It’s okay to stop playing a game after you’ve played enough of it to understand it isn’t for you.
I think I had about 10~12 hours played of Diablo 4 before I noticed it wasn’t for me and stopped. Still enjoyed what little I played of it, but wasn’t motivated to continue.
That’s not really FOMO. FOMO would be like, pre-ordering a special edition of a game you aren’t even sure about wanting for $90 because there’s a “Preorder-Only” in-game perk and you just have to have, or falling for those “Limited Time Only” microtransactions in FTP games.
I guess I meant it more so in the fear of missing out on something culturally relevant. Whether it’s a modern multiplayer game like Destiny 2 or a classic that is frequently referenced like Half Life. Not being able to be part of the conversation when it’s brought up
I get what you are saying but a lot of the time it’s just a mediocre experience and I’m not necessarily disliking it. More indifferent than anything. Occasionally a game has made a pretty solid turn around in the last act
General discussion of illegal activities is legal, but distributed methods/keys/software to bypass DRM is not. In addition to the poster getting in trouble, the admins of multiple instances could at minimum be forced to delete the content, and at worst get their asses kicked by Nentendo’s legal team, and be forced to reveal the identities of the user that posted it.
In my jurisdiction downloading pirated stuff is perfectly legal. It’s only illegal when you’re distributing it. And even for jurisdictions where it’s not legal even to download pirated stuff, companies don’t much care about people who download, but only those who upload and as far as I know, you can discuss pirating all you want and nothing’s illegal.
I got curious myself and agreed, so I went looking.
A lot of sources specified that it was part of a technical requirements checklist, and…
Yeap. It doesn’t explicitly require a “press any key” screen, but it gives a more pleasant screen to look at while you select a user. People online also say it’s used to detect which controller is in use.
If you add a feature like this to a game, it becomes harder to maintain if there are discrepancies between builds. So presumably it’s usually just left in rather than removed.
The New Input Package is actually just what Unity users call it because it isn't the original and requires a package manager install from the stock LTR releases but it's been out for a few years now. Still, you're right, although I see no reason not to adopt it, most games that are using it will probably be releasing this year.
I think you’ve nailed it by outlining the worry of kids without an income of their own - if you can’t buy what you want whenever, game length is a plus, but when you’ve got disposable income, summer sales, the odd free game, and new good titles coming out all the time, brevity’s more valuable than each game being a forever-game.
I feel the same with modern games. But some of the retro achievements point you to hidden places and secrets, and challenges to complete.
So it’s a little different.
I kinda agree with you. I don’t use retro achievements because I’m an obsessed completionist. That means that I’d keep playing one game well beyond the point it stopped being fun just to tick all those boxes.
All controls should be remappable. All means all. Not most, not some, and certainly none of this bullshit where all you can do is toggle between “XBox 360 controller layout A/XBox 360 controller layout B.” This is especially true for titles on consoles, many of which still to this very day don’t allow you to remap their controls at all.
For 3D games, field of view. Far too many developers of FPS titles in particular have Console Disease, and feel it’s somehow acceptable to lock the FOV to 70° or some absurd number. If they allow you to adjust it at all they may be feeling “generous” enough to let you go as high as 90°. That’s completely unacceptable. On my 4K monitor that’s 25" from my face, I need at least 120°. Honestly, I want to see that slider go up to 180°. That’s right, I want to be able to look at your game world like a goddamned pigeon. On that note I really have to wonder what those people with those 3840x1080 überwide monitors do most of the time, other than spending their days in never ending torment.
Allow me to turn off the stupid pre-launch splash titles. Certainly at least after the first startup. I certainly don’t need to be told that nVidia is the way it’s meant to be played, or that your company licensed Havok, or who your publisher is, or who your publisher’s owner is, or who your publisher’s owner’s owner is, etc. Nobody cares. Usually instead you have to resort to replacing the .mkv or .bik files in the game folder with zero-byte text files or something. It’s dumb.
While we’re griping, and speaking of Console-Itis, does every PC game now need to have an unskippable message telling me that this game has auto save and urging me not to turn off my PC when the icon is being displayed? Really? Nobody’s going to do that. Tell me your game is a shitty console port without telling me your game is a shitty console port. To keep this on topic, let’s have a setting to turn that off, too, because it’s stupid. Off by default would be nice. Should there be an Idiot Mode toggle?
Granularity in subtitles. It seems too many games only have two settings: All subtitles off, or they assume you’re completely deaf. Typically I want to be able to read what characters are saying in their voice lines, but instead the developers also think I need to see the bottom third of my screen filled with [BOOM] [GUNFIRE] [JUKEBOX MUSIC] [FOOTSTEPS] [BOOM] [GUNFIRE] [BOOM] [BOOM] and so on and so forth, all the time. They should either categorize sounds and make their subtitling things individually selectable, or at least if they insist on making it a slider give it three or four levels: Off, cutscene/conversation dialog only, all spoken lines (“Cover me!” “Reloading!” “Never should have come here!” etc.), and then only the top level resulting in every single cricket and rustle of grass being captioned. Some games do manage to accomplish this. Many do not.
Oh, I thought of a good one to add to my wish list. I want every game to bring back the sound test menu. But they won’t, because every studio on Earth now wants you to spend an extra $15 for their game’s soundtrack. (As if it’s not all going to be on Youtube about twelve seconds after release anyway…)
To be fair to devs, increasing the FOV has a lot of performance implications on how much less they’re culling from the scene as you rotate the camera. In this era of open world games, I suspect it scales very poorly as that FOV increases. Temporarily increasing the FOV is also one of their handy tricks for giving you a sense of speed when you hit a boost button and whatnot, so whatever your FOV is, they need to make it more than that.
Sound test menus are a remnant of arcade design, and when arcades starting dying, this feature made less sense. The OST sale is usually more of a revenue stream for the game’s composer, as I understand it.
That might be fine for consoles which have known performance limitations built in. But if I’m on my PC, let me make that decision. Don’t try to make it for me.
I understand the desire, but then that might have implications on support tickets, advertised system requirements, separate maintenance and optimizations for only one platform, etc. It might be that turning up the FOV even a smidge over their maximum requires a super computer that doesn’t even exist yet, depending on what it has to render and how it works under the hood.
Given I’ve never seen that actually become the case even in games with engines I had to apply configuration hacks to increase the FOV, I find all of that highly unlikely.
Fully remappable controls is my biggest wish. I hate WASD and swear by EDSF, but some games like Fallout 4 hardcode some controls. E is hardcoded to “interact” or “open door” or something, but the game DOES let you map “move forward” to E. So I can run around like normal, but every time I run past a door it auto opens to a zombie hiding behind it.
Allow me to turn off the stupid pre-launch splash titles.
I can guarantee that those splash titles are included because of contractual obligations. The same way a movie lists the publishing companies in the intro. Including a “skip after first launch” option would violate their contract. If it were up to a game’s director, they would almost universally prefer to drop you straight at the title screen. But they legally aren’t allowed to do so.
Oh, you want us to publish your game? We can require the game designer to show our logo for {x} seconds when the game launches. Oh, you want your game to be G-Sync compatible? Nvidia can require that you show their logo for at least {x} seconds when the game launches. Oh, you want to use our game engine to build your game? Unreal can require that you show their logo for {x} seconds when the game launches. Et cetera…
Quite famously, Unity had a reputational problem because of this. Free users were required to show the splash screen, but companies with larger war chests could pay the higher rate to skip it. It led to Unity being associated with low-budget and amateurish games, while higher quality games running on the same engine, which would be better advertising for Unity, tended to not show the logo.
While we’re griping, and speaking of Console-Itis, does every PC game now need to have an unskippable message telling me that this game has auto save and urging me not to turn off my PC when the icon is being displayed? Really? Nobody’s going to do that. Tell me your game is a shitty console port without telling me your game is a shitty console port.
This one, along with “press any button to start”, annoy me so much. There is absolutely no reason to have to press a button before even entering the main menu. If you need it to determine the type of input device, that can be the first press on the menu.
Treat PC games as PC games, even if you make them cross platform.
Damn. Looks like I really should stop being lazy and check out some mobile clients that weren’t abandoned like Sync. It’s even reformatting my manually typed spoiler tags to the wrong format after I submit.
It sounds like Microsoft is being notified by its Minecraft players that toxic interactions are happening on MinecraftOnline’s server, and they’re taking action to reduce toxicity associated with their IP.
It’s really hard for me to fault them for that. Especially since MinecraftOnline is using the the Minecraft trademark in a way that sounds official in the name. I’m surprised they didn’t put a stop to that as it is.
Yeah honestly. Fuck Microsoft and all that but this sounds like there’s a strong reason behind it, and the owner’s post about “free speech” and “totalitarian China” is a MAJOR red flag.
Right? I’m a bit jaded but when someone starts making the “they’re attacking free speech” argument it usually comes down to “wahhh they won’t let us say slurs on Minecraft anymore” it sounds like users of the server are reporting toxic behaviors and the owner knows exactly what they mean.
Fair, but the point is valid even if we do not like the behavior they might exhibit on that server. It is their server, ran on their hardware. They should absolutely be able to swear and curse and be general dicks on their own server.
In my opinion the issue is more that the name seems very official and might be misleading to players. They should make them change it and perhaps delist them from their official server finding tools, assuming those exist (have never really clicked with minecraft myself, though i do love me some space engineers)
An Ex-post facto EULA. Because whatever dumbshit Microsoft acquisition EULA that bootlickers like you want to point to in order to justify censorship 100% didn’t exist beforehand. But beside all that if I’m running it on my computer, your EULA doesn’t matter anymore at all.
Yeah, and it’s doubly infuriating because Discord is not a good replacement for support forums. It isn’t searchable via search engines, and even the built in search is fucking dog water.
Let’s say I have an error, so I google “{Program} {Error code} Solved”. With a forum, I would find a thread that is already talking about the specific error, with comments regarding troubleshooting steps or a solution… But with Discord, all I get is a generic link to the program’s server.
And even once I’m in the server, there often isn’t a good way for me to find existing threads about my specific error. Maybe I check the pinned messages, but some servers have dozens of channels; am I expected to check the pins on every single channel? Oftentimes that seems to be the expectation, because asking a question will often just get a “check the pinned messages, ya thud-fuck” type of response.
Or maybe I search it, but (again) am I expected to search every single channel? And since Discord doesn’t use fuzzed searches, searching for “Error code 0x00548327” won’t return any results if the thread simply uses “Error 548327” instead. With Google (or any half-decent search engine, really) you get results for both. But not with Discord.
So instead, I ask in the support channel. And that leads me to my final gripe… My response takes actual effort from another person in order to solve. Maybe I get lucky and they have a bot set up to respond to a keyword/error number in my comment… But if not, or if I didn’t use the specific keyword that the bot was searching for, then I need to rely on other people. If there are 200 people with the same issue, that’s 200 times that someone needs to respond to what is essentially the same message. With a forum, you could simply find the post, and read the responses. No human interaction necessary, because it has already been done. The question and answer process has already happened. But with Discord, I’m forced to wait on someone to actually respond, and the devs/admins actually need to dedicate time and resources to ensuring it gets answered. That constant vigilance takes a lot more time and effort away from actual mod duties.
I get it that it’s probably easier to setup a Discord server, than to run your own forum, but you can always get a managed solution or use reddit (I would prefer if Lemmy was used, but I am also realistic).
I’m actually against companies running their own subreddits, purely because I’m an old redditor who remembers when it was specifically disallowed by Reddit. The original intent was for the site to the run by the people, not by companies. Companies were actually prevented from moderating their own subs; the worry was that they would use their mod powers to suppress any sort of negative press or criticism, no matter how valid.
For instance, maybe there’s a popular TV show. The company wasn’t allowed to have a hand in moderating the official fan sub for the show, because it was left up to the public. If the show did something unpopular, the broadcasting company shouldn’t have the ability to suppress the criticism about it.
But Reddit has since done a complete 180 on that topic, and now goes out of their way to install corporate moderators. Subs are now run as an extension of the company’s marketing and/or PR departments
I genuinely believe people will look back at this moment and wonder what Nintendo could have done if they weren’t too limited in their vision to understand the opportunity they are throwing away here.
Apple isn’t popular with younger people the way it used to be, nobody likes Microsoft, everybody hates Android (I do too even though that is my phone os)… there is a major generational opening here for introducing kids to computers in a fun way and becoming “the computer” in the minds of kids.
Especially with the environmental crisis and climate change, people will look back at this and shake there heads and lament that if only Nintendo had copied Valve for that generation of Switches, Nintendo could have grown into an entire operating system and computer culture and there would be WAY less needlessly obsolete handheld computers laying around from when the next generation of Switches inveitably comes out…
What people still don’t understand about computers and people is that whoever introduces kids to computers capable of doing complex work in a fun way will shape the future, because those kids will grow up into adults who create, use and design tools that do cool amazing things. Nintendo needs to wake the fuck up and realize they are selling a handheld computer that is very good at playing games, the world desperately needs another company with vision, good UI design, and the capability to bring hardware and software together into a competent computer experience (Microsoft cannot do this, and undermines all its hardware partners that actually try to do this with their own incompetence).
Yep. Old Nintendo you would buy the thing (cartridge/disk/ect) and with no fiddling the game runs. It used to be its best quality. That and most people don’t buy them new, they would get games used. It was “cheapish” and you knew you were going to have fun.
Nowadays it’s not so black and white. I have long term Nintendo fan friends that for the first time are thinking of skipping this generation. Or in one case waiting a couple of years. But we shall see. More options are good for all us users, so I’m happy we have these two companies vieing for our time/$.
The move to try to limit secondhand physical game sales and requiring the Internet to download the whole game in some instances was part of my decision to skip this generation, if I’m even going to stick with Nintendo at all in the future.
long term Nintendo fan friends that for the first time are thinking of skipping this generation
That’s me. Nintendo consoles since the Wii have been a “side piece” to more powerful consoles for me. Now that they’re pricing the console close to the powerful ones and charging MORE for the games, I’m out.
Oh, bollocks to that. All it took was one serious competitor to Pokémon to make Nintendo shit the bed. Excepting Zelda, most of the pathologically Nintendo games are shovelware-tier trash. If the current iteration of Mario or Mario Kart were released today without the nostalgiabait and brand recognition, they’d be the laughing stock of the industry.
All Nintendo has is quirky gadgets, a closed ecosystem, and notoriety.
If the current iteration of Mario or Mario Kart were released today without the nostalgiabait and brand recognition, they’d be the laughing stock of the industry.
This was very convenient, thanks. Now I know I can safely ignore every opinion you have on every matter.
I mean, they’re kind of right. Objectively Mario Odyssey and MK8 were great games that can proudly hold their own against any of the greats. Not the best games ever, but much closer to that title than to your Hateorade fuelled “opinions”.
I’m as pissed off at Nintendo as anyone at this point, but if you are going to straight up exaggerate your distaste for these games to the point of obviously lying, it shows two things.
You are infact the only person here actively unwilling to challenge your beliefs.
Your opinion is so based in emotion that it can’t be trusted. And an untrustworthy opinion can safely be disregarded.
Pokémon is indeed a sad state of affairs. Although it’s not developed by Nintendo, but that’s being pedantic.
In-house developed games are certainly of a quality you don’t find elsewhere. There’s a reason games like Metroid Prime, Mario Odyssey and Zelda BotW/TotK are critically acclaimed, and it’s not for being nostalgia bait.
Criticall acclaim doesn’t make a thing automatically good. The criteria are way too arbitrary, and sometimes boils down to “a well-known publisher has done a thing” simply because it attracts more eyes and journalists have a financial interest in playing nice with those publishers.
A Hat in Time was released around the same time as Odyssey. It’s the first game of a small indie studio and it beats the living piss out of Mario in terms of gameplay and style. The only reason it wasn’t more of a breakthrough was timing and getting eclipsed by Mario’s shadow.
I can understand not liking the genres or having different stylistic preferences, but saying that new Mario games are shovelware? Have you played them? SMB Wonder was the most fun my brother and I have had playing a platformer in like 20 years. The game is full of creativity, almost every level introduces a new game mechanic that could easily be its own game.
That doesn’t make much sense to me. The games part okay, kinda, since Nintendo games aren’t easily available on the Deck.
But tinkering? I’ve had a Steam Deck since it first launched, and the only tinkering I’ve done is because I could, and wanted to. Never because I needed to. All games I’ve played work perfectly out of the box. Even games marked as ‘unsupported’. All of my tinkering was completely unnecessary and done for additional fun, e.g. modding, which is one of the best things about PC gaming, and will most certainly never be a thing on Nintendo’s platforms.
As far as I can tell, “Nintendo people” don’t really ‘reason’. More like, they follow their uninformed preconceptions, and reject anything that doesn’t fit with them. My gf has been a Nintendo fan for a long time, and she was convinced other platforms aren’t that simple and offer a worse experience. I introduced her to PC gaming, and showed her how the Deck works. Now she’s forgotten about her Switch and isn’t going to buy Switch 2. It seems to me that all these people need is somebody to show them what gaming really is. Because whatever Nintendo is, it certainly isn’t gaming. Just a small glimpse into gaming, maybe.
As for Zelda, Mario or whatever fans - guess they’ll have to stick with Nintendo. Personally their games never appealed to me enough to buy a console specifically to play them. I’d like to play the new Zelda games, but I have a lot of other games to finish first. And then again, Switch emulation is incredibly easy. Took me like 10 or 15 minutes to get BotW working last time.
I agree with you, but I would say you can’t assume everyone has the same goals. I can tell you, my Nintendo friends are not idiots nor mindless zombies. They simply are not interested in learning about how the other options work, and I would say that’s totally fair.
I have a dear friend who has most of his games on Steam, but still, he told me he prefers the Switch. “Why?” I asked him. “Because Nintendo makes exactly the kind of games I want to play, and because unlike with the PC, I can just pick up my Switch and start playing” he answered.
I have a ROG Ally with Bazzite (so, basically equivalent to a Steam Deck) and I have to admit that, while 90% of the time every game works out of the box, sometimes some games misbehave. Although, to be fair, this only happened to me with Epic Games games ran through Heroic.
I would say it’s totally fair to prefer Nintendo. It gives you great games that don’t require tinkering. If that’s what you want, then Nintendo is a great option for you.
Nintendo could have grown into an entire operating system and computer culture and there would be WAY less needlessly obsolete handheld computers laying around from when the next generation of Switches inveitably comes out…
This isn’t and has never been Nintendo’s desired goal. Needless obsolete handheld computers laying around is a feature not a bug. Nintendo wants to sell more hardware. If you’re able to use your hardware longer, it means lost sales. Nintendo also doesn’t want to be a general purpose OS. There’s all kinds of things you have to do as a company for a general purpose OS you don’t have to do as an embedded system as they are today.
Your assertion that Apple, Microsoft, and Android are all unpopular with everyone seems like it might actually be a personal opinion rather than a fact.
I work in a GI lab and one of the funniest things I heard when a patient was waking up was, “You guys were so good I’m coming back for another colonoscopy tomorrow!”
Higher framerates only in part improve the experience due to looking better, they also make the game feel faster because what you input is reflected in-game that fraction of a second sooner.
Increasing framerate while incurring higher latency might look nicer for an onlooker, but it generally feels a lot worse to actually play.
bin.pol.social
Ważne