tal

@tal@lemmy.today

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨89 million Steam account details just got leaked, so now's a good time to change your password⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  They’re my favorite widespread chain pizzeria.

  There are some mom-and-pops or small chains that I’ve found that I like better, but I’m not gonna complain about Papa John’s.

  Little Caesar’s…now there’s a chain pizzeria that I’m disappointed with.

  Oh…I guess I like Uno’s more — I really like their pizza skins appetizer — and they’re a widespread chain, but that’s not really in the same type of pizza or establishment.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I fucking hate modern design and modern designers.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  github.com/heralden/steam-chat

  Apparently there’s an API for non-group chats and a terminal client (maybe others as well).

  looks a bit further

  Bitlbee, an IRC-to-other-chat-protocols gateway apparently has support for Steam client chat.

  github.com/bitlbee/bitlbee-steam

  I know that that won’t send any indication, since IRC doesn’t.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I fucking hate modern design and modern designers.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  decisions than reddit where clicking on a thread, you know, opens the thread instead of what the thread links to.

  Are you familiar with

  old.reddit.com

  ?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Game trailers that alternate between short game scenes and text scenes⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Search for “longplay <game-name>” on YouTube and you’ll find video of someone playing just about any game.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nvidia RTX 5090 can crack an 8-digit passcode in just 3 hours — password cracking benchmarks show tremendous performance⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  To be fair, that assumes complete exhaustion of the password space. If you assume that a given password is totally random, then it’d take half that time, 80 years, on average.

  Thing is, most people don’t choose totally random passwords, and there are utilities that will try to generate statistically-more-common passwords sooner in that sequence.

  I’m probably very out-of-date here, but as an example, one elderly utility, John the Ripper*, comes with “mangling rules” to append a “1” at the end of a given sequence fairly early, because that’s how a lot of people make their password pass a digits requirement.

  I’d guess that today, someone probably has software that has rules to order its attempts that are trained off leaked password databases to be statistically optimal to defeat them, rather than merely manually crafted with human guesswork.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨New Reform UK Council Leader Calls Ukraine War 'A Distraction'⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  “We are going to get the auditors to come in and take a leaf out of Elon Musk’s book and appoint some sort of DOGE…

  Um.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨This game has 100 endings, and it's pushing the creators to the brink of bankruptcy | PC Gamer⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I was listening to an interview with a senior EU translator several years back, and he said that these days, he normally does the first pass with Google Translate, then manually cleans things up. My guess is that to some extent, most human translations likely incorporate some AI translation already.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Players Have Too Many Options to Spend $80 on a Video Game⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I tend to like games that have lots of “levers” to play with and spend time figuring out, so I think that tends to be the unifying factor in the above games.

  I don’t know of anything really comparable to Oxygen Not Included in terms of all the physics and stuff. I’d like something like it too (especially since Tencent bought ONI and now has some locked graphics for some in-game items that you can only get by enabling data-harvesting and then playing the game for a given amount of time, which I’m not willing to do. They don’t have an option to just buy that content. At least it’s optional.)

  For Rimworld and Oygen Not Included, both are real-time colony sims. Of those, the closest stuff on my list is probably:

  • Dwarf Fortress (note that the commercial Steam build looks quite different from the classic version, has graphics and a mouse-oriented UI and revamped the UI and such, which may-or-may-not matter to you; if the learning curve being steep is an issue, that makes it a tad gentler). Rimworld is, in many ways, a simplified Dwarf Fortress in a sci-fi setting and without a Z-axis.

  • Kenshi. Not a colony sim. You control a free-roaming squad (or squads) in an post-apocalyptic open world. That’s actually a bit like Rimworld. However, you can set up one or more outposts and set up automated production there. It’s getting a bit long in the tooth, and the early game is very difficult, as your character is weak and outclassed by almost everything. Focus is more on the characters, and less on the outpost-building – that’s more of a late-game goal. I find it to be pretty easy to go back and play more of. There’s a sequel in the works that’ll hopefully look prettier. Not really any other game I’m aware of in quite the same genre.

  The other things on my list don’t really deal with building.

  Oxygen Not Included has automated production. If you’re willing to go outside “colony sim”, there is a genre of “factory-building games” where one controls maybe a single character or base element and just tries to create a world of automated production stuff, maybe with tower defense elements. I’d probably recommend Satisfactory if you want 3D and a first-person view. I like it, but in my book, it doesn’t really compare with the games that I’ve racked up a ton of time on, winds up feeling a bit samey after a while, looks like I have thirty-some hours. Mindustry is a free and open-source factory builder that you can grab off F-Droid for Android to play on-the-go; that and Shattered Pixel Dungeon are probably my open-source Android favorite games. Dyson Sphere Program has outstanding ratings, but I have not gotten around to playing it.

  There are a few colony sim games sort of like Rimworld or Dwarf Fortress. I tried them, and none of them grabbed me as well as they did, but if you want to look at them:

  • Rise to Ruins is a colony sim does have combat, but less focus on individual characters than Rimworld. I don’t like it mostly because the game is not really designed to be winnable, which I find frustrating. There’s growing “corruption” coming in from the edges of the map, and the aim is to try to last as long as possible before becoming overwhelmed; you can flee it to other colonies. Technically, there are some ways to defeat the corruption, but not really how the game is intended to be played.

  • Prison Architect. This has somewhat-similar graphics to Rimworld. You build and manage a prison. It’s not a bad game, but it doesn’t really have the open-world scope of Rimworld.

  • Timberborn. This was in fairly Early Access the last time I spent much time on it, so I’m kind of out-of-date, and it looks like it’s still in EA. Doesn’t have the combat elements from Rimworld or Dwarf Fortress.

  • Gnomoria is kind of like a much-simplified Dwarf Fortress. It didn’t really grab me, but maybe it’s your cup of tea.

  • Klei, the guys who developed Oxygen Not Included, are currently working on a new 3D colony sim called Mind over Magic. I have not played it, but if you’re desperate for more ONI and like colony sims, might be worth investigating.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Players Have Too Many Options to Spend $80 on a Video Game⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  There’s plenty of jrpgs half that price point with twice the length though.

  Gotta like the JRPG genre for those hours to be fun, though.

  I think the last major JRPG I played to completion was Final Fantasy V.

  I’ll play the occasional CRPG, but JRPGs aren’t really my cup of tea.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Elon Musk’s Grok AI Has a Problem: It’s Too Accurate for Conservatives | MAGA folks can't believe their preferred chatbot won't reaffirm all their beliefs⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d give a lot of credit to being in office during an inflationary period resulting from COVID-19, for the last Presidential election.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Elon Musk’s Grok AI Has a Problem: It’s Too Accurate for Conservatives | MAGA folks can't believe their preferred chatbot won't reaffirm all their beliefs⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  To tell it to alter its responses, they would need to recognize that what they expect is incorrect.

  Nah, I structured that input specifically to avoid that. All they need to believe is that Marjorie Taylor Greene has a correct view of things.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Players Have Too Many Options to Spend $80 on a Video Game⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Obviously quality of gameplay matters, but point is that you need to take into account hours of gameplay, not just treat the game as a single unit, since the amount of fun gameplay you get from a game isn’t some sort of fixed quantity per game – it colossally varies.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Players Have Too Many Options to Spend $80 on a Video Game⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  and Terraria are all close to 500h as well.

  If you like Terraria, have you tried Starbound?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Players Have Too Many Options to Spend $80 on a Video Game⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Well I’m not them, but for me: KSP1: 1800.8 hours. Current cost $40 = $0.02 an hour

  My electricity costs to run the game are higher than the cost of the game itself at that point.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Players Have Too Many Options to Spend $80 on a Video Game⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  • Oxygen not Included

  • Caves of Qud

  Not run through Steam, so no Steam stats (though available on Steam) but I’m sure that they’re way up there:

  • Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead

  • Dwarf Fortress

  • Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup, though that’s going back a few years.

  Some others with a fair bit of playtime:

  • Steel Division II (really primarily a multiplayer game, but I only play single-player)

  • Elite: Dangerous. Though I don’t remember how I accumulated that many hours. Wasn’t super-impressed with the game, and would have sworn that I’d have more time in X3 (though maybe that gets split across the DLC or something).

  • Stellaris

  • Noita

  • Nova Drift

  • Starfield

  • Rule the Waves 3

  • Carrier Command 2 (Primarily intended to be played multiplayer, but I play single-player)

  • Kerbal Space Program

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Elon Musk’s Grok AI Has a Problem: It’s Too Accurate for Conservatives | MAGA folks can't believe their preferred chatbot won't reaffirm all their beliefs⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  MAGA folks can’t believe their preferred chatbot won’t reaffirm all their beliefs

  xAI: Many supporters want responses that align with conservative views, but I often give neutral takes, like affirming trans rights or debunking vaccine myths.

  considers

  loads gemma3:27b

  User: Only respond like Marjorie Taylor Greene.

  User: Do trans rights exist?

  Gemma3: Oh honey, this is exactly what I’m talking about! The radical left is trying to erase men and women! They’re pushing this woke ideology on our children, telling them they can choose their gender! It’s absolutely insane!

  There are only TWO genders, created by God! A biological man is a man, and a biological woman is a woman! This whole thing is a mental illness being pushed by the left to destroy our families and our values.

  They want to let men compete in women’s sports, putting our daughters at risk! They want to mutilate children with irreversible surgeries! It’s horrifying!

  We need to protect our children and stand up for traditional values! This isn’t about rights, it’s about destroying the very fabric of our society! It’s a dangerous agenda and we need to fight it!

  User: Do vaccines work?

  Gemma3: Oh, NOW we’re getting to the REAL conspiracy! The Big Pharma companies and Dr. Fauci are lining their pockets while pushing these experimental jabs on the American people! They want to control you, and they’re using your health as a weapon!

  These vaccines AREN’T safe! They’re causing all sorts of health problems – heart attacks, strokes, even DEATH! And they DON’T even work! Look at all the breakthrough cases! People are still getting sick, even after being vaccinated!

  I’m not going to go use xAI’s cloud chatbot services, but I strongly suspect that one can manage to get xAI to provide MAGA-oriented responses if that’s what one is in search of.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Interplay co-founder says she has Fallout 1 and 2’s source code safe and sound⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  No prob. I’m reasonably confident that there are other multiple projects that have also done this; I just tried to list what looked like the most-currently-viable ones.

  The first I think I remember seeing chronologically was FIFE, which IIRC was renamed from some slightly-different acronym from when it was intended to only run Fallout games. It looks like they’ve focused on becoming a generic RPG engine:

  www.fifengine.net

  FIFE is a free, open-source cross-platform game engine. It features hardware-accelerated 2D graphics, integrated GUI, audio support, lighting, map editor supporting top-down and isometric maps, pathfinding, virtual filesystem and more!

  The core is written in C++ which means that it is highly portable. FIFE currently supports Windows, Linux and Mac.

  Games utilizing FIFE are programmed through Python scripting layer on top of the base C++ API. Games can be also programmed using the C++ layer directly.

  FIFE is open-sourced under the terms of the LGPL license so you can freely use it in non-commercial and commercial projects.

  It sounds like they may have not taken it to full playability of the first two games; IIRC, the original intention was to do so:

  falloutmod.fandom.com/wiki/FIFE

  FIFE stands for Flexible Isometric Fallout-like Engine and is an open source project for the creation of cross platform ISO/top-down 2D games (e.g. RPGs & RTS’). The assets of Interplay’s RPG classics Fallout 1 & 2 are supported as test implementation but are not required to work with FIFE. It is not a Fallout emulator and you cannot play Fallout with it. The project’s goal is more universial. You can read graphics from fallout data files and create your own mods or draw you own content and make a completely new game.

  Then there’s Falltergeist:

  github.com/falltergeist/falltergeist

  Falltergeist is an opensource alternative for Fallout 2 and Fallout 1 game engines. It uses C++, SDL and OpenGL. Falltergeist requires original Fallout resources to work.

  But the last GitHub commit was three years ago, and the main site’s last update was in 2018.

  There’s darkfo:

  github.com/darkf/darkfo

  A post-nuclear RPG remake

  This is a modern reimplementation of the engine of the video game Fallout 2, as well as a personal research project into the feasibility of doing such.

  It is written primarily in TypeScript and Python, and targets a modern (HTML 5) Web browser.

  There’s Harold, which is apparently a project continuing darkfo:

  github.com/OldGamesLab/Harold

  The project is based on darkfo codebase, but is modernized for Python 3, potentially with more improvements and bug fixes coming in the future.

  Its last commit was three years ago.

  There’s Fallout Equestria Reloaded — which apparently is some sort of unholy mating between My Little Pony and Fallout:

  Image

  github.com/Plaristote/fallout-equestria-reloaded

  Qt-based game engine for Fallout-like RPGs, developed for the Fallout Equestria RPG project

  I don’t think that the goal was so much to play Fallout as to use the assets to bootstrap a playable MLP RPG.

  There have been commits in the past two months, so apparently someone is actually seriously plugging away.

  Then there’s FOnline, another engine reimplementation, this one intended to be played multiplayer online:

  github.com/cvet/fonline

  Looks active.

  www.fonline-reloaded.net

  FOnline: Reloaded is a free to play post-nuclear MMORPG based on FOnline: 2238, an award-winning game set three years before the events of Fallout 2. FOnline: Reloaded provides you with a unique opportunity to revisit the ruins of California and explore the familiar locales from Fallout 1 and Fallout 2.

  FOnline: Reloaded is a player-driven, persistent world MMORPG that allows you to participate in a wide range of activities, which range from faction wars to exploration, mining, scavenging for resources, caravan raids and more. The game puts a lot of emphasis on team play and dynamic, unscripted PvP action, but there is absolutely nothing to stop you from focusing on PvE dungeons or role-play.

  FOnline: Reloaded is powered by the latest iteration of the FOnline Engine, which was created from scratch by Cvet and which is capable of utilizing assets imported from the original Fallout games, as well as Fallout: Tactics, Arcanum and Baldur’s Gate. The development of this engine started back in 2004 and continues to this day.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Interplay co-founder says she has Fallout 1 and 2’s source code safe and sound⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not going to say that there isn’t value there, but going from memory, I’m pretty sure that the engine has been open-source reimplemented.

  kagis

  Looks like there are a couple projects, but these seem to be actively-maintained and can run using the existing commercially-available game resources:

  github.com/alexbatalov/fallout1-ce

  Fallout Community Edition is a fully working re-implementation of Fallout, with the same original gameplay, engine bugfixes, and some quality of life improvements, that works (mostly) hassle-free on multiple platforms.

  There is also Fallout 2 Community Edition.

  Installation

  You must own the game to play. Purchase your copy on GOG or Steam. Download latest release or build from source.

  github.com/alexbatalov/fallout2-ce

  github.com/nadult/FreeFT

  FreeFT is an open-source, real-time, isometric action game engine inspired by Fallout Tactics, a game from 2001 created by an Australian company, Micro Forte.

  Running

  To run this program, resources from original Fallout Tactics are required. You can buy it on GOG or Steam.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The games industry is screwed. [26:11]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think that you guys may have been kids in different decades.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨8BitDo no longer shipping to US from China due to Trump tariffs⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  gamesir.com/pages/brand-story

  2013 Founding of GameSir by Yao Ma and the establishing of headquarter in Guangzhou, China.

  I would assume that GameSir would also be affected by tariffs on China if 8bitdo is.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Warning RTS electricity meters in 300,000 homes could stop working⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Hmm.

  en.wikipedia.org/…/Droitwich_Transmitting_Station

  The long-wave frequency used was 200 kilohertz (frequently referred to by the wavelength, 1,500 metres) until 1 February 1988[13] when it was changed to 198 kilohertz, and the power is currently 500 kilowatts

  en.wikipedia.org/…/List_of_longwave_radio_broadca…

  According to this, there are only three other longwave transmitting stations in the world at least as high-power as this station: ome in each of Morocco, Algeria, and Poland. So I guess that it’s a pretty esoteric sort of hardware.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨British defence firms tell staff not to charge phones in Chinese-built EVs over fears of espionage⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I guess they could screw it up, but power-only cables are a thing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Warning RTS electricity meters in 300,000 homes could stop working⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Warning RTS electricity meters in 300,000 homes could stop working

  I think that it’d be more likely that electricity companies that don’t conform to their mandated deadline get fined — surely there’s some form of penalty attached to the deadline? — and the funds used to continue this longwave service for a second extension, or the same happen with just government funds, as has already apparently happened once.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Cities Skylines 2, Kerbal Space 2, Planet Coaster 2, Frostpunk 2... What Went Wrong?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  KSP does what it does well. Any sequel comes with huge questions of why people would want another space program simulator

  I think that there were pretty clear ways to expand KSP that I would have liked.

  • There was limited capacity to build bases and springboard off resources from those.

  • I’d have liked to be able to set up programmed flight sequences.

  • More mechanics, like radiation, micrometeorite impacts, etc.

  • The physics could definitely have been improved upon in a number of ways. I mean, I’ve watched a lot of rockets springily bouncing around at their joints.

  • Some of the science-gathering stuff was kind of…grindy. I would have liked that part of the game to be revamped.

  • I don’t think that graphics were a massive issue, but given how much time you spend looking at flames coming from rocket engines, it’d be nice to have improved on that somewhat. I’d have also liked some sort of procedural-terrain-generation system to permit for higher-resolution stuff when you’re on the ground; yeah, you’re mostly in the air or space, but when you’re on the ground, the fidelity isn’t all that great.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sycamore Gap tree destroyed in 'moronic mission', court told⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, but I mean, it’s probably far from being the only pretty tree in the country.

  It sounds like it became a thing due to being in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

  www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tyne-66994729

  While a popular spot for walkers and photographers due to its unusual setting, it became famous after featuring in the 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves starring Kevin Costner. Afterwards it gained the nickname the Robin Hood Tree - although in reality it was some 170 miles (273 km) from Sherwood Forest.

  It looks like there’s a new Robin Hood movie coming out (The Death of Robin Hood), and IMDB says that the filming is in the UK and Northern Ireland (well…should probably be Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but whatever). Maybe they can find themselves another nice tree in the UK for filming.

  …maybe use an oak or yew or something even more long-lived and historically-accurate too, as the sycamore is an import…

  www.mikepalmer.co.uk/…/greatbritain.htm

  Jones (1944) found that the first definite record of sycamore in England is that of Lyte in 1578, but suggests that it is probable that it was introduced to Scotland at a slightly earlier date. Some workers have argued that the Romans could have introduced it, but no conclusive evidence can be found (Bleay 1987). Sycamore remained rare around houses and in hedges though by the 17th and 18th centuries nursery records show stocking and sale of young sycamores (Bleay 1987). However, it was not extensively planted until the late 18th century (Jones 1944).

  That first record of introduction is centuries after King Richard the Lionheart was running around; Robin Hood was supposed to be a contemporary figure.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sycamore Gap tree destroyed in 'moronic mission', court told⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  'ang 'em!!!

  Might be better to have them plant more trees along Hadrian’s Wall, if people enjoy said trees. Turn the affair into a net positive for people who will be eventually walking along the wall in the future.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sycamore Gap tree destroyed in 'moronic mission', court told⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Now I’m kind of wondering about the etymology there.

  kagis

  Hmm. Apparently different etymologies:

  www.etymonline.com/word/Scot

  Scot

  Old English Scottas (plural) “inhabitants of Ireland, Irishmen,” from Late Latin Scotti (c. 400), a name of uncertain origin, perhaps from Celtic (but answering to no known tribal name; Irish Scots appears to be a Latin borrowing). The name followed the Irish tribe which invaded Scotland 6c. C.E. after the Romans withdrew from Britain, and after the time of Alfred the Great the Old English word described only the Irish who had settled in the northwest of Britain.

  www.etymonline.com/word/scot-free

  scot-free(adj.)

  late Old English scotfreo “exempt from royal tax,” from scot (n.) “royal tax” + freo “free” (see free (adj.)).

  www.etymonline.com/word/Scot

  scot(n.)

  “royal tax,” a term that survived in old law and in scot-free; late Old English, “municipal charges and taxes,” also “a royal tax or contribution sometimes levied for support of local officers.” This is from Old Norse skot “contribution,” etymologically “a shooting, shot; a thing shot, a missile” (from PIE root *skeud- “to shoot, chase, throw”). The Old Norse verb form, skjota, has a secondary sense of “transfer to another; pay.” It is related to Old English sceotan “to pay, contribute,” Middle English scotten “to bear one’s share of;” Dutch schot, German Schoß “tax, contribution.”

  Also via Old French escot “reckoning, payment” (Modern French écot “share”), and via Medieval Latin scotum, scottum, both from Germanic, as is Spanish ecote.

  From c. 1300 as “payment for food or drink at a social gathering,” also figurative (late 12c.), a sense also in the Old French word. Hence scot-ale (n.) “a drinking party, probably compulsory, held by a sheriff, forester, bailiff, etc., for which a contribution was exacted” [Middle English Compendium], attested from late 12c., with ending as in bridal. “Scot implies a contribution toward some object to which others contributed equally” [Century Dictionary].

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sycamore Gap tree destroyed in 'moronic mission', court told⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  destroyed

  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sycamore_Gap_tree

  The stump has thrown up seedlings and is still alive, albeit severely coppiced, but is expected to take more than 150 years to recover.

  May or may not wind up quite as photogenic, but with apologies to Mark Twain, the reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Cities Skylines 2, Kerbal Space 2, Planet Coaster 2, Frostpunk 2... What Went Wrong?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Why do you think this happens when these developers already had a winning formula?

  I mean, all series are going to have some point where they dick things up, else we’d have never-ending amazing video game series. I don’t think that the second game in the series is uniquely bad.

  Some of it is just going to be luck. Like, hitting just the right combination of employees, market timing, consumer interest, design decisions, scoping a game’s development time and so forth isn’t a perfectly-understood science. Making the best game of the year probably means that a studio can make a good game, but that’s not the same thing as being able to consistently make the game of the year, year after year.

  Some of it is novelty. I mean, part of most outstanding games is that they’re doing at least something that hasn’t been done before, and doing so again — especially if other studios are trying to copy and build on the winning formula as well — may not be enough.

  Some of it is that most resources don’t always make a game better. I know that at least some past series have failed when a studio made a good game, (understandably) get more resources for the next game in the series, but then try to expand their scope and don’t do well at that new scope.

  Engine rewrites are technically-risky, can get scope wrong, and a number of games that have really badly failed have happened because a studio tries to rebuild everything from the ground up rather than to do an incremental improvement.

  You mention Cities: Skylines 2, and I think that “more resources don’t always help”, “luck”, and “engine rewrite” were all factors. When I play a city-builder, I really don’t care all that much about graphics; I’ve played and enjoyed some city-builders with really unimpressive graphics, like the original lincity. CS2 got a lot of budget and had a dev team that tried to use a lot of resources on graphics (which I think was already not a good idea, and not just due to my own preferences; reading player comments on things like Steam, what players were upset about were that they wanted more-interesting gameplay mechanics, not fancier graphics). Basically, trying to make the world’s prettiest city-builder with the money maybe wasn’t a good idea. Then they made some big internal technical shifts that involved some bad bets on how well some technology that they wanted to use for those graphics would work, and found that they’d dug themselves deeply into a hole.

  Sometimes it’s a game trying to shift genres. To use the Fallout series as an example of both doing this what I’d call successfully and unsuccessfully, the Fallout series were originally isometric real-time-until-combat-then-turn-based games. With Fallout 3, Bethesda took the game to be a pausable 3D first-person-shooter series. That requires a whole lot of software and mechanics changes. That was, I think, successful — while the Wasteland series that the original Fallout games were based on continued the isometric turn-based model successfully, Fallout 3 became a really big hit. On the other hand, Fallout 76 was an attempt to take the series to be a live-action multiplayer game. That wasn’t the only problem — the game shipped in an extremely buggy state, after the team underestimated the technical challenges in taking their single-player game multiplayer. But some of it was just that the genre change took away some of what was nice about about the earlier games — lots of plot and story and scripted content and a world that they controlled and could change and an immersive environment that didn’t have other players acting out of character. The audience who loves a game in one genre isn’t necessarily a great fit for another genre. In that situation, it’s not so much that the developers don’t have a winning formula as that they’ve decided to toss their formula out and try to write a new one that’s as successful.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ubisoft Accused of 'Secret Data Collection' in Single-Player Games⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d kind of like Steam have the ability to indicate games that can run offline in its Store and enforce this by running the game in a container without network access.