Glide

@Glide@lemmy.ca

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Epic Games is officially cool with the Internet Archive preserving early Unreal games⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  My experience with GOG is that it is a fringe option, at least in the combined North American (USA+Canada) culture. Plus, the unfortunate reality is that in many cases GOG’s principles preclude it from being a genuine competitor to Steam. Insisting on being DRM free means half of released games never go to the platform, so it will always be the secondary “better if” option.

  I worry about Steam’s functional monopoly on PC game access. It hasn’t been an issue so far, because it has remembered that it is, first and foremost, a service, providing consumer protects through a generous refund policy and supporting devs with easy access to simple matchmaking and anti-cheat systems. But without a healthy competitor, it would be easy for Steam to start milking it’s users and developers alike.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Epic Games is officially cool with the Internet Archive preserving early Unreal games⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  While I don’t approve of Epic’s stabs at exclusivity, Steam needs a competitor to keep it in check, and one that is making some efforts to support the preservation of art is a welcome choice.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Donald Trump Team Plans to Cancel Biden's $7,500 Tax Incentive On EVs⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Describe Trumps presidency in one sentence.

  Sounds like shooting itself in the foot.

• ⁨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:

  Calling Warcraft Rumble an RTS is like putting a hamburger patty on a plate and calling it a steak. You’re technically correct, but you’ve also completely missed the point in what people want.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

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• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there any, any takeaways at all from the next 4 years that's about to happen?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Fuckin’ preach. It’s easy to see the shadows on the wall once you’re out of the cave. That doesn’t make the people chained up inside any less intelligent or human. There’s something else keeping them there, and it’s hard to be convinced that something you’ve lived with your entire life is chaining you down.

  The “they called me racist, so now I’m going to hate immigrants harder!” memes are both more real and more damaging than anyone, self-included, realized.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there any, any takeaways at all from the next 4 years that's about to happen?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The only way to start bridging this division is to keep in mind that they’re people too. I’d even argue against calling Trump Voters strictly shitty, hateful people. More often than not, they’re scared, hurt people. They’re people who have been convinced that if they don’t defend themselves and their neighbours, the “other” will come for them.

  Never forget that these people all genuinely believe that what they are doing is right. Attempting to dismiss and demean them is only going to further validate that they are right and you are the enemy. We need them to see the right-wing brain rot that has wormed it’s way into the hopes and fears for what it is, and we’ll never get there through further division and demonization.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Morrigan isn't just my favourite Dragon Age character, she's the greatest fantasy RPG companion of all time⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  She isn’t even the most interesting or well-written character in Origins. /shrug

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nostalgia and remake culture⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  No satire here; I genuinely think it’s a great example of a remake done well.

  There are some major breaks from the original plot, which in itself would be neat, but they introduce an entire plot element that interacts with this derivation. The spirits I was talking about, “Whispers” (had to look up the official name, tbh), appear whenever the story attempts to break from the original story from the original release. In universe, this is explained as pre-determination, or destiny. Thanks to our meta knowledge, we know in reality that these spirits are attempting to maintain the timeline from the original release.

  As an early example, after the events at the first Mako reactor, Cloud decides to collect his pay and go his own way, which is not the original intended path of the game. To correct this, a group of Whispers attack the party, and ultimately injure Jessie, preventing her from going on the mission. Needing another body, Barrett is forced to rehire Cloud for Avalanche’s mission to the next reactor. Without spoiling specific details, the whispers slowly become a form of antagonist as the characters try harder to get away from the original plot of FFVII.

  This is interesting in a few ways. First, we’ve introduced a new major conflict in the form of the characters fighting against a physical embodiment of destiny. They do not want the outcome of their struggles to be predetermined, particularly as that predetermination involved the death and suffering of some specific characters. This is, in my opinion, an interesting new plot element beyond being “the same game again.”

  Second, stepping back, and examining this with a wider lens, we can look at the Whispers for what they are to us, the players, rather than what they are to the characters. We know they are not maintaining “destiny,” but instead trying to reestablish the original story we loved. As a result, I see the Whispers as the collective voice of the “change nothing” remake ideology. When a community asks for new content of IPs they love, there will always be diehard essentialists who want their loved stories to remain untouched; the Whispers, then, are these people.

  So if the Whispers are a physical representation of the “change nothing” remake ideology, then what is there to make of the fact that they’re largely an antagonist? This seems to me that the writers were critical of this culture, so much so that they ask you to fight it to earn the different take on the story. Of course, it’s far from the only derivation from the original game, but that’s exactly my point: FFVII remake was so far divorced from the conceptual, soulless “let’s pump out the same game again” remake that they literally wrote that culture into a new antagonist.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨An Update from PlayStation Studios (Neon Koi and Firewalk Studios are closing)⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  But isn’t it featured in the list of games being given a short film via Secret Level? I kind of assumed the goal was to promote it via that episode and re-release the game around the same time.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nostalgia and remake culture⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I feel like people are taking this commentary a little too literally. I don’t think it’s intended to suggest that all remakes are always bad and we should be ashamed of ourselves for enjoying them. Mankind has a habit of romanticising the past, and that’s led to something of a modern obsession with nostalgia. These are fair, and interesting, statements.

  That said, the choice of pairing the statement with an allusion to FF7 is probably not a great choice. The remake is fantastic, and isn’t at all symptomatic of the problem of quick-cash in nostalgia remakes. Hell, the first game specifically tackles themes of pre-determination, which functions as a pretty on-the-nose metaphor for nostalgia. And fascinatingly the meta-analysis of this is critical of exactly the same thing: there are literally spirits of sorts which attack the player and manipulate events to ensure the original story remains untouched, and they become a prominent antagonist of the game as the player works to tell a story that is different from the one told in the original. Perhaps there’s something counterproductive about attaching this message to a remake that’s critical of soullessly telling the same stories we’ve already heard.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Slay the Princess - The Pristine Cut is OUT NOW!⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Pre-empt: Everything I say is in regards to the original release. I have not played the pristine cut.

  It is definitely intended to be deeply uncomfortable. It has a very “cosmic horror” vibe to it, while playing on themes of relationships, love and romance.

  It’s good, but not great. The story is impactful and meaningful, and it does a great sort-of incidental meta commentary on literature. An opinion which I find most players don’t share with me: the ending was incredibly weak, to the point that I felt it really detracted from the experience. It has a bad case of “the only decision that matters is the last one,” which isn’t the way I like these seemingly heavily malluble visual novels to go, and none of the endings feel genuinely satisfying. Worse, my first ending set up for something of a second attempt towards a “golden ending” of sorts, only to pull the rug out from under me and just kind of… end, instead.

  The storytelling is great, the writing is engaging, the voice acting is fantastic, the art is gorgeous… There’s a lot to like about the game, so I don’t want to make it sound “bad,” because it’s quite good. It just sold itself to me as a kind of “choices matter” game, where I’d find myself digging for information and answers, so I can learn more and make better decisions on multiple, short playthroughs. I hoped to eventually either discover everything I want to discover, and ideally use growing knowledge to find the “right” ending, whether that’s a “golden” ending or an ending that I find satisfying and rewards me for my effort. But, for it’s variety choices, it’s not really that kind of game. It is, at its heart, a linear game, with some variation in the experiences you have between where you start and where you end up, with a couple choices in the last moment determining which page you flip to before the credits roll.

  Maybe I expected too much, and the problem is with me. I can’t deny that my opinion could be based on a failure of expectation. But, I restate, it’s good, but it’s not great.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Steam's new disclaimer reminds everyone that you don't actually own your games, GOG moves in for the killshot: Its offline installers 'cannot be taken away from you'⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You responded to him not only to get his praise, but so I’d miss it and wouldn’t challenge your opinion.

  Seek help. The fact that you need to create such insane delusions is a problem. The real answer is I ignored my phone, went about my day, and enjoyed my time with my hobbies and loved ones. When I found the conversation later, I stepped into the most recent comment. And I had much more to add to their comment than your inane ramblings, so it worked out.

  Yes, I have been rude to you. As you have been to the imaginary “bootlickers” you have created, and defined everyone who disagrees with you as. I think you are so busy creating enemies out of everyone who is on the other side of something from you, that you fail to differentiate between the problem and the symptoms. And I don’t think I can convince you of that, so this is honestly a waste of time.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Steam's new disclaimer reminds everyone that you don't actually own your games, GOG moves in for the killshot: Its offline installers 'cannot be taken away from you'⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I respond to people when they say something worth responding to. You think my post makes Gaben sound like a victim. Either your reading comprehension has completely failed and you aren’t capable of having a real conversation, or my first comment about being far more interested in saying controversial shit than thinking things through was spot on, and you’re arguing in bad faith and/or to pleasure your ego. Since it’s not my job to educate you, nor satisfy you, even giving you this much recognition is a compliment. Have a good one.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Steam's new disclaimer reminds everyone that you don't actually own your games, GOG moves in for the killshot: Its offline installers 'cannot be taken away from you'⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  And, to be clear, Capitalism is bad. I’m on board. But riding Gaben’s dick, or the dick of any boring dystopian billionaire instead of the people actively fighting to maintain the system is just grossly missing the point

  Not all evils are equal, and any perceived slight by Steam is honestly smoke for the thousands of disgustingly rich venture capitalists constantly abusing the system that exists and lobbying the shit out of any attempt to fix it. I don’t blame Gaben for owning more yacht’s than anyone needs, because, at the end of the day, he’s providing a quality service through an unfair system. He’s not the one fighting to provide shittier and shittier systems, demanding fatter and fatter paychecks and encouraging us to blame each other for the state of the world while he runs off with the largest slice of the cake.

  Should he have the wealth he has access to? Fuck no. But, again, the dishonest and disgustingly simplified argument that homie is making is only idiofying the cause. Target the problems, not the lucky guys who are providing halfway reasonable services through our broken-ass system.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Steam's new disclaimer reminds everyone that you don't actually own your games, GOG moves in for the killshot: Its offline installers 'cannot be taken away from you'⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  No one thinks Gaben is the second coming. His platform just, actually doesn’t suck, and genuinely functions as a service to its users. It’s a low bar, sure, but it’s a good one. Comparing it to Microsoft axeing any studio that produces something worth talking about while they force more datascraping malware and adware into Windows is just dishonest.

  Your comment reads more like you get off on being controversial than having actual insightful thoughts and the comparisons in what these three companies you listed are actually doing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it okay to fake Vitiligo makeup for a cosplay??⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Right. People fail to recognize that blackface is a practice created by white people to entertain other white people by making fun of black people, portraying them as stupid and uncultured. While I think asking questions about what is and isn’t okay is good practice, there’s no cultural history connected to what OP is asking if he should do. That said, I am not someone with the skin conditions in question, so I’m not the one to decide whether it is “fine”.

  I do want to offer the argument that you should do your best not to give people opportunities to miscontrue your intent. You are correct that, in some cases, black burn victims can have lighter patches of skin where they were burned, but this is both not universal and not an experience everyone will have had. If you’re making a cosplay that requires a bit of mental work on the viewers behalf, you probably don’t also want it to be a cosplay which could be perceived as insensitive if people fail to make those connections or put in that work.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Which unplayed game in your library are you most looking forward to playing eventually?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Do yourself a favor and stop putting off Cassette Beasts. Every time I play it, I am gobstruck that an indie team made this and sells it for a fraction of the price of whatever mediocrity Pokemon is pumping out.

  I could sing it’s praises all day, but I’d rather just politely nudge you to push it up the list.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How I fell out of love with Facebook(2004-2024)⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I immediately opt out of any platform that aggressively tries to decide what content I consume.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Let's discuss: Visual Novels⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  A little surprised to hear Zero Time Dilemma is seen as the weakest game of the trilogy. I played them all in a vacuum, never really engaging with the communities around the franchise, and I would never have said that myself.

  If I had to pick, I’d argue that Virtue’s Last Reward was the “worst” one, but I am not happy about writing that. It was a great game that I enjoyed start to end, but ending on a “this will only make sense when the 3rd game releases in X years!” note leaves a really sour taste in my mouth. The other two games are complete experiences, and when I am playing a visual novel, the last thing I want is a cliffhanger “join us next time to find out!”

  That said I think I enjoyed puzzles and philosophical musings of it the most out of the three? So my opinion is more about what was bad than what was good and should probably be discarded anyway.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Let's discuss: Visual Novels⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve gotta put this one out there because it will largely get overlooked every time the topic of “Visual Novel” gets brought up, but Digimon: Survive.

  As a tactics RPG, it’s pretty mid. Character growth and customization exists, but isn’t quite as expansive as I’d like for that kind of game. It’s no Final Fantasy Tactics, for example, but comparing it to other tactics games doesn’t do it justice, because it’s one of the better-to-best written visual novels I have ever played.

  Each of the endings explores the way small changes in circumstance can heavily impact people’s decisions, each of the characters and their partner monsters are oozing with personality, and some of the potential outcomes for each character represents some of the most wild, fucked up, and human emotional responses possible. Your decisions as the main character have minor impacts in the lines of which characters reach their end of their growth arcs, and which evolutions are available to your partner and some of your companions partners, and the collective value system limits which of the main branches you’re permitted to explore for your ending. Which it doesn’t boast the wide assortment of branching narrative paths that some visual novels take, it does still succeed in making your decisions feel like they matter.

  And this is completely aside from the fact that it’s a Digimon game. A franchise widely viewed as “for children”, yet it engages with heavy existential themes and doesn’t shy from letting horrible things happen to good, and bad, people. People die, on screen, in ways I would not want small children to see. In a lot of ways, the game is a functional “reboot” of the franchise, sharing a lot of commonalities with Digimon Adventure, but using older characters, more serious mature themes, and never referencing the monsters as “digimon”. In fact, the term is only used once, during the epilogue of one of the endings, otherwise they’re referred to as Kemonogami, and treated like Yokai. They’re engrained in the history and legendsof the world, and it’s an amazing take on the franchise.

  I’m gushing at this point, but what really matters is it’s an extremely well-written visual novel with competent enough Tactical RPG gameplay, and also currently on a rather deep Steam Sale. Cannot recommend it enough.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Screw 4k, but 120+ hz is amazing. I can barely stand playing things are 60fps anymore. I really notice it when game dips.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do I avoid enshitification of my keyboard and mouse⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Currently still using the G502 Hero, and all it’s customization is on-board, edited using a portable .exe. I’m using some Rosewill mechanical keyboard which I believe has all its customization tied to inputs while holding the FN key.

  Fuck, I hate always-online apps just to use the God damn peripherials I’ve paid for. I go far out of my way to avoid them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a difference in meaning between the words *people* and *persons*?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Listen, man, I can get stuff wrong sometimes. I’m still not convinced I am in this case, but, even if I am off on one very specific niche use of a word that rarely, if ever, comes up, attacking my entire livelihood over it, as though it defines every facet of teaching English, is an insane overstep.

  I am not so arrogant as to assume words can only ever have one meaning, nor to attack a stranger on the internet over a disagreement on that meaning. I have also made no such logical fallacy. You asked if I was “sure”, and followed up with a suggestion that I had never spoken with a native English speaker. I said yes, I am confident, and then offered up my background as evidence that, at the very least, your assessment on my experiences is incorrect. I can see how you could conflate that as a call to authority, and perhaps should have phrased things in such a way that doesn’t leave room for such assumptions. That said, I’d advise against jumping down people’s throats based on assumptions, else you’ll end up doing things like building a strawman argument, while simultaneously accusing others of logical fallicies.

  I’m done with this. The level of vitriol the “discussion” has been laced with is in warrented and suggests that any further conversation is a waste of time. This entire disagreement should have been:

  “Hey, I think X is right.” “Well, this says Y is right, so you must be wrong.” “I mean language is funky and weird, a lot of words mean different things in different spaces, so whatever.” “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

  Everything beyond that was grossly unnessecary, terminally online, internet arrogance that we’d both be better off without.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a difference in meaning between the words *people* and *persons*?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not sure if you found my original statements challenging to follow, but nothing you’ve said contradicts what I’ve said. Parts of the definitions I’ve provided are strewn in the definitions you’ve provided, and differing definitions of specific word case isn’t unusual, even within similiar cultures. Language is fluid, and the same words can mean a lot of different things.

  There is often a gap between common-use language, and the academic function of words (see “racism”). This is why I emphasized the relation of the definitions I provided to the fields of anthropology and sociology, as well as why I stated it is a use almost exclusively found, in my experiences, in academia.

  I don’t appreciate the strange, ignorant, tongue-in-cheek jabs at my background. If you think I have something wrong I welcome you to say so, but the strange sense of superiority you’ve attached to your comments is unnessecarily insulting.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a difference in meaning between the words *people* and *persons*?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I am literally an English teacher, and have spent years editing university papers for English as an additional language learners. Yes, I am sure.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a difference in meaning between the words *people* and *persons*?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  “People” is a generic term for more than one person.

  “Persons” denotes a singular distinct grouping of people. Ie, Native American persons.

  Not part of the question, but “peoples” is used for a plurality of distinct persons. Ie, “this had great impact on the various peoples of North America” would be a sentence to lead into a discussion on how an event had varying impacts on each unique cultural group in North America. This is largely only used in academics, specifically anthropology and sometimes sociology, but understand this use helps clear up the reason for the distinction between “people” and “persons”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Gacha games are out of control. Gambling shouldn't be so widespread⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  While I understand and agree with your premise to a point, aren’t you advocating for the removal of all randomness in videogames? As long as random factors are tied to outcomes, games will always be playing off that desire that the Skinner Box highlights. I’d argue that the entire modern rogue-lite genre is predicated on the fact that sometimes you will get “better” powerups, upgrades, etc., which leads to better outcomes. Auto-chess games are similiar, where hitting good random rolls leads to high powered teams and easy wins.

  Mastery of both these genres rrquiresa wide birth of knowledge, and flexibility as you make due with what you are offerred, rather than simply always having the best things at all times. These are skills that are fun to have tested and build master in, and I don’t really think we should eliminate that from games. I agree that the worst offenders are simply trying to feed off human addiction rather than build are emergant gameplay situations, but any rule that targets the addict chasers is likely to catch other games with randomization in the crossfire.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Annapurna Video-Game Team Resigns, Leaving Partners Scrambling⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Every single time I have played an Annapurna published game, I had a fantastic time. I won’t say that everything they did was equal, but everything they did was entertaining, and thought-provoking.

  I can’t quite follow the legalese required to parse EXACTLY what this means going forward, but I am sure it is not good, and that is disappointing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Antiquity to Alt-Right Pipeline⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Fantastic article.

  I’ve got nothing against cosplay, but these right-wing nut jobs pretending to be Roman conqueror’s just take it too far.