And it dismisses the time component of self hosting. It’s not going to be zero.

Are you cherry picking the good games out of older libraries? I find people do that a lot when remembering. It’s a survivorship bias thing. The good ones get remembered more and the bad one forgotten, so they seem like the population is better.

Nowadays? I’ve never enjoyed mobile gaming. Every time I try, there’s been an absurd paywall or monetization. Once that strikes, I’m out.

It’s not Zelda like, but if you like factory games, Satisfactory is as close to open world as a factory game gets. You land on a planet and have to build a factory to launch things into space for corporate overlords. It’s first person, lots of climbing and building. There’s a tiny bit of combat, not the focus tho.

I thought this was commonly known, but I keep seeing it all over the place. All CEOs think like this. Customer acquisition is a metric all sales departments use. Is it because he’s saying the quiet part out loud?

Master of Magic. I know strategy isn’t everyone’s thing and turn based isn’t either and high fantasy isn’t usually strategy staple, but it’s damn near perfect in execution. There are some minor nitpicks, but the game is definitely a 9/10*s. None of the spiritual successors have ever been so well executed. They always fall flat somewhere.

Deep rock Galactic is my vote. It doesn’t have a narrative, but it does have a very thin campaign. It’s mostly a few voice overs and random missions. However, the difficulty is scalable, if you’re looking for a challenge. The game is incredibly movement focused. Each class has a movement power that’s unique. Gunners get zip lines that are slow but go up and anyone can use them. Scout has a grappling hook that’s fast and unlimited but only they can use it. Engineer makes platforms that anyone can scale. Driller can tunnel thru the rock any direction. The terrain is deformable.

I really like the art style.

Counterpoint. Rimworld is complicated. EU4 is super complicated.

Not op. I saw the good reviews and so I thought I’d give it a try. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, but I am very bad at that game and die all the time. I looked up other negative reviews and some people seem to agree with me that I just need more armor or something. I don’t understand all of the positive reviews and how difficult I find the game to be. I loved MW one and two and three, but I guess this one isn’t for me anymore.

You have a point, but I think WoW succeeds in spite of itself. They promise big things then deliver a fraction. It never lives up to the hype, IMO. I think it’s that there’s nothing better, and if there was, it’d have to be a LOT better because of sunk cost fallacy. 80% of the reason I play WoW is because I have always played WoW. I like my stuff and friends there.

Blizz always has great ideas and then falls flat in execution. I say this as a WoW player. It’s ok. If they can pull off these ideas, which they absolutely have not proven, then this could be good. I remain skeptical.

The pixelated characters against the high-fidelity 3d background is messing with my head.

I do like demos, I’ve bought a few games from them. I bought Factorio years and years ago because of that. I liked the Next Fest on Steam and have wishlisted a few games for when they leave Early Access. I don’t buy ea games (or EA games, lol). The most recent demo game that got me was dotAGE. It’s slightly in the vein of other settler/logistics games but it’s quirk is that you unlock more options for the next game by losing, a la rogue-likes. Also has random events.

Demos work well for me, because I like games based on their minor details. UI/UX is important to me, so the original Dwarf Fortress didn’t work for me. I also like QOL features a lot, 90% of my mods are based on QOL shortcomings, so if a game is just awful then I’ll avoid it. There were a few demos that I quit within 15 minutes because they were too unpolished. (I’m sure they’ll be fine in time, but this was too early for them.)

I’ve stopped playing Subnautica because it’s too grindy/stingy. Sometimes games get better about this further in, but I don’t wanna have to play 10 hours of garbage to get to the good stuff. (side note, I use Skip First Hour mod in factorio for this. Love it.)

This is my #1 request. I only have time for 1 game, so if I return to something, I sometimes have to start over bc I’ve no clue where I left off.

Storm light could work, but I think it’s more about the politics than the power sets. Idk maybe it’s gets more fantastic. I’m only on book 2.

Mist born would also be a great universe and the powers are really adaptable into a game, IMO.

The sequel is a lie. It’s so delicious and moist.

I honestly don’t know if this is a good or bad thing. Metzen is charismatic and seems like a nice person, but wasn’t he part of the old guard that oversaw/neglected/enabled the sexual harassment environment?

It definitely has. Gabe links old comics on Twitter sometimes and it gives a really great comparison to how his style has changed.

Thanks!

“remake” is generous of the titling editor. That’s a tech demo or a mechanic demo. Still good, though. The seamless transitions are nice.

FTA:

Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis issued an apology

No, they didn’t. That video wasn’t an apology. It was a “sorry if you got upset” PR skit.

Good analogy to WoW. I’m a pretty serious crafter and it’s only added headache. I don’t care for it there or here.

Factorio - its a logistics rts but the pollution mechanic is different. Instead of just gather resources to build things which build bigger things, you also make pollution as a side effect. This feeds the native monsters and also evolves them. Managing your pollution cloud is a strategy. That or build massive defensives for when they come to eat you.

Great soundtrack too

Thanks, I’ll give it a try.

Thanks, I’ll give it a shot.

How’s Krastorio vs AngelBob? I keep trying AngelBob but it’s so tedious to make progress that I lose interest after a few hours.

Myst. I know, I know. One of the hallmarks of video games. I hated it. I like games that give you a path and let you figure it out. I’ve hundreds of hours into Factorio and it’s kin. Portal! A puzzle game, Portal gives you A and Z and lets you figure out how to get there. Myst doesn’t do ANYTHING. Nothing was obvious to me. I didn’t understand where the A to Z was. I couldn’t find A, Z, or any of the other steps. None of it clicked. Years ago, I watched some parts of walk throughs and I did not understand how I was supposed to know the things they were doing. None of it made any sense to me.

I’m waiting until it’s out of early access. I don’t have time these days to beta test games.

Whoa. That world design is very reminiscent of Secret of Mana, which I loooove.

!3dprinting@lemmy.world would like these!

Blech. Another military worshipping, boot licker clone. Whatever.

Risk of Rain 2: Get 5 to 10 movement items and just zoooooooom around.

Deep Rock Galactic: Drill thru the walls even when it’s not the best idea, because I just like the idea of destructible terrain and navigating in 3d.

Never heard of Escape Simulator, but looks like I’m about to give it a shot. Portal is literally top 5 game for me.

I’m frustrated by the current largely-unethical state of the games industry

It’s the fate of any large enough company in a capitalist system. Greed creates/incentivizes this behavior and then rewards it. Microtransactions and dark patterns wouldn’t exist if they didn’t work. Greedy people know this and the rest of us are plagued by them.

Turn based strategy. As others have said, RTS’es, as well, but TBS. Yes, Civ series isn’t dead, but everything else seems to be. Master of Magic (1994) is literally one of my favorite games of all time (none of the sequels or successors measure up). Colonization, also 1994, (warning, MANY ethical issues) had a great logistic and economic model… (Just ignore eeeeeeverything about the white-washing of history/slavery/indentured servitude/genocide.) Alpha Centauri. Maybe I’m just old.

I do. Thanks! I didn’t even realize there were mods.

limited inventories are kind of abused currently and that unlimited inventory systems would give more player choices.

In some sense that’s correct. You’d have more options, but you wouldn’t take them. Having a limited inventory forces you to make choices. Yes, you can use that scroll/potion/whatever, because you’re gonna run out of room, so feel free. On the other hand, I think that many devs don’t consider inventory management enough! I think that it’s often an afterthought and could use more dev attention.

What game mechanics do you love and hate?

Hate: instakills. Diablo 4 and Risk of Rain 2 are my current games that have this. ROR2 is not as bad, you can prevent this by getting enough defensive items. D4 is worse about this. You can be chewing thru trash mobs just fine but get to a boss and immediately die. There’s no ramp up to this.