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jsdz, do gaming w Bethesda says most of Starfield's 1000+ planets are dull on purpose because 'when the astronauts went to the moon, there was nothing there' but 'they certainly weren't bored'

The moon is boring, so every planet in the universe must be boring. Earth is mostly capitalist right now, so every planet with humans must be one form or another of late capitalist dystopia. A whole galaxy made of inert rocks, fast travel, and people eager to exchange gunfire with you.

I haven’t played it yet, but from what I’ve seen the setting looks even more bleak and depressing than Bethesda Fallout.

Skiptrace,

The setting is actually really cool. New Atlantis is actually quite utopian looking. I haven’t gotten too deep into the game yet, only about 3 hours so far.

jsdz,

New Atlantis does look pretty cool, but I worry that it seems a bit empty. From what info I can find it seems to have maybe half as many named NPCs as the average Skyrim city even if it is three times the size. But maybe there are many more and they just haven’t all made it to the wiki yet? I don’t know, it’s little things that annoy me. Like it’s the glorious spacefaring future and every city is still full of fast food franchises selling coffee in what look like exactly the same kind of disposable cups with plastic lids we use today? Maybe that’s a failure of imagination too small to complain about in itself, but it seems representative of how everything is when you look closely. Is it meant to be allegorically examining the social problems of our current world rather than presenting future humanity as doing something genuinely new? If so what’s it trying to say about that, exactly? Where’s the deep lore? Where are the characters you’d actually care about as people rather than video game NPCs that help you advance a quest? I was hoping for Skyrim in space, but to me it looks more like Fallout 4 in space. Never mind the reviewers who compared it to Oblivion and got my hopes up. The only thing it has in common with Oblivion is the Annoying Fan who I must admit is genuinely annoying.

Eh well, it’s a Bethesda game. I’ll probably give in and play it eventually.

BigBananaDealer,
@BigBananaDealer@lemm.ee avatar

this game is a lot more like KOTOR than any of the bethesda games. if you loved KOTOR you will probably love starfield

and people will always bitch about the NPC amount, whiterun is too little (but everyone is unique). well okay, we’ll add an actual city population but now everyone is just a random citizen (but it looks like a city size population)

TechnoBabble,

For all the problems the game has, the major thing they get right is the environment.

Almost every area looks more than great, some are industrial, luxurious, barren, creepy, outright hostile, or cozy, but they are usually always gorgeous.

The environments are what pushed me to keep giving the game a chance after the initial shock of not having a cohesive overworld.

WytchStar, do games w 'We owe them a huge debt': Baldur's Gate 3 lead writer hopes they did '90s BioWare proud
@WytchStar@kbin.social avatar

For me it wasn't the fire that kept drawing comparisons to Divinity. It was the writing. The opening is beat for beat Divinity tropes and it was off-putting. It took hours more gameplay and character development for that edge to wear down, though it has probably permanently shaded my first playthrough. Perhaps that opening was one of the first things written, and thus the most akin to its predecessor.

Once the game settles in, things feel less Divinity and more Faerun. The fire metaphor is apt though. Things do creep in from time to time to remind you who built this adventure. It's like a signature. I don't always like it, seeing the hand in this case is more jarring because of how sensitive I am towards the setting and gameplay. But the craft is so thoughtful otherwise, it's broken through those barriers for me.

Coelacanth,
@Coelacanth@feddit.nu avatar

I agree, and it comes through in the companions, too. And despite them singling out Jaheira in the article I have a hard time recognising much of her, except for the appearance. Maybe the hundred years passing is the excuse but I wish her bossy, sarcastic, witty personality was more present and recognisable.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the game and it has been monopolizing my attention but it’s still not beating the Divinity 3 allegations (though I’m only at the end of Act 2, still).

Poggervania, do gaming w Disco Elysium for $12 may be the best $12 you ever spend on games in your life
@Poggervania@kbin.social avatar

Honestly, better to pirate the game because ZA/UM fucked over the original devs and now they don’t get any money from the game’s sales - and it ruined any potential for a sequel.

Here’s a Youtube vid on that drama.

ripcord,
@ripcord@kbin.social avatar

I don't normally do this, and I'll go do some searching of my own, but any chance for a tldw on the video? What's the background? 2.5 hours is a bit much and the intro was sort of wandering and more or less.just repeated that yes, the game was stolen from them.

ysjet, do gaming w The Switch 2's super sluggish LCD screen is 10 times slower than a typical gaming monitor and 100 times slower than an OLED panel according to independent testing

So basically, the news here is that the switch 2 screen is better than the switch 1 at 17ms vs 21ms, except for one singular tester that claims 30+, which no other independent tester collaborates… And then they go and compare it to screens that cost multiple times the entire switch’s cost… And this is presented as a bad thing?

Are you kidding me rn

steal_your_face,
@steal_your_face@lemmy.ml avatar

My understanding is it’s worse than the switch 1 and basically every other modern handheld from the PSP onward.

ysjet,

My understanding is that most testers found it’s about 4ms better than the switch 1, and the only tester that found it worse refuses to actually outline their methodology, and nobody can reproduce the 30ms+ number.

KiwiTB, do games w One gamer got so tired of waiting for Valve, he made his own 'Steam Controller 2' out of Steam Deck parts, and it even splits in half like Switch Joy-Cons

As someone who owns and uses a steam controller daily, that’s pretty terrible

bassomitron,

Yeah, this looks awful to use. It’s okay on the Deck because that’s a mobile device and has a lot of functions it needs to satisfy on the go. For a dedicated controller? Why the hell would you prefer this over the better ergonomically designed SC 1 or literally any other console controller?

LuigiMaoFrance,

2 analog sticks, input layout parity with Steam Deck, USB-C I guess. It also splits in half so you can use it more easily while cat sits in your lap.

NuXCOM_90Percent,

The original Steam Controller was great for games that didn’t support gamepads… and came out within like a year of “hey, we can actually map CRPGs, grand strategies, and RTSes to gamepads pretty well apparently?”

The Steam Deck is awesome because it is a best of both worlds. Sticks for games that map to those and trackpads for navigating the OS/Steam and for games that don’t map well to sticks. And a gamepad form of the Steam Deck would be awesome, if only for letting those of us with fewer brain cells to only learn one scheme for a game rather than two or three.

This… is not that. Mechanically it is there (and it is a good ad for pcbway or whatever) but the ergonomics are just complete trash. The Steam Deck itself has shockingly awesome ergonomics (and is a great isometric exercise because that thing is a brick) because it is like holding a large hardcover book. Shrink that down and you are just straining your wrists . It is why basically every gamepad has flared “wings” these days. It softens the angle of your wrist while you hold it.

bassomitron,

All fair points. I can definitely see the appeal of wanting the same functionality that the Deck controller brings, as I myself really enjoy the extra flexibility the trackpads and back buttons provide. But the ergonomics in this example just looks awful and feels really reminiscent of the original Xbox controller.

30p87, do games w Nexus Mods' new owners promise they won't monetise the site to death as users panic at the whiff of venture capital
@30p87@feddit.org avatar

Fuck Nexus Mods. You already need an account to download anything.

Forester,

A free account.

cyberpunk007,

It’s still an extra barrier. There’s zero point other than tracking what people do.

Forester,

News flash running the servers isn’t free.

Yes they are tracking us. That’s how they pay to keep the servers running.

If your not paying you are the product.

malwieder,
@malwieder@feddit.org avatar

If you’re paying they’re also tracking you.

30p87,
@30p87@feddit.org avatar

But somehow eg. rdr2mods.com is free, and without account. Oh wonder.

Forester,

Cool hope they do a decent job moderating the servers they run and limiting malware exposure. I also hope they’ve taken steps to prevent themselves being used as a host for malicious entities to distribute malware to third parties

psychadlligoat,

Mods for one game vs basically every game

I could probably host the entirety of the mods on that site on my homelab, Nexus is exponentially larger and more complex

30p87,
@30p87@feddit.org avatar

Mods for one game vs basically every game

As it should be. Or are we pretending that centralization is suddenly good now?

JigglySackles,

It has always had its perks.

30p87,
@30p87@feddit.org avatar

You mean cash for shareholders/owners? And a hassle to move to the next platform once it destroys itself?

JigglySackles,

Do you consider those perks? I certainly don’t.

cyberpunk007,

Ah, like the sites of the 90s.

cyberpunk007,

Yes I know.

Forester,

Since we’re necrosing the thread

The reason that they require an account is because if they did not require user side authentication then it would be trivial to upload obfuscated malware and then use Nexus as a host to distribute it. If someone uploads malware to a random S3 bucket or random VPS or random shared server and tries to use it as a malicious host, the owner and operator will notice a massive bandwidth spike Nexus won’t notice 30,000 downloads.

cyberpunk007,

We’re talking about for downloading not uploading.

wizardbeard,

It also tracks what you’ve downloaded to provide update notifications and encourage you to participate in the mod quality ratings system.

It’s not 100% without reason beyond tracking users.

catloaf,

And to limit scrapers.

tal,
@tal@lemmy.today avatar

Well, unless someone makes an alternative, people are going to use it.

They do need to provide a lot of bandwidth, which isn’t free, though I wonder how viable it’d be for someone to create a Nexus-like Website using magnet URLs and BitTorrent as a backend.

Maybe too much of a technical bar to attract users.

Dran_Arcana,

There are JS based torrent downloaders. That would work for the normies to get files, but you’d still have to find a way to convince people to host files on the backend. It’d probably take a full-on desktop client wrapper with an embedded torrent client but that’s a pretty hard sell for the average nerd if you’re upfront, and probably a harder sell if you’re dishonest about it.

Sonotsugipaa,
@Sonotsugipaa@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Wouldn’t the average nerd only need a good ol’ regular torrent client?
The slightly-more-than-average nerd could be incentivized through a specialized client that also acts as a mod manager (iirc Nexus Mods does this, minus the torrent protocol), and the bigger nerd would write themselves a Linux client without using glib nor GTK while evading bioluminescent three-letter org agents of specific ethnicity and sexual orientation.

wizardbeard,

The issue with using torrents is longevity. You’d still want/need traditional storage backing it all. Don’t want some mod to become lost media because nobody is actively seeding it.

PatheticGroundThing, do gaming w Gooner game of the year Stellar Blade's mods are 41% smut, ensuring gamers will never see the light of heaven

Would be nice if this place could refrain from sliding into reactionary conservatism even ironically.

JillyB,
DragonTypeWyvern, (edited )

If screeching puritans are going to get mad about some people liking to look at pretty ladies saving humanity from monsters (but who is the monster, really), maybe reconsider playing into the reactionary gameplan so enthusiastically.

It’s hardly a patriarchal work. Eve is a badass respected for her skills working on behalf of The Mother Sphere… And who only wears stripper gear if that’s what the player wants. The difference between this and Bayonetta, for example, is that you’ve decided to react exactly the way the conservatives want you to.

Now, if you want to talk about how they very clearly edited out some serious homophobia for the English release that’s another thing but Korea gonna Korea

JillyB,

The vid I linked to basically said that the game is ok but derivative and not that great. The main point he was making is to point out how the “controversy” around the game doesn’t actually exist. It’s a bunch of made up crap by grifters to make idiots foam at the mouth. And it worked. And now these idiots think Stellar Blade is the next coming of Christ and the bullwark against the woke mind virus games blah blah blah…

Zaleramancer,

Misogyny in stuff can be really complicated. Sometimes you can only really see it holistically, and sometimes it’s only in specifics. Sometimes a story will give a woman a lot of focus, place her feelings and emotions in the spotlight and give her actions the most agency and power over the plot- while also having her be inexplicably dressed in lingerie the whole time with a really weak excuse, if any.

Like, I love FF12. Ashe is undisputably the actual main character in it, and her story is about being a person with authority in a time of war. It’s about grappling with your own grief and desire for revenge, trying to keep in mind your principles and what you believe in. It somehow manages to be both about the divine right of kings and weapons of mass destruction and maintained it’s emotional thru line almost all the way to the end!

But also, Ashe, that hot pink mini-skirt? Girrrrrl, WTF, you live in a desert. You’re gonna fight things in a skirt made of two pink napkins? There’s no real reason for her to dress like that, and it’s definitely just for fan service!

I still love the game, but I acknowledge that it has that problem. It objectifies women because it treats them as visual treats and has them dress in bizzare ways that don’t flow adequately from their characterization. This is because of structural societal things, and it sucks for a bunch of reasons.

Bayonetta is different primarily because the work’s themes are, as I understand them, incredibly positive about women being active, powerful sexual people who do what they want.

B dresses like that because she likes being hot, and it’s a characterization tool, and it’s never a disempowering thing for her.

Like, Kill la Kill has ridiculous outfits, but I’ve had multiple women tell me they love it because of how it intersects with things they like. I wasn’t going to watch it until one of them insisted and, yeah, it’s pretty good. The sexual elements are intended and used as part of the narrative, and the emotional thru line is very strong.

So, it’s one of those things that needs an exhaustive breakdown to really know about in a work. I don’t know enough about this one to say, and I’m just commented in hopes that it’s useful for you or someone else looking at doing media analysis of this type.

Eggyhead,

I couldn’t make it through the whole 2hr essay, but I can’t disagree with some of his criticisms of the game. It’s just that they never bothered me, and I found the AAish quality of the game really cozy.

I completely agree with him about just how manufactured the “woke outrage” seemed to be, though. I just fundamentally believe “woke” lost its meaning some time ago and doesn’t really define anything anymore. It is really handy for letting mindless culture-warrior types flag themselves, though. I certainly doubt the IGN article was the ONLY article criticizing eve’s character design, but I think it served as a great example of just how far up their own asses the anti-woke crowd love to be.

Zaleramancer,

I’m forced to agree. It feels weird to do so, but, I guess yeah- the thing which should be focused on is the how and why of this and not just focus on the puritan disgust angle.

I’ve seen the Shaun video (linked in these replies somewhere) so I’m familiar with what’s going on socially around this video game. Being upset because of misogynistic objectification is appropriate, but sex isn’t inherently bad.

technomad, do games w After saying negative reviews 'might just cause our death' and 'we've got a few months left in the oven', No Rest for the Wicked CEO claims he never said they were in 'immediate financial danger'

Bro, the internet doesn’t forget.

p03locke,
@p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar
brsrklf,

Oh. That guy. Thanks for the reminder.

Important context for whatever he has to say, between the rants about teh woke gaem jernalizm and cancel culture, and being called out as an edgy harassing asshole by his own employees.

I guess there are some cultures, especially work cultures and those enforcing them, that I don’t mind being “cancelled”, if only it worked.

dogslayeggs, do games w WoW's Leeroy Jenkins, one of the internet's oldest memes, turns 20 years old—and after looking back on what we wrote in 2005, I feel like we've failed Leeroys everywhere

A couple years ago my non-gamer girlfriend came home from work and asked if I had ever seen the Leroy Jenkins video since I used to play WoW. I was like, “yes, yes I know about that video.” She thought it was hilarious even though she had no idea what it meant.

roscoe, (edited )

My wife loved it too even though she didn’t play MMOs, but she had a basic understanding from hearing me talk about them.

She couldn’t get enough of the DKP minus video from around the same time, although I did have to explain DKP because none of my groups used it.

JustAnotherKay,

I did have to explain DKP

“So basically imagine if capitalists distributed loot”

EncryptKeeper,

There’s an app called Active911 used by first responders like EMS and firemen to receive dispatch pages in lieu of a physical digital pager, and as far back as I can remember one of the selectable alert tones alongside various beep patterns, horns, and klaxons, was a recording of Leeroy Jenkins’ famous yell lmao

theblips, do games w Even Starfield's community patch modders are growing 'disenchanted' with the sci-fi RPG, as volunteers depart in droves: 'If nobody comes forward, we may have to retire the project'

Bethesda is such a garbage company. No idea why people buy these half assed games

jsomae,

Because we all loved morrowind…

lightnsfw,

I certainly did. That good will got me buying their games up through Fallout 4 which finally crushed it. Didn’t even look at Starfield.

Critical_Thinker,

I bought it on pre-release on steam and refunded it right before go live.

Love how try before you buy works now. Charge me for early access to play a couple days early? Well shucks… guess I get a free trial period.

By the end of the weekend I was disillusioned. No meaningful exploration in a space game is insane.

slaneesh_is_right,

I never really understood that. Everyone hyped up skyrim so hard and when i played it it was… Meh? It was all grey and jank that apparently is enjoyable for some people.

I really liked new vegas and when fallout 4 came out, i never watched a trailer or anything, but i was sick on release day, so on that day, i watched the release trailer and thought why not. I was truly shocked how god damn ugly the game was and how shallow and broken it was.

People had high hopes for starfield and i thought i was taking crazy pills. It’s just the same thing again but somehow even worse. I think i just don’t get it.

yesman, do games w TV tie-in MMO looter shooter Defiance returns for a free-to-play third shot at life and gigantic messy boss battles
Nikls94, do games w 'Oh god': There's a buried Steam help page that shows how much money you've ever spent on the platform, and you may not want to know
echodot,

Unfortunately it appears to be in some ancient arcane language whose mysteries appear to have been lost to time.

M137, do games w PC gamers spend 92% of their time on older games, oh and there are apparently 908 million of us now
@M137@lemmy.world avatar

When people found out PhysX doesn’t work on the new Nvidia cards I saw several people here on Lemmy say that it doesn’t matter because almost no one plays older games. I seriously don’t understand how anyone could think that, it’s astoundingly stupid and ignorant.

CosmoNova, do gaming w Amazon baffled that throwing money at a problem doesn't work

It’s very simple, really. The meteoric rise of the gaming industry is unparalleled in entertainment so of course it quickly attracted an entourage of greedy finance people with dollar bills in their eyes who wouldn‘t even think of touching a controller or even watch a game trailer. They‘re in it for the money and think in numbers and spreadsheets. That‘s the root of many problems plaguing AAA studios today.

You would think a game journalist would at least have heard of Luna though. Even when it was dead on arrival.

Dudewitbow,

the problem is, they see the market like its a brand recognition situation, which pc gamers it isnt exactly that. PC gamers are very incentive based buyers and will opt for something else if the incentive is “worth it” for them. the problem is, most platforms are really terrible at generating this incentive for consumers. GOG does with drm. free content, and to a lesser extent, epic does it with free games and tight unreal integration.

I’ll give an example that wont happen because someone looking at the numbers wont let it happen. Amazon for example could easily develop a propietary media reader, and invest in a physical media printing line, and basically become the defacto publisher for physical pc releases if they wanted to, giving PC players a HUGE incentive on buying on their platform (enabling the buying, selling, and trading of used games on pc), and could easoly also be the platform that buy/sells used copies. we all just know they wont because they dont want any of the risk and cost associated on doing so.

Grimy,

If Gaben wasn’t in it for the money, he wouldn’t be able to afford a fleet of 6 mega yatchs worth 1 billion and costing him 100 million per year just to maintain. He grabs 30% and enjoys his soft monopoly just like every other big videogame store.

Fredthefishlord,

Yup. Gabe’s… Unethical to say the least. I have not respect for anyone with even a single mega yacht. And he has so many.

SynonymousStoat,

A lot of that 30% goes to things other digital stores aren’t even close to offering. Also, if your game does well enough the cut Steam takes is lowered, albeit this only really happens for very successful games.

boonhet,

Can’t be all that much of it going towards features considering how profitable Valve is.

Aceticon, do games w Sony finally surrenders: PSN accounts will be 'optional' for games on Steam, but they'll give you free stuff if you sign up

If there’s one thing that Sony’s transition from a quality electronics company to a copyright-heavy media-driven pro-DMCA-lobbying company back in then 00s has taught me it’s to “Never, ever trust Sony”.

MyNameIsIgglePiggle,

To be fair Sony may have produced quality electronics but their tactics have always been anti consumer.

They always insist on proprietary everything and try to get first mover advantage for each new iteration of tech and then lock the market down. The problem is they hold out for so long with their proprietary formats that it makes their products unattractive. Case in point their memory cards.

Requiring a psn account is just another anti consumer control tactic by the company.

Hugin,

Having dealt with Sony for years as a engineer their non consumer hardware is a true pain. Trying to interface with some of their ccd image sensors was some of the most PITA integration i’ve ever dealt with.

explodicle,
@explodicle@sh.itjust.works avatar

Never forget when they put a rootkit on their CDs that automatically installed malware.

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