I made an account in January 2005, probably for HL2.
I initially resisted making an account and I hated Steam back then.
They’ve since fixed a lot of things and I now have 250+ games on it.
I have to admit, Valve is one of the few big game companies that haven’t gone to absolute shit.
Though I dread the day GabeN steps down or sells out…
Another thing that I didn’t agree with back in the day was WoW, paying a subscription to play was a hard no. Still haven’t played it, which kinda sucks because I was a big fan of the old Warcraft games and of RPGs in general.
Voting with my wallet certainly didn’t change much for them, although it probably was better for me.
The first Guildwars was great.
The second one was nice too and I played it a bunch, but there’s something about the first I can’t quite put my finger on, might just be nostalgia.
My GW2 time has been mostly spent helping people with jumping puzzles, which are kinda cut short these days by mesmers making portals for them, which I also do sometimes.
I was considering making the jump from film and television to the video game industry until a year or two ago. I am really passionate about video games, and I really think there’s a lane for me. Unfortunately, after reading so many horrible stories about crunch culture and learning just how demanding the industry can be (even as somebody who worked on some pretty grueling Hollywood sets) I decided not to go that route. It still makes me upset to think about. I just feel like the industry is so terrible it’d be irresponsible and unfair to my family to go down that route. Reading Significant Zero really put the last nail in the coffin for me on that dream, even though it wasn’t the intention of the book. 
I know it’s not much, but I hope that if you don’t already, you find some time for yourself to just make games for the fun of it.
Not if you’re already dealing with overwork stress, but if you have free time that you’d like to spend on something. No one has to play them or you could do game jams (even though that’s inherently crunch, it’s the choice of the dev rather than their boss and more of a self-imposed limitation) or do otherwise random stuff and just let people muck about with whatever you’ve created. No pressure, no deadlines, no expectations.
And since you know already know how production in general works, you’re well aware of the iterative process and won’t fall into the trap of “why is this taking so long and why can’t my graphics be as good as GTA V” or whatever, which a lot of new developers (and programmers and pretty much everyone) encounter.
I think Nintendo thinks they have so much nostalgia, and loyal customers, that this generation they really said “fuck it” and are twisting the knife to see how much the consumer will tolerate. I’m not going to be surprised if we see price drops and actual sales (not 10 bucks off a 5 year old game like they usually do) by the time holidays role around. I don’t think they are anticipating the pushback that is happening.
Mass Effect the IP isn’t the issue, the issue is EA sucks. So you’re basically asking why do they even persist as a company anymore.
Also I think Andromeda was okay, just terribly buggy at launch. The gameplay was actually pretty fun imo. On the other hand, Veilguard was technically sound but the game itself was not great. So if they can somehow learn lessons from both, there is hope.
Less about EA, more about Bioware. EA has proven they aren’t shy about murdering studios, so why keep Bioware around when their last good game was, what? Star Wars: Old Republic? 2011?
First of all, the original concept of the reapers’ objective was way better than the “AI bad” we got;
secondly, most of its story is just tying loose ends - the whole game is a collection of fanservice moments, many of which look good but feel inorganic(heh) if you think about the fact that one undead human soldier (plus a few dozen subordinates) solves all major galactic disputes.
Not ALL major political conflicts in the galaxy, you didn’t solve one in the first game and only solved one in the second one (with the solution being “RIP, batarians”).
Two was horrible, the end boss skeleton is the stupidest shit. I liked the first, endured the second to the end and never touched the third or Andromeda
2 has very interesting character development and interaction, but I agree that the final boss is a fucking joke, both as a fight and as something within the lore. Those collector praetors were much harder for me to deal with, the fuckers would easily kill off my team and fully restore barrier as soon as I started hitting its actual health
I love 2D platformers. I had no idea this game was anything like that. Absolutely no one has talked about it. All I’ve seen is the character with the logo, and it just looks like a bad knockoff of the old sequels, so…
Maybe they should have advertised it.
Pretty much what I’ve been saying for almost a decade, mostly in response to “game development is expensive, that’s why AAA games need insert extra revenue streams”. My response has always been that games are bloated with feature creep and if there was an actual issue with development costs the first thing you can cut are features that don’t really add to the game. Not only do you cut development costs but you arguably make a better product.
Nice to get some validation because it’s been a rather controversial opinion. People have argued nobody would buy AAA if it’s not an open world with XP, skills and crafting. Or a competitive hero based online shooter with XP, unlockables, season pass and 5 different game modes. I guess now people don’t buy those even if they are all those things
People have argued nobody would buy AAA if it’s not an open world with XP, skills and crafting.
See, I hate crafting systems. A game advertising its crafting system makes me less interested. Too many things to remember and the game grinds to a halt for several minutes while I navigate menus. Dragon Age Inquisition was particularly bad with entire sessions lost to inventory management. The Horizon games are bearable just because I can generate pointers to the stuff I need and I’m generally swimming in components anyway.
I really wish they were given more time for this game. It was amazing, but now that I know what they cut I keep feeling regret over not having so much more content.
There’s so much Baldur’s Gate 3 there already. If you never cut anything, the game is never “finished”. I think they made the right call. I’d like to see what they’ve got in them next. Perhaps a CRPG with a Starfield-esque setting. Most CRPGs lean on the post-apocalypse sorts of settings.
True, I guess. But I know they had intentionally cut the story and change a few things as a result of that. I guess it’s partly because I just want more.
We all know this was completely necessary at any level, but why the hifi guys? Aren’t they the best bets you could hope to invest in? They make good games that sell decently with less investment than AAA massive failures need.
What a shit-show. As for the nazi bullshit, you should be able to look at your versioning system to find out exactly who inserted the assets. That someone hasn’t already lost their job is troubling.
Game asset development is one of the places where versioning systems are least used. Not only versionong “binaries” is taxing for the system, but even game code itself (¹) is often not version tracked, or controlled at all, with more of a “cowboy coder” approach.
It all stems from most non-online games (²) being sold “as is”, with no intent of supporting them long term; the moment a studio/producer gets the money, they stop caring about their user base, until it’s time to promote the next game. Even games with post-release DLCs, are regularly developed this way, and they end up as a giant clusterf… mess.
If Deck Nine was the “lowest bidder”, with 70-80 hours a week “crunch” months, chances are they cut corners on everything, starting with proper asset versioning.
(¹: engine code is a separate thing, which gets suported across multiple games, so tends to be properly developed
²: online games, and games with microtransactions, tend to be kept in better shape, since their income depends on them working for more than a single playthrough)
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