Don’t call them gamers, that gives them credence and insults actual gamers. Call them what they are: insecure babies. There are many, many insecure babies with the exact same opinion that do not play games. They are worse than the gamer bros, because they’re out harassing people face to face.
The problem isn’t games or gamers or gamer culture. It’s ignorant bigots. (yes, I know it’s still fun to make fun of gamergate crap, that’s why I still upvoted the joke)
The meme is drawing a difference between lowercase g gamers, who are normal people who play video games, and capital G Gamers™, who are insecure manchildren who tend to make up a vocal majority among gaming communities. If you disagree, spend some time in a CoD lobby, or on /v/, or in real life with men who spend their time playing video games. There are a lot more Azs than you think.
I really don’t see it much and I’ve been online gaming since the 90s. I think drawing attention to it like this meme creates more problems than it fixes.
Just ignore any trolls you come across. Don’t engage. The silence is more painful to the bigots than whatever logic or empathy you try to throw at them.
Same here. It’s most definitely gotten much better nowadays. There has definitely been a culture shift to where those kind of people stick to their own private discord calls now. The fact that almost every game has a report button for that kind of behavior has definitely helped.
That's why Spitz said to be angry in the Steam reviews instead of their Discord. People mistakenly took it as a dismissive whine, but that was actually a very important comment that I feel many people overlooked. Sony ain't gonna do anything differently unless there is actual, tangible damage to their brand. That damage doesn't come from chat rooms, that comes from storefront reviews.
Keep the bad reviews coming if you want any hope of Sony relenting.
You’re absolutely correct, how many of those reviews are pointing the blame correctly? I haven’t seen a single one yelling at Steam or arrowhead for selling the game in these markets that wouldn’t be able to play the game.
There’s no way Steam is 100% in charge of what regions a game is available in. The publisher absolutely has a say in where, and if it was available in all regions at the start that was on purpose.
The company that published the game likely updated the region it can be sold in. Steam just offers a platform.
Steam/valve is literally not to blame at all for any of this. Do you work for epic games or something?
I’m all for putting the blame where it needs to be, but you’re just shooting at all parties involved indiscriminately. Like blaming a rental company for a death in a traffic accident because they own the car.
It is also wholly possible that Steam changed the availability themselves, so you can’t take all the blame away from them, but like I said originally, this is Sony’s fault first and foremost as the publisher would have first say on regional availability.
Multiple being TWO at most, one nestled in the effectively credits section of the Steam page which almost never contains information pertainant to the purchase of the game, and another nestled in the “Skip over this usually optional content” settings after you have already installed the game. I didnt even know this game was linked to PlayStation in ANY WAY until this whole fiasco. Its only uneducated because it was HIDDEN.
Reminder that the hours played rule is only a limit for the automated refund system. You can request a refund for a game at any time for any reason. It just has to be manually reviewed and deemed justified by a person.
This isn’t about Sony “relenting”, Arrowhead needs Sony’s PSN support network to deal with support tickets: it’s the whole reason Arrowhead signed up with a publisher instead of self publishing and developing an international workforce of support agents. I hate Sony as much as the next person but let’s be honest, Arrowhead needs Sony and PSN, and it makes sense given they want to spend their time making games rather than getting into being a publisher and help desk.
Ultimately, Arrowhead should have made it a day one requirement and delisted the game on Steam for every country that lacks PSN support. Instead Arrowhead and Sony decided to let it ride and enjoy the sales and accompanying popularity.
And now because of that the PSN requirement is a poison pill. If that was a requirement from the get go, I likely would have reluctantly agreed to it. It now being retroactively enforced means if Sony doesnt relent, I and likely a lot of others will abandon the game and do what we can to get a refund, which will end up costing them a lot of money
It was a requirement from the beginning but it was not enforced due to the initial server issues. It was always there…
Not saying it’s a good thing but a lot of the discourse I see online seems to overlook that crucial detail and imply this was pulled out of the blue with no warning.
I can fully understand the agreement between the two parties was “also requires a psn account” while AH being completely unaware that getting a PSN account is so restrictive.
Sony likely didnt explicitly add that the game cannot be sold in regions where they can’t create an account.
Edit: or the didn’t explicitly state which regions a psn account CAN be created in.
It was a bit frightening for me to see how quickly the mob turned on AH during this fiasco and just how much vitriol and propaganda has been generated on the subreddit like this is any other ingame operation with the associated shitposting... except this time it could very well shape the futures of real people and fate of the company for years to come.
Unfortunately this is the only way to accomplish anything. If there wasn't an outcry like this both AH and sony would just ignore any criticism and move on until it gets buried and forgotten. It's a world of extremes and the scales could have easily tipped into the other side, with people rightfully complaining about these shitty practices but getting ridiculed for complaining about just another account or sth.
And that second option already happened with this exact game when people expressed concern over the DRM, which is designed like a rootkit, giving it essentially full control/access to your system while it’s running.
Temp email+fake PII is my go to when this happens. I really appreciated Larian letting me skip straight to the game with BG3. Stuff like this should always be optional.
It SHOULD be optional but corporate greed wants your data. Just Cause 3 is still sitting unplayed on my Steam account for this exact reason and I fucking loved Just Cause 1 and 2
I personally don’t understand the whole thing of a fictional character in a video game where there is absolutely no romance anywhere having a preference. I don’t care whether my character in a game like Borderlands is straight, gay, lesbian, or anything in between so long as I can pop the heads off my enemies.
Okay, but then leave it ambiguous and let people think of the character whatever they want. It doesn’t matter if doomguy was gay, it matters that he slays
LGBT people deserve explicit representation as much as cishet people do, and cishet representation is all over media
Even if there’s a LGBT coded character people will fight to death to say that they’re actually very straight and that the degenerates are attacking them personally
The ratio of representation is off, because the ratio of clientele is off.
When the demand grows, demand from actual paying customers, the representation will rise. Get more diverse people playing and creating games, and you’ll get more diverse games.
Forcing representation has never helped any group, ever.
I don’t necessarily disagree, but my question would be how to quantify the number of LGBT characters/games. If we assume LGBT people comprise about 10% of the population, we would expect about 10% of the content should reflect that perspective/experience. To argue that LGBT content should be actively encouraged and expanded, one would have to demonstrate some kind of data regarding the relative prevalence of LGBT content, no?
Or is that point moot, because you believe it’s a desirable outcome to have an inflated media presence due to the fact that the LGBT community is a minority? I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with that either, but it’s a very different argument than fighting for equal representation.
It seems to me that you’re the one doing some weird gay ratio calculus. As far as I’m concerned, there is plenty of LGBT representation in video games and LGBT creators and consumers are perfectly able to create and consume all sorts of content that suits their sexual preferences. Sexuality can be emphasized or it can be minimized, depending on the individual preferences of the creators and consumers.
But you think that this state of affairs is problematic, and that we need to be making a strong effort to make sure that video game characters are explicitly stated to be LGBT as much as possible. Feels pretty egocentric; your obsession with having characters in media reflect your own traits would seem to indicate a difficulty empathizing with people from other groups with different experiences.
You can have whatever headcanon you like, but imagining that fictional characters are gay and getting angry when others don’t indulge your fantasy doesn’t seem like the most enjoyable activity. Just let everyone interpret art however they want. Thank you for your cooperation.
Why do I think that? Because that’s how a capitalist market works.
Demand creates potential value. And no game developer would leave potential value untapped.
If there were a few really bestselling LGBT games, others would hop on the wagon, the market will get saturated for a while, and then it levels out a bit and some good concepts remain.
And then of the characters significant other is important? Like they complained about Spimer-Man 2, despite the playable characters not even being gay. We know that because we know who they are after.
It Takes Two. Me and my boyfriend played it. Beautiful game. Loved it. Plan to wait a few years and play it with him again. It’s about a straight couple. I can’t imagine how that game would work if we didn’t know that. Like I guess we could keep stretching the argument to “Well they could be bi”, I guess. We don’t need to know that. But it kind of helps to know they’re married to know the story. Otherwise it’s gonna get weird with the kid involved.
We don’t have to try and out progressive everyone for everything. A story can have a romance and we can see the romance and we can know who they’re dating and we can know they’re sexuality. None of this is the issue.
Your example would make sense in Doom. Sure. I’ve literally never seen anyone ask for it in doom. It’s a terrible example because it’s not that kind of game.
But for many games where the story is actually a big part, and not for games like Doom where the story really doesn’t matter, it’s fine. We can still celebrate love in really any shape or form(thats not harmful). If a game wants to avoid it, thats also fine. Once again, not arguing every game needs it. But if that’s the story, that’s the story, and it seems pointless to be angry that you know who a character is dating.
The movement for queer acceptance isn’t for people to be hush hush and for us to make the closet bigger to invite straight people in. It’s to get people out.
That’s an interesting one because I actually always headcannon doom guy as gay ever since I was a kid and it was just being silly, always pictured him as a badass marine that loves sucking cock and he’s fighting his way to hell because his bf died and was sent there.
Duke Nukem on the other hand was explicitly hetro which is fun, I would have also enjoyed in a different game a character like the duke who was aggressively homosexual or even better a good representation of a ego obsessed badass power bottom that has all sorts of fun quips like ‘I’m here to suck cock and kick ass, and I already drained everyone’s balls…’ it would be silly, fun, and we could have lots of shots of his toned butt and stuff… But no, thirty years later and people are still scared of fun. Sad.
That’s very unlikely. It’s running UBB Threads, which, from what I can tell, has an auth subsystem, which au minimum would do hashing. If it’s providing you with a default at sign-up, that’s different and is what appears to be a configurable setting.
If it is completely generated for you, here’s what probably happening:
User creation module runs a password generator and stores this and the username in memory as string variables.
User creation module calls back to storage module to store new user data in db, including the value of the generated password var.
Either the storage module or another middleware module hashes the password while preparing to store.
Storage module reports success to user creation.
User creation module prints the vars to the welcome template and unloads them from memory.
TL;DR as this is running on a long-established commercial php forum package, with DB storage, it is incredibly unlikely that the password is stored in the DB as plaintext. At most it is likely stored in memory during creation. I cannot confirm, however, as it is not FOSS.
Yeah if they send the password in an email in plain text that’s not storing it. You can send the email before you store the password while it’s still in memory and then hash it and store it.
Stored in memory is still stored. It’s still unencrypted during data processing. Still bad practice and a security vulnerability at best. Email isn’t E2E encrypted.
You have the text input feed directly into the encryption layer without an intermediary variable. The plaintext data should never be passable to an accessible variable which it must be to send the plaintext password in the email because it’s not an asynchronous process.
I’m surprised so many people are getting hung up on basic infosec.
The front end to backend traffic should be encrypted, hashing occurs on the backend. The backend should never have access to a variable with a plaintext password.
I’m going to have to stop replying because I don’t have the time to run every individual through infosec 101.
how long have you been a web developer? Because I’ve been doing it for six years and almost every web app I’ve ever seen uses http with TLS to send the plaintext password to the backend, where it’s popped into a request var at the controller level, then passed as an instance var to the service level, salted, hashed and stored. This includes apps that have to submit themselves for HIPAA compliance because they deal with PHI.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding you, but backend servers will almost always have the user-submitted password in plaintext as a variable, accessible to the backend server and any upstream proxies.
It’s even how it’s done in Lemmy. The bcrypt verify accepts the plaintext password and the expected salted hash.
I haven’t looked into it but I was wondering about the logistics of setting up a federated honeypot for server side stream sniffing to build a plaintext email/password database.
Not without compromised certificates they haven’t. You can tell because if they did they’d be world famous for having destroyed any and all internet security. Then again, they’d probably already be famous for having figured out a way to salt, hash and store passwords without ever holding them in memory first like they claim to do above, so maybe someone is lying on the internet about their vague “proprietary network protocols”.
Man, you sound like you’re just using random words you heard in class. Clearly you have no clue how user registration actually works, let alone backend development.
There are ways to have passwords transmitted completely encrypted, but it involves hitting the backend for a challenge, then using that challenge to encrypt the password client side before sending. It still gets decrypted on the backend tho before hash and store.
I asked because what you’re describing doesn’t do much if you understand how common web frameworks and runtime environments work.
The framework needs to parse the HTTP request. That means holding the parameters in a variable somewhere just to arrange them in a datastructure for processing.
But let’s ignore that and say we have some kind of system that stream parses the request right out of the buffer (which itself still needs to be held in memory for a bit, but let’s ignore that), and when it matches a preconfigured password parameter, passes it directly to the hashing system and nowhere else. I don’t think any framework in existence actually does this, but let’s run with it.
We’ll still need to pass that value by whatever the language uses for function passing. It will be in a variable at some point. Since we rarely write in C these days unless we have to, the variable doesn’t go away in the system until the garbage collection runs. Most systems don’t use ref counting (and I think it’s a mistake to disregard the simplicity of ref counting so universally, but that’s another discussion), so that could happen whenever the thread gets around to it.
But even if it runs in a timely fashion, the memory page now has to be released to the OS. Except most runtimes don’t. First, the variable in question almost certainly was not the only thing on that page. Second, runtimes rarely, if ever, release pages back to the OS. They figure if you’re using that much memory once, you’ll probably do it again. Why waste time releasing a page just to make you spend more time getting it again?
And we’re still not done. Let’s say we do release the page. The OS doesn’t zero it out. That old variable is still there, and it could be handed over to a completely different process. Due to Copy on Write, it won’t be cleared until that other process tries to write it. In other words, it could still be read by some random process on the system.
And we haven’t even mentioned what happens if we start swapping. IIRC, some Linux kernel versions in the 2.4 series decided to swap out to disk ahead of time, always having a copy of memory on disk. Even if you’re not running such an ancient version, you have to consider that the kernel could do as it pleases. Yeah, now that var potentially has a long lifespan.
To do what you want, we would need to coordinate clearing the var from the code down through the framework, runtime, and kernel. All to protect against a hypothetical memory attack. Which are actually quite difficult to pull off in practice. It’d be easier to attack the client’s machine in some way.
And on top of it, you’re running around with an undeserved sense of superiority while it’s clear you haven’t actually thought this through.
Yes. I agree 100% with the things I can and I defer to your experience where I can’t. I used to write proprietary networking protocols 20 years ago and that’s the knowledge and experience I’m leaning on.
As a matter of practice we would ensure to process passwords by encrypting the datasteam directly from the input, and they were never unencrypted in handling, so as to protect against various system and browser vulnerabilities. It would be a big deal to have them accessible in plaintext beyond the user client, not to mention accessible and processable by email generation methods and insecure email protocols.
I’m going to have to stop replying because I don’t have the time to run every individual through infosec 101.
Sorry, but you’re missing the point here. You cannot do anything with a password without storing it in memory. That’s not even infosec 101, that’s computing 101. Every computation is toggling bits between 1 and 0 and guess where these bits are stored? That’s right: in memory.
The backend should never have access to a variable with a plaintext password.
You know how the backend gets that password? In a plaintext variable. Because the server needs to decrypt the TLS data before doing any computations on it (and yes I know about homomorphic encryption, but no that wouldn’t work here).
Yes, I agree it’s terrible form to send out plain text passwords. And it would make me question their security practices as well. I agree that lots of people overreacted to your mistake, but this thread has proven that you’re not yet as knowledgeable as you claim to be.
You encrypt the datastream from the text input on the client side before storing it in a variable. It’s not rocket science. I did this shit 20 years ago. Letting a plaintext password leave the user client is fucking stupid.
there is no possible way to handle sensitive data without storing it in memory at some point
it’s where you do all the salting, hashing, and encrypting
emailing out credentials like this after sign up is certainly not best practice, but probably not a huge deal for a video game forum of all things. if you are re-using passwords then you already have a way bigger problem.
emailing out credentials like this after sign up is certainly not best practice,
Understatement of the year right here. Everyone in this thread is more interested in dunking on OP for the few wrong statements they make rather than focusing on the fact that a service is emailing their users their password (not an autogenerated “first time” one) in plaintext in an email.
there is no possible way to handle sensitive data without storing it in memory at some point
Since we’re nitpicking here - technically you can. They could run hashing client side first, and instead of sending the password in plain-text, you’d send a hashed version
This opens up the possibility of replay attacks in the case of data breaches, though, and those are much more common than http mitm attacks (made even less likely with the proliferation of https).
I’m not entirely sure whether hashing twice (local and server) is wise, having not thought through that entire threat vector. Generally I try to offload auth as much as I can to some sort of oauth provider, and hopefully they’ll all switch over to webauthn soon anyway.
I’m not really sure how it opens up replay attacks, since it doesn’t really change anything to the default auth. There are already sites that do this.
The only difference is that instead of sending an http request of { username = “MyUsername”, Password = “MyPassword” } changes to { username = “MyUsername”, Password = HashOf(“MyPassword”) } - and the HashOf(“MyPassword”) effectively becomes your password. - So I don’t know how that opens up a possibility for replay attack. There’s not really any difference between replaying a ClearText auth request vs an pre-hashed auth request. - Because everything else server side stays the same
(Not entirely auth related), but another approach of client side decryption is to handle decryption completely client site - meaning all your data is stored encrypted on the server, and the server sends you an encrypted container with your data that you decrypt client side. That’s how Proton(Mail) works in a nutshell
I’m not really sure how it opens up replay attacks
Put simply, jt allows an attacker with a leaked database to use the hashed password as a password. In your original comment, it seemed like you were suggesting hashing only before transmission, on the client; but hashing both before and after would indeed patch that particular vulnerability. I don’t know if there are potential problems with that strategy or not.
another approach of client side decryption is to handle decryption completely client site
Here’s potentially an opportunity for me to learn: how does such a service (like Proton Mail) perform this in a web browser without having access to the data necessary to decrypt all of the data it’s sending? Since you can’t count on a web browser to have the private key, do you send down an encrypted private key that can only be decrypted with the user’s password? Is there some other way to do this that I’m not aware of?
In your original comment, it seemed like you were suggesting hashing only before transmission
Ok, that wasn’t what I was suggesting, no. That would effectively make your password hash the password itself - and it would kinda be stored in PlainText on the server, if you skip the client auth and send that value to the server directly through the api or something
how does such a service (like Proton Mail) perform this in a web browser without having access to the data necessary to decrypt all of the data it’s sending? […] do you send down an encrypted private key that can only be decrypted with the user’s password?
Yes, pretty much. I can’t really find a good, detailed explanation from Proton how it exactly works, but LastPass uses the same zero-knowledge encryption approach - which they explained with some diagram here - with a good overview of the client/server separation of it’s hashing.
How about first we charge the real people doing real war crimes, e.g., Netanyahu and Putin? Then we can talk about whether mashing buttons is comparable.
Case in point, you can still play all of these old games. If you are willing to pirate, you can get access to thousands of games, most you never even played before, for free. You never have to pay for another game as long as you live and a still be playing new games from this era of “better” games.
I’ve done this myself. Played for like a month, and then for bored. And basically noone does that. I have the Nintendo switch access to old nes games. My kids never touch it. No one can really say because there is no novelty.
You know why? Modern games are way better. This isn’t to say these isn’t some annoying shit that goes along with them. But the old days weren’t some magical time of gaming. It seems magical because it was new, especially to the people living during that time, and simply due to nostalgia.
I know I won’t be popular, but I love modern gaming. I throw a game I’m interested in in my steam wish list. I wait for it to drop to below 20 dollars, and then I buy it.
The most recent games that I’ve put a ton of hours into are bg3 and anno 1800. No micro transactions, unless I missed something.
I also played a ton of supercell games: coc, cr, and bs. Many entertaining hours over years. Never spent a dime. Micro transactions other people paid allowed me to play for free. How is this not amazing?
I’m open to hearing competing ideas, but if you do you disagree with me, expect me to ask why you don’t do the things above, and just answer the question in your post. If that’s ignored, it will just indicate to me that you realize I’m right.
I also think there’s a genuine drop in satisfaction when people are presented with more options. I limit myself and only buy new-ish games when I feel like I’ve extracted as much enjoyment out of the last one I bought as I can. I think this helps a lot.
Because what I see a lot of people doing is jumping to the game-of-the-week and then getting numb and saying “there’s no good games” even as they continue to buy new ones every week.
Good games are good games no matter the era. I don’t think you can find many serious people claim that Barbie’s Horse Adventures is better than Red Dead Redemption 2 just because it’s retro. And No serious person is going to claim that Suicide Squad is better than A Link to the Past, just because it’s a modern game
Depends a lot on the games for me. I can spend a lot of time on old games, if they were mechanically well made. But if the controls are clunky (like e.g. in old adventure games) I am out.
I think the early 3D era is the worst for this. We really had no idea how movement or cameras should work, and there was a lot of flailing trying to get it right, and people didn’t even realise when it was right.
I was there 3000 years ago when Alien Resurrection came out and you used the left stick to walk and sidestep, and the right stick to pan and tilt, and it felt like utter unplayable madness.
That’s one of the reasons Mario 64 still holds up. Despite being so early in 3D platforming it did a really good job with the controls and camera choices. It’s a real mixed bag to go back to that era of gaming, Generation V, but I kinda like that. There wasn’t preconceived notions of what 3D games should be so they tried everything.
Agreed. Although that’s not what anyone actually says. Just read the comments in this thread. You would think they rdr2 was completely unplayable shit hole of micro transactions.
But what about rdr2 to link to the past? Removing the “considering the era” part of the equation, just 1 to 1.
I think it’s really hard to quantify. They are both masterpieces even if you just consider the state they are today and not just the era they are made in.
Sure Red Dead Redemption 2 has “better graphics” but Link to the Past looks great in its 16 bit art style. I wouldn’t want to change the graphics. I don’t think A Link Between Worlds or the switch remake of Link’s Awakening improved the graphics for instance.
Red Dead Redemption 2 might have “deeper” gameplay mechanics but I don’t actually care for them very much. The cores system I think distract from the game, and Arthur is honestly a bit slow and clunky to control during fights; unlike A Link to the Past where fighting with the sword is smooth, blocking with the shield is easy to understand and the items add a element of strategy to the combat.
Ultimately I think that red dead redemption 2 is the better game and part of it is because the modern era it is in allowed the developers to tell an story and create a character that I was invested in more than any other in gaming. But ultimately I think it comes down to personal taste. Earthbound is another game that made me feel similar to RDR2 as far as story beats go. And if I had to pick one game to play for the rest of eternity, I’d be fine with either choice.
Competitive NES Tetris exemplifies this. The game was already retro when most current top players were fetuses, which completely eliminates nostalgia as a possible factor.
I mean, I do still play these games. I also play new games, so I don’t agree with the comic. Still, Chrono Trigger, FFT WoL, Secret of Mana, Parasite Eve, Xenogears, and some others are still on my PS Vita and I’ve been replaying them. I need to find Megaman X as well, as I loved that game.
We all have to be very specific about how you’re defining “better” here. To me, it’s people being very bad at explaining what they mean by it when they say that, making it easy to dismiss as nostalgia. I think you’re mostly right though.
People have become used to better graphics and smoother gameplay. You can’t go back after that. People like having other people to play with too. So, I think those are unfair criticisms. They mean, old style made with the new tech. However, there a whole host of things that have gotten better with modern games. I think we can agree on the last part at least.
Having lived through both, old games were not “better” per se but there is something modern games have lost, in amongst all of the improvements. Games “back in the day” weren’t made with algorithms designed to mess with your psychology to keep you playing, even if you hate the game. They didn’t design the games into evergrinds that only a few sweaty types and professionals can genuinely enjoy either. Old games had a logical, satisfying end where you would put them down afterwards.
Despite all the crap you get with old games, you can tell that so many of them were made to be as much fun as possible. Like, that was the main aim and not “engagement at all costs, even enjoyment.” They were labours of love, warts and all.
That’s why they’ll never remake morrowind as it was but with better graphics, mechanics etc. because it’ll be so apparent imo. I mean, you start off fighting rats in a basement with a toothpick and eventually end up being able to make game breaking gear, just for the hell of it. You had to earn it but it was just really fun. Powerstone 2 was just pure, silly fun.
Fun doesn’t generate as much permanent engagement as whatever the hell they’re using now. I’m not saying modern games aren’t fun, just to be clear. But they’re not made, from the ground up, to be as much fun as possible anymore imo. That’s what I think they’ve lost. But I agree, that doesn’t make old games better, despite their being so old.
Games “back in the day” weren’t made with algorithms designed to mess with your psychology to keep you playing, even if you hate the game. They didn’t design the games into evergrinds that only a few sweaty types and professionals can genuinely enjoy either. Old games had a logical, satisfying end where you would put them down afterwards.
Well, many old games were. Arcade games specifically were often designed to get coins from players, with extreme difficulty encouraging grinds and sweaty playthroughs to achieve mastery.
If anything, multiplayer and GaaS brought us back there.
Many new games, especially single player games, are still designed with “fun” in mind, or with even loftier goals and themes, many without exploitative gameplay loops, yet still with distinct, pleasing graphics, art styles, and polished gameplay.
I don’t think anyone was talking about arcade games but I agree that they weren’t excluded either. Even then, you had versions you could own that were very different.
The major labels have lost that and those that are built the way you describe are so few and far in between, they’re barely worth mentioning.
Games in general used to all be like that. Now, the vast majority have to gouge as much as possible. Again, I don’t agree they were better back then but its not improved in every single way either, when looking at them collectively.
I am in full agreement with this statement, and would like to add that I think that older games often have a much greater artistic value. They were concerned with crafting an intricate plot, super immersive environments, powerful and transformative music, memorable characters, etc. One game where in my opinion you really feel the volume of love and artistic expression as well as perfectionism put in is the first Risen, and it’s fairly obscure, but I find it to be so captivating that I’d easily play it with greater enthusiasm than any new Ubisoft copy-and-paste title or Valorant / Overwatch / CS:GO. Still, I think that this art / passion approach of quantifying a game’s “goodness” produces just as many contemporary candidates for great games, like The Witcher 3, Baldur’s Gate 3 or Red Dead Redemption 2. The things I like about old RPGs / adventure games are probably not specific to the past, but instead heavily developer dependent. Developers that love their work and are given enough time and money will produce great works of art in the same way that they have 20 years ago.
People have become used to better graphics and smoother gameplay. You can’t go back after that. People like having other people to play with too.
This is what it ultimately comes down to for me: the games are better, and they can’t go back. If the games from back then were actually better, then people would be playing them all the time. But the reality is that people seem to pull more enjoyment from modern games, which is why they keep going back to them despite the constant “they suck!” complaints.
Despite all the crap you get with old games, you can tell that so many of them were made to be as much fun as possible. Like, that was the main aim and not “engagement at all costs, even enjoyment.” They were labours of love, warts and all.
And I feel that’s true now, like with the games I mentioned (BG3 and Anno 1800). And back then there were definitely cash grabs, like ET jumps to mind as the most famous example, but almost every NES game that was based on some kind of movie or other pop culture thing. It’s just they are better at grabbing cash now. But there are also plenty of modern games that don’t implement these addictive features, in order to keep siphoning money off of you, they are just fun and people play them infinitely more than going back to the olden days.
And, again, I don’t want people to get me wrong. I definitely agree that there is a lot of shit, especially dirty shit, where they abuse human psychology to keep people playing and siphoning off money. But I feel like it’s ridiculously overstated and people are also ridiculously blind to how much better gaming is now than it was “back in the good old days.”
I somewhat disagree about being “unable to go back”, but I will say it’s sheerly the style of game itself.
Take a game like A Link to the Past. Now look at a game like Retro City Rampage. Despite some 30+ years difference, they are visually nearly identical. Or any of the 2D Sonic games, them being 30 years apart is effectively meaningless.
But yeah, trying to play old Tomb Raider? If you’re expecting even PS3 graphics, boy are you in for a surprise.
However I think there is also an annoying amount of push for “better graphics or bust”. That was the main debate for the console wars, the Wii sucked because its graphics weren’t good and it’s a baby console, Gears of War and Lost Planet for the XBox are the pinnacle of gaming!1! What! No the God of Wa- sorry I got caught in a flashback.
But there are plenty of games you can emulate that can be upscaled and remove the archaic visuals, then it’s just the game design and control scheme. Red Dead Revolver looks and plays great, there’s no reason for anyone to stop playing outside of it just being a little less “AAA”. Similarly, pretty much any of the PS2 exploration games - Jak and Daxter, Spyro, Sly, Ty, Crash - hold up wonderfully today. They’re a bit slower, but they are the foundation that modern games of that genre use.
I don’t think them being slower, clunkier, less “AAA” makes them bad games. I think it makes them older games, and that is not inherently bad. In fact, I would argue that it’s gamers being bad at them, and that games today in many ways are easier to keep people engaged. The D&D arcade game is great, difficult, and would be absolutely dunked on by gamers today for all of its awkward gameplay.
This reminds me of an article I read about “Blade Runner, and old movies in general, are harder to watch because contemporary audiences have gotten used to movies that are faster, which makes them better.” The whole article was effectively trying to state that because new movies have shaped audiences, old movies are becoming unwatchable. In some respects, I’m sure there’s merit to that. In many other respects, I completely disagree. Just because something is in a different language does not remove its value. I see that as a reflection of the viewer, not a reflection of the art.
With that in mind, old video games are a different language. We have to play them with the mindset that things will not be familiar. That does not make them bad, it makes them something to learn, and it’s going to force you to learn things that are uncomfortable because it’s unfamiliar to what you would rather be doing. Old movies are a different language.
Just because you may not understand it does not mean it is worse. Likewise, just because you are familiar with modern games doesn’t make them better either. And finally, better is subjective for the most part anyway. (None of this is directed at you btw, lol not at all trying to say that you don’t understand things!)
Skill issue on your part, you got duped by pretty lights. Super Mario is to this day playable. Megaman X is still one of the thightest platformer games ever made, the controls nearly feel like they read your mind.
Also notice how the few games that are better than these classics were either made by the same people (Igarashi’s “Bloodstained” reboot of Castlevania) or were HEAVILY inspired by them (Hollow Knight, Shovel Knight, 30XX etc)
I regularly play 90’s and 00’s FPS games. All the new release ones I play follow old design philosophies with the hindsight of knowing what doesn’t work. There’s not much in the way of modern, triple-A FPS titles without some form of microtransactions or whatever the hell “seasonal content” is. I wont touch anything that’s a “live service” game. Hell, Epic shutdown the Unreal Tournament servers and even delisted the single player stuff.
Kinda just game up on multiplayer. Right now, I’m replaying Postal Brain Damaged. The last episode is so good. Probably do Turbo Overkill or try and get American McGee’s Alice running.
My old lan party friends are playing some BF game or another. I tried military shooters, but they’re all so flat. I think they were more interested roleplay then combat.
I collect games, mostly PS2 and PS3, and you’re largely correct. Games from back then had just as many issues, we were just more willing to look over them.
It is just nostalgia. Like it or not, that’s the first gamers’ generations saying “everything was better in the good ol’ days”. It was not, we just choose to remember the good stuff.
Its the same with film and anime ,probably also aplies to comics and books Everyone remembers a few good titles from the ‘old times’ ( and the old times depend on the person complaining ) and comapres it to every modern production convieniently forgeting about the garbage and medicore stuff that was put at that time.
And then there is the case of some genres falling put of favor. Whetewer we are talking about western in film or RTS in computer games . That actually is pretty reasonable complain since the way it usualy goes we have a massive oversupply of certain genres followed by a drought because as it turns out there is a limit to how much harem school anime horny teenagers and middle aged corporate workers will watch per year.
But there is also how games have aged over time. Some game mechanics still work and are fun.
I just recently bought "Populous" on steam for 2$. After learning how to use DosBox the game is still as addictive as it was on my Atari-STE ... but now I have bad old PC sound.
Compare this with "Command & Conquer Tiberium Wars" I should have skipped buying that. The conversion is so faithful that it still has the same stupid unit movements.
I just recently bought “Populous” on steam for 2$.
It’s funny because I was explicitly thinking of populous at some point when thinking about replayability. What a great game. Although I played it on SNES. Countless hours on that game. Almost as bad as Tetris.
Well I mean, it’s not really like that in this case. Every story expansion just requires you to have cleared the previous parts of the game.
The base game/before the first expansion isn’t bad per se, I had a fun time with the game at that point. But there happens to be a remarkable step up in quality starting with the first expansion, and the game pretty much keeps getting better from there.
Also during the last few years they have been revamping the early-game extensively, adding modern visuals and refreshing the design of the dungeons and boss fights. But having played before these changes, I still wouldn’t call the beginning of the game “filler”. I found it quite charming, and the multiplayer aspect is also fun in its own respect at that point.
Just my 2c, I’m not one to defend large corporations but I don’t think the trope really applies to XIV
Perhaps the confusion is my fault for acknowledging that the game did indeed improve over the course of its ten year run, which is…obviously…the best possible case scenario.
But if you read my comment again, you may notice that my point is the exact opposite of what you’re joking about. I don’t believe there really is a multi hundred hour “rite of passage” to get to “the good part”. Not only is the beginning already pretty good, but, as I said, they are actively modernizing it to bring it more in line with the later parts (which are even better).
Is there a subtlety here that I have simply failed to convey? Is the idea of a decent game becoming a masterpiece really indistinguishable from the idea of a fundamentally worthless game dangling the hope of a better game out in front of you like a carrot on a stick? Really help me out here
If someone says to you that they tried playing the game for a couple hours, but it was kind of boring and the quests have a lot of filler, what would your response be?
The meme pokes fun at the idea that many people who love the game would encourage that person to continue until they reach the first expansion so they could experience that, as you call, masterpiece.
It’s not so much that they find the first part fundamentally worthless, just even if you don’t like it, you should maybe keep playing because it gets so much better.
If someone says to you that they tried playing the game for a couple hours, but it was kind of boring and the quests have a lot of filler, what would your response be?
At the end of the day we are talking about like a 600 hour story driven RPG, the actual structure of the game doesn’t change much as it goes on so you can tell pretty quickly if you’ll like the game in general (hey, that kind of sounds like, the opposite of what the meme is saying, right?).
With that in mind I would say if you aren’t thrilled with the story straight off but you otherwise enjoy the game, you may as well keep playing, and if things pick up later then hey, bonus. If you don’t like the moment-to-moment gameplay I am here to tell you that it does not get better lol. So no worries, the free trial is the way it is for a reason.
In summary, I understand what the meme is saying, but have I said that? Let’s step away from such massive games for a second. I believe the best part of Horizon Zero Dawn is the ending few hours, by far. Story just really hits for me then, as it should, because we want things to get better as we play them. Is this perspective, “the best is yet to come”, the same as, “it’s worth slogging through the boring part until then?” Have I called the beginning boring, actually? Have I suggested anyone should slog through it?
That’s my personal estimate for the game if you simply sit down at the beginning, and progress the single-player* storyline from start to finish, up to the end of the current expansion (a new one is coming out in a few months actually lol). Reading the dialogue and cutscenes, playing through the required quests, dungeons, and trials, and also playing through some of the optional (but also story driven and highly recommended) content.
So I guess it depends on what you mean by “story”, there’s dialogue and important story content happening during the actual fights most of the time. But in general I would say the vast majority of that time is pure story, to the point where I wouldn’t recommend the game to someone who didn’t like visual novels. Some players probably could do it in like 300 hours if they skim or even just read really fast, and I know many players who have taken well over 1000 hours as they took their time and did lots of side content.
*the vast majority of the game has optional multiplayer. I think the best way to play is with others but many people feel the opposite lol
Yes I can see how funny it would be were it directed at somebody who embodied in any way the sentiment of the original meme. It seems to me that I have repeatedly argued the opposite, care to share any insight as to why you so easily imagine otherwise?
Maybe me and the other guy are the only ones but you feel like the person from the OP to us. The extremely serious attitude about a joke just adding to the humour of it.
Oh, well, as long as that’s just how you feel, no worries. The heart wants what the heart wants. Others have read and engaged with the actual words that I said, which is normally why I comment, so it seems like everyone gets to walk away with something today
Grinding hours on steam aka using s.a.m. , archi steam farm or similar programs to emulate playing the games for hours while the games are actually not running.
Yeah, like DNU said, something more grindy. Or something difficult. So more like PoE where you can play thousands of hours without seeing everything or knowing everything. Or like Black Desert Online with its afk mechanics. Or a game with a lot rng like dwarf fortress or rimworld.
Or speedrunning stuff. But some kind of idle… 😅 indeed unexpected.
Well maybe it is because said games are my timesinks… Even though I haven’t played any game as long as he/she did.
The solution is for everyone else to act like school kids and treat the guy like he has a crush and make fun of him. No one likes to be told they’re sitting in a tree.
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