Off Topic Discussion Megathread

[ReynTime]

I'd agree that many boss fights in early WoW are very 'simple' by present day standards, but back then internet connections weren't as reliable as they are now so many design choices are pretty much a product of their time. More than anything, it's the world building and sense of scale that I miss the most. I'm the type of player who likes to go and explore in the games that I play. If there's a big, imposing mansion in the distance then I expect to be able to enter it and see what's inside. I liked how ARR had a bunch of buildings in settlements such as Aleport that could be entered - it helps make the zones feel more alive. Newer settlements are just a bunch of NPC's standing around buildings that, more often than not, are entirely closed.

Not to mention compact as ARR zones are, they still have a lot more points of interest and lore hidden in plain sight than the barren zones from Heavensward onwards.
Or Heavenswonwards if you will.

Even if you take the newer maps and removed the excess barrenness you'd be hard pressed to find enough PoI in them. They're designed as not much beyond background view for MSQ over which they expect you to fly over so "why bother".
I can count the exceptions in one hand: Rak'tika, Labyrinthos, The hinterlands and Yanxia.

[Kolsykol]

I'd agree that many boss fights in early WoW are very 'simple' by present day standards, but back then internet connections weren't as reliable as they are now so many design choices are pretty much a product of their time. More than anything, it's the world building and sense of scale that I miss the most. I'm the type of player who likes to go and explore in the games that I play. If there's a big, imposing mansion in the distance then I expect to be able to enter it and see what's inside. I liked how ARR had a bunch of buildings in settlements such as Aleport that could be entered - it helps make the zones feel more alive. Newer settlements are just a bunch of NPC's standing around buildings that, more often than not, are entirely closed.

I definitely agree about the world building, even tho the WoW expansions had more impressive areas in many ways they have this artificial feeling to them.
They don't really feel like real places as much.
The great thing about the Vanilla world in WoW was that it felt real it's probably my favorite MMO world to date, I think that ESO in my experience at least comes fairly close.

Internet connections and fps do play a part I think but I also think that game design has just come a long way.
FFXIV has improved significantly with time too and become more complex, the devs learn and build on what is already there.

But yeah the world in Vanilla is what makes me look back at it and basically always have an urge to play it.
Part of me actually wishes that they made an offline mode too that was solo friendly I'd just like to experience it without the tedium and waiting too.
BRD is also just a really cool dungeon in concept and I actually do like the dungeons overall a lot, they just lack in boss design but the overall atmosphere and layouts are really good.

I also miss using utility like Sap and Sheep, when I played Classic we didn't really use that I think people are just simply better today since we have more experience with games and MMO's in general so it tends not to be necessary.
But I remember back in the day it was necessary and something you did, same in Heroic dungeons in TBC.
I remember Spellsteal being useful in Magisters Terrace, you could steal a mobs dps buff and become super powered and CC:ing one mob felt almost mandatory Warlocks were useful too to either steal or Banish the demons.
Imo I prefer that kind of stuff over just lumping everything together and mindlessly AoE:ing it down.

Edit: I went ahead and reinstalled SWTOR again, it actually didn't look as bad as I thought and remembered.
There's still issues ofc especially again the animations and effects but overall it's okay.

Damn tho I nerded out when I still played lol, had way more characters and blinged out characters than I remembered.
Something really cool I found out is that they allow you to do the stories on any advanced class you want and you can now also play Trooper for example with dual pistols or Bounty Hunter with rifle etc.
So you can do the Sith Warrior story for example but play a Sorcerer.
Wanna do the Jedi Knight story since I never did that one and it's supposed to sorta feel like the '' main story '' of sorts but didn't really want to play a Jedi Knight so that's cool I can play it as Shadow.

There's way more players in the '' main city '' ( Imperial ship ) than I expected too.

[Kolsykol]

So uh.
I was gonna create a new character in SWTOR and on the creation screen this was the first thing I saw.



I picked a female character btw, I also clicked randomize and I got another similar one lol.
If I keep pressing I get quite a lot like these.
I consider myself to be quite progressive and am fully supportive of trans people and all that, but I really feel like this kind of stuff turns it into a joke.
It's like people don't even understand what transgenderism and body dysmorphia even is, there's a reason why trans people actually make an effort to change how they look it's not just about pronouns.
This could unironically have the effect of causing a body dysmporhia reaction for someone who's especially aware and sensitive about that.

It feels like they're just giving people ammunition to be shitty and don't even have a basic grasp of the issues at all.
I don't see anyone playing a character like this except for as a joke.
Which granted people do that with the obese body type too on male characters, which is shitty too but like cmon.

This is also totally one-sided, male characters can't have womens faces etc when I press randomize too it's all clearly guys.
Then when I create a female character I am met with this and when I press randomize I get it with what feels like at least a 30-40% ratio.

[SturmChurro]

I don't see anyone playing a character like this except for as a joke.

Exactly right.

[Izar_Chillen]

So uh.
I was gonna create a new character in SWTOR and on the creation screen this was the first thing I saw.

Ive recently picked swtor back up again

Good grief this "expansion" really is awful . bugs a decade old still present , the combat "styles" is just their way of allowing a character to play different classes on an origin story eg Sith Warrior but you chosoe to play that story with the Sorcerer spells and talents and they based most of the selling points of this "expansion" on this fact yet vaguely teased a year earlier that it as what a lot of people thought was what FF14 used to do with cross class skills and stayed silent even in the PTS

The UI is soooo bad , the old version was way better and the new UI tanks the FPS on the loadout screen

The actual "expansion" content is as much as a post MSQ story content patch that this game gives you.

They have been getting worse and worse each year . they failed to impress with Anthem which has now been officially abandoned , in which the Mass Effect Andromeda development suffered for (see polygons reveal piece about it all) they have only just added QOL updates like mass tagging so anyone doing the heroics gets the kill , something needed for over 5 years since they made it part of the end game grind . the cash shop armour and hairstyles are soo poor they clearly phoned it in

Their exclusive SW licence ends next year, and yet they couldn't be bothered to finish SWTOR in style . Such a shame , as they have hands down some of the best class designs in any mmo . Its one of a very rare few that actually have decent damage over time specs , especially since this expansion the damage output of the bounty hunter/trooper fire/energy dot plus the new burst and defence options make them awesome to play and i loved the fact that story /general levelling "dungeons" didn't need the holy trinity so queue times were always low even for dps (when there were more players ofc) and the normal tank, dps, heals was for the level cap harder versions and il always adore that they voice act almost everything with some of bioware veteran VAs like an FF14 fave Gideon Emery

[Kolsykol]

Snip.

Yeah it kinda feels like every studio and publisher that used to be a big deal and a sign of quality have just gone downhill.
I remember when Bioware used to mean something, now not so much.

The sad thing is that the games still sell because people fall for the marketing so easily.
Anthem and Andromeda are still two of Biowares best sellers and even tho people complain about Blizzard games and it's pretty much almost universally agree'd that they've gone downhill and even WoW players shit on WoW ( same with their other titles really ) people still keep pre-ordering and buying their games day 1.

I dunno what it is tho but it seems like studios reach a certain size and then shit hits the fan.
I dunno if it's corporate suits stepping into the office or something but seeing how devs behave on Twitter doesn't exactly instil a lot of confidence either.
And in the end of the day the talent that made the studios great leave too.
I think there's a lot of people who get hired by these studios too who get the whole '' rockstar mentality '', they get hired by a big studio and it totally gets to their heads and inflates their egos on a massive level that's the impression I get at least.
There's like zero humility and self-awareness.

SWTOR is still a good singleplayer game imo I dunno about the multiplayer content tho, but I did raid back when I played and enjoyed it.
I also remember really enjoying the PvP Huttball was a lot of fun I think that nowadays it's probably full of premades and fairly one-sided.
But I remember playing Juggernaut and being able to carry and do really well just on my own, there's a lot of fun tools too I like that tanks feel more useful in PvP and stuff like force push is fun.
The combat does feel very clunky and unresponsive tho I dunno if it actually is or if the servers are just bad, animations feel like they don't have time to play out and kinda clip into each other. It's hard to tell if the gcd is over or not and if it's even being used on cd it's kinda weird.

[Izar_Chillen]

I dunno what it is tho but it seems like studios reach a certain size and then shit hits the fan.
I dunno if it's corporate suits stepping into the office or something but seeing how devs behave on Twitter doesn't exactly instil a lot of confidence either.
And in the end of the day the talent that made the studios great leave too.
I think there's a lot of people who get hired by these studios too who get the whole '' rockstar mentality '', they get hired by a big studio and it totally gets to their heads and inflates their egos on a massive level that's the impression I get at least.
There's like zero humility and self-awareness.

When entertainment companies such as EA become power houses of profit , they become bought and ruled by wall street/major financial shareholders .

A lot of the alterations to how AAA studios make games and promote pre ordering is so they cant post new numbers , forecasts , to their stock holders who are in the business of profiting from income that does not yet exist . There are many great people that are true artists that work for these publishers buts its ruled by cutthroat greed from the very top powerhouses in the financial industry whom care little for quality , and much more about quantity and immediate profitability hence why the rise of rushed releases became a norm because players still cough up to pre order despite a rocky release history from the publisher .

EA rise to power came from the chap currently in control of EA who's background was wall street and his "genius" was the FIFA loot card system and from there the profits soared into hundreds of billions and well everyone in the trade saw that there was a lot of cash ready to be consumed because people love to spend regardless of the true value of the product


Look at Take2 , they have now sold GTA V, 6 times on the PlayStation and Xbox platform , once on PC , and the shark card profits saw them make a billion dollars in the first year GTA online went live

[Larirawiel]

Shareholders are not the problem. The problem is, that creative processes like software development and game development are completely incompatible with the typical management- and bussiness economics mindset. If you have a management, which do not understand it then the products will not be very good. And if a company reaches a certain size then the management and financials will get too much influence on everything.

There is a book with the title "The mythical man month", which describes how the dynamics in a software development process really work. You should have less employees, less fluctuation and let them work longer on a project.

But the typical manager will make the opposite: more employees and the project has to be finished very quickly. More employees means, that he has more power in the company. And tighter deadlines means that he will have things done in a very short time. Both would increase his reputation. Reputation is very important for a manager.

But in the end it will be the opposite. Too many people in a software project waste too much time with talking, meetings and coordination. And the software architecture will propably be much worse because the more people are involved, the higher the propability, that they will interfere with each other. The developers will try to compensate it. And they will end up with a software architecture, which is optimized for not interferring with other developers and not for its initial purpose.

Games, which are buggy, slowish, unfinished and delayed are a typical result of those things.

Cheers

[Cincierta]

So I finally got my new headset and mouse today in the mail from Arctis. They feel like a godsend.

The previous headset I had ordered was from Newegg, and they sent me a different headset. I thought I had ordered an Arctis 1, no, instead because of the picture screw up they had on the site, it was an Arctis Prime.

I didn't realize my mistake until last week, so now I have one super chonk headset that could probably kill someone if I chucked it at their head; and a lightweight, adjustable earpiece headset that doesn't attempt to choke me if I decide to hang it around my neck.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Some people get confused and think they lost their glasses while wearing them. I get confused and think I forgot my phone at home while driving to work, even though I'm using it to listen to music on my car's Bluetooth. A modern bout of dumbassery for a modern age.