This is a great tabletop game. I'm sure the digital game is nice too, but I never have as much fun in the digital versions of card games.

Also, make no mistake. Even though there are hexes this is mainly a card game. The hexes matter only a little bit.

I must be one of the only people not captivated by Elden Ring. I've put 8 hours into it so far, and it's... fine? I think it's the world/story more than the gameplay which feels a little lacking. To be sure, I'm not a huge fan of the series in general though. I was pretty into Dark Souls for a while but never managed to finish it (I got maybe 50% of the way through or so, 30 hours maybe). And I've liked a few of the earlier from software titles like the obscure kings field. But this one, I'll sit down and play for a few hours and be engrossed, but when I put it down I don't feel any strong urge to pull it up again.

It's too bad because it seems like the first From Software game in a while that has some wiggle room in the difficulty where I might be able to beat it. I like that you can actually approach situations differently, and there are actually decent areas to find to grind without having to look up a faq. Maybe it just needs a little more time to click I don't know.

Frijoles wrote on Mar 16, 2022, 12:28:

Carcifier wrote on Mar 16, 2022, 11:46:
I'm playing it with keyboard and mouse. I don't like controllers. Not much of a console person. I know everyone says you have to use a controller. I don't know why though.

I'm on KB/M. Let's not pretend it's perfect. You can't rebind 'G' key because that goes to map for some reason. The menu system in the game is god-awful. Hit 'G' to open map. Does hitting it again close it? No, that goes to a help screen for the map. You can't click or drag the map, you have to use WASD, which isn't even my movement keys. The inconsistency between using 'Q' and 'Esc' frustrates me to no end. KB/M are not fine at all. Playable? Sure. But they sure as shit had nobody testing their setup with different configs from the guy who made it.

I run AutoHotKey to fix the 'G' rebind and a few other things that annoy me. The game from a performance standpoint is pure shit. But the gameplay is great. Even with all the issues, I've got about 50 hours into it. And that's on a keyboard. I hope they fix the issues, but I don't have a lot of hope. They left bugs in their other games as well to be fixed by modders. From Software absolutely does not deserve the praise they get.

The issues you describe are not isolated to keyboard/mouse. If From Software have a blind spot, it is in UI design and controls. There was a meme a week ago where someone at Ubisoft criticized it, and fanboys made fun of them because of Ubisoft's own UI failings, but the criticism was 100% accurate.

Sepharo wrote on Jan 21, 2022, 18:53:
Did anyone play the third one?
Obviously it's been 15 or more years since I've played the 2nd one... but reading the plot of 3 it seems like it takes over right after the cliffhanger on 2.
Now I'm wondering if 4 continues directly off of 3.

I heard it was received pretty poorly, so haven't really jumped at the bit to give it a try. Someday when I'm bored I probably will, maybe if 4 does better?

Oh hey look! A sponsored article written by the owner of a company that promotes NFTs trying to push back against the pr that NFTs are bad for games (which they are).

This is literally just an ad.

This is so perfect.

Lutris exists and works pretty well. It's kind of mind boggling to me that gog doesn't double down and support linux better. They have always catered to a niche of gamers, it seems like linux would be a good fit to target. But no, steam supports linux better.

That said, I think the problem is neither of GoG's niches are growth categories. Game development since the mid to late 2000s has been pretty stagnant. You can usually expect a game produced at that time to still work on modern computers. So the pool of old games GoG can pull from is limited. Eventually, a given customer will have bought all of the old games they want, and they don't need to return to GoG.

With lutris/minigalaxy I've been digging into my GoG collection again. I've been having fun finishing some old B and C tier adventure games and playing around with some of the old strategy games etc, but I'm surprised at how many classic titles I was excited to buy again when they were first rereleased have stopped interesting me.

They saw this years ago and pivoted to focus on the DRM aspect of their store. Clearly, there is a limit to how much of a draw this is. The number of new releases has skyrocketed in recent years, and things like streaming tv have worked to devalue each individual piece of content. When facing the choice between price or drm in this kind of market, most customers are going to choose price. In many years, at which time you might start to consider whether a game is still playable, the market will be showering you with a new hot title that you would rather buy than replay something you finished and forgot years ago.

Storefronts like epic and steam are working with the market. Even things like itch have their own niche that aligns with growth forces. GoG is pretty much going against the grain here. If they didn't have to show infinite growth as companies must do these days, they probably would be OK for a while. I feel shrinking their offerings to focus on DRM as a value add... won't make an impact.

Lol.

"We want better support for reporting and dealing with HR violations"
"How about we just pay senior staff more?"

I mean more vacation days and better parental leave is good, but this seems especially tone deaf

I thought it looks really good for what it is. I think this is the first time in... ever... that I have a shred of anticipation for an anime adaptation.

Also, even og cowboy bebop was just OK.

The Half Elf wrote on Oct 19, 2021, 11:09:
Ubisoft needs to just stop right now. Everything with exception of AC Vahalla has been sub-par, or as I call it "Work From Home" quality. Re-gather the troops in the office, and put some quality into their games. Quality not quantity.

It's not the number of projects or where the workers work. It's the working conditions, the planning of each title, how much random content - most of which no one even likes - is crammed into each game, pretty much the core philosophies of the company. But yes, quality over quantity.

Solution: allow players to play their character on whatever server is open. Use instancing for places where real estate is important. Let players switch their instance as needed. Design your game to work - and be fun - with these limitations.

What research did they do that let them think 2000 player max per server was a good idea.

Patents cover an invention - as long as the mechanics of the invention are new it can be patented, even if the same kind of thing has been done before. Virtualizing the filesystem in order to crowd-source the access paterns of which data a game needs to start is pretty novel. As far as I know, other methods of launch while downloading have used inside knowledge of which packages need to be downloaded to start the game and which can be updated at a later date.

A patent would be the wrong way to go about this anyway. It's really Among Us' unique presentation of the ideas than the ideas themselves which are being trampled on here. So IP. But I think Epic changes enough to make it not legally stealing the IP. It's just close enough that everyone knows what's going on here, everyone knows it's shitty, but whatareyagonnado?

Quinn wrote on Aug 9, 2021, 11:00:
Opinions are all over the place regarding B4B. This is one of these games you probably got to try yourself to know what's what.

I stick with my opinion that anyone who buys the Valve Index instead of the wireless Quest 2 almost a full grand cheaper, is criminally insane. 😌

If Valve Index were a greand cheaper it would be free. Quest 2 is definitely a better buy but a lot of people in vr want to go for the highest FOV - quest 2 is pretty disappointing there.

Bad workplace culture... to create entertainment.

It's an oxymoron, and there are no good excuses for it.

Jonjonz wrote on Jul 26, 2021, 07:09:
New World opening sales on Steam. Every wanna bee streamer jumps with the herd onto any new game bandwagon. Give it a month. From what I have seen so far, combat is just plain stupidly bad. Quests are sophomoric, kill X turkeys, kill XX turkeys, kill XXX turkeys etc.

Guaranteed to be F2P within a year.

Erm, does it need to be f2p when it is a one time cost like Guild Wars 2? It's basically premium f2p already.

Why did this thread get political? People passed around a nude photo of a coworker who later killed herself. No consequence. Workers had their work rejected unless they gave it to a man to pitch. No consequences. Women were not given the normal raises and promotions their coworker partners were. This isn't about thin-skinned political correctness, it's about people being awful and those in charge, who are responsible for their company culture, not giving a damn until it is too late.

It doesn't even matter that the people who were harmed were women, except that it is so prevalent for women or minorities to be the targets of this abuse.

It's not because men are more likely to be pigs. It's because men in powerful positions are less likely to call out their friends. It's because this behavior has been entrenched for too long and become a part of the industry, rewarded and enabled by money. It's going to take a lot more than some very flimsy apologies to rectify.

I wouldn't think anyone would be looking to buy one of these and hope it can compete with their desktop for performance - but you know, people be people. This is going to be my new emulator of choice, while also letting me still progress a bit in some of my beefier games in situations where I can't use the desktop.

This looks good I probably will get one. Will I finally finish my older backlog titles like Deus Ex Human Revolution if I can play them in bed will my partner watches a sitcom? Chances certainly go up, and I'd prefer to deal with less than perfect graphics hardware vs less than perfect streaming.

Idiotic. Hire less of a diva and replace the likeness for the pc version. If you are going to use actor likenesses like tv/film, then fans will have to live with the inevitable recasts that also happen in tv/film.