I've heard a fair bit about this game, but never really played it. I may try to get a copy for my Steam Deck. Which one would you recommend for a first timer?
For me it was the themeing. Games like League of Legends try to come up with weird reasons why the games work the way they do and it feels silly. SMNC leaned into the goofiness. Instead of killing a dragon for gold you’d have to catch the Mascot. I wanna say you’d get stuff from brands to help you out but I can’t remember.
For what it’s worth, Robin Walker and his team are working on the next half life after Alyx. Will that ever come out? I have no idea and I’m not expecting anything. Deadlock however is a game designed by one of the grandfathers of the moba genre, and has had over 20k concurrent players at any given time, and it wasn’t even announced with it’s existence only known through word of mouth. That’s insanely impressive and shows how huge the moba genre really is and how those players are thirsty for a new game from a big company. It sucks and I wish we had more sp valve games but I’m content with the work they’ve done on proton, steamos, the steam deck, steam itself, and half life alyx. They haven’t been sitting on their hands not doing anything, they’ve been putting their focus on more technical areas versus making games and that’s ok.
It’s called HLX, and it’s apparently a traditional non-vr game. Robin Walker was leading the Alyx team, it’s a safe bet he’s leading this team or working with this team on the sequel.
Having HL:A Alyx be VR was super cool. The game was so immersive and for a while afterwards, I was convinced that any furure HL game had to be VR. Then the novelty wore off and the VR market basically is basically dead. Now I’m excited for another flat screen HL game.
Right? Both traditional genders have a characteristic fat distribution, allowing to customize them independently (sliders!) would be a win-win for binary and non-binary people.
CYOA - Choose Your Own Adventure. It’s a genre for interactive stories where you get to make decisions that affects the story. It’s also a tag on Steam
Telltale is the most prolific developer of these kinds of games.
Japan has had elements similar to this in visual novels for a long time. Snatcher, Policenauts, YU-NO, etc. feature the same type of gameplay but without the parts in Life is Strange where you explore in a 3d environment.
They’re basically an evolution of the point and click adventure. This variation is often just called a narrative game or other similar sounding names. Searching for “games like telltale” should give you a good list.
Telltale were the ones that evolved the point and click into the form it takes now just so you know. Supermassive (until dawn) made their take on the genre feel more cinematic and more like watching a movie with choices but they’re ultimately still using the formula that telltale pioneered.
I’m fairly sure years ago that there was a game called alone in the dark that was very similar to this but that was long before telltale. Anything I can remember about it is that it had had fire physics and that every time you started a new level it would load up and say “last time on a loan in the dark” and then give you a tv show style rundown of what you previously done
Having the game streamed by all these huge channels before it’s even officially announced is kinda crazy. Everyone wants to play Valve’s “secret game” of course, so it’s free marketing. Pretty clever.
My immediate emotional reaction is to dunk on you. Boo hoo, a company won’t make a game you want. But you’re missing the valve you grew up with, and gaming is worse off now. Multiplayer games with subscription models and microtransactions have become the default, and we all feel it.
For me Deadlock has great characters, lore, new interesting mechanics, and only surface level similarities with DOTA. I’m not upset about it really. Just happy Valve is making anything again. Maybe I’m worn down, but so many big companies take but shits everyday I’m just happy to see one building good shit. (And it’s free!)
So you said “boo hoo” to people that don’t like how microstransactions, subscription models, and the like? You are not upset that the state of gaming in AAA landscape have degraded?
There was a very direct terms of service “Don’t share info”. But The Verge are notoriously awful journalists. It’s like they have no clue of what basic decent journalism entails and confuse good reporting with being trolling assholes. There’s a reason they were the only idiots who broke it and got rightly burned at the stake for it. I bet the guy wasn’t even looking at the screen when he spammed the ESC key at the game. Just because it wasn’t 100 pages of legalese doesn’t mean they weren’t bound by it, clicking ESC instead of the button OK means nothing in legal terms. And just using the software means you agree to the explicit and implicit terms of service that come with the software as long as it isn’t something blatantly illegal. They were assholes and received the consequences of their actions. And that’s that.
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.
If someone ask you for a ride and you tell them not to roll down the window and they say “lol, nope” and still get on the car. They can’t be mad if you stop the car and tell them to get out when they roll down the window laughing hysterically at your face. Pressing escape means nothing in this case. The Verge’s writer was acting stupid on purpose. This is like kids who think that crossing their fingers behind their back means they aren’t bound to a promise. It is wishful thinking.
Add: oh, and BTW, there’s a reason almost all terms of service start with “By using this software you agree to…” the legal fact is using the service not clicking on the agree button. That’s just legal ammunition that companies use to prove on court that the user was aware of the legal contract. EULAs uset to be sheets of paper on a cardboard box along side CDs. No one had to click on an agree button. By buying and using the software, those were the terms you agreed to. Almost all contracts include that sort of language because the use is the fact that supports the legal contract. Law is just leaving facts and agreements on paper, facts overrule legalese, that is actually the basis used by courts to dismiss enforcement of EULAs. Like how signers aren’t legally bound to fulfill irrational or unachievable agreements, or language intentionally obtuse or ambiguous.
To ride this special car, you must agree to not open the windows.
Expectation: No? Okay, then I cannot allow you to ride this special car.
Valve: nope? Okay well get in anyway... Whaaat you opened the windows? Wtf?
Not saying the verge writer was or wasn't behaving like an entitled child. In fact, I'm inclined to think he was, but It's irrelevant. Valve made a goof. (Gasp!)
I could care less what valve does in response. They could blacklist the verge entirely and I probably wouldn't even know. I just wonder if people only care because it's valve.
So people need to be bound by EULAs that they don’t click to agree?
People…? No. And whether they clicked to agree or not should be irrelevant; EULAs should be unenforceable.
Journalists and their employers…? Neither… but then developers don’t have any obligation to provide them with review copies in the future either.
In an industry that depends on mutual goodwill, trust, and agreement, bypassing the implied NDA was completely legal… but profoundly stupid, disingenuous, and unprofessional.
The Verge decided to burn bridges it had probably taken decades to build, for the sake of one single article. It was their right and prerogative to do it, nothing illegal about it, they had no obligation to follow the EULA.
But Valve has no obligation to let them play their invite-only beta either, or to provide them with review copies in the future, and neither has any other developer.
We’ll see how it works out for the Verge in the future.
He hit esc to avoid clicking accept on the nda bit, then bragged about it in the article. There have been other articles about the game, but afaik he’s the only one that was banned for being a smartass.
From what I remember there was no NDA but no EULA either. It was a simple “please don’t share anything about this”, the journo ignored it and their account was banned. As far as I’m aware there’s no legal action going on, the Verge have just lost any goodwill they ever had with Valve.
bin.pol.social
Aktywne