dandi8

dandi8, 5 miesięcy temu

I'm still playing Unreal Tournament 2004 just fine with bots. I don't need a community to play Project Zomboid with my SO. Your claim is factually incorrect.

dandi8, 5 miesięcy temu

It replicates it well enough for me to still be playing it regularly 20 years later and well enough to debunk the myth that every multiplayer game must automatically become unplayable with time ("die") solely due to the fact that it's multiplayer.

I can also still play UT2K4 with my friends, should I want to. I can't do either of these with a "live service" game where there is no offline mode or self-hostable servers.

Also, you ignored my mention of PZ, which is a multiplayer-enabled game which also won't die when the developer dies (or abandons the game).

dandi8, 8 miesięcy temu (edited 8 miesięcy temu)

I'll be the first to say that I only begrudgingly accept Steam exists. However, I avoid using it and vastly prefer GOG due to the DRM-free nature of their store and the offline installers.

Just because the hate on Epic is vocal does not mean that everyone likes the Steam status quo.

dandi8, 8 miesięcy temu

When will it release on GOG?

dandi8, 8 miesięcy temu

Now release it on GOG, then I'll buy it.

dandi8, 8 miesięcy temu

That's a very US-centric view, at best. I paid about 23 dollars for a brand new copy of Half-Life 2 in 2004.

dandi8, 8 miesięcy temu

Fair enough. Still, games used to be vastly cheaper in my country and the asking price for the basic version of Starfield is 80 USD. There is no way any game is worth this much of my income.

dandi8, 9 miesięcy temu (edited 9 miesięcy temu)

Live service = always online.

It means once the servers go down you will no longer be able to play the game.

A game doesn't need to be always online to be constantly updated. See: Project Zomboid, No Man's Sky, Minecraft etc.

dandi8, 9 miesięcy temu (edited 9 miesięcy temu)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_as_a_service

"In the video game industry, games as a service (GaaS) represents providing video games or game content on a continuing revenue model, similar to software as a service.
[...]
Games released under the GaaS model typically receive a long or indefinite stream of monetized new content over time to encourage players to continue paying to support the game. This often leads to games that work under a GaaS model to be called "living games", "live games", or "live service games" since they continually change with these updates."

GaaS monetization can't be achieved without a central online service. Even with Hitman 3 a lot of content is locked behind the online requirement.

You can bend the definition as much as you want but this is what most people mean by" live service games".

dandi8, 9 miesięcy temu

I'm more in favor of Godot, but Unreal/UDK has been a thing for a long while, so it's not true that Unity was 'the only game in town' for a long time.

dandi8, 9 miesięcy temu

Godot 4 is, apparently, a big rewrite and doing 3D shouldn't be a problem now.

dandi8, 9 miesięcy temu

AFAIK this applies retroactively.

dandi8, 9 miesięcy temu

I have a feeling you're talking about emulating consoles, which is a bit different than, say, emulating a game that only works on Windows XP.

dandi8, 9 miesięcy temu

I also have plenty of experience emulating all kinds of things, including Windows - in fact, I have an instance of Win 98 in a VM right now.

That said, I can't agree that it's in any way easy for the average Joe. It's not rocket science, but it's by far harder than just having a working executable.

If nothing else, consider the legality of it - you must have a legal copy of the specific version of Windows, often the specific BIOS, as well. These are not easy (or cheap, often) to acquire these days.

Then you likely need to make sure your CPU supports Hyper-V, then install the entire OS...

Then you often need to make sure you're emulating the specific CPU with the specific GPU, with the specific sound card, or else this specific Windows 95 game will CTD or be missing features. Old games were finicky and OS emulation for gaming is only easy on the surface.