CleoTheWizard

CleoTheWizard OP , 2 days ago

That’s totally fair and I don’t think you’re necessarily missing anything here if you bounce off of the combat. Still, it’s worth a shot even if you don’t typically like rhythm games. I wasn’t super thrilled about the combat initially but it grew on me pretty quickly once I found that beat.

CleoTheWizard OP , 2 days ago

That means a lot, thanks!

CleoTheWizard OP , 1 day ago

From what I’ve read, the money goes to Microsoft. I got my copy via humble bundle subscription (a really good deal btw) so I got lucky. If it were me, I’d be looking for other ways to play it probably

CleoTheWizard OP , 1 day ago

I can’t say I share those feelings. While I think the 2D sections are just okay, they’re very short. I also think as far as pacing and traveling between fights, they did about all they could without distracting from the point of the game in my eyes.

Like yes you can make better platforming or exploration, but that’s not what the overall level is there for. It’s there for scale, setting, NPC conversations, etc. Add too much and you distract from the next fight, add too little and you might as well have a boss rush type game. Fine balance here and this is honestly the best I’ve ever seen a game like this pull off filler time.

That’s a whole conversation about filler in games but I think it’s harder than people realize to get this right.

CleoTheWizard , 3 days ago

Candy Crush Saga now has nearly 17,000 levels in it, so you’d be very wrong about that. Your average player might get into the hundreds, above average maybe thousands, but 17,000? They’re fishing for whales and not even that many of them.

This problem is way worse than people think and most mobile games on the store have the sole entire purpose of only hooking a small handful of whales. Then once they do, they mold entire games around just a few people. These companies that run apps like Candy Crush actively change the price of lives per player and watch the statistics of what they’re buying and when. It’s so sinister and the entire industry survives off of gaming addictions and whaling.

CleoTheWizard , 2 days ago

I really wanted to prove myself wrong because you sound like you know what you’re talking about. So I went and looked it up, turns out I was right to say what I said. Most of the major games out there report that more than half of their revenue comes from whales and those whales make up around 5% of their paying playerbase, sometimes more sometimes less. And in some games, that revenue is 60-70% of the total.

So that’s why there are 17,000 levels which that vast majority of players wont ever see. It’s because they’re chasing 5% or less of their audience.

But when it comes to games that are much smaller, I wasn’t really exaggerating to say that a small handful of players can outspend everyone else. When you have a player base in the hundreds and there’s like 20 people spending 50% or more in revenue for you, it’s going to affect your road map. In a larger game though, that percent will still mean tens of thousands of whale players.

And maybe your experience was different, maybe the games you worked on didn’t operate that way. But the industry absolutely does. It doesn’t mean you can ignore the 50% of revenue coming from regular players by the way, I’m just saying that the percent that spends enormously has almost the same weight in changing the games road map as the majority of players sometimes. Which is crazy to me.

Here’s the relevant Reddit post that was one of the sources I found.

CleoTheWizard , 6 days ago

Minecraft believe it or not. Every few years I come back and install a mod pack and it’s like an entirely new game almost. Plus I love the factory and automation mods. The game just never seems to die.

CleoTheWizard , 9 days ago

And yet they really don’t do anything about it, I have yet to see evidence that they engage in the cat and mouse game. A lot of cheaters have full inventories of skins and have been cheating for many years at this point with the same cheats

CleoTheWizard OP , 15 days ago

Yeah I can’t blame you. I’d say that most of the levels aren’t worth experiencing but if you buy it just to try and beat the main boss level, that’s an okay time in my opinion.

CleoTheWizard , 29 days ago

You’re close. The real truth is that most average people do not like to date too high above their perceived range of attractiveness. This bears out in many studies but people are attracted to 8’s and 9’s but won’t date them and instead mostly date people that are more normal 5,6,7’s.

Then we look at the opposite side of the coin, 9’s and 10’s don’t even want to date each other. And for good reason. Extremely attractive people often cross a line into narcissism or being too busy to hold a relationship.

So two factors: 1. Most people aren’t extremely fit and so don’t want to date people whose lifestyle does not match their own, we’re all also slightly insecure. 2. Extremely attractive partners tend not to be good partners. The more people that are attracted to you, the less that date you. Also that’s out of fear of competition and effort so it’s not worth it.

CleoTheWizard , 30 days ago

Honestly it’s not that hard, they just use clothing and makeup to disguise their height and age. Works really well for the most part.

CleoTheWizard , 1 month ago

Really good points here but also I just want to add that Skyrim is very unlike any other game I’ve ever played. Whereas Fallout is shooting, which I’ve played a million times in other games. When I look at the other factors, Fallout has them in spades. Great enemy designs, good locations, great story depth, and the world and themes are phenomenal.

But at the end of the day you’re right, your interaction with the world is mostly just guns. That’s why people find such enjoyment with melee runs in Fallout I think. Guns just aren’t as engaging but also they kind of encourage you keep your distance from the enemies. Whereas in Skyrim, unless you’re playing with a bow, you’re directly interacting with the enemies up close and personal.

My advice is basically just to go play fallout and try it with a melee build and maybe ditch the companions. Or maybe find mods that try to add things to the playstyles.

CleoTheWizard , 1 month ago

What’s funny is that it’s also probably an internal security risk as well. I mean who knows, there’s probably at least one of their internal servers that still accepts credentials or keys from the dead domain. Not to mention their emails probably aren’t transferred.

All of that could be fixed but you’d have to, ya know, not fire your programmers.

CleoTheWizard , 1 month 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 OP , 1 month 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 , 1 month ago

The issue isn’t material choice. It’s that plastic can’t be replaced by most materials because of the current function of our containers.

Let me pitch it like this: go to the grocery store. It’s all plastic. The meat? Plastic container. Milk is in plastic. Water in plastic. They’ll even put your potatoes in a pre-packaged plastic sack.

So the issue is that plastic has made its entire niche and therefore is irreplaceable in that niche. Whereas if we would swap over to reusable milk containers and dispensers or refillable chip bags, we’d be miles ahead even if those were all made of plastic still.

The problem isn’t containers, it’s the existence of disposable packing being the only option.

CleoTheWizard , 1 month 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 , 1 month 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 , 1 month 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 , 1 month 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 , 1 month 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 , 1 month 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 , 1 month 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 , 1 month ago

I think this is the biggest myth of conversation. People always tell you to search for people whom you share something in common with, but the reality is that nearly everyone shares something in common and there’s no reason to go searching for it.

The key to a good conversation with a stranger is to initially do two things: 1. Ask details about the stranger and 2. Intertwine that with yourself in some way. You don’t even need to share this part.

Good conversations have these things I’ll call “footholds” where you intentionally give each other details shortly after meeting in order to create those ties in conversation. If you ask where someone is from, you should shortly offer up where you are from as well. Or if you ask about a hobby, offer a light comparison to your own.

Once you have enough of these footholds, the conversation should flow freely. If it ever doesn’t, ask the stranger more about themselves. And trust me, just be interested in what they say.

CleoTheWizard , 1 month ago

He did demonstrate it that way, specifically with a carrot. And it somewhat worked. The problem is they programmed it to do more and more pressure every time it fails meaning that doing the carrot first actually caused a safety issue. He only moved onto his finger because the safety feature seemed to be working.

CleoTheWizard , 1 month 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 OP , 1 month 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 OP , 1 month 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 OP , 1 month 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 , 2 months ago

In every chat I find about this, I see people railing against AI tools like this but I have yet to hear an argument that makes much sense to me about it. I don’t care much either way but I want a grounded position.

I care about harms to people and in general, people should be free to do what they want until it begins harming someone. And then we get to have a nuanced conversation about it.

I’ve come up with a hypothetical. Let’s say that you write naughty stuff about someone in your diary. The diary is kept in a secure place and in private. Then, a burglar breaks in and steals your diary and mails that page to whomever you wrote it about. Are you, the writer, in the wrong?

My argument would be no. You are expressing a desire in private and only through the malice of someone else was the harm done. And no, being “creepy” isn’t an argument either. The consent thing I can maybe see but again do you have a right not to be fantasized about? Not to be written about in private?

I’m interested in people’s thoughts because this argument bugs me not to have a good answer for.

CleoTheWizard , 2 months ago

I think we’ve just stumbled on an issue where the rubber meets the road as far as our philosophies about privacy and consent. I view consent as important mostly in areas that pertain to bodily autonomy right? So we give people the rights to use our likeness for profit or promotion or distribution. And what we’re giving people is a mental permission slip to utilize the idea of the body or the body itself for specific purposes.

However, I don’t think that these things really pertain to private matters. Because the consent issue only applies when there are potential effects on the other person. Like if I talk about celebrities and say that imagining a celebrity sexually does no damage because you don’t know them, I think most people would agree. And so if what we care about is harm, there is no potential for harm.

With surveillance matters, the consent does matter because we view breaching privacy as potential harm. The reason it doesn’t apply to AI nudes is that privacy is not being breached. The photos aren’t real. So it’s just a fantasy of a breach of privacy.

So for instance if you do know the person and involve them sexually without their consent, that’s blatantly wrong. But if you imagine them, that doesn’t involve them at all. Is it wrong to create material imaginations of someone sexually? I’d argue it’s only wrong if there is potential for harm and since the tech is already here, I actually view that potential for harm as decreasing in a way. The same is true nonsexually. Is it wrong to deepfake friends into viral videos and post them on twitter? Can be. Depends. But do it in private? I don’t see an issue.

The problem I see is the public stuff. People sharing it. And it’s already too late to stop most of the private stuff. Instead we should focus on stopping AI porn from being shared and posted and create higher punishments for ANYONE who does so. The impact of fake nudes and real nudes is very similar, so just take them similarly seriously.

CleoTheWizard , 2 months ago

Not OP but here’s what I could find

CleoTheWizard , 2 months ago

No problem!

CleoTheWizard , 5 months ago

Honestly Rotten Tomatoes is basically useless when discussing film. I’ve been using Letterboxd for reviews and I get much more insight on if I’ll like the movie.

Because consider that people who post on RT are either snobs, frequent movie goers, or are emotional about the movie in some way. And a critics aggregate is an awful way to do anything which is why metacritic is useless most of the time.

What people should do is take some of their favorite movies or games or whatever and look up reviews. Find ones that you agree with. And then use those sites or people as sounding boards for new movies. If that doesn’t work, move on to the next critic till you find one whose perspective aligns with yours.