge they obviously wanted you to cut down, I put it on fire instead, and I actually got to see how the fire traveled all the way up to the bottom of the rope and then burned the whole thing down

#

and then the little ends still tied to the ground burned up and completely burned to nothing too

mossy flume
fresh bane
hushed onyx
#

They are very cool flutternod

fresh bane
#

Massively, massively underrated and went by everyone's radars

hushed onyx
#

(Bear in mind that I've never actually played any Zelda game for more than a few minutes, just watched other people (my sister) do it)

mossy flume
#

The gamedev community on Twitter and Bluesky were losing their minds over TotK Jolteon_hehe

rancid herald
#

is the gamedev community on social media ever not losing their minds?

mossy flume
#

Heh

#

The ones I'm following are generally pretty chill

slim thorn
#

Speaking of "play more indies" and "there are too many games" and so on, last week I started Hyper Light Drifter (very late, I know). Dunno if anyone here is familiar with it, but this is my progress so far:

SPOILER_image.png
random steppe
#

I played some of it but at the end of the day, it turns out I don't actually dig pixel-art that much and ended up dropping it

slim thorn
#

I'm in it for exploration and combat

random steppe
#

It's a good game, from what I remember

slim thorn
#

I've been sporadically sick this week so I ended up deciding to alternate HLD, whose combat I need to properly lock in for, with Supraland, which is also great but the challenge there is puzzles so it's a lot more viable when I'm coughing or whatever

slim thorn
unreal idol
#

Once I get a Switch 2 I plan to play the upgraded versions of BOTW and TOTK

mossy flume
#

Worth doing. They play quite nicely on the Switch 2. pippwiggle

unreal idol
#

That's good to hear

#

How does it work if you have a Switch 1 physical copy of the games?

mossy flume
#

You can use Switch 1 carts in a Switch 2. It'll act as a Switch 1 game until you get the upgrade pack, I think. NSO members get the upgrade pack automatically, it's worth noting.

#

I just use a digital copy, but I think that's how it works

unreal idol
mossy flume
#

You can just grab the upgrade pack from the online store and it should work fine, I'm pretty sure

slim thorn
#

so this does absolutely nothing for the whole "BotW/TotK threw out the timeline again" problem, buuuut

#

the idea that the downfall/hero defeated timeline was ||the original timeline, before the timeline was changed to produce the version of events we see in OoT|| does make that branch seem a lot less arbitrary

worldly summit
#

there’s no game called Metroid Prime 1, just Metroid Prime 🧐

fresh bane
#

Hades 2 update:
I got killed by a rat

random steppe
#

The more things change, the more they stay the same

fresh bane
#

Cronos is not gonna expect this one

visual hill
fresh bane
quiet swift
#

Yeah, His Majesty the Rat is a beast

fresh bane
#

On the plus side, I got some extra keepsakes and did a bunch of concoctions on da big witch cauldron

#

I got the Engraved Pin keepsake which kinda sounds like a better Luckier Tooth if I get it to level 3? Since, by the sounds of it, it sounds like it's a per-encounter revive rather than just one per night... that would be really useful

#

Though, I've read some people don't even really use any keepsakes like that and instead prefer keepsakes that increase power? Which I kinda understand but... I'm at a point where I can barely get out of Oceanus as it is

#

So.... for the time being, I kinda need it, until I git gud

#

haven't heard that phrase in a while

slim thorn
fresh bane
#

Did Silksong fans use that phrase a lot? I know there was a big ''controversy'' when the game was coming out where a lot of people thought it was simply too difficult of a game and dropped it and it was like a big discussion that happened

slim thorn
#

I'm not aware of it being used as an insult between humans, but I also don't generally hang out in spaces frequented by that sort of asshole anyway

#

the meme that one of Hornet's lines in the first game sounds like "git gud" has been referenced many times, to be sure, but that's of course not the same thing

quiet swift
#

Nire: yes, though I find Oceanus a bit unpredictable as to the waves of enemies coming at you. And the 4th zone too. But yes, if you lose a life, you have 10 seconds to finish the 'room' to get that revive back and some health

slim thorn
#

and there's certainly a significant portion of players who did not appreciate the difficulty increase

quiet swift
#

I'd say make your focus less about finishing (unless you can) and go for the two currencies that help you with arcana unlocks. That's what will give you the most power

slim thorn
#

I think it was reasonable to be harder than HK, but that Silksong was kinda pushing it, and for me personally it ended up being the good kind of hard all the way through, but there were a few times where I was worried I would not be able to finish all the content

river veldt
#

i ended up dropping Skong, it was too hard for me 😔

slim thorn
#

certainly no one should be playing Silksong before HK, you need the experience lol

fresh bane
#

Oh it's like an in game meme quote I thought it was just a thing people would say like in the Dark Souls spaces

river veldt
#

yeah i enjoyed Hollow Knight

fresh bane
river veldt
#

the freaks

fresh bane
#

like Metroidvania freaks

fresh bane
slim thorn
fresh bane
slim thorn
#

that context of course makes it even better for memeing into hornetgitgud

#

"lock in right tf now or you're gonna be so dead"

quiet swift
#

That's almost half the cards, not a handful ppenk also the number on the right (your max arcana) goes to 30, so you're missing out both power AND cards

river veldt
#

anyways i think Shovel Knight is the superior indie knight /j

fresh bane
quiet swift
#

(I think you do have the death defiance one unlocked, make sure to prioritize it for upgrades, which is another currency too ppenk )

fresh bane
#

Oh I think I completely forgot that that was something you could upgrade

slim thorn
#

I'm sure they're aware now, no idea if it occurred to them while developing

fresh bane
#

there's a lot of resources to track....

quiet swift
#

Yeah, I think they went a bit overboard with it

#

One thing to consider in arcana is the "strength" one, which gives a lot more damage and a fair bit more HP if you have 0 death defiances

fresh bane
#

okay so it's not that I forgot how to play a videogame it's that people actually forgot this was a thing you do too

image.png image.png image.png
fresh bane
quiet swift
fresh bane
#

I've kinda been going for bones this session I kinda didn't get any of the other resources like psyche or the other cloth thingy for the cards

quiet swift
#

There's loads of powerful stuff in what you haven't unlocked. And yeah, I ran into that early when doing the early access stuff

fresh bane
#

The little lantern weapons give extra bones where I left off buuutt.... I like the axe way better.....

slim thorn
#

yeah I still need to hold off on H2 until I have the spare brain cycles to manage all of... whatever that is

river veldt
#

i'll play hades dos someday

fresh bane
#

but the healing spots are useful

#

I think I didn't get any extra health during that run so, that's on me I guess

quiet swift
#

Well first, how the heck did you get to oceanus with only one 'main' boon?

fresh bane
#

I don't remember, bad RNG I guess, I think I mostly took doors that had resources instead of boons because I wanted to gather some resources that run

quiet swift
#

And second, for those fish, mass use of the cast and abusing the Special attack ppenk

#

Well yeah but do that after you at least get a Special boon rdsnrk the rest can admittedly wait

#

Poseidon on special is giga strong imo, attack is better used with other stuff

fresh bane
#

I'm gonna be honest I still don't fully grasp the whole rarity system of the boons and which ones are more special to get over other ones

#

I should also probably actually test out some moves next time, I still don't really know if the cast does continuous damage or damages only after a couple seconds which is why I kinda wasn't using it for all those fish enemies since I had the splash damage from my normal attacks, I thought that would be more useful

quiet swift
#

How do you mean? Essentially the same system as in Hades 1, unless you mean from experience which one ends up being better

fresh bane
#

I did not play Hades 1 rdwut

quiet swift
#

The heck are you playing Hades 2 for then!

#

Anyway, for rarity it will always be white -> blue - > purple and it's almost always better to get the rarer one

#

I believe unless your cast is upgrdaded with a boon that explicitly states it does damage, the cast will NOT do damage. When you Omega it though, it does damage on expiration

#

And for those fish that's mostly my experience talking. They're fast enough (especially the elite version with armor, which can't be animation stunlocked until the armor is gone) that you take a lot of damage if you can't kill them fast. In the video, I would've used cast repeatedly and launched ranged attacks (the Special) to remove their armor, then go in for the kill with normal attacks

slim thorn
#

Nire what are you doing

quiet swift
#

Hades 2 is a pretty direct sequel, Hades 1 is almost required ppenk

fresh bane
#

I don't know how to quote a previous message I sent but it's like the first mention of Hades 2 in my chat history, I thought the gameplay looked pretty cool, I was kinda looking into isometric style games at the time, I had the money on the steam wallet and the game was on sale so I just got it, I wasn't really planning on playing Hades 1 anyways and I was just in it for the gameplay so I just went with it, I never really played a roguelike like this before so I wasn't going to commit to playing an entire game before trying out the one I was actually interested in so I know I'm 'missing out' but I'm fine with that

slim thorn
#

2's gameplay looked cool but 1's didn't?

fresh bane
#

It's not that Hades 1's gameplay doesn't look cool it's just that at the time I was hearing about Hades 2 specifically and it was on my mind more than Hades 1

quiet swift
#

The cast is more a tactical tool than outright damage, though it depends on the god's boon

#

Hades 1 gameplay is essentially the same as 2. Maybe a bit less smooth, and less content compared to 2, but the stories are connected and there's tons of references. You're kinda doing yourself a disservice by not playing 1 imo :X

#

(oh, it was Bringi who recently posted about finishing hades 1)

fresh bane
#

I know that I am I'm just not super bothered by it especially because I'm more into the gameplay of this than for the story and lore, not that it's not good or that I don't care for it, I really like Melinoe and a bunch of characters in this, but mostly I like how the gameplay feels

#

and if I end up getting super into it and I'm really feeling Hades in particular I'll probably go back to the first one and play through that whole thing but right now I'm still testing out this game in particular because it's the first in the genre I even play, I'm still super early into this

fresh bane
#

it's probably gonna be easier now that I have the power of frog so he can tank some damage for me

quiet swift
#

What gods have you met so far?

fresh bane
#

Hecate, Selene, Odysseus, Moros, Dora, Schelemeus, Charon, Nemesis, Poseidon, Zeus, Demeter, Hermes, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Hestia, Artemis, Apollo, Echo, Eris, Arachne and Chaos I think is about as far as I've seen

quiet swift
#

I think that's most of the gods cocothink I meant the boon givers mostly rdsnrk I think you'd most enjoy Hephaestus, Demeter or Hestia for cast boons

fresh bane
#

Well I did get all the way up to Cronos one run but I haven't gotten that far consistently yet

#

I still haven't really played around enough to really get a gameplay style of my own, I'm sure there's a lot of specific upgrade routes to fully optimize specific playstyles to really express yourself as a player but I haven't memorized everything yet so I'm still testing everything out

quiet swift
fresh bane
#

Like, I don't know if maybe I want to be more tanky and just focus on power or just focus on more dodging and staying alive, or if that even matters at all and maybe there's just the one upgrade that is better objectively every time

#

or whether zappy zapps or freezes or water is more useful for me or what not

quiet swift
#

Well, I can tell you that tanky is a bad idea because heals are extremely few far in between (the occasional snack at shops or the pool between area)

#

Though it never hurts to get more HP obviously but, don't make a build in mind of 'i don't need to dodge, i'll just tank'

fresh bane
#

I would assume there'd be some way to 'restore' or gain more armor consistently otherwise I guess the whole armor deal is kinda ''useless'' as a consistent way to keep your health up

quiet swift
#

Armor is a weird one. It can be a life saver but it's hard to keep it active unless you have arachne's keepsake

#

Otherwise no, you're supposed to not get hit as best you can

fresh bane
#

I remember trying it on for a few runs because the idea of getting armor consistently was really good except I always lose her armor upgrades and the keepsake is completely useless if you don't keep your armor at 1 to gain more armor points

#

so I eventually swapped to the tooth and it's been working great so long as I try to not get hit...

#

I'm at least getting better at the Hecates fight and not really getting hit that much during it at this point

slim thorn
#

yeah I don't think Hades 1 had a realistic "tank" option either, the core of any "build" I can recall is about combining damage/attack/etc multipliers in ways that complement each other

quiet swift
#

Yyyyeah rdsnrk Heph has some armor boons that start off pretty high too

#

Some of the higher level streamers/players do 'no hit' runs as an extra challenge to themselves - it's really the intended way to play, not getting hit as much as you can. The healing/armor/death defiance is for those times when you can't

#

And the cast is the best tool to snare enemies, with or without boon

#

Admittedly it's early game for you as you said, so you're still learning. One thing you should learn is the enemy patterns - eventually you'll know their attack methods and the dodging/survival will come with it more naturally

fresh bane
#

Maybe I'm just playing the game wrong then, I'll try prioritizing damage next run and see how far I can get

#

....I'm still keeping Moros' keepsake

quiet swift
#

if you want, I can try streaming in discord one of my runs? I'm pretty much done with the story though so it can be spoilery

slim thorn
#

to be clear, investing in survivability is not an invalid choice, especially early on when all of this is new and you haven't learned most of the patterns yet

#

I'm pretty sure I ran death defiance for most of my Hades 1 playthrough

quiet swift
#

Yeah, I almost always upgrade death defiance first to get most out of it. But I was just saying that there's no "tank" build. Just stuff to help live longer

slim thorn
#

you just need to treat that as a finite resource within any given run, not a renewable one

quiet swift
#

(again, Hephaestus has a great boon for this too)

fresh bane
#

I am running mostly a bunch of revive abilities specifically because of that, but I do think that maybe having like two of those abilities as a crutch is maybe making me play more conservatively than I otherwise would be and holding me back a little bit, and maybe prioritizing and having more damage options could nudge me into focusing more on dodging and not getting hit in the first place

quiet swift
#

What revive abilities? cocothink arcanas?

fresh bane
#

There's the tooth keepsake and there's one card I have equipped that restores my health when it hits 0

quiet swift
#

Ahh

fresh bane
#

so I have two of those equipped and maybe I could do fine without one of those to see how I do

quiet swift
#

Ehhh. I think early on it's good to do that. Heck, upgrading the death defiance arcana just gives you even more revives

#

I'd say take what we've said into account while keeping those revives, and just try to avoid stuff more

fresh bane
#

It's not like I really have any other cards to equip anyways... the other cards available to me right now didn't seem all that useful so I'll have to unlock more and get more grasp

quiet swift
#

I'm checking out what you have in my own game to see if there's anything to tweak 😉

fresh bane
#

that's what I got right now

#

I should watch out for anyone I didn't give a gift to so I can get their keepsakes

quiet swift
#

ameownodfast yeah, keepsakes should be priority 1

#

Alright, had a quick look at arcana: you definitely need more Grasp so you can use more. The biggest change I'd make is use Eternity - that slowdown can be extremly useful. Also I'd go for the centaur but you need more grasp for that

#

Messenger is eh, but since it's just 1 it's not gonna free up much rdsnrk

#

Without spoiling the rest, this is what I have for the top half and the rest of my points (with maxed grasp) is almost all in the bottom half

image.png
#

As for the keepsakes, talk to as many as you can obviously but mainly go for the olympian gods - their boons allow you to start a run with that god appearing immediately AND allowing you to upgrade their boon (depending on the level of keepsake)

#

Allowing a bit more control in what you start out with

fresh bane
#

I would imagine messenger is kinda useful at least, I think I wanted to go with centaur but I couldn't activate it and then the others available to me right now didn't seem particularly useful

#

the one where you stop time with the cast maybe but I can't get that one right now anyways even if I wanted

#

So next run I'm gonna be farming resources to buy cards

quiet swift
#

Sounds like a plan! And Nectar winkiepie

#

Psyche (green) > ashes (gray) > moon dust (for upgrades) > all else, at least at the start

fresh bane
#

Yeah I went for a lot of bones this session for both runs I did, I guess because the weapon I was using gave more bones and I thought I needed to get more of that

#

but at least I got to buy some items at the shops with that so it wasn't entirely useless

quiet swift
#

No resource is ever really useless. You can get some incantation stuff or even more nectar with the bones. At least at the start I do prefer using the weapon that'll give me bones every fight, but I won't LOOK for a room that gives bones

cunning galleon
#

Isn't she adorable

20251218052144_937_937961.png
clear glacier
#

this is what happens when you mod too much, ya fly

2016241.JPG
craggy vine
proud warren
#

oh shit, the Steam winter sale is gonna be happening later today woo

cunning galleon
#

Yup! Can't wait

bitter stream
#

any particular games you're hoping for a sale for?

proud warren
#

as for games I want

#

uh

#

lemme check my wishlist

#

well shit, I only have 5 games in my wishlist, and 4 of them aren't even released yet LMAO

bitter stream
#

heh fair enough

#

I had my wishlist like that early in the year

#

now its more.. checks steam

cunning galleon
#

These are mine

Screenshot_20251218_184905.jpg
bitter stream
#

erm... 13 titles of soon to release or "TBA"

cunning galleon
#

Zomboid is already at Sale price so it's just gonna get cheaper

proud warren
bitter stream
#

hope it does get cheaper Neo.

Ah yeah Talc, is that the new Binding of Issac guy game?

proud warren
#

yeah, Edmund's new game

#

still waiting on Isaac 2 /j

#

before you say rebirth was Isaac 2

bitter stream
#

Oh Neo, are you gonna go straight into Build 42? or just build 41 stuff for Project Zomboid?

proud warren
#

i dunno, Edmund doesn't seem to think so

bitter stream
#

Death of the Coder? Just because the creator doesn't think it is, doesn't mean it can't be interpreted as one haha

cunning galleon
#

It always goes on sale at exactly 33% off everytime with no fail

proud warren
#

anyone here got any recommendations to add to my wishlist? cus I'm not gonna like, it's kind of a sad wishlist

#

oh I should prolly add Haste to the list

#

I played to demo: very fun game, although kinda simplistic

#

oh dood, it's already on sale LMAO

bitter stream
#

hm, what kind of game are you hoping to come across Talc?

#

Any particular favourite themes/genres/styles?

proud warren
#

my go to genre is usually roguelikes

bitter stream
#

hmm, any particular style of roguelike? Cardgames or old school dungeon crawls etc

proud warren
#

side note, but I was gonna look up "cutting room floor", and wtf is this?
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3874530/Cutting_Grass_with_Nail_Clippers_the_game/

Steam
Cutting Grass with Nail Clippers the game

Go around the world cutting grass with your trusty set of nail clippers. Cut grass, grow grass, sell your grass, upgrade your clippers, explore the land of grass, and uncover its mysteries.

Go at your own pace cutting grass, there is no main goal, just you, your trusty nail clippers, and the world of grass.

Price

$4.99

bitter stream
#

Looks like one of t hose idle games I guess?

#

just, with grass and nail clippers

proud warren
#

very silly

#

anywho either dungeon crawlers or action roguelikes are my bread and butter

#

I don't really have the brain capacity for deck builders too much

bitter stream
#

fair enough

#

maybe this game might get a sale

#

https://store.steampowered.com/app/288120/Dungeonmans/

Steam
Dungeonmans

Crush monsters and get loots in the classic turn-based style of deep dungeons and high adventure! Serious gameplay surrounded by a light-hearted atmosphere, designed to evoke the feel of history's great RPGs and dice-slinging adventures around the tabletop.

  • True roguelike adventure: turn-based, tough but fair, countless combat options.
    • Mo…
Price

$14.99

Recommendations

1057

#

It's an old dungeon crawler, but it got updates for quite a few years

#

including Battle Poultry

#

it's pretty silly with it's -mans theming of everything

proud warren
#

this is giving crypt of the necrodancer meets the style of vampire survivors vibes

bitter stream
#

it's the same style of art, but it pre-dates vampire survivors by a fair bit I think

proud warren
#

I don't doubt that

#

they both got that retro vibe

#

tho this one lends itself to more diablo vibes rather than like, dragon quest 3 vibes

bitter stream
#

interesting, I can see it with the loot and stuff

#

oh! have you played Enter the Gungeon?

proud warren
#

beaten it completely

#

I aint bothering with it's sequel tho

bitter stream
#

isn't Enter the Gungeon 2 still in development?

proud warren
#

no no, exit the gungeon

#

the one everyone forgets exists

bitter stream
#

huh, right right, the apple store locked (originally) one

proud warren
#

yeah, I played it on switch

#

... didn't really like it

bitter stream
#

ah yeah

#

I've been meaning to play EtG more, as I picked it up but only really finished the Marine on an old save

proud warren
#

oh I should check for like, Atomicrops or Nuclear Throne or something

#

holy shit atomicrops is cheap rn

#

so is nuclear throne wtf?

bitter stream
#

yeah, atomicrops looks interesting

#

I just don't know if I'm into the farming thing haha

proud warren
#

I get that

#

oh I should check on UFO 50

#

oh fuck I forgot Uma Musume counts as a roguelite in a sense Wheeze

bitter stream
#

it does?

#

I wonder if there's any RTS roguelike games out there

proud warren
#

well, there's rogueLIKE and rogueLITE

bitter stream
#

I've never really understood why people made that distinction. They are slightly different versions of the same thing

proud warren
#

roguelikes are more traditional start from the beginning, get thru a run or die, with upgrades that change each time and can unlock more to make starting from the beginning easier (very cookie cutter experience): Roguelites on the other hand doesn't necessarily have all of those qualities, usually keeping the progressive unlocks and such, while forgoing the "start from the beginning" mentality

#

obviously that doesn't mean it's like that every time, but just know roguelikes are pretty cookie cutter in their approach, while roguelites are more experimental in their approach

bitter stream
#

I disagree with the notion that roguelikes have to be "cookie cutter". Isn't balatro a roguelike?

proud warren
#

well I'm not saying they have to be, it's just they're more traditional and "punishing" if you fail

#

idk, I'm not the best at explaining it, just know that there is a difference

bitter stream
#

hmm, yeah, it'd be neat if more roguelikes had difficulty modes instead a set mode

#

but I suppose if Darksouls can get away with it than so can everyone else

proud warren
#

I mean the term "roguelike" literally borrows it's name from the game "Rogue", an old ass dungeon crawler which was procedurally generated and had a permadeath mechanic

#

obviously some games didn't want to stick with that, so they borrowed some ideas from Rogue (i.e. the procedural generation of maps and stuff) while forgoing things like the permadeath mechanic

#

hence the birth of roguelites

bitter stream
#

sure, but while I see a technical difference in implementation, ie: Is there a meta-progression or is it old-school perma-death, idk why that would cause them to be separate names? you still have to complete a full run to get a win, from teh start, and you get randomised upgrades through randomised levels

#

Like, Soulslike includes Darksouls 3, bloodbourne, Nioh, Code Vein etc etc

#

those things have major differences in style and mechanics

#

but they fall under the same name

gaunt marten
#

Traditional roguelikes don't have any progression at all. You can unlock sidegrades but not upgradea

proud warren
#

just think of it as "roguelikes are more traditional, harder more punishing games that change each time you play" and "roguelites are more modern, less punishing games that also change each time you play"

#

that's the simplest way I personally think of the differences

gaunt marten
proud warren
#

not to mention roguelites have an easier time with blending genres that roguelikes do

bitter stream
#

you really pulled out the berlin Interpretation for this?

#

or is this like, historically why the split in naming?

gaunt marten
#

That's exactly the split in naming

#

Typical definition is if it fills none of the elements it's neither, if it fills a large amount it's a roguelike, if it fills a small amount or only low value ones it's a roguelite

#

Try running it on the binding of Isaac, for example

#

It has random environments, permadeath, not turn based, somewhat grid based, yes nonmodal, complexity, resource management, hack 'n slash, exploration.

proud warren
#

it feels weird saying Isaac is a hack 'n slash game, but by definition, it's correct

gaunt marten
#

Only if you define hack 'n slash like this:
Even though there can be much more to the game, killing lots of monsters is a very important part of a roguelike. The game is player- vs-world: there are no monster/monster relations (like enmities, or diplomacy).

proud warren
#

yeah but you'd imagine "hack 'n slash" would include like, a sword or something. not a child's tears

bitter stream
#

I guess it helps people differentiate a little bit between expressions of the genre, though I'd hope in future there'll be a combined word for both

gaunt marten
#

It's a bad name but the element is high value

proud warren
#

could call it "mass enemy fighting" and it could basically mean the same thing

bitter stream
#

having looked through steam, Apparently AoE 4 has a DLC that's roguelike/lite

gaunt marten
#

Neat!

bitter stream
#

Each bout within The Crucible is a unique journey—featuring unpredictable challenges, escalating difficulty, and dynamic objectives that test your ability to create strategies on the fly. With permanent meta progression and procedurally populated missions, The Crucible offers a fresh way to experience your favorite civilizations and a compelling new reason to return again and again. Whether you're chasing your next personal best or experimenting with different playstyles, this is Age of Empires IV like you've never played before. The Crucible is a challenge of endurance, strategy, and luck. Hold out against endless waves in dynamic missions that change every time you play. All roads lead to your Wonder, and the enemy is coming.
Seems to be kinda tower-defence style within AOE 4's mechanics, and I guess it falls under the -lite category

#

I might as well add the base game to my wishlist and see if it goes on a good sale.
I wonder if there are mods for Company of Heroes that do something similar

cunning galleon
#

I fail to find a gacha in this cool game

20251218112412_056_056893.png
gaunt marten
#

ZFG explains his world record run

#

Goes over all the big tricks

unreal idol
#

I beat the Fire Temple last night

#

Mostly. I forgot the compass (lol) and am about to fight Volvagia

wind stump
#

more like volvagina am i rite KoishiOK

gaunt marten
#

No

unreal idol
#

No

wind stump
#

fair enough

#

i just like being a crude 14 year old KoishiOK

#

I'll provide a fun fact as penance:
In the OoT manga, Volvagia was Link's pet before Ganon corrupted them

unreal idol
#

how

#

eyebrow raises so high it leaves my face

wind stump
#

The power of non-canon media.

#

In the Ocarina of Time manga by Akira Himekawa, child Link purchases a baby Volvagia from the Hyrule Town Market, intending to set it free. Instead, Volvagia chooses to follow Link. Eventually, Volvagia learns to say Link's name in thanks for its freedom, and the two part ways.

unreal idol
#

Huh. Interesting

#

I should read the OoT mango sometime

#

Especially since I'm in the middle of a playthrough

wind stump
#

i think i learned this from a fuckin' Nintendo magazine of all things

gaunt marten
#

The manga is canon

wind stump
#

i don't want to throw around secondary media as "canon" when there's no real proof outside of it being official SO2B_sip

unreal idol
#

Canon is overrated

wind stump
#

especially with Zelda, where even Nintendo has given up pretenses of "canon"

unreal idol
wind stump
#

Mario timeline when KoishiOK

gaunt marten
wind stump
#

WHERE DOES DONKEY KONG BANANAZA FIT INTO THE MARIO CANON

unreal idol
#

Pauline hatched from an egg
like daisy from the live action movie

slim thorn
#

tbf the official timeline is mostly summarizing connections that many of the actual Zelda games did make explicit, but yeah some parts of it seem kinda arbitrary since clearly not every game was interested in having a clear connection to another, and BotW/TotK blew it all up again anyway

wind stump
unreal idol
#

There's just randomly a timeline where Link loses to Ganon during the events of OoT and I dont understand why

wind stump
#

i think the most hilarious thing is that BoTW/ToTK are just plonked on the end of all 3 timelines like "Yup. Hyrule's fucked either way." shrug

unreal idol
#

Don't get me wrong I like Zelda lore and connecting the games

#

I did enjoy TOTK absolutely ruining every single Zonai speculation video pertaining to BOTW

#

That was pretty funny

wind stump
#

oh sorry, it only is plonked to TWO timelines

Zelda_Timeline_2024.png
unreal idol
#

T-there are 3 there

quiet swift
wind stump
#

yes but specifically Hyrule doesn't get blown up in "The Hero is Defeated" timeline

#

i wrongly assumed BoTW/ToTK happened in all timelines- eh whatever
the fact Nintendo is still trying to justify this is funny tho KoishiOK

#

oh i'm double dense, Nintendo are just straight up saying BoTW/ToTK just exist in their own timeline
fuckin' hell i have the brain clouds today KoishiOK

unreal idol
#

Yeah Zelda canon is extremely loose and not very important

wind stump
#

better that than "LINK DIES IN MAJORA'S MASK????"

unreal idol
#

Is that a thing?

wind stump
#

yeah there's a whole Game Theory video on it, because of like, all the reused assets and the theme of death surrounding the game

slim thorn
#

I don't think it is literally, but MM being a metaphor for <whatever> is a common... I don't want to dignify it with "reading" since it's about as deep as "it was all a dream" rdsnrk but you know

unreal idol
#

The reused assets were so they could get a game out in 12 months

wind stump
#

(Tho in reality it's because Majora's Mask is a miracle baby stuck together with reused assets and copium that happens to have a theme of death and such)

unreal idol
#

The reused assets works to its advantage because Nintendo wasn't lazy with the story and setting

slim thorn
wind stump
#

"Calamity Hc: Scourge of Misinfomation"

slim thorn
wind stump
#

adding time travel to any story adds any amount of Oh God Semantics

unreal idol
#

Time travel as a plot element is a mistake

slim thorn
#

it's fiiiine you just need a 2nd time dimension

unreal idol
#

And if its included you basically just need to accept that the story will be screwy no matter what

wind stump
#

looks at Endwalker

slim thorn
#

the best time travel stories do tend to be the ones with very simple time travel mechanics so most of the story gets to be about "normal" stuff that happens after the time travel sets up the situation, e.g. most Terminator movies have characters travel to the past once at the start of the film, and then no one has access to it for the rest of the plot because they're in the past

wind stump
#

then again by 6.0 you kinda just accepted The Anime Bullshit that is FFXIV or you stopped playing

slim thorn
#

but like multiverses and revival mechanics, some writers/teams/whoever hires the writers just don't have enough discipline to be trusted with it

unreal idol
#

Terminator (1 and 2) and Earthbound are good examples of time travel not interfering with the story

wind stump
#

Terminator and Earthbound, what a disparity

unreal idol
#

Hey they both have time travel and aren't shit

wind stump
#

You're not wrong

river veldt
#

back to the future has good time travel

unreal idol
#

Its been a while since ive seen BTTF

slim thorn
#

BttF's an odd one to judge here, because it's arguably the entire reason why everyone's mental model of these stories is "branching timelines" (so clearly it explained that well), but also the famous scenes of objects gradually fading away make absolutely no sense under any potential mechanics I'm aware of rdsnrk

unreal idol
#

Branching timelines is such a weird one

slim thorn
#

the implications are rarely properly explored

unreal idol
#

That's why I usually dislike it and prefer 1 timeline

slim thorn
#

even the shows/films that do touch on the weirdness of leaving around a bunch of branched timelines usually only do so in passing dialogue that I pick up and no one else does

unreal idol
#

Somehow OoT tripled down and has 3 of them instead of the expected 2

slim thorn
#

e.g. nobody ever praises Avengers Endgame for explicitly addressing the "yes doing it this way will clean up all the spare timelines" point

unreal idol
#

of course the snap shenanigans also involves time travel

slim thorn
#

or MLP's Cutie Remark two-parter being one of the exceptionally rare cases where the "alternate" timelines are metaphysically distinct in a way that even alternate Zecora can apparently detect that she doesn't belong, and needs to restore the correct timeline

unreal idol
#

Yeah that's another one thats difficult

slim thorn
#

so usually the best time travel stories follow the simple closed loop model: there's only one line of time, no confusion around causality issues, you get a neat "oh that was happening all along" reveal when the loop closes, etc

#

or the Terminator-like "travel once, then the plot happens" model

#

(many of the best Doctor Who episodes also fit that)

unreal idol
#

I vastly prefer 1 timeline, it's easier to wrap my head around

#

When people suggest that the cutie remark has multiple alt timelines that persist, it kinda undermines the entire episode

slim thorn
#

In order for more complex time travel mechanics to truly be beneficial to the story, IMO you have to dig into them and make them narratively relevant enough that you're getting real dramatic value out of that complexity, not just mechanics. For me the go-to example of this is the Loki show, where the initial story is all about people "pruning" unwanted alternate timelines because (ironically) they want to keep reality a nice simple single line. Then drama comes from characters who disagree with this, considering it mass murder, often coming from a pruned timeline themselves, etc.

random steppe
#

I think time Travel is perfectly fine as a plot element, it do have to be limited somewhat, really well written, or in a story where it's more character driven than event driven.

If you have 2 of 3 from that it usually works out.

slim thorn
#

I do like how new Doctor Who originally described the Time War as what happened when there were no limits: both sides spammed time travel so hard that the entire chunk of spacetime where it happened is so torn up that no time machine can get back there any more.

random steppe
#

I think one thing that people forget about a story, that it doesn't necessarily have to hold up, it's cool if it does, but it really only has to work in the moment for it to be a compelling narrative.

slim thorn
#

right, the mechanics of what's happening still have to be clear enough to the audience that we consistently understand what the characters are doing, what the stakes are, etc

random steppe
#

It's a bit like a magic trick, you can see the trick later but it's not gonna take away from the moment of wonder you had when you saw it the first time

slim thorn
#

Most of us can't build a gun from spare parts but we understand what happens narratively when you shoot one at a person, or when you run out of bullets, etc. No one ever said guns were bad for stories.

random steppe
#

Now you can have appreication for the trick later, when you analyse it after, and get a different sort of appreciation or not, but if it works on the moment it did reach its goal

#

That's why plot holes aren't usually a big problem for a story unless you are able to notice them as you are watching it.

little badger
#

Real Racing 3 (mobile) shutting down in march.

IMG_3898.jpg
gaunt marten
#

Who plays that?

#

Why are you posting it here?

little badger
#

I do. But just wanted to share is all and the person who posts in mane that has the zipp car I think he plays it

gaunt marten
#

Just PM him

little badger
#

Anyway. What’s everypony been playing recently?

slim thorn
wind stump
astral steeple
#

PEAK

little badger
# wind stump

What was that game you were playing. You had to start on the harder difficulties. It was crab something

#

Oh I just noticed it twihoof

wind stump
#

oh i think it was uh
crustacean conqueror or something

#

🦀

river veldt
#

sidenote everyone should play Shovel Knight

#

literally one of the best games ever

wind stump
#

Source?

astral steeple
#

Ooh

wind stump
#

do you actually care about anything that isn't a collab of some kind?

astral steeple
#

Collabs are cool

Especially when it's with ips that I know and like

rancid herald
#

Godzilla x Xfiles

#

wait, I'd watch that

wind stump
#

That doesn't answer my question but that's about the answer I should have expected.

astral steeple
#

What

visual hill
#

Doom The Dark Ages, THPS 3+4

random steppe
wind stump
#

Sorry.

visual hill
#

I also reinstalled a few childhood games: NFS4, NFS Porsche Unleashed, Ploing2, Supreme Snowboarding

unreal idol
#

How does Godzilla collab with anything thats like, not toku or adjacent?

slim thorn
astral steeple
random steppe
#

I mean isn't sonic literally "suddenly portals and these animals from another world came to earth?"

#

I feel it's pretty trivial to collab anything with that

unreal idol
#

Godzilla is 50 meters tall

random steppe
#

"look a new portal"

#

Collab done

astral steeple
#

Even fall guys has a godzilla collab

With an official godzilla bean plush irl too lol

random steppe
#

I mean ultimately it's really up to the IP holder, and to be fair, Godzilla has been struggling to get into new fans for a while now.

#

So it's not a surprise they'd try to get in with other stuff to see if they get some people interest piqued that way

graceful bridge
wind stump
#

koishiShock might actually give it a try this go around

little badger
river veldt
gaunt marten
shell shore
#

Just

#

No

visual hill
#

and definitely smells post-game too rdwut

#

(lots of content reuse, and levels designed to require fewer art passes)

sacred grove
#

Sonic games are all on winter sale discount (not just these two)

image.png
slim thorn
#

hm, maybe I didn't do that then

visual hill
#

it's the world called Foxington

#

(they predicted Bad Guys!!1)

slim thorn
#

oh, I have the achievement for completing Foxington

quiet swift
#

Continuing the "what are you playing" conversation... also, eternally, WoW

image.png
little badger
#

bonk

fresh bane
#

there's a very slight shining effect the character portraits have now I've noticed, it looks very nice
but also, everyone's getting gifts this run! flutternatureissofascinating

vlcsnap-2025-12-18-17h03m56s139.png vlcsnap-2025-12-18-17h03m49s840.png
fresh bane
#

rat: destroyed

vlcsnap-2025-12-18-17h37m09s562.png vlcsnap-2025-12-18-17h37m27s898.png
#

I didn't get past the Scylla fight but that's fine I'm just farming now

#

'temptations' huh rarityduhrling

vlcsnap-2025-12-18-17h37m46s577.png vlcsnap-2025-12-18-17h38m03s823.png
#

also: Frinos is with me now! pipppipphooray 🐸

vlcsnap-2025-12-18-17h39m41s527.png
#

I only got a little bit of extra grasp... but it was enough to get two more cards so eh

#

Nemesis' keepsake is interesting cocothink

river veldt
green fulcrum
gaunt marten
#

Keyblade, Excalibur, Moonlight Greatsword, Black Knight Sword

river veldt
#

Keyblade maybe

#

Moonlight Greatsword i could see, that's in like every Fromsoft soulslike game

gaunt marten
#

I think my top four would be the Black Knight Sword, Biggoron Sword, Dragon Scimitar, and the Keyblade

river veldt
#

ooh Biggoron Sword is a good one

#

i love that sword

worthy rose
green fulcrum
static bluff
#

Finally, a gunblade master in SeeD

worthy rose
fresh bane
#

Oh god my computer crashed while I was about to fight Scylla again ppenk

#

Uhh..... Hopefully nothing serious happened

#

I've barely ever had any problems like that before

worthy rose
#

Generally that resets the run i think

fresh bane
#

I'm more worried about not corrupting or losing any files rdlol

#

Just in general

gaunt marten
#

You can check Event Viewer to see if anything specific went wrong

fresh bane
#

Yeah if there's any way to actually see what caused that I'd like to check...

#

My first guess is maybe since I was playing Hades and recording and it's super hot right now maybe the computer was getting too hot but that's based on nothing and I don't even know if that can cause a crash

#

uhhh.... I'm gonna look up how to even use this event viewer thing ajwhomstdve

#

well that didn't really tell me much rdwut

#

Oh wait, it says right there, Event ID 56 error

#

Okay I think I sorta found out what it is...
How come I didn't know there's a tool to specifically check for things like this before ppenk knowing the specific reason for a crash is so useful...

gaunt marten
#

Event Viewer is crazy complicated

#

That's why people don't tell you about it

slim thorn
#

I never heard of Biggoron Sword until joining the randomizer chat so maybe not that one rdsnrk

gaunt marten
slim thorn
#

Moonlight Greatsword likely also has the "many players never see it" problem, I didn't learn about it until most of Fromsoft's games were out

river veldt
#

Biggoron sword is genuinely the coolest

unreal idol
#

Ive never heard of the moonlight greatsword

river veldt
slim thorn
#

yeah I don't think it broke out of actual Fromsoft players

#

like how "butter sword" probably means nothing if you haven't personally played LttP and talked to other people about it

river veldt
#

ITS NOT A BUTTER SWORD 😭

#

i always thought it was made of gold or something

unreal idol
#

Are you talking about the final sword upgrade?

#

I havent heard anyone call it butter but it kinda looks like it lol

visual hill
#

RDR 1+2 can be had for less than €35 right now too (but not on Steam, these are the cheapest prices from 3rd-party sites on ITAD)

image.png
slim thorn
slim thorn
cerulean herald
cunning galleon
#

I'm going to be getting a Project Zomboid 4 pack and I'll have around 2 extra keys, so does anyone want to kill zombies and die a horrible death surrounded by a horde 500 times?!

river veldt
#

sure i'll take one

#

steam right ?

arctic fern
cunning galleon
#

Oop sorry for the ping

cunning galleon
#

But i finally got it instead of leeching off my friend for zomboid download files 🥹

Screenshot_20251219_092259.jpg
#

I've had this game wishlisted for an odd 2-3 years and i always wanted to get it but I keep forgetting to buy zomboid

quiet swift
fresh bane
#

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1213210/Command__Conquer_Remastered_Collection/

Steam
Command & Conquer™ Remastered Collection

Command & Conquer and Red Alert defined the RTS genre 25 years ago and are now both fully remastered in 4K by the former Westwood Studios team members at Petroglyph Games. Includes all 3 expansion packs, rebuilt multiplayer, a modernized UI, Map Editor, bonus gallery of unreleased FMV footage, and over 7 hours of legendary remastered music by Fran…

Price

$1.99

Recommendations

30393

Metacritic

82

#

for any strategy game bros here

#

command and conquer is like a dollar right now

quiet swift
#

The remasters are pretty great

fresh bane
#

these are some good deals going on right now, but I shouldn't be checking the store, I'm just gonna feel tempted and I'm saving up money right now rdlol

bitter stream
#

yeah, same here

quiet swift
bitter stream
#

aww it's so cute

unreal idol
#

Is there a list of Switch games with Switch 2 versions?

bitter stream
green fulcrum
#

Doom: The Dark Ages is 50% off!

image.png
fresh bane
#

I really wish I liked that game better

#

It's almost comical that Doom followed the exact same route it did with the original three games, first one's great, second one is incredible and arguably even bigger and more iconic, the third one is the weird one that doesn't quite get to the level of the other two

#

for 30 dollars though...

river veldt
#

Dark Ages is definitely..... divisive

#

i need to do another run through before i make up my mind on it

#

though that might tell you something because i fell in love with 2016 and Eternal on my first playthroughs of both

slim thorn
#

though it’s not nearly as much of a departure as D3 was

bitter stream
#

I had a brief look at steam charts for game server populations for some Fighting games, on the idea that if I pick a high server pop fighting game, it'll be easier to get people at my skill level.

24 hour total
SF6 - 38k
Tekken 8 - 6.3k
GG strive -1.7k
Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising - 822

Does anyone have any recommendations for other ones to consider picking up? It's looking like T8 or SF6 would be the best for having active matchmaking, and while I really like the idea of GBFV:R the active players seem low enough that I wouldn't get many matches with people who are also new like me.

#

Please do ping me, and if you have any reason to pick SF6 or T8 over each other I'd appreciate those too haha

fresh bane
#

I heard reaaaally mixed things about Tekken 8 people really don't seem to be digging the direction that game is going

river veldt
fresh bane
#

Admittedly I don't really have a history with Tekken so I don't know, all I know is I heard people overall not being satisfied too much with Tekken 8

#

Street Fighter 6 has a bit of a similar issue with people complaining about the game but I usually see it from people playing at a high level, SF6 has been the go-to fighting game choice out of all the currently active 'new' fighting games

#

But even for some of the 'older' ones that have a diminished playerbase like FighterZ and Strive you're still going to get consistent matches, the numbers don't necessarily always reflect accurately whether a game is 'dead' or not (except for when I tried to play Darkstalkers on the Capcom Fighting Collection, that shit has 6 people playing it tops)

#

The answer honestly depends on the kind of fighting game you're into because SF6, Tekken 8 and Strive are all good choices but one of them is a traditional fighting game, the other is a 3D fighter, and the other is an anime fighter

#

If you dig 3D fighters there's also Virtua Fighter 5 REVO right now

#

Fatal Fury City of the Wolves is also decently populated despite what everyone on the internet may say, you're gonna get matches, but that's again another 'traditional' fighter sort of like SF6

bitter stream
#

Perhaps important context is that I live in Australia, so getting matches with good ping are going to be harder for me haha

#

I'm kinda leaning towards 3D fighter, but yeah, I've heard there's been a lot of issues with game design in t8

fresh bane
#

If we're talking purely focusing on a game with numbers high enough to ensure you always get matches, it's really hard not to recommend SF6, I think Strive is also perfectly playable and it has really good netcode in my experience too

#

Tekken 8 is also one of the big ones but I just can't ensure you're gonna have a good time based on what I heard

green fulcrum
#

Celeste is also 75% off too, and the first Hollow Knight is 50% off

#

And you can also buy both Ori games for 75% off too. I'm taking that deal, personally.

image.png
#

Just bought the first Solasta game, both Ori games, Celeste, Hollow Knight, Stardew Valley, and a little comfort game known as Tiny Glade where you build cozy little castles and villages for fun, with no management or resources or combat or anything.

river veldt
#

enjoy Celeste

icy crescent
mossy flume
#

Ori is love

green fulcrum
#

Unfortunately, most of the other games on my wishlist still don't have good deals yet (or aren't out of early access yet), so I'm waiting a bit more on them.

bitter stream
graceful bridge
#

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2489330/Whiskerwood/

Steam
Whiskerwood

Carve mountains, traverse seas, and explore untamed new lands as you build grand cities – the ingenuity of the humble mouse is on full display in Whiskerwood as you establish elaborate automation systems to efficiently run complex production chains, all while dealing with the oppressive demands of your cat overlords.…

Price

$19.49

Recommendations

1438

#

35% off

visual hill
unreal idol
#

A friend of mine is looking for a game:


There was a game that was shown on a stream, it was kind of sort of bright colors. Maybe cartoony. It was a city slowly sinking into the ocean. Might have had cosmic horror tendencies.

It's not "The Sinking City" which is a lovecraft game.

I RECALL it was with Electronic Arts as the company financing it but it seemed like a smaller like Indie title?```
#

Any ideas?

slim thorn
#

probably not it, but Child Of Light fits just enough of that (e.g. Ubisoft-funded indie, not EA) I have to mention it

unreal idol
#

Ah, its not that

gaunt marten
#

Sunless sea?

random steppe
#

Do they have any idea of the gameplay?

arctic fern
#

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2706020/ALL_WILL_FALL_PhysicsBased_Survival_City_Builder/

Steam
ALL WILL FALL: Physics-Based Survival City Builder

The world is dying, overtaken by the endless ocean. You are the leader of a small group of survivors stranded on a rusty boat. You find a small land area, solid enough to serve as a building foundation. And now, step by step, you build a city. This city will go up to the sky, weather many storms, and become a home for the last remnants of huma…

Release Date

Q1 2026

#

This?

unreal idol
#

They think it was a platformer or maybe a walking sim

arctic fern
#

Oh hmmmm

#

I got nothing

unreal idol
#

They think it might be sea of solitude

cunning galleon
#

Oh, i can only join servers that are also non-steam

#

In zombie game

gaunt marten
#

Never ask this question

unreal idol
#

It's Magic, I ain't gotta explain shit

wind stump
eager bane
cunning galleon
#

Day 0 zomboid multiplayer my character is sick

#

She's sick with the common cold for some reason

#

(wearing croptop in near freezing weather)

gaunt marten
#

Mythical cold

arctic fern
#

if i recall you gotta make sure they're well fed for a day or two

#

then the cold will go

cunning galleon
#

She'll be fine i hope

#

My only gripe is they chose muldraugh as the main spawn and hub but I'll let it pass

arctic fern
#

muldrah is in my opinion the best spawn, right in the centre of the map, lots of great loot, great connections to other towns, no river but still a few good bodies of water around

cunning galleon
#

Rosewood da goat

#

Wait no I'm not a rosewood fine I'm a westpoint fan

#

Riverside is too far they should remove it from the game and irl

arctic fern
#

rood

#

riverside is more isolated but the town is bigger

#

ad 42 its closer to the new towns they added

cunning galleon
#

Might check out 42 tomorrow

#

I wanna kill animals and stuff and cook them

arctic fern
#

the ranching still needs to be balanced and tweaked but its very good so far

cunning galleon
#

Yea it looks pretty interesting, hope they add horses

slim thorn
arctic fern
cunning galleon
#

Imagine horse racing in the horse racing club

cunning galleon
#

2080 build 43 unstable and it crashes on start up

arctic fern
#

lol

teal sonnet
#

At this point I expect E33 to win the next election

IMG_2274.png
#

Couples deciding who will get the custody of their child, just to E33 to win it

#

Kids around the world will ask their parents for minecraft this christmas, only to be gifted E33

#

I will be at the mall expecting the mariah carey song for this jolly holiday like always, just for it to be suddenly cut off and the E33 theme song to start playing

worthy rose
gaunt marten
#

Trombone champ!

#

Definitely a terrible fit for the Celeste soundtrack, but I guess that's funny

wind stump
cunning galleon
quiet swift
# unreal idol A friend of mine is looking for a game: ```Okay, can someone try helping me fin...

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1225590/Sea_of_Solitude as someone said earlier, it's almost certainly this

Steam
Sea of Solitude

When humans get too lonely, they turn into monsters…

Sea of Solitude takes you on a personal journey of a young woman’s loneliness. Set sail across a beautiful and evolving world where nothing is quite what it seems. Meet fantastical creatures and monsters, learn their stories, and solve challenges. Explore a flooded city by boat, on foot,…

Price

$4.99

Recommendations

1052

Metacritic

64

hushed robin
#

twilight sparkle maxxing rn

Screenshot_2025-12-19_231856.png
river veldt
#

Twi would totally play with super complex modpacks wouldn't she lmao

cunning galleon
#

she would play with create def

hushed robin
#

GregTech: New Horizons if anyones curious

cunning galleon
#

im listening to music in my pz server's hub

hushed robin
#

but I was more talking about my burgers, I got more in a Chest somewhere

#

if it werent for Diminishing Returns Id live off of them

cunning galleon
#

hayburger

hushed robin
#

truth

#

my hearts are starting to twilight maxx as well

#

but also all the stuff i need (stacks on stacks of various salts) for the hope of getting a lil bit of Lithium for Batteries for a Soldering Iron

#

so I can use my EBF and progress into late LV and early MV

bitter stream
cunning galleon
#

B42 crashed every few minutes on mp

#

I'm playing on the stable 41

#

But like, the new features are very cool

#

Something i noticed with newbies is they kinda suck at killing zombies.. I was thinking that when I was playing with my friend

bitter stream
#

I mean, how do you best kill zombies in PZ? I'm not good at it myself.

cunning galleon
#

I hug a waist-level fence facing away from said fence but i make sure my back is towards the zombies so when they fall they don't have the ability to do the stupid lunge thing and kill me + I'm already standing on their bodies so they can't get up

#

Or just run

clear glacier
#

apparently we harmed no zombies, even though we had infinite hordeizzynothoughtsheadempty

2043521.JPG
cunning galleon
#

Listening to a Taylor Swift song, the car is playing the music because i don't have a cassette player in the house

Screenshot_Zomdroid_20251220_2252542.jpg
#

I like modded zomboid..

Screenshot_Zomdroid_20251220_2243552.jpg
#

I look like a lunatic

bitter stream
#

Does anyone know a good way to detect AI art generation? A game I'm following brought up the topic of using AI for cinematics, (not for in-game models) and while they said no decision had been made, that they brought it up at all has me concerned the game is gonna use Gen AI and I don't want to support that.

I figure there might be some tool or something to tell if a cinematic or still has artifacts from AI gen art?

cunning galleon
#

Possibly exists but right now rely on intuition and look for weird details

bitter stream
#

yeah fair, I'll have to keep an eye out as they show more of the game's art

arctic fern
#

AI is getting harder and harder to detect
all i can suggest is research and vibes

#

tho if a game used AI during development, its probably still there

bitter stream
#

aye aye. I just kinda hope they don't use it or if they do, it's not good enough to use in the product.

quiet swift
#

And there's a line to draw about how it's used. Is it being used for grunt work (upscaling a really low res texture to something higher, which might take someone hours of repetitive and non creative work to do, instead of letting them do something creative), vs just using it for completely generating an artpiece wholesale

#

like the 6 fingered zombie santa in COD

share-20241206-1244480-1-1733745842140.png
bitter stream
#

oof, yeah

#

Apparently the newest cod is chock full of AI gen too T_T

#

Microsoft all on that AI train

quiet swift
#

Yep

arctic fern
#

what, you dont have 5 fingers and a thumb? thats normal, right?

quiet swift
#

That's the problem with a lot of studios. In some cases, they're talking about the former method, but a lot of people online are screeching that it's the second and labeling the entire game as AI slop because of it

bitter stream
#

the quote of the dev goes like this

He goes on to say that the Sanctuary project doesn’t have the resources for human created cinematics, “We don’t have the resources for that. I know some people don’t like AI art but you know we have to scope our ambitions to the amount of money that we have right so can we use AI art? Anyway it would be great to hear in the comments what people think about that.”

#

so it'd be generating the whole thing from gen ai imagery

arctic fern
#

AI makes you dumb, stops you thinking

#

why should i code this, design that, when AI can do a good enough job, then i can clock out early

bitter stream
#

It's odd that actually, for all that people love to use AI to delegate tasks, I've not seen any like, "profit showcases" for the Gen AI technology

#

I've not seen any companies state like, "they made X million" selling gen ai tech/services

#

It's all investments from other companies, or goverment, or datacentres

#

SoonTM kinda stuff

arctic fern
#

its not odd at all

#

its the same bubble that started with crypto

bitter stream
#

what do you mean? Crypto is still around as some kinda hyper volatile rug-pullable scheme.

arctic fern
#

no i mean, its the same language, same people, same mindset

#

its the same scam

bitter stream
#

Right, in that there's no sustainable money to be made, but plenty to rake in if you're selling the hardware? Like GPUs, RAM etc?

arctic fern
#

or if you get in early and sell to morons i mean legitimate investors

#

crypto, then NFT, now AI

#

the wheel turns

bitter stream
#

right right.

#

NVIDIA making the big bucks for like, 10 years straight T_T

arctic fern
#

p much

#

its a huge bubble that started at crypto

#

and its bursting, unless they find a new dumb thing

bitter stream
#

I sure hope it does burst, RAM prices are insane haha

#

GPU prices never really settled back down much

#

heck, the 50-series had AI chips eating some of the hardware space. Some of it is useful for DLSS stuff, but the Frame-gen tech is kinda negative performance unless you already have stable framerates.

#

AMD doesn't bother to give very competitive pricing either, seemingly happy to just follow NVIDIA and sell for as much margin they can get without changing their market position much

#

at least in GPUs anyway. Intel kinda shot itself in the foot a bit in the CPU side lol

arctic fern
#

i think a lot of it is that they KNOW its a bubble
if they ramp up supply to meet the insane demand, then when it bursts, demand tanks and they're left with loads of underpriced stock

bitter stream
#

right, and that means they can't keep the price high long term.

#

hmm