naevaTheRat

naevaTheRat, 4 miesiące temu

I think you’re actually engaging with it a bit shallowly. You are the one who invented the rule and a different framing is exploring how, if games seem to put us in situations where we must do horrible things to advance even a couple of times, we take that as a rule instead of risking losing to find other ways.

Which is a fairly glaring indictment of the whole military shooter genre which is all about “hard men and hard choices” that completely dehumanise the factions you’re in opposition to.

naevaTheRat, 4 miesiące temu

Military shooter games glorify war and shallowly reward horrible behaviour. Spec ops does it differently.

Majority of people: do horrible thing

Some people: experimental and find heroic thing is rewarded.

Discussion possible, why did the majority do that? could we talk about horrible and uncreative design patterns in the genre of military shooters? How media portrayals of war train us not to look for peaceful solutions? Whether this feeds into how we view American imperial wars?

you: no spec ops bad video game because I didn’t do the good option.

naevaTheRat, 4 miesiące temu

It’s weird. I credit my scientific education with waking me up to questioning stuff. Like when you learn about how we know stuff, the limits of proof (e.g. can’t prove empiricism is “true” it just works extremely well for certain things), how hard it is to wrangle stuff into scientific questions and so on the elephant in the room is how fucking impossible most questions are.

Then you get thinking about how untested most of society is, how many different ways there are to interpret things, how unknowable the “goodness” of your preferences is and so on.

Yet, in the same cohort as me there were a lot of people coming out extremely certain of their own worldview and blindly faithful in technocrats and the mystical power of throwing data at stuff to solve enormous problems. Like we are anywhere near being able to calculate out a human society.

So idk, I think it’s less stem vs not stem and education quality and kinds of people/where they’re at in life. You could probably go through a lit crit course and come out blinkered too, being able to do lit crit doesn’t guarantee you’d have good opinions.

naevaTheRat, 4 miesiące temu

you get that this wouldn’t work as a critique if it was obvious you could make different choices right? Then it wouldn’t make the player complicit. If you’re not complicit it’s just a game saying “military shooters could be different” which is a nothing statement.

Like how games with a “get the information (evil)” and “get the information (good)” button aren’t offering real moral choices. Or how deus ex would lose all impact if the “here’s a gun, go kill these people” starting mission tempting you with a rocket launcher popped up a “you might change sides in the future” warning.

By involving you, leading you just like any other military shooter for a bit then cutting you loose is what creates the critique. You compare notes after playing and someone points out something and you go “huh, why didn’t I try that?”. It’s not condemning you for not trying that, it’s asking you if you’re happy with a genre which trains you to never to try it.

naevaTheRat, 4 miesiące temu

Hopefully people don’t need a college degree in literature to understand basic subtext.

I think it’s about learning that it’s worth doing more than anything else.

naevaTheRat, 4 miesiące temu

From vicious giant insects who have once again come back

naevaTheRat, 5 miesięcy temu

haha, $company you’re so relatable. You’re a friend, you get me. Not a souless machine inhumanely optimised for profit twisting flesh into eldritch parts to power the rituals that sustain you.

naevaTheRat, 6 miesięcy temu

So why are they in there? to prey on people?

Maybe predatory behaviour is bad and wrong? Things can be unacceptable without them personally hurting you btw.

naevaTheRat, 6 miesięcy temu

it’s a party based dark fantasy action rpg.

It’s also a stat heavy build forward game where you can make completely broken characters for post game.

It’s also a sprawling open world with relationship systems with benefits and dating.

It’s got a cool pseudo multiplayer where you send your porn to other players and if they like your porn you get gifts. Oh sorry, pawn.

you climb monsters which is cool.

It’s also a game where fire is bane to wolves.

naevaTheRat, 6 miesięcy temu

I hate how difficult it is to find games I like when it used to be so trivial.

2010: “I want to play another game like rogue”

“Ok try these 10 games which are all excellent, and then there’s these 50 which stretch the definition but rhyme with it if you like”

2020: “I want to play a game like rogue”

“Here’s a 3d looter shooter with multiplayer and 9 currencies for upgrades between short runs”

naevaTheRat, 7 miesięcy temu

you know it wasn’t till I enrolled in a physics degree that I met another human using a fountain pen. My first year prof.

Why are we so fucking weird? It’s obviously superior not having to exert normal force on the page to write (fuck you ball points) but why isn’t that more widespread.

naevaTheRat, 7 miesięcy temu

you have to do that to ballpoints to. Unless you use them disposably which there are disposable fountain pens too if you are a paper plates sort of person.

Felt tips share most of the advantages of ballpoints and fountain pens so are a defensible choice. They tend to work upside down too which fountain pens and ballpoints don’t. Although pencils, soapstone, or pressurised paint markers are better in those applications generally.

naevaTheRat, 7 miesięcy temu

it’s also a space pen which is designed to work in an environment with no upside down so it would obviously have to.

naevaTheRat, 7 miesięcy temu

Yeah I had one ages back but you did need to replace the wicking material and tip periodically, filling also involved slowly infusing with a syringe and drawing needle.

In the end it was about as much hassle as a solid fountain pen and I couldn’t use archivists ink so I went back.

naevaTheRat, 7 miesięcy temu

If I write something down it’s usually because I want to remember. Sucks to lose notes/journals/data to sunbeams, coffee spills, rain, leaks, or time.

naevaTheRat, 7 miesięcy temu

Yeah I’m in Australia and I left my lab notebook by a window over a holiday break. It was probably getting over 50 C daily and the ink all faded. I don’t think it was UV, as multiple pages were damaged, I think the ink wasn’t hugely temperature stable.

It wasn’t like magically gone, but faded enough that my chicken scratch was hard to read. Between that and water damage at various points I figured I’d just switch before something got fucked up beyond salvaging. Besides, you never know what’ll be interesting to future generations. Whether it’s a grandkid paging through something to get a sense of who you were or some researcher going through archives. Archivists ink is non acidic, so it doesn’t destroy paper over time. Idk whether printer ink is.

naevaTheRat, 7 miesięcy temu

Yeah might be worth a test. I assume most modern pigments are probably pretty stable, this was 10 years ago using ink that was 40 years old even then. At a certain point we all just develop idiosyncratic neuroses as a result of experiences :)

naevaTheRat, 7 miesięcy temu

You stay away from my tatsu!

naevaTheRat, 7 miesięcy temu

Elden ring (had to stop playing on release due to arthritis, hands working better atm). It’s pretty good. I got up to volcano manor on release, doing liurnia atm so still on the easy/familiar stuff although finding a few things I didn’t get last time.

Dual Scythes are fun but garbage slow in pve so I might respect after the fight with empty nester. Trying a dragon communion build but there aren’t many dragons early game so mostly I just have no useful stats so far haha.

Palworld. It’s also pretty good.

naevaTheRat, 8 miesięcy temu

Idk, it’s definitely not some sort of life changing experience or high art or whatever. It is however kinda cute, a little bit funny, has an enjoyable gameplay loop, adequate exploration, and satisfy combat. It’s also pretty cheap.

The monster mechanics are surprisingly well integrated into the world. Just basic shit like pulling out a burny fox to see when in a cave is pretty immersive. Then discovering special mechanics like the boar that rapidly mines by charging rocks has you throw out your pick and start careening around like a loon.

It only really has legs during the discovery phase I think, but that’s fine. Games aren’t bad if they end.

naevaTheRat, 8 miesięcy temu

It would be nice, I wouldn’t bet on it though and don’t recommend buying something in the chance it gets better later. I’m enjoying myself atm and wont be mad if it never becomes more than it is.

Hopefully it’s at least a signal to other devs that there is real market interest in base building + monster collection or just open world monster collecting

naevaTheRat, 8 miesięcy temu

The story really isn’t that good

naevaTheRat, 8 miesięcy temu

Legit: I’m not endorsing it but if someone types gg ez and it bothers you then you need therapy.

I think sportspersonship is a great thing and we should be nice to each other but like it’s just nonsense. Laugh at their ego and move on.

naevaTheRat, 8 miesięcy temu

Basically everything old. There’s such massive recency bias in game discussions. It’s very much an explicit marketing strategy to promote the new thing as more everything but somehow it’s infected almost all discussions.

Sure ok, playing an old game requires a bit more investment and effort than watching an old film or even reading an old book but mostly it’s just about lack of familiarity. Especially outside of fps style games where I’ll admit prior to halo 1 things were pretty all over the shop many older games are still approachable.

Coupled with the general dismissal of strategy and simulation genres (which were comparatively bigger in the past) and many things get forgotten outside of cult classic status.

naevaTheRat, 8 miesięcy temu

Idk, it’s pretty difficult to get my peers to check out black and white film, let alone silent, and yet most enjoy what they see.

I came to gaming after the NES (although I was alive at the time) and have recently been emulating games and have been surprised by how good some are.

There are still modern games that expect you to read a manual before playing, there are still modern games where it takes about 2 hours to learn the UI. There are older games with 3 page manuals and simple controls too.

You’ve got to remember you’re not immune to marketing tactics either. Like part of the resistance to checking out older stuff has been placed in us all by gaming companies training us to interpret stuff like low framerate as bad, or controls that aren’t fluid as bad.

Best game doesn’t necessarily mean most enjoyable now, or even an enjoyable experience at all. Some of the greatest art is difficult, unpleasant, and challenging. Some of the greatest video games are those that set trends, or do something unique despite rough edges, or are even straight up hostile to their player.

naevaTheRat, 8 miesięcy temu

That fucking name is reason not to buy it already.

It’s not even claw, it’s CLAW grrrrr fear me and my pocket Cheeto dust.

It reminds me of when yoyos (yep I’m that old) were trying to be like “this is the spinanator 6000 XL Xtreme fireball mushroom cloud”

naevaTheRat, 11 miesięcy temu

Huh I have a 2060 and it runs fine at 1920x1440

Just clicked auto set and forgot. a few drops during cutscenes.

Maybe a driver issue for your card vs mine? Did you update drivers and rebuild the cached texture thingy

naevaTheRat, 11 miesięcy temu

Ah cool! good to know.

I’ll keep that in mind as a tip for people.

Hope you’re having fun! This game takes me back to 2014 ds1 haha. Including all the rage as nobody knew where to go or even what stats did.