Quetzalcutlass
@Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world
- Comment on SAG-AFTRA Files Unfair Labor Practice Complaint Against Epic Games Due To A.I. Darth Vader 3 minutes ago:
You’re getting downvoted, but the move to fully-voiced dialogue absolutely killed the level of reactivity in games and AI is one of the few ways to bring that level of detail back without bloating budgets even higher than they already are.
Voice acting is expensive and anything players don’t hear is “wasted”, so you rarely see meaningful branching in storylines anymore outside of the biggest budget games. Look at the freaking encyclopedia that was Morrowind dialogue compared to the sound bytes used for conversations in Oblivion and Skyrim.
I’m not a fan of how AI has been handled by corporations, but if they set up a system where voice actors (and other creatives) could be hired to train models, get paid for every project that uses them, and have the right to look at and refuse projects the same as if they’d taken the contract normally, I’d be all for the AI revolution.
There’s a middle ground where generative AI is fair to creative talent and opens up a world of possibilities. It’s unlikely, but hopefully one day we get there.
- Comment on SAG-AFTRA Files Unfair Labor Practice Complaint Against Epic Games Due To A.I. Darth Vader 21 hours ago:
TL;DR: their argument is that using AI trained on an actor, even with said actor’s blessing, is unfair because it shuts out actors who used to get work by imitating that voice.
- Comment on What level of interest do you have in "empire building" location based games? 21 hours ago:
I think dueling is still technically legal in a few places.
- Comment on S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone - Enhanced Edition Trailer 6 days ago:
Modification of any other file types (like scripts, configs or libraries) is not allowed and the files will not be loaded by the game
It seems they’re blocked by the game itself.
- Comment on Hideo Kojima proposes a game where the protagonist forgets abilities if players take too long a break 6 days ago:
MUDs and early MMOs used to have skill rust. It sucked and was universally hated. There’s a reason most games don’t implement something like this, but developers seem to insist on bringing up long-buried ideas and calling them innovation.
- Comment on S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy Enhanced Edition announced with Steam Deck support 6 days ago:
Bad news for modders. From their FAQ:
The types of files that can be modified:
- Animations
- Textures
- Models
- Videos
- Sounds
- Shaders (only on PC)
Modification of any other file types (like scripts, configs or libraries) is not allowed and the files will not be loaded by the game and accepted by moderation.
So it looks like they are dropping the vast majority of existing mod support despite the new Steam Workshop integration. I guess we won’t see updated versions of Anomoly or any of the other mods that kept the game alive and popular all this time.
The limitation on modified configs is especially baffling. In the old games they were the primary way of fixing the game’s jank, and you shouldn’t be able to make anything malicious with them (short of bad entries that crash the game).
IIRC the old XRay engine is open source (or the source leaked and the devs gave the okay for modders to improve it), so here’s hoping someone can reverse engineer and backport any major improvements this edition adds to the originals.
- Comment on S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone - Enhanced Edition Trailer 6 days ago:
Bad news for modders. From their FAQ:
The types of files that can be modified:
- Animations
- Textures
- Models
- Videos
- Sounds
- Shaders (only on PC)
Modification of any other file types (like scripts, configs or libraries) is not allowed and the files will not be loaded by the game and accepted by moderation.
So it looks like they are dropping the vast majority of existing mod support despite the new Steam Workshop integration. I guess we won’t see updated versions of Anomoly or any of the other mods that kept the game alive and popular all this time.
The limitation on modified configs is especially baffling. In the old games they were the primary way of fixing the game’s jank, and you shouldn’t be able to make anything malicious with them (short of bad entries that crash the game).
IIRC the old XRay engine is open source (or the source leaked and the devs gave the okay for modders to improve it), so here’s hoping someone can reverse engineer and backport any major improvements this edition adds to the originals.
- Comment on S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy Enhanced Edition announced with Steam Deck support 6 days ago:
The press release noted that if you already have the originals on PC you will get the Enhanced Editions free, and the originals are included for anyone who purchases the Enhanced Editions.
- Comment on Derek Smart unveils ACE Platform, a multi-blockchain ‘virtual town hall of engagement opportunities’ | Massively Overpowered 1 week ago:
As is tradition.
- Comment on Just months after reportedly cancelling two live service games in development, Sony announces a new PlayStation studio with a live service game in development 1 week ago:
I don’t think it’s actually gotten much worse, it’s just slowly made its way out of mobile games and into regular gaming. A F2P gacha game on Android being scummy is nothing new, but an $80 (soon to be $90) AAA game double- and triple-dipping into your wallet with paid season passes and FOMO banners and all that other junk, plus adding in-game advertising? That’s still relatively new to consoles/PC and putting that crap in paid games represents a new level of greed.
- Comment on Just months after reportedly cancelling two live service games in development, Sony announces a new PlayStation studio with a live service game in development 1 week ago:
Not that video specifically, but the others were along the same vein. They were all completely open about how they abused psychology to get people hooked, and spoke about players using dehumanizing terms like assets or cash cows. It was disgusting how shameless they were.
- Comment on Just months after reportedly cancelling two live service games in development, Sony announces a new PlayStation studio with a live service game in development 1 week ago:
I’m still salty they turned Marathon into an extraction shooter. Marathon, one of the all-time narrative greats!
Why make millions releasing games people want when you can potentially make billions by abusing addiction research to keep users playing long past the point they enjoy your game?
(I’m vaguely associated with the gaming industry. I knew things were about to go downhill when I started getting invites to lectures on retaining players and extracting money by using unethical psychological tricks - this was nearly fifteen years ago)
- Comment on Just months after reportedly cancelling two live service games in development, Sony announces a new PlayStation studio with a live service game in development 1 week ago:
*Monkey’s paw curls*
Your wish has been granted. Look forward to our upcoming Syphon: Extraction, an exciting extraction shooter with none of the gameplay you remember!
Also on the docket is Ape Escape Infinity, a gacha featuring all your favorite apes and up to several minutes of gameplay. Now supports importing NFT apes, because our execs are still pushing crypto as the next big thing for some reason!
- Comment on Minecraft’s VR support is now gone 1 week ago:
Isn’t there a major graphics update coming soon? Maybe they didn’t feel like it was worth testing and maintaining VR compatibility with all the changes.
- Comment on What are some good examples of "Where the fuck do you go" kind of games? 2 weeks ago:
The funny thing is being enslaved by the religious zealots is one of the best starts you can pick in the game. You’re stuck in a quarry doing backbreaking work (which levels strength), are fed just enough that you won’t die (acquiring food is normally a nightmare in the early game), and most importantly the guards won’t (intentionally) kill you, only knock you unconscious if you misbehave. Which matters because taking damage is how you train toughness, making it one of only a few places on the entire world map where you can train it without a high risk of death.
And it gets better. Every night after your shift you can sneak out and practice lock picking on doors and slave shackles and assassinating sleeping guards (since failure only results in a beatdown), which combined with the strength and toughness grinding leads to you becoming a ninja powerhouse by the time you escape.
10/10, would lead a slave uprising again.
- Comment on There's a new Honkai game on the way with characters from Star Rail and Impact 3rd, and it sure does look like a Pokemon clone 2 weeks ago:
A Pokémon-like spinoff of Honkai? Isn’t that basically what Star Rail was, with its type system and turn-based battles?
Pokemon doesn’t seem like the only game that HoYoVerse is going after, as there’s been leaks and other social media accounts spotted to do with a game that might be in the vein of Stardew Valley.
Gacha crops, gacha tools, gacha townsfolk, paid assistants… This sounds awful and like they’ll make a fucking mint off it. There’s so much room for unethical monetization in the farming genre!
- Comment on "You Wouldn’t Steal a Car”... But Would You Pirate a Font? 2 weeks ago:
I copy+pasted my lunch without thinking and overwrote my clipboard; guess I’m sans vehicle now.
- Comment on LIARS! 3 weeks ago:
(I know this is a shitpost, but I couldn’t resist lore-dumping)
The Dark Sign is actually Gwyn’s curse on humanity to seal away their potential (the Dark Soul being the only fragment of the First Flame that can be shared and passed on without weakening, he feared humanity growing powerful enough to topple the gods through sheer numbers). That’s why the Dark Sign appears as a flame encircling the Dark. When the First Flame weakens enough, his seal becomes visible as the Dark within humanity begins breaking free.
- Comment on The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered - Official Trailer 3 weeks ago:
Shivering Isles rivals Morrowind in my mind. It has a strange and unique setting and most of the content is incredibly well-written, which contrasts sharply with the standard medieval setting of baseline Oblivion (mandatory reminder that Cyrodiil was supposed to be a rainforest, but the devs retconned it to make development easier).
The other expansion, Knights of the Nine, was just a bunch of fetch quests to unlock an armor set and was disappointing in comparison to even the base game (though at least the final boss fight was cool). It also put behavioral tracking on the DLC’s rewards that would disable them if your character gained infamy, forcing you to repeat a bunch of boring travel quests to fix them whenever this happened. There’s a reason KotN never comes up in discussions about the game.
- Comment on Euphoria Engine Introduction (Older than 2008) 3 weeks ago:
Digital Molecular Matter, the DMM you mentioned in Force Unleashed, is just as interesting IMO. It calculated how objects would break under various types of force and produced some of the best and most realistic destruction in gaming. It even simulated wood splintering vertically when twisted!
I’m guessing it had similar problems to Euphoria since I haven’t seen it mentioned since.
- Comment on The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered - Official Trailer 3 weeks ago:
90% of Oblivion’s voice acting budget must have gone to paying for Patrick Stewart and Sean Bean to say a few dozen lines. It’s long been a meme that basically every other person in Cyrodill shares the same six or seven voice actors.
- Comment on The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered - Official Trailer 3 weeks ago:
Jeremy Soule did amazing work. Unfortunately it turned out he was a terrible person and he was blacklisted from the industry after multiple allegations were made against him during the #MeToo movement.
- Comment on I know you all have big plans for this man 3 weeks ago:
The vampire stuff in Oblivion is interesting but short. There’s maybe an hour of content spread across the entire game world.
Morrowind had multiple vampire clans you could join (that were completely hidden and hostile to anyone not infected with their strain of the virus, so probably missed by 99% of players not using a guide), each with their own specialties and questlines, and there were unique interactions with NPCs and factions based on the progression of your vampirism.
It’s disappointing that Oblivion was such a step backward in that regard. My guess is the expense of universal voice acting made detailed optional questlines and responsive NPCs prohibitively expensive. Even Skyrim, which dedicated an entire DLC to vampires, was lacking compared to what was arguably a throwaway feature from Morrowind.
- Comment on Weekly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing this week? 4 weeks ago:
I hope future installments steal from some of their competitors. A few of them (I think Jagged Alliance 3 and some Valkyria game on consoles?) have a system where aiming is done in first person using a reticle that displays a large circle the shot is guaranteed to land within and a smaller circle with an x% chance of it landing within.
It doesn’t make the game any easier in most situations, but it feels a million times better when you can visualize the exact odds and see how you could possibly miss before you commit, plus you no longer need to worry about missing point-blank shots just because the RNG hates you.
- Comment on Weekly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing this week? 4 weeks ago:
I’m in the middle of a playthrough right now, and while I’m enjoying it (I originally came to this thread to post about Remnant 2, then read your comment and realized I agreed with every single thing you said), it’s frustrating how they chose to design things. The games had great intentions held back by poor implementation.
They wanted to make the game replayable, but they did so by artificially limiting what you could encounter in a single playthrough. For completionists this is torture. For one-and-done players it could be a deal breaker.
They wanted endless exploration, but the random maps make exploring unrewarding. I lost count of the number of interesting map features I explored that ended up being completely empty aside from common enemies and some smashable pots (which are empty 90% of the time and drop a paltry amount of basic currency when they aren’t). Remnant 2 is at least way better about this than the first, where the maps were a chore to get through.
They knew one of people’s favorite things about Souls games is piecing things together from obscure clues, so designed the game in a way that the entire playerbase would work together to learn how to unlock everything. The downside is that obtaining many basic things like classes and gear require ARG-level shenanigans (plus a hefty dose of luck), and if you don’t use a wiki you’ll miss some of the game’s best content.
I love the gameplay, the lore, the characters, the visual and sound design, but I’m left with the unpleasant feeling that these games would have been significantly better if they dropped half of what made them unique in the first place.
- Comment on Weekly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing this week? 4 weeks ago:
Yeah, Microsoft kept the publishing rights to the first game and Tango gets nothing if you buy it.
I don’t know if they still do it, but Microsoft used to give a free month of Game Pass to entice new signups. If that offer’s still open, you could grab it and play the game without giving them a cent.
- Comment on Weekly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing this week? 4 weeks ago:
The Remnant games are a completionist’s nightmare. Want a specific weapon? Hope the right world generates, hope the right storyline for that world is picked, hope the side quest for that storyline that drops that weapon is picked, hope you don’t miss it entirely due to 90% of the world looking identical…
And it’s not just weapons. As you noted, the archetypes (your character class) are also gated this way. One of them was only found through data mining, the unlock criteria was so obscure. I don’t want to have to pass several dice rolls to have a chance at content I enjoy.
It’s telling that the class dedicated to exploration and level grinding is unlocked by beating the game. You’re expected to play through the campaign several times to see everything, but since it’s all random you’re just as likely to roll stuff you’ve already done. Which the developers clearly realized since you can roll individual worlds as side adventures.
- Comment on Weekly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing this week? 4 weeks ago:
Hi-Fi Rush really is a nearly perfect game. Everything from the gameplay to the art style to the animation to the writing is just… *chef’s kiss*
Made me even more mad over everything that happened to Tango Gameworks (and, frankly, the game industry for the past decade or so)
Fortunately for Tango Gamrworks, they did find a buyer (Krafton) after Microsoft cut them loose, and they kept the IP and plan for more Hi-Fi Rush content.
Let’s hope the new owners treat them better.
- Comment on German experiment gave people a basic monthly income – the effect on their work ethic was surprising 5 weeks ago:
I believe a province in Canada was also trying it with promising results until a right-wing politician got elected and scrapped the trial program.
- Comment on Do it 5 weeks ago:
Time In A Bottle.
Oh no…