savvywolf

savvywolf, 12 dni temu

I think at a certain point we need to accept that this isn’t sustainable.

And by “this” I mean money flowing directly into the pockets of the rich. People would very much hedge £30 on a game if they didn’t need to budget so much of that money to pay off megacorps. And devs could easily live of £20 per sale if they didn’t need to pay part of their profits to those megacorps.

Sorry for going all Redditlemmy “grr capitalism”, but that’s the issue here and all this Silksong “drama” is just a smokescreen.

savvywolf, 20 dni temu

Luckily, as far as I know, they still accept card payments for spicy games in the UK, so a VPN still works. And if you’re a brit into porn, you’ve probably got access to a vpn nowadays anyway.

Fuck the Tories and fuck Labour.

savvywolf, miesiąc temu

… I’m not blind, right? She has her panties on display? That absolutely falls under “suggestive” imo.

Comparing being asked to tone down your marketing materials for an all ages game to censorship of explicitly nsfw games is also kinda scummy. You aren’t having your livelihood threatened by this.

savvywolf, miesiąc temu

I’ve seen this a lot, and there are problems with it. People are not going to want to go through setting up a crypto wallet just to buy a game. People are not going to be happy with Itch.io doing it transparently behind the scenes (who knows where they are sending it to). Creators are not going to be happy with having to pay higher transaction fees. And all this would apply to all games sold on Itch, not just the spicy ones, since Mastercard and Visa would absolutely block them if they tried it.

Why not just use something like Wero (or a hypothetical global equivalent) and use direct bank to bank transfers with no payment processor acting as an intermediary?

savvywolf, miesiąc temu

Steam wasn’t using it to bypass their policies and demands.

savvywolf, 2 miesiące temu

When going from point a to point b takes ages or is otherwise a pain. I get you worked hard on your world, but it losses its charm the 10th time running across it.

And don’t force me to hold/tap a button to sprint. Or worse, make me click in the left stick.

savvywolf, 2 miesiące temu

Probably only if the word “AI” is in the title…

savvywolf, 2 miesiące temu

This seems a bit of a risky move… Lets see if this gamble pays off.

savvywolf, 2 miesiące temu

Game spoilers and subjective opinions below, be careful.

spoilerI enjoyed all parts of Inscryption, but I think Act 1 was the best part of the game. The gameplay of act 2 wasn’t great and had too many mechanics flying around. Act 3 just felt too sterile and devoid of charm. I get that that was what they were going for, but I think I would have preferred multiple rooms in the shack over multiple chapters. There needs to be more games like Pokemon TCG for the gameboy (which is what Act 2 was referencing) though. With a card game that fits it.

savvywolf, 3 miesiące temu

I’ve watched two people online play the game and both pretty much slammed it. It should absolutely have been free with the console. Is $10 really disposable enough income to spend on what is essentially an ad for the console you’ve already bought and a handful of minigames? 7/10 is a wild score to give it, but I guess reviewers get these games for free anyway so price doesn’t matter.

savvywolf, 4 miesiące temu

Maybe this is me just being jaded after Nintendo’s fall from grace, but this is the first time I’ve seen a feature and wondered “why”?

If mouse control is important then just let people connect a bluetooth mouse. They’re easy to get ahold of and most people can probably chuck one in their bag if they don’t already have one.

Hell, if you feel the need, just make a “Switch Mouse” with a control stick on the side if you need to. No need to have one controller to rule them all.

This enables unique gameplay experiences not usually possible on a standard PC mouse setup, such as the ability to use two mice to play games.

I mean, this isn’t illegal or anything. It’s just so situational I’ve only seen it done once (World of Goo for multiplayer). Most people can’t effectively use mice with their non-dominant hand anyway.

An example of this is in Drag X Drive, where the player uses a mouse in each hand and moves them forwards or back to mimic moving around in a wheelchair.

Isn’t this just motion controls? The same concept could have been done with the Wii and two wiimotes. Only this time you just wear out the rubber pads on your joycon.

The addition of HD Rumble in the controllers also means players can experience force feedback while using a mouse.

… How does this even work given that a mouse is a precision instrument? Surely the rumble would just cause the mouse to shift around or become less accurate. I think there’s a reason nobody has tried to put rumble in a mouse.

Overall I can see it being a nice emergency feature for if you need a mouse but don’t have one on you. But the fact that they seem to be pitching it as a flagship feature feels odd to me.

Or maybe I’m just being grumpy and this ends up working well.

savvywolf, 4 miesiące temu

The mobile and PC gaming markets are very different, both in terms of monetisation and what games people expect to play.

If Valve wanted to get into the mobile games industry they’d basically be starting from scratch, and I don’t think it’s a market they’re particularly interested in.

You’re also assuming that buying a game on PC steam will also give you a license to play that game on android, which isn’t a given. I think many games have completely different monetisation models on mobile vs pc, so sharing between platforms like that wouldn’t make sense.

savvywolf, 5 miesięcy temu

One thing that could be interesting to discuss is character creators and general restrictions on what a player avatar can and can’t do.

For example:

• Require all player + npc relationships to be hetero.
• Have most relationships be hetero, but sprinkle one or two bi characters for spice.
• Lock certain clothing options or body styles to specific genders.
• Tie the player’s pronouns and voice to their gender.
• Tie the player’s gender to what’s in their pants.
• Restrict genetal options to a boolean “male” or “female” (intersex people exist).
• Force the player to only be in a monogamous relationship.
• Allow the player to be polyamous but inexplicably punish them for being too poly (Looking at you, Stardew).

savvywolf, 6 miesięcy temu

Compared to other platforms, they have a lot of good features and generally act in the public interest.

In regards to their DRM system, honestly some people are going to add DRM to their games no matter what. I’d much rather they use Valve’s system than some insecure third party spyware.

People have also mentioned their 30% cut which honestly seems pretty normal for an online storefront. It’s especially fair when you consider the fact that they provide marketing, hosting and payment processing for you. Not to mention things like achievements, matchmaking and workshop support if you want it.

There’s also the fact that a lot of the anti-monopoly folks tend to be Linux and/or foss advocates, and Valve has been pumping a lot of resources into open source projects.

Honestly, in the Linux space, the only reason Valve has a monopoly is because the other players just aren’t making any effort to compete.

Tl;dr Valve uses their market position for good (in general) and Steam is a good product.

savvywolf, 9 miesięcy temu

Even disregarding the native Linux port… The Steam client is actually pretty decent. Any client would have to implement things like library navigation, storage management, Steam input support, the overlay, cloud sync and so on. And honestly, I don’t think anyone can reach the amount of features that Steam has.

Its probably why most people don’t actually use things like Lutris or Gnome Games to launch Steam games.

savvywolf, 10 miesięcy temu

Finally, representation for gay people who are into irony.

savvywolf, 10 miesięcy temu

In his defense, it isn’t really a fishing game without bait.

savvywolf, 11 miesięcy temu

If only steam had a way to mark games as “hey, this game is in beta, expect issues”. I don’t know, making it clear that we were accessing it early or something…

I can’t speak for everyone, but I know I’d be willing to tolerate games being a bit buggy if they up front said “we know this game has issues. You can try it now or you can wait until we fix them”.

savvywolf, 11 miesięcy temu

Congratulations to Godot for all their new volunteer devs.

savvywolf, 11 miesięcy temu

Okay, so there’s two lines I could go down for this.

The first is to joke about the recent controversy, and say that they’re only doing this so they can sue other alarm clock manufacturers for patent infringement.

The second is a wordplay by calling it “the s-watch”. But that doesn’t really translate well to text.

savvywolf, 11 miesięcy temu

One of these days I’ll get around to playing A Hat in Time…

savvywolf, 11 miesięcy temu

I think it’s petty to not play a game just because of the engine it’s written in…

I think I may have to make an exception to that rule for this. :P

(Trans rights are human rights, btw)

Edit: … Wait, hang on. Isn’t the notion of using a game engine at all “woke” in itself? Like, isn’t that the entire thing that started this whole thing?

savvywolf, 11 miesięcy temu

If you beleive them, as far as I recall, Valve has said that they were working on the Steam Deck before the switch was revealed.

savvywolf, rok temu

I don’t wanna wait that long. ;_;

savvywolf, rok temu

I played Braid ages ago, and it was okay. I can see it being influential when it first came out when there wasn’t many indie games.

Don’t think I really want to play it again though - it told it’s story and that was that. Unless it adds tons more levels or something, I’m not sure what value the remaster adds.

It’s sadly one of many “platformers with interesting mechanics but slow and clunky controls” that the industry has moved away from.

savvywolf, rok temu

Could have just gone through some planning hell and was originally intended to be released a few years ago.

As an aside: Magnets to attach the joycons seem miserable.

savvywolf, rok temu

I guess I don’t have much faith in the ability for magnets to stick well enough to the console.

savvywolf, rok temu

I have never wanted to play a game so hard in my life. It seems to have the atmosphere of Inscryption, the gameplay of Papers Please and a lot of buttons and knobs to mess around with.

savvywolf, rok temu

One small thing but I’m surprised nobody points it out - the charging port location. I like using my switch/steam deck in bed or otherwise laying down, and the fact that the charging lead is at the bottom of the console rather than the top sucks. It just gets in the way and stops you resting the console on you. Whereas the Steam Deck just has it on top where you can just plug it in while playing.

I know the technical reasons behind it because of the dock and all that, but it’s annoying.

In general, I think the steam deck is better than the switch in almost every way - The switch is just an expensive ticket for the right to play Nintendo games nowadays.

savvywolf, rok temu

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R0hbe8HZj0 If you’re a video watchy person, I found this to be a really good overview on fighting game fundamentals.

savvywolf, rok temu

Played it a while ago and had fun with it - would recommend if you like city/base building games.

Did fall off late game with the “factorio problem” of having huge bases that you need to micromanage and build manually (so called because Factorio is the only game which I think fixes this problem; a lot of games I keep wanting to blueprint things).

Also, it took me the longest time to realise that you were allowed to run paths underwater…

savvywolf, rok temu

I’ve played Ace Attorney and the writers put a lot of love and personality into the characters. I’d be sceptical if an AI could get close enough to any kind of writing style to “kill” writing in games like that.

Honestly getting fed up of AI doing a mediocre job of creating art and then people claiming it kills whole industries because it’s the “in” technology.

savvywolf, rok temu

We anticipate that this change will reduce average wait times for free users over time.

Sure will.

(Also, TIL that GeForce NOW has a free tier. I assumed it was one of those “pay $10 a month” kinda things even at the lowest level)

savvywolf, rok temu (edited rok temu)

I actually bought it, tried it for a bit, and then refunded it.

It just felt kinda bland? Not sure if this is just because I wasn’t in in the right headspace, but the game got to the point where I started collecting resources in a base and I just put the game down.

It’s like they got a generic survival game and added not-pokemon and guns to it for shock factors, without really considering gameplay cohesion.

The real reason I refunded it though is because, according to someone on Bluesky, the devs have a history of being NFT and genAI shills. I’d rather not get emotionally invested in mons that could just become NFTs or AI puppets.

Very interested in a future game where someone else takes the idea and actually has the passion to create a good 3D mon catching game. Clearly it’s something the market wants.

savvywolf, rok temu

I’m reminded of old video games where they had the developers help out with the voice acting. Like, couldn’t you do this here? Just have someone who happens to have a high quality microphone do the lines? Maybe even pay a starving artist on one of those “voice acting for hire” sites?

I get that deadlines are usually way too tight on games, but this is just poor quality control. I guess that is the AAA games industry noways though.

savvywolf, rok temu

Those disclosures will be shared on the Steam store pages for these games, which should help players who want to avoid certain types of AI content.

I mean, this is better than most places.

savvywolf, rok temu

Reminder to everyone that being an ethical consumer usually means you need to pay a bit more for the greater good.

savvywolf, rok temu

I’m not sure to the extent in which they are private, but in my testing they DON’T appear in the following places:

• The “Steam Replay” thing.
• Whatever ProtonDB uses to query your owned games.
• Your recent activity (it also doesn’t also doesn’t count your playtime when displaying the “total time play time” in the last 2 weeks).

Not sure if they are hidden in your owned games list on your profile, but I assume they would be.

Note that the count of games you own (which is public) does seem to include hidden games, if that’s a concern.

savvywolf, rok temu

Probably Celeste to anyone that has anxiety. I know it’s probably not the most profound representation of anxiety, but it’s a nice little game, it’s nice to feel seen and there’s a chance that some of the stuff in it will help.

savvywolf, rok temu

Direct Kickstarter link, for those interested: www.kickstarter.com/projects/…/trash-goblin

savvywolf, rok temu

You mean like… Both arms?

What sorcery is this?

savvywolf, rok temu

It’s software I don’t want running on my system and the kernel mode stuff has full hardware access.

savvywolf, rok temu (edited rok temu)

People with wallhacks will deliberately move their crosshairs over people that they see through walls. Or, if they know the server is watching for that, they’ll make a subconscious effort to never have their crosshairs over someone through walls.

savvywolf, rok temu

Unless the aimbot is using its own AI learning system, it’ll not behave as a human would. For example, it might fire at a random point in a circle, where a human might have better aim along the horizontal axis or something.

savvywolf, rok temu

Inexhaustive of things that kernel mode code can do that unprivileged (without “root”) user mode cannot:

• Update and install drivers.
• Run programs (like cryptominers) without them appearing in the task list.
• Make network requests ignoring all firewalls and monitoring tools, even when seemingly in airplane mode.
• Monitor your webcam and microphone, possibly without turning on that little light next to it.
• Escape any sandbox you put it in.
• Replace the OS with one containing malicious code.
• Replace the efi firmware with one that replaces any future OS install with the aforementioned malicious OS.
• Permanently brick your graphics card.
• Take advantage of buggy hardware to burn your house down.

And so on. The question you should be asking isn’t “are they going to do this?” but instead “why are they even asking for this permission in the first place?”.

A game where you run around pretending to be a space marine doesn’t need low level access to your hardware.

savvywolf, rok temu

I’m a Linux gamer, every few weeks there’s a story in the news about how some random update to anti-cheat ending up banning Linux/Steam Deck users, it’s not a problem unique to AI. AI finding false positives will happen, but that’s where the “human in the loop” appeals process happens.

Some games do employ new tactics. For example, when the game suspects you’re cheating, it’ll spawn fake opponents only you can see and check if you try to interact with them. This will defeat most wallhacks and maybe even a few aimbots.

This is the kind of cool things that they should be doing! Try new and interesting things instead of trying to brute force anti-cheat by putting restrictions on what people can do with their computers and forcing a narrative where cheaters only exist because you weren’t strict enough.

savvywolf, rok temu (edited rok temu)

I don’t. Anything on the client can be tampered with. It’s the server’s job to make sure anything they receive is both valid and consistent with how a human would act.