In a statement posted to Steam, developer Shiny Shoe said […]
What a sloppy and lazy article. They don’t even bother linking to the statement from the devs. Seriously, that would have taken less then 1 minute to add.
A Starfield player has credited the sci-fi game with saving their life after they stayed up late to play it and was awake when their apartment complex caught fire.
u/Tidyckilla took to Starfield’s subreddit over the weekend to report their amazing escape, saying that if they hadn’t been awake “bingeing” the game when the fire broke out, the player and their wife would likely have “died to smoke inhalation”.
I can’t help but read this headline as, “with climate change and the rise of fascism, the real world is ending, but how is this for a distraction: why can’t RPGs get the sense of urgency right?”
And like, this is genuinely an article and discussion I’m interested in, so this is not a criticism of anyone or anything other than the ambiguity of language.
Because the world isn’t “ending”. Yes climate change might bring famine, destructive weather events, or plague but in the meantime we are living in the safest, healthiest, and most technologically advanced era of humanity up until now, especially for those of us living in democracies. Most diseases that would have killed you a few hundred years ago have been solved, in general there are very few wars (compared to the constant on and off warfare in history anyway), and in most of the world slavery has been eradicated.
Yes, there is societal divide (mostly due to economic difficulties and how social media influences people), yes there is bigotry and a rise in nationalism but much of this is only noticeable because of the media and the 24 hour news cycle. There has to be a constant issue hanging over our heads to make sure we are glued to our screens 24/7 improving shareholder value of the companies supplying the news on the current crisis.
So in conclusion, there are some global issues, but there is no reason not to go on an adventure, pursue that girl/boy you like, build a shed, or do whatever “side quest” you are up to at the moment. It’s not like you’re gonna solve climate change alone but you’ll be completely miserable if that is all your life is about. The world is not ending for now, go do your side quests.
Most diseases that would have killed you a few hundred years ago have been solved
RFK wants to ban vaccines entirely in the US. They’ll come back frighteningly fast if he does that. They’re only “solved” as long as we keep up our vigilance.
in most of the world slavery has been eradicated.
There are more slaves alive today than at any point in history.
I don’t want to diminish slavery in any way, but the indebted servitude of now is very different to the, for example, Roman concept of slaves as property that you walk through the street with.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
The 13th amendment specifically allows it, my friend.
USA has one of the highest prison populations per capita in the world. Further, the only countries that outpace it are small, smaller than most US states. Cuba, Rwanda, El Salvador, Turkmenistan, and American Somoa are the only countries with higher prison populations per capita, and those are all much smaller counties than USA.
Why do you think the right wing wants to criminalize everything? Because the more people are in prison, the more free labor you have.
I think I disagree about the severity and urgency of some of the things you’re talking about, but I do agree with your sentiment. I restate: the only thing I am criticizing here is the ambiguity of language. It’s the “side quests” that give life flavour, and to give them up to deal with the “real problems” would be choosing to stop living because you’re too worried about surviving.
Yes climate change might bring famine, destructive weather events, or plague but in the meantime we are living in the safest, healthiest, and most technologically advanced era of humanity up until now, especially for those of us living in democracies.
Don’t take your democracies for granted. If people aren’t around to fight to keep them that way, they don’t last.
but its okay, cause 4 years later we’ll release an expansion and what we are declaring the final patches to finally have the game in a state it should have been when it was fucking released.
The worst thing is that everyone seems to think that it IS where it should have been at release! Which I will admit that it is finally the polished bug-free game that any game should be at release. But anyone like me who was watching every last promo video they did teasing the game pre-release, knows it still isn’t and never will be the game they promised it would be.
Their insistence on releasing on previous gen hardware is surely as much to blame as the rush to get it out for that sweet sweet pandemic money. Still looking back it’s hard to say if it ever was going to live up to what they were teasing it would be.
I’m just happy if a game arrives in good, playable condition, feature and story complete.
and Cyberpunk couldnt even live up to that. Perhaps it was story complete on release? I dont know, I was never able to beat the game until like 2 years after release due to encountering a mind-numbing amount of bugs and catastrophes and thus giving up and walking away from the game for a good long time.
I would have refunded it and never thought about it again if it wasnt a gift.
Yeah with initial disaster at release it’s easy to forget they originally promised multiplayer would be added in later and a robust functioning society where each NPC would have a job and routine they follow
Exactly. I hate that people are completely on CDPR side again, forgetting that they completely deceived their fans with a half baked game. Just because they eventually made it better (and still didn’t deliver on what they said) doesn’t mean they deserve to heralded again. Any trust I had in them is gone.
I think Nintendo is dancing into dangerous territory here. I have a feeling this thing is going to be loaded with anti-features here specifically designed to curtail modding, piracy, and even unlicensed peripherals. The games themselves are going to get HD re-re-eleases and Nintendo will charge you full price again for the moderate upgrade.
Tencent will grow to become the anti-Steam, mark my words. They already have their grubby mitts all over devs worldwide, and every single one will live to regret it (or their players, at the very least).
I’m not saying there isn’t, but do you have some examples of pro china propaganda in games and movies? I heard something about the live-action mulan movie being filmed in xinyang, but besides that i haven’t personally noticed anything.
It’s more about the scripts being given a passover of approval from the CCP. Want your movie in China? Usually, there’s some adaptation for the region, no big deal. However, I remember articles coming out about how the movie adaptation may not be accepted if the U.S. version doesn’t fit the standard, meaning the U.S. version would have changes made at the suggestion of the CCP.
It’s okay. The Fediverse assured me again and again it won’t matter how much Tencent owns of your company so as long as you “don’t think about them (Tencent)”. Whatever that means.
Yeah, upper management at CDPR ignored the devs who told them the game wasn't ready to ship yet, but they really wanted to take advantage of the new market of players staying home and playing video games after covid first hit.
That short-sighted money grab cost them so much in the long run. It's actually insane to see CDPR's redemption arc play out after how badly they handled the launch.
Cyberpunk was in development for atleast 12 years, I agree that corporate needs to be hands off when it comes to things like that, but at what point is there a line drawn and you just have to publish what you have got.
Its worth mentioning that the 12 years was not at all productive. The first 6 years was basically just two guys with rough concepts, only 6 years of actual dev time. Then about 3 years in they got a new creative lead on the project who decided to scrap essentially everything and start from scratch on a whim. Then the devs get the release date the same time we do which is 2 years earlier than they expected having assumed that they’d get around 5 years of actual dev time since being made to start over.
So yeh there was a lot of screwing around by management.
I’ve never heard this claim. Googling it I see one thing that says 8, and that likely includes pre-production and all that stuff, before you move a full team into development. The Witcher 3 came out in 2015, so the team could not have moved to CP2077 before then, and some of them stayed to make the DLC and patches. That leaves 5 years of full time development, which is not odd for a modern AAA game.
I figured it was probably around 12 years, since the first teaser trailer came out 11 years ago, add afew years for the work they needed to do to even be ready to do a trailer (world lore, characters, etc)
It’s based off of a tabletop game. That trailer mostly just needed CGI work, and a basic feel for what they would aim for. That trailer was probably before pre-production even started.
Yeah, I think games just take longer to develop nowadays than anyone is prepared for, especially the managers. Both companies and gamers have yet to realize that there is only so much you can accomplish in a certain span of time.
I wouldn't count on millions of people suddenly all deciding to boycott now, if all the egregious practices of this industry weren't enough to get them to do it already.
I'm not. Choosing not to buy a bad product has incremental effects on what gets made in the market from 1 person choosing not to buy it all the way out to no one buying it.
Not really. Often companies degrade their products as a calculated choice, considering that they will save and increase their profits more than they will lose. If only a few people protest, which seems to be the case here, then they have no reason to change course.
But chosing to buy from companies that do better can at least carve out a niche.
That's exactly my point. At some point, Divinity: Original Sin was a niche. Now Baldur's Gate 3 is poised to be called Game of the Year and outsold Larian's wildest expectations. Many of those sales came from people who bought BG3 and not Starfield. That sends a message for what customers actually want. There wasn't some mass campaign to boycott Battlefield 2042; their customers just told them, by way of not buying it like they used to, that the product EA put out was not worth the price they were asking.
Honestly Bethesda games are just a modding sandbox for me. I’ve played hundreds of hours of Skyrim and I’m not sure I’ve ever finished the main quest. I know I’ve never taken a side in the civil war. The built in story and quests are important but my fun comes from downloading mods and just roaming like a wandering monk doing whatever quests I run into. Sometimes OP, other times with immersive mods or alternative perks or spells.
I’m probably not a typical gamer as I’ve had hundreds on hours into BG3 and only made it to act 3 once so far and have yet to finish any of my runs before I decide to have a relationship with someone different or try a durge run, or evil, or realized I forgot to resolve some quest that is now closed. I’m not sure how long a full run is maybe 100 hours? But it’s a lot to invest before I get bored and want to try something new.
I also have a need to collect all the gimmicky items even when I know I have or will get much better stuff for the slot. I play Bethesda games the same way. Gotta run over and collect the book of arcane bow if I’m going to be an archer…
Anyway, mods are a core part of the deal for me. They should prioritize them more.
It always impresses me how seemingly every corporation adopts this mindset of not needing the “little guy” to function. Like their company isn’t made up of “little guys” that produce their given product.
It was pretty much one of the biggest lessons of the whole covid affair. The groundfloor personel is the most essentiel part of everything. Without, the whole system collapses.
putting in an official way for users to create and load mods takes resources that the small indie company Bethesda just can't afford to use; the modders can do the work for that, too
Honestly all I want is to replace Laezels nipples with floppy peens. It’s all I ask for. It’s all I want. I love Baldurs Gate 3 but it’s missing this. I cannot hope to be satisfied fully in any other way. Im a reasonably happy guy with a reasonably good life but if someone was to make this I’d pay BIG money. I’m talking more than $5.
It’s unclear exactly what the developer’s standards threshold might be, given the mess that was deemed acceptable enough to release in the first place.
This should be the top comment. Anyone even considering the game at this point should really avoid it out of principle. The only way things like this will stop happening will be when people STOP BUYING SHIT-PERFORMING GAMES!
I did the same thing when I pre-ordered. I didn’t know it’d be this much of a clusterfuck. This feels almost as bad as KSP2, which I wanted so, so badly to be good…
Well, supposedly the devs have finally implemented autostrut in the upcoming update. I’m just in it for the multiplayer, which is going to be stupid fun if they don’t fuck it up. As an actual aero engineer, I’ve loved KSP since before I could remember, really.
Specially for devs in countries that don’t have tax treaties with the US, if you’re buying it in the US. They’ll refund you fully but still have to pay 30% of the value to uncle Sam.
I simply don’t believe this. They probably don’t count all the gamers, who get Amazon prime for all the twitch loot. Then you also have people who throw around subs like confetti. Thot streams.
very typical for people that never even run or host their own server from data center or even cloud service.
live streaming is worse in bandwidth consumption compare to youtube with same resolution input to output. Like youtube can do whatever they like to keep the outgoing low even if you encode according to spec. But streaming with the demand of like 4~6s delay their 2nd pass to try lower the output bitrate is just not gonna be as good as youtube. That’s why twitch still don’t have 4k stream, they have new beta programs thanks to newer codec on newer GPU, as otherwise their data center is gonna get crushed hard.
They’re also probably relying on AWS right? I’m assuming the pipeline for serving up prime video would be similar but it’s hard to tell how much that service “makes”. I feel like anything they’re using their own GPUs for is losing quite a bit of money compared to charging their cloud compute customers for it.
If twitch shuts down in a few months I won’t be surprised.
Since they are bought by Amazon I think any service they wasn’t on AWS would have been moved to AWS. Basically, on demand video streaming service (netflix, youtube, etc) does have finer control of how they want to re-encode and have like bit rate throttle on the server/client side so you don’t see too much buffering if internet connection is acting up. This means they can throttle you down to 360p like youtube auto if their data center isn’t fast enough to fetch the high bit rate yet and then feed you the higher quality one once they got it. (or down grade if your connection goes bad) But twitch stream is like I have a 10Mbits stream incoming and I have to copy, run a 2nd pass on the fly for different resolution, duplicate to outgoing servers and send to user all under 46s delay. I am not expert on the backend side and only have some experience dealing with streaming around 20162018. So to me that’s incredible feat but the short timespan means they can’t crunch the output bit rate even if it’s pretty static video. Compare to youtube, if I uploaded a 2030 minutes video in about 12GB on disk, it took them about 35 hours to re-encode, even if the source is already encoded with AV1. (I am not partner so I join the queue like any normal pleb on the internet.)
edit forgot to respond to the cloud GPU thing, I think AWS will be charging Twitch the same way as other company, so AWS aren’t really “losing” money if Twitch choose to use cloud instance with GPU(which would be kinda dumb). They need higher throughput for the data in/out so whatever the CPU ingest part I mentioned above is just to breakdown the stream and feed to user as quick as possible. They are not going to waste anytime to give you better quality stream with lower bandwidth cost. they just feed you whatever fits into their bandwidth budget basically.
Unions don’t work the same way in all european countries.
In France, the union I belong to is organized by local company and public service, with a spawling system of dual cascading federations by geographic sector and economic sector.
And there are several competing national union organizations which overlap. I don’t know exactly how the other ones are organized
This is the difference between a trade union and an industrial union. You can join an industrial union elsewhere in Europe or even in the US, such as the IWW.
eurogamer.net
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