July 2024 PC Gamer Article Discussion

[ZedClampet]

Only ever played the first game and thought it was pretty alright, but the combat was really what did it for me.

But this is pretty standard in the industry, seems and been happening for years. Look at Deus Ex and it's immediate sequel or Thief and...Thi4f? Just glomming on to big names that had huge impacts and doing nothing but making mass market drivel with them.



Are things back up today? Did she make it back?

I read a thing on TechRadar, I think, that mentioned Southwest was the only company not down because their software backbones on Windows 3.1 and 95.

She slept in the Minneapolis airport and is flying into Nashville this afternoon. It's about a 2.5 hour drive to Knoxville from there. They couldn't get her on any flights to Knoxville until Monday. Lots more flights to Nashville than to Knoxville.

She sent me a picture of people lined up against the walls sleeping last night. Personally, I'd have been relaxing in a hotel at Delta's expense, but she has magical sleeping skills. It was about 9 last night and she said she was just going to lie down on the floor and go to sleep. I couldn't do that.

 

[BeardyHat]

Which Deus Ex do you mean? I enjoyed HR, not played MD yet.

Invisible War and Thief 3 in particular. HR was pretty good; not as good as the original, but it's not bad at all. MD was ok, definitely expanded on the gameplay, but the story was nonsense and incomplete.

She slept in the Minneapolis airport and is flying into Nashville this afternoon. It's about a 2.5 hour drive to Knoxville from there. They couldn't get her on any flights to Knoxville until Monday. Lots more flights to Nashville than to Knoxville.

She sent me a picture of people lined up against the walls sleeping last night. Personally, I'd have been relaxing in a hotel at Delta's expense, but she has magical sleeping skills. It was about 9 last night and she said she was just going to lie down on the floor and go to sleep. I couldn't do that.

Good that she'll be back today. My wife is the same way, she can pass out just about anywhere. I definitely can't.

 

[Brian Boru]

Remove the quotation marks lol

Nope, definitely not, they are CYA for me

Which Deus Ex do you mean?

My guess is he means the original.

 

[ZedClampet]

I'm driving to France and giving Gizmo, or whatever his name is, a piece of my mind. Out of all the launchers, Ubisoft Connect is so bad it embarrasses me on their behalf. It makes EA's launcher look like it was coded by squad of otherworldly geniuses.

I just filled out a customer satisfaction survey for them where I said basically the same thing minus the driving to France and calling Guillemot "Gizmo". But I did add a few extra thoughts in the same vein.

 

[BeardyHat]

I'm driving to France and giving Gizmo, or whatever his name is, a piece of my mind. Out of all the launchers, Ubisoft Connect is so bad it embarrasses me on their behalf. It makes EA's launcher look like it was coded by squad of otherworldly geniuses.

I just filled out a customer satisfaction survey for them where I said basically the same thing minus the driving to France and calling Guillemot "Gizmo". But I did add a few extra thoughts in the same vein.

It's amazing how long it's been absolute trash.

My wife, a non-gamer, still hates Ubisoft and their craptacular launcher with a passion for losing her Heroes of Might and Magic 6 saves multiple times.

 

[ZedClampet]

It's amazing how long it's been absolute trash.

My wife, a non-gamer, still hates Ubisoft and their craptacular launcher with a passion for losing her Heroes of Might and Magic 6 saves multiple times.

Speaking of Might and Magic, I played the mainline games, but never the Heroes games. Were they top-down dungeon crawlers? I never really looked into them.

 

[Pifanjr]

Speaking of Might and Magic, I played the mainline games, but never the Heroes games. Were they top-down dungeon crawlers? I never really looked into them.

Best way I can describe it is: Total War: Warhammer, but the battles are turn based tactics instead of real time strategy, while the overworld is much smaller than Total War and is filled with static neutral enemies that guard resources/gear and resource production buildings you can claim.

Every player typically starts with a single castle, so it's much more a race to get ahead in resources than Total War, where you can (usually) turtle and slowly expand.

Spoiler: screenshots

I chose Heroes of Might and Magic 3 because it's a lot easier to parse what you see, imo.

Overworld:

Battle:

 

[ZedClampet]

Best way I can describe it is: Total War: Warhammer, but the battles are turn based tactics instead of real time strategy, while the overworld is much smaller than Total War and is filled with static neutral enemies that guard resources/gear and resource production buildings you can claim.

Every player typically starts with a single castle, so it's much more a race to get ahead in resources than Total War, where you can (usually) turtle and slowly expand.

Spoiler: screenshots

I chose Heroes of Might and Magic 3 because it's a lot easier to parse what you see, imo.

Overworld:

Battle:

Wow. Sorry I missed that. I might try that HD remaster they came out with years ago.

 

[ZedClampet]

It's astonishing to me that if you asked a lot of players, "Who made this game, the developers or the publisher?" that many of them would have no idea what the answer it.

Reading through the reviews of Hairdresser Simulator, it's clear that a lot of people think the developer is Frozen Way, which made the House Flipper games, but they started a publishing arm and are actually the publishers of the game. It clearly lists them as the publishers at the top of the Steam store page. I guess people just don't know what that means.

As someone who grew up reading novels, I can't remember a time when I didn't know what a publisher was. I was never confused and thought that Tor wrote the book, for instance.

 

[Hveðrungr]

Speaking of Might and Magic, I played the mainline games, but never the Heroes games. Were they top-down dungeon crawlers? I never really looked into them.

You can usually get the classic HoMM games for pennies in the next GOG sale. (And the classic ones are better than the new ones.)

 

[Zloth]

It's amazing how long it's been absolute trash.

On the plus side, at least it doesn't allow every website on the planet to run any program/DOS command on your machine. I think that was the single most idiotic move I've ever seen from a AAA (or even B+) level publisher. STILL mad after, what... a couple of decades? Grrrrr

 

[BeardyHat]

Wow. Sorry I missed that. I might try that HD remaster they came out with years ago.

The HD remaster is widely regarded as inferior, as it lacks all the expansion content. Getting the third game and HD patching it is the superior option.

Superior as well as fHeroes2, as it's the best art style of the series, paired with many of the QoL stuff and balance from the 3rd game.

3rd game isn't bad, I just love the original Heroes art style.

 

[Pifanjr]

Google claims it's been able to simulate 'self-replicating' digital life, but its 'primordial soup' needs a pinch of salt

Sure you did.

www.pcgamer.com

Personally, I think this is really cool. It shows that you can get self-replicating behaviour from what is basically chaos.

 

[Colif]

Google claims it's been able to simulate 'self-replicating' digital life, but its 'primordial soup' needs a pinch of salt

Sure you did.

www.pcgamer.com

Personally, I think this is really cool. It shows that you can get self-replicating behaviour from what is basically chaos.

we had to come from somewhere
Creatures of chaos, thats fitting...

 

[ZedClampet]

Google claims it's been able to simulate 'self-replicating' digital life, but its 'primordial soup' needs a pinch of salt

Sure you did.

www.pcgamer.com

Personally, I think this is really cool. It shows that you can get self-replicating behaviour from what is basically chaos.

It's an interesting theory, but they are rewriting code billions or trillions of times, and I can't think of any natural process that this is a model of other than actual reproduction, which is irrelevant to life beginning. Rocks, for instance, don't go through anything similar. We still have the same rocks from billions of years ago. The closest I can think of is water evaporating and condensing, but no one is suggesting that water is being "rewritten" when that happens. It's still water all the time. Dirt occasionally "transforms" into mud, but nothing is actually happening there. The same dirt from a moment ago is now just floating in water. There's no replication occurring. Basically the experiment was itself replication, which makes it nonsense and more like biological life than inanimate objects.

To me, this is a demonstration of evolution, not the origin of life.

But, as usual, I don't know what I'm talking about.

 

[Pifanjr]

It's an interesting theory, but they are rewriting code billions or trillions of times, and I can't think of any natural process that this is a model of other than actual reproduction, which is irrelevant to life beginning. Rocks, for instance, don't go through anything similar. We still have the same rocks from billions of years ago. The closest I can think of is water evaporating and condensing, but no one is suggesting that water is being "rewritten" when that happens. It's still water all the time. Dirt occasionally "transforms" into mud, but nothing is actually happening there. The same dirt from a moment ago is now just floating in water. There's no replication occurring. Basically the experiment was itself replication, which makes it nonsense and more like biological life than inanimate objects.

To me, this is a demonstration of evolution, not the origin of life.

But, as usual, I don't know what I'm talking about.

I think it's not that different than atoms/molecules reacting with each other and forming new molecules with different properties, until a molecule is formed that turns the other molecules and atoms around it into copies of itself.

 

[ZedClampet]

I think it's not that different than atoms/molecules reacting with each other and forming new molecules with different properties, until a molecule is formed that turns the other molecules and atoms around it into copies of itself.

Yeah, but how often does that happen? It's extremely rare in non-biological substances.

I was too asleep when I first read this, but organic molecules can form during planet creation that then may react/change to ultraviolet light. Over vast amounts of time, this could sort of replicate the experiment and potentially lead to life being created. In this case, life might actually be quite rare if you have to rely on this process potentially going for billions of years just for a rare chance at life.

 

[Frindis]

The closest I can think of is water evaporating and condensing, but no one is suggesting that water is being "rewritten" when that happens. It's still water all the time.

I don't know man. I read about some Hollywood wives making something called Diamond Water. Water is filtered through real diamonds and supposedly it will make you not only more rich, you'll also sparkle and have the stamina of a sloth, the lung capacity of a Shih Tzu dog, and the eyesight of a rhinoceros.

​

 

[ZedClampet]

Ubisoft attempted to address historical 'authenticity' issues in Assassin's Creed Shadows and just made the whole situation worse

A reasonable statement that didn't need to be made provides fresh fuel for the outrage factory.

www.pcgamer.com

I think nearly all this criticism could have been avoided by just making the lead male Japanese. I think the players complaining about historical accuracy have just jumped on that so they don't have to complain about the main character.

Now why people not in Japan care about the lead character is a pretty messy situation, but Ubisoft should have known this was coming. Paying any attention at all over the last 10 years would have let you predict this response.

The truth, though, is that this character has an opportunity to be one of the most interesting leads in an AC game in a long time so long as the writing is good. He certainly led a fascinating life.

 

[ZedClampet]

Humble Games says it's 'restructuring,' employees say its entire staff has been laid off

According to one employee, 36 people have been let go.

www.pcgamer.com

Ugh. These are the folks publishing the Worlds Adrift reimagining. Hopefully they stick to their statement that they will continue to support the developers they already had contracts with.

 

[Zloth]

How did I miss that article!? Thanks @ZedClampet!

I'm sorry to see Humble go down. Perhaps the silver lining will be more traffic for GOG.

 

[ZedClampet]

How did I miss that article!? Thanks @ZedClampet!

I'm sorry to see Humble go down. Perhaps the silver lining will be more traffic for GOG.

They make it sound like it's all of Humble, but it's really just their publishing arm that's closing. Of course, if they are struggling, I suppose the rest could soon follow.

 

[Pifanjr]

They make it sound like it's all of Humble, but it's really just their publishing arm that's closing. Of course, if they are struggling, I suppose the rest could soon follow.

From what I understood, Humble Games was an entirely separate business from the rest of Humble.

 

[ZedClampet]

From what I understood, Humble Games was an entirely separate business from the rest of Humble.

I guess so. Owned by the same people, though.

 

[Johnway]

So fallout london finally launches. The challenge now is trying to get my copy of fallout 4 GOTY on steam to work with it. i suspect gog Galaxy is my key here, but i don't really use that browser. Even though its installed on my machine.

onto other news, Path of exile is launching soon and having looked at the rewards they certainly tasty. bad news is that all the good stuff is (unsurprisingly) in the 32+ challenges. i would LOVE to try and get them but, those challenges are obnoxiously difficult and unless they're going to make it easier or have more challenges (ie: instead of 40, they had 60 different ones) i doubt i'll see any of it.