True Gaming Something that has bothered me about the Battlefield ‘Controversy’ |
- Something that has bothered me about the Battlefield ‘Controversy’
- Theory: Smart NPCs are the future of RPGs, the "technology" that Todd Howard claimed wasn't ready yet, and why the wait for TES:VI has been so long.
- Wondering something about Deus Ex...
- Witcher 3 didn't really do it for me, but I want to try Witcher 2 with the announcement of Cyberpunk 2077
- Square Enix E3 presentation was trash
- Fallout 76 announced, it's online only.
- Switch vs 3DS
- Am i wrong for not liking the the switch
- This game is very simple, you just have to learn the controls, keybinds, inventory system, skill system, navigation system and how to craft your pants.
| Something that has bothered me about the Battlefield ‘Controversy’ Posted: 11 Jun 2018 10:37 AM PDT I first saw the trailer for Battlefield 5 almost immediately after it was released, and like many others, I was kinda miffed. I have a certain idea of how the Battlefield series generally plays and looks in my head, and this seemed to go completely against that. The colours, the prosthetic arm, the loud English lady, it all seemed so goofy. Well, hey, shit happens. it's just 1 trailer, maybe I might still enjoy the game when it comes out. What I did not really expect was the clown fiesta that followed. People weren't just annoyed, they were outraged. I was taken aback by the level of vitriol and sometimes straight up sexist comments that were getting hugely upvoted in the comments section. The hundreds of Youtubers 'reacting' to the trailer just fuelled the fire further. Videos like these started popping up all over my recommended feeds (honestly, there are hundreds of them I could've included): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSp2evlsQI8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qGQCnGq28Y After watching some of these something really started to bother me, but I couldn't quite figure it out. I then found a video that went against this common narrative and makes some points that shed a different light on all this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vl5330RvVbM This video sorta cleared up what was bothering me. It was the common thread of people complaining about political agendas. What I realised was that a lot of people weren't just mad about certain design choices of the game, or even about the lack of realism. People were getting personally offended about some perceived 'agendas'. This sort of got me thinking about representation in video games as well. Are we now in some sort of catch-22 situation where if a woman or minority plays a prominent role in a video game, that there will be accusations of it being shoehorned in as part of some agenda, while at the same time there are gonna be people crying out for greater representation/diversity when these characters are not present? It has kinda happened with the new gears of war trailer too - hell there's a thread on /r/livestreamfail titled 'gears of feminism' right now: https://www.reddit.com/r/LivestreamFail/comments/8q46uc/gears_of_feminism/ Do you feel like BF5 were unnecessarily stuffing women into a WW2 setting, or is it just not a big deal that the devs made female character models an option for multiplayer? I wanted a realistic game too, but the fact that I didn't get quite so mad makes me think that the motivation behind this outcry goes beyond just some idea of achieving realism in video games. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 11 Jun 2018 02:26 PM PDT I'm 35. I'm old enough to remember the launch of Morrowind. I played Oblivion on day one. Between 2009 and 2011 I read everything there was to read about the development of Skyrim. I distinctly remember how important it was that Skyrim's NPCs behaved in a realistic fashion. Todd Howard discussed the Radiant system with many outlets, and really made it a keystone of Skyrim's development. We all laugh and joke about Skyrim's NPCs. They repeat ridiculous lines, chase dragons with iron daggers, murder you for harming their chicken, etc. However, the truth is that these things only stick out like a sore thumb because of how sophisticated the NPCs really were. Compare the behavior of Skyrim's NPCs to almost anything else in the genre. Even now, after nearly 7 years it still beats most games. Anyway... in a 2016 interview Todd Howard said this regarding TES:VI:
To me this says that Todd Howard isn't talking about graphics or world building tools. We already have the technology to make ridiculously beautiful games, we can make gigantic worlds with no problem as well. I think the technology that Todd Howard was referring to was this:
This is actually something I've been talking about on Reddit for over FIVE YEARS! Below are a couple of links to those conversations: So, if you're interested, check out those threads. There was some really good discussions in the comments... much of which was shooting my ideas down, but I respect people's input! Back to the AI thing. Now, you may be thinking to yourself: "This guy thinks something as sophisticated as Google Assistant will be in games? Sounds pretty far fetched!" The game AI would be much more limited in scope. It only has to carry out the illusion so to speak. While Google Assistant has to deal with almost any question, and deal with almost any response (in addition to being able to look up almost anything in the world, such as online menus for every restaurant in Hong Kong), a system like this in game would be more restrictive. Each NPC would have limited access to some kind of in-game encyclopedia. Lets say you ask a farmer about where to find a certain Deadric artifact. You literally say into a microphone, "Hi, I'm looking for a sword called Dawnbreaker." The AI runs a check. Does the NPC have access to that information? No. Does the NPC know who does? Yes. The system generates a response. "I'm sorry traveler I know of no such thing. Perhaps you could ask someone at the Mage's Guild." This will all happen in a matter of seconds. What do you guys think? Have your opinions on voice recognition and procedurally generated speech changed over the last five years? If this was a feature in an RPG such as TES:VI would you use it? Do you think I'm wildly incorrect about Todd Howard's missing technology? Let me know! EDIT:
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| Wondering something about Deus Ex... Posted: 11 Jun 2018 11:43 AM PDT Why do they always portray the anti-aug people as cartoonishly intolerant or in some cases 'evil'? The only time I can actually see some discernment in the case of anti-aug characters is that one guy you end up talking down in Human Revolution (I can't remember his name, but he was a war veteran who's brother was one of the bosses you fight later in the game). For everything right that Deus Ex gets, I think they could do better with their anti-aug characters by making them more morally grey/understandable. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 11 Jun 2018 07:20 AM PDT Before I go on, I should make it clear I didn't get too terribly far in Witcher 3. As much as I loved some of the side quests I did (a standout was the one where the king's still born baby was haunting his family) it felt like all the side content happened in a bubble independent of the world around it, like a one and done episode of a TV show. I can clearly see CD Project Reds prowess at writing quests, so I figure I should play some of their older games to see if this is a trend for them. Cyberpunk 2077 has me interested, but I'm worried it'll suffer from that same problem of quest independence. Basically, I'm asking if Witcher 3 improves upon that as you get farther along, and if CD Projekts earlier games have that issue too. My favorite RPGs are Fallout New Vegas, Planescape Torment, and Fallout 2, and I largely credit that to most of the side content playing into the main story, or the games themes. Thoughts and counterpoints are welcome :) [link] [comments]  |
| Square Enix E3 presentation was trash Posted: 11 Jun 2018 10:44 AM PDT I am a huge fan of Square. Always have been, and have high hopes and expectations of them. The last few years, they have really dropped the ball. FF 15 was nothing compared to what it could have been. FF 7 is still under wraps and no one knows wtf is going on with that. The presentation this year didn't instill any more faith in the company. Every game looked like crap, save for KH 3. Which is finally getting a solid release date. No mention of final fantasy, or any other masterpiece product. What the hell are they doing at Square? There's still the Sony conference, which I'm sure will still contain a few mentions from Square. Not holding my breath though. Here's to hoping I end up eating my words. [link] [comments]  |
| Fallout 76 announced, it's online only. Posted: 10 Jun 2018 09:54 PM PDT Your thoughts? Personally, I'm cautious about this. Having just played through Fallout 4, I'm really having a hard time relating this Rust-like online survival experience (with PvP) to anything I'm familiar with from the Fallout series; it really feels foreign. I'm hoping that, because of the numbering, this is just a spinoff and not the direction the series is going in; however, I do think the game has potential for what it is. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 11 Jun 2018 09:49 AM PDT This isn't a thread asking which to get! More a thread to just kind of share my recent experiences and see peoples' thoughts. It's a bit of a read, but mayhaps you'll find it enjoyable and have comments. I started a post titled "Video Games Then and Now" and got some conversation on it, and Switch and the 3DS were mentioned as possibly appealing to me more than the games for the main systems. Here was my thought process... Switch
So, I was thinking I would go buy it. I'm looking for something that would be more appealing to very casual gamers like myself. I don't really have much time to play video games in my preferred big screen TV/surround sound mode anymore, but I still want to get my game fix. That's why I figured the Switch could be a good purchase for me. It CAN connect to the TV, but it also has the mobile mode. I went to Best Buy to test it out and they had the Mario game on demo and set up with the controllers being in both separate and connected modes (I dunno the name, but it's where the are controllers connected in a frame so it's more like a standard gamepad). My first reaction was, holy shit, these buttons are tiny. My hands swallowed the controllers. I'm not fat, but am generally big at 6'1. I goofed around in the game for a few minutes. It looked good, played pretty well from what I can tell, and seemed fun. But as I looked around at everything going on in the environment, I remembered that I'd probably primarily be playing in mobile mode. Unfortunately they didn't have a demo of that set up, but I looked it up and was hoping for at least a 10" screen, but was disappointed to see that it was only 6.2 inches. I knew the screen in my car was similar to that (6.1"), so I tried to imagine what it would be like playing these games on a small screen, and then I kinda had a moment where I realized that the Switch, while it had a mobile mode, likely had games developed on it with intentions of being played on a real TV. I thought about games like Diablo 3, which is one of my favorite games, shrunk down to the 6.2 inch screen and realized I likely wouldn't be able to see shit. Then I looked over the games and the only ones I was really interested in were Zelda, Mario, DKC, and Mario Kart. I got to thinking, the console is 300, each game is 60, so I'd be spending almost $600 after taxes and would only be able to really play maybe an hour or so of games a day, if even that, and they were games that I thought would be fun but wasn't EXCITED about per se... and decided not to do it. So I thought I was finished, and was just moping about feeling sorry for myself for having to start giving up my gaming life in exchange for real life. No offense to my wife and kid.. but games have always been a fun way for me to unwind and relax, and since my daughter was born, I've gotten to play maybe 2 hours worth of games in 2 and a half months since my wife doesn't want to watch me play games (who does?) and I don't want to have to separate myself from them just so I can play some games. But then I had a revelation! There's the 3DS, a handheld system, a Nintendo system, and has a huge library of games between the 3DS and original DS (didn't know about the backwards compatibility until a guy at Gamestop told me, so happy he did. ) I went to the local Gamestop and they had one, XL, just traded in, the color I liked, and was only $125. Woohoo! I looked at the games and all my favorites were available in some (and sometimes multiple!) forms - Animal Crossing, Zelda, Mario, Donkey Kong Country, Metroid.. and the games were 15-30 each! Another WOOHOO! I jumped on it. I got it about 2 weeks ago, and within a week I'd gotten the following:
I've been having a BLAST with it! After finding out about the backwards compatibility, I did a search for all my favorite franchises to see if there were any versions of it for 3/DS, and sure enough, I found Phantasy Star 0. Phantasy Star Online was the game that introduced me to the wonderful world of loot and legendary weapons.... and kinda ruined other games for me lol. It's why if a game isn't a classic retro fun game or doesn't have a badass selection of unique, awesome weapons and characters, I'm not interested. I've also recently bought Mario Maker, which gives me an unlimited assortment of side scrolling Mario games, including ones I make! And I've gotten all that for the price of the Switch Console on it's own. The 3DS was definitely the best purchase I could've made. So, in conclusion, for those who want to continue playing their games despite all the adulting we have to do, or if you're feeling like video games have gone off in a direction you don't care for, I'd highly recommend getting a 3DS. Or even a 2DS! The games have the charm of all the games I loved growing up, simple fun (or you could get the more deeper ones if you're into that), can be played in bite-size pieces, is relatively cheap, AND you don't have to give up family time. Woohoo! The only bad thing is that I was told it was the new 3DS, but found it it wasn't when I went to download SNES VC games... but if you get an actual "New 3DS", you'll have all the SNES games in Virtual Console available. To all those TL;DRs I'm sure I'll get - whatevs. For those that read, thanks! Share your thoughts! [link] [comments]  |
| Am i wrong for not liking the the switch Posted: 11 Jun 2018 12:07 PM PDT I just don't see the apeal got it at launch day an I'm realy not enyoy ing it why does evry body rave about this console xbox and playstation are so. Much better [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 11 Jun 2018 08:55 AM PDT I spent a decade playing games with some of the most complex control schemes, inventories and skill systems. Most of them were MMORPGs with 40+ keybinds, thousands of items combinations and skills that you had to learn the internal mechanics to truly master. The difference is, once you learned all of that you had an investment that lasted for years. I stopped playing for a couple of years because of financial problems and came back, I had just bought a brand new PC with a 1080, installed a lot of games (that I never played before) like Skyrim, Dragon Age Inquisition, Tomb Raider, Doom, tons of games. To my surprise I couldn't enjoy a single one of them (but I played Doom until the end anyway), I just got so frustated about having to learn so many controls and systems for each one, keybinds, how to configure the games properly so they don't have mouse acceleration, and every fucking game has crafting now. It broke muh immersion and I can't get it back. Do you think games are trying way too hard these days to be their own universe instead of just being a good game? Or am I just too old and outdated? [link] [comments]  |
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