Sea of Stars – Throes of the Watchmaker DLC – Indie World Showcase 8.27.2024
Aielman15 @ Aielman15 @lemmy.world Posts 28Comments 592Joined 2 yr. ago

I don't have a reference to how it was before, but I tried Beyond once and it was terrible. I cannot in good conscience recommend anyone to spend money on such a horrible piece of crap.
I have way more fun filling the character sheet by myself. I use Emmet Bryne's custom character sheets and the Spells 5e app when I need to reference spells.
Daily reminder that Peter Molyneux is a pathological liar whose only accomplishment has been giving us one of the most brutally accurate piece of gaming journalism to date.
Because he is. The person he is speaking to is a Nazi. there are other Nazis behind him. They probably dug a hole a left him there to die or something (we lack context for the scene, but it's believable). Full scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e17p2IVDUU
Nice argument, Emperor Hong. Why don't you back it up with a source?
People crying for these Russians, who are in relative safety and who were free to go, are just comical to me.
There is no "relative safety" in war and "free to go" means abandoning their homes and belongings, which is a fucking awful thing to do. Who are you, random armchair commentator, to speak like that?
Where were you when all these Ukrainian cities were shelled and other war crimes happened?
I was crying for them as well, just as I'm crying now, just as I will always cry for people caught in the flames of war, which is one of the worst experiences a person can be asked to live through.
Y'all think that having fucking empathy for civilian lives means rooting for Putin, which is not true. Putin is a dictator, a criminal and an abhorrent human being, and I hope he pays for his crimes. Here, I said it again. But this article is not about Putin, it's about a woman lamenting that her government lied to the population instead of doing anything to protect them, and now she hasn't heard from her elderly parents for days.
It's something that I wouldn't wish happened to anyone, ever. The fact that they are Russians doesn't suddenly change the tale into a comedy. Laughing at the expenses of random civilians who happened to live under the autocratic rule of a violent narcissist is not something that I will ever condone. I can root for the Ukranians while also keeping my humanity. But apparently you can switch it on and off at will depending on who you are looking at.
I said nothing about Ukranians' actions being unjustified, nor do we have any reason yet to think that war crimes are being committed in the area. If this brings them an inch closer to winning the war, I wholly support them.
Still, laughing at people suffering because of war is such an abhorrent behaviour to exhibit, and the fact that people are bending logic to justify it is wild.
You all should learn some empathy.
You are underplaying the struggles of civilians in a war zone just because they happen to live on the wrong side of the border.
Civilians have all the rights to not want war on their country, at their doors, no matter which side of the border they are, and they are allowed to lament the incompetency of a government that hides critical information from them in an attempt to cover up its failures.
The Ukrainians have the right to keep fighting, and I hope they win this war. Putin is a criminal and he must pay for his crimes. This doesn't mean that civilians caught in the crossfire are being petty.
I burned myself out of many a game as a kid attempting (and usually succeeding at) 100% them, so I learned my lesson. Nowadays I just play for fun and maybe go after the platinum if I liked the game enough. My time has value and I'm not going to squander it to "look at the minimap, go to waypoint/marked location, collect random collectible, rinse and repeat for 10-15 hours", nor am I spending dozens of hours grinding some random activity.
For example, I did almost 100% all Yakuza Kiwami. Did all side quests and enjoyed most of the random activities! Iirc those I had most trouble with were karaoke and billiards, but I still had tons of fun learning them and gradually getting better at them. But fuck me I'm NOT going to grind the coliseum for hours just to buy random weapons that I don't need but are arbitrarily required for the 100% completion.
I've also learned not to rush it. I frequently replay games that I like, so if I miss an achievement, that's fine. Maybe in five years I'll pick the game up again and grab the random achievement I missed the first time around. There's no need to sweat it, no need to read guides before/while playing the game and potentially spoiling me some major story events, and no need to immediately replay the game just to reach that random achievement.
That being said, the game I had the most fun with was CrossCode. Movement is fluid, combat is snappy, story and characters are fun and puzzles are actually challenging. It's the most charming experience I've ever had playing a game, and it's why it immediately jumped straight into my top favourite games ever. There is technically a "completionist list" within the game with some abdurd and missable requests, but it's not required to 100% the game and it's basically just a pile of challenges that you can tackle on if you feel like it. If you don't, you can just play the story, do the side quests and collect all the treasures, which is a lot of fun. The platinum only requires you to beat the story iirc, so you don't even need to do any of that; I did it because I liked the game and wanted to do it. Twice! I bought the game on PC and console and 100% it both times.
Most other games that I enjoy completing are platformers/collect-a-thons, such as Spyro, Crash (except Crash 1, never managed to finish it, but had tons of fun nevertheless), Ori, Celeste, PS1 Oddworld games, etc... and metroidvanias, if they are not overly long (basically every one I've played except for Hollow Knight).
The longest run I had was Final Fantasy XIII. I liked the game so much that I kept going back to it over the years, slowly chipping at the side content and grinding my way to max level. I got the platinum almost ten years after starting my save file, and I wouldn't have enjoyed it nearly as much if I attempted to rush it all in one sitting.
The CEO constantly starves the D&D team. They don’t have the budget they need to make a good product.
Respectfully, I disagree. I've seen much better 3rd party content from smaller creators who charge less than WotC and offer much better value. As much as I'm sorry for those who were laid off, the problem with the DnD team is not their meagre numbers, but their lack of care for the brand.
The DnD team (which consisted of both writers and playtesters) had ten years of consistent player feedback on 5e, and one and a half year of OneDnD playtest, and only did the bare minimum. You don't need hundreds of people to write a rules update. Heck, it took me (only me, a single person with no collaborators or playtesters) a week to write a replacement for the 5e fighter, and I recon I did a fairly decent job. There were Monk revisions floating around that were miles better than the abomination that they attempted to push in UA6. Heck, I also wrote my Monk revision during that time, and it took me about two/three days at most. During the playtest, Crawford claimed that the Warlock's Pact of the Chain was never meant to be as "spicy" as Pact of the Blade or Pact of the Tome, which is bullshit (it was clearly presented as an equal option to the other two); instead of rebalancing Chain and Talisman, they just folded the Pact Boons into the Invocation system and called it a day (again, lazy game design). I did that for my homebrew Warlock in about... half a week of brainstorming?
I could go on, but the point is, I would expect those who are paid to create content for the game and do it for a living to do better than what I can do for free in my spare time.
It works for movies and pretty much everything else as well. The amount of nostalgia I've seen for terrible movies and shitty PS2-era videogames is astounding.
The fact that MS spent an entire decade fumbling the ball, and when it finally got it right and released a game people actually liked, immediately shut down the studio and sold the IP, is still highly amusing to me.
You can't convince me that it wasn't an inside job from someone who either secretly works for the competition, or who actively hates MS and wants it to fail.
And according to RPGBot, after 10 years they still have no clue on how to make mounted combat work, despite Summon Greater Steed now being part of the Paladin class by default.
Yeah, I knew that all those people praising the new and innovative accessibility design of the books before they were even out were full of shit.
It's WotC. We have criticized their books for over a decade now and they still don't give a damn. I remember flipping through one of their adventure modules and being flabbergasted by their incompetence.
It's not just cross-referencing, either. They actively made OneDnD more complicated to run for a number of classes, yet refused to add more depth to the system. Depth remained the same, it's just more complicated for first time players. It's disappointing how little they cared, they just rushed the product in time for the anniversary.
I found the puzzles refreshing in CrossCode. It was nice having a game that actually had the guts of challenging your wits, instead of spoiling all your fun with the characters telling the solution before you even manage to look at the damn puzzle. They were my favourite aspect of the game for sure.
A bit sad they decided to tone down on that aspect, but hopefully they'll strike a balance that makes both of us happy.
I really liked GI. No drama, no ignorance, great articles: quality journalism, which is rare today, and even rarer when talking about gaming publications.
I'm not much of a gamer myself now as I was in my youth, but GI was still one of my main connections to the gaming world that allowed me to keep in touch with the hobby.
It's sad that the talent of all those people is being unceremoniously dumped like this by executives who only care about money. I wish them all the best.
It's actually a great way to roll out a product. The reason they are paying content creators is to drive engagement on their product so that people get excited and pre-order/buy said product. They don't care about fairness or rules or whatever. They just want to make more money.
If you don't like it, try to remember it next time they release a new product.
What's the rush? Just play good ol' 5e (with or without homebrew content) for a few more weeks. World's not going to end.
I agree it sucks to see people enjoying the product they got for free before paying customers, but like, it's WotC we're talking about, here. It's the least shitty thing they have done in the past two years. If you don't want to get kicked in the shins, don't pre-order from them. Be glad you don't have the Pinkertons knocking at your door right now.
I'll just wait for the Pirate subclass to make an appearance. I've been playing it for the past few years and enjoyed it very much.
The year is 2077.
Pollution and nuclear war destroyed the environment.
The economy is in shambles, big corporations rule over the world and exploit the powerless working class.
Crime has overtaken the country. It doesn't matter who you are: you are either one of them, or on the receiving end.
Breathable air is a subscription service, and price hikes happen every other month to please shareholders.
Game devs are still releasing games for the PS4 and XOne consoles. Nobody has yet understood the purpose of the next gen consoles. Every other day, someone screams "but muh exclusives!" to the sky. But no one answers back. God remains silent.
Honestly, the true ending is nothing to write home about. Sea of Stars is probably one of my favourite JRPG ever, but the entire last arc and both endings were a huge letdown.