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....
Collectible tracker after getting to a certain threshold. I get that people don't like maps cluttered with stuff, but if someone gets to a point they got over 60% of a thing, it's likely they want to go for all of them, so the option to give them at least a general searching area should be provided.
At the point the game allows multiple manual saves, rewinding decisions is trivial. There is not much of a point in restricting autosaves too.
The only way a game can enforce permanent decisions is if it only has auto-saves, in which case it could have a couple hidden backup saves just to prevent any issue from ruining people's progress. Even then that's not enough if players are willing to tinker, but at least it's not trivial.
Online saves are an option too but I wouldn't be too fond of a game that is needlessly restricted to online-only just to make decisions permanent.
Definitely, technical problems are another reason not to be overly strict.
Ironman mode absolutely has value, but this gets into a greater discussion that I feel more gamers should keep in mind. The value of these restrictions and challenges are your entertainment as well as fairness towards the people you are actively playing with. Game rules are all arbitrary by definition. It doesn't really matter if someone playing by themselves completes an Ironman mode fairly or cheats at it.
It's because gamers were convinced to take game rules more seriously than they deserve that today some believe that fictional items in a remote server they don't control can be worth hundreds of dollars. That hundreds of hours of RPG grind are somehow a necessary requirement to play a match of a game with someone else, and also that paying to rush this entirely artificial aspect of the game is worthwhile.
If the developers of a game prefer that it's played in Ironman that's fair, but there is no need to come up with exceedingly complex and restrictive solutions to police how people play. If they don't want to play differently, that's fine too.
I found a lot of things in this review pretty spot on, and am curious if others feel the same. I do still regularly play one MMO which I love (GW2), but dumped all the others I used to play since I got fed up with their obvious shift to practices he discusses here. While Anet may be guilty of employing some, they are not imho...
Magic: The Gathering and Dice Throne get regular updates. These are tabletop games. Are they live services? Of course not.
Well... MTG is as close as a live service game can be as a physical object, including questionable monetization practices. The booster pack is very similar in principle to the lootbox. They also can ensure continuous sales through power creep and controlling what cards are allowed in official competitive formats. It's not the absolute control that digital live services allow, but it's nearly there. As a more practical comparison, MTG is more manipulative than card games that allow players to pick full sets that they want.
Then we have MTG Arena that is a Live Service in every aspect. They don't let you freely host those games either.
have not seen this picked up in gaming media yet, but i would assume it’s forthcoming if this is accurate (which i see no reason to believe otherwise)....
This question, I can't deal with it. It just kills a bit more of hope for the future that people are thinking like this.
First of all it's trivial to copy and distribute digital media. There's no great obstacle that impedes players to run games effectively indefinitely, it's a matter of unwillingness. The game is not ephemeral, company support is ephemeral.
Don't you like the games that you play today? Do you really think nobody will want to play them in the future?
There are people running Quake 3 Arena servers still today. That's a game from 1999. That's not even bringing up how people figured out how to run even older couch multiplayer games online.
Can you imagine if that was said out of any other medium? "Why not just acknowledge that books are ephemeral?" That would be an outrageous notion and it would be regarded as a massive failure of society towards culture. Yet we have a whole new medium that would be trivial to preserve if not for deliberate obstacles put in the way, and there are people treating it as a lost cause. It boggles my mind!
A chance to win the access to use a fictional character/weapon that will be revoked as soon as the game closes. Seems like even more of a scam than regular gambling, and that's already pretty iffy.
Not necessarily, but there's some correlation. Games widely praised either are quality games or they resonate with their audience in some particular way, which can be itself an indication of value. Conversely a game that is widely panned might have some significant flaws or be lacking in some fundamental way.
Sure, there is always the odd Garfield Kart meme and some controversy skewing that. But because lists of reviews are easily available on the store page you can look at what is it that the other customers are praising or criticizing, and make your mind based on whether you see merits in these opinions.
Overall, even if you don't trust popular opinion, it's still a very useful tool. Frankly, often more useful than mainstream game reviews that tend to be overly lenient with triple-A publishers, and neglect indies.
I find it odd there has been very little noise about this. Like sweet its awesome to see that there is a new Counter strike and the features they are adding seem awesome. People were very angry when Blizzard did this same exact thing, where is the anger right now about this?...
Not only Counter Strike: GO is over 10 years old, Valve games can be hosted with Valve's official blessing even when they drop support. There are still people who play Counter Strike 1.6 today. This is nothing like what Blizzard did to Overwatch.
Alright, I see the issue. Even then that's not technically true. I would say it's not user friendly, but CS:GO is still counted as a previous version of CS 2, and you can access and host older versions of Valve games. Here's a guide for that.
In principle I agree that it's preferable to have the old game as a visible download on the store but you should understand that it's unusual for evolving online games to offer older versions in any manner these days, nevermind let players host games independently. That Valve provides this possibility at all, even if in a convoluted way, already puts them miles above Blizzard.
CS 2 even allows for players to carry over their whole collection of skins, which is something many players care deeply about and even invested significant money on. Which is itself a questionable matter but I can't deny that this is important for the players. Maybe this is why it was made into a new version of CS:GO rather than a separate thing.
I think it's fair to demand that old CS:GO is added to Steam in a more transparent form, but it's a matter of convenience rather than them taking anything away from the players like Blizzard did.
Unfortunately people's wages haven't kept up with inflation either, so that would just be a double whammy of making people who already struggling to pay for essentials pay more for entertainment as well, and at that point I'd think some people would just decide they can keep playing their old games.
I'm from a third world country. I still buy games as often as I can, but I also get that these price hikes are stretching people thin. A $70 game is like a third of our monthly minimum wage, it's a huge chunk of money that people need to live, and most companies don't bother to adjust it proportionally to our financial situation, even though there is no reason not to do so when it comes to digital media.
Some companies still manage to offer regional prices. It's more of a matter of poor implementation or even plain indifference. The latter especially when the platform offers that option but the publisher maintains the prices high.
Eh, I won't speak for that person's habits but for me piracy was not the last possible resort but rather the entry point that allowed me to develop enough interest that I do buy them today.
And when today the "free" options peddle gambling to children, I cannot take the moral argument seriously even for a second. I would much sooner have people pirate than develop gambling addictions, the publishers be damned.
These days, it's simply a fact that overly monetized live service games make more money than simply selling a good finished game. It has been years already since mobile gaming surpassed the earnings of consoles and PCs combined. Tencent knows this, it's how their publishing arm makes most of its money. It's how they became the 2nd largest game publisher.
Frankly, I can't see that side of their business staying uninvolved as they invest on other gaming companies. I can't see them just being happy they don't have to do anything, if they could pressure them into more monetization for more profits. To me it seems just a matter of time that this investment will have its cost.
We are talking about people that handling billions of fund and try to make their career looks good, not worse.
Yeah, and it's because I see what investors do that I cannot trust their good sense. They make stupid mistakes out of not understanding the market, or callously profitable but ultimately destructive decisions for short term gain all the time, and it only got worse in recent years. If investors thought long term and were easily satisfied, we wouldn't see nearly as many companies declining in quality as we do. A chief concern for them is always making a greater profit than before, and there is only so far that can be pushed without negative effects to the customers.
Too many live service games are not viable? That definitely doesn't stop their publishing arm, and again, I see no reason why they would be so separate in stances. They know how to make that work best, after all. I agree with you that it wouldn't be wise, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't do it.
Thankfully, so far Tencent hasn't done that yet. But people also had a lot of hope for Embracer Group reviving neglected studios, only for it to fall apart and close a bunch of them. I wouldn't put that much hope on financial interests swooping in and saving the day. It's not what they do.
I just started playing COD Black Ops Cold War because I got it through my PlayStation Plus subscription and wanted to try it out. I’ve previously played some others like Modern Warfare (1 and 2) and WWII. While it always felt a bit over the top and propaganda-ish, I really liked it for the blockbuster feeling and just turning...
As Reggie from Nintendo once said, “If it isn’t fun, why bother.”
I haven't played enough to make a judgment about COD in particular, but like you said, this is from Nintendo, a company whose main franchise is a game for kids about a funny little man stomping evil turtles in a fantasy world. It doesn't even have the trappings of something that you can take seriously and use to inform your real life. Nobody would mistake it for anything close to a realistic historical account, unlike COD.
Is Schindler's List fun?
There is more to media and art than whether its fun. Art can be engaging and intriguing without being "fun". I wouldn't call Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice "fun" per se, but it's definitely a good game.
We definitely disagree on the latter. It was harrowing, but the way it handled its themes was fascinating and the gaming culture would be lesser without it.
We don't expect all books and movies to be "fun", why should games all be? We can see other forms of engagement and value in other media.
If you define fun by "having a blast" then we are talking about the same thing. Why wouldn't a game be valid if it's about delivering a message above moment to moment action? Strip the message away and obviously it's lesser for it. Because it's not a message plus an entirely separate mechanical system, it's about what everything means in context. Rather than focusing on making flashy combos, it's more interesting to ponder over what is it supposed to represent and what is actually happening.
It's a little funny though that I did consider Spec Ops as another example, and that I have seen people judging it the same way that you are doing to Hellblade, that it was a mediocre military FPS, but many rebutted that even its lackluster gameplay is supposed to contribute the commentary. In the same way you praise of Spec Ops, I don't think Hellblade is nearly as bad in that aspect as you say, As an action game it is serviceable, but the action is not the point.
If you argue for serious games but only in the context of the gamification of business and education, you are still glossing over a whole multitude of media that is more about exploring ideas than moment-to-moment thrills, something other media have in plenty, and something which games have incredible potential for. You are thinking of typical games solely in terms of pop culture. There is a lot more to a medium than pop culture and strictly functional tools, and you are making that to be a massive abyss where nothing has worth.
Sure, but that is a whole different argument. When atheists say that that the Bible is "just a book" it's not a dismissal of the value of literature, it's saying that they don't need to be bound to what it says, that to them it's no more than any other book.
I find it difficult to discuss productively when you come up with such overblown analogies like that. I could even argue that artistically there could be merit to the equivalent a book full of thumbtacks, and Fear & Hunger comes to mind as a game to be described like that, One where a myriad ways to suffer is central to the experience and themes. But to say that Hellblade is like that is so uncalled for it makes that whole angle of discussion pointless.
You may have written about what a game is and if it has to be fun, but you are not staying true to what you preach. You can't even seem to acknowledge merits in games that you are not personally entertained by.
To judge Hellblade for being linear is several decades too late to start that argument, and there is no reason to single it out. Loosely half of all games today are games where you perform as expected in a predefined context where your choices don't matter, but most people still think of them as games. What was the benefit of that semantic argument then?
And even if you were to say that Hellblade, like Spec Ops The Line, is more like a "theme park ride" than a "game", to compare it to "a book full of thumbtacks" says absolutely nothing about how it's constructed and what may be issues in that. It just says that you really, really don't like it. If that's what you have to say, then there is no point in even talking about it. I can acknowledge that you don't like it and that's it.
You can come at me however much you want. It doesn't change that Hellblade is a acclaimed, beloved game, and so were many of the Telltale games until they oversaturated the market, really. You can not like them but insisting that they are bad doesn't make them universally bad.
What makes Hellblade good is putting the player in the shoes of the protagonist, and for that it's better as a game. A movie wouldn't cut it for this. Frankly to me it doesn't matter as much if the combat is not as fleshed out as God of War. The point is not doing sick combos at the enemies that we don't even know for sure if they are real. But the struggle matters.
There is no point in making a fuss about how extensive the gameplay aspects of a game should be, unless you are writing game design theory that uses these concepts in a helpful practical manner. I wouldn't really call "the game is bad if the game part is bad, make it a movie" a very helpful one. Even as a critique it's pretty lacking.
Comes to mind that something like Phoenix Wright has very minimal game elements in a story-centric format. Would you call that bad?
While Elon’s then-partner Grimes was recording her part in the game as cyborg popstar Lizzy Wizzy, the erratic tech billionaire turned up with an antique firearm to “insist” on being included in the game. “The studio guys were like sweating,” Grimes is quoted as saying. Musk adds “I told them that I was armed but not...
What a ridiculous society we live in that someone can be so rich that they get to threaten people with a gun and don't get arrested. What an unhinged asshole he is.
As far as gaming engines go, Unreal Engine already does this. Not dismissing your point, it is concerning if rent seeking spreads among artistic tools, but this is not a Unity invention.
Taking a firm stand against what Unity have been doing, Terraria developer Re-Logic announced today they've begun funding Godot Engine and FNA with a big donation and ongoing funding.
The issue is that "good" varies a lot from person to person. I like survival crafting games with an incremental tree of improvements more than boss rushes so for me it's good from the start.
Sure, but if you are talking about Super Metroid ROMs, you are talking legacy releases, and Microsoft didn't bother to rerelease their classic XBox games on PC, so there's no reason to assume they would do it to SNES games if they acquired Nintendo.
The newer XBox consoles are x86 architecture devices with an operating system that is similar to Windows. If they can maintain retrocompatibility with older titles, that means they have a functioning emulator or compatibility layer for classic XBox and 360 games. It would be trivial for Microsoft to release them for PC but they don't seem interested in doing that. Whatever obstacles there may be there, they are not technical. Considering that, it's unlikely that they would take a different approach regarding older Nintendo titles.
The example of Age of Empires II if anything indicates that they want to have a console-centric approach towards older titles. So, it's just speculation to assume that Microsoft acquiring Nintendo would lead to their games being ported to PC. On the flipside, I'd be more concerned that Microsoft's more inconsistent quality standards and monetization tendencies would make their way into Nintendo titles.
It also isn't trivial. They had to write custom emulation code for those old games, and they had to negotiate that with the rights holders in a lot of cases.
All that applies to Nintendo titles, especially the latter. If they don't manage it for the titles they already have for which they already did the technical work, Nintendo on PC seems even more unlikely.
Right, as opposed to the flawless technical quality of the latest Pokemon games and the impeccable business model of tying games with a killswitch behind a subscription model?
I expected for you to bring up Pokémon, and in all fairness I agree that it was released in an unacceptable state. But I should remind you that The Pokémon Company and Game Freak are separate companies that work differently than other first-party Nintendo titles. Could you honestly tell me that Mario, Zelda, Kirby, Animal Crossing and all other Nintendo franchises are anything but excellent? People may have their preferences and dislikes about them, but it would be dishonest to say they aren't all finely crafted.
I agree with you as far as their attitude towards Mario 35, but what do you think is going to happen to Sea of Thieves once they decide to take the servers down? This is not something that Microsoft is going to fix, it's the pitfall of all live service games, and as time goes by gaming companies only seem to insist more on this direction.
I don't agree with Nintendo with everything, their online platforms are lacking, their closedness is disappointing, their litigiousness is often revolting, but I definitely wouldn't trust Microsoft or Sony to do better, even less any other gaming company.
C'mon, I can't take it seriously if you are going to overblow it like this. Tears of the Kingdom is a marvel of engineering and losing sight of that because it's not running on the most powerful gaming hardware is a huge disservice to the work put into it. It's a superficial way to judge them and it only makes me give less credit to your opinion. It just make you sound like the sort of gamer who would prefer a hyper-realistic generic game running at 4K 60 FPS than anything with passion, who has no appreciation for a more modest game that is finely crafted.
Both Animal Crossing and Smash Ultimate too, like I said, the online is disappointing, but they are still excellent games both single-player and couch multiplayer. To call it "poor quality" and "unacceptable"? If you really mean it then I just don't trust your opinion. Listing such a small nitpick as Animal Crossing's UX in that is downright silly. All of these games are fun, beautiful and even technically impressive for a limited hardware like this.
This is not me being a blind fan. I have played plenty of Animal Crossing and I've seen those issues. There are things in it that I'd wish were expanded or brought back from previous entries, but I can put that into perspective, considering how much content in it is new or much more polished than before. To deem it "unacceptable" because of that, the person must not have played any real bad games.
I'm not keen on it but I'm also not overly concerned about how Nintendo offers older games now because I know how to get them. And so does anyone who really care about this really. As for Mario 35, I definitely don't like that, but this sort of approach is rare for them and left to smaller, niche projects. As opposed to Sea of Thieves which is the only thing we still hear of Rare in years. In fairness, I don't think it's an excuse, but I'll lament the loss of Sea of Thieves far more than those other games, especially considering I can still play Mario, F-Zero and Tetris regardless.
Microsoft and Sony responding to market forces is exactly why I want Nintendo out of their hands. Because if those two get a pass to rip off the player, they won't even hesitate. Look at Microsoft did to Forza. Bungie is now Sony's and look at what Destiny 2 is like. The market often leans towards cheap profiteering. Nintendo is maybe overly self-important, and for that reason it keeps trying to deliver quality with a self-respect that other companies are already shoving out of the door. With the exception of Pokémon, a Nintendo game is guaranteed to be a good game and a complete package.
Well, overexaggeration aside, I still appreciate many 3DS games to this day. This rush for the latest and greatest is part of what fuels planned obsolescence. Really, it feels a little inconsistent to criticize them for how they offer older games if you can't bear a game that's even a little bit aged.
I can grant you that Nintendo online kind of sucks but offline Nintendo games tend to be some of the most responsive, due to not letting too much realism get in the way of game feel, as well as the most readable, due to clear contrast and vibrant colors. Zelda or any other, I can tell everything apart very easily in Nintendo games, either portable or a big screen. Something games with much higher resolution often fail to do. Excessive shading and clutter often gets in the way of readability in the Sony games I played, no matter how much more defined objects look.
I even agree preference-wise with the Animal Crossing criticism, making bait is kind of a chore, but I also understand that the game's design is deliberately intended to slow the player down. It is a chill game to take it easy, not a game to rush and optimize everything. This is not a flaw, it's a difference in intent. This is what I believe weakens your arguments the most, you can't seem to diferentiate from something you don't like and something done badly.
I dislike good things. I dislike Dark Souls, a game made with vision and care that a lot of people love, because to me it looks ugly, feels clunky and just utterly miserable. But sometimes you have to understand that things are not made for you specifically. Yeah, subjectively it is bad for me, but it's also good overall, no matter what I feel about it.
If Tears of the Kingdom was a native 1080p 60 fps game, it wouldn't have a whole system of physics-based interactive modular devices. Game developers are amazed that Nintendo even managed to get such complex systems running. Of course it's more demanding than Metroid Dread, does anything in it even remotely compare? That game doesn't even need to render distant landscapes, it's all small rooms and predetermined backgrounds. Do you think that was a lack of wanting to make it happen?
Maybe if a new console comes along and it's ported to that it will run better and look better, but for now, everything it can do comes at a cost.
I already acknowledged and agreed with you that Nintendo's online is bad. But there's more to those games than that. Aside that aspect though, what about Smash's gameplay, visuals, music? It's not like that game is only playable online, and thank goodness for that.
What about the variety and detail of Animal Crafting's clothing and furniture, or the behaviors of the villagers, or how customizable is the island this time around?
The general emulation community is still working on it.
Like I was saying, if they can run retrocompatible games on Xbox Series X, a x86 Windows-like system, then internally Microsoft does have some sort of solution for running OG Xbox and 360 already working.
So it's not a technical issue, public Nintendo emulators don't really change that. Meaning that it's not any more likely that they would offer Nintendo games on PC if they owned them.
I'm getting a bit tired of repeating myself. You are responding to a comment that is directed to that particular point.
Microsoft has already figured out how to run older XBox games on PC. As far as the technology goes, XBox One and Series S/X are not compatible with the previous XBoxes, they are PCs in every aspect but branding and closedness. All those games they offer retrocompatibility could be made available on PC. They could put Rare Replay on PC anytime they want. They don't do it because they don't care to do it.
It does not matter that Nintendo emulators are perfect.
They have a working Original Xbox emulator.
They have a working XBox 360 emulator.
They have titles that are entirely owned by them to release, and they only do that on console.
Releasing Nintendo games would be "extremely more likely"? Given that whatever obstacle here is not technical, then the existence of publicly released Nintendo emulators don't change the matter one bit. Meanwhile the licensing complexities only add further obstacles.
It's not uncommon in general emulation to need tweaks for different games, and they already figured those out. If they can get their old games running on Xbox One, One X, Series S and Series X it means they can consistently keep them working across multiple different configurations. At this point, they are perfectly capable of handling a full PC release of these titles if they wanted to. You are getting too caught up in particularities that just don't change the conclusion.
It's not like they'd release a standalone all-purpose emulator. More likely they'd bundle the games with setups that are already tweaked for those particular games. Just as they would need to for Nintendo games. Even Nintendo itself had to do that. The initially flawed Ocarina of Time Switch Online release comes to mind.
It still makes more sense to assume that if Microsoft is not interested in doing it for their own games, there is no reason to assume they would do it for any others.
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....
Live Service And The Decline Of Gaming (www.youtube.com) angielski
I found a lot of things in this review pretty spot on, and am curious if others feel the same. I do still regularly play one MMO which I love (GW2), but dumped all the others I used to play since I got fed up with their obvious shift to practices he discusses here. While Anet may be guilty of employing some, they are not imho...
(Now former?) Telltale employee: "This is a sore subject, but I feel it necessary to add to the gaming layoff news: Telltale laid most of us off early September. Status of TWAU2, I can't say (NDA)." (twitter.com) angielski
have not seen this picked up in gaming media yet, but i would assume it’s forthcoming if this is accurate (which i see no reason to believe otherwise)....
Anybody else playing Sky? (midwest.social)
Checking if any Lemmy users dig this interesting game, and also looking for people to game with!
Cancelled Hyenas was ‘Sega’s biggest budget game ever’, it’s claimed | VGC (www.videogameschronicle.com) angielski
Announcement of Discontinuation of Online Services for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software (en-americas-support.nintendo.com) angielski
Archive link: archive.ph/aWo6a...
$600 Million And A Decade Later, Where Is Star Citizen? (exputer.com) angielski
Two games free on Epic Games - Model Builder and Soulstice angielski
Model Builder...
Valve just pulled a Blizzard and seems to have gotten away with it. (kbin.social) angielski
I find it odd there has been very little noise about this. Like sweet its awesome to see that there is a new Counter strike and the features they are adding seem awesome. People were very angry when Blizzard did this same exact thing, where is the anger right now about this?...
Capcom President Says ‘Game Prices Are Too Low’ (kotaku.com) angielski
lol. lmao.
Minecraft Wiki moves away from Fandom (minecraft.wiki) angielski
Hideki Kamiya has left PlatinumGames (www.gamescensor.com) angielski
‘Call of Duty’ Doesn’t Just Depict Bad History—It’s Pro-War Propaganda (progressive.org)
I just started playing COD Black Ops Cold War because I got it through my PlayStation Plus subscription and wanted to try it out. I’ve previously played some others like Modern Warfare (1 and 2) and WWII. While it always felt a bit over the top and propaganda-ish, I really liked it for the blockbuster feeling and just turning...
Elon Musk demanded a cameo in Cyberpunk 2077 while wielding a 200 year old gun: "I was armed but not dangerous" (www.pcgamer.com)
While Elon’s then-partner Grimes was recording her part in the game as cyborg popstar Lizzy Wizzy, the erratic tech billionaire turned up with an antique firearm to “insist” on being included in the game. “The studio guys were like sweating,” Grimes is quoted as saying. Musk adds “I told them that I was armed but not...
Unity updates its runtime fees (blog.unity.com) angielski
Archive link: https://archive.ph/Ys676...
Terraria dev Re-Logic donates $100K to Godot Engine and FNA, plus ongoing funding (www.gamingonlinux.com) angielski
Taking a firm stand against what Unity have been doing, Terraria developer Re-Logic announced today they've begun funding Godot Engine and FNA with a big donation and ongoing funding.
Phil Spencer: "getting [acquiring] Nintendo would be a career moment for me"; Nintendo's future "exists off of their own hardware" (www.resetera.com) angielski
Archive link: archive.ph/NF2r0...
Marvel's Avengers drops to $3.99 to make way for its delisting later this month (www.gamescensor.com) angielski