Glide

@Glide@lemmy.ca

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Itch.io California Fire Relief Bundle - 422 items for $10⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  If someone already owns Tunic and is considering this, I would say to just directly donate the money.

  Or just like… Donate through the bundle and consider trying out some minor projects created by people who are trying to make something cool? Why turn down access to these games out of some form of perceived superiority? This notion that since you’ve never heard of these other titles they can’t possible offer anything of value to you is kind of a spit in the face of struggling artists of all types.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Astro Boy: Omega Factor Artist Tomoharu Saito Lost A Leg Due To Working On The Game | Time Extension⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, this might be the most egregious case of burying the lead, what the hell.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Eurogamer: we can't recommend the PC version of Monster Hunter Wilds⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Please reread. I had to make the game look mediocre (low, not lowest) to have an enjoyable experience on a $750 hand-held PC.

  I was getting 60-80 fps on high settings in the beta on my 3070ti, when frame generation was broken. I have not tested on my home PC yet.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Eurogamer: we can't recommend the PC version of Monster Hunter Wilds⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  The experiences people are reporting with this game are so strange to me.

  I loaded the game today during a 1hr break at work on my Legion Go. It took ~10 minutes to do the shader compilation, I opted to turn frame generation on, and the game defaulted the settings to high, which felt awful. After turning the settings to low, turning the up scaling quality from “Max Performance” to just “Performance,” adjusting the sharpness up to .6 from .5, and then tweaking some other settings I don’t care about (cloud textures? I barely look up) or outright hate (why games continue to push aggressive motion blurring is beyond me - it looks horrible), I started playing.

  I experienced a stutter whenever I step into a new space, or load a new cutscene, but it smoothed out in a fraction of a second. While the graphics don’t look the best, the game plays smooth. I did the opening sequence with no stutters, got to the not-tetsucabra fight, and maintained 45+ fps throughout the entire fight, with no stutters or issues. At points, the monster ran into a cave, which aided my hand-held PC and kept the game running at a smooth 60fps for those sections. This is directly in-line with my experiences running the benchmark on this machine, which averaged ~45 fps on nearly identical settings.

  I haven’t yet run the benchmark or played the released game on my home PC, but the demo, which was less optimized and frame generation did not work during, played “fine.” I was unimpressed with the performance relative to the graphical fidelity in that play (though I am of the opinion that the more gritty, realistic aesthetic is ugly relative to the vibrant worlds of Generations, or Rise and in apologetically think they look better than even World), but I can’t say I had problems or felt that performance or visual quality would impede my enjoyment of the game.

  This article notes specific studdering and runs the frame-health tests to demonstrate it. I suspect they’re onto something that I am not experiencing for some reason or another. That said, I ultimately think the 4k, 144+ fps gamers running expensive GPUs are offended that they can’t play this one on the highest settings, and are review bombing the hell out of this title. I’m not sure what the deal with all the “ThAt’S nOt HoW fRaMe GeNeRaTiOn WoRkS!” screaming relevant to low end systems is about, as I am experiencing notable improvements through it.

  I encourage people to test on their own hardware, rather than taking reviews at face value, as I’ve begun to believe that whatever issue is occurring is deeper than “Capcom didn’t optimize!” Use the benchmark, and take advantage of Steam’s refund policy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hi-Rez Studios is laying off further employees and ending development on Smite, Paladins, and Rogue Company⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Hi-Rez is the king of creating a new game, pretending it’s their “big thing” and then enshittifying it while their good devs are moved to the next “big thing.” They are fad chasers who are constantly in a race to monetize a market and then move on.

  I’m glad it caught up with them. Couldn’t have happened to a better company. Apologies to the earnest designers and programmers that got caught in the crossfire.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I don't need no app⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Except now the app pushes ads to you through notifications.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Steam now warns about Early Access that have not been updated in months.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  This is what a company looks like when it’s not funded by venture capitalists that insist the line always go up exponentially.

  Good on Steam for taking the time an energy to create a feature that is strictly pro-consumer.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Description of gamers and gaming from 1632.⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It absolutely was. This is more of a meme than a genuine piece of history.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨what was the last game you played in 2024?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s been Jackbox every year for the past 8+ years. A side-effect of hosting the New Years Eve party for a bunch of gamers.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do you want the murderer of the UnitHealthcare CEO prosecuted?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ll never cheer for an act of murder. But I am not broken up about this one.

  Genuine answer? He should be tried. Murder is still murder. But I wouldn’t go out of my way to catch the guy, given the chance.

  Far greater acts of evil and murder happen every single day, but I’m supposed to be bother by this one because the guy who died played by the rules of our broken-ass system? Or am I supposed to still be so blinded by the myth of capitalism, that wealth inherently represents virtue, that I should believe this CEOs life is worth more than the suffering occurring in every other part of the world? Should I choose to believe that the people he neglected to help - in hischoosing to chase the Almighty Dollar - are worth less than his life, because someone pulled the trigger rather than just watching people suffer while holding back the means to help? What kind of fucked up trolley problem is this?

  I’ll never cheer for an act of murder. But I am not broken up about this one.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do you want the murderer of the UnitHealthcare CEO prosecuted?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Don’t threaten me with a good time.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Epic Games is officially cool with the Internet Archive preserving early Unreal games⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  My experience with GOG is that it is a fringe option, at least in the combined North American (USA+Canada) culture. Plus, the unfortunate reality is that in many cases GOG’s principles preclude it from being a genuine competitor to Steam. Insisting on being DRM free means half of released games never go to the platform, so it will always be the secondary “better if” option.

  I worry about Steam’s functional monopoly on PC game access. It hasn’t been an issue so far, because it has remembered that it is, first and foremost, a service, providing consumer protects through a generous refund policy and supporting devs with easy access to simple matchmaking and anti-cheat systems. But without a healthy competitor, it would be easy for Steam to start milking it’s users and developers alike.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Epic Games is officially cool with the Internet Archive preserving early Unreal games⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  While I don’t approve of Epic’s stabs at exclusivity, Steam needs a competitor to keep it in check, and one that is making some efforts to support the preservation of art is a welcome choice.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Warcraft Rumble, Blizzard's first new RTS in years, will finally shed its mobile shackles and come to PC in December⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Calling Warcraft Rumble an RTS is like putting a hamburger patty on a plate and calling it a steak. You’re technically correct, but you’ve also completely missed the point in what people want.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nostalgia and remake culture⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  No satire here; I genuinely think it’s a great example of a remake done well.

  There are some major breaks from the original plot, which in itself would be neat, but they introduce an entire plot element that interacts with this derivation. The spirits I was talking about, “Whispers” (had to look up the official name, tbh), appear whenever the story attempts to break from the original story from the original release. In universe, this is explained as pre-determination, or destiny. Thanks to our meta knowledge, we know in reality that these spirits are attempting to maintain the timeline from the original release.

  As an early example, after the events at the first Mako reactor, Cloud decides to collect his pay and go his own way, which is not the original intended path of the game. To correct this, a group of Whispers attack the party, and ultimately injure Jessie, preventing her from going on the mission. Needing another body, Barrett is forced to rehire Cloud for Avalanche’s mission to the next reactor. Without spoiling specific details, the whispers slowly become a form of antagonist as the characters try harder to get away from the original plot of FFVII.

  This is interesting in a few ways. First, we’ve introduced a new major conflict in the form of the characters fighting against a physical embodiment of destiny. They do not want the outcome of their struggles to be predetermined, particularly as that predetermination involved the death and suffering of some specific characters. This is, in my opinion, an interesting new plot element beyond being “the same game again.”

  Second, stepping back, and examining this with a wider lens, we can look at the Whispers for what they are to us, the players, rather than what they are to the characters. We know they are not maintaining “destiny,” but instead trying to reestablish the original story we loved. As a result, I see the Whispers as the collective voice of the “change nothing” remake ideology. When a community asks for new content of IPs they love, there will always be diehard essentialists who want their loved stories to remain untouched; the Whispers, then, are these people.

  So if the Whispers are a physical representation of the “change nothing” remake ideology, then what is there to make of the fact that they’re largely an antagonist? This seems to me that the writers were critical of this culture, so much so that they ask you to fight it to earn the different take on the story. Of course, it’s far from the only derivation from the original game, but that’s exactly my point: FFVII remake was so far divorced from the conceptual, soulless “let’s pump out the same game again” remake that they literally wrote that culture into a new antagonist.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨An Update from PlayStation Studios (Neon Koi and Firewalk Studios are closing)⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  But isn’t it featured in the list of games being given a short film via Secret Level? I kind of assumed the goal was to promote it via that episode and re-release the game around the same time.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nostalgia and remake culture⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I feel like people are taking this commentary a little too literally. I don’t think it’s intended to suggest that all remakes are always bad and we should be ashamed of ourselves for enjoying them. Mankind has a habit of romanticising the past, and that’s led to something of a modern obsession with nostalgia. These are fair, and interesting, statements.

  That said, the choice of pairing the statement with an allusion to FF7 is probably not a great choice. The remake is fantastic, and isn’t at all symptomatic of the problem of quick-cash in nostalgia remakes. Hell, the first game specifically tackles themes of pre-determination, which functions as a pretty on-the-nose metaphor for nostalgia. And fascinatingly the meta-analysis of this is critical of exactly the same thing: there are literally spirits of sorts which attack the player and manipulate events to ensure the original story remains untouched, and they become a prominent antagonist of the game as the player works to tell a story that is different from the one told in the original. Perhaps there’s something counterproductive about attaching this message to a remake that’s critical of soullessly telling the same stories we’ve already heard.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Slay the Princess - The Pristine Cut is OUT NOW!⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Pre-empt: Everything I say is in regards to the original release. I have not played the pristine cut.

  It is definitely intended to be deeply uncomfortable. It has a very “cosmic horror” vibe to it, while playing on themes of relationships, love and romance.

  It’s good, but not great. The story is impactful and meaningful, and it does a great sort-of incidental meta commentary on literature. An opinion which I find most players don’t share with me: the ending was incredibly weak, to the point that I felt it really detracted from the experience. It has a bad case of “the only decision that matters is the last one,” which isn’t the way I like these seemingly heavily malluble visual novels to go, and none of the endings feel genuinely satisfying. Worse, my first ending set up for something of a second attempt towards a “golden ending” of sorts, only to pull the rug out from under me and just kind of… end, instead.

  The storytelling is great, the writing is engaging, the voice acting is fantastic, the art is gorgeous… There’s a lot to like about the game, so I don’t want to make it sound “bad,” because it’s quite good. It just sold itself to me as a kind of “choices matter” game, where I’d find myself digging for information and answers, so I can learn more and make better decisions on multiple, short playthroughs. I hoped to eventually either discover everything I want to discover, and ideally use growing knowledge to find the “right” ending, whether that’s a “golden” ending or an ending that I find satisfying and rewards me for my effort. But, for it’s variety choices, it’s not really that kind of game. It is, at its heart, a linear game, with some variation in the experiences you have between where you start and where you end up, with a couple choices in the last moment determining which page you flip to before the credits roll.

  Maybe I expected too much, and the problem is with me. I can’t deny that my opinion could be based on a failure of expectation. But, I restate, it’s good, but it’s not great.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Screw 4k, but 120+ hz is amazing. I can barely stand playing things are 60fps anymore. I really notice it when game dips.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do I avoid enshitification of my keyboard and mouse⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Currently still using the G502 Hero, and all it’s customization is on-board, edited using a portable .exe. I’m using some Rosewill mechanical keyboard which I believe has all its customization tied to inputs while holding the FN key.

  Fuck, I hate always-online apps just to use the God damn peripherials I’ve paid for. I go far out of my way to avoid them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a difference in meaning between the words *people* and *persons*?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Listen, man, I can get stuff wrong sometimes. I’m still not convinced I am in this case, but, even if I am off on one very specific niche use of a word that rarely, if ever, comes up, attacking my entire livelihood over it, as though it defines every facet of teaching English, is an insane overstep.

  I am not so arrogant as to assume words can only ever have one meaning, nor to attack a stranger on the internet over a disagreement on that meaning. I have also made no such logical fallacy. You asked if I was “sure”, and followed up with a suggestion that I had never spoken with a native English speaker. I said yes, I am confident, and then offered up my background as evidence that, at the very least, your assessment on my experiences is incorrect. I can see how you could conflate that as a call to authority, and perhaps should have phrased things in such a way that doesn’t leave room for such assumptions. That said, I’d advise against jumping down people’s throats based on assumptions, else you’ll end up doing things like building a strawman argument, while simultaneously accusing others of logical fallicies.

  I’m done with this. The level of vitriol the “discussion” has been laced with is in warrented and suggests that any further conversation is a waste of time. This entire disagreement should have been:

  “Hey, I think X is right.” “Well, this says Y is right, so you must be wrong.” “I mean language is funky and weird, a lot of words mean different things in different spaces, so whatever.” “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

  Everything beyond that was grossly unnessecary, terminally online, internet arrogance that we’d both be better off without.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a difference in meaning between the words *people* and *persons*?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not sure if you found my original statements challenging to follow, but nothing you’ve said contradicts what I’ve said. Parts of the definitions I’ve provided are strewn in the definitions you’ve provided, and differing definitions of specific word case isn’t unusual, even within similiar cultures. Language is fluid, and the same words can mean a lot of different things.

  There is often a gap between common-use language, and the academic function of words (see “racism”). This is why I emphasized the relation of the definitions I provided to the fields of anthropology and sociology, as well as why I stated it is a use almost exclusively found, in my experiences, in academia.

  I don’t appreciate the strange, ignorant, tongue-in-cheek jabs at my background. If you think I have something wrong I welcome you to say so, but the strange sense of superiority you’ve attached to your comments is unnessecarily insulting.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a difference in meaning between the words *people* and *persons*?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I am literally an English teacher, and have spent years editing university papers for English as an additional language learners. Yes, I am sure.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a difference in meaning between the words *people* and *persons*?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  “People” is a generic term for more than one person.

  “Persons” denotes a singular distinct grouping of people. Ie, Native American persons.

  Not part of the question, but “peoples” is used for a plurality of distinct persons. Ie, “this had great impact on the various peoples of North America” would be a sentence to lead into a discussion on how an event had varying impacts on each unique cultural group in North America. This is largely only used in academics, specifically anthropology and sometimes sociology, but understand this use helps clear up the reason for the distinction between “people” and “persons”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨My friend gifted me a "fighting RPG" that turned out to be something else entirely⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d never pay money for a porn game, but I feel if it was gifted to me, I’d play it to completion. At least for the experience to say I did. And hey, if it turns me on and I learn something about myself, win/win.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is the community for Honkai Star Rail and Genshin Impact like this?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Fantastic watch that highlights the issue I am talking about. Thanks for sharing that.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is the community for Honkai Star Rail and Genshin Impact like this?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The problem is we’re linking it to appearances instead of maturity.

  The problem with sexual relationships between adults and minors is two fold. First, the minor in question hasn’t had time to fully develop the emotional intelligence to healthily and safely engage in a sexual relationship. Second, there is an innate power differential between a minor and an adult: usually the adult has means of supporting themselves, something akin to solidified social supports and experience, education and knowledge necessary to live without the day-to-day support of others. You put these together, and you have a relationship that, even with the absolute best of intentions, becomes inherently abusive. The adult holds all the power in the relationship, and the minor is left with no choice but to worship the ground they walk on, and worse, they have not developed the emotional intelligence to identify it.

  The problem with these 2000 year old loli’s is not their body; the problem is that they’re often child-coded. They act like children. They do things that highlights their lack of knowledge and inexperience. What is often played off as a cute girl anime trope is in reality an indication that this is someone who you can conquer, dominate, and hold power over in a sexual relationship, and you can feel “good” about doing so, because you’re, with the best of intentions, just helping them learn through your loving relationship. So what if you’re fucking her while you do so. (/s on that last sentence just in case)

  There is nothing wrong with finding petite women attractive. 30 year olds who look like teenagers are not a problem. Hell, as long as we’re on the topic, I’ll shock most people by arguing that admitting that a 16 year old has developed into an attractive and desirable person isn’t even a problem, as long as you’re doing so from a position of respect rather than intent. The issue is neglecting to recognize the power differential between you and that 16 year old, and convincing yourself that it’s okay to engage in romantic and sexual acts with them while uttering deranged statements like “they’re very mature for their age” or “I’m helping them learn and grow so it’s okay”.

  Child coded characters are a problem, and hiding the magic number that supposidly discerns whether or not they’re fuckable doesn’t suddenly make things okay.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is the community for Honkai Star Rail and Genshin Impact like this?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Not because of the content, but because of groups of men all reinforcing this behavior.

  I genuinely know more women than men that act like this. I can’t say you’re entirely wrong about the problems with normalizing behaviour and the like, but simplifying it to “men are disgusting and know nothing of 'real, actual women” when real, actual women are sometimes equally disgusting is, well concerning.

  This particular brand of behaviour is usually about rejection of social norms far more than it is ever about the objectification of women. People who have been rejected by society like to take back the power by rejecting the norms of that society.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Valve lifts NDA on Deadlock, streaming and talking about the game is now allowed.⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Simplify the situation to lol defending the EULA all you want, but “I’m not bound by your NDA because I pressed ESC instead of clicking okay” is the kind of thing I expect a spoiled 14 year old to say while wearing a shit eating grin.

  Act unprofessionally in a professional industry and you get dragged by professionals. And rightly so.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Gearbox founder says Epic Games Store hopes were “misplaced or overly optimistic”⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  While I normally check both locations and buy from GOG if it’s available there, you would be surprised how many Steam titles are completely DRM free.

  I needed some DRM free games for the classroom last year and was pleasantly surprised that a lot of the smaller, indie games I own Steam, the ones I was most interested in bringing into the classroom to begin with, run perfectly well on a machine without Steam even installed just by copying the folder to a flash drive. Some required deleting a Steam.dll or adding a text document that states the SteamID of the game, but most of the games I wanted I was able to run from a flash drive, DRM free, no Internet, Steam or game install required.

  Steam offers DRM to devs that want it, but it is not a DRM platform in of itself.