CleoTheWizard

CleoTheWizard, 1 day ago

Wait… are you telling me that the people who live in that part of Oklahoma are there by choice now?

CleoTheWizard, 1 day ago

Read a book that goes over the development of Stardew written by Jason Schreier and covered Eric a good bit.

The dude was was worth multi millions shortly after Stardew had launched and it hadn’t even occurred to him to buy a new car. Jason hung out with him and watched him climb over the seat to get into the drivers seat of his car because the door was broken. Then at some point Jason asked him how it felt to be a famous developer and Eric basically just said he didn’t care about the fame and actually didn’t want it. He just wanted people to enjoy what he made.

Saying Stardew Valley is a passion for Eric is an understatement. By the time he finished the game, he basically hated working on it. And ever since its launch, he’s worked on it for no reason other than to make a better game.

Eric Barone is a shining light in an industry of constant shame.

CleoTheWizard, 3 days ago

I think the high jump could’ve been handled by either holding the jump button down to control the height like most platformers do or by having a system to time the jump in a multi-jump sequence to gain height like Mario 64 used. I also don’t see why a double jump wouldn’t suffice as an unlock in its place.

This is a key example of what I mean by the nostalgia is holding them back. The moves are mostly copies of BK and it didn’t need to be that way.

CleoTheWizard, 8 days ago

These companies are obsessed with money. The money they lost on refunds forced by Steam is the punishment.

CleoTheWizard, 8 days ago

It seems that steam pulls refunds directly revenue in most cases which means that the publishers and studios feel an immediate impact in their numbers from them.

Valve may choose to absorb some of the refunds but I don’t see why they would. Sony made the games unplayable in certain regions while telling Steam they wanted the game sold in those exact regions beforehand. They misused the store and I’m sure they paid dearly for it with those refunds.

CleoTheWizard, 7 days ago

Yeah except most consumers no longer care about goodwill when buying new products so they’ve just figured out that it doesn’t matter what they do. So if a company has goodwill at this point, it might as well just be unspent money.

CleoTheWizard, 10 days ago

As far as I’m aware, there is a website that allows you to sign up to stop receiving these calls in the US. It’s worked for me and I never get sales calls anymore.

Sign up here

CleoTheWizard, 12 days ago

I loved the PS2 era of gaming a lot. This may be a controversial take, but the PS2 era did not last long enough.

Everything about the aesthetics of the games that the PS2 produced were excellent. In my opinion, this is the point when low fidelity and high quality assets overlapped just enough to make games more comprehensible to their players. That enabled a lot of innovation that the PS3/360 era handled entirely differently. Forget an era, the PS2 is the last part of an entire age of gaming that delineates what I’m referring to.

The PS2 was a huge turning point in what games were and could be in 3D. Prior to this, many games were abstract and the characters were a lump of polygons. With the PS2, this began to change. So we began to get games that our minds had to do a lot of interpreting but could see reality through. Nowadays, I’d argue that your mind does less interpreting and so the resulting picture has glaring inaccuracies.

It also helped that ps2 was primarily played on CRTs or at least plasma which helped the picture look better in plenty of scenes than a PS3. Not to mention the color palette of games after the PS2 turned to muck.

CleoTheWizard, 12 days ago

Oh absolutely, I was going to reference the Gameboy Advance that I grew up on as a part of this phase. Unfortunately, I don’t think those handhelds even got their time in the light that they could’ve had. It seems like they’ve had a long legacy but the DS and GameBoy came and went in but two generations of consoles.

I mean imagine what we could do with a gameboy today. Or imagine how we could easily transform a modern phone into a DS form factor. We’re talking now about running a modern resident evil game in the palm of your hand. Insane power really.

All this is largely due to the mobile play stores having no competition or curation. Our mobile games absolutely suck now. There are gems, sure, but otherwise I hate phone gaming despite my phone being my most used device.

I think you’re absolutely correct though, the DS is the best handheld. Slim, powerful enough, very interactive, and a great game library. I highly recommend buying one and modding it, you won’t regret it.

CleoTheWizard, 14 days ago

That isn’t why. PlayStation doesn’t view this as a problem and in fairness, I don’t either. If the game had shipped with this requirement, it would’ve been fine. Many people put up with Ubisoft and they have a whole separate account plus launcher.

What Sony actually wanted was to make it easier on their server side to authenticate purchases and then to use the same PSN account systems to matchmaker for easier cross-play.

Would they collect data? I guess. They can already do that if they want as a publisher. So yeah it’s purely just to use their ecosystem, which makes sense.

CleoTheWizard, 13 days ago

Did I mention server load? What I mean is that having a PSN account means that whatever game is processing your account details doesn’t have to deal with Steam accounts, it just deals with a PSN account the same as it would if you were on PS5.

What I’m saying is it streamlines the code on the developers side of the games they’re publishing and again if Sony is using systems already to authenticate purchases or whatever that can be collected in systems they already have.

This isn’t rocket science, PSN may just be a translation layer.

CleoTheWizard, 13 days ago

I mean yeah this is especially true for online games as this is a form of DRM for Sony and it gives them control to easily reject or accept keys and ban users using their pre-existing systems.

Same thing with cross-play, it’s possible that some of these games were designed to use PSN systems and so that makes integration easy. No clue, but if true it makes sense from Sonys perspective on both of those fronts.

CleoTheWizard, 13 days ago

Correct, I never said it wasn’t buggy either. I’m just pointing out that if you have cross play and you already have console support with console user IDs then it makes sense to just convert PC players into that same console user system.

This is what Xbox used to do when publishing games on Steam and still do with their GamePass stuff. And very similarly, that system also broke things and still breaks things for people.

CleoTheWizard, 13 days ago

Because those systems already exist for the console players. All they’re doing is switching it over to steam but they likely had a translation layer there before to do all the things you’re saying but through PSN instead. Why? Because that system already exists for consoles.

So their options here are that they can take the netcode for consoles and modify it to utilize SteamIDs and fetch data from Steam or they can just turn your Steam ID into a console ID and treat all of the inputs to their systems exactly like they would on the PS5 while fetching them from Steam.

I’m not saying it’s a good idea, I’m saying you’d think that just trying to match the console and the way it handles players would be simpler. Especially when you’re trying to make cross play work. Clearly it wasn’t so they temporarily ditched it. Maybe Sony does just want your data but if that’s true, why would the telemetry gathering be such a big deal? And they also could just use your SteamID for that data gathering. So clearly PSN used to be more integrated than people here are suggesting

CleoTheWizard, 14 days ago

Yes but they likely have existing infrastructure on PSN so it makes sense to do that. Theyre just taking your steam ID and verifying your purchase, then using a PSN ID on their end after the purchase validation for online matchmaking and server side stuff. Not to crazy.

Otherwise they’d have to redo their server code and what not just to handle Steam and for a game that’s already this old, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to do that.

CleoTheWizard, 13 days ago

I mean sure but I don’t see how this is “half assing it” since you have no idea what happens on the server side.

And look I’m not saying they’re in the right here, I’m just saying that people are quick to jump to them hating their players and wanting their data when this seems to be more like something that’s being done to make their backend function.

CleoTheWizard, 16 days ago

Sony should take the hint. Many of these reviews are from people who can’t even get a PSN account in their country. So Steam is about to be flooded with requests for refunds due to the game not being available to some users. I already asked for a refund because of this.

It’s unlikely steam will be able to tell people to just pound sand, so Valve will likely step in at some point and then Sony will be in trouble with the platform itself.

CleoTheWizard, 16 days ago

Apparently this was always a planned feature but probably wasn’t ready for prime time at launch.

CleoTheWizard, 18 days ago

A deck isn’t necessary to play it obviously, just makes it nice to have this game on the go.

What took me in was mostly the art style and the chill atmosphere of the game. The levels are sort’ve like dioramas and they’re great interaction. That plus it’s been a long time since I’ve played a game with a camera mechanic and the implementation of them seems to either be great or really bad.

And yeah I love my steam deck. It’s worth it if you play a lot of PC games and definitely really nice for playing indies on the couch next to a partner or what have you.

CleoTheWizard, 18 days ago

Oh sorry, but yes that’s right. You buy a game once on steam and then you can play it portably and your saves will sync between devices.

CleoTheWizard, 18 days ago

It’s not every single title but it’s a lot, I’d say a solid 85-90% of my library works. You can see the compatibility of any game on the Steam page. Most games with anti-cheat will break on it since it’s Linux based though. Other than that, it’s great for a ton of games.

CleoTheWizard, 18 days ago

It is entirely possible and potentially more effective to satire the US while centering the story outside of the US

CleoTheWizard, 20 days ago

I don’t think so. The Xbox ecosystem is about to stop existing the way it exists right now, likely turning into Steam Machine type boxes. Then GamePass has already been discussed as expanding platforms. So really MS is just aiming to sell GamePass which they can’t do through 3rd party deals so they buy their own studios and rely on their ROI by way of subscription sign ups.

It’s not like the things they make are exclusive either, they could be doing the Epic Games (gross) model of exclusives but MS really hasn’t been doing much of that. Which means they’re acting more as a game publisher for sales outside of gamepass and therefor do want the ROI from these studios.

CleoTheWizard, 25 days ago

How dare you make this comment and not drop a link to the game. You must hate indie devs!

CleoTheWizard, 1 month ago

I have a question and I hope that people here will discuss this because I really want to understand the general opinion on this.

Is it wrong to deepfake someone without their consent so long as you don’t share the content and it’s all stored locally? I’ve seen this come up and my general opinion is that it isn’t. I know that isn’t the case in the article, just want to hear why people would disagree.

My angle is that doing a deepfake of someone in private hurts zero people and is an extension of fantasy. I don’t see the creation of fake nudes any different than writing fantasy erotica about someone. And I also don’t see it as different than creating fake nude art of them by hand or with photoshop. Like if you do it in your head anyways, which is completely normal, then aren’t we just worried about the outside effects and not the fantasizing itself?

CleoTheWizard, 1 month ago

The first part, absolutely. But I think a lot of that is biological so I don’t see fantasy as a problem. You should keep it to yourself though.

The second part I think Id somewhat agree with except the hacker can’t blackmail you with it because it’s just as likely that they created it. And even if they did blackmail you, I would view that as the damage caused by the hacker, not by the individual.

Like if someone put something nasty about me down in their diary where they expected it to be private, and a hacker sent me an email of that diary page, that’s entirely the hackers fault. The diary writer was expressing an emotion or desire or whatever in complete privacy. Was their creation wrong? No, I don’t think so.

And to be clear I’m not saying people should go to this type of fantasy, this is all a thought exercise for ethics, but I think a lot about this stuff because as much potential for bad as it has, it also has some potential for good. All of the women I know experience behaviors such as stalking, obsession, unwelcome sexual advances, etc. on a regular basis. There is a reason those men don’t turn to free porn. Incel behavior is also just as bad in many ways. So could AI and deepfake stuff result in many of those men keeping that stuff to themselves more? Maybe.

And before you say that these perverts will just send fake nudes to you and harass you that way, we should absolutely be prosecuting people that do so. That’s an entirely separate convo tho.

CleoTheWizard, 1 month ago

Rimworld is great! But don’t forget to do research. Most of the early game is building yourself toward having a kitchen and functional refrigeration room. Along with trying to give colonists their own rooms and furniture.

Just make sure to take care of everyone’s needs!

CleoTheWizard, 1 month ago

Comments have grown around an average of 0.8 million comments for the last 3 months. Posts experienced a drop from around 6 million to 4 million from January to February but have been slowly increasing since to 4.8 million.

This month looks set to have very large post and comment counts though. Posts are already at 5 million and comments at 13.8 million.

CleoTheWizard, 1 month ago

Adderall is being generous, this dude is probably shoveling pills and uppers every morning. You don’t just make court appearances and then rally every day of the week at 80 years old without either being in good shape or being on a long list of stimulants.

CleoTheWizard, 1 month ago

Rootkits are dumb because the gaming industry is not trying with their anti-cheat software. It is so easy to cheat in these games even with a rootkit that it’s unbelievable.

Since the industry is moving this direction, I would like it far more if the OS just had a mode that essentially separated your normal OS from one used to play Esports titles. Put a wall between those operating modes, get rid of the desktop, and only boot the game and maybe a control panel.

The OS can then dump whatever it wants to the game without the game having control of my entire PC and file system. This seems like an obvious solution since it’s kind of the best of consoles without the worst of consoles.

CleoTheWizard, 1 month ago

if bots played like humans, I think it’d be a different conversation but they don’t. And we don’t have a good way to restrain them into only playing like humans. Sorting people by skill is already what is being done but that also isn’t working. And most heuristics have their limits and can catch normal players.

But all of it is kind of irrelevant, most players aren’t using sophisticated cheats. They’re just injected cheats which are hard to detect within the program, hence the rootkits. Now if we could restrain them to playing like normal people, I’d still hate them because I don’t play PvP to play against bots. If people did that, then in-person chess would have no appeal.

CleoTheWizard, 1 month ago

If you mean that bots can be restrained within the same rules as normal players, sure. If you mean that cheats will be forced to mimic human players, no.

For instance, how would you catch someone who can see through walls in a game? You can check if their crosshair follows someone through a wall maybe. But most of it is about game sense. So someone who is walking is undetectable by heuristics and by server side anti-cheat.

This is also the same for radar hacks. Or if you play a MoBa, screen alert hacks. All they do is boost player performance without being detectable. Most server side anti-cheat can only pick up on certain things, I don’t know Minecraft’s solution but I doubt it catches disguised cheating via code injection.

The reason I care about people cheating is that there’s an actual competition and it’s a social thing. If I wanted to play bots, I’d play bots. But I don’t and I don’t know of any game with serious competitors who would accept cheating so long as it “looks legitimate.” Because then why play? Why put in hours of practice to get better at something that I could click a button and be better at?

Cheating will continue to kill games and at this point I have basically retired from PvP since it’s gotten so bad.

CleoTheWizard, 1 month ago

Ah I see your point and I’d be interested in what that implementation looks like. I think it would highly depend on the game so the type of thing you’re talking about is more applicable to Esports titles.

The culling of players beyond eyesight or through walls is absolutely something that can be done to minimize cheats. If I remember right, CS has been doing this for a long time. However it has limits. Ping becomes very important as the culling will screw up interpolation.

Then you start talking about cheaters moving and aiming like real players, that can get hard because you have to set acceptable limits on these things. I don’t think it solves the problem though.

Even if someone using cheats is kept within the bounds of maximum human performance, well, they can still outperform most humans can’t they? And that doesn’t solve much of my issue. Like say we set cheating limits in actual sports at the best players capabilities, how do we even know what those are? And if someone normal dopes and can perform at that high level, it’s wrong. And it’s wrong at any skill level to do so. Because it undermines the sport or game.

Now I think this can easily be better in most games. Most games don’t even ban people who are sliding around the map at inhuman speeds and getting 50 headshots a minute. CS doesn’t even do that and I have no idea why. The bar is in the floor for stopping cheaters honestly.

CleoTheWizard, 1 month ago

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holey and acceptable to God, place his word into thy rectum, which is your spiritual worship.”

-Romans 12:1 maybe

CleoTheWizard, 1 month ago

This is a PSA but there are a handful of theaters that do 4D called 4DX theaters and you might have one near you if you live in the US. Regal theaters specifically usually have them.

Went and saw Dune Pt2 in theaters and it was actually super fun. Shaking during the fight scenes, wind on your face when out on the dunes, lots of movement riding the sand worm, and water blasts and more.

They’re super fun, look them up and maybe travel to one sometime.

CleoTheWizard, 1 month ago

It’s not for everyone but mildly shaken is not how I would describe it for me. They would be hard pressed to shake you or move you any faster without a seatbelt. The movie also doesn’t shake you for the entire time, but I’d say it’s on for a good 1/3rd of the movie. I was at my limit with it by the end for sure but that was fine. But maybe it varies from theater to theater.

You’re correct though, they usually are more expensive. I went on a discounted day, my ticket was $14, but they are usually $20 which is double normal rate.

So my advice is: If your movie is available in IMAX, go see it in the room adjacent. Or on a regular screen. Have your soda, popcorn, hotdog, whatever. Be comfortable. Then on another day, preferably discount night, come back to 4DX and don’t get a lot of food and drink. It will make you spill it.

4DX isn’t meant to be comfy and relaxing. It’s an intense experience and isn’t for everyone. It was my second time with the movie though and if you’re going in expecting to be on a rollercoaster the entire time, it’s super fun if you already know the movie. Also, pick your movie carefully. They only do a dozen 4DX movies a year. Horror would be amazing with it but the more action packed, the more shaking. So choose wisely. And if you have kids, this is a must at least one time. They’ll have so much fun.

CleoTheWizard, 1 month ago

This kind of behavior should be enough for outlets to blacklist developers. But since they don’t/wont/can’t band together to do that, they have no say in how games are reviewed.

Not mentioning micro transactions is equivalent to not mentioning the price. Why review a game if you don’t know if it will be $50 or $100 at launch?

Capcom basically asked them to review a game that doesn’t even exist, they asked them to review a dev build.

CleoTheWizard, 1 month ago

This is only partially true. Reviewers know that the exact build and exact code aren’t final when reviewing, that is true and normal. The reviewer does however expect that gameplay systems, graphics, audio, and the rest are mostly complete with only minor tweaks needed. The game should be 99% done by the time reviewers have it.

Yet nowadays the game is not 99% done. This even applies to huge day 1 patches. Like great you patched stuff but also reviewers can’t assess performance and bugs properly for consumers that way. Same is true of monetization which is a huge factor for enjoyment in modern games.

CleoTheWizard, 2 months ago

The DEA is currently investigating rescheduling marijuana which was prompted by Biden’s HHS doing the preliminary lab work to present to them.

Then Biden has pardoned everyone who was charged federally for possession of marijuana.

And then he urged states to consider doing the same. Just this week, Massachusetts followed through with that.

Obviously he’s doing this to get more voters, but there’s real progress happening and it’s not a reaction to anything recent. This was all indicated during his campaigning.

CleoTheWizard, 2 months ago

Dude really read a history book about Hitler fighting a one front war and somehow turning it into a three front war and said “Hold my beer”

CleoTheWizard, 2 months ago

Warner Brothers can’t even run a good business when it comes to movies in the DC universe, so I’m not surprised that can’t run a gaming business either.

WB is incompetent. Look no further than Arkham Knight which had horrible publishing and whose PC port was farmed out to the lowest bidder. Arkham Knight succeeded despite its publisher and not because of it. Same thing with Hogwarts.

So yeah if they’ve even forced a studio to make a sequel, buckle up. They’re going full EA at this point and they don’t care if they run it into the ground. Just need a bigger graveyard to put this game next to Henry Cavils Superman.

CleoTheWizard, 2 months ago

Why are people not ready to riot over this? People should be in the streets and setting cars on fire.

The highest court in the land just made a move so corrupt and blatant that there is no defense of it. They’re helping a criminal insurrectionist ex-president escape charges. Are you kidding me?! This is a complete delegitimization of an entire branch of governments highest office with life appointments.

Not only did they not need to take the case but they set it up to delay his trials as long as possible. Meaning that now, his trials WILL LIKELY NOT HAPPEN BEFORE THE ELECTION.

At best we might get a verdict on one or two before the election but sentencing will not take place and that is IF there are no other delays. Those are slim chances.

So yes America will be heading to the polls this November with Trump facing potentially zero responsibility for his actions, maybe found guilty before January, whereupon he could be sworn in and cancel his own trials or could pardon himself.

This court has just shown they would allow him to do that. Why else take this case if not a blatant desire to unfairly install Trump as president? There’s no reason. What I’m telling you is that he won’t face justice if he wins the election. And this just increased his chances of winning dramatically.

CleoTheWizard, 2 months ago

There are… other means available

CleoTheWizard, 2 months ago

This is weird but I had almost the exact same experience. Would’ve been junior high for me when I met him and he talked to me about it every time I saw him after I mentioned it offhand once. It’s all he ever talked to me about. Then years later in high school I had him in a class again and went to say hi and unprompted he began talking about the game again. Definitely an odd experience but I did think about him when I played this game lol.