LAN play is nearly extinct at this point. Devs will say, "hardly anyone uses it, so we didn't include it", but it's a convenient way to build a dependence on their online servers for multiplayer to curb piracy. Eventually those servers shut down, and LAN will be required to play those games multiplayer, but the feature won't be there to lean on.
This is the problem I’ve started finding. I have another comment on this post about it, but I’ve bought 2 games now that have inactive servers. Because the disc still exists and I buy mostly physical, used.
Can’t play them, and probably never will be able to, but the guy working the used game place didn’t alert me to the servers being shut down so it was just an unpleasant surprise…
Servers are horrible for gaming. I get it when it’s something like wow, you need servers, but the games I buy I get because they appear to be single player, or can be played single player. The fuck do I need to access a server for for a single player game?
I try to avoid games that require online play, but even that is getting harder because it doesn’t specify that the game could die at any time if they close the servers…
I had a network card addon for ps2 -and this was when ps3 was already a few years old- logged in to play champions of norrath. No other players. But it wasn’t on a server, or perhaps it spun one up when I connected, so even way after the game itself died, I could still play online if someone else did. They didn’t, but that’s not the point.
Yeah, I've stopped buying those games too. No time or attention from me unless that game can survive the situation where the server at the other end goes down. This does create a lot of grey areas though. Does Hitman count? You can technically finish the whole story mode, but the progression and replay unlocks are all stuck behind a server authentication. How about fighting games? You can play the entire competitive game locally, forever, but once the server is gone, you'll never be able to play online again except with subpar solutions like Parsec. The way I've drawn my line in the sand, and I'm free to redraw it, is that Hitman is unacceptable, and the state of fighting games right now (we'll see what happens with Multiversus and Project L) is begrudgingly acceptable.
at least java minecraft does that part right with the offline mode that switches off auth checks. for a real online server you need a login plugin then (makes sense that some form of username ownership verify is needed in that case) but for a secured LAN it is usable by default.
I don't thinks so. It popular because "pokemon with guns" became a viral meme which sucks.
A a discontent pokemon fan myself I would love someone to make a pokemon clone since Game Freak is not really interested in doing good pokemon games anymore. But "Ark Survival Evolved with knockoff pokemon skins instead of dinosaurs" is not what I want
Pokémon with guns wouldn't have gotten millions of sales on its own. When the trailers came out people were laughing but they weren't exactly eager to play.
Given the persistent popularity of survival crafting games, I think "Ark with knockoff pokemon" is exactly what people wanted. After all, even before this, Pixelmon was one of the most popular Minecraft mods.
Pokémon with guns wouldn't have gotten millions of sales on its own
The day before sold millions (but this one was refunded by millions too) and everybody and their mom knew it was a scam since it was announced like 2 or 3 years ago. Internet is weird, if something becomes viral it will sell, the quality does not matter, people just wants to be in
As far as I can tell The Day Before was overhyped early and people bought it because of the marketing. Palworld did some advertising, but the mass adoption appears to be mostly word of mouth that the game is actually fun when it was made available in early access.
That matches what I have seen from people commenting and my personal experience as I don't remember hearing about it before and hopped on because of friends recommending it. Palworld is a word of mouth success like Valheim and for similar reasons of competent styling, smooth gameplay, and survival that isn't punishing the player from the moment the game starts.
That's a 3 years old post. Everybody knew it was a scam back then. to the point the studio released "We are not a scam, trust me bro" statements (which made it more obvious it was a scam)
I don't remember hearing about it before
Internet has been talking about "pokemon with guns" for 2 years or so since the developers were already famous because they launched a "Breath of the Wild" knock off (Craftopia) that also sold well (not at the same level of palworld, but for being the first title of a brand new indie studio it sold really well)
Apparently not everyone knew the day before was a scam or it wouldn't have sold millions of units. Just because some people predicted it does not mean that the general population had any awareness of that expectation.
People started to sell their steam accounts that owned the game and keys for the game for hundreds of dollars when it was announced the game was some bad that it was going to be removed from steam
If something is popular it will sell, the quality does not matter. You have the best example in Pokemon itself
The Day Before did not sell a single million units and Palworld is not getting widely refunded, even though everyone who starts it, dressed like a caveman, immediately realizes they aren't getting to play with guns anytime soon. There were streamers showing this even before the game was out.
It's true that virality is unpredictable and popularity is not a measure of quality, but I think a lot of people are being overly dismissive of the fact that Palworld managed to hook people with something that appealed to them. Not to say it's a bastion of quality and originality, obviously not, but it has something going for it.
Off the top of my head, there's Temtem and Cassette Beasts that try to mimic the formula more closely, and then there are a bunch of "Pokemon but _____" takes on the formula that you can find with a quick Google. This is "Pokemon but <survival game>". Last I heard, Ark didn't let you assign dinosaurs to a factory or have some of the more RPG systems like boss fights, but quite frankly, I found Ark so obtuse that I didn't play for long.
The problem with TemTem is that it's an always online game, if the servers are turned off you won't be able to play, not even the single player campaign so it's a hard pass.
And the art style of both games are not my cup of tea, the do a disservice selling me the game.
I'm a fairweather Pokemon fan at best, but I'm with you on Temtem for the same reason; many people don't have the same reservations as you and I, so I thought I'd mention it. I think Cassette Beasts is that game and reviewed well, and to ignore it might be to ignore exactly the game you're asking for, but I'd also point you toward the "creature collector" tag on Steam. I've never heard of Coromon before doing that search to leave this reply, but mousing over it for a second shows a video that proves they know what they're making (87% positive Steam reviews). Same goes for Nexomon: Extinction (92% positive). No one will know what you're looking for better than you, but people have been making games inspired by Pokemon for a long time now.
No one will know what you're looking for better than you, but people have been making games inspired by Pokemon for a long time now.
A Pokemon clone with high production values made in Japan. Or if it's not made in Japan one that uses it own art style, I simply can't stand the "Fake anime" aesthetic that most indies use, like they learned to draw using this as refference
Think of Shin Megami Tensei (but not SMT V, that one sucks, they removed the dungeon crawling and the puzzles)
Travel is gonna become boring if you have to travel the same road multiple times in the course of the game even if you have a bunch of cool stuff along that road. Eventually, I won’t give a shit about that stuff since I’ve seen it a million times. So I would hope there is still some kind of fast travel to go between places I have already been if the world is super big. Otherwise it’s just gonna feel like you’re padding the game for time to inflate a 10 hour story to take 40 hours to finish.
I think the better way to help fix this issue is random encounters, spawns, and a world that changes as the game moves along.
Moving along the same road can be made interesting if different things are happening every so often as you come through. New friendly encounters, new fights with different enemies, maybe randomly spawning treasure or scripted puzzle sequences that can appear dynamically around the whole world. Add to that a world that becomes modified by story events, maybe that road gets blocked and a different passage opens up that takes you to the same end destination, but with a new path and things to explore.
It's not an unsolvable problem, but it is something that goes by the wayside often.
One thing to consider too is scheduled events. Imagine a couple towns get together and throw a fair along a route that connects them, and you get to see celebrations and games and vendors who might sell trinkets that are hard to track down otherwise. Perhaps the local monarch goes on a hunt with the massive party of servants and knights that might entail, with different practices for different cultures. A band of cultists clears an area for several days leading up to their yearly ritual. It’s migration season for a certain species of animal/monster. There are so many possibilities!
Even just vendors passing through can be made more interesting. Do they carry their wares via backpack or cart? Are they being attacked by bandits? Wild animals? Are they trying to smuggle goods or services somewhere?
It all has to be programmed of course, which is the main holdup on what makes it so hard to flesh out those parts of the world.
I do also see weight in the idea that, past a certain point, traveling is just boring, especially if the only thing of importance is the Main Story Quest. Travel is also often boring in real life too but we can tune it out, or find little ways to pass the time and entertain ourselves during the more mundane moments. We’re not frequently afforded that luxury in games. When you’re playing a game and dealing with the downtime going from point A to B, often there is literally nothing to do except hold down the movement keys and deal with the occasional path change/obstacle.
The point of games is to be engaging, and if there’s nothing to do while traveling but look at the scenery and surroundings it will eventually get boring. Even if the travel gets interrupted occasionally for an encounter, I think it’s arguable to say that the content is literally not travel anymore and in fact papering over a bad travel system (if the only thing interesting is the stuff you find that you have to stop and take care of). Adding more unique/transient stuff along routes is only half of the battle; work has to be put in to make traveling enjoyable in and of itself for players to want to do it instead of skip it.
But as always, the best solution to our problem is to simply add more trains.
To add to this, DD1 has quite a number of NPC's that travel between regions and you can come across them. As you progress through the game their patterns and locations change.
I actually am ambivalent on the latter mechanic as it really makes it a pain sometimes, but it still has lots of ways that it can work well.
Depends on the reason for traveling. If you are headed down the road to a goal and keep getting sidetracked by random encounters in a way that is distracting you from the thing you want to do then they just make travel tedious.
It all comes down to why am I traveling and why are encounters on the road more engaging than the reason for being on the road in the first place.
And for the record, Itsuno does say that he thinks fast travel is “convenient” and “good” when done right.
Based on Dragon’s Dogma 1’s use of Ferrystones, as well as this mechanic returning along with oxcarts in the sequel, I think this director understands that there needs to be a balance. It’s good when it’s both properly implemented and has a purpose. You’re right that nobody wants to run up and down the same roads countless times, but it’s up to the devs implementing limited fast travel to make sure you won’t have to. Then it’s up to the player to decide whether fast travel is worth it for any given situation. Knowing when to use your fast travel and how to maximize it is a skill that you develop and should be rewarded for mastering.
But it also needs to have a purpose. In more arcadey games, I don’t like worrying about resources like that. But in more grueling games like Dragon’s Dogma, where the journey is often a very intentional part of the gameplay loop if not the main challenge itself, it fits right at home.
@ProdigalFrog That sucks, it would be really good to see the different gaming communities grow as I feel that's one of the best ways to grow the Fediverse further than it already is. Especially as general Gaming Communities don't really do it for me as I'm not interested in these games, I'm interested maybe in just learning or hearing about a certain game.
I feel that’s one of the best ways to grow the Fediverse further than it already is.
What I’ve seen happen is that someone with an interest in a more niche thing here will create a community for it, actively post in it for a couple weeks, and maybe a couple other people will post in it a couple times too, but then the creator loses interest or lacks material to post, and the community sits with old posts months old.
Not to dissuade you from making an attempt at creating those communities, but it’s just a little hard to sustain them without active participation to keep people coming back and growing.
You may even find that there are some active communities for games you’re interest in, but may just have trouble finding them. The best way I’ve found to discover communities is with Lemmyverse, using the communities tab at the top.
Looks like they just were spending too much and needed to clean up. On the positive side, they're offering all affected employees 6 months of severance + healthcare. That is really generous of them.
Companies need to learn that you can rollback policies, but you cannot rollback loss of goodwill.
Too bad modern capitalism is all about short-term profit over long-term anything. Who cares if you burn down the forest as long as you can walk away with the wood, right?
It didn't even occur to me that this was a result of the patch, but I did notice it start happening recently. When the patch rolled out, I was in a spot in the game where all of my things were taken from me anyway, so I guess I didn't notice it initially when it first started.
Unity is done for. Nobody is going to start a new project with their product. Devs are risk adverse. Making a game that is original is already a big enough risk for any studio. Why add an infinite amount of risk but building your game on an engine with unstable management. It is even worth retraining people to use a different engine.
I don't mind encumbrance, unless it's painfully low. Stalker is a bit annoying with it, though it makes sense. Then when it's so high it becomes a non issue is also annoying because eventually I hit the cap. The one in bg3 is fine with me. I tend to choose my companions to carry specific items, so it's evenly spread out. Then I take breaks to go sell off my junk, usually every few in game days. I think I gave only hit cap once, I gave Karlach all the weapons I find and she was overloaded. I don't mind encumbrance most of the time.
Actually I think I'm the opposite. I hate encumbrance more when it's massive. When I played survival mode in Fallout NV, I found it so much more fun to only pick up essential items. I would commonly pick up water bottles and food instead of valuable weapons or ammo. I was usually way under my low encumbrance because I had a mindset switch to only pick up stuff that will allow me to survive the desert.
I am also kinda upset that people can't post reviews on steam, it feels like cheating the system. The game is out, over 200 000 people are playing it, why can't we see its score? How is it different from any other big launch? Should all early access games not be reviewable until they are out, meaning some can't get a score for years and years?
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