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Choice quote: Putting the "war" in "flame war".
[10:50 AM] Quint Lindwurm: one time Mudae is right on the spelling and i'm wrong
[10:51 AM] Quint Lindwurm: it apparently really is Irias Reginleif
[10:51 AM] Quint Lindwurm: rather than Reginlelf
[10:52 AM] Quint Lindwurm: hahahahahaha
I haven't played a new game in ages. Maybe I should.
full post with links:
Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss, Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds, Syndicate Plus, and Syndicate Wars are free on GOG (until September 3rd)
https://www.gog.com/promo/rerelease_ultima_underworld_and_syndicate
this is to celebrate the games coming back to the GOG store. (my guess is there was some publisher snafu earlier.) more details here: https://www.gog.com/news/bgrab_your_copies_of_syndicate_plus_syndicate_wars_and_ultima_underworld_i_iib
Regardless, thanks!
I hadn't heard of parasitic game design outside TCGs. Though some of the examples make it sound like it can be a good thing.
To be fair, he seems to be mostly talking about MMORPGs, which is a genre I largely haven't played.
But even so, he just seems to be describing, basically, minigame mechanics. (Oh yeah, I'd have used the word "mechanics" rather than "systems".) Or perhaps, minigame mechanics that can do some things outside of minigames.
I'm not sure these are necessarily bad things? They just give the player more options, even if some of those options might not feel fully-featured.
Probably one big difference in the games I play though is that I tend to play games that are already "finished". Like, I can count two games I've played a lot of that have been continuously (to varying degrees) updated -- 100% Orange Juice and Team Fortress 2.
Among other games I play, there definitely are mechanics that don't interact much with other mechanics, like dungeon-specific things such as Cave Magnes in FF4, or (sometimes large) minigames such as the Ancient Cave in Lufia 2, which do feel a bit gimmicky due to their not being implemented elsewhere, but don't necessarily seem bad because of it.
Also, I'm not convinced his WoW examples even fall under the definition of parasitic; garrisons, artifacts and to a lesser extent the Heart of Azeroth greatly affected* several parts of the core game (your character's stats, abilities, professions, questing, whatevs), the YouTuber seems to consider them parasitic on the basis that they weren't intended to stay relevant forever, but I don't see why that's an important factor, given that in the meantime they're the glue that keeps their expansions together and give them their identity, gimmicky as they may feel. Under the same logic all MtG sets are parasitic since most of the cards in them aren't expected to stay relevant in the long term. That person's problem seems to be the planned obsolescence behind WoW's expansions.
(Also, garrisons persisted in different, toned-down form in later expansions, and the Heart of Azeroth is a toned-down artifact. Strictly speaking they're different mechanics/system so I'd say they're still "parasitic", but it does mean they ended up affecting core game.)
I thought it was a good video but the more I think about it, the more issues with it I find. I think I'll stick to only using the game in the context of TCGs.
Curiously, around the same time I watched a video stating that Pokémon's problem was the exact opposite, attempting to maintain age-old features forever (mainly the pokes).
Whoa, I didn't know Doom mods could get that elaborate.
Meadow Slug!
Yeah, there are some elaborate Doom conversions out there. "Pirates!" is another one of my favorites.
Took me a while to get around to get around to sharing this, but this is awesome.
TL;DR the fan-translators of the two Crossbell games, Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure, have basically become "ascended fans" -- the translations that they've worked on for years (plus other work, even stuff like the logo design) will be used as the basis for the official translations for these games.
tl;dr a way to download old game versions via the command line use of Steam has been removed in the Steam Beta
detailed guide on how to mess with the appmanifest file: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=885555151
can probably combine this with file permissions to get a desired effect with regards to preserving an already-installed version
this does go beyond just needing Depot Downloader
Also I see that PC Building Simulator is next in line for freedom, that's another game that's been getting my attention.
I noticed a similar problem in anime, where I'd spend more time looking for new anime to be interested in only to just add it to my want-to-watch list and then not watch it because I just didn't have the opportunity at the time.
I haven't solved the first one yet, though I've cut down on my rate of purchasing things anyway. Meanwhile, I solved the second by eventually accumulating so many things on my WTW that I can just use that to find stuff to watch, instead of going searching for stuff in the wider pool of the entire medium.
Also I'm amused at seeing the word "freedom" being used to refer to "free as in free beer".
I read that as "building a PC", thought it's a bit odd to make a game about building a computer, and in search of other possible meaning I came upon "Politically Correct Building". Which would be quite a thing, you know, you as the player having to manage separate water fountains for blacks and whites so as to avoid microaggressions, and the lot.