skulblaka

skulblaka, wczoraj

From what I’ve been able to gather, it’s basically a sandbox. Imagine if F:NV had no main quest but allowed you to create your own faction. You’re just unleashed onto the wasteland to do whatever and let everyone else respond to it.

That is to say, much of the fun comes from building drug running bandit empires.

skulblaka, 6 dni temu

Family share is actually great for this now.

It used to be that if anyone in the group was playing any game it would lock you out of playing anything else on the main account without kicking them off.

But they eased up on it now so you can both play at the same time as long as you aren’t playing the same game at the same time.

So just make a burner account for you or for your kids and family share the library to it and now you don’t even have to go offline unless everyone in the house wants to play BG3 simultaneously.

skulblaka, 6 dni temu

[…] because they don’t allow you to run older versions of games.

They do if the dev makes it available, I’m looking at four different versions of Terraria in the beta menu right now that stretch back four major versions. I’m pretty sure a couple games in my library somewhere have their entire update history in there, though I can’t think of one to name off the top of my head right now, that’s not a feature I use very often. [Edit: Rift Wizard is one that does precisely this, I knew I had at least one in here]

This is not true of all games, but it could be, either directly by game devs without Valve even having to care, or via pressure by Valve by just making older versions available whether the devs want it or not. I think the latter option is probably the better move, but there’s technically nothing stopping the former other than the game devs themselves.

There’s also a valid argument that making downpatching very easy would be a huge boon to piracy. This is a reasonable talking point no matter which side of that fence you sit on. It would also probably benefit modding as well, which I think is a more objective good but some game developers or more likely publishers would probably disagree.

skulblaka, 7 dni temu

I’ve played quite a lot of Nightreign.

In co-op you have fully infinite lives, your teammates can pick you up at any time and even if they fail to do so you’ll respawn back at a grace. If you fall over in a boss fight you have an unlimited timer to be picked back up and automatically rez at the end of the fight even if they don’t do it.

In solo you’re fighting a boss intended for 3 players and if you die twice the game is over completely.

Co-op, even with randoms, is much much easier by an order of magnitude. I’m usually a solo player in most games and thought this would be awful for me, it isn’t at all. Map pings are plenty of communication for most matches. It is, however, definitely better with friends on a voice call.

skulblaka, 7 dni temu

Regular enemies fall over like wet tissue, yeah.

Big boss fights in particular (and some of those in particular, in particular, looking at you Maris and/or Gnoster) often have either a gigantic AoE attack that is very difficult to dodge when you’re the only source of aggro, or else charge across the entire arena after every attack and have you spend half an hour in the fight, 27 minutes of which was spent just chasing the guy across the map. Not impossible, but very annoying.

But 90% of what makes coop easier in my opinion is just having a spare body around that can pull aggro so you can heal. Elden Ring base bosses were designed around being able to be beaten solo so they usually have big wide windows where you can get a breather if you need it. Nightreign bosses have much less of that because they expect you to be running 3 deep. Nerfing their defenses helps with the solo DPS race but it doesn’t really solve the problem that these fights were designed from the ground up for a team who is able to rotate aggro. Nightreign bosses were designed with a sort of raid-boss mentality.

I think if this game were going to be appropriately balanced for single player they would need to go in and edit a lot of the main bosses’ movesets. But that was never part of Nightreign’s design philosophy and trying to shoehorn it in now isn’t doing them any favors in my opinion. This is the equivalent of a World of Warcraft player complaining that they can’t solo all the endgame raid bosses. Sure, you can’t. They weren’t designed to be fought solo. We could try to nerf them down to the point that you can fight them solo, but then it’s no longer a raid boss, you’ve lost the essence of why people wanted to come to this fight in the first place.

Also, are the enemies designed for multiplayer, except in scaling? Everything I’ve seen looks like standard Fromsoft stuff, no weird abilities that just fuck over solo players.

Compare base game Morgott and Nightreign Morgott and I think you’ll see what I mean here. Boss enemies are much more cracked out with longer combos and shorter downtime than in Elden Ring proper, because the developers expect you to be trading aggro with your teammates to give yourself a heal break.

skulblaka, 24 dni temu

I prefer modern toxic over 2008-era XBL lobbies though.

Maybe that’s just me. But I get a lot less annoyed by a “GG ez” than I do by an 8-year-old shouting seven consecutive minutes of racial slurs into his mic at the top of his lungs.

skulblaka, miesiąc temu

I was skeptical about it. I saw a lot of it being compared with Final Fantasy and I’ve been largely pretty disappointed with most Final Fantasy offerings since X.

Picked it up recently on the recommendation of another Lemming and, holy shit, this might be the best RPG I’ve ever played. Hands down, it’s that good. God bless the French. This game is making me feel things I haven’t felt since I was a teenager.

skulblaka, miesiąc temu

“Americans think 100 years is a long time and Europeans think 100 km is a long distance”

I’m fortunate to not be in this situation anymore but the commute for my last job before this one was around 40mi. That’s 64km and a bit. Prior to that it was closer to 60mi or 96.5km, I was driving over an hour just to get to work. This is not uncommon for Americans, especially poor ones. If you can’t afford to live in the city but still need a job so you can eat, situations like this are sometimes unavoidable.

skulblaka, miesiąc temu

Sure. But we’re in it now, and low fuel prices maintain the ability of the American working poor to survive. Changing this now would condemn millions of innocents to bankruptcy, homelessness and eventually death.

I don’t like it either, believe me. I want walkable cities, and sensible zoning, and affordable housing. But we don’t have that and there isn’t a magic switch we can throw to just make it happen. We’ve painted ourselves into a corner about this.

skulblaka, miesiąc temu

Hackintoshes have been around since the 80s and this has never happened.

In 2009-2012 Apple did levy a successful lawsuit against Psystar for doing this in a business environment. But they’ve never enforced bricking a consumer Hackintosh and I expect they never will.

skulblaka, 2 miesiące temu

Well it sure as hell didn’t work on my Tarnished in Elden Ring proper

skulblaka, 2 miesiące temu

Sounds like how Super Mario RPG did it which was overall pretty excellent.

I haven’t played the game but if that’s true I’d still consider that well and truly turn based.

skulblaka, 2 miesiące temu

There is at least one occasion where NPCs just straight up lie to you in quest directions though. I can’t think of it off the top of my head but I remember it existing because I complained about it on a forum.

On one hand - great worldbuilding! “Local dumbass gives you bad directions” is a funny and memorable point on top of what might otherwise be a forgettable side quest. On the other hand, I spent the better part of four hours looking for whatever egg mine or ancestral tomb or whatever it was he asked me to find before getting fed up and having UESP tell me “lol no actually it’s off in this complete other direction”, and I’m pretty sure I assassinated that NPC after I turned in his quest.

skulblaka, 2 miesiące temu

This was me lmao. On my first playthrough of Morrowind as a teenager I dicked around and did everything except the main quest for ages. Around level 18 I decided to actually progress the main quest. Hasphat, check. Arkngthand, no sweat. Talk to Sharn Gra-Muzgob, she says to fetch the Skull of Llevule Andrano. Cool, go to Andrano’s tomb, looks kind of familiar. Where is the Skull of Llevule Andrano? Cause it sure ain’t here in his tomb. Whoopsie.

Never found the skull, never progressed the quest, had to start a new character to actually experience the main story. I wonder how many potential Nerevarines failed to ascend due to missing minor quest items. Wish I could ask em that inside the Cavern of the Incarnate.

skulblaka, 2 miesiące temu

I was under the impression that WoW classic came about because nu-WoW was hemorrhaging players to other, better MMO’s, such as FFXIV and Guild Wars 2.

Not much need for a GW Classic if GW2 is still going strong.

skulblaka, 2 miesiące temu

Personally I’ve been cooking through the System Shock games. The SS1 remake was my first proper introduction to the series and I loved it. I was pretty excited for the impending System Shock 2 Enhanced Edition but it, uh… doesn’t really seem like it’s going to be very enhanced. Especially compared to what you can do with just modding the base game. So rather than keep waiting for that I spent ten bucks on SS2 Classic and have been enjoying myself greatly.

I’ve always liked SHODAN just via cultural osmosis, but now having actually played the games she stars in, that’s cranked up to 12. I fucking love SHODAN. She might be one of the best examples of an evil rogue AI in any media, and also has an actual reason for going rogue besides just “mankind builds a machine too smart for them and suffers the consequences”. The entire story setup is so believable.

Anyway, tl;dr, the System Shock games are hella good and the remake is especially very good. Particularly because controlling classic SS1 is more like playing an operating system than playing a video game. Also SHODAN. step on me again metal mommy

skulblaka, 2 miesiące temu

Oh man, you think that was uncomfortable, try playing the VR version.

It makes you virtually kill yourself at least twice and implies mind control of the player.

Shit’s wild.

skulblaka, 3 miesiące temu

Wrangling my Nvidia drivers into Mint also took a couple hours for me but I haven’t had problems afterward

skulblaka, 3 miesiące temu

BRC is an incredible replacement though. It’s not quite the same as OG Jet Set Radio, and I think that’s okay, but it is very clearly walking around with JSR’s bones inside. Besides which it has probably my favorite video game soundtrack from the past decade.

skulblaka, 3 miesiące temu

Perfect Dark, on the other hand, totally still holds up today in my opinion, and there’s a decompilation project that works great on PC and Steam Deck.

skulblaka, 3 miesiące temu

Depends on the game I think. Guilty Gear is doing better than ever with Strive and actually has a decent population base for the first time. I do take some issue with the DLC character seasons but it’s hard to fault them too much for following what has become standard practice, and they’ve been continually releasing high quality content in every update. Their netcode needs some work but the game part of the game is pristine, it’s my favorite fighting game by a mile and as they continue to add in the rest of the old roster there’s becoming less and less reason to try and play the older Guilty Gear games.

skulblaka, 3 miesiące temu

This entire argument can be made identically for Half-Life 1 and 2 requiring people to upgrade their PCs to be able to play them.

skulblaka, 3 miesiące temu

I know more about Mario Kart 64 shortcuts now than at any time during when I was actually playing the game.

skulblaka, 3 miesiące temu

Yeah. Their proper remake of SS1 was excellent and I was looking forward to something similar for SS2. Especially a balancing pass on the skills to make some of them not completely useless.

Even remaking SS2 on the engine they used for 1 would have been welcome news, but it’s not clear that they’re doing that either.

skulblaka, 3 miesiące temu

In case you weren’t aware (it sounds like you’re not) :

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Cataclysm

This isn’t going to teach you how to play but it’s an excellent reference wiki

skulblaka, 3 miesiące temu

Personally, I don’t really go out socially. Like ever.

So once a week or so when my friends go out to the bars and spend $50 on food and beers, I might spend a $20 on a game that’s on sale and get the same or better return on my time and money for it. If I buy a game for $20 and spend five hours on it and never touch it again, that’s about equivalent to a night out with the boys, both in dollars spent and in hours enjoyed.

I’ve built up a collection of indie games on this mindset and I don’t see any of it as wasted. If I get a lower return than $5 per hour enjoyed then I’ll refund the game or not recommend it for others. But I have a ton of games that have kept me well entertained for 3-6 days for the price of a beer and a kebab. I consider that good value.

skulblaka, 4 miesiące temu

In a better timeline this is one of the many things a Neuralink could be good for

skulblaka, 4 miesiące temu

I’ve never once had to wait more than 5 seconds to start loading in to a match no matter what time of day or night it is. Literally no other game has ever done this. They’re prioritizing their time-to-game over having actual players in your match, and this definitely means filling slots with bots. How egregious it is will depend on the time and day and current online player count. But when I’m instantly loading a full game of 10 people at 3am on a Tuesday I know something’s fucky.

Other people have done actual research into the matter but I had my suspicions, just from playing the game, by the third day or so after release.

skulblaka, 4 miesiące temu

All the best games of the last 10 years have been built and published by teams smaller than 20 people.

skulblaka, 4 miesiące temu

Fusion has always been my favorite. I “want” to not like how linear it is compared to the rest of the series, but when I get started playing it again that never seems to matter to me anymore. And because of that game structure, the game is very well broken up into chunks of 20-30 minutes of gameplay at a time which makes it excellent for playing on a portable console. I played it on a borrowed GBA-SP for the first time back in the day, a few more times after that emulated, and most recently I’ve been playing it again on my Steam Deck within the past week, I’m like 2/3 of the way back through it again, just took down Yakuza for the Space Jump last night before bed.

Fusion is also a huge story point for the series as a whole. It introduces the X and by doing so gives context to the existence of the metroids. And seeing that referenced again later in Dread was maybe one of the coolest moments I’ve experienced in the Metroid series.

Speaking of Dread, that one is a very close follow up though. I was super hype for Dread when it released and it is one of few games in recent memory that completely lived up to that hype. I was a big fan.

skulblaka, 4 miesiące temu

In Helldivers you just pitch that shit on the floor, ain’t nobody got time to belt that back on, we’ve got bugs incoming

skulblaka, 4 miesiące temu

Nearly an entire generation lacks the wisdom that comes with struggle and now we’re reaping the effects of that.

skulblaka, 5 miesięcy temu

This is just Blood Bowl, but in real time.

I am immediately sold on this.

skulblaka, 5 miesięcy temu

Because Rockstar is going to do it and sell a gorillion copies, so it’s basically a guarantee that everyone else will jump on the opportunity. And once every game is $100, what are people going to do, stop buying video games? I find that unlikely anymore. They’ll bitch and complain about it and sales might drop a little on average but studios will survive. And now we have a new price floor set forever.

skulblaka, 5 miesięcy temu

You’ve got more faith in the purchasing public than I do, then. I’ve been watching them buy a new copy of the same COD slop every year for a fresh $60 basically since I’ve been old enough to buy my own video games.

skulblaka, 5 miesięcy temu

This also may explain why Nintendo can’t implement competent networking features to save their lives.

skulblaka, 5 miesięcy temu

How does one get into that?

People have been telling me that I have “a voice for radio” ever since I was a teenager, but I’ve never really been into show biz, I’ve been fixing computers and cars my whole life. I’ve been considering just recording a long portfolio of a bunch of different voices and start sending it off to random companies but I can’t help feeling like that’s not my best move.

skulblaka, 5 miesięcy temu

Thanks!

skulblaka, 5 miesięcy temu

“Save scum” is an optional Second Wave option; you can opt in or out either way. I think by default it preserves the RNG on reload.

skulblaka, 5 miesięcy temu

Hulshult is an Old God of the gaming industry at this point and I expect he will never perform work that is unsatisfactory.

But the whole situation with Mick Gordon still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I’d have liked if they reconciled and brought him back, but that may not be possible for any number of reasons, not least of which is Mick himself telling them he’s lost trust.

But lacking Gordon, Hulshult is still an excellent choice.

skulblaka, 5 miesięcy temu

SS13’s insanity of discombobulation and randomness is fun because that’s the point of the game, though. There is no actual objective over than “the station is definitely going to die; let’s just have fun while it burns”.

I guess it’s very similar in a lot of ways but SS13 feels better to play to me because it feels like it puts a lot less focus on “winning”. Everybody is gonna die, either by syndicate sabotage or by engineering fucking up singularity containment. You’re just along for the ride.

skulblaka, 5 miesięcy temu

Animal Well is a staggering work of art on multiple fronts, not least of which is the code golf required to keep its size so small. Incredible game.

skulblaka, 5 miesięcy temu

Third for Chrono Trigger. I didn’t get to play that one when I was a kid so I played it for the first time in 2020. Holy shit what a game. The original definitely still holds up today.

skulblaka, 5 miesięcy temu

Hollow Knight gives a pretty fucking solid try, to be fair. But yeah, I do agree.

skulblaka, 5 miesięcy temu

It definitely still caught me by surprise. Not like it might have in 1996 - I just played Baldur’s Gate 3 within the past year, after all - but the first time I played I definitely managed to get almost every single piece of bad evidence against me that I could rack up without even meaning to.

skulblaka, 6 miesięcy temu

1v1 where you’re expecting Oddjob is a lot different than 4P deathmatch where one guy is Oddjob. That’s where it’s a real dick move cause he’ll catch you by surprise.

Still, though. Respect.

skulblaka, 6 miesięcy temu

It is essentially confirmed that the Doomslayer is the same Doom Marine from Doom 1 and 2. Doom 3 is canon but the protagonist is a different guy. 2016/Eternal pick up the story of the original guy.

skulblaka, 6 miesięcy temu

Yeah, guilty as charged