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I feel Mass Effect did at least some of this in terms of allowing you to cut people off and quite a few “shortcuts” of just shooting someone that you can tell from a mile away will be trouble. That game of course has you play someone that obviously can’t have reached the position they have by being a selfish asshole so the premise limits what you can do.
The best approach in my opinion was in Mass Effect.
Dragon Age a close second but there it’s much more subtle and good/evil not really a part of it, it’s more internal to you the why behind your characters actions. Stuff like using blood magic which is illegal but very powerful can be used from a perspective of “the greater good” or you could roleplay that decision as a lust for power. Which factions you side with for sure has morality attached but since all roads lead to saving the world its much more about your own reasons to judge if your character is evil or just focused on the grander scheme, utilitarian.
But back to Mass Effect. It’s the same thing with all roads leading to save the world but unlike Dragon Age there is a morality system in place that is not about just a dichotomy between self sacrifice and malicious indulgence. Instead it’s about what is OK to do to save the world? What sacrifices are reasonable? What risks should you take for others? What approach do you take to solve conflict? Renegade (as the ‘evil’ approach is called) options allow you to pistol whip people that want you to follow rules and decorum while the Galaxy hangs in the balance. It allows you to order people to die for the greater good. It’s about using the power you have to take the shortest and most direct route to ultimate salvation. To not pussy foot around trying to appease everyone.
And really that’s the only way to make morality work in a story driven game imo. If the same story is to be told with moral decisions left to the player than they need to be ultimately inconsequential to how the game and story plays out. At best they give slight variations to story beats but nothing really changes from a good playthrough to an evil one in the grand scheme. If it works and feels satisfying is largely down to the developers accepting this and instead focus on smaller nuances like Mass Effect or leaving it ambiguous and up to the player to craft their narrative for the why and motivations like Dragon Age.
What I’d instead would like to see is a game where you play out an evil narrative. And I do know of one such RPG, Tyranny, but I haven’t gotten around to play it yet.
The best example perhaps of melding good and evil in the same game is Star Wars: The Old Republic (the MMORPG). Because you can play it from the evil side as a good character and the good side as an evil character. If you play it through multiple time you can really craft a world and narrative of incredible depth. And I can really recommend playing it as you would any other western RPG and just ignore the MMO side of things. Bear in mind that each individual playthrough suffers from the exact problem you raise in your post, but on the total, the bigger picture, becomes something very interesting and worthwhile.
Lol wut? Was this guy in a year long coma starting in December 2020? Cyberpunk had one of the top 10 most disastrous launches in gaming history. And in no small part due to botched expectations around quests, mainly because a lot of the pre-release footage was of “The Pickup” which really was the only quest to really deliver all they talked about in those early videos.
Now the game is still a good game. But it’s a great “emergent gameplay” game, one where gameplay and level design work together to create something greater than the sum of the pieces. Quest, plot, story wise it’s not at all anything special in my opinion. It has high production values sure, but the substance is rather meh, and there is little story agency, outside of “The Pickup”, which I think is a large part of the reason they themselves, without announcement, stopped calling it a RPG about a year or so before release.
So much dumb shit has been done under the banner of NFT that I want to disagree but yes, if each ID in your blockchain represents a unique variant of an item, and we want to that to persist then yes NFT would fit the bill as a correct term for it.
NFTs don’t need to be limited, they don’t need to have transaction fees to move them, they don’t need to contain a link to an image and masquerade as if you own that image. All they need to do is prove that you have control of it by virtue of it being in your care. Then that proof confers the ability to use the item it represents in game. For currency you naturally wouldn’t use NFTs, though you could if you’re adamant you want a more “cash like” experience with change back and all that jazz.
Adding blockchain tech can do a lot of things here actually.
- Reduce amount of ways to be scammed and making trades more straight forward and safe.
Both these are realizable with smart contracts.
- Retain ownership even if the game goes offline
While it of course will lose its value you at least have the mementos available. Of course you either need a service to be up that can show you a visual representation or make a backup of the visual data yourself, but for a culturally important game like EVE that is very unlikely to be an issue
As for transaction fees that is not at all necessary for blockchain/crypto. Especially not a centralized one like would be the reasonable approach here. Sure CCP might want a cut, which they could call a transaction fee, but double dipping would be dumb and just make the whole thing fail.
As for currency value being influenced by external actors sure, that is a risk but also an opportunity. The people playing the game has access to make currency just by playing, people outside need to pay to get it. If anything it would make the amount of bots and miner accounts skyrocket, which might be annoying to players.
As for marketplace without blockchain it requires more trust and I’d argue is harder to realize in a secure manner. Blockchain started out as the next evolution in transaction safe databases, that preserves history, and that is exactly what you want for keeping track of in-game items and currency imo. Crypto as most know it is not all that blockchain is or will be. But equally blockchain can’t solve everything like Cryptobros think it can.
Further making their own marketplace might put regulatory crosshairs on them in some markets and also would alienate the large third party marketplaces that are important to the games longevity up until now. Blockchain however could be made to make it easy for them to adapt to the new and make it easier for more sites to pop up and due to the nature of the tech you can build it such that no marketplace operator can easily scam users.
Really I see no issues at all using blockchain tech, and only slight issues with making it a full on, exchange tradeable cryptocurrency, and that’s mainly from follow on effects.
As I understand it Dreadwolf is like Andromeda in that it’s the same universe but not a continuation of the story, or even tightly related. But I can’t say I’ve followed it too closely. As such there’s no rush to get a Legendary edition out before it. I’d plan it for 2-3 years or so after Dreadwolf to keep the franchise in people’s minds.
No one wants a 20 hour empty game. A 20 hour game needs to be dense, like a good book of equal length. It needs a compelling narrative and interesting immersive gameplay. A 20 hour game can get away with immersion adding limitations to parts of it that an 80 hour game can’t, stuff like not having quick save is annoying in an 80 hour game but perfectly valid in a 20 hour one, same with point of no returns, very grating in 80 hour games but perfectly fine in a 20 hour one.
Also I don’t consider Open World to be a type or genre of MMOs, I’m exclusively talking about Ubisoft style open world games like Assassin’s Creed and games obviously inspired by that open world approach. For MMOs busy work is good because the point really is to socialize and all content is good basically. If the game has co-op then I’m much more lenient on the busy work aspect.
Further I’m also only harping about story less or with very limited story tied to it type events. Like the cop events in Cyberpunk 2077 which is basically an ongoing crime and for whatever reason you have them marked, can go there and kill everybody, get some small reward and a thank you message. But it more or less clashes with the story overall and there’s no point to it. Having enemies to kill and things happening in the world is of course a good thing but drawing player attention to it with an icon and interaction like the thank you message creates expectations about a payoff or it actually being meaningful outside of “clearing the map”. But it’s not. It’s also a fact that crafting all of it takes time, time better spent on making the content that is meaningful even better. Basically give me one 1 hour mission rather than six 10 minute ones.
Seems like it could be interesting but they way it seemed like he thought the UI spam was the problem with their Open World approach in Assassin’s Creed makes me nervous. I hated that shit from day one. It’s just busy work to add play hours for no real reason. Kinda like filler episodes in Anime or that “welp we’re out of budget so we’ll do a recap episode” that StarGate pulled every season. It’s just a waste of time. What really bothers me though is how that was somehow allowed to become more or less the expectation and definition of an “open world” game. Games like Cyberpunk 2077 were made worse by it, killing pacing and clashing hard with the story. Now I’m not saying there shouldn’t be anything of course but make it fit into the game and story, have bounty contracts that are formulaic to streamline making them but at least have some variation like for one you need to chase them, one they’ve set a trap for you, one their friends come to free them during transport etc. Small things like that keeps it fresh and keeps you on your toes and makes it interesting to see what will happen during this bounty hunt.
Yeah, I think the real exception here is Dragon Age: Origins. It has a lot of interesting choices, many matter and they impact the end in complex ways. Sure some of it is slideshow based but that is completely fine IMO. And all choices made can carry over to the final game in the series, actually altering the experience there in noticeable ways. First Mass Effect also had a good ending variation but it was far more subtle, small differences that ultimately didn’t have much impact on later games (though I applaud them doubling the voice lines by allowing your choice of leader of humanity to stand in subsequent games). Mass Effect 2 however had a very interesting take on ending given that the ending is basically the whole of the final mission were all your choices impact how that mission plays out. It’s interesting how you can “fail” that mission and it’s a viable ending. Kinda like a “bad ending” in a visual novel.
So I’d go with DA:O if we’re talking strictly multiple endings as we normally think about it and ME2 if we want to consider the final mission as a way to do a new take on multiple endings. Maybe “dynamic ending” would fit ME2 better.
I think it’s a great spot to be. Should be more than enough to be profitable if they need it to be and has ample room to grow given how large the gaming market is these days. If I was heading up the division responsible for game pass though I’d be working hard right now on forging a roadmap for how to expand into the mobile market. I think cloud gaming is an excellent way to deliver true gaming experiences to a crowd that today make do with seriously subpar experiences and extremely predatory monetization. Couple that with them making their own smartphone attached universal game controller and they will get filthy rich.
I’d expect the number to be in the low double digits. 10-20% on the total by now. But in the high double digits for pre-orders / early-access and starting the hype train. Say 70%. I haven’t met a tabletop RPG player that hasn’t played BG3. Though in the more hardcore circles I know there are those that don’t play video games at all…
But I can also safely say that DoS players don’t account for the success of BG3 since those games never had mainstream appeal. Brand recognition is for sure a massive factor. Also keep in mind that Baldurs Gate, particularly 2, is considered a must play to understand the evolution of western RPGs. While the PC gaming market was much smaller back then so many people will have played it, read about it or wanted to play it but couldn’t get past the aged mechanics and looks since then. Its sales numbers belie its influence and reach.
Finally I’d say a good 50% or more of the total buyers bought in after it was apparent that it was going to be GOTY, so many were talking about it and every critic was singing its praise’s, but it wouldn’t have gotten there without that brand appeal and the super rich and deep lore which the “power users” (like many critics and early adopters) crave.
Yepp, if they were attempting anything grand they’d have filed by now. The worst they could bring from this point is maybe infringement on a Pal by Pal basis but even there I feel there’s not much to go on given that Pokemon draws so heavily from the real world and you can’t really claim a concept like “volcano turtle mashup” as something so uniquely creative that it deserves copyright on the concept level. Same goes for just about all Pokemon with maybe some exceptions. So while Palworld absolutely has stuff like “electric dog” and others which overlap that is not enough.
Yeah, texture fidelity is one metric but for textures really how good or bad they are depend much more on the skill and attention to detail behind making it more so than raw numbers. The models themselves is really the only part where the increased polycount actually shines through and makes it competitive because it is so important to make things like hands, hair and clothing look "right’. But the aesthetics of SS is just so bland and flat that it ends up looking like an old tech demo.
I find that very unlikely actually. What SoC would it run? AMD hasn’t released anything stronger than the Z1 Extreme (which is just a power constrained laptop part) so the only alternative would be a variation on that, maybe one that works better under a tight power budget just like the AMD chip in the Steam Deck? However I’d argue, as a ROG Ally owner, that battery life improvements aren’t really that high on my wish list. If I could get anything it would be optimizations making the experience more stable and improve 1% lows. But most of that I don’t think is even on Asus, it’s more on AMD to tweak their drivers and on the game makers to tweak for the Z1 Extreme, which thankfully is in more than just the ROG Ally so it does make sense to do so.
Wow, that’s one hell of a naive mind-set. He basically bet it all on red and since it paid of he’s going to be hailed as a genius. But in reality with that kind of “plan” it was a gamble that could just as well have ended in the company going under and everyone out of a job. I’m actually most interested in how he sourced the money, who loaned them the cash? (Or invested in the company). I very much doubt they had that kind of money laying around after their previous, rather niche games.
It has that mainstream appeal as in being a brand parents know (Harry Potter) and being pretty inoffensive (i.e. no guns and blood or sex and partying) so I imagine just about every kid with a system it runs on and in the age bracket of 6-16 got it for Christmas or their Birthday despite not being on the wishlist.
Personally “as a service” is OK if it’s actually sold that way. If I pay a fee per month or in some other way per use and that gives me access to the whole game as long as I play then I’m a happy camper and it gives the developer a steady stream to use towards improvements and keeping the servers online.
When you start double dipping or even triple dipping is when I start getting peeved. You can’t do a monthly fee and also lock stuff behind microtransactions, it might be somewhat OK if what you lock away is purely cosmetic and if you can still get them via say an in-game auction house a la SWTOR.
But some games have all of these:
- Pay for the game itself to let you play it
- Pay a monthly fee or have season passes to get access to certain content or very needed “convenience” features
- Have microtransactions that aren’t just cosmetics but give power / convenience or unlock features/content
And then it just feel like a money milking machine.
Generally if you do one of those you’re most likely OK, two can potentially work if you’re really careful. But all three is a no-go.
The Division did two and felt OK to me, the microtransactions on top were only cosmetics but it felt kinda shitty when you had already bought the game and paid for a season pass/expansions.
Destiny also did two and felt OK as well but after I quit I heard they made some really unpopular changes to the cosmetic system and their microtransactions?
League of Legends did one, the last one, and still felt OK from a monetization stand point. Same with Valorant.
Diablo 3 did all three and was brutalized for it to the point of changing it, but that’s the only example from the top of my head of someone triple dipping.
For sure, but since PC handhelds will always have quite powerful APUs it’s not necessary like it is for the Switch. I mean the Z1 Extreme pushes tflops like an Xbox Series S, not by any means a perfect metric but still indicative of the level of raw performance the chip actually sports, which is why it can play most titles in 1080p with 30 fps (just like the series S).
I’d say there’s a reason PC gaming handhelds popped up when they did and a large part of it is that APUs has reached a level of performance per watt where they actually work, I.e. provide decent frame rate in popular new titles (in 720p). Putting in an older part will give worse performance at the same lousy battery life and you can’t really drop below 720p without getting compatibility problems.
And if anyone wants to say “but the Nintendo Switch is running on super old hardware?” then please keep in mind that there is a world of difference between consoles and PC even with “standard” hardware in them (x86 or ARM). The fact that all Switch games will run on the exact same hardware opens up for a level of optimization that just isn’t realistic on PC and that extremely diverse landscape.
What could, but likely won’t, happen in the future is standardization around one APU per two/three years such that all gaming PC handhelds use the same APU and then differentiate on other parts, like Legion GO vs ROG Ally. Then it becomes feasible for developers to do targeted optimization to that APU.
Mobile is just such a fucking powerhouse of revenue while having so few truly good games.
Sure we have ports of old PC/Console classics like KotOR and Baldurs Gate but the majority of the revenue is from shit like clash of clans, various card games, raid shadow legends and other “merge RPGs” and gacha games. And all the best ones tend to have a much better experience on PC/Console like say Genshin Impact, PUBG and COD.
It kinda blows my mind that the revenue leader by such a massive margin only has stuff like Candy Crush and Angry Birds as their “triple A exclusives”.
That said, with 3 kids I sadly spent more 2023 on Mobile games than PC games… So I’m part of the problem here, it’s just so accessible when the gaming I want to do just isn’t feasible due to life and work.
I firmly think that the proposed regulation on games were a great idea. What they wanted to curb were patterns that are inherently toxic and that hits young people and kids disproportionately. Hell I’m not young and have more than enough money and education and still fall for those tactics from time to time. I don’t necessarily blame anyone but myself for that but at the same time believe it is the governments purpose to set rules to protect its citizens from corporate interest. The repeal of the proposed regulation here only shows that money is more important to China than some people want to believe, in my opinion at least.
Steam has got to be the most loved monopoly ever. It’s inherently toxic to the gaming community in ways that aren’t instantly apparent but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that it’s not a great thing that every game you buy isn’t yours, it’s effectively an unlimited time rental that can be withdrawn for a multitude of reasons. GOG and the like actually sell you the game proper such that it’s yours to keep forever no matter what happens to GOG. But still they sit at single digit market share for anything that’s not their own game and even Cyberpunk 2077 only sold 10% of copies on GOG…
Superior. Have you even looked at it? It’s unstable at best and doesn’t give much of a boost at all in most games. It’s something a few hundred will try, at most. It’s not ever going to be a mainstream thing. Remember most consumers barely even read reviews, let alone tech news about some hack giving some performance.
And patch? They’re tricking the game to think FSR3 frame generation is DLSS3 Frame Generation, it’s not really even sure it’s only on the Nvidia devs…
No, and why? Because outright anti-consumer shit like that tends to leak. And if it did that would be very bad for Nvidia. Just look at the backlash Blizzard got for the Taiwan debacle or how costly it got for Google in the Epic vs Google case just recently. It’s much much better to not rock the boat and go with the route of just not spending the (small) effort on making the feature work on the older cards. At the end of the day Nvidia has what? 90% market share in PC GPUs? Even though AMD is trying to be the more consumer friendly company they’re not getting any results from that approach. Hell if we disregard ray tracing AMD has given significantly more FPS / $ for a looooong time without that mattering to the majority of consumers. Hell even Nvidia cards that can’t really deliver decent ray tracing like the 3060 absolutely crushed AMD in sales numbers.
In the end Nvidia doesn’t need to do shit but not fuck this up for themselves. Their only competitor in reality is their older cards so by not porting the cool new stuff to them they get more new cards sold. People getting FSR3 working on the old cards via hacks is a threat that is vastly smaller than the threat of bad PR if they had a strategy to outright block stuff that could benefit their older cards.
EDIT:
I wanted to add that if this was someone getting Nvidia DLSS3 Frame Generation working on the older cards then it would result in screaming internally and a sign that they kinda suck at their job. But this is FSR3 and a very unstable hack at that. It’s technically impressive that they got it to work but not a real threat to Nvidia bottom line. At worst a couple hundred techy dudes don’t upgrade as early because this hack holds them over a year or two. Big woop. It’s not something Joe random is going to run or tinker with.
That’s the wrong take here.
DLSS2 doesn’t have frame generation. Nvidia refuses to add support for DLSS3 to their older cards so the open source community ported FSR3 which has frame generation (and is open source).
By all metrics DLSS3 is superior to FSR3, but that doesn’t help Nvidia 3xxx/2xxx owners at all. Nvidia is a very skilled company, just greedy little absolute shits. This whole debacle mirrors G-sync vs. Freesync (which is the basis for the VESA standard VRR).
Rich coming from someone who made a name for himself as the president of the nickel and dime company…
The problem really is, like in most industries to be fair, that the actual creators get far too little of the figurative monetary cake.
And if we ever see tipping in games, god forbid, then that money will at best get shared by everyone so there would need to be millions in tipping before it is even noticeable for an individual developer in a normal AAA team.