It should be trusted like any other source of information. With a grain of salt, along with many other sources of information, and as nothing more than a general guide.

Personally, I think the best way to navigate anything is to just find out the traits of it that you like, and simply look for things that are advertised with comparable traits.

I harp on this a lot, but I have a huge gripe with the whole "bigger is better" philosophy of modern games. The problem isn't length but length for the sake of length.

It's a combination of 2 things:

1. Big games are easier to make. With games gradually taken more seriously there's bigger teams, bigger budgets, and bigger hardware. It's much easier to simply cram every single half baked feature into a game and inflate it to 50 hours than ever before.

2. Lack of legitimate critical reflection on the problem. Whenever a big 50+ hour massively open world game comes out people tend to bury the flaws under the sheer awe in it's technical feat. Impressed by the massive amount of things you can do but with absolutely no reflection on how much of these things are actually interesting, well designed, or - most importantly - conceptually coherent.

There's way too much lenience for massively bloated games padded down with needless sidequests and irrelevant features.

I don't think Square has ever had a really bad soundtrack. Pretty much everything from Square. I particularly like FF4, FF6, FF7, Xenogears, and Chrono Cross. I remember listening to even listening to the full Parasite Eve OST lately and liking it more than I remember.

Also even though the first Xenosaga was a ridiculously underwhelming game the soundtrack was phenomenal. I honestly think apart from Chrono Cross it's Mitsuda's best work.

Kind of surprised at the lack of mention of Silent Hill 1-3. There was a couple off off songs but both the songs and the staticy soundscapes are rather compelling.

Metal Gear Solid 3's OST is noteworthy. The rest of the MGSs soundtracks seem to more have particular high spots yet overwhelmingly bland even if well integrated but 3 did a good job of being compelling and conceptually consistent while still being fittingly tense.

I remember really liking the soundtracks to the first 2 fallouts.

Those are the ones that come to mind.

It's an interesting concept but wouldn't be a personal preference for me. I mean, if I wanted something out of my control I'd just randomize notes or set up a process which randomizes them in real time. Otherwise, I am the type that neurotically has to play things back tweaking every single knob until I get the sound I want. I mean, in a world where pitch is emphasized ten billion times more than it should be and timbre is emphasized ten billion times less it seems a rather counterproductive approach.

I don't think that's a bad idea at all, honestly. I mean, especially if you're unsure what you're going to do, feedback is essential.

An entirely non-static game environment. The ability to change all terrain(grow forests, raise mountains, plant trees) and all buildings(destruction, rebuilding, and expansion) within the game world. I mean, not in a minecraft way but in a way that comes off as natural to a believable RPG-like world.

Of course, this is very clearly a hypothetical, but it'd be cool if somebody could pull it off.

As for actual suggestions. Well, a serious focus on shapeshifting might be a more realistic goal. I mean, it's been done, but not extremely well.

Well, I just started on "The Monk" for the third time. Not that I had difficulty getting through it either of the previous times but something else got in the way.

What about games that don't really lend themselves to modding in a meaningful way? Like perhaps a heavily story-based game or one meant to offer a very specific experience or mood? I wouldn't mind people modding my games, but I honestly can't see why anybody would, that's all. They're not platformers where it'd be fun to build your own levels to jump around on, really. Is it then meaningful to release source at all? Like modding something like Journey, I could absolutely not see the point of that for example.

I was more just asking because I'm looking into it from a personal point of view. Not stating that it is necessarily better or worse than any other approach. I think the more options that creators get in ways to release their work the better.

Actually, there is a small sort of episodic free game I'm working on right now that I'm hoping to start releasing within the next few months. Even though it's free, I'm weary about releasing the source alongside the release because it has easter eggs that are very easy to discover simply by looking at the code and that might spoil the fun in finding them. I'm probably going to release it as either partially open and/or release the source for the previous episodes while the new ones come out.

So, there's advantages and disadvantages to everything.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jul/12/how-technology-disrupted-the-truth

I don't think anyone actually *wants* to fix the problem of social networks being ideological bubbles by design.

I don't think they're ideological bubbles by design they're more advertising bubbles by design. The ideological bit of it is more happenstance. I mean, it's much easier to sell somebody something he or she already likes or knows.

hello. the universal declaration of human rights is a thing that exists and isn't up for discussion for nations that signed it

Are you being tongue-in-cheek here?

Hmmm... Well, I don't know why I've been following this. I probably won't bother with getting an NX soon after it comes out unless I find one in a dumpster or something. Unless, of course, something drastically changes and the NX ends up shocking the world. I guess, though, that it's possible I might borrow or buy an NX later in it's lifetime when it's cheap just to play this game so it might be worth following, anyway.

I've actually been quite disappointed with it being advertised as open world. I'm especially bothered with how the concept of open world has basically become this sales tactic as of recent, and has been an excuse to make more massive games with more content but not necessarily good, refined, content. I can appreciate pulling of a massive open world from a technical level, but I think it's often used as an excuse for very sloppy design. It's also becoming a ridiculously saturated market at this point.

Skimming through the gameplay videos, however, it actually looks more fun than expected from an explorative point of view. Also, it has traits that, even with all the Skyrim comparisons, seem distinctively Legend of Zelda even with the more arbitrary ubiquitous tidbits like physics, etc. I do have to admit that it is gorgeous, but the actual areas look very spaced out and sort of empty. Which isn't a problem if you want that sort of mediative turn your mind off and wander randomly gameplay experience.

What little I'm seeing of puzzles is worrying, though. Puzzles, to me, are the focal point of Zelda. They're what really make the series interesting, and in a landscape where the mainstream market is so saturated with action and exploration they'll be doing something special if they can find a new and intuitive way to do them. I know that the approach to puzzles in the series was starting to get stale, but I don't like the idea of seeing it take a backseat entirely. Actually, the fact what little is shown of the puzzles in these gameplay videos seems like same old same old doesn't help. It's going to suck if they just take the same formula for puzzles, scatter them around, put large spaces between them, and allow you to do them in any order. That is just falling into the trap of most open world games of having tons of stuff to do but not a whole lot that is interesting.

I do remember some statements that they'd be approaching puzzles in a "different way". I have no idea what that means but my feeling is polarized between it being an extremely good thing and an extremely bad thing. I just hope by different way it's meant as a different way not different as, I fear, in terms of playing a much smaller role.

Also, I find it kind of funny how they're advertising it in the sense that they've shown a couple hours of gameplay and said it's only 2% of the world. Shows a stark shift in the gaming audience who, when Windwaker came out, through a hissy fit over the fact they had to sale over vast oceans(which seem microscopic in comparison to what you are promised to have to cross on foot or horse in this new edition). Something that didn't actually bother me much about that game, but seems kind of funny thinking about.

What is the risk, exactly?

One more, then I'll stop spamming this thread for a bit.

Going through the complete works of Arthur Rimbaud at the moment. It's interesting to read the sleazy and angst-ridden musings of the foul mouthed young gentleman.

Albeit, I always feel kind of weird reading translated poetry knowing how important phrasing is to the form. I kind of have to invest blind trust into the translator.

I think the root of any cynicism to the left has always existed, and existed for the same reason. That reason is the ability of right wingers to come up with brutally simple sounding solutions to everything. Where as the left focuses on ideas that require more understanding of complexities and abstractions. Which means regardless of the actual sensibility of the issue the right wing solutions often come off as more sensible to a lot of people. Where as the left comes off as indirect and deceptive(And it doesn't help that, as mentioned before, places like USSR that used leftist language very deceptively. I get the feeling no matter how many decades passed the fall of the Soviet Union has had we'll still have Red Scare psychology).

That's why the right wing particularly appeals to people getting bitter, old, and cheated. They're just at a stage in their life where they want their way done with blunt force because the idea of accomplishing something with finesse(or they see as indirect) is impossible.

Another group that is prone is the paranoid. This is particularly prevalent in the "age of terror" we live in where the left can be portrayed as overly sensitive wieners who don't see the "real problem" and are just dancing around the solution. This is an amazing boon for the right wing. Even if the kind of solutions proposed by the right are astonishingly disastrous, and backfire every time. The bluntness of these solutions is still universally appealing.

The idea of an infinitely evil external threat that can be swiftly defeated with force appeals on a kind of deep primal level that often supersedes a logical train of thought. Not when you have the commie, the Jew, the terrorist, or the abstract elitist NWO banking cartel(which I'm assuming the EU fear and nationalism is largely fueled by a combination of the terrorist/Muslim and the banking cartel). Some of these, of course, are created from partial truths exaggerated to the extreme and skewed for either propagandist or just plain exploitive sensationalist purposes. But taken wholly out of context and exaggerated to the extreme.

And to be fair, people who consider themselves left or leftist aren't innocent of this either. In fact, that's why the language of the left can be used so deceptively, and often inspire the kind of blunt approach typically employed by the right. I mean, continually losing to the right wing's more impulsive overly simplified ideas gives a feeling of self doubt that is often only resolved by the idea that you yourself are enlightened, and if you don't assume authority so you can fix it for others who refuse to fix it for themselves then it'll never be fixed.

I feel kind of sheltered and naive here in 'Merica. I've been hearing of this for quite some time but nothing that really convinced me of the severity of the ramifications of it. I mean, I understood the ramifications but just not the severity. Then again, the British didn't apparently, either.

Never understood national pride at all. Being born, or just being on, one random part of a big rock doesn't seem like a very good reason to assume anything special of oneself or anybody else regardless of proximity to said point on it. Unless there's an angle to this I don't understand it just sounds like petty isolationism, and it's sad that it turned out this way this quickly.

I've never played any of the Mario RPG series after The Thousand Year Door but I really really like all of them. I particularly like the original Super Mario RPG, but Paper Mario and The Thousand Year Door I think are both excellent. I also like the GBA one but I can't even remember the name of it off the top of my head.

Had 0 interest in ever getting a Wii so I never got the chance to play Super Paper Mario, but it seemed weird that they were discarding the whole RPG thing.

There's a very distinct interesting charm to those games. They also prove that even in RPGs sometimes cutting things down to their simplest elements can be a good thing.

Reading "The Man In the High Castle" at the moment. I'm a bit in. Third thing I've read form PDK so far and possibly my favorite of those 3.

what were the other two?

man in the high castle is amazing. im kinda apprehensive about watching the series tbh, because i feel like it might "ruin" the book for me and trailers were not that promising.

"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" and "A Scanner Darkly". I still have quite a few more to go.