Cethin
@Cethin@lemmy.zip
- Comment on RimWorld switches engine from Unity to the devs' own, faster Waylith Engine, all apparently without breaking mods somehow 1 week ago:
The cool thing about having your own ship is you can build your entire base on it. Nomad becomes a lot easier at that point. It’s not just moving and setting up base over and over. You’re moving your entire base with you. The way it works also makes base design somewhat more interesting too, at least the first time. You’re significantly more limited on space, so it’s a puzzle how to fit things in in a way you like. I imagine this is less fun when it’s solved though.
Regardless, yeah, I don’t think it’s the right way to start playing. It’s something you add to change things up.
- Comment on RimWorld switches engine from Unity to the devs' own, faster Waylith Engine, all apparently without breaking mods somehow 1 week ago:
Yeah, and I’m pretty sure they know levels would have been nice because they added them (with strong limitations). They added bunkers and caves that are below ground and have multiple layers. You can freely build them, or even freely travel through them (it acts like a new map), but they exist. Hopefully the next game they’re working on has levels, if it’s a colony manager, because it adds a lot more variety to how you can build things.
- Comment on RimWorld switches engine from Unity to the devs' own, faster Waylith Engine, all apparently without breaking mods somehow 1 week ago:
I don’t know what the other user is talking about it being a “separate game.” It is heavily data-focused though. It’s mostly C# code. As long as that doesn’t make calls to Unity functions, it’s fine, but also I’m certain they, and other mods, have. However, you can still handle this, similar to how WINE can run Windows applications without running Windows. You have a compatibility layer that routes all the calls that would have gone to Unity to your own systems that behave as close to identically as possible. If you make a call to “UnityEngine.Vector3”, for example, you just create your own “UnityEngine.Vector3” that replicates the functionality.
- Comment on RimWorld switches engine from Unity to the devs' own, faster Waylith Engine, all apparently without breaking mods somehow 1 week ago:
I’m not going to say you’re wrong, but it also adds a ton of complications. Presumably they wrote an entire compatibility layer to map from Unity calls to their own engine. That work doesn’t need to be done at all if you start from scratch with your own engine and targets.
You are right that they probably couldn’t afford to make their own engine originally though, and this presumably lets them not pay royalties on future sales. I wouldn’t say it’s a good strategy, but if you end up with a boatload of cash and a game with a long tail then it’s a good tactic. It’s just not something you should plan on doing.
- Comment on RimWorld switches engine from Unity to the devs' own, faster Waylith Engine, all apparently without breaking mods somehow 1 week ago:
IIRC, many, maybe most, Rimworld updates broke mods too. This one hasn’t though. That’s because this one seems to essentially just be a compatibility layer or something. What they must have done is routed all calls to Unity things to their own engine’s alternative. At least that’s my educated guess, because there’s no other reasonable way this could work.
This is still amazing. I’m not diminishing that. It isn’t changing the way the game functions though. It’s just changing how it functions.
- Comment on [Frame] Landed on the waitlist, two friends as well (Europe) 5 weeks ago:
I had an original Vive, and I enjoyed it. There’s not too exclusive VR games, but there are other experiences. For example, 3D movies are viewable without the shitty experience that is a 3D TV. There are also a lot of traditional games that have good VR experiences. Also, obviously, porn.
- Comment on [Frame] Landed on the waitlist, two friends as well (Europe) 5 weeks ago:
I got in the queue. I’m sure there will be a lot of cancelations though. A lot of people probably signed up because it was free, and we’re still deciding if they wanted to purchase. In three days I bet you get your chance.
Out of curiosity, which version did you sign up for? I signed up for the cheaper one. I wonder if the more expensive one is more limited?
- Comment on "We track every server you enter": the Wardogs devs are "coming down hard" on XP farms and cash exploits, even as they encourage people to grind 5 weeks ago:
We’re talking about Wardogs. The OP wasn’t discussing abusing normal game mechanics. It was talking about going to servers to “cheat” the mechanics.
Anyway, if Warframe did have community servers then they’d have this issue too. In fact, it does have this issue IIRC in the PvP mode. People will (or would) host games and not play the game mode just to farm the PvP currency/unlocks. If you could host your own servers, where you can modify the rules, this would get so much worse. It’s potentially still be worth doing though, in my opinion. Community servers breathe so much life into games. You still have to try to combat abuse though, or just don’t let them have any effect on progress, which would also suck.
- Comment on "We track every server you enter": the Wardogs devs are "coming down hard" on XP farms and cash exploits, even as they encourage people to grind 5 weeks ago:
You’re right, but also it resets occasionally. However, this is always the case anyway. I used to play Escape from Tarkov (I recently started playing Singleplayer Tarkov again, which runs on Linux, and development was recently stopped due to a trademark warning —not copyright, they just can’t use the name), and the way streamers play is so much different to most players. They spend so much time in the game that they have a skill level where they hardly are playing the same game. Even starting from the same position, or even worse through optional challenges, they stomp the average player.
There’s no such thing as an even playing field. I do think efforts should be made to minimize it, but making progression off-limits because it gives players who progressed further an advantage is a little silly. It doesn’t belong in every game, but it’s fine in some.
- Comment on 5 weeks ago:
Yeah, I signed up for a slot, but I had a thought that I’d just wait and get it cheaper later. Then I realized that’s not really how things work anymore somehow, and I could probably buy now and resell it higher later, even used, because none of this makes any sense.
This is, of course, assuming the current status quo continues. With the recent “AI needs to be restrained” comments from AI execs, it might crash soon and things go back to being sane.
- Comment on "We track every server you enter": the Wardogs devs are "coming down hard" on XP farms and cash exploits, even as they encourage people to grind 5 weeks ago:
I don’t have the game yet because Linux doesn’t work, but I assume these are community servers, where the admins changed settings to make grinds easier. Are you saying they shouldn’t give these tools out? I guess it does mess with the game design, but I think giving the community tools to make the game their own is also good.
- Comment on "We track every server you enter": the Wardogs devs are "coming down hard" on XP farms and cash exploits, even as they encourage people to grind 5 weeks ago:
“Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game.”
-Soren Johnson, the lead designer of Civilization IV
The whole game is about making money. Without this, there are no goals. However, if players start subverting the designed mechanics for an advantage, it makes others feel like they’re missing out and they do the same.
Grind is not all negative. For example RuneScape is entirely a game about the grind. Sure, you could just give every player a “max” button, but then what’s your goal/accomplishment while playing? There isn’t one.
I agree that a grind that doesn’t have a purpose sucks. The open world Ubisoft games, for example, have you just grind pointless things that waste your time, for no reason but to extend playtime. That’s bad grind. I haven’t played this, because it doesn’t run on Linux yet, but it seems to be mostly good grind.
I’m skeptical about locking some things behind exp, not just money, though. It gives players with more hours to spend a larger advantage.
- Comment on Half-Life: Alyx ported to ARM64 for Steam Frame - update out now 5 weeks ago:
I agree. It’s been my prediction that Valve will use this to publish mobile games. They already have the Steam app. There’s also an app that already uses this that lets you play your Steam library on mobile (GameNative). I think Valve would be stupid to not push a patch to the Steam app that allows you to play your games on mobile.
- Comment on "You can’t just throw new people at that problem": Bethesda devs doubt future Elder Scrolls and Fallout games will have the same "quality level", after losing seasoned staff to Xbox cuts 1 month ago:
NV was also an incredibly unstable game, and worse at launch than it is today, which is still incredibly bad even with mods. NV was great, but let’s not pretend it was flawless.
Also, Obsidian isn’t the same studio it was back then. I don’t know how people still view things like this. Obsidian is a name. The people working there are the talent. The talent is mostly gone.
- Comment on "You can’t just throw new people at that problem": Bethesda devs doubt future Elder Scrolls and Fallout games will have the same "quality level", after losing seasoned staff to Xbox cuts 1 month ago:
Bethesda was profitable too, at minimum until MS purchased them.
- Comment on The Steam Deck Is Now Being Used To Control Mars Rovers 1 month ago:
Every one of these comments have been correct, despite sounding like they’re disagreeing.
However, I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t know what it is. Gaming has never seemed to be something that’s interested him. It could be, but it doesn’t seem like it’d be a high priority. Most non-gamers probably do not know what a Steam Deck is. Hell, a lot of gamers probably don’t if their only platform is a console, and they don’t engage with gaming spaces online.
- Comment on Valve aren't putting any exclusives on the Steam Machine because they see "the whole PC catalog as our 'launch exclusive'" 3 months ago:
I think it’s more likely making a game that’s exclusive to Steam/PC. I don’t think there’s really any way to make one exclusive to the Steam Machine. At most, it could be exclusive to Linux.
- Comment on Valve aren't putting any exclusives on the Steam Machine because they see "the whole PC catalog as our 'launch exclusive'" 3 months ago:
I agree. However, the only reason anyone wants those mostly is because of the marketing. I have too many better games that I need to get to on PC already. While some of the console exclusives look interesting, I’ve realized they aren’t made for me anyway. They aren’t really made for anyone for that matter. They’re made for everyone, which means they’re made for no one.
- Comment on Amid Steam Machine performance scrutiny, Valve removes '4K at 60FPS' claim, opting for a safer and more believable claim instead 3 months ago:
I don’t want one of these, because I have a computer that’s far better, but also it depends on what you play. 99% of what I play would probably be fine even at 4k60fps. Sure, if you want to play a AAA game from the past 5, maybe 10, years, it’s not going to happen. Most indies probably will, especially 2D or light 3D ones.
- Comment on Steam Machine 3 months ago:
Yeah… this didn’t age well. How did you end up here 7m later?
- Comment on Steam Machine and Steam Frame shipping "this summer", Valve now rolling out verification systems 4 months ago:
But you can get the same with Garuda, CachyOS, or other Arch based distros, without any limitations. There’s no reason for people to be waiting for SteamOS because it’s not even the best option for most users.
- Comment on Steam Machine and Steam Frame shipping "this summer", Valve now rolling out verification systems 4 months ago:
There are advantages to soldered RAM. It can be faster without extra cost. The issue is it’s not upgradable. It depends if they’re targeting people who will upgrade their device or people who won’t on which is the smarter option.
If you want SteamOS though, there are already plenty of options. SteamOS is just another distro based on Arch. It isn’t doing anything special (except on the actual Steam Machine which will have extra hardware to, for example, turn on when you press the button on your controller). There is literally no reason you should be waiting for it, especially if you want just a desktop OS that can play games. If you want a console-like experience, where it’s harder to access the desktop and more restricted, then there still isn’t a reason but it is a thing you can do.
- Comment on Steam Machine and Steam Frame shipping "this summer", Valve now rolling out verification systems 4 months ago:
That’s what I’ve been wanting, but I don’t think so, at least not yet. I have a pretty powerful PC, and I don’t care to use this away from it. I’m totally fine with a tethered requirement. Being standalone is cool, but it isn’t worth the additional price in my opinion.
- Comment on Not only will the new Steam Controller scream at you but it can play tunes as well 5 months ago:
Me too. It’d be more useful than the sound playback. It requires adding something that isn’t there though. This doesn’t. I don’t understand what you don’t get about this.
- Comment on Not only will the new Steam Controller scream at you but it can play tunes as well 5 months ago:
There’s articles on all kinds of things. That doesn’t mean the marketing team behind the product was promoting it. If that were the case then there’d never be negative articles either.
There’s articles about this because it’s funny. It’s also not something you’d see from, for example, Microsoft or Sony, because there’s too much corporate control. It shows the devs at Valve get to mess around and have fun with what they’re making. They’re making something that they want, not just something the corporate overlords dictated.
- Comment on Not only will the new Steam Controller scream at you but it can play tunes as well 5 months ago:
I think it isn’t significant. I assume you made a mistake in your comment.
But yeah, it probably took very little time. The software already exists. I’m not sure if they used an existing library or wrote their own, but it isn’t complicated. Not to mention, I’m pretty sure the original Steam Controller did this too, so it was written then, not now, if they wrote it themselves.
- Comment on Not only will the new Steam Controller scream at you but it can play tunes as well 5 months ago:
Definitely more useful, but it requires adding something. This feature doesn’t. It’s already there.
- Comment on We're inching closer to the Steam Frame release with a SteamOS Manager update 5 months ago:
I thought the Index was higher than that.
I had an original Vive though. I’ve used an Index, and it looks mostly totally fine in comparison. It definitely doesn’t suck, but higher is almost always better. Notably though, the Frame will not be pushing this resolution everywhere. It’ll only be where you’re looking, but that’s pretty much fine, if not ideal. Using extra energy and creating more heat to render detail we can’t perceive isn’t good, especially for something mounted to your face.
- Comment on Not only will the new Steam Controller scream at you but it can play tunes as well 5 months ago:
Older controllers probably didn’t have haptics that could be controlled to playback sound files. Once you have that though, it’s relatively free to add. It’s not a feature the controller is sold on, because it doesn’t really matter, but it is a cool bonus to add for free, and let’s the devs have a little fun.
- Comment on Not only will the new Steam Controller scream at you but it can play tunes as well 5 months ago:
If it were used to play game sounds, yeah, that’s stupid. It’s just the vibration motors with software controls that can replay the same vibrations of a sound file. They are not high enough quality to be used for game audio. They are good enough to play a wakeup/shutdown sound (optional), or other things that just add bonuses to the controller. It’s free, assuming your haptics were good enough.