General gaming superthread

[Octavia]

I stopped playing Hearthstone a few months ago for different reasons, but I sure am glad I did. Blizzard has gone steadily downhill since Activision bought them.

Blizzard employees are even mad about it. Someone on their campus covered up the plaque on a statue that said "every voice matters."

[W.T. Fits]

Yeah, I already went and uninstalled all my Blizzard games except WoW, which I'm only leaving on there until my subscription, which I canceled, runs out next month.

Feels bad to be giving up on playing those games I like, but I'm not going to support them when they're trampling over free speech and human rights because they want to stay on the CCP's good side so they can keep selling their shit in China.

[Fizzbuzz]

I'd picked up Hearthstone last year and had fun with it, but by the time I came back to gaming a few months after my grandfather died, BlizzCon had happened and I found myself feeling disgusted with the company over everything that went down there. Now, that seems like a blessing compared to this.

[Aramek]

Play Diablo 3.

Technically, you're costing them money by doing so!

[Fizzbuzz]

I had actually considered getting a used copy of Overwatch at some point after it comes out on the Switch next week, but even without buying any lootboxes I think the value I'd generate for Blizzard (one more player for the whales to show off to) would be greater than my cost (one more player's worth of server resources).

[Captain Rufus]

I'm trying to actually play a Silent Hill game again. I've yet to make it more than halfway or so through one. But this year in all its hellish hell for me has seen me finally complete original 1990s X com and Zelda 2 Adventures of Link so who knows?

[Mechanical Ape]

The Witness update: as of last night I got seven lasers activated and have descended into the mountain and that Aperture Enrichment Center-looking place. There are a lot of unsolved puzzles left on the island so if I get stuck I might climb back out and work on them some more.

It’s still a joy to figure out a puzzle, and I haven’t yet had a session where I didn’t finish at least one.

[Madeline]

I am plugging away at Baba is You again. I’m up to world 6 and it’s weird. I hit a lot of roadblocks when trying to play this a few months ago and stopped, but now I’ve only had to look up hints two or three times. You do kind of get used to figuring out when following a level’s rules can help you and when it’s better to warp/break them, and when you have to follow some but break others. I didn’t think I’d be able to make it so far.

This might be one of my favorite games this year.

[Jill]

This might be one of my favorite games this year.

it's SO GOOD

[Madeline]

it's SO GOOD

It is! It’s amazing. You could teach a class in game design off of it

[Perrydotto]

Baba Is You definitely benefits from taking a break and coming back to it later when you get stuck. It's really amazing how many different perspectives you can take to poke at things. Such a simple concept yet so much variety.

[DaikatunaRevengeance]

It's unironically Galaxy Brain: The Game.

[Pocket]

Might anyone have a clue why Super Mario Galaxy is going for only $15 at all the secondhand stores around here when virtually every other Nintendo game is like $40 and up?

[Venusy]

It was one of the Wii games released on the Wii U eShop, I guess?

[Captain Rufus]

I keep playing Bloodborne. Please send help I have gobs of games yet I can't stay away from Yharnam.

[Perpetual Motion]

I don't even have a PS4 to play Bloodborne, but I've clicked on enough DEEP LORE videos on Youtube to know way too much. And now I eagerly await videos from the, like, one guy who bothers to post writeups and explanations of all the cut content they're finding as they get better at hacking the PS4 and analyzing the game code. I don't think I can help you.

[Pocket]

It was one of the Wii games released on the Wii U eShop, I guess?

So in other words I need to snap it up now before the eShop is shut down and the price skyrockets, I guess?

[Madeline]

So in other words I need to snap it up now before the eShop is shut down and the price skyrockets, I guess?

It was also one of the Nintendo Select games that got reissued for $20 a few years ago, which probably helped drive the price down.

[Pocket]

Watching this made me wonder if it's even possible to ethically produce and sell an online game at all. Even if you go out of your way to avoid putting in any money-grubbing crap, you've made a game that has an expiration date, a game that people have paid for but effectively no longer have once the player base dries up. And if it's now considered unethical to do things to keep people playing, or to supplement a small player base with bots... well, that date is going to come a hell of a lot faster.

Is this what people mean when they talk about no ethical consumption under capitalism?

[Venusy]

I think Jim's point here is not against the idea of bots as a whole - it's the lack of identification as such. Like, Perfect Dark is one of my favourite games, and that's entirely because of the bots - but they all have Sim in the name and I set up the match to specifically have them. Similarly, Forza Horizon's Drivatars are clearly differentiated from the actual human players.

I would prefer that games do have bots so that they can stick around in some form after the multiplayer player base dries up, and I don't mind them being automatically matched with human players (or even replacing a human on a disconnect to some extent), but there should be some way to know what you're playing against. :shrug:

(Mario Kart Tour also fakes people taking a few seconds to connect in as well - if they're not trying to be intentionally deceptive about that, then all that does is add a few seconds on to the loading unnecessarily)

[DaikatunaRevengeance]

Depends on what you mean by online game. A multiplayer game with an ability to connect to dedicated private servers and has an ability to run on lan can be played even if the central server is dead. Freelancer allows the player to set up a IP adress it can connect to directly on start up, completly bypassing the need to have a central server. I played Unreal Tournament (the original 1999 one) online at one point in the mid 2010s without any problem despite it's age. Battlefield 2 is still functional last time i checked, despite GameSpy's death because fans made their own service.

Hell, why stop at commercial releases: Xonotic is a completly free open source UT-like FPS that has an active playerbase.

Where things become problematic are always online live service video games like Overwatch or Fortnite, which are purposely built to be unplayable without the central server and accompanying architecture. This is by design, as it prevents people from doing things the way they want with the game and allows the company to have full control over it. This is the dream for them, completly dictating how and when and in what way their product is "consumed".

These games are not built around having fun, they're built on pressuring the player to keep coming back. This is the exact opposite of the "old school" multiplayer games that offered a gameplay system that players could play whenever they felt like it and not feel that they're missing out.

The reason these games are built around this and need to "retain" their player base is not because they're online games it's because they're built in such a way that they can't retain players through the simple act of being a game. They need the content.

It's a manufactured AAA system stemming from the AAA method of making a multiplayer video game, not an inherent problem with the concept of online play.

[Captain Rufus]

I'm fine with bots but I mostly play single player offline games because of multiple reasons and not just because nobody likes the obscure stuff I mostly play...

[DaikatunaRevengeance]

Also, multiplayer games should have bots. Good bots. This was more of a thing back before broadband became widespread, but these days they're sadly dumb as bricks. Contrast early CS bots which were at least somewhat challenging to CSGO's which get massacred at chokepoints because they just all take the same route.

This is less on whether they should be labeled or not and their use in fortnite and more that I really think there's a lack of understanding on the importance of having good bots in a multiplayer game and how they can help a player get a feel for it. Instead of connecting to a server and getting shot a minute after spawning by someone who's been playing this for a two months.

[Pocket]

Depends on what you mean by online game. A multiplayer game with an ability to connect to dedicated private servers and has an ability to run on lan can be played even if the central server is dead.

Can be, sure, but unless you happen to know people who are also interested in regularly playing it, you basically have a non-functional game either way. Or at least a bot-mode-only shadow of its former self. And as a developer, you're basically leaving it up to chance whether it will take off at all or not. I've seen games pretty much die out before they even can get out of early access.

And that's before getting into the question of whether you'll have the resources to keep the player base you do have from becoming toxic. Hiring people to wade into the swamps and deal with the kind of behavior you see from gamers nowadays feels like a form of employee abuse in its own right.

I've been thinking about this a lot because I've spent a fair bit of time teaching myself game development, and a few of the ideas I've had have been for games that rely on a multiplayer component. And while failure is something I could live with, feeling like I've saddled paying customers with the fallout from that failure is the kind of thing that would likely drive me to pull a Phil Fish.

[Gloomy Rube]

bots are cute and I like them, they're like friends that live in your computer

[Aria Genisi]

I think Jim's point here is not against the idea of bots as a whole - it's the lack of identification as such. Like, Perfect Dark is one of my favourite games, and that's entirely because of the bots - but they all have Sim in the name and I set up the match to specifically have them. Similarly, Forza Horizon's Drivatars are clearly differentiated from the actual human players.

I would prefer that games do have bots so that they can stick around in some form after the multiplayer player base dries up, and I don't mind them being automatically matched with human players (or even replacing a human on a disconnect to some extent), but there should be some way to know what you're playing against. :shrug:

(Mario Kart Tour also fakes people taking a few seconds to connect in as well - if they're not trying to be intentionally deceptive about that, then all that does is add a few seconds on to the loading unnecessarily)

Depends on what you mean by online game. A multiplayer game with an ability to connect to dedicated private servers and has an ability to run on lan can be played even if the central server is dead. Freelancer allows the player to set up a IP adress it can connect to directly on start up, completly bypassing the need to have a central server. I played Unreal Tournament (the original 1999 one) online at one point in the mid 2010s without any problem despite it's age. Battlefield 2 is still functional last time i checked, despite GameSpy's death because fans made their own service.

Hell, why stop at commercial releases: Xonotic is a completly free open source UT-like FPS that has an active playerbase.

Where things become problematic are always online live service video games like Overwatch or Fortnite, which are purposely built to be unplayable without the central server and accompanying architecture. This is by design, as it prevents people from doing things the way they want with the game and allows the company to have full control over it. This is the dream for them, completly dictating how and when and in what way their product is "consumed".

These games are not built around having fun, they're built on pressuring the player to keep coming back. This is the exact opposite of the "old school" multiplayer games that offered a gameplay system that players could play whenever they felt like it and not feel that they're missing out.

The reason these games are built around this and need to "retain" their player base is not because they're online games it's because they're built in such a way that they can't retain players through the simple act of being a game. They need the content.

It's a manufactured AAA system stemming from the AAA method of making a multiplayer video game, not an inherent problem with the concept of online play.

these two posts basically sum up my feelings on stuff, re:bots and modern Triple Ayyyyy multiplayer games

Personally, I loved messing with UT 2004 with bots a lot. Sure, it's not the same as playing it online, but if you're someone who has a garbage computer stuck in the corner of a home that has garbage internet like I was, being able to play multiplayer games with bots salvaged the game from the potential disaster of "why did I even bother playing the game, this was a waste of money" to "hell fuckin yeah this game rules"

the problem here absolutely not bots themselves, nor trying to make a multiplayer game in this day and age, but in reality, it's the current day structure of multiplayer games and the wack design decisions imposed by AAA developers, so that the only way to interact with these games is via the tightly controlled structure and environment that the player has no choice but to be a part of.

Adding bots that aren't immediately identifiable as bots starts to muddy the waters, makes the ecosystem feel way more artificial, and highlights how the multiplayer structure has been fucked up from a focus on server based that allows for players to create some control over it, to developer based, where the game lives and dies on 1) if enough people are playing it, and 2) if the developers want to continue to support it

multiplayer games should still exist. bots should still exist

it's just that how Triple Ayyyyy companies run them needs to change

[diribigal]

bots are cute and I like them, they're like friends that live in your computer

You should play Event[0] if you haven't.

Also, Event[0] is the type of game where reading almost anything is spoilers. It's a short one-player story-driven sci-fi game where you type to a bot (but that's not all you do).

[DaikatunaRevengeance]

I brought up LAN and thinking about it, it dissapearing from mainstream video games is a pretty good example of how Triple Ayyyy companies run this show. LAN was removed because it didn't mesh with the always online ideas that these companies were going for, which eventually got us to a point where even having your own online server is not possible.

[Aria Genisi]

I brought up LAN and thinking about it, it dissapearing from mainstream video games is a pretty good example of how Triple Ayyyy companies run this show. LAN was removed because it didn't mesh with the always online ideas that these companies were going for, which eventually got us to a point where even having your own online server is not possible.

seeing this makes me think about some of the notable recent-ish multiplayer game flops, like Battleborn, which got overshadowed by Overwatch pretty badly, and died super quick

I can't help but think that for some games like that, which were otherwise pretty solid enough games, but died due to a lack of interest or what have you, that if they still kept LAN options or possibly even private server options, that maybe it could have still been kicking around in some form. As it is today, with games like that, if the online presence dies, and especially once the devs turn off the servers, the game itself is effectively dead and worthless. There's nothing left to play or experience, other than whatever stories and videos that people have of playing the game.

But old games like UT? they still live on because of they're not forever tied to whatever central servers that the devs used for the game or whatever the hell. They may not be nearly as popular these days or have a ton of people playing games, but they at least still exist. Anyone who goes searching can still set something up and play, if not with strangers, then at least with friends. Modern games don't really have that any more. Or if it does, it's very rarely.

[Gloomy Rube]

You should play Event[0] if you haven't.

Also, Event[0] is the type of game where reading almost anything is spoilers. It's a short one-player story-driven sci-fi game where you type to a bot (but that's not all you do).

I haven't so I will! Thanks for the suggestion!

[Aramek]

Ultra tight tank pants get.

[DaikatunaRevengeance]

I want to install minecraft completly to my d drive, because otherwise the game does that thing where it puts it self in the user folder or something like that.

While looking for how to do that I came across this

https://multimc.org/

anyone know if it's good?

[Perrydotto]

I use MultiMC and it works pretty well. Definitely the handiest Minecraft launcher I've tried so far.

[DaikatunaRevengeance]

Cool, thanks!

[Octavia]

I've been playing the crap out of Rimworld lately. It's basically if The Sims and Fallout had a baby. There is a vibrant modding community and a TON of great LPs online too.

[Gloomy Rube]

Have the devs stopped being creeps yet? Most of what I heard about Rimworld was during the dev defending their weird -biotruth- opinions they coded into the game as fact.

[DaikatunaRevengeance]

The first time I heard of Rimworld was when the dev refused to add gay and bi men to the game.

I even remember that the SA thread made fun of that by changing its name to Rimworld: No Man's Bi

[Fizzbuzz]

Rimworld: No Man's Bi

This is and likely always will be the first thing I think of whenever someone mentions the game.

[Octavia]

The first time I heard of Rimworld was when the dev refused to add gay and bi men to the game.

I even remember that the SA thread made fun of that by changing its name to Rimworld: No Man's Bi

They definitely do have gay pawns in the game, so I'm guessing it was changed.

[Fizzbuzz]

Here's what revealed that way back in 2016: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/1 ... -analysis/

Basically, non-gay men could never be attracted to other men, whereas non-gay women still had a 15% chance to be attracted to any other given woman. Also, whenever the game had one of them try to initiate a relationship, women had a 7-in-8 chance to not actually do it, whereas men did not get this penalty. I think it eventually came out that the developer had used statistics published by OKCupid on their blog as a model for sexual and romantic behavior, but the problem is that online dating sites are a total dumpster fire if you try to use them as a representation of how people actually act.