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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • Making a system like this one day is my dream. I’m not in game dev and I’m probably never going to make a playable game but I naively believe that if you organize this well enough in advance, the moment it starts clicking together would be amazing. If you define all the individual actors in a flexible enough way, eventually the simulation should just ‘click’ and start functioning on its own, right? :P

    For example, you dont need to code the specific wolves+rain interaction - you just need to code “if vulnerable/tired - find shelter” and have rain affect the living creatures in that way. It doesn’t matter if there are deer or sheep in the area, “if wolf hungry” logic should just say “find something with meat to eat nearby”.

    Then again I know enough about programming to know this is extremely naive and it’d probably be a million times more difficult if I ever got around to doing it. I don’t even know where I fall on the dunner-kruger graph yet, but it’s an interesting thing to think about for me.


  • I tried to push for GOG purchases too and then I just ended up with games that would receive updates late. I’d miss out on discounts and bundles that make future purchases cheaper, at some point it was cheaper to just rebuy stuff with DLCs on Steam than continue building up the library on GOG.

    I also gave their galaxy client a try since it promised a united library for all platforms and then they did a horrible job managing the plugins for other stores - they constantly kept breaking or logging me out while even Playnite worked perfectly out of the box.

    In the end I just stopped wasting energy on GOG, life is too short and complicated enough. If they have a good deal on old games I might grab it, otherwise I prefer anything else.



  • If Epic Games would be an actual competitor to Steam instead of trying to lock their content behind a paywall and force users to use them over the competition, then people might consider using their service.

    Exactly, that’s why it worked out so well for GOG.

    If you want them to recoup the costs then buy the game instead of taking a pointless moral stance over supporting a monopoly.


  • It’s a good game and it wouldn’t have been made if it werent for epic games fronting the cost. Step beyond the silly platform tribalism and just enjoy the game that was made with love and vision while supporting the devs and the choices they made. Or dont, w/e, I’m personally glad I got it there since the devs got a bigger cut than they’d get on steam anyway.





  • It did? Outer Worlds was just an over-exaggerated parody of capitalism, Starfield at least had some somewhat-believable world building in terms of how the tech progressed, how/why did humans start to live among the stars, conflict between different religions or factions, the xenomorph threat…

    Like I’m not saying any of these were done well, but it did have decent worldbuilding and some neat ideas, it was just the execution that sucked. OW might have some better parts than SF, like companion writing (although it was pretty cliched and cheesy there too) so I’m really surprised you use world building as your example lol




  • I too wish for a game like this but apparently it’s impossible to do it, either due to lack of vision, budget or expertise (or all of the above). Starfield sounded perfect on paper and it was a good studio to attempt it but in the end it was just a bland, soulless, boring mess of a game.

    As for my suggestions, I just got smaller games, not larger ,and in that vein honestly: FTL. It’s a 2d sprite roguelike and yet it’s the best game at giving me the feeling of being a scrappy starship captain on the run, trying to scrounge together resources in order to complete my trip despite overwhelming odds.

    The second closest game is Starbound but your mileage will vary, it feels unfinished and there is no real story to speak off, although the ship you continually improve and build in over time as you explore the universe does start to feel cozy and homely. It is also basically a worse Terraria in space so if you don’t like gameplay like that, skip.

    If you like Mass Effect you ought to try KOTOR1 and 2, oldies but goldies, but they do have the same weaknesses you already outlined for ME, it’s very much a set story.




  • That’s a lot of assumptions that I can’t agree are inherently true. Forcing people to participate might not make them think at all beyond fulfilling the duty and not paying a fine, and random votes might not balance out the charismatic leaders at all - if anything the charismatic populist leaders that focus on good PR over substance will probably gather up more of these uneducated “just circle something” voters than the others. It is where/why marketing and commercials work so well in the first place and I’d rather not give even more power to this type of brainwashing, it is a popularity contest enough as it is.

    If anything, I’d make it so in order for people’s votes to count they need to show at least a very basic understanding of what they are voting for and what are the implications of it.


  • How is it better if someone just goes and circles a random name on the list because its mandatory? If someone doesn’t follow politics and isn’t educated enough to pick a good candidate, or motivated enough to research them, I think it’s better to not vote at all than to give it up to either chance or a superficial gut feeling based on constant propaganda barrage. A person that votes like that just makes your vote less impactful, statistically speaking.



  • I dunno if it counts as an MMORPG but Warframe has sunk its claws back into me and I can’t get it out of my head. The new update is mindblowing in many ways and I’m so into whatever the devs keep cooking if they continue like this.

    It’s a tough game to get into but I’ve been playing it on and off for a decade now and there’s nowhere I’d rather be