Video Game Chat Thread - Pre-Alpha Experimental Version

[Tri-Tachyon'sClown]

Basically, if Garriott gets the copyright for Ultima but not the trademark and EA refuses to work with him on that, then he'd be able to make new sequels that use the setting, characters, and ideas from the Ultima games, but wouldn't be allowed to call it Ultima on the box and title screen.

I figured it would be like that, much appreciated for the confirmation. Looking forward to not-Ultima. I'd rather play a not-game made by the person who made the originals fun than play a game in a series not made by them.
Sounds like a popular opinion, but we've all seen what niggercattle play these days...

 

[Banana Hammock]

It's pretty decent so far! If you don't like time travel stories than I'd say avoid it, but it is sufficiently Zelda-y enough. Oh and if you don't like side characters yapping at you all the time, there's an opttion to restrict it I think.

Nice. I'll have to check it out when it goes on sale.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

I figured it would be like that, much appreciated for the confirmation. Looking forward to not-Ultima. I'd rather play a not-game made by the person who made the originals fun than play a game in a series not made by them.
Sounds like a popular opinion, but we've all seen what niggercattle play these days...

The main problem is that when it comes to "by the original creator of beloved IP" creations turn out to be incredibly shit because they've either lost the talent they had, the team that actually built it doesn't exist anymore, or what made it good basically required tard-wrangling.

John Romero, for instance, was tard-wrangled his entire career (directly by Softdisk, and by proxy with id Software) until Ion Storm and proved he at the very least needed someone in charge. Ron Gilbert was thought to be a legend who was the reason the old Monkey Island games were good and then went full retard with Return of Monkey Island featuring an atrocious art style, extremely simple puzzles, and a "fuck you" ending. Keiji Inafune's role in Mega Man was not quite to what Akira Kitamura did but his work in the series after Kitamura left Capcom gained him celebrity status. When he left in 2010 he announced a Kickstarter project that would basically be like classic Mega Man but not actually Mega Man, and in the course of the next four years completely destroyed his reputation.

We've seen this happen time and time again, and I have ZERO hope that not-Ultima is going to be any good at all.

 

[BiggestKai]

Ubisoft co-founder Claude Guillemot has died in a plane crash.

I want to make so many SKG related jokes but it would be tactless. RIP to the man who started what Ubisoft USED to be.

 

[Jace on ice]

Indie games typically fail for two reasons.

1 - They're uncreative and unimaginative asset flips or AI slop.

2 - They contain extremely woke or subversive elements that alienate their potential audience.

Piracy is not a significant factor.

 

[HTTP Error 404]

Been playing Stellaris lately since the new expansion came out.

It's ok. Adds Nomadic empires that are an interesting changeup. They play on a different "map level" than normal empires -- e.g., you ignore borders, do your own thing with space gypsy safehouses, steal resources instead of harvesting them slowly, etc etc. There's a "contract" system where other empires can ask you to do stuff, like take out space whales or help a colony establish itself, and the Nomad's big thing is they can re-scan areas, find new / expand the size of resource deposits, find (create) new hyperlanes, etc etc.

It is, of course, a Paradox release, so it's got some issues. The game has 3 special origins (playstyle modifiers) -- playing as a Khan (effectively a mini-crisis), playing as a mobile church/crusade deal, and playing as the ship in Wall-E (e.g., keeping everyone fat and happy and distracted from the fact they're never getting off the ship). The latter is so broken that even Paradox has had to admit it's basically unplayable. A lot of the standard origins work if you're a nomad, but some very obvious ones don't (the storm chasers, for example, don't, nor do knights of the toxic god).

There's some interesting civics, too -- like a pirate civic where instead of just being gypsy safehouses, they're pirate safehouses, and let you steal shit from the empires you're infesting. But again, it's Paradox so no one noticed stealing from NPC planets doesn't work when they have like a 5 energy income a month and survive because the difficulty modifier gives them 500 free energy a planet.

They also kinda assume you're not going to be playing a hive mind nomad empire. Only a few of the special nomad-exclusive civics work if you're going hive mind.

 

[Captain Quazar]

The faggot update is the nail in the coffin, really.

This right here. I was initially interested in it until hearing about the rainbow faggotry nonsense. Seriously, it's a game about a fricken squirrel with a gun why does this need to be in it???

 

[Fount of BadSpeak]

I did a little looking into the new Gears of War prequel game, and I have no idea what the fuck they were smoking when they made this. Apparently the game costs over $400 million dollars to make, which would make it one of the most expensive entertainment properties ever made, and would have to sell 7.2 million copies at full price to break even, when Gears of War 2, the most popular entry, sold around 6.5 million copies at the height of the IP's popularity. After Gears of War 4 was one of the worst games I ever played, and everything I heard told me 5 was even worse, how in the world do they actually expect to recoup their investment, let alone make a profit? Original fans of the series like myself wrote this game franchise off a decade ago already, and this game very obviously is continuing the downward trajectory. I highly doubt anybody is going to be that eager to have the latest mystery meat tranny covered in clown barf skins and pride flags for macrotransactions to make up the difference.

I can only assume that trillionaire investment money paid the development costs already, so nobody cares when the next progressive propaganda slop fails miserably and loses hundreds of millions of dollars.


This is the new Cole-Train, apparently.

 

[HTTP Error 404]

I can only assume that trillionaire investment money paid the development costs already, so nobody cares when the next progressive propaganda slop fails miserably and loses hundreds of millions of dollars.

The only way it makes sense is if the $400m is actually an investment in a new engine that they can split that $400m across 5-10, maybe more games. Then it's fine and might make sense. But it's like the various slopbuster movies over the past 5-10 years, where they are burning millions left and right. Somehow they're avoiding any consequences of wasting cash over and over again, but, eventually the bill is going to come due, right?

 

[Fount of BadSpeak]

The only way it makes sense is if the $400m is actually an investment in a new engine that they can split that $400m across 5-10, maybe more games. Then it's fine and might make sense. But it's like the various slopbuster movies over the past 5-10 years, where they are burning millions left and right. Somehow they're avoiding any consequences of wasting cash over and over again, but, eventually the bill is going to come due, right?

Gears of War E-Day is more Unreal Engine 5 slop lol. I am pretty sure almost every studio long since abandoned in house engines outside of a couple of exceptions like Bethesda.

I am wondering when the bill will come due as well. The progressive financial class may appear to have infinity money, but at the end of the day, they still have to pull the billions upon billions of dollars from somewhere, and the Federal Reserve isn't printing enough money to cover all of the entertainment industry losses. I wonder what the reaction will be when well over a decade of burning money at a dizzying pace finally can't be ignored any longer.

 

[Pierre D'Olnique]

my recent purchases and playtimes made me realize that I've reached the stage of vidya where I don't even want a story/campaign anymore beyond what's absolutely necessary as a framing device, John Carmack was right all along

I'm at a point where I want to just kill tons of hellspawn/assorted mutants with a varied arsenal and see numbers increase, so Vampire Survivors and its clones naturally came into view and I started looking for titles which would scratch the combat itch without the story or multiplayer burden - found Hellbreak for nu-Dooms, Halls of Torment for Diablo 1/2, and Jotunnslayer for Diablo 4
unfortunately the DRG itch will remain unscratched because Survivor is bad both as a VS clone and as a DR game
the only title I've refunded thus far is... Soulstone Survivors or something similar because it looked and felt like a mobile game from 2012

this comes second after my personal multiplayer fatigue which was exacerbated by the Internet becoming more available and widespread in the mid to late 2010s and the quality of matches basically everywhere dropping like a lead balloon due to subhumans from various shitholes flooding the Web, outside of an extremely brief stint with TF2 last year (or was it 2 years? idk) I haven't touched a traditional multiplayer game in around a decade (forced multiplayer like D4 doesn't really count)
multiplayer fasting also made me realize again what it felt like to finish a fucking game and shelf it for good without worrying that I might be missing some events, login bonuses, dailies, battle passes and whatever the fuck

where did it all go so wrong

 

[Jace on ice]

my recent purchases and playtimes made me realize that I've reached the stage of vidya where I don't even want a story/campaign anymore beyond what's absolutely necessary as a framing device, John Carmack was right all along
Ver archivo adjunto 9174374
I'm at a point where I want to just kill tons of hellspawn/assorted mutants with a varied arsenal and see numbers increase, so Vampire Survivors and its clones naturally came into view and I started looking for titles which would scratch the combat itch without the story or multiplayer burden - found Hellbreak for nu-Dooms, Halls of Torment for Diablo 1/2, and Jotunnslayer for Diablo 4
unfortunately the DRG itch will remain unscratched because Survivor is bad both as a VS clone and as a DR game
the only title I've refunded thus far is... Soulstone Survivors or something similar because it looked and felt like a mobile game from 2012

this comes second after my personal multiplayer fatigue which was exacerbated by the Internet becoming more available and widespread in the mid to late 2010s and the quality of matches basically everywhere dropping like a lead balloon due to subhumans from various shitholes flooding the Web, outside of an extremely brief stint with TF2 last year (or was it 2 years? idk) I haven't touched a traditional multiplayer game in around a decade (forced multiplayer like D4 doesn't really count)
multiplayer fasting also made me realize again what it felt like to finish a fucking game and shelf it for good without worrying that I might be missing some events, login bonuses, dailies, battle passes and whatever the fuck

where did it all go so wrong

It's kind of surreal to realize that one of the only games that allows you to join what is essentially ISIS and violently purge all the degenerates is Fallout New Vegas a quite woke game beloved by troons.

 

[volatile puar]

I remember this one game dev simulator having a "piracy" mode that was probably meant to mock and raise awareness of pirates by having every successful game release lose a huge chunk of profits. I'm talking unsustainable amounts. This is what devs like these actually believe, that if they don't protect their game with shitty DRM 40%+ of their profits will vanish. When in actuality they'll lose profits from using shitty DRM that ruins the experience for the players. That's why games with DRM are usually heavy hitting, well known and highly advertised games with dedicated (rabid) fanbases, they use their success to go "see? DRM good!"

Nintendo released Super Mario 3D All-Stars in 2020 for a limited time and gave people genuine fomo. This was a low-effort emulated bundle of three of the most pirated games ever made. If piracy didn't stop 3D All-Stars from selling 9 million copies, what's stopping your game?

I did a little looking into the new Gears of War prequel game, and I have no idea what the fuck they were smoking when they made this. Apparently the game costs over $400 million dollars to make, which would make it one of the most expensive entertainment properties ever made, and would have to sell 7.2 million copies at full price to break even, when Gears of War 2, the most popular entry, sold around 6.5 million copies at the height of the IP's popularity. After Gears of War 4 was one of the worst games I ever played, and everything I heard told me 5 was even worse, how in the world do they actually expect to recoup their investment, let alone make a profit? Original fans of the series like myself wrote this game franchise off a decade ago already, and this game very obviously is continuing the downward trajectory. I highly doubt anybody is going to be that eager to have the latest mystery meat tranny covered in clown barf skins and pride flags for macrotransactions to make up the difference.

I can only assume that trillionaire investment money paid the development costs already, so nobody cares when the next progressive propaganda slop fails miserably and loses hundreds of millions of dollars.

It's not like they sat down in a congressional budget meeting and agreed to spend 400 million, they simply had a certain number of employees being paid a certain wage for a certain amount of time while the game was "in development" plus a significant amount of contractor wages in that time and an insignificant amount of other expenses. They hired a laughably excessive amount of people because they thought it would help them make better games faster, when in reality it forced them to make more expensive games slower. You simply cannot tardwrangle 1000 "developers" in several different countries to make a good game in a reasonable amount of time, even presuming that management works flawlessly (when in reality these games always end up throwing away years worth of work because management changes their mind mid-development). The game will lose money because the current structure of the industry forces everything short of Elden Ring to lose money.

 

[Scarthew]

I remember this one game dev simulator having a "piracy" mode that was probably meant to mock and raise awareness of pirates by having every successful game release lose a huge chunk of profits.

That was the first game by the guy who made gmod customizable weaponry mod which almost every server in existence uses and also the same guy currently makes intravenous. He's working on the third game now.

 

[The Last Stand]

Calling this thing a "remake" is an outright lie. It's a UE5 coat of paint over Halo Reach with some animations and assets from 3 and Infinite.

That's most remakes now. Example: Mafia: Definitive Edition is just Mafia III with new or reworked assets. GTA: Trilogy: The DEFINITIVE Edition are just mobile ports of the original trilogy upscaled with AI and Unreal Engine. I see how cost effective it is, but ultimately the final execution results in pure laziness.

 

[REGENDarySumanai]

Been playing Punch Club and have been digging burgers out of the garbage bin Ethan Ralph style.

 

[EmpGulcasa]

Current focus is The Iron Oath, a game similar to Battle Brothers and Wartales. Seems fun so far but not sure if it has the depth to stay interesting for a full campaign.

 

[Gimmick Account]

Indie games typically fail for two reasons.

1 - They're uncreative and unimaginative asset flips or AI slop.

2 - They contain extremely woke or subversive elements that alienate their potential audience.

Piracy is not a significant factor.

0. They just don't have a marketing budget or contacts.

Most AAA games aren't interesting or creative even a little bit but that doesn't matter when you can do a saturation campaign on the sides of buses and shit. There's a survivorship bias with indie games that do novel shit, so we actually hold them to a much higher standard. It's worth recognising that.
Making games isn't easy, and you need to do that while breaking new ground somehow, letting people know it exists, and figuring out how to support development, all with probably no money. But if you otherwise have the ingredients for success and you shoot yourself in the foot by being redditbrained you're probably not worth anyone's time anyway.

 

[Jace on ice]

Been playing Punch Club and have been digging burgers out of the garbage bin Ethan Ralph style.

Can you have five baby mamas and flee to Mexico?

 

[REGENDarySumanai]

Can you have five baby mamas and flee to Mexico?

No, but you fight alligators in the sewers and can do jobs for cash.