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DdCno1

@ DdCno1 @kbin.social

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379
Joined
2 yr. ago

  • I Want Better Games With Worse Graphics And I'm Not Kidding - Aftermath

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  • The studios who do this mostly aren't looking for an actual artistic vision. Play any of the recent Ubisoft open world games and you see at best moments of it during distinct, isolated sections (usually trips caused by substance use) that were clearly tackled by smaller teams within the large group of developers. The rest were busy making 15 different types of trees.

  • I Want Better Games With Worse Graphics And I'm Not Kidding - Aftermath

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  • They do exist and in greater numbers and variety than ever before. Play Undertale, Baba is You, BeamNG.drive, FTL, Disco Elysium, Emily is Away, Islanders, NEO Scavenger, Rodina, Whispers of a Machine, Proteus, etc.

    Totally random examples, but I could name dozens more. We are spoiled with great games that are pure expressions of their developers' visions. There are more of them than anyone can realistically ever play.

  • I Want Better Games With Worse Graphics And I'm Not Kidding - Aftermath

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  • That's not how this works. You can comparatively easily scale up art departments, but you can not do the same with engineering and design. It's also much less difficult to find competent artists in their respective niches than programmers and designers. Art skills can be far more easily taught and to a wider variety of people regardless of their inherent talent than software engineering and game design at the required level. Especially in the area of software engineering, game studios also have to compete with other fields with inherently better work/life balance, which is far less so the case with e.g. texture artists, modelers and animators.

    Art can also be produced sequentially in large numbers and making more of it at a certain high enough level of quality makes a game appear more valuable to consumers. It's practically guaranteed: Spend more on art, have more stuff you can impress people with, a more enticing value proposition. You can spend a fortune on game design and programming, but that's invisible and there is far less of a guarantee that it'll work out in the end (see: the phenomenon referred to as development hell), let alone attract customers.

    Try marketing a game on mechanics and design instead of graphics. Most people pay maybe 15 to 30 seconds of attention to promotional material at best before making a purchasing decision. The vast majority of gamers do not read reviews, let alone whining essays about how some journalist doesn't care about graphics (which have been written since the 1980s - there's nothing new under the Sun). You can wow customers with fancy trailers and gorgeous screenshots, but you can not explain why your game that you spent 100 million on game design alone on has better game design than that blockbuster with individually modeled and animated facial hair.

  • this picture is 27kb

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  • Would you describe someone who has likely driven a Jeep as smart?

  • As China and Iran hunt for dissidents in the US, the FBI is racing to counter the threat

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  • At least in China's case, the harassment extends to ethnically Chinese people who have lived their entire lives abroad and never set foot in China.

  • As China and Iran hunt for dissidents in the US, the FBI is racing to counter the threat

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  • This appears to be the new norm among autocratic regimes (although it isn't all that new - think of Trotsky, for example, or the infamous umbrella murder).

    Vietnam is doing this as well:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tr%E1%BB%8BnhXu%C3%A2nThanh

    https://rsf.org/en/dissident-exile-stops-blogging-because-family-vietnam-being-hounded

    Eritrea, a regime that is similarly repressive as North Korea, but far less known, is also notorious for this:

    https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2019/06/eritrea-government-officials-and-supporters-target-critics-abroad-as-repression-stretches-beyond-borders/

    Saudi Arabia is among the worst in this regard:

    https://freedomhouse.org/report/transnational-repression/saudi-arabia

    I'm getting the impression that liberal democracies housing refugees and dissidents from autocratic regimes are unprepared to counter these threats. It is our responsibility to protect people seeking refuge and this includes proactive action against governments that seek to extend their violent rule outside of their borders.

  • Ron DeSantis bans 'global elite' lab-grown meat

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  • It wouldn't be a Republican ban if it wasn't tackling a fictional "issue".

  • Ron DeSantis bans 'global elite' lab-grown meat

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  • Apples and (lab-grown) oranges.

  • Ron DeSantis bans 'global elite' lab-grown meat

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  • "Global elite" - I can hear that dog whistling from all the way over the Atlantic.

  • TikTok is allowing users to spread manipulated videos of Biden, despite the platform's policies

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  • But what about...

  • Exclusive: Bernie Sanders worries young people are underestimating the threat from Trump

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  • You would think that millions of global COVID deaths that he (and Xi - but nobody is allowed to vote that idiot out of office) is primarily responsible for would finally keep people from voting for the "it can't get any worse" guy.

    COVID-19 killed almost three times as many Americans as died during WW2 due to both inaction and deliberate malicious actions. This alone should have resulted in a prison sentence for Trump and his inner circle.

  • Catholic 'media ministry' defrocks AWOL AI priest after it told faithful you can baptise babies in Gatorade and that, sure, it can totally perform your wedding

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  • Imagine the Papal States never dissolving and becoming a nuclear-armed power in the 20th century, using the threat of nuclear annihilation to maintain their independence and increase their global influence.

    That would be an interesting alternative history scenario.

  • Nineteen dead after highway collapses in southern China

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  • No need to make excuses.

  • Biden administration to require advanced safety tech on all new cars and trucks

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  • The durability of electric car batteries is far better than expected. Even in the case of early models with extremely basic battery packs and no active cooling (e.g. Nissan Leaf), the packs almost always outlast the cars they're built into:

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2022/08/01/electric-car-batteries-lasting-longer-than-predicted-delays-recycling-programs/?sh=bad42e453329

    Maintenance of EVs in general is far simpler than on ICE cars. There's a much smaller number of components. Almost everything related to the drivetrain is practically maintenance-free.

  • FTC fines Razer for every cent made selling bogus “N95 grade” RGB masks | Ars Technica

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  • I bought masks from a toy company (Playmobil) for my family, because there was literally nothing else available anywhere. They were marketed as alternatives to basic paper masks though, not N95 masks:

    https://i.imgur.com/Sbq4oBq.jpeg

    The innovation was that you could use tissue paper as filters and reuse the silicone mask after cleaning it. They were uncomfortable and stinky, but functional. We used these for about a month or two, long before any vaccines were available. I suspect that social distancing protected us far more than the masks, but either way, none of us got infected.

  • Biden administration to require advanced safety tech on all new cars and trucks

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  • Stereoscopic camera systems exist and they can work very well (like on my ten year old car).

  • Biden administration to require advanced safety tech on all new cars and trucks

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  • Seems like you're unlucky. Subaru's system is generally considered one of the best in the industry, routinely outperforming the competition.

  • Biden administration to require advanced safety tech on all new cars and trucks

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  • Better pick an early electric car, because the days of ICE cars being allowed into cities are numbered.

  • Biden administration to require advanced safety tech on all new cars and trucks

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  • Meanwhile my ten year old Smart produces just one or two false alerts per year. It's a simple camera-based system, yet it works incredibly well. The lane departure warning works equally well. Both are so effective that I never want to drive a car without these systems again.