aksdb

aksdb, 4 dni temu

I think EA was still worse. At least in my perception.

I think EA actually bought studios just to get the IP and immediately get rid of the employees. I also think they tried to milk a few of the IPs before letting it go downhill.

MS, from what I can tell, gave studios quite a lot of freedom to do what they do best. I don’t think they intentionally wanted to fuck over studios, but they rather sacrificed them.

Don’t get me wrong: that’s still bad. But there’s a difference between fucking studios over with intent and reacting badly to changed circumstances.

aksdb, 5 dni temu

Do you want to know more?

aksdb, 5 dni temu

Same for the “online only design” argument. The moment they decide it’s not viable anymore and they want to shut it down: what does it matter to them, what players do with it? As long as they offer the service themselves, no one is bugging them. (Although I would absolutely be in favor of also getting self hosting options right from the start, I am realist enough to accept, that this would indeed lower economical feasibility of some projects.)

aksdb, 5 dni temu

I imagine it’s rather licensing. If they have to provide the software at some point, they can’t use components they are not allowed to distribute. And I agree, that this will impact development costs. But with the law in place, this is not an unexpected cost but one that can be factored in. Might be, that some live services are then no longer viable… but I don’t care. There are more games than anyone could play and games are cancelled or not even started to develop all the time for various reasons. One more or less is just noise.

aksdb, 8 dni temu

If it fits your gaming profile, it’s a pretty good deal.

aksdb, 7 dni temu

If you go for subscription, you accept that the stuff is temporal. Or at least you should. So it should make no practical difference if a game vanishes because it gets pulled from the catalog or if you decide to cancel the subscription because you consider it too expensive.

aksdb, 26 dni temu (edited 26 dni temu)

My impression of Starfield (after release, at least) was, that it was a bunch of pretty well intended and implemented subsystems (as is, to my knowledge quite common in game development; each team works on a different one), but they just don’t fit really well together. All the subsystems are good parts of a theoretically good overall big picture, but the complexity seemed too high for them to actually flesh out the big picture.

Technically it all works, but IMO you feel the conceptual gaps whenever you transition (UX wise) from one gameplay mechanic to the next. It just doesn’t (or didn’t) feel like a cohesive game.

aksdb, miesiąc temu

I would rather bet that most people have no clue what an operating system is and that the one they (unknowingly) use is made by Microsoft. On the other hand if they play games (on that PC), they will know Steam, because they actively had to install it and click its icon frequently.

aksdb, miesiąc temu

It kind of is, unfortunately. Games are often developed with a lot of pressure and the constant dangling of the budget being cut off. I don’t think the devs are incompetent and think what they produced (code quality wise) would be the best, but what could they do if they need a result to present to the publisher end of week and then don’t get money (aka time) to clean it up but instead they get the next deadline.

On the other hand I am also not sure I can blame publishers. Things can easily spiral out of control if managed badly in the other direction… see Cloud Imperium Games (i.e. Star Citizen).

aksdb, 5 miesięcy temu

The second one gives you the necessary flashbacks to catch up if you should intend to follow the story. It also explains all the basics of the game mechanics as part of the quests.

aksdb, 6 miesięcy temu

I even heard people being surprised it’s not Geralt. When they were surprised I started to question myself if I just dreamed that they announced that wayyyy back.

aksdb, 7 miesięcy temu

Or preferably: don’t care about the game at all until it releases. Ignore previews or alpha demos, beta footage, gameplay trailers/teasers, etc. That way you don’t build up hype that has a big chance to disappoint you. Take the game for what it is at release and either like it then or not.

aksdb, 7 miesięcy temu

Even CD Project Red added such shit. Instead of directly launching Witcher or Cyberpunk I now have to go through a(nother) launcher now. Pointless.

Baldurs Gate 3 needed one from the beginning as well.

I don’t get it.

aksdb, 7 miesięcy temu

Ah, good to know. Thanks!

aksdb, 9 miesięcy temu

While I like and appreciate the campaign, the issue IMO is bigger. IoT devices for example even have environmental impact when services behind them get discontinued.

I would therefore like a more general rule: whenever a product is discontinued for whatever reason, all necessary documents, sources, etc need to be released to allow third parties to take over maintenance (that also includes schematics for hardware repairs).

aksdb, 10 miesięcy temu

Unreal Tournament

aksdb, 10 miesięcy temu

I wonder if that would be a genuine use case for “AI”. If the voice actor consents to have his voice represented in such a scene but doesn’t want to play it out in a studio, the computer model could take over that part.

aksdb, 10 miesięcy temu

It’s an okay game, but far worse than the first two. They forced an open world onto it, and made it pretty repetitive. The DLC is more linear and feels a lot more like a typical Mafia story telling.

aksdb, 11 miesięcy temu

Not a fair comparison. The private servers were written with the small hosting in mind. They would very likely never scale to what Blizzard has in place. For all I know, Blizzard could run their stuff on a Mainframe with specific platform optimizations against an IBM DB2.

But I also don’t think this has to be transferable to a local setup without effort either. Once they release the source, people can refactor or reengineer it to run on smaller scale, replace proprietary databases with free ones, etc.

aksdb, 11 miesięcy temu

Such an architecture is typically shit. Building a system that is simple AND scales high won’t work. Complexity usually gets added to cope with scale. If we don’t allow companies to build scalable (i.e. complex) systems, we simply won’t get such games anymore.

Again: I am completely in favor of forcing devs to release everything necessary to host it. I am not in favor of forcing devs to target home machines for their servers, when their servers clearly have completely different requirements. That’s unrealistic.

aksdb, 11 miesięcy temu

Its not said that they need devs to target home machines, it says they need to give the resources so people can host it themselves, period.

Before attacking me with such an arrogant rant, maybe read what I wrote.

I said:

Once they release the source, people can refactor or reengineer it to run on smaller scale, replace proprietary databases with free ones, etc.

So of course it’s about releasing anything (!) at all.

I simply said that you can’t compare a small fan project like a WoW self hosted server with Blizzards infrastructure and the requirements to have a high available setup for millions of players.

ArenaNet is quite open about their infrastructure and you can see that this is far from trivial, but also allows them to have zero downtime updates. That is a huge feat, but also means that self hosting that thing will be a pain in the ass. Yet I would not want them to not do this just so it could be easily (!) self hosted some time in the distant future.

aksdb, rok temu

They keep paying money for attorneys and court proceedings but don’t get anything in return, since the code is out there and will just be shared again by someone else. Hence: whack-a-mole

aksdb, rok temu

Actual news: two leads (Jennifer and Björn Pankratz) founded a new studio: Pithead Studios

I guess they can’t carry over any old IP, but at least we might get more Gothic-like games.

aksdb, rok temu

Sniper.

I like to stand there, with my bunny ears as hat, and wave at my dead opponents.

I think that’s the only class I managed to get all achievements for.

aksdb, rok temu

That information belongs in the specs/feature list on the encasing, not in the fucking splash screen as dedicated video.

For the buyer that would be too late and for the one who bought it already and now wants to play it’s utterly pointless.

aksdb, rok temu

At least some games parallelize this. The game then already loads assets, caches shaders etc while the intro rolls.

aksdb, rok temu

I think the relevant news here is the PC support, not the directors cut. There is no other version for PC (AFAIK).

aksdb, rok temu

Yeah, like your crush telling you “I wish I met a guy/girl like you.” 😐️

aksdb, rok temu

Gamepass isn’t cloud gaming, though. It’s a game subscription, but cloud gaming is only optional and only available for a subset of games. All of the games however can be downloaded and are played locally.

aksdb, rok temu

Uhhhh, people install shit like Vanguard just so that they can keep having their mother insulted in the ingame chat.

And many people put up with cascades of different lauchers (and accounts).

So I am glad that there was some push back this time, but it’s not like there would be some sane baseline of PC players in that regard.

aksdb, rok temu

Only if you want to cap the skill limit. Otherwise you would typically have a hand full of players that are genuinely just good or rather far outside the normal skill range. I guess with a lot of data collection one might be able to determine if there was some kind of natual progress or sudden skill jumps, but all in all it could weed out legitimate players.

aksdb, rok temu

Also there could (and should?) be “simply” two launch options. One with “hardcore anti cheat” and one with some much simpler anti-cheat. Then a lobby option what you want to allow. You want to play competitive/league/whatever? Then require the hardcore anti-cheat. Otherwise: why bother.

aksdb, rok temu

Reminds me of the Volkswagen boss when their emission cheating leaked. He said he didn’t know. Wow, you earn millions for managing a company that big and then claim to not know about something. The fuck did you do then? So either he was lying or admitting that he didn’t do his damn job. Both cases should have lead to him having to give back whatever he “earned” in his position.

aksdb, rok temu

I am not a marketing expert, but when headlines pile up implicating that Microsoft doesn’t fully stand behind XBox anymore, no wonder the number for new customers tank. I wouldn’t “invest” in something that seems to be on the way out either.

aksdb, rok temu

Don’t you think that whole thing is simply a publicity stunt? Because it kinda looks like it and it seems to work…

aksdb, rok temu

So why didn’t he stop playing at level 100 or 200 or whatever but waited with this rant until almost level 300 in a stream with large attention? Pure coincidence? To me it looks like he wanted to go out with a bang and rage bait.

aksdb, rok temu

… also not this game, but especially not Palia.

aksdb, rok temu

They did give away DLCs. Orsinium earlier that year and now Thieves Guild. The event also gives out a lot of Seals of Endeavor.

They essentially celebrate the whole year instead of just this one event.

aksdb, rok temu

As much as I like to shit on Epic, but UE 5.x is pretty much innovative with each minor release. Watching the release videos of what the engine can do in realtime is always impressive. They are used as realtime backgrounds for movie sets.

aksdb, rok temu

Do you mix game development with engine? Of course an engine doesn’t make an innovative game by itself. An engine is - hence the name - only the means to an end to help develop a game. Innovative games are all over the place in regards to the engines they use; from in-house/custom to products like unity, unreal, etc.

That you have the impression that engines like UE and Unity are “less innovative” by judging released games just shows how many games are developed using these engines - especially Unity. It’s so damn easy to build games with it, that many people do, even when they only build something simple. And that’s fine … it means that more people can channel their creativity into game development, even when it doesn’t yield anything ground breaking.

It also shows, though, that developers can focus more on the game development and have to deal less with engine development and now even asset creation, since these engines also bring asset catalogs. So it’s really quite a good time to dive into game development, which fosters creativity and in the end there will also be innovative games among them.

aksdb, rok temu

The problem is IMO much bigger. Every connected and/or IoT device becomes physical waste if the vendor shuts down the backing infrastructure.

Every product (physical or digital) should be considered as a unit with the required technical infrastructure. Companies/producers should only have two choices: keep maintaining the infrastructure or publish everything necessary for individuals and/or a community to take over. This must be ready from the moment such a product enters the market and it must be part of the “will” of the company so if it goes bankrupt, the whole process can be triggered more or less automatically.

aksdb, rok temu

It’s not the same model though, is it? I can buy XBox, PS an Nintendo games in a shit ton of physical or digital stores. So there are different channels. There is no equivalent on iOS. If you don’t want to publish in the app store, no one will be able to install your app (developers with own certs and enterprise customers with mdm excluded).

aksdb, rok temu

Don’t/can’t you still buy codes in other stores, though?

aksdb, rok temu

But not directly the apps. I can, however, for example buy codes for individual xbox games from different vendors.

aksdb, rok temu

EAC isn’t kernel level, AFAIK. It even works in Linux/Proton.

aksdb, rok temu

TIL

aksdb, rok temu

There are four studios whose games (and hardware) I buy almost blindly:

• Valve
• CD Project RED
• Rockstar Games
• Machine Games

They all have brought me tons of fun and jaw dropping moments.

aksdb, rok temu

I played it on PC. And I loved it.