Stovetop

@Stovetop@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft has never been good at running game studios, which is a problem when it owns them all⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Agreed, I think it also hurts the games trying to even have a singular “villain” in the first place. Halo 1-3 had villainous figures, but I don’t think anyone was under the belief that just killing the 3 Prophets would solve the problem of the Covenant, or that killing the Gravemind would mean that the Flood would never be a problem again.

  Halo relies on having compelling factions with clear purpose and ideology to act as antagonists in a general sense. The Prometheans in 4 weren’t bad, but outside of the Didact, they had no real purpose or personality. They were just an obstacle. I was really looking forward to the premise of 5 with the concept of going rogue and tackling the underlying themes of fascism at the heart of the UNMC, but then it just rapidly pivoted to some other garbage with Cortana and the Guardians which led to nothing in the end anyways. And so I didn’t even bother to play Infinite.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft has never been good at running game studios, which is a problem when it owns them all⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Do you mean 343/Halo Studios or is 545 some sort of reference I’m missing?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Day 353 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I've been playing⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  You can!

  Worth noting for anyone looking to play both N64 games is that OoT Gerudo stay stunned indefinitely (until the area is reloaded) but the Pirates in Majora’s Mask who are borrowed from the Gerudo guards only stay stunned for a short time before getting back up.

  This incentizes use of the Stone Mask, which can be obtained from the invisible guard by giving him a red potion. If playing the N64 version, he is located outside of Ikana Graveyard, which is a place that you can get to at that point in the game but many might not have bothered exploring yet. In the 3DS version, they moved him directly into Pirates Fortress so he’s harder to miss, but it does require just a little bit of stealth to get to where he is first.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft layoffs are reportedly underway, with ZeniMax and King employees losing their jobs⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I just think it stopped being a good deal the moment they implemented their first price increase. That signalled that they’re willing to do what every other subscription service does and raise prices as arbitrarily high as people are willing to pay, with the enticement being that you can’t unsub or you’re left with no games.

  If you have copious time for gaming and are always on the hunt for sometbing new, is it still a better deal than buying every game at release? Sure, at least for now. But the patient gaming strat at least gives me a backlog of affordable titles too long to finish them all, and I can also return to it at any time without worrying about titles eventually disappearing from a subscription catalog.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft layoffs are reportedly underway, with ZeniMax and King employees losing their jobs⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m honestly surprised anyone still has it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨‘There Isn’t Much Sway Held by Past Success’: Baldur’s Gate 3 actors reveal it hasn’t boosted their careers⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s exactly it, they have the ability to go about certain scenes in different ways.

  I still only have the Astarion/Cazador example, because that’s the only origin character I played as, but one moment I remember as different between Astarion as party member versus Astarion as player is the conversation with his former lover Sebastian before confronting Cazador.

  In my playthrough with Astarion as an NPC, he basically auto-piloted through most of that conversation. He remembered who Sebastian was, it was somewhat touching, and the player was able to ask Astarion questions for context.

  In my playthrough as Astarion as the player, you can navigate that conversation in different ways, but there are also certain things that are no longer a given. You actually have to roll to remember who Sebastian is (which I flubbed) and that changes the course of the conversation away from the NPC “default” conversation.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨‘There Isn’t Much Sway Held by Past Success’: Baldur’s Gate 3 actors reveal it hasn’t boosted their careers⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  but if you play as any of the characters you barely hear them, or so I’ve heard.(haven’t done it myself)

  This is the case. There are a small set of instances where the character might get a one-off voice line, but in general you’re left mute, even during high impact story moments where the character would usually get a spotlight (e.g. Astarion confronting Cazador).

  It’s just a bit of a shame because you’d think people would opt to play characters they like because they want to experience more of them while playing, but ironically you get less that way.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨‘There Isn’t Much Sway Held by Past Success’: Baldur’s Gate 3 actors reveal it hasn’t boosted their careers⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Agreed, I think it’s more that Jennifer English is out there putting in the work to get as many solid gigs as she can, BG3 being just one of several.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Corporations are saving the planet!⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Not sure if this applied universally, but I remember for years and years the common knowledge was that plastic caps are unrecyclable for some reason, and there used to be separate bins to toss them at recycling centers. That’s no longer the case, so keeping the cap connected to the bottle is one way to demonstrate that they should be recycled together.

  (By “recycled” I mean most likely shipped to Southeast Asia to then most likely just find their way into the ocean)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Purge⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I thought they were implying “Purge the keep, snack the booze.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Death Stranding 2: On the Beach | Review Thread (92/100 OpenCritic)⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Stellar Blade is a 2024 game, so likely not GotY this year if it wasn’t even close last year.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨MindsEye Developer Build a Rocket Boy Begins Layoff Process Amid Disastrous Launch, Studio Sources Say⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I am seeing more and more of these “review bomb” takes lately, too. Dragon Age Veilguard getting review bombed because their game is too woke. Moon Studios saying they might have to close because trolls are review bombing their new game. Monster Hunter Wilds being review bombed on Steam because entitled PC gamers expect their games to be stable, I guess.

  Too many people out there are deflecting legitimate criticism in favor of what are basically conspiracy theories—that there must be a concerted effort to specifically punish these developers in particular for the crime of releasing a misunderstood masterpiece. No one wants to accept the possibility that they just put out a bad game.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨For considerably less than the price of the Super Deluxe Edition of Boarderlands 4. I have almost all of Assassins Creed on one box.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m surprised someone actually likes AC3, most takes I see for it are terrible.

  AC2 is the one people usually prefer

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨For considerably less than the price of the Super Deluxe Edition of Boarderlands 4. I have almost all of Assassins Creed on one box.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Almost guaranteed, at least. Consoles are now in the habit of closing their stores after a new generation or two when they stop making enough money, and there are a lot of games today that aren’t really playable without a day 1 patch or additional content requirement that are simply not included on the disc.

  A lot of games (not even just Nintendo) don’t even include the game data on the physical media anymore. The disc/cart acts only as a license and the entire thing is downloaded from the store when first used.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨So um, america just started another war in the middle east. We're going to need a shit ton more memes to americans from the nightmare they are enduring. Thanks in advance...⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  We saved Palestine, Reddit Lemmy!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨SpaceX's Starship blows up ahead of 10th test flight⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  People live around there, so harm is definitely being done to the air they breathe and the environment they live in.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨SpaceX's Starship blows up ahead of 10th test flight⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Waiting for the SpaceX bros to tell everyone how this was actually a good thing because it was supposed to happen and means everything is going well.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Reddit will help advertisers turn ‘positive’ posts into ads⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  As a single mom, it’s hard for me to be proactive about my kids’ health, but I have to say that Cerave cream has been a GODSEND for treating the scratches and blisters they get at work.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Stellar Blade on PC Hit 1 Million Sales 19 Times Faster Than on PlayStation 5⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  More gooners on PC than PlayStation I guess

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨PC Gaming’s Mascot Squad—who makes the cut?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Could just go with Thrall for a Warcraft character. He wasn’t on the box for WoW 1.0, but he is basically the face of Warcraft as a franchise.

  I feel like a WoW console release is destined to happen eventually, though, now that Microsoft owns them. We’ll have to see.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨NO KINGS!⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Just for some extra context, the character having a bad day was promised “a crown” (make me king) by this group of warlords he enlisted to support him. He proceeds to be such an unlikable shit for such a long time, they give him “a crown” by pouring molten gold on his head.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨When the riot squads come...⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Bystanders*

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Been a good couple of years⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  They’re thick in the “ads bring us more money than making improvements” phase of corporate bullshit now.

  Reddit still can’t make a better app than the ones made by solo developers who just did it as a passion project, but they’ve got enough money to throw around for a Superbowl ad spot and an entire ad campaign on YouTube.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Switch 2 Breaks Records By Selling Over 3.5 Million Units In Four Days⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t think the Xbox One was a disappointment due to a boycott, I think it was just a product people didn’t feel the need to buy.

  Sure, there was early controversy about the always-online DRM approach they planned to take, but it didn’t launch with that in the end. What killed its hype was just being US$100 more expensive than the PS4 and having no killer exclusives lined up.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Inside the 'Dragon Age' Debacle That Gutted EA's BioWare Studio⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  One factor might be just that Mass Effect came out first and was also Bioware’s last game before EA bought them.

  The rest is just my opinion, but I do believe that Mass Effect simply told a better story (multicolored endings aside) and had a better cast of characters. Not to mention the fact that it was a single narrative across the three installments helped keep engagement up. And shooters were incredibly popular at that time.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not on lemm.ee myself so I don’t have much of a horse in this race, but I’ve been paying attention to other moves from other lemm.ee communities.

  Piefed.social is a popular one because it has community migration features that make it very convenient for situations like this, but other Lemmy instances are also common choices (lemmy.zip, sopuli.xyz, lemmy.world, lemmy.ca, sh.itjust.works, lemmy.blahaj.zone, and others).

  Basically it’s a question of: do you want the easy migration option that requires moving to a new platform with better tools but less robust mobile app support; and if not, which alternative Lemmy instance most closely reflects the values of the community.

  Might also help to check which instances already have counterpart communities, which could affect the decision on where to go. I think there’s already an !elderscrolls@lemmy.world, for example.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Sorry, should’ve clarified that this isn’t directed towards you, OP! Just at a lot of the other comments in here who are acting like someone else’s decision to buy an expensive gadget is a personal insult to them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Console wars stopped being cool years ago. Everyone has their preferences and favorites, no need to shit on someone’s fun because you think yours is better.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Spiritfarer Developer Thunder Lotus Reveals At Fate's End, An Action Game With Dialogue-Driven Combat⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Spiritfarer was a masterpiece, hope their next game also succeeds.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How often do you take him for a walk?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think it’s more the fact that kids weren’t really brought to busy markets/stores 100 years ago, nor were there busy streets full of cars everywhere. They stayed home or just in the local environment, and typically mom would also stay home to watch them and make sure they stayed out of trouble.