"Zero Punctuation" and "Dev Diary" by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw - The only thing worth watching on The Escapist

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>picks up text based rpg
>looks inside
>text
"wtf this is nothing like what i was expecting where are the explosions"
wrong person quoted with the rest of the context missing.
also if i wanted to read a book i would look for a pdf to torrent instead of expecting that shit in a modern video game instead of a old one limited by tech of the time it was released in needing to cop out with texto.
 
wrong person quoted with the rest of the context missing.
No, I meant to quote you and I don't see what context is missing.
also if i wanted to read a book i would look for a pdf to torrent instead of expecting that shit in a modern video game instead of a old one limited by tech of the time it was released in needing to cop out with texto.
This is literally what I said earlier about capital g gamer faggots throwing a fit whenever a game isn't about bald space marines killing black people with an explosion every 3 seconds.
 
No, I meant to quote you and I don't see what context is missing.
you would need to read the quote chain in order to see his point and mine, i cannot say for pathogic since i have no interest in playing it.
This is literally what I said earlier about capital g gamer faggots throwing a fit whenever a game isn't about bald space marines killing black people with an explosion every 3 seconds.
wrong again, this isn't about space marines, it's about people having tech to not rely so much on text it while still making a game as demanding as bing bang wahoo spesh mureens unlike the texty games of old that were limited by... their neolithic ages tech where they had to bytecount or else shit wouldn't fit on the floppy disk/DVDset...
that is why i linked the retro games thread...
 
you would need to read the quote chain in order to see his point and mine, i cannot say for pathogic since i have no interest in playing it
He and you don't like that there's text. I responded to him and then I responded to you.
it's about people having tech to not rely so much on text it while still making a game as demanding as bing bang wahoo spesh mureens unlike the texty games of old that were limited by... their neolithic ages tech where they had to bytecount or else shit wouldn't fit on the floppy disk/DVDset...
I have a question, do you think books are obsolete because we have movies now?
 
wrong person quoted with the rest of the context missing.
also if i wanted to read a book i would look for a pdf to torrent instead of expecting that shit in a modern video game instead of a old one limited by tech of the time it was released in needing to cop out with texto.
If you get filtered by text in an RPG game you're not fit to play an RPG, it's as simple as that. Console trash like Mass Effect aren't "RPGs" but they're right up your alley if a textbox puts the fear of god in you.
 
If you get filtered by text in an RPG game you're not fit to play an RPG, it's as simple as that. Console trash like Mass Effect aren't "RPGs" but they're right up your alley if a textbox puts the fear of god in you.
Same type of person who thinks morrowind sucks because its graphics are bad and it doesn't have quest markers.
 
He and you don't like that there's text. I responded to him and then I responded to you.
we both dislike texts for different reasons, however we both dislike the pretentious masturbatory practice of equating text/voice lines with depth when the tech to make it otherwise exist which was @wtfNeedSignUp point which i specifically quoted.
I have a question, do you think books are obsolete because we have movies now?
books aren't obsolete however? especially with the advancement in tech giving birth to ebooks to ease your collection.
be clear in what you are trying to say, kiwi, i said multiple times that what was done back in the day was due to constraints and doing that shit in modern times where said limitations don't exist is retarded.
If you get filtered by text in an RPG game you're not fit to play an RPG, it's as simple as that. Console trash like Mass Effect aren't "RPGs" but they're right up your alley if a textbox puts the fear of god in you.
funny implication, i never said i was filtered, you may be mixing it with the part i said i had turn-based burnout from waiting a bunch of enemies to finish their turn when replaying fallout1 but in this thread i said older rpg's had too much text because they couldn't convey it graphically due to tech constraints unlike what disco elysium do.

i do not understand why it's so hard for both of you to read the quote chain but i will purportedly imply that is because both of your kiwis are uppity since you are seeing criticism to medium you enjoy, so much so to a point of making retarded implications and gotcha attempts, it's fucking crystal clear in your posts that your jimmies are very rustled else you wouldn't make such redditeur moves.
 
we both dislike texts for different reasons, however we both dislike the pretentious masturbatory practice of equating text/voice lines with depth when the tech to make it otherwise exist which was @wtfNeedSignUp point which i specifically quoted.
Books are so masturbatory and pretentious. They rely on text to give themselves depth when we have the tech to move past them now with movies and animation. When are lazy hack authors going to stop using outdated means of telling stories?
books aren't obsolete however? especially with the advancement in tech giving birth to ebooks to ease your collection.
Why not? We now have the technology to make so you don't have to read and can instead just watch. Seems like writers are being lazy by relying so much on text (outdated technlogy tbqh) instead of using updated methods.

be clear in what you are trying to say, kiwi,
I'm sorry I thought I was being clear: Your point about text being an oudated method of storytelling is genuinely fucking retarded. It literally cannot be understated how unbelievably braindead it is.

Storytelling methods don't progress from oral -> text -> explosions. A game using text to convey a message isn't an inferior/oudated method because animation exists in the same way a book using text to convey a message isn't an inferior/outdated method because hollywood exists.

Different methods accomplish different things. Like genuinely holy fuck I cannot believe this actually had to be explained.
I cannot believe people still write books when hollywood exists. Like what the fuck, lazy much? Why are people still using outdated storytelling methods when we now have the technology to make it so I don't have to be literate to consume media?

The only reason homer wrote the odyssey as a poem instead of a movie is because america (and by extension hollywood) hadn't been invented yet. I'm really happy christopher nolan is finally rectifying that mistake.
 
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funny implication, i never said i was filtered, you may be mixing it with the part i said i had turn-based burnout from waiting a bunch of enemies to finish their turn when replaying fallout1 but in this thread i said older rpg's had too much text because they couldn't convey it graphically due to tech constraints unlike what disco elysium do.

i do not understand why it's so hard for both of you to read the quote chain but i will purportedly imply that is because both of your kiwis are uppity since you are seeing criticism to medium you enjoy, so much so to a point of making retarded implications and gotcha attempts, it's fucking crystal clear in your posts that your jimmies are very rustled else you wouldn't make such redditeur moves.
I really don't care about your retarded argument you had with another guy, I can tell a console plebian who cries when there is unspoken dialogue when I see one. Your taste is shit and irrelevant, I've hated your kind since 7th Gen
Your point about text being an oudated method of storytelling is genuinely fucking retarded. It literally cannot be understated how genuinely braindead it is.
He's exactly the kind of person for whom games like Fallout 4 are made
 
wrong person quoted with the rest of the context missing.
also if i wanted to read a book i would look for a pdf to torrent instead of expecting that shit in a modern video game instead of a old one limited by tech of the time it was released in needing to cop out with texto.
Not trying to pile onto the argument so no worry there, and what I'm about to add pertains to Western RPGs (basic bitch definition of which is that stats can influence more than just gameplay, potentially altering the main story or giving you different options you wouldn't have had otherwise)

I like text in theory over voicing all the dialogue because it could allow for a lot more it, from both NPCs and the player in the form of dialogue options/choices, etcetera. And the money saved from voice actors could go back into the game so maybe it could be extra good in other areas.

That said, I've seldom encountered a newer game that takes complete advantage of not dedicating a chunk of budget to VAs, and when a game tried to do it, they fell short of the mark quality-wise. The main issue is a lot of games which come out and don't have VAs are doing so purely as a result of cost over anything else. It's not a willing choice, they simply can't afford to voice the dialogue. The fact Disco Elysium, after proving a success (not successful enough to save the company but whatevs) went back to retroactively voice everything is proof that if the devs for a lot of these budget titles could, they would, add voice acting. Everything else in the game was up the quality they could manage with the resources they had. Not many are going in with their dream title being primarily reliant on text for dialogue and environment description, just as it was a tech limitation back in the day, it's a cost limitation now, which feels worse somehow.

Though I think there's a handful of good examples of studios that output good games in spite of no-VAs being a clear budget limitation. Owlcat (after Kingmaker) have done a pretty bang up job; I actually find their writing a step up from Obsidian post-FNV. Iron Tower Studio are also pretty good. But I think depending on what you want out of an RPG (Above average story + impact on narrative via choices + stats) some games just skip the traditional 'gameplay' portion and just make a an actual 'book' (choose your own adventure but with pretty graphics and numbers) a la Sorcery trilogy or The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante. After BG3 however, Owlcat seem deadset on making their next title completely voice acted, so I hope it doesn't impact things too severely (such as making the noticeable and inevitable quality drop in the last third of the game happen even earlier).

I played Disco Elysium and I think I can tell why they didn't just make it similar to one of the CYOA books I mentioned above and call it a day (they would've saved on money, been able to hire VAs from the start potentially, and it could still play identically since characters remain static unless you interact with them/do their quests). I think it was entirely to carry some of the humour at points. Harry jumping backwards into an elderly woman, flipping two birds as his brain tells him how retarded he is, wouldn't hit as hard otherwise I don't think. That being said, I touched it a year after it first game out, dropped it, and finally completed it once the VA'd version came out. There's also a balancing act with its politicism. It's fine as a right-winger to acknowledge it's slant towards pro-leftist thought without becoming a complete sperg about it. If it bothers you, just don't give them your money... ;)

All that said, even in games back in the day where such a practice was standard (and I have played a lot of them by now) they still left me wanting. I think my expectations of older titles were higher because they received so much acclaim and my hope for text-based dialogue and the like was something I semi-expected older titles to meet considering their acclaim. I would think of questions I wanted to ask, that seemed obvious to ask and wouldn't otherwise affect anything else, but they just never appeared (this happened a lot in Fallout 2). I think Morrowind was the only 'retro' title with limited voice acting and a reliance on text that lived up to the praise it got. Though I didn't have a lot of questions internally because I already knew the answers to a lot of them anyway through future titles and in-game books.
i had turn-based burnout
After completing Fallout 2 (I played 1 and 2 back to back) I had wanted to get into the mods for Fallout 2 such as Arroyo before I even touched the game but after finishing it I experienced the same burnout. I did enjoy the respite from combat in the end section though on the oil rig. Random encounters taking 2-3 minutes when I'm trying to be thorough in my exploring really burnt me out. I kind of appreciated 1's simplicity in that regard (The military base and Super Mutant encounters near/at the end of 1 were more annoying than the end of 2, but going through the overworld in 2 felt more annoying, like there were way more encounters).

Anyway, sorry for interrupting your argument — carry on.
 
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He's exactly the kind of person for whom games like Fallout 4 are made
I cannot believe people still write books when hollywood exists. Like what the fuck, lazy much? Why are people still using outdated storytelling methods when we now have the technology to make it so I don't have to be literate to consume media?

The only reason homer wrote the odyssey as a poem instead of a movie is because america (and by extension hollywood) hadn't been invented yet. I'm really happy christopher nolan is finally rectifying that mistake.
 
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I mean, books can be art. In that regard Disco Elysium is an extremely interactive illustrated novel.
not to quote moviebob but "no one's ever won a hugo for a choose your own adventure" is actually a great quote not because it's a good takedown of interactive stories, he's an idiot, but that it perfectly illustrates the kind of snobbery that makes something like disco elysium not respected as art to actual novelists: the interactivity
 
And Ebert was and still is full of crap. Mona Lisa doesn't make the audience think shit or reflect on the human condition in any particular manner. It's appreciated due to its (for the time period) technical complexity as well as the dumb decades-long debate about whether it was actually a self-portrait of Leonardo in drag.

I want the "video games are/are not art" garbage to fucking die already because all it has led to is a proliferation of pretentious faggotry in the video game developer space rather than a focus on being good entertainment with solid mechanics.
It's retarded. Really the only question you need to ask when designing video games is "does this add to the fun?" If it doesn't, why is it there? You are (or should be) making an entertainment product at the end of the day.

Walking simulators that push the creator's personal politics almost never do well.
 
Idk if anyone else mentioned this but I looked at their Q1 2025 report and their numbers are off at first glance. The net loss is incorrect as they have it listed at over 10,000 when it should be over 14,000. It led me to recalculate their income and it turns out thats off too as the number I got was $214,179.62 instead of over $215,000 listed in the summary. Its not giving a lot of confidence in the future of Second Wind if they can't get their financial report right. Then again they just seem to doubling down on adding a shit ton of shows that nobody watches when the main draw is obviously Yahtzee. It didn't work for Escapist which led to Nick getting fired as a result yet it seems like he didn't learn a thing from his experience over there. I guess when you have Yahtzee the Golden Goose laying eggs for you, then it doesn't matter if the other shows don't draw flies to shit.
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I wonder if the solution is just to fire everyone who isn’t Yathzee or squeeze Yathzee dry by putting him on every show? wouldn’t he get tired from this?
 
The number in the Patreon row not being centered is bothering me more than it should. In fact, there's no reason for that row to be bigger than the other rows. I think they literally just added an extra blank line under the dollar amount by mistake and couldn't be bothered to hit backspace once to fix it. If they can't even get a basic table looking right then no wonder their finances are in the shitter.
 
Idk if anyone else mentioned this but I looked at their Q1 2025 report and their numbers are off at first glance. The net loss is incorrect as they have it listed at over 10,000 when it should be over 14,000. It led me to recalculate their income and it turns out thats off too as the number I got was $214,179.62 instead of over $215,000 listed in the summary. Its not giving a lot of confidence in the future of Second Wind if they can't get their financial report right. Then again they just seem to doubling down on adding a shit ton of shows that nobody watches when the main draw is obviously Yahtzee. It didn't work for Escapist which led to Nick getting fired as a result yet it seems like he didn't learn a thing from his experience over there. I guess when you have Yahtzee the Golden Goose laying eggs for you, then it doesn't matter if the other shows don't draw flies to shit.
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Isn't a number in parentheses supposed to be a loss? Are they reporting that the "work for hire" money was actually a money-losing operation?
 
Isn't a number in parentheses supposed to be a loss? Are they reporting that the "work for hire" money was actually a money-losing operation?
I assumed that was the case otherwise their net income would be 224 Thousand not 214 Thousand. Then again why is the work for hire in the income section and not the expenses section? The more you dig into this report, the more it shows Second Wind being a mess.
 
I just watched a couple of revews after goodness knows how long and Yahtzee still pronounces common words like a dimwit.

"mosque-itos", "ray-bid", "samyou-ryes".

I think I once heard him pronounce sloth as "slowth". It's like this guy's never heard another human being speak English. He's almost as bad as Null.
 
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