general gaming

[fresh bane]

but so far only the Steam Machine is gonna do that and that's not even out yet at all anyways

[mossy flume]

In a way, he wasn't actually wrong

[astral steeple]

https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/phil-spencer-says-hes-open-to-bringing-stores-like-epic-and-steam-to-xbox-consoles/

Found the article

[mossy flume]

The cool thing about consoles is that they're a reliable hardware and software environment. With PCs, you have a near-infinite number of hardware and software configurations to deal with, along with interference from unrelated programs running in the background, and often unreliable drivers or no focused support for making gaming itself work well.
Valve's Steam Machine is attempting to bridge some of that gap, in a way...

[mossy flume]

Yeah. I actually wouldn't be too surprised if we end up seeing some version of this someday

Classical game consoles as we know them just might be a functionally extinct concept soon...

But there really is something to be said for dedicated machines which have a OS and software stack focused to one specific task in one specific context.

[astral steeple]

All they have to do is allow that to happen and then let EVERY previous og xbox and 360 disc be readable and they'll have a perfect console lol

[mossy flume]

...hm. I wonder if those discs are seeing disc rot yet.

[astral steeple]

All my 360 and og xbox discs still fully work

I'm at like 100 something 360 discs currently in my collection

[fresh bane]

That would be an understandable argument, but Tim Sweeney didn't say that and he was instead talking about how consoles left PCs behind in terms of power and performance and how he expected PC users to mainly stick with casual low intensity games like WoW and that PCs were only good for e-mailing, watching videos and web browsing

[mossy flume]

Discs like that should have a roughly 20-30 year life span before they start to deteriorate, but maybe more modern ones will last longer than that

[mossy flume]

Ahh... yeah, not convinced that was a reasonable take, then.

Although performance machines were certainly always quite expensive

[fresh bane]

This was an interview from 2008 too, it wasn't like 2003 or anything

[mossy flume]

Consoles had lower barriers to entry once upon a time (at least IME)

[worthy rose]

Tim Sweeney, full of shit? Shocked. Shocked I say.

[mossy flume]

hehe

[astral steeple]

lol

[fresh bane]

A lot of people don't see much of a point in a Steam Machine vs just getting a computer but I do understand the appeal of a console-like experience because a lot of people really do just kinda want a system exclusively to game on, so the idea of this mini PC that offers that experience for those people sounds really neat to me

[astral steeple]

See with me I have a pretty decent computer but I mainly play games on a 2013 xbox one that I got in 2019

I was never super into pc gaming

Always preferred consoles more

My current pc is a 32gb ram i7 geforce gtx 1060 6gb razer desktop

[mossy flume]

I built a super overpowered PC that pretends to be a “Steam Machine,” using Steam Big Picture as an auto-launch thing and gamepads… but I still need to use K&M, I need to physically reach over and turn it on (can’t remotely turn it on like a console), I need to do a bunch of finagling with the desktop to update drivers and the OS on a regular basis, or switch launchers outside of Steam for non-Steam games… it’s still a very rough experience that really underlines how much consoles actually bring to the table.

[light gate]

unpopular opinion here

I don't like the current big picture mode.

[mossy flume]

I think the new one is better than the old one

[light gate]

I mean in some areas sure.

[mossy flume]

But I’m fairly neutral on it

It works when I stick with Steam

But I win+tab to the desktop frequently

It also involved a ton of nontrivial manual configuration work

[fresh bane]

I'm definitely very used to the PC experience myself, growing up I only ever had a PS2 and for a very short amount of time a Wii, but as soon as I got my first computer I was super in, learned my way around how to operate a computer super easily and I definitely feel very comfortable fiddling around with all the things you have to fiddle around with when using a computer
but I do at the same time understand that a lot of people don't want to do that, and as someone who has met a lot of people that are very not tech savvy or just really don't care for learning how to use even a phone, I understand that for a lot of people having a near zero fuss system is the way to go, so again that's why the steam machine sounded like a cool idea to me

I'm probably never gonna use one, but it's gonna be great for people who may want the advantages of a PC but the console experience

I don't think we've seen the interface of the Steam Machine at all yet unless I completely forgot, so we'll have to see how that even looks like

[mossy flume]

Growing up I had both a PC and a bunch of Nintendo consoles too (and Xboxes later on) and I ultimately kinda preferred the console experience.

I liked both, and the PC games I had were awesome

But also the consoles just had the "superior" home theater experience and they just worked, whereas I had to fight against Windows bugs so frequently that they literally taught me how to do IT and gave me an IT career

I did mostly focus on console exclusives at the time, but sometimes I got the console version of a game instead of the PC version

[light gate]

Its not even about feeling comfortable.

Its more about "do I want to waste my time fiddling around and potentially not getting the result I want?" type of thing.

Like there is a reason I rarely mod games for example, it tends to be a pain to manage.

[mossy flume]

Fewer crashes

Honestly, PC gaming used to be so much harder than it is now

[light gate]

Compared to DOS era? Yeah.

[mossy flume]

Vista era was thorny

[light gate]

Ah, the Games For Windows Live.

[mossy flume]

Vista's bullshit is almost certainly what caused me to get truly good at computers.

[light gate]

AKA the closed garden Microsoft tried to do and force people to pay online on computers.

[mossy flume]

Not just that, but also breaking legacy software

Many of my games stopped working

90s and even early 2000s games struggled

SW:KotOR on Vista was the bane of my existence

[light gate]

I mean yeah, Vista was supposed to be the middle finger to compatibility to obtain new improvements. Instead, that happened on Windows 10/11 and we got slop instead.

My old games stopped completely working on Windows 10.

So I got lucky but also goddam.

[mossy flume]

I learned how to reverse engineer dll files because of Vista

Would it have been easier to go back to XP? Absolutely

Could I afford an XP disc? No.

[light gate]

I wished I could play the games I own without crashing onto the drm disc protection systems.

[mossy flume]

Did I know how to pirate it safely? Also no, I was still learning that.

[fresh bane]

Everything I had as a kid was pirated, that machine must've been riddled with malware

also, really weird feeling that back then games just worked but now so many Windows versions afterwards a lot of games from that time probably need some sort of patch or compatibility workaround to even function

back in my day the only DRM was putting the serial code that came with your CD during installation

even the CDs I bought from cyber cafes or street fairs at the time were pirated lol I got so many modded PS2 games

I even remember having Ultimate Ninja 3 on Japanese for some reason, I don't know how that one got all the way over here

[sacred grove]

Ironically, in some cases, you can have better luck running old Windows games via Proton/Wine in Linux than you would in Win11

[light gate]

Some cases.

I'm always good at finding the cases that are quite the opposite it seems lol.

[sacred grove]

But it makes sense. Their only goal is to get as much Windows software working as possible, rather than finding reasons to not support something anymore

[violet hill]

Yea, it's got charm, and the NPCs have sass.

[mossy flume]

Yep... wanting to play some ye olde games from the 90s and early 2000s today is often an adventure

[mossy flume]

Yep. Or Crossover on macOS, I've found.

(Which is just forked Wine)

Windows 11 seems to have improved their support for backwards compatibility somewhat, I would note, as some games that were a nightmare to run on Windows Vista and 7 are IME a little easier to get going on 11

But still can be an utter nightmare if your game needs Voodoo graphics support

[mossy flume]

Oh, like the original Animal Crossing? I should give Critter Cove a shot, then

The sassy villagers in the original AC were pretty great... the excessive optimism and positivity in New Horizons is... actually kinda grating and boring after a while.

They have no depth :<

[glad girder]

when you're willing to hop on VRchat Virtus, there's a new world that's an absolute ton of fun https://www.uploadvr.com/fish-in-vrchat-hands-on-impressions/

I spent a couple hours with some friends and it's a ton of fun. A good number of islands with shops and upgrades and a variety of fish and items you can catch

There's changing weather conditions and times and the ambience is really nice

[astral steeple]

The only animal crossing I've spent a huge amount of time on is the ds one

Wild world

Was really good

Haven't played it in at least 10 years though sadly

[river veldt]

New Leaf had a good balance methinks

[mossy flume]

AC1, WW, and NL were all very good IMO

NH has an absolutely monstrous script, but its problem is that most of it is locked behind very specific circumstances that players won't see 95% of the time...

And the general dialogue pool is just too small

[river veldt]

true

[cerulean herald]

whats your favorite AC character

[river veldt]

Cyrano

followed by Isabelle, then Resetti

[static bluff]

Call me basic but I'm a big fan of K. K. Slider

[river veldt]

that's not basic at all KK Slider is literally the coolest

[mossy flume]

https://nookipedia.com/wiki/Cookie

Not sure why but I really like this one

[cerulean herald]

puppers

[mossy flume]

Buppy

[static bluff]

Cute

[cerulean herald]

oh I think I've seen the mole guy before

[river veldt]

here's Cyrano https://nookipedia.com/wiki/Cyrano

[mossy flume]

https://nookipedia.com/wiki/Raymond

Also I have this guy

[river veldt]

he's kind of infamous lol

[mossy flume]

Literally made children cry in AC1

[cerulean herald]

idk why but he lowkey reminds me of those wrench throwing gophers from mario

[river veldt]

lol he is kind of like them

[mossy flume]

Which is why he’s been aggressively toned down

[river veldt]

idk i always thought his reset base he has with his brother in City Folk was humanizing (maybe the wrong word) for him

[mossy flume]

Resetti’s a cool guy though

[river veldt]

true

[cerulean herald]

I def seen him before lol

[river veldt]

everybody loves raymond

[mossy flume]

I got him in my village by using my Flipper Zero

Really wanted the cool kitty

[slim thorn]

and yet somehow I don't have to do any finagling with drivers and updates

it probably helps that I'm always happy to play my one AAA game every N years on potato graphics

[cerulean herald]

what was the last triple AAA you played

[slim thorn]

Silent Hill f

[cerulean herald]

would the next one be RE9

[slim thorn]

most likely

[river veldt]

yo speaking of that jacksepticeye just uploaded Silent Hill f Part 1 today so it turns out im gonna watch a playthrough afterall

[river veldt]

oh my

[cerulean herald]

gussing that is F

[slim thorn]

Expedition 33 might count. I see people calling it a "AA" which is probably correct but it was certainly more graphically demanding than most of what I play.

[cerulean herald]

it's def in that grey zone

[cunning galleon]

How'd i get 1st with garbage split times?

I'm literary atleast 6-8 seconds under in two splits

[toxic seal]

Ace Combat social media has been drip-feeding fans information about the upcoming Ace Combat 8, now revealing that Ace Combat 8 will be the chronologically furthest in the future besides Ace Combat 3, which takes place in 2040

[glad girder]

2 years after the aggression of

[toxic seal]

It is also rumored by fans that the story of Ace Combat 8 was at least partially inspired by a real war story that may or may not be true from the Russo-Ukranian war. In the opening weeks of the war came stories of a Ukranian ace that gave hope to the people, called the "Ghost of Kyiv". This story seems to be mirrored as the synopsis of the story of AC8 is that the player character takes on the role of the "Wings of Theve", a rumored ace amongst the people of your country that has been suddenly attacked, but a rumor you are to make very real.

[mossy flume]

Ohhh, interesting. I remember hearing about that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_of_Kyiv

[minor plover]

that kind of disinformation is quite common. A friend of mine shared a post from one of his friends that was like "I know you all saw a picture of me taken captive by [country currently involved in military conflict] but actually that's just an old picture of me that they pulled off the internet. I'm still retired and not flying combat missions right now."

[green fulcrum]

Soldier A: "Wait, if we're gonna put up wanted posters for these guys, don't we need a description? We were close to them, but I didn't get a good look at them, did you?"
Soldier B: "Nah."
Sienna (off-screen): "Whew..."
Soldier B: "Well...there was that lady in red..."

[gaunt marten]

Blood type B-

[quiet swift]

God damn

[wind stump]

[graceful bridge]

Oh god, he's back.
https://youtu.be/9vSDOzAZ1WU?si=2P10jTRm0Fv3njJ-

[gaunt marten]

Are they aware that Dark Souls is an Asian RPG?

[cerulean herald]

clearly never played Undertale

-# yes i know RE5 came out long before Undertale

[quiet swift]

By the way, it works fantastically on a steam deck, as expected. Though it's hard to select/see stuff like the relics with gamepad/joystick instead of touching the screen, unless i've missed a shortcut

[cerulean herald]

I'm sorry what

[quiet swift]

egg yolk in the eyes cannot be pleasant

[wind stump]

press z to shoot

[slim thorn]

this is how Batman should have made his Green Lantern-proof room

[river veldt]

-50,000 points for making me think of All Star Batman & Robin

[slim thorn]

worth it

[wind stump]

BAT CREDIT CARD?

[gaunt marten]

You may scare a green lantern by giving him cheese

[green fulcrum]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq9TnI7ssTU

[gaunt marten]

https://gamedev.lgbt/@Alblune/116189263384641217

[gaunt marten]

No one has as many friends as the man with many cheeses

[quiet swift]

@wind stump oh jesus, fully deciphering the tablet is... dangerous

[wind stump]

In StS II?

[quiet swift]

Yus

You ||sacrifice max hp and it upgrades a card. You can keep doing that several time, the last rank is upgrades ALL cards in your deck but you end up at 1 max hp||

[wind stump]

[quiet swift]

I'm surviving with the Defect so far but....

I did not survive the boss

[mossy flume]

https://nintendoeverything.com/dev-says-nintendo-is-still-pretty-cagey-about-letting-games-launch-on-switch-2-dont-want-it-to-be-a-giant-slop-fest/

Quoting some third party, mind

That said, uh, the eShop is currently flooded with a lot of NSFW slop as it is. I’m skeptical they’re being terribly choosy.

[wind stump]

OH NO IT'S TWITTER

[cerulean herald]

those are twittermites

[cerulean herald]

you do not belong there sir

[worldly summit]

I think it’s to imply that protag is a Good Guy so the audience knows he is morally right to end up with a harem of eight women including his freed, but eternally in love with him and will never leave his side, former slave(s)

isekai is a power fantasy for the male audience as far as I can tell. Otherwise it’d be fantasy

[cunning galleon]

Playing through this again

My 40th playthrough or something

[visual hill]

Ah shit, here we go again

[cunning galleon]

Coughio up el weedo

[bitter stream]

ooh nice. How's the game hold up nowdays?

[cunning galleon]

It's okay, don't ask me tho because I have nostalgia for this game

[quiet swift]

[gaunt marten]

Reject anyway

[visual hill]

reject modernity, return to spire

[wind stump]

happy daybirth

[quiet swift]

Won a run wth the ironclad!

[visual hill]

thanks

[wind stump]

i think I won with Ironchad

what do you mean there's FIFTY ASCENSIONS NOW

mom COME PICK ME UP I'M SCARED

ah, it was Le Silente

cool i can check stats from in game

in 1 you had to go back to the main menu

"Huh I'm drawing Status cards, why am I not getting Orbs?"

when you a status

[quiet swift]

Those are some highly specific emotes

[wind stump]

Look you know me from the /r/MLP/Ponymotes era, you know my emote game is ON POINT by now.

PONDERING ALL THE ORBS

[random steppe]

If I didn't have like, 2 massive RPGs lined up I might get StS2

I just finished Rogue Trader act 2 and it took me like a month and a half, and I think it has like 5 fucking acts or something

[bitter stream]

yeah fair enough haha

[random steppe]

I can't afford distractions

[bitter stream]

My focus only seems to come to me when playing Path of Exile lol

Every other game, i play in small chunks

PoE? I sit down and hours disappear

[random steppe]

That can't be done with big RPGs like those though

If I stop for a week it's the end

I am not gonna remember anything

[bitter stream]

ahh true true

that's difficult.

[random steppe]

Or at least I can't do it, maybe people with a better memory than me can

It's why I took 3 attempts to finish Witcher 3

[wind stump]

VICTORY SCREEEEEECH

40 points more than my first win

Awww

my boi made a fren :3

[quiet swift]

Oh yeah, that guy. "Haha he was easy.... why isn't my turn ending? Heal? WHY IS HE HEALING?"

[cerulean herald]

for me I try to do one game at a time, like it better that way. Though I'm kinda juggling 3 rn

Fallout 4 I began not long after the first season of the Fallout show came out (I played Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas before 4)
but the game wasnt doing it for me, I much prefer 3 and New Vegas.
Not that 4 is bad, its just too different than what I'd expect, so I held off on it for the longest time, only recently getting back into it
but during that break, I got into Saint Rows 2 (which you can compare to GTA if you havent heard of it) which is fun, still yet to finish

then there is Resident Evil 5 co-op with a friend, I think we're one more session away from beating it. RE5 is fun to play with a friend, but not at all a game I'd play by myself lmao

[gaunt marten]

Doing one game at a time works, but what if the game is five thousand hours long?

Would you spend three years playing only one game?

[bitter stream]

fair enough DAO, if it works for you. I struggle for the most part to stick to one game, even when I want to (PoE seems to be an exception)

[slim thorn]

I generally have only 1 or 2 games in progress at any given time. None of what I play is thousands of hours long, even the longest RPGs I've done are in the 50-150 hours range.

[cerulean herald]

probably not, though I've never seen a game that lasts so long (not counting multiplayer stuffs)

[gaunt marten]

Crusader Kings 2

[slim thorn]

e.g. E33 I have... 72.1 hours in, and that was including all the post-game content (though not the DLC, since that came out after I played)

[cerulean herald]

alright, yeah I can see how this can be a time sink

[slim thorn]

indeed, some people have "forever games"; for whatever reason I do not

[cerulean herald]

I guess for me it's Minecraft, which probably seems to be planned to continue having updates

I have to find that statement someone from the company made about MC being a 100 years game

https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-minecraft-100-year-brand-2016-9

"100 year brand"

comparing it to the likes of Lego and such

[slim thorn]

it's been working pretty well so far

[bronze abyss]

omg i had that as a wallpaper so long ago

[arctic fern]

well people are starting to not like minecraft

[slim thorn]

[arctic fern]

its got competitors and bedrock is a broken mess with more microtransactions than most mobile games

[bitter stream]

I have a forever game, i guess? or at least it is a schrodinger's forever game. It's fun enough, but it's a typical f2p title in that much is time-gated or pay 2 skip the grind. I guess PoE is better in that sense because they sell convenience, rather than power directly.

[slim thorn]

I mean that's been true for a long time

maybe Hytale will finally hurt it?

[arctic fern]

been seeing a lot more talk for vintage story too

[cerulean herald]

which game is this

[slim thorn]

I always figured Minecraft was one of those games with a critical generational mass of multiplayer, like Fortnite or Roblox, that will never even consider alternatives because they fundamentally do not care about playing the best possible game, just the game that "everyone else" is already playing

[arctic fern]

or already has

tbf its hevilly moddable, so if you dont like aspects you can tweak or change entire swatches of the game

[bitter stream]

||warframe||

I haven't played vanilla minecraft since... idk. Ponycraft or something? even that had modded avatars iirc

[river veldt]

i only ever have played vanilla

[gaunt marten]

I am almost done way ahead of schedule

[slim thorn]

I briefly played Minecraft with one of the technical modpacks, but I had my fill of it pretty quick

sticking to one game forever just isn't how my brain functions

[fresh bane]

Didn't the original console edition's code get leaked and people have been playing it and even modding it on PC now?

[river veldt]

yes

[cerulean herald]

fair, though its not like I play it on the regular. there is def periods of drought, so to speak

[river veldt]

ive been playing Minecraft pretty consistently for over 10 years now

[slim thorn]

DAO playing the reasonable middle ground

[cerulean herald]

[astral steeple]

The ps3/360 minecraft has always been like the best version of minecraft

So glad that version is playable on pc now lol

[cerulean herald]

I got into it properly at around release 1.7, so ~2014

[slim thorn]

oh? I'd always heard the PC version was better

[river veldt]

Java is better idk what arianna is talking about

though tbf the legacy console editions are amazing in their own right

[bitter stream]

how do you like to make your own fun in Vanilla? Do you do lots of builds or something?

[cerulean herald]

Java Edition (PC) is better for mods especially, and Bedrock Edition (pretty much non-PCs so mobile/consoles) have the marketplace that Meganought brought up, basically microtransactions

[arctic fern]

they are talking about legacy, yeah
its the better bedrock
but java is the best version, no microtransactions

[river veldt]

i mostly play creative

[cerulean herald]

most of my playtime is on the Manechat Minecraft server

[river veldt]

idk building things is therapeutic to me

[slim thorn]

part of it might be that I get that satisfaction from modding

[green fulcrum]

The original console edition is not based on Bedrock. It had its own source code and was incompatible with Bedrock, that's why it was discontinued after 1.13.

[fresh bane]

Ever since I started playing MC back in like 2011 and stopped around 2017 I had never once installed mods, it's crazy to me seeing videos of MC today with wild texture packs and overhaul mods to the point that playing vanilla is seen as the exception, the only mod I made sure to install and the reason why I learned how to get into modding was installing Too Many Items back in like 2013

[astral steeple]

Yes I was referring to legacy console

Not the normal console version

The one that's now playable on pc cause the source code leak

[river veldt]

tbh i play Bedrock mostly because it's the version that's on Switch

it would be cool if they added official controller support so i could play Java on my Steam Deck but what can you do

[bitter stream]

I think I get this. I was tempted to do some building in Fallout 4, but the buildling mechanics in that are so awful that I never really went through with it. F76 building is better, but that game charges you for the cool stuff.
I built a meditation garden in a forever game, but the clan leader re-organised the rooms and wiped it away T_T

[random steppe]

I have like, 2 slots for ongoing games I play semi-regularly or regularly, and one for a "one and done" games

Sometimes I drop that to 1 game if I am focusing more on an hobby that isn't gaming

[bitter stream]

There's probably other games that let you build cool things right? Animal crossing is one, but it never appealed for whatever reason. Pokopia looks neat, but again, not my style.

hmm there's Lego branded stuff, but they seem to be more adventure than digital lego.

[random steppe]

Like if I'm watching tv shows, more than one episode a day

[slim thorn]

now that you mention it, it's weird that there aren't any Lego games just focused on the freeform building part

at least none that I can recall

[cerulean herald]

I never really mess with building if the game has it, so Fallout 4 or Palworld I just dont mess with builds
Minecraft might be an excpetion, I built skyscrapers in the Manechat mc server lol

[river veldt]

Lego Worlds

[cerulean herald]

I was trying to think of the name yea

https://store.steampowered.com/app/332310/LEGO_Worlds/

Steam

LEGO® Worlds

EXPLORE. DISCOVER. CREATE. TOGETHER. LEGO® Worlds is an open environment of procedurally-generated Worlds made entirely of LEGO bricks which you can freely manipulate and dynamically populate with LEGO models. Create anything you can imagine one brick at a time, or use large-scale landscaping tools to create vast mountain ranges and dot you…

Price

$29.99

Recommendations

12449

[slim thorn]

huh, gtk

[astral steeple]

Lego worlds is peak

[arctic fern]

thats what i said, yeah

[astral steeple]

3rd best lego game besides the complete saga and skywalker saga

[bitter stream]

on thinking about it, I should play more Enshrouded and Terraria. They are both games with pixel/voxel scale building tools. Very cute and with a solid game attached

[arctic fern]

terraira's had like 4 major updates since i last played

[slim thorn]

I'm starting to think the Winchester curse got inherited by the Terraria devs somehow

[arctic fern]

the what?

[green fulcrum]

Each one being the "very last one" before the devs decide to do just one more for good measure. :P

[arctic fern]

they did try terraira 2, otherworld, but that failed for whatever reason

[river veldt]

Terraria is cool

[arctic fern]

its alright i guess

[slim thorn]

there's a popular legend about the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_Mystery_House that says the reason Ms Winchester kept adding and not finishing new parts of the house was because of a curse that would kill her if she ever stopped building

[river veldt]

LOL i get the reference now

[cerulean herald]

found an image of them

[bitter stream]

oh another building game I have, but haven't played much of is V Rising. they've updated since I last played in 0.8, but I might use the healthy customisation suite to make materials easier to come by. the default settings are a little.... time intense hahah

[cerulean herald]

thats exactly what I did for Palworld lmao, just make certain resources less of a pain to gather

rly glad it has customization built in

[bitter stream]

yeah yeah, it's really nice when games have those fine tuning settings

[green fulcrum]

Iirc, those were two different projects. Terraria 2 just got absorbed into Terraria, and Otherworld was a story-driven spin-off that got shelved for whatever reason.

A shame too, I kinda liked the idea of Otherworld

[arctic fern]

my point stands

[green fulcrum]

Yeah

[quiet swift]

@wind stump Doom mechanic is fun

[wind stump]

DOOOOOMY DOOM DOOM

[quiet swift]

it saved my butt on this boss... 2 hp left

[quiet swift]

dang

[indigo pine]

behold.

precariously used equipment

[rare dew]

This is engaging the pucker

[indigo pine]

i dont see the porblem with it

[wind stump]

My copy of Battlefield is off

[indigo pine]

one is explosive. the other is supposed to be intact enough

had to steal a pickup from the second floor

so i removed it

[wind stump]

i'm sure this won't go wrong

(Osty had exactly enough health to protect me)

and then i died in a hot spring

[quiet swift]

I just found them too. They were bait. (was seeing how far you can go...)

[wind stump]

Y u p. Game did warn you that if you did it the last time it would kill you, at least.

But they were so cosy!

[quiet swift]

I stopped before then but was just hoping to reach the 'end' one. Not sure there is one now

(also let me do a quick errand, should be 10 minutes, we can then try multiplayer?)

we should probably create a post for STS too

[quiet swift]

Righto

[indigo pine]

a truck full of water sensitive safes :3

[random steppe]

Ok so, I've been thinking about stuff in Rogue Trader and I think it's interesting, so I'll write about it for a minute (as spoiler free as possible)

I usually dislike binary morality systems in games, and Rogue Trader has something similar but I kind of like it because it's not out of context but it's related to the society you find yourself in, and it's kind of fun to see how they did it.

There are 3 main alignments, Heretical, Iconoclast and Dogmatic

Dogmatic and Heretical are interesting because they are sort of two face of the same coin.
You'd think from a normal RPG, that one would be good and the other would be evil, but it's quite not in this case.
A pure Heretical playthrough will have you kill people for your personal pleasure or because it pleases higher powers you wish to garner influence with, or simply because it opposes the dogma, but dogmatic is, when you strip it down, sort of the same thing but just more socially acceptable.

Dogma requires strict adherence, is all encompassing and absolute, if you do play a straight up dogmatic character you will have to execute good people, just because you were taught that's how a good subject of the Imperium acts.
In some ways it's a way to be evil that is a lot more cowardly than a straight Heretical playthrough, that at least knows what they are.

Iconoclast is boring though, well at least more boring, it does get interesting in relation to the other two forces that do try to pull you in the other two directions and it feels good if you want to play the good guy, to attempt to strike a balance between the other two paths that try real hard to pull you towards their directions, because while the harshest choices of the two poles are quite extremes, the more moderate ones do have a certain pull.

(it does have some flaws, just to be clear, I think sometimes some obvious choices just aren't there, or some choices that should be aligned to one of the poles just aren't, sometimes the writing just don't make justice to the system they set up, but it's the exception to the rule, most of it is really well written)

[visual hill]

the first(-person) mod for the Duke Nukem: Zero Hour recompilation has dropped 🙂 https://dnzh-fps.netlify.app/

[cunning galleon]

Wow GTA SA campaign is shorter than I thought

I'm nearly at the part where you get thrown into angel pine

[rugged flax]

@obsidian salmon and I have been running through the Payday 2 career campaign
we just finished breaking Hoxton out of the slammer
almost to the halfway point
the "official" career campaign is 53 entries long
we just finished 21
there's also fan made lists that add on to the career campaign with a proper order for all the heists added after the official end of the career campaign

[hasty patio]

I forgot that they added a "career" mode and the like for it.

[obsidian salmon]

oh yeah that reminds me i have to run hoxton solo to catch me up on career mode

since i forgot to claim it and it "lost" my completion

[indigo pine]

:D

[mossy flume]

https://www.theverge.com/games/891085/sony-dynamic-pricing-playstation-games

[quiet swift]

[rotund forge]

I might cave soon and get the horse animu girl race game

[quiet swift]

A win with the Silent One! Shiv machine gun for the win

[light gate]

I got Marathon for free through a giveaway promotion. Played it and uhh, I actually like it.

I’m surprised I even won the giveaway but what I’m more surprised is how simple the game loop is. No tarkov levels of detail, faster paced… and it runs on a 1060 only taking 18gb of storage.

I hope I can find a few folks to play with soon.

[cunning galleon]

Bro can't you solo them

What a chore honestly but worth it for that much health

Idk what went into me because i used to do the ambulance missions in Los Santos

[wraith condor]

Doing the Paramedic missions in Angel Pine is a life saver

[bitter stream]

oh grats! good luck in ifnding some folks, I'm sure tehre's some marathon servers too out there

[cunning galleon]

Da goat

[cunning galleon]

What? FBI spawns on the streets?

[cunning galleon]

My homeboy Chicken got arrested 💔🐔🥀

[cunning galleon]

?

[river veldt]

trying to figure out if i want Resident Evil 4 Remake or Hades 2

[bitter stream]

fair enough, are you in the mood for one or the others gameplay atm?

or is there plenty of time to wait for a sale?

[river veldt]

i suppose i could wait for a sale for Hades 2, ive been craving RE gameplay ever since i watched a playthrough of 9

[bitter stream]

aye aye, makes sense

[cerulean herald]

what RE games have u played cap

[river veldt]

4 original

but ive watched many playthroughs of others

[bitter stream]

ooh captain, did you ever hear of SIGNALIS?

I feel like that'd be something you'd enjoy playing or watching a playthrough

[river veldt]

ive heard of it but havent gotten around to playing/watching it yet

[bitter stream]

I keep debating to pick it up myself, it looks so stylishly cool, but I'm not great with horror haha

[quiet swift]

Hades!

[river veldt]

ofc you would say that

[quiet swift]

I have no idea what you are implying

[slim thorn]

Crow Country is another great not-RE RE

(in my head Signalis feels closer to Silent Hill because of the storytelling)

[gaunt marten]

It's only resident evil if you have prerendered puzzles

[cerulean herald]

ooh Signalis is on my wishlist, I knew it sounded familiar

I also finished that history of horror games video, and now I cant stop thinking of that canceled Silent Hill game that had a stacked cast/dev team

[river veldt]

PT ?

[visual hill]

Some missions are special-cased to spawn more police than the wanted level otherwise warrants

even GTA 3 does this, one of the early missions has Enforcers despite only having 2 stars set by the script

[slim thorn]

the "Silent Hills" that PT was a Playable Teaser for, yeah

[river veldt]

yeah.......

[wind stump]

-# ohhhh that's why it's called PT

[river veldt]

PT was so fucking good it's so depressing Silent Hills never happened

[wind stump]

maybe i knew at some point when the PT drama saga went down but years of reddit brainrot made3 me forgor

[grim stirrup]

its fine, we got When the Silent Hills Cry

[visual hill]

new Nightdive remaster announced: https://store.steampowered.com/app/632950/SiN_Reloaded/

Steam

SiN Reloaded

From Nightdive Studios, SiN: Reloaded is a completely remastered experience of the 1998 shooter from Ritual Entertainment. This diamond-in-the-rough, story-driven FPS features memorable characters, horrific enemies, and a devastating arsenal that pushed the Quake II Engine to its limits.

Enter a near-future dystopian world as security c…

Release Date

To be announced

or rather, re-announced, since this one was first announced in January 2017 (!)

[wind stump]

oh no NOT AGAIN

[gaunt marten]

You're at full HP. Do it

[quiet swift]

Yooo, the original was pretty great. Though I think I remember it ended on a cliffhanger that was never continued

[visual hill]

yes, there was Sin Episodes in 2006 (inspired by the Half-Life 2 model) but only Episode 1 ever came out

I bought that one a while ago but didn't try it yet

[wind stump]

-# all future Spireposting wiwll be redirected to #1480424703188406354

[visual hill]

people on the Steam Community tab are not very inspired though, all you'll find are 2 particular scenes from the game in the screenshots tab.

[gaunt marten]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/214340/Deponia/ 100% off

Steam

Deponia

Daedalic Entertainment, once called “Lucasarts from Germany“ by the GameStar magazine, invites the players into a fantastic comedy adventure that revolves around a crazy love story of Rufus and Goal.

In Deponia, the world has degenerated into a vast garbage dump, in which the crotchety Rufus ekes out his sorry existence. He is part of the lo…

Price

$2.99

Recommendations

9705

Metacritic

74

It's a good point and click adventure game

[worldly summit]

Vintage Story.

Minecraft’s core survival gameplay is very beatable. It’s taken a backseat and updates have focused far less on adding progression or difficulty to the game, because it’s more valuable to maintain Minecraft as a digital sandbox with a vast community that then goes on to make whatever they want with it

[gaunt marten]

I got the whole series earlier but it seems they're not putting it on sale today: https://store.steampowered.com/app/292910/Deponia_The_Complete_Journey/

Ah, but the individual games are discounted: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/18569/Deponia_Full_Scrap_Collection/ 90% off

[visual hill]

Minecraft was never really a difficult game, but it became a lot easier over the years

it actually became harder after Beta 1.8, but not for very long I think

I remember the weapon damage in Beta 1.7.3, it was almost ridiculous at times

[worldly summit]

Hytale wants to capture the magic in a bottle of community creations that Minecraft has, and in my opinion Vintage Story is way better positioned right now as an established game focusing instead on true survival

I do hope Hytale does well though

[arctic fern]

i hope everyone succeds

all three games focus on different aspects, VS focuses on more hard core and yet somehow significantly more creative options, hytale focuses on combat and minecraft focuses on being minecraft

[visual hill]

Minecraft needs more "competition" anyway

just like I'm happy to see Valorant being a thing because CS needs competition

(even if I won't play it myself)

[quiet swift]

Ah, nice. I have the first two, not the third (though I don't think i finished the 2nd yet). And I had 3$ left over on a gift card so that's a good price to nab that at!

[slim thorn]

in retrospect it's kinda bizarre how little serious competition Minecraft's had this whole time

I remember when there was a new voxel sandbox game coming out every week, and seemingly none of them held anyone's attention for a whole week

[visual hill]

kart racers also struggled with that for a long time

[mossy flume]

Pokémon Minecraft is getting some serious attention at the moment, and surprisingly few parallels with Minecraft in the discourse despite how Minecraft it is

[visual hill]

(although CTR was already considered a banger in 1999, but it leaned on the more competitive side)

[mossy flume]

Although it really is more like Minecraft meets Animal Crossing… and could probably stand to have a little bit more Animal Crossing in it

[cerulean herald]

I thought you meant Cobblemon before realizing you are talking about Pokopia

[mossy flume]

Heh

I give Pokopia a solid 9/10

But yeah, it is weird how Minecraft'sstaying power has been practically unchallenged this whole time

[green fulcrum]

Minecraft is a sandbox building game, Hytale is an action RPG with exploration sandbox elements, and Vintage Story is a sandbox survival game.

Each one offers something unique. Minecraft offers imagination, Hytale offers adventure, and Vintage Story offers a proper challenge.

[fresh bane]

https://fxbsky.app/profile/nosolobits.com/post/3mgnk4cajis2v

NoSoloBits (@nosolobits.com)

Team Innocent: The Point of No-Return (PC-FX, Hudson Soft, 1994)

**🔁 6 ❤️ 24 **

▶ Play video

FxBluesky · Mar 9, 2026, 7:00 PM

absolute peak of gaming

[quiet swift]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-Vrhzqwr10

Thumbnail title aside (for once not super clickbaity)... this is rather scary.

TLDR: metacritc had a review from an established gaming news site for RE9. Problem: the 9/10 review was written by Brian Merrygold, a non-existent person with an AI-generated headshot and a fake master's degree.

Clickout media and other big companies are buying legacy gaming sites, firing all the editors and writers, pivoting the articles and stuff towards casinos and online betting (see: The Escapist) because that's easy money. Added bonus: since it's an established site, google's algorithm won't push down links from it like it does for other very obvious gambling/casino only websites. So they

Damn enter key

They're basically using the established site's past accreditation/legitimacy to dupe the algorithm and get the top spot on google searches

[slim thorn]

oh the escapist casino thing, yeah we've talked about this a few times

not surprised a few fakes slipped into metacritic

[quiet swift]

It just seems silly that on top of the pivot to casino/gambling, they're wasting time making these fake reviews too

[slim thorn]

it's certainly not a long-term strategy

not that anything these companies do is

[river veldt]

The Escapist thing is ridiculously sad

[gaunt marten]

It lives on as Second Wind

[river veldt]

true

[quiet swift]

Sadly it looks like that will be the norm if this continues, not the exception 😐

[green fulcrum]

I think I missed this? What happened?

[quiet swift]

I posted a screenshot a while back, lemme see if I can pull up the message

[river veldt]

this is years old at this point so i might get some facts wrong, but iirc an editor got fired and in solidarity basically everyone on the video team resigned. they went on to form Second Wind and now The Escapist posts shitty gambling videos every day

[mossy flume]

https://youtu.be/_noAEsJ8hfw

Oh man

This one is UNAPOLOGETIC

We're plagarizing Zelda, Pokémon, Palworld, FFXIV, Overwatch, and Satisfactory ALL AT ONCE

And not even trying to be too distinct, they're trying to be minimally distinct

[cerulean herald]

wtf

[mossy flume]

And they have Switch and PlayStation versions coming, too!

This is hilarious

At least Palworld tried (and IMO succeeded) to be sufficiently distinct

This one is going for the "Whatcha gonna do about it, eh?" angle

[cerulean herald]

this is what many thought Palworld was

[mossy flume]

Yeah, and I was always really annoyed by the anti-Palworld crowd

[cerulean herald]

one of the worst offending Pals is "Cinderace but green"
that is just straight up a Charizard in the thumbnail

[mossy flume]

(Pretty sure I have a bunch of historical discussion about it from my viewpoint somewhere in this chat log)

Palworld wasn’t too inspired, but it still managed to make something interesting regardless and managed to find some degree of its own identity while doing it.

This one is just completely devoid of anything original despite variability and is strictly basing its identity on others. It’s being unapologetic.

Going for the minimum amount of effort here

Palworld at least put in some work

[green fulcrum]

Yeah, this one is gonna get stomped so hard by Nintendo.

Palworld could get away with its shenanigans because it was just different enough where they didn't have a good case. This one is so different it loops back around to being blatantly identical.

[rancid herald]

nintendo needs to release a game where you play as a nintendo lawyer

who gets hit by a truck and ends up in nintendo games

except you're still a lawyer

[cerulean herald]

we have Chillet at home

Chillet at home:

[mossy flume]

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/palworld/images/2/26/Anubis.png/revision/latest?cb=20250120160026

Hmmmmmm

[rancid herald]

Bowser: "Finally Princess Peach, we shall wed!"
Nintendo Lawyer: "OBJECTION"

[mossy flume]

Also I love the straight aetheryte

[rancid herald]

not the gay aetheryte?

[cerulean herald]

ok that is just Mammorest

[mossy flume]

https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Aetheryte

[mossy flume]

Yep, and the other Palworld one holding the machine gun

[rancid herald]

no preview? ban

[mossy flume]

Blame Discord

[fickle garnet]

Oh my god😭

[mossy flume]

Or fandom, which probably blocked it because they're Fandom

[rancid herald]

I blame you for not getting hired at discord and fixing this from within

straight to jail

[mossy flume]

[cerulean herald]

I will say that Motorcycle the chick was riding turning out to be a mon was cool

too bad its just a Lokix clone

[river veldt]

do you have every Unown

[mossy flume]

Maybe

[rancid herald]

MA unOWNs all the Unowns

[river veldt]

can you spell pokemon out of unown

[cerulean herald]

answer is unknown

[mossy flume]

Hm, I guess not

I'll have to fix that

[gaunt marten]

Pokemon

[mossy flume]

That was a Koraidon/Miraidon ripoff

[rancid herald]

I fed my motorcycle a sandwich once after playing pokemon and now it won't run

[mossy flume]

Scrub motorcycle

[rancid herald]

this reminds me of the time the magic school bus broke down and part of the problem was peanut butter all over the inter workings of the engine

[cerulean herald]

true, though I think its more Transformers than the Sc/Vi legendaries

[mossy flume]

Mario Kart cow

This guy is doing a FFXIV meme emote

[cerulean herald]

even then, isnt it just a cow
I already dislike Chikipi for just being a regular chicken
i think real life should sue palworld for copyright /s

[mossy flume]

Remember when people were arguing passionately about which one of Pokémon or Digimon was the ripoff of the other?

Now we have this these days

[mossy flume]

https://youtu.be/qvRoCO925fY?si=6KDnj815zMt7Ph86

Pannen sure is something

[chilly mural]

I kneel at such weaponized autism

[mossy flume]

Right?

I have deep respect for this guy

[cunning galleon]

I've been stuck on this one infuriating driving school thing in GTA

[cunning galleon]

Finally

This also happened to my car

[little badger]

Story expansion is in the works for Requiem

[dense crypt]

Wreck we um

Kinda early for it to get an expansion

[mossy flume]

https://www.ign.com/articles/the-pokemon-company-is-actively-recruiting-phd-holders-with-backgrounds-in-ecology-to-work-in-tokyo

Specific job positions aren’t disclosed, but it would make sense for Game Freak to have PhDs on staff who can help with sorting out Pokémon ecology details in a way that seems realistic

[cunning galleon]

This is such a dumb way to die in this game

[wind stump]

Dumb ways to die~

[visual hill]

the driving school missions become much harder above 30 FPS, it might be why

[cunning galleon]

It's none of the ones where you jump stuff

It's the one where you have to race to one side of san fierro and back

The npcs keeps fucking merging randomly and spawning infront of me

I'm glad it gives me pity of 3% damage being fine

I got a time of 1:44 but i hit a car literally 50m from finish on an overcrest

Flight school is easier than this

Now time to do one of the most boring missions ever

As much as i love Woozie, the ship missions are fucking boring.. What a drag

I think the gf I'm gonna try to max before end of the line and finish missions for is the police girl and firetruck missions

I forgot if the vigilante missions give you more body armor hp

[fresh bane]

Of course there is

There was no way even just one DLC wouldn't come out

I wish the game just released already finished but we're far beyond that point now...

Separate Ways came out in September of 2023 so I guess we can except Requiem's expansion late this year

[slim thorn]

maybe by the time I get to it I'll have the DLC to play

[fresh bane]

I know the drill by this point I'm not gonna buy requiem until the gold edition drops and inevitably goes on sale

Capcom games go on sale absurdly cheap I regularly see RE7-8-2R-4R go for super low all the time on steam

[slim thorn]

I've bought it because my friend played it and wants me to play it and it's impossible to plan ahead for when the playing will happen I just need to have it ready

[fresh bane]

If you even remotely care about RE then yeah, me I'm doing that because I already saw the full game

[quiet swift]

Speaking of REsident Evil, I just found this (dunno if the creatures are spoilery or not)
Post was titled "hips don't die"

(turn sound on)

[cerulean herald]

oh fuck those things, nearly impossible to kill

[wind stump]

anything interesting happen for MAR10 Day?

[mossy flume]

I think just the release date for the new Yoshi game, which is May 21st

[wind stump]

Yoshers

[wind stump]

Wew.

Now the real pain begins.

"yeah i think i'll take it easy after bowling"
boots up Ultimate Boss Rush Mode Of Pain and Suffering

[fickle garnet]

Apex has a Gundam event and they don't even have a RX-78-2 skin😭

Almost $400 if you want everything apparently

[quiet swift]

Speaking of collabs....

[astral steeple]

Peak

[fickle garnet]

Nier Automata is peak, yeah

[astral steeple]

Kiriko as 2b is sick lol

Also hell yeah

Rocket league is adding the pizza planet truck from toy story soon

[fickle garnet]

Always got to do more colabs rather than original content, huh

I'm so fuckin done with live service istg

[astral steeple]

I mean yeah the car collabs in rocket league are cool lol

My main car in rocket league is the deloreon currently

Set to pink

Majorly peak

The mystery machine from scooby doo as well

I have a preset saved for both

[mossy flume]

https://automaton-media.com/en/news/the-switch-2s-cheaper-japan-only-model-may-be-generating-loss-of-160-per-unit-for-nintendo-japanese-analyst-says/

This is a translation and filtered retelling of a Japanese analyst’s story, originally posted here https://diamond.jp/articles/-/385041

tldr, the Japanese-only SKU of the Switch 2 being sold in Japan might be getting sold at a substantial loss of about $160 USD per unit

[gaunt marten]

Whoa, doubled their revenue

[mossy flume]

Yeah. Overall the Switch 2 revenue is absolutely bonkers

Nintendo’s revenue was dropping for a couple years as consumers anticipated the Switch 2’s release, mind, but it’s still impressive

[mossy flume]

https://www.theverge.com/games/892066/pokopia-pokedex-review

[fresh bane]

I don't remember the context for it, but I remember talking about it here when people were fully convinced for some reason that the Switch 2 was gonna be this massive failure and saying just how out of their minds they were and how insane that was to say

I don't have the actual thing to back it up right now but I'm pretty sure I remember reading or coming across something mentioning how the Switch made Nintendo literally too much money they didn't know what to do with it

Also Pokopia is pretty great yeah

[ripe mica]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4094560/Hoptale_Demo/

Steam

Hoptale Demo

《Hoptale》 is a Roguelite with a core of “Hopscotch × Slot Machine.”

Explore, gather, fish, and solve puzzles through hopscotch gameplay;

In battle, the tiles transform into a slot machine, and you must lock onto safe paths to defeat monsters;…

[arctic fern]

gonna start playing the voyager game

ah ensign harry kim, fresh faced from the academy
i see a bright future ahead for you! fast tracked career path

[green fulcrum]

Didn't expect them to just casually slap a shot of the OG actors into the textbox for dialogue. That's kinda funny, ngl. Reminds me of some older licensed games.

...Oh wait, nvm, I'm an idiot, it's a very detailed painting.

I just zoomed in

[arctic fern]

its probably a digitised render of a photo tbh

for the most part they've done a good job

little disappointing theres no voicelines for anyone, either og actors, voicelines ripped from the show or impersonators
we get the occasional ones for cuscenes, i think the og paris came back for the opening scenes, but that was only like 10 lines

i guess VAs are expensive tbf

ah, heres the best character in voyager!

genuinely looks pretty badass here

emergency quarters model: 14 beds
emergency quarters stats: 12 crew
literally unplayable

[cunning galleon]

Was bored, walked from las venturas to san fierro

[eager bane]

Mew got time on their hooves

[arctic fern]

do i play the game? or just end things early?

yes you can just return to the alpha quadrent lol

i trust this person with my life

yo wtf i got chakotay killed???

i didnt think that was possible ngl

im restarting the sector, that was really dumb and underwhelming

[cunning galleon]

I can't wait to unlock gambling in GTA SA so i can gamble my money

[mossy flume]

Heh, yep… those people were silenced very quickly.

[toxic seal]

Okay I'm losing my mind

Playing CoD WWII and there are some QTEs in the campaign. Most are okay, but some are so fast your brain literally does not have enough time to react to them. Apparently the time you have in the QTEs is directly tied to your monitor's refresh rate, so the faster your monitor, the less time you have.
People say to reduce the refresh rate, but the option to change it is literally not present in the graphics settings of the game. I then changed it in Windows but there is still no option and this impossibly fast QTE did not get easier.

I have tried to look up the issue I'm having but no one else seems to have documented the problem. People have similar problems that seem to stem from when the game was new and had some bugs, and one issue where a particular family of Acer monitors didn't work right with the game, but not my exact issue

[slim thorn]

what a weird problem to have in a game that recent

[toxic seal]

Every single thing I'm finding about the refresh rate says to change it in the game but the option is not there. Not that it's there and I can't change it, there is literally no setting that says refresh rate

[bitter stream]

oh weird, that's annoying

are you in fullscreen or borderless?

[toxic seal]

Borderless as I have multiple monitors, but I changed it to fullscreen to see if that was the issue but it didn't change

[bitter stream]

I wonder why it's not showing the setting. Could try running the game as admin and seeing if the setting shows up?

oh! do you have a AMD or Nvida or Intel GPU?

You can like, manually set monitor refresh rate from those driver apps they have I believe, and it should override whatever the game/windows is doing

[toxic seal]

Yep, changing it in the Nvidia app worked

[bitter stream]

woo!

I'm glad it helped, but really the game shoudl have the options working properly

[astral steeple]

Huh

My computer wasn't detecting my geforce gtx 1060 6gb last night

Took it out and put it back in and it seems good now but still weird overall

[bitter stream]

huh, fair enough. Glad re-seating it worked

[astral steeple]

I might upgrade the ram at some point from 32gb to 64gb

Not sure yet

Still gotta get a 2nd hard drive too cause only having like 54gb free currently

[bitter stream]

What are you running that needs 64 GB of RAM? it's also a really expensive time to upgrade ram atm, just so you know

[astral steeple]

I mean right now the games I play wouldn't really need it, it would just be nice to have extra before it gets more expensive than it already is

Though I'm not sure if it would cause issues with the 1060 6gb etc

Due to being a bit older

Though I do know the motherboard itself can support up to 64gb ram

Could be useful for blender sometimes

It's an i7

This is the actual motherboard

asus strix z370 h gaming motherboard

[light gate]

Do you get by any chance a CPU leak with the latest 1060 drivers?

By leak I mean like your machine just idles at 5-8% instead of 0-3%.

[astral steeple]

No idea lol

[light gate]

You could check cpu usage in task manager and just not run anything in the bg for a moment.

Reason I ask this is because the device I have exhibits this behavior on the newest drivers.

NVIDIA 560+

[astral steeple]

Generally everything runs good enough so I don't pay attention to it lol

[light gate]

I understand.

[astral steeple]

The computer itself I had got for free from my brother cause he had got a better computer

Which this one is a major upgrade over my previous computer

A 8gb ram quad core hp laptop

[light gate]

I wished I could get a gaming pc but stuff is just so expensive.

Have this gaming laptop instead with weird quirks lol.

[astral steeple]

Like I can run the tony hawk pro skater remake from 2020 on maximum settings now

Looks really good

[green fulcrum]

Good luck with getting the hard drive, AI companies are buying them up like crazy right now.

[astral steeple]

oof

[visual hill]

it's a FPS dependency, not a monitor refresh rate dependency

cap your framerate using RTSS: https://www.guru3d.com/download/rtss-rivatuner-statistics-server-download/

the nice thing about RTSS compared to other methods is that you can change the limit while the game is running

[cerulean herald]

Fallout 4 does not seem like a stable game

[visual hill]

did you cap FPS to 60?

Fallout 4 handles high FPS a bit better than Skyrim, but a cap to 60 is still recommended

only Starfield has true high FPS support

[cerulean herald]

should be, can double check

huh where would that option be, I cant find a setting for fps in the game

[visual hill]

use RTSS as I mentioned above

[cerulean herald]

got it, thank you

[orchid sundial]

https://www.purexbox.com/news/2026/03/xbox-says-backwards-compatibility-program-will-be-revived-for-25th-anniversary

please don't use ai 🙏

and please work on xbox one as well

because ain't nobody buying the series with that $650 price tag

[mossy flume]

…how would there be AI in an emulation sandbox?

[slim thorn]

I don't know if there was a misunderstanding, or just a vague fear that Microsoft would shove it in no matter how little sense it made

[fresh bane]

I think people are just praying that they don't add a Copilot style AI assistant or intrusive feature on the new Xbox

[mossy flume]

Have some bad news for you on that front

[fresh bane]

Not for me, no, I don't own any consoles

[mossy flume]

Heh

[fresh bane]

and I'm fortunate enough that I also disabled every single intrusive feature in my Windows as far as I could, so luckily the only regular problem I've encountered with Windows is just the annoying internet search when using the search bar but I think I somehow disabled that too, I don't remember how I did it

[slim thorn]

I'm still waiting for Windows to intrude upon me somehow

at this point I'll be relieved when I see the Copilot icon where it shouldn't be because I can finally stop wondering where it'll pop up

[fresh bane]

I think it's the biggest problem with default Windows installations

[mossy flume]

Especially Home versions of Windows

[slim thorn]

that might explain it, I've had this laptop for... well not that long, but multiple years

[fresh bane]

If you already just opt out of a bunch of options when installing windows and just disable all the intrusive features then yeah, which is what I did, so I didn't encounter many problems with Windows
But a default one? Just clicking accept on everything that is turned on by default?

That's gonna be incredibly annoying

[mossy flume]

Yeah, you have to go out of your way to opt-out of stuff during the installation process. The options are buried at this point.

And indeed opt-outs have been ripped out entirely.

OOBE bypass is gone at this point

Which is… not great for IT deployments

[fresh bane]

I still can't believe they forced me to actually log in to my microsoft account to even enter the computer and got rid of local accounts entirely

[slim thorn]

oh yeah that was a bit weird

[mossy flume]

You can still make local accounts, but only after the PC has been tied to a Microsoft account

(I think this might not be true on Home editions, though?)

[obsidian salmon]

thanks for the "tip", runescape

[fresh bane]

There's always new ways popping up of how to sidestep that but I didn't want to risk it by doing some out of the box solution, functionally the only thing that changes for me is I have to put my PIN instead of my password, I don't use OneDrive at all and my microsoft account has nothing so I don't use it for anything so it's just kinda sitting there, I don't have Copilot or 365 or whatever turned on either so functionally the computer is the same as if it had a local account, it's just really annoying that they ripped the option out of my hands

and since it's kinda the same I thought doing the whole local account thing would be too much trouble to bother

[slim thorn]

I welcomed the PIN thing because that is so much shorter than my serious password

and yeah never activated 365

for me in practice the only consequence of the Microsoft Account requirement is that some parts of the system refer to me by an ancient email address

[mossy flume]

I just use Rufus and call it a day

[slim thorn]

from back when hotmail was the go-to email system because gmail hadn't been invented yet

[fresh bane]

That's also annoying, since you don't even have a local account anymore they just use the initials of your email address so now my computer's name is stupid and doesn't make any sense

[mossy flume]

And then I use the debloat script to violently rip out all the other things, and then it's fine forever

[orchid sundial]

when I reset my pc later this week you folks will have to guide me on what to uninstall so it gets debloated

[mossy flume]

(The debloat script also does a bunch of tweaks automatically that I would otherwise have to perform manually, so it saves a ton of time)

[fresh bane]

There are a bunch of debloating tools but... I don't know how much I trust that
I also don't know how much I'd recommend it for anyone who wants to debloat their windows and be done with it, I think manually just disabling all the annoying features and just uninstalling any unwanted programs is more than enough to make windows work like usual without any of the extra stuff

[slim thorn]

I definitely wouldn't trust a "debloating tool"

[mossy flume]

https://github.com/raphire/win11debloat I just use this.

[orchid sundial]

I just looked up how much an Xbox One goes for on eBay out of curiosity and... oh dear. it is barely worth ANYTHING

[slim thorn]

if there's something I haven't noticed that is worth ripping out for some reason, just tell me what it's called and I'll rip it out myself

but if it's causing no problems then maybe I don't care if someone is calling it bloat

[mossy flume]

Run it in manual mode so you can pick and choose.

That's valid

This is entirely personal preference, of course

[slim thorn]

secondary rate limit! that's two in one day

[fresh bane]

I'm sure a lot of those tools are legit and aren't malicious, I think, but for me I'd just rather go through the process manually getting rid of any features or programs I don't want and knowing what it is I'm doing and not letting something run automatically doing stuff I'm not aware of
plus, the results are pretty much fine doing it manually too, so I find it overall more safe, but if you do know what you're doing and all then those tools are probably fine

It's less I don't trust them and more that I don't know if something could happen, maybe someone uploaded a malicious version of the executable file or something! I dunno, they did it with the 7zip website recently where a fake website that looked legit was put on the top search results and people were downloading a malware version of the installer

[slim thorn]

huh, most of this "debloat" tool isn't even about bloat, going by the main screenshot of options it offers

[mossy flume]

Indeed

It's really just flipping registry entires for a lot of it

[slim thorn]

of the things which actually are bloat, seems like I'm unaffected by most of them because I don't use Edge, I don't use Bing, and I rarely use the default Windows search

[mossy flume]

There is a section that does allow you to conveniently uninstall a lot of pre-installed components. Which itself is just invoking the system itself to do it. It's mostly just providing a convenient CLI to do so.
...although I see they also recently added a GUI? That's new.

It's not one of those typical tools, mind

[fresh bane]

This is all reminding me of this video I saw recently of a guy trying to debloat Windows Gold edition

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psZgi2Znbew

it's actually pretty entertaining

[orchid sundial]

now my brother is probably gonna want a project helix as well as a switch 2 😭

[mossy flume]

I dunno if I'll want a Project Helix... really depends on whatever it actually ends up being.

Next-gen Xbox of some sort, but... what does that actually look like in the 2020s?

[orchid sundial]

if xbox is going to integrate steam into their platform might as well make cross buy a thing

[fresh bane]

This is the only thing about the topic I remember coming across earlier but that's about it

[orchid sundial]

"neural" just say ai

[slim thorn]

I suppose that could be legit jargon if they mean the compression is designed for a Neural Processing Unit (is that a thing???)

[orchid sundial]

eh i guess using ai for what they described isn't too bad
<- is about to be proven wrong in 3, 2, 1

[orchid sundial]

if they do this then they must put all the delisted valve xbox 360 games back on sale

[fresh bane]

A lot of remastered projects or HD mods for games have been using neural/machine learning upscaling before genAI started becoming a thing, yes it's kinda the same, but not really the same thing, especially not the same as generative AI, but that's just yet another of the side effects of referring to everything by the 'ai' moniker and not being specific with what you're describing

[orchid sundial]

I know gaben said he prefers xbox series x to ps5 so surely he can work out a deal to get all the valve games available to purchase digitally again

and who knows, maybe for online games he can make it free and not have to require game pass

[mossy flume]

Next generation of DirectX? Are we finally getting past DX12 Ultimate??

That's some interesting news...

[mossy flume]

Neural nets are a specific category of artificial intelligence...

The "AI" that people are angry about is technically a small subcategory underneath the vast AI umbrella, and the discourse surrounding generative AI and LLMs is greatly diluting and oversimplifying what is quite literally a 70+ year old field of scientific research and real-world applications....

It's like being angry that the platypus exists and then just referring to them as "mammals"

[slim thorn]

ironically, lumping all AI into one big blob is exactly the kind of simplification they want you to fall for

the more people get specific and distinguish between different kinds, the harder it is to sell people things that aren't actually useful for them

[gaunt marten]

Wanting to eradicate insects because you don't like mosquitoes

[mossy flume]

Yes, NPUs are a thing and have been integrated into some consumer electronics for a while

(Even before LLMs, yes)

[gaunt marten]

I think my phone has one of those

It powers camera tools, live audio transcripts, all on-device

[mossy flume]

Yeah, pretty much all modern smartphones do at this point

[slim thorn]

tbc I've been aware of NPUs for a while

what we're all questioning is the meaning of "neural texture compression"; I was bringing up the existence of NPUs as a guess explanation for that

[fresh bane]

There's a full IGN article about it it was part of an Xbox talk so I'm sure the image was just to follow along with the points being discussed

[mossy flume]

My initial knee jerk assumption was AI upscaling

But I’m not sure

[slim thorn]

compression would be a wacky way to describe upscaling lol

[mossy flume]

Yeah

Hmm, having looked it up... it really is a neural-net powered texture compression algorithm. Here's one key example.
https://github.com/NVIDIA-RTX/RTXNTC

[slim thorn]

neat

[mossy flume]

https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/announcing-the-latest-nvidia-gaming-ai-and-neural-rendering-technologies/

Discussed more here, down the page

[slim thorn]

if that's all it is, then sure, might as well use every piece of your hardware

[mossy flume]

I assume they'll be using an AMD version of this, but it looks like this is going straight into DX12U

So it very well could just straight up be this

[orchid sundial]

they should add cars and cars race o rama to the backwards compatibility library, and fix the unobtainable achievement in race o rama that prevents you from getting 100% achievement completion, and make lightyear lightning and francesco - hotrod available to purchase for cars 2 without having to try your luck and buy a secondhand copy that contains the walmart dlc code, then try your luck again to see if the code still works

and make the xbox 360 version of driven to win backwards compatible while they're at it

[random steppe]

For rendering it is a thing, but I think it's kind of fair to people to be worried about Microsoft adding AI tools where it actively hinders your experience after their nonsense with office and copilot

It's not like it would be the first time

[rugged flax]

Cash Cleaner has acquired British Pounds as a new curency
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2488370/view/505103620418570856?l=english

[dense crypt]

Bri'ish!?

[fresh bane]

https://youtu.be/0XSd3mCJpus?si=YAuPj3mDQVgKepog

It's really quite impressive just how well RE engine behaves with older machines and lower specs in general

[river veldt]

how old is the RE engine anyways ? it's still pretty new right ?

[fresh bane]

Debuted with RE7 in 2017 so it's probably been worked on since at least 2014-2015

[dense crypt]

Nearly ten years old huh

gif of that guy turning old

[fresh bane]

But with each game it gets significantly more and more impressive and surprisingly not at the cost of performance at all

[river veldt]

yeah i was about to say, the visuals are still insanely impressive to me

[hasty patio]

"Keep Calm and Count On" was right there and they didn't take it.

[cunning galleon]

?? Leisurely walk

[cunning galleon]

I raided an entire fucking military base for you, and you give in to smoking crack???

[cunning galleon]

The fit for end of the line

[worthy rose]

https://share.google/Ptdje7H1vMgy8Dy0j

[visual hill]

I have seen a lot of emulation projects being heavily vibe-coded lately

even source ports are doing this too

I came across a Quake 4 source port (which is a rather impressive feat on its own) that admits it's being vibecoded

Development Notice: This project leans heavily on exploratory, agentic AI "vibe coding" for speed. If you want a strictly engineered, process-heavy codebase, this probably isn't for you.

at least it's honest 🙂

for context, Quake 4's source code was never released, so the only option is to adapt a Doom 3 source port to be compatible with Quake 4 assets

[quiet swift]

Says in a further comment that it should stop appearing by next weekish or so if it still appears for you

[mossy flume]

The scourge of private equity strikes again

[astral steeple]

What

[wind stump]

👢

[robust latch]

https://equestria.social/@moyme/116217551144496989

Moyme (@[email protected])

I added some breakable tiles to the game. #mlp #brony #rainbowfactory #gamedev

▶ Play video

Equestria Social Network · Mar 12, 2026, 6:11 PM

[quiet swift]

Princess of Equestria~?

[astral steeple]

????????

[fickle garnet]

What does this even mean? What's the context

[astral steeple]

Apparently it's some web series doing a collab with cod mobile

[fickle garnet]

Ok

[gaunt marten]

I found a crazy person

SteamDB is a troll's best friend. Scroll through any game's comments or community space and you'll find the same thing: someone showing up with a SteamDB chart going "lol 40 peak players, this game is dead." And then the pile-on starts. Not just on the game, but on the people still playing it. Suddenly enjoying something "low population" makes you a target.

This is genuinely damaging. Millions of dollars and dozens of people's lives are at the whim of a screenshot and a snarky title. It doesn't matter if the game is good, if the community is healthy, or if people are having fun, the moment SteamDB numbers get weaponized, the narrative is set. Publishers panic, studios lose funding, and the game goes under. Every. Single. Time. No game can survive this, quality release or not.

It's giving 1983 vibes. This is unsustainable. So much money is being lost and all this is going to result in is more cookie-cutter games that will result in less attention and more attacks. Indies may survive, the occasional big budget GTA will survive, but the larger industry, 2nd party, 3rd party mid-to large budget teams are toast. I hope I'm wrong.

They think that for some reason, SteamDB, a third party website which collects openly available data and makes it presentable and easy to read, is causing games to fail because trolls can attack games so much better

And for some reason they're mentioning he 1983 video game crash, which mostly happened because real game quality went down across the board

[slim thorn]

I wonder if they meant 1984 and typo'd. None of that paragraph seems specific to the '83 crash.

yeah I've never heard of a game that had a "healthy community" and then got taken down by haters, in that order

[gaunt marten]

It's even less related to 1984, and it is ostensibly a community for discussing video games so they must know about it

[slim thorn]

oh I wouldn't assume anyone posting hot takes knows anything about actual VG history

[gaunt marten]

Given that they typed it twice, I think it's less likely to be a typo

[slim thorn]

oh that's true, I didn't see the 2nd instance

[visual hill]

daily reminder that the "dead game" expression needs to die 🙂

a game with 1000 online players is one you can still easily find games on, at any time of the day (...well, except in Asia or Oceania)

for a majority of the playerbase, it's not a concern

[mossy flume]

What.

Crazy person is crazy and has no idea how anything works.

[visual hill]

I think Slippi has like 500-600 online players on average (we don't have stats), but you can literally start the launcher and get hit by a Falco laser in a 20-second span

[mossy flume]

The entire concept of a "dead game" makes zero sense

The only sense in which this might be applicable if it's a multiplayer-only game with no players.

[slim thorn]

a game does not die the true death until every living person has forgotten it exists

[mossy flume]

I do not understand this mentality that games are only viable when there are ten million regular and currently active players, including single player-only titles

[slim thorn]

but sure there is such a thing as an unsustainably small "player base" for multiplayer stuff, I have no idea how that works numerically since I don't engage with such games but it pretty clearly does not work as the rant above describes

[mossy flume]

And yeah, neither the 1983 crash nor 1984 applies to this person's argument, and I'm not sure which one they're alluding to. Neither of them fit. While they might be trying to invoke the video game crash, that was a situation which would not be applicable to this sort of panic, even if it was remotely reasonable.

[cerulean herald]

they see video games with player counts lower than expectations and blames it on screenshots instead of maybe the game wasnt all that great to begin with

but then again its more likely they might have a rly warped view of what a "non-dead" player count looks like (same energy as "this film didnt make a billion dollars so it wasnt very successful")

[mossy flume]

That's my assumption. Also, they might be steeped in a particularly toxic social bubble.

[indigo pine]

or they are the classic basement dweler.

[cerulean herald]

I think it is def 1983, they think the gaming industry will crash and struggle like in 1983, but its clear they dont rly understand the why and how of 1983
1984 makes little sense here imo

[slim thorn]

tbc, I was not suggesting 1984 because it makes more sense (it doesn't), but because more people have heard of and would recognize 1984 than 1983

[cerulean herald]

thats fair, there is certainly a certain crowd that would cry 1984 when video games dont do certain things

[astral steeple]

Who remembers that old hl2 mod smashball lol

Used to be like decently popular back in like 2009/2010

You had a grappling hook and guns and had to get the ball into the opponents goal

[visual hill]

I remember seeing that name but never played it

there was definitely a wave of "ultraviolent sports" trend, Unreal Tournament was basically that in arena shooter form

Blood Bowl too

[dense crypt]

Blood Bowl is my violent sport of choice

Blood Bowl 3 is getting an update relatively soon that changes the name to Warhammer: Blood Bowl, and is gonna add a seven-player teams mode, down from the normal 11.

it's gonna change the games rules to reflect the recently released 3rd season edition of the tabletop game

Looking forward to it

[astral steeple]

Monday night combat was also really good

[dense crypt]

I enjoy the aesthetic of violent sports games, kinda miss it honestly. Unreal Tournament is done for, thanks Epic Games, which was the premier game of that style.

[quiet swift]

I do see the point where being able to see concurrent players of a game can be damaging, because people are dicks and if things dip below, say, 10k players then people immediately label things a 'dead game'. It's bad enough that the dev/publishers has this internal data, but players also having it is just loads of easily accessible negative PR

Not sure what they are talking about in regards to the 83 crash or 84 or whatever point that makes tho

https://fxbsky.app/profile/debread.yeen.town.ap.brid.gy/post/3mgrwsvnbq6w2

DeBread :blebraccoon: (@debread.yeen.town.ap.brid.gy)

Flight attendants had to move my giant yoshi plush to an empty seat in the back because it was taking too much room in the ceiling compartment, look a what they did to him 😭😭

**🔁 291 ❤️ 762 **

FxBluesky · Mar 11, 2026, 12:58 PM

[shell shore]

My sister taught my dad how to play Roblox, god help those children

[light gate]

Quality airline.

[cerulean herald]

you just know that yoshi is flying to a tax haven

[toxic seal]

New Subnautica dev pics dropped. The game looks stunning.

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

[quiet swift]

I think there was an update to the case a while back but I forget the details. That, or I'm thinking of the ashes of creation one

Hmm, nothing new on the subnautica case front since december

[ripe mica]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGBNui2UIvU

[river veldt]

do you guys have any video games you associate with/give you MLP vibes

[mossy flume]

The Gameloft game

And Battle Gem Ponies

Them’s Fightin’ Herds

And the g5 game
…kinda it on my part tbh

Dunno about any similar vibes

[cerulean herald]

Ooh Annalynn
someone here talked about it I think, I forgot who, but I got the game bc of them
wouldnt have ever expected this

[river veldt]

fuck i forgot to specify non MLP games

[ripe mica]

Yee, also been wanting more puyo puyo type games myself, so this heavily welcomed

[random steppe]

Spiritfarer would probably be one

[river veldt]

good one ! i really need to play that

this will sound insane but New Vegas always makes me think of MLP, might just be because of FoE though lol

[cerulean herald]

I guess Omori if I had to pick one

[gaunt marten]

Chicori

[cunning galleon]

Let's get GTA San Andreas'ing, gonna have to need 10 more gang territories to do end of the line

sigh

Time to jam to music while murdering countless gang members in GTA

[quiet swift]

There's a "darkest grimdark" bundle on steam at the moment, which is darkest dungeon + rogue trader. Odd bundle but okay. RT on its own is 60% off (19.99), and darkest dungeon isn't discounted at all. The bundle is however discounted, and the bundle itself is cheaper than either game (49.99 and 24.99). AND I have DD already, so... it's discounting the rogue trader part of the bundle to 60% off and i'm seeing it somehow for 12.99.

Fucking yoink

[cunning galleon]

i like to replace ingame models for gta

[cerulean herald]

why no one told me that GTA did a collab with Hololive smh

[cunning galleon]

The fucking spotlight

[cerulean herald]

[river veldt]

hey im playing Rdr2 rn we're both playing R* games

[cerulean herald]

R*ckstar

[cunning galleon]

Rockst*r

[cunning galleon]

Bringing brokie to the big city

She won't stop smoking weed

Also, despite playing this game since i was really young

I actually haven't beaten the game on my own

I always stop at like the Las Venturas Triad missions

I mean i have but keywords is "on my own". Right now, it's not assisted with anything because 64bit doesn't have cleo support for mobile

[fresh bane]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3747730/Legacy_of_Kain_Defiance_Remastered/

Steam

Legacy of Kain: Defiance Remastered

Return to the dark world of Nosgoth as you take control of both the vampire Kain and his betrayed lieutenant, Raziel, two powerful entities bound by the conflict between free will and fate.

Armed with legendary blades and supernatural abilities, battle through towering gothic spaces filled with enemies, puzzles, and long-buried secrets – where…

Price

$24.99

Recommendations

342

https://www.gog.com/en/game/legacy_of_kain_defiance_remastered

Somehow I completely missed that it had already come out, but LoK Defiance remastered is out now

and the brand new Legacy of Kain game is coming out at the end of March

[quiet swift]

Old boss of Overwatch at blizz

Rather depressing and revealing part of this interview

[ripe mica]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YnopCuFTWM

[dense crypt]

gorl dorfs

[cunning galleon]

Only GTA where the train stops

The driver of this train got out to join the riot

[random steppe]

Speaking of which, I think I am like a week worth of playing from finishing RT.
Great game, kinda loses some steam towards the end, but the overall impression is definitely still positive.

[cunning galleon]

Wow, San Andreas is still a pretty solid game despite it's age

22 hours of playtime, i estimate 18-19 hours of story if you don't dilly-dally like i did

I got an ultra rare car too!

You only get them once, in the last mission, and never again

So i stole it twice (and forced a fail twice)

But i only have 1 garage in Los Santos and putting 2 in the same one means i won't be able to get both out, so i drove one to Las Venturas

Even after finishing the story, I'm only around 56% completion

[cunning galleon]

Delicious

Anyway, after beating this game

I found it much, much, much more entertaining than say GTA 5,GTA 4,GTA VC, and GTA III

It's crazy how good this game actually is and how big the map feels even tho it's not that big

There's also a lot of things, i still have to do the caligula heist missions and the rc missions. And after that I've got schools to take to gold, races to finish, collectibles. And after that stats to max, cars to export. And finally, i can gamble

[graceful bridge]

https://youtu.be/5EJF3ROUMKI?si=_bIMSKVlNqFLDg2p

[cunning galleon]

Hm, yes. Peak GTA

[ripe mica]

https://youtu.be/yLf53DESDTs

[worthy rose]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/were-going-to-lay-off-1000-people-and-thats-going-to-be-on-you-ex-overwatch-director-jeff-kaplan-says-redundancy-ultimatum-led-to-his-blizzard-exit ah, more detailed version of the interview

[random steppe]

I can't take any publication that doesn't introduce this man as "Jeff (formerly) from the Overwatch team." seriously

[worthy rose]

https://www.gamesradar.com/games/xbox-just-revealed-gaming-copilot-is-coming-to-current-generation-consoles-later-this-year/

(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

[cerulean herald]

missed oppurtunity to call the gamer version Co-op Pilot
Co-opilot

[wind stump]

B-r-r-r-r

[mossy flume]

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/palworlds-bucky-got-off-a-plane-to-find-about-8-000-discord-messages-from-palworld-fans-who-really-wanted-him-to-know-about-pickmon-god-bless-their-little-hearts/

[visual hill]

Midtown Madness 2 multiplayer lives on

[wind stump]

WAIT KIRA BUCKLAND DID VAING FOR FUCKING CASTLE CRASHERS?

2 FUCKING B

[fresh bane]

https://youtu.be/UeK30pUIzq8?si=bcztQYDs3bzbtyjv

It looks awful.... I love it

You know I kinda give this (and the PSP Spiderman 2) a lot of flak sometimes, but for 2002 it looks impressively good
Like, just for comparison, these two games were a year apart

[river veldt]

i have memories of watching the trailer for this game on the dvd for Spider-Man 1

[fresh bane]

at the very least, it wasn't Spiderman 2 for the PC.... I was unfortunate enough to have to play that one instead of the PS2/Gamecube version and that one's unforgivable
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8OjXs1UEhs

[visual hill]

PS2 Spider-Man 2 is very good, PC Spider-Man 2 not really

same name, different game

PS2 Spider-Man 2 probably has the most tryhard web swinging in the series, at least as an option

the CTR of webswinging 🙂

[fresh bane]

No no, there is another

https://youtu.be/MW3b6ZEuIpY?si=6VPQOKrXg_4dTuk_

the PSP version of Spiderman 2 is much like Spiderman 1

the PSP version of Spiderman 3 is the one that's closer to Spiderman 2 and the only Spiderman game on the PSP to have an open world
even the Web of Shadows PSP port was a side scroller platformer beat-em-up like the oldschool Spiderman games

[mossy flume]

https://kotaku.com/i-miss-when-multiplayer-games-werent-changing-all-the-time-2000678717

Perpetually fussing over every single thing in a game so that it's as perfectly engineered as possible for maximum appeal just means every single game just gradually coalesces into being the same game. Nothing embraces itself anymore and developers are too afraid of having weird quirks.

Also if a game is constantly changing, there's no incentive to actually get into it since anything you do will just be irrelevant later

[river veldt]

oh man, i forgot how beautiful the White Arabian horse is in RDR2

literally Celestia

[fresh bane]

Kids in 2029 will grow up being told tales of how, at one point in time, games including multiplayer focused games would release as a fully finished product, good and bad

imagine that, a game releasing and being finished when you buy it
how did they even survive back then without a constantly rotating battle pass and crossover skins

[mossy flume]

And not only that, they were thoroughly debugged before release because releasing an updated revision was really expensive and difficult

[slim thorn]

I also like the stories of 80s and 90s games that released in buggy, incomplete states, and had to snail mail floppy disks with patches to their customers

[astral steeple]

Idk why but I'm kinda tempted to get this gaming mousepad for my pc lol

[mossy flume]

In the era of PC gaming in the 00s, you had to manually download and install patches if they were made available (And if you learned they existed, which you probably didn't)

[slim thorn]

on a technical level, the fact that devs today can just fix a bug and give all players that bugfix overnight is insane in a good way, and should have been a win for everyone

[mossy flume]

The problem is when that ability is overused

We'v'e kinda forgotten that software can just be done

[slim thorn]

I mean, I haven't
I dunno wtf the wider market has been smoking

[mossy flume]

Heh, fair

[slim thorn]

some of it is consumer protections and other legal mechanisms not keeping up with the times so abuse is easier than it should be

but a lot of it is simply people paying for things that clearly do not deserve their money, according to plenty of publicly available information at the time of purchase (assuming you don't preorder blah blah blah)

"if you're not having fun, play something else" needs to become common sense again

[fickle garnet]

I wish we could go back to this😔

its also really ironic that the guy (slipgate dev) who wor a hat saying "make shooters great again" was actively making a shooter that has exactly what's been making multiplayer shooters not great in it

[random steppe]

There are some ongoing games that I love to death, but yeah, the more I get older the more I'm reminded of the value of a good goddamn ending and a decent pacting in stories in general, games most of all.

[fickle garnet]

I will never stop pointing out how much of a hypocrite that guy is

[random steppe]

Gaming are second only to harem anime with horrenous pacing in media if you ask me.

[mossy flume]

I'm pretty sure this trend is why I struggle to play games these days

[slim thorn]

well, it does depend which video games you mean

[random steppe]

On average

[slim thorn]

some of the best games are that good largely because they nailed pacing

[mossy flume]

Just about anything, tbh

[slim thorn]

I guess the part I'd agree with is that a video game can be popular and successful in spite of bad pacing

in other media that tends to quickly become a fatal flaw (with some notable exceptions like your haremslop example, and AFAICT even those are only "working" with the lowest common denominator audience that's not really paying attention)

[random steppe]

Speaking only about story I mean, it's because a game isn't only there to tell a story well, it's also there to make you have fun with the gameplay, and I feel the two goals are often in tension.

[slim thorn]

oh yeah they are definitely in tension in a lot of games

often the best games are ones that find a storytelling and gameplay style that complement each other instead of conflict

[random steppe]

Classic example with Fallout 4 start, sure your son was kidnapped and is somewhere and you should probably look into it, but also, we built this massive open world, with a lot of side stuff for you to do.

[slim thorn]

I think another factor is that is a game's pacing depends so much more on the player; sometimes it is literally the player's fault, but even when it's not, it's a lot harder to "make players play at the right speed" than it is to make moviegoers watch a movie at the right speed lol

[random steppe]

I think the ploriferation of open worlds made the problem a lot worse.

[slim thorn]

true, open worlds are incompatible with a lot of traditional storytelling

even Witcher 3 suffered from that

[random steppe]

Agreed

[gaunt marten]

They should make open world Hades

[random steppe]

The only situations in which it works, is the stories in which exploration is sort of the point

But even then, usually the story do kind of suffer anyway

I guess I don't care as much because if that's the story you wanted to tell, it would have suffered no matter what and at least the exploration part does feel more immersive

[gaunt marten]

Crosscode has a good hybrid

[slim thorn]

Most of the open world games I've seen avoid this problem do so simply by having so little to the "story" that there's not much to conflict with, it ends up being more themes and vibes than your traditional plot and character arcs. Which to be clear isn't necessarily a bad thing, e.g. I liked Sable's minimalist framing of its open world significantly more than I liked BotW's fragmented flashbacks.

[gaunt marten]

The world is segmented into many open areas, which you unlock as you do the story

[random steppe]

Witcher 3 IMO almost made it work, the problem is that the open world wasn't engaging.
Because the story is about looking for Ciri. so exploration could have worked, it's just a cookie cutter open world system bolted on the game, it doesn't feel like going around being a Witcher

Still the game looks good enough and the music is evocative enough that it's not a bad time, it just could have been more.

[slim thorn]

broadly agree; I would say it didn't have a solution to the fundamental tension, but better implementations of certain things might've mitigated it enough to be harmless

[random steppe]

Also I think the reason it almost worked, is that it had solid vignettes.
Sure you were going around exploring, but when you got to an important location, the game sort of focused on a smaller cast of characters to tell a pretty substantial story beat.
So it didn't feel quite as disconnected as it could have otherwise been

[river veldt]

my favourite open world game is red dead redemption 2

[slim thorn]

I think to have "substantial" plot/character in a truly non-segmented open world game, you need to abandon the urgency and tension that are traditionally the core of a "beat up the big bad" video game plot. Because freeform exploration does fundamentally clash with the "every minute Calamity Ganon isn't dead, all of Hyrule is suffering" style of motivation most games default to; there's no way to reconcile those two, only mitigate the damage. But there's plenty of stories you can tell which are not driven by urgency and tension.

and yeah that probably means character-focused episodic/vignette storytelling

(RDR2 is kinda like that, right? I've only seen snippets of it)

[random steppe]

I thinki "looking for someone" is a decent excuse, since you know where to look broadly, but also, it's vague enough that exploring off the beaten path isn't wildly clashing with your main objective.,

I never felt that I was completely ignoring Ciri pleas of help (except when I was playing Gwent)

[rancid herald]

(Yes, every minute you don't kill Calamity Ganon in RDR2, Hyrule suffers.)

[slim thorn]

oh I didn't even play Gwent and half the sidequests felt obviously irrelevant

[random steppe]

I'm gonna be honest, in RDR2 I lost interest.
I should give it another shot at some point but I got sidetracked into oblivion.

Probably I was at a "too many open worlds" status at the time

[river veldt]

not that i can think of no, though maybe that's just me since i never noticed the BotW thing either. i suppose towards the end when (genuinely do not unspoil if you're ever gonna play it) ||Arthur has TB and the gang is falling apart might have a little of that but i don't think it's that egregious||

[cerulean herald]

yep it suffers from that, does not help that I am the type of person who does every single side quest before progressing the main story

I dont mind that personally, but the distractions are real

[random steppe]

But then again, I'm not gonna go back to it too soon because I got KCD2 to play sometimes soon, and then I wanted to look at that game, Tainted Grail that everyone was fussing about last year, which are already 2 open worlds I have on my plate.

[slim thorn]

granted, the story problem was never my biggest issue with open worlds (or perhaps it's a mere symptom or facet of my biggest issue): usually it's that being open world encourages quantity over quality in all other aspects, leaving me feeling like there's a great ~20 hour game struggling to be seen inside this ~200 hour mess

[river veldt]

i wanna try KCD2 someday but idk how it performs on Steam Deck

[slim thorn]

also because most of my favorite open world games are 10-20 hours, like A Short Hike or The Pathless or Sable

[river veldt]

it's funny because that's the complete opposite of me

[slim thorn]

yeah, I haven't tried RDR2 because by the time it came out, I could already tell I was the worst possible player for what it's trying to be

[gaunt marten]

How do you feel about Abzu?

[slim thorn]

still on the backlog, I've played Journey and Pathless and Sword of the Sea but didn't get to Abzu yet

[random steppe]

It's weird to hear that because I'm struggling with Rogue Trader now, where it's not Open World but it's kinda Open World in principle.
As in, you have your ship, and you have a series of star systems you can go check out, and you are pretty much given freedom to do that in any order.

And I think I love that game, but I think it might be kind of a mess at times.
And pacing for certain quest is a problem, but the bigger one is that I feel like the second half of the game actually needed more content for as wild as it sounds for a massive game that is lasting me months.
It's not that it has too few quests, it's more that it needed more wild outcomes for the content that's there.

It's a really weird feeling.

[slim thorn]

I guess I would still phrase that last part as a quantity over quality thing: make fewer quests so you can give each quest all the varied outcomes it deserves

[gaunt marten]

Always funny to see what steam games I have tagged open world that clearly aren't. Why is Final Fantasy X open world? It has one open zone and the rest all hallways.

[slim thorn]

it's like how most RPGs struggle to make it feel like your 50 billion dialogue choices mattered to the main plot, partly because there's only so many variations they can pack into a single ending, so I usually end up liking the game more if it never built up that kind of expectation in the first place

E33 for example never gave anyone the impression it would have a squillion branches that somehow all mattered. That game's plot is 99% linear and it is perfect exactly the way it is.

[random steppe]

Well for Rogue Trader it kind of comes with the territory of making a CRPG

[river veldt]

final hallway x

[cerulean herald]

I rly dont like it when a game gives you 2 dialogue options and both have the exact same dialogue response. I wouldnt care too much about "every choice matters" but man give different text for each option