Essence_of_Meh

Essence_of_Meh, 7 miesięcy temu

To be fair, the update itself was announced last year (here is a random IGN article about the announcement) after people started complaining about upcoming shutdown of the first game (which in turn spawned the Stop Killing Games initiative).

Not that this makes the filing irrelevant but it’s not some knee-jerk reaction thrown together on the spot. Besides, game built with online components in mind calling servers once a minute isn’t really that crazy (whether that should be a thing for a single player mode is a different matter).

Essence_of_Meh, 7 miesięcy temu

Ah, I see. I thought it was specifically related to TC2. Thanks for clarifying.

I haven’t played or owned TC but game preservation is an important topic for me so I also signed and tried to popularise it as much as possible. I don’t expect much but every attempt is important.

Essence_of_Meh, 7 miesięcy temu

Yes please! Browsing Steam is such a stupid experience, it’s staggering they still can’t be bothered to fix it.

Essence_of_Meh, 7 miesięcy temu

It improved quite a bit since early days, it’s just the flat structure they used to run with led to a messy development and disjointed feature set.

Valve did make some changes in terms of organisation a few years ago so hopefully all the recent improvements will lead to a serious UI overhaul to tidy things up.

Essence_of_Meh, 7 miesięcy temu

Soundtrack App

Bruh…

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/d83c1b17-2493-4782-8774-225f222e7c8e.png

Essence_of_Meh, 7 miesięcy temu

If I recall correctly the team behind Skyblivion was (or still is) in contact with Bethesda throughout the development and had no problems with the latter in regards their work. Heck, Bethesda itself posted about the mod on their site in 2023.

They’ve been aware of Skyblivion for years and there’s no indication they’re interested in killing it.

Essence_of_Meh, 7 miesięcy temu

At the end of the day Virtuos are just a contractor - Bethesda are the ones with final say in the matter. Despite all their flaws they never really showed to be hostile towards these kind of projects (or at least I haven’t seen them act that way) so there’s no reason to automatically expect the worst. That’s just my opinion though.

Essence_of_Meh, 7 miesięcy temu

Exactly, which is why I don’t expect them to do anything hostile towards this project - both remakes have their own goals and approaches after all.

Essence_of_Meh, 7 miesięcy temu

Can it change? Sure. There’s just no reason to expect that based on Bethesda’s approach to modding until now. I’d rather base my expectations on their past actions rather than assume the worst just in case.

Essence_of_Meh, 7 miesięcy temu

Did they even shut them down back then? I might be thinking about a different situation but I remember one of the other remake mods (was it New Vegas on Fallout 4 engine?) where they simply told the team they can’t use the original audio. The cancellation of that mod happened months later and didn’t even have anything to with that issue, I believe.

Either way, this kind of scenario is something I skipped over in my initial question since banning reuse of assets in different engines is a legal thing. I mostly meant them blocking/killing projects for no “serious” reason.

Still, it was a good idea to mention these kind of issues as well.

Essence_of_Meh, 7 miesięcy temu

I actually thought about including this case in my original post but I have tendency to waffle way too much and in the end decided against it to keep things shorter. It is a useful example to mention so thanks for that.

Essence_of_Meh, 7 miesięcy temu

As problematic as AAA publishers can be, their steps towards spreading accessibility within the industry as a whole are always nice to see and worth sharing, I think. Did anyone besides Ubi and EA did something like that?

Essence_of_Meh, 7 miesięcy temu

Right, forgot about that since I focused purely on software side of things. Good reminder!

Essence_of_Meh, 7 miesięcy temu

I don’t think news about a single tool for developers is some kind of ploy to improve their PR - most people won’t even hear about it. It’s just a neat piece of news since Ubisoft has been pretty good about accessibility in their games for years now.

Giving props when deserved doesn’t mean you have to forgive and forget all the bad surrounding the company.

Essence_of_Meh, 7 miesięcy temu

I heard about the latter but never really thought about Steam Input like this, goes to show how easy it is to completely miss such stuff when you don’t need it. Also, in case someone’s confused BCI stands for Brain-Computer Interfaces.

Essence_of_Meh, 7 miesięcy temu

Really solid write up!

As much as I love SimCity 4, there’s something about the look and feel of 3000 that makes it slightly more iconic for me (both are fantastic though). Maxis really knocked it out of the park with most of the series.

Essence_of_Meh, 7 miesięcy temu

I mostly play according to the intended game design. The only exceptions that come to mind at the moment are:

• Open world games (GTA, Fallouts, Elder Scroll series etc) - I tend to act like a normal, civilian part of the world. I eat and drink, travel like a person rather than player (i.e. safely, without quick travel), avoid violence and do peaceful tasks when possible. I also go on trips and take screenshots of the scenery.
  Finally, if there’s an equipment system I limit myself to “reasonable” amount of baggage (both in terms of weight and volume).
• Mirror’s Edge and Portal - the only games I learned to the point of speedrunning. I’m nowhere near the level of being able to compete with professionals (nor am I interested in that) but I can get through both pretty quickly and without issues.

Essence_of_Meh, 7 miesięcy temu

Huh, never knew my approach to work had an actual name. That’s neat! Thanks for teaching me something new.

Essence_of_Meh, 8 miesięcy temu

Hey @Someasy, I believe you were asking about this recently.

Essence_of_Meh, 8 miesięcy temu

It has both modern and classic controls which can be toggled in settings I believe.

Essence_of_Meh, 8 miesięcy temu

Looks good. My short stint with CS2 didn’t exactly left me wanting more and since CSGO is dead this could finally be a way for me to play some CS again. Thanks for sharing!

Essence_of_Meh, 8 miesięcy temu

This is the one written by Ryukishi07, isn’t it? I’m really curious what he’ll be able to cook up for us.

Essence_of_Meh, 9 miesięcy temu

There were some preview articles released last month (one, two, three for example) but no specific date beyond what you already know. All we can do for now is wait.

Essence_of_Meh, 9 miesięcy temu

As much as I love Croc, it’s not like this is a highly anticipated high budget release of a new title.

My guess is that they’ll keep the new date secret for as long as they can, until they’re completely sure they can make it (especially after they didn’t make it for the original one). It wouldn’t be the first time game like this gets released without much of a marketing drive or even with a stealth drop.

These slowly appearing previews seem to indicate we might be getting close but who knows. I’m honestly not good enough with dates to join you on the speculation train.

Essence_of_Meh, 9 miesięcy temu

That’s me with every Bethesda game I played. I don’t even treat them as games to beat, just worlds to run around in.

Essence_of_Meh, 9 miesięcy temu

Even if they do, I feel like both projects will have different enough approach to things to avoid making the other obsolete. Maybe… possibly.

I’ll certainly take the unofficial remake over the Bethesda one due to lower requirements and lack of Creation Club. That, and I’m just more interested in the fan interpretation of Cyrodiil to be honest.

Essence_of_Meh, 9 miesięcy temu

Starfield never really grabbed my attention so I thankfully dodged a bullet with that one.

So glad I didn’t pay for it (Gamepass, with apologies to my Linux friends).

No need to apologise, people should have the option to play games however they want.

Essence_of_Meh, 9 miesięcy temu

This is a genuine question and not me trying to be snarky or anything: how’s that possible? Was there any meaningful role playing in Skyrim at all?

To me the system simplification of Skyrim went so far that the only real role you could play was the dragonborn - not your specific one but a generic dragonborn who could be anyone and everything at the same time. Maybe my definition of role playing is outdated as I feel it should include choices and consequences (like blocking or limiting access to some content) so I’d be grateful if you could expand on that.

Again, I’m not trying to suggest you’re wrong or anything, I’m just curious about your perspective (or something more about what you’ve read).

Essence_of_Meh, 9 miesięcy temu

Change from Oblivion to Skyrim would definitely affect my question. I do think the former had more “my kind” of role playing so the initial thought would be more understandable for me.

Thanks for the answer. I get what you mean about playing as more defined main characters, it definitely has it’s benefits over more open-ended approach.

Essence_of_Meh, 9 miesięcy temu

Guild exclusivity is actually what I had in mind. Sure, there’s nothing that significantly changes the main quest in TES games (and I think I misremembered how much blocking is there in previous titles) but that still counts for me personally. Self-imposed role play is fine in general (I do it all the time in games in fact) but I still think that lack of reasonable requirements for some (optional?) content makes the world feel more generic and player-focused than I’d like.

Thanks for the reminder though.

Essence_of_Meh, 10 miesięcy temu

It managed to fly under the radar for 2 year so far (it was uploaded in 2023) so that depends on how much this info spreads, I guess.

Essence_of_Meh, 10 miesięcy temu

EA App does work through Wine so that itself isn’t a death sentence. Dunno about it mixed with Denuvo though.

Essence_of_Meh, 10 miesięcy temu

Yup, apparently so.

Essence_of_Meh, 10 miesięcy temu

Good to know, so these might be playable as well.

Essence_of_Meh, 10 miesięcy temu

I wasn’t trying to imply anything else to be clear, just wanted to mention that their app on its own doesn’t mean it won’t work. I completely agree otherwise.

Essence_of_Meh, 10 miesięcy temu

Both games did get some compatibility fixes but for the most part yeah.

Essence_of_Meh, 10 miesięcy temu

Here’s what EA has to say about this.

The Sims:

• The Sims Livin’ Large
• The Sims House Party
• The Sims Hot Date
• The Sims Vacation
• The Sims Unleashed
• The Sims Superstar
• The Sims Makin’ Magic

The Sims 2:

• The Sims 2: University
• The Sims 2: Nightlife
• The Sims 2: Open for Business
• The Sims 2: Pets
• The Sims 2: Bon Voyage
• The Sims 2: Seasons
• The Sims 2: FreeTime
• The Sims 2: Apartment Life
• The Sims 2: Holiday Party Pack
• The Sims 2: Family Fun Stuff
• The Sims 2: Glamour Life Stuff
• The Sims 2: Happy Holiday Stuff
• The Sims 2: Celebration! Stuff
• The Sims 2: H&M Fashion Stuff
• The Sims 2: Teen Style Stuff
• The Sims 2: Kitchen & Bath Interior Design Stuff
• The Sims 2: Mansion & Garden Stuff

Essence_of_Meh, 10 miesięcy temu

It’s all good, I didn’t take your reply as a negative. It would be awesome if we could play anything with zero issues but we can’t always be this lucky I’m afraid (though I’m all for heckling big corps about DRM).

Essence_of_Meh, 10 miesięcy temu

That’s a fair point. I should’ve gone with the “packs” wording EA used, I guess.

Essence_of_Meh, 10 miesięcy temu

I don’t think they’ll remove the Ultimate Collection from people’s libraries. The main incentive to buy is… well, the ability to buy the games and the improved compatibility with modern systems - UC doesn’t really affect the main demographic, i.e. people who aren’t interested or knowledgeable enough to fix those issues on their own.

Essence_of_Meh, 10 miesięcy temu

If we’re making requests I’d like to add some of my own wishes as well:

• American McGee’s Alice
• Claw
• Oni
• The Neverhood
• Theme Park World
• Trespasser

Essence_of_Meh, 10 miesięcy temu

I just started playing the original game two weeks ago or so and time management is pretty much my main complaint right now. It feels a little too close to (or even more punishing than) real life, where there’s barely any time to keep up with my character’s needs after coming back from work.
It can be done though - I’m slowly getting used to how things work again and my sim has been leaving in a slightly better mood then before. Just need to get into a proper Sims mindset, I guess.

Essence_of_Meh, 10 miesięcy temu

I don’t think there were much if any attempts to make a petition in the US. If I recall correctly, Ross spoke with a lawyer who told him the chances for a positive outcome are close to null which is why he decided to focus on other markets - mainly: Australia, Brazil, Canada, EU, France and UK.

The failed petition mentioned was in UK, just like this one, but was canceled due to early elections. EU petition is still going, with a little bit over 6 months left, while Australian and Canadian ones closed last year. There was also a push to contact the local consumer protection agencies in Australia, France and Germany since they seem to have the tools to look into the issue as well.

Essence_of_Meh, 10 miesięcy temu

These petitions are limited in scope for a reason - this is a small initiative and the goal is to focus on one part of the market which started the whole thing (the initiative, not the software killing issue), as well as to limit the number of big companies that could be affected (the potential opposition).

Sure, ideally this would expand on all software but you have to start somewhere, especially when you’re just a bunch of randos with little knowledge about law and no funds to turn it into a serious lobbying movement - one that could both get the political attention and was able to defend its stance from corporations.