Katana314
@Katana314@lemmy.world
- Comment on how is final fantasy XVI 3 hours ago:
FF14 has sort of an unwritten rule, that you should ignore all side quests that are represented with the plain gold circle. They’re not even worth the time for XP and rarely have anything interesting happen in them. It’d be interesting if the same rule applies for FF16.
- Comment on “Model collapse” threatens to kill progress on generative AIs 8 hours ago:
If we can work out which data conduits are patrolled more often by AI than by humans, we could intentionally flood those channels with AI content, and push Model Collapse along further. Get AI authors to not only vet for “true human content”, but also pay licensing fees for the use of that content. And then, hopefully, give the fuck up on their whole endeavor.
- Comment on No 'Sims 5' Coming as EA Updates Franchise With Multiplayer 2 days ago:
I sort of picture this happening more often at the graphical plateau. It used to be that these franchises needed big face lifts to stay relevant, but even that can sometimes happen with a lighting update.
The other reason might be if they want to do subtractive redesigns of the core concept but I’m still not sure what that should be for The Sims.
- Comment on My friend gifted me a "fighting RPG" that turned out to be something else entirely 1 week ago:
They do exist; but also constantly debate with stores like Steam about what can be allowed since Steam is ultimately much more visible. They make it murky with the occasional VN that’s “90% cryptic folk mystery, 5% romance, 5% visuals of non-consenting animated minors in the nude being victimized by a tentacle”.
Steam, for very understandable reasons, has waffled back and forth on whether to allow those games.
- Comment on Sony announces the PS5 Pro with a larger GPU, advanced ray tracing, and AI upscaling 1 week ago:
They can still kind of kill physical games with good service. The whole “honey rather than vinegar” argument.
That’s what happened with the PSVita. While overpriced game cartridges existed, most of its lifespan people were buying its games digitally which worked great for indie developers that didn’t have a budget for physical releases.
- Comment on Sony announces the PS5 Pro with a larger GPU, advanced ray tracing, and AI upscaling 1 week ago:
I was very close to getting a digital PS5, but I still need the drive for my old PS4 games and movies. If I were just getting into Sony now though, I imagine the story would be different.
- Comment on Sony Increases PS5 Controller Prices in US, Europe, and More 1 week ago:
Much as I’ve come to hate Xbox, this could be the beginning of signs of monopoly - they don’t have so much competition anymore, so they can do what they want. Certainly doesn’t help that unofficial controllers have never been good.
- Comment on "Concord servers are now offline. Thank you to all the freegunners who have joined us in the Concord galaxy" 1 week ago:
To the people that worked on it, even when the result kinda sucks, there’s some level of attachment. They spent literal years of their life investing into it. That might be where the tone is coming from.
- Comment on "Concord servers are now offline. Thank you to all the freegunners who have joined us in the Concord galaxy" 1 week ago:
Marketers actually place these into different categories of advertising goal. One kind might just exist to make people aware of a product and its role (eg, vacuum cleaner attachment) whereas others spend longer convincing customers it’s something they want/need. There’s yet another category that I think relates more to direct advertising and isn’t as common for mass products like games.
- Comment on "Concord servers are now offline. Thank you to all the freegunners who have joined us in the Concord galaxy" 1 week ago:
There have definitely been times that copying other people worked out well.
Fortnite and Apex copied the BR trend when PUBG wasn’t satisfying everyone’s needs. The former even lazily reskinned a zombie defense game for the battle royale approach. Lots of games reskin the theme of Dark Souls and do okay.
Even if it’s lazy or uninventive, once in a while one of those reskins has a particular element of the concept it reinvents in a much better way. Seems Concord never came up with any such ideas, which could have been great since many people are currently tired of Overwatch specifically.
- Comment on Spooky Games 2 weeks ago:
Or, The Bunkererer: Also called “Conscript”, another survival horror game about World War 1.
- Comment on "what happened??" 2 weeks ago:
Who said that?
Be specific, include the word “only” as you quoted, and very important: Don’t lie.
- Comment on "what happened??" 2 weeks ago:
I can’t speak towards whatever you might be misinformed about. The only other close thing I can think of is when a support staff told a user that their account was going to be deleted, which prompted a huge backlash. But, one of the determinations seemed to be that they only do so for inactive accounts that have never purchased anything; and was in fact a GDPR requirement. So, it was another nothing article based on rumors.
Which makes sense if you think about it - actually put some kind of motivation behind the “evil schemes” you’re reading. Greed is very much expected, but removing people’s old games doesn’t gain Ubisoft anything but poor press. If you told me they were selling cheat codes for old games for $30 each, I’d believe it. There’s no profit in what people are actually suggesting though.
- Comment on "what happened??" 2 weeks ago:
The other thing I worry about is for people to be genuinely too blinded by reputation to give games a chance, or to give meaningful feedback that helps those diamonds come to existence.
I feel like there are some timelines/realities where big publishers like EA / Ubisoft put out a genuinely good game. And it has happened - Titanfall 1/2 are darlings to a lot of people. I’d say Mario + Rabbids was genuinely fun and had great music. I’ve watched streamers play Star Wars Outlaws, and while no, it’s not a fantastic game and I don’t plan to buy it, I can see a few touches I can appreciate. The fact that players basically chuck it in the “Ubisoft = shit” bin to go on hate-tirades without having much of substance (or better yet, to put their energy into praising games they liked) to say seems to doom us by our own expectations.
Remember that Valve had to work with Sierra (a big evil publisher) as they were starting, before eventually going solo. I worry that the next decade’s Valve is going to get trashed because at the time of their next release, they were “Ubisoft Southern Northland” and “ubisoft = shit”.
- Comment on Any good games that break the mold 2 weeks ago:
I remember distinctly Danganronpa’s problem with shock value.
I finished the first case of the third game, and thought “Wow! That was incredible! I hadn’t anticipated that ending at all!”
And then, once the dust on the case had settled, because of the effects of that change in circumstance, I had no interest in playing the rest of the game.
- Comment on "what happened??" 2 weeks ago:
Man, I really want to assume our lords and saviors will keep putting out perfect games, and yet we’ve been burned in our history.
CDPR put out a half-baked Cyberpunk after a year of hype. Valve put out “Artifact”, the Dota card game. It feels like the really inventive studios sometimes get tired of the working formulas they’re adored for and end up putting out things not many people like - possibly as a way of doing a personal passion project.
I’ll be happy if that never happens for Larian, but it’s a worrying possibility.
- Comment on "what happened??" 2 weeks ago:
At least we have that fanmade expansion for Heroes 3.
- Comment on "what happened??" 2 weeks ago:
Is this at all accurate?
The closest thing I could find when I searched for this topic is that the multiplayer and online services related to those games were being taken offline. Given you can still play Counter-Strike 1.6, I can see some frustration on that, but I also didn’t think many people knew AC1 had any multiplayer features.
Anyone reading can go and take a look at current reviews on Steam for Assassin’s Creed 1 and 2. The newest reviews come from the last few weeks, and no one is highlighting “Ubisoft STOLE this game from me, CANNOT BE PLAYED” etc.
Which makes it hard for me to respect memes like this one when the reactions, at least in part, seem to be driven by constant misinformation. Ubisoft games are absolutely mediocre, I can agree with that, but there is absolutely no need to lie about them.
I am aware of the game preservation movement, focused on The Crew, and I’m in favor of that. I still don’t think it had anything to do with the quote. No one in game publishing makes a business around taking away games people were already playing.
- Comment on Is Elder Scrolls 6 doomed to fail? I can't see how it will work 2 weeks ago:
Why do you think they keep rereleasing Skyrim? It’s the last good game they made.
If you want Elder Scrolls 6, look to spiritual sequels made by other companies. Bethesdead.
- Comment on "what happened??" 2 weeks ago:
Still confused about this one.
If there’s a reason Star Wars Outlaws is mediocre, for example, it doesn’t have much to do with microtransactions or game renting.
And the quote that was offered was between investors when asking why Ubisoft+, their subscription service that lets you cheaply rent games, wasn’t doing well.
Might be a point of obviousness, but: Most of us own most of our games. Those of us not owning games via subscription rental are choosing to do that, because we don’t care about completionism or playing a title once a year for nostalgia.
Ubisoft is low on creativity and their games don’t interest me, but I’m sometimes weirded out by the illogical way they’re painted as evil, or the way this stupid quote suggests they’re “Cumin’ for muh game discs”.
- Comment on Civilization 7 dev on Ages system and series shakeup: "It's going to be the hardest thing for fans to get adjusted to" 2 weeks ago:
Given that I already mentioned there are anecdotes of that happening under poor coding, I sincerely hope you have a more reliable source for that.
- Comment on Civilization 7 dev on Ages system and series shakeup: "It's going to be the hardest thing for fans to get adjusted to" 2 weeks ago:
The “slows down your game” bit has always been hotly contested. There are certainly occasions where a modified exe without Denuvo runs faster, combined with accusations that that specific game integrated Denuvo in a very poor last-minute implementation that calls it dozens of times a second.
I don’t work on video games, but my own experience with software engineering and release management suggests those sorts of murky answers are likely to be the norm.
- Comment on Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford says his hopes on Epic Store were 'overly optimistic or misplaced' 2 weeks ago:
Funny thing is, I mostly agree with you, but in Epic’s case, it’s a launcher written by a company that’s 40% owned by a Chinese corporation. I can sometimes stomach running their executables while playing something, but not having it constantly running.
- Comment on Remedy and Annapurna announce a strategic cooperation agreement on Control 2 3 weeks ago:
It makes me wonder how it would feel as a game dev getting this deal taken to the extreme.
“Hello, human. I’ve come from the pits of Tartarus to offer a deal. You’ve just finished making a video game. My request is: Do not release it anywhere for 2 years. In exchange, I will give you 5 million dollars.”
- Comment on It's good to be the King 3 weeks ago:
Remember the rules; Princess = innocent and blameless, Queen = evil and despotic.
- Comment on Classic Ubisoft: PS5 players to install an update and restart their save files from scratch due to game-breaking bugs 3 weeks ago:
The first insult certainly seems appropriate. What’s the second one referring to, though? I haven’t heard of any microtransactions in this game.
- Comment on Steam reaches 37 million concurrent-player record with help from Black Myth: Wukong 3 weeks ago:
I’ve been watching Falcom drill down on sexual harassment as a form of humor in the Trails series. Now that they’re remaking Sky, I’m curious how well they’ll handle having a female lead for once in a long time.
Put short, feminism is an important value in games for me - and shouldn’t be a high goal to achieve.
- Comment on Recommendation engine: Downvote any game you've heard of before 3 weeks ago:
Adding one more to the Ace Attorney spinoff block:
Tyrion Cuthbert: Attorney of the Arcane is a well-written fan spinoff of the AA formula, taking place in a fantasy universe where magic is real, but mostly the domain of the nobility. Trials are a form of theatre, where the nobility knows how to tip the scale, but your mentor knows how to tip them back.
It introduces some very enjoyable mechanics, in which knowledge of each spell’s effects and conditions constitutes its own evidence. Tyrion bears his own magical ability that lets him view the thoughts of witnesses. He is also accompanied by the defendant of his first case, a mercenary-mage named Celeste, who gets a lot of investigation banter with Tyrion, much like Maya and Phoenix.
Five cases in all, and none of them are shortened crapshoot cases, nor is there a downer ending; all the major threads conclude with satisfying endings, and the developer hopes to make a sequel from the world they’ve built.
- Comment on Recommendation engine: Downvote any game you've heard of before 3 weeks ago:
I did mention in the rules, if it was good enough to actually be your game of the year, you can make an exception. (I’m trusting that doesn’t mean we see Baldur’s Gate 3 on top or something)
- Comment on Recommendation engine: Downvote any game you've heard of before 3 weeks ago:
The worst part is, there are certain ways a top down spritework game can look unique, and even put some personality on the characters. But the classic NES RPG look just seems so arcadey and wrong to me.