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Yardbomb
Jul 11, 2011

What's with the eh... bretonnian dance, sir?

Arcsquad12 posted:

From what I've heard, Microsoft had something to do with the XBone exclusive being canned, which hosed over the company in some way, which makes the conspiracy theorist in me wonder if this was a long term plan to put Obsidian at a disadvantage and then sweep them up so they can get their exclusives library growing.

Wouldn't be anywhere close to the first time a big ~AAA~ company starved out a smaller studio so they could effortlessly cannibalize them.

John Murdoch posted:

(TBH I wouldn't be surprised if there was some overlap with people who still tie themselves in knots over Dragon Age 2.)

DA2 sucked really miserably too, what are you even playing at dude :confused:

Like people don't hate DA2 just because, the first game did really well and is still a neat game, 2 came up with a premise that sounded very cool on paper "It's all gonna be in this one city and like, you'll see the makeup of the city change depending on how things are going for it and your choices and stuff!" and then that completely flopped in implementation, so it just ended up being a much smaller play area with a much more railroaded story.

Yardbomb fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Nov 21, 2018

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John Murdoch
May 19, 2009

I can tune a fish.
I'll also admit that maybe my view is warped by the specific threads I hang around in, where the discourse around, say, Fallout 4, usually begins and ends with HATE NEWSPAPERS if people don't just do the usual drive-by "game sucks" kind of posts.

Inspector Gesicht
Oct 26, 2012

500 Zeus a body.


I don't know poo poo about game-engines but surely someone in Bethesda would know how to streamline and futureproof the Creation engine, and fix complaints as old as Morrowind. Get rid of poo poo like tying animations to framerate, rendering shadows with the CPU instead of the GPU, cell-loading instead of dynamic-loading, and the limitation that prevents caves in the open world and being able to scale ladders.

Max Wilco
Jan 23, 2012

I'm just trying to go through life without looking stupid.

It's not working out too well...

John Murdoch posted:

I can't really speak for any of their other games or New Vegas though. Fallout 3 was my first proper exposure and it didn't click with me at the time. I played NV roughly up until I hit the titular city and got overwhelmed by the complexity of the inter-woven quest design combined with that being the point where the game starts sending you in every direction at once plus hemming and hawing about making sure I got the best outcome with Veronica because why wouldn't you.

New Vegas is the kind of game where it helps a lot to have the wiki open in another window to help with keeping track of the questlines, companion dialog triggers, and so on (mind you, I don't view that as a bad thing.) I've heard Neverwinter Nights 2 is like that as well.


John Murdoch posted:

*And as we all know, New Vegas was created by the insanely omni-talented duo of Josh Sawyer and Chris Avellone and nobody else. Those two men are the only reason New Vegas was good and Bethesda was responsible for anything and everything bad about it.

It would be a lot cooler to see people talk about what they love about New Vegas, on its own terms, rather than defensively comparing it to Fallout 3 at every goddamn available opportunity and using it as a springboard to attack Bethesda. Especially when you'd think after two "bad" Elder Scrolls games and two "bad" Fallout games you'd figure out the pattern and stop giving a poo poo about the company that's clearly not interested in making the type of game you want!

Actually, it was Sawyer who was lead designer, and John Gonzales who was lead writer. Gonzales doesn't really get mentioned all that much from what I've seen (he worked on Horizon Zero Dawn, and that was my only major interest in that game). Avellone I think was in charge of some of the expansions. The other major writer I think was Eric Fenstermaker, who wrote dialog for Veronica, Boone, and some of the various areas (again, you'd have to look through the wiki to find information on who handled the writing for what).

I could talk a bit about what I liked about New Vegas, but I'd rather do it tomorrow, since I've got a headache and don't want to try and draft something up at the moment.


Kay Kessler posted:

Avellone has gone on record that they were not mistreated by Bethesda and a lot of the dumb things like the short timeframe were Feargus Uruqhart's ideas. While this would normally be taken with a grain of salt given how Chris and him have bad blood, Feargus himself has been saying the same thing for years in interviews.

Here's a twitter thread with some of his comments. https://mobile.twitter.com/chrisavellone/status/1057842236002463746

There was some talk, though, that Bethesda was envious of the praise heaped on New Vegas compared to their takes on the series.

Waffles Inc.
Jan 20, 2005

rujasu posted:

Part ONE is an hour long. Learn to trim FFS

It should be longer, honestly. Donoteat is the best content producer on Youtube.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012

Twincityhacker posted:

Speaking of anime, can someone recomend some good anime reviwers? Preferably ones that are more into slower paced stuff like Flying Witch, Holmes of Kyoto, The Anchient Magus Bride ect?

I tried Anime Abandon, and we have very different tastes. More like Mother's Basement?

MB is the only one I found that is actually chill and good on stuff that is currently airing . Bennet has a fun style but his schtick is tied into the classics and the early boom of anime in the US, which can be very hit or miss in how it regards to your tastes. Digibro can be very good on 'neutral' titles, meaning those that don't cater to/offend his weird kinks. When that happens, he can be a weird creep.

Flying Witch was a weirdly calm, fun little series. Given the state of the world, I'll take an escapism where everyone is chill, well-intentioned and digging their boring, magical little life.

Arc Hammer
Mar 4, 2013

Got any deathsticks?

Yardbomb posted:

Wouldn't be anywhere close to the first time a big ~AAA~ company starved out a smaller studio so they could effortlessly cannibalize them.

I refreshed my memory, and the whole clusterfuck came from the cancellation of a longterm deal Obsidian was working on with Microsoft for an XBone launch title that would have been called Stormlands. Years of development, differences of vision between Obsidian and Microsoft, a transitional period for game and graphics engines, and unrealistic expectations tanked the project after millions had been sunk into its development, nearly bankrupting Obsidian.

John Murdoch
May 19, 2009

I can tune a fish.

Yardbomb posted:

DA2 sucked really miserably too, what are you even playing at dude :confused:

Being upset that DA2 was a mess at the time of its release (though let's be real here, people still went way too far with their upset, that poo poo reached proto-GG levels) is one thing. It's another thing to still be genuinely angry about it in the year 2018. Much in the same way that I find it kind of weird to still be THAT bitter about Fallout 3/New Vegas, even more than the original devs ever were.

Max Wilco posted:

New Vegas is the kind of game where it helps a lot to have the wiki open in another window to help with keeping track of the questlines, companion dialog triggers, and so on (mind you, I don't view that as a bad thing.) I've heard Neverwinter Nights 2 is like that as well.

See, on the contrary, I feel like consulting with the wiki too much started to mess up my enjoyment of the game and helped burn me out faster. I'm not so sure I like the companion dialog trigger stuff in general, insomuch that you can accidentally lock yourself out of or horribly delay certain quests. Helped make me overly paranoid about missing stuff I wanted to see.

Jimbot
Jul 22, 2008

New Vegas and Fallout 3 are Fallout games, so comparisons between the two will happen. "You liked 3? You should check out New Vegas! It's so much better!" will happen. Especially since one of the popular sentiments of the time is that people were too burned out on the formula to even give New Vegas a shot.

John Murdoch
May 19, 2009

I can tune a fish.
Of course comparisons are inevitable. But when that's 99% of what I see on the subject? That's weird and off-putting. Similarly, the relative dearth of critique of New Vegas right next to the endless reams of complaints about F3.

Kim Justice
Jan 29, 2007

Not related to anything but seeing as we've had posts about Chapo even though they have their own thread, I will say that the just released on YouTube today Rogan podcast featuring Jake "The Snake" Roberts is insanely captivating and I had to force myself away from it because it's like, nearly 3 in the morning. I mean it helps that the man was an idol of mine when I was young but gently caress. It's not like Rogan even needs to interject much, just let Jake tell his story.

Dawgstar
Jul 15, 2017

Sephyr posted:

MB is the only one I found that is actually chill and good on stuff that is currently airing . Bennet has a fun style but his schtick is tied into the classics and the early boom of anime in the US, which can be very hit or miss in how it regards to your tastes. Digibro can be very good on 'neutral' titles, meaning those that don't cater to/offend his weird kinks. When that happens, he can be a weird creep.

Flying Witch was a weirdly calm, fun little series. Given the state of the world, I'll take an escapism where everyone is chill, well-intentioned and digging their boring, magical little life.

I haven't watched him in a while, but along the anime recommendation lines there was Glass Reflections. He tries very hard to be objective while admitting where his preferences lie. Also pretty laid back, compares subs to dubs if that's your thing, all that goodness.

Takoluka
Jun 26, 2009

Don't look at me!



Sephyr posted:

Digibro can be very good on 'neutral' titles, meaning those that don't cater to/offend his weird kinks. When that happens, he can be a weird creep.

Digibro is a self-proclaimed lolicon enthusiast, and it is absolutely best to not give him the time of day. He *is* a weird creep, and he deserves far less than he has.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012

Dawgstar posted:

I haven't watched him in a while, but along the anime recommendation lines there was Glass Reflections. He tries very hard to be objective while admitting where his preferences lie. Also pretty laid back, compares subs to dubs if that's your thing, all that goodness.

Will give him a try. I'll never get the american allergy to subtitles, to be fair.

Growing up in Brazil, where everything at the rental place was subtitled, made it a moot point, but even going to the movie theater most people skip dubs unless they have -really- small kids. We generally enjoy hearing what the actual actor sounds like.

PS- Small anecdote: I started watching Schwarzenegger movies early on because they were on pretty much nonstop on open TV (and dubbed), and when I first saw him at the movie theater (Total Recall) my friends and I just couldn't stop guffawing at his real voice. Sure, we had barely eny english between us, but his accent and delivery just came through and clashed wonderfully with the smooth, flawless dub the TV gave him. I should try and find who the voice actor was; he may have dragged me a full point across the Kinsey scale.

MonsieurChoc
Oct 12, 2013

Every species can smell its own extinction.
I could lsiten to Donoteat talk about trains and aquifers and killdozers for three hours easy.

Microcline
Jul 27, 2012

Inspector Gesicht posted:

I don't know poo poo about game-engines but surely someone in Bethesda would know how to streamline and futureproof the Creation engine, and fix complaints as old as Morrowind. Get rid of poo poo like tying animations to framerate, rendering shadows with the CPU instead of the GPU, cell-loading instead of dynamic-loading, and the limitation that prevents caves in the open world and being able to scale ladders.

It's sort of the opposite in that the larger a game engine has been around the harder it is to streamline and futureproof (to the extent that futureproofing is even possible).

Modern videogames are some of the most complicated software ever produced, and are produced on much shorter timeframes with much smaller teams than things like operating systems and databases. There are ways this complexity can be mitigated like good documentation and retaining key developers but the timeframes and staff turnover make this impossible. In addition, while other software is often compartmentalized and parts can be tested in isolation and after every change, this is very hard to do in something like a videogame where every part is interacting at once. One of the key developments enabling modern game development is the use of "engines" where maintenance of key game systems (e.g. how animations and framerate work) is offloaded to a third party that can maintain some semblance of order.

The Creation Engine's story dates back to 1997, when it was called NetImmerse (this is the iteration that was used for Morrowind). In 2003 it was updated to Gamebryo (used for Oblivion). Fallout 3 is where things get weird because Bethesda forks (copies) the Gamebryo codebase to create the Creation Engine. So no one developing the Creation Engine truly understands how Gamebryo works, and complexity just keeps building from there. Skryim and Fallout can be thought of as extraordinarily competent Oblivion hacks.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012

Takoluka posted:

Digibro is a self-proclaimed lolicon enthusiast, and it is absolutely best to not give him the time of day. He *is* a weird creep, and he deserves far less than he has.

Oh, agreed. I actually have a mental health degree, but he's not my patient, so I'm just bullshitting here, but he has all the signs of being a borderline autist/sociopath. Who knows he doesn't quite fit in, and proceeds to analyze social structures and tropes to an obessive level to navigate through life. Finding a smaller sub-community with its own rules and hierarchy is a massive boon to such people, as they have less adjustments to make and tend to be quite self-supportive.

I don't say this to go "Hiss, look at the crazy freak!"; people with issues have as much right to be part of society and common life as anyone else, all the more so when they work out their problems in a decent way*. And sometimes, their unique mental structure can lead to interesting insights (and lots of misguided awe by people who should know better, e.g, software developers who hunt for Asperger/OCD people who obsess about work and have no social life).

I don't subscribe to Digibro and find his swooning over loli poo poo appalling. That said, I've liked some of the stuff he hyped, and he can be illuminating when he's in a proper mood/took his meds/forgot about the kiddies.

*: I had a rather big argument with a friend last week because he told me he was going to dump a rather nice girl he's been dating specifically because she told him on the third date that he has very strong manic-depressive syndrome, and takes medication for it. I asked him if he'd rather have her lie to him and had it become a bigger issue years into the relationship rather than let the two work it out together aware that it was going to be a thing. I mean gently caress, if she was already having episodes that were troubling him, I could see him just making a decision that it was not something he could deal with. But as it is, he'd be basically dumping her for being honest.

Absurd Alhazred
Mar 27, 2010

by Athanatos

Microcline posted:

It's sort of the opposite in that the larger a game engine has been around the harder it is to streamline and futureproof (to the extent that futureproofing is even possible).

Modern videogames are some of the most complicated software ever produced, and are produced on much shorter timeframes with much smaller teams than things like operating systems and databases. There are ways this complexity can be mitigated like good documentation and retaining key developers but the timeframes and staff turnover make this impossible. In addition, while other software is often compartmentalized and parts can be tested in isolation and after every change, this is very hard to do in something like a videogame where every part is interacting at once. One of the key developments enabling modern game development is the use of "engines" where maintenance of key game systems (e.g. how animations and framerate work) is offloaded to a third party that can maintain some semblance of order.

The Creation Engine's story dates back to 1997, when it was called NetImmerse (this is the iteration that was used for Morrowind). In 2003 it was updated to Gamebryo (used for Oblivion). Fallout 3 is where things get weird because Bethesda forks (copies) the Gamebryo codebase to create the Creation Engine. So no one developing the Creation Engine truly understands how Gamebryo works, and complexity just keeps building from there. Skryim and Fallout can be thought of as extraordinarily competent Oblivion hacks.

Yeah, technical debt is really hard to work through. Just look at the flight sim thread and see how bad the big engines are. They've been worse, but they still have a really hard time making use of modern GPU and multicore CPU technology.

Doctor Spaceman
Jul 6, 2010

"Everyone's entitled to their point of view, but that's seriously a weird one."
CoD: Whatever still uses a heavily modified Quake 3 engine too.

Ghostlight
Sep 25, 2009

maybe for one second you can pause; try to step into another person's perspective, and understand that a watermelon is cursing me



CoD gets away with it because they started with an engine that was explicitly designed by a master of game engines to deliver a fast-paced 3D fps and that's all they use it for.

Arc Hammer
Mar 4, 2013

Got any deathsticks?
It is fun going into a game and recognizing the game engine underneath due to certain quirks. Titanfall runs off of an extremely modified version of Source, but there are telltale signs that it's the Half Life 2 engine at its core.

Babysitter Super Sleuth
Apr 26, 2012

my posts are as bad the Current Releases review of Gone Girl

Digibro being a turbo freak is especially unfortunate since of all the current wave of anitube, he gets narrative structure and visual language in a way none of his competitors even remotely approach, (his video about how the 3-episode test is bullshit is a perfect example,) but he's such an absolutely odious human being that I can't follow him anymore or recommend supporting him in good faith.

Truly, anime is blood.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012

Babysitter Super Sleuth posted:

Digibro being a turbo freak is especially unfortunate since of all the current wave of anitube, he gets narrative structure and visual language in a way none of his competitors even remotely approach, (his video about how the 3-episode test is bullshit is a perfect example,) but he's such an absolutely odious human being that I can't follow him anymore or recommend supporting him in good faith.

Truly, anime is blood.

One day, Youtube and social media in general will (re)discover the power of the Editor-in-chief.

And then we won't have to care that creators are odious shitbiscuits, because we will get the good part of their output while they will get smacked with a rolled-up newspaper (or a tablet displaying the WaPo page) and have the creepy/poo poo part of their content consigned to blessed oblivion.

Terrible Opinions
Oct 18, 2013



Takoluka posted:

Digibro is a self-proclaimed lolicon enthusiast, and it is absolutely best to not give him the time of day. He *is* a weird creep, and he deserves far less than he has.
Given Mother's Basement's unironic championing of similarly bad shows, I don't know what to tell you other than this is a problem across most anime reviewers. Some are just more honest about it than others. Bennett and Jake are the only ones I haven't seen stanning for some sort of gross pedophile show or another. It's only when it gets as obvious as Made in Abyss that they even address it.

Darth Walrus
Feb 13, 2012

Twincityhacker posted:

Speaking of anime, can someone recomend some good anime reviwers? Preferably ones that are more into slower paced stuff like Flying Witch, Holmes of Kyoto, The Anchient Magus Bride ect?

I tried Anime Abandon, and we have very different tastes. More like Mother's Basement?

Try Nick Creamer, an ANN and Crunchyroll writer who also has his own blog, Wrong Every Time. He's a big fan of slow character pieces (most recently, he went all :swoon: over Liz and the Blue Bird, and was also a fan of Yuru Camp), although he's not averse to a bit of dumb actiony ridiculousness either.

Vanderdeath
Oct 1, 2005

I will confess,
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth.



Terrible Opinions posted:

Given Mother's Basement's unironic championing of similarly bad shows, I don't know what to tell you other than this is a problem across most anime reviewers. Some are just more honest about it than others. Bennett and Jake are the only ones I haven't seen stanning for some sort of gross pedophile show or another. It's only when it gets as obvious as Made in Abyss that they even address it.

I feel bad for the people that developed Made in Abyss' anime because they did such a great job bringing the good parts of that story to life and all of that got burnt away when the mangaka was revealed to be an actual pedophile which retroactively ruined the anime. Part of me wonders if that's why there hasn't been much said about season 2 of the anime.

Terrible Opinions
Oct 18, 2013



I think you might be thinking of a different anime, because it was pretty drat obvious from the web comic that Made in Abyss's author is a pedophile, since long before talks on the anime even started.

Solitair
Feb 18, 2014

TODAY'S GONNA BE A GOOD MOTHERFUCKIN' DAY!!!
Rurouni Kenshin, maybe?

Vanderdeath
Oct 1, 2005

I will confess,
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth.



Terrible Opinions posted:

I think you might be thinking of a different anime, because it was pretty drat obvious from the web comic that Made in Abyss's author is a pedophile, since long before talks on the anime even started.

Solitair posted:

Rurouni Kenshin, maybe?

I conflated these two since I don't really watch much anime nowadays. I personally didn't know about Made in Abyss' author until after watching the show and felt queasy about it.

Terrible Opinions
Oct 18, 2013



Yeah he "just" draws a bunch of pictures of children peeing and being brutalized.

Ghostlight
Sep 25, 2009

maybe for one second you can pause; try to step into another person's perspective, and understand that a watermelon is cursing me



we've already established it's anime

Babysitter Super Sleuth
Apr 26, 2012

my posts are as bad the Current Releases review of Gone Girl

Iirc the "outing" of Made in Abyss's creator was that he lost his plausible deniability by specifically yelling about how he would die for lolicon online

Equeen
Oct 29, 2011

Pole dance~
Super Eyepatch Wolf is a great anime Youtube reviewer/analyst. I can't recommend him enough.

Regarding Made in Abyss... yeah I read the manga after finishing the anime, and loving YIKES. The anime staff really did their damnedest downplaying the creepy poo poo from the source material. They didn't scrub everything, but they were at least smart enough to put a greater emphasize on the actually interesting elements of the story.

Takoluka
Jun 26, 2009

Don't look at me!



Terrible Opinions posted:

Given Mother's Basement's unironic championing of similarly bad shows, I don't know what to tell you other than this is a problem across most anime reviewers. Some are just more honest about it than others. Bennett and Jake are the only ones I haven't seen stanning for some sort of gross pedophile show or another. It's only when it gets as obvious as Made in Abyss that they even address it.

MB, at the very least, openly dislikes the creepy sexual-assaulty stuff in anime, as he's mentioned quite a bit in his SAO stuff, so I imagine he has standards and morals that a lot of anitubers just toss aside for their audiences.

Dawgstar
Jul 15, 2017

Takoluka posted:

MB, at the very least, openly dislikes the creepy sexual-assaulty stuff in anime, as he's mentioned quite a bit in his SAO stuff, so I imagine he has standards and morals that a lot of anitubers just toss aside for their audiences.

His guide to the various flavors of 'dere' was pretty funny.

Solitair
Feb 18, 2014

TODAY'S GONNA BE A GOOD MOTHERFUCKIN' DAY!!!

Takoluka posted:

MB, at the very least, openly dislikes the creepy sexual-assaulty stuff in anime, as he's mentioned quite a bit in his SAO stuff, so I imagine he has standards and morals that a lot of anitubers just toss aside for their audiences.

Super Eyepatch Wolf also criticizes the pedo stuff in Made in Abyss and anime fans' willingness to defend it in the industry, but only for about half a minute. I wasn't aware of just how bad it got based on his video alone.

Takoluka
Jun 26, 2009

Don't look at me!



Solitair posted:

Super Eyepatch Wolf also criticizes the pedo stuff in Made in Abyss and anime fans' willingness to defend it in the industry, but only for about half a minute. I wasn't aware of just how bad it got based on his video alone.

On a related note, is Made in Abyss worth watching? I'd always heard about the questionable stuff, but I never looked into it myself.

Equeen
Oct 29, 2011

Pole dance~

Takoluka posted:

On a related note, is Made in Abyss worth watching? I'd always heard about the questionable stuff, but I never looked into it myself.

I do genuinely think the good (interesting world-building, fun relationship between the main characters, unique monster designs) outweighs the bad (the occasional creepy poo poo), but uhhh stay away from the manga.

Mr.Radar
Nov 5, 2005

You guys aren't going to believe this, but that guy is our games teacher.
Leon Thomas/Renegade Cut posted a 5-minute teaser for his upcoming 4-part, 3+ hour examination of the DCEU and its place in the online cultural discourse:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY9ysCHW4KA

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I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

Mr.Radar posted:

Leon Thomas/Renegade Cut posted a 5-minute teaser for his upcoming 4-part, 3+ hour examination of the DCEU and its place in the online cultural discourse:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY9ysCHW4KA

This is sure to start some conversations

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