ProdigalFrog

ProdigalFrog, 7 godzin temu (edited 6 godzin temu)

I don’t believe it, or rather, I think Warren Spector and Ricardo Bare really didn’t intend for it to be political, as both of them were far more focused on the game parts of Deus Ex; the mechanics, the balancing, the level design, etc, and are seemingly oblivious to how the writers took those puzzle pieces and made it political. Though the extent that Spector is completely unaware of that fact seems unlikely, and instead he almost appears to be whitewashing what the writers intended? Based on his stance that only movies and books can be political (which is a wild take, since games actually seem the most ripe medium for that), he may be trying to frame Deus Ex as A-political because of that.

It’s very odd that this article didn’t interview the lead writer of Deus Ex, Sheldon Pacotti, for an article about the politics of the game. Sheldon absolutely intended for it to be political, and in this interview here even goes into how capital is used to exploit and suppress the working class, which is what leads to radical terrorist groups, such as the NSF. He mentions in the first part of that interview series how the designers would create the levels without any concept for a story (citing the blown up statue of liberty as an example, which the level designer just thought would be an arresting sight to the player, but didn’t consider how it would tie into a wider narrative).

I think Ross’s Game Dungeon on Deus Ex really shows how Pacotti was able to make Deus Ex realistically political by tackling real societal problems that we all now face, and very few games dare touch, which continues to set it apart it decades later.

Also @Coelacanth & @paultimate14

ProdigalFrog, 6 godzin temu

I’ve made multiple attempts to finish Deus Ex over the years after giving up each time due to aspects of the gameplay. I would normally never give a game so many shots, but I love so many aspects of Deus Ex, I want to finish it, but I just can’t push myself to continue at certain points.

I think the biggest blockers for me is I love stealth games (thief 1 & 2 are all time favorites), and since Deus Ex does have a stealth system (though primitive), I tried to play it like a stealth game. a vanilla install means that tranq darts make enemies run around like headless chickens for a minute, and knocking people out with the baton is unreliable. Combined, stealthing is both visually comical, and realistically very frustrating to play.

I could deal with that, and I’ve tried switching it up by going more guns blazing, but the gunplay of Deus Ex is just as clunky, with slow firing weapons that deal little damage on fairly bullet spongy enemies. Combat just doesn’t feel good.

I tried mods and overhauls to see if I could rectify either of those points, which do sorta work as a bandaid. GMDX makes stealth WAY more fun by making headshots with darts work instantly, and baton-ing more reliable. With it, I was able to get all the way to France without quitting, but I think due to GMDX, I hit a massive difficulty spike where my stealth build became much less viable, and it once again just became frustrating. Perhaps a gun-build with GMDX would’ve been the winning combo.

I think my best experience was with the Revision overhaul, but by then I had started the game over so many times over so many years, I just didn’t have the appetite to get all the way back to France.

It’s a truly spectacular game in terms of story and open-ended level design, but the mechanics really are a turn-off. I wish my first playthrough had been with the Revision overhaul (though I wish it didn’t radically change the level design so much), but even still, I think it would benefit from a Nightdive style remake.

ProdigalFrog, 4 godziny temu (edited 4 godziny temu)

I didn’t mind the RPG elements of the gunplay either, it was how lame all the guns felt to use even with higher skill levels.

The shotguns take way too many rounds to down people, the smgs are pea shooters, and pistols can work ‘okay’ with headshots, but still just feel meh. I assume the sniper rifle is more effective, but I never used it much.

I wish they had made it to where low skill makes reloading and accuracy suffer greatly, but if you do manage to score a hit, it hits hard. That would make shotguns in the early game super valuable, but they could’ve still encouraged stealth and more thoughtful tactics by limiting ammo availability.

Basically the RPG and story elements combined with Tarkov style gunplay and thief-style stealth would be heaven for me.

I’d be curious of your thoughts on revision, if you ever feel like coming back to this comment section by the time you finish it!

ProdigalFrog, 6 dni temu

Hell yeah! We can do this!

ProdigalFrog, 6 dni temu (edited 5 dni temu)

Very insightful. Thank you for your wisdom.

ProdigalFrog, 5 dni temu (edited 5 dni temu)

I suspect they would’ve brushed it off regardless, they didn’t want to deal with it. There’s another 100k UK petition (The one linked to at the bottom of the OP text) that would force them to re-look at it with more depth which is also ending quite soon.

ProdigalFrog, 5 dni temu

Glad to help out, and thank you for letting me use your well written words! :D

ProdigalFrog, 5 dni temu

Absolute legend.

ProdigalFrog, 5 dni temu

Thank you so much for contributing! :D

ProdigalFrog, 5 dni temu

Already included at the bottom of the text body of the post (though it’s to the StopKillingGames page on it, I’ll swap it to the direct link)

ProdigalFrog, 5 dni temu (edited 5 dni temu)

Just to clarify, this isn’t a normal toothless petition, this is an official EU mechanism that allows citizens to bring problems to the attention of the European Commission, and force them to pass judgement on it legally. You can read more about it here.

It’s good to be skeptical of anything asking for that personal info, but I’d suggest researching into it to confirm that it is indeed legit.

Thank you for signing the UK one :)

ProdigalFrog, 5 dni temu

No worries, I’ll edit it to try to make it more clear.

ProdigalFrog, 5 dni temu

Thank you for contributing!! :D

ProdigalFrog, 5 dni temu

Thank you for your help! :D

ProdigalFrog, 5 dni temu

I think it’s been very hard for us to spread awareness into countries where a majority don’t also speak English, as the organizer and much of the coverage is only in English.

If you know of any big Italian gaming YouTubers or streamers that might be receptive to helping or talking about the campaign, could you reach out to them about it with a comment?

ProdigalFrog, 5 dni temu

Sorry to hear that they were so nasty. :(

ProdigalFrog, 5 dni temu

Helping spread the word is still an option, and would be greatly appreciated! :D

ProdigalFrog, 5 dni temu

Yes! They’ll also be plugging it on their main channel soon.

ProdigalFrog, 4 dni temu

Pretty sure it’s just EU citizens. If you can’t vote in elections there, you probably can’t sign this.

ProdigalFrog, 9 dni temu

The campaign was designed to save all future games, The Crew was just a useful catalyst to launch from, since it was a very visible example of what they were fighting against.

But yes, saving games is pretty minor compared to stopping literal fascism. It’s just a shame that PirateSoftware fucked the campaign so hard, and stopped a big influencer from basically pressing the ‘win’ button by talking about it.

ProdigalFrog, 9 dni temu

Here’s hoping there’s a final push for SKG, then!

ProdigalFrog, 5 dni temu

I don’t know. Fascism hates art

Speaking of which…

ProdigalFrog, miesiąc temu

Unfortunately, I think it was just a lack of awareness that the petition in existed in certain countries where Ross just didn’t have enough reach, possibly due to language barriers. A big push from native speakers of those countries with large audiences, like streamers, could’ve pushed it over the edge.

ProdigalFrog, miesiąc temu (edited miesiąc temu)

It doesn’t sound like it was as of 2020 in the US, at least on the good/service distinction:

The creator of the Stop Killing Games campaign did a segment about the viability of fighting it in the US in a segment here: youtu.be/DAD5iMe0Xj4?t=1097

tl:dr, the motivated lawyer he talked with on it eventually found a court case that set a precedent that would be extremely difficult to fight in such a pro-corporate court system without extreme amounts of legal funds. This is why the Stop Killing Games campaign is focusing on implementing laws in the EU and other non-US countries.

ProdigalFrog, miesiąc temu

AFAIK, most PS3 (and even PS4) / Xbox 360 games will play and function with just the disc, an internet connection will just let them download updates to the game.

It was PS5 and Xbox One where the discs became glorified physical download codes, and did not actually contain the entire game.

ProdigalFrog, miesiąc temu

I think the issue is that, as with reddit, a lot of people are only reading the headline and commenting.

ProdigalFrog, miesiąc temu

That does seem to be an influence, though oddly there are some modern wildly popular games, Minecraft being a prime example, that still allow you to self host your own server, so it shouldn’t really be as foreign of a concept as it appears to be to some younger folk.

ProdigalFrog, miesiąc temu (edited miesiąc temu)

As the graph breaks down, some games are patched by companies to allow them to function offline or to enable self-hosted servers. Mostly its fan efforts to reverse engineer the server code, though.

The point of the stop killing games campaign is to legislate by law that going forward, developers/publishers would have to account for a way to allow the player to host a server or patch the game to run offline when they become unprofitable and are shut down.

ProdigalFrog, miesiąc temu

Here’s a link to the Stop Killing Games campaign, of which the video is about.

ProdigalFrog, miesiąc temu (edited miesiąc temu)

MS-DOS games are pretty much what GOG built their business on, they still sell quite well. 50’s music is still listened by many (over 57 million views on that one song alone), and often used in movies, though that’s a bit of an odd comparison, almost as if old things aren’t worth keeping around. I mean, people still listen to classical music that’s hundreds of years old at this point, read ancient stories, and look at art from artists long dead. I consider games to be an art form like any other, and worth preserving.

ProdigalFrog, miesiąc temu

I understand, but I’m not really sure why you’re pointing out the exact problem that this campaign is actively trying to solve.

ProdigalFrog, miesiąc temu

The first part seems to be for people who are unfamiliar with the games. The political analysis begins at 19 minutes.

The games go into:

• Discussion of monopolies, how they are used to exploit, and how they use state force to maintain their position to prevent competition
• The Carrot character is an anarchist in the first game, who infiltrates the weather factory of the second game to document the exploitation of its workers. He then gives the player a quiz about US economics so that you can infiltrate a board of directors, but when he becomes a member of the board himself, becomes a liberal reformist.
• In the third game, the devs put an easter egg only accessible by editing a config file with an obscure code, which adds police branded riot gear to the marching fascist candy soldiers, in a reference to the 1999 Seattle WTO Protests.

ProdigalFrog, miesiąc temu

I really like the premise, though if I might suggest, y’all might want to tweak that trailer so the intense movie trailer music doesn’t stop abruptly towards the end.

ProdigalFrog, 2 miesiące temu

https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/f49cfaa3-a7f6-48c2-af85-b08f319b0b1a.jpeg

A Mind Forever Voyaging, by Infocom.

It’s an old text adventure from the 80’s with a particularly cool and oddly relevant concept: You take the role of an AI that’s been meticulously raised in a simulation to truly become a general intelligence. The reason this project was undertaken was to eventually send you, the AI, into other simulations based in the near future to test the outcomes of various political policies of the new republican government, record your interactions, and report back to the engineers who created you.

The game’s designer said that he created the game in response to the despair he felt from Ronald Reagan being elected.

I haven’t gotten super far in it, but it has an incredibly well written short story in the manual that details all the events leading up to the start of the game, and so far the game itself is unlike anything else I’ve ever played.

ProdigalFrog, 2 miesiące temu

You can play the game here on Archive.org, or you can download a copy from that page and play it in DOSBox Staging.

Here’s all the physical documentation you’ll need, such as the short story, how to play manual, and an in-world map (you’ll have to draw your own, but it’ll give you a rough idea of the land. If you find map making tedious, you could use a map someone else made).

Lastly, you’ll need this interactive copy protection wheel when it prompts you for a combination in game, right before entering a simulation.

Good luck! :D

ProdigalFrog, 2 miesiące temu

Dreamweb.

90’s cyberpunk point’n’click with a dark mature story and a rocking soundtrack.

ProdigalFrog, 3 miesiące temu

I just tried new colossus yesterday, actually, and I was surprised how big of a dive the writing took compared to the first game, I had to stop when the resistance guy bursts out of bathroom during that really forced emotional scene in the sub.

I loved the first game and the old blood dlc, so was a bit of a bummer :(

ProdigalFrog, 3 miesiące temu (edited 3 miesiące temu)

That’s already hours in, and it was only getting more ridiculous. I had a looksee at Yatzhee’s old review of it, and he confirmed my feelings on it, and said it got even worse later. I may watch a let’s play of it at some point, but I just wasn’t having fun, so I’m unlikely to pick it up again, personally. Just doesn’t have the magic…

ProdigalFrog, 4 miesiące temu

SNES:

Sunset Riders and Wild Guns are fun little western shooters.

Genesis:

Rock’n’roll Racing is a fantastic racer.

GBA:

The Wario games are pretty superb for quick sessions

ProdigalFrog, 4 miesiące temu

In case it’s not obvious, this is an educational game to teach how the oil industry is able to control our governments and destroy the planet.