General Video Game Thread

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  • You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
    everyone knows that the correct answer is a MATTER of TRUST


  • Touch the cow. Do it now.
  • image Wee yea erra chs hymmnos mea.
    So, in the latest FFXIV patch, we finally got the showdown FFV fans have been waiting for for years: Omega vs. Shinryu. It was really cool. (Spoilers in that video, obviously.)
  • who are we rooting for
  • edited 2017-03-29 01:15:27
    image Wee yea erra chs hymmnos mea.
    None Of The Above

    (Omega's part of the new 8 man raid, and Shinryu's probably gonna be the final boss of 4.0 or something.)
  • edited 2017-03-29 01:57:56
    Not a hybrid rabbit-skink spirit

    When Final Fantasy II was originally released on the Famicom, the Ultima spell, which was difficult to acquire, was practically useless. It was initially meant to increase its power relative to the level of other spells the caster had, but due to a bug, the spell did just around 500 damage at the most on a single target. Director Hironobu Sakaguchi has later told a humorous story relating to the bug: When Square tested the game and saw the bug, Sakaguchi asked for it to be fixed, but the person who programmed it replied that legendary stuff that dates back to an age before "proper techniques" would look inferior from present's point-of-view, explaining Ultima's weakness. He reasoned that the struggle to acquire it only to discover it's useless mirrors real life, and thus he was not going to fix the bug. Sakaguchi was irritated by the reply and tried to fix it himself, but the programmer had ciphered the source and Ultima was left the way it was.




    I don't know who this programmer is, but man do I hate him
  • kill living beings
    ciphered??
  • Touch the cow. Do it now.
    encrypted?

    In any case I'd fire that fucker
  • BeeBee
    edited 2017-03-29 02:48:56
    Yeah there's like no fucking way that's true.  Dude would've been blackballed so hard.  Also version control has been a thing for, like, a while (open source since the 70s, and I work for the people that made one of the first proprietary ones in the 80s).

    Hilarious but has to be fake.
  • Not a hybrid rabbit-skink spirit
    I can see it being true, but I imagine it would be more "dude we have no time and we've gotta release this game, sorry" as opposed to "hahaha no I'm not gonna fix my own shoddy work"
  • BeeBee
    edited 2017-03-29 02:54:37
    I can see them legitimately failing to implement the scaling back to your current spellbook due to time crunch, but they could've just copy-pasted the numbers for Fire or something and just given a bigger one.

    This is literally a number in a resource file.  Worst case, it's a hardcoded number in a .h file.
  • Not a hybrid rabbit-skink spirit
    I mean, ideally it's something like that, but never underestimate a programmer's ability to make something really complicated out of something really simple.

    Especially when we're talking about a game that was programmed in he late 80s for a game console.
  • edited 2017-03-29 03:11:14
    kill living beings
    Bee said:

    I can see them legitimately failing to implement the scaling back to your current spellbook due to time crunch, but they could've just copy-pasted the numbers for Fire or something and just given a bigger one.


    This is literally a number in a resource file.  Worst case, it's a hardcoded number in a .h file.
    i would be a little surprised if a commercial famicom game was programmed in C

    (which is to say, i can imagine the code being too obfuscated or just twisted to fix in time)
  • I can see it being a glitch, in FFI half the spells that don't have a 100% chance to do something immediately obvious don't work, it's possible that Ultima was also supposed to have some non-functional special effect.

    But that story is still fake as fuck.
  • edited 2017-03-29 03:33:17
    kill living beings
    i mean yeah probably but a couple days ago i saw this and i don't know any more (8 minutes 8 seconds)

  • ^^ Actually you're right.  Most of them were in Assembly.  A few actually were in C, but the NES ran it super slow.
  • kill living beings
    unrelated but do you know any examples of commercial NES games programmed in C? i looked around a bit before i posted that to make sure my impression of assembly being almost the only game in town before like, PSX maybe, was correct, and only saw mention of SNES C (still rare)
  • THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS
    The 6502 is really not a good C chip, so I kind of doubt it.
  • edited 2017-03-29 13:10:36
    Lunate said:

    I can see it being a glitch, in FFI half the spells that don't have a 100% chance to do something immediately obvious don't work, it's possible that Ultima was also supposed to have some non-functional special effect.

    But that story is still fake as fuck.

    ...I'm curious why everyone has come to this conclusion?
  • kill living beings
    Kexruct said:

    Lunate said:

    I can see it being a glitch, in FFI half the spells that don't have a 100% chance to do something immediately obvious don't work, it's possible that Ultima was also supposed to have some non-functional special effect.

    But that story is still fake as fuck.

    ...I'm curious why everyone has come to this conclusion?
    because it's somebody making up a bullshit story to avoid doing work, which is pretty fire-worthy even by small 80s game dev studio standards, for not much of a reason. and that's before the "ciphering", which isn't really how you'd describe obfuscation anyway.

    it's much more plausible that somebody fucked up and they didn't test it enough, and then the director made up a funny story (or someone else made up a story and attributed it to him)
  • edited 2017-03-29 19:58:35
    Transient.
    That and the idea that they'd rather have broken Ultima than making it like Fire but with bigger numbers, as Bee said.
  • I mean

    Shrugs? I don't really see any adequate reason to just not believe the story.
  • Kexruct said:

    I mean

    Shrugs? I don't really see any adequate reason to just not believe the story.

    Same here.

    I won't file it in the "definitely true and I'd bet my life on it" pile but I also won't file it in the "this can't possibly be true at all" file pile either.  This isn't exactly an uncommon place for things to be.
  • BeeBee
    edited 2017-03-31 04:44:05
    Final Fantasy Record Keeper is surprisingly tolerable and even occasionally fun for a freemium mobile game.  It does a good job of making sure you always have a clear and relatively reasonable path of advancement even without buying anything, and some of the late-game fights can get deeper than most of the mainline FF games.

    Also Gilgamesh is a fucking beast.
  • me: I fuqqn h8 call of d00dy lol

    also me: I just tried Titanfall 2 and I liked it a lot, and plan to get the full version of it when the money is right
  • but titanfall has mechs
  • Not a hybrid rabbit-skink spirit
    I was a pretty big player of FFRK not too long ago. Really a fantastic gatcha game, gives free players all the resources they need to succeed as long as they spend them right.

    Ended up quitting because as fun as the high level boss fights were, there was still too much grinding on pointless bullshit to get there.

    Also, I think I just have a huge distaste for stamina systems. I don't like games that want me to structure my life around them.

    Still, I do kind of miss it. Had a pretty fantastic dream team, with the BSBs for Celes, Cecil, Refia, Gilgamesh, and Eiko, among others.
  • but titanfall has mechs


    yup (and that is one of the reasons I enjoyed it more)

    same creators tho, a lot of the team that started the franchise jumped ship from Activision a few years back to form the studio
  • BeeBee
    edited 2017-03-31 18:13:06
    Yeah the experience curve is a bit absurd (though the game practically shits growth eggs at this point), and any stamina system will rankle on me by default.  I think what surprised me most is that it's one of the only such games I've played that ended up being actually playable instead of hitting a de facto paywall where you could play for literally seconds a day without shelling out tons of cash -- and by extension, one of the only ones I'd be inclined to actually give money to.  If more mobile games were like this, I'd detest the genre on principle a lot less.

    They have their two-year anniversary going on, it's been showering everyone with mythril and special draws, and realm dungeon stamina is halved so you could basically play the non-elite ones continuously from start to finish if you hadn't already and speed-farm even more mythril.  And yet I'm still failing to get a healing BSB every time it was available, even on repeated draws.  The only healer I have with a burst is Selphie, and she has a fucking offense burst for some goddamn reason.  At least I have Wall and Shout natively so I can leverage a roamer for healing burst.

    Also there are always fun and weirdass stories of raid groups.  I ended up fighting one of the 160's in a group with three Tyros, two healers, Gilgamesh, a Terra spamming Chocobonk of all things, and our main DPS was a Yuna who was very clearly abilitied for being a third healer but just went summon spam instead.  Took bloody forever, but we won quite comfortably and Wall never EVER fell off.  Most of the Tyros spent their turns staffing Gilgamesh for free counterattacks.
  • Not a hybrid rabbit-skink spirit
    Oh, I wasn't talking exp curve, that's actually not that bad. I was talking more the orb grinding to get reasonable ability levels. Especially when you're only first starting to get 5 star abilities. The amount of time between crafting your first 5 star ability and actually managing to get it up to a usable level is like, a month or two.

    And god forbid if you want to use a 5 star summon.

    I mean, where I'm at now I have a bunch of 5 stars that are at least rank two, but man, for a while it was rough.

  • BeeBee
    edited 2017-03-31 22:41:44
    Oh that.  I've been able to pick up some 5* rank 2+.  Granted, I joined shortly before the Monty Haul Christmas event and this one is even more generous.  Full Break is the only one I've gotten a whole lot of use out of.

    Even so I figure 200+ level is the only thing I've yet to break into at this point, and the 6* Nightmare abilities are mostly bragging rights crap.  Even then, the only one I'm seriously worried about is "beat a 160 boss using only summons" and I figure for that I might as well just shoot for Yuna BSB or something.
  • BeeBee
    edited 2017-04-01 05:06:29
    Palenque, Baphomet, and Tiamat down.  They're all kind of clusterfuck fights, especially Tiamat.  I thought I was missing something obvious just face tanking all her unpredictable shots, but I just watched a hard mode video afterward and and nope, that's what you're supposed to do.  Also weird that even though Palenque is #6, getting to him is this massive production spanning half the dungeons in the game, but for Baphomet you just poke a bit into one place and split the entire Twin Labyrinth wide open.

    I don't know how anyone was supposed to figure out the thing for the Dimensional Key.  Like, one of the tablets makes you expect an infinity lock and it's fine your contrast lets you see it, but the two altars are so nondescript and it's not at all obvious what you're supposed to put into the right one.  And the less said about breaking down a wall from the opposite screen, the better.

    Now all I have to do is figure out this wedge business.  Also suddenly death tentacles wiped out one of my save points.
  • edited 2017-04-02 16:07:01
    IJBM: a major Dota 2 tournament is called "The International".

    The International...What?  The International Cupcake Bake-Sale?  The International Toilet-Flushing Contest?  The International Effort To Build A Bionic Bear?

    Not to mention there's already a play, two movies, a golf tournament, and a number of political organizations already using that name, according to Wikipedia.  Of course, this doesn't excuse _their_ behavior either -- I'll excuse the play and movies, and the political organizations are usually not just "The International", so they get a pass.  But the golf tourney is also guilty.
  • image Wee yea erra chs hymmnos mea.
    The International DotA 2 Championships. It's... kinda on the logo.
  • The International DotA 2 Championships. It's... kinda on the logo.

    Yeah, I know, but the official name doesn't really include that bit, so people just talk about "The International".
  • image Wee yea erra chs hymmnos mea.
    Well, that's because repeatedly saying "The International Dota 2 Championships" is a bit of a mouthful.
  • nah I am definitely in favour of calling it "tid 2c" from now on
  • edited 2017-04-02 16:14:05
    Y'know an interesting thing about Dota 2 is that despite how big it is it rarely has its players straggling into the general Steam Community forums asking questions about their game -- a strong contrast with CS:GO.  This still holds even when I exclude posts about CS:GO item scamming/betting/raffling/etc..  There are occasional Dota 2 stragglers, but they are few and far between.

    I wonder if it's because the game has less of an English-language following, since the Steam Community forums are in English.
  • image Wee yea erra chs hymmnos mea.
    MOBAs (and MMOs in general) tend to have pretty insular communities, due to their playstyle leading to a lot of inside jargon and theorycrafting.
  • My dreams exceed my real life
    I feel like I should like Quake like 25% more than I actually do

    For one thing I don't think Ogres should have been that common of an enemy
  • Touch the cow. Do it now.
    I remember enjoying Quake back in the day, a few quibbles aside.
  • image Wee yea erra chs hymmnos mea.
    Quake But Every Enemy Is A Shambler
  • The main thing I remember Quake for is the infamous Inverse Square Root.
  • I played Quake again not too long ago. It's much better playing it now that humanity has discovered the WASD+mouse input.
  • My dreams exceed my real life
    It is very much a transitional phase

    "Why would you want mouselook on ALL THE TIME BY DEFAULT?" *puts enemies in corners above you and below you*
  • Touch the cow. Do it now.
    I need to learn to WASD+mouse

    every Doom mod made in the past decade or so assumes you do it.
  • kill living beings
    ...you usually play without mouselook?
  • My dreams exceed my real life
    It's easier in Doom because the Z-axis is really just an illusion
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