I’ve been crushing maggot-filled mutant satanist-skulls.
The latest patch for Darktide finally made it functional for me.
If I cap it at 60 fps it does not crash every 20min anymore.
Darktide really did not like my Ryzen 9 3900x and rtx3080 “ufo rated” rig.
But now it works at least, and it’s fun.
Maybe a bit boring maps though.
I’ve just dipped my toes into Darktide on xbox gamepass. I love the visceral, impactful feel to melee combat so far. I have been playing with one friend so have come afoul of the lack of communication with others that don’t chat, but so far have found it to be acceptably stable in terms of gameplay
Uhm I’m new here. Do I tell about the game I’ve played in this week, or what will be played on the next week?
If it’s the first one, then I’m in the middle of siphoning as many titles as possible from the Karling and Makedon dynasty in Crusader Kings 3 as the Piast family with Polania/Poland. Somehow I’ve managed to create an heir from the Piast family to the Byzantine Empire just with marriage. Karling dynasty still has 2+ kingdoms and several duchies. Another priority is to take Jerusalem from the Muslims.
Games you played last week makes more sense in my opinion, since you can potentially talk more about that (since you actually played them already), but you can of course also just say what you plan on playing next, and maybe others can give tips or answer questions.
Finished Divinity: Original Sin 2. Beast became a god and everyone loved him. Some of the fights in the final act were kind of bad, and I wasn’t a fan of the “twists” at the end. Still good overall, and I’m glad I finally beat it after over six years.
Quake 2 got patched and the game-breaking bug I had got fixed (constant CTD in a specific room in a level), so I can finally play it again. I mopped up the rest of the levels for the second expansion, Ground Zero, which had a disappointing final boss. The levels also got a bit more confusing for me, but the remaster added a compass, which shows you where to go next, so it wasn’t a big deal. Now only the new campaign, that was made for the remaster, is left, and I’ll try to finish that this week.
Now I’m debating whether to start Pathfinder: Kingmaker or go through the Pillars of Eternity expansions. I kinda want to play Pathfinder more, but I just put 150h into D:OS2, so going straight into another one of these massive RPGs might just lead to some burnout (I did want Divinity to be over by the end, but that was also because parts at the end weren’t that fun for me). The White March expansions for Pillars 1 might just be different enough to serve as a pallet cleanser (even though it’s still a CRPG).
@JohnnyCanuck is right in a bunch of important ways, but there is one additional factor to consider. The reason the Hollywood guild system works the way it does is because no one is contracted to any given studio. It used to be that actors and writers were required to have locked-in contracts - they couldn't work for anyone else - but that hasn't been true for a long time. (There are exceptions: writers and actors can choose to have multi-picture/script deals, in exchange for an up front wad of cash, but it's not the norm outside of the really heavy hitters.)
A standard union protects a worker's existing job, and helps that worker negotiate terms for an existing job.
A Hollywood guild protects a worker's future jobs - because the one they have now will absolutely not be the one they have in 2 years, a year, maybe even in 6 months. This is the nature of the Minimum Basic Agreement (MBA): it dictates minimum terms of employment. It's not designed to give writers/actors the best deal, it's designed to give them the least shitty deal the studios will agree to.
Why does this matter?
It matters because what most people think of as "Hollywood" is all the extremely pretty, extremely powerful, extremely prolific actors and writers who make lots of money and show up on magazine covers and in media podcasts. (No writer is showing up on a magazine, I don't care how pretty he is.) But the MBA is there for the day players, the low rung people, the staff writers, the gal who had one spec script produced in her career so far.
What the WGA managed to achieve recently with its negotiations is an absolutely phenomenal success. But it still only really impacts the MBA - the minimum basic agreement!
So... uh... why does this fucking matter?
The game industry doesn't really have superstars. It doesn't have the equivalent of Tom Cruise and John August. At least not at scale. And the ones who are that shiny are usually studio heads or creative directors, not "employees." So they wouldn't be covered by a union anyway (which cannot apply to managers - i.e. anyone who has authority over other workers).
Suggesting that the game industry adopt the Hollywood guild model is to suggest forcing a pear into a box shaped like an apple. The MBA protects low level employees in their future employment, and isn't really all that great - at least not the way most non-insiders think. It still results in a ridiculous number of workers making poverty wages.
Is that what you want a game voice actor to have? A minimum basic agreement for their future employment? A programmer? A graphic designer?
No. You want them to be in a union.[1] Which will protect their current jobs and create conditions for advancement, sufficient income at the lowest tiers and long term stability. None of which the Hollywood guilds really do.
[1] The distinction between a union and a guild isn't a "real" one in modern U.S. law, strictly speaking. But conceptually, as above, a union is for people in regular employment with a single employer, and a guild is for (effectively) contract workers. The terminology of "guild" came from the older, pre-industrial idea of "the X workers guild" (masonry, carpentry, bricklaying, etc.), which were really just social organizations that sorta kinda acquired enough power to flex their muscles against the people who were contracting them by having minimum demands in solidarity within the guild (does that sound familiar...?). Guilds eventually "became" unions in the modern sense, once people were working with single employers over a long term. Put simply (and a bit stupidly), unions make contracts between workers and companies; guilds make contracts between workers and their industry. Part of the reason gig workers (Uber/Lyft/etc.) in California have been more active about getting better terms is because that state is super familiar with how guilds work, which is exactly what gig workers need, since their employment is with the industry as a whole (they can work for more than one company), not so much with a specific company. (It's also why they're having a much harder time - because California employers are super familiar with all the shenanigans Hollywood studios use to suppress the guilds that feed into them.)
Maybe I misunderstood something in your explanation. But afaik, jobs in the videogame industry are very much like freelance jobs and the position you have today is going to be very different from whatever you will be doing in 2 years or whatever. Heck, you are lucky if your contract lasts more than six months. Same for VFX jobs.
Jobs in the video game industry (especially AAA) are mostly NOT freelance. Most are full time employee positions. Even non-AAA and specialized studios that do work-for-hire tend to have employees. Certain parts of the video game industry, like art and QA tend to be contracted or outsourced, but even then the contractors are often provided through a 3rd party company that employs and provides benefits. Contracts for engineers, designers, writers come into play for shorter periods to ramp up numbers during production and fill gaps. But that’s usually a small percentage of the team.
Been plugging away at Armored Core 6. I’m kind of over it. It’s been a fairly average experience and at this point I’d like to wrap up the story and move on to something with a little more meat.
Check out neebs gaming on YouTube. Excellent and very funny. I also highly recommend their subnautica series, not to give too much away but it follows a different script than the story in the game. It is amazing, and the quality of their videos is top tier.
I’m sorry, but your reasoning is absolute nonsense. Maybe game developers should unionize, but suggesting that it should work like Hollywood is pretty ridiculous.
The huge studios would function just like in Hollywood.
Okay, so fuck the developers at big studios just like how most of the people working on movies get fucked now? You think because a deal was reached by the union that the big studios aren’t still just running to the bank with their loads of cash? The recent strike (and most strikes in Hollywood) were mostly about residuals. You know why? Because people who aren’t above the line in the credits get shit pay. At least in the games industry most people are employees, get paid up front, have a salary, and whether the game succeeds or flops they get their money. And most people don’t get laid off between games. You’re getting paid your salary even while there is downtime. In Hollywood, if the movie flops(*), you’re shit outta luck, my friend. Hope you’re happy with whatever you made during production and you’re able to find your next gig quick. Because you’re not an employee of the studio, you were working for a production company on this one movie and now you gotta fend for yourself because the movie’s done and so is this LLC.
(*) which brings us to the big fucking asterisk in how Hollywood “works”. Movies don’t make money. Not on paper anyway. It’s so bad, it even has its own name: Hollywood Accounting. The gist of it is that they use creative accounting techniques so that profit sharing agreements (like the residuals that were just fought so hard for by the unions) pay as little as possible.
And yeah they would want to pump out those blockbusters, but nothing would stop indie developers from developing.
What stops indie developers from developing now? Indie game developers have it way better than indie movie makers. They have better platforms for distribution, a larger audience, and much lower cost to entry.
I would allow for consistent and fair discussions for the unions and studios as to how pay will be done.
Yeah, because that’s what Hollywood is known for…
It will also put in safeties for crunch and other abuses.
Crunch (and other abuse) still happens in Hollywood production, so… Nope, sorry.
I’m just saying [the Hollywood model] makes way more sense as a model for how modern AAA games are made.
No fucking way. As someone who was a salaried employee for 15 years in the A to AAA game industry over 7 projects, some of which failed but I still got paid, with bonuses and stock awards and job security, please fucking no. I’m glad I didn’t have to fight for a new gig every couple of years and hope for residuals.
Very well said. I think there is an argument that the gaming industry would benefit from more unionisation (there are very few sectors that wouldn’t benefit from it!), but emulating Hollywood doesn’t seem like the answer.
I think it’s fair to say they’re are some significant similarities between the two industries. They both focus on large, multi year creative projects with unknown returns. I’m not sure emulating Hollywood is the answer, but they can at least look at how existing Hollywood unions have approached addressing any similar problems
Indie game developers have it way better than indie movie makers. They have better platforms for distribution...
It kills me that there's no Steam or GOG for TV and movies. My options are either Blu Rays, when they exist, or streaming, even if I buy the movie outright.
You mean delivering an actual file/media that you can watch without streaming? I know Netflix has the ability to download stuff to watch offline later. I assume other platforms support something similar. That’s pretty close to steam or gog where you don’t own a copy of the game, you own a license to use their copy.
Edit: But yes, I do sometimes wish I could pay per title and not have to worry about subscriptions to maintain access to certain things.
It's not close enough if I want to run it from a PC or Steam Deck. They only allow it on mobile where they can enforce their DRM. Then those downloads are only good for a few days before they need to be renewed and they run into all sorts of technical problems trying to enforce the DRM.
It’s a pretty popular one but I’m currently playing through Disco Elysium and it’s a masterpiece of thriller detective with very strong RPG integration. Highly recommend even if you don’t like either of those genres as long as you like a good story.
I’m sure everyone is all over this, but Dave the diver is so much fun. Little bit of rpg, little bit a farm sim, little bit a restaurant sim, throw in some action sequences
You can refund games for being buggy, you cannot however, play them for dozens of hours and then refund them. Steam’s limit is two hours and two weeks.
I think the “2 weeks” is the line for auto-refund, but they can and will refund you after that at their discretion. And they don’t seem to be jerks about it.
Yeah. I’ve definitely gotten refunds past those limits. But I’ve had a Steam account for like 16 years at this point, lots of games, and I’ve requested a refund maybe twice.
Steam is known to be more generous about the rule if you have few refunds on your profile and a decent amount of purchases. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for updates, even if the update makes the game unplayable.
With such an attitude, I am looking forward to your next post where you whine about being fired after working so hard for these years and being so professional boo hoo why am I being fiired. Please, union, save my job. Well, that’s because one of your corporation’s projects in another country that you have zero effect on earned a negative amount of money because of your fantasy and due to refund bombing. Instead of at least covering production costs, such losses would bury company after company all around the world until all of the game development switches to hyper-casual games. All because of toxicity you just made up. Think twice. Look further down your nose. That’s even not mentioning your professional mind deformation. You are not average. You should understand this. You see what others don’t and this doesn’t help you feel positive about products. You should be okay to feel bad about every single product, including your own. In every interview, I ask QAs questions like your fantasy to find out whether the person is able to perceive different work aspects from a business perspective, not only a product perspective. This is very important to discover in an interview to filter the red flag attitude like this post of yours. Sorry for the moral speech. It’s just my day-to-day work pain. I wish you the best, OP.
Most bugs aren’t unconditionally experienced by all comers or they would have been fixed. It’s entirely possible there are 17 horrible game breaking experience ruining bugs every single one triggered by a very specific combination of factors in a given work and out of millions of players one person to hit 5 and hate their life and many hit zero.
If you had bothered to read you would note they mention concrete defects that effected their playing not nits they were picking based on depth of experience.
Given extremely misery return policies if your game’s profitability is actually materially harmed let alone destroyed by returns you might have released a broken piece of shit and need to blame yourself rather than customers who believed in you enough to at least initially put their money where their mouth is.
You see what others don’t and this doesn’t help you feel positive about products.
Its a fucking game. If it doesn’t make you forget about it being a “product” and divert your attention from the reality for a few hours its developers have wholly and completely failed.
your professional mind deformation
Did this sound like how humans talk when you said it?
I ask QAs questions like your fantasy to find out whether the person is able to perceive different work aspects from a business perspective
You try to hire people who are literal soulless robots who think about the money that can be made from convincing people to pay you to shovel shit into their brain instead of having fun.
. This is very important to discover in an interview to filter the red flag attitude
Holy shit you might actually eventually hire someone who gives a fuck
I wish you the best, OP.
I just said you were a piece of shit nobody should hire but I totally “wish you the best”. If its a person you ought to avoid hiring its a person who walks into a legit conversation, shits all over it, insults people, and talks like a fucking robot.
Can you possibly keep your negativity to yourself if you have nothing useful to contribute next time?
Most bugs aren’t unconditionally experienced by all comers or they would have been fixed.
This is not always true. I can assure you, that the game can be published with even critical bugs, and the development team has zero effect on this decision because whether to publish a game and when to publish the game - it’s the publishing department to decide, not the development. Because the development department always cares about quality, and always wants more time to polish more. If the development department made the final decision, the games would be published years later than they are and their budgets would skyrocket. This is why it is important to take the business side of game development into account.
If you had bothered to read you would note they mention concrete defects that effected their playing not nits they were picking based on depth of experience.
One can experience a major defect while keeping positivity for the game, but as soon as you start noticing hundreds of even small defects, your positivity breaks. This is the price you pay for being a professional QA.
Given extremely misery return policies if your game’s profitability is actually materially harmed let alone destroyed by returns you might have released a broken piece of shit and need to blame yourself rather than customers who believed in you enough to at least initially put their money where their mouth is.
You are right. As a consumer, you are totally right. And I agree with this when this is about something tangible and monofunctional like pliers, cutting a tree, cleaning debris, or other products and services not affected by subjectivity. When it comes to subjective products and services there’s always more to account for. Something specific to blame for faults. For you it’s a “game” that is bad, for me, you are talking about the team behind the game, and the team is not one unit. Those are people. People fuck up.
Its a fucking game. If it doesn’t make you forget about it being a “product” and divert your attention from the reality for a few hours its developers have wholly and completely failed.
This is a very powerful thought right there. This is what’s great about games. Now tell me, is the attention of those 96% of people who enjoy this game despite noticing bugs being diverted from reality for a few hours? Did the developers actually fail on this one? Or is it just the Head of the Publishing Department at Larian who said “Enough. We are publishing this NOW!”, and a few individuals with a negative attitude toward a great product?
Did this sound like how humans talk when you said it?
If you click on my profile, you will notice that I’m from Kyiv, Ukraine. I’m not a native English speaker, I have almost zero speaking practice. In Ukrainian, this is called “professional deformation”, or “profdeformation” for short. I tried translating this phrase into English. Sorry, I failed.
You try to hire people who are literal soulless robots who think about the money that can be made from convincing people to pay you to shovel shit into their brain instead of having fun.
Sorry, but you didn’t get my idea. You see, the game development teams are very sensitive to the products they make. When publishing comes and says that we are publishing the game now, the development team gets hugely frustrated, as they know not 100% of the bugs are fixed. But each person who is able to perceive this from a business side can understand that this publishing demand can be based on budgeting and made to save the jobs of these developers even with anticipated losses due to negative reviews. By putting this understanding into the heads of my subordinates I save them from frustration and develop their understanding of how business works. This is how I do this, I’m not saying this is the right way.
Can you possibly keep your negativity to yourself if you have nothing useful to contribute next time?
I’m sorry my reply frustrated you. I didn’t want anyone to be insulted. This is just how I express my feelings. I’m a little rough as a person.
Thanks for the information regarding translation that makes it far more clear. I wouldn’t phrase that as “mind deformation” because that sounds like mental illness.
I’d probably love the tedium of being a QA tester. I’d be happy to switch careers and take your job if it probably didn’t imply a pretty hefty pay cut.
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