This is the worst take I’ve seen in a LOOONG time. The language learning is one of the best systems in NMS. The developers literally spent YEARS adding to the game, completely for free, but they don’t “respect their players”?
It’s sad, but I think that the massive explosion of really high-quality smaller games means there’s ultimately less money to go around from buyers, all at the same time as big companies are consolidating funding into a few big-name series.
Anode Heart, Moonstone Island, Spirittea, My Time at Sandrock, Empty Shell, Quasimorph, Fae Farm, Sunkenland, Black Skylands, Techtonica, The Leviathan’s Fantasy, Forever Skies, Ghostlore, Roots of Pacha, Stranded: Alien Dawn, Homestead Arcana, Terra Nil, Sifu, Industries of Titan…
All of those released this year. That’s a LOT of really good small games (and that’s just from the games I got), even if they’re not all technically indie. I personally LOVE space games, as well as colony/group management sims, but Jumplight Odyssey just didn’t feel like my vibe, sadly.
I’d argue that any software that is adversarial towards the user/computer owner, and takes actions specifically to hinder an action by them, on their own machine, is malicious.
We’d be absolutely apoplectic if the government demanded we install a surveillance tool on our laptops in order to e.g. access the DMV website or file our taxes, but when someone tells us to in order to play a game, it’s okay? Nah.
I remember back in like 2016~2017 seeing one of those spinning aimbots with a wallhack, just sitting at CT spawn in Dust 2 and killing everyone on T. We all watched it for 5 minutes until it got VAC-banned. That one was hilarious.
I do wonder if West Coast US (where I am) is more heavily policed than other regions. That would make sense if Valve is doing some kind of post-match automated analysis of player behavior, which would probably be too compute-intensive to run everywhere.
I’m usually ranked either 3rd or 4th in FFA deathmatch matches, so if they’re hiding it so well that they’re not pushing the non-cheaters down, what is the point of cheating? And if they’re hiding it so well that they’re not actually even winning, how are they causing so much grief?
Maybe it’s a bigger issue in Ranked/ competitive, but if you’re not actually on an esports team I just don’t get caring about rankings and playing ranked (is it just for the ranked season profile badge? I did that one year to get to Gold Nova 3, and then never bothered again).
Earth 2150 includes the base-building, as well as a very cool “persistent homebase” mechanic for the singleplayer campaigns, where you build bases in the mission sites but also have a home base that you can transport units to/from, for use in future missions.
Some people seem to think that 3 years (from when AAA companies normally drop their first teaser until release) is the full game development lifecycle duration, and anything past that must be abandoned.
I absolutely LOVE the concept of Caves of Qud, but I literally suck at it so badly that I cannot actually experience it. I leave the starting town, and insects kill me, every time. I have literally started over 50 times, and I never get further than some reeds where insect things kill me.
Starfield player counts will go way up once the modkit is released. Every single one of those people playing Skyrim on Steam have modded it out the wazoo.
I love the idea. Worker co-ops and subscription-based news (just like a newspaper) are both perfect models for this. I’m a big proponent for and supporter of the Patreon model for small creators.
…But I read through their articles and they’re just not in sync with my taste in gaming. I think they need more writers who are into sandboxes and sims, because they all seem super into smaller, narrative-core games, and somewhat derisive of open worlds that don’t hyper focus on a story.