HarkMahlberg
@HarkMahlberg@kbin.earth
People keep asking me, and I haven't really had an answer, but now yeah, I'm thinking I'm back.
- Comment on [Jacob Geller, Ace Combat] I Am Turning Myself Into a Video Game Plane 17 hours ago:
There's a really fantastic YouTube comment that I don't know if I'll ever find again but NewPipe made it easy to copy it's content, so here it is.
When I left high school 27 years ago, all I wanted to do was be a pilot. I went to flight school and got a commercial pilot's licence just in time for 9/11 to happen and end that career before it started. In the years since, one of the things that I've studied is the cultural phenomenon of cybernetics (which is a relatively new term for a positively ancient human behaviour).
Humans have an exceptional ability to concieve of our self extending past the physical matter that makes up human biology; it's probably the most critical tool we have as a species to develop and use complex technology. The whole idea that "the sword is an extension of the swordsman's arm" isn't a bit of fiction or flowery metaphor; it's exactly how humans psychologically and neurologically process how we use technology. The glasses that I wear aren't a piece of plastic and glass external to my self, they are as much a part of my system of vision as my eyeballs or my visual cortex. Remove them, and I feel their absence like a lost limb.
It isn't computerized implants under the skin that makes a human into a cyborg, it's the psychological process that incorporates human-created ideas and objects into one's identity. I sit behind the wheel of my car, and I don't percieve of myself as a lump of flesh within an external machine. The machine becomes an extension of my will, my mobility, and my interactions with the world. I don't percieve the vibrations of the seat against my skin and bones, I feel the friction of the tires against the road. I don't think about turning the steering wheel to change directions the same way I don't think about the microflexing of my abdominal muscles to maintain ballance as I turn my head while walking. The line between the biochemical mass and the mechanical machine blurs in my consciousness untill I literally feel the pain of a tree branch scraping against the paint on the door.
The human consciousness is incredibly plastic and can (and regularly does) embody things beyond it's biological self, usually without our awareness or explicit intent to do so. Loosing your phone feels like you're loosing the fingers on a hand. Getting disconected from the internet can make you feel like you've lost a physical sense, like suddenly being blind or deaf. It would be an absolute "boomerism" to say that this generation is weak without their technology, but approach someone from an older generation and take away all their writing utensils and say they can never make a mark on paper ever again and watch them panic. It's not a weakness, it's how human psychology has evolved to maximize and optimize our use of tools: to make those tools the extension of the self.
And Ace Combat and video games are not the first time we have made these tool-extended selves for purely entertainment. This is the same psychological mechanism behind all sport. The plane is an extension of yourself in Ace Combat, the same way the bat is an extension of the baseball player's arms, the same way the football player's pads become a second skin, the same way a thrown ball or stick becomes an extension of the ancient olympian's self. It's the same way we feel the thrill of victory or the sting of defeat when your favourite professional sports team does or doesn't get a higher number on your TV screen. Selfhood and identity are complicated things, and they don't end where your skin meets the air.
- Submitted 21 hours ago to gaming@beehaw.org | 1 comment
- Comment on Supermassive Games announces layoffs, up to 75 positions to be affected 1 week ago:
I'm surprised these two never got into a trademark dispute...
- Comment on 1 week ago:
I completed Drakengard for PS2 a couple days ago.
I'm sorry for your loss. XD
- Comment on Payday 2 is getting updates again from the looks of it 4 weeks ago:
It's also incredibly scripted. If you down a guard, use fly cheats, and drop his body bag out of bounds, you will see a new guard spawn in the map and attempt to B-line it to the body bag's position. Even if you and your team play perfectly, the game goes out of its way to force a fight. The harder missions are not stealth-able despite seeming that way at the outset.
- Comment on Payday 2 is getting updates again from the looks of it 4 weeks ago:
As someone who played this game, did not buy any DLC, and eventually pirated all the DLC, I can tell you the game is not balanced if you
A) don't have a group of 3 friends to play with,
B) don't buy at least some of the DLC,
and C) don't get some of the good DLC weapon mods as random drops.That's right, you buy the DLC and then get a CHANCE to get the content you paid for by succeeding at a mission. You only get 1 drop per mission, and it could be armor, clothing, masks, mask paint, and weapon mods. Grinding out the few solo-able/stealth-able missions for more drops becomes an enormous chore.
I don't miss this game. Interesting to see it getting resurrected, but they'd have to really fix the loot system.
- Comment on Nvidia finally reveals what controls devs actually have for DLSS 5, and don't worry folks, there are TWO main sliders to control the AI filter 4 weeks ago:
Speech to text took "doubt they're ever" and gave you "doubt the river*?
- Comment on Former Valve writer says PlayStation killing physical discs is no conspiracy: "You, the consumer, have made your choice, and the choice is for digital" 4 weeks ago:
In this sense, Chet is right, the 'democracy' of consumers has prevailed, and the people have spoken. They said 'digital.' I myself have been a PC gamer for over a decade now and I can't remember the last time I bought physical media.
"You as the consumer have forced the large corporations hand, and you've told them 'Stop with retail.'"
But then Chet shows his entire rancid asshole by actively ignoring the power dynamics between corporation and customer. The corporation always has the upper hand because the customer CAN ONLY buy what the corporation is OFFERING to sell. The corporation is always, at all times, presenting the customer with a false choice. A customer who has shitty internet and has to purchase all physical media, they may be in the democratic minority but that doesn't mean we feed them to the wolves. But an ex-Valve writer wouldn't know shit about that, they haven't shipped a physical game since Portal 2. What choice did you give consumers for Counterstrike, 2023? Half Life Alyx, 2020? **Dota, 2013? **
Once you, apparently, regretted your decision to invest almost entirely in digital, you didn't start buying Crimson Desert discs while you could, nor did you abstain from making digital purchases altogether. Now it's too late, says Faliszek.
Suck my dick, clown.
- Comment on There Is No Reason To Buy Another PlayStation Or Xbox 1 month ago:
It's funny, the Steam Machine has a weird identity problem.
We talk about it like it's a PC, and what a detriment it is to not be able to upgrade the GPU, like why else do you have a PC. But you can't upgrade console GPU's either. And it's still a plug-in-and-play box, no building required.
We also talk about it like it's a console, and what a detriment it is that a console costs over a thousand dollars and is digital-only. But the next generation consoles are almost certainly going to be as expensive if not more, with no disc drive either.
The SM is a glass half full and a glass half empty. It's the best of both consoles and PC's, or the worst of both worlds.
- Submitted 1 month ago to gaming@beehaw.org | 17 comments
- Comment on PlayStation’s Physical Media-Free Future Isn’t Just Concerning, It’s Offensive 1 month ago:
They basically put all their eggs in the Gamepass basket, and Gamepass sure as hell wasn't physical discs. If it was, it would just be Blockbuster... which is actually kinda funny to think about.
- Comment on Android Developer Verification: Threat masquerading as Protection 1 month ago:
Check his profile, as a tankie he has supreme authority on what goes on in other fediverse instances.
- Comment on End of an era? 1 month ago:
I hope you don't misunderstand me by my saying "something" to imply it's anything substantial, significant, or even good. I'm very anti-AI in all aspects of our lives, just so you know where I'm coming from.
Yes, the theft of intellectual property and art to train AI models is in keeping with their laziness, and yes, the models don't improve our lives in any way. But they can't exactly steal the electricity needed to power data centers, nor can they steal the silicon required to manufacture all the CPU's, GPU's, SSD's, and RAM they require. All those things are enormous capex and opex, and that's what I mean by "something."
That's a lot of work they're doing to push AI, and the only plan I can think of to recoup those costs is to expect taxpayers to foot the bill: they want municipalities to pay for the increase in electricity costs, cover the pollution and devastation their DC's generate, all without creating jobs and opportunities in the region (because why would they pay labor a fair share, yuck). And the finale, when all those investments fail to generate any profit they want a government bailout to keep from going belly up.
I just don't think any of that is worth the effort you know what I mean?
- Comment on End of an era? 1 month ago:
Welp, I'm the fucking idiot today lol. Thanks!
- Comment on End of an era? 1 month ago:
I agree with you, but then isn't it strange that AI does a whole lot of something instead of nothing? Like, the high amount of effort they put into making AI a big thing runs counter to the laziness of getting paid to do nothing.
Though I guess they ARE getting paid doing nothing, with how many data centers are getting cancelled.
- Comment on End of an era? 1 month ago:
So was Enron? I'm not sure why you chose 1993, companies have been shitty across all of time and space.
- Comment on Physical disc production ending in January 2028 for new games releasing on PlayStation consoles 1 month ago:
Microsoft may not even have a next gen console, let alone one with a disc drive.
- Comment on WTF Balatro take 2 1 month ago:
If you're trying Plasma gold stake, keep an eye out for Wee Joker. I have a hunch that it can scale hard enough if you thin/fill your deck with 2's and grab every Mars you can afford.
- Comment on WTF Balatro take 2 1 month ago:
Give it 5 minutes, his luck might change.
- Comment on WTF Balatro take 2 1 month ago:
I somehow lost a gold stake run on Erratic deck that started with 10 8's and 8 Kings. Jokers on game over were Rough Jem, Hanging Chad, Constellation, Blueprint, and Baron. I had 15 Kings of Diamond, 10 more Kings of other suits, 3 Kings were steel, and I was playing Flush House level 9 (Kings full of 8s). Best hand scored 1.5 million. Died on ante 8 Big Blind, couldn't draw enough steel kings.
I don't even know anymore. If you don't have a fist full of RSSK's by ante 3 then I don't think you can make it.
- Comment on ESA bafflingly declares private Minecraft servers 'illegal' 1 month ago:
The biggest bullies who suffer the slightest jabs always cry the hardest.
- Comment on ESA bafflingly declares private Minecraft servers 'illegal' 1 month ago:
They don't know the difference. Oh, you're right, that was easy.
- Comment on GTA 6 Price Finally Confirmed, Features a 'Single-Player Experience' at Launch 1 month ago:
Give him some slack, double negatives can be challenging for some people.
- Comment on ‘Grand Theft Auto VI’ Going Digital-Only Is a Car Crash for Physical Media 1 month ago:
I mean I love the idea of a physical library of branded thumb drives - in an alternate universe, USB would be fast enough to stream an entire game from a thumb drive, and your entire game library would be stored in bespoke furniture, like this cassette container.
But yeah, every big tech boom is followed by a big tech bust: dotcoms, crypto, VR/metaverse. AI will eventually join their ranks, it may just take longer than we would hope. And when it does, the price of hardware will eventually stabilize, with software to follow.
- Comment on ‘Grand Theft Auto VI’ Going Digital-Only Is a Car Crash for Physical Media 1 month ago:
If there's any optimistic "stick it to the man" future to be dreamed of, it's one where publishers go back to shipping Big Box-style packages, with 3-5 Blu Ray discs. But even that is woefully unrealistic - Rockstar is just cementing what Valve has known for years: why pay for packaging when the player just downloads the whole game anyway.
- Comment on ‘Grand Theft Auto VI’ Going Digital-Only Is a Car Crash for Physical Media 1 month ago:
Dear god, I can't imagine a game publisher wanting to distribute SSD's with their games on them. The price of memory is skyrocketing right now -- not just RAM, but solid state flash storage too.
Chad Kroeger wants you to look at this graaaaph and weep.
- Comment on 1 month ago:
Sorry, Santa Monica is locked into God of War like it's a 30 year mortgage.
- Comment on Microsoft Announces Significant Price Rises for Xbox Series X and S, 2TB Model Discontinued 1 month ago:
"Sorry I didn't hear you, did you say make it slop? Say no more chief!"
- Microsoft
- Comment on Microsoft Announces Significant Price Rises for Xbox Series X and S, 2TB Model Discontinued 1 month ago:
- Comment on GTA 6 Price Finally Confirmed, Features a 'Single-Player Experience' at Launch 1 month ago:
I learned we have a word(s) for those people now: Ball and Gun Gamers