Unpopular Opinions about Video Games

[Jace on ice]

It's kind of mind blowing that in thirteen years Bethesda has only released three games Fallout 4, Fallout 76, and Starfield all of them complete shit.

 

[The Ugly One]

An all too common story is "I played Skyrim, then I played New Vegas, then I played other RPGs and then when I went back to Skyrim it was boring.".

I played those old Infinity Engine games in the 1990s, my first Fallout was the first one, and I played Daggerfall before Bethesda patched the inability to actually beat the game. I liked Skyrim a lot. Slapping bad guys with a hammer was glorious. I played it on the PS3, so no mods. It was the GoTY edition, so the worst bugs were patched.

 

[Tom Nook's Gloryhole]

Not sure if it's been said before but I fucking hate how speech has become the ultimate stat in all RPG games. The entire notion that you could talk your way out of getting 14 guns drawn on you in a bar with a high enough speech stat and some luck points is hilarious.

I get how a great speaker can have bonuses and get favorable outcomes, but it has become the holy grail of lazy writing where any situation can be talked out of because god forbid you have to make an uncomfortable moral choice in your lives. The games are always written by "nobody is truly evil" moralfags. These fuckers would make Hitler a redeemable character if you gave them a big enough script.

 

[The Ugly One]

Slop existed, but the ratio has changed.

The sales model changing from purchasing a single retail product like in the old days to digital downloads and in-game stores and loot boxes and "cosmetics" and season passes and all that crap has financially incentivized making slop.

Back in the day, the closest thing to modern slop was the EA Annual Update where they bled an IP dry by producing far too many games, too fast. Today, basically every game is Madden.

 

[Edgy But Dull]

I object to calling Daggerfall "good." It was fun to dicker around in until you'd seen every dungeon building block a dozen times.

Oblivion had some interesting quests that were obliterated by the eye-searing graphics, horrible voice acting and, most importantly, piss-awful leveling system. The Thieves' Guild quest was good, Painted Trolls was off the wall, and others like that. Skyrim, I felt, had more "go get the mcguffin and come back" quests, and I remember none of them, but the Civil War questline is the best side quest in the entire series.

One of my favorite quests was in the Cheydinhal Mages questline. They ask you to go collect a ring that their previous apprentice failed to retrieve. You find the apprentice's body at the bottom of a well that leads to a tunnel completely submerged underwater and he has the ring on him. However the "ring of burden" he has on him weights like 150 inventory space and is why he drowned as it was too heavy. It's really funny to watch people attempt that questline and see them fly right by all the contextual warnings about that ring and why the apprentice drowned at the bottom of the well, only to suffer the same fate.

 

[Jace on ice]

One of my favorite quests was in the Cheydinhal Mages questline. They ask you to go collect a ring that their previous apprentice failed to retrieve. You find the apprentice's body at the bottom of a well that leads to a tunnel completely submerged underwater and he has the ring on him. However the "ring of burden" he has on him weights like 150 inventory space and is why he drowned as it was too heavy. It's really funny to watch people attempt that questline and see them fly right by all the contextual warnings about that ring and why the apprentice drowned at the bottom of the well, only to suffer the same fate.

If you use featherlight spells or potions and actually retrieve it they're like "oh shit you're back."

 

[ChampFantana]

Back in the day, the closest thing to modern slop was the EA Annual Update where they bled an IP dry by producing far too many games, too fast. Today, basically every game is Madden.

The most recent sports game I've played was on the Genesis for that very reason.

Who cares if the NFL or NHL rosters are properly updated? Give me a reason to play your game. Give me something that HASN'T been done a million times before.

Now, this last part isn't restricted to just sports games, but it's particularly bad in that genre. I don't understand the dumbasses that pay for the same game every year with no other changes than updated team rosters.

If we ever get an updated Mutant League Football, I may just give that a shot but until then, I have no desire to play any sports games at all.

 

[The Ugly One]

Now, this last part isn't restricted to just sports games, but it's particularly bad in that genre. I don't understand the dumbasses that pay for the same game every year with no other changes than updated team rosters.

They just really love sports. I knew one guy who bought exactly one game a year. Madden. Gotta say, was he really getting ripped off? He played Madden all year and spent a tiny fraction as much as I did on games.

 

[Whoopsie Daisy]

I can't tell if it's due to plain old incompetence or some kind of slot machine-theory of game design where developers believe making everything as flashy and confusing as possible will increase player retention, but either way it's a miserable experience.

The reason is because the writers are now super lefties. All writing and text - including menus, is the left wing meme vs right wing meme, with the 'right wing meme' been traditional gaming.

I've play Magic the Gathering (only digital versions) since the original Stainless game released on the 360. A few months back I jumped from Stainless' last game: Magic: Duels origins, to the new pay-to-win slop that is Magic: Arena and because the fags and trannies have taken over, all of the card text is 5 lines long to explain 1 mechanic. It's fucking infuriating that the explanation goes around the houses to say "if you kill a creature, this creature gets +1/+1".

Speaking of Magic:Arena, it has had the console version pushed back twice and doesn't have controller support, even though the game has been out a few years. Going from Stainless Games developed magic - which were unfairly shit on by what I believe were Hasbro shills, where I could use a controller and everything worked smoothly, to this always-online shit is bullshit.

 

[The Last Stand]

Reading through MS and Sony's community guidelines/code of conduct for using their online services, I understand WHY they are implemented and I'm happy there are report functions available for players. But, I would wish there would be additional context with processing reports within the guidelines themselves and better resources for the consumer to refute their bans beyond a copy/paste response.

 

[Whoopsie Daisy]

Banning players for talking online, when mute and block functions exist, is fucking retarded, and people who want players banned for mean words should be segregated from the main pool of players.

That, or a opt-out of meany word lobbies should be an option.

 

[The Last Stand]

Banning players for talking online, when mute and block functions exist, is fucking retarded, and people who want players banned for mean words should be segregated from the main pool of players.

If you're being belligerent on comms that hinders others' experience, then yes, you'd deserve a consequence for it in principle. I'm not even speaking just on racial abuse or profanity, but spam and music blaring. Yes, the mute/block exists but if it turns frequent, it could constitute as harassment.

 

[Whoopsie Daisy]

If you're being belligerent on comms that hinders others' experience, then yes, you'd deserve a consequence for it in principle. I'm not even speaking just on racial abuse or profanity, but spam and music blaring. Yes, the mute/block exists but if it turns frequent, it could constitute as harassment.

How can it turn frequent if you mute them?
If you join a lobby and all players are spamming music, perhaps it's you that's the odd-one out? Even though music blaring pisses me off, I just hit the mute button and voila, no more problems.

Gaming should have never given an inch to griefers, campers, spammers and should have never removed private servers, privately-hosted public servers and vote to kick.

 

[Fig Kommandant]

That, or a opt-out of meany word lobbies should be an option.

I want some dev to do this and compare the skill level between the gay lobby vs the racist lobby.

 

[Vapor Sauce]

Banning players for talking online, when mute and block functions exist, is fucking retarded, and people who want players banned for mean words should be segregated from the main pool of players.

That, or a opt-out of meany word lobbies should be an option.

This was how online lobbies worked in the late 2000s-early 2010s. I remember people being obnoxious or just having noise coming through the mic from the background like vacuums or some kid screaming. You'd either mute them or tell them to shut the fuck up. I swear people don't mute/block people because they want something to cry about.

 

[The Last Stand]

This was how online lobbies worked in the late 2000s-early 2010s. I remember people being obnoxious or just having noise coming through the mic from the background like vacuums or some kid screaming. You'd either mute them or tell them to shut the fuck up. I swear people don't mute/block people because they want something to cry about.

Games back then didn't have their own Code of Conducts. Well, let me rephrase that, codes of conducts were just legalese that people could safely ignore without much consequence compared to now.

If you join a lobby and all players are spamming music, perhaps it's you that's the odd-one out? Even though music blaring pisses me off, I just hit the mute button and voila, no more problems.

I'm speaking in principle of the rationalizations for Code of Conducts. But, to elaborate from my original post, there's no recourse for communication or transparency to appeal enforcement actions. Xbox Live is well known for having a universal Code of Conduct from the 360 days. It used to be that you could figure out the reasoning of your bans from their forums.

The blanket solution for communication enforcement is through AI which eliminates any form of context or human insight. The Code of Conduct is also to deter those who cheat, which many developers don't care to do.

 

[Vapor Sauce]

Games back then didn't have their own Code of Conducts. Well, let me rephrase that, codes of conducts were just legalese that people could safely ignore without much consequence compared to now.

Code of Conducts serve no purpose other than for a corporation to protect themselves from getting sued. I refuse to believe those are written with the idea that they help players enjoy their online gaming experience.

The blanket solution for communication enforcement is through AI which eliminates any form of context or human insight. The Code of Conduct is also to deter those who cheat, which many developers don't care to do.

The solution is either block, mute, or log off. This was never a problem. It ruins fun and will only open the door for more draconian rules that encroach on free speech.

If people are cheating sure report them but you don't need a manual written by some PR team at Sony or Microsoft to understand how that works.

 

[The Last Stand]

If people are cheating sure report them but you don't need a manual written by some PR team at Sony or Microsoft to understand how that works.

They're so obtusely written, I think it's intentional so that people WOULD skip over them AND they'd be "legally protected" to do as they see fit.

This is from 2008. Do you agree with this from that context?

 

[ShadowAngel785]

Games back then didn't have their own Code of Conducts. Well, let me rephrase that, codes of conducts were just legalese that people could safely ignore without much consequence compared to now.

after 2000 there were a ton of servers and clans with rules and regulations. a ton of them still exist to this day like Fragmasters, Ballerbude and others and the main culprits of rule violations were russians with their shit russian rap crap, spamming flashbangs and thinking they are rambo while having no skill. and those were the rules, the games producers rarely had servers themselves but the organized and shortly later 'official' (really just clans with a good reputation) had rules.
The thing is: before CS exploded online gaming was fun because it was free of russians and mostly cheaters, it was just hardcore fans of games who wanted to have fun. Once CS hit the mainstream, it was all over.

 

[The Ugly One]

Banning players for talking online, when mute and block functions exist, is fucking retarded, and people who want players banned for mean words should be segregated from the main pool of players.

That, or a opt-out of meany word lobbies should be an option.

What games should actually have is two separate queues, the kiddie pool and the adult pool. If you report people for naughty words, you actually get sent to the kiddie pool, where the other people who can't handle being called a niggerfaggot all play. You get sent back for longer and longer periods each time you report. If you get reported while in the kiddie pool, you get sent back to the adult pool.