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https://store.steampowered.com/app/1154960/Ardenfall/ I've played for 40 minutes or so (got through the tutorial cave and walked around the first town). Looks like Morrowind with (much) better combat.

The Last of Us Part 1 Maybe my third or fourth playthrough, but first time on PC. Never actually finished Part 2 and decided it's time to do it. It's been long enough that I really don't remember some of this.

I got the email today that I am officially verified as run #16! It's hard to believe its been over 6 months since I finished my run. Something fun is Sam said in his email there have been a surprising number of submissions recently. Looking forward to seeing what people have done.

One thing that nobody warns you about when you get a job in the gaming industry is just how many meetings there are. There’re daily standups, gate reviews, sprint meetings, post-mortems, sign-offs, bridge meetings, war rooms, and the list goes on and on. But one of the most important meetings is called Triage. It generally occurs on a daily or weekly cadence, depending on what part of the dev cycle you are in. This is where Production, Design, Engineering, and QA get together and discuss the latest bugs. We go over each bug written since the last Triage and decide as a group how important the bug is, who is going to fix it, and when they need to fix it by. There are three main ways that this is measured. Severity: How bad the bug is, in the eyes of the user. Priority: How soon a bug should be fixed. Repro Rate: How hard, or easy, is it to run into the bug? How likely are players to see it? This is usually measured in attempts. For example, a crash bug could happen 100% of the time, or it could only happen under very specific conditions. And one thing that is easy to forget when you’re lost in a sea of bugs, is the scale of the audience. Sure, only 10% of the testers may experience a specific issue. But 8% of the modern AAA audience is hundreds of thousands of players. You would think, with that in mind, anything that affects at least 5% of players would be treated as a serious concern. But what if I told you that while only 0.5% of women are color-blind, 8% of men are? And how many modern games have color-blind filters? The answer is not nearly enough. Accessibility features are about giving players the tools they need to enjoy the game in whichever way works best for them. If you can add color-blind filters (https://colorblindgames.com/2021/03/29/colorblind-gaming-101-the-basics/) that’s roughly 5% more potential sales. According to the Entertainment Software Association, 85% of Americans under 18 play video games at least once a week. That comes out to 205 million players in the US alone. Five percent of which, comes to 8,000,000 people. Multiple that by $60 and we’re talking serious money. So why, in a world where the dollar drives everything, are accessibility features not standard? Why are so many developers leaving so many potential players behind? It would be easy for me to blame big bad CEO’s or shareholders for the problem. But the reality is, it’s not malicious. Like most issues in life, it’s more ignorance than anything else. People just aren’t as informed on the subject as they could be. But that is starting to change. The industry is starting to come around and they are making serious investments in multiple ways. (alt text: Ishihara test was invented to measure color blindness. The image above uses different shades to create the image of Toadstool from Super Mario Bros) source: Obsidian has been leading the way for longer than most. Well before it was “cool” to make accessible games, titles like Pillars of Eternity (2013) were giving players multiple color-blind filters, detailed difficulty options, and a large suite of audio/video settings to let players decide what “good” looks like. Back in 2020 Grounded introduced the Arachnophobia filter. A setting that is now becoming default in many horror/survivor games. Hogwarts Legacy added it, but only after NorskPL released a community mod for the setting. My favorite is actually from the most recent version, Grounded 2. Can you detect the feature? It’s one of the first things you see when you start the game. (alt text: Screenshot of Grounded 2 main menu showing custom face button graphics used to inform the player where on the face the button is located.) Many of you probably pointed to the Accessibility shortcut. And that is a great example of mindful design. How do you expect people to turn on the accessibility features if they need the accessibility features enabled to get to the accessibility features? But that’s not my favorite. My new favorite is the A and Y buttons. Notice what’s different? I bet you Xbox Certification noticed that these are not authorized representations of the face buttons on an Xbox controller. But I love that they saw through the rule to find the intent. Instead of confusing players, these actually provide more information. It’s a tiny change that can have a big impact. Heck, I’m not even color-blind and these helped me after I spent the previous few weeks playing Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, where the A and B buttons are swapped. And that’s the key to accessibility features. Not telling players how to play, but providing the options for them to play how they want to play. And they are not alone. The industry as a whole has finally seen the benefits of expanding their games and tearing down walls. For example: the Entertainment Software Association (a trade association representing the major video game developers and publishers across the industry) recently rolled out their Accessible Games Initiative. They are leading by example and starting with updating their storefronts to include Accessibility Tags. Much like you can browse by genre or feature, now you can filter games by which ones support the accessibility features you care the most about. (alt text: A black background with brightly colored stickers in the shapes of Xbox icons and accessibility products like prosthetic legs, wheelchairs, and seeing eye dogs.) And they are not alone. A whole market is forming around consulting, reviewing, and teaching about accessibility. People are getting together and demanding “Never about us, without us.” From Accessibility Labs, a startup in Tempe, AZ of former QA professionals passionate about Accessibility testing. To Microsoft’s Xbox Accessibility Guidelines, requirements that titles they publish must meet. But Tommy, I’m a developer and I want to do better. How can I make sure everyone is able to enjoy my hard work? Well, I’m glad you asked, imaginary developer person. Because while I’m passionate about the subject, I also acknowledge I’m just as ignorant as most. But together, we can work towards fighting that ignorance, in our own minds, and in others. Even the smallest changes, like the button prompts above, can have a huge impact. Bring on Accessibility experts during your design phase, don’t wait until you’re about to launch. Don’t be like so many others before you that designed fully fleshed out UI’s that rely on a cursor to navigate. Only to find out down the road this is not very accessible for people with fine motor issues. Making these changes during the design phase will save you thousands, if not millions, of dollars down the line. Embrace your lack of knowledge and seek out the experts. There are resources available to developers of all shapes and sizes. Are you a small developer that wants to do better, but just doesn’t know where to start? Support other independent gamers like Accessibility Labs. Have a good idea of what you want to do, but want to make sure you aren’t forgetting anything? Check out Microsoft’s Xbox Accessibility Guidelines. Want to support the effort in other ways? Reach out to AbleGamers, who have been fighting this fight for over 20 years. Enjoy this article and want to know more? Check out Derek Gruber on Seattle Indie’s Accessibility Awareness Month episode. The last thing I want to do is trivialize game and UX design. Accessibility is just one of countless aspects that must be considered when designing a game and it’s UI. What’s most important is that you are making the effort. Instead of asking why you should add an option, ask why you shouldn’t. When in doubt, trust the player to decide what is best for themselves. Not every feature is going to be a home run. But as long as we, as a community, are working towards improving, the rising tide will raise all ships. Sources & Resources Game Developer - Nintendo, Microsoft, EA and others unite to make accessibility messaging a priority Washington Post - Accessibility option in survival game ‘Grounded’ turns my arachnophobia into a thrill Colorblind Games - Colorblind Gaming 101: The Basics Mashable - Video games taught me I was colorblind but it's not always a friendly lesson Nexus Mods - Arachnophobia mode Seattle Indies - Accessibility Awareness Month Interview Series: Steve Saylor and Derek Gruber Able Gamers - Combating Social Isolation Through Play Accessibility Labs Microsoft - Xbox Accessibility Guidelines Entertainment Software Association (ESA) - Entertainment Software Association Introduces the Accessible Games Initiative to Provide Players with Information About Accessibility Features in Video Games

feels like manifestation of main-character-syndrome. happened a lot more when deadfire was younger. someone would rant about something, and be horribly offended if anyone even slightly pushed back on anything, like gasp, people might want to talk/discuss stuff and not just blindly agree with you.

I have a game breaking bug with New Arc Line where the game crashes if I try to leave the area I am in. Personally I believe it is some resource leak that corrupts the character's save files. But I am not a dev. I have put it aside for now and hope they fix it.

I didn't know there is a new Heroes of Might and Magic in works, and there is even an early demo to try out. It looks like it's being done on budget, but it is actually quite snappy, and seems like could be a nice entry to the series. As the series have been in limbo for a while, it is nice to see a return to form, though it might be a bit too conservative. HoM&M3 die hards might not be willing to move on at this point, and I am not sure how much new blood with a budget title like this one attract.

No more delays to sanctions for NIS, our national refinery and oil/gas supplier. As of next week we are on reserves as Croatia will stop the transit of crude oil through their county. So either Gasprom (Russian company which owns majority) agrees to sell or it will have to nationalized. If it's nationalized, good bye to Russian cheap gas and a bad message for any foreign investments.

I backed it as well, because it's something I'd been hoping to see (a Starfinder game), so... I figured I should. It's two years away though, so we're in for a bit of a wait. It looks like they're already up to $400,000, so they may end up with more than they bargained for. Starfinder: Afterlight could become one of my favourite CRPGs—even if the studio's co-founders are 'more scared about huge success than a bit of failure' when it comes to their big Kickstarter debut (PC Gamer)

more game should launch on gog did gog bow to the new censorship like steam did

I just backed it but at the lowest early bird tier. I might go up if they announce a GOG release in addition to Steam

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/epictellers/starfinder-afterlight money raised pass stretch goal

Manor Lords - finally a giant beta test version dropped. I guess it isn't abandoned after all (ha). Didn't sign up for access, I'd rather wait for full public version with beta-resultt patches added, but from reading up, sounds like a lot of changes (plus some new maps). Old saves will not be compatible with it. No Man's Sky - still making silly ships, still flying around exploring planets, still occasionally see stuff I've never seen before - and still have restart-itis re: Abandoned Mode new starts. I never went much past the intro of Little Kitty, Big City, since the one time I tried was when I had the PSU reboot issues, and I just never went back to it. They keep patching/adding to the game, including cute outfits (heh). Hoping to motivate to look at it again this weekend. I could use some "cute."

What a great blog! As a gamer with a disability (I have a serious hearing impairment), I am so very glad people in the industry (and within Obsidian) are taking accessibility seriously. I require captioning for everything voice-related. But even with captioning pretty common these days, some games leave out crucial bits of the game from their captioning system, such as backgound chatter/banter. It's so very frustrating to hear the sound of someone saying something, but then not be able to know what they said. Keep up the good work! And thanks!!

New community blog is live by @Fishtick The Unintentional Gatekeeping of Video Games

Boeroer was being pretty reasonable yeesh, so aggressive. Did you just want to rant then?

Expected them to boil the frog longer before doing this, with some luck this teaches a lot of people a thing or two about how these subscription services do business. Then again, if they haven't figured it out by now they may just be beyond help anyway.

Playing "those who rule" turn based tactics JRPG(style). I am enjoying it, but it's perma death for your units. So it takes me like 10 tries every level because I can't handle losing a character forever. MAYBE later when I stop liking a character, or have too many, I will allow some to die. The story is pretty basic so far, but im only on the third non training fight. You control some ranger group troops. Everyone is betraying everyone. You're very clearly fighting for the bad guys. I hope it turns out everyone is evil, just like real life. There is no world map or anything, just dialogue sections followed by a fight. There are lots of conversations between the different characters, which is kinda interesting because characters can die so you can definitely miss out on side objectives and stuff. My only real problem with it is that I'm constantly restarting fights due to perma death. Which is fine, but they make you go through the dialogue over and over which gets annoying after the 10th try. There are story choices you can make, but it kinda feels like those choices don't really matter. Example. Very early on you can choose to surrender or to fight. If you choose to fight it just cuts to black and you move on to the next section... I can't imagine choosing to surrender would give you anything different, though I have not tried. I dislike pointless dialogue choices. The only game I use a walkthrough guide with are the persona games. Mostly because there is a "correct answer" that has positive effects, and bad answers are just bad. Often there is no discernable reason for that answer to be correct. Or maybe it's just too cryptic for me to tell.

Yeah 30USD monthly. I can understand why people are getting less interested in that service, if you can get few good games on sale for that money (even on physical medium).

Maybe it will force developers away from spending all their attention on eye candy and action. One can hope.

*reads about some Xbox price hike, both physical goods and now GamePass, stuff* Even considering tariff's re: hardware, I wonder if Xbox/MS has decided if you can't afford them, you won't make them any money anyway. I don't think it's only the price of the Gamepass hike alone - companies really need to realize there is such a thing as subscription/constant fees exhaustion. I mean, from fridges/dishwashers to cars to game/entertainment services. Enough already. Just gimmie a product, not a "service", already.

...Wait a second, they took the ancient fused uniques from Diablo 2 and made it into an actual mechanic now? Supposedly, Mephisto had a bugged drop table in the initial release of Lord of Destruction that limited how many uniques could drop at the same time, but it was coded badly and it made it so that in the extremely unlikely event of too many uniques dropping, you'd get the base item of one but the properties of another, hence the monstrosities above. Wizardspike Gauntlets in particular were duped to all hell and back, but there were a few others. I say "supposedly" because there's no video of this ever actually happening despite the fact that someone could go (dis)prove it if they really wanted to, those old versions of the games still exist and it's not at all difficult to change the drop mechanics to force only uniques to drop - it could just as well be that they were hacked items. Though unlike all the hacked items that were mass-removed from everyone's characters like twenty years ago never to return, fused uniques still exist on the official D2 servers, so maybe there's something to it after all.

I have started New Arc Line. There are currently three races to choose from: Human, Elf, and Dwarf. Humans and Dwarves can choose between Diesel Tech and Voodoo Shaman as classes. Dwarves choose between Steam Tech and Hellfire Mage. I am trying out a human Dieselpunk Gunslinger. The writing... has some problems. On the one hand, a lot of writers, they try too much. Lots of words, lots of fancy words, all to prove "Look ma, I have a vocabulary." I do not like that. Other people do. The writers seem to not have English as their mother tongue. The odd mistake here and there. The attempt to write "British" characters, with slang and all, without understanding the slang - thinking they do because they watched Austin Powers. We'll see though how the story goes. Mr Simon made a great first impression as NPCs go. Unlike Mick... who is a bit boring. Why is it so often in RPGs, that the first character to join your party is boring? I hope the story works out as interesting. Somehow other than Arcanum, there hasn't been a good tech vs magic RPG - Silverfall fell a bit short and was also a long long time ago. The game is a bit unstable. Trying to load a previous save can crash the game for me That's Early Access I guess.

https://www.ign.com/articles/microsoft-reportedly-testing-free-xbox-cloud-gaming-supported-by-ads-with-monthly-play-limits-announcement-and-launch-coming-soon I'm calling it - after the next "generation", there won't be any more xbox game console. At least not as we think of it. It'll just be another streaming service device. Or it'll shut down entirely. One hour play time limit? Five hours a month that are "free?" For games? What a laugh.

I was playing Mass Effect: Andromeda and enjoying it in a shallow sort of way. (Shooting stuff, zooming around in the Nomad, ticking off sidequests) . It helps that it got such a poor response when it was released -- I had no expecations to be disappointed. Then I bought a house needing renovation. It feels like signing up to some kind of monastic bootcamp where the training involves being hit by paint pots and paying nightly obeisance to an Ikea catalogue. Will I be able to go back to Andromeda once it's all over? Or will it be like Frodo returning to the Shire, but realising he's too traumatized to be able to appreciate it?

"The investment is done with a 20B loan which they intent to recoup with cutting costs by using AI to replace visual and voice artists." Amazing. Never buy anything EA ever again.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250929186526/en/EA-Announces-Agreement-to-be-Acquired-by-PIF-Silver-Lake-and-Affinity-Partners-for-%2455-Billion