Having been playing it again recently, it still has a lot of what Morrowind had, and Skyrim doesn’t. Plays like Skyrim, but still has more depth than it. Not a lot more, but still more.
There’s no “sanity” system in Look Outside. The closest thing is a hidden “stress” stat which, last I checked, is literally just combat problems when it gets low.
That said, Look Outside is a fantastic game, and the Dev is super down to earth and active with his players. Highly recommend.
I’m not against patents in general but looking at the list of specific insanity-induced hallucinations being patented this whole thing is ridiculous. This is on the level of being able to patent giving your restaurant guests cutlery. How is any designer supposed to keep track of which specific micro events are patented like this.
I am against all game design patents in general. You shouldn’t be able to file a patent on game mechanics, like no movie director could have filed a patent on, say, the idea of sequence shot.
Game content (art, characters, etc) is already protected by copyright. Patents have absolutely no business in this.
Wholly agreed. In general the concept that “you can’t patent an idea” or “you can’t patent a general concept” is supposed to be at the heart of patent law. I think some of these game mechanics parents, like this and the Nemesis System, go against that too much.
Sure we all agree but the dumbshits making the rules 1) Have no idea about technology older than color television and 2) Are really only interested in preserving corporate profitability
If you invented a new and novel method of painting, like Jackson Pollock’s, you could potentially patent that. Directionally brushing has imperial buttloads of prior literal art.
If every game had patented everything that they came up with, we probably wouldn’t have reached 1000 total games by now.
Some early game would probably patent “revealing more of the world as you move horizontally/verrically” and we would probably be confined to a single screen for every other game for decade.
Then some other game would patent “using an input source to move a gun’s aim/targetting on the screen” and we would never have had any fps. A “first person view” would probably be patented soon too. Leveling up? What a cool concept that I wish more than one game ever used.
At best, companies would all be paying licenses to each other for all of those mechanics - just like it works on hardware today where Samsung (for example) for a long time made a ton of money out of their main competitor’s sales. And games would probably be so expensive that a lot of them could even have their own dedicated hardware made specifically for them, without affecting the final price that much.
Modern day Nintendo would surely enjoy that. They could make gimmicky hardware for specific games and simply call it a toy. Games like Guitar Hero would probably only be playable on toy guitars (as some other game would’ve already patented translating basic inputs into something rhythm related).
In a way I could see some pretty cool games being invented for a while in this parallel reality, with the patent restrictions forcing people to think of new stuff like the hardware restrictions used to do last century - but we would never had Stardew Valley, Minecraft, Rimworld, Factorio, Dwarf Fortress and 99% of the most beloved games out there.
Yeah well when the copyright courts agreed to Namco’s patent on loading screen minigames it kind of freaked everyone out back then and people patented every dumbshit thing. For a short time Amazon tried to patent the single click purchase
Outside of the very specific cases of Palworld and WB’s notorious Nemesis System, you probably can just ignore the patents and do whatever you want, many of these are filed for self protection rather than to enforce them.
Metroid Zero Mission’s Mother Brain fight is patented, it literally is about shooting the player when they make line of sight with the Brain eye, besides being utterly ridiculous to have something like this patented, you don’t see anyone going to court over this.
I think the big problem is when companies apply for patents but never utilize them. In my ideal world, patents should quickly expire and opened to the public if they aren’t being used. Like, what’s the point of protecting your idea if you have no intention to use it anytime soon?
That could deal with the patent troll problem as well.
Yeah I’m not against patents in general because it’s meant to allow the company or individual a chance to be only one on the market so they can recoup rnd costs instead of someone else coming in and undercutting them immediately.
The issue is they last too long. Especially idea ones like this for software. 5 years is what it should be around about.
What the point is? To cripple your competition. Nintendo is actively discouraging game development. If Nintendo was a human they would be garbage. Since they’re not human, everyone who choose to work for them is garbage.
That’s so fucking weird to drop a remaster or remake like that so suddenly with no advertising or announcement. Something about this still doesn’t feel right in my gut, so I guess I’ll believe it when (if) it does drop. I don’t even know if I am going to buy it if it’s real, I have more faith in the modders behind Skyblivion than I do in Bethesda to actually do right with their IPs
What’s weird is that they’re still keeping it a secret even though it’s been rumored for months. We know it’s coming, but they’re still acting like it’s going to be a surprise.
Video game marketing changed dramatically about 2 years ago. No one likes long marketing cycles anymore. There are too many opportunities for delays or “puddlegates”.
Microsoft likes doing shadowdrops, apparently. Hi-Fi Rush being the most prominent, but they also shadowdropped the Ninja Gaiden 2 remake a few months ago.
Bethesda used to have a very short time between announcements and release. This game isn’t made by them, but they probably made the devs keep a tight lid on it.
i think its a panic project that was fired up quickly because Starfield failed so miserably.
unless this was just a side project that a few devs were working on and it was latched on to as a product that could be focused on.
i suspect that while todd was failing to put out fires, a couple devs were like “should we tell them we’ve been messing around with Oblivion assets in our new engine?”
No, they contracted this game out to another developer, and it’s in Unreal. It’s been in the works for a long time. If they’re smart, it’s a testbed for getting future games off of their usual Creation engine.
I hope they made it impossible to mod. In my new but rapidly growing religion, “modding” (desacrating) games is a mortal sin. Elder Scrolls games have damned the souls of many hairy, soft-bodied men.
Feels on brand for Bethesda to secret release this just before skyblivion mod finally gets near their release date. Kind of feels like a slap in the face to the community. I guess we will get a who did it better comparison.
Unlikely to happen, because the leadership behind the project claimed they are in contact with Bethesda, to make sure no one’s stepping on anyone’s toes. Although obviously they can just pull the rug at any time, which would be catastrophic. Given that they’ve remade basically every single asset in the game, and require the original game to be owned and installed, it should be fine
I am actually not even sure how much input Bethesda had in this. It was remastered by an outside studio contracted by Microsoft. The same studio handling the remaster of Metal Gear Solid 3, apparently.
So Nintendo filed the patent, and paid the maintenance fees over the years. Did they even do anything with it beyond that one game? How much money did they think they gained just by preventing others from implementing a similar mechanic?
In 2006, Dyack said “absolutely yes” in response to the question of a possible sequel. He stated that Silicon Knights had intended for Eternal Darkness to be a stand-alone game, but they wanted to make more games set in the same universe involving the Ancients.[54][55] At Microsoft’s Spring 2008 Showcase, Dyack said there was a “strong chance” they would return to the Eternal Darkness brand.[56] In 2011, Silicon Knights said they were refocusing on one of their most requested titles for the next generation of consoles. This, combined with the fact that Nintendo had trademarked the title once again, spawned rumors that an Eternal Darkness game would be a launch title for Nintendo’s Wii U console.[57] However, the project was cancelled due to Silicon Knights’ legal troubles with Epic Games.[58] Any possibility for a sequel from Silicon Knights ended in 2013 when Silicon Knights filed for bankruptcy and closed its offices.[59] Nintendo has repeatedly renewed the Eternal Darknesstrademark, stirring rumors of sequels or re-releases.[60][61][62][63]
Followed by Dyack forming another studio, botching three crowdfunding attempts, forming another studio, then shuttering the project.
Nintendo patents almost every mechanic they deem noteworthy, even if they amount to a bunch of gimmicky minigames or interactions. The sanity system, as it currently exists, is very rudimentary and overstays its welcome quickly, I’d argue making something substantially better was always on the table, and that alone would’ve bypassed the patent, so long is not literally the same code or instructions I guess.
The key problem for the Switch 2 will be to compete with the Steam Deck. While a good Steam Deck is still a bit pricier, there are a myriad of titles, and the vast majority of them are much cheaper than the 70-90 price point targeted by Nintendo.
I’m so excited to see benchmarks. Nintendo’s offering has a 1080p screen, but I’m curious to see if it actually has more horsepower than the deck and its 720p(ish) screen. My guess is it doesn’t in handheld mode.
Knowing Nintendo, we won’t know until June. Gonna hop over to digital foundry now to see what their impressions of the Wednesday direct was.
Nintendo does not have to compete with the Steam Deck. Nintendo is in a league of their own when it comes to handheld gaming. They will surpass SD sales first month almost guaranteed.
We will see. The big advantage of the SD is the ginormus library of games that already exist, the advantage of the S2 is that they have the Nintendo exclusive titles that have a good and solid fan base. With the S1, it was a no-brainer, the other consoles were limited in their game selection with a small hand of exclusives, and they were more expensive than the S1. The S2 is not far from the SD in terms of price. So this time, there actually is competition.
SD has sold roughly a million units a year. Switch has sold 150m units in 8 years. Most people that buy one don’t care about a Steam Library. They care about Mario and Zelda. Pokemon. They care about ease of use. And yeah, the console is roughly the same price as the CHEAPEST SKU the SD has.
People will still buy the Steam Deck but it’s a completely different audience. One that is much smaller.
Nintendo commands a (re)legion of fanatics. I was downvoted back to hell for saying the mouse was meh. We’ve had that in the legion go and it’s extremely uncomfortable and not suitable for longer sessions of play. The fact they don’t go bananza with touchscreen but rather take a shitty facsimile of a mouse tells you two things: Nintendo has idiots at the helm Nintendo is dead scared of the steam deck and is actively promoting an image of “we can do pc too”
Idk about your opinion on a touch screen. For both my switch and my steam deck, over 99% of their usage has been docked. A touch screen doesn’t do anything for gamers like me. I do use a keyboard and mouse very often with my deck too.
That said the joycon “mouse” looks way too small and uncomfortable.
It‘s especially evident shortly after these announcements. I was looking for a resource to summarize and comment on the Direct but most things I found were posts by what I can only describe as ecstatic fanboys. Honestly I was surprised how little the Switch 2 is actually talked about outside this bubble.
eurogamer.net
Aktywne