I’m sitting in a dark hotel room on the eve of my first - and possibly only - total solar eclipse, with my partner and step-son, and I am positively awash with emotions....
My wife only went because I was hellbent on seeing the eclipse at totality (we saw the last October’s eclipse and 2017 both from around 90% coverage). Afterwards she said “the Grand canyon ain’t got shit on a solar eclipse” and we are both still in shock for how amazing of an experience it was.
The wonky colors as day slowly turned to night, the sudden whooshing shadow as totality began, the burning ring of fire in the sky then the light whooshing back as totality ended, the cacophony of yelps by folks too slow to put their eclipse glasses back on. It was a hell of an experience
This has been big on some of AMD’s workstation and server chips because Windows generally doesn’t know what to do with the unexpected NUMA Node layouts. Or the scheduler just can’t handle 128 cores. So abstracting that away with Linux’s superior scheduler can help significantly on certain hardware
I mean the flip side of this is that by doing nothing you’re letting them write the narrative. I feel like whatever this mess is, it’s starting to grow, so a more legitimate source calling it what it is can be helpful
I mean, when I saw an ex-Jagex employee making a new MMO I thought it was going to be slightly inspired by RuneScape… But this game looks exactly like RuneScape, and the description of the gameplay also matches it perfectly - this is essentially RuneScape 3 but managed by someone else (and with a much newer engine)
The gower brothers have not been part of Jagex for about 10 years, but are all involved in the development of this game IIRC
Edit: I was slightly worried too but it looks like the handful of tiles is more of a fog of war/view distance type thing. These two screenshots seem to show it the clearest
I bought a PS2 about 6 months ago from a coworker and finally got around to getting it working at a good enough resolution on my monitor. I currently have:...
A comment I saw on another forum basically pointing out that Palworld demonstrates the gigantic demand for a real new Pokemon game that isn’t whatever Scarlet was.
When talking about the best games of all time people generally mention Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Super Mario 64, Halo 3, The Last of Us, Nier Automata, etc. , but dismiss other great games....
I’d argue that video games need remakes and remasters far more than movies do. Video game technologies change a lot in 10-15 years, so a remake/remaster is an opportunity to improve controls and fix issues with running the game on hardware that hadn’t been concieved at the time of the game’s release. Plenty of old games have severe bugs, outdated controls or general issues with newer hardware (can’t handle widescreen monitors, buttons don’t scale for high resolutions, etc.) which can make replaying them a pain.
You sit down to watch a 25 year old movie and it’s pretty easy to watch, but you sit down to play a 25 year old game and it’s going to vary wildly if you can even get it to run in the first place, let alone if it’ll run well
But in the context of consumer product pricing it’s wildly anti-consumer to bill a software running largely on your own hardware consuming your own electricity based on how long you run said software. It’s expecting consumers to accurately project and plan their usage which consumers are pretty famously bad at. It’s also expecting consumers software running on consumer hardware on consumer home networks to function as expected, and all of the three are famously unreliable and janky
The AWS model works so well because of intense automation in horizontal and vertical scaling plus technologies like Kubernetes, Ansible and the entire automated build pipeline. But most importantly it relies on a full team carefully designing the automatic deployment and scaling to maximize benefits and minimize costs
Literally a used Switch game in a big, ridiculous bag with a “New” sticker on it. Imagine going into a GameStop with a game in a bag like this and convincing them to give you credit for it as “New”....
I’ve been thinking about making this thread for a few days. Sometimes, I play a game and it has some very basic features that are just not in every other game and I think to myself: Why is this not standard?! and I wanted to know what were yours....
Any kind of pause or completion of loading should have a brief moment where you can see the action and get your bearings before it hands control to you. Like how Forza or Euro/American Truck Sim handle loading saves, its paused for a second or so with the player getting full view of the screen then continues so you have a moment to figure out what you need to do
I’ve had a couple of games I’ve encountered that are literally unplayable at 21:9. You’re either stuck with textures stretched to oblivion or it cuts off a significant chunk of the screen. Admittedly this is mostly with older games that predate 21:9 displays but holy crap is it annoying when I can’t play a game because it can’t handle my display and stretches instead of displaying at the configured resolution
The sad thing is enterable buildings is pretty achievable. They could have an algorithm to generate a generic interior based on a seed at the time that the player enters the building. It’s not exciting, and it would add complexity but it at least would make enterable buildings without massively impacting install size nor save size.
You can play with procedural generated cities and structures here for example to see the potential. Just imagine that instead of a top down map it generates an interior with generic furniture, clutter and possibly loot. Add in different sets of assets it fills in with based on building type and location and verify it generates the same interior every time it gets the same seed and you have a very efficient system for at least being able to enter every random boring building
Alternatively there is a gameplay argument to be made for only being able to enter buildings that actually do something gameplay-wise so you know what buildings you need to enter
Remember, Skyrim was released closer to the first year you listed than the second one and the sequel is still quite a ways out. There are entire release day players of Elder Scrolls 6 who were not yet born when 5 came out.
One of the big reasons many companies go public is it’s naturally a really nice retirement package for the owners of the company. The owners of the company may have put so much time and money into building the company that they don’t have sufficient retirement savings, so by going public they turn a portion of their ownership into a boatload of cash as well as a boatload of wealth that can be leveraged, then simply elect a new CEO, retain their significant voting power on the board so they aren’t entirely abandoning their baby and then peace out
The thought came to mind after reading a recent post about Baldurs Gate 3 here but it reminded me of the Japense only PSX game Mizzurna Falls where if you don’t perform a certain action early in the game you are prevented from getting a true ending. While this might not be a traditional soft lock because you can still progress...
I stole a book for a quest with a shitton of witnesses, ran away, got out of town because of the guards having patching issues, stopped at my home and dumped my mostly-stolen inventory and returned and turned myself into the guards paying 40 gold to redeem myself for stealing a priceless book. Skyrim is a masterpiece of realism I tell you!
Like just breakdown what the Sims into its fundamental components. The characters, the fashion, the homes, the skills, the jobs, social interactions, possessions. It’s a lot of work.
That’s the thing that gets me is the core life sim gameplay loop is actually pretty simple, mostly because it was originally an architecture simulator with people you could play house with and then Maxis realized playing with the people was a ton of fun so they built onto that gameplay.
Basically you just need several values which count down over game ticks for the needs, modifiers on how much it each goes up and down and then add a bunch to the value when the sim does something to satisfy the needs
Social interactions are purely plus/minus a few points with a bit of RNG and modifiers for the traits, mood, hygiene level, etc.
Careers are basically just bad quests from an RPG. Your sims happiness (is the average need level greater than or less than X) chooses whether their career performance value is increasing or decreasing per game tick while at work, skills and work style (working normally, working hard, etc.) will modify the value that’s added or subtracted per tick, add in a skill check when that value reaches promotion and you have rabbit hole careers
Tons of games have structure building mechanics which I won’t pretend to understand from a game engine level but I’d say that’s a pretty well solved issue
Really the hard part is the graphics but if games like Minecraft, Terraria and Stardew Valley can be such hits with 8-bit inspired graphics, I think a strong core gameplay loop can outshine average Steam shovelware-grade graphics
So basically, if you want to create a Minecraft mod to play the sims, there’s the recipe. Honestly if I was any good at programming I’d take a crack at it but I don’t have the patience nor skill to do that at this stage
Why so salty? I never claimed to be a genius who cracked the code, in fact at a few points I specifically said I lack the knowledge and skills to even begin to implement what i described.
What I was trying to say is that the core gameplay loop is pretty simple, so it’s surprising with the sheer number of game development studios and hobbist programmers that nobody has cloned it since the hardest part is the graphics.
While Baldur's Gate 3 is being widely celebrated by fans and developers alike, some are panicking that this could set new expectations from fans. Good.
Like, make a series of games that are low budget, relatively short, and easy to pump out very quickly, but with a distinct series identity and maybe a consistent writer/artist across games. Then make a lot of them and get people hooked on the series instead of on 1 mega game.
Urban Games currently does this with Transport Fever. They flat out said while hyping the release of Transport Fever 2 (which was their third transport tycoon style game) that their goal as a development studio is to make the best transportation tycoon game they can. So they intend to continuously iterate.
N3V Games, who developes the Trainz simulator game was literally formed to buy up the property and talent from its original developer Auran and continue the franchise
There’s a third example I was going to give but got distracted while writing this comment and forgot
I saw a tier list meme that some teenager made on Discord of every game they’d ever played. You know what didn’t appear once on the list? Not a single Grand Theft Auto game nor a single Elder Scrolls game. I asked them why and they said because GTA5 and Skyrim are “old”
They’re taking so long between releases now that they missed an entire generation of gamers
I think music gets treated differently in this way partly because the fidelity 50 years ago was already very acceptable compared to the fidelity of brand new music, meanwhile you compare any other media and there’s significant improvements in the graphical fidelity that even movies from within this century can be poor enough video quality to degrade the experience compared to a new release
As far as I’m concerned, if game studios simply had ISOs/ROMs of their abandoned games available to download for a nominal fee that would be acceptable. Heck with the advent of browser based emulators Sony, Nintendo and Sega (plus many early PC game rightsholders) could simply sell access to play their back catalog on their website Netflix-style via these web-based emulators, much like how archive.org handles it
Honestly I think the most achievable solution is an abandonware law that basically permits the free redistribution of any software that isn’t available for sale in any standard format for x years. Basically just codify what many companies already practice which is turning a blind eye to abandonware/rom sites distributing the very old games they aren’t selling anymore
With gaming often bringing me into a really depressive headspace sometimes with how the markets are developing, whats a game you can always go to and just be lost in, or just be happy with?...
Sid Meier’s Civilization VII - Official Teaser Trailer (www.youtube.com) angielski
I hope it’s better than Civ 6.
After 30 years, I'm finally going to see a total solar eclipse. Also, Potato World is a thing. angielski
I’m sitting in a dark hotel room on the eve of my first - and possibly only - total solar eclipse, with my partner and step-son, and I am positively awash with emotions....
Switch performs better running games through an emulator emulating the switch than natively. (streamable.com)
Full original video from Taki Udon
The return of Gamergate is smaller and sadder (www.theverge.com) angielski
Evidently on a posting tear today. What happens when you’re stuck in a Dr.'s waiting room, I guess…
Jagex co-founder and ex-employee (Andrew Gower) announces new MMORPG inspired by RuneScape (store.steampowered.com)
I mean, when I saw an ex-Jagex employee making a new MMO I thought it was going to be slightly inspired by RuneScape… But this game looks exactly like RuneScape, and the description of the gameplay also matches it perfectly - this is essentially RuneScape 3 but managed by someone else (and with a much newer engine)
Best PS2 games? angielski
I bought a PS2 about 6 months ago from a coworker and finally got around to getting it working at a good enough resolution on my monitor. I currently have:...
Im still undecided about if it looks fun though (startrek.website) angielski
What games do you think are unfairly snubbed when talking about the best games of all time? angielski
When talking about the best games of all time people generally mention Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Super Mario 64, Halo 3, The Last of Us, Nier Automata, etc. , but dismiss other great games....
Whats your favorite Main Menu music? angielski
I’ll start it off - Legend of Dragoon has my heart with this one...
Are there too many video game remakes and remasters? (www.eurogamer.net)
I've got a bad feeling about this (startrek.website) angielski
GameStop’s definition of “New” (lemmy.world) angielski
Literally a used Switch game in a big, ridiculous bag with a “New” sticker on it. Imagine going into a GameStop with a game in a bag like this and convincing them to give you credit for it as “New”....
What is something (feature, modes, settings...) you would like to see become a standard in video games? angielski
I’ve been thinking about making this thread for a few days. Sometimes, I play a game and it has some very basic features that are just not in every other game and I think to myself: Why is this not standard?! and I wanted to know what were yours....
It was a lively, bustling major city... of about 12 people and 1 chicken. (startrek.website) angielski
Dusk: Unpopular opinion: I'd rather pay Valve 30% and put up with their de facto monopoly than help Epic work towards their own (very obviously desired) monopoly (twitter.com) angielski
What games had easy soft locks that prevented you from either progressing or getting a true ending? angielski
The thought came to mind after reading a recent post about Baldurs Gate 3 here but it reminded me of the Japense only PSX game Mizzurna Falls where if you don’t perform a certain action early in the game you are prevented from getting a true ending. While this might not be a traditional soft lock because you can still progress...
Bethesda hired a Skyrim modder to create the "lighting and clutter" in Starfield (www.gamescensor.com) angielski
Baldur’s Gate 3 is Causing Some Developers to Panic (youtube.com) angielski
While Baldur's Gate 3 is being widely celebrated by fans and developers alike, some are panicking that this could set new expectations from fans. Good.
87% Missing: the Disappearance of Classic Video Games (gamehistory.org) angielski
Comfort games?
With gaming often bringing me into a really depressive headspace sometimes with how the markets are developing, whats a game you can always go to and just be lost in, or just be happy with?...