When Minecraft came out, it was hard to understand, not that good looking and only really catered to nerd gamers. There was no recipe book, no cute animals, no lush caves to explore, just an unforgiving Day-Night cycle and few, very creepy caves....
Sure, the Mojang team itself tried to make it more accessible, which is a very reasonable thing to do for any game really. I know there are many games, where a wiki is mandatory, buta game should explain itself, so I understand why they did that.
However (although I haven't really followed it) the community still seems to be pretty much the same as before to me. If anything the stuff they archieved is even bigger, than back then. Stuff like Distant Horizons or the Create Mod could simply nit have existed back then.
What I'm getting at is that you don't have to play vanilla and there are more possibilities than ever before (including lots and lots of modpacks and servers, which definitely do need an external wiki)
"Back when I started playing there was no community"
I'm sorry but that's just... false. Maybe you weren't aware of it, but even in the Beta there were already mods. I myself started playing in 1.0 and played until around 1.7 and basically all the playtime I have was playing on servers or modding the shit out of this game. (Back then you actually needed to do that manually, as mod launchers weren't a thing)
So I'm still a bit confused as to why you are frustrated, since noone is forcing you to play the new vanilla versions.
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Ark is so good! Do you have any adjusted collection rates or mods? I have been looking for another friendly community server to get back into the game. I have about 2k hours on steam in Ark, but I only play on chill servers with nice people, and usually we have to form those ourselves
Once the servers for Gran Turismo Sport go down, you won’t even be able to save your progress in the single player, either. There is no reason for single player stuff to be always online.
There really needs to be more lawsuits for this type of thing. You bought something and they didn’t make it clear that you were renting it. I get the server stuff but you know what? After you are done with the game it’s time to allow the community to host servers or at least remove DRM for offline play.
Or they don’t disappear, servers are released or reverse engineered and the community takes over. Yeah, in many cases it doesn’t happen and companies often try to prevent that, but then that’s the shitty thing. The fact the game was live service didn’t prevent preservation in itself or require the developer to make a bad game. It often goes together, yes, but it’s not an inherent property of it.
I see lots of MMOs that become ran by the community on private servers after the developer stops supporting it. It’s crap when companies try to stop that, but the game being a live service isn’t a problem in itself.
I just wish Valve wasn’t pulling a Nintendo and not aiding the fans of a game they care about, instead of just sitting on it and claiming they are doing all they can for it.
How long has it been since we were promised a major update after Jungle Inferno? How long since Valve promised community fixes? How long since Valve delayed it with “we’re working hard on making it next update”? How long did Valve say they heard the community loud and clear about the bot crisis?
TF2 is my all time favorite game, but it’s no longer really playable in 2024. Casual servers are infested with bots, and there’s been no major changes to the game since 2017. I wish Valve cared about the game as much as the community still does dozens of years later.
I’d be more supportive of Valve if Team Fortress 2 wasn’t a dumpster fire to play in 2024. The game is infested with bots that make anything outside of independently moderated community servers unplayable.
Even Counter Strike 2 has dogshit anticheat despite the boasts that VAC Live was a solution that could surpass Vanguard, to the point where the only good competitive experience you can have is to play on FaceIt or ESEA servers with their own ring 0 anticheat solution.
We don’t currently foresee any changes to our funding model, as Homecoming is not required to pay any up-front or recurring license fees. We continue to be overwhelmed by the generosity of the community when it comes to keeping the server online.
It doesn’t seem like Homecoming is having to pay anything for the license, at least. It’s not like NCSoft is able to make any money from CoH anymore, so they may just be taking an opportunity to build some community goodwill for little opportunity cost. If they demanded any revenue for the license, it’d cause community backlash, and a donation-funded fan server of a long-dead MMO almost certainly wouldn’t be able to afford any meaningful licensing costs, anyway.
I’ve been playing a bit of CS2 for the past weeks. It takes me way back (I played with high-school friends 20 years ago till 1.6) and I definitely suck, but I’m having fun. It still lacks fun community servers imo, but I hope to see more of them soon.
My favorite game of 2023 was Outer Wilds. I got completely immersed inside and spent a lot of quality time uncovering the storyline. I tried playing the DLC but I did not enjoy it very much, text made more sense than images for me.
The game I spent most hours on in 2023 was probably DOS2, doing both solo and coop playthroughs. Will probably be replaced by BG3 in 2024 :)
For starters: complete lack of features and user support. EGS gives you the game and basically no way to interact with the community around that game. They don’t support Linux, which is huge for some people, but also makes some peripherals like Steamdeck that operate on Linux entirely incompatible.
Because their user support is so bad, nobody really chooses EGS to buy/play games from, so Epic tries to take that choice away buy giving payouts to publishers to only let the game be on their store for six months or longer, meaning anyone who wants to play such a game has to come to them. This is also why you see a lot of free games, EGS trying to lure people to their “service”.
Which is where the real big problem comes in. Instead of user beneficial features, most of the storefront and game launcher is bloat ware that would rather show you more and more ads for other products on their store than let you get into the game you want to play. And if reports are true, advertising games already in your library. So they aren’t even trying to tailor a custom user experience, they are just blasting you with a bunch of shit till something sticks (or you uninstall)
There have also been allegations of EGS scanning personal computer files outside of its install directory, which is scummy enough on its own but its also transmitting that data back to their central server, which gets handed off to Tencent, the Chinese owned company that is a big investor in Epic and has their own history of scandal and anti consumer behavior. So if this all is happening, its hard to say just what data on your computer is behind handed off to Tencent and the Chinise Government because you wanted to play a silly game on an inferior game service.
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UPDATE (2023/12/21): ~110 hrs of New Vegas playthrough finally finished. Finally finished my playthrough as Mercenary Anarchy Courier.
spoilerNot sure if FPGE did alter something but after finishing the playthrough, it feels the “warmness” vibe of post-post apocalypse of Fallout gone when Hoover Dam battle is near and finished, perhaps because NCR is wiped out, definitely the writing still ok as the only way to make the game “Win” is you do not finish the game if you do not want to make bad decision for Mojave Wasteland. Maybe I will try to explore a bit post-ending with this FPGE mod.
While I am glad I finished this playthrough, I also had bit of “guilty pleasure” from finishing this one as much as time consuming it is while also I want to finish it as soon as I can because dragging on playthrough would make it even unpleasant for me to finish it due to busy stuff RL, same reason why I rarely want to pick up JRPGs nowadays because most of time having 60 hrs - 80 hrs minimal to complete is bit painful for those who had busy life. At very least I glad I am done with it.
While also few days ago I tried to emulate WMMT5s on PC, thought to try multiplayer with private client, ended up disappointed as it seems every discord server that “facilitates” the community is closing down their invite link or maybe threatened by Bandai Namco because most of these people play a game that still active on Arcade Cabinet and emulate them on home using a software on their own PC. At the same times I wonder why Bandai Namco would not bring these arcade games into PC while the said system (the Arcade) actually PC system in disguise since the demand is still there for Wangan racing genre although not as much as something like mainstream Arcade Racer (e.g FH5, Crew Motorsport etc). I do not know the latest Initial D the Arcade Stage since I do not have interest in Touge racing.
Planning to get NFS 2015 in winter sale, want to complete my NFS Collection on Steam and experiencing NFS 2015 in retrospective as back during release I did not managed to play it due to lack of interest.
Clocking in at ~100 hrs on my current annual New Vegas playthrough, I’m trying to finish this one as my previous playthroughs always end abruptly nearing the End. The options to solve a problem/quest is what makes this game never be boring and you can RP anything you like (although I have not tried Legion Courier, maybe in future). At the moment I am on my way at the start of Lonesome Road as before concluding the story in Hoover Dam battle.
Viva New Vegas with JSUE tweak makes the game feels like classic Fallout and force player to be resourceful and use every features that the game offer, however I do not recommend to use JSUE tweak if you only played Bethesda Fallout game as Fallout 1 and 2 is a bit infuriating in term of early game difficulty (if you do not know what to do), stick to Vigor Lite if you want closer to vanilla easy difficulty.
Hey all, just wanted to bring this up as it should be released soonish - saw a video or two a while ago and was intrigued, was bummed to see it was invite only still....
I’m sorry but many gaming communities are toxic, it has nothing to do with the game and everything to do with the troll farm forums and discord servers they setup with the express intent to troll.
I will also concede that maybe Garry is a fucking toxic ass person, and that might bring other toxic people, but its no worse than a COD lobby. I care about the game itself which is a successor to gmod. That sounds interesting to me and I would be willing to spend a fair amount of money for the game (of course not AAA prices or anything near that so we’ll see how that goes. This youtube video does bring up that there are trolls out there willing to defraud and stretch the truth to target Garry. That’s apparently fact.
Overall, game interesting, people who make game, less so. If I knew every head developer for any major game, I’m sure many of those people would fall into that category, cough cough blizzard. All I see here is Gary creating new, creative works which is ironically the exact opposite of the criticisms you had for gmod. I’m just trying to understand what your real core argument is and where I can go to validate that info before making a judgement on whether or not to buy a SANDBOX game of all games.
The GMod community was obscenely toxic over a decade before discord servers but yep, there were a loooot of trolls too.
Yep, Garry is toxic.
Yep, COD lobbies are awful, though they are not as awful as tricking underage girls into sending players their nudes and then forcing them to roleplay being raped in game to prevent the release of said nudes. This happened a lot more than anyone seems to be capable of talking or caring about in various GMod communities.
You are free to spend your money as you please.
I would not exactly describe S&ndbox, which is literally just GMod 2 on Source 2 as a very creative endeavor. Seems like GMod with better graphics and maybe a few new features (coded by the Valve devs that revamped the engine and then easily hooked into by Facepunch devs): Its obviously not interesting to me, but if you want it, go nuts.
The video actually focuses more on a few specific erroneous memes about JBMod, and sure there are people who lie about Garry.
If your bar for new creative works includes anything Facepunch Studios has put out, then I guess we have different tastes in video games.
Wow, a multiplayer survival sandbox builder released when 10 similar games came out the same year.
Wow, a bullet hell shooter thats basically a mobile phone game project that would be a capstone project for your 2 year associates degree in game dev… not like there thousands of those!
And then we have GMod 2.
Yes, technically these are creative in the sense of you are creating something.
No they are not creative in terms of making a novel kind of game, having new kinds of gameplay or features, or pushing any kind of technical innovation or next level graphics.
My core arguments thus far have already been laid out in my previous posts. If you somehow do not understand them, then I likely will not be able to explain them to you.
I treat Deep Rock the same way I treat rogueli*es and arcade-style games – I can just hop on when I’m in the “dwarf mood”, play one or two missions and be done with it for the day. It’s very good for short sessions like that. Also, you can play solo no problem – you get a drone instead that can mine and shoot things.
When it comes to Deep Rock/co-op I think my issues are more associated with the underlying gameloop design. I find it hard to perform well when the “tension” ramps up and these games are kind of tailor-made to create high-tension situations. When a round ends I’m left feeling tired/deflated rather than joyful. I had the same issue with Left 4 Dead, but oddly not so for Payday 2.
In any case, I’m right there with you when it comes to TF2 community servers. I sorely wish that more games emphasized these sorts of digital “3rd places”. I have TF2 servers where I can go anytime and just… belong for as long as I please. Games should have more permanent places like that, where play and community come before any imposed win/lose dichotomy. People would be happier.
They even bought out Rocket League and delisted it from Steam, even though it was already published and had been on the platform for years.
As a PSN/Steam launch Rocket League player and still playing. The only thing I don’t like about this decision is that it’s losing the workshop integration since Epic doesn’t have their own implementation. Otherwise I don’t blame them for doing this and it does not affect any “new” players after the F2P switch. Workshop was eventually rectified with community mod for EGS version but I wish there is workshop maps on consoles as well, some of them are really well made, my son love those a lot.
Note, it does not mean I like or approve how they run Rocket League and recent changes. In fact I decided to stop buying anything on RL with recent removal of player trading until they implement new features or improve RL that’s worth my bucks. I’ve paid enough in RL to let me go another 57 years for my share of server cost. (base on my calculation of hosting a server with similar capacity, my numbers might be off but pretty sure I paid more than enough. average around 7090 CAD each year since launch. )
I can’t criticize Epic for making their own properties exclusive
If I buy off Skyrim’s right and have my own store and did the calculator for risk and return, you’d be dame sure I will delist it and only host on my store so I don’t have to pay another store front 30% for the new Alan Wake II engine powered version of Skyrim.
Why buying exclusive deals are everywhere because making profitable games are almost like making correct bet on penny stocks. As a developer I would choose safe income to ensure we can keep going if no one else is willing to offer exclusivity deals. Those deals are really good for indie games especially if they are self-publishing instead of having to split with a stronger backing publisher. This is the part most steam worshiper or people that criticize Epic’s moves don’t get their head around and then threaten to “boycott” their once “loved” projects or developers, call them greedy, and abandon the fans, or backers. I believe some dev even promise to give out steam/gog keys after the exclusive deal expires but still getting shamed to death by accepting such deal. Developers aren’t your personal slaves, they got bills to pay and company to run.
Sorry, I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at with this. Are you saying other storefronts/platforms on PC aren’t free, or that Epic Games Store currently does a better job?
No, sorry for my failed sarcasm, EGS as storefront are probably worse than EA’s Origin that was retired or Ubisoft’s crazy Uplay. It’s impossible with the current market share and dominance from Steam even if Epic actually put serious resource into making EGS better, and we all know they aren’t. Because any right minded person would put more resource on product that make them money, for Epic it’s Fortnite, for Valve it’s Steam and not [Insert project name] 3. Just like Gabe have his plenty of pet projects, Tim also have his own pet store front and law suits. Rich people do what rich people do.
And, I want to point out, Tencent the venture capital/investment arm and Tencent the publisher is very different entity. Like yeah they have the CCP tie and stuff but the people that runs the venture capital is just similar to any other venture capital, they want their investment make them profit. Compare to say, EA/Activision buying your studio, I’ve heard better things from industry friends. Oh, and they would try to avoid publish that Tencent owns their shares etc to avoid this kinda of finger pointing from internet folks. Even the Tencent venture capital people knows this and suggest keeping acquisition/investment under wrap. Epic is public company so they have to disclose. Wouldn’t it make sense? If you are a venture capital project manager would you:
pick and invest company that have good potential and planning to carry out their project and product then make big bucks in return and racking in your bonus. Less effort more result?
invest and dip your fingers into everything you can using your board voting power thus make future investment collaboration more difficult. And then getting fired because the company complaint in postmortem?
EA/Activision did their thing because they were in the game of owing your IP and then cut you off from your creation. They have long history of doing that and then fuck up the sequels/prequels/reboots, they don’t care since they got what they wanted. EA was doing much better now from what I can hear.
My points and arguments are solely on don’t view Epic as a malicious actor and focus on what changes it can bring to the digital game selling store front. Way too many people just “fuck Epic” and does not see the full picture and place their loyalty with a platform, just like fans of console wars. For example, during the past sale, I bought Witchfire on EGS, bought Cyberpunk on GOG even though I don’t have good experience with Galaxy, almost bought the new Jedi on EA Play but decided against it because Disney doesn’t need more of my money and I should not give in to my StarWars fan itch and buy a so-so product from the reviews I read. I made my purchase decision solely on one simple rule, how can I give the developer more revenue cut from the purchase I made.
So yeah, I want to discuss or point out why I think Valve needs to fix Anti-Cheat issues. They have VAC but apparently its doing jackshit, be it Counter Strike 2 (any previous iterations) or something like Hunt: Showdown the prevalence of cheating players is non deniable. For me personally it has come to a point that I am not...
Cheats will only grow more advanced, at some point you’ll be able to train an AI to play exactly like a human, but while performing perfectly far more reliably than a human.
The line between what skill looks like versus cheating will only get blurrier.
The real long term solution is to enable the vetting of players (not by the game company or god forbid the government, looking at you china), by returning to community based servers/private matches. And to have reports dealt with faster and by people who care about the game personally.
As a member of the Northstar community, cheating is basically a solved problem for us atm.
There is no anti-cheat, instead a global ban tracking system was put in place and server admins are now able to share the identities of players who have been caught cheating, banning them on every server, regardless of who is running them, by the hosts simply opting into the global ban system.
People used to form “gaming-clans” in order to find people to play games with to begin with, and that structure for a community around a game is likely to become relevant again simply to be able to fill matches with people who you can be sure are honest players.
People used to form “gaming-clans” in order to find people to play games with to begin with, and that structure for a community around a game is likely to become relevant again simply to be able to fill matches with people who you can be sure are honest players.
Unlikely imo, because modern game devs have been killing the viability of that for years. User-hosted servers are gone, crossplay is reliant on SBMM to be realistically possible, and private matches often block players from receiving XP and rewards because they’re worried about FOMO and people getting too much fun without spending enough. Even CSGO got an update in the months leading up to CS2 where they removed the ability to earn drops on community servers, driving another nail into the coffin as one of the last kinds of these games that still retain the mere ability to run servers of our own.
While that’s all true, the day you can just fire up an undetectable AI to play for you, and all the matchmaking queues are flooded with people doing the same… Players are going to beg for the ability to not just team up with people they know, but play against people they know.
Maybe that wont be privately hosted servers, or even fully custom matches, but when cheaters become indistinguishable from the highly skilled, forming even the most basic community bonds in order to find people to play with will be preferable to matching with randos.
For similar reasons people already prefer to team up with someone they know, as opposed to a stranger they might have to carry. People will want to be able to pick who they go up against, as well.
Once the cheaters win, (and they will) the first game to figure out a system to let players do this, WILL be a better experience than current matchmaking algos.
Edit: An example of a game that kinda already does this is Elite: Dangerous. There are two main modes, open and solo, in open you can run into all other players also playing in open, that means you might have to defend yourself against other players.
But, if you want to avoid PvP, but still want to run into other players, you’re in luck! Because there is a third option, private groups. When in a private group, the game works as if you’re in open, but you can only see other players who are in the same group. Meaning other players who also do not want to engage in PvP.
Mobius is likely the largest such group, essential it’s a giant clan of non-PvPers who play the game together. Something similar could absolutely be done for other games, where smaller communities can then vet their members and get rid of players who break the rules.
I’m not denying any part of what you’re saying, I’m saying that this specific case is currently working fine, and that it is merely an example of the kinds of solutions I want to see enabled.
Obviously the bigger the community, the more complex the solution needs to be, and the more bases have to be covered. You’re nitpicking a specific example I gave (and doing so from a position of ignorance concerning northstar and its community), rather than my ideological thesis. Which is that communities should be empowered with social structure so that cheaters can be properly ostracized. Spyglass is just one way for a community to implement that.
Northstar isn’t big enough to even begin to compare with discord or minecraft. The concurrent playercount on all servers put together seldom matches ONE big minecraft server.
If the factors you bring up become a concern, I’m ready to pick up the tools to deal with it myself, as I’ve already done before. But so far, there has been no need.
What is the next "grown up game" now that Minecraft only goes for children? angielski
When Minecraft came out, it was hard to understand, not that good looking and only really catered to nerd gamers. There was no recipe book, no cute animals, no lush caves to explore, just an unforgiving Day-Night cycle and few, very creepy caves....
The Weekly 'What are you playing?' Discussion (lemmy.world) angielski
Have you been spending hours trying to pass a level? Or maybe you are completely addicted to a newly bought game. Do you have a question about a game or would like to share something else? In the Weekly Discussion Thread, you can do it all!...
Sony gives Gran Turismo Sport the boot | This Week in Business (www.gamesindustry.biz)
Once the servers for Gran Turismo Sport go down, you won’t even be able to save your progress in the single player, either. There is no reason for single player stuff to be always online.
Nacon exec says industry's problem is "too many games" (www.gamesindustry.biz) angielski
Valve issues DMCA takedown for "Team Fortress: Source 2" angielski
Link: nitter.net/TeamFortressS2/…/1745157814295617767...
NCSOFT has officially granted Homecoming a license to host City of Heroes (forums.homecomingservers.com) angielski
Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of December 31st
Last post of 2023! What have you all been playing?...
What multiplayer games have single player/offline mods? (www.rockpapershotgun.com) angielski
Someone posted recently in this community about a The Days Before single player mod that may be developed and it made me wonder....
What's up with Epic Games? angielski
I can’t seem to find that one comment explaining the issue with them…...
The Weekly 'What are you playing?' Discussion (lemmy.world) angielski
Have you been spending hours trying to pass a level? Or maybe you are completely addicted to a newly bought game. Do you have a question about a game or would like to share something else? In the Weekly Discussion Thread, you can do it all!...
S&Box - Hype (sbox.facepunch.com) angielski
Hey all, just wanted to bring this up as it should be released soonish - saw a video or two a while ago and was intrigued, was bummed to see it was invite only still....
deleted_by_author
Discovery Freelancer - Mod of the Year finalist 2023 (youtu.be)
ModDB runs a Mod of the Year contest every year, and Discovery Freelancer has made it into the Top100 this year for the first time since 2012!...
How many stinkers did you play this year?
How many and which bad games did you play this year?
Google Loses Antitrust Case Brought by Epic Games (archive.ph) angielski
Original (pay-walled): wsj.com/…/google-loses-antitrust-case-brought-by-…
Valve needs to step up on Anti-Cheat angielski
So yeah, I want to discuss or point out why I think Valve needs to fix Anti-Cheat issues. They have VAC but apparently its doing jackshit, be it Counter Strike 2 (any previous iterations) or something like Hunt: Showdown the prevalence of cheating players is non deniable. For me personally it has come to a point that I am not...