rtxn
@rtxn@lemmy.world
I take my shitposts very seriously.
- Comment on A cool feature/mechanic you want to see in games again 3 days ago:
My opinion is the exact opposite. Narrative games, even action shooters, need to have high action and low action parts in balance. If high action segments are excessive, it can lead to combat fatigue. If low action parts are excessive, the player gets bored and the pacing dies.
Half-Life 2 E1, the “Low Lives” chapter, has probably the most stressful combat in the game because the player has to balance so many things. Shooting the zombies attacking Gordon versus helping Alyx fight. Helping Alyx versus keeping the flashlight charged. All of that in oppressive darkness. Combat fatigue sets in. The short puzzle segments, even as simple as crawling through a vent to flip a switch, are opportunities to take a breath, absorb the environment, and prepare for the next segment – especially at the end of that particular chapter, when the player escapes the zombies and has a chance to wind down.
At the same time, puzzles, by their slower nature, are excellent for delivering narrative and player training, and to let the player absorb the atmosphere. Alyx’s first encounter with the stalkers in “Undue Alarm” wouldn’t have had the same emotional impact if the player could just pop them in the head and move on.
In contrast, most of “Highway 17” is just a prolonged vehicle-based puzzle. By the time the player reaches the large railway bridge, they might be sick of driving. I know I was. It’s a relief to finally engage in some platforming and long-range combat while traversing the bridge.
So what are the narrative values of my two examples? The cinderblock seesaw in “Route Kanal” is just player training. A show, don’t tell method to let the player know that physics puzzles will be a factor. It’s also a short break after the on-foot chase, before the encounter with the hunter chopper. In “Water Hazard”, the contraptions serve a larger narrative purpose: they’re the tools of the rebels’ refugee evacuation effort. The player utilizes them like one of the refugees would have.
- Comment on Valve dev counters calls to scrap Steam AI disclosures, says it's a "technology relying on cultural laundering, IP infringement, and slopification" 3 days ago:
auto complete
It’s called lexical analysis or lexical tokenization. It existed long before LLMs, it doesn’t rely on stolen code, and doesn’t consume a small village’s worth of electricity. Superficial parallels with chatbots do not make it AI – it’s a fucking algorithm.
- Comment on Valve dev counters calls to scrap Steam AI disclosures, says it's a "technology relying on cultural laundering, IP infringement, and slopification" 3 days ago:
Then you should hold yourself to higher standards than “people”.
- Comment on Valve dev counters calls to scrap Steam AI disclosures, says it's a "technology relying on cultural laundering, IP infringement, and slopification" 3 days ago:
Maybe some people, who are an ocean away from me, have been gaslit into thinking they can’t be anything other than a consumer. I know it can be difficult to grasp the concept, but you can refuse a service if the terms are unacceptable. It is possible to go into a transaction with open eyes and full knowledge of the rights granted to you by law.
- Comment on Valve dev counters calls to scrap Steam AI disclosures, says it's a "technology relying on cultural laundering, IP infringement, and slopification" 3 days ago:
consumers
This is very much a pet peeve, but be careful about how you use “consumer” versus “customer”. They each imply completely different power dynamics.
- Comment on A cool feature/mechanic you want to see in games again 3 days ago:
I want to see puzzles that are implemented using the physics engine. And I don’t mean “toss the axe in the proper arc to trigger the gate” physics. I mean “stack the bricks on one end of the seesaw to balance it long enough to make the jump to the next platform”. Or “use the blue barrels’ buoyancy to raise the platform out of the water”.
- Comment on Paradox Takes the Blame for Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 Sales Flop, Announces $37 Million Write-Down 4 days ago:
They absolutely are, in terms of gameplay. Ozzy Mandus and The Crankhog Machine sacrificed most of the gameplay Frictional’s Amnesia became known for. There are no light mechanics. Barely any physics puzzles. The pigmen are braindead. Even if it’s a better story and atmosphere than The Dark Descent, it’s a lesser game. Even Still Wakes The Deep only goes as far as “throw the object to make the thing look away” when you’re not just responding to non-diegetic prompts.
You can make the argument that walking simulators have a place in the gaming landscape, and you’d be right, but by their nature, they are the exact opposite of what Bloodlines 1 was and what Bloodlines 2 should have been. Why Paradox decided it was a good idea to entrust with it a studio that has only made things that it never should have been is a fucking mystery to me.
- Comment on Epic boss Tim Sweeney thinks stores like Steam should stop labelling games as being made with AI: 'It makes no sense,' he says, because 'AI will be involved in nearly all future production 5 days ago:
There is a massive secondary market for in-game items (primarily CS skins) that Valve refuses to combat or even officially acknowledge. Some of it is legitimate, some of it is literal lottery for children. And since every transaction takes place on Steam, they get a cut of that.
- Comment on Epic boss Tim Sweeney thinks stores like Steam should stop labelling games as being made with AI: 'It makes no sense,' he says, because 'AI will be involved in nearly all future production 5 days ago:
Valve revolutionized Linux gaming; Tim categorically rejects it.
Valve banned shitcoins and blockchain scams; Tim welcomed them with open arms.
Valve enforces honesty regarding AI slop; Tim wants to literally deceive people.He’s like that annoying kid who didn’t get invited to a birthday party and vowed to always do the opposite of what the popular kid does. Petulant fucking overgrown child.
- Comment on Settings you believe ANY game should have? (This is me advocating for a restart/reboot button on ALL games) 6 days ago:
For over-the-shoulder games, separate field-of-view AND CAMERA DISTANCE.
For player-hosted games, an option to reject hosts using unsuitable hardware or low bandwidth, high latency networks. My gripe is specific to Warframe on the Switch 1, but if the developers of any game can’t/won’t operate public game servers and choose to offload the responsibility to the players, the choice should belong to the players.
- Comment on 1 week ago:
You can, technically, but there are some caveats.
SteamOS is not a general purpose OS. It is optimized to run on the Steam Deck (plus the Frame and Gabecube I guess). Its software components are tested on a limited range of hardware (specifically AMD silicon), and it might not have certain optimizations and compatibility fixes that are required by other consumer hardware. It also probably has some proprietary bits, especially the firmware.
The best option is Bazzite. It’s not based on SteamOS, but it is built with a robust gaming experience in focus. You can even get it to boot directly into Steam Big Picture. Watch this loud Aussie man do it!
The other option is HoloISO, which is an independent reimplementation of SteamOS. Their intention is to get as close to the real SteamOS as possible. Hardware support is limited (especially nvidia).
- Comment on 1 week ago:
You have two kidneys, don’t you?
- Comment on The story of a crazy Half-Life 2 bug, as told by former Valve dev Tom Forsyth (Mastodon thread) 1 week ago:
Floating point values: making your software misbehave out of nowhere since the year
NaN. - Comment on Alberto Mielgo defends the Marathon cinematic as "not AI," denies his team touched Bungie’s plagiarized material and calls the art theft incident a genuine mistake that was "blown out of proportion" 1 week ago:
Why does this guy sound like Filip Miucin? “We didn’t plagiarize, and if we did, we only did it by accident, and you’re the bad guy, actually, for reporting on it!”
- Comment on Roblox to block children from talking to adult strangers after string of lawsuits 2 weeks ago:
Absolutely! Multiple, in fact. In order of preference:
- Shut down the game, dissolve the company, and donate all remaining funds to a women’s shelter.
- Prosecute groomers instead of banning and threatening the people who are trying to stop the fuckers and crying about vigilantism even when the proper reporting channels are used.
- Use AI for a beneficial purpose at least one goddamn time. Scan the text and voice communications (it’s a public game, there is no expectation of privacy), flag suspicious exchanges for human review, then ban and report groomers.
- Comment on Roblox to block children from talking to adult strangers after string of lawsuits 2 weeks ago:
Problem: the game is getting a notoriety for being infested by pedophiles.
Solution: send your photographs to the game infested by pedophiles to prove you are a real child.
Fucking. Incredible. If this was written in a manuscript, it would be tossed for being too cartoonishly unrealistic.
- Comment on ‘Clair Obscur’ Leads The Game Awards 2025 Nominees With 12 Nods; ‘Silent Hill f’ Has Four Nominations 2 weeks ago:
Through brand recognition.
- Comment on Anon has a bully 2 weeks ago:
Such devastation was not his intention.
- Comment on An Update on Cities: Skylines II - Development moved to Iceflake Studios 2 weeks ago:
That is still so fucking mysterious to me. The Chinese Room makes exactly one type of game, which is “guided-interactive narrative experience” to be diplomatic. Dear Esther, Ozzy Mandus And The Crankhog Machine, their entire portfolio follows the same formula: strong in art direction, atmosphere, and story; weak in gameplay. Even a hit like Still Wakes The Deep only takes gameplay as far as “throw object to make the thing look away”. Their gameplay systems are not just middling but comfortably average, just enough to keep the player engaged while moving through the (admittedly beautiful) environments.
So why the fuck did Paradox choose them for Bloodlines 2? Are they stupid?
- Comment on An Update on Cities: Skylines II - Development moved to Iceflake Studios 2 weeks ago:
Sounds like it’s for the best. Paradox was killing CO.
- Comment on While we eagerly await the second coming of Steam Machines, it's worth remembering what a gloriously awful mess Valve got itself in over a decade ago 2 weeks ago:
That is a completely valid reason to hate Microsoft. Who the fuck wants another Apple?
- Comment on Valves first title with a 3 in it 2 weeks ago:
A whole new way of enjoying your
neofetchfastfetch output! - Comment on Valve announces three new products: the Steam Frame, Steam Machine and Steam Controller 2 weeks ago:
Imagine. Product is released, people buy the Steam Machine, and Half-Life 3 is just… there. Preinstalled on some of the units. The buyers post it on the internet and get called bullshitters. Then Half-Life 3 is officially announced the next day. Gaben ascends to godhood. He Has Cooked.
- Comment on Our first look at the Steam Machine, Valve’s ambitious new game console 2 weeks ago:
Archived link: archive.ph/ydtw4
- Comment on Steam Hardware [new Steam Controller, Steam Machine, and VR headset Steam Frame, coming in 2026] 2 weeks ago:
Looks like you’ll have to remove the entire bottom shell. From GN’s video:
A disassembled Steam Controller with its bottom shell removed and its insides visible.
- Comment on Steam Hardware [new Steam Controller, Steam Machine, and VR headset Steam Frame, coming in 2026] 2 weeks ago:
“The Frame headset won’t be priced higher than the Index”:
- Comment on Steam Hardware [new Steam Controller, Steam Machine, and VR headset Steam Frame, coming in 2026] 2 weeks ago:
The controller is exactly what I wanted. Take a Steam Deck, cut out the middle, glue the grips back together.
- Comment on Steam Hardware [new Steam Controller, Steam Machine, and VR headset Steam Frame, coming in 2026] 2 weeks ago:
It probably will. Watch Gamers Nexus’ video, it has a short clip that shows the battery, and it looks like it’s held in a receptacle like removable phone batteries. Valve have already said that you’d be able to disassemble the controller with a screwdriver, but no word yet on replacement parts.
- Comment on Anon starts his day 3 weeks ago:
It’ll be such a massive and catastrophic crash when the body can no longer handle the stress.
- Comment on What's a recent game you've tried playing that isn't worth the hype? 3 weeks ago:
Elden Ring. It is good for what it is, probably the best in its genre, but after so many Soulsbornes, it just feels like more of the same. Formulaic.
