Enguzrad

Thread for those who wish to talk about any people or organizations who love nothing more than telling others what they can and cannot like. OT post from a different thread to start this off:

So I'm going to play a devil's advocate for a bit because I don't think "indeed i am not" was trolling, I think s/he's just defensive and jumps to conclusions. And I agree somewhat that distancing from politics is pointless since it has influence on everything by nature. But this should be really discussed elsewhere since while Ross did touch on the increased number of things to escape from, it is not the main topic of the video. So just one post with few instances where certain people (often called by different names - left wing extremist, SJWs, feminists, marxists and others) succeeded or failed to negatively (in my opinion) change games. Chuchel - a little czech adventure game about a living ball of dust who loves cherries. The original design was black ball with red lips (to distinguish the mouth) and orange hat. Due to backlash of certain people, who immidiately saw black face instead of realizing that the concept of black face is non-existant in czech culture, authors decided to change how chuchel looks, so now the name makes less sense. Fortunately I do have the original version on my hardrive. Kingdom come deliverance - here certain people failed to insert black characters into game set in medieval central Europe where at that time, people of black skin were basically nonexistant and having one in the game would go against the realism developers were going for. They also tried to report one of the developers to the studio owner (which was ironically the guy they were reporting) for basically being racist for pointing out the known historical facts. These two are from the top of my head, there is more. Usually this doesn't impact gameplay, so if they had free hand good games would still stay good, even though the constant focus on minorities and women would be cringe inducing. But when they get their hands on existing franchises this can ruin the lore for many fans since they won't stop to think if what they are trying to add makes sense in established lore (see push for female space marines in wh40k).

Nice list, not just contents but the list itself as well. I'm glad to see a screenshot right away like that and having it in pages is fine too (I'm not a fan of many things in modern GUI either). Some of these I already own on GOG, others I passed. There is definitely too many good games and an insane amount of games which caught my interest. I would normally be fine even with flash games (which are underappreciated in my opinion) but I became very picky by necessity. Even then I'm saving most slow/turn-based games for retirement...

I agree there is too much competition for new games but I don't think it comes from old titles. Looking at Call of Duty, each seaquel sold close to 20 million copies in first few months in years 2009 - 2013. Usually was at the top of best selling games that year (quick look at wikipedia). Compared to recent situation, Player Unknown Battlegrounds sold on steam alone 30 million copies in march 2017 to february 2018 (https://www.polygon.com/2018/2/15/17016332/pubg-sales-xbox-pc-active-players). At the same time there were other major releases such as CoD WW2 (1 billion dollars revenue ~= 14 million copies in first few weeks), Middle Earth Shadow of War (almost 1 million copies first week), Resident Evil 7 (5 million copies april 2018) and others. The numbers seem to point out that people are still willing to drop old games and buy new games close to their release. Rather than from old titles the competition comes from the fact that steadily more games got released each year. We are saturated with new games, even though playerbase was growing as well. Yes. While I don't think killing games is anything more then useful byproduct of GaaS, the goal is the same - get secure flow of money from players. It is a way of increasing profits. You get people hooked up on your game and you keep it alive and relevant with updates. People who buy stuff in game through microtransactions are compelled to stay with the game since they invested a lot of money and time into it which gives publisher somewhat secure stream of money. Also releasing new content for existing game requires less developers than making a whole new game so you can drop a lot of them thus increasing profit since running servers is less costly than paying developers.

Don't forget there is much more hobby developers than studios. High waste rate is not an issue. Also with less good games each year, people should be more willing to pay for them since market will be starved. Unless they would be content with what already exists but if that was the case games already wouldn't make any money. Matter of opinion. Looks good to me. Only the animations look bad. Vast majority of people seems to be fine with always online games and heavy microtransactions. If majority is right then GAAS is the way to go. People wouldn't buy those games otherwise, right? Big budget and lot of people doesn't necessarily lead to polish and gameplay depth. If it does then why so many AAA games still have shitty AI, meaningless choices, bullet sponge enemies, primitive modifiers such as +5 damage or 5% to drop loot box on hit, a hundred variations on 5 basic guns, bluntly presented kill x of y quests or tons of bugs on release? Any seasoned gamer should be able to name some indies with high level of polish and/or deep gameplay (just from top of my head - factorio, brigador, dust elysian tail). I don't think that there were many people for which games such as EA's SW Battlefront met their expectations. You pay in advance for something they promote as excellent game, true successor etc. and you get shallow experience with barely any content. Sure, they won't just run away with your money but either way I wouldn't say you got what you paid for. Once the game is out however, then you are right it's on the buyer to be informed. Preorders are not literally scam, people would sue otherwise, just like killing games is not illegal (for now). If those high percentages are true and piracy has been running rampant for more than 20 years, how the hell are any indie games being made anymore? They should be bankrupt, yet I still see plenty of new releases. Also how about: "GAAS the gamers!" Said the EA officer.

Yes, I said the same ("Sure, there probably wouldn't be any AAA ultra realistic graphics games anymore,..."). Point is the only high-quality thing here are the graphics and voice acting. The actual gameplay is on par with what we had 10 years ago (sometimes worse, depends on microtransactions). There is nothing wrong with liking high fidelity graphics, but you can make serviceable looking yet fun small game in your free time. Thats why I am not worried about games being profitable (don't take it as a support for piracy though, I do buy my games). Yes, thats why I said "some". I agree there is too much scamming there. Though too many people will throw money on promises. You could say publishers were scamming people for a long time already with unfinished products, preorders and now GAAS. Could you elaborate on that? How would a bunch of friends be unable to work on game in their free time? Heck, what would push small developers out of the market? People buy indies now, the same people will buy them in future. The market for those games may be small but it is there. And just to clarify, I am not saying GAAS is not an issue. I just argue it is not the only issue and not even the biggest issue. Though I do see merit in tackling it early before it gets going. Could get people on board with solving other problems plaguing games as well.

Even in the case of games becoming completely unprofitable there will still be people making them. There were and still are people who make flash games and freeware games. They didn't see any money from that yet they made them because they wanted to. Sure, there probably wouldn't be any AAA ultra realistic graphics games anymore, hardly anyone could raise money or have time for it, but there would be enough passion projects, some crowd funded games and maybe even more open source games (think of the modability). And personally I am more interested in these than what major publishers shell out lately. Most of it is stuff we have already seen wrapped in better textures. I have already big enough backlog that I am not even seeking good games but games which do something I didn't see yet. Weird genre hybrids, unseen gameplay concepts... stuff like that. Depending on how you look at it, stopping these practices is not even that important if the point is to keep as many games playable as possible. Only major publishers are pursuing GAAS and from the total yearly releases they produce only minority of games. I think backwards compatibility is more of an issue for average player. You can also consider the growing number of games which are forgotten and you would be hard pressed to find a copy, or even games which could potentially exist but the creative person didn't get the opportunity to make it.

The only fraud I see is false advertisment. They say that they sell games but instead they sell what is basically a client to service provided by their servers. I think that this won't stop and at best you could force companies to make sure to clearly state that the function of the software is just to allow access to their service and to make them run their servers for at least a certain period after they stop selling the client. Therefore I think that going the way of games are art, has more of a chance of stopping games from dying. First step is easy - games are art and honestly it is surprising to me that it seems not obvious to many people. Film is a combination of pictures, music, storytelling and the filmmaker's ability to make it work together and it was accepted as art long ago. Video games are just the next step. Successfuly arguing for the need to preserve this art, you would cover everything - subscribtion based games, multiplayer only games, emulators, online archives preserving games and when it is ok to upload game files to archive them (thus possibly solving the gray area of abandoned games).

Ok, I took a deeper look on that and while wikipedia does have substantial amount of video game pages, the search engine is not suited for what I would need. It allows searching in categories and subcategories but the amount searched is limited, it is hard to search for more than one thing and get good results not to mention it searches the whole page, it doesn't categorize. So a sci-fi shooter might mention words "fantasy strategy" for some reason and it would end up in your result. Also pages often lack screenshots which forces me to search for them separately.

Not really. Wiki would be a collection of various information about some subject. I'm looking just for a list of games with some identifiable information to filter them by. Ok. I can put together what I would expect from good database. Every game entry should have these informations (as accurate as possible): Title Release date Genres and subgenres (can be more than one, possibly hiearchical - primary genre and secondary genres) Themes (fantasy, sci-fi...) Platform (what it was released for) Additionaly you could have other information such as: Who released it, who made it Where was it released game modes (single player, multi player...) perspective (3d person, topdown ...) graphics (3d, 2d render, pixelart...) keywords (zombies, tanks, whatever...) Example: Original War released 15. June 2001, in Europe, USA, Japan ..., by Virgin Interactive (developed by Altar Interactive) on Win 95/98 primary genre: strategy (subgenre real-time strategy), secondary genres: RPG (though today most games have RPG elements..) Themes: prehistoric, near future singleplayer, multiplayer, with isometric view and 2d rendered graphics keywords: time travel, americans, russians, arabs, apemen, aliens, customizable vehicles, undepletable resources... Now what the search functionality should do: Search should be able to filter based on any of the utilized information. You should be able to search without specifying game title. Search should be able to filter on any combination of criteria. Such as filter by release inbetween these two years, include only these genres, display all but these genres, include/exclude keywords, search for title in format "Dark*", pretty much anything you can think of, the more the merrier. For each found entry give ability to display screenshot and/or box art, so you can just browse the results without clicking on them to see the images - for use case of "I played something as a kid, can't describe what but I'll know it when I see it." Explain therminology you are using. Everyone sees something different under the term "RPG". You can't adapt to user's idea of it, so database should explain how it understands it. I also hope for keeping up some level of quality. Even on igdb I saw mislabeled games. It will be also important to set up the genre system in such a way so that you can cover any combination of genres and that you can distinguish between them well. Given the RPG, the only definition which works for it would be "focus on character progression". I know that when you say RPG many people think of decisions and consequences and roleplaying, but you can have that in a pure shooter as well. Pure video game RPG is based around getting stronger (through leveling and equipment). Anyway, that should cover most of it. Then its just about cataloging every game known to man :).

Given the quality of those I found, it might be worthwile to make another one. Maybe I'll join up. That was fast, thanks. Only for info about the game. Just some basic data like what I listed in topic, some screenshots and maybe a music sample. The kind of stuff which helps you find a game you don't remember the name of. The ideal database here would be freely usable online, with extensive search options. Pretty much like most of the sites I mentioned, just better.

So, does anyone know a good database for PC games? I am talking about a site which has more than just DOS games or the new releases, ideally it should have also some more obscure titles of the Windows games era around the year 2000. And of course, a good enough search filters to be able to find something you don't remember the name of - stuff like selecting genre, theme, possible years of release... the more the better (explanations of used terms would be also nice). My quick search of the internet found: https://www.igdb.com/ has less known Windows games filters close to satisfactory https://www.mobygames.com/ has less known Windows games filters not good enough http://www.vgchartz.com/ has less known Windows games filters not good enough https://www.arcade-history.com/ has less known Windows games primitive searching https://thegamesdb.net/ mostly the better known Windows games terrible searching https://glitchwave.com/ it has Windows games filters not good enough https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/ it has Windows games terrible searching https://thevideogamesdb.com/ it has Windows games terrible searching https://spong.com/ it has Windows games terrible searching http://www.retrocollect.com/ consoles only filters not good enough https://vgdb.io/ consoles only filters not good enough http://www.rfgeneration.com/ consoles only filters not good enough https://www.gametdb.com/ some consoles only terrible searching https://vgcollect.com/ not really a database but you can browse known games, looks like there is no search https://gameopedia.com/ paid product, very little information on the website but 95k games sounds impressive I didn't list sites which does not focus on databasing games themselves but keeps data from games (such as music) or focus on certain items appearing in games (such as cars). Though I will mention https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ which has good potential for listing obscure games but again, filters do not keep up.

That description reminds me a little of Creature Shock - Though it might not be what you are looking for, depends if your game was an on-rails shooter or shooter with free movement like Doom. Speaking of Doom, could you remember if that game was running on the same engine? There are plenty of games using build engine, you might try to search for them. There is a small list on wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Build_%28game_engine%29) and there are probably more games than that.

I'll just throw here a few more game soundtracks for which the forum search function didn't return any mentions: The Worms series has great soundtrack. Worms, Worms 2, Armageddon, 3D, Forts, Blast, World Party, Revolution, Clan Wars, WMD, all of them are good. It's mostly background music, but while most background music is just bland, this one is worth listening to outside the game as well. One example for all: Solaris 1.0.4, played a demo long time ago, remember it because of the soundtrack: It seems that no one mentioned Ace Combat 3: The forgotten C&C - Emperor Battle for Dune, the game wasted it's potential a bit but soundtrack is excellent: While Painkiller Hell & Damnation is not that great, the collector's edition soundtrack is: Spelunky: C&C Kane's Wrath: Kyodai Mahjongg: Aquanox: Bandits Pheonix Rising:

While I'm not sure how obscure could the Red Faction series be considered, it's at least not well known either. The first time I remember seeing Red Faction was a long time ago at friend's place where I've seen the original game's cover. Then one time I got this game in some bundle on steam and recently, after a long time, I decided to play it. And I must say I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. The game is a third person not cover based shooter and it's thing is (just as with the rest of the series) having a destructible enviroment - not completely of course, but most of the structures can be destroyed, and rebuild again. You see, the main character has a gadget known as nano forge which can do whatever developers though would be cool to have. It can rebuild structures, blast enemies away, shield you from damage and even boost your own damage. It is also a giant plothole. The premise of the story is that some cultists destroy an atmosphere generator on Mars and people there are forced to hide underground. But you are there when it happens so you would think you could just fix the generator right up, but no. When you forget about the fact that the story shouldn't happen in the first place, it's actualy quite good. The dialogs between characters are also well done, with some good jokes even. I found the main character to be likeable and none of the characters were annoying. So the story is good, what about the gameplay. Looking back at it, it could have end up bad, because some of the enemies were annoying to deal with (the most common enemy jumps around on walls and shoots at you) and destructible enviroment has the potential of making the movement in the level a nightmare. But thankfully you are given tools necessary to deal with this and it never becomes a real problem, especially after some upgrades (yes there is an upgrade system). What helps the most are definetelly the weapons. There is a great variety of them, from standard assault rifle and pistols to stuff like plasma cutter, rocket launchers, singularity cannon and probably everyones favourite - magnet gun. You shoot two projectiles, they stick to stuff and they attract themselves. Combine this with destructible enviroment and you get the idea. Honestly, the main issue with weapons is that you can carry only four of them. As I said, the core gameplay is solid. It is also sprinkled with sections where you drive mech suit, tank, walkers and aircraft, also fun. There is also interesting take on cheats, which you buy at the start of the campaign for points which you can earn in campaign or online coop missions. So what is the catch? It crashes. A lot. On my first playthrough I had to be incredibly lucky because I crashed only once or twice. On second playthrough I was crashing repeatedly. The crashing follows a pattern - First checkpoint after loading the game is fine, then you get unknown amount of checkpoints where you are still fine until the game crashes on a checkpoint and you have to restart from the previous checkpoint because of course the game didn't save the checkpoint before it crashed. That got quite annoying and it's a shame because for some people it might ruin this otherwise fun game. If you feel like playing some linear 3rd person shooter and you are willing to risk the stability issues, I could recommend this.