Video Games Randomness - Prioritize specific game threads!

[Rumpy]

The updates I think are to enable the DLCs in the code for the game to recognize them.

[dbt1949]

I think 3 gigs worth is more than recognizing code.

[LordMortis]

I wish game companies would stop making mandatory downloads of DLCs to their games. If I want their DLC I'll be perfectly happy to buy it and then download it. 3G+ "update" downloading now.
And I don't have cable.

You and me both. I turned off autoupdates on Steam because these too frequent multi gig updates of nothing for so many games just got to be untenable for me. Crazy that I can have these simple games that require gigs and gigs worth of code and then needs gigs and gig of updates. And it's not just DLC, it's so they can put mod links and news about their other products and lord knows what else.

...

I also have a turn off to games needing to be in so much detail (and small text) on screen. My eyes are getting older and I'm finding I get reading eye strain or can't see object x because a six point font is just stupid or the because tiny with similar texture/shading may as well be part of the landscape. Yet another reason why I watch mostly cartoons. Big vibrant distinct colored objects moving bigly vibrantly and distinctly.

[Blackhawk]

Just looking at the games I've updated recently: The last WWZ patch was 6GB, the one before that was 16GB, the latest Doom Eternal patch was 15.9GB, and I just finished a Rainbow Six update that was 60GB. I've had a number of smaller patches, too - under a gig. Admittedly, you don't seem to go for those graphics-heavy games, but to truth is that 3GB isn't considered all that big of an update anymore.

Not that it doesn't still suck if you're on a slow connection. But on an average connection, 3 gigs about a five minute download.

[LordMortis]

but to truth is that 3GB isn't considered all that big of an update anymore.

Agreed, and that doesn't make me happy but it's the price I pay to be gamer in today's world, even if I'm not playing graphic intensive cutting edge twitch games. If I think about it later, I'll try to find some of the foot print and update footprints on games that I bought on DVD or CD!!! and then later repurchased for ease of use through on online catalog and how they have grown to sizes I don't get requiring updates packages that were larger than the original media I bought them on before I started angrily shaking my cane at the sky.

[dbt1949]

3 Gig is an hour and a half for me. Hence my bitching.

[Blackhawk]

DSL?

[LordMortis]

3 Gigs is probably 20 minutes for me on an average day but when you have 50 games installed and every day they want to pull in an assortment of 10 Gigs of data or more and you have work to do and you want to stream media at night and do other things and Steam is constantly looking for windows when only that machine isn't actively using bandwidth.

Also the Steam Synching is bandwidth intensive as well.

[dbt1949]

DSL?

Yep

[Daehawk]

Thanks Blues News

Serious Sam is 20 years old.

[Blackhawk]

Thanks Blues News

Serious Sam is 20 years old.

I remember trying the tech demo and being blown away, then seeing it at the store later and noticing it was only twenty bucks. I thought it must be a pricing mistake.

It's too bad the links in that article are dead.

[Rumpy]

A Ghosts of Tsushima movie is in development and is to be directed by John Wick's director.

https://deadline.com/2021/03/sony-plays ... 234721342/

[hitbyambulance]

Thanks Blues News

Serious Sam is 20 years old.

played the demo all the way through, so i actually got the boxed copy of SS:FE for my birthday. SS:SE i purchased immediately when it came out. still one of my favorite gaming experiences.

(and now i have SS 4 and i just am not playing it...)

[Daehawk]

Played SS and SS2 coop with a buddy. We were blown away by it..lots of times lol. i can still hear those screaming headless bomb handed guys and the clippityclop of the bone demon bulls.

[Blackhawk]

Actually, as I recall, Serious Sam was the first game I played with a fellow OOer (well, GGer.) Zaxxon and I jumped into a session and played a bit way, way back when.

[hitbyambulance]

actually i can find my interest in visiting Egypt and Greece in real life started with how Croteam rendered those environments in Serious Sam and Talos Principle, respectively.

[Blackhawk]

And the piano it sounds like a carnival
And the microphone smells like a beer
And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar
And say man what are you doin' here?





Making sound effects for the new Halo.

[Daehawk]

That poor guitar!

[TheMix]

That poor guitar!

Guitar? I must have missed that.

[Fardaza]

Actually, as I recall, Serious Sam was the first game I played with a fellow OOer (well, GGer.) Zaxxon and I jumped into a session and played a bit way, way back when.

GGer ??

[TheMix]

Actually, as I recall, Serious Sam was the first game I played with a fellow OOer (well, GGer.) Zaxxon and I jumped into a session and played a bit way, way back when.

GGer ??

GoneGold

The original site that most of us joined.

[Blackhawk]

It was a site that dealt primarily with release dates. It was the 'authority' on the subject, and if you look in either PC Gamer of Computer Gaming World from that period (pre-2004), all of their release dates came straight from Gone Gold. The guy that ran it - Rich LaPorte - fostered a great community that stood out for being unusually well educated and mature for an online gaming forum in that period. Around 2003 or so, Gone Gold started having problems. Outages, lack of updates. The reasons were complex, and a lot of it was tied to Rich's health. Then one day Gone Gold just vanished. The staff - moderators and administrators (myself included) - decided that the community was too special to lose, so we started looking for alternatives. Ron at Console Gold (later renamed GamingTrend) offered us space there, but after several years of running things under a third party's restrictions, we decided that we wanted independence. We founded a new site and a new forum and decided on a name - Octopus Overlords (a modified Simpsons reference, although we strongly considered The Brute Squad, and brutesquad.net pointed here for a long time.) Had you visited OO in the beginning, our layout, color scheme (one of them), and how our forums were organized were an almost carbon copy of Gone Gold's, save for some minor naming changes (Trading Forum vs Trading Place, Unreleased Games vs Road to Gold.) The members early on were probably 95% Gone Gold refugees (although some stayed at Console Gold/GT, while others were never heard from again.)

Gone Gold, 2004, near the end
Octopus Overlords, 2004, near the beginning

A lot of the people here now were there under different names, or variants of their current names. Brian, for instance, was Metalhed (and his sister, then Metalhed's Sister, now goes by MHS.)

[jztemple2]

I wrote a couple of reviews for GoneGold and a few other pieces, IIRC. I also traded a few emails with Rich. I really enjoyed participating with the folks on that site. However, I had a lot on my plate back in that first decade of the century and missed the start up of OO and didn't join till later as jztemple and then in 2009 as jztemple2.

[Skinypupy]

Thanks Blues News

Serious Sam is 20 years old.

Still one of the very few FPS games I’ve ever finished. I can hear the screaming of the bomb hands guys as I type this.

Man, that GG screenshot hit me right in the nostalgia feels this morning.

[Blackhawk]

Thanks Blues News

Serious Sam is 20 years old.

Still one of the very few FPS games I’ve ever finished. I can hear the screaming of the bomb hands guys as I type this.

Man, that GG screenshot hit me right in the nostalgia feels this morning.

It isn't a screenshot. It's an archived copy. The links are clickable (although they don't go deep - you can see post lists, but not the actual posts.) The front page is there, too. And they have years worth.

[Sudy]

What was that monthly subscription service from several years back that was supposed to give you an updated or unearthed retro game each month? It was all digital. Did they ever get off the ground? I recall months of lead-up, and then they failed to deliver the first month or two, instead offering an indie game they'd financed or licensed or something.

Not important, just curious. I couldn't remember their name and Google failed me.

[Daehawk]

Retro Game Treasure ?
Video Games Monthly ?
Retro Store Monthly Gaming Club ?

[Sudy]

No, it wasn't physical games. It was all digital. I believe they were talking about remastering or porting older titles for modern PCs; possibly/partially console titles they'd acquired the licenses for, but I don't recall.

[Paingod]

The closest thing I'm aware of is GOG.com, which kind of started as a "old game" repository where old DOS and Windows 98 games were dusted off, updated to work on Windows 7 & 10 and resold. They don't remaster them, though sometimes a publisher does - like Day of the Tentacle.

[raydude]

Speaking of retro games, The Ur-Quan Masters 0.8.0 came out on Jan 10, 2021. I downloaded it and got sucked into playing through the game again. It's still the great game I remember from when I played it in college. If I recall correctly, I had just come back to my dorm from class and a few of my friends were crowded around my roomate's PC. They were playing Super Melee mode and one of my other friends had been designated as "the one to beat" as he was beating everyone else in matches. So I sat down - can't remember what I picked - but I kept beating him with the same ship over and over again. He didn't like that so he killed me with the Shofixti suicide attack.

Anyway, I just beat the campaign game. I like the music remixes that the Ur-Quan masters devs put together. The 3DO remixes started getting old after a while but the UQM remixes didn't. I completely forgot to finish the Yehat side quests so I did not get Shofixti and Yehat reinforcements at the end game. Instead I used the Utwig and Chmr ships against the Kor-ah and Ur-quan vessels and then the Pkunk ship side blasters to finish off the Sa-matra.

Ahhh Talana.



You were my first video-game dream girl.

[hitbyambulance]

i knew PC game retail distribution's days were numbered in the early 2000s when you'd buy a cardboard box with 4-6 CDs (not even DVDs!) in paper sleeves (couldn't even shell out for a multi-disc jewel case) with maybe a tri-fold paper as a 'manual'. why even bother

the situation was a bit better a few years later when they started coming in DVD cases on actual DVDs, but it was too late

[Daehawk]

Loved Star Control 2 so much. Ive never been able to dive deep into SC3. Ive tried. Its ok just doesn't grab me though and keep me playing. I finished SC2. Such a deep game. I loved exploring and finding new things to see. If I ever do replay it with the Ur Quan version I still have my boxed copy so can use the old star map. Ill try to not see all the ink markings and secrets I waypointed on it

[Hipolito]

I recently went through a nostalgic phase of watching gameplay videos of the first 3 Star Control games on YouTube. The SC2 dialogue, music, and much of the voice acting were so good! That game was and is magic.

Not so recently, I spent a lot of time playing the fan-made Star Control: Timewarp, which had a really fun arcade mode with innovative new ships.

I still haven't tried Star Control: Origins. Gotta get to that.

[Kasey Chang]

i knew PC game retail distribution's days were numbered in the early 2000s when you'd buy a cardboard box with 4-6 CDs (not even DVDs!) in paper sleeves (couldn't even shell out for a multi-disc jewel case) with maybe a tri-fold paper as a 'manual'. why even bother

the situation was a bit better a few years later when they started coming in DVD cases on actual DVDs, but it was too late

Yeah, I was in software "manufacturing" then (I worked IT in a place that makes and assembles those boxes) and people wanted cheaper and cheaper options. After all, how often do you use the media once you've installed the item? But then, this was before broadband became really popular.

[Daehawk]

Most people are just WRONG! I love my big boxes and all the goodies in them. I kept every one of them except one which I regret selling. Shelves of them. And I replayed all of them many times until digital versions came out then I bought those and I can keep my shelves organized.

[Paingod]

I still have a box of old game manuals and extras from boxed games, but haven't opened it in years. I do miss the days of freebies and paper manuals you could pull out and carry around to read if you didn't have time to play.

That box is on the slate for a sad-faced disposal the next time we move.

[Blackhawk]

I do miss the days of freebies and paper manuals

I certainly do - I made decent money writing those suckers!

A lot of the move to smaller boxes and then cases was retailers. The old boxes took a crap-ton of shelf space. They could only afford to shelf a few products, and if any of them were bad sellers, it would drop the entire department's profits. With smaller boxes they could put more products on the shelf. Big sellers would make more sales, and bad seller represented a smaller portion of the whole. Publishers like it, too. Less secondary expense (people liked extras, but extras didn't really translate into a lot of extra sales), less shipping expense, less storage expense, and they didn't have to compete as much (IE - pay for) shelf placement.

[jztemple2]

I do miss the days of freebies and paper manuals

I certainly do - I made decent money writing those suckers!

My brother-in-law worked for a time at Sierra On-line. He was an English major and they brought him in to make the manuals more intelligible. I remember him talking to me about a new product of theirs (Cyberstorm or Cyberstorm 2) that for the first time wouldn't have a printed manual, just in-game help screens.

[Fardaza]

I do miss the days of freebies and paper manuals

I certainly do - I made decent money writing those suckers!

A lot of the move to smaller boxes and then cases was retailers. The old boxes took a crap-ton of shelf space. They could only afford to shelf a few products, and if any of them were bad sellers, it would drop the entire department's profits. With smaller boxes they could put more products on the shelf. Big sellers would make more sales, and bad seller represented a smaller portion of the whole. Publishers like it, too. Less secondary expense (people liked extras, but extras didn't really translate into a lot of extra sales), less shipping expense, less storage expense, and they didn't have to compete as much (IE - pay for) shelf placement.

I loved the New World Computing note pads with the watermark logo!! I still have one stashed away that I found when moving last fall.

[Daehawk]

I have a couple Blizzard ones and some others.