SL128

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Posts posted by SL128

  2. Posted

    I think this video does a great job of indirectly (and somewhat accidentally) capturing the shift in multiplayer games from having a chill/hangout atmosphere to a silent (or EXTREMELY ANGRY) atmosphere:

    It only covers TF2 and Overwatch, but in the past 10 years, multiplayer games have shifted from dedicated servers in which you could establish a community or stay on for a few hours to develop a short friendship, whereas now, matchmaking means that you may never see the same person twice.  Additionally, older games generally had longer match times which allowed for much more goofing off (which was also facilitated by the lack of ranking+progression, and also the existence of large skill disparities due to the lack of matchmaking).

  4. Posted

    I share Danielle's sentiment on No Man's Sky. I really enjoy blasting around between planets in floating in space. My enjoyment starts to wain whenever the collection mechanics get their hooks in me though. Running around collecting plutonium so I can refill my launch thrusters is a huge downer.

     

    Once there's a third person mod (I'm playing on PC) for space flight I'll probably just leave it running and float around in space forever.

    Despite

    , you can't just fly into interstellar space; each solar system is an invisible cube or sphere + skybox with static planets inside (you can't even go to the sun).  All the simulation stuff they talked about was cut, but from my understanding, Space Engine and Elite: Dangerous should both be capable of what you're describing.

  5. Posted

    Ugh. Refund whales need some serious restrictions imposed, and I worry that if game developers don't self regulate, they will eventually receive government intervention for the worst.  I remember getting to the dream sequence in Dishonored, thinking, "Sweet! Now for the game-defining superpowers!"  But then, as I looked to the open space above me, I became overcome with outrage as I saw a whale where it had no business being!  I sent a complaint to the developers, only to receive this inconsiderate response!

    EycjiWC.png

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    When I was fairly young (around 7), I was playing Sonic Adventure 1 for the very first time, and the first stage was a blast.  Sure, the camera was horrible, and the controls needed refinement, but at that age, I didn't notice.  Then came a wooden walkway, where out from below came a giant surprise killer whale which shattered everything in its path as I tried to escape.  Of course, I now know that killer whales are actually dolphins rather than whales, but like most kids who were the game's target audience, I didn't know any better.  This trick must have been very effective in preventing refunds, as it was then re-used in Sonic Heroes, and in Sonic '06.

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    But for all the faults of those implementations of refund whales, none were as egregious as that of the first Bioshock. In that game, you go through a brief 'wander game' experience, only to be quickly locked into a bathysphere cutscene in which --you guessed it-- a whale appears, all before you engage with any of the game's core mechanics, or even get Jack's iconic wrench.

     

    Ultimately, this problem on developers, but for consumers, there is another important factor in the equation: traditional reviewers have used an objective time-to-crate system since neo games journalism began in 2000, and yet I still feel that these journalists still do a great disservice to their readers by not including time to refund whale.  If we cannot be trusted with the knowledge of the refund whale, how can we ever make responsible purchasing decisions?

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    P.S. Several businesses in countries, such as Iceland and the UK, offer puffin viewing expeditions, but frequently include whale searching with the ticket as well.  Of all the things that can be borrowed from games, I'm pretty sure the refund whale is the worst, and I certainly hope that this trend doesn't continue, else we meet the terrible fate anticipated in Star Trek IV.

  7. Posted

    I just did a Poetweet sonnet, and came across two great starting stanzas:

    No comment needed.
    The Jake squint lives!!
    I'll make sure to have it recorded.
    Just like 3D TV exclusives!

     

    Acknowledge the silliness of caps:
    Arguing for Hitman's episodicness.
    Game is pretentious indie crap! /s
    SteamIDs, and 'roll' them blindness

  11. Posted

    When does DS9 start getting good? I just started watching it and so far it's falling flat for me. The characters for the most part don't seem super interesting (basically I just like Odo and Quark), but I'm assuming they develop as the show goes on. It seems like there's a lot of setup going on in the episodes so I'm assuming at some point things pick up?

     

    First three seasons are weak, until the Dominion is introduced. Way back when, I posted a list of must-watch episodes if you want to bootstrap to that point.

    I found it.  I haven't reviewed the list to see if anything good's missing, other than that I don't think it's worth skipping episodes from season 3 or 4 onwards.  There are still a few bad/dull episodes, but I think they're in low enough frequency at that point.

  12. Posted

    In one of the Dark Souls 3 streams, Nick brought up the idea for a game built for streaming in which viewers could type something into chat which would then affect the game for the streamer.

     

    When checking out the Humble Bundle, I saw a game in the "pay what you want" tier called Choice Chamber, which does exactly this.  I'm checking out a stream of it right now, and while it doesn't seem to have a lot of depth, it might be worth checking out.

     

    Also:  Last night, Chris asked about the chat filter.  That can be adjusted here.

  14. Posted

    Did you remember to record a video for Computer Processing Unit?

     

    Edit: Nick hasn't been to Smoldering Lake yet, has he?  I think everyone told him to come back later, but forgot afterwards.

     

    Edit 2: Ok, it was brought up during the part I missed, but still not completed.

  18. Posted

    Yeah the exact sequence of events is sorta... difficult to discern. A lot happened pretty quickly pretty early on. Suffice it to say, it was all bad. \:

    Knowing how history(sometimes yesterday)-challenged members of that group are, some people have maintained a really great timeline of events.

    _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

     

    On a less unfortunate topic, changing instances of "sneak" and "stealth" to "slyboots" with Word Replacer is great:

    2YmduR.png

  20. Posted

    If you do plan on doing a strategy game stream, it would be awesome to see another Idle (not-quite Thumbs) Crusader Kings 2 stream, since I think Danielle would really like the roleplaying aspect and experiencing how quickly the game warps your mindset to be completely evil.  Finding out the right extent to which Rob gives directions might be difficult, though.

     

    Also, when you were talking about how Super Hot was short and hasn't yet explored its full potential, that's largely because the story is a tutorial, and the core game is challenges and endless modes (the maps are amazingly designed, and you will never notice in story mode).  In addition to the raw value of each play type, playing through them will make you get good at the game (not in a brutal Dark Souls way).  To show what experienced-level play can look like, some of my best runs are here.  Since you'll probably only want to watch one or two, this one shows the train level in three seconds, and this one shows me managing to survive 2 minutes and 27 seconds (normal time) in an endless level.