PunchingWood
@PunchingWood@lemmy.world
- Comment on Black Myth: Wukong is your Ultimate Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards 2024 2 hours ago:
#NotMyUltimateGame
All kidding aside, I personally enjoyed Helldivers 2 most this year. I had a good feeling about the game before it launched, but it was nice to have it confirmed. I tried Black Myth, but it’s really not my type of game, just feels like yet another Sould-like game like so many others to me.
- Comment on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl | Review Thread 1 day ago:
- Comment on For me, Cyberpunk 2077 was uninteractive and has low replayablility value. 3 days ago:
Maybe they felt it would have pushed the Keanu introduction too deep into the game?
I was thinking that too. I think during development it might’ve shifted, since I think Keanu originally wasn’t in the game, and they wanted to make him part of the game quite early on.
I would’ve liked if they had extended the Jackie chapter and moved the Silverhand arc to a later act. It would’ve meant that people would just be dropped in the game and let them explore the world carelessly before the story kicks up to next gear. But they probably realised that the game wasn’t good enough to pull off the open-world part, so they decided to get on with the sory right off the start.
- Comment on For me, Cyberpunk 2077 was uninteractive and has low replayablility value. 3 days ago:
I always felt like the game was originally never meant to be an open-world game, it’s as if they were going for a mission-to-mission corridor kind of game and wrapped up a world around it to walk around in at a later phase. And many things in the game actually reinforce that idea.
I played the game at launch and the game was absolutely infested with stupid and annoying bugs, so eventually I just skipped all side stuff and just wrapped up the main story, I think that was about half-way through. Back then the open-world most definitely felt like an afterthought.
No events were happening in the world, there were entire parts of the city that were dead and empty. There were even areas blocked off by doors that were “locked” and implied there was something behind it, but some of those places I could just clip through and fall through the world because there was literally nothing behind the door.
There were few things that made it seem like an actual living world, NPCs were just wandering aimlessly, doing nothing. Just making a cool looking area and then dropping a load of copy/paste NPC clones in there doesn’t make a good open-world. If you comitted a crime the police would just spawn behind you, wherever you were. While in contrast some of the story areas seemed more detailed and have more “scripted” things happening, which is part of why I think the game wasn’t originally open-world.
Gameplay wise it was not that special either, gunplay was okay, melee felt quite unsatisfying, and outside of combat there was practically nothing to do other than just driving around. Also the skill tree barely mattered, there were even skills like being able to breathe underwater longer, even though there wasn’t any underwater content, aside from one Judy mission I believe (which I didn’t get because she wasn’t accessible as a romance option to my character).
The only saving grace of this game was that parts of the story and characters were somewhat interesting, I liked the concept and style of the game. But it felt like a bad game when it came to actual gameplay.
I’ve been trying to get back in the game a couple of times, but it often just feels so lifeless and lacks any depth.
- Comment on PS5 Pro is struggling to improve some games, despite its power advantage 3 days ago:
Games don’t need to be PS5 exclusive to be PS5 Pro enhanced.
- Comment on PS5 Pro is struggling to improve some games, despite its power advantage 3 days ago:
Or they gonna introduce GPU attachments instead of the disc drive lmao
But seriously, it’s beyond sad how awful this “upgrade” is. First it’s an insane price for minimal upgrade, there are no new games to even make use of this, and now even older games can’t properly make use of the better hardware. The whole reason to even upgrade dimishes really quick, and it wasn’t even worth it in the first place.
- Comment on US Senator Warner Presses Valve to Crack Down on Hateful Accounts and Rhetoric Proliferating on Steam 4 days ago:
Feels like the Steam community groups and discussions are so massive that it’s going to be an impossible job to start managing it now, unless they just nuke the entire thing and start over.
- Comment on What are your favorite 1000+ hour games? 4 days ago:
I’ve also mostly enjoyed online multiplayer games, but I play a bit of everything. I think these are the games I’ve played most in order it must be:
World of WarCraft - Been at it since a year or so after it originally launched. Played a lot of Guild Wars 1 before that, and also lots of other MMO games before and in between, but WoW is the one I always keep coming back to. Longest break must’ve been like 6-7 years around the Cataclysm expansion, and then back at it at the end of Legion. It’s on the back burner now again because of another mediocre expansion, but I still check it out occasionally. I think I must’ve sank at least 5000+ hours (probably way more) into this game over the past 20 years.
Elite Dangerous - Been backing it since Kickstarter, had high hoped for the game and it was fun while it lasted. But I lost all hope in Frontier in managing this game. They’re only focusing heavily on microtransactions, currencies and paid early access content now. Must’ve been about 1500-2500 hours or something, but I’ve been out of this one for a couple of years now. I had high hopes for the future of this game, but Frontier is a master of promising glory and delivering disappointment.
Squad - Last, but certainly not least for me, around 1400 hours playtime (including the testing branch client). Got into this game right when it launched into early access on Steam. Was very tired of the themepark rides that Battlefield and CoD were turning into, but didn’t want to commit to Arma’s milsim style either. Squad fits in between perfectly. Also one of the greatest game communities I’ve got the pleasure to be playing with, never had so much fun with completely random strangers. The mandatory voice-chat really ties it together to create amazing and fun moments. This game really taught me that voice chat in games can actually be good, and not just kids spitting insults.
- Comment on question(s) about etiquette in MMORPGs 6 days ago:
I’ve played WoW basically since it ever came out like 19/20 years ago, just after Guild Wars 1 and among many other MMOs for shorter times. And communication in MMORPGs has definitely been a lot better back in the days, or at least felt more engaged than it does now. Now it’s often been difficult to get people to talk, even after like a good dungeon run people will often just leave without having said an entire word the entire dungeon. It’s not as chatty as it used to be back in the days, and a lot of people are the toxic type that only respond when something goes wrong.
I think your best bet would be to join guilds in these games. I used to be in great guilds as well, where everyone could talk to each other in guild chat, but it kinda devolved into an alternative looking-for-group chat over the years since most guilds just invite anyone to get the guild bonusses and have easier access to people wanting to do raids and dungeons and stuff.
Guilds often don’t feel like the band of friends they used to be, and more like a collection of people doing the same type of content. It’s like most players just treat MMO games like a second job, they log in, do their chores, and log off again. But you can get lucky and run into a great guild that’s more casual, it heavily depends on the game and servers though.
In the past years I found that local chat is mostly used by roleplayers, WoW has a few servers where a lot of roleplayers flock to, and it really helped make the world feel alive as well. As for everyday non-RP chat, it just feels like most MMO games turned into a singleplayer game where you run around doing your own thing, with a lot of other people that are also playing their own game.
I do think that free-to-play games are worse when it comes to communication though, since anyone can hop in, and it often attracts the most toxic entitled people. The paywall with games like World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy Online definitely help filter out the majority of them though.
On a side note, I often play shooters as well. And I really hated voice chat in basically all of them, since most of them were just kids screaming vile things about mothers and what not, so I just ended up turning it off. Eventually I started playing Squad, which is a more serious Battlefield type of game with voice chat that attracts a more mature audience. At first I was a bit hesitant to use voice chat at all, but now I absolutely love talking with random players and couldn’t imagine the game without voice chat, most fun I’ve had with complete strangers in any game.
Sometimes it’s just a step to get over, and it gets easier. It’s worth giving it a shot in the games you play, but I would say it’s more likely to have a better experience outside of free-to-play games since there’s a lower chance of running into toxic players ruining the vibe.
- Comment on Tom Hardy's Splinter Cell Movie Is Officially Dead 6 days ago:
I bet it’s a major reason why they decided to drop it.
Unless they’d pair it with a new game. Wasn’t the last one over 10 years ago?
- Comment on Tom Hardy's Splinter Cell Movie Is Officially Dead 6 days ago:
Oh well, can’t be disappointed about something I didn’t even know was in the works lol
- Comment on Ohshitohshitohshit 6 days ago:
Imagine tripping in the water with that thing on
- Comment on Warcraft Rumble, Blizzard's first new RTS in years, will finally shed its mobile shackles and come to PC in December 1 week ago:
Oh finally!
Said nobody.
- Comment on Warcraft 1 and 2 Remastered and the long-awaited 2.0 patch update for Warcraft 3: Reforged have just launched on PC for Warcraft's 30th anniversary 1 week ago:
Got into it yesterday, there’s a toggle to switch between old and new graphics during gameplay. And there’s also an option for original or updated music, it was an instant nostalgia kick lol
- Comment on Warcraft 1 and 2 Remastered and the long-awaited 2.0 patch update for Warcraft 3: Reforged have just launched on PC for Warcraft's 30th anniversary 1 week ago:
I love the old games but I wish that unit pathing and attacking would’ve been updated a little. Or at least for the remastered version, or have it an option in the settings.
Another thing that always bothered me a bit was the max amount of selected units in many older RTS games. Sometimes it’s limited by the UI too, but they could update that as well.
- Comment on Warcraft Remastered Battle Chest Launch Trailer 1 week ago:
Fuck yes.
WC1 and 2 were such a huge part of my youth, and also me learning English.
- Comment on Phil Spencer Confirms Xbox is Planning an Xbox Handheld, But It's a Few Years Away 1 week ago:
Never say never.
Who knows what happens when someone else takes the helm at Valve, might not be too long either. Lots of companies see a massive shift in company policies once a new CEO takes over. Hopefully it’ll be someone that upholds the same integrity as Gabe.
- Comment on Freelance Video Game Journalists Are Propping Up The Industry, And Many Are Being Paid Dogshit In Return 1 week ago:
It’s all about the money. When they give honest bad reviews they’ll end up not being invited to play early review copies, thus missing out and falling behind on the wave.
I think true journalism hardly exists anymore. Feels like most genuine reviews come from people that aren’t paid to do the reviews by either the site/magazine publisher they’re working for or the developer/publisher offering the game for review.
So many articles on big websites feel like they read entirely like AI-generated content. Some don’t even bother to hide it, they might just as well be old school RSS-feeds at this point.
- Comment on ARC Raiders | Gameplay Reveal 1 week ago:
I thought I was going crazy, because I definitely felt like the impressions I got a couple of years ago definitely seemed more like a Destiny type of game.
Could still be fun but it seemed like a weird shift.
- Comment on ARC Raiders | Gameplay Reveal 1 week ago:
I saw this title a couple of times during conferences in the past years and I liked the general atmosphere and style, but I had absolutely no clue what kind of gameplay to expect.
Now that I seen it, it reminds me of The Division in a different theme. Was expecting a whole different kind of game for some reason. Can’t say the gameplay looks very interesting though, seems quite basic and bland, especially comparing to the Division games. Might still check it out since I like the style and theme.
- Comment on Windows 7 and 8 now dead for gaming, as new Steam update pulls support 1 week ago:
Well W7 is practically 15 years old, and already stopped receiving updates itself. It’s not really up to Steam to keep it up and running if even Microsoft no longer bothers to update the OS, they also had to let it go at some point.
I don’t think anyone cares about W8 though, not even Microsoft itself barely seemed to put effort in making it work.
- Comment on Can you draw a perfect circle? 1 week ago:
No issues yet lol
- Comment on Can you draw a perfect circle? 1 week ago:
GG ez
- Comment on Can you draw a perfect circle? 1 week ago:
- Comment on Why are most mobile games trash? 1 week ago:
I feel like the best time for mobile games was back around 2009/2010 when touchscreen just became good and most stuff was either free or paid and without intrusive ads and monetization or other predatory bullcrap.
I recently tried Angry Birds 2, and I was baffled it would only take a few levels before I had to buy my way to more “ammunition” to keep playing. The original used to be good, I even wouldn’t have minded if there was like an ad between games, but even that isn’t an alternative option anymore. And they also pulled the original from the stores, I thought they had re-released it before, but couldn’t find it either. And also when I first opened the game there was so much shit on screen that it was even difficult to navigate to just even find the actual game, it’s absolutely fucking ridiculous.
- Comment on Skyrim Is 13 Years Old, But Elder Scrolls 6 Is Nowhere in Sight While Bethesda’s First Four Games Took Only 12 Years 1 week ago:
I’ve said it before, and I believe that Bethesda is going to completely mess up TES6.
There are several issues with Bethesda, the major problem being they seem to have lost all creativity and they’re trying to apply the same old formula to every single game with minimal changes. Then hope that modders will keep it on life support. And sadly that’s how I found myself having to play their games, because without many mods it was often awful to play on PC, and I still didn’t have fun thanks to repetitive content and forgettable story and characters.
Another is that they’re clinging on to that damn dilapidated game engine of theirs like it’s their precious baby. It’s an awful engine, insanely outdated, limited and performs terribly. Starfield is a great example of how awful it is, but every game before that has had major performance issues and limitations as well.
The only redeeming feature might be that TES6 probably won’t be a procedurally generated world. They really showed how repetitive and boring it can get with procedural generation. And a handcrafted world would have so much more character. They could perhaps use the procedural engine for dungeons, and enemies and their bases, or items found through the world, but not the world itself.
But I’m afraid it’s just going to be a near Skyrim carbon-copy. It’ll likely be an okay looking game with an okay looking game world, but I bet gameplay will be mostly unaltered from what they’ve been doing for over 20 years. Same old basic combat, same talking heads with lifeless animations, same sneaking and magic gameplay, etc.
- Comment on Skyrim Is 13 Years Old, But Elder Scrolls 6 Is Nowhere in Sight While Bethesda’s First Four Games Took Only 12 Years 1 week ago:
Yeah, but not thanks to Bethesda though.
- Comment on The price of the PS5 Pro “has not had a negative impact” on console sales, says Sony president - GAMESCENSOR 1 week ago:
Well he says he “thinks” it hasn’t had a negative impact. It’s not even been a week though lol
I also think it will never negatively impact the console sales. It’s just another product on top of already ongoing console sales.
Whether it’s actually profitable, considering the production cost and all, is something different though.
- Comment on World of Warcraft's monetization seems to be getting way more aggressive 1 week ago:
The amount you complain about WoW you should probably just quit the game, if you’re even playing it. Also why do you keep making topics and then deleting them? You complained about subscriptions, and now you’re complaining about optional additional cosmetic content.
Like 99% of the community likely doesn’t care about promotional stuff. You can just pay the game and subscription and get access to all gameplay features just fine. If someone spends hundreds of bucks to get some useless promotional item, then let them. It doesn’t affect my gameplay.
Yeah, you can buy a mount from the store that saves you like a 2 minute walk or flight to your closest auction house, ironically I’ve never ever seen anyone even use these mounts outside of the cities that have actual auction houses, they’re usually just next to a mailbox or bank across the street of the auction house.
The fact that these things sell is probably one reason why subscriptions in the past 20 years haven’t rising in the first place.
- Comment on World of Warcraft's monetization seems to be getting way more aggressive 1 week ago:
Yeah and he keeps deleting his posts if they don’t perform well and he gets called out for them.
Honestly should just be banned for botting at this point.
