@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

ampersandrew

@ampersandrew@lemmy.world

Profil ze zdalnego serwera może być niekompletny. Zobacz więcej na oryginalnej instancji.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

Nothing will come of this unless it also concerns Republicans, but it doesn’t, because the President’s son-in-law helped make this deal happen and personally benefited from it.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

Their concern isn’t that people are getting laid off but that they’ll be laid off here and replaced with people abroad; and the executives benefiting from the cost-cutting are no longer Americans in this case.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

You can do all sorts of things with video games, even when sticking to realism, if it helps you achieve your goals.

New Fable game removes feature core to franchise's DNA (www.tweaktown.com) angielski

TL;DR: The new Fable game removes the traditional good and evil morality system, focusing instead on a location-based reputation that changes with each settlement. Players won’t alter their appearance based on deeds but can customize their hero’s look with cosmetics and gear.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

One might argue that KOTOR semi-ruined a generation of video games with morality systems. I’m one. I would argue that.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

If only more people had heeded her message, we wouldn’t have ended up with the “morality” system of Infamous, where it was such a hard choice to either save these people or harvest their energy for your own gain. Decisions, decisions.

Dharkstare, do Gaming angielski

I recently finished playing The Outer Worlds 2 and it was pretty good. The big problem I have with both games is that the game mechanics feel a little shallow. Despite that I'm hoping there will be another game in the series.

@games

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

It’s far better than the game dragging on longer than it has any business to, IMO.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

I guess I don’t see either of those games as being massive open worlds but just a modern implementation of old-school RPGs like the original Fallouts.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

I think this thing with Tencent is the only buyout they’re going to get.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

I haven’t played Double Exposure yet, but my friends were quite fond of it, and I thought Before the Storm was okay.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

To be fair, that story involves time travel.

Hero shooter Highguard reportedly didn't even pay for the Game Awards slot that's earned it so much preemptive hate—the showrunners thought it deserved the spotlight (www.pcgamer.com) angielski

Remember when Apex Legends was shadow dropped? It’s a risky move for such a high-profile game to skip all the pre-release marketing hype entirely, but it paid off, and it’s clear why Respawn went that route—“photoreal PvP hero shooter” was an eyeroll-inducing prospect even back in 2019, so letting the game speak for...

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

Are you calling Geoff Keighley a tech bro?

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

I’ll give you the private fiefdom part, but whatever other criticisms you’ve got for the Game Awards, and there are so many, that man loves video games. Putting Highguard there was likely misreading the room, but he probably thought it would be a banger.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

Friends of mine who played at two different points far after launch still found it to be just as great, even if the physics and facial animations were no longer best in class.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

As an MMO, would that make it the first of its kind?

ampersandrew, (edited )
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

It doesn’t inspire confidence, but it looks like they have a multiplayer game post-Rust that still works on Linux. Does Rust allow for self-hosted servers?

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

It still sucks, but at least there’s a path to playing the game, so that bodes well for this game’s future even if Facepunch buys it.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

In an official capacity? Because there’s something like City of Heroes, but they only have 1 licensee and that’s all they’re interested in. Or are they games that call themselves MMOs while doing way less technically than an actual MMORPG, like Guild Wars 1? I’ll grant you I could be way out of the loop, but I’ve only ever heard of pirate servers serving this role in proper MMORPGs before.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

Survival games like Rust often offer, as an officially supported feature of the game, the server code for you to run your own. When a World of WarCraft community server is run, it’s against Blizzard’s wishes and terms of service, and when they find out about it, it gets shut down, because Blizzard only wants you to play that game on Blizzard’s servers. I’m asking if any other MMORPGs offer community servers as an official feature the way that most survival games do, because it would be the first I’ve heard of it.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

So then if Facepunch were to buy New World and allow players to self-host servers, it would be a first for the genre, which would be cool.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

Word is Digital Foundry in touch with the modder and will be running some tests.

Bethesda announces a new Fallout... reality show (us.castitreach.com) angielski

Fallout Shelter (working title) is a new reality competition series based on the hit Amazon drama and computer game of the same name. The dwellers (contestants) live together in a top-secret vault, where they will compete in a series of games that tests the seven core attributes from the Fallout world. Strength, perception,...

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

“Anthem actually had the code for local servers running in a dev environment right up until a few months before launch,” Darrah continued. “I don’t know that they still work, but the code is there to be salvaged and recovered. The reason you do this, it pulls away the costs of maintaining this game. So rather than having dedicated servers that are required for the game to run, you let the server run on one of the machines that’s playing the game.” This, he added, could have worked alongside an additional move to add AI party members to the game, allowing people to play it like a single-player game.

Fuck, man…all the reasons to do so are spelled out right there.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

It’s got a 61 on OpenCritic, and Brad Shoemaker of NextLander said he thought long and hard about giving it 1/5 stars at the time (ultimately giving it a 2/5) because the game didn’t even really work when it launched. That wouldn’t really indicate it was just something the internet wanted to hate that week.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

On the bright side, it’s never been easier for extremely small teams to put out something relatively high quality on the side.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

Money changed hands, so they have to show them. It’s advertising for the other companies that they worked with, or building up brand recognition for the publisher, etc. In the best case scenario, they mask a load screen, but I’ve found plenty where they don’t even start loading until after the unskippable logos.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

Speaking for myself, the average game got way better when the industry figured out it was better to mix the tutorial with the story. Bespoke tutorials felt like homework, and a lot of people are inclined to skip them, never figure out how the game works, and then come away with a negative opinion of the game. In general, and I’m curious to hear your perspective on this, you can make it exciting by starting the story en media res, so your character is using all of their usual verbs; then you can sidestep that immersion breaking moment by having the button prompts exist in a freeze frame thing, outside of the context of the story, that highlights the action it wants you to do. Do you prefer the bespoke tutorials that we got in the likes of 90s PC games? Do you like the way Gears of War does it, where it still keeps it contextual in the course of the story, but they very clearly give you an option to say that you know what you’re doing?

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

The reason they’re in RPGs is the same reason they’re in any other genre. In a war game, you could be a tactical genius, but the RNG is there to simulate dumb luck, so the game is about forcing you to play the odds, because victory is almost never guaranteed. When the result is deterministic, there can often be a single 100% correct answer, and RNG throws a wrench in that. Something similar can be applied to loot games, where you’re rolling with the punches based on what you’ve found.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

Would you mind listing some of those? Because that’s a tough bar to clear.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

I mean, character action games and score chasers do tend to fall in that optimal answer bucket. You’re free to freestyle and get a lower score, but without RNG, there will be one way to play that always works. If that counts as infinitely replayable, then so does any other game you enjoy. And for fighting games, that RNG is just substituted for your opponents’ decision making.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

Most score you on style as well, not just efficiency.

Right, but the style has point values assigned to you. If they’re unchanging, there is a way that will always work best, every time. At a high level (correct me if I’m wrong, as I’m somewhat new to this genre), rewarding style is similar to rewarding variety, juggles, and getting multiple enemies in the same attack. If you go down the checklist of your arsenal, you can always hit the variety. If you know exactly how the enemies behave, you can reliably get multiple enemies in the same aerial combo that the scoring system rewards most. The same actions give you the same output, and one of those score values will be the highest out of all other possible options. One set of actions will reliably always handle the same mob if it’s deterministic.

Hmm… how does that work? I hit my opponent, they take damage, no Xcom bullshit. I don’t see any RNG-like behavior in this interaction.

That’s just damage. The rest of the fighting game is rock paper scissors. A beats B beats C beats A. At round start, what button do you press? There’s always some option that beats your option, and that’s before we’ve even calculated the resulting damage. Some of what they’re doing is responding to what you’ve been doing, but the rest of what they’re doing is trying to be unpredictable; AKA random. (And that’s before we even talk about characters like Faust.)

Keyword is enjoy. I don’t see myself replaying DMC5 for as long as I’ve been playing some of my favorite games because I enjoy it less.

That’s interesting. As I said, I’m somewhat new to this genre. The short version is that Hi-Fi Rush got me interested in checking out all of the DMC games (minus the reboot), and 5 ended up being my favorite of that series (but still not as good as Hi-Fi Rush).

Switch 2 Sales Reportedly Struggled Over The Christmas Period (www.nintendolife.com) angielski

I like how this article does not talk about the anti consumer practices engaged in by Nintendo, that might push some customers away from their consoles. /s Nintendo can disable your Switch 2 for piracy in the U.S., but not in Europe, as confirmed by its EULA. There is already a switch in my household, but the price along with...

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

I doubt the ability to brick your console remotely played too large of a part in this. It’s far more likely the asking price combined with the general economic situation for the average consumer, combined with a worse screen and a lesser launch offering of titles. For my own biases, when you see how consoles have required online subscriptions and how your old games don’t automatically run at higher settings when you buy the new machine, I wonder how much more gas in the tank consoles even have without some fundamental transformation.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

General availability seems to imply that supply was not a constraint by the time we got to the holiday shopping season.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

Most of “the newest games” are well within the spec of the Steam Deck. Of the 4 non-exclusive games nominated for GOTY at the Keighleys, they’ll all run on it just fine. Some of the biggest games of the year end up being the likes of Peak, Schedule I, or Megabonk, and not only are those games only available on PC (at least for a while), but they’re not even pushing the spec of the Steam Deck to its limit. With RAM pricing issues going on right now, high end studios are likely going to target a lower spec. And the companies that can afford to make a game that hits that higher spec are few and far between anyway, compared to the AA and indie studios that made most of the best games of the past few years.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

I played it all on desktop, but it looks like it got an update a month ago and is now Deck verified. Friends of mine played it on Deck before that and didn’t mention any complaints, but I wasn’t fishing for them either.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t region locking on the NES and SNES largely implemented via the shape of the cartridge? Frank Cifaldi and the VGHF just put out that NES history video, and it had some kind of authentication chip that could only be provided by Nintendo, and it was in the NES but not the Famicom. And on Gamecube, I seem to remember you needed an Action Replay to break the region locking, but I never dabbled in it myself.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

All of new gaming hardware is decidedly less imminent now that this pricing nonsense is going on. Even if the tech exists, no one thinks they can sell at what they’d have to charge for it. It’s going to be a rough near term future for gaming hardware before it eventually levels out. Reports are that consoles planned for 2027 are now looking like they’ll be pushed back.

I’m not super used to calling that “hybrid gaming”, but my wife seems to have no problem playing cozy games on the Steam Deck, almost exclusively on the TV when I didn’t take it with me on the go. And we’re once again back to the best games and the best graphics not being all that correlated. The other part is that even if a random gamer has a Steam Deck, it’s unlikely to be their only gaming PC, and if they want the power to produce that larger image at better frame rates at home, they’ll play on that other PC, and that game will run its best there. On Switch 2, that one device is your only option no matter what. That means that if you want to play one of those beefier titles from the Switch 1, they’re not going to run at better settings ever unless the developer explicitly upgrades them; even then, there’s often the Switch tax compared to buying the same game on PC.

I’m not trying to talk you down from a Switch 2 if that’s your preference, but if someone’s asking me for a recommendation for a gaming handheld, the Steam Deck is going to be what I tell them until I rule it out due to some other need. I definitely wouldn’t start with a Switch 2. The Deck just hits a compelling price with a good software experience and, perhaps most importantly, a library that dwarfs what Nintendo could ever hope to match by following the traditional console model.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

What about the last 20 years of Microsoft make you think that adding value to their products has anything to do with their business model?

The part where they tried to make an Apple app store and it didn’t take. The open ecosystem of Windows is the thing that allows it to continue to exist and dominate. And the open ecosystem of open source software actively enhances their ability to sell companies server infrastructure, which makes them more money than Windows does.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

Exactly. Steam is so laissez-faire about adult content that removing one game, without elaborating, and allowing so many others sounds exactly to me like it violates or risks violating a law somewhere, and so they’re covering their asses, maybe even preemptively. I’m not a lawyer, but their advice is often to just shut the fuck up. Epic sure was excited to host it when Steam declined and then did the same thing. For all I know, the reason GOG can host it but the other two won’t is that maybe GOG doesn’t operate in a country where some law makes that game a problem for them.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

In any case you speculated that Steam might be trying to clear porn games from the platform in your initial comment (or inferred such) and one game doesn’t validate that claim.

Quite the opposite. The reason I suspect there’s something legal behind behavior like this is that it is so laser targeted to this game. Especially when it was immediately followed up by their competitor eager to host the game (which had already removed the content named in Steam’s initial reason) and then changing their mind at the last second.

What I see in common between Horses and Github is that it appears that they see it as a bad idea to explain publicly why they’re doing what they’re doing, and that smells like a legal reason to me.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

He said steam is trying to clear porn games.

No, I didn’t.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

“the stuff affecting adult content on Steam”

You filled in the rest. I didn’t imply that.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

So why did Epic also remove the game at the last minute?

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

Quite frankly, it doesn’t. This thread is about the removal of adult content from multiple different places that happens in suspicious proximity to the removal of other adult content, such that it sure feels like it’s all connected.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

cool

  • Wszystkie
  • Subskrybowane
  • Moderowane
  • Ulubione
  • NomadOffgrid
  • test1
  • krakow
  • Gaming
  • muzyka
  • fediversum
  • esport
  • FromSilesiaToPolesia
  • tech
  • Cyfryzacja
  • warnersteve
  • rowery
  • healthcare
  • m0biTech
  • Psychologia
  • Technologia
  • niusy
  • MiddleEast
  • ERP
  • Spoleczenstwo
  • sport
  • informasi
  • turystyka
  • Blogi
  • shophiajons
  • retro
  • Travel
  • Radiant
  • Wszystkie magazyny