God I remember having to actually disable enemy AI to get through The Cradle as a kid.
Thief 1 and 2 have incredible community made mods that completely overhaul the graphics and make it quite a beautiful game. Said community is still alive and well over on the TTLG forums, making fan missions for the game to this day (including the highly regarded Black Parade, which is basically an entire game made in the dark engine).
The only stealth games I’ve played that come anywhere close are Dishonored 1 and 2 (which, unsurprisingly, had a lot of Looking Glass veterans working on them).
To be fair, it’s a pretty common play. Company makes unpopular decision, walks it back, tries again a little later once the novelty has worn off and the MSM doesn’t care to pick it up again.
I think this particular move is pretty ballsy with how egregious it is (especially considering that starfield didn’t do anything particularly outstanding to overshadow it), but I don’t doubt they’ll try it again. If people keep buying their games, where’s the risk? At worst they’ll still get a few dollars from those who, for whatever reason, buy it, and then it’s forgotten by the next time a game comes out.
Moderators will never be able to fully eliminate this problem because it is an inherent part of the behavior of a subset of humanity and humans are involved in the activities where this harassment takes place
I’m not suggesting they can, I don’t think anyone is.
If you expect every person you meet, online or in person, to respect the rules you are going to be disappointed
I don’t, but I expect if someone starts yelling rape threats at a restaurant that they’ll be kicked out, rather than the waiter saying “well why didn’t you just move to another table?” The rules are there for a reason, there should be consequences if they are broken.
Well yeah, that’s why part of Riot’s solution seems to be adding more mods. I’d be more understanding if Riot didn’t have the resources to add more paid mod support, but I truly don’t think that’s the case. So yeah, pay more mods and use more advanced technology to flag communication, I think that’s an attainable goal.
I’m not saying that people shouldn’t still protect themselves by blocking harassment, but I believe it’s perfectly within devs’ abilities to at least attempt to remove the most heinous bullies from the game.
I cannot get behind the sentiment of “online communication is awful so we shouldn’t even attempt to do anything about it.” Yeah at some point you have to learn to shake it off to protect yourself, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make any effort to moderate online spaces as well. Don’t give assholes quarter in your game if you want to retain your community.
You can’t remove the suck from people, but you can remove the people from your community.
Why do game makers need to be the responsible party? I’ve never played a game that didn’t let you block and/or mute people you’re playing with. That doesn’t make assholes disappear but it stops the problem from impacting you. Why add a middleman to the equation?
Because the devs/mods have the power to at least attempt to remove the person from the game before anyone else has to suffer their comments.
It’s much simpler to let players decide what they will tolerate on their own.
It’s pretty simple to enable mod actions, too. Game devs make a list of rules about what you can and can’t say. You agree to those rules when you start playing the game. Breaking the rules earns you a punishment. If you don’t like it, you don’t play the game. If the rules are unfairly restrictive then people won’t play the game and it will fail. This is how internet moderation has worked since forever.
As a huge fan of these games… absolutely. I keep coming back because I love the characters so much and the story arcs within each game can be fairly satisfying, but the overarching plot is a complete mess.
Yeah, this same article can be written for Mini Golf games, or shmups, or visual novels, or any other genre that’s relatively easy to develop for. Once one gets popular, others will jump on because the barrier to entry is fairly low. Lots will be low effort clones, but some will really try to build something new.
Everyone and their mother is playing Balatro, and for good reason. Super fun deck builder based on a normal playing card deck and poker hands. Great music and visuals, too.
Also, check out Inscryption. Truth be told, it’s not really a true roguelike deckbuilder, rather it uses the genre as a storytelling medium. Still, really fun game with solid core gameplay and an engaging story. There’s also DLC that lets you play more of the deckbuilder part indefinitely.
Undertale and Deltarune are easy recs, emotional and fun to dig into the lore and details. Deltarune in particular is an ongoing series, so there’s lots of speculation and theory crafting if that’s your thing. Amazing soundtrack as well. Undertale should be played first, though. Deltarune isn’t necessarily a sequel, but Undertale gives some context to certain things. Both are best played blind.
Inscryption is a really fun deck builder with a very intriguing story and some surprising twists and turns. Even if you’re not much into deck builders, the game is structured such that it’s pretty much impossible not to get a winning deck over repeated runs. The atmosphere is also top notch.
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective isn’t on steam, but it’s definitely worth a buy on one of its supported systems if you have them. Great puzzle game with a lot of humor and mystery. Not quite as emotional, but very strong characters and an ongoing mystery that kept me invested.
Oxenfree is a really intriguing mystery game with some horror elements and a great soundtrack (I originally checked it out after hearing Beacon Beach and loving it). Overall the game really scratched the itch of that feeling of reading horror stories before bed.
There’s also a free, short Silent Hill game on PS5 called The Short Message. It has mixed reviews, but my friends and I found it surprisingly engaging. At first it seems pretty on the nose with its message, but things get a little deeper as you go on. Aside from some cartoonishly evil characters and a somewhat frustrating final sequence, it’s worth a look.