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Actually, what you said unlocked a memory. Though I don’t know if it falls in line with the Gameranx video (I’ll have to go watch that) or your sentiment. But the ‘Players need that catharsis and pay off for all their efforts or else it inevitably starts to feel pointless rather than fun.’ immediately made me think of the first Shadow of Mordor game. It was a great game, undone by a QTE final boss.
But yeah, so many of these games just don’t go anywhere. To your point, the live service games. It’s not 100% with what I intended, but I feel it ends up in the same area… I’m spending all these hours… what am I accomplishing? What’s the point of all of this? It’s just endless padding with endless travel time, side quests, and anything that requires you to wait real time for the quest to progress. Dailies in WoW, were my WoW killer. Some people saw it as “easy gold”; I saw it as non-content meant to drive daily engagement but not actually accomplish anything in the game. It’s all just padding for extra “engagement” or to make a game seem bigger than it is (or should be).
I’ll break down some of the issues I had with the games I listed for better context. And I’ll front this with, I know you don’t have to do side missions. It’s more like, you realise instead of giving you a tight, compact story that’s well crafted, they spent too much time padding it out so it appears to be a bigger game. CP2077, the main story is absolutely dwarfed by all the side content. The main quest line is like… ~35 missions? There are like 70+ “gigs” and the same for “side missions”. The main story is the thing you do the least. With missing mechanics, I can’t help but think it would have been more interesting if it were done in a more linear fashion like Deus Ex Human Revolution. Instead of a giant city that’s mostly empty boxes (the buildings aren’t buildings) and padded out with side quests. Skyrim, the thing that killed it for me, was just how pathetically easy it was to become the leader of the various groups/factions. It felt so unearned. I can only take being handed “wins” left and right because I’m the fucking chosen one… before it’s just dull. It was Medieval Idiocracy. I could have just started learning spells and they’re ready to give me the college because I’m the smartest person they’ve ever seen. Brawndo, it’s what Dragonborns crave. And Hogwarts, walking around the castle, was the best part. It felt magical and alive. Some of the puzzles were fun. But the classes were boring tutorial sections, and the main thing you do in the game is LEAVE Hogwarts to go do unspeakable things in non-descript burrows and dungeons scattered all over the place. That game has 15 main quests, 21 side quests. 95 Merlin Trials…
The tl;dr: An easy way to look at it, CP2077, Hogwarts, and Expedition 33 have similar playtime for just the main quest (per howlongtobeat.com, ~26-28 hours). But how it feels to play the game is drastically different. One had a story to tell and a point to get to, and it does that. The others made a world with a whole bunch of other stuff to do.
Alright, I’ll limit it to just pet peeves.
Tutorial sections that just suck. Some don’t explain enough, others treat you like you’ve never played a game in your life. Or, when they interrupt you to explain a mechanic in great detail, but it’s too much of an info dump, and you’re just left wondering wtf they just said. One game that I really liked how they did it was BG3. There’s a tutorial, but you can also turn it off on future runs. Worst tutorial I think I’ve ever seen was Xenoblade 2.
Games (and really any consumable media) that just don’t know when to end. There are very few games I’ve completed, mostly because I get bored. The game overstayed it’s welcome and I’m done. The grind isn’t worth the final boss fight or whatever is at the end. Generally, it’s because games (especially RPGs) think grinding is a “fun” mechanic when it’s more of an imbalanced game. Take, for example, Expedition 33, not once in that game do you need to run around grinding levels. You can successfully go through the entire game, only going to each stage once. Fucking fantastic. But then you have games that just went too far with things. Some games, like Skyrim, CP2077, (especially) Hogwarts Legacy, I only know the ending to those games because other people beat them. Ex33 I got 52/55 achievements (just need to win the gestral games and find whatever record I missed). I beat that game entirely in 74 hours. My first run of BG3 (53/54 achievements, only missing the bard one, because I think it’s boring), first playthrough was maybe 120 hours (currently over 700 due to multiple playthroughs). Skyrim… 146 hours… 27/75 achievements. CP2077, 133 hours, 18/57 achievements. Hogwarts sits at 50 hours with 19/45 achievements (that game should be a 20-hour game at most).
Games that don’t really respect your time. This one, Nintendo does a lot. Actually perfect example is Breath of the Wild. It’s a giant fuck off world that’s mostly empty, peppered largely with the same enemies throughout the whole thing. You have a weapon mechanic that encourages you NOT to fight (just get some good weapons and head off to exactly where you need to go). The cooking is bullshit, no recipe book, no making a bunch of something, a stupid cutscene every time. And the entire poop joke… like getting 20 for a poop joke would already be too much, but collecting 900 with (IIRC) no fucking way to track them… Or the fact that the way Nintendo expects you to get arrows is to grind out rupees to buy them. And the exploits used to get arrows or rupees quickly, in a single player game, they actively tried to patch out. That’s just one game, Nintendo does this on SO MANY GAMES, which actually pushed me to “fuck Nintendo” and I didn’t buy and won’t buy a Switch 2.
Some games are combos of these. One game I really like, but I always hit a wall is Satisfactory. Once I get to trains/aluminum, it’s just not fun anymore for me. I work 40-80 hours a week (sometimes I work 5x12s and 8ish hours Sat/Sun)(only sometimes, usually closer to 50 hours a week)… so all the extra planning and time to making a factory… like I just don’t have the fucking time. Same thing with Dune Awakening. The first zone was the best. Getting your first Orni wasn’t too bad, but it was already starting to push it. Having to fucking pay taxes in a game… Oddly, it was about the time I was farming up aluminum, I quit that game too. Maybe I have a pet peeve with aluminum in video games…
I thought the same. Everything else worked, but for whatever reason, only GOG didn’t. I actually still have the photo saved from it. I find errors about it dating back at least 2009. At the time I was looking into it, I found it was a common thing from some example code. And it wasn’t even new to GOG; the old installer had the same problem. Example, https://www.gog.com/forum/the_witcher_2/cannot_install_internal_error_failed_to_expand_shell_folder_constant_userdocs
Fuck GOG.
Might be different, but when they launched what I think is their current launcher, it was still using example code from pre-Windows Vista days. This was 2020 I reach out to them, because my user files were mapped to a NAS, and the legacy example code they used didn’t support this. Steam has no issues. Epic had no issues.
All the people wondering why they don’t support Linux… Well that’s because they use outdated Windows code for their launcher.
I played this with two friends. The progression system is just awful. So we got through the full campaign once and it was fine honestly. Then we were kind of hyped to try going through it again, it was all right definitely harder. And then the third time around we just gave up cuz it was clear that they’re just wasn’t that much game to play, and the enemy is just become bullet sponges and you either grind endlessly to try to level up and gain unknown amounts of power if its power at all.
Intermultiplayer sessions we did have a few epic moments won’t lie. But the cost just wasn’t worth it. And those thin offset the issues that we had.
Have you seen a popular streamer that does?
Yes. I think a lot of people would reference the MatPat apology.
Why would he? don’t think anyone would lie about that, since those aren’t “glamorous” jobs
That’s your personal bias. He lets people believe what they want. He used it for clout, and while you might not care about game development or cybersecurity, there are many who do. When he did security, he did social engineering. Which is just as valid, but if people are more impressed because they think he’s looking at source code and whatnot… he doesn’t correct them and leans into those stories. Since you kinda hipster-esque view of YouTubers… here’s a guy with less than 1000 subs talking about it, https://youtu.be/oKadi1zy8fQ and he didn’t really do that much at Blizzard either, not in game development either, but again, he doesn’t say what he actually did and has a lot of stories that don’t connect. That’s like if I said, “Yeah, I worked at the White House for 7 years” and just left it at that. But then it comes to light, I was the one mowing the grass, and that’s it. If I don’t specify what I did, nor correct people, and telling stories that I overhear that belong to someone else (and I don’t specify that) or talk about things that happen that I wasn’t involved with… then I’m lying by omission.
That guy rubs me the wrong way too (assuming you’re talking about Cr1TiKaL/penguinz0).
Not even close. https://www.youtube.com/@CodingJesus He’s a C++ developer who got his name because in some older photos of him people said he looked like Jesus. That’s the whole “lore”.
The WoW things is the most well known, be he had a similar behavior in another game, Ashes of Creation i think. Doesn’t take accountability for anything. Cannot say sorry.
There’s also stuff coming out here cheated on his former wife. And then was a massive manipulative dick towards the person that he was cheating on with.
Or that all his previous credentials are fabricated. Like he doesn’t like giving details what he’s actually done in previous jobs. He’ll just state that he works somewhere and then let you fill in the blank. Or passing off what someone else did at the job as his own.
In his own channel he purposely misrepresent the recent things about him. And coding Jesus actually put out a video showing that, when he tries to reach out immediately gets filtered and banned. But meanwhile Thor is telling people that all he had to do was try to reach out…
But the games aren’t the same price. And the policies ran by the companies aren’t the same. I don’t think Valve has ever said they’re going to break your steam deck if you use it in a way they haven’t deemed fit. And I’d question if you can mod games on the switch, like even games that normally support it.
It’s ok.
Your enjoyment is going to fall intob either you making your own fun and/or playing with people. Playing solo, it’s a big ghost town.
Combat is unvearied. The gameplay loop gets very repetitive very quickly.
Early game at least, the sandworm and dust storms provide an interesting looking threat for a while.
It’s not a bad game, but it’s a pvp centric game with minimal pve to justify the story of Dune.
To me it seems like it’s very much going to be a flash in a pan kind of game. It is going to live and die by rapid updates to add content. What is there if you know what you’re doing, you could experience the whole game in about a weekend.
For the demo, I really liked it. I thought the writing was good as it set the atmosphere. Not to spoil anything, but the first guy you meet… it tells you a lot about things lol. HE BROKE SO MANY RULES! (iykyk) The dialog options seem like they could lead to something interesting down the road. Understanding the various characters and what they do seems like it could be an engaging loop while you level and modify their stats. After playing the demo, which is pretty short, I fully plan to pick this up when it’s released.
Ok, so re-install Steam! 😆 Pretty sure what I got was Snap. I was presented an App installer thing that kinda reminded me of the Microsoft Store (except, way less laggy). I think I remember seeing the word Snap.
Is there a way to verify that I have the right drivers for the video card? When it comes to GUI, I have a very Windows mindset, where I need to install the proper drivers, else I get the basic “well it works” drivers which aren’t good for gaming.
Potentially, I don’t exactly know all the rights owners.
But just looking at the roster, I’d assume Arya Stark might be the most complicated. While HBO falls under WB, unsure if ol’ George signed away all rights to the character. And there’s always future deals too, since rights holders can change hands.
I originally wasn’t going to get it. I saw the Persona style combat menu and RPG… I have limited time to play games so I have to be picky.
I caught someone playing it… oh yeah, bought the game right away. The writing is amazing, and there’s no “grind” you often find with many of the JRPG-style games
Here’s hoping Pokemon and Nintendo see disappointing sales. Everytime someone brings up Pokemon, bring up Palworld and how massive of a dick the Pokemon Company/Nintendo was. When people talk about the Switch 2, they bring up all the lawsuits Nintendo brought up on fans, all the YouTubers that dealt with issues because suing people, I’d assume, is Nintendo’s main income source at this point…
Dota.
Ok, I know what you’re saying, “But Valve makes Dota2” which, yes, this is true. But the OG game came about from gamers just loving games and making a custom game. I think it’s peak “indie” in it’s origin. Which went off to spawn several clones (League of Legends, Heroes Of Newerth, Heroes Of The Storm, Smite, Pokemon Unite, Paladins, etc.). Dota2 by far has the most hours played of any game.
Didn’t plan to buy one, before the S2 was announced.
The number of anti consumer actions they take is amazing. They still hate YouTube. Instead of making their games not suck, they sue anyone who dares to try. They have a handful of console exclusive that even interest me, everything else I’ll get in Steam and it’ll play better, have cloud save, and a refund policy.
I bought a NES in the 80s because it was the most amazing, magical thing. Now I’m at the point of ‘Fuck Nintendo, let it fall’
Holy fuck you really love defending capitalism!
So EA missed your radar? Or Tencent, Microsoft, Epic, Sony, Take-Two, or Ubisoft… Just to list a few on top, there’s certainly more. Rockstar already trying to say $100 minimum for GTA6.
I’m sure some CEO will send you a thank you card though. Maybe Bobby Kotick!
Right it’s the development costs … Not the CEOs making more money than any point in history, with a pay gap that’s just insane, executive making dumb ass choices…
Can’t be that, must be ‘development costs’.
Never mind that today’s world, we have some of the best toolings available for software development. Making it easier and more approachable than ever before and it only keeps getting better. And you don’t need to hire people that know assembly to make a video game… You can do everything and high level languages.
Stop letting the PR machine from the corporations influence you.
I’ve noticed a trend already with tech reviewers trying to sell that, actually massive AI upscaling and fake AI frames are actually a good thing! And they’re now this new metric Nvidia pulled out it’s ass that reviewers at pointing to of line a supposed 80% of users, use DLSS. No days if Nvidia turned it on (via there crap 3rd party app), encouraged it to be in by default in games, etc. no mention how they got this telemetry data either, if it’s even real. I know I personally turn DLSS in all forms off.
I can’t help but feel like this $2000 card is now like an $800 card once you strip away the ‘AI’ bullshit.
The Alters isn’t out yet. Expected release Q1 2025. It’s on my wish list because I love the demo.
Indika they were just the publisher. On top of which, maybe has a story that not everyone is interested in. I watched these guys play it, https://youtu.be/MuiHtAYOqgI and while it’s creative and it’s overall a fantastic game, is not one I’m going to play myself.
The Thaumaturge, again they are just the publisher. I hadn’t even heard of this one which means as the publisher they did a terrible job marketing it.
Holy crap I see what you mean. That small red one… I just gave up. Fighting Simon blindfolded has to be easier.