this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2024
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[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 55 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Star Citizen is in this picture. They added hunger and dehydration to a space exploration, cargo, and fighting game.

[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 22 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Oh boy. Time for an 800 comment long flamewar about Star Citizen. I'm ready.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'm proud to be the one to start the fire this time. To be clear I do really want a good game out of all this.

[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 15 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Personally, I think Star Citizen is shallow and pedantic.

[–] BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

It's just a scam though isn't it? 💣💣💣

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

They're doing way too much work for it to be a scam. Irresponsible, naive, badly managed, sure. It can just be a bad project.

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[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago (3 children)

It is, it's also in alpha still. If they were claiming beta in this state I'd be more worried rather than just mad they keep adding stupid shit instead of going full optimization. They have a game, they just need to get it out the door and worry about content in future releases. It's like the painter who can't call a painting finished.

[–] MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works 19 points 1 month ago (10 children)

After what feels like 20 years, it still being in alpha should worry you more than if this current state was called a beta.

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[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 6 points 1 month ago

It’s like trying to trace an outline of a fractal.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 5 points 1 month ago (7 children)

They can claim whatever they want. But if it's publicly available then it's a beta regardless of what arbitrary name they give it.

If it was alpha it should be free.

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[–] dodos@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago (4 children)

I really feel there would be a market for something like star citizen without all the realism stuff that gets in the way of the gameplay. I'm a backer, and when I can get to playing the game it's fun, but finding my way to the launch pad after every two years break when I'm trying to checkup on progress sucks.

[–] dragonfucker@lemmy.nz 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You're talking about No Man's Sky and Elite Dangerous. The whole point of Star Citizen is the realism.

Drag thinks hunger mechanics in a spaceship game are too much, though.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago

Same here, I loved the idea of a walk on space game I could play with friends. I loved the idea of ground side fights and boarding actions.

But now we've got some kind of super high fidelity survival game. If you can even run it it's far more akin to an first person POV EVE.

[–] yamanii@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

Literally any other space game.

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[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 51 points 1 month ago (8 children)

Games got bigger to their own detriment. Halo and Gears of War are open world games now, and they're worse off for it. Assassin's Creed games used to be under 20 hours, and now they're over 45. Not every game is worse for being longer, as two of my favorite games in the past couple of years are over 100 hours long, clocking in at three times the length of their predecessors, but it's much easier to keep a game fun for 8-15 hours than it is for some multiple of that, and it makes the game more expensive to make, raising the threshold for success.

[–] fishos@lemmy.world 18 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (8 children)

Unpopular opinion: open world ruined Zelda. I thought I'd love the concept. But actually give it to me? Ughhh.... Spend forever doing side quests because you don't know if the equipment will only be good now or if youll need it down the road.... No real guidance so you can end up just meandering around.....

I liked the more structured narrative. Don't get me wrong - it's cool to play Link and just do whatever you want. But for a story game, a more defined linear path is more engaging imo.

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[–] RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 42 points 1 month ago (2 children)

And development teams are too big. No game should realistically be having 500+ people working on it. That's too many people, too big a ship to steer fast enough for the changes that happen in game development. Even the biggest games have done very well with teams of 250 or less, including all staff that work on the game, how about development studios pay attention to that?

[–] lepinkainen@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago (4 children)

People expect all games to be multiplayer with online live ops and events and a steady flow of new content.

That’s why you need to have a 500 person team. Someone needs to be designing and coding the valentine's event for 2025 right now

[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 27 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I’ve heard this often, but most of the games I see people consume live updates for weren’t initially planned to get such constant updates.

Ex: Dead by Daylight. Released as dumb party horror game with low shelf life. Now on its 8th plus year. Fortnite: Epic’s base building game that pivoted to follow the battle royale trend, then ten other trends. DOTA 2: First released as a Warcraft map. GTA V: First released as a singleplayer game before tons of expansion went into online. Same with Minecraft.

It just doesn’t make sense to pour $500M into something before everyone agrees it’s a fun idea. There’s obviously nothing gained in planning out the “constant content cycle” before a game’s first public release.

[–] dragonfucker@lemmy.nz 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Drag can think of one counterexample: Warframe. But Warframe is also 100% free to play and free to participate in every content update and event. And Warframe is developed by an indie team from Fake London who started the game with 120 employees.

[–] MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Warframe feels just as riddled though with all of its different kinds of currencies and crafting mechanics. It may not have an egregious mtx model but the game loop around it still feels like it's meant to. I much more enjoyed the game in beta when it was simpler. I go on it now and I haven't got a fucking clue what to do, fumble around for an hour and just decide to play something else instead.

[–] dragonfucker@lemmy.nz 4 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Warframe is much more fun with friends. Friends will tell you that you don't have to bother with all the currencies. You can just do the story missions.

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[–] Varyag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 26 points 1 month ago

Companies want all games to be multiplayer with online live ops and events and a steady flow of microtransactions money.

[–] Badeendje@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Who is these people that want this? And even if they do. Creating a good game does not need 500 people. And if you want to provide content after setup several small parallel teams to make cosmetics and stuff.

But the whole live service is something the companies want. So they can keep monetizing it and turn if off once a new iteration is done.

[–] lepinkainen@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Check out the leaks from the Sony/Microsoft trial

There are literally tens of millions of people who ONLY use their PS5 for CoD - a live service multiplayer game.

A whole generation of people have literally never played a single player game and don’t know how to.

[–] Badeendje@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's like they exist in an alternate reality. But then I'm fine with that too. If there is a market for that.. just a shame that the hunt for this audience eats up everything else.

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[–] Moah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I once worked on a dance game that officially had a team of 400

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[–] beebarfbadger@lemmy.world 38 points 1 month ago

"Of course it was cost-intensive to program an engine that will render every single eyelash at a resolution that will require the player to buy an additional graphics card for each eyelash concurrently on-screen, but now we only need twelve and a half billion people to buy, no, what am I saying, to pre-order and pre-pay the Ultra-Super-Deluxe-Collector's Edition and we'll start to turn a profit."

  • current AAA gaming
[–] Wahots@pawb.social 18 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Single player games with a good story and fun replayability are what I'm after. Or co-op. Occasionally, a fun multiplayer with a risky, innovative design like Lethal Company.

If a game requires me to collect 100 goddamn feathers, or press X 20 times to "survive" a heavily scripted encounter, you are doing your game wrong. Look at Black Mesa, look at Subnatica. Look at the games that took risks like Lethal Company or Elite Dangerous. You don't have to appeal to everyone. You have to tell a story well, and the gameplay should be unique and interesting. Larian understood that with Divinity 2, and made improvements to both story and gameplay in BG3.

[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Unfortunately the good taste of people who actively comment about games often has only slight overlap with what makes money.

Three of the top ten US game earners in 2024 were yearly sports game rehashes. One of the top ten games was Call Of Duty. One was Fortnite.

These are money making machines. We can argue and beg and plead all we want. There is a huge mass of gamers out there was simply don't care, and who will continue to buy formulaic rehashes and microtransaction infested treadmills.

The AAA publishers are not in it for the art. Look at AA and indie if you want games that are willing to appeal to a niche. I'm talking to you and everyone else reading this because this might actually have an effect. Saying what AAA publishers and developers should do is pointless, not like they will ever read it.

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[–] skulbuny@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Lethal company is literally just old school d&d tho

You go into dungeons, try to avoid all the monsters because they can kill you in one hit, get the treasure they protect and gold is xp.

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[–] GoodEye8@lemm.ee 17 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Pretty much what I've been saying for almost a decade, mostly in response to "game development is expensive, that's why AAA games need *insert extra revenue streams*". My response has always been that games are bloated with feature creep and if there was an actual issue with development costs the first thing you can cut are features that don't really add to the game. Not only do you cut development costs but you arguably make a better product.

Nice to get some validation because it's been a rather controversial opinion. People have argued nobody would buy AAA if it's not an open world with XP, skills and crafting. Or a competitive hero based online shooter with XP, unlockables, season pass and 5 different game modes. I guess now people don't buy those even if they are all those things

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[–] Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I think it’s cause of envy. Every once in a while, a game comes that just seems to do a lot of things and become very very successful (like red dead and gta).

Then these other studios get FOMO and turn to a go big or go home attitude.

So what you end up with is this inflation of features when only a few devs can land a big game like that.

[–] hypna@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Space marine 2 seems like a good example of this.

Single player campaign: mediocre

CoOp missions: mediocre

Competitive multiplayer: poor

Seems like dropping one of those might have allowed the remaining two to earn a "pretty good"

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

It seems to be resonating pretty damn well for them. In fact, the competitive multiplayer has been praised for its simplicity and feeling a lot like the kind of multiplayer that we used to get so much of back in the 360 era.

[–] Prunebutt@slrpnk.net 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

back in the 360 era.

An era famous for its' tacked-on multiplayer modes.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

It was also famous for having multiplayer modes that were just fun and didn't ask you to commit your life to them. Some of those multiplayer modes were really cool.

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[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Reminds me of many “The reason why Call of Duty sucks” arguments I heard as a kid.

Like, my own tastes agree with you. But you don’t bring that argument into game industry discussion because fact is, the game is doing very well financially and obviously many players disagree with you. So you have to take that data, and work back to decide what the logical conclusion is.

[–] hypna@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

If the argument is that SM2 is successful because it limited it's scope to execute a smaller number of features well, I don't think that holds up. It took on three different types of games and (imho) executed merely okay. What more could they have added? Open world? MMO?

I think the more plausible explanation for the sales is that it's Warhammer, it's pretty, and SM1 was good.

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