Katana314

@Katana314@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Silent Hill f, now on GOG⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  That is a conclusion made in hindsight, the easiest place to make predictions. Not every studio has the same forms of public popularity and good will they can bank on.

  Also, selling millions of copies is not an indicator of a studio’s upper bounds. Publishers - even indie-oriented ones - need the lightning in bottle releases to pay for games that didn’t do well. We can’t do an experiment where KC:D2 releases on two planet Earths, one with a DRM-free release and one with DRM, and say for certain that the second wouldn’t let them additionally fund another studio’s pet project.

  Basically, given how many failed releases happen that we never hear about, it can be misrepresentative to point to some good games and say “See? Studios are able to pay their mortgage.” Denuvo is able to sell to studios, costing those studios money, in part by showing raw data (that we might not ever see) explaining how it promotes early sales.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Silent Hill f, now on GOG⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  My general guess: The delay is tied to Denuvo. Smart devs will launch with Denuvo so that pudding-headed pirates (my label for a certain small demographic among pirates) drooling over marketing will see the trailers, try to pirate, fail, be told by crackers to wait like 2-3 weeks for them to unlock it; but instead become impatient and buy the game full price.

  But the time period to capture pudding heads is not constant, and is not perfectly predictable before release. So, the developer may not want to commit to a certain release schedule where they will release on GOG, dropping Denuvo at that same time. They might even want to reserve the possibility the game will go years without dropping DRM, if it’s somehow staying constantly popular, and constantly desired by pirates, and/or they can see that the hacking communities have failed to unlock it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨When you say you don't like linux on Lemmy⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m currently in the process of converting over; have a dual boot and will probably leave it that way for the next year.

  It is NOT, by any measure, that Linux is annoyance free and perfectly designed. It’s that Windows has been building up its annoyances in competition, so that going penguin takes a considerable measure of bloat off.

  We’re at a point where some games are just performing better through Proton than running right on Windows.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Once again, looking for PS2 game suggestions!⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  The original Fatal Frame trilogy are some of the best horror games I’ve played. Not only are they genuinely scary without using a lot of blood, but they have difficulty that connects well with the scariness.

  It occasionally feels “unfair” and makes you feel vulnerable, but is still relatively doable so that you don’t get overwhelmed. At times you’ll be retreading old ground just trying to solve a puzzle when another ghost will come at you out of nowhere.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨New Steam study alleges that Valve's store is home to extreme right-wing "wars"⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Now I wish Valve would implement Bluesky’s idea of blocklists.

  Basically, the community would pool together to make voluntary lists of “Anti-woke mobs” that just troll through forums with rage bait, and add them to that list. It would require a level of trust, and tools to confirm each addition (eg, highlight a worst-case post from that user) but could start to clean things up.

  They could also let users choose to hide posts from users below a certain Steam score, making it hard to occupy space with brand new accounts.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I finally decided to go full piracy against big companies⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  There’s a scene like this in one of the Telltale Sam and Max games that really deserves a better reenactment. Went something like this:

  Sam: “So, Bosco, how much do you want for this…’Deadly virus’ that’s really just a tissue you sneezed into?”
  Bosco: “A hundred trillion dollars.”
  Max: “WHAT? That’s insane!!”
  Sam: “How crazy can you get to think we’re going to pay something like that?”
  Bosco: “All I know is, I keep finding the dumbest junk around my store, and think up the most ridiculous price I can imagine for them! And you two keep paying it! So who’s crazy now, fool?”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hollow Knight Silksong (mod recommendations)⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  If it’s too hard?

  I’m not far enough in Silksong to give an opinion, but: Had this happen with Stellar Blade. I was playing through, actually started to enjoy the story, and it has a series of about 3 bosses at the end, interspersed with cutscenes (not fought in a row, just progressively harder). And they were awesome - challenging, but awesome. I felt rewarded for recognizing the full combo strings and parrying, as well as recognizing opportunities to get attacks in.

  I get to the final boss (the “Take hand” one), and it’s a brick wall. Epic and all, but feels like a leap in difficulty for an already-tough game. I keep at it, trying my best, but it gets no easier. It’s also an unsatisfying runback after often barely getting far into the fight. Finally, having not needed it all game, I switch to the game’s built-in easy mode. Even then, it’s a challenge, and I lose if I’m not paying attention to the attacks! But, I can at least recover from those failures, and try to learn more in one go. From then, I’m eventually able to get through and see the conclusion to the story. I recognize I do not hold bragging rights to that final boss, and I’m fine with that. I liked getting to see the ending cutscene, I exhibited as much patience as I could give with the bosses…but any more than that, and I would’ve started to hate the game.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Apple has REMOVED the ICEBlock app from the App Store due to “objectionable content.”⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Interesting. I think when I first heard about it, it wasn’t available there yet; so I’m still using that pinned version. Probably not much different.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Xbox: "Price Increases Are Never Fun For Anybody"⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  At the time, I predicted you were probably right - but it would still be a good value for the time that the price stayed low.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Has this ever happened to you?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  If it matters, the money in that case was going to a charitable cause, not the people you’d date.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Apple has REMOVED the ICEBlock app from the App Store due to “objectionable content.”⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s how I browse Lemmy - I sometimes forget that my home-pinned app, Voyager, isn’t actually from the app store.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Has this ever happened to you?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I remember when a date auction at my college worked this way, the girls always came in pairs. When I thought about it afterwards, it made sense, but it still made me feel just apprehensive enough in the moment - being outnumbered in a moment of social vulnerability - that I didn’t bid on anyone.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ubisoft's new Tencent-backed company is called Vantage Studios, a 'creative house' that will take over development of Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six - PC Gamer⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Let’s look on the bright side - they’re rushing the talent out to the independent pastures that made Expedition 33 as quickly as possible.

  Let the venture capitalists publish their 100% AI-written slop for no one to buy. The gaming world will be out here making and playing games.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fun yet unknown gameplay MECHANICS? (POLL)⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve always really loved mechanics that encourage players to manage risk, especially where it relates to HP systems.

  One that I enjoyed, in Cosmic Star Heroine; when your characters’ HP reaches 0, they remain on their feet for their next turn. If their HP is healed to a positive number that turn, they can continue, but their healing is halved to make that difficult. On the other hand, while in negative HP, they can also perform an attack that deals double damage - after which they’ll be KO’d.

  Fatal Frame has an item that will automatically revive and full-heal you one time when you would otherwise die. However, you can only hold one of these at a time. So, if you’re playing with heavy use of healing items, burning through all your film (ammo), you might find a second one, which will make you wish you’d leaned on the first one a bit more by not bothering to heal quite so often.

  Another random example: You’re in a JRPG, and going against a boss enemy that has a brutal spell that reduces people’s HP by 3/4ths. However, they have pretty limited options for actually finishing you off. At some point, players will realize their advantage, and stop spending so much time healing people to full. A similar example is a boss in Final Fantasy X. It habitually casts Zombie on your party members, meaning healing spells will damage them, and revival spells will kill them. She then frequently casts “Revive-All” on your party. If everyone’s a zombie, that means you die in one turn. However, if you stop healing, and let party members die to basic attacks, she may accidentally bring them back to life for you - and no longer zombified.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Just in case you've been living under a rock: The Crew is playable again!⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I guess it’s at least nice for preservation, even if little progress has been made on consumer rights.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lara Croft is a Sociopath⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  The unfortunate fact is, the conceit of most action games relies on some pretty dumb ideas.

  1. Every opponent is committed to ending your life, even to the point of fighting on when 80% of their unit is dead.
  2. Your hero is skilled enough at combat to win hundreds of fights without any permanent injuries
  3. The “light, casual” quests you’re put on like retrieving a child’s missing doll are important enough to for enemies to relentlessly guard with their life.

  People have pointed this out for everyone from Mario to Nathan Drake, etc. Some games even try to base a “moment of introspection” around it, and it sort of falls flat.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Relooted - Game made by South Africans has been bombarded by right-wingers⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s definitely not just indie games. I was looking forward to the Trails in the Sky remake, checked on its discussion forums, and it’s polluted with overblown “censorship” claims, sprinkled with “Guess the game FAILED cause it went WOKE” cringe.

  If only Steam had something like BlueSky’s crowdsourced blocklists. That would be a freeform way of handling the issue.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Relooted - Game made by South Africans has been bombarded by right-wingers⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Fuck it. Moderator action.

  Before the poster makes any other posts, they must answer the prompt: “Apologies! We’ve been dealing with an influx of hate speech and bigotry, so to clarify your concerns, could you please provide the intended meaning of the word “Woke” in this post?”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨OK what is your Roman name?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Quesadillus.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Everyone thinks the Deus Ex remaster looks awful and they're right: 'They really turned those 1999 graphics into 2003 graphics'⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  The excuse doesn’t work well when “retro 3D” games are actively being made by indie devs today.

  As long as it’s a uniform aesthetic aimed for and achieved by the devs, it can survive a long time. I’d say just as much of GTA: SA and a lot of Nintendo games.

  It also goes to show that a lot of tactical/modern Xbox / 360 games never really had any stylistic imitators in the modern era, and for good reason.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hades II | Review Thread (93/100 OpenCritic)⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Don’t forget Baby Steps.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Would-be City of Heroes successor, Ship of Heroes, decides to launch the MMO with a $45 price tag and a $15 monthly subscription and it's, er, going about as well as you'd expect⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Unfortunately, there are some very celebrated games that commit to this approach. Final Fantasy XIV and WoW keep getting away with it, and there are others.

  Of course, they had to work for a long time to earn that pedigree and price tag. This certainly has not.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨No wonder he needs glasses⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I didn’t bother watching the BF trailer. Can someone explain? I understand it’s making fun of a dichotomy of left/right/east/west

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Silent Hill f | Review Thread⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m sure it’s a good time to mention Portal though. Many gamers have said they want tighter, more focused experiences that are really worth the price tag. I guess question being, is this game all that amazing, and are gamers honest about that thinking towards prices.

  I at least agree that $70 is a lot.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Block Blasters: Theft of $32k in crypto from a stage 4 cancer patient due to valve’s incompetence in allowing malware on their platform⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t think it’s such a direct lesson since it could’ve been other financial information on there. Instead of a crypto key, the game could’ve installed a keylogger that read the player’s banking password later.

  It’s more of a general warning that Steam games are not necessarily safe.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Xbox invests big into indies, signs Game Pass deals with over 50 studios⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I will avoid giving Microsoft my money where possible, but I’m not going to oppose indie developers taking their money.

  It just means their game trailers get an “Available with Game Pass” logo which I swiftly ignore.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Silent Hill f | Review Thread⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  From what I know of Concord, it kind of was a 7/10 game - It was functional, but just not impressive or interesting. The thing is, when it’s released with a fervent anticipation of being a “Live service HIT”, it was critically important to have a flood of players. At least indie singleplayer games can hit success late (Among Us being a perfect example, its first release didn’t really strike big)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sailing the high seas⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I have to admit, the struggle might be parents. Kids probably don’t like being wrapped into parental decisions that “because of politics, we can’t watch Paw Patrol anymore”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨US | White House tries to tamp down corporate panic for high-skill visa holders after last-minute overhaul⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I was going to say this too; a rare one of Trump’s policies that seems workable.

  There’s supposed to be a rule where H1B permits first require the company to exhaust national hires; but they do this by simply inventing qualifications no one can fill. I don’t know how you can fix that part, but a price tag is good friction.

  Still, this leads to trouble for the industries where we really don’t have any local talent. I want to say the federal government could approve exemptions ad hoc, but I doubt anyone would trust them to control that.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter, a JRPG, just got released on Steam—and this is a big deal because this game is to PC what Final Fantasy VII was to PlayStation.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  A lot of it reads as lazy DLC meant to satisfy investors that want “value-adds” without taking a lot of development time. I’d imagine only obsessive fans (admittedly, there are many) would be considering them.

  But the fact that it’s a remake of a 20 year old game doesn’t seem like it would affect the value. For reference, the old one was top down with prerendered chibi sprites. The new one is fully 3D with voice acting. It’s a pretty sizable change in appearance, even how the combat functions. $60 is probably normal, though it makes sense that for anyone unsure about it, either play the demo or just wait for it to go on sale.