The Games Chat Thread

**Akar** · August 23, 2021, 11:33 PM

Considering buying the Control and Alan Wake combo deal on Steam summer sale. Got interested because of Akar's entry to the Guess the Game competition, and realized that I never played Alan Wake. Would be right down my alley. It is just that I have a bunch unplayed games (notably Witcher 3 but also many others) and I had promised myself not buy any new ones.

If someone wants to put in a good word for those games to make me feel less guilty about my purchase, feel free.

I would recommend them!

**Septentrionalis** · August 24, 2021, 12:32 PM

Originally Posted by Akar

I would recommend them!

Thanks for the recommendation! As the sale drew to a close, I decided to buy the games, but at the critical moment, I forgot to because of some mundane things that came up. The game is available still, of course, and I could afford it, but the thought of paying the full price after failing to get it at a considerable discount (like ~80 % for the bundle with extra goodies) is just taunting me.

Why do I keep doing these things to myself?

**Akar** · August 24, 2021, 08:46 PM

I wouldn't pay full price for either of them.

**Derc** · August 27, 2021, 06:59 AM

Just finished Control this week. Yeah, these Remedy Entertainment games always are an unique experience with a great atmosphere and a pretty weird story. I think once you get what the stories are all about, some of the stuff becomes ridiculous, but yeah, nonetheless a nice experience.

Be prepared to read a lot of ingame documents and scratch your head a lot.

**Septentrionalis** · August 27, 2021, 01:49 PM

Originally Posted by Derc

Just finished Control this week. Yeah, these Remedy Entertainment games always are an unique experience with a great atmosphere and a pretty weird story. I think once you get what the stories are all about, some of the stuff becomes ridiculous, but yeah, nonetheless a nice experience.

Be prepared to read a lot of ingame documents and scratch your head a lot.

Thanks Derc for your thoughts and the heads up. Sounds like a thing a Finnish studio would make.

My head is like a sieve these days with often having to take long breaks from a certain game. And as automatic journaling is so underdeveloped in many games, if I know that following multiple undocumented clues is on the menu, I now always dedicate a physical notebook for a game and write things down by hand as I go.

I actually once talked to a game developer who said that he is trying to develop principles and practices for building in-game recaps for returning players. Like when someone busy with work and family life gets back to a game a month or more later, they could get a recap of recent important things based on their individual progress. That was pretty interesting stuff, but I have no idea if he got to implement any yet.

**Derc** · August 27, 2021, 06:05 PM

Well, Alan Wake has recaps when you load the game, explaining what has been happening so far. Don't worry, you will still not understand anything, lol.

Best Remedy game is Quantum Break, in my humble opinion. Some time travel stuff with Aidan Gillen and Lance Reddick, intermingling video game and movie, man, that was awesome. Also with game load recaps.
Control had none. Because the game is more a sandbox than an actual story.

**chriscase** · April 23, 2022, 02:14 AM

Hope its alright if I bump this thread.

For single-player RPGs I've put in a lot of hours on Kingdom Come: Deliverance, and I don't regret it... much

I recently got nostalgic for Y2K and set up my gaming PC to run Everquest connected to one of the Project 1999 servers. Like 500 people were logged in to an old school EQ server. The graphics are... umm... special, and it looks like I've got a ways to go before it's even usable at the resolution of my monitor, but I may actually try it out again. Anyone here ever played on Project 1999?

**Akar** · April 23, 2022, 07:51 PM

I haven't but I think it's awesome that there's people out there still playing Everquest after all these years.

**chriscase** · April 23, 2022, 09:49 PM

Yeah it's legit. If you look at their rules it brings back memories - the gms have to enforce rules like no kill stealing, no training, no ninja looting, respect camps but don't abuse them, etc. Good times

I remember when WOW basically solved all these problems through the rules system of the game itself, but something was definitely lost.

**Akar** · April 24, 2022, 02:13 AM

That sounds like a pain in the ass but with a community that's as committed as you are I could definitely see it being fun and rewarding - it reminds me of being a moderator on the TWC Minecraft server.

**chriscase** · April 24, 2022, 09:31 AM

We'll see how it goes technically - I'm still at a point where the text on buttons is basically unreadable - the UI was definitely not intended for 4K

**Akar** · April 25, 2022, 02:42 AM

I bet a good half of the guys on there are playing with an old CRT monitor from 1999 still

P.S, feels like this thread should be a sticky here?

**Lifthrasir** · June 29, 2022, 05:33 AM

I guess that this is the right place to discuss about the following and some other pratices taking place in the game industry:

I can understand that creating a game is expensive. I can understand that game compagnies want a quick return on their investments. But this, honestly, is going too far IMO.

**Septentrionalis** · July 13, 2022, 06:06 AM

Thanks, Lifth. You could have warned that there is going to be two minutes of some annoying clowning around before the serious part starts. I was just about to stop the video when it suddenly changed.

But yes, that is not really news to me but the video makes it exceptionally clear where the industry is going with those kinds of people in charge. The ones whose passion is monetizing games, not creating great games. I wonder though what was the purpose for that Swedish (?) guy to publicly say those things. Was he trying to impress someone?

Although I shouldn't say the industry but one of the industries. It seems that gaming is diversifying into different industries with different operational logics altogether. On one hand, you have those ones that make competitional games and milk their audience with microtransactions. Then you have the interactive arts and entertainment games that do not involve competition against other players nor microtransactions. By the latter I mean adventure, single-player RPG, cinematic games and the like. In those, we rarely see any attempt to change the business logic beyond some controversy over having to pay for a minor modification in Skyrim. I admit having paid 5 € there once for a hardcore/survival mode that made the game by far more immersive and enjoyable.

There is a lot of development these days for a mature audience that doesn't want to spend two minutes playing a clickfest with shiny, cartoonish treasure chests opening for only 2.99 €, or to be griefed by a bunch twelve-year-olds in an online environment.

**Incendio** · July 15, 2022, 01:25 PM

Do you know good naval games? I am looking forward suggestions, preferably with no steep learning curve but if is good I am willing to go the hard way. I am interested in games with only naval units, no land battles, could be any period as long as no space or fantasy.

**Lifthrasir** · July 31, 2022, 05:51 AM

I've just found out that David Warner has passed away last July 24th. Most of the people know him as an actor but he also got involved in video games, the most famous one being probably Baldur's Gate 2 in which he gave his voice to the vilain Jon Irenicus. That's a really sad news.
RIP Old man