Nothing in life is guaranteed, that's pretty trite, but with Mewgenics there were clear signs the second the media picked it up for the preview cycle. It's not even that it was praised, it's about the type of praise it received, and how it was framed. It wasn't brought up as a quaint indie game by oddball creator first, it wasn't as subjected (if at all) to your typical template-driven news/preview slop. It came across as though people who played it prior to release viscerally liked it and needed to tell you about how much fun they had. At least from what I was seeing it was as much a done deal as humanly possible.

Perhaps I have a career in industry predictions, I dunno ;)

Compare to something like the late Cyberpunk 2077 previews which were all extremely politely lukewarm, but also somehow framed to maintain the ridiculous level of praise from much earlier in that marketing cycle. You could've mapped pretty much the entirety of the design, system and content issues of that game right then, from the universally positive previews, without even looking at the game. Not with certainty, obviously, but the signs were all there.

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Quoting: KillYourFM

Quoting: suchHDDs are getting up there as well. I can only assume FDD is next in line, and punch card users should probably start getting ready.

That's not even going into raw materials.

I bought 3 WD Red Plus 12TB HDDs for my NAS project two months ago. I paid $229 each. Now the cheapest I can find that model in stock is $369. TWO MONTHS LATER. It's absolute madness out there.

I had some HDD issues recently, and I've been slowly toying with the idea of setting up a NAS, but it's either been time, money and always the issue of space, so I downsized instead and kept putting it off. I guess that's it for that for a good long while.

I bought a factory recertified 16TB half a year ago. Largely out stock at this point, double the price if you can grab one, and there's no stock available anywhere that I'd consider it a good idea to buy from.

Not paying for cloud, that's for sure. They can sell me drives for my local setup, or they can stuff it.

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Odd thing to say. To me it's very obvious that a reasonably deep turn-based roguelike with some whimsy and personality, AND cats is more popular than the thematic downer that is The Binding of Isaac or the tough as nails meat grinder of a precision platformer.

I guess it's possible to spend years dedicating your life to something unaware of what it is that you're actually doing?

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Quoting: Jarmer^ I mean, with all the fuckery going on left and right nowadays, this is so low on the scale. I would say this is actually the work of normal market forces ... in that nobody has optical drives / players anymore. There just isn't demand for them. For my 85 yr old father who just upgraded his home theater I asked him if he wanted a blu ray player for his new tv and he just said "no thanks, youtube tv for locals, and the other normal streaming apps are all we need, we don't know how to control our blu ray machine anyway"

There's decades of discs sold, so once the big players exit someone who can make those numbers work can snatch up the enthusiasts, I think. Sort like what happened to music players, perhaps, so acceptable to good, and maybe even premium quality Chinese hardware. And those are arguably easier to replace since everyone has a DAP replacement in their hand or pocket right now. Another half a dozen in the drawer, not to mention the laptop, probably the smart TV and so on.

We'll see. The current market contraction is bound to leave a vacuum in any event. It'd be anomalous if literally no one tried to step in.

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HDDs are getting up there as well. I can only assume FDD is next in line, and punch card users should probably start getting ready.

That's not even going into raw materials.

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Quoting: Caldathras

Quoting: Jarmer^ agree. Absolutely loved them as a studio. Was a sad day when the closure announcement came along 😫

😲

This is the first I've heard of the closure. Apparently it happened quietly in June 2024. However, according to Wikipedia, two indie developers have spun out of the closure, founded by former employees of Piranha Bytes.

One of those has a demo out. Predictably, it's a rough experience:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4293720/Cralon_Demo/ [External Link]

Piranha failed to adapt - they just kept going as if the market wasn't ever going to change, and as if fans of their games pleaded undying loyalty to the studio itself regardless of whether the games that studio developed were any good. Sad to see them go, but after Gothic 2 there was a sharp decline in quality. At best, their output was uneven, and that's putting it very kindly. Riding out that Gothic 1-2 "fame" could've only taken them so far. I'm amazed they lasted that long, frankly.

On the controls: I tried the modern/modded gamepad controls and cannot fathom why someone would play the games that way. It's extremely, needlessly confusing. The original keyboard controls are idiosyncratic, but they do follow an internal logic. Once you get used to those controls it's all incredibly simple. You can control Gothic with one hand, no mouse required (which is a bizarre condition to design your ARPG control scheme around if compared to modern standards, but there you go). Not to be that guy, but... it's really not bad if you just invest a few minutes into it. Interact button plus direction, attacks have more then one direction available. That's it, that's all the alleged complexity. So, looting a corpse or picking something up is ctrl+forward. Opening a chest is standing in front of it and pressing ctrl+forward... twice to account for the chest opening motion. Which feels very cool as chests aren't that common in the game. It makes it into a thing, and these days it's increasingly common for games to utilise player input in exactly this way. Talking to people is also standing in front of them and pressing ctrl+forward while not in combat mode (weapon holstered). Attacking people is drawing your weapon... and then also pressing ctrl+forward while in range to hit them (also left & right that you can chain). Inventory button, draw/holster weapon button, jump button. Inventory management isn't terribly convenient, but in terms of controls if your inventory is on the left and you're selling or moving stuff to a vendor/container to the right... you press ctrl+right on the item you want to sell/move, ctrl+left on the item you want to buy/move. Use item in inventory? Ctrl+forward. Cook meat? Ctrl+forward. Drop item from inventory? This is where things get really tough: it's ctrl+back.

There's some additional nuance to switching weapons when drawn or moving more items faster.

I highly recommend just rolling with it. If nothing else you'll earn bragging rights for "mastering" those "ridiculous" Gothic controls. Aka ctrl+direction ;)

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Yes, I am well aware of Stenzek, including the PS2 emulation drama.

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Quoting: cameronbosch

Just install Duckstation, problem solved.

I agree that DRM in such old games should be not recieved well after Resident Evil 4 had it replaced and now runs worse, but Duckstation might as well be dead, because the developer has become unstable and actively seems to be hindering it, after making it not FOSS anymore.

I'd probably look at a different PS1 emulator or look at an in-development fork of Duckstation pre closing source.

Swanstation through RetroArch, then. It's a shame, because Duckstation really is that good, but it is what it is.

Wouldn't be the same without the drama.

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DRM in fn Dino Crisis? Just install Duckstation, problem solved.

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Gothic is very much the opposite of the design and ideals of something like Morrowind and especially Skyrim etc. In Bethesda games the world is your oyster, it revolves around you and grants you a power fantasy of your choosing. If you happen to choose all of them - enjoy all of them. Not so much the case with "pay for protection or enjoy a tasty knuckle sandwich" Gothic 1 or "get a job and become a respectable member of the community you're trying to embed yourself in" Gothic 2. Bethesda is very The Capitalist West. Piranha was closer to Working Class Reality Check.

Another point: these games seemed slightly archaic in some ways already back when they were released. Having played them again recently they pretty much haven't aged whatsoever. You still need to get used to all the things you'd have needed to get accustomed to back in the day anyway.

I also recommend reading up on the fine art inspirations behind the original Gothic's looks and playing that version as well. It's not just low fidelity resulting purely from technical limitations, it's a style. Nothing left of it in the remake, unfortunately.

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