right up until redacted and suddenly it’s reeeaaaal difficult to find a way to end the game, because dying isn’t an option if you didn’t prepare for it XD
I found one of those genies that multiply in someone’s multiplayer room.
I farmed the Valkyrie for wishes until I was broken, but I still could not reliably cast my own wish spell. Turns out, it gets harder to cast the more you level it up. You would need some ridicilous stuff to counter that.
Rimworld, way too much Rimworld. A big part of it is that I’ll often have it one a second computer during the workday just on pause to pop in during downtime but I guess that still counts as playtime just being loaded.
For me a lot of it is in trying to maximize efficiencies. Setting up task duties and resources where you have plenty enough but not overloading your storage. Defensive position designs to counter any possible situation. Layouts to the base to allow free movement.
Lot of others try for specific artistic ideas or scenario goals, but I’m something of engineer minded player.
It is a dedicated and organized team of modders that has output a stunning amount of content, all of it cohesive, and what many would consider required “base game” content.
They have literally put out dozens of mods that could be standalone DLC, all for free.
I will. Going to start playing again today. Trying to pull away from Hollow Knight which I committed to finally trying this holiday. That’s a fantastic game.
I’ve found that as I got older, my taste in games has narrowed significantly. I used to be able to play pretty much anything, or especially any popular or critically acclaimed games. But these days I just don’t give a shit about most of what’s out there. I do have certain genres and developers that interest me though, so I know there are occasionally going to be some new games that I really like. And every now and then I might get surprised by something too.
I suspect this is a natural result of having much more limited time as we become adults. I used to love all kinds of games too, but today if I feel like a game doesn’t respect my time it gets thrown right onto the “no thanks” pile.
It’s limited time, but also the selection these last few years has felt very uninspired. Everything is extremely derivative and been done to death.
There was a mass consolidation of developers/publishers recently, on top of further extended development cycles that has really limited any kind of variety we might have seen.
You can only play reskins of essentially the same game for so long. Not to mention recycling gameplay loops microtransaction hell toxic multiplayer experience (cheating griefing), makes for a minefield of unplesant game experiences. Sticking to what you like and know is how you get enjoyment out of playing.
Does it not feel weird sometimes to be disconnected from the gaming zeitgeist? Like, we can obviously still follow news and whatnot, but I'm particularly talking about having no significant emotional investment in contemporary releases—in other words: being disconnected from the hype of announcements and release cycles.
I know people consider this a blessing in this age of hyper-consumerism, but there's a communal aspect to it that I like, and it often feels odd to not be part of it.
Not weird for me. I don’t play anymore at all. Don’t even have a system to do so. But, I watch YouTube videos about games and game facts or speed running every night before bed. I know more about games now than when I actually played them. I just don’t have time for them anymore but that doesn’t mean they don’t interest me. I lost my passion for playing games years ago but not the idea of it. I don’t know or care about the hype but I just find it terribly interesting via others hype or interest in these games. If that makes sense.
Like, we can obviously still follow news and whatnot
I stopped following the news first, then largely lost interest in new games after that. After TotalBiscuit passed I haven’t seen a single thing about video game news or reviews. If there’s something I’m interested in I might skim through a review, but that’s the most I do.
If you’re not sure what StopKillingGames is about, the creator of the campaign, Ross Scott (of Freeman’s Mind fame) made this short video to give the rundown.
Calcium Contract is a boomer shooter with a pretty unique rewind feature. Humorous with old school feels, but for a modern time. It’s a one man project.
Gridworld - a simulation game made up of a grid, as the name suggests. You can control the size of the grid, and what spawns in it. The core of the game are these tiny creatures that each take up 1 square. They have varying nodes on them that represent traits and abilities. Under the hood the game says these have to be “wired” correctly by the neural network to make a creature act right. So basically you let this thing run for hours and eventually get little square creatures that eat plants and maybe each other to live.
Pretty much this. I’m fairly certain that I read years ago that Gabe just wasn’t interested as well. Which fair enough valve don’t need to develop games now because they have to but because they want to.
This is the correct answer I think. They’re also not interested in releasing sub-par games, and again like you say they don’t need to release games at all to make money anymore. So if they’re not that interested and haven’t come up with anything conceptually/mechanically that reaches the high bar they’ve set for themselves, it makes more sense to scrap/postpone.
Their reputation is much more important, and they’re just not going to half-ass Half Life 3. It will come out when they feel they have something truly extraordinary, or it won’t come out at all.
They seem to release these games as some sort of tech demo show showcasing what they see is the future of games. One has the set peice structure of game design, two was the physics engine, and Alex was VR. So other then the continuation of the time line, half life Alex pretty much was half life three. Also they know the hype/meme train has been building for so long that nothing will be good enough. Like Duke nukem.
The multi-billionaire owner with the backing of the Chinese government is claiming that he’s the underdog against a popular company/piece of software/GabeN. He’s made some poor choices interacting with the community.
Yes, it’s probably nice for a publisher to have a guaranteed income, which is why they sell exclusivity. It leaves a sour taste in my mouth, so I choose not to support it.
The rest about the launcher being bad sounds unhinged to me, but some people are really into that.
They bought Rocket League and actively made it worse.
The multi-billionaire owner with the backing of the Chinese government
Who cares about the backing if it has no effect on anything? I’m more concerned about Valve having a separate Steam client for China, censoring their games specifically for China and even reportedly banning for bringing up Winnie the Pooh.
Most investments aren’t to gain influence but to profit. At this time, there is no sign of Epic doing anything that could be explained by the alleged influence of the Chinese government, and as the majority owner, Tim Sweeney has the final say anyway.
I never said it was not for profit. I said you invest to gain influence, which is true by fact, not an opinion. If I buy a significant number of shares in a company, I do so because I want more than money; I want influence on decision-making. I do not think the Chinese government is only interested in monetary gains; do you think that’s their only goal?
And again, do you believe a country/government able to indoctrinate any business that wants a share of their market, like the Steam example, is only invested for monetary gains and nothing else?
Tim Sweeney can do and decide many things, but opposing the Chinese government is certainly not one. And I don’t know how you imagine influence, but having 40% of a company is something I call influence, wouldn’t you? Even if they can’t tell him how to run the business, he sure as hell will do nothing that could worsen the relationship between him and his biggest investor, aka Tencent. And who is behind Tencent? The Chinese government.
It’s all in the realm of “what if”. Sure, it could attempt this or that, but it hasn’t, nor is there any guarantee that it would fly. That just brings me back to the original point of when a company that is not partially owned by the Chinese actively works to please the Chinese government to further their business interest but I don’t see much of that with Epic. If you look at some of the other companies in which Tencent has a large stake, like Dontnod, there’s absolutely no sign of the Chinese agenda in the games either.
Yes, and you are entitled to your own opinion, but that does not change the facts. No, the influence is not “what if it is there” – it is there, plain and simple. That’s not up for discussion. It’s public knowledge that Tencent owns 40%, and Tencent is a government-controlled entity. It does not matter if they “abuse/use” it actively or not. It sounds like, in your mind, influence is only relevant when you use it actively, which is not true.
They’re also just plain unethical. There’s never been a government as insidious as the CCP in exploiting vulnerable foreign nations like South Africa or South East Asia thru incentives that are basically just a debt trap.
I don’t disagree with everything you said here but come on, Steam is basically a privately owned PC games store monopoly that has now been going on for 25 years. Since it’s not public we can’t really know for sure but there’s a very real possibility that Epic is the underdog here
Epic doesn’t make nearly as much money from Fortnite’s players as steam makes from their users though. Same for UE royalties. I don’t think there’s a single UE license that has a 30% rev share (which is what you get on steam if you don’t have big AAA sales). Hell, I don’t even think there’s one at 10%.
Steam doesn’t have anti competitive behavior yet. Gabe has made some bad decisions in the past (may I remind you that he greenlit Bethesda’s paid mods idea ?) but he does seem to generally put the users first. But what happens after him ? Imo the company will go public at some point, and it’s pretty much downhill from here
Horse armor was a dlc, not a mod (well, there were also joke mods), and it was for oblivion. They tested the paid mods on Skyrim back in 2015 (Bethesda is apparently having another try right now, although it looks like valve is out of the picture this time). Officially implemented on the steam workshop and all, and obviously valve was supposed to get a cut out of every sale which is probably why they were A-OK with it
Steam somehow prevents publishers from selling games at a cheaper price in competitors’ stores, even if their cut from the store is lower. That is extremely anti-competitive and has to be illegal.
If you sign up to use Steam to distribute your game then one of the things you agree to is to make it available on Steam at the same price you offer anywhere else. This protects Steam’s business and ensures that Steam customers aren’t disadvantaged.
However, it also applies even if the alternative channels don’t make use of Steam directly (e.g selling on Epic). This is where the Wolfire Games lawsuit comes in. Will be interesting to see how it goes.
Pretty much every single decision you can see from their history since the inception of EGS is either stupid or blatantly destructive to gaming industry. Just some examples: better revenue shares for developers? Sure but this translates into worse platform. Money bonuses for exclusivity is great for developers? Sure but the game is then stuck at the platform that gives no means for users to interact and let developers know how they could improve their product. Cross platform multiplayer platform that works? Sure but then we have to deal with stupid requirements like having an account on additional platforms we may not want to use, even to play single player modes sometimes.
You can also check Tim’s Twitter and see how ignorant and hypocritical he is. I wouldn’t mind it but his decisions seem to actually affect the whole platform and therefore the industry so… too bad.
Don't forget how he abandoned PC gaming when Unreal Tournament 3 bombed after they released shitty mid tools and the modding community they built up over UT 2k3 and 2k4 dissolved.
better revenue shares for developers?
Money bonuses for exclusivity is great for developers?
It actually goes to publishers, so the only way devs see that extra cut is by self-publishing. So I guess for smaller indie devs it can be a good deal.
Elder millennial, here. One of the weird things about the 90s was cereal boxes marketed to little bastards like me at the time would often have some kind of toy included in it.
PC gaming was kind of in its infancy and growing rapidly in popularity, so eventually the inevitable happed: a cereal company promoted their cereal by shoving a fucking CD into it, that little bastards like me lost their shit over, installed, and played the snot out of.
Cornflakes is cereal. AoE is Age of Empires, you might have heard about it. The comment I replied to was talking about games being released in cereal boxes. Where is the context lacking?
That had to be wild to work on. You get brought into the kickoff meeting for what you assume is going to be some soulless marketing gimick, then they start laying it out.
It had a plot, a decent amount of levels. There was a good amount of heart that went into that.
Hades! Whenever you die, you get reborn in the “house” of your father Hades. Dying and being reborn is an integral part of this game and is what keeps the story going. You also get to upgrade and unlock weapons that way. Highly recommend this game if you like fastpaced and smartly designed action games!
That’s basically true of all roguelites, right? The whole genre is built around the idea of playing through, dying, and coming back stronger so you can go farther. I’m thinking Rogue Legacy, Dead Cells, Slay the Spire, The Binding of Isaac etc. etc.
I played Rogue Legacy and Dead Cells combined at least 150h and only a bit of BOI. I know that in RL the shtick is that with every new run another one of your family is the character. And in Dead Cells you just use a new body every run. The stories in those games aren’t very elaborate and the games would just be as good as they are without story.
Hades is different in that the story parts of the game are an important part of the experience (you go around and get to know a lot of different characters and find different ways to upgrade stuff) and that the main character Zagreus doesn’t really die - he is also a god. When you lose all hp you just get transported back to Hades and almost everyone there has new tings to say and the relationships develop over time.
I don’t know how to explain it better but the main idea of a roguelite is clearly there the execution is way more elaborate and story heavy than RL, DC or BOI. Slay the Spire is on my imaginary backlog of games in need to play before I die.
Yup, was just Steam DRM. There’s universal tools to crack that. Less so “you can’t play our game unless you spend money” and more “it’s slightly inconvenient to install this way, innit? Why don’t you go buy it instead, bruv?”
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