When it comes to gacha games or even just Asian developed games in general, Lemmy is equally as bad as Twitter, maybe even worse. Not only in hostility, but also in making comments on things that are just outright wrong or completely ignorant because they don’t play the game and literally never will.
I don’t play Genshin anymore (stopped playing around the time of the “Rosaria Nerf Incident” because I wanted to play other games), but when I did play it, it was pretty fun. The gacha did not feel forced, I never spent a dime on the game and never felt like I needed to. The community was fine when you ignored the Twitter people.
There shouldn’t be any problem in using AI to translate something, translation is more or less static. Its no different than someone using a calculator for mathematics equations.
Localizers will still need to check the AI output for contextual accuracy, but they will be able to complete this faster as they can essentially skip a step.
My only issue with translation currently is that localizers often go too far with the liberties they take. Its necessary to ensure people from another culture can understand what is happening. For example, in a language that has no word for “rye bread” or a saying like “you are what you eat” specifically, the localizer may substitute the closest word or phrase that conveys a meaning as close as possible to the original. What is not okay is completely altering large portions of the work because of the localizer’s personal opinion. And unfortunately, because this is entirely on the localizer, no amount of AI can help prevent that. Unless translation AI can be so good that it can even understand context from the various bits of text needing to be translated. Then the developers can just use it themselves. But AI has a while to go before it gets to that point.
Thats a bit of a weird way of saying that, but I get what you mean.
For me, it has to be A Girl Who Chants Love at the Bound of This World YU-NO. The original PC-98 release.
Be warned, the game has very explicitly drawn and described sex scenes, some of which I found extremely disgusting, personally, but I understand it is a game from a totally different time and culture and I am not here to police any of that. Fortunately, I learned pretty early on that none of those scenes contain anything actually relevant to the story of the game, so I could just quickly click through them until the picture changed. Fair warning, if you aren’t the kind of person that can overlook this, then you will probably only be focusing on the like, two parts that amount to maybe 5% of the whole game. But its pretty bad, at least in my opinion.
YU-NO took me no joke 80+ hours to beat, on a blind first playthrough. The story is about time travel, and features a very complex branching story, especially for the time the game came out. It has like 9 different endings. Basically the main character is trying to travel through time to find his father, who was a historian that disappeared one day. You get a device in a package from your father that basically acts like a Quick Save for the various timelines in the game that get created by the choices you make as a player. If you give or don’t give a certain item to a certain character at a certain time, that could have consequences that put you onto a different timeline, and if you need to get to a different one then you can Quick Load back to a point you used a jewel at. As you go through each timeline, you pick up jewels that act as more Quick Save points in the story. You have to collect all the jewels to get the True Ending of the game, which literally is just a sequel game. The Epilogue of YU-NO is so fire I almost wish it was its own game, YU-NO 2. It was a twist I was not expecting, but loved.
Needless to say, that game had me hooked. And while there were a few parts that were beyond my own personal opinion of redemption, I am glad I could look past those parts to see the rest of the game. There was a remake in 2017 that IMO totally destroyed the art of the original game, which was unfortunate, but I also don’t think it even censored or removed the sex scenes, so I couldn’t even be happy about that. Its just an all around downgrade except that it is easier to get that in English since it is on Switch, Steam, and PS4.
My first Touhou game was on PC-9801, “The Highly Responsive to Prayers.” I think its the first Touhou game ever made? Not sure. I am not really much of an Outbreak or Arkanoid fan though, so I didn’t really care for it.
Then I tried “The Story of Eastern Wonderland,” which was extremely different from the previous game. I liked it more, but danmaku Shmup style games aren’t really my thing. They’re fine for a 30 minute stint, but I usually don’t play those kinds of games any longer than that.
I am sure Touhou has branched out since then, is there a Touhou game you might recommend that is different from those?
Stellaris is a great realtime 4x strategy game. They have a lot of paid DLC, but you can pick and choose which modules you want. Some are purely cosmetic options while others make gameplay changes, and they go on sale pretty often. Worst comes to worst, you can usually find the DLC on key sites as well for pretty cheap. Paradox also started a subscription based service that gives you access to the DLCs, maybe you can subscribe for a month and try out which DLCs you like.
Project Zomboid is an incredibly hard resource management survival game. It is also very detailed, meaning you need to maintain everything about your character from their hydration, to their weight and fitness. Its a slow burner type game, but when the action picks up, it gets tense. Its also a “forever” game, in that theoretically, if your character never dies, the game never ends. The map is huge, big enough to feel different pretty much every time you play. Its also multiplayer, which is pretty fun.
Farming Simulator can be a fun, chill game to play. Its not as resource management intensive as a game like Project Zomboid, but it can be a good game to relax with.
Ragnarok Online is an older (2003) MMORPG that I recently discovered, and while I am not much of an MMO Enjoyer (I hate the “Disneyland” or theme park feeling most have where I have to wait in line at NPCs and bosses), Ragnarok Online’s player population is consistently low enough to not feel like that while also being high enough to feel like the game is not dead. Just don’t play on the official servers from the Steam client. Use a client that connects to private servers, the economy is really bad in the official servers.
King Arthur: Knights Tale is a pretty fun Strategy RPG. I haven’t been able to play that much of it, but what I have been able to play was pretty fun. Check it out, it might be interesting to you if you liked Divinity and games with combat like XCOM or Fire Emblem.
They dropped the trailer and the game at the same time. Its a pretty well done remaster/remake so far. Minor visual bugs but thats kinda to be expected at this point. Nothing totally gamebreaking though. Runs well enough on Xbox and considerably better on a PC. Xbox performance mode gives it a high framerate, though I am unsure if it is 60 or 120 fps, I would assume probably just 60.
Super Mecha Champions on PC.
Yeah, it was a Gacha Battle Royale mobile port. But it was so fun to play. The community was fantastic, except the like 3 cheaters on perpetual ban cycle.
I loved the character design, and the mecha design. The graphics could age really well being cel-shaded/anime styled. And it was unique in its category, no other BR game lets you play as a pilot and call in a mecha, or battle a mecha as a pilot, or vice versa. And the best part was that the F2P economy was pretty good. Paid players got new characters and mecha a week or two weeks before paid players that haven’t been playing the game. F2P Barnacle players could use currency earned in-game for characters and mecha and it would take maybe a week or so to get the amount needed. You didn’t even have to win, you just had to play. It was great. The cosmetics were well designed too, mostly. Except that one Ventorus skin that made the extra hands a little too big and cover more of the screen than normal.
Sadly, the servers were shut down by NetEase, probably to make more server space for Marvel Rivals.
It would be helpful if you mention the games that are already in this list. Also, are all the players trying to speedrun the game or playing blind? Do cutscenes get skipped? Do the other players see what happened in the game before they started playing?
A Girl Who Chants Love At the Bound of This World YU-NO took me 80 real world hours to figure out how to get the true ending (branching story, requires specific item usage at specific points in the story), but depending on the platform and intended audience it is not a game I would recommend for streaming. Although the latest remake censors the nudity, its still sexually explicit, and it contains some content I understand is from a different time and culture but I personally find replusive. Beside that stuff the story was fantastic, though. Plus, as a graphic adventure game, it’s probably not ideal.
But, if Graphic Adventure games aren’t a problem but sexually explicit ones are, Snatcher on the SEGA CD and Policenauts on the SEGA Saturn are both quite lengthy, and lacking in the explicit department. Although Policenauts has a cool feature where loading a game save gives you a summary screen of everything that has happened up to that point, Snatcher does not.
Metal Gear Solid might be a pretty good one, as I remember the game being quite long, cutscenes included.
The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess could be a good pick as well.
Danganronpa games can be pretty long as well, and are interesting to people who like solving mysteries.
Shenmue could be a good pick because of its QTE sections, which are pretty fast and easy to lose. And everyone loves to see a streamer lose.
Silent Hill or Yakuza series might offer something more interesting.
XCOM 2 can be incredibly punishing to lose, and the game makes it pretty easy to lose.
Piracy was never stealing, in so far as legality is concerned in the USA, at least.
Stealing requires the owner of the stolen thing to be deprived access of that thing. If someone steals your car, you cannot access it anymore, since it was removed from you by the thief.
Piracy copies your car, meaning you still can access your car but someone else can drive a copy of your car. The first example is a major inconvenience to you, the second example has absolutely no negative effect on you.
It is why instances of piracy that make it to a court of law are tried as Copyright Infringement cases, and not theft or piracy cases. When your ISP spies on you and sends you a letter after you pirate something in an insecure manner, you get sent a Notice of Copyright Infringement, not a Notice of Theft.
There was a video game store that once, for April Fools Day, included in its sale terms:
By placing an order via this Web site on the first day of the fourth month of the year 2010 Anno Domini, you agree to grant Us a non transferable option to claim, for now and for ever more, your immortal soul. Should We wish to exercise this option, you agree to surrender your immortal soul, and any claim you may have on it, within 5 (five) working days of receiving written notification from gamesation.co.uk or one of its duly authorized minions.
Only 12% of people that purchased that day responded, essentially confirming only 12% of people actually read the terms.
“Nobody reads those EULAs, and the Defendant knows that. Therefore, the Defendant cannot hide behind the EULA as a shield because the Prosecution, having clicked Agree without being required to confirm that they read through the terms, could not have possibly known what they were agreeing to.”
“If you are what you agree to, your Honor, then my clients are an unknown spaghetti of legal mumbo jumbo.”
“No further remarks, your Honor.”
Realistically, you and the other dozen people here on Lemmy that see this aren’t going to make a difference. Its too far gone. You are free to play or not play whatever you want, but it won’t make any changes to how businesses in the gaming industry monetize their products.
It would be nice if businesses cared about their customers, but money talks way louder than feelings. And there are too many stupid people that will keep paying for Candy Crush MTX.
Personally, I am okay with RNG based rewards that cost real world money if the game is free to play, as long as it offers a way to get the RNG rewards by playing the game even if it is at a reduced rate. Even if it is Pay To Win, at least reviews will tell me going into it so I can decide for myself whether I am okay with potentially playing at a disadvantage or not. In some games that won’t really matter to me, such as if I don’t want to really engage with PvP, for example. But other games that are PvP focused, I probably won’t play unless the rewards are cosmetic only. RNG based rewards that cost real world money in a game that costs money just to gain access to or play the game that are not entirely optional cosmetics are stupid IMO, and so I just don’t buy or play those games. I almost never pay for RNG based rewards anyway, only doing it for games I really enjoy or if there is a collaboration event in the game with an IP I really enjoy, hopefully letting the IP holder know I want more of that IP.
It sucks, but a loss of only 50 or so players from here on Lemmy is nothing to game publishers that gain and lose thousands more players naturally and not because of monetization per week.
There are more people buying games now than ever before. 20-30 years ago, games would set sales records selling over 500k copies in a year or two. Nowadays that number is like 13 million in a month. Gaming companys report record profits year over year (except Ubisoft lol) and they monetize games even harder now with microtransactions.
Prices should be going down. Its not my problem development costs are bloated because dev teams are too big and the marketing team wants to play Beatles music in every trailer. But they’re making it my problem by making me pay for it.
So I just don’t pay for it. Problem solved. If they go out of business, its their own fault. Not mine. Unfortunately, Nintendo is too big to fail.
*Vexatious Litigant Law Firm
At this point, their Legal team is bigger than their Games Development side-hustle.