CleoTheWizard

CleoTheWizard, 8 dni temu

And yet they really don’t do anything about it, I have yet to see evidence that they engage in the cat and mouse game. A lot of cheaters have full inventories of skins and have been cheating for many years at this point with the same cheats

CleoTheWizard, 8 dni temu

I didn’t say they weren’t banning people, I said they aren’t really playing the cat and mouse game. VAC is a known system and it doesn’t actually affect cheating in any meaningful way since the game is free, steam accounts are easy to create, and time between VAC waves is extremely long.

Go play a few matches of CS2 on competitive without buying the premier and tell me that they’re doing anything at all that is effective. It’s gotten so bad that playing on non-premier games I will get a cheater in the lobby about 75% of the time. And premier isn’t immune but it’s about 20% of the time.

Most of what needs to be done is that their servers need to clean up and stop sending so much data to the client and also the servers need anti-cheat. There’s been some suggestions of this by people getting banned for moving their mouse to fast repeatedly, but that’s about all they’ve done of note.

If you think that the company who has almost entirely abandoned TF2 and left it to rot to cheaters is doing much with CS, I think that’d be a bad assumption.

CleoTheWizard, 9 dni temu

Obsidian is off doing things and making games better than Fallout, they’d only come back because their studio isn’t extremely profitable and needs the cash.

Really though, please just go buy their games and play them. Outer Worlds got slated as pretty average but I’m still really excited to play that and Outer Worlds 2.

CleoTheWizard, 9 dni temu

Look the perk system was bad but it’s wasn’t Fallout New Vegas bad. It was okay for a Fallout game but they probably should’ve done level ups by doing each 5 levels gives you 2 SPECIAL points to spend rather than spending normal points on the core stats.

CleoTheWizard, 11 dni temu

Imo it’s not about having a new engine, it’s that they don’t make enough changes to it and it’s very apparent. On launch, their games are some of the most lackluster games visually. I remember the update from Skyrim to fallout was just that they added god rays to the engine, that was basically the only difference.

Then Fallout 76 came out and not only was it extremely ill equipped for multiplayer and online, but graphically the game suffered.

Then we talk about the quest systems in the engine, and that’s great and all, but the quest systems haven’t been fundamentally updated since Oblivion came out. Go play any other RPG, they’re running circles around Bethesda in quest design.

What’s worse is that Starfield was met with mixed reviews and showcased their inability to modernize their engine with the loading screen problem. So ES6 is set up to make or break Bethesda.

CleoTheWizard, 11 dni temu

This is sort’ve true but post processing isn’t where the game struggles per se. Both Skyrim and Fallout 4 lacked LOD lighting and featured prominent Z-fighting of many textures, that’s an inherent way that the LODs are calculated in the engine.

So most of what I’m talking about like lackluster quest design and poor visuals aren’t unfixable by the engine, but they’re direct results of developing using it. The quest structures are mostly the same as they have been for decades.

And yes, they could easily code something like an ENB mod but they just don’t. They’re so bad at this in fact that they can’t even get proper anti-aliasing working. If I remember right, Fallout used TAA and it was so awful that I preferred a 3rd party FXAA to their solution.

Also to be fair, ENB is similar to other graphics injectors which aren’t new on the block but you dont really want to use an injector so they’d have to code something like an ENB into their DLL and that would affect the engine so they don’t do it. It needs a big update to add stuff like that and this will be the third game they haven’t bothered to significantly change it.

CleoTheWizard, miesiąc temu

Read a book that goes over the development of Stardew written by Jason Schreier and covered Eric a good bit.

The dude was was worth multi millions shortly after Stardew had launched and it hadn’t even occurred to him to buy a new car. Jason hung out with him and watched him climb over the seat to get into the drivers seat of his car because the door was broken. Then at some point Jason asked him how it felt to be a famous developer and Eric basically just said he didn’t care about the fame and actually didn’t want it. He just wanted people to enjoy what he made.

Saying Stardew Valley is a passion for Eric is an understatement. By the time he finished the game, he basically hated working on it. And ever since its launch, he’s worked on it for no reason other than to make a better game.

Eric Barone is a shining light in an industry of constant shame.

CleoTheWizard, miesiąc temu

Yeah except most consumers no longer care about goodwill when buying new products so they’ve just figured out that it doesn’t matter what they do. So if a company has goodwill at this point, it might as well just be unspent money.

CleoTheWizard, miesiąc temu

That isn’t why. PlayStation doesn’t view this as a problem and in fairness, I don’t either. If the game had shipped with this requirement, it would’ve been fine. Many people put up with Ubisoft and they have a whole separate account plus launcher.

What Sony actually wanted was to make it easier on their server side to authenticate purchases and then to use the same PSN account systems to matchmaker for easier cross-play.

Would they collect data? I guess. They can already do that if they want as a publisher. So yeah it’s purely just to use their ecosystem, which makes sense.

CleoTheWizard, miesiąc temu

Did I mention server load? What I mean is that having a PSN account means that whatever game is processing your account details doesn’t have to deal with Steam accounts, it just deals with a PSN account the same as it would if you were on PS5.

What I’m saying is it streamlines the code on the developers side of the games they’re publishing and again if Sony is using systems already to authenticate purchases or whatever that can be collected in systems they already have.

This isn’t rocket science, PSN may just be a translation layer.

CleoTheWizard, miesiąc temu

I mean yeah this is especially true for online games as this is a form of DRM for Sony and it gives them control to easily reject or accept keys and ban users using their pre-existing systems.

Same thing with cross-play, it’s possible that some of these games were designed to use PSN systems and so that makes integration easy. No clue, but if true it makes sense from Sonys perspective on both of those fronts.

CleoTheWizard, miesiąc temu

Correct, I never said it wasn’t buggy either. I’m just pointing out that if you have cross play and you already have console support with console user IDs then it makes sense to just convert PC players into that same console user system.

This is what Xbox used to do when publishing games on Steam and still do with their GamePass stuff. And very similarly, that system also broke things and still breaks things for people.

CleoTheWizard, miesiąc temu

Because those systems already exist for the console players. All they’re doing is switching it over to steam but they likely had a translation layer there before to do all the things you’re saying but through PSN instead. Why? Because that system already exists for consoles.

So their options here are that they can take the netcode for consoles and modify it to utilize SteamIDs and fetch data from Steam or they can just turn your Steam ID into a console ID and treat all of the inputs to their systems exactly like they would on the PS5 while fetching them from Steam.

I’m not saying it’s a good idea, I’m saying you’d think that just trying to match the console and the way it handles players would be simpler. Especially when you’re trying to make cross play work. Clearly it wasn’t so they temporarily ditched it. Maybe Sony does just want your data but if that’s true, why would the telemetry gathering be such a big deal? And they also could just use your SteamID for that data gathering. So clearly PSN used to be more integrated than people here are suggesting

CleoTheWizard, miesiąc temu

Sony should take the hint. Many of these reviews are from people who can’t even get a PSN account in their country. So Steam is about to be flooded with requests for refunds due to the game not being available to some users. I already asked for a refund because of this.

It’s unlikely steam will be able to tell people to just pound sand, so Valve will likely step in at some point and then Sony will be in trouble with the platform itself.

CleoTheWizard, 2 miesiące temu

I have a question and I hope that people here will discuss this because I really want to understand the general opinion on this.

Is it wrong to deepfake someone without their consent so long as you don’t share the content and it’s all stored locally? I’ve seen this come up and my general opinion is that it isn’t. I know that isn’t the case in the article, just want to hear why people would disagree.

My angle is that doing a deepfake of someone in private hurts zero people and is an extension of fantasy. I don’t see the creation of fake nudes any different than writing fantasy erotica about someone. And I also don’t see it as different than creating fake nude art of them by hand or with photoshop. Like if you do it in your head anyways, which is completely normal, then aren’t we just worried about the outside effects and not the fantasizing itself?

CleoTheWizard, 2 miesiące temu

The first part, absolutely. But I think a lot of that is biological so I don’t see fantasy as a problem. You should keep it to yourself though.

The second part I think Id somewhat agree with except the hacker can’t blackmail you with it because it’s just as likely that they created it. And even if they did blackmail you, I would view that as the damage caused by the hacker, not by the individual.

Like if someone put something nasty about me down in their diary where they expected it to be private, and a hacker sent me an email of that diary page, that’s entirely the hackers fault. The diary writer was expressing an emotion or desire or whatever in complete privacy. Was their creation wrong? No, I don’t think so.

And to be clear I’m not saying people should go to this type of fantasy, this is all a thought exercise for ethics, but I think a lot about this stuff because as much potential for bad as it has, it also has some potential for good. All of the women I know experience behaviors such as stalking, obsession, unwelcome sexual advances, etc. on a regular basis. There is a reason those men don’t turn to free porn. Incel behavior is also just as bad in many ways. So could AI and deepfake stuff result in many of those men keeping that stuff to themselves more? Maybe.

And before you say that these perverts will just send fake nudes to you and harass you that way, we should absolutely be prosecuting people that do so. That’s an entirely separate convo tho.

CleoTheWizard, 2 miesiące temu

Alyx did what most Valve games do, it advanced the industry. It is absolutely a half life game and it fits but it isn’t HL3. It isn’t that grandiose.

For people who accuse it of being a glorified tech demo, well, that’s exactly what Half Life 1 and 2 are. The sole reason for the existence of HL2 is just to sell the source engine to devs and to push Steam forward. It is a tech demo. Its puzzles are tech demos.

What Alyx did is implement proper gunplay and looting mechanics and really showcased how possible it is to tell a story in VR without taking your POV from you. I’d argue that there still isn’t a single VR game that nails one of the foundational pillars of Alyx as much as Valve did.

CleoTheWizard, 3 miesiące temu

Counterpoint, “originality” almost never really refers to something that has never been done before. Instead it refers to something that the intended consumer has no, or little, reference for. Prime example is stardew valley and Helldivers.

Harvest moon has existed for awhile but few potential consumers have reference for it when playing stardew. So it succeeds. Helldivers is an alt version of many games but earth defense force is one of the genres it’s in. They’re very similar games at the core. Yet most people have no reference for it so it can still be “original” to them.

While I agree these games have heart and care, the success is largely to do with having a genre that already works with some audiences and then polishing it up and adding that heart factor to reskin it and try a new audience.

This is what indie games are great for. Take core ideas from big studios that work. Then don’t skip the part where the heart is ripped out for profit. And bam it’s a good game.

CleoTheWizard, 3 miesiące temu

There are… other means available

CleoTheWizard, 5 miesięcy temu

For those wondering if this will fix all stick drift, it won’t. Stick drift comes in many varieties but the main one grinds down the detection of the stick when it’s near the center since that’s the most used spot. However when stick drift starts to occur, it’s usually only in 1-2 quadrants of the stick. So you can stop it by just nudging the stick. But then it grows. This utility is likely to prolong the life of sticks (which is good) but it won’t fix controllers dying to this.

It will however allow for better sticks to be installed and recalibrated which is huge!

CleoTheWizard, 5 miesięcy temu

They’re also probably relying on AWS right? I’m assuming the pipeline for serving up prime video would be similar but it’s hard to tell how much that service “makes”. I feel like anything they’re using their own GPUs for is losing quite a bit of money compared to charging their cloud compute customers for it.

If twitch shuts down in a few months I won’t be surprised.

CleoTheWizard, 5 miesięcy temu

Or they just shutter twitch once they realize it’s unprofitable.

CleoTheWizard, 6 miesięcy temu

They’ll run longer for sure. We will get slim versions here in a couple years or pro versions like with the PS4 pro.

Next gen won’t happen until ray tracing is truly established and AMD has a solution to ray tracing and frame generation technologies.

CleoTheWizard, 6 miesięcy temu

The same can’t be said of the iOS App Store. Still has garbage on it, but I’d bet that games are far more successful on the iOS platform for a multitude of reasons.

CleoTheWizard, 7 miesięcy temu

I don’t envy the space that fighting games are in. They need to make games that run extremely well on hardware to remain competitive but also need great graphics capability while still having a varied move set with plenty of effects.

And RAM is not scaling the same as storage or graphics so that’s why this is happening.