Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: CatKiller

one Shadowrun fans might like to take a look at

I did really enjoy the Shadowrun games even though I don't generally get on with RPGs.

So did I. But this doesn't look turn-based. Cool and atmospheric and all, but I'm kind of crap at combat games so this is probably not for me.

Yeah I went through a small roller-coaster of expectations. "Oh no they are making an RPG this time, but wait their Shadowrun RPGs were these great tactical games, oh no the end of the trailer suggests it is not even turn-based".

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First I thought it was "200 watts" and found it intriguing, then I saw it was "200V" and it was such a what the fuck moment I had to check if I wasn't missing something, because surely there was something missing. Maybe it was a special model for some special "200 volt servers". Maybe it was not a processor but some NUC thingy. Maybe it was 2.00 volts. Because 200 volts for a processor is stupid, but the only thing stupider is naming your product 200V when it does not take 200 volts and after you just bricked two generations of processors due to excessive voltages.

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Hmm, as much as asking for donations is perfectly fine and good (I'd consider a distro removing such a benign request to be very rude, almost hostile)... I don't think a system notification is the right place for it. I'd rather have it all the time in the login screen than having it pop up as a notification, even once per year. Having a static donate button somewhere in the settings would be better than a daemon to show a scheduled ad.

Maybe it is because of trauma about so much stuff using "notifications" to advertise, but I think that is a functional part of the system that should not be used for developer communication with users (and neither should command line outputs for your package manager, wtf Canonical). The same reasons that make it more effective than using proper communication channels are the reasons why it is bad: it is intruding on something users pay attention to because it is meant for other things. It is using privileged access to the system to reach users in a channel they don't expect. If someone deliberately chose to not engage on social media, e-mail and your website, should you really force an engagement? (An always-on notice/button feels ok because it isn't trying to grab your attention, it is just there in case you want)

I'm not saying this is extremely bad or anything; Ubuntu has done worse, it is the status quo for commercial proprietary software. And again I consider requests for donations to be good, important enough to merit special considerations. It is just that this particular way irks me, even coming from a project I support, and I'd prefer a request that I wouldn't feel the need to disable.

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Damn I'm interested, gameplay looks more like a proper HOMM game than just another boring tactical RPG (like the later titles in the series did).

And in particular, graphically it looks really really good. The art style looks both evocative and readable, designs are neat and the "drawn" look is a good fit for the setting. The art manages to have the same atmosphere as the old games, without going for pixel art - and benefiting from the depth and multiple angles of view of 3d. Animations look good, models are just detailed enough to be cool even from a playable camera angle.

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Quoting: wytrabbit

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: wytrabbit

Quoting: Purple Library GuyKind of feels like Mono is a corpse they are graciously allowing the Wine people to bury for them.

But... WINE has put a lot of effort over the years into supporting programs for old defunct Windows releases. Microsoft no longer needs it, and they're recommending all new code to use their modern fork, but these are like receiving the exam answers ahead of time. Now WINE no longer needs to guess and reverse engineer Mono related code, saving them time and money.

But Mono was already open source. It started as an open source thing to try to deal with the problem that was MS' .Net, which originated basically as a platform to exclude Linux. So I don't see why WINE would have needed to do any of that. MS are just saying "We have no more use for it, how about you guys maintain it?"

But how much of that could WINE use without the Mono project keeping an open source license? Since WINE would redistribute Mono with installations, possibly modifying it as necessary, it seems to me like they'd be in a delicate position. Sure it's open for us but we're protected by "personal use".

Microsoft did the opposite, they re-licensed Mono as MIT instead of GPL (worse for software freedom, but better for people wanting to fork it). Mono is fully open-source, it could be forked at any time, and in fact most other .NET stuff is also open source these days and supports Linux and all. Microsoft long ago realized that, like Google, they can keep lots of control without draconian licenses that scare people off.

What they gave was control over the upstream, the "name", so that the WineHQ people don't need to fork it and then promote their fork to everyone: "hey mono is dead, so we made this fork which is a successor to mono, and you might not know us but we are the real deal". Microsoft handed them the project and now they are the "real" mono. Does this matter? Idk.

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Sounds a lot like a "we are no longer putting resources to support this" kind of deal for a "we are transferring control of the project" deal.

I guess it is better than the alternative, since they could just unilaterally drop it. But mostly it raises questions about how Microsoft can just directly buy direct competitors and choose what to do with them.

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Quoting: BTREInsisting that "Romans remain Roman and the Zulu, Zulu" is incredibly deterministic and is not better than your alleged (and unfounded) "presentism". Cultures change significantly in terms of language, social norms, religion, law and everything else. A modern Greek person has very little culturally common with someone who lived in an ancient city state; the late Roman empire was culturally and functionally radically different than the republic thousands of years prior; modern China is very different to that first state. If such radical change happens consistently in real history, why should a video game sandbox develop in the exact same way?

Posting to empathically agree with BTRE's entire post (not quoted because it's long), but specifically to add on this point. The concept of "national identity", national borders, people belonging to a particular state with a definite language and culture... that is absolutely modern invention, starting only on the 17th century. There were states before, and various identities based on origin, language, religion, tribe, and such. But those weren't really connected as we understand it now. Having "civilizations" in 4000BC with borders and distinct national identities is anachronistic, is very much presentist if we are debating that point; no state from that time would work like that.

Projecting national identities into the past is a pervasive political instrument, by which (would-be) nation states try to legitimize themselves through a connection to previous states and cultures, creating a national identity out of an idealized or fabricated past. Think of Germany in the 19th century, during its unification under a national state, seeking connections to the Germanic barbarian tribes from millennia past, trying to find a common identity between the hundreds of small, separate states but distinct from their neighbors. Not that this tactic of connection to earlier peoples or kingdoms was new, rulers loved to claim mythical origins, but the concept of nation itself - and projecting it back to people that didn't use it - was. And this isn't outdated politics, irrelevant to the present day: in many places people still are still fighting wars for the self-determination of their nation.

So yeah, the fundamentals of Civilization are extremely political. A game about empire building, war, and governing cities can't avoid it, politics are the very premise of it. If some things look "less political", it is because you haven't looked hard enough. There is plenty to be critiqued in the particular choices made (for example, the emphasis on "great people" as opposed to the contribution of the population at large is... contentious), but it requires a lot more depth and nuance than "they are making ideological changes!" - because you need to justify why this supposed new ideology is better than the existing one, which was absolutely all but neutral.

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Alright, I was without power so I'm a bit behind on all the news, but seems they also lifted a streamer embargo for people that went there and played the game (though they didn't record it, it is all stock footage provided by firaxis). For example, a youtuber I like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ5YGamtSjI [External Link] (but others have also covered it, youtube has a bunch of videos).

And just from the first short video, the game looks so much better than the trailer, wtf. The UI looks good, the leaders have great animations and cool designs and are well done... I expected it was going to look a lot more unfinished because they didn't even have anything to put in the trailer. Also, they are really revealing a lot about gameplay changes this early.

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Way too zoomed in, no UI to be found, it is a stretch to call it a "gameplay trailer" - more like an "in-engine trailer". We barely get to see a tile grid in one scene, and the water reflections in that scene look awfully overdone. I'll go look at their longer "gameplay showcase" later, after it is finished (I don't have the patience to sit down watching the advertising speech in real time, I'll want to skip forward the boring parts).

Still, the larger and more connected cities suggests districts working more like Humankind or Old World, it seems to be some kind of (land) cliff terrain, and storms/weather in some form. Terrain looks quite different but it may be entirely cosmetic.

Generally it looks ok, I like Civ 6's cartoony style better but that one was polemic so no wonder it is gone. The terrain looks a lot more detailed in a nice way, like possibly more variety in mountains and cooler trees, but the trailer is way too zoomed in, with a camera angle that I would never use while actually playing so who knows how it will look for real. Unit models look surprisingly basic, which I don't care (again, zoom level) but I assumed they would go for better models. And the leaders (?) in that scene that I assume is a diplomatic animation look really bad, which matters a lot more and on 6 they were so masterfully done - I assume they will still improve it, but weird choice to show this.

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Quoting: ElectricPrismAlso, I know with the rise of WarCraft 3 and DOTA 1 and DOTA 2 the focus on "Heroes" is now a thing, I just wish it wasn't. RTS was just fine when heroes we're 300% the size of units with obnoxious roles and mega powers. It's fine when done with taste but I haven't really seen it cooked right. SC2 was okayish.

Yeah "heroes" in strategy games really rub me the wrong way. It is an RPG-ization of the genre, moving away from "you control an army" to "you control this main character, plus some minions". It is particularly common in fantasy-themed games, precisely because they get thematic inspiration by the D&D-style fantasy where "party of heroes goes adventuring" is a powerful trope. If I'm to have leaders to the army, I'd rather have a general that isn't a powerful warrior but gives command bonuses.

There are some benefits to hero units in game design, dipping into the strengths of other genres: it is convenient for making narratives more personal, leveling up is a good progression mechanic, it creates a lot more unit distinction (with a built-in diegetic explanation), powerful unique units give a sense of power and accomplishment, it helps keep the scale in check to make the game easier to control, and the mechanics are part of basic game literacy. But the thematic connection makes it clear that a large part is "make it more like an RPG, RPGs are good!". With Warcraft 3, it was very obviously meant to mix the genres, with the Rexxar campaign standing out. Blizzard always felt like they just didn't want to make RTS games, it was more like an obligation, and they constantly tried to turn their RTS franchises into something else (Lord of the Clans, SC Ghost, and finally succeeded with WoW and never looked back).

Anyway, tangential rant finished, but yeah I'm tired of hero units.

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