Metal Gear on MSX2 was a genre that didn’t exist yet, and which sounded boring when he proposed it. The real Metal Gear 2 built on that in ways that would still be noteworthy features in Metal Gear Solid. Snatcher and Policenauts were little more than visual novels, but they were well-executed. That’s largely thanks to Kojima insisting on artist-driven tools for scripting the exact timing of graphics, text, and music.
Metal Gear Solid fucked with the player by constantly breaking the fourth wall. MGS2 cranked that ten times higher, along with prescient comments on memetics and populist narratives. MGS3 was just polished as hell. MGS4 opens with fake commercials starring the voice actors and only gets weirder from there.
MGS5-- calling back to artist-driven tools, I recommend the article about the game’s rendering engine. They developed a little rectangle you can drop into a screenshot, and then however you adjust the screenshot in Photoshop, copy-pasting that little rectangle back into the game will perfectly match whatever you did. Kojima productions have a certain “just solve the problem” vibe behind a lot of their technical direction. MGS 1-3 had too much focus on the minimap radar, so MGS4 has a holographic ring around your feet. Why? How? Who gives a shit, it’s a video game.
P.T. was a horror game demo set entirely in one hallway. And it was terrifying. And weird. And full of promise. So when Kojima handed that gift to Konami, reviving one of their beloved franchises, with several big names on-board thanks to his weird industry connections… and then Konami booted his ass out the door… people noticed.
Death Stranding is the ultimate illustration of why he became well-known and why he remains well-known. It’s a ridiculous product. It forces comically long sequences that are not technically gameplay. Its writing is completely bonkers and longwinded. But every aspect is deliberate. It is that way, on purpose. A premise that sounds boring becomes interesting because it’s well-executed. Balance and stamina aren’t floating UI elements; they’re represented in your character’s movement, so you keep your eyes on your dude.
Basically, Kojima is the sort of lead who can insist on a ten-minute opening cutscene, thirty seconds of actual gameplay, and then another eight minutes of cutscene, and still have people’s attention.
Sticking with image compression, see Quite Okay Images. It treats each pixel as three numbers and expects mostly small changes. Recent pixels get hashed and can be referenced in a few bits. This is enough to compete with PNG filesizes, an order of magnitude faster, while handling each pixel exactly once.
Ninth Doctor actor Christopher Eccleston reveals his brutal conditions for returning to Doctor Who. Eccleston was the first actor to portray the Doctor in its modern era following its revival in 2005. While he successfully brought the iconic Time Lord back to the screen, he abruptly departed the show after just one season,...
(especially obvious in Eccleston’s run - I can’t really blame him for walking away)
The decision is also colored by Tennant absolutely killing it right afterward. Kind of a Tasha Yar situation. With hindsight of even just a few episodes, fans wonder why anyone would leave such a great show, but the actors saw a year of rough production and did not expect things to get better.
Really expected him to cameo in The Day Of The Doctor. Right as the three of him are deciding to just not, have him slide in and push the button. After all: they all know that’s not how it happened. Fixed events are a bitch.
This schmuck is turning something you find important into drama. If the next dozen posts about this topic are more of the same emotionally-manipulative superlatives, then no, I really don’t care to follow along.
If Matt Lauer worked for the New York Post and all information came as frothing vitriol under gross headlines, one comment amounting to ‘ugh’ is not any kind of hysterics.
MOBA toxicity is a design problem. These players are like this because these games are like this.
If good players wading in among the noobs is such a huge problem, what have you done in the last twenty years to make it stop being a problem? Stopping it from happening is a naive band-aid. A kneejerk response to the symptoms of systemic issues. This game has one hundred and twenty-four characters. Don’t tell me the devs are unfamiliar with tweaking complex systems for macro-scale results. Low-skill games are where you’d expect handicaps or dynamic difficulty applied to all the numbers on either team. An e-sports demigod and a fresh player using DK bongos should be made similarly effective. If that disconnect between action and results frustrates the guy pushing 400 APM… good.
If you need a whole-ass reputation system just to identify people who play badly on purpose, why the fuck do you allow bad play to matter so much? Maybe lashing strangers together for an hour, when half of them will lose, is a potent source of bitter feelings. Maybe a game that punishes people for leaving when they feel bad isn’t a recipe for positivity! But hey, at least they can keep their head down and mind their business, oops nevermind it’s all interdependent teamwork. Well at least four good teammates can make up for one bastard… oh, did you never fix “feeding?”
We are not talking about evenly-matched teams. The integrity of dirt-tier matches is ruined by pros on fresh accounts. People so infatuated with a child’s view of “competition” that nothing matters besides winning. Teamwork? Sportsmanship? Fun? Fuck that, just win win win win win win win.
Skill-based matchmaking is already a judgement call for how well you’re supposed to do. And each long-ass match is rife with ways to judge how well a player is doing - moment to moment - relative to their teammates, their situation, and their character. Measuring and rewarding individual skill is possible even if your team gets utterly destroyed. Or carried by one cheating bastard.
Games can be fun to play for reasons besides ‘did you win.’ Success and growth can be about more than ‘don’t lose.’ This is a game that takes ten people forty-five minutes to play. Reducing it to a binary outcome, as if that’s the only metric for “the integrity of competition,” is the root problem.
This design creates toxicity instead of competition, and your hot take is ‘so you hate competition?’ Yeah sure dude, LeBron dominating a junior-high ballgame is what sportsmanship is all about. His team is winning by a lot so they must be super competitive. What a shame we can’t judge individual players. Apparently. Stop measuring assists, all that matters is the almighty W.
If we’re talking about people playing badly… on purpose… walk me through how that’s exemplifying competitive games. Is opposition to that behavior some kind of betrayal? Because if so, you should be furious at Valve, since they’re attacking that behavior in the most blunt-force ways possible.
After all - why should games be enjoyable? Losing should feel bad. It can’t just be less fun, it has to be miserable. That’s motivation! Shaking hands after a game is for cowards! In fact, if you lose a platinum match? Banned for life. Hardcore permadeath rules.
That system will surely encourage healthy competition without making any player scream their lungs out.
Fair games won’t be affected. Evenly-matched teams do not need this.
Anything can become a flaw when it causes awful results. Every system is perfectly designed to produce its observed outcomes. MOBAs are all toxic as fuck - that’s no accident. The choices shared by these games, cause the problems shared by these games.
These are systemic problems. They cannot be solved by attacking the symptoms. You have to address the cause.
Low-tier matches have a lower skill ceiling. That is what makes them… low-tier. We are only talking about those matches, and we are only talking about when one player is obviously, measurably, operating on a higher level. If a pro joins some newbies and plays like a newbie - there is no problem.
Even so:
Playing better will always get better results. There are no blue shells in DOTA. Winning isn’t random. Making the game slightly more difficult for people demonstrably kicking ass doesn’t have to stop them from kicking ass. Just make their contribution reasonable for a game that is supposed to be a team effort in the minor leagues.
Skill ceiling is both meta and mechanics. That’s why new tech raises the ceiling. What people do matters as much as what’s possible. The game doesn’t have to change, for gameplay to change.
And if we’re talking about smurfing, we’re talking about the game being played badly. Naively. By amateurs. Or at best by experienced played who can’t manage to get their shit together.
Detecting when someone’s doing better than the rank of the current match is how ranking works. It’s not some impossible magic trick. It’s a judgement the game already makes, and that decision already affects people. If you do really well - you get moved to a different group, where you are more likely to get your ass kicked.
When ranking works, the only feedback for your skill is that rank. You will still lose half the time. You will get outmaneuvered half the time. Your execution is on-par with everyone else in the match.
… do you think handing one player an effortless victory is how matchmaking is supposed to work? My guy, one player managing a “rout” is the problem smurfing causes. It’s why Valve is handing out bans.
No, you’re just making things up and calling names. Like a rational adult having a sensible conversation?
Toxic and competitive are separate things. I’ll gladly help you understand how, if you can stop having the argument you’d rather be having, and interact with the words I actually wrote.
Zero respect for any form ‘you just hate [blank]’ in any detailed discussion of [blank].
These are real problems. Valve is making a big show of dealing with them. But over two decades of tweaking and expanding this genre of games, with their absurd number of interconnected systems, nobody seems to have done anything to avert these systemic issues. They just label bad behavior and viciously punish anyone who does it.
It’s a video game. Unless someone is outright hacking, they can only do what the developers allow them to do. This specific genre - this competitive multiplayer game, distinct from all others - is a bottomless well of toxicity. That is no accident. It is an unavoidable consequence of the rules these games have chosen.
Modifying the rules is blase. It’s not some ruinous event; it happens every month. So modifying the rules to avoid the worst aspects of the community seems eminently desirable. Especially if it only applies to the low-stakes, newbie-friendly games where high-tier assholes want to lurch in and ruin it for everyone.
To be crystal clear:
This does not have to affect high-tier play, at all.
There is no reason whatsoever to handicap pros and wannabes playing at their absolute sweatiest.
This is about dirt-league players getting stomped by people committing bannable offenses. The fact anyone even wants to commit those offenses, is a systemic problem. It is shaped by the developers’ decisions, and different decisions would have different outcomes. Every system is perfectly designed to produces its observed results.
If you’re not willing to discuss systemic solutions then you’re not ready to address systemic problems.
Again: ‘prevent those matchups’ is a naive solution. It’s staring straight at a systemic problem and saying, well, let’s just punish anyone who does it wrong.
It is the difference between warning people about a guy who exploits a bug, and fixing the damn bug.
you could just shake hands, say GG and move on?
I agree, players should feel that way, after a loss.
My off-the-cuff proposal was to make low-tier matches play like low-tier matches. A non-event for anyone who belongs there. But for some reason everyone just ignores the part where we’re talking about smurfs entering games with noobs, and insists I must ‘hate competition.’
It’d be great if people stopped making up the conversation they’d rather be having. ‘These systemic problems should be balanced out in low-tier games.’ ‘So you hate high-tier play?’ Wrong. ‘You’re against tier rankings?’ Wronger. ‘You want players to submit a blood sample?’ Are you okay?
What I’m advocating is what I wrote. Twice. Namely: automatic handicaps based on the current match, using the grading the game plainly already does.
The SSN suggestion is the polar fucking opposite of what I’m on about - the game shouldn’t need to know who you are, to keep low-tier matches fair. Detecting higher-skilled play is normal. It’s how ranking works. And at low ranks, the skill ceiling is nice and low, so limiting the effectiveness of any individual player based on their performance over an entire half-hour of gameplay seems plenty tractable.
It’s not trivial - but these devs spent twenty years cranking out a metric buttload of characters, and all of those are at least roughly balanced. These people are capable. I worry they’re simply not trying to address these root causes. Possibly in part because suggestions along these lines make people ask ridiculous unrelated questions.
One, a game lasting “just” seven years is a fucking bizarre jab.
Two, ‘stop pretending disagreement means I hate your favorite thing’ is not an insult.
Three, if all criticism of an ongoing “toxic cesspool” lasting twenty god-damn years has you sneering in defense of the cesspool, I don’t think the details of that criticism have anything to do with your response.
But sure. How dare anyone point to a problem and say ‘they should fix that.’ I mean, where’s my billion-dollar franchise, right? It makes money so it can’t be wrong.
Like, there’s not a whole separate game being proposed here. Some numbers, for some people, in some matches, will just be… less. How to play works exactly the same. It is the same game. And this only needs to affect the people who are already kicking ass.
Their contribution will still be critical to their team’s victory. It just won’t be enough to single-handedly decide the outcome for all nine other players. It will be… less. They can still be the greatest contributor. They can get in-game recognition for every clever decision and make their brain squirt the happy chemicals. They just don’t get as much per-action as the guy who’s figuring out what DoT stands for.
This isn’t high witchcraft, or some kind of paradox. It’s grading on a curve. It’s “handicapping.” A boring and typical adjustment in actual sports, even at higher levels.
And again, it only has to work in the dirt leagues, because the goal is keeping assholes bored. If you play super duper good, and get bumped to a higher rank, and play with other people of that rank… none of this applies. Nothing is different. High-level play between high-ranked players would remain as sweaty as you can imagine. If someone pops enough adderall to see through time, and completely ruins a ranked lobby full of gold players, who gives a shit?
the part everyone’s performatively sneering at. We’re talking about smurfing. We’re talking about matches between newbies. Stop making me underline this. Y’all can read.
your meltdown is worse than my melt down. you’re spiraling harder than me. im barely even showing my ass compared to you.
I care about toxicity. So does Valve, apparently. And PC Gamer. The problems with this genre are newsworthy. And it’s been an issue for two straight decades.
But I guess ‘problems have underlying causes which change can address’ is an invitation for everyone to commit the attribution fallacy and attack whatever gurning projection they’d rather be dealing with.
Meanwhile, the game’s still a cesspool - in your own words - and treating the symptoms will not fix that. Maybe they should treat something else.
Sure, why not. I’m a moustache-twirling villain who personally despises your favorite binkie. All the explanations are just a clever ruse to baffle and trick people, so they’ll think problems have causes.
Let’s pretend grading on a curve means everybody gets the same gold star.
Let’s pretend “competitive” means exactly what you think, no more and no less.
Why should the dirt leagues be “competitive” in your definition?
Why should the lowest rungs of that ladder be as cutthroat and merciless as the upper echelons? It’s fuckin’ little league. We’re talking about people who suck so hard that one guy with a fresh account can demolish them. This is what handicaps are for.
I am describing an autobalance system, in low tiers. Specifically in low tiers. Only in low tiers.
And being “held back” means the game is applauding you. If some newbie genuinely achieves enlightenment and begins playing at a superhuman level, then win or lose, the game is telling them ‘holy shit, well done.’
Which is how ranking already works. I cannot overstress, the game already sets people up to get their asses kicked half the time. It watches how you play, scores your performance, and pits you against people who are going to counteract whatever new tricks you’ve just learned.
This is only a more direct application of that value-above-replacement estimate. In low tiers. Because nobody cares if some top-percentile player wrecks a lobby full of top-decile players.
Because it’s a shallow prog-rock scribble with no faith in its audience. Two and a half hours of one-note characters yelling at one another to explain the blindingly obvious.
Cameron says he started writing this movie starting in the 70s, and I believe him. You can picture him sitting in his dorm room, listening to Tarkus and Olias of Sunhillow until the grooves wore out, doodling weird furry giantess smut, imagining all the claymation he was gonna do to make the bestest sci-fi film since Dark Star.
What the prequels were to George Lucas, Avatar is to James Cameron. This was his stupid childhood dream project. Somehow it made an entire billion dollars. Introspection will not occur.
Every Sonic game is a roll of the dice. Passion for the game you want to play can easily mean reacting to the newest big hit… several years later… without the underlying processes which shaped that hit. Sometimes it’s Sonic Adventure trying to outdo Mario 64. Sometimes it’s Sonic '06 trying to outdo Mario Sunshine.
The real issue is that every project falls short of its vision. Every single one. Sometimes by degrees, sometimes by a mile. So if the goal is simply to be what another project already is, you are guaranteed to be worse than that project. Your thing has to shoot far ahead of that target in order to be its own thing.
This is why Nintendo’s “blue ocean” strategy keeps working, more often than not. They don’t want to make the latest and fanciest [blank]. When you compete, you can lose. They want to be the only company that offers a thing. Some stupid gimmick gets diddled with until it’s the germ of a whole-ass game. Sometimes that starts from a series, like “let’s do another Zelda” or “let’s do another Mario Kart.” But a ton of their titles have branding applied later in development, when the shell of a game is already fun to dork around in, and they pick an IP to shape how everything looks and sounds. Half the Yoshi and Kirby games are like that. Kirby himself is an ascended stand-in. Sakurai made a little blob guy early on, and it was so cute and expressive that he just stuck with it. The character’s design process was so freeform that Miyamoto didn’t know he was pink until he saw the box art.
Why Hideo Kojima is so popular? (gearsrealm.com)
Hideo always has his 10 minutes on Game Awards, why? Why other game devs don't get that much recognition or screen time?
Score (lemmy.world)
Trig (lemmy.world)
Well. Now I know what I'm doing (lemmy.world)
The instances blocking Zuckerberg's Threads.net (fedipact.veganism.social)
Made by Nume MacAroon at Veganism.social veganism.social/
Cities Skylines 2 mods removed due to "toxic and hostile" community (www.pcgamesn.com)
Dear Lemmy, **why** Star Trek??
Every single large server in this federation has at least one Star Trek community. There is even an entire server dedicated to Star Trek....
marijuanification rule (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
Pragernant (lemmy.world)
"I'll Come Back": Ninth Doctor Actor Reveals Brutal Conditions For Doctor Who Return (screenrant.com)
Ninth Doctor actor Christopher Eccleston reveals his brutal conditions for returning to Doctor Who. Eccleston was the first actor to portray the Doctor in its modern era following its revival in 2005. While he successfully brought the iconic Time Lord back to the screen, he abruptly departed the show after just one season,...
The first batch of AQ-400 attack UAVs have been delivered. They have a 750km range at 140km/h with a 32kg payload. (files.catbox.moe)
https://sopuli.xyz/pictrs/image/566cda46-f2be-4846-9a3f-2536deff9da4.jpeghttps://sopuli.xyz/pictrs/image/af9d578e-b189-4d55-b926-5a364fba3e0b.jpeg...
Pentagrule (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
I’m not sure if Fediverse even has an official logo but this one looks neat....
Virgin AK Clone vs Chad Western Firearm (sh.itjust.works)
[Karl Jobst] The Completionist's Response Is The Worst Thing Ever (www.youtube.com)
Valve lures thousands of Dota cheaters into bans with fake Christmas presents as it declares 'this year is gonna be a bloodbath' (www.pcgamer.com)
memo-ruley hole (lemmy.world)
Netflix Plans Sonic the Hedgehog, ‘Squid Game’ Video Games As It Expands Slate to Familiar IP (www.hollywoodreporter.com)
What the rule is this ad (lemmy.world)
Twitch will now allow "Artistic Nudity" following the viral topless meta (www.dexerto.com)
Twitch Updated their Sexual Content Policy:...
B.C. couple faces $600 a month rent hike when their baby becomes new ‘occupant’ | Globalnews.ca (globalnews.ca)