Quoting: Nezchan

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: EhvisI don't really see a lot of the Hollow Knight specific art style in this game. This looks more like a traditional cartoony style. And while some of the mechanics look similar to Hollow Knight, the gameplay as a whole looks quite different. I mean, ladders? :) Crownsworn definitely looks closer.

If you can't see some of the screenshots on their store page that look like a blatant rip off of Hollow Knight then you either have no idea how Hollow Knight looks or you didn't actually look at the images. The art style isn't exactly the same, it's a bit more cartoony, but some of the shots make the environment look like they literally copy pasted from HK.

Keep in mind, the developer posted these shots to sell the game. When a handful of those images they posted can raise questions like this it's enough to be suspicious at the very least.

I think this is what people are missing here. This isn't about how the game actually plays. It's not about iteration on an existing set of ideas. It's about marketing, and using "looks a lot like" as a strategy, even though the game isn't like the thing it looks a lot like.

Craftopia didn't iterate on Breath of the Wild. Palworld doesn't really do much with Pokémon mechanics aside from capturing in the same way. And this seems to use none of the innovations Hollow Knight brought to the Metroidvania genre. But boy do they want people who know those games to look at screenshots and go "hey, that looks familiar!"

Which is something they have likely needed in the past. If you read the translated interview on the dev's site, you'll see that nearly every publisher he approached passed on the game because it didn't play it safe with a popular, trendy game format and genre. It doesn't have MTX, isn't a battle royale/FPS/Action RPG, so publishers passed. So, instead, they created their own marketing by using the art style to get ppl interested and in the door, then use the gameplay to try and get them hooked.

Even with the boatloads of money they've earned on Palworld, they are still nowhere near the resources that a AAA studio/publisher has available to spend on Engineers or Marketing (two of the most expensive parts of Tech/Gaming companies)

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Quoting: M@GOidI can enjoy a modern game that pays homage for ancient games from 20, 30 years ago. You feel nostalgic and stuff. Hollow Knight was released too recently for someone to be "paying homage" too it. This is a blatantly ripoff and one of the motives I abandoned AAA gaming in the first place. I came to indies for their courage to innovate. I'm not gonna give money to devs that behave like big studios that are too scared to create something new, and decide to copy someone's home work.

While I understand this sentiment, the gameplay for the Palworld dev's new Metroidvania is little to nothing like Hollow Knight aside from the Metroidvania aspects. Artstyles are NOT Copyrightable for a reason.

Additionally, the Palworld dev has specifically noted that he does NOT try to make original games. He takes ideas he likes and makes something new out of it. People like to whine about Palworld being Pokemon with guns, but it's more like a Survivalcraft game with Factorio, monster catching, and guns.

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I get really annoyed by this idea that LLMs are "stealing" data. It's literally the automation of what people manually do..... what we have always done in tech. My job is built around automating monotonous tasks to improve stability and reliability.

LLMs aren't going around storing articles, code, pictures, art, etc in its model. It is simply learning from those.... and all the benefits AND drawbacks that come with that. That means bad data is also getting into many of the LLMs too. I've been using CoPilot to write code for a while now. It is absolutely useful, but it also gets things wrong on a regular basis too.

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Quoting: eldakingSure we probably should use a more accurate term for each category, for clarity, but letting our categories be decided solely based on the terminology being used is not a step in the right direction. The meaning of "indie" has evolved, and going back to dictionary definitions to make it linguistically consistent comes at a cost of being a good category for games.

Then maybe "indie" isn't a good category name for games. The minute we start shifting the definition of a word like "independent" we create confusion in the language and semantics do matter a lot. Yes, language changes over time, but that only works when the definition changes holistically, not when it changes definition for just one sub-area of concern. It also creates issues where now "indie" means different things depending on if you're talking about movies, shows, music, books, games, board games, etc. That is too much to expect people to keep track of.

All that said, a studio making a low budget game for their publicly traded company is obviously NOT "indie". By the same token, I don't think Larian, ConcernedApe, EgoSoft, etc can be anything BUT "indie".... being successful doesn't mean someone loses their "indie" or "independent" status. That implies that only failed studios that make something people like can be "indie".

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I, personally, like to stick to the meaning of the word "indie" or "Independent". As such, studios like Larian and EgoSoft are fully independent studios, desire to stay that way, and even have some level of requirements when working on IP not owned by them that give them more control on the direction they take it.

I'm not sure I'd classify Baldur's Gate III as an Indie game itself, but it was developed by an indie studio. That said, the Divinity series, the X Series, etc are all indie games despite looking mostly like AA or AAA games. Larian hasn't been published by a 3rd party for Divinity since Divinity II and even then they eventually re-published those games under themselves.

Trying to define "indie" as games that either aren't "profitable" (Which is dumb as that implies you want the studio to go under) or that are made by a less well known studio make no sense or aren't successful. If they are truly independent, then it is still "indie".

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Quoting: scaine

Quoting: JarmerFunny enough, it was Paradox's predatory scam dlc behavior

What what? Predatory how? A scam??

Paradox are one of the few publisher's with a well established, regular, value add DLC regime. They support their games YEARS after release. Stellaris, for example, released over 7 years ago, but some of the DLC modules released are just £9 yet add swathes of content.

I wish other publishers would take note instead of trying monetise micro-transactions.

I'll take properly thought out DLC any day over cosmetic shite, Battle passes and "Seasons".

That doesn't even count that, similar to how Egosoft operates with the X series, they offer core game updates with content and features in addition to the DLC. DLC which usually only focuses on the new content tied to the DLC.

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Leave it to the gaming industry to create their own "classifications" of Network Address Translation instead of just sticking to the spec. The NAT spec has no such designation as Type 1/2/3 or Open/Moderate/Strict. These are strictly consoles/gaming thing.

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Quoting: Liam DaweFNA is more a replication of XNA, to keep compatibility.

MonoGame is more like the next-generation XNA.

In addition to this, some games were built with FNA for most of their platforms, then used MonoGame for specific ports. IIRC - at one point XBox started supporting MonoGame, but not FNA.

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Quoting: xoagrayI'm not familiar at all with FaceIT Anticheat. (I don't play a lot of competitive FPS) But if EAC is already working I wonder why they're bothering to change it?

FaceIT is used for highly competitive games. I haven't seen it integrated by developers, usually used by private servers and eSports events. But not a fan of FaceIT though. Not only is it a kernel level AC, they also require you to disable certain admin level Windows OS features just to use it because those features tend to block FaceIT.

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Quoting: itscalledreality

Quoting: tohur

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: EagleDeltaTL;DR - WINE IS native by the actual technical definition of what an API does. If WINE isn't native, then no APIs are.

Appreciate what you're trying to say here, but I doubt anyone, at all, ever, will agree that "Wine is native". I certainly don't. Call it emulation, call it translation, whatever. But I'm not calling it native.

On the other hand, these days... I don't really care. But a lot of people out there do.

By the very definition of what WINE is it is native.. its not a emulator by any means what so ever.. thus anything that runs through WINE is running natively . emulators are not native due to them emulating actual hardware .. where as wine translates it all to Linux api calls. tbh people need to get over themselves and just admit running windows games on Linux is far more superior to running crappy half a** linux binary ports. hardly any of the actual Linux binary ports I own run out the box without issue due to software upgrades on Linux.. alot of those same games run Out the box no issue under proton

It is not about native linux ports and definitions of what is and what isn’t. It is entirely because they lied about the Linux port until after release. And people do not need to get over it. Taking a stand and not buying their game now or in the future is the right thing to do if you’re upset by the lie.

Furthermore if you think Proton is good enough then you are very wrong. Microsoft can keep pushing the playing field back and Linux will be forced to keep catching up. This is the reason it took until the 2010’s to finally get decent graphical software on Linux because of the attitude of supporting a single platform and shrugging your shoulders when FOSS alternatives aren’t good enough.

In fact I just bought the original to give it a try but now I’m going to refund it.

I have a problem with it being called "Lying". I work as a software dev, and sometimes a promise that was supposed to be fulfilled can no longer be provided due to issues outside of the control of the "promise". That's just reality. It doesn't mean people were lied to, it means that despite best efforts, the goal could not be achieved.

I'm dealing with that process right now at work, where we are doing work to see if a project that was already decided on can be achieved the way it was laid out or if plans will have to change. Lying would be them promising it and not even trying to port it. They tried to port it, ran into problems, contacted support for the tooling they need, and were told "sorry, we're not fixing those bugs". As for starting it early, there are only so many game engines out there to choose from and all of them have technical trade-offs. Some companies have the knowledge and expertise to create their own, I highly doubt RFG has the needed experience to build their own engine and deliver the game on the timeframe they did.

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