dragontology

Yeah, and Meta isn’t Facebook and Alphabet isn’t Google.

It’s the same company. Might not be all the same people, might not be Todd Howard’s team, but same company

Which is fewer and fewer all the time. Internet to the last mile has been a thing for like, I dunno, 20-30 years or something. A lot of rural areas in the US have gigabit fiber and many have two or three options for 100Mbit or better.

And outside the US it’s usually better

As long as they can get enough, they’ll make money. I mean Netflix and other streaming services rule out people with slow Internet and they’re not struggling. It’s been a moot point for years.

I think the greater concern is if you can be kicked off the Net or excluded from it.

Yeah. It’s been a long time but Human Error, the quest that takes place in Covenant, was one of the first quests they made. Your character comments on things like you do in the first Vault and basically nowhere else. They fixed it though, but the settlement basically isn’t good. The good ending is them turning on you because they’re the bad guys. Well, they’re humans who hate synths and torture people they think might be synths. So basically evil. The bad ending is to continue letting them do that.

I do think they changed it to where you can keep the settlement, but some parts are still broken, like the turrets will always be hostile or something.

Starfield’s pirate quest line could be broken with no resolution and it was random. When you had to destroy or defend the three space turrets, the quest line would randomly lock up and there was no way to advance. It took them a whole bit I think they did fix it. They were having a hard time replicating it.

Maybe the PS6 (and next Xbox) will be a $100 streaming box, and the games will be run on their servers, and you’ll pay a monthly fee to access the games, which gives you a break on the cost of the game, which you won’t own, you’ll just borrow a license to it.

And you’ll like it. /s

But really, on one hand it kinda sidesteps the issue of RAM/storage cost, but it’s also kinda shitty. It also begs the question of, why do I need their box at all? I should be able to pay for their streaming service and run that on my MacBook Air. I mean if they’re doing the heavy lifting, why do I need to buy their branded box at all? And PlayStation does not like to play well with others.

I’m on the Xbox side, but I started with 2600/NES. I think 360 (PS3 on your side) was kind of the peak for graphics/gameplay. With XB1/PS4 we saw bigger and more expansive games, but I felt like something was lost on the way. And then with XSX/PS5 era, everything’s so pretty but I’m not really seeing those amazing gaming experiences.

The generations don’t perfectly translate… PS2 had GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas, I believe. Then GTA 5 came out (after GTA 4 which is beside the point) on PS3, then it was on PS4, and now it’s on PS5, they just keep adding onto it. But is GTA 5 really better than San Andreas? I mean, it’s prettier, and the three protagonists was cool, but IMO San Andreas was when the series peaked.

Same with Bethesda. Now, Bethesda games suck on PlayStation because PlayStation has some funny quirks, developers used to it can turn out some amazing experiences, but developers who aren’t turn out buggy messes, and Bethesda games are a buggy mess in the best of times. But again, their best games were in the 360/PS3 generation. Fallout 3 and Oblivion. Skyrim isn’t trash, but it’s very shallow. Fallout 4 is pretty, and it isn’t exacltly shallow, but I feel like something was lost from Fallout 3. Trying to turn it into a city sim, they half assed both sides of the game.

The Mass Effect series was on 360 and PS3 and is some of the best games ever. Andromeda was on XB1/PS4 and was a big step back — but it was pretty. (The best Mass Effect is the Legendary Trilogy, which is the original trilogy remastered and a lot of things fixed, was on XB1/PS4, but that’s an exception.)

They absolutely aren’t. Their last mainline game was Starfield, and it shipped without a map function. Two of my favorite bugs include the one where if you try to open the liquor cabinet on the pirate station, the doors open inward, forcing the bottles through the walls and they fly every which way in the CIC. Or the one where a crew of spacers has taken a ship hostage, so you dock and kill the spacers to save the ship, but the spacers leader is aligned to Constellation, so if you complete the randomized side mission, you piss off your crew!

Their other current projects are live-service money grabs (Elder Scrolls Online, and Fallout 76). So no, they aren’t.

Currently playing Animal Crossing New Leaf Welcome Luxury. Balance the economy (buy price == sell price), makes fishing easier etc.

Also like Legend of Zeros Triforce of the Gods. Implements fixes from later versions, restored cut content, and adds some common sense features. Fixes the inventory. Lets you change directions while running. Stuff like that. Based on Zelda 3

If it fully supported Linux, there would be a Tux (penguin) icon next to the Windows flag on the Steam page. And then I would have said “Requires Windows or Linux,” or I would have worded it differently.

Yes, I’m the odd one who put his money where his mouth was when Microsoft started to really go downhill. Not many people can say that.

Yes, that’s the one. I love the look of both games, but I recognize that Cuphead is beyond my play ability. Gorgeous game though!

I can run Steam Deck verified games on my Mac? How? (I don’t think I can, I think you just missed that I have a Mac, not a Steam Deck.)

I didn’t look for Steam Deck verification, I just looked at the OS flags above the price. They have them for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Art style looks cool.

Requires Windows. My computer can’t run that (by choice, also by design — it’s a Mac). So that’s a red flag I can’t ignore.

Anyway, it feels like this game has been coming for years. It doesn’t help that it looks somewhat similar to that other retro cartoon bullet hell game I can’t recall the name of right now. That game doesn’t interest me though; this one tentatively does if it has an easy mode or the difficulty is fair.

Bought for me: the NES deluxe kit with console, controllers, light gun, and Mario/Duck Hunt.

I first bought Super Mario Bros 3 as in, with my own money.

Depends. I listen to music I have positive emotional reactions to. I don’t think anything really gives me negative emotional reactions the same way — I would avoid it if it did.

Yeah, it’s not so much gamerscore as it’s gamer history. So if you look at my gamerscore, the actual number of points doesn’t really matter, but you can see I’ve been gaming on Xbox for like 20 years, I’ve played so many games, you can judge me as a gamer based on what I’ve played and how far I got. It’s not fair to mistreat a person based on gaming preferences, I’m just saying you get a clearer picture. So on mine you’d see a lot of RPGs, action/adventure games, point and click adventures (Dontnod/Telltale stuff), and Metroidvanias. You wouldn’t see many sports games, racing games, or simulation games, and that would tell you things about me as a gamer.

Of course, I’d been playing video games for about 20-25 years before I ever heard the name “Xbox,” but that’s not tracked.

We could get into how achievements are just a stupid collectible for gamers, but are used by Microsoft to monetize anonymized gaming metrics to inform publishers how their games are played. Not all of them care, and this service is part of what Microsoft charges ~30% for, it’s not an extra service. Some do, and most famously to my knowledge, it’s why you didn’t get an evil path in Fallout 4, because an overwhelming majority of Fallout 3 players went for the good karma achievements. Fallout 3 gave you achievements at levels 8, 16, 24, and 30 (the cap), but it also noted your karma level (good, neutral, or evil). And at each level it was like a stupidly overwhelming win for good, so they assumed most players didn’t want the evil option. I mean, they did give you a couple evil factions to work with (the Institute if you were scientifically evil, and the Brotherhood of Steel if you were militarily evil), but ultimately your character is a good person.

She doesn’t have no gamerscore, she has like 1200 because her account was set up like a month ago and she has some token achievements she probably didn’t earn.

It’s not about the amount or how much. Phil Spencer had a lot because he was a gamer and an exec. He was one of us, more or less, he played games and he liked working in gaming. I don’t agree with all of his gaming opinions (in fact, mine are fairly uncommon, so that just comes with the territory).

I have a pretty high amount just because I’ve been gaming since before most people here were born. So I’ve had an Xbox account for something like 20 years. I’ve only really gone after a few achievements. Mostly I just play. Over time, that builds up. I’ve worked longer hours than a lot of people, in jobs most people are too good to do. “Work hard, play hard” may be a cliche, but I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I don’t do recreational drugs, and I don’t engage in extramarital affairs. I’m not a woodworker or a gearhead — gaming is my hobby. It’s what I do to relax at the end of the day, if I have time. If I don’t have time for a more “serious” game on the Xbox, I fire up my Switch and dick around on my Animal Crossing island. I’ve already rolled the credits (several times, long story, AC fans get it) but it’s somehow fun to just run around and talk to animals and catch bugs and shit. Either way, it’s what I do and I’ve been doing it for a long time.

I just think someone who’s been playing games for years would make a better executive of a company’s gaming division than someone who’s never picked up a controller. LOTS of people play games. If someone never games, that says to me they don’t like gaming — and they possibly don’t like gamers. It’s not a good look. Especially juxtaposed with the rise in AI and Microsoft bringing an AI exec in to run Xbox. It’s not a good look at all.

Meanwhile, their biggest competitor is either Linux or UNIX. That is, if you accept that macOS “is UNIX.” It’s been UNIX certified for a couple years now, but it’s UNIX in name only. While Steve Jobs’ NeXTStep was based on UNIX, NeXTStep was also vapourware. Still, it became OS X which became the macOS we know and love (or hate) today. But the truth is, it’s UNIX 3 certified, which is a decades-old certification, and it only just barely makes that. So it’s a thing Mac users brag about. “A UNIX system! I know this!” Jurassic Park meme. And then of course there’s Linux. And of course Windows has the Linux subsystem. Still, non-*nix is going the way of the dodo, just like Win9x did when Microsoft realised WinNT was the future. First with the tranwreck that was WinME, but much more importantly with WinXP. And NT was good, but its time is up (or will be soon).

To literally any Xbox gamer reading this: how do you feel about having a higher Gamerscore than the (new) CEO of Xbox? Rhetorical question. I don’t expect (or have any use for) an answer. Rather, I just want you to think about that. You might not be qualified to be a CEO of anything. But you undoubtedly know more about gaming, and what Xbox players want, than this person who has only recently taken up gaming to say she has (or maybe she has assistants playing on her account for some fake cred).

Mine’s not worth bragging about, but I’m sure it’s over 100k. That used to mean something. Now it just means Xbox has been around for 20 years and you’ve played a lot of games on the platform. Either you platinumed 100 games, or you played a lot more (including Arcade titles which were capped at like 200-250GS, IIRC). I actually only have like five platinums. Fallout 3, Fallout 4, Oblivion, Skyrim… maybe one other? (Bethesda games are easy to platinum.) (Yes I know platinum is a PlayStation term. We all know it means to get all the achievements.)

Achievement I’m proudest of? Rockband 2, Bladder of Steel Award. Complete the “Endless Setlist II” (all 84 songs on the disc!) without pausing or failing at any difficulty other than Easy, on any instrument. I did it on Medium Vocals (easiest way really). Regardless of instrument or difficulty, playing the ESL2 without pausing takes 6 and a half hours. It takes longer if you fail, obviously, but once you fail, you may as well stop, since you’re out of the running for the achievement.

Until AI can game for you, I don’t think Sharma is going to get 100k GS, or do something like the Bladder of Steel Award that requires more than just casual interaction with a software title.