NuXCOM_90Percent
@NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
- Comment on Nintendo Switch 2 game-key cards not eligible for preservation by Japan’s National Diet Library, officials say 16 hours ago:
… why would it be? It is literally just a transferable serial key that is fully dependent on nintendo’s content servers to download the games.
Might as well say that the scratch off card in a PC game box should be preserved.
- Comment on After stretching the definition of 'beta' for 8 years, Escape From Tarkov is finally hitting 1.0 23 hours ago:
Conceptually?
It is a looter shooter (a shlooter, if you will) cranked up to 11. Since now you need to actually be vulnerable while you spend time sorting through the loot pinata you just shot rather than holding a button to vacuum up all the purples and oranges.
And when you get into an actual gunfight with someone, it genuinely feels like you are in a big budget “prestige” action film as you play cat and mouse, barely miss someone, take a shot to your chest plate, and are frantically trying to wrap a bandage around your arm while listening for footsteps or, even worse, a grenade.
Then you add the humans into the mess and it all goes to shit. Because now? They know where everything that matters for progression is on a map and just camp it. There is no gunfight because they are just aiming at where you head will be when you bend down to get the key you need to unlock a vendor.
So then you need to watch a bunch of videos online to learn where the popular camping spots are for every extraction and objective. Which means THEY need to watch videos to learn where to hide to camp those anti-camping spots and so forth. And, because Tarkov is so hardcore, nobody has any maps or compasses and you need to memorize the layout of every single map visually.
And if you DO luck out and actually get one of those gunfights? Yeah… the other person has been playing the game for 90 hours a week and has L5 body armor that you literally can’t penetrate without half a mag. And they have thermal scopes and armor piercing rounds that shred through your plate carrier instantly.
And that assumes they aren’t just hacking where you get the telltale sound of a burst going from between the center of your head to just above it as your body falls before the audio shuts off.
All that said: Tarkov with the SPTarkov mod is actually fucking amazing. Although you still have the problem of needing to memorize maps because paper maps cost a lot of money and take up slots because The Failed State That Is Totally Ukraine doesn’t have photocopiers or even scraps of paper to jot down landmarks on while staring at one of the few maps in The Legally Distinct And Much Less Interesting Zone.
- Comment on After stretching the definition of 'beta' for 8 years, Escape From Tarkov is finally hitting 1.0 2 days ago:
I would say that most of the “legacy” live games are. Warframe is to the point that the developers, Digital Extremes, outright make fun of it being a 13 year old beta and jokes about what Soulframe counts as these days.
And a lot of it is because they launched into beta/early access/whatever before there was even a model for what that means.
Contrast that with the “newer” games like tarkov that assign milestones to leaving beta. Well, it used to be that leaving beta meant that tarkov would go to Steam but now it mostly is just being done so they can keep releasing expansions/modes without needing to put it in the deluxe preorder edition.
- Comment on After stretching the definition of 'beta' for 8 years, Escape From Tarkov is finally hitting 1.0 2 days ago:
I can’t speak to those streamers in particular but Anissem (and whoever else) should understand that milsims inherently attract chuds. And Tarkov above and beyond because nikita and BSG are… very very very pro-russia.
Not saying that everyone who plays tarkov is a fascy chud. But if you are looking for a community to hang out in, maybe listen for some dog whistles.
Which is why I wish Incursion Red River had taken off more. Set in fantasy war that never ended Vietnam so it is borderline The Last Jedi in that chuds just can’t talk about it without spewing hatred and bigotry.
- Comment on After stretching the definition of 'beta' for 8 years, Escape From Tarkov is finally hitting 1.0 2 days ago:
They spent the past month or two making this a wipe for ultra sweaties (Flea Market doesn’t unlock until level 80 or some nonsense) so that only the most diehard of fans are playing and they refuse to accept that the game they spend 90 hours a week watching other people play has problems.
- Comment on If copyright on a work expired immediately after death, would be that a bad or good idea? 2 days ago:
Define “death”.
For a book? There is very much an argument that the listed author would make sense. But… good authors tend to have ten or twenty solid pages of thanking their editors and beta readers and researchers and partners and so forth for very good reason. And while they tend to not get royalties (outside of the partner), those associated with the publisher sort of do in the sense of getting a continued paycheck in part because of their demonstrated “value”.
But let’s bump that up to a movie. Is the screenwriter the creator? What about a case where there were multiple “script doctors” brought in to punch up a premise? The director? The lead actor? The ridiculously good performance by the supporting actress that held every scene together? The people in the editing bay who turned “I want this scene to pop more” into actionable edits? The VFX team who did the entirety of every action sequence and half the dialogue because the costumes weren’t finalized until a week before it hit theatres?
And so forth. The time where works tended to have a singular creator was… closer to millennia ago than not. Even a lot of the “Willy Shakespeare was a fraud” is rooted in a misunderstanding of what editing and collaboration is.
I don’t know what a good model is. I like the concept of a fixed period with the idea that if you are continuing to use an IP then people will pay for the new stuff. Then I look at all the cash-in horror slop because Winnie the Pooh became public domain and… does that help ANYBODY?
My mind keeps coming back to the end of Sebastien de Castell’s Spellslinger series. He left a LOT of loose ends (in part because of the themes of the story he was telling which would be spoilers to elaborate on) but did a quick epilogue sequence of two characters reuniting. And then he wrote an afterward where he talked about how (paraphrasing) that is just one possible ending and that it doesn’t actually matter what he wrote because, after the years we all spent reading about Kellen and Reichis and Ferius and Nephenia and Shalla… they aren’t just his characters. They are OUR characters too. And what he can see as a potential future isn’t necessarily what we see. I forget if he explicitly said writing fanfiction was a good idea but… that is kind of the reality of it.
And in that sense? I increasingly come down on: Let the companies and creators keep their IPs. Only they get to profit. But also heavily strengthen fair use so long as there is no direct profit (we do need to understand the idea of ad revenue for a youtube channel or a website or something). Fill up AO3 with ALL the slop but keep it out of theatres unless they are gonna file the mormon off and Fifty Shades of Grey it. Beyond that? Whatever.
And just for those wondering what those themes were:
Spellslinger series spoilers
A huge part of the series, and de Castell’s writing in general, is the idea that the viewpoint character isn’t the main character. Yeah, Kellen Argos is a really cool con-man with limited casting capability who does heroic stuff. But there is little he can do against the horrors of the world other than to inspire, and force the hand of, those who can. And, in turn, he is inspired by those he loves. Kellen isn’t Frodo or Aragorn. He is Eowyn and Faramir.
- Comment on Random Things that I never expected: Infinity Nikki × Stardew Valley Collab Trailer 2 days ago:
Nikki is a shockingly competent hoyo-like hiding a gacha game about making an insane number of pulls to build an outfit while you play dress-up. Also, the overall metaplot among the franchise is Evangelion levels of batshit insane. But, at its core, it is still a ridiculously predatory gacha game.
And it looks like the Stardew side is just letting IN call itself “cozy”?
But yeah. At this point I think most people can probably find a farm/town sim that is a better match to their specific interests than Stardew, but Stardew Valley is still basically “Harvest Moon but actually good” and pretty much revitalized the entire genre singlehandedly. It is very much the jack of all trades in that it does everything really well but doesn’t excel at any one thing. Also the background plot is shockingly dark but most people will never pay enough attention to realize that.
Oh, and many of the romanceable NPCs are very much coded as underage so nobody tell Chris Hansen. Again, it is one of those things you only pick up on if you actually listen to their dialogue and think through what kinds of jobs they had before being swept off their feet by the new farmer in town.
- Comment on Why do new Silent Hill entries attract so much negativity? 3 days ago:
Nah. Modern day gooners are all based on how Arsenal fans just can’t stop touching themselves. Like, if you ever go to a game there is an entire section dedicated towards group edging.
In all seriousness, I have no idea what the actual origins of “gooning==masturbation” is. But the word “goon” mostly just is a synonym for thug or henchman. So a lot of groups used it because they are the bogeymen and blah blah blah.
- Comment on Why do new Silent Hill entries attract so much negativity? 3 days ago:
Woo, time to see how many gooners are actually on lemmy.
The modern “video game essay” format came out of people on the Something Awful forums who were REALLY into Silent Hill. It was Japanese style horror in a Western setting with a lot of fairly heavy themes and implications so it was the perfect confluence of weebing out and “it is dark so it is deep” level discourse. And what started as people writing thousands of word arguments for what the shovel being at an 80 degree angle in that shed meant became people making 60 minute youtubes on what it meant that Heather ALSO saw the titty nurses and how it represents her repressed lesbian urges. And 3 hour videos about Pyramid Head that would make even Freud roll his eyes.
And… basically all of the later Silent Hill games REALLY sucked. The Room has its defenders but pretty much everything after that is universally panned and with good reason. Up until last year-ish with the remake of 2.
Which was a different kind of shitstorm. Because now you had all these essayists who were The Keepers Of Silent Hill lore (one of the most famous ones wrote her master’s thesis on SH2 I want to say?) seeing the greatest of the games being remade. And by fucking Bloober team? Pretty much every essayist had keyed in that Bloober have some very questionable themes in some of their games. Uhm… trigger warnings but
spoiler
Bloober at least used to really like the trope of “The only way to stop this great evil infecting you is to kill yourself and it with you” and “They were a victim of abuse and should be pitied even as they perpetuated the cycle”. That are both, fairly unarguably, shitty mindsets but are also horror tropes going back literally centuries
So it was the mix of “This is MY game and MY story and how dare they change it” combined with “Also they picked the bogeymen that I hated on so hard last year that I could buy a car”.
And then… Bloober kind of made a masterpiece? Like, most of their changes are fairly loved/appreciated and everyone but the most hardcore of the SH2 Video Essayists loved it.
But now we have Silent Hill f that very much DOES feel like a cash in and a way to make a Fatal Frame but with a more marketable IP. But also… Fatal Frame fucked hard?
Either way? The most important thing ever is to never stop saying that Silent Hill (the town) is really smokey because it was built on top of a coal mine that caught fire and has been smouldering for decades. That is some real Silent Hill fan lore that not many people know but is really cool to share.
- Comment on Elden Ring on Switch 2 Is a Disaster in Handheld Mode - IGN 4 days ago:
You can basically ignore stances (Rise of the Ronin was TN experimenting with making that not an option). Just pick the stance you like (usually medium) and MAYBE swap to heavy against oni if you feel like you need to. Conceptually it is basically one handing or two handing (or… half handing?) a weapon in a Souls game. You aren’t swapping mid fight and are more deciding as you approach an encounter. That said… Nioh 3 by all indications is gonna make that integral.
Burst counters are all about figuring out what moveset you want. I personally love yellow (?) yokai because I rush forward. Which is baller as fuck but ALSO means that even if I parry too soon I have good odds of intercepting the attack and getting the punish. Whereas other people prefer blue for blocking or red for attacking.
But yeah. The Niohs are HORRIBLE for tutorialization even beyond the boss design. It took me up until the penultimate core boss in Nioh 1 to realize that I was an idiot for not using the special attacks. What went from hit and run with a katana became just holding r1+square to melt enemy HP with dual swords or doing massive ki damage with a katana or flying across the room with the kunai wit chain and so forth.
But once you figure out what parts of the game you can ignore and what matters? Oh there is nothing like that.
- Comment on Elden Ring on Switch 2 Is a Disaster in Handheld Mode - IGN 4 days ago:
Yeah. ER’s overworld is really not one you are meant to explore*. It is a lot closer to the Ubisoft design philosophy where the idea is you are going from point A to point B and find POIs (caves, mines, etc) along the way. So it is more that you should always more or less be walking in the direction of the grace sparkles and just do caves as you find them.
Outside of the good shit that you read about online to get more bell bearings or special weapons.
*: Until the DLC
- Comment on Hollow Knight: Silksong - Release Date Trailer (September 4) 4 days ago:
I would definitely have preferred armor but I found the weapon and spell progression to be really good up until it kinda just stops maybe 80% through ending A.
And entering the catacombs from the wrong (right?) direction is the kind of bullshit From aspires to. Pitch black, invisible enemies that feel like they are respawning, all just constantly rushing you from every direction as they walk through walls. And you are just struggling to find the torches while feeling like you are getting smacked with a greatsword every step you take.
- Comment on Hollow Knight: Silksong - Release Date Trailer (September 4) 4 days ago:
You need more Lunacid in your life. It has a LOT of modern game design and sensibilities but feels like exactly what we remembered KF to be.
- Comment on Hollow Knight: Silksong - Release Date Trailer (September 4) 4 days ago:
Nah. Us Soul Boy Beta… anyway the Souls fans had it easy. It was the Armored Core sickos that REALLY popped the fuck off when 6 was announced.
- Comment on Hollow Knight: Silksong - Release Date Trailer (September 4) 4 days ago:
Welp. That put the kibosh on my “I should replay Hollow Knight, huh?”
- Comment on Chrome VPN Extension With 100k Installs Screenshots All Sites Users Visit 4 days ago:
Because, again, it is about managing risk.
Pickpockets and muggers are a thing. Depending on how worried you are, you might consider only carrying just enough cash for the day but… good luck functioning on holiday in a foreign land without your phone. So you take precautions. You avoid the giant masses of tourists but you also avoid the super dark alleys. And you always keep a hand on your valuables.
Same thing here. There are plenty of activities where just having a layer of VPN is a great protection (all those linux ISOs, for example…). But I am also aware that were I to do anything where being identified is a serious risk to my safety? I am using alternative methods. And so forth.
So when someone says
NEVER trust a VPN.And you reply
The only exception to this is IMO ones that (I like)
You are actively giving bad advice and leading to the kind of shit this thread is about. People who didn’t do basic research who thought they were safe and… hopefully are just at a bit higher risk of getting a letter in the mail from the MPAA.
- Comment on Elden Ring on Switch 2 Is a Disaster in Handheld Mode - IGN 5 days ago:
I think DS1’s very structured first half is pure genius. Asylum and Taurus demons teach you about situational awareness and the value of using movement to manipulate your enemy and make openings. Capra teaches you to carry a god damned shield and that sometimes you have to trade health for progress. Gargoyles are DPS gates that also encourage actually summoning. Iron Giant exists… And O&S are your final exam that makes sure you were paying attention (and also you have Brolaire… if you play offline. Otherwise you just get endlessly invaded). I think it does fall apart in the back half but most of that game does.
ER definitely suffers from the open world nature of the game. Theoretically, Stormveil (?) castle is your first legacy dungeon and it is really good for that… Some of us found the back path and did Raya Lucaria (?) first and dealt with the hell of a bunch of kids with M-16s hosing you down the moment you stick your head out from behind cover. But the various bosses still do a good job of teaching mechanics.
But I really think the secret is the Spirit Ashes. No matter what your build, you can find an ash to complement that. Yeah, they fall off as you near endgame but… you have mimic tear then. And then, if you are smart, you grab Tiche and realize knife mommy is best girl.
All that said? I think the Niohs actually have the better system where you can summon NPCs based on player builds fairly freely. But Nioh also has some of the worst boss progression in the sense that TN seems to think Hino Enma (bird lady who is hard to hit, inflicts status effects, and has a grab that heals her…) is the third boss you should fight…
But yeah. As much fun as “git gud” is, it just really annoys me because people’s need to say they are super hardcore sexy super gamers just ignores all the work that the devs of these games put into teaching mechanics and providing alternatives. And Elden Ring REALLY suffered from that with all the sweaties who insisted you should play with no summons and low vigor… and then got pissy that it was hard.
- Comment on Elden Ring on Switch 2 Is a Disaster in Handheld Mode - IGN 5 days ago:
Magic is definitely easy mode against (most) bosses. But the traversal between bonfires needs more effort since, even if you also have a glock spell you fundamentally have limited damage because you need to fuel it with blue estus. So people tend to grab moonveil or some other hybrid melee for those purposes and you quickly realize that a lot of the team that worked on Dark Souls 2 worked on certain areas in ER.
- Comment on Elden Ring on Switch 2 Is a Disaster in Handheld Mode - IGN 5 days ago:
If you’re a toxic dipshit, sure?
Or we can actually be mature adults and realize that From (and most of the good souls devs) actually put a LOT of work into gradually ramping up difficulty, teaching mechanics, and adding alternatives so that pretty much anyone can beat any non-DLC boss without a human summon.
- Comment on Chrome VPN Extension With 100k Installs Screenshots All Sites Users Visit 5 days ago:
Homie. Your response to “don’t trust companies. Take precautions” is “Well ackshually trust this one” and, upon being reminded that other companies used to have good marketing and even practices, was to double down.
Word it however you want. Either way: Don’t stan for corporations and protect yourself.
- Comment on Elden Ring on Switch 2 Is a Disaster in Handheld Mode - IGN 5 days ago:
You want your Vigor to be at the soft cap (40 if you are Gud, 60 if you don’t like driving nails into your proverbial winky). Grab a tower shield and spec for that and it will carry you to Malenia, Mohg, and Elden Beast. Learn to dodge and you are good all the way up to the final DLC boss. And actually use the spirit ashes (and not just the mimic tear).
While I think some of the endgame bosses are more than a bit much due to their long attack chains with multiple delays in a given combo, pretty much everything else about ER is some of the most accessible Souls’ing ever to be seen. Its just that people think they are hot shit just because they beat Ornstein and Smough back in the day and try to glass cannon it and… don’t do that.
Also probably don’t play it on a potato. Which is the point of the thread.
- Comment on Hell Let Loose: Vietnam | Reveal Trailer 5 days ago:
Yes, I have. RSV is mostly corridors outside of a few maps that try to represent a trenchline. It sort of works because spawns are fast and tickets are plentiful but it is still mostly just a day at the Metro in BF3+. Once you start making tickets count more, that starts being a lot less viable.
And yes, I experienced a LOT of anti-Asian hate while playing. Understand that some of us have different levels of tolerance for that than others (which was kinda my point on why this is gonna be extra bad).
- Comment on Chrome VPN Extension With 100k Installs Screenshots All Sites Users Visit 5 days ago:
Again, how many companies say one thing one quarter and another the next? Let alone a decade later.
I am not saying to go uninstall your PIA stuff right now. I am saying to act with the understanding of what your risks are if they are compromised and how important you would be in the event that they are.
Because companies are not our friends. We may have aligned interests but you have to always operate under the understanding of what capitalism IS and what their interests actually are. And while it is fun to aggressively define yourself by what you consume? To play on a fairly misogynistic “joke”: PIA isn’t gonna fuck you no matter how hard you stan for it.
- Comment on Chrome VPN Extension With 100k Installs Screenshots All Sites Users Visit 5 days ago:
You mean the court case from almost ten years ago?
Yeah, that sounds safe. I mean, Google is still all about Do No Evil, right?
- Comment on Hollow Knight: Silksong - Special Announcement Stream (starts in 48 hours) 5 days ago:
Except that Alyx very clearly focuses on the core plotline rather than a side story like the expansions.
Also you forgot the coop game for the Dreamcast.
- Comment on Hell Let Loose: Vietnam | Reveal Trailer 5 days ago:
I always preferred the HLL model of sweaty milsim over Squad but…
A decent number of games have tried (US-)Vietnam over the years and it just doesn’t work. Because people think of the Vietcong versus GIs in jungles or ambushes in towns and along the river. And… the problem with that is it was a ridiculously asymmetrical fight. Like, yes, some troops did have AKs but mostly they were using WW2 era weaponry and maybe SKSes And firing precision shots through a jungle was a whole thing.
It was incredibly rare that these were standing fights. They were bloody ambushes that either ended in slaughter or… kind of just wandering away. And while that could be REALLY REALLY interesting from a gameplay standpoint it also breaks the milsim model of “every ticket matters”
As for those standing fights? They really weren’t that different than any other cold war conflict except that the ridgeline might be a wall of jungle.
Also… look, playing HLL pretty much guarantees you are dealing with, at best, rampant racism because “They were racist back then”. As someone who has tried to find some fun shooters over the years… going to Vietnam IMMEDIATELY reminds everyone that it is still perfectly okay to be mark wahlberg levels of racist towards Asian people. The number of videos on games like Rising Storm that just have random “ha ha, spawn at ching chong” from even “respected” youtubers is just infuriating.
So… not really happy this exists
- Comment on AI at the World’s Biggest Games Event(Gamescom) Booked Random Meetings for Attendees 5 days ago:
I’ve been to a few conferences that did things like this (that predates “AI”) and it is actually a REALLY good idea that encourages people who are just there to give a talk or who are socially awkward to actually network.
The key is that it needs to only make suggestions and not actually send calendar invites. And it needs to be opt-in until at least one human says “Yeah, that is a good idea. See if Fred wants to meet some time tomorrow” and only then do the other parties get a push/email asking if they are free.
- Comment on Chrome VPN Extension With 100k Installs Screenshots All Sites Users Visit 5 days ago:
And this is why I am so obnoxious any time someone says “I found this plugin to block fandom wikis” or “I have this plugin to fix youtube embeds”.
Code is only as safe as the people you trust to review it. And no, being open source doesn’t matter in that regard. Yes, it theoretically increases the number of eyes on but how many of those eyes who ACTUALLY look at the code are doing it with every release AND understand how to spot a vulnerability or a… whatever this is.
Same with VPNs. NEVER trust a VPN. And sure as fuck never use a free one for anything remotely sensitive. Understand what your risk of exposure is and that, at the best of times, you are trusting a company to be telling the truth that they aren’t keeping a log of every single thing you nutted to.
And before someone says “That is why I do everything over tor!”: Maybe also understand the concept of digital fingerprints and WHY it is that Google is able to know someone is pregnant even before they are late.
Understand the risks and consequences of every action you take and act accordingly. And understand that there really is no one size fits all solution.
- Comment on More action than RPG, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 struggles to convince after a few hours' play - EuroGamer 5 days ago:
…
IS VTM Bloodlines (not to be confused with VTM Redemption or VTM Dating Sim Game) particularly known for being RP heavy? Or, at least, should it be?
Because I played Bloodlines and I even did a replay a few years back. Yeah, the hub city sounds a lot more “alive” than in the article… in the sense that just about every NPC had an interaction. But we also had maybe like ten NPCs (outside of the people dancing to Kidneythieves. Great band). This kind of feels like any game where the engine/tech is at the point that we can handle actual crowds but… how many people in a crowd do you expect to have a conversation with you if you walk up to them?
And the rest of the moment to moment gameplay really did feel like corridors with a few vents you could walk through and a LOT of people to mow down.
Don’t get me wrong. I really would prefer a VTMB that is what we “remember” VTMB to be and not what it actually was. But… that article very much sounds like just about every Troika game: Some REALLY cool dialogue based quests that have little to no bearing on the game outside of what XP bonuses you get. And then pretty janky ARPG combat once they ran out of money. And in that sense? Get the banner because it is Mission Accomplished.
- Comment on Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War IV - Official Announce Trailer 6 days ago:
GW has always been about chasing trends and synergy with new products.
In the video gaming space? No.
They’ve gone through a few different waves. Pre-Relic (so 90s) we have a lot less information on since most of those studios were dead long before game journos even realized they could talk to people but it was very much characterized by “whatever looks like a strategy game”. Relic (and the folk who did the underrated Fantasy RTS) kind of had carte blanche in the early 2000s. Yes, there were some clear mandates to incorporate certain armies (largely indicated by Relic outsourcing Soulstorm) but it was a lot closer to what we see with Total Warhammer these days where it was kinda just “make a video game version of 40k”.
Then… Dawn of War 3 happened and everything came crashing down.
Which led to an era of slop where anyone who bought a PR person a six pack of cider could get the license. But from what various studios have alluded to in the 2020s, that is mostly gone (outside of mobile slop which has largely slowed down) and it is very much a case where if a game is being made it is because a specific product is being pushed. With Total Warhammer largely being the last holdout since even GW realizes nobody cares about Age of Sigmar.
So if the frickign Mechanicus is an army: There is a reason.