Ubisoft always had such a team for AC at least. AC Origins had a pretty good story and AC Odyssey was alright. Haven’t finished or played the newer ones yet so I can’t judge those yet but if there’s one thing Ubisoft does right, it’s that.
AC Origins was a return to form for them, since the Brotherhood days (great story, glitchy climbing and parkour). They trusted that their main historical protagonist would thrive, so the story they told was solid. AC Odyssey had issues because they didn’t trust in Cassandra being the historical MC; Alexios felt like an added on character because they thought a female lead wouldn’t sell well. The more recent games were mid because the narratives felt kinda messy; I watched a play through of Valhalla in parts it wasn’t great, Mirage had a lukewarm response, and AC Shadows had some writing issues (two MCs go from having beef to suddenly trusting one another two hours in). Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed team has fallen asleep at the wheel, the storytelling isn’t quite up to snuff with the latest games.
I feel the modern world story should’ve been resolved, as it interferes with quasi historically accurate storyline (one can only approximate in these situations, we will never have the full truth as it’s lost to time). The modern world story has dragged on for far too long and needs to be put to rest; we need a game set purely in the modern era, to resolve what is happening. I’d love to see AC games that spin into exploring approximated history, without the burden of a world ending in slow-motion…
Valhalla is such a weird beast in the narrative. I just completed the base main story and then end was kinda… awkward.
At the end of it I still havent uncovered the leader of the order, hell I think less than half of the members are part of the main story. I like that each region was its own thing and the pacing was fine though in writing nothing was really groundbreaking. Replacing side quests with the smaller mysteries was also a good decision but OH MY LORD, can we be done with the modern world or maybe get a team to release a walking sim that resolves it and just go make “historically” - based games with checklist open world.
Yeah, when I was watching Valhalla I noticed the strangeness of the narrative…They did try something different, making each region a self-contained story. The pacing wasn’t terrible either, it’s just that they didn’t try hard enough to make certain areas of the game better. That’s what hurt Valhalla in my opinion, the wealth of very average writing; the fact they had smaller mysteries could’ve been awesome had it been better executed. Ironically, that’s similar to how Odyssey handles the cult; you don’t figure out the leader until the post game, after killing cultists who weren’t part of the main story. I feel Valhalla’s story structure was inspired by Odyssey, most regions have their own self-contained story that connects to the overarching story. Except Valhalla goes for smaller mysteries in place of the overwhelming amount of Side Quest that Odyssey has (still not finished with half of them, thankfully they can be done post game).
I feel the modern world story should be handled with a bit of care, to make that a particularly memorable experience. Going out with a bang is better than ending on a whimper. Walking sims aren’t bad in their own right, but Ubisoft wouldn’t let a writing and dev team handle it with the care it needs (not until they figure out why Larian Studios is so beloved).
But at the very least we can see that the same developers who worked at Ubisoft are better than they are allowed to be. Clair Obscur Expedition 33 deserves the same love that this got and features mostly Ubisoft employees (only 30 people in total) and shows the company truly hinders how good a game can be.
That’s why I fault Ubisoft itself…The developer team is only as good as Ubisoft allows their devs to be. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a breakout hit, as that is an example of a dev team that is free from the oppressive weight of a corporation. I’m going to be buying Clair Obscur because I want to send a message that more games from their team would be appreciated!
You are in for a treat if you enjoy RPGs with modern takes on an old system. I have been playing games for over 30 years and lately haven’t had the funds to buy much of anything in the past year, but I made an exception for this and it thankfully was a good as I was hoping it would be. Holding my interest is getting harder as well, but thankfully, due to this game and a few others, I am starting to realize it’s most likely because I crave something different and unique sometimes.
I can’t wait…Though I got a backlog of games that currently are in progress, so I won’t be playing Clair Obscur immediately. Modern games are simply hit or miss, if it’s made by a big studio…Often it’s a blueprint of what’s trended a few years ago because games are so much bigger, it takes a while to make them.
I feel Indie devs have the most freedom to do something unique, interesting, and fresh without super long development times. I’ve been choosing to play cozy or indie games as of late because a lot of the mainstream games haven’t caught my attention too. Hell, right now I’m playing Oblivion Remastered, and it’s got me in a stranglehold of nostalgia. It’s basically the same game but with a prettier aesthetic (there are some graphical issues that need resolving due to the quirks of Unreal 5). Nothing that Bethesda would be able to produce today that’s a right mix of banal, goofy, lore heavy, and fun.
I also can’t wait to play Oblivion remastered as well. I just couldn’t see picking up yet another remake/remaster over something original first. I figured the small team could benefit way more from as many sales as they could, plus I just wanted something new, haha. Can’t wait though, I haven’t played it since like 2007.
As I said: Nostalgia has me in a stranglehold, that’s the only reason why Oblivion Remastered was first on my list. I had a craving for Oblivion again; Clair Obscur being priced reasonably means I can buy it this payday! Though, I will finish Jedi: Survivor before starting a full playthrough of Clair Obscur.
Maybe the most significant issue is that, for some reason, the Seekers of the Storm update has tied Risk of Rain 2’s physics systems to its frame rate. When asked about it on Discord, Gearbox developer GBX-Preston said FPS-related issues, “and all the ramifications on balance/physics/attack speed/movement/etc. were not intentional. This is in our top handful of issues we’re investigating.” As a stopgap, he said players experiencing issues should lock the game at 60 fps.
It’s in Unity, isn’t it? So rather than multiplying the speeds by Time.deltaTime when you’re doing frame updates, you just don’t do that. Easy peasy. They’ve got that real “Japanese game devs from twenty years ago” vibe going.
Thats great to hear. Not surprised about Starfield tbh, but I am surprised they fixed it for F76, considering it relies largely on the same tech as F4, which does have that limitation.
Or even a decade ago. Dark Souls 2 had some enemies’ attack animations tied to frame rate, like the Alonne Knights. So they attacked incredibly fast on PC compared to console.
Minecraft has this wonderful mechanism where everything is dependent on game-tick/server-tick, which is independent of player FPS. Why do modern developers keep using FPS for game physics?
From what I’ve read they tried to combine the console and PC version into a unified single version. Gearbox must’ve seen the Borderlands movie and sought to lower the bar below the ocean floor.
From what I’ve read they tried to combine the console and PC version into a unified single version.
JFC. Starting off with something that is cross-compatible is one thing, but trying to merge the two codebases together… that’s a 2-3+ year effort, minimum.
Destiny 2 still struggles with this. Some enemy attacks 1 shot because at high frame rates they hit the player multiple times as the projectile passes through the player character’s model
I hope it will be a good game as well, I do like the Warhammer 40K universe (fascinating, as it paints a grim dystopian future which humanity has been entrapped within). Cancelling a beta is a dire move, I feel like they’re trying to hide something as well. It’s best to wait and not let excitement overrule being wise.
The World Health Organization recognizes videogame addiction as a disorder, and the American Psychiatric Association says that the question of whether or not videogames can be addictive is “still being debated,” but that "early evidence suggests that videogames are one of the most addicting technologies around
Its clear that games can be addictive and the concept of „whale fishing“ is openly discussed in terms of game design. Obviously, the weakest of us in terms of addiction make the standard because its those who are harmed.
Obviously, cash shops should be banned in games immediately.
They try to make balantro a 18+ game because it resembles a card game. Meanwhile fifa is for 3+ year old and it's just a card oprning game where they fish money from some sad football fans and children. I have no faith in anyone in charge of that
I have to think part of this is just all the ancient representatives we have. They’ve lived long enough to know what gambling looks like, and what good ol’ sports ball looks like, and by golly nobody can tell 'em any different!
I think that there are better responses and more nuanced opinions to be considered, certainly teaching awareness and response to such stimulus is better than playing wack-a-mole with whatever people get addicted to.
The drug war demonstrated this very clearly, it’s basically impossible to ban things people want and this is even harder with internet services or downloaded software - focus on harm reduction and education for best results.
That said we should regulate against psychologically manipulative game mechanics being linked to real or purchased currencies, though education and offering alternatives must come first.
The drug war in the US - same as any other war - imo was profit seeking of the military industrial complex, incarceration industry and power shifting away from the people, nothing else.
It is not the drugs you need to outlaw, it is the living conditions. The reason nobody gets a handle on drugs is because there is homelessness and injustice galore. Countries around the world have very different approaches to this and they mostly work better than the US solution of mass incarceration.
Corporations designing things for user retention instead of fun is hard to see for people without professional background in marketing sometimes. These things are giving you a way of influencing the subconcious, avoiding the concious in the process. This manipulation is why gambling is outlawed for kids, not the money aspect.
Sure but the point it is didn’t help, likewise gambling is illegal in a lot of places and those places tend to have more of a problem with it because addicts can’t get help.
Treating game addiction generally involves people learning to recognize and respond to behavior cycles, just like with other addictions. We should take these things seriously and teach kids how to recognize and escape manipulative cycles, a lesson which would be useful their whole life in every walk of life.
I agree that it is important that addicts need help. But having unrestricted gambling is not that. Its why even in countries that allow gambling, it is highly restricted. Were moving in a circle now. Maybe we need to agree to disagree here.
That is a good point, I guess I might accept there should be carefully considered regulation in certain well defined situations - I already agree money or brought currencies shouldn’t be allowed which will limit real world damage but I don’t really see where it is needed beyond this.
You’re intentionally dumbing down the topic to make your point sound better. You’re simply describing the binary, whether addiction could be present or not. There are so many more obvious factors to consider. Addiction rate of users, personal and social impacts of that addiction, intensity of addictive behaviors, frequency of use in addicts, target demographic, marketing etc.
There’s a reason gambling has a minimum age requirement, and loot boxes are a way around that to make money by letting children gamble.
You do have a valid point there tbh, certain mechanics should be forbidden from being linked to real or purchasable money but I don’t really think they should be forbidden in general.
My argument for this is it’s too wide ranging and will limit positive elements in game design. I think it’s also important for people to be able to practice emotional response and regulation to such stimulus, if we don’t then advertisers and manipulators will walk all over us.
I agree with this, but we give them till the age of 21 to practice and develop those skills. The entire argument is not letting gaming companies introduce gambling to kids before their brains have fully developed.
Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to use a drug or engage in a behaviour that produces natural reward, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences.
If you employ psychologists and other specialists to design something for maximum retention, you‘re not making something „entertaining“, you‘re tricking the brain into a loop.
We could discuss this endlessly but suffice it to say that there are techniques for retention that dont make an experience necessarily better but more captivating. Infinite scrolling is a very simple example. i bet some game designers could shine a pretty bright light on this if they stumble across this thread.
I could abstract this to the real world like so: two people can speak exactly the same text but one cares if their audience is getting tired and stops, the other one speaks a little louder and turns on some more lights. I‘m pretty sure you will get a significantly longer retention despite the quality being the exact same.
And this is why methods for retention need to be carefully screened and regulated.
Have to strongly disagree. Having to constantly reload entire pages of content is incredibly annoying. The only reason it makes people want to quit is because it’s annoying.
The fact that you chose that specific example, one that I think is plainly wrong, just goes to show that the discussion is not as simple as you or other people make it out to be, and that any regulation around this will most certainly ensure that future games are shittier.
I dont like you stating things as if they were an objective truth. It is your opinion that infinite scrolling is “good” or whatever you wanted to say. But it is a retention method and not just a QoL feature. There are articles explaining this and some websites have expressly disabled it because it leads to problems for people who are vulnerable.
That’s putting it a bit strongly. But it does induce people to spend money. Personally I don’t spend extra money on games. I can go to Vegas if I want to gamble for money.
It started in “free” mobile trash and is now in $70 single-player games. This shit costs almost nothing to add. The backlash doesn’t outweigh the extra money squeezed out. This is the dominant strategy. It is half the industry’s revenue. What else needs to happen, to tell you everything else is in trouble?
‘Just don’t buy it!’ I’m not, and yet: it keeps getting worse. It’s half the industry by revenue. And growing.
‘You just don’t like it!’ It monetizes human misery… inside entertainment. It makes gaming objectively worse.
‘Don’t legislate content!’ This is about the bus-i-ness mod-el. Sell whatever sex and violence you want. Just sell it.
‘There’s no exploitation here!’ Games make you value arbitrary worthless goals. That’s what makes them games.
One genius argued ‘other studios make several games over the decade these wallet-siphons have been dragged out, so they’d have to cost hundreds of dollars on release!’ Or. And this is just wild speculation about the cutting edge of computer science. Or they could make several games? Over time? And sell them for normal prices, less than a decade apart?
These people act like the just-sell-games model is unproven and hypothetical, in the same breath they insist it’s unaffected by this alternative of tricking people into tolerating endless fees. They’re not arguing. They’re just shuffling cards.
I agree fully. Its disgusting. People literally drinking the cool aid. Can I ask you something weird? I feel like making a counterweight (like political movements, eg the fedipact) would actually help.
Like a movement with a name and a written agenda so we dont have to repeat ourselves all the time. The idea is that we identify games with exploitative mechanics, dont buy them and call out the makers.
Its incredibly easy to put a link in a comment under a post hyping such a game to counter it. The more we push this, the more people will follow. We could then start sending open letters (per email) to game studios where people sign this.
We might he able to change this shit. Would you like to help? I‘d draft up something and we can make posts to gather an initial group of people.
Those are just ideas but it works wonders in other topics so why not try? Feel free to dm me if you want to discuss this.
Meh, at least as far as the games industry goes, we’ve been here before. Really the past few years have been incredible for games, now it’s time to settle into another stretch of mediocrity as companies learn the same lessons over again. Super sucks for the devs, though, seems they always get the shortest end of the stick.
If they use the blockchain as designed, there will be no central server to switch off - it’s just running in a bunch of basements. They rarely do, though.
The person who stated this a while ago deleted their comment so the reply may not have made sense:
The blockchain does not contain the digital assets. it is just a ledger saying who owns the assets.
If the place the blockchain ledger points to no longer exists, the ledger is useless.
Same with NFT's, they are digital receipts that point to a web address, If the web address closes down, the NFT is useless.
For a real world analogy.
A deed (blockchain ledger) proves you own a house (digital asset stored on the game server). If the house burns down (game server is switched off), the deed still exists but it is useless as the asset it describes no longer does.
An NFT doesn’t need to point to a web address - the ape picture can be stored on the blockchain too.
So on the case of a game, everyone can be running their own server, using a blockchain to keep the shared world in sync. There’s no physical product to begin with.
content that appears, in our judgment, to depict sexual conduct involving a minor
I’m assuming they don’t mean a suggestive camera pan, but actually something problematic on screen, in which case, I totally support the ban. Devs were given the opportunity to change it, and they said no. Ban away imho. The fact that this is considered controversial is pretty disturbing to me.
The devs were not told what needed to change even after asking, so they tried to remove anything that they suspected could be taken the wrong way, asked for reconsideration or clarification, but receive no response.
They submitted to steam, who asked for a preliminary build of the game (one would assume due to concerns about the content). The build provided included a small child reading a naked man like a horse.
Steam denied the game based on the inclusion of CSAM, and advised the devs directly of this decision in what the devs call “an automated email”, as if steam is out there personally hand writing rejection letters for every failed game out there.
The devs claim to have changed the scene, but it seems that Steam has a zero-tolerance policy on games that feature CSAM. And, I mean, Fair.
It seems a stretch to call (at least as far as I understand it), a naked (fictional) underage character riding a horse CSAM? Sure, it’s definitely not in good taste, but… CSAM?
CSAM is child abuse, there are no children here. Is there a clear line between someone drawing and actual real child abuse? Because, IMHO, there definitely should be.
I agree that steam shouldn’t allow such content, we don’t want it, but I definitely disagree with the semantics here.
You are, it wasn’t a horse in the build they sent to Steam, it was a naked man. If you have a naked girl on a horse I think that qualifies too, you have an underage character that’s naked.
Someone who claimed to have played the game said the privates were sensored.
The game concept feels very political, not sexual from what I am hearing.
My guess is the AI just flagged it, and noone actually reviewed it. Now that it is news, they don’t want any bad press, so they are standing by the ban, when otherwise they might have reversed it.
Like the other user said, porn implies some level of consent which children cannot give. Calling it csam ensures there’s no confusion about it being abuse.
Anything’s possible but I wouldn’t assume it was planned unless something else came up. I think he’s just riding the accidental publicity, which I don’t really blame him for, though the dishonesty of his spin kinda pisses me off.
I’d like to hear epic’s explanation on why the clean version was still too much.
It might not be what they planned but they’re now using it as an opportunity for more publicity to get something out of it especially now there are some potential sales they won’t be getting anymore.
Does being naked make something sexual? I would argue that for content to be sexual it has to have intent to cause arousal.
The fact that it vaguely resembles fetish content does not in and of it’s self make it fetish content.
The trailers i have seen for this game do not seem to intend to cause arousal, they seem to want to make the player empathize with the plight of domesticated animals
I can believe the the dev in that it wasn’t intended to be sexual. But should intent excuse otherwise unacceptable content? Valve says it depicts a sexual interaction, though that seems to be debated a lot.
My own opinion is that it’s too close, and that this is the kind of boundary shouldn’t be pushed. Despite intentions, the dev really should have known better than to send in anything that could be interpreted as even remotely pedo content.
It’s been about sexual abuse. I’m going to call it universally unacceptable.
Does it count? I find it just kinda sexually icky, and I think it would be harmful to the child. If you think it’d be fine, not even in the gray area, then I guess there’s no argument there anymore.
I was talking about your comment, not the quote. Weird that you assumed otherwise
“I’m assuming they don’t mean a suggestive camera pan, but actually something problematic on screen, in which case, I totally support the ban. Devs were given the opportunity to change it, and they said no. Ban away imho. The fact that this is considered controversial is pretty disturbing to me.”
Devs were not given the opportunity to change it as it wasn’t there in the first place
They may have been the first, but the sheer amount of failed disaster projects on Kickstarter, Paetron, wherever is staggering.
Some of them end up being “successful” failures, just stringing their patrons along on hopes and dreams and donations until the well dries up. Star Citizen is definitely the most successful venture of its sort, but only because it’s the highest profile with a bunch of known talent in the mix.
Just to give a more shit show example there’s also Yandere Sim. Theres so much to that shit show that I can’t even get into, mostly cause I’m fucked up on Tylenol. Point is there are multiple documentaries on YouTube about how that fucker just kept stringing folks along and self sabotageing for years.
My biggest problem with survival crafting games is the balance is always horrendously unfair and is just irritating as fuck, or there isn’t even anything to survive against because they didnt put any kind of antagonists in the game so the building part is completely aesthetic.
The PvP focused ones do both at once! There are no enemy NPCs, and the balance between the human players is stupid AF.
It seems he wasn’t banned from Fortnite, just from participating in tournaments. So he may very well cheat in fortnite again, as his account wasn’t banned.
Being said, nice of them to donate the winnings to charity, half expected them to just keep the money.
It would definitely take some creative interpretation IMHO. That is if you’re using the gameplay of Eternal, you’ll want to make changes to the original maps structure and encounter design. Would be an intensely interesting project to take on… Even just an episode, or a level or two…
I’m already thinking about how to “gate” different sections in episode 1 to work with Eternal’s arena based gameplay. Later episodes and Doom 2 gets easier, though.
The only thing about the level design I think would get broken is the fact you can jump and other traversal methods. The original maps weren’t designed around that, and even Brutal Doom breaks them with the addition of jumping. But what’s broken is the intended progression and access to secrets and is also an easy fix. Just make the barriers higher or gaps further, etc.
I hope not. Jennifer Hale is amazing. She’s the reason I’ve never played as male Shepard in mass effect. She also voiced Bastila in knights of the old republic. Incredible skill/talent.
Mark Meer is great, and definitely worth playing thru to experience. Not quite at the same level as Jennifer Hale’s performance, but it was still absolutely brilliant.
Still, I hear this every time I hear Shepard talk to Dr. Chakwas.
I really enjoyed the characters. When I think about Mass Effect 3, for example, I think of how I felt when making peace between the Quarians and the Geth, because of how I had gotten to know the characters of Tali and Legion. Or Wrex enthusiastically greeting Shepard as an old friend, something that’s only possible if you talk him down in the first game.
I was as disappointed as everyone else at the actual ending to Mass Effect 3, and I do think the plot goes a bit weird even before that (the ending boss fight of mass effect 2 is a bit weird, but again, I think more of the personal stakes that had been set up by good character writing (plus Jack Wall’s “Suicide Mission” makes what could’ve been overly cheesy instead feel grand and epic)), but I found the smaller, interpersonal stories that Mass Effect tells to be quite compelling.
Because you don't play it for a harsh challenge, the story is pretty decent, but I played it for worldbuilding, art style, ensemble cast, feeling of adventure and journey across a galaxy. That sort of broad feeling stuff.
I’m not really a gamer, but I listen to a lot of audiobooks.
AI isn’t anywhere close to being able to replace “good” narrators. Maybe a bit like self driving cars - the first 90% was achieved rapidly, the next 5% took some doing but ok, now though the final 5% seems kinda unachievable on any timescale.
That said, automation (and yes, AI) tends to approach industries incrementally. A headline voice actor isn’t going to be replaced tomorrow, but maybe some low level roles are. Fewer voice actors just means less demand for the really good ones. Def not good for the industry but… time marches on I guess.
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