TheHarpyEagle

For me it’s definitely Viscera Cleanup Detail. Super chill and satisfying cleaning game that I often boot up when I just want to shoot the shit with someone. There’s also quite a few custom maps after you get through the official ones.

Also Cities Skylines (the first one). Sometimes I just spend a couple hours watching my trains go around with a first person vehicle mod while I watch videos.

Imagine being upset that someone is having this much fun with like the first level of your game

https://youtu.be/gWqnz-7iQbY?si=vIQXYfX1jwGvT3-2

Yeah, cause remasters always go well coughGTAdefinitive ahemWarcraft3cough.

Even then, what motive is there to prevent people from getting the original if they want to? Well, other than being able to charge $20-$40 for a 20 year old game.

To be fair, it’s a pretty common play. Company makes unpopular decision, walks it back, tries again a little later once the novelty has worn off and the MSM doesn’t care to pick it up again.

I think this particular move is pretty ballsy with how egregious it is (especially considering that starfield didn’t do anything particularly outstanding to overshadow it), but I don’t doubt they’ll try it again. If people keep buying their games, where’s the risk? At worst they’ll still get a few dollars from those who, for whatever reason, buy it, and then it’s forgotten by the next time a game comes out.

Nobody would want to get into a game that requires hundreds of hours of homework before they can finally start to become good at the game.

This is a huge issue I have with a lot of established online games. A lot of the advice is just “watch this video, follow this guide, use this meta build or we’re not going to play with you.” I play games to have fun learning mechanics, experimenting with builds, and organically exploring the world. I may eventually use guides to get caught up, but the game has to be fun at its core before then. At least in smash, you’re the only one who has to worry about your performance.

I remember trying out the beginner mode on DotA a few years ago. Good idea in theory, but in practice I made a single mistake and was blamed for the loss of the entire game. They probably weren’t wrong that I tipped the balance towards the enemy side, but it would’ve been nice to get some pointers or guidance instead of just “GG Harpy”. Made me not want to touch the game again.

It’s also really easy to lock yourself out of questlines by completing seemingly unrelated objectives. I get that being inscrutable is kind of a hallmark of these games, but I found myself unable to dig into some of the plotlines that really intrigued me.

I’m confused, isn’t the article talking about the solution?

Moderators will never be able to fully eliminate this problem because it is an inherent part of the behavior of a subset of humanity and humans are involved in the activities where this harassment takes place

I’m not suggesting they can, I don’t think anyone is.

If you expect every person you meet, online or in person, to respect the rules you are going to be disappointed

I don’t, but I expect if someone starts yelling rape threats at a restaurant that they’ll be kicked out, rather than the waiter saying “well why didn’t you just move to another table?” The rules are there for a reason, there should be consequences if they are broken.

Well yeah, that’s why part of Riot’s solution seems to be adding more mods. I’d be more understanding if Riot didn’t have the resources to add more paid mod support, but I truly don’t think that’s the case. So yeah, pay more mods and use more advanced technology to flag communication, I think that’s an attainable goal.

I’m not saying that people shouldn’t still protect themselves by blocking harassment, but I believe it’s perfectly within devs’ abilities to at least attempt to remove the most heinous bullies from the game.

I cannot get behind the sentiment of “online communication is awful so we shouldn’t even attempt to do anything about it.” Yeah at some point you have to learn to shake it off to protect yourself, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make any effort to moderate online spaces as well. Don’t give assholes quarter in your game if you want to retain your community.

You can’t remove the suck from people, but you can remove the people from your community.

I understand your passion, but I cannot trust any entity to use that amount of personal data responsibly.

Why do game makers need to be the responsible party? I’ve never played a game that didn’t let you block and/or mute people you’re playing with. That doesn’t make assholes disappear but it stops the problem from impacting you. Why add a middleman to the equation?

Because the devs/mods have the power to at least attempt to remove the person from the game before anyone else has to suffer their comments.

It’s much simpler to let players decide what they will tolerate on their own.

It’s pretty simple to enable mod actions, too. Game devs make a list of rules about what you can and can’t say. You agree to those rules when you start playing the game. Breaking the rules earns you a punishment. If you don’t like it, you don’t play the game. If the rules are unfairly restrictive then people won’t play the game and it will fail. This is how internet moderation has worked since forever.

Just seems odd if this is supposed to be a gaming device. How much typing do you really do on a steam deck?

The inclusion of the keyboard is a little perplexing. On paper it makes sense that a lot of PC games are built for or work best with a keyboard, but that’s because you’re using stuff as hotkeys, not because you’re typing. How do you comfortably do that with this form factor? I feel like a panel of fewer programmable buttons would’ve made more sense.

Not quite the same, but if you’re into this stuff, I highly recommend the channels pannenkoek2012 and Retro Game Mechanics Explained. Both very in depth channels about Nintendo jank,

Changed Fibonacci - costs $8 instead of $7, because Fibonacci

lol

The nerfs to vampire and campfire (bars) hurt, but they make sense. On the other hand (heh), blue seals actually feel worth it now.

The free uncommon/rare/enhanced jokers are huge too.

My advice would probably be to try every wild idea for a deck. It’s easy to find one deck build that basically works and try to recreate it each run, but that’s pretty boring. Make yourself pick up a joker you wouldn’t normally use and try to make it work. Also go for planet cards early in the run, the boost they give often moves the hand up like 4 places on the score list, making it more viable and fun to do something other than just chasing the regular high scoring hands.

I actually haven’t finished the DLC because that single menu option very literally gave me nightmares. I gotta suck it up and play.

I really think the polish that goes into each game is incredible. Getting two objects to adhere to one another in a way that physics still works and they don’t immediately jiggle into another realm is a huge challenge, yet TotK put out a system that works almost flawlessly to do that very thing.