ThunderingJerboa

Hell it doesn’t even seem like that much money if we consider lost wages, employment opportunities lost, 25k of it is going to legal fees, etc. The average salary in Baltimore is about 75k (5 years is 375k) and a median salary of 54k (5 years is 270k). Like 340k just seems like a bare minimum for stripping someone of their freedom for 5 years and the untold effects this will have on his future employment opportunities. A fucking bot is going ditch his application if he answers yes to “have you ever been arrested” question, hell that doesn’t even speak about the having to explain the 5 year gap on your resume.

The irony of saying “Cmon man have like a single thought for yourself that ain’t propaganda” while just defaulting to “FaCeBoOk BaD” is peak. I already made mention of how facebook or whatever they are called is shit but you have to be braindead to see before meta entered the scene, VR was dead in the water. So yeah they tried to establish their little stupid metaverse thing and it thankfully failed. You aren’t even addressing my point of no consumer wants to pay 1000 fucking bucks on something they likely hate. Most consumers drop off hard on VR. So cheap headsets are a net good thing for VR, even though the cunts who make them are dick heads.

Game devs aren’t just going to be developing games if there is no fucking audience to play/buy them. So yeah many of those devs got bought out since Meta was the only one handing money out for VR related tech/games. It was a devil’s bargin as shown with Echo VR and many others but I can’t fault the devs since getting food on the table pretty fucking important than sticking with the values of some idiot VR snobs who think the only way VR should work is via pc connection on a pc that is valued in the 1k to 2k range on top of the previously mentioned VR headset that can set you back another 1k to 2k. Like I have the opportunity to have a pc in that range and I see how the quest 2 is very inferior to many other headsets but you have to be a fucking moron to invest thousands on something you will play with for a fucking week. So I’m thankful Meta (who is likely spying on its users) gave me an opportunity to try out VR at a “decent” price so now I know I’m into it and can invest further into the industry but nah. You stick with your idiotic groupthink of “MeTa BaD” when I will say I’m glad exist since people can take advantage of this deal and see if they want to further invest in the medium. I can’t wait for they to die out but I ain’t looking a gift horse in the mouth when they are ones who are the only pushers of VR right now. Apple doesn’t give a shit about gaming and while Sony pushes out a pretty damn good headset, they don’t let you use them on PC where most of the enthusiasts are. Console players don’t want to spend the price of the console they are playing on to possibly play a handful of games with little support afterwards.

Sucks they bought up most things but those devs chose that option and I can’t fault them since lets be honest here, VR market is utter garbage, there is very little money in it. I don’t like meta, they fucking suck but the quest series has basically provided the option of the common person to actually try vr. Not many people want to spend close to 1k to 2k on a thing they will maybe fucking hate. I wouldn’t say they are the sole reason its dogshit but the reality is people need an entry point headset. The market wasn’t providing that and now that it does, people can finally get into VR even though it may lead to technical downgrades since the market is targeting those users.

Hell even though the PSVR 2 is a fantastic headset, most console gamers aren’t going to spend more money on a peripheral than they actually spend on the console they are playing it on. Hell I would love Sony to give the drivers to PSVR 2 to pc players since shit a bang for your buck for specs but that ain’t happening.

So does Pixmax, HTC, Valve, or Pico no longer exist? VR is facing issues with adoption. I’m sorry but to the VR snobs even though I love VR having people argue you can’t experience it unless you spend close to a grand on something that many people’s feelings towards it are take it or leave it is a bit too much for most consumers. Meta is problematic with buying up so many of the vr game makers but at the end of the day these companies chose to sell themselves and lets be honest here the VR market isn’t hot right now and prior it was fucking worse.

I mean it has a place in the market. Even though facebook sucks, they are the leaders/pushers of VR at the moment. No new person wants to spend 1000+ dollars on something they may end up hating especially with the rumors around the quest 3 lite. Like meta makes up about 60% of the market-share of those who take part in the steam hardware survey.

I mean you are assuming the person who is trying to murder you is a rational actor but you can’t really be a rational actor if you are threatening death to someone because of their shit monetization policies on your entertainment. Hell some people throw “Death threats” at people because they decide to change a reload speed by a fraction of a second. So yeah “gamers” can be quite unhinged. Hell you had idiots in Jan 6 who loudly stated their intention and beat a cop to death. Hell we have seen situations of weirdos getting close to celebrities (in their heads) then trying to kill them, and I imagine cases like that will only get worse with parasocial relationships getting a bit out of hand with modern influences and streamers.

I mean it sucks but its clear enough of the “original” audience stuck around. Growth is important and only appealing to your og audience is a sentence for death if you are trying to make being an influencer a job. There is a reason why many influencers have to diversify even when they originally were primarily making videos of a single game because once that game popularity starts to drop, their audience is all they have and people simply “age out” of content and there is nothing wrong with that. Hell this isn’t only to influencers but to most products.

I mean it depends, what are you talking about? Yeah I can see the point of not arresting people for dropping the N word or something or maybe doing a Hitler salute but are you referring to people using their own freedom of speech to argue/debate one’s own opinion? Maybe a companies right to associate with only those it choose to do so with (unless that discrimination is against those of protected classes). Like no company would probably want to be associated with a known verbal racist, it just hurts their possibility to get new clients or possibly sever current client relations. The reason why many companies go “woke” or stray to the left is because companies never want to have one of their advertisements right next to a Nazi/race supremacist rant, people will start associating the company with what their ad is paying for. Elon is learning in the most ass backwards way of why Twitter did X thing, in this case why twitter wasn’t the “haven” of free speech is because advertisers don’t want this and advertisers are the ones who pay a hefty chunk of the bills.

yeah not sure about that. Most of human history would say freedom of speech (and most of the concept of natural rights) is a rather newish ideology. In the past, speaking negatively of higher powers (religious organizations, ruling class, etc) could lead to sanctions, imprisonment, or death and that is still very much the case in many countries to this day. We can argue _____ is a “natural right” till you have arthritis in your hand joints but you have to be blind to think governments have nothing to do with it and its enforcement. In a utopia, maybe it is granted naturally on birth but in reality it is a “right” that has to be “fought” for (legally or with arms). Like are you seriously arguing the people of North Kor… Sorry, I mean the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea are born with this “natural right” of free speech but if they dare use it they and possibly their immediate family may be subject to torture, rape, reeducation camps, and/or work camps.

that was just one article by one rogue doctor.

That was pushed by many media organizations because its sensationalist topic. Antivaxers are idiots but the media played a fucking huge role blowing a pilot study that had a rather fucking absurd conclusion out of proportions, so they can sell more ads/newspapers. I fucking doubt most antivaxers (Hell I doubt most people haven’t either) even read the original study and came to their own conclusions on this. They just watched on the telly some stupid idiots giving a bullshit story that they didn’t combat at all

I think that will be dreadful. Like not a huge fan of the dlc price increases (seriously almost 150% increase over the last game when their last lord pack COC was already an increase), just TW on console just sounds awful since the controls just aren’t precise enough for what you need to do in those games. Yes, you can plug in a keyboard and mouse in a console but I don’t think many people would be willing to do that for just a singular game except for the most tryhardy of people

That is quite the fucking interesting take. I guess props for being consistent but those style of mods are typically seen as one of the best type of mods. Massive overhauls that bring one game into another universe take a ton of work and have worked as a basis to work from. Hell Total Warhammer may not have existed without the Call of Warhammer from Medieval 2. I just fundamentally think the world is a far better place when fans who aren’t making money can work on projects that would never get the go ahead to continue in a commercial setting.

Its iffy isn’t it? Like we have to remember video game mods are a whole can of worms and they are plainly in a gray area for many regions. Say for instance you have a mod where you have a party member who was modded in who was something like John Wick, Indiana Jones, Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, Macho man Randy Savage, etc. Some of these mods would likely rip audio from other source material or they can be impersonation but you are taking someone’s “likeness” in a similar fashion. Is it just a step too far because we are copying a voice? I’m 100% for modding but we have to be aware it is on pretty shakey ground. Its also hard since some voice actors do have a ton of range and would it really count as “stealing” someone’s likeness if you are copying a voice of a character they have played but you aren’t copying their regular speaking voice

I understand why people fear AI but I just think when its being used by hobbyists its a bit different compared to a company doing it especially when the hobbyist isn’t doing it for commercial gain. Like the recent outrage about a fan animation of scooby doo using AI voices where an actual voice actor sent a hate mob and trying to blacklist the person for daring to have a shoestring budget and make a silly non serious fan episode of scooby doo.

Edit: It seems crazy to see someone dismiss a person’s hard work just because 1 element isn’t up to snuff. I don’t agree with people hating the concept of “AI art” but this person did a full 10 minute 3d rendered retro style felt/puppet animation but the voice acting is the massive hang up and seeing their work dismisses because of it is infuriating.

I mean even then, its odd but I don’t see a problem if modders aren’t selling the mod as a “expansion” to users. Ai voices are iffy but they can bring so much cool things to the modding scene. The biggest problem is when large corporations like Rockstar/Take two/etc start using them to replace actual voice actors. A modder isn’t going to have the money to pay an A list voice actor to voice act in their mod

Edit: I do think it does cross a bit of a line if said mod is a sex mod but realistically that isn’t a logical difference between that and a normal mod but it does feel like its crossing a line.

I think saying you can make 2/3 games out of the effort of 1 is a more cynical approach of you should be milking your consumers, you don’t need to put this much effort into the game when 1/3 of that would have been “worthy” of release in the modern AAA space.

Since yes in a reductive point I’m just saying “Make good games, not bad ones idiot AAA devs” I’m just anti devs (more realistically publishers) trying to milk consumer’s wallets.

you’re saying that some games are incomplete just because you prefer a modded, remixed version of the game rather than the one they actually made, which is a definition I’d also disagree with.

I would argue no, its more the systems in place feel like a first pass. For instance, the civil war of skyrim feels like a very unfinished concept. Its something that was slap together to just say they have it as content. You do a few side missions then a siege and repeat. There is little ebb and flow to it, it is a straight line, you as a player are on a monorail. Your actions have little impact on the world besides what arbitrary flag is being flown. Also build variety of Stealth archer? There is very little reason to change your playstyle compared to DOS 2 or BG3 where your different classes/attributes do have a major factor in how you solve encounters. The teleportation gloves of DOS 2 are the perfect example of how equipment can easily change how people interact with the game. Sure we don’t need games where there are exclusive routes but the common Open world approach is keep it as open as possible. Like cyberpunk 2077 suffered from problems with the empty space that Witcher 3 didn’t because you are on the hunt for recipes for new armor sets and witcher potions.

Hell even some of the games I recommended do suffer from some mechanics not hitting well. Pathfinder Wrath of Righteousness had some issues like the crusade minigame since it feels like the devs said hey would it be cool if we had a HOMMlike minigame in our already packed crpg. That sounds badass but the minigame wasn’t that fun however everything around it was phenomenal like the troop recruitment even though it didn’t matter had some very interesting talking points and choices. Like you pick the lich route, should you use death row inmates as undead meatshields to liberate your nation under assault of demons. Like it didn’t hit well but it felt like the mechanic was thought about and had effort put into it from other sections of the game. It isn’t some isolated system that is just there.

I am not a fool who thinks expansion packs are the devil. Hell I am in favor of hefty expansion packs since I remember when you got 1 or 2 and that was about it for the game.

Those aren’t criticisms of Larian or Baldur’s Gate 3. They are opinions that creating games at a certain scale isn’t something developers can just replicate at will. Just like Rockstar games aren’t something any studio can’t just go out and put together.

It’s like how someone would argue that not all books/novels need to be as long and complex as the Song of Ice and Fire series. Not all books need to be like those books, just like not all games need to be like BG3 (or GTA or RDR to use the other comparison).

Except my point has very little to do with complexity or how long it is. I rather a game be short than waste your fucking time, we don’t need 200+ hour games. It is one of those things I hate about modern gaming where if a game is less than 20 hours of enjoyment it is worthless to many. I want quality yet many AAA studios don’t pump out the best stuff. Halo infinite ended up as a trash fire that didn’t respect its players and has basically been put down because of pointless money grubbing. Every Ubisoft game follows the very same formula make a large empty world where you clear towers.

We as gamers should strive for games like BG3 because they were quality works that were made for the enjoyment of the player. They aren’t meant to fuck with you and hand over your wallet. Hell one of the biggest games this summer was a fucking roblox Battlefield game. People just want to play a good game that isn’t trying to always nickle and dime them. Its a plus when there is complexity but its not a requirement for it to work.

Edit: Larian is a studio that has basically been the poster child for “crowdfunding” and I personally am fine with that. This can be what happens when we support studios with an idea. There will be a ton of failure but crowdfunding has brought many top tier indie games especially in genres thought dead in modern gaming (FTL, Divinity Original sin, Shovel Knight, Wasteland 2, Superhot, Yooka-Laylee, Night in the Woods, A Hat in Time, Elite Dangerous, Ready or Not, etc.)

I think you are confusing my term for complete with big and shallow. BG3,DOS2, Disco Elysium did well with their confines. The world felts very reactive to your decisions as a player and there is connecting sinew to most of the game with itself. Starfield and Bethesda’s game are in a way glorified puddles they may be miles wide but typically underneath there is very little depth to it. Typically modders are the ones who add the depth that Bethesda didn’t want to deal with. So you basically have a game where the puddle dips in an irregular fashion. This was honestly the biggest problem of CP2077. It was just a huge puddle, it had a fantastic writing for its main and side stories but almost everything else was pretty meh. I rather they just had a smaller world but pack it fuller with far more cool stuff than have vast spaces of nothingness.

I mean James Berg did though

"I would not be surprised if this was more dev effort than the next 2 or 3 games in the genre combined. It’s Rockstar-level nonsense for scope.

Only a few studio groups could even try this. I cannot wait to play, but this kind of effort likely won’t be replicated this decade"

Yes the original starter of the thread Xalavier Nelson Jr. has a very fair point that this can set a standard for indie games however most people have big problems when these complaints are also coming from other AAA developers. James Berg works for bloody microsoft one of the largest companies that is absorbing huge portions of the gaming industry in a monopolistic pattern. Josh Sawyer is a Design Director for Obsidian who is a company who basically follow a very similar path as Larian, its just they sort of failed with their Pillars of Eternity series especially after Deadfire. Maybe Avowed will turn out well but their recent stuff has not found much favor at least in terms of RPGs.

BG3 is what AAA development should be if it was about making good products but at the end of the day these companies are here to make as much money as possible. I mean there is nothing wrong with making money but its clear many publishers have been pushing quite hard on consumers to paying more for less. As long as gaming budgets are this expensive we should be getting things of this quality more frequently but its not likely. I doubt we will see anything close to BG3 from Bethesda with ES6 a game they have teased for nearly 5 years now with almost nothing beyond that little teaser.

Like gamers especially RPG gamers just want a complete game. Its clear the success of BG3, DOS 1 & 2, and Owlcat’s pathfinder games show there is a clear market for this. It just needs to be handled with well.

I would hope they will finally announce when EDF 6 will have a US/Euro release. Its almost been a year now with little to no news on it. Heck since I’m a PC player I will have to wait an extra 6 months or so for an actual PC release.