ryven

ryven, 16 dni temu

I am about 4-ish resource tiers in out of 7-ish or so, and I don’t feel like it is especially grindy by the standards of survival crafting games. There is obviously some grinding for resources, but there is also a good amount of exploring and doing quests, during which you can pick up a lot of the things you need. Getting through the iron tier was a little bit long because you don’t have access to a large vehicle inventory yet at that point, but I also took that time to reveal a bunch of the map, clear out bandit camps, etc. so it didn’t become too monotonous. There are a good variety of secondary resources that will keep you visiting different kinds of locations (wrecked ships, old mining operations, etc.) so that even if you just want to farm resources, you won’t just be spending all your time running between ore nodes.

If your friends would be playing together, they could also do things more efficiently by sharing bases so that they don’t each have to build their own infrastructure, and eventually you get access to a mining buggy that is faster to operate with two players (a solo player has to switch between the driver and mining laser seats).

ryven, 16 dni temu

The videogamey parts are really funny to me. I laughed my ass off when I saw Thufir Hawat standing around in the heat outside the Leto residence in Arrakeen because I guess players have to talk to him at some point, and the interior of the residence doesn’t exist in the game, so he has to stand around under an awning in the parking lot like a valet or something.

ryven, 15 dni temu

With regard to vehicle combat, I find it very strange that the very first NPC we meet has a man-portable surface-to-air missile launcher, but there don’t seem to be any anti-vehicular weapons that players can use.

Or at least I think there aren’t; I’m not nearly as far as you are, but I looked ahead in the research tab and didn’t see any.

ryven, 15 dni temu

Oh cool, I guess I just didn’t see it!

ryven, 18 dni temu

The kids are alright.

ryven, 19 dni temu

This is the one where we bully our little brother into going back to the world where he can’t walk, right? :P

ryven, 21 dni temu

Canceled Pride? Well, I canceled my sub!

ryven, 2 miesiące temu (edited 2 miesiące temu)

IME framegen hasn’t meaningfully reduced the open-world hitching. It gets the framerate nice and smooth while standing still, fighting a bandit or whatever… until you walk a bit and the game becomes CPU-limited while streaming in new cells, at which point you noticeably hitch.

The performance in interior cells (including cities) is very good even on Ultra settings.

I suspect that this is one of the compromises they made by keeping the old engine running under the hood, because as DF notes this also happened in the original.

ryven, 2 miesiące temu

It’s been a long time, but it’s supposed to be coming out this year.

ryven, 2 miesiące temu

“If you’re a masochist who enjoys being punished for little to no reward, this game is for you,” reads another negative review.

Hot damn, they made this update just for me? I was holding off checking out POE2 but I guess I should.

ryven, 3 miesiące temu

The cars make contact so much in this game that it feels like a missed opportunity to not have damage, at least visually. I want to see those cars crumple!

I know it’s typically because of licensing issues, though.

ryven, 3 miesiące temu

Any% clear!

ryven, 4 miesiące temu (edited 4 miesiące temu)

Can we blame this on the engagement era? The first competitive game I got into was Unreal Tournament 2004, and it seemed like every team deathmatch had one or two players who were in a completely different league from everyone else so the result just depended on which team they were on. You can’t blame the matchmaking because it didn’t have any, you just picked a server to connect to and played with whoever was there.

Edit to add: TDM was the main team game mode where this was a thing; modes with objectives, bigger teams, and vehicles all mitigated the effects of individual player skill.

ryven, 6 miesięcy temu

It is hard to see how the slot machine in LBALL can be gambling when you are guaranteed to profit on every spin (unless you’ve intentionally designed a machine where you can win nothing, but that seems like your fault). Gambling involves risking a stake, but in almost every configuration of the machine that you’ll encounter during normal play there is no risk, you are guaranteed to make more than it costs to spin. The challenge is to make enough to stay ahead of the landlord.

ryven, 6 miesięcy temu

The Sims 3. I had to figure out how to disable OneDrive backup for my Documents folder, because Sims 3 insists on keeping your saves there, and somehow everything breaks if OneDrive tries to sync them. Previously I had given in and let OneDrive sync everything because Win11 nags you if you try to avoid it.

I also have to fiddle with processor affinity to get the game to launch, for some reason.

It still crashes a lot.

ryven, 6 miesięcy temu

World of Warcraft is probably still in the lead even though I stopped playing years ago. It would be in the thousands of hours, which dwarfs anything else I’ve played.

ryven, 7 miesięcy temu

I think I’m part of the Terraria crowd (I play through it basically every time there’s a big content update, at least) and I think the patience argument has a lot of merit even with games like Terraria. If you were only going to play through Terraria once, waiting longer would mean you got to play through more content. For people with limited time to game, I think it makes a lot of sense to focus on games that have had more time to build up features so that they get a more complete experience.

ryven, 7 miesięcy temu

In Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, the world is ending, and the 13-day timer is very real. You basically get told “do as much as you can before the world ends” and let loose. So there’s urgency AND side questing.

And of course you have the opportunity to spend that time doing things that are completely irrelevant to making progress, like collecting silly outfits and forcing Lightning to wear them so that Hope can laugh at her.

ryven, 8 miesięcy temu

Initial reviews seem remarkably positive given what we saw in the first gameplay reveal a few months ago. My impression at the time was that about half the voice actors sounded like they hadn’t been given enough context about the scenario and some of the cutscenes had questionable direction, which were bad signs for a curated ten minute slice. I still think it’s ultimately not for me—I don’t really want action combat in my Dragon Age—but I’m glad people are enjoying it.

ryven, 8 miesięcy temu

Wow knowing the asset reuse was by design makes me feel way less charitable towards DA2. (I don’t know if I’d go as far as the other commenter and say it’s “a bad game,” but I didn’t like it.)

ryven, 9 miesięcy temu

I wonder if I can make a cheat that doesn’t do anything but turn myself into a frog…

ryven, 9 miesięcy temu

“Real world politics”? Did I miss the news that Undead Demon Margaret Thatcher is running in the next UK election?

ryven, 9 miesięcy temu

The Build Mode features in 4 are pretty good if you’re into virtual dollhouse building, and there’s a ton of custom content for it (as long as you’re on PC).

Live Mode is not very good, but it’s functional enough to play dolls in the houses you built if you’re willing to do all the story writing to make up for sims not having very interesting personalities/desires/autonomy.

ryven, 9 miesięcy temu

It is part of the main gameplay loop. In order to keep your car in a state where it protects you and is reasonably driveable, you must gather materials to craft repair items and replacement parts, in order to maintain the car’s panels, doors, and bumpers (which together function as armor), its wheels (which are necessary to get anywhere), and the various add-on systems you can craft for it. Tools gradually break with use, so you’ll also craft replacement tools, which are mostly for scavenging materials or interacting with stuff in the Zone.

By collecting a certain resource you gradually unlock upgraded parts and tools for crafting, which is the main way player power progresses during the game.

ryven, 10 miesięcy temu

Don’t you press R1 when your attack hits to pull the trigger for extra damage? You do use the revolver part, just only in close combat.

Or did I hallucinate that? It’s been over 20 years since I played it.

ryven, 11 miesięcy temu

The Oracle games didn’t actually use the link cable, they had a password system.

ryven, 11 miesięcy temu

Oh thank you! I knew the password existed because I was able to do it with only one system, I did not remember having the other option!

ryven, rok temu

Oof. Wasn’t this the one that was going to have in-depth object customization? I was looking forward to it from a dollhouse-building perspective. Even if it wasn’t great, having some competition might convince EA to allocate more dev resources to the Sims, which has ruthlessly embraced the “minimum viable product” philosophy for a long time.

ryven, rok temu

As a Blood Mage sympathizer, I say we let Solas cook!

ryven, rok temu

This is Sakurai’s explanation, and it seems reasonable to me:

“I feel very sorry for making the user wait,” he explained. “If you take one second from each user, that means you’ll be taking 10,000 seconds from 10,000 people. The more this repeats over the years, the more time you will cause players to lose."

ryven, rok temu

If I weren’t lazy I’d make a “I’m literally the guy in the photo” meme about this.

ryven, rok temu

Perfect! :D

ryven, rok temu (edited rok temu)

The red balls are lit Bob-ombs. While lit, they can be carried, thrown, bounced on (with spin jumps), and kicked (when touched any other way), and obviously after a short time they explode. Thrown, dropped, kicked, or bounced Bob-ombs kill enemies and collect coins.

Yes, in Super Mario World the spin jump allowed you to bounce on dangerous enemies including Piranha Plants, and actually the Super Mario Maker version is nerfed in some ways: in the oringal SMW you could also spin jump on certain things like fireballs and saws that you can’t in SMM.

ryven, rok temu

Sorry, yeah, it is intended that all levels are beatable. To upload a level you must prove that it is beatable by clearing it from the beginning without dying, and then clearing it again from each checkpoint (if there are any) to prove that it can also be cleared from any checkpoints.

Hacked levels have existed that cannot be cleared, but they can be reported and Nintendo takes them down. They should all be taken down by now, but in any case if it’s obviously impossible (the goal is completely blocked by impenetrable walls) Team 0% marks them as hacked on their spreadsheet in addition to reporting them, so they wouldn’t count.

In this game you can download levels and see the full level in the editor, so it isn’t possible to make a level that is “practically” unclearable using hidden information. Any things like hidden keys, “passcode” sections (where you need to hit blocks a certain number of times in order to manipulate things hidden off screen), etc. are trivially defeated by viewing the level in the editor.

ryven, rok temu

It’s only in SMM2, which doesn’t allow you to edit other people’s levels. And actually there is now a 3rd party tool to view SMM2 levels so those levels are now exposed as well.

ryven, rok temu

As someone who played 1 and then 5, I was really annoyed by how nice most of the demons in 5 are.

Also that one character whose arc is about coming to terms with the fact that her family is actually broke, when she had built her identity around being rich… but MFer you’re a demon overlord! Your overlord power is mind control! Just take other people’s money!

ryven, rok temu

I don’t think DD1 and BG3 have very much in common, honestly. DD1 was not a game where you engaged in immersive dialogue or developed interesting relationships (well, there was a relationship mechanic, but if you didn’t know how it worked, it didn’t feel like you had a lot of input.)

It was more a game about walking around surprisingly atmospheric environments and then fighting for your life against surprisingly difficult encounters. (It also had the reverse-difficulty-curve problem, where the beginning of the game was very hard and the enemies felt very tanky because of how damage was calculated, and then once you had some reasonable gear and stats the game got much easier.)

I would definitely watch someone else play an hour or two of DD2 when it comes out before you decide to buy it, especially if the action combat was what you didn’t like about Dark Souls.

ryven, rok temu

Very cool! I’m looking forward to it, but it also seems like the first expac that I might not want to enable for every playthrough, which is interesting—I wonder if we’ll see more of these themed packs going forward.

ryven, rok temu

And it looks like the result of a transporter malfunction involving Baron Rivendare’s Deathcharger and Butt Stallion.

ryven, rok temu

Seranas not even marriable

Open the console (~), click her, and try:

addtofaction 19809 1

No promises how well this works with Serana; with Lydia it turned out that she has all the right voice lines for getting/being married, which is neat.

ryven, rok temu

Is she? I swear I had to use the console command when I married her, uh, 12 years ago, did she get added after launch?

ryven, rok temu

NetHack sort of has this.

You eat the giant corpse. You’re having a hard time getting all of it down. Stop eating? y/n

n

You choke over your giant corpse. You die. Do you want your possesions identified? y/n

Or, if you can’t choke to death because you’re wearing an amulet of magical breathing:

You stuff yourself, and then vomit voluminously.

It’s not really the same, because eating doesn’t heal you and you’d usually rather do it when nothing is trying to kill you, although sometimes it can’t be helped.

ryven, rok temu

I haven’t forgiven them for banning Bonesaw577 after his legendary Jak and Daxter run at SGDQ2016.

ryven, rok temu

It’s not super clear, but probably for ignoring directions from the organizers who tried to get him to stop impersonating Owen Wilson (for some reason) and stop telling people to tweet @AirCanada.

I think the ban has run out and he can submit runs again by now, but these are the kind of petty grudges I like to hold!

ryven, rok temu

It goes without saying, but don’t commit crime, and certainly learn from your mistakes if you do.

Bootlicker!

ryven, rok temu

I have quit playing games over way less than that, lol. I have so many games I own but haven’t finished, and just as many that I’ve finished but would play again, there is no reason to stick with any particular one if I’m not feeling it.

ryven, rok temu

This is the first I’ve heard of Jumplight Odyssey. It looks potentially cool, but $30 for an early access title is a big ask in a year completely saturated with banger games, and based on the reviews it seems to need a bit more time before it is really ready. I’m not surprised, then, that it didn’t do as well as they hoped: if they hadn’t just announced that they’re stopping development, I would have put it on my wishlist to come back to in a year or two when it’s feature-complete, and when hopefully I’m not in the middle of so many other games already. If that’s a typical response, they probably didn’t get many sales.