audaxdreik

@audaxdreik@pawb.social

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨CODE VEIN II — Announcement Trailer⁩ ⁨⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  You’re not wrong. You didn’t even stick around for the pole dancing boss! youtu.be/m4f4z6fZh1I?t=651

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨CODE VEIN II — Announcement Trailer⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes! The original Code Vein is one of my guilty pleasures. It’s very rough in spots and a lot of the levels feel like they’re just hallways to connect arenas, but there’s still a lot of fun to be had if it looks like it might be your kind of thing.

  The character had a ton of options and the character builds in game let you unlock skills from classes for permanent equip so you could start to blend the classes together to your liking, creating some really cool builds if you put some thought into it.

  It’s a silly game, but one I recommend if you’re just looking for a bit of fun and not expecting an overly engaging experience.

  …

  It’s been a few years, actually reinstalls

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Deathloop is free to claim on Epic Games⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  YES! Thank you, finally someone else who sees it!

  In my opinion, Deathloop is a spiritual successor to the OG System Shock as well. System Shock 2 and Prey (2017) both adopt RPG elements which is all well and fine, I adore both those games, but OG doesn’t have them and leans more on the interplay of immersive systems, really giving credence to the immersive simulation labeling that feels a bit more obtuse these days.

  In OG System Shock, I really do feel you’re supposed to play with the Mission difficulty maxed so you have a time limit. It’s fine if you don’t, I’ve still never beaten it with the time limit on either Enhanced or Remake, but hear me out. System Shock (especially the REAL OG release) was an older game where you were meant to invest more time into it. You were supposed to do new game runs where you start from scratch, learn the world, learn the systems, and push further every time. It becomes more menacing when SHODAN is a real opponent that you can literally “lose” the game to.

  Modern gamers don’t really tolerate that kind of stuff because losing a good run to an 8 (or 10) hour time limit feels like a waste of your time, and I can sympathize with that. That’s why Deathloop pulls the idea of runs into a metacontext where you’re reliving the same day over and over again, learning the layout of the different areas at different times of day, making use of the tools available to you until you’re ready for THE DAY when you do THE RUN and basically speedrun the game.

  Part of me wonders what a Deathloop without Wenjie’s preservation mechanic (I forget what it’s called at the moment) would look like where you’re forced to re-gather your favorite weapons from their specific locations each run would look like, too. But I get why it was included and I’m not ready to say it would 100% be a better game without.

  Oh and Julianna obviously acts as the SHODAN antagonist stand-in even though I know their personalities and motivations are very different. You get how having an ever present, somewhat omniscient foe hunt you is kinda the same.

  There’s more but I won’t ramble any further. I know they’re very different games, but you see the outline, right?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Zynga shuts down Torchlight 3 developer four years after its acquisition⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I think a lot of it is timing, too. Remember, the first Torchlight was 2009, we’re talking pre-indie craze. There’s been no Super Meat Boy or Fez yet, I think. ARPGs hadn’t absolutely flooded the market yet and seeing a very competent and stylized, if simplistic Diablo-like back then could generate some interest. That carried on to the 2nd, which had a lot of improvements.

  There’s a bunch wrong with 3 and Infinite, but they were also competing in a saturated market and, you’re right, the Torchlight “brand” didn’t really have enough luster on its own to carry a series.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨When making lots of small games is more sustainable than making one big one⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I absolutely recommend it! Slope’s Game Room has an excellent, 2 hour retrospective you can put on while you work if you want a pretty good deep dive. Other than that, I recommend getting yourself set with some emulators so you can kind of dig through the series. A lot of the early games are difficult and I think it’s perfectly fine to kind of just pick through them a bit, get a taste, move on, return to the ones you like, etc.

  You can absolutely feel the arc of design elements through the early series up to the pinnacle, Rondo of Blood. That’s because it was all being done by Konami teams, often who knew eachother or were handing the projects off. Rondo hits this sweet spot where you can feel the inspiration of old vampire novels combined with dramatic stage plays (the stages have dynamic names like Feast of Flames instead of just area descriptors), told with 80’s anime cutscenes, wrapped into a videogame package. It’s truly a work of art that both wears its influences on its sleeve and also that couldn’t really exist the way that it does in any other medium. So where do you even go from there? Symphony of the Night! It takes everything that works about Rondo and kicks it to 11 while flipping the franchise on its head with an absolutely rocking soundtrack and sprawling castle. You can enjoy these games in a vacuum, sure. But playing the series up to that point gives you a real appreciation for what they were going for and how they accomplished it. I don’t even think you really need to play them in order because going back and returning to previous entries almost feels like fitting in missing pieces of a puzzle.

  The series flounders a bit when it hits 3D, but it will always have a special place in my heart. Koji Igarashi takes the Symphony of the Night formula and basically owns the handheld world, especially from Aria of Sorrow into the DS trilogy, A++. Ultimately I think he developed that formula enough on his own that breaking it off into the Bloodstained series feels right and good, I think he’s better off this way not weighed down by Konami and the Castlevania franchise, but in this way, we still feel that arc of development. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night actually took a bit to grow on me, but once it did, I saw it as the most Igavania game that ever existed, he has refined the formula.

  All this to say that we just don’t get experiences like this anymore, where series have the proper time to cook and develop. Instead we get Concord where they pour millions into something and try and ram it down your throat, “You WILL enjoy this new franchise. You WILL pick one of these characters as your favorite to get invested in, even though we’ve given you no reason. You WILL make this your ONE game you play because … reasons?” Ditto Marathon. Ditto MindsEye (likely). Ditto all the other rubbish they keep pushing out.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨When making lots of small games is more sustainable than making one big one⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  As to boycotts, your individual purchases always matter; not just with what you don’t buy but also what you do buy.

  Agreed. I’m having a bit of a hard time articulating my ideas properly.

  I think my overall point is just that it’s really hard to organize purposeful and effective boycotts these days, especially since no matter what the issue, there’s usually a counter movement dampening it. Whatever market forces are causing these companies to register the lack of interest and disdain the consumer market has, I’d like to identify it and capitalize on it because when the market adapts, it most likely won’t be to the consumer’s benefit.

  You could live quite happily off indies these days, but it’s hard to ignore the thrashing leviathans. I’m not sure how much I really care about them anymore, but they do take up a lot of the oxygen in the room. And they seem to control a lot of platforms/storefronts as well …

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨When making lots of small games is more sustainable than making one big one⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  One of the things I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is media literacy as it relates to gaming - specifically about the design conversations developers are often having amongst each other that players only vaguely feel. Let me elaborate:

  A good example is the Castlevania series. From early on, Castlevania was always both refining and reinventing itself. Vampire Killer and Castlevania feel to me like a kind of A/B testing to see what hits. When Castlevania prevailed, they immediately began iterating on the formula with both Simon’s Quest and Dracula’s Curse figuring out different modes of gameplay through nonlinear level design and changing characters. Super Castlevania IV was already a remaster of sorts starring Simon Belmont. Of course followed by the all time greats Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night. It had trouble jumping to 3D with the N64 entry which was just called Castlevania again and eschewed the burgeoning Metroidvania/RPG elements of its predecessors.

  This eventually leads us to Lords of Shadow which I can certainly respect as a good game with a dedicated following, but it never appealed to me and I had a hard time putting my finger on why. It’s because it’s not just a reboot, but one that kind of wholesale grabs the QTE/cinematic/rage mode game mechanics of the 2010’s and stuffs them into a Castlevania package. It’s difficult to say anything isn’t a “true” Castlevania game in a series that was already very loosely defined as “gothic action probably with Dracula somewhere?” but it had very firmly stepped away from the conversation of its own series.

  Even if you’re new to the Castlevania series today, I think you can find great satisfaction in trawling through the depths of the franchise, playing them in chronological release order, and appreciating the various thematic and gameplay elements that each entry contributed to the series. I think gamedevs could learn a lot by looking at this evolution, too. Take look at the Release timeline and note the space in between early entries.

  Nowadays, a big game will spend multiple years in development. Inspirations it may have taken from the gaming landscape are years in the past, assuming it even picked up on them when they were peak. When that theoretical game exists, someone may then take inspiration from it and push it into their years long development. The needle moves sooooo … slowly …

  And because of that, as we all know, they’re willing to take less of a risk on creating innovative games. There’s this prevailing notion that there are only “good” and “bad” game design concepts and if you mash enough of the good concepts together in a package, you’ll have a good game. They’re all homogenizing because they’re no long trying to deliver on a product to entice you to play it, they’re trying to force a platform/market on you. Take a look at Concord or Marathon or MindsEye or any of the other monumental flops. Kind of like the DCU in my mind; you know the proper thing to do is take the time to build out the world and characters by giving satisfying entries that serve people the things they’re craving. But they keep jumping the gun. If you really wanted Marathon to succeed as a GaaS, why not create a single player game first and allow players to get accustomed to the world and give them something to value to pull them away? The eagerness with which they keep sacrificing projects to snap the trap shut early and make their money back should be a big clue.

  Anyways, speaking of MindsEye, I was watching this video earlier which speculates the game was supposed to be another metaverse platform called Everywhere, akin to Epic’s Fortnite. Nobody wants an everything game. Nobody wants an everything app. I don’t want ONE game that I play for the rest of forever, that’s not a thing I ever wanted. They’re trying to forcefully dictate the market at us and everyone is just gagging. As consumers I don’t think we can put effective boycotts together anymore but the market is so utterly saturated and overwhelmed that you literally cannot get people to care. It stands at the complete opposite end of what the article discusses and I think that’s worth meditating on.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Forced E-Waste PCs And The Case Of Windows 11’s Trusted Platform⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Agreed.

  And what’s particularly galling about this is that it’s never made any sense to me. Are you telling me an Android app, on compromised hardware or otherwise, could send malformed data that would for instance deposit $1M into my bank account? That doesn’t sound like an issue of local security. An app is just a frontend, all validation would still be through the banking infrastructure.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Forced E-Waste PCs And The Case Of Windows 11’s Trusted Platform⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Hey man, yeah, I get it. I worry a lot about sounding like a conspiracy theorist; a real Chicken Little.

  But when I look internally and ask myself why I make these posts, why I conspire so much about unknown futures, I come to two most likely outcomes:

  1. I’m trying to trick you into installing Linux for some reason. Selfishly I guess if there’s a larger userbase demanding support for things then I can expect better support for myself. Or I’m just trying to sound like a pompous smartass in front of internet strangers. But those are a little obtuse.
  2. I see a bunch of people standing in what I perceive (possibly incorrectly, but nonetheless) a trap and I’m shouting, “Hey, get outta there now before it springs!” because I have general empathy towards other people.

  Worst case I’m wrong and I look a fool. I really don’t have a problem with that. I know who I’d trust if the positions were switched 💯

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Forced E-Waste PCs And The Case Of Windows 11’s Trusted Platform⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Ya boy Richard Stallman agrees and has been saying this for years (although this article is more recentish), www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.en.html

  “Treacherous computing” is a more appropriate name, because the plan is designed to make sure your computer will systematically disobey you. In fact, it is designed to stop your computer from functioning as a general-purpose computer. Every operation may require explicit permission.

  As of 2022, the TPM2, a new “Trusted Platform Module”, really does support remote attestation and can support DRM. The threat I warned about in 2002 has become terrifyingly real.

  Actual, honest to god reasons to upgrade to Windows 11 are already vague and questionable. Your average user probably doesn’t even see any particular reason and only perceives the nuisance of it. But it’s hard to fully close your iron fist around a platform when TPM enablement is so sparse in the consumer space. So what better way to do it than a mandatory OS upgrade with it as a system requirement and assure all (or a vast majority of) systems align at once?

  Of course there are ways for stubborn users to skirt those requirements, but that misses the primary point of Trusted Computing. While the OS may baseline function to some degree, there’s no telling what functionality may be crippled by not being in a trusted state.

  I don’t know the future any better than anyone else, I’m just trying to read the winds at the moment. I suspect they may not try to pull the entire trap closed all at once and that Windows 11 may continue to more or less function as we’ve seen past iterations. But the pieces will be in place by then and it’s only a matter of time before some greedy exec gives the word …

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Forced E-Waste PCs And The Case Of Windows 11’s Trusted Platform⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  The article focuses a lot on the security of the boot process, but there’s no reason the TPM can’t be used for DRM as well (as an example, ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5283799). It’s correct when it points out the locked down nature of consoles and phones.

  We could conceivably be in for a future where Windows refuses to run code that’s not validated even after the OS boots. Or where it sees pirated software on the system and refuses to function in some manner until the software is removed/corrected to its liking.

  There are so many possibilities here and all of them are bad.

  • Forced online accounts so Microsoft always knows when/where you login
  • Stored encryption keys so Microsoft could theoretically provide access to any computer the government requests
  • Telemetry already reporting god only knows what metrics about what and how you use your software
  • Forced AI that literally watches everything you do on your screen storing it in a known location making for a valuable target and also potentially/likely being used to create more telemetry and insights into your habits
  • Eventual full control over your hardware by enforcing “trusted platform” restrictions

  It’s so fucking brazen I’m gobsmacked. As an elder Millennial, I get it, I can already hear most of you tallying in your head if having to care about your OS is gonna be the final straw . This is no longer a nerdy request to please use Linux, this is a five alarm fire. Add to all this how much Microsoft is in bed with the US government and potential issues with all that on the horizon and I really, truly believe it’s time to switch, for your own good.

  Please. Even if you’re not going to run out and install Linux tomorrow, you need to start mentally preparing yourself for the inevitability of the task. Get yourself accustomed to the idea and when you’re ready to dip your toes in, just know how many resources are out there for you.

  And to the Linux community out there, there are going to be a lot of newcomers who don’t have the technical skills to undertake this and enjoy/appreciate this in the same way as you do. Be kind to them, the need for us to support each other has never been greater. Please.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨MindsEye boss claims game's negative reaction ahead of release has been paid for in "concerted effort" against studio⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  The game looks fiiiiiiiiiiine but I’m already exhausted at the thought of another $80 USD price tag with DLC/microtransactions and forced multiplayer elements.

  AAA studios are all doing the same sorts of things and putting just a little twist on it hoping it’ll be enough to persuade you away from all the other AAA games and studious out there doing the exact same thing.

  I’m not a hater, I don’t hate your mediocre looking game that absolutely fails to stand out from the crowd, but I’m not gonna buy into your advertising for it either. To anyone who finds a home in this game and enjoys it, I’m legit happy for you. Mostly I’m just never going to think about this ever again.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The AI-powered collapse of the American tech workfoce⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  My last job tracked it, because of course they did. They could tell how often we logged into the AI tools and how many queries we ran a week and if we didn’t hit a certain number, we were reprimanded.

  It was a support job. They wanted us running customer tickets to train the AI, we were basically training our replacement. And it’s obvious to everyone, we’re not stupid, so morale was absolutely in the fucking gutter.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bungie appears to have plagarized an artist's work and style in their extraction shooter "Marathon" according to this Bluesky post⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s hilariously awful because, as a fan of the original Marathon trilogy, the aesthetic of the new game is the only thing that appealed to me; and it was stolen.

  I have no interest in an extraction shooter. You can make an extraction shooter if you want, but you gotta make something that players can get emotionally invested in first. Original Marathon players won’t recognize this and new players won’t care so what was the fucking point of any of this, I’m going crazy. This industry has lost all direction

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Stop Internet Searching and Start Asking on Fediverse?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  100% agree and I would like to add on to it that it’s worth just posting information, too.

  Did you run into a weird error with your Linux install and have a difficult, yet interesting time troubleshooting it? Post the solution! Even if it doesn’t directly address someone else’s problem, often finding pieces of an issue and correlating them with a bigger problem can help.

  I don’t run a personal blog and downvotes mean literally nothing here, so have at it!

  I went cold turkey on Reddit when they stopped API access and it was rough in the beginning, but I get ever so slightly hints of the old internet here on Lemmy. It’s raw, but it’s fresh and it’s ours. I love it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ex-Bungie Developers Create TeamLFG, A New PlayStation Studio - Game Informer⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  After stating its studio would be based in Bellevue, Washington, the statement explains that the “LFG” in the studio’s name stands for “looking for group,” a common internet acronym for people searching for people to play games with.

  “Our first game is a team-based action game that draws inspiration from fighting games, platformers, MOBAs, life sims, and frog-type games.”

  Studio named LFG and cites MOBAs as an inspiration. More MP only, GaaS stuff.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft getting nervous about Europe's tech independence⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes, thank you, I think this is exactly what I’ve been feeling but unable to articulate properly.

  I do feel there’s a great loss of knowledge in IT, but I’m also aware that I’m motivated by my own opinions and fear of job stability here. There are absolutely times when the cloud makes sense, and those arguments about capex v. opex nail it. I’d love to blame it entirely on greedy execs, but that upfront cost is hard to swallow for a new business, whether you’re planning on super/hyper scaling or not. Cohosting in a datacenter is a great option, but even then, most people simply won’t be willing to invest the time, as you put it.

  I’ve had the luck of working for stable institutions like banks and biotech in the past where they built out their infrastructure for security and reliability properly and it was wonderful. I’ve also had the misfortune of working for hyperscaling startups with zero trust architecture built in Azure. It was a nightmare and I hated every day of it.

  Like most things, the path forward is going to require a delicate balance, but there’s absolutely no fucking trusting Microsoft. When Europe says, “Hey, we’re getting nervous about your influence here” the response isn’t:

  “In a time of geopolitical volatility, we are committed to providing digital stability. That is why today Microsoft is announcing five digital commitments to Europe. These start with an expansion of our cloud and AI infrastructure in Europe, aimed at enabling every country to fully use these technologies to strengthen their economic competitiveness. And they include a promise to uphold Europe’s digital resilience regardless of geopolitical and trade volatility.”

  I mean, of course that’s what they’d say, but still. Fuck 'em.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft getting nervous about Europe's tech independence⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Y’all, I gotta admit I’m really starting to feel old. I still do not fully believe that cloud hosting is the answer for everyone. For businesses of certain sizes, I think running your own stuff and maintaining that IT knowledge within your org is invaluable, but I’m just an IT gremlin who can’t properly articulate his thoughts.

  Anyone more knowledgeable care to weigh in?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Every. Single. Game. Ever.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Being kinda serious for a second here, I think this is a byproduct of chasing ever higher production values in service of “realism”. The more they try to spackle over all the cracks, the more the ones they can’t/don’t become obvious to the player. Just like movies, videogames often require a bit of temporary suspension of disbelief.

  I’m not gonna write a whole essay about chasing some perfect, mythical balance here, but it’s a design aspect that I feel a lot of developers just don’t consider at all. Maintaining a high level of illusion is extremely difficult and not even always all that worth it. Sometimes it’s just nice to admit you don’t know why that enemy dropped a glowing hamburger that restored 25% health, but those are the rules you’re playing by and you don’t have to question it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Marathon | Gameplay Reveal Trailer⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  The aesthetic is impeccable, but I can’t even begin to see anything from the trailer that makes this stand out as an MP shooter? I was already not interested in the slightest because I’m just not down for any sort of GaaS these days, I want single player experiences, but WTF was that?

  They threw in some kinda line about death not being the end … in 2025? Death and rebirth is not a new thing. Go play Deathloop instead, I think it’s tragically underrated and the MP can be totally ignored if you like, although its asymmetric design is also interesting if you want to engage with it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Open letter: ~100 EU companies urge EU lawmakers to take “radical action” to shrink the reliance on foreign infrastructure by fostering a so-called “Euro stack”.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  As someone who has worked in the tech industry near Seattle, I don’t know how well known it is to the wider populace or people in Europe, but open source is absolutely anathema here. It’s seen as insecure, unstable, and unreliable.

  I work in IT so I’ve tangentially worked across a number of sectors supporting their stacks and it’s pervasive within the American culture. There is a major de-prioritization of in-house IT knowledge and sysadmins in favor of enterprise support contracts. When shit hits the fan, it’s less important to have a knowledgeable team and more important to have a foot to stamp down on until the issue is resolved. Often that foot has another foot that stamps down, onward and onward until someone manages to engage the MSP or cloud provider that set the service up initially with their scant documentation.

  It’s a nightmare both for tech workers and from a cyber security perspective. A lot of this contains my own personal bias and perspective on the matters, but let me say, I have stared into the void and I can’t stop screaming.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why BlueSky Isn’t the Alternative to X (Formerly Twitter) You’re Looking For — and Why Mastodon Is the Better Choice Over X, Threads, and BlueSky⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  All these “why are people using Bluesky and not Mastodon” topics are starting to give me a headache. You’ve been told and on some level, I have to assume you understand the reasons, but are simply unwilling to address them. When people say, “it’s difficult to use” instead of understanding why they think that way, you just dismissively wave your hands and say, “no it’s not”.

  If you want people to use Mastodon, you need to SHOW people the power of federation while HIDING all the rough bits. People want to go to where the friends, writers, artists, scientists, etc. they want to follow are and sign up for an account there. Simple as. In this way, they very much want at least the appearance of centralization. I don’t want to have to get balls deep in an instance’s politics to understand their moderation, who they’re federated with, if they have the funds to operate into the foreseeable future, and how to migrate my data if any of those things goes sideways.