I should probably go to bed at this point. I typed up a short story of my arduous attempts at defending an outpost in the STALKER modpack GAMMA and how my game crashed when I turned in the quest. Sent off that post and woe-is-me, the entire text didn’t get submitted and I didn’t have it saved in copy-paste. It’s just so ironically fitting.
So ya, what’s something you’d like to ramble a bit about?
Been playing Zelda, Tears of the kingdom. I’ve blocked all the relevant keywords as to not get spoiled, but now the game is out for quite a bit of time and people are just posting vids and memes without spoilers messages of the keywords. It’s such a huge and beautiful game and I want to explore it on my own time, but I’m scared it’s a race against the clock before I get a spoiler on something.
It’s actually nuts how much there is to do in TOTK. I’m now 80 hours in and I’ve done 1 temple. I had finished BOTW by this time… although, I am trying to explore more this time instead of just going straight to the storyline.
No idea what my gameplay time is but I’ve been doing this same. I’ve done one temple but am spending the rest of the time exploring and unlocking the map. Constantly getting side tracked by all the interesting little things.
Mhmm, I feel you. I don’t want to touch it before I completed Breath of the Wild. But I’m already getting spoiled with the crazy things you can build. Then again, I’m not exactly making a big effort to stay in the dark aside from averting my eyes as soon as anything Tears of the Kingdom related pops up hah
I accidentally got spoiled today from a meme that was posted on Reddit about TotK. Not a huge deal as I had just figured out part of it today before seeing it. I have to watch those spoiler tags more closely!
I finally found a way to end my inability to stop playing WoW after 18+ years of it. I didn’t consider myself “addicted” - as I am able to maintain career & family, it was more about it meant I didn’t play any other game. I ended the issue by requesting a “private information removal” - which hard-deletes every aspect of your entire battle.net account. Gone. 13,000 hours and it feels great. I also don’t feel like I “lost” anything. When you see a 2 hour movie, but then you leave the theatre when it’s over - do you regret spending 2 hours? No, you don’t.
AAAAnd the very next act I took was to make a new Battle.net account to play Diablo4. The wheel of time, and all.
In other thoughts, I don’t expect D4 to be forever, and I look forward to smaller/indie games on Steam. Looks like I need to try Dwarf Fortress, RimWorld, and others.
That’s a mind-boggling amount of hours you put into WoW. I haven’t been really connecting to an MMO for the past couple years. At the moment, I’m playing Star Wars Galaxies again, but I’m only semi-casually logging in to craft a few things to sell on my vendor and then have two or so hours of RP before logging off again.
For RimWorld at least, I can assure you that it’s a lovely time-sink! And while it sucks to lose your little pixel people, allowing your colony to include death and tragedy makes for much more interesting stories.
In which server are you playing SWG on?
SWG Legends. Not just because it has the largest playerbase but also because I prefer the type and amount of content that came with/after the Combat Update and NGE. The skill system from pre-CU was really awesome though!
I just got back from an arcade bar, where I played a bunch of retro games like Frogger, Q-Bert, Tetris, Street Fighter II, you get the vibe.
It’s so fascinating playing these old cornerstones of the gaming industry and thinking of how much video games have morphed over their history. The first thing that comes to mind is how the way we think of gameplay has completely changed; these old arcade cabinets have very simple but entirely unforgiving mechanics, whereas nowadays I feel like I need two tutorials and a read-through of a manual before I can approach a game, but once you get the hang of a game’s particularities stuff gets easier in a way?
Like, the premise of Frogger is exceedingly simple; cross the street without getting killed. The challenge comes from the mechanics. Stuff gets faster, things are more hectic, you have less time to calculate your next move.
Whereas modern game mechanics are kinda smoothed out. There are less pixel-perfect maneuvers and places where timing is important, there’s a bigger emphasis on exploration, figuring things out, interacting with the game world. Like just think of the differences between the original Super Mario Bros’ gameplay and say Super Mario Odyssey. I’m not saying one style is better than the other, I definitely enjoy both retro and modern games, but the different priorities as preferences and technology evolved over time are immensely fascinating to me.
Another reason why games don’t necessarily have obstacles that require pixel perfect maneuevers, is that you no longer need to throw a coin into the machine every time you die.
That said, yeah, I recently watched a video essay on the first Wing Commander and it must have been so crazy back then because there wasn’t anything quite like it, if I remember correctly.
I know exactly what you mean. Got into Atari 2600 games a year ago, and it feels like an entirely different universe compared to modern games
You brought up a deep memory of watching these two guys playing House Of The Dead in an arcade back in the day. It was a difficult as nails light gun shooter, and these guys were further into the game than I’d ever seen anybody get. There were areas and enemies I’d never even heard of on the screen. I was part of a small crowd that stopped playing our own games to watch the spectacle.
Games designed to eat your money deserve to be gone, but still I can’t deny what a spectacle they could be.
I’m just… tired of these “pre-order” stuff. Like you’ll be sure that you’ll get a product that’s worth it when the thing comes out.
I refuse to pre-order stuff. As things stand I won’t even buy a game in the very first few months (with a few exceptions) because I know I would be paying to be a beta tester.
I am paradoxically okay with winding up paying to be a beta tester! …if it’s for a tiny indie studio doing something weird, interesting, and experimental where I can join a Discord and talk to people about it. That’s a fun experience. To hell with paying a major corporation for the privilege of being any form of sucker.
99% of people just dont care unfortunately, preorders, microtransactions seeping into everything, all these new games coming out unfinished and buggy, knowing that most people will buy them regardless of how bad they run.
People will join the bandwagon saying a game is bad then buy it a day later too i noticed
It feels almost petty to mention, but my main problem with gaming these days is choice… there’s just too much. I have a SteamDeck packed with over a decade of Humble Bundles and giveaways. I have a MiSTer FPGA with 10,000 retro games. I have subscriptions throwing me more games in a month than I could play in a year… and amid all that choice, I found I was playing none of it.
So I’ve taken steps. On retro devices, I’ve taken to removing the full ROM sets (or hiding them from view) and just selecting a handful of games that I used to own, or definitely want to play. In Steam, I’ve started a collection list of games I’m interested in and I only ever pick from that.
And, somehow, it works. Seeing only three or four games to choose from somehow short circuits that panic response of seeing three or four thousand. It’s easier to fixate on a game, or to find something to genuinely enjoy about a title that may not be that perfect experience otherwise, rather than discarding it quickly and moving on to the next fleeting thrill.
The main problem when having too many games is that just a bit of frustration can be enough to have me switch to a different one so in a sense never going very far on any of those titles. Very frustrating.
Mhmm I feel that problem. My unintentional solution was that my additional 2TB drive died and I was reduced to 2TB disk space in total (so about 1,5TB usable for games). Literally having to uninstall one or two games if I had a spur of “Oh I could quickly (relatively speaking, as it would also have to install and update) start Red Dead 2 again” keeps me from jumping from game to game constantly.
I’m feeling frustrated by games that don’t respect my time. Don’t play the same 30s animation every time I perform a minor action that I’m required to perform 10s or 100s of times, often in quick succession. At least have a skip button at a minimum!
Also, give me all of the information I need to make informed decisions, and make them intuitive!
The mandatory “immersive” animations are such a pain. Sure it might unrealistic that clicking a button teleports all the equipment from a dead guy into my inventory, but I am far more reminded I’m playing a video game if I’m forced to sit through a canned animation of digging through a dead guy’s pockets every single time I loot.
I feel super stagnated when it comes to games anymore. I still want to play but I only ever seem to play the same 2 games which are positively ancient now. I have tried to chip away at my backlog, but I will play for one night and then go right back to my comfy games even if I enjoyed it. Then if I want to try again I have to start over from scratch because too much time will have passed and I can’t remember the controls or what I was doing, so it’s back to the comfy games again because at least I won’t get frustrated.
Maybe I need to try some very short games or something? But also maybe I am just being too picky! I look for things that I think would scratch the same itch as my comfy games but haven’t found anything that gets close enough (yet!). I just want to have fun why do I have to make this so difficult?! >_<
I’m stuck in that same kind of gaming rut, I think it’s because dealing with “being an adult with responsibilities” is a lot more stress than when I first started gaming as a kid. My brain just does not want to learn a new system of rules, and I end up quitting new games halfway through the tutorial.
The couple times I’ve fought through that feeling, I’ve found a few new games I really love. So maybe it’s a mindset thing. I miss the ease with which I used to lose myself in new passions.
Yeah good point! Come to think of it I got a new game late last year that I thought would have a good shot with pushing through that mental block and then some life stuff got very in the way and I just didn’t go back to it and forgot about it until now. I should try that one again now that things are slightly less chaotic.
Yeah, same here.
I’ve mentioned this game before recently, but I just finished Gris and am absolutely smitten in a rare way. It’s very short, simple, and relaxed (no fail states), but it’s got probably the most beautiful art direction and score I can remember. That being said, it does also wind up doing some pretty interesting things with its simple mechanics too.
You can finish it in a few hours, but there’s a draw to return again just to sink back into the world, cause… It’s just pleasant there.
I just looked Gris up and even though I tend to avoid platformers, everything else about it really appeals so I will put it on my wishlist and have a think about whether to splash out for my birthday, thank you!
Happy to spread the word! If you do wind up giving it a shot I hope you enjoy it.
Have you played FTL? That might tickle your fancy.
I have actually! I do remember liking aspects of it but it is a bit too hard for me tbh, so it just ended up being too stressful. But it was a good suggestion anyway!
I’m the same with basically 2-3 games but I recently made a bold decision to actually start playing something I bought recently (Hitman 3) and I’m having a great time with it! Idk if you experience the same but I get this anxiety at playing something other than my comfort games, but honestly it’s been very nice to play something new for once :) so I really recommend to just give something else a try and really commit to it.
Yes, idk if it is anxiety exactly but I definitely find it stressful and discombobulating. But having the backlog sitting there looking at me is also stressful! Probably I need to take pressure off and just try to chill out with a new game, which is sort of the approach I have with drawing, like if I remove the pressure to be instantly good at it and let myself be terrible at it, it actually is a lot more fun for me and I will do it more often.
What are your comfy games? Maybe someone here can recommend something similar
I run my own single-player WoW-WotLK server and that is the main comfy game, the other is the Tropico series (mainly 3 & 4). I have tried a few alternatives over the years for both of these and nothing hooks me in as much, but maybe they only hook me in that much because of familiarity or nostalgia? Timberborn is I think the closest that has given me a similar feeling to Tropico (even though they are fairly different!), and I do have Guild Wars 2 which is a lot nicer overall than WoW but doesn’t really give the same feeling. I should still give it another shot though, I played it for a little while before I set up the WoW server and really liked that the clothes were so customisable :D But I have been out of the loop so other suggestions would be good too!
Oh wow servers emulation went huge compared to ten years ago(last time I checked) would you say that it is a nice seamless experience or is there a lot to tinker even when you have finished setting it up?
For mine there was very little for me to tinker with, it was a single player Azerothcore repack ready to go, which is good because I am not very technologically skilled! There have been a couple bugs, like a couple of quests are kinda janked, but I can just go into the database and mark them off as done for my character when that happens cos I don’t know how to properly fix them. Most of the tinkering was things like, do I want to adjust reputation/skill gains, how much stuff do I want the auctionhouse bot to list, how many profs do I want to allow per character, things like that. But that was all very easy to do thanks to the way the repack was done, and isn’t actually necessary because you can just stick with the default settings. The only thing I can’t do is PvP because I don’t have playerbots, but I never did PvP on WoW anyway so it doesn’t affect me much. I prefer it a lot to most of the multiplayer pservers I have tried, but I did tend to play WoW as a single player game mostly anyway! :D
This looks sorry promising, I will have to try. Thanks for your answer.
I’m kind of in a spur of playing or replaying older games. Replayed Fallout 1 recently and I’m doing a low intelligence build for the first time ever.
Debating playing VTM Bloodlines or the original Deus Ex, because this is a sin- I’ve never played either.
I think I’ll never not recommend VtM Bloodlines if it comes up! If my memory serves right, you would preferably get the unofficial patches to fix a couple annoying glitches, though.
I would like to hear how your low int build goes! I have heard that it will lock you out of most quests.
So far I am locked out of the Killian/Gizmo quest because both characters think I’m too dumb and dismiss me.
And big problem: I’m too stupid to use a slot machine. I had planned on using gambling as my money maker so this is a problem. Even with Mentats I’m still too dumb to gamble.
Oh dear. Are Fallout 1 & 2 like New Vegas in their gambling where you just need a high luck skill and the money will roll in? I’ve played the both of them once but I never did any gambling.
You have also inspired me: next time I go back to Fallout 2 (never completed it because I made it close to the endgame with a shitty build and it got too hard for me) I will do a low int run for a little while since I heard there is some unique dialogue with other dumb characters.
Yes, your chance to win is based entirely on your gambling skill and once it is more likely than not to win, you can get infinite cash by going up to a slot machine or poker table and holding down the enter key to place infinite bets.
If this barrier were applied to gambling IRL Las Vegas would probably lose its clientele pretty fast
I’m kind of tired of triple AAA games right now. So much crap out there. Not sure if it’s an issue of sucking the gaming industry dry or what but buhhh. There are outliers but it’s pretty exhausting… however emulation has never been better. I downloaded some OG Pikmin, Mario, etc and been playing through them and having a blast. Such an interesting time that a raspberry pi 4 can play a ton of the oldest games for “free” and the new stuff kind of gets forgotten about in 6 months.
I have typically avoided older games and played the new and shiny. However, in recent years AAA games have just felt like a chore. I am finding emulated games and indie games to be much more satisfying, especially on my Steam Deck.
deleted by creator
I feel the same way. Lack of identity, lack of new ideas. The last games that felt fresh to me was Returnal and Demon’s Souls (I didn’t play the original). I still need to try Elden Ring though
SteamDeck is awesome!! I’m playing steam games and emulated games side by side. Such a great experience. My biggest complaint about the deck is battery life but I can play anything from Super Mario 64 to TOTK. The I can seamlessly switch to Stardew valley with mods. I hope Valve keeps the completion fierce because it’s an amazing idea and piece of tech.
There’s a couple of studios that keep things interesting (ie, Nintendo with TOTK and FromSoft with ER), but other than that, what even is there anymore? I swear, the old AAAs just put pure crap out now. While Sony has been killing it lately, Im a little worried seeing what percentage of their funding is now going to be going to new live service stuff.
Are full games for full price too much to ask for from half these companies now? Thank god the indie space is killing it
100% agree! TOTK is amazing but it’s a diamond in a sea of garbage it feels like. As I get older I feel like I have less and less time to play games I don’t really like. So many are grindy and samey. Indie space blows my mind. Stardew Valley is basically one guy… Like how!!! You have millions in AAA and you are getting absolutely trounced by the indie crowd.
Gaming-wise, I’m honestly having a great time. I think there’s never been a better time for gaming. Yes, it’s true that a lot of newer games have horrible micro-transactions practices, but there’s also newer games that don’t do this, there’s always older games that can be played, leaked builds of games that you might have thought would have never existed (like Gears of War 3 on PC) which are actually quite fun to play and there’s more game mods now than ever before. I think this is kind of the golden age of gaming in it’s own way.
Big thing for me recently has been quitting Destiny 2. I’ve invested an…embarrassing amount of time into that game and while there’s zero regret about the friends I made and the good times I’ve had, the game has just progressively moved further and further away from what I enjoyed about it. It’s just not something I feel the same way about anymore. Feels weird(but not bad) no longer being tied down to a “main” game.
…but yeah, been nice to catch up on some single player stuff. Playing Tears of the Kingdom quite a bit but Diablo IV is really hitting that loot dopamine part of my brain Destiny did so that’s the main thing right now.
This was me with VALORANT last year. I run an indie-focused games publication, but I lost myself completely to VALORANT to the point that I wasn’t playing anything else, and the site suffered as a result. I wasn’t even really having much fun, and then I realized how much I was investing into a live service, and games I was genuinely interested to play, talk about, write about, were just passing me by.
So this year I decided to give up live service games for a year, and that has seriously allowed me to get back into my groove, and to play a lot of backlog games. Steam Deck has also helped quite a lot in that regard.
My friend and I play Destiny 2 but we do not do any of the seasonal content. We are still making our way slowly through The Witch Queen and that is quite enjoyable for me. I refuse to devote my free time entirely to one game again.
Having said that… Diablo IV… ooof.
I have put destiny 2 on the backburner recently since lightfall came out. I had plenty of frustration before that but the actual state of the game after that was so bad I just had to take a step back from it. Played a bunch of single player games and have been having a blast with them. My only issue is a lot of my friends from destiny keep going back, and I kinda feel compelled to join again. Not that I hate it, I just made a new build i love, but it has departed from its best moments.
Yeah that’s where I’m at with it too. No hate, just something that’s not what it was. I’ll probably play The Final Shape to see the thing through to the end (maybe dip in for returning raid because that always gets it going for me haha), but it’s not the same and I’m done resisting the tides. It’s a game that’s being wound down. I’m just trying to be grateful for the good times I had as opposed to being bitter about what it’s become.
Finally started playing Mass Effect legendary. It surely lives up to it’s hype. The combat is nifty, but the dialogue and choices are super fun.
Also playing Dysmantle with my partner. It’s simple but very cathartic and mindless. It’s got issues but overall very worth playing. Especially couch coop.
I just had a quick look at the Dysmantle store page. Am I correct in imagining it similar to Project Zomboid?
It is like Zombiod but less complex and more mindless.
Overwhelmed honestly
Jedi fallen survivor Totk Many I haven’t finished (horizon, gow)
Yeah, these last few months have been a whirlwind for me. I got a Steam Deck, so I started working through that backlog (most notably, Horizon ZD). Then I got Jedi: Survivor, and ToTK (still working on this one).
I watch/listen to a bunch of gaming video essays which help me get a good fix. Been playing ToTK which has been great fun and have been all over Timberborn recently.
There’s so much to play these days, so I have a hard stance against anything with microtransactions.
Who are your favorite essayists for games? I’m keen on Monty Zander and Noah Caldwell-Gervais, as well as Chris Davis.
Conveniently I listed out some of my fav Gaming YouTubers here!
https://beehaw.org/comment/107048
I very much enjoy Monty Zander, they have great energy; I’ll check out those other two!
Omg lol, so many recommendations in that thread. Video essays are back on the menu boys!
And that’s just gaming Youtubers! I also have a lot of tech, philosophy, film & media ones I love. Also a couple of disaster essayists, train & themepark ones too 😂
Well, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d love to get some more of your top picks for the others, especially tech and film (been a Lindsay Ellis fan for years and am also fond of creators like Pop Culture Detective, Just Write, Thomas Flight, and lots more).
Big fan of Lindsay Ellis & Pop Culture Detective!
For Tech: Technology Connections, This Does Not Compute, Michael MJD and RetroBytes. MattKC is probably more tech than gaming too
Film & Culture stuff: Ladyknightthebrave, Big Joel, Schafarillas Productions, José, Shaun, CJ the X, Rowan Ellis, We’re in Hell, Jenny Nicholson, Super Eyepatch Wolf, Breadsword, Contrapoints, Philosophy Tube, La’Ron Readus, Three Arrows
Shaun and Contrapoints are two of my three holy trinity for politics and culture too, with Folding Ideas being the third. I’m looking forward to checking out the rest, thanks for taking the time to put these together!
I’m just now realising my YT subs are out of control
Tears of the Kingdom has been consuming my life at the moment. I have the final boss mission ready to go but havne’t commited to that yet. I want to explore more before “finishing” the game
Then I’ll follow it up with the Outer Wilds DLC
After that I want to dedicate myself to some platformers and indie games that everyone recommends.
Honestly, feel like I’m in a good place gaming-wise, just planning ahead so there isn’t a vacant hole in my life when I finish ToTK
TotK is amazing. I was put off the price point at first but with the sheer scope of the game I can’t complain. Flying around on the Wing device is my favorite.
I initially got frustrated at them because they’re so hard to launch, but now I appreciate that they’re not a one-and-done tool. Something I still want to do is freeze a block of ice, then use that to shift one off a cliff.
I’m feeling the loss of Cryonis for sure. And Stasis.
I mean, Cryonis is the type of thing you never have to miss as long as you have ice enemy parts, to either throw or put on arrows.
Anytime a blue chu-chu attacks you, kill it with an elemental attack so its blobs convert to that color; very useful.
yo 👀I didn’t realize
100% There are so many things you can do with the Wing, I mean just so many things you can do in general with all the Zonai devices. So many solutions to so many problems. Everybody I talk to handles problems in unique ways. That uniqueness to everything is really fantastic
