Paradachshund
@Paradachshund@lemmy.today
- Comment on "As soon as it fired up, he'd get up and go to lunch": How Age of Empires' developers tested mission difficulty 12 hours ago:
This kind of thing sounds a bit obvious, but it’s actually a really good test for all kinds of games. Basically, how effective is it for the player to do no action? It’s more effective than it should be sometimes if it’s not accounted for.
- Comment on Arc Raiders Has Started Replacing AI Voices With Human Ones 6 days ago:
I don’t like that they used them in the first place, but I’m glad to see this move. They certainly have the money.
- Comment on Some people won't eat tongue because it came out of the mouth of an animal but have no problem eating eggs. 1 week ago:
Seconded. Anyone who’s afraid of it, try a lengua taco sometime. You will not regret it (and no it doesn’t look like a tongue once prepared).
- Comment on Some people won't eat tongue because it came out of the mouth of an animal but have no problem eating eggs. 1 week ago:
You’re not supposed to eat the shell
- Comment on After listening to your complaints, Bungie is making it just a tad less annoying to buy cosmetics in Marathon 1 week ago:
This is an obnoxiously common practice, but this might be the most dickish version of it I’ve ever seen. That’s so barely over the amount wtf
- Comment on Slay The Spire 2's placeholder art should be a lesson to all the developers caught up in AI-generated nonsense 2 weeks ago:
It takes less time, too.
I’ve had to use AI on some client projects (I do graphic design), and I’ve found it to be quite a bit more time consuming than using stock art or placeholders, because there’s a level of pickiness that enters the picture when the client thinks they can have anything they can think of (they can’t, but they still try).
- Comment on The reason 2 weeks ago:
Trump probably doesn’t know where he is right now. Have you seen him lately? He’s a barely coherent geriatric.
- Comment on Means to deceive 2 weeks ago:
Meta’s flaccid infinity never stops looking dumb to me
- Comment on Autism awareness 3 weeks ago:
This isn’t what this community is for. That’s why you’re getting downvotes, not because of your disability.
- Comment on Me describing what I see in the mirror 3 weeks ago:
This one is giving ornithologists a run for their money
- Comment on Why am I getting downvoted 3 weeks ago:
You’re posting random chat stuff in a meme community. Look up a casual conversation community. I think you’ll have more of the response you’re looking for there.
- Comment on Valve accused of "letting children and adults alike illegally gamble" via loot boxes in New York state lawsuit 3 weeks ago:
People were constantly saying this when I was a little kid. I’m 35 now.
- Comment on Microsoft's throne room rejigging has seen Sarah Bond take the bullet for marketing strategy which was "failing internally", report claims 3 weeks ago:
Things are definitely going to be way better now that she’s been replaced with an AI division executive! They even said they don’t want to use “bad AI”, so it’s definitely going to work out!
🫡
- Comment on Magical 3 weeks ago:
You’re looking at the shit post right now
- Comment on US Supreme Court strike down majority of Trump's tariffs, so hopefully that's one less hardware buying headache to worry about 4 weeks ago:
Hell of a thing that I’m surprised when the highest court actually follows the law
- Comment on Video game romances need to evolve beyond lore dumps 4 weeks ago:
Sounds like it’s a little more nuanced than I thought. In my play throughs it seemed like everyone was always ready to go!
- Comment on Video game romances need to evolve beyond lore dumps 4 weeks ago:
Do you mean the being shot down part? Cause the devs have said in interviews that they purposely made the characters player-sexual.
- Comment on Video game romances need to evolve beyond lore dumps 4 weeks ago:
I also would love to see this!
- Comment on Video game romances need to evolve beyond lore dumps 4 weeks ago:
🫡
- Comment on Video game romances need to evolve beyond lore dumps 4 weeks ago:
Thanks for writing all that! I’m interested as someone who isn’t asexual, so I find your perspective really interesting since it’s not something I can personally experience.
I haven’t played mass effect, but that write up mirrors how I’ve felt about a lot of games with tacked on romance. Also, as someone who does enjoy sex, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a good sex scene in a game. Baldur’s Gate 3, for all the hype about the sex in it, was still pretty weak imo. You’re not missing much in other words!
I mentioned it in another comment on this thread about BG3, but it sounds like mass effect also went with the “player-sexual” approach, meaning every character is into you no matter who you are. I find that approach really off-putting personally. I would much rather have characters love or hate you based on the character you made. This means you could even try and get shot down, which would be a nice realistic image of dating where that is always very possible (even more bonus points if a game let you fuck up the relationship after it started).
I like how you emphasize the focus on a relationship in Haven. I think most romances in games are dating simulators, not relationship simulators, and I hadn’t been able to put that into words until you said all this.
I’m someone who has always preferred the stability and comfort of an established relationship over the high stakes feeling of dating, but that’s not true for everyone. Some people who only like the beginning, and once things settle they lose interest. I’ve been happily married for a long time, and I don’t miss dating at all. It seems like there need to be more relationship simulations so that people like you and I can enjoy romance in games more!
- Comment on ‘This shouldn’t be normal’: developers speak out about bigotry on Steam, the world’s biggest PC gaming storefront 4 weeks ago:
I agree with that, but negative reviews also affect the algorithm. If enough of those reviews drown out positive ones it will reduce the chance you see the game at all.
- Comment on Video game romances need to evolve beyond lore dumps 4 weeks ago:
If you don’t mind sharing, what are the differences in how sex is portrayed in this game vs how you don’t like it?
- Comment on Video game romances need to evolve beyond lore dumps 4 weeks ago:
I think it also makes them feel more shallow because the characters are all “player-sexual” to use an industry term. Basically every character is into you if you want them to be.
I’d love to see more games have characters with preset likes and dislikes and how you’ve built and played your character will determine who will be interested (and who will shoot you down!)
- Comment on Been putting a lot of thought into this 5 weeks ago:
Taking off your belt and switching to pajama pants.
- Comment on Highguard studio Wildlight confirm layoffs, after level designer claims "most of the team" have been let go 5 weeks ago:
Yeah I always think this stuff is sad. Even if the game wasn’t great, it just sucks to see hard work go to waste.
- Comment on Valentines Scam Alert 5 weeks ago:
Can confirm. Me and my wife are just trying to make you feel bad.
- Comment on Discord attempt to put out the fires with a clarification over new age verification 5 weeks ago:
But it’sadvanced, didn’t you read? 😉
- Comment on Remedy's new CEO is a former sports betting guy and EA executive who aims to 'scale Remedy in a way that builds lasting value' 5 weeks ago:
“Art is something that we think is a little outdated in the modern business landscape” - this guy probably.
- Comment on Discord will restrict your account next month unless you scan ID or face 5 weeks ago:
- Comment on As player numbers fall, Highguard makes the actually-quite-good 5v5 mode permanent 1 month ago:
I agree, and the performance thing was my suspicion as well. It just seems off to have a large scale siege game be so small.
To be honest 5v5 still seems kinda small on paper to me, but I haven’t played it.
The focus on player dropoff is always misleading. Free to play games always lose massive numbers of players within the first week generally. What matters is who’s left, and what the company’s operating budget is. 10k players or even less can be plenty for a small team for instance. With such small player team sizes in-game, that would also be more than enough for a populated feeling queue.
