Don_alForno

@Don_alForno@feddit.de

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Dev of cancelled Life By You game shares some information, including just two weeks notice of cancellation after being given the thumbs-up a few weeks prior (www.linkedin.com)

I cannot share specific numbers, but I can say that we had an internal metric we were aiming for that had been approved, and that we exceeded that number by a significant portion. We also got a thumbs up a few weeks before launch.

Don_alForno,

How does this even make sense? You can’t pay more in taxes than the earnings you’re paying taxes on. If you deliberately cause a 10 million loss reducing your earnings by those 10 million and thereby saving a percentage of those 10 million in taxes, you’re not very good at math, are you?

Don_alForno,

It looks like an Octopath spin-off. Which is a good thing.

Don_alForno,

As a direct comparison? Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2. But pretty much everything Bioware up to Dragon Age Origins.

Don_alForno,

Larian’s writers can’t hold a candle to the Bioware of old.

Don_alForno,

the companion back stories are rich, and full of tragedy.

The thing is, they’re mostly exposition dumped at you. All of them already went through the worst of it and tell you about it. To me, Larian fell in the old TTRPG trap of making up those elaborate grandiose backgrounds for your characters and expecting the other players to be impressed instead of writing the story of their adventures during the actual game.

I was there when Jaheira found Khalid’s corpse. I accompanied Nalia when she came back to a ruined home and a dead father. I broke Imoen out of the wizard’s asylum.

Karlach told me how bad the hells used to be and we proceeded to make a few trips to the blacksmith together. Wyll told me of his pact and his crazy adventures, the rest just happened to us at camp. Gale told me he banged a goddess and I got to make a persuasion check at the end. Astarion told me of the torture he suffered, and the resolution was done in 2 fights after we met zero vampires before the last room (BG2’s Bodhi and her lair were so much ahead of this it’s not even funny).

Shadowheart is the only one I felt had a story that I actually experienced with her and wasn’t just politely informed of. Oh, and Minthara, but the evil play through really got the short straw in any other way.

Don_alForno,

Article without tracking paywall bullshit.

So, the player frustration this quest is inspiring isn’t a straight-up next entry in the long-running paid mods debate that’s been going on within the Bethesda community with regards to the Creation Club for a while now, but rather folks simply being unhappy with the monetisation practices Bethesda’s employing with regards to its own stuff.

I suppose that will be part of it, but it takes a load of willful ignorance to not see that the reason they distribute it this way is to ease people into the idea of using the infrastructure they ultimately set up to monetize other people’s work (i.e. mods).

Don_alForno,

With how frequently they get hacked, Sony is the last company you want to trust with any of your data. Might as well post all of it on a public facebook page.

Don_alForno, (edited )

If I were a dev, that wouldn’t be my priority in a first person Game either.

I repeatedly spend time deciding on clothing choices etc for my character only to proceed to never actually see them outside the menu.

Don_alForno,

Maybe it’s because Final Fantasy peaked at VII-X and went downhill from there, fucking up their combat further and further with every installment?

Don_alForno,

Well, yeah, XIV as an MMO is a different thing. But that one also doesn’t have revenue issues afaik.

Don_alForno,

And people still have to lift heavy shit, crawl around in dangerous spaces and generally harm their health to make a living.

Don_alForno,

FF16 to me is paper thin in every regard. I would rank it last among all the FF games I’ve played. The combat is especially bad. You can basically button mash your way through all of it. Dodge a lot, that’s it.

Don_alForno,

Wait for the kernel level anti cheat to be revealed before you get hyped.

Don_alForno,

That’s a movie ticket and a snack. Most games offer far more (or at least longer) entertainment than that. Even games I won’t finish.

Don_alForno,

If the game cost $20, they’d have to sell about 120k copies to break even on that Investment,

Far more actually. You have to deduct taxes, steam’s cut etc. from those 20$.

Don_alForno,

The average movie isnt worth ticket price either

The worth of a thing is determined by what people will pay for it.

length certainly doesn’t equal quality.

For any single product that’s true, statistically it makes the two classes (games and movies) comparable.

I don’t think you’ll earnestly want to argue that 1 hour of movie entertainment is in general worth multiple hours of gaming entertainment. There are good and bad movies and games, but if you compare those of similar quality, the fact stands that the game will give you more for your money. Whether you want more of course depends on you - I gather that gaming doesn’t seem to really entertain you for the most part.

Don_alForno,

Guess I finally have a reason to upgrade …

Don_alForno,

Handheld mode is really not great for extended periods.

I got it for (business) trips, so I appreciate that I can easily connect it to a hotel room TV, or put it upright on a train or plane table.

One disconnected joycon in each hand IS pretty comfortable, since I can avoid the static “controller in front of you” arm pose.

Don_alForno,

BotW was originally developed for the WiiU, which it also released on. It is not a “handheld game”, and tbh I’d take it’s gameplay loop over Nier Automata or Shadow of War any day of the week.

A personal argument for a benefit of gaming

I grew up hearing all the talking heads (media), religious groups and parents strongly criticizing video games. You’ve, probably, heard some of this. For example, video games involving any type of violence causing people to become more violent, etc. As far as I know, the academic community has failed to produce any negative...

Don_alForno,

I’m in my 30s. I’m gradually getting calmer. But seriously, if a game doesn’t induce the urge to throw objects around the room from time to time, it probably won’t make my list of favourites.

Don_alForno,

I don’t get why Diablo-likes are called ARPG’s.

We used to call them “Hack 'n Slash”. I guess studios didn’t think that term marketing friendly.

Don_alForno,

Because you don’t wade through hordes and hordes of individually weak enemies. (There are many but compare it to Diablo.)

Don_alForno,

Funny you should say that. It’s usually my line when I tell people to not buy games from companies like that. We’ve been telling people these things would happen at some point back when steam was starting up.

Gameplay mechanics were also a lot better with more replayability. (lemmy.world)

Ignoring the lack of updates if the game is buggy, games back then were also more focused on quality and make gamers replay the game with unlockable features based on skills, not money. I can’t count the number of times I played Metal Gear Solid games over and over to unlock new features playing the hardest difficulty and with...

Don_alForno,

There are different kind of DLC, and the kind that’s similar to actual expansion packs is usually not criticized (or not by most).

Don_alForno,

The thing is, you actually get 30$ story and 5$ per outfit instead of a 30$ Expansion.

And cosmetics do add to the game for a big part of the market.

Don_alForno,

Every Tad says “ah shit, here we go again…”

It’s canonically always the same Tav repeatedly getting dragged into these weird “save the world” situations.

Don_alForno,

This is the wrong comparison. If you painted a modified version of an existing painting, the original painter can’t take your work and sell it against your will.

Don_alForno,

No it’s not. The modder didn’t sell anything. Wanting to be compensated if somebody else makes a profit from your work that you put out for free is not the same thing as selling it.

Don_alForno,

No, because they weren’t even offering it for sale. But they also weren’t offering it to be taken to be sold by somebody else for a profit. Which is what the studio did anyway. So now, after the fact, they can either pay a compensation and credit the modder, or they can remove their stuff from the game.

Don_alForno,

I wish I could forget it and experience it for the first time again.

Don_alForno,

Sea of Stars. Beautiful hommage to the classics.

Don_alForno,

Someone donates $1, 200 times. Then charges them all back. Paypal charges you $15 processing fee for each chargeback

Don’t use PayPal. That’s a good policy in general.

Don_alForno,

That is exactly the point. “Hmmm, maybe it’s fine if some high quality mods can make some money” no! This is “it’s just cosmetics” all over again. Give them a finger, they’ll be taking the arm and suing you for the other one soon. Don’t! Just don’t! If you want creators to make money, donate.

Don_alForno,

Stardew Valley is on switch though? It’s also on gog.com which is preferable anyway. No launcher required.

Don_alForno,

Or does each game just build on top of working knowledge of previous similar Games?

This. There is a sort of gaming DNA that you just internalize over time. I’ve been gaming for 30 years, I just know how that one breakable wall looks, that you need to come back to once you get bombs or whatever it is. I know the difference between a caster, a fighter and a rogue when I see them without knowing the exact details of their ability mechanics in this particular game. My intuition as to how a given ability is most likely going to work is also usually pretty close. Because they are often very similar across different games.

Also if you don’t know and don’t have to have the absolute optimal combination from square one, just pick what looks cool and try it. If it doesn’t work out, try something else. Most games allow respecs nowadays. We learn through failure and repitition.

Don_alForno,

Then you respec your character.

Don_alForno,

Stat blocks don’t make an RPG.

Part of the definition is that you in fact play a role. This means making decisions from their perspective as if you were them and their world was your reality. Any game that doesn’t allow you to make informed, meaningful decisions isn’t actually a role playing game.

Naturally, video games can’t really give you total freedom in that regard, as any option you can pick needs to be anticipated and coded by the developer. But there are candidates that fit the requirement somewhat more and those that definitely don’t.

Cyberpunk, while being a fun experience, doesn’t really give you a lot of meaningful choices, at least not in the bigger quests, especially not the main plot. Most often different dialogue choices only lead to slightly different answers and the same outcome. You can’t decide to rat Panam out to Militech when stealing the tank for example. You’re not really playing the role of V, you’re watching their story play out and maybe deciding what to do first and last.

CDPR have their own inhouse example of a better RPG to compare against.

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