I’m frustrated by the current largely-unethical state of the games industry
It’s the fate of any large enough company in a capitalist system. Greed creates/incentivizes this behavior and then rewards it. Microtransactions and dark patterns wouldn’t exist if they didn’t work. Greedy people know this and the rest of us are plagued by them.
Planning on playing through Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 for the first time this week. Know almost nothing about the game, nothing about DnD rulesets, just diving directly in because a partner very highly recommended them.
Edit: Ended up buying Baldur’s Gate 3 and getting into it instead, looks like I’m gonna be playing it in 3 > 1 > 2 order. As a side note, performance was way better on Vulkan than Directx11 for me, despite common advice being to use Directx11 on Linux for the game.
They are absolutely lovely, though undeniably very old school. BG1 is more action-adventurey with a bigger emphasis on exploration, BG2 is very story-heavy. They have aged remarkably well, considering they’re over 20 years old. The handpainted backgrounds still look pretty.
With potential increased interest due to BG3, I wonder if it would be an idea to create a community for the classic Baldur’s Gates 🤔
I’d like that, or a classic CRPG community with a certain timeframe. Two of my favourite games now are the original Fallouts after playing them for the first time only a few years ago. I’d love to see more of the games from that era.
I have actually pondered a “classic gaming” or “old school games” type community for these types of (primarily) PC games from the era up to maybe 2010.
Retro Gaming communities typically focus more on old console and/or arcade type stuff.
Haha yeah same here. I guess we sit back and hope someone else takes up the mantle.
As for names, I’m not sure. There’s already some retro/vintage PC communities on SDF but they are more hardware focused. Old PC Games? Retro PC Games? The Beforetime? No idea.
Also, what would be the appropriate cutoff for the timeframe? I just threw 2010 out there, but maybe even slightly later? What is a good milestone to cut off at? I was thinking starting at 1993 with the release of Doom.
Doom seems like a solid start, it was revolutionary. You could also push it to 1990. As for an end date I’d have to think about that. 2000 or 2003 gives a 10 year range with a lot of influential releases, but might be a bit limited. If you did 2013 that’s a 20 year range, but it could also be a shifting time frame where it is for games of a certain age. If it was 10 years or older games then it would start with an end date of 2013 and the range would expand every year. The issue with that is it would lose focus on older games eventually.
I was thinking Doom as a sort of watershed moment in gaming, and going earlier than that and you could argue those titles belong on the already-existing retro gaming communities.1993 actually had both Doom and the first FIFA, it’s got a lot going for it as a start year.
Looking at releases for 2013 though we have things like GTA V, BioShock: Infinite and The Last of Us. I definitely would hesitate to call those “old school games”. 2011 has Skyrim. Does that qualify? Otherwise I’m starting to feel more drawn to the 1990-2010 timeframe; nice round numbers and should sort of capture the era of classic gaming. 2010 has Red Dead Redemption 1, Mass Effect 2 and Civilization 5. Is it fair to say those are some of the last old school games or do we need to go older? A two decade window seems good.
I agree that an open ended timeframe would lead to lost focus over time. If it’s 10+ years old as the criteria, it would mean we’re just 2 years away from The Witcher 3 qualifying for a community meant for stuff like Fallout 1&2. That just feels… wrong.
Yeah good points on open ended timeframe and the 2013 end date. 2010 seems pretty good, the only odd one out for that list would be civ 5 because it’s so widely played.
I’m in my 30s now so I have to remember that someone who was 5 in 2010 would be 18 now, and red dead redemption 1 would definitely be considered old. I think that’s a solid timeframe, 1990 to 2010. If Lemmy ever gets big enough to warrant it there could eventually be games by decades communities as well.
If you don’t care about round numbers and it being exactly two decades you could also do 1993-2009, starting with Doom and ending with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. There is a different kind of symmetry to that, and I honestly kind of like it.
The only issue I would have with a 93 start date is it excludes games like Dune, Wolfenstein 3D, and the original Civilisation, which were earlier in the 90s.
Having said that, every cut off point has its flaws, and a more focused range could lead to a more focused and spirited community. Very weird that COD:MW2 is 14 years old btw.
Very fair points as well about those games. I think maybe a looser guideline would be more appropriate than strict dates. I really like the Doom - CoD: MW2 bookending to encapsulate that golden era of gaming, but I wouldn’t delete any post about Civ 1, if I was actually running the community.
And yeah, time flies. It was equally scary earlier when I realized Witcher 3 is almost ten years old.
I just started Baldur's Gate recently and beat it minutes ago. It's not the first D&D game I've played before, but I'm far from well-versed in it. I had to Google "THAC0" a couple of times to understand what the game was trying to tell me, as well as understanding certain status effects. There's a presupposition of knowledge that the game has with its players, but it's still fairly okay at initiating people to D&D.
THAC0 is… yeah. I guess the systems take some getting used to. And it gets a little more complicated at higher levels with different layers of protective spells and counter-spells.
I already started it and bought BG3 as well. I had played Planescape: Torment about 10 years ago, so some of this was familiar, but it and Baldur's Gate have some different philosophies around things like combat and party size. One thing I'm fairly confident will be a thing of the past when I get to BG3 is trash mobs. BG1 at times feels like it's being run by an asshole DM who's out to kill the party with tons of trash mobs between rests rather than providing a good time.
Imagine you're at the table with your friends, and the DM says, "Then, from the darkness of the dungeon emerges...6 Kobolds!" You beat them, the party is pumped about it, and then the DM says, "As you press further on across the bridge, you come across...7 more Kobolds!" I'm not exactly sure what the thinking was, but between the aforementioned trash mobs and the magic casters who attack you with debilitating adverse affects that do tons of damage and take you out of the fight for like 20 straight turns, BG1 can be cheap as hell, even on easy difficulty. I get the sense that BG3 will still be difficult, but from my brief time with Divinity: Original Sin and what I've seen of BG3 footage, I'm expecting them to have more consideration for each combat encounter.
And oh yeah, BG1 also had a few areas with really narrow passageways that the AI pathfinding was not really able to adequately handle, as friendly characters would bump into each other and not be able to figure out how to move.
Yeah, these old games were kind of a wild west when it comes to design. I also love Fallout 2 to bits for example, but god damn can it feel cheap and frustrating at times. On the other hand there are loads of ways to cheese encounters, too, if you’re interested in making things easier. Backstabs, Snares, Cloudkill (and similar effects), abusing Fog of War. Almost all of BG1 can be cheesed with Skull Trap. And almost all of BG2 can be cheesed with Set Snare.
I’ve only started playing BG3, but so far it’s been a lot easier and simpler than both the old games and Divinity, which maybe is to be expected with it being based on D&D 5E rules. Compared to D:OS 2 combat has been a lot less complex and challenging. Granted I’m playing on medium difficulty. I didn’t want to start off on Tactician after the Divinity games, but maybe I need to here.
Anyway, I hope you’ll enjoy BG2. It’s one of my all-time favorite games still, and I replay it every now and again. There are so many ways to set up fun parties with loads of interactions, especially if you use the Tweak that prevents companions from killing each other even if they hate each other. Some of the best interactions are from mixed-alignment parties.
narrow passageways that the AI pathfinding was not really able to adequately handle
I must confess that these days I always play with DebugMode=1 and one of the primary reasons is to be able to use Ctrl+J to teleport the whole squad when pathfinding acts up.
I definitely organically discovered the cheese you can do with fog of war, but most of the strategies you mentioned were things that I just did not come across organically. I would love to have more of the debilitating spells that the enemy NPCs were using on me, and I did come across things like Sleep that would rarely work against an opponent challenging enough to deem it worthwhile, especially considering how many enemies you're likely to run into until your next rest compared to how many spell slots you'll have.
Summons are a really powerful way to deplete enemy spells, just send them in one by one. Summon Skeletons is good for this.
As you move onto BG2, using spells to counter enemy protections becomes more important, like using Breach to deal with Stoneskin etc. Though as a caveat, I’ve been using Sword Coast Stratagems so long I barely remember what combat is like without it.
I’m playing through Baldur’s gate 1 atm as well. I tried it and didn’t enjoy it back in the early 2000s but now I’m digging it. I still don’t like real time with pauses combat, but I can forgive it with the party size. I do wish there were other ways around things than combat most of the time though, but early DnD was primarily a dungeon crawler so that’s fine.
Oh yea, I used to do that when games were on discs, because sometimes the discs were slightly borked, or that the DRM with the discs were really annoying.
Sometimes you can’t even get them to run right on modern computers. Pirated versions usually have some sort of way of dealing with this, whereas the originals don’t.
Sandbox MMORPGs, like Eve Online or Ultima Online. The vast majority of MMORPGs since at least WoW (potentially even before that with games like Dark Ages of Camelot, etc) have been Theme Park MMOs. Which are fun; I’ve played plenty and still do play them. But I think the sandbox is more fun. Certainly has more possibilites.
Oh yeah? I haven’t played UO since 2003/2004, and I’ve largely stayed away from the free shards. Just had boring experiences in the past. But I might give this a try. Idk why, but I’ve been itching to check it out again. thanks!
Yeah I basically did the same thing. Got the itch about 7 months ago. Managed to get my original UO account back (you can open a support ticket and they’ll ask for info regarding the original, it was pretty painless) and messed around on Atlantic, the only really populated server. It’s just meh. They added so many stats to weapons it’s overwhelming and most are garbage. It’s so obnoxious having to look over each item to see if it’s worth anything. Also the classic and enhanced clients suck pretty bad.
Outlands is definitely the most polished and unique free shard. Check out their wiki, it goes over skill changes and lists some templates for starting out. Their custom ClassicUO client is excellent and has Razor built in. The one thing that may turn you off is it’s mostly open PVP once you leave Shelter Island. There is a sanctuary dungeon that rotates each week that doesn’t allow murderers in but it has reduced XP and gold.
Party-based RPGs like Baldur’s Gate or Pillars of Eternity. I absolutely love this style of game, but it feels like there are precious few titles to choose from. Anyone know of any hidden gems?
It’s not hidden, but I thoroughly enjoyed divinity original sin II. If you don’t want turn based combat it might be worth checking out the Pathfinder games.
There a youtube channel and a steam curator called Mortismal Gaming who loves CRPGs. Their shtick is also completing games at 100% before popping a review, and they are churning out new material at an amazing pace. Check it out for some decent coverage on the genre.
As for a maybe hidden gem, Age of Decadence looks pretty good. I have not played it yet, but the genre seems to match, and the premise is solid.
Expedition Rome is well appreciated too, even if it leans more toward tactical battles.
Solasta is a pretty faithful recreation of dungeons and dragons 5e, although the story/writing is not the best (may have improved in the later dlc, I’ve not gotten around to playing it yet). The combat is fun, though.
Have you checked out Caves of Lore? It’s a great party based rpg with deep lore and created by a single developer. It reminds me of Jeff Vogel’s work a bit.
lack of class or profession decision (one character can do all sucks),
random generated weapon/gear stats
coop where process isn’t shared to every player. Requires a multiple saves system to allow single player, as well as coop play, saves.
enemy level scaling with player level,
fully breaking weapon without being able to repair them
bound items. Seriously, this needs to stop. I’d like to share my gear with guild mates or my other characters. I want to be able to sell a good item again if I don’t need it. But so far only Ragnarok Online managed to do this well, that I know of.
MMORPG with fixed marketplace, like fixed prices, build in price statistics etc. ruining a possible economy focused gameplay in favor of the lazy and dumb players, who complain… because they are not skilled enough.
non MMORPGS with NPC that don’t move or have daily activities. Gothic did this so we’ll decades ago, I thought this would be standard by now
any pay2win element
any pay2skip grind purchases
any quality of life wallet gated
Battle-pass, season-pass, fomo bullshit
What I love
weather and seasons
music instruments, music class or weapons
hidden treasures you need to dig for or find treasure maps
NPC that have activities and are not glued to their vending table
animal follower
jumpsuit/glider
destroyable environment/footsteps
weapon degradation and maintenance
professions and weapon/gear crafting
alchemy like in Kingdom Come Deliverance
NPC that tell you where to go, instead of a questmarker and path showing you where to go,
able to respec my stat points only
verticality in Level Design, like Dark Souls 1
fishing with a bit of a challenge other than just pushing a button in time
character customization, hair, skin, body size, height, voice
fashion slots, like Terraria and now also Cyberpunk2077
changing cities through actions I did in the game. NPC got killed, house destroyed/build etc.
After buying a Steam Deck during the sale, I’m playing Civilization 6 again. Never got into it nearly as much as the previous installments but now I think I’m finally getting it.
Those still direct to the same URL for me. Auto-conversion of ! references seems sub-optimal that way.
What works is linking manually to /c/automation_games (propably only from lemmy, as I understand kbin has different conventions :( ): !automation_games, written like [!automation_games@feddit.de](/c/automation_games)
It’s a minor thing, but whenever I get into a pokemon game, I deposit my starter ASAP. I don’t want to rely on the pokemon which is spoon fed to me from start, it feels a lot better to play the game with whatever I’m able to catch along the path.
I tried to play Ultra Sun using only my starter Rowlet, and had to put it down when the game forced me into a double battle. I would have been okay with hatching a second Rowlet from an egg but it didn’t work.
My first time playing Pokémon Blue I did the opposite because I didn't realize you could change the order of the pokemon so my Bulbasaur was in my #1 spot and even if I knew the other trainer was going to use a fire pokemon i'd end up starting the battle and wasting a turn switching pokemon. Needless to say he was super overpowered by the end of the game from all the forced XP
I did the same way back when playing pokémon red. My Blastoise was up in level 60-70 when I approached the last gym. Being a small kid, I didn’t understand tactics of effective types - only that my pokemon was an awesome heavy turtle with cannons on its back. I never really tried to use other pokemon or switch out during battle.
I love me an underrated Bug superstar. In Black I used a Leavanny as mine and it cleaned house. When I played Omega Ruby my Masquerain carried my team and took me totally by surprise.
I’d love a city builder based on making gritty industrial cyberpunk megacities, with plenty of verticality and layering. You know, the places where there’s nothing but concrete, steel and neon for kilometers both horizontally and vertically, and a colonies of mutant cannibals fighting against giant rats in the derelict areas near the bottom.
A game like the mainline Sims series, but better developed and without EA’s involvement. I’m aware there’s projects like Life By You and Paralives, but neither of those are publicly playable as of now, and until they release there’s no way to truly tell if they’ll actually be any good.
Although at this point I don’t think they can be much worse than the current status quo.
Ff16 is the first final fantasy game I’ve played (so I can’t compare to the others like you can) and at first I felt like this but now that I’m 17 hours in, I get it. It’s just how this game is, it’s not open world. Each area is it’s own thing that you take in.
Games are like an interactive movie and there’s a ratio of moviness to gaminess and this one leans heavier on the moviness side.
Yeah. I get it. I’m not really even thinking about it as a Final Fantasy game with a lot of this. My callbacks to FFXIV are because that’s an MMO and we expect the concessions in MMOs to repetitive animations and lower tier graphics to allow for the content churn. For a new game to just look and feel like a 10 year old MMO with graphics is kinda rough.
This game feels like they meant to have a ton more and just didn’t in the end. Not every game needs an open world but if I do compare it to other FF games, it definitely feels the least open.
I have felt some of the boss fights were really good. I guess I would have just given it a 5 or 6.
I think I’m mostly upset by how much acclaim it’s been getting.
I def get what you mean, it isn’t very fleshed out compared to other games that are in the same (apparent) league that the reviews are putting it in. I was just playing a little bit ago and did another of the side quests where you deliver food to people and it’s just so simple seeming (and repetitive since it happens more than once). But in a way I also like the simpleness of it. Maybe it’s appeasing to a certain part of the brain in people where it either clicks or it doesn’t and that is what is responsible for the reviews.
Games are like an interactive movie and there’s a ratio of moviness to gaminess and this one leans heavier on the moviness side.
The last Final Fantasy game I played was 8, and it was exactly because of this. They stripped out almost all the “game” bits (although they did give us a really cool card game minigame) and turned it into basically a movie you could occasionally interact with. The battles were mindless (there was no reason not to use your strongest summon every round, because it was both more effective than anything else and because it was totally free to do so), the “equipment” system was entirely optional (which was good, because interacting with it required mega-grind), and overland travel was a total afterthought. It was more of a “game” than anything Tell Tale put out, but that’s a low bar, since Tell Tale only produces movies that sometimes throw in an attention check in the form of a quicktime event.
It was a real shame, because I had entirely switched system allegiance from Nintendo to Playstation just for FF7. Then the followed it up with 8, and it was obvious where they were taking the franchise. So I’m not surprised to see, all these years later, that the newest FF game is even more of that.
Wolność jest pojęciem abstrakcyjnym. Wolność, która zachowuje wszelkie hierarchie (bo ustala je kapitał), cementuje podziały klasowe i w efekcie przekazuje nieformalną władzę w ręce tych, którzy aktualnie mają najwięcej zasobów, doprowadzając do ich postępującej prywatyzacji, to wolność dość wybiórcza (prowadząca w efekcie do neofeudalizmu, bo inaczej skończyć się to nie może, jeśli dopuszczasz do tego, by nierówności zostały usankcjonowane i legalne, a każda próba renegocjacji porządku to rzekome “łamanie NAP”). Jako anarchistka mogę ci powiedzieć że wolność jest też związana z zasobami i możliwościami do realizacji życia takiego, jakie ci się podoba - jeśli zaś zewnętrzne czynniki raz ci te możliwości ograniczyły i jesteś pozbawiony zasobów, to realizacja tych wolności wygląda tak, że zapierdalasz jak niewolnik u jakiegoś janusza biznesu (“bo podpisałeś dobrowolną umowę”) przez większość życia i musisz ciągle utrzymywać się na powierzchni, zamiast realnie inwestować w siebie i swoje możliwości.
Za to taki system jak najbardziej jest na rękę tym, którym życie ułożyło się lepiej i mogą sobie pozwolić na przebywanie na szczycie łańcucha pokarmowego: daje im kontrolę nad coraz większymi zasobami i możliwości samorealizacji o jakich może pomarzyć człowiek z poprzedniego zdania. Oczywiście kosztem innych, w dodatku w majestacie prawa, no bo nikt nikomu przecież nie zabronił przestać być biednym. :) Celowo podkreślam że idzie o tych, którym “życie ułożyło się lepiej”, bo to, kto wyląduje gdzie, jest w dużej mierze losowe i zdeterminowane przez czynniki takie jak kapitał ekonomiczny, społeczny i kulturowy zagregowany w twojej rodzinie, miejscu zamieszkania czy otoczeniu. Ta słynna mityczna ciężka praca, która rzekomo pozwala się wybić z biedy i upokorzenia, nie jest wcale czynnikiem decydującym w ustalaniu tego, kto jaką pozycję zajmuje w społeczeństwie i jakim kapitałem na końcu dysponuje. Determinacja jednostki może pomóc w przeskakiwaniu kolejnych szczebli, ale dowolny losowy wypadek może zniweczyć wszystkie jej plany. Wtedy libertarianin chrząka zwykle że “no, to powinny być jakieś organizacje pomocowe żeby to uzupełnić”, choć dosłownie żaden z nich nie pali się do uczestnictwa w nich, ani też nie umie wyjaśnić, jak w systemie w którym premiowany jest wyłącznie tępy egoizm i realizacja własnych interesów ekonomicznych ludzie mieliby łożyć hojnie na organizacje pomocowe, albo w ogóle je zakładać.
Zasada “co nie jest zabronione, jest dozwolone”, będąca wykładnią libertarianizmu, zamienia się w swoją karykaturę, gdy dozwolone jest praktycznie wszystko poza fizyczną agresją. Można sprzedawać klientom produkt którego działanie może zabić część z nich, bo “przecież rynek to wyreguluje” - nieważne że już po tym, jak część nabywców kopnie w kalendarz.
Ogółem można by mówić o tym dużo, pisać całe eseje, ale problem jest nie tylko na linii całej idei solidarności społecznej czy tam współodpowiedzialności za siebie nawzajem. Problem jest przede wszystkim w tym, że cała wolność, jaką oferuje libertarianizm to wolność czysto postulatywna, a anarchizm z libertarianizmem rozmija się przede wszystkim w koncepcji nieheirarchiczności. Dla anarchisty nie ma czegoś takiego jak “dobre” hierarchie i nie ma znaczenia że są one ustalone za pomocą rzekomo czytelnych czy przejrzystych kryteriów (“zapracowałem ciężko to teraz mam firmę i mogę sobie zatrudniać ludzi decydując samodzielnie o warunkach na jakich będą pracować”, albo “za pomocą legalnych środków zdobyłem swoje latyfundium i dzięki temu mogłem wykupić wszystkie pola od okolicznych rolników, podpisując z nimi stosowne umowy i zamienić je w testowe lotnisko dla ponaddźwiękowych samolotów, bo mogłem i stać mnie na to”). Wszędzie mamy bowiem do czynienia z furtkami dla ogromnych nadużyć, dla których brakuje metod skutecznej przeciwwagi (obowiązuje NAP więc nie możemy protestować inaczej niż werbalnie, nawet jeśli decyzja latyfundysty wpłynie negatywnie na środowisko naturalne albo po prostu odbierze mieszkańcom źródło zaopatrzenia w zboże), zasadą naczelną organizującą życie ludzi jest dążenie do sukcesu jednostki i założenie, że zawsze i wszędzie będą istnieć piramidy społeczne, a jedyną słuszną drogą rotacji w ich obrębie jest osiąganie sukcesu w prowadzeniu działalności gospodarczej. Powiedzieć że to otwiera drzwi patologiom to powiedzieć za mało, ale tak to w skrócie wygląda.
Libertarianizm to filozofia dla owiec, które mogą lepiej poczuć się z faktem, że zjadają je wilki, bo w końcu to naturalny porządek świata, a jak chciało się nie być zjedzonym to trzeba było wcześniej wstawać i szybciej uciekać. Wilkom to oczywiście pasuje, bo dzięki temu mogą robić to, co robiły zawsze, ale wyzbywają się dylematu moralnego. Same nie wyznają jednak tej ideologii, bo są zainteresowane utrzymaniem swojej pozycji, a nie oddawaniem jej na rzecz np. innych wilków, więc wolą się dogadać w wilczym gronie i dokonać “podziału rynku” na “strefy wpływów”. :)
Jeśli coś jest ciekawą, choć na pewno nie nadającą się dla każdego filozofią środka, to jest to anarchizm - nie obiecuje utopii ani gruszek na wierzbie, zakłada aktywne uczestnictwo we wszystkich procesach, w tym gospodarczych, wymusza pewną inicjatywę, a jednocześnie zrywa z konceptem piramidy społecznej i usankcjonowania jakiejkolwiek hierarchii. Anarchizm zakłada, że sami kreujemy swoje życie, ale nie przenosi całej odpowiedzialności na jednostkę, bo skutecznie realizować swoje interesy mogą również całe grupy. Jego moralny kompas zasadza się na solidarności ze słabszymi i pomocy wzajemnej, traktując je jako niezbędne czynniki rozwoju społecznego i ekonomicznego. I przede wszystkim nie daje nikomu “pewnej” pozycji w strukturze społecznej, pozwalając aktorom społecznym na ciągłą renegocjację norm i porządków, na które się godzą.
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