Random video game news... Bring me a bucket, and I'll show you a bucket!

[BruceVC]

20 minutes ago, melkathi said:

I think people want to pretend the criticism is one based on merit. And there are people who honestly do see it that way. At the same time, I see a lot of people who shout about DEI not having an issue with nepotism or other problematic hiring practices.

Yes there are people on both sides of this debate who are  insincere and disingenuous about support or criticism about DEI

So if you take the criticism side its not really  about merit, they just dont want to see any minority in that position and this is often about simple bigotry 

And then on the support side it  becomes about anti-white or rather anti-white male  sentiment and these people dont want to see white men in these positions because of there own bias 

But there is  a better middle ground which is what I support, I believe in merit but having mentorship programs and similar initiatives if a group comes from  a recent historically disadvantage group. Thats similar to the DEI I support in South Africa 

But I reject DEI when its clearly abused like in the UK recently and its hiring practice in the UK air force 

https://news.sky.com/story/royal-air-force-unlawfully-discriminated-against-white-male-recruits-in-bid-to-boost-diversity-inquiry-finds-12911888

  

[uuuhhii]

one should always try not to lie to oneself

hiring was never by merit before

why is this factor the most controversial

[LadyCrimson]

--On the one hand: haven't played it in a long while, this is a massive world/everything generation update! Exploration might be fun/feel new again for a while! (new ships/space station designs in earlier updates I didn't care one whit about)
--On the other hand: probably a 20% chance any old saves and their main bases are broken (misshaped, half deleted, underground, whatever) by planet generation changes under your feet. Your fave planet could be entirely different/a different biome all of a sudden, stuff like that. If hit by that, one has to deal with, or just write those saves off (which would include your ships, freighters, collections) and start anew.
---either performance fix patches will be incoming, or might need a 4080 to run it at 4k. Might give an idea how Light No Fire might run tho.  
---And do I try to preserve my install of older version of game to play it totally Offline if I can't stand/run this new version? More work. Sigh. I'll think about it for the weekend.
But it looks nice!

 

Edited July 18 by LadyCrimson

[Malcador]

 

[MrBrown]

https://www.wired.com/story/ai-is-already-taking-jobs-in-the-video-game-industry/

[sorophx]

couple that with the news of Humble Games closing because their investor found out games take time to make, and it's not a money printing machine.

[Lexx]

Tbh, I feel like the role of the publisher is slowly dwindling nowadays, unless you are into AAA stuff. Indie games don't need *that* much money, and physical distribution is pretty much gone now, so... what does the publisher offer to you that you can't do yourself? Great, there is QA, but often it sucks... and then there is marketing, but it often sucks as well and you can just post on facebook and twatter yourself...

 

[Humanoid]

Maybe they could get together and form some sort of gathering of developers.

[MrBrown]

https://apnews.com/article/sagaftra-video-game-performers-ai-strike-4f4c7d846040c24553dbc2604e5b6034

[Hawke64]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/final-update-to-morrowind-like-rpg-dread-delusion-adds-a-big-nautilus-with-a-town-built-inside-its-shell

Quote

This "final content update" will add the Cephalok, "a magical creature filled with rare materials, where legends tell of some Wikkans who built a castle inside of its shell." To get inside the floating beast you'll need to have unlocked the airship. Naturally, there'll be some new enemies to deal with, but also "powerful, late-game items" like weapons and equipment, plus "new airship components to further customize your flying vessel".

---

14 hours ago, MrBrown said:

https://apnews.com/article/sagaftra-video-game-performers-ai-strike-4f4c7d846040c24553dbc2604e5b6034

I hope that they will succeed and the VA and mo-cap will remain contained to the AAA games. As is, they offer only higher system requirements (thus, decreasing the availability and making the preservation more challenging), while increasing the development costs and time (PoEII), which in turn limit the player's agency (it harder to make more choices or implement changes to the story, when the VA needs to be re-recorded). So, the less of it, the better.

---

https://steamcommunity.com/games/2302080/announcements/detail/4252042698999312624

Quote

Death of a Wish is filled with devious bosses that will pose an exciting challenge to all sorts of players. The Apocrypha Update will add a Boss Rush mode that allows you to challenge all of them in a single battery of fights with limited resources. Every boss is scaled for endgame levels, ensuring that early game bosses still pose an exciting threat. Can you survive until the end?

The previous update included a randomiser mode.

Edited July 27 by Hawke64

[Azdeus]

Seems that we Europeans have a chance to make a difference, so if any of you are eligible, you should spread this and sign the petition

[Mamoulian War]

On 7/31/2024 at 7:47 PM, Azdeus said:

Seems that we Europeans have a chance to make a difference, so if any of you are eligible, you should spread this and sign the petition

 

[uuuhhii]

that war is already lost when player didn't make a big enough fuss over always online garbage

too late now

[MrBrown]

https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/microsoft-and-activision-have-formed-a-new-team-within-blizzard-to-work-on-smaller-aa-games-based-on-existing-ip

[Wormerine]

8 minutes ago, MrBrown said:

https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/microsoft-and-activision-have-formed-a-new-team-within-blizzard-to-work-on-smaller-aa-games-based-on-existing-ip

 Could be good, could be bad. lol I wouldn’t say no to Lost Vikings 3 or Rock n Roll Racing2 .

King employees moving there suggest to me possibility of mobile spin-offs of more popular IPs, which just doesn’t sound appealing to me. Eh, we will see. 

[melkathi]

In today's gaming world Lost Vikings 3 will be F2P but all but the first viking will be in app purchases.

[Azdeus]

1 hour ago, uuuhhii said:

that war is already lost when player didn't make a big enough fuss over always online garbage

too late now

It is with that attitude for sure. This is literally trying to fix the problem.

[Malcador]

Not really convinced that if they save gaming from this, other industries won't have similar features - so this really isn't the 'canary in the coal mine'.   Always will be non-AAA gaming as well.

[Sven_]

Speaking of which: Avowed has been delayed to February.

Now, aside of Avowed, I had to chuckle about the PR reasoning though: It's all done to give players some quality time with their backlogs! So many games coming, after all.


Lemme see: Thief. Grim Fandango. Baldur's Gate. Starcraft: Brood War. Myth II. Half-Life. Ocarina Of Time. Final Fantasy VII (PC port). Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus. Unreal. Metal Gear Solid. Tomb Raider 3. Fallout 2. 

All released with a mere weeks between them. But then neither of those took a lifetime and a team the size of Candlekeep HQ to get off the ground running. One can only drool about how many games there's gonna be in another 25 years. Sometimes you've got to admire Nvidia marketing wizardry though. Able to ship 2,000 bucks GPUs to people who evidently have fewer need for them than any generation of PC master racers before. Selling ice to eskimos has been replaced as the benchmark truly.

tldr; thanks to the Woodsie Lord, Shodan and Thy Builder indeed that blockbuster gaming isn't the only noteworthy thing around.

Edited August 3 by Sven_

[Wormerine]

13 hours ago, Sven_ said:

Speaking of which: Avowed has been delayed to February.

Now, aside of Avowed, I had to chuckle about the PR reasoning though: It's all done to give players some quality time with their backlogs! So many games coming, after all.

Lemme see: Thief. Grim Fandango. Baldur's Gate. Starcraft: Brood War. Myth II. Half-Life. Ocarina Of Time. Final Fantasy VII (PC port). Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus. Unreal. Metal Gear Solid. Tomb Raider 3. Fallout 2.

Well there are far more games coming with each year.

If that's the reason, than it is an ok one, especially if devs can find the use of the extra time (Hey, Obsidian, if the game is finished in November, I am more than happy to test it for you :-P).

And being part of Game Pass lineup, it should important for XBOX to utilise it properly. Releasing Avowed in the crowded pre-christmas did seem like a risky choice. Or maybe XBOX is happy with it's 2024 and needs to pad out 2025

Maybe they got a word that Silksong is dropping before the end of 2024 and know better than to compete

[Wormerine]

Ok, now that looks much, much better than the awful thing they released a long long time ago. I still want to see more of how they are handling individual systems, but the combat seems more representative of the original game (do I spy awkward two handed stabbing with a short sword for unskilled fighter?) At the very least they renewed my interest.

Edited August 3 by Wormerine

[Sven_]

2 hours ago, Wormerine said:

Well there are far more games coming with each year.

Yeah, but 99.23% of those aren't the ones people get their shiny new PlayStations or GeForces for.  

[Wormerine]

4 hours ago, Sven_ said:

Yeah, but 99.23% of those aren't the ones people get their shiny new PlayStations or GeForces for.  

And for 99.99% of the playerbase prob neither is Avowed

Well, will be curious to see what Gamepass will release in November.

[Azdeus]

On 8/2/2024 at 9:39 PM, Malcador said:

Not really convinced that if they save gaming from this, other industries won't have similar features - so this really isn't the 'canary in the coal mine'.   Always will be non-AAA gaming as well.

These thing have quite literally happened in other industries (See Fisker cars sunroof), and will likely happen again, to physical objects. There is a reason why Louis Rossman is constantly angry. Sure, I don't think anyone can definetly prove that the other industries aped gaming, but it's highly likely that they did.

And "always will be non-aaa gaming as well", I'm sorry to say, is an asinine arguement and you know it.

[Zoraptor]

Basically anything with a computer suffers from similar issues. The one that got a lot of traction (ohoho) here was John Deere being able to brick their tractors' control/ management computers if you decided not to pay their annual licensing sub or got an unsanctioned repair. Certainly not a recent phenomenon even outside gaming, eg here's an article from 2016 about John Deere's shenanigans.