So, I have a not so unique problem. I want to build a PC with decent power and good Linux support but local parts are hard to get and importing is a mess....
I feel like the end goal has always been the incentive for me. I learned to build a PC because, if I wanted to play the games I wanted, there wasn’t another option. I still do always enjoy the process of putting it all together, but I’m always ready to have it all working, booted, and put to use (if not just so I can be relieved that I don’t need to RMA anything, hah).
If the end goal isn’t something that interests you, then maybe it’s just not worth doing it.
Honestly, it’s just a matter of knowing this list:
CPU
RAM
motherboard
GPU
hard drive
case
power supply
And roughly how they should fit together.
But every time I build a PC I have to figure out what the latest versions of these parts are, make sure they’re compatible, and when I get the parts they might have some unique form factor I have to figure out on the fly. Just going to PC Part Picker and picking out each part is 90% of the way there. After that it’s just a matter of getting them, sticking them together, crossing your fingers that it powers on, and installing an OS. If/when it doesn’t power on, THAT’S when you start learning…
But I would say building a PC is not a fraction as difficult as say, knowing how to work on a car.
I can’t fault them for not making such a niche product at a large enough scale to make them readily available and cheap. I know we’ve become accustomed to that from other larger companies, but for a small company, that’s either very risky or just not an option. So they just design cool stuff, make just enough so that they know they can safely sell them all and thus make a predictable ROI, and move onto the next cool thing. No pressure for growth or satisfying every potential customer. Sounds like the dream.
I was looking forward to cities 2. When I heard it had crippling performance issues, I decided to wait. Still haven’t gotten back around to it. There are just too many other games that already work for me to put up with broken new releases.
It’s worth noting that the “scary” parts of the Outer Wilds DLC (are very mild, and) are not mandatory. That is to say, for the most part, if you find solving a part of the game too stressful, try approaching it differently.
I loved the base game and DLC. Should be the top of any backlog IMO.
I highly recommend skipping straight to witcher 3 unless you really love the series and want to consume everything it has. Still, 3 + the dlc has a lot.
TBH my favorite part of W3 was all the side quests. The writing and dialogue are intriguing and give you more of a flavor for the dark fantasy of the world.
[alt text: a photo of a statue of Mario in the process of sliding down a flagpole, as he commonly does at the end of Mario levels. The statue is placed in the video game section of a a supermarket. In front of the statue, there are multiple human hands holding up wads of US dollar bills towards Mario.]
It’s because the devs just aren’t testing their Linux build. If they at least had a steam deck and made sure it ran there, the community would figure everything else out on their own.
narrator told me there’s a star—which might be a stone, which is also a goddess. A goddess of destruction, even! She’s bad, but she was shattered, and some people have pieces of her, which could be good—but maybe only if you’re bad?
If you don’t like something, that’s fine. They made the product they want, they’re free to do that, and you’re free to not like it.
Just know that art has always driven social discussion, and it’s always been met with heavy social opposition, just usually in the form of outright censorship. So historically artists had to be subtle in order to be critical without being censored. In order to see more edgy stuff you had to go to small, barely funded art house shows.
But then the internet happened, and suddenly artists weren’t beholden to a small number of elite entertainment corporations. Art containing more openly progressive ideas can now be shared directly with the masses, the masses are now preferring progressive ideals more than ever before, and naturally corporations making entertainment products now have a financial incentive to cater to that demographic (often called “virtue signaling”). Today you see a mix of corporate pandering and actual art, even within the development teams of a mainstream product like Dragon Age or Disney. Some messaging feels honest, others feel ham fisted because it’s pride month.
But the censorship of the pre-internet days existed for a reason. A lot of people feel uncomfortable seeing things that challenge their status quo. People tend to seek comfort, and they just want their entertainment to leave them be. But now that corporate censors are less of a barrier, and now that progressive ideals are proliferating, the people themselves are backlashing. They say things like, “it’s way too much woke agenda, I’m tired of it. I want to watch a show without having the story be about woke issues.” I think that’s also normal.
I think the backlash is two fold: On the one hand, real art challenges the viewer, which can be exhausting when you just want to be entertained before you get a few hours of sleep and go back to work in the morning. But on the other hand, you do have what offen feels like a disengenuous layer of progressive pandering coming from corporations that you never saw before. And no one likes being pandered to, let alone not being pandered to.
I think this corporate pandering towards progressive ideals is new, the terms we use to describe everything are definitely new, but the tendency for art to expose people to progressive ideals and the tendency for the masses to be conservative and resist change are as old as humanity. And I view the two as a social evolutionary yin and yang, keeping each other in check.
The vast majority of the game is optional so that you can get to the final boss and see an ending. I remember getting the normal ending and thinking “really? That fight was trivial”. Turns out the minimal play-through is tuned for a low skill level. The “true” ending is another story though.
Idk, I know I’m in the minority, but the stuff I don’t experience in a game is just as important as the stuff I do experience.
As someone who played WoW as a kid, the world always felt bigger and more memorable because there was stuff I wasn’t geared/skilled/determined/lucky/whatever enough to see. Then during WotLK they made a concerted effort to ensure everyone could see all the content. Suddenly the world felt small. Less like a world and more like a series of checkboxes that you tick off and say “done, onto the next game”.
I really appreciate when the creators say “not everyone will see everything, and that’s ok, that’s how we intended it”. Elden Ring is really good about this. I’m about to finish my first playthrough, I know ive missed a lot of stuff, but that’s OK, my playthrough was uniquely mine.
All of the ethical reasons listed by the top post are true, but the real answer is that the epic game launcher is severely lacking in its featureset compared to steam, and people don’t want to be forced to buy games through a different storefront from where the rest of their library lives.
Also Tim Sweeney tweeted this, which technically isn’t wrong as long as you accept that the US govt is also owned by private corporation and interests.
“Linear” is not a word I would use to describe it, hah. I’m pretty sure you can go back to the start, make different choices, and play another 70+ hours of content you’ve never seen. Which is even more insane.
What do you mean legally distinct? You know that’s Sam Lake, writer and creative director at Remedy, and face model for Max Payne 1/2, both also developed by Remedy?
Ah, I guess I didn’t know they didn’t have the rights anymore. Tbh I played through AW2 and didn’t connect that Casey was a reference to Max Payne lol.
[alt text: text that says, “when your friend is in an argument online and asks you for memes”. Below the text is a screenshot from The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, where the shopkeeper Ulfberth War-Bear is looking at the player character and saying, “Looking to protect yourself, or deal some damage?”]
[alt text: a semi-surreal meme image on a plain white background. Two characters from Dark Souls are saying, “My lord, we have absolutely ESSENTIAL lore information for the player. Should we make a cutscrene for it?”. They are looking at Hidetaka Miyazaki, who has the From Software logo emblazoned over him, and he is...
As someone still playing through vanilla Elden Ring, none of that means anything to me. And if my first 80h are any indication, I’ll finish the game and still have no idea.
Agreed. As I understand it, $50k-$100k is on the high end for a TV show to use a clip from a very well known song in an episode. Some band I’ve never heard of being paid $22k for their song to be played in the background of a game might be a little on the low end, so it’s totally reasonable for the band to counter, but it’s also totally reasonable for Rockstar to turn down a 10x counter. Publicly crying about it seems childish. The game is gonna happen with or without your song.
I have such a love/hate relationship with Stardew Valley, slightly less so with My Time At Portia (the developers seem to have at least considered wrist strain in the button layout and mechanics). I long for a moneyless, classless game in this genre where the incentives are community thriving, trust, pleasure, and all the other...
Not quite the same, but in WoW, you couldn’t talk to the opposing faction. So sometimes people would make characters like this just to hang out in the other faction’s zones and communicate using only emotes. Good times…
I just finished Alan Wake 2 and the 3 episodes of the DLCs. Alan Wake 2 is a literal masterpiece in my opinion, the gameplay was similar to its first game but refined, the story dark, mood, mysterious and weird. I also loved the references to the other games. Like Ahti. The ending of Alan Wake 2 made me wonder and sad (I won’t...
Hah, sorry everyone jumped down your throat on the choice of words. Stardew Valley would be good for anyone old enough to read who would enjoy taking care of their own farm and building a relationship with villagers. I would call the graphics “cute”, but not gratuitously so (which might be preferred). Cooking Mama is another one that has a good reputation on non-mobile platforms, and it looks like they made an Android version. (Haven’t played the Android version, hopefully it’s not full of micro transactions).
One of the Steam Deck’s primary advantages over more powerful handheld gaming PCs is its operating system, which is designed to mimic a game console interface within a Linux PC environment. Valve has long planned to bring the OS to other devices, but a recent Steam Deck software update includes the first mention of a rival...
The Steam Link tried and succeeded at this. My guess is only technical people understood its use-case at the time. For hardware to do well on a large scale it needs to be standalone. You turn it on and immediately see the benefit of it. Can’t be dependent on the customer’s other hardware.
To be fair, it’s not easy to make a big open world that feels immersive and competes with linear games in terms of fidelity (art, rendering, sound, music, etc), even if you know exactly where the player will go and what they’ll do. Trying to then account for every possible permutation of game state and player action is an exponential explosion of work. Without some kind of AI figuring out a believable way for the game to respond in any given situation, your only practical option is to make some assumptions, pick a small set of “golden paths” and polish those.
R* devs work their asses off to an ethically questionable degree as it is, I don’t think it’s fair to imply they’re not making the best possible experience at that scale with the technology available.
Man, I really wanted to like this game, I love the setting, art, music, and overall aesthetics, but I’m having trouble finding the fun.
When I first heard about it, I was hoping it was basically a linear road down the coast, with a story to experience along the way (kinda like the boat/car sections of HL2). But then it turned out to be a repetitive grind. There are some mechanics I think are novel and add a lot of fun (ex. the Quirks system), but 90% of what I was doing in the game felt unfun and pointless so I could eventually return to the garage and do it all again.
I’m fine with stressful, high risk gameplay, it’s when the game asks me to spend a bunch of time doing something I don’t find fun that it loses me.
Subnautica in particular did this to me. All my friends who like Outer Wilds told me to play Subnautica. I loved the exploration and story, but I didn’t care at all about building a fancy base that I would never see again after finishing the game. There was a particular point where I was bottlenecked on finding a single resource type that was located in one single place in a giant ocean, which turned out to be a place I felt I was being told not to go yet (trying to avoid spoilers). I thought i was being dense, just not learning what the game was trying to teach me, so I ended up having to look it up, only to realize the game did an absolutely piss poor job of directing me toward the resource. My entire experience was soured by that.
It was after that that I decided single player survival crafters are not my thing. I like them as a multiplayer experience, because you can amortize busy work across multiple people, and socialize as you do it, but by myself I’d rather do anything else. I get it if someone finds it relaxing to do that kind of thing, but it’s not for me.
We haven’t really seen high quality art that uses AI as part of the creative process yet, but this could be similar to the animation studios of the 90s who refused to use computers. They’re all out of business now.
The reality is, generative AI is a really powerful tool, so they will be at a disadvantage going forward if they don’t use it.
The copyright issue is tangential. You don’t have to train a model using unethically sourced artwork, just like you don’t have to build a structure using slave labor. Nintendo has the resources to legally protect themselves one way or another if they actually wanted to use generative AI.
Honestly, 80% of everything is crap, and 80% of businesses fail, and that’s nobody’s fault. It would be even worse if they tried to ship a turd they knew wouldn’t satisfy players.
I understand if you’re sad that the game didn’t turn out and you don’t get to play it, but I’m just proud of them for taking the risk to begin with, and I’m sorry it didn’t turn out how anyone would have liked. Sometimes thems the brakes.
While some of their language has changed, the sentiment of this latest aggressive movement is just as distressing. It’s time for the games industry to stand up to it
If your claim is that randos on the internet don’t send death threats at the drop of a hat, you must be new here. We all know gd well everyone involved recieved death threats.
I think the combat in this series is my favorite of any action RPG. The various weapons, damage types and abilities give you a wide range of options, and the ability to knock pieces off the enemies makes your attacks feel meaningful. They’re not just a health pool to widdle down.
The 2nd game didn’t originally pull me in, but I just witnessed a story beat 10-15h in that has me intrigued.
Pretty sure basically all PC games in the last 20 years are candidates, it’s just a matter of time. I was surprised how many big titles from the mid 2000s are no longer playable, and you know DRM hasn’t gotten less dependent on remote servers since then.
It’s really the only argument for buying physical console games, but even then you’re rarely intended to play the version of the game that ships on the disk/cart.
Yeah, back when the game came out, I made a point to buy it on GOG so that they would get all the money for their game. I have only regretted that decision since.
As everyone knows, the game was an unfinished mess at launch, so after ~20h of play I put it down to wait for them to finish it. In the meantime, I have switched all my gaming to Linux, but GOG (the platform that prides itself on open access to gaming) still doesn’t support Linux, so I have to jump through hoops to get the game running (vs just clicking Play if I had a steam copy). Which was a main reason I didn’t double down on my GOG purchase and buy the expansion. Now that the game is in better shape, as soon as I can reliably play my GOG copy on Linux I want to go back and play my save. But now they’re threatening to delete it? Just…wild.
I don’t like how dependent PC gaming is on valve, but…for the time being I’m grateful that they seem to pretty consistently just make a good gaming experience for the players.
Games that restore faith in the industry?
I have been in quality the a gaming slump for a while, for various reasons....
need helpbuiltding a PC, not sure where to ask
So, I have a not so unique problem. I want to build a PC with decent power and good Linux support but local parts are hard to get and importing is a mess....
Analogue’s 4K Nintendo 64 launches next year for $249 (www.theverge.com) angielski
Players are now less "accepting" that games will be fixed, say Paradox, after "underestimating" the reaction to Cities: Skylines 2's performance woes (www.rockpapershotgun.com)
Which unplayed game in your library are you most looking forward to playing eventually? angielski
when Nintendo finally runs out of ideas (beehaw.org) angielski
[alt text: a photo of a statue of Mario in the process of sliding down a flagpole, as he commonly does at the end of Mario levels. The statue is placed in the video game section of a a supermarket. In front of the statue, there are multiple human hands holding up wads of US dollar bills towards Mario.]
Proton is the Future of PC gaming. But how does it work? [Gardiner Bryant, YouTube] (youtu.be) angielski
YouTube video: youtu.be/uScsmjvdwyo...
'None of this makes any sense': Amazon's latest MMO import is a localization disaster (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
I really don’t care about MMOs, especially not Korean MMOs, but this is a very entertaining read.
Godot fork- Redot emerges after recent events within the Godot project. (github.com) angielski
EDIT context from know your meme of all places Apologies :D :...
Dragon Age Creator Slams "Woke" Criticism: "You're an Idiot" (comicbook.com) angielski
Let's discuss: Hollow Knight (beehaw.org) angielski
The format of these posts is simple: let’s discuss a specific game or series!...
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is a Russian game by Saber Interactive. Should gamers care if they care about Ukraine? (en.ain.ua) angielski
In 2023, Baldur's Gate 3 became the first game to win Game of the Year awards on all of the five major game awards (The Game Awards, Golden Joystick, DICE Awards, Game Developers Choice Awards and BAFTA Awards) (fedia.io) angielski
Take a look at Wikipedia page of GOTY awards.
What are the best video games full of references to other media? (fedia.io) angielski
I know that World of Warcraft has several of them. What others?
they're a powerful tool (beehaw.org) angielski
[alt text: text that says, “when your friend is in an argument online and asks you for memes”. Below the text is a screenshot from The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, where the shopkeeper Ulfberth War-Bear is looking at the player character and saying, “Looking to protect yourself, or deal some damage?”]
the secret recipe (beehaw.org) angielski
[alt text: a semi-surreal meme image on a plain white background. Two characters from Dark Souls are saying, “My lord, we have absolutely ESSENTIAL lore information for the player. Should we make a cutscrene for it?”. They are looking at Hidetaka Miyazaki, who has the From Software logo emblazoned over him, and he is...
Heaven 17 claims it turned down GTA 6 soundtrack offer over pay offer: ‘Go f*** yourself’ [VGC] (www.videogameschronicle.com) angielski
Moneyless Harvest Moon-type game?
I have such a love/hate relationship with Stardew Valley, slightly less so with My Time At Portia (the developers seem to have at least considered wrist strain in the button layout and mechanics). I long for a moneyless, classless game in this genre where the incentives are community thriving, trust, pleasure, and all the other...
I typically avoid online games but this is why I'm fine with it in Elden Ring
Just finished Alan Wake 2 angielski
I just finished Alan Wake 2 and the 3 episodes of the DLCs. Alan Wake 2 is a literal masterpiece in my opinion, the gameplay was similar to its first game but refined, the story dark, mood, mysterious and weird. I also loved the references to the other games. Like Ahti. The ending of Alan Wake 2 made me wonder and sad (I won’t...
Android games for girls? angielski
Hi, I have a primary school girl who wants her share of gaming on the family android tablet....
Modern Warfare Remastered climbs Steam charts as MW2 multiplayer mod prepares to launch [VGC] EDIT: C&D by Activision, so nvm i guess (www.videogameschronicle.com) angielski
SteamOS could see a general distribution release, work with other handheld gaming PCs soon (www.techspot.com) angielski
One of the Steam Deck’s primary advantages over more powerful handheld gaming PCs is its operating system, which is designed to mimic a game console interface within a Linux PC environment. Valve has long planned to bring the OS to other devices, but a recent Steam Deck software update includes the first mention of a rival...
I uninstalled RDR2 out of frustation after 100+ hours angielski
This was a replay, the first time I played I loved the story....
Pacific Drive sales cruise past 600K copies sold (www.gamedeveloper.com)
Here’s how much Valve pays its staff — and how few people it employs (www.theverge.com) angielski
Nintendo Refuses to Use Generative AI in Their Games｜Game8 (game8.co) angielski
Paradox Lays Off Entire Studio Before Its Game Was Even Released (aftermath.site) angielski
The disturbing online misogyny of Gamergate has returned – if it ever went away (www.theguardian.com) angielski
While some of their language has changed, the sentiment of this latest aggressive movement is just as distressing. It’s time for the games industry to stand up to it
Starfield's latest update draws player ire by sticking a bounty hunting quest behind the Creation Club paywall (www.vg247.com) angielski
Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of June 9th
Apologies for the late thread!...
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 always online, including campaign, due to "continuous" texture streaming (www.eurogamer.net) angielski
Indie dev baffled after acquaintance clones his game, puts it on Steam, and acts like it's no big deal: 'Happens every day homie' (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
GOG is going to start deleting oversized cloud saves at the end of August (www.pcgamer.com) angielski