Make sure to post again once that happens, either here or on one of the communities linked in this post. It’d be fun to see how it turned out.

This guide on transit is a really comprehensive resource about anything traffic related. It contains info about everything from basics to all types of public transport and pathways. Also lots of screenshots and diagrams to make things easily digestible.

I’m not gonna critique it based on efficiency and min-maxing as that’s something I couldn’t care less about. Design wise however, I like it. It’s has some more organic and interesting shapes than a basic “American city” that’s so easy to default to. Split between suburbs and the more urban centre is a nice touch (tough I would try to add some transition in the empty space between the two to make it look more natural).

You have a clear separation between residential and industrial areas which will prevent issues with health and happiness (as long as you keep it in check). You also remembered to dump the sewers downriver which is good.

I’m sure some CS pro could give you a bunch of pointers but it looks like a good start to me. Are you planning to share your progress in the future? I’d actually like to see what you’ll do with it.

I understand what you’re saying but we’re talking about a multi billion dollar company. At this point there is no excuse you can give for not fixing simple and easily identifiable issues with user experience - especially since all of this has been criticised for years. As much as I appreciate some of the recent additions, fixing this mess should be priority number one.

Ah, I see. I thought it was specifically related to TC2. Thanks for clarifying.

I haven’t played or owned TC but game preservation is an important topic for me so I also signed and tried to popularise it as much as possible. I don’t expect much but every attempt is important.

To be fair, the update itself was announced last year (here is a random IGN article about the announcement) after people started complaining about upcoming shutdown of the first game (which in turn spawned the Stop Killing Games initiative).

Not that this makes the filing irrelevant but it’s not some knee-jerk reaction thrown together on the spot. Besides, game built with online components in mind calling servers once a minute isn’t really that crazy (whether that should be a thing for a single player mode is a different matter).

It improved quite a bit since early days, it’s just the flat structure they used to run with led to a messy development and disjointed feature set.

Valve did make some changes in terms of organisation a few years ago so hopefully all the recent improvements will lead to a serious UI overhaul to tidy things up.

Yes please! Browsing Steam is such a stupid experience, it’s staggering they still can’t be bothered to fix it.

Soundtrack App

Bruh…

I actually thought about including this case in my original post but I have tendency to waffle way too much and in the end decided against it to keep things shorter. It is a useful example to mention so thanks for that.

Did they even shut them down back then? I might be thinking about a different situation but I remember one of the other remake mods (was it New Vegas on Fallout 4 engine?) where they simply told the team they can’t use the original audio. The cancellation of that mod happened months later and didn’t even have anything to with that issue, I believe.

Either way, this kind of scenario is something I skipped over in my initial question since banning reuse of assets in different engines is a legal thing. I mostly meant them blocking/killing projects for no “serious” reason.

Still, it was a good idea to mention these kind of issues as well.

Can it change? Sure. There’s just no reason to expect that based on Bethesda’s approach to modding until now. I’d rather base my expectations on their past actions rather than assume the worst just in case.

Exactly, which is why I don’t expect them to do anything hostile towards this project - both remakes have their own goals and approaches after all.

At the end of the day Virtuos are just a contractor - Bethesda are the ones with final say in the matter. Despite all their flaws they never really showed to be hostile towards these kind of projects (or at least I haven’t seen them act that way) so there’s no reason to automatically expect the worst. That’s just my opinion though.

If I recall correctly the team behind Skyblivion was (or still is) in contact with Bethesda throughout the development and had no problems with the latter in regards their work. Heck, Bethesda itself posted about the mod on their site in 2023.

They’ve been aware of Skyblivion for years and there’s no indication they’re interested in killing it.

Little time, little playing, short (?) post this time.

I mostly played two games: Colin McRae Rally 04 and Star Citizen (it technically counts as old, right?). Didn’t have time to try and fix NHL99 yet, maybe next week…

On another note, I’m having some craving to give The Sims (original one) another chance. I love the second game and will go back to it as soon as I can but there’s something special about the first title. I don’t know, maybe it has to do with me listening to its soundtrack lately or perhaps I want some of the less wacky atmosphere for a change - either way, the game is calling out to me.

I heard about the latter but never really thought about Steam Input like this, goes to show how easy it is to completely miss such stuff when you don’t need it. Also, in case someone’s confused BCI stands for Brain-Computer Interfaces.

I don’t think news about a single tool for developers is some kind of ploy to improve their PR - most people won’t even hear about it. It’s just a neat piece of news since Ubisoft has been pretty good about accessibility in their games for years now.

Giving props when deserved doesn’t mean you have to forgive and forget all the bad surrounding the company.

Right, forgot about that since I focused purely on software side of things. Good reminder!

As problematic as AAA publishers can be, their steps towards spreading accessibility within the industry as a whole are always nice to see and worth sharing, I think. Did anyone besides Ubi and EA did something like that?

Really solid write up!

As much as I love SimCity 4, there’s something about the look and feel of 3000 that makes it slightly more iconic for me (both are fantastic though). Maxis really knocked it out of the park with most of the series.

My short time in game wasn’t bad either, it’s just forcing myself through the initial unwillingness to and anxiety of interacting with people in such environment is a bit too much for me (especially since there’s so many other titles I can use as an excuse to not do that). As I said, it’s a “me” problem.

I’m glad you’re having fun! Old BF games and Project Reality were always a fun niche compared to titles focused solely on infantry combat so having it continue outside of DICE’s attempts is great.

It’s simple but fun in all the ways that matter. Holds up pretty well too despite its age. While I don’t LOVE it, it did give me hope for an even better time with the sequel.

I love BF2. I love BF2142. I want to play Squad. I can’t play Squad. It’s a me issue, 100%, but having to do voice comms with randoms in a competitive environment is something I really don’t want to deal with anymore.

The little I did manage to play was fun so support your endorsement. Anyone looking for a combined arms squad based shooter should definitely check the game out.

Game list:

• Colin McRae Rally 04
• Spyro the Dragon
• Original VA-11 HALL-A prototype from 2014
• Amagami

I promise I won’t be spamming this every week but I’d like to once again link my Pixelfed account - it’s fully focused on game screenshots and might be of interest to someone. This week I posted some shots from Cyberpunk 2077.

I’m trying to play the PC version so no emulation here. As for the issue, the game simply freezes on launch (right after the EA Sports splash).

It seems to be a Linux (well, WINE) related issue since I was able to boot it up on Win10 a moment ago. It might be an problem with the graphics card detection tool failing during setup (it can’t load a dll for that) but I have no idea how to fix that.

I might have to spend some time looking into it now that I have a lead. Thanks for that.

Huh, never knew my approach to work had an actual name. That’s neat! Thanks for teaching me something new.

I mostly play according to the intended game design. The only exceptions that come to mind at the moment are:

• Open world games (GTA, Fallouts, Elder Scroll series etc) - I tend to act like a normal, civilian part of the world. I eat and drink, travel like a person rather than player (i.e. safely, without quick travel), avoid violence and do peaceful tasks when possible. I also go on trips and take screenshots of the scenery.
  Finally, if there’s an equipment system I limit myself to “reasonable” amount of baggage (both in terms of weight and volume).
• Mirror’s Edge and Portal - the only games I learned to the point of speedrunning. I’m nowhere near the level of being able to compete with professionals (nor am I interested in that) but I can get through both pretty quickly and without issues.

I try not to overthink it - if it’s a topic I’m interested in I just keep posting, even if I’m alone. There’s no point (in my mind) in worrying about people being put off of a community with a single poster since the only alternative is a completely dead one. It might be just me but I feel like the latter is less inviting - if only because you have no idea if anything you post will get a response. With a single poster you know there’s at least one person passionate enough about the topic to engage with you.

I feel you. I’ve been trying to kickstart a community for over a year now and the best I can hope for are a few votes. It can be pretty deflating after a while.

Thanks! I don’t really “play” ESO as much as I use it as a sightseeing simulator at the moment but yeah, both normal gameplay and just running around can be quite enjoyable. They did a great job with the world and quest design.

It’s a shame the community on Lemmy isn’t that busy, but I guess there’s not a lot of players here yet.

Well, it’s a self-perpetuating problem of small communities - no one engages with them so they look like ghost towns scaring people away. Someone has to be the one to get the ball rolling if they’re to thrive wink wink nudge nudge.

Game list:

• NHL99 - tried again but no luck
• Colin McRae Rally 04
• Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War

Last but not least, I’m once again plugging my Pixelfed account - I created it, might as well let people know it exists. I’ve added some more screenshots since last week, this time from The Elder Scrolls Online and Remember Me.
I’ll try to keep a decent variety of titles posted there - both to keep it interesting (I hope) and because that’s just how I play games most of the time. One thing I can promise though is that most, if not all, of the titles posted there will be worthy of the patient gamer community.

I don’t know about the newer ones but 4 and 0 were really fun experiences. I wish they were a bit longer to have more time to play with all the planes but other than that I have no real complaints.

I didn’t have much time to play this week so no as big wall of text this time. I did however find a moment to spend a little bit of time with both Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 and Ace Combat Zero.

Edit: I almost forgot! Following on my last weeks question, I went ahead and created a Pixelfed account. There isn’t much there yet (just my Umurangi Generation pics from few weeks ago) but I’ll be dropping some more posts about of my adventures soon.

Well, guess I have something to do over the weekend.

I’ll be sure to write about it if either game decides to cooperate. I’m not giving up that easily!

Yeah, I thought about doing it the other way but forgot to actually change it. Next time! Probably. If I don’t forget.

I wondered about pixelfed but I’m not really familiar with Instagram or its derivatives and kind of assumed it was for a different kind of content (don’t ask me what, I have no idea what lead me to this view anyway). Guess I’ll look into it properly. Thanks!

I’ve got another wall of text this week, it just do be like that sometimes.

I was unable to get either NHL99 or 2001 to run so far. I’ll keep trying but it doesn’t look promising unfortunately. I also tried to run NBA Live 2001 but that ended up either black court or a straight up freeze during loading so… I feel like early 2000’s EA games don’t like me very much.

I’m still dabbing with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4. I’m making slow but steady progress, playing mostly when I’m in the mood rather than blizting through the whole thing in one go.
I still have a bit of a problem with trying to string tricks (especially grinds) a bit too eagerly but other than that I’m doing fine. It’s going slightly better than my THPS2 playthrough from 2 or so years ago, if I remember correctly.

Championship Manager: Season 03/04 is also still on the menu. It’s not really a game intended for long sessions in my case so I mostly treat it as an emergency activity, played for a match or two when nothing else strikes my fancy.

I mentioned Restaurant Empire last week and that I was having a decently fun time - that’s still true. It’s not the best management game ever but it’s not bad. I have two issues with the game so far: default mouse sensitivity feels terribly (it feels like the cursor is magnetized to certain elements and moving on a tile system) and there’s only one female player character to choose from (not that it means anything but there’s 32 of them!).

My next choice for the week was Ace Combat Zero: Belkan War. I only played 4 before but I liked it quite a bit.
Unlike 4 however, I’m playing this one on a Steam Deck instead of a desktop PC. It plays great, as expected, but I do have so minor issues using the Deck for longer periods of time, especially during more challenging missions (mission structure thankfully helps with that).

Lastly, I came back to RimWorld for a bit. Similarily to The Division, it’s a title I come back to every few months or so, play until I’m bored and go back to whatever else I was doing. It’s pretty great, even in its non-DLC form.

On a slightly different note, does anyone know a site (preferably a fediverse one) that could serve as a gallery dump? I have some screenshots from various games I’ve been thinking about uploading but I’m not really sure which service would be good for that.

It has both modern and classic controls which can be toggled in settings I believe.

Hey @[email protected], I believe you were asking about this recently.