PC Gaming, General & Off Topic Chat

SeantheMan · 26-10-2015 05:59AM

Overheal wrote: »

Throwback - does anyone remember when you had to manually patch your video games?

Yes, Battlefield...so many problems....constant patches being released....and they were HUGE.

Call of Duty (the first few) I remember needing a lot.

salamanca22 · 26-10-2015 06:33AM

Overheal wrote: »

Throwback - does anyone remember when you had to manually patch your video games?

I remember getting my patches from the occasional magazine the mother would buy me :P

Sonics2k · 26-10-2015 01:04PM

Overheal wrote: »

Throwback - does anyone remember when you had to manually patch your video games?

Jesus, that was happening a few years ago with WoW. The downloader would frequently just break on patch day, so we'd have to download it from MMO-Champion and other places so we could manually install it.

Dard23 · 26-10-2015 03:00PM

Anyone playing warframe? Really addictive!

Overheal · 26-10-2015 03:25PM

Oh man no not even I'm talking like, having to patch your install of Counterstrike and stuff. Or Black and White.

Robert ninja · 26-10-2015 11:33PM

List of game censoring and blacklisting.

This makes me a bit angry.

Overheal · 26-10-2015 11:54PM

please, half that **** happens all the time anyway. Joe celebrity says something offensive, gets twitter-bombed for a couple hours, regrets everything and deletes the tweet.

Links234 · 27-10-2015 12:25AM

Bleh, what a non-issue. Different reviewers have different opinions, and as far as sexualization of female characters in games go, stupid things like chainmail bikini's belong in the past. C'mon, games can do so much better than that kinda crap.

gizmo · 27-10-2015 01:03AM

Criticism of games that I don't agree with should be banned.

Because free speech.

johnny_ultimate · 27-10-2015 01:05AM

I think my dictionary must be broken, because censorship and criticism have very different definitions in mine?

Robert ninja · 27-10-2015 12:54PM

I guess nobody read the article then. Criticism isn't contacting the developers or artists and demanding they change it. Criticism isn't blacklisting a person across a circle of conspiring game journalists because you disagree with something.

Links234 wrote: »

]Bleh, what a non-issue.

Censorship, blacklisting for personal opinions and harrassment are not a non-issue to be honest.

Links234 wrote: »

and as far as sexualization of female characters in games go, stupid things like chainmail bikini's belong in the past.

Apparently some people that actually design game characters don't believe that to be so. So do you think your opinion that certain costumes belong in the past should be enforced?

Links234 wrote: »

C'mon, games can do so much better than that kinda crap.

Then show us. Let these white knights and warriors for 3rd wave feminism step up and show us how a real game is made and truely bring the medium to new ground-breaking levels that will shame all of our stupid boob armour.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/910316779/aberford-a-game-of-zombies-and-50s-housewives

Oh. lol

Links234 · 27-10-2015 01:50PM

I think your tinfoil hat is on a little too tight there

Shockingly, folks make demands from game devs all the time, this is not a controversial issue at all. People have been demanding the Payday 2 devs change things constantly, sometimes this has worked out great (they brought back Old Hoxton, and introduced one of the best maps of the game because of demand), and sometimes not (they're refusing to budge on microtransactions and weapon rebalance). Even the dreaded Kotaku are criticizing the devs, oh no it must be a conspiracy! :eek:

gizmo · 27-10-2015 02:21PM

Robert ninja wrote: »

I guess nobody read the article then. Criticism isn't contacting the developers or artists and demanding they change it. Criticism isn't blacklisting a person across a circle of conspiring game journalists because you disagree with something.

Did you read the article because the only reference I can find to anyone contacting the devs about actual game content is with Divine Divinity where it says "Numerous complaints were made by consumers about the design of the female character’s breast plate that was featured as the cover of the game...". Everything else is, as others have pointed out, criticism via articles which again, isn't censorship.

On the subject of blacklisting, or as the actual article says, the alleged blacklisting, outside of acting like an asshole on Twitter, has Kevin Dent actually done anything of note that would have him featured in the games press? He was vaguely involved in Rekoil, a game so "**** awful" that it's since been pulled from Steam. Maybe that's why he doesn't come up more often?

Russ Roegner? Perhaps you should read the actual exchange with Rami Ismael rather than relying solely on the article. Pay special attention to the bits where he tells a woman working in the industry that she should spend less time complaining about hard she had it getting there and more time developing and also the bit where he says the reason the reason Ismael gets checked so regularly while travelling is because of "A huge presence of terrorism amongst Arabic and Islamic people. The origin of the 9/11 attacks". As far as I can remember he was also a student at the time of the tweets, not a developer. Regardless, the comments from people in the industry about maybe not wanting to work with someone like that in general aren't particularly surprising.

Links234 wrote: »

Shockingly, folks make demands from game devs all the time, this is not a controversial issue at all. People have been demanding the Payday 2 devs change things constantly, sometimes this has worked out great (they brought back Old Hoxton, and introduced one of the best maps of the game because of demand), and sometimes not (they're refusing to budge on microtransactions and weapon rebalance). Even the dreaded Kotaku are criticizing the devs, oh no it must be a conspiracy! :eek:

I know right? Those poor Overkill guys...

I think the problem here really is people in positions of power in media and elsewhere making uninformed, clickbait articles about things that matter a lot to a lot of people, instead of doing some serious legwork to get their facts straight.

Robert ninja · 27-10-2015 02:58PM

Links234 wrote: »

I think your tinfoil hat is on a little too tight there

Shockingly, folks make demands from game devs all the time, this is not a controversial issue at all. People have been demanding the Payday 2 devs change things constantly, sometimes this has worked out great (they brought back Old Hoxton, and introduced one of the best maps of the game because of demand), and sometimes not (they're refusing to budge on microtransactions and weapon rebalance). Even the dreaded Kotaku are criticizing the devs, oh no it must be a conspiracy! :eek:

There's a difference between making demands about balancing a game's mechanics/weapons and making demands based on social issues that cause huge backlash on social media and personal hit-pieces across Gawker.

This gun is OP and needs a nerf =/= This is morally wrong and in need of censorship

Links234 wrote: »

Even the dreaded Kotaku are criticizing the devs, oh no it must be a conspiracy! :eek:

Considering that Kotaku was part of GameJournoPros group conversing with other 'news' sites to conjure a narrative about what is 'happening' without any disclosure to readers... then yeah that pretty much fits the dictionary definition of

conspiracy
[kuh n-spir-uh-see]

noun, plural conspiracies.
1.
the act of conspiring.
2.
an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons; plot.

I'll gladly put on the tinfoil hat and tinfoil boob armour if it in any way keeps people sharp about this censorship that's getting out of hand in the disguise of representation. Thankfully, there's still quite a few sexy and non-sexy games available for whatever the consumer is looking for so it's good to see them failing.

Robert ninja · 27-10-2015 03:12PM

A summary is that through sly use of social media, prude consumers and hit pieces by gawker, developers feel pressure to self-censor to avoid unnecessary damage to reputation.

Robert ninja · 27-10-2015 04:32PM

OSI wrote: »

Ah I see. Game developers having to come to terms with a diversifying and maturing audience, and loud mouths on either side not liking the rate the landscape is changing, be it too fast or too slow.

I wish.

Overheal · 27-10-2015 04:38PM

Links234 wrote: »

I think your tinfoil hat is on a little too tight there

I wouldn't have cared much before being the CT mod granted, but nowadays I'm a little more aware that in a lot of cases merely dismissing people with the 'tinfoil hat' claptrap really just shuts down meaningful discussion and has been proven wrong a few times (esp. in regard to conspiracies that turn out to be completely true, like NSA wiretapping or global climate change)

Like it or not, a memo telling affiliates not to give journalism time to someone because they don't like them, is collusion. It's the same way execs at FOX news might issue a memo to pundits to not discuss something, or discuss something only using particular buzzwords (eg. 'death panels', 'obamacare') except in the case of FOX, they are one (large) outlet, essentially a 24/7 newspaper with execs acting as editors. GameJournoPros from what I'm gathering is more akin to real collusion, because they are essentially a journalism guild that is spread among multiple, independent outlets.

In contrast the other items mentioned in the article (public consumer criticism) is all perfectly valid and nothing to cry conspiracy about. If Kotaku journalists for example, had publicly called for other journalists to 'boycott' a game developer, that would have been free speech, controversial free speech but free speech. Just like a mom telling every other mom in the PTA not to buy their kids GTA. News stations could also (god willing) decide to collectively and publicly announce they would no longer glorify the shooters in mass shooting events, and that too would not be collusion. There have been enough articles in the games media discussing review blackouts as well, which is a standard yet criticized practice in the industry. That said you could probably make a game with boob monsters all you want (or install the skyrim plugins for it) but trying to mass market it that to the larger consumer public without critical reaction to it, you'd have to be out of touch.

degrassinoel · 27-10-2015 06:07PM

OSI wrote: »

I'm in no mood to read through the long list of waffle that the link produces. What's actually being censored, the use of tits in games or criticism of the use of tits in games or criticism of criticism of the use of tits in games?

the misogynistic gamedev tits are being blacklisted by entitled egocentric critic tits - nothing to see here

strelok · 27-10-2015 06:11PM

I think walking simulators are bloody stupid

I don't buy or play walking simulators

there's a lesson in this somewhere.

degrassinoel · 27-10-2015 06:15PM

I think the great humungus says it best

Links234 · 27-10-2015 06:26PM

I'm not aversed to so-called Walking Simulators, few tickle my fancy at all, but The Park looks really interesting. Maybe I'll wait for reviews to see if it's decent and snag it once it's going at a heavy discount.

johnny_ultimate · 28-10-2015 12:18PM

Hello my name is Johnny (not really), and I like walking simulators. Well, the good ones.

What appeals to me about them is that the 'minimalist' approach really allows the designers to get at the other aspects of the medium that are fascinating beyond the gameplay. "Heresy!", I know. But to me the best of these titles allow the makers to deeply explore themes, stories, environments, moods etc... without much pesky gameplay getting in the way and breaking the overall cohesion of the game. And they do so in a way unique to interactive media - by allowing the player to walk around at their own pace, soaking in the details and exploring the environment in a way you couldn't in a film, for example.

It also helps that they're typically very short, often done in one sitting. When so many games these days feel like part-time jobs (full-time, in some extreme cases) I really appreciate that there are games out there that say what they have to say in 90-120 minutes. What MGSV is actually about is heavily diluted over 50-100 hours, whereas The Beginner's Guide feels like it gets through its narrative ideas in a far more efficient and cohesive manner because it's a fraction of the length. Frankly, I'm usually more interested in what artists have to say than what I have to say, so on those grounds I'm happy to let them guide my experience, and not get frustrated by the absence of player choice in the process.

None of which is to say I exclusively play walking sims, far from it. I still spend the vast majority of my time playing games that have actual, well, 'play' in them. And there's nothing I admire more than the rare games that manage to marry gameplay and formal/narrative consistency - games like Paper Please, or Dark Souls, or Sunless Sea. I'm looking forward to The Witness and Obra Dinn because they seem to give you interesting things to do while you walk. But as part of a 'balanced gaming diet', I'm delighted the 'first person walkers' are there and doing what they're doing. When I play something with an interesting story like Life is Strange it often seems like the 'game' is an inconvenience - a clunky afterthought that in worse case scenario can actively undermine the other, more interesting things the designers are trying to do. When some designers choose to liberate themselves from it entirely, it can be a fruitful design choice IMO, and lead to experiences offering a clearer vision then they'd have gotten with an arbitrary combat, stealth or puzzle system attached.

On the flip side, of course, there's many other designers I wish would just ****ing forget about story entirely and stick with what they're good at - the actual gameplay :pac:

Skerries · 28-10-2015 12:32PM

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Hello my name is Johnny (not really), and I like walking simulators. Well, the good ones.

so you could say you are Johnny Walker?

Robert ninja · 28-10-2015 01:35PM

If you want story, immersion and minimal gameplay... try a kinetic (none) or visual novel. The focus on the soundtrack and you imagination trumps walking simulators which to me feel like all I'm doing is examining a environmental artist's work as part of QA. VN/KNs have been way more creative, ambitious and controversial than any of walking simulator I know of.

Unfortunately many have no official translation or are not available on platforms we'd like (steam, GOG, humble) and also have some text issues on Windows if you don't know how to fix it. Saya No Uta was a trip into madness that I'll never forget.

I like the ones that allow comments on the save files. More games should do this overall I think. I really appreciated map planning on Alien Swarm and map/save name/commenting on Legend of Grimrock. It's such a small detail that takes minimal effort to implement... it's depressing to see how rare it is these days.

johnny_ultimate · 28-10-2015 01:52PM

Have played plenty of visual novels over the years, but the more I play the more I think it's quite a limited form of expression. I've played some really interesting ones that address fascinating themes and have plenty of strongly written characters - stuff like Virtues Last Reward or Analogue: A Hate Story. But at the same time even the good ones are far too often reliant on crude anime tropes and the like. The biggest problem though is there's few I've played that match up to actual novels: the dialogue / protagonist's thoughts wall of text and static images method of storytelling simply comes up against limits all but the best fail to transcend, and the writing is rarely if ever up to even mediocre literary standards (although, let's be honest, that is so far true of all games).

I was particularly put off them after playing the utterly tedious Danganronpa recently, but I do have Stein's Gate to crack into and look forward to it given all the good things I've heard. Still, I think the best 'walking simulators' allow for more subtle, expressive modes of storytelling than the best visual novels, because they IMO offer far more dynamic environment building, visual storytelling, scoring etc... I'd disagree most visual novels leave extra room for imagination and interpretation, because that's where the best 'walking simulators' shine.

Robert ninja · 28-10-2015 02:07PM

My imagination has been wilder on VNs/KNs than playing walking simulators. I honestly don't feel this dynamic you think exists in walking simulators. They're all fairly predictable and boring, I've found. I liked Layers of Fear, though. VA was good, environments looked damn nice and there was a good use of special effects and was creepy once or twice. The story progression shows how the player character

is going insane. And that limp! That was an amazing, subtle change to the head bobbing

that gave me a greater sense the progression of events.

I think walking simulators like this are mostly boring and safely avoidable for any gamer but they'll probably pick up once VR readily available. VR will make them truely places to get absorbed in and the visual tricks you can pull off with 3D will be amazing too. That's when they'll actually have a dynamic that nobody can match.

johnny_ultimate · 28-10-2015 02:13PM

Robert ninja wrote: »

My imagination has been wilder on VNs/KNs than playing walking simulators. I honestly don't feel this dynamic you think exists in walking simulators.

And I reckon we're not going to find much in the way of common ground

The market is splintering and diversifying, and I'm just happy there's developers out there making games for pretty much every taste.

Robert ninja · 28-10-2015 03:27PM

I really don't see the market diversifying like you say, though. We're suffering from more of the samey type of games than ever and developers find mature audiences too hard to please (see CAPCOM's official statements about RE audience) so they design things for kids more and more. The presentation looks mature but the actual way the game's treat you and the mechanics of the games are child's play and sometimes an insult to the player's intelligence. With dialogue the characters often don't even say what you selected them to say because the options presented to the player are so ambiguous and simple so that younger players or people who are droning through AAA title one after the other don't get confused.

A lot of tastes are now too niche to be realistic in the modern market. You can't make a fighting game without combos. You can't have a shooter where the enemies actually move and dodge in challenging ways because everything has to be considered for pad usage (KF2 don't let us down!) or casual pick up and play. What's seen as 'hardcore' is Dark Souls which is not hardcore.-hold. Even that series has lost a lot of hype momentum since its original cult following of Demon's Souls. This is the most non-diverse time to shopping for games from where I'm standing, johnny.

But it's not all bad... there are games still worth taking a look at it's just a lot of them suffer the limitations of being indie, underfunded, crowd funded etc. And in a sea of scams it's just as hard to want to take your wallet out for any of em'.

Especially the ones that are so linear and 'cinematic' you'd be better off saving yourself the money and watching them on youtube. I know I'd rather grab Doorkickers or Super Hexagon any day of the week. I've played a few walking simulators from steam family sharing and they barely seem worth the HDD space let alone the money. But I guess they have the lowest replayability so it's safe enough to uninstall them after you've exhausted exploration.

gizmo · 28-10-2015 03:28PM

On that note, are most people using "walking simulator" as a pejorative here or simply an adventure game with scaled back "game" mechanics. It seems to differ depending on the context of the conversation here and the Steam tag usage is somewhat consistent.

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

And I reckon we're not going to find much in the way of common ground The market is splintering and diversifying, and I'm just happy there's developers out there making games for pretty much every taste.

Very true. I mean, when someone like Adrian Chmielarz can go from Bulletstorm to The Vanishing of Ethan Carter and find an audience (and varying levels of success) with each, it's certainly something to be lauded.

CastorTroy · 28-10-2015 05:02PM

Anyone else sign up for the Monthly Bundle? I did it out of curiosity. Will see what the first month brings anyway

PC Gaming, General & Off Topic Chat

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