February 2025 PCG Article Discussion

[ZedClampet]

Not 25 mill, 50 billion, split between the 4 owners and that's after all the investors get paid. if they Paid the 2.4 billion instead of the gov, they'd still be splitting over 40b. I think those numbers were from 2020. If the owners were splitting 25m I wouldn't have anywhere near as much an issue. Laws in the US favor stock holders over employees, it's sad but true.

Take a dive into their finances if you like. I did a couple years ago and i was shocked at what i found. it wasn't conspiracy sites either, this stuff is official government and finance records aa they are public.

look at sports, the collectively bargin to get 50% of the profits, most other companies workers get a tiny fraction. I don't know how things should change by % but when tax payers are subsidizing workers in a company that profits billions because they dint have a living wage, something is wrong.


As far as intell and their losses, how where stockholders still making money if they were not profiting? Sounds fishy to me how the largest chip manufaturer on the planet can't make ends meet

I was talking about the CEO. But the owners really aren't making $50 billion a year, either. That's how much the value of their stock went up. Walmart has never come close to making $50 billion in a year, so it's impossible for them to make that much money.

There is nothing you can do about the value of a person's stock. Remember that a lot of normal people like me rely on stocks for retirement. If you go after the Waltons and their stock, you are going to hurt everyone, not to mention destroying the stock market and sending the country into a depression.

*****

I believe this to be a picture of Intel's new 18a fabricator. I wish I hadn't seen it. I'm going to have nightmares for months. "Zed, we have a problem with 18a. Could you check on it?"

Newsflash: Intel's all-important 18A node is officially 'ready' but what exactly happened to the 'five nodes in four years' thing?

Ready for customers, but what about the PC?

www.pcgamer.com

 

[neogunhero]

RPGs like Avowed need to stop letting me steal everything that isn't nailed down

When I literally take the bread off a starving man's plate, I feel like I might deserve a telling off.

www.pcgamer.com

I did notice this too but it didn’t bother me as much as the authors but I agree with what they are saying. My proposed solution is: RPGs like Avowed should have some simple crime and punishment kind of feature, or at the very least have the NPCs and companions react when you do something bad like steal. However I think there should also be the option to toggle it off. I say that because if you are anything like me, a Certified Loot Goblin(TM), you get enjoyment out of picking every single thing you can up and hoarding it all.

 

[Zloth]

Let'm take anything but, after looting one house, every place else seems suspiciously bare - almost like they've hidden all the valuables away.

Extra points if you overhear a married couple arguing over the husband's dead mouse collection, then you see the collection somehow showing up in every room of the house.

 

[Pifanjr]

RPGs like Avowed need to stop letting me steal everything that isn't nailed down

When I literally take the bread off a starving man's plate, I feel like I might deserve a telling off.

www.pcgamer.com

I did notice this too but it didn’t bother me as much as the authors but I agree with what they are saying. My proposed solution is: RPGs like Avowed should have some simple crime and punishment kind of feature, or at the very least have the NPCs and companions react when you do something bad like steal. However I think there should also be the option to toggle it off. I say that because if you are anything like me, a Certified Loot Goblin(TM), you get enjoyment out of picking every single thing you can up and hoarding it all.

Personally I don't have a problem with being able to grab anything without repercussions, a lot of the older RPGs let you do that so I'm used to it. But I do agree it's weird game design, there must be a better way to give out loot than to let you take another person's possessions without any consequences.

 

[BeardyHat]

Personally I don't have a problem with being able to grab anything without repercussions, a lot of the older RPGs let you do that so I'm used to it. But I do agree it's weird game design, there must be a better way to give out loot than to let you take another person's possessions without any consequences.

Funny how revolutionary the Gothic series was in this regard 20+ years ago and pretty much so remains to this day.

 

[Colif]

Given the previous 2 games in the series used different graphical style and didn't have any of these features as it didn't make sense for the games, its not really a surprise.

Having watched how it compares to Skyram and Oblivion, its obvious a realistic world wasn't the priority.. Its just wallpaper to the story.

 

[Johnway]

Started my POE run and the challenge to get to level 80. the good news is that we're just over half way. and half way through the sp campaign as i speed run as fast as possible to end game and mapping to get to level 80. I'm not being fancy i found a Summon Raging Skulls build that involves using poison. So i'm running a shadow with the servant of arrakali build (*which is a chaos and minion build).

Doom Ramp 2024, finished another set of maps, this time is pumping station. A collection of beginner maps a step up from absolute novice but nothing too fancy or complex. So the maps were relatively easy to breeze through nothing stands out as unique or note worthy - just perfectly fine to play.

next up its station castle wolfenstein and looking at the number of maps with 4 length /5 difficulty, this might take a bit more time to beat.

 

[BeardyHat]

Given the previous 2 games in the series used different graphical style and didn't have any of these features as it didn't make sense for the games, its not really a surprise.

Having watched how it compares to Skyram and Oblivion, its obvious a realistic world wasn't the priority.. Its just wallpaper to the story.

Yeah that's a fair critique. PoE and Avowed really aren't trying to simulate a world in that way.

 

[Johnway]

POE action, after nearly 3 days of play i'm at level 73. We're very close to the level 80 and i can cash out and go back to playing Asscreed Valhalla.

 

[Zloth]

Life isn't easy if your last name is 'Null' as it still breaks database entries the world over

Hopefully not the headline of this article. *Peeks*

www.pcgamer.com

`Scuse me, but what the frak happened!? Databases DISPLAY "null" for no entry, but they don't store it that way! Maybe some part of the system is translating a row of data into comma-separated values, then another part is reading it back, and nobody thought their strings need some sort of special characters around them??

 

[Pifanjr]

Life isn't easy if your last name is 'Null' as it still breaks database entries the world over

Hopefully not the headline of this article. *Peeks*

www.pcgamer.com

`Scuse me, but what the frak happened!? Databases DISPLAY "null" for no entry, but they don't store it that way! Maybe some part of the system is translating a row of data into comma-separated values, then another part is reading it back, and nobody thought their strings need some sort of special characters around them??

I assume that when the name is stored, it isn't escaped correctly so the database interprets it as there being no last name. There are still a lot of systems running on software that's decades old where these kinds of mistakes were never fixed. Or it's made by the lowest bidder and corners were cut.

 

[Zloth]

I assume that when the name is stored, it isn't escaped correctly so the database interprets it as there being no last name.

Maybe decades old AND lowest bidder, and that lowest bidder made their own database language - badly!

 

[Colif]

its always possible that some of the databases use the word "null" in actual fields so that they can be sorted out of searches. Leaving blank descriptions can make them hard to find.
Last names are not always known

 

[neogunhero]

Warner Bros. is closing Monolith, Player First Games, and WB San Diego, and has cancelled its Wonder Woman game

Warner wants to focus its future efforts on Harry Potter, Mortal Kombat, DC, and Game of Thrones.

www.pcgamer.com

Warner Bros. once again proves their venture into AAA gaming is not paying off like they hoped. They’re one of the worst companies around imo.

Remember Coyote vs Acme? Oh that’s right, it was canned after the movie was completed and getting ready to hit theaters.

 

[Zloth]

Warner did all those great Batman games and the Shadows of <something> games! Though I can't say I'm excited for another Batman game.

its always possible that some of the databases use the word "null" in actual fields so that they can be sorted out of searches. Leaving blank descriptions can make them hard to find.

Huh? Select whatever from tablename where LastName is null. Done.

Last names are not always known

Oh, don't I know it! And you've got to watch out for sneaky "Jr." and "III" bits at the end, too! I was actually trying to find my way around having to parse a "last name first" field into first and last name just today. I've been down that road before. Works great for everybody you test with, breaks 30 minutes after it goes to production.

 

[Colif]

Batman is dead, WB killed him in their last game which almost killed them, so they want to just act like it didn't happen

So them reincarnating him after that is just cruel.

 

[SHR-51]

Batman is dead, WB killed him in their last game which almost killed them, so they want to just act like it didn't happen

So them reincarnating him after that is just cruel.

"iT wAs a CLoNe, rEmeMbeR?"

Honestly, I hate WB, they seem incompetent at best, and malicious at worst.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Lets keep the discussions of economics to a minimum and game industry related please.

 

[neogunhero]

Warner did all those great Batman games and the Shadows of <something> games! Though I can't say I'm excited for another Batman game.

I can't deny that, they did have some good games when they were first publishing larger AAA games. My assumption and speculation is that it felt like WB had a more hands-off approach to those games, especially the Arkham and LOTR Shadow games. It seems lately their chairmen wanted to inject more of their own ideas to increase profits, which resulted in mediocre games like Back 4 Blood, Gotham Knights and Suicide Squad. They weren't always like this, just increasingly in the past few years they have been slipping downhill fast.

 

[DXCHASE]

I read that one of the franchises WB wanted to focus on was Mortal Kombat. I dont know if you play, but the last installment in the series is kind of a flop and, as a long time fan of the series, is def. not its best foot forward. Another one was Game of Thrones. Why? That show ran its popularity course, would rather have the resources for whatever they want to do with that series and put it into keeping some of these studios they closed open. RIP to the developers of F.E.A.R. (Monolith) probably one of the most underrated FPSs imo.

As for articles...

My favorite new cozy game trend is the return of desktop pets

I can't believe desktop pets are actually back and they're more fun than the early 2000s.

www.pcgamer.com

Ok, so games like this are not really my jam, but i wanted to see if i like them. So i went and bought Ropukas Idle Island for 3 bucks and its been fun watchin my "desktop pet" frog cut grass and sleep in his chair.

Program works while also playing other games:

There is one that adds pets to your taskbar and move around the bottom of your screen but im liking this one atm, see if i can increase my curiosity for this type of..game?

 

[Johnway]

Warner Bros. is closing Monolith, Player First Games, and WB San Diego, and has cancelled its Wonder Woman game

Warner wants to focus its future efforts on Harry Potter, Mortal Kombat, DC, and Game of Thrones.

www.pcgamer.com

Warner Bros. once again proves their venture into AAA gaming is not paying off like they hoped. They’re one of the worst companies around imo.

Remember Coyote vs Acme? Oh that’s right, it was canned after the movie was completed and getting ready to hit theaters.

i really need to see what the hell happened regarding wonder woman. you'd think that monolith would have come up with a GoW or LOTR: Shadow of morder cross without problems. Especially with a strong IP and top talent this should have been an easy slam dunk win. But now we have a top developer killed off, Classic ip (like Blood, FEAR, NOLF) in control of clueless corporate jerks.

I agree Coyotte vs acme should have just been released and would have been another winner. Instead it seems like WB are just after a live service game and MTXs.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

RIP Monolith. Shadow of Mordor had the best Batman combat anyone made, and F.E.A.R was an all time great. Wish they had let them do more.

 

[Pifanjr]

My favorite new cozy game trend is the return of desktop pets

I can't believe desktop pets are actually back and they're more fun than the early 2000s.

www.pcgamer.com

Ok, so games like this are not really my jam, but i wanted to see if i like them. So i went and bought Ropukas Idle Island for 3 bucks and its been fun watchin my "desktop pet" frog cut grass and sleep in his chair.

Program works while also playing other games:

There is one that adds pets to your taskbar and move around the bottom of your screen but im liking this one atm, see if i can increase my curiosity for this type of..game?

If my work didn't ban games from our laptops I'd definitely have a little frog guy hanging out in the corner of my screen. Or a little village on my taskbar.

 

[neogunhero]

I agree Coyotte vs acme should have just been released and would have been another winner. Instead it seems like WB are just after a live service game and MTXs.

You should see Will Forte talk about that movie. He is absolutely LIVID at Warner Bros for canning it haha.

Just a long series of bad business decisions it seems. So sad about Monolith, they were a great studio.

 

[Johnway]

You should see Will Forte talk about that movie. He is absolutely LIVID at Warner Bros for canning it haha.

I'm livid. From what i heard the movie was an absolute winner with the test viewers. I just hope that someone steals the movie, uploads it for all to watch. Its a shame that finished movies / games never see the light of day. if they are worth nothing to these companies they should be made public property and free to all.

With monolith gone the nemesis system is now locked and buried probably never to be seen again. Kinda like when namco patented the ability to play sub games whilst games were getting installed.