I play in 2 games and run 1. As a player I play both characters who share my gender and one that doesn't. At the table I run there's a guy who plays a woman, and used to be another.
It's never caused issues or confusion. So for anyone interested in playing like this, feel free to do so! For pronouns I've also found success in referring to characters instead of players with names unless explicitly talking to the player, but that's easier as a GM.
That said, I'll usually always play a male character in a Souls title, because [insert valid reason for inconsistency here.]
I often do this when I want the character to mesh with the build. If I'm playing a character with a great shield and giant hammer, I'll want a big beefy character that is often easier to create in game as a male body. And when I play a quick assassin, I often pick female. It's like the opposite of how anime weapons work.
FYI: as someone I think would like incongruent in girl mode, I went as Dr Frankenfurter (creation scene, was cold) for Halloween this year and went all out: full makeup, fishnets, shaved legs, 4" platform heels, etc. It was very fun and could be a good entry into what you might want to do. Also: you can always dress up at home just for yourself.
Yep. When the industry can cut off the only way for games journalists to reliably make money (pre-release review copies) then they are totally controlled by the industry. A real journalism industry would see one company not given a copy or blacklisted and the refuse to cover their release entirely in solidarity. Otherwise none of them can be trusted.
apparently this is in response to a few threads on Reddit flaming Starfield—in general, it’s been rather interesting to see Bethesda take what i can only describe as a “try to debate Starfield to popularity” approach with the game’s skeptics in the past month or two. not entirely sure it’s a winning strategy,...
Yeah, look at Starfield. It has really nice looking textures and objects. Everything else is a disappointment or mediocre. Maybe excepting the Ship Builder feature.
To be fair, it seems like they've made 5 games and 4/5 weren't very good. Not surprised this was their last hurrah. I know Steam scores generally don't equate directly to sales, let alone profits, but it seems like the company was struggling.
We are shown exploration but little to find besides landscape. We are shown building simple houses with prefabs. We see very basic npc interaction to your presence. But that's it. NMS biggest issue is that there isn't that much to do and it's depth is shallow. I'm seeing nothing here to dissuade that.
ER did have a lot of reused assets and bosses in the tons of little dungeons. Those things were only interesting for the unique puzzles they sometimes had.
I have to expect the expansion will have all new content without much reuse. They've had as long as they need to make whatever they want. And traditionally Fromsoft expansions tend to be well received.
I would like to add Outer Wilds to this. No combat, virtually no violence, and adult themes are aimed at mild existentialism. Great exploration game with fun physics and puzzles.
For older kids I'd suggest: Satisfactory. Essentially first person Factorio with mild combat vs fauna.
Astroneer: exploration and advancement.
The DLC, definitely. The thorny planet is in the OG game a little bit. For the DLC I turned off scares because I don't really play horror games and it was still very fun.
Yeah. That seems to be a trend in recent years. UX is extremely utilitarian and does not mesh with other game aesthetics. Even when those UX elements are on the screen all the time. It's very jarring to see a colorful game with a distinct palatte of textures being overlayed with grey, modern boxes and white arial text without any background textures to it.
It makes it feel like I'm playing a bad emulator or fan remake.
This just means that penetrative sex with a penis is not required. Doctors can either inseminate people directly, or implant fertilized embryos.
But the only effective way to harvest sperm is through ejaculation. I.e. masturbation. So you're really not avoiding sex altogether. You're just going about it differently.
Look at how Epic was doing business. They threw around hundreds of millions of dollars to buy exclusivity. And Epic was small time compared to MS. What happens when they do the same but on a larger scale? They buy exclusivity to Game Pass forever? They're already buying gaming powerhouses, indie games are a drop in the bucket.
This merger should be opposed by everyone. It's a dark sign of things to come. They've already shown they WILL cut out all competition once they buy competitors.
Eh, I'm not that hopeful. the FTC asked them questions but it was never really going to stop them. MS has the capital to buy Sony, if it was feasible to do so. I expect them to continue to buy stuff up until they are actually denied. They have the lawyers to throw at the government in perpetuity.
Kotick is retiring because he can't take direction. But will receive hundreds of millions to do so. Why would MS fire anyone else when Activision and King makes money?
I think we need more worker protections. Mandatory severance, can't fire without cause.
A lot of people don't get much choice who they work for. Basic devs and QA and now out of as job and need to scramble to find another job. It's nice some of these are getting severance but it's not mandatory nor the norm in America.
But they did allow it, unfortunately. And MS could simply argue that it already has dominance in the PC space as 96% of PC gamers are Windows users. So owning Steam is just buying 1 out of many stores (here they tout Epic, Amazon, etc).
I mean it's a bad argument but MS made a lot of bad arguments to get their way and they seemingly worked.
they’re gonna handle so many companies without a good track record of being able to do it. To make the money from King they will need to be able to retain talent and steward its properties properly.
No they don't. As we've already seen, MS doesn't have to do anything in regards to development. Promotion, marketing will get a boost but they can be hands off most of the technical details and still make bank. Bethesda, King and Activision are all quite profitable on their own. Now they simply can't develop for Sony and they get distributed on Game Pass day 1.
Also, exclusionary buy-outs are bad for the market and should not have been allowed. MS buying up huge game competitors and then restricting their choice on which platforms to develop for is clearly anti-competitive behavior.
So if you've published a game, just keep on keeping on. You can sell that game, maintain an older copy of Unity to update it for bugs, even develop new content for that game with the older version of Unity.
I figured this must have been in here. No professional organization would allow a TOS to pass into publishing that allowed a company to unilaterally change fees.
Despite previous reports revealing the game's 2026 release window, The Elder Scrolls VI is at least five years away and is likely to release, unsurprisingly, only on PC, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S....
Lies of P is rated 'Strong' after being reviewed by 37 critics, with an overall average score of 83. It's ranked in the top 11% of games and recommended by 86% of critics.
Isn't this insider trading? If I owned a company and sold all my stock and then tanked my company with stupid news, that'd be illegal.
Though I'm surprised they sold it before the news. This kind of fund-raising tactics piss off customers but investors usually love it, the short-sighted creatures they are.
According to Hans-Kristian Arntzen, a prominent open-source developer working on Vkd3d, a DirectX 12 to Vulkan translation layer, Starfield is not interacting properly with graphics card drivers.
Bethesda is sub-par in just about every aspect of game development. Shallow combat. Basic dialogue trees. Skill/feats haven't evolved in several games. Engine so old it has to have loading screens for every type of transition.
But you picked the story and acting to tout as good? Bethesda is well-known to have pathetically bad main-story arcs. Only a handful of side quests end up being engaging to most people. The face animations are...better now but still deeply in the uncanny valley. Their acting is usually deadpan with only the merest speck of emotion and shown as if the actor is reading their script for the first time during recording.
Honestly the main thing that Bethesda games have going for them are a detailed, hand-crafted world that is fun to explore and experiment in. Which...Bethesda handily disposed of to have the majority of its world and worlds be procedurally generated.
This comment doesn't actually say anything. It's just casting aspirations against me because you didn't like what I said. It doesn't rebut anything or offer differing opinions on anything I proposed.
I would like to add Hook to this list. I was flabbergasted when, as an adult, found out it was poorly received. Then I rewatched it as an adult and was forced to agree. Still one of my favorites.
The full source code for GTA 5 has apparently been publicly leaked (archive.is) angielski
Male players: Why do you play female characters? (kbin.social) angielski
Got the idea of posting this when I watched this YouTube video that talks about reasons men love playing as girls....
Activision Blizzard boss Bobby Kotick departs in just a few days (www.eurogamer.net) angielski
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They had GRRM write Elden Ring. They can get Amy Henning to write SR before she retires...
The Insomniac Hack Reveals The Ugly Truth Of Video Game Hype - Aftermath (aftermath.site) angielski
The games journalist debate over covering the hack is a look in the mirror
Starfield design lead says players are "disconnected" from how games are actually made: "Don't fool yourself into thinking you know why it is the way it is" (www.gamesradar.com) angielski
apparently this is in response to a few threads on Reddit flaming Starfield—in general, it’s been rather interesting to see Bethesda take what i can only describe as a “try to debate Starfield to popularity” approach with the game’s skeptics in the past month or two. not entirely sure it’s a winning strategy,...
"The Day Before" makers Fntastic are shutting down. (lemmy.world) angielski
Source: twitter.com/FntasticHQ/…/1734265789237338453...
Game of the Year (startrek.website) angielski
The Game Awards 2023 fell short of honoring its own industry (www.destructoid.com) angielski
Cyberpunk 2077 Devs Share Advice (files.catbox.moe) angielski
New single planet fantasy game from Hello Games (www.youtube.com) angielski
Elden Ring May Be Getting New Content Soon, Judging From Recent Behind-the-Scenes Updates (wccftech.com) angielski
US kids want games subscriptions and virtual currency more than games this Christmas (www.gamesindustry.biz) angielski
505 Games' parent company lays off 30% of its workforce, says gamers really only want sequels so that's what it's going to make (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
Digital Bros joins the chorus of game companies putting people out of work in the name of "operational efficiency."
Super Mario RPG - Review Thread angielski
Game Information...
Ways of designing intimacy in games - GameDeveloper (www.gamedeveloper.com) angielski
AMD FidelityFX™ Super Resolution 3 Now Available (www.youtube.com) angielski
It’s only available in Forspoken and Immortals of Aveum which is… Unfortunate....
Microsoft closes $69 billion Activision Blizzard deal after Britain's nod (www.reuters.com)
Read Xbox chief Phil Spencer’s memo welcoming Activision Blizzard employees to Microsoft (www.theverge.com) angielski
Well, it’s official. Microsoft bought Actiblizz....
Epic Games Is Cutting About 900 Jobs, or 16% of Staff (www.bloomberg.com) angielski
Cult of the Lamb publisher Devolver Digital rejected several Game Pass style offers (www.pcgamesn.com) angielski
Microsoft - keep your filthy hands off Valve, leak shows MSFT would buy Valve (www.gamingonlinux.com) angielski
Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard deal gets preliminary approval from UK regulator (www.theverge.com) angielski
Wait, is Unity allowed to just change its fee structure like that? (arstechnica.com) angielski
Confusing, contradictory terms of service clauses leave potential opening for lawsuits.
The Elder Scrolls VI Is at Least Five Years Away, and Is Likely to Launch on PC, Xbox Series X|S Only (wccftech.com) angielski
Despite previous reports revealing the game's 2026 release window, The Elder Scrolls VI is at least five years away and is likely to release, unsurprisingly, only on PC, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S....
Lies of P Reviews (opencritic.com) angielski
Lies of P is rated 'Strong' after being reviewed by 37 critics, with an overall average score of 83. It's ranked in the top 11% of games and recommended by 86% of critics.
Unity bosses sold stock days before development fees announcement, raising eyebrows (www.eurogamer.net) angielski
Starfield hasn’t hurt No Man’s Sky’s popularity – it may have even helped it (www.vg247.com) angielski
No Man's Sky has had a great month, coincidentally around the launch of the other big space adventure of the day....
Open source community figures out problems with performance in Starfield (www.destructoid.com) angielski
According to Hans-Kristian Arntzen, a prominent open-source developer working on Vkd3d, a DirectX 12 to Vulkan translation layer, Starfield is not interacting properly with graphics card drivers.