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underisk, (edited ) do games w Baldur's Gate 3 "feels so alive" because it used mo-cap and 248 actors to bring its characters to life
@underisk@lemmy.ml avatar

A lot of games do mocap on the face but what strikes me most about BG3 is how much body language the characters use. They aren’t an emotive head on a stiff body switching between obvious static poses. Dame Aylin isn’t just shouting at me she’s leaning into it, arms up, fists clenched and shaking. It really adds a lot to the character performances.

awesomesauce309,

The other day Astarion jutted his chin up and out (very smugly) and his neck stretched and the Addams apple moved correctly. Games have come so far

harmonea,
@harmonea@kbin.social avatar

Astarion's mocap in particular is just excellent. He's so deeply weird and it's completely appropriate. I love how during most normal gameplay, his whole body is constantly on the edge between breaking into raucous laughter or total exasperation. Kudos to the actor(s) and techs that put the whole package together.

thedrivingcrooner,
@thedrivingcrooner@lemmy.world avatar

I knew having a Lucifer type character would be one of the more entertaining features of having a vampire as a party member before I even knew he was a vampire

I feel dumb not seeing that one coming.

RIPandTERROR,
@RIPandTERROR@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Man, I felt like I was supposed to already know he was a vampire day 1. Aside from his give away physical features, he straight up sleeps like one.

PunnyName,

Similarly, I feel like they did a great job in Horizon: Forbidden West. A lot of the animations are rote, sure, but then there’s facial expressions, like Kotallo thinking about Zo’s abilities, that are just amazingly human.

Gaming has stepped up the production in recent years, and the standouts are obvious.

PraiseTheSoup,

Saying “gaming has stepped up” while praising the most over-hyped, bland-ass open-world action series in recent history doesn’t lend much credibility to your comment.

PunnyName,

Guess you haven’t spent time with the game.
Too bad, missing out.

SoggyBread,

I agree with you. It hit a good niche that hasnt been beaten into the ground yet. It had great world building, acting, story and soundtrack

weirdo_from_space,

You mean Horizon?

Cethin,

Horizon hit a niche that hasn’t been beaten into the ground? An Ubisoft style open world game with far too many collectables and garbage to waste time?

theragu40,

It’s not treading new ground from a genre standpoint.

But the combat is a style that isn’t really very common in open world games, and the commenter you are replying to specifically was talking about the story, characters, and world building…all three of which set Horizon apart from other games, IMO.

harmonea,
@harmonea@kbin.social avatar

Calling DnD bland always strikes me as funny. It's bland compared to most modern fantasy for the same reason Seinfeld is bland compared to most modern sitcoms: it's one of the the foundations upon which most of the rest of what we've consumed since its inception is built. We've seen all the innovations upon its formula, so going back to the original can feel lacking if you don't bother to think critically about why it feels that way.

The important thing is that even without all those innovations, they nailed the source material and created the richest experience they could within its boundaries. If it's not for you, it's not for you, and that's fine - no game is for everyone. But it's a pity you dismiss it so flippantly, and I hope one day you can grow to see what's executed well in a project even when its end goal isn't to your tastes. Or just grow out of trolling, whichever applies. I'm not going to pick that apart.

FooBarrington,

I think they were talking about Horizon, not DnD or BG3.

harmonea,
@harmonea@kbin.social avatar

Oh, you might be right. That's even odder to me then; I haven't played any of the Horizon games myself, but I find their setting premise fascinating. Is it so poorly executed?

If I misunderstood, my bad, but I'll leave it since there are people who rant about BG3 in a similar direction.

FooBarrington,

I have to say that I played Horizon: Zero Dawn, and after the first couple hours it felt very samey. Basically a Ubisoft open-world game with slightly better movement and combat. Haven’t tried the new one, but I don’t think any open-world will ever really catch me again like Elden Ring did.

harmonea,
@harmonea@kbin.social avatar

That's a pity. Still, the setting (time period/tech levels/world population composition etc) is worth taking away as something good that people can learn from, I hope, even if they messed it up so badly.

theragu40,

It took me several hours to get into HZD, but once it hit its stride it really hooked me. The opening few hours are quite weak, IMO. It takes that time for the story to start to reveal, and for the more deliberate pace of combat to make itself apparent.

weirdo_from_space,

I personally haven’t played Horizon myself; but from what I saw if it, it doesn’t look poorly made; it just looks by the numbers. Over the shoulder “cinematic” open world game with that Sony trope of the protagonist telling you the solution to a puzzle upon seeing it.

If my impression is accurate I would compare it to Quake II or Blue Beetle, if you are already a fan of Sony’s style of games you’ll most likely love Horizon, if you don’t like that kind of game then there isn’t much Horizon can offer you.

NOT_RICK, do games w Niantic: Pokémon Go healthy and growing as it approaches its next decade
@NOT_RICK@lemmy.world avatar

Pokémon go isn’t a fun game, it’s just a fomo wealth extractor. I got up to level 42 and finally cut it off

ABCDE,

Wealth in what way? I think I gave them five pounds but that’s was it. I’ve gotten a lot more out of it than that.

NOT_RICK,
@NOT_RICK@lemmy.world avatar

Once you get to a certain point the only way to get new pokemon is to grind eggs and they set the drop rates for some so low it takes dozens and dozens of eggs to get them. Then you have the regional pokemon that are normally impossible to get without travel that will become available for special events if you shell out for 10+ bucks. Its manipulative

ABCDE,

I think I have all the ones from eggs which are possible, I’d need to check though. Regional Pokémon haven’t been limited for a while, you can get them in 7km eggs which you get from others.

MeatsOfRage,

Year 1 I went hard on pokemon go, I committed to the original 150 (I don’t recognize anything past red and blue) that were available and in my region then peaced out. There wasn’t anything there past my nostalgia.

ordnance_qf_17_pounder, do games w Queer developers speak out as adult games remain in limbo following payment processor showdown at Steam and itch.io

Really feels like we’re seeing the return of 90s/00s era “Christian parents against obscene media” bullshit. Except this time they don’t get laughed at and ignored, they are in control.

Whether its this or social media algorithms forcing people to censor simple words like “kill” and “fuck”, culture is being completely sanitised by the corporate world and to some extent with government backing (depending on country).

Depictions and even mentions of violence, sex, drugs, and the use of swear words are being targeted. It’s completely regressive.

manuallybreathing,

I’m pretty unimpressed seeing christians embrace metal while they reignite the satanic panic

fluffykittycat,

We have to remove the Christians from power and refuse to give them moral authority over us, formally or otherwise. We can’t let them oppress us any longer

saltesc,
pirateKaiser,

The absolute low of this for me is that I’ve noticed people censoring the word ‘porn’. You’re obscuring the word that describes the already censored thing, why censor the word itself? It’s not even a swear word (which to me don’t make much sense in censoring in the first place)

zrst,

Hopefully this will result in more people hosting their own games.

atrielienz, (edited )

Off topic: As someone who just got a verbal reprimand at work for “language” due to having an outburst of irritation where an explosive expletive was used (which is a common enough occurrence in the hangar where I work), I’m seriously about to start auto censoring everything in the most gen Alpha way possible just to annoy the others.

Duamerthrax,

I once swore infront a bunch of other adults in a non-work, but professional and someone stopped me to point it out. I paused, looked around for any kids and when I didn’t see any, pointed out it was fine. They were on the conservative side, but I’m not bending at the knee for that shit.

Katana314,

When I run a social media site, it will be a rule to use uncensored terms, and any use of asterisks or alt-words like “unalive” will result in a warning or suspension.

pycorax, do games w Steam is now banned in Vietnam

This all just sounds like the publisher or MBAs speaking. Did they ask the actual developers on their opinions?

Emanuel,

Also, it seems like the ISPs were the ones that blocked access. No word from the government yet. Kinda weird to call this a “ban”.

60fpsrefugee,

As far as i know, only the Steam Store domain is blocked by ISP’s DNS. So changing to Google DNS would easily bypass it.

lemmyvore,

Do they not also block access to the Steam IPs?

60fpsrefugee,

No, for now anyway.

random_character_a,
@random_character_a@lemmy.world avatar

All ISPs under the same company/person/organization?

MustrumR,

VTC is a state owned enterprise...

DocMcStuffin, do games w This indie dev (Indie RPG Inkbound) is removing all microtransactions after noting that "player sentiment is trending against" them
@DocMcStuffin@lemmy.world avatar

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.

OutlierBlue,

They probably spent that 1 minute playing more Inkbound.

jplate8, do games w Starfield players create famous faces in-game, and a Todd Howard flashlight

Oh, flashlight

csolisr,

Not gonna lie, I misread it at first and thought to myself “yeah, Todd Howard fans are that maniacal, makes sense”

drspod, do games w Staying up and "bingeing" Starfield "literally saved" this player's life

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”.

Saved you a click. Website is trash anyway.

Frogster8,

Yeah, a click bait article written based on an anecdote with no real substance or purpose, might as well be a YouTube short

AceFuzzLord, do games w Nintendo reserves the right to brick your console following "unauthorised use", in bid to prevent piracy

Yeah, definitely gonna stop those pirates who soft/hardmod their systems and never connect to the Internet/run updates in order to dump their games or play pirated copies or whatever they wanna do! That’ll stop them!

/s

Edit:

This seems to be more about their online account services and their updated privacy policy than anything else, but I still think my point stands, just not for this article.

neon_nova,

The problem is when a new game is released that requires an update to a later firmware version.

I think I’ve had it before where the updates applied to the system from the game card.

Unless I misunderstood what was happening. We will have to wait for someone to figure that out.

I’m rooting for someone to home brew the switch 2 ASAP

tiramichu, (edited )

You’ll probably have a while to wait.

The Switch 1 was able to run homebrew due to a hardware exploit in the CPU which allowed injection of arbitrary code. The interesting thing about that vulnerability being that since it was a hardware vulnerability, it couldn’t be patched out even after it was discovered.

Following that incident, I’m sure Nintendo has been working especially hard to ensure there are no similar vulnerabilities existing on the Switch 2.

That said, console hackers are an amazingly creative and talented bunch, so I wouldn’t be surprised by anything.

neon_nova,

I’m pretty sure all Nintendo consoles have had a problem with being hacked. As far back as the Wii, people were able to run hombrew pretty quickly.

I think Nintendo just sucks at console security or maybe they are a bigger target due to their exclusives.

ragebutt,

Hard to say. Consoles have certainly gotten more sercure and people finding vulnerabilities are far less likely to just give them out for free these days

But there is incentive to hack any console and nintendo has historically attracted the biggest dorks. Additionally they also seem to historically make pretty huge blunders, though the switch exploit was nvidias fault tbf

catloaf,

You could have said that about every Nintendo console since the NES, yet here we are.

TORFdot0,

Firmware is dumped almost immediately as well, not a big deal to update a switch offline.

SurfinBird, do games w Nintendo loses trademark fight against Super Mario supermarket

“While Nintendo has trademarked the use of Super Mario worldwide under numerous categories, including video games, clothing and toys, it appears the company did not specifically state anything about the names of supermarkets.”

Kind of a legal version of the Air Bud rule.

crank0271,

On my way to open Super Mario Basketball Camp for Dogs (Especially Golden Retrievers)®️

Kelly, (edited )

Nintendo has a lot of active “super mario” trademarks with the USPTO, 79259975 includes the following:

G & S: IC 030: Tea; tea-based beverages; coffee; coffee-based beverages; cocoa; cocoa-based beverages; pastries; candy; ice cream; cookies; chocolate; popcorn; chewing gum; bread; buns; sandwiches; pizzas; pies; cakes; frozen yogurt confections; pancakes; crackers; mints for breath freshening; seasonings; ketchup; dressings for salad; cereal bars; oatmeal; corn flakes; noodles; pasta sauce.

www.uspto.gov/trademarks/search

This would limit the supermarket from carrying their own store brand product lines for these product types.

Off the top of my head I can confirm my supermarket stocks their own brand of :

Tea; coffee; cocoa; pastries; candy; ice cream; cookies; chocolate; bread; buns; pies; cakes; seasonings; dressings for salad; cereal bars; oatmeal; corn flakes; pasta sauce.

Admittedly my local is part of a large chain so this may not be typical but even independent supermarkets in my area tend to repackage bulk candies and chocolate under their own label.

Glide, do gaming w The world is ending but here's a side quest - will RPGs ever solve their urgency problem?

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.

jlow,

Oops, I just commented tge exact same thing befire reading your comment.

HeavyRaptor,

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.

OutlierBlue,

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.

hitmyspot,

But much much less as a percent of population.

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.

Malgas,

I don’t want to diminish slavery in any way

Speaking of the ambiguity of language…

Hadriscus,

hahahah

dino,

We talking IDE slaves? Or on a serious matter, got any source for your claims?

SnotFlickerman,

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.

dino,

So people in prison equals slaves? Did I miss the memo?

Glide,

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.

But still, strange headline choice.

p03locke,
@p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

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.

barsoap,

Because the world isn’t “ending”.

It isn’t.

dino,

It begins so cute and wholesome… 🥲

Hadriscus,

Love it, thanks !

hungprocess, do games w CD Projekt CFO does "not see a place for microtransactions in single-player games"
@hungprocess@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

“Spending a huge chunk of the budget on dishonest advertising and then releasing a significantly different, half-broken game is still cool though.”

Bonesince1997,

No need to make my comment now because you’ve said it better! Perfect sass.

A_Random_Idiot,

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.

Thanks for all the money, suckers customers!

makyo,

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.

A_Random_Idiot,

I’m a simple man.

I don’t believe their bullshots and promises.

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.

BaskinRobbins,

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

Cold_Brew_Enema,

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.

MentalEdge, do gaming w Dev cancels Switch port of Wipeout-style racer blaming controversial Unity fees
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

TLDR: They can’t afford the greater costs of the new license, so they are sticking with the version of unity their current license is for.

This will block them from releasing a switch port as nintendo version gates unity games to a recent version of the engine.

Anissem,
@Anissem@lemmy.ml avatar

Way to go Unity

randomaside, do gaming w Nintendo makes first Switch 2 announcement
@randomaside@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

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.

jack,

So everything as usual

BuboScandiacus,
@BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz avatar

I’m betting on a game streaming service

wurstgulasch3000,

The steam deck isn’t successful for nothing. It’s the ultimate open mobile gaming platform

Noodle07,

Sold my switch for a deck 🤷your move Nintendo

Rentlar,

They got so cheesed after Nvidia shipped the device with the RCM exploit.

scrubbles, do games w Nintendo lawyers want to force Discord to reveal Pokémon Teraleak source
!deleted6348 avatar

People are trusting Discord way way way too much

Ghoelian,

Yeah if they get a warrant they’re 100% just handing over all the data

smeg,

Maybe this will finally make people realise that using an unencrypted corpo-controlled messenger for all of their communications is a bad idea

nfreak,
@nfreak@lemmy.ml avatar

Nah they’ll just jump ship to the next one

CosmoNova,

And there is really no reason to trust it whatsoever. It might feel secluded but in the end of the day, even your „private“ chats are essentially an open forum thread in the technical and legal sense because Discord is basically that: A huge, public forum where everything you say is a public statement. There is no privacy on Discord because that‘s simply not what it‘s for.

Katana314,

I tend to use these platforms without feeling I’m “committed”. I’ve abandoned things like Reddit before, and can likely do so again.

But I can see with the organization levels of channels that others are not thinking the same way.

Kyrgizion, do games w Alan Wake, Control developer agrees €15m convertible loan from Tencent

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).

slazer2au,

You say that like they don’t own a sizeable chunk of Epic.

acosmichippo,
@acosmichippo@lemmy.world avatar

exactly they are already doing it.

catloaf,

Not just games, movies too. And anything that gets Tencent money ends up with subtle pro-China propaganda.

thermal_shock,

they own WeChat too, China’s biggest chat app, also used for bill payment and government tracking.

AngryCommieKender,

I haven’t played in a few years, have they done any of that in EvE Online?

RageAgainstTheRich,

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.

wolfshadowheart,

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.

Sorry for the NYT link, but it has some examples

RageAgainstTheRich,

Oh thankyou! Yeah that does make sense. That is pretty messed up.

CosmoNova,

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.

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