RightHandOfIkaros

@RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Xbox No Longer Developing Copilot For Consoles⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Okay wait, they might actually be finally cooking. Will have to wait and see if they actually mean it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced: Official Game Overview Trailer⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Shadows must have done horrendously badly for Ubisoft to be dropping something they felt they knew for certain would be a money printer like Black Flag. Its the kind of remaster the company holds onto for when finances get really bad so they can guarantee at least something in rough waters.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced: Official Game Overview Trailer⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Well its not in Unreal Engine, so it has a decent chance of not having awful performance barely being masked by an upscaler.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Let's discuss ideas how Game Pass should be structured and priced⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Xbox Live Silver subscription: Free - provides basic online functionality for games that require it and basic features like Friends list, but does not include premium features such as online matchmaking or voice chat. 1GB of cloud storage for game save files only.

  Xbox Live Gold subscription: $5 USD / mo - includes Silver, and all premium features including online matchmaking and voice chat. 5GB of cloud storage for game save files, video clips, message inbox, or other console related data.

  Games should be $60 USD or less one time purchase, FREE with MTX or pid expansions or some other monetization, or $40 one time purchase with optional expansions at $10 or less each that only gate new content and not game improvements, pre-existing content, or QoL. Removing, deleting, “sunsetting,” or otherwise making previously accessible content inaccessible is grounds for publisher and/or developer total removal from the platform.

  The games market should be survival of the fittest. Developers should be encouraged to make the best gameplay experience they can, not the best ATM they can. Players will want to play games that are fun and have a monetization model they agree with. Let players decide, not executives.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨“I genuinely feel GameNative could replace handheld PCs like the Steam Deck” — Inside Android’s Fastest-Moving Gaming Project, GameNative (my article!)⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Bit of a conflirct of interest from the quote, considering the quote in the title is from one of GameNatives’s developers.

  “North Korea will definitely be the most powerful nation in the world, that will certainly replace every other country and government, says Kim Jong-un.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Stop Killing Games delivers 'absolutely incredible' hearing in European Parliament: 'There was no [parliament member] that wasn't responding positively'⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Image

  Now let’s see PirateSoftware’s opinion. He doesn’t ever talk about it, but he was Blizzard’s first second-generation employee. Surely he has an important opinion to share on all this.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fallout: New Vegas dev says don't expect a remaster, argues Bethesda doesn't have the source code or 'the engineering knowhow'⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I do find it odd that Bethesda, as the IP rights holder and publisher of the game, was not given a copy of the source code? Whats the story with that?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Pragmata surpasses 1m copies sold in just two days⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You’re talking about a company run by executives that, when asked for permission to re-sell their old catalog, told GOG staff:

  “Okay, but we have all of those remakes. It’s already the superior experience to those games.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Valve Uploads Steam Controller Unboxing Video, Launch Imminent⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The current global economy. Even regular brand name console controllers have increased to a minimum of $70 brand new, not on sale. With the specialized touchpads on the Steam controller, and with other present features, I don’t see them selling this at a loss. The old Steam Controller launched at ~$50 in 2015. Before the idea of “premium game controllers” was common. Now every product is “premium.” Not to mention higher launch prices potentially dissuade scalpers afraid to lose too much when inventory and availability isnt a problem, like how the Steam Deck roll out happened.

  I don’t see any chance at the controller being less than $100. I certainly hope it is $50, but I don’t believe we will ever see those low numbers again until after a global economic crash causes a reset.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Valve Uploads Steam Controller Unboxing Video, Launch Imminent⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It will absolutely be over $100 USD. No chance its less, which is a shame. $60 USD would’ve killed, honestly.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Driving game poll⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I probably wouldn’t play it considering other racing game offerings.

  I am an avid racing game player. I enjoy both sim and arcade racers. Test Drive Unlimited 2, Forza Horizon, Need for Speed Underground 2, Midnight Club LA, etc all offer a free roam driving portion of the game. But they keep my interest because of the racing part. Driving just to drive is fun in real life (when I can afford the gas) but in a video game I would rather be doing something I cannot or would not do in real life. Street racing, for example. The mechanical skill of mastering how each car drives, and the expression of that skill in a race, is part if the enjoyment of the game. Without it, the game would need other mechanics to hold my interest, such as The Long Drive, which has driving in it but has other mechanics as well.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Pragmata surpasses 1m copies sold in just two days⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Ok, well you obviously don’t understand how Denuvo actually works, so let me give you the simple TLDR version. Maybe if you understand how it works, you can see why it is so bad.

  When a developer compiles their game with Denuvo, Denuvo adds itself to various functions of the game (set by the developer but has defaults as well). Usually this includes at least the main game loop which runs every frame, but also to other functions in the game as well. I cannot remember if Denuvo is added to every function of the game by default or just a lot of functions of the game, but it is added in multiple places and not just one. Anyway, by doing this, Denuvo basically partially encrypts the functions it adds itself to. Then, when the game is running in Denuvos virtual machine, it uses a magic number set during development and does a math calculation using a formula with parameters that include your HWID and your game license. It then compares the math calculation result to the magic number, and if those both match then everything is good and the game can keep running. Again, it does this in every function it is added, and since it is usually at least in the main game loop that runs every frame, you often can have Denuvo checking your license multiple times each frame, which is at the very least, wasteful. This is the only actual function that Denuvo accomplishes, by the way.

  Denuvo ALSO adds a bunch of other unnecessary “dead end code” to these partially encrypted functions, which either loop on themselves or do nothing, in order to throw off cracking groups. This dead end code contains calculations that the CPU actually processes. They are not just there for looks, they do take up compute power even though functionally they do nothing important. Again, wasteful. The ticket can certainly expire between frames and cause issues.

  When you said you watched videos comparing cracked games and non-cracked games and saw minimal gain, this is where I knew you didn’t really know how Denuvo works, because I wasn’t even talking about cracked Denuvo games.

  Cracked Denuvo games still run Denuvo. Yes, thats right.

  The way that Denuvo games get cracked is simple, but it is tedious and takes time. A hacker has to sift through the game code to find every Denuvo infected function. Then, they have to find where Denuvo checks the results of the magic number and the math calculation which is not always at the end of the function. The hacker then alters the check to always pass even if the numbers don’t match. Sometimes, they can catch the function before it does the math and it just instantly passes the check, but other times it has to be done later in the function depending on what the function does in the game and where it performs the check in the code. Regardless, this is why it generally results in a negligible performance gain: its still running Denuvo. Denuvo is just modified to always say “yes, the license is correct” every time. Two games which had a less negligible difference in performance when Denuvo was altered was Rime and Syberia 3.

  I was talking about games that were officially updated to remove Denuvo by the developers. NieR Automata on PC, most notably, on the 21st of June, 2021, received an update that fixed performance issues with the game:

  • Removed 3rd - Party DRM - Denuvo Anti-tamper

  You can verify this on SteamDB, the change is U:24088901.

  The performance gain was immediate, and everyone that had the game could tell the difference. Just for reference, when the game had Denuvo, the executable was ~100MB. After Denuvo was removed, the new filesize was just ~17MB. Thats ~83MB of bloated cancerware removed. Gone. And with it, the stuttering issues that plagued the game when it launched ~5 years prior.

  This isnt a made up horror story. I never said Denuvo killed any children. This isnt made up for dramatic effect. This is how Denuvo works, and why I say it is cancerware. It only harms real paying consumers and should be removed for their benefit. Businesses that sell games are forgetting that the only thing that keeps them alive is being slightly more convenient than piracy.

  If you don’t like it, I don’t know what else to tell you. This is the way it is.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Pragmata surpasses 1m copies sold in just two days⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Denuvo, and in fact ALL anti-piracy countermeasures (including kernel level anti-cheat like nGuard Protect, or Vanguard) added to computer software, is cancerware. It does not do anything to prevent piracy beyond maybe a month depending on cracking scene interest. But it does severely negatively affect game performance. In some cases, games with Denuvo removed have seen +40 fps and more for end users with absolutely no change to game settings or hardware.

  Denuvo runs game functions within a VM, and uses the game license, your machine HWID, and magic numbers to make calculations so it can decrypt the partially encrypted by Denuvo game code. It does this EVERY FRAME. Computers have become fast enough that people like you might say you dont notice the difference because your copy of the game runs at 60fps “most of the time” with dips into the 30s or 40s. But without that literal circus of cancerware your game could be running at 90+ fps with absolutely no change from you. Now why, exactly, does Denuvo need to do these checks with your license and HWID every single frame? Well, you silly wallet, your license might expire or be revoked inbetween frames.

  Image

  Denuvo, and all DRM, only harms genuine paying customers. Its only a minor inconvenience to game cracking groups and pirates.

  Just because kernel level anti-cheat is bad doesn’t mean that Denuvo is somehow good. They are both equally bad.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  There are exactly the same amount (if not more) of trolls, “bootlickers,” and censorship on Lemmy as Reddit. You just might notice it less because you agree with it or aren’t in the most affected communities or instances (like the ml instances). A lot more bots here on Lemmy than I recall on Reddit (which was like, 5 years ago, which may be part of the reason admittedly). Entire instances that feel dedicated to troll accounts (like HexBear). Lemmy has zero protection from a troll setting up multiple instances to use to spam past bans or instance blocking AFAIK.

  There is no alternative. None of them are better. They’re all different flavors of the exact same thing because of the people that use them. They’re all equally bad, just different window dressing. That’s it.

  People have just become worse in the least year or two. Globally. Like a switch turned everyone from trying to be a decent person to just being the worst version of themselves towards everyone else. And this is magnified on the internet because of anonymity.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It did change. Lemmy used to be fine, but then about a year or two ago the users got worse. Way worse. My block list has grown exponentially in the last year or two, ballooning way larger than my block list on any other platform has ever been.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Pragmata surpasses 1m copies sold in just two days⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I was gonna buy it until I saw it has Denuvo malware in it. So close, Capcom. So close.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨‘Seeking connection’: the video game (Arc Raiders) where players stopped shooting and started talking...⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  These are the players that get angry when people say they don’t want to play the game. And then act clueless when the game is dead due to low player counts. The people that also don’t want to play in lobbies with other high level players and only want to Noob Stomp.

  Its why I call this genre of game “Scum Sponge.” Because it attracts all of the worst people on the planet due to the game design rewarding that kind of player behavior. I am thankful for it, because it means other games have less of them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨‘Seeking connection’: the video game (Arc Raiders) where players stopped shooting and started talking...⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I certainly hope blocking people in the game does not stop your from matching into their lobbies and only prevents voice/chat.

  Xbox tried that way in the early days of the Xbox 360. Know what the end result was? All the best players and pro players at games were waiting in 10+ hour queues to find a match. Because people were blocking everyone that beat them.

  Blocking should absolutely never prevent matchmaking from doing its job and getting everyone into games. And listen, I hate Extraction Shooters. I played the Arc Raiders beta, and lament that another fun PvE Coop Shooter was stolen from everyone to be added to the Scum Sponge genre. But I still think the game’s matchmaking should function correctly.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Starfield PS5 players demand refunds, reporting widespread bugs and glitches that leave the game "unplayable"⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  New Vegas wasn’t a Bethesda game, it was developed by Obsidian and only published by Bethesda. Sure, it runs on Fallout 3s game engine, but Fallout 3 is more stable on PS3 than New Vegas.

  I hate Sony, but New Vegas getting cherry picked here for instability is laughable when New Vegas is widely known as perhaps the least stable game published by Bethesda.

  Compared to New Vegas, Starfield is a vastly better and more stable game on a technical level. Sure the writing isnt better, but the mechanical parts of the game are.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Starfield has sold 140K copies on PS5⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Not really when you consider the game is 3 years old, already released to most of its main playerbase on PC and Xbox, and got a lot of negative press early in its life.

  Considering the circumstances, 140k is honestly pretty good.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Pickmon to Pickmos⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t play them but I am always happy when something happens and it pisses off Nintendo and Nintendo Fanboys/Fangirls.

  I used to love Nintendo, but this isnt Iwata’s Nintendo anymore. Now they only care about money, which isnt a shock considering the CEO has a history in financial, but its still disappointing nonetheless.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Racing fans, is Forza Horizon 6 for me?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The Forza franchise is split into too distinct subgenres.

  Forza Motorsport is the realistic simulator. Tire temperatures affecting grip levels of simulation.

  Forza Horizon is the arcade racer. It uses Motorsport as a basis for its basic driving physics, but values are tuned or ignored to maximize the arcade factor of driving.

  Horizons driving model kinda feels like Need for Speed, games by Criterion, but less mobile oriented. Its also a little similar to Test Drive Unlimited 2, but the grip is a little lowered to make drifting easier in Forza Horizon.

  Its not like Mario Kart, Blur, Split Second, or Asphault. You could maybe try a demo to see if you like it, but you will probably have fun with it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Game franchises you like, but wish were anothet genre of video game?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I feel exactly the opposite.

  There are plenty of turn-based RPGs and JRPGs that I fell asleep playing that I probably wouldn’t have if I didnt have to mostly stare at a static screen and menus most of the game.

  Turn-based RPGs have repetitive combat loops. Same intro, same enemy lineup, same strategy, same music, same victory jingle. Over and over and over. It least in an action oriented game, I can choose where my character is, how I engage with combat, what terrain features I use, etc.

  This is why I like Strategic Turn Based games like Fire Emblem and XCOM way more than standard turn based games.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Game franchises you like, but wish were anothet genre of video game?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Elden Ring was more RPG-like by avoiding respawning enemies? What RPG are you talking about? Most RPGs respawn enemies right in front of your face, while you are still in their spawn area.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google removed Doki-Doki Literature Club from the Play Store for depicting sensitive themes that violate their terms of service.⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It starts with the gooner games, then always moves to other non-gooner games. History repeats itself.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"You Were Supposed to Feel Lost": Metal Gear Solid 2 and the Shock of Playing as Raiden⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  But you still play as Snake. Sure, Venom Snake, not Solid Snake. But Raiden isnt Snake, hes just Raiden.

  Perhaps Raiden is the reason that the MGSV protagonist is called Venom Snake and mot something else.

  There were a few MGS games that released between MGS2 and MGSV, and hall of them IIRC had Snake as the protagonist.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"You Were Supposed to Feel Lost": Metal Gear Solid 2 and the Shock of Playing as Raiden⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Just to add some context here:

  This rug pull was practically universally disliked by almost everyone that played MGS2 when it released. People that played MGS2 and liked that this happened are likely, a super turbo minority of the people that played the game at the time. Only in recent years have people said they liked it.

  The negative reception was so strong that Hideo Kojima himself in interviews would go on to say that the rug pull of Raiden was his biggest mistake with MGS2, and that he would never do something like that again.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What to Play (and Watch) While Waiting for Forza Horizon 6 (my article!)⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Recommending NFSU2 is a recipe for disaster. You are starting at peak, its always going to be downhill from there.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is gaming becoming so expensive? The answer is found in AI⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Nintendo fans are smooth-brained thesedays though. I dont think its console specific, its Nintendo specific.

  • Former Nintendo Game Enjoyer
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is gaming becoming so expensive? The answer is found in AI⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Businesses started acting like every product ever is a luxury product and people keep paying the higher prices.

  The only way to get prices back down as to not buy them.and hope the little businesses survive long enough.