dojan

dojan, miesiąc temu

+1

The people that matter have gotten paid anyway, unless of course the publisher steal from them too, which happens from time to time, see Bethesda and Mick Gordon.

dojan, miesiąc temu

Thankfully the talent still exists, so they might move on to other places, do their own thing, or leave game dev altogether.

Gamedev is an extremely toxic career, and it has been for a very long time. I’m glad people are finally starting to at least somewhat care, if only for the studios themselves.

dojan, 2 miesiące temu

Unity’s modus operandi is to develop a feature halfway and then deprecate it and replace it with something that’s not yet released. Such a mess of a product.

dojan, 3 miesiące temu

Yeah I felt like DOS2 had really improved on the already good formula that was DOS, and BG3 using the DnD system felt like a big step back. It’s still a great game, but I feel like it is in spite of the DND systems (not the setting), not because of it. DND doesn’t feel suited for the computer, it really fits better on the tabletop.

dojan, 3 miesiące temu

That’s fair. I’ve a bunch of friends who love the DnD system in it.

dojan, 3 miesiące temu

I think making something on par with BG3 will be incredibly tough. Wouldn’t mind seeing them branch out and try something new again. Larian has done a bunch of different stuff before. A modern take on Ego Draconis would be really cool.

dojan, 3 miesiące temu

I won’t fight you over that, I think they were good too. I’d love a modern third-person ARPG in the Divinity universe. The “build your own ghoul” mechanic was really fun, and obviously turning into a fucking dragon was epic too.

dojan, 3 miesiące temu

There are exceptionally few puns that can be translated literally. One that comes to mind is from a Lipton Limone advert, where Miranda Kerr says 「おいチイ」, when I first heard it I thought it was just an accent thing, but the second time I realised it’s a pun; Tealicious.

dojan, 3 miesiące temu

Haha, when I realised I got nuts about it. Tealicious is such a great pun. No one I knew got it, and it was so disappointing.

dojan, 4 miesiące temu

I’ve had so much fun in Wildermyth. Definitely recommended.

dojan, 5 miesięcy temu

I’m hoping this also means that voice actors can choose not to enter such a deal?

dojan, 5 miesięcy temu

Existing performances must not be used to train models. If you wish to train a model you should need explicit consent and hire an actor to record such data. The actor should also receive royalties when the resulting model is used for a commercial purpose.

See, minus the royalty part (in most cases) this has been how VOCALOID, SynthV and the like has more or less operated for two decades now.

dojan, 5 miesięcy temu

Not if they want a particular name, like Elias Toufexis seems pretty against having his voice cloned.

dojan, 5 miesięcy temu

The way I see it, if they want to train models on someone’s voice they should hire them specifically for that purpose. Ergo, clips that are used in production should not be used for training voice models.

dojan, 5 miesięcy temu

Then everyone should unionise and fall under the same protections. It’s how it works here in Sweden.

dojan, 7 miesięcy temu

Nah, I don’t want to pay less for AAA games. I don’t pay for them at all. They’re all mass-produced garbage.

dojan, 8 miesięcy temu

Goblins. Their kind ill like fire.

dojan, 8 miesięcy temu

Wow that’s illegal! You can’t just stab people!

dojan, 8 miesięcy temu

I don’t think you need that much insight to see that the whole institution is fucked.

• Rampant “frat bro” culture
• Frequent cases of sexual harrassment, and assault
• Cases of suicide
• Cases of burnout
• Layoffs like clockwork
• Often deliver rubbish products
• Frequently employs consumer-hostile and manipulative tactics

What is even the point, really? Maybe I’m an outlier but I don’t feel like the AAA gaming industry provides enough good to warrant all the crap they put their workers through, and the way the sentient wallets customers are treated.

dojan, 8 miesięcy temu

By asking “what’s the point” I meant less “what’s their goals” and more “what benefit do they serve?”

I’d love for some big swoop to just upend the entire industry. Create better conditions for the workers. Stop the companies from stealing from artists. Have actual consequences for nepotism, corruption, and abuse of power. Like crunch and all that BS is just expected as though it is because of the job, but it’s not, it’s because of the system.

dojan, 8 miesięcy temu

Yeah I live in a country where pretty much everyone is unionised. What I described is standard here. It could be over there too.

dojan, 9 miesięcy temu

You can enjoy stuff that’s objectively bad. Like fast food. The problem is less the individual games and more the state of gaming as a whole.

It’s not that one game launches as an unfinished buggy mess, despite having a paid for early access period. It’s not that one game increases the cost of entry, and further augments that with season passes, microtransactions, preorder bonuses, always-online requirements and all other bullshit that is modern AAA gaming.

The problem is that it’s the norm. If someone who doesn’t play a lot of games picks up a copy of the Ubisoft game they will probably have a blast. The systems in the game were fun when they were novel fifteen years ago. It’s when you see the same games released year after year, with the same issues, and the same predatory monetisation schemes that it gets trite.

It’s perfectly fine to enjoy Starfield. I hope those who waited so long for it do. For me personally there’s just nothing to get excited about because it’s just another version of the Bethesda game. I have already played it a dozen times before, and while twelve year old me enjoyed it immensely, thirty year old me can find better things to do with his time.

In short, it’s not that fast food is hard to enjoy, it’s just that every restaurant serves the same boring old burger.

dojan, 9 miesięcy temu

We can’t make anything new. Have the same old game in a new package.

dojan, 9 miesięcy temu

Honestly more commentary on the state of gaming in general with rereleases happening all the time. Bethesda did release Skyrim like five separate times.

But it’s not just Bethesda. Final Fantasy is getting remakes. Persona 3 is being remade. Blizzard is working on rereleases. The Resident Evil games are being remade. Like hasn’t resident evil 4 been released three times now?

dojan, 9 miesięcy temu

Yeah. It’s “The Bethesda game.”

BioWare and Gamefreak have the same issues. Always the same games, but with slightly different gimmicks.

I’m glad for people that enjoy it, but it doesn’t work for me.

dojan, 9 miesięcy temu

Blender was around for decades, with big name studios poking around and using it here and there along the way, then it more or less exploded. Hoping to see something similar for Godot.

Honestly, I rather hope the same for most software. FOSS is the way to go. Fuck privately owned, proprietary, spyware bullshit.

dojan, 9 miesięcy temu

The Intel Arcs are really cheap though.

dojan, 9 miesięcy temu

Well written? Bethesda?

I mean sure their games are fun, but they’re not particularly good by any measure.

dojan, 9 miesięcy temu

Fast food can be delicious and filling, but it’s not good food.

Bethesda makes the game equivalent to fast food. Specifically instant ramen. You can tweak instant ramen, add veggies, eggs, meat, seasonings, etc. and transform it into something new. It’s still instant ramen, but it’s different.

dojan, 9 miesięcy temu

I’m not sure what this means. Is the game not on PS5?

You’re absolutely free to enjoy the game. Like I mentioned in the comments, Bethesda’s game is like instant ramen. It can definitely be delicious and enjoyable, but it’s not good/healthy food.

dojan, 9 miesięcy temu

There’s a lot of interesting world building and history to draw upon, it’s just a shame Bethesda doesn’t do that.

You’re never really presented with moral choices. The story never really has you think about things. There’s a tonne of lore books and tapes and what have yous that spill a rich tapestry of stories at you, but you’re never really shown any of it. I’ve had fun with Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Skyrim, and to a lesser extent Fallout 4, but at this point I’m kind of tired of it. They’re all the same game. They have the same floaty combat. The same lacklustre storytelling. The same awkward “talk at you” conversations.

Been there, done that.

dojan, 9 miesięcy temu

I took a gamble on the Arc 770 when I built my PC a few months ago, because I honestly am not too keen on the current GPU generation. Like why would I want to pay through my nose for cards that are incredibly power inefficient, with tendencies to catch fire to boot? The Arc series offered decent performance (save for old DX9 games and such, but I already had a GTX970 I could use for those if need be), and shocking amounts of memory, so I gave it a shot and I’m really happy with it.

I have some weird graphical glitches in FFXIV from time to time. It’s nothing overly annoying, sometimes a box will flicker on the screen for a frame, and sometimes the light fades out briefly. Other than that I’ve had no issues, it’s chugging along really well. My biggest (and only) gripe with the card is the control centre software not allowing you to remap keybinds. That’s pretty dumb.

All that said, I’m not a hardcore gamer by any means, I don’t buy all the latest AAA games at launch (often not at all, really) and I don’t care much for maxing out my graphics and running at 900FPS.

dojan, 9 miesięcy temu

Bethesda’s not exactly known for decent stories though. I mean yeah maybe back in the day, but nothing they’ve released in the past 10-15 years or so.

dojan, 9 miesięcy temu

I liked the DLC with the creepy island and the robot man detective, that one was good! The main story was poppycock though. Like, a partner I didn’t care for died within the first few minutes, then a baby I didn’t care for got kidnapped and that was supposed to be my main motivator to get through the game?

Bethesda also kind of flops in the roleplaying department. Looking at BGIII, there’s plenty of moments where you can make decisions and not know what impact it might have, there’s lots of little interwoven story threads, and that’s what I’d expect from an RPG. Bethesda doesn’t really let you make choices.

Even No Man’s Sky has deeper thoughts hidden in that sparkly, colourful, arcade sandbox. The game touches on ideas of existence, life, and self. What themes did Skyrim touch on? Racism I guess? It feels to me like they wanted to do more with Skyrim, but blew all their budget on making a big world and didn’t have enough to put in it. The civil war storyline could in theory be a fantastic exploration on morals, but in reality it was just a slog.

Oblivion had some good quests. The expansion was really nice, but the quest that stands out most in my mind is the one where you set out to help a woman find her husband, and sleuth out that he actually managed to get trapped in the painting he was working on, after being attacked by a burglar.

Skyrim doesn’t really have anything remotely like it. Just endless copy-pasted dungeons with the same condescending puzzles and boring enemies. Sure they included Sheogorath, but somehow they managed to make even him drab and grey.

dojan, 9 miesięcy temu

Oblivion has towns behind loading screens too. Even Kvatch. There are mods that break them out into the world but they’re instanced by default.

Particularly annoying with the Imperial City.

dojan, 9 miesięcy temu

It’s interesting how little evolving and upgrading Bethesda does with their stuff. You can’t say that RDR2 and that table tennis game feels the same, but Oblivion and Fallout 4 feel very similar.

It’s a Bethesda problem, because other Gamebryo games don’t feel the same. Even CAVE did a better job with it.

dojan, 10 miesięcy temu

This definitely looks interesting!

dojan, 10 miesięcy temu

I uninstalled the Arc software when I realised I couldn’t change the bloody keybinds for it.

They happen to interfere with insertions in excel. Bloody annoying.

dojan, 10 miesięcy temu

You’re aware that the AAA gaming industry is rife with crunch, theft, and abuse of workers, right?

How could little La-La-La-Larian accomplish this in a for their workers sustainable and responsible manner over the course of five years if big players like EA and Ubisoft cannot?

It’s not that the AAA devs can’t, it’s that they won’t. They have a formula that works. They are able to shit out a big puddle of diarrhoea on a yearly basis that people eagerly lap up, and so long as that remains the more profitable option they’ll sacrifice as many talented and passionate workers they can get their hands on.

The ultimate goal isn’t to create a good product, it’s for all us walking little wallets to spill as much money as possible, even if it means financially ruining ourselves in the process.

dojan, 10 miesięcy temu

Yes. The solution is a crash. Corporate is a festering pustule that’s just ready for popping.

I work in business applications development. While my interests were initially set on games dev, the absolute toxic cesspool that is the gaming industry set me down on a different path.

We don’t have crunch. We don’t always meet timelines, and yes the customer does get a final say in what features make it and which ones don’t, but the end result are happy customers and happy workers.

Can you say the same? Corporate is pushing greedier and more anti-consumer tactics, there are systems in place to feed on addicts and squeeze as much money out of people as possible.

There are so many reports of stress casualties, workers that burn out, some that even die, for what? A mediocre shitty product that had all of the creative vision stripped out for the sake of some garbage formula we’ve seen in every single game for almost two decades?

There is no benefit to anyone but shareholders. No good games are being made. Workers and customers are being exploited.

Let it crash.