Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure Micro$oft is more than happy to let companies pay to use their terrible OS for purposes they never built it for. But the question still stands as to why any of these companies continue to try and shove Windows into a use case that was never even a consideration when it was designed.

Like, if I had a really terrible hammer, and started trying to use it as a saw… I wouldn’t blame the hammer’s inherent terribleness at it’s intended job for why it failed.

Some folks don’t care about having the ‘‘unpradictability of human players’’. Or at the very least don’t think that benefit makes up for the downsides of an always online game, such as always having to have an internet connection, server downtime, lag, the pricing models that pay for those servers, game modes that require you to interact with other players, etc.

I like multiplayer games, and I like single player games, I like couch co-op, and pvp, mmo’s, and fighting games, but I think it’s about having the right tool for the job.

But online multiplayer games that are spin offs or sequels to single player games have a well deserved bad reputation. Due to the numerous instances where the motivation wasn’t to make the game better, but instead to force the more profitable monitary models that online multiplayer games allow for. Fallout 76 stands out as a prime example.

It’s not always a bad change mind you, sometimes it really adds a lot to the game… like… uhhhh… er… Ultima Online? Im sure there are other examples too.

So maybe you can take that stick out of your ass and let folks enjoy what they like? ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Can speak to this slightly. I tried to get their app to run via Wine, and it did not work just “plug and play” at least. Tried to find a guide or some alternative option. After about 15 min of searching, I decided that “eh, it works great out of the box” and started using easy effects for an EQ instead.

I own a pair of these. Depending on the game, they add a lot of value to my Steamdeck. But for everyday computing, they are actually very impractical.

And you took it upon yourself to be the 6th link in the chain huh? That’s a bold strategy Cotton!

Ah, fair enough.

are… are ‘‘easy to hate reasons’’ somehow inherently ‘‘not good reasons’’?

i fucking hate all caps

Is what it is I guess. But at least Iron Pineapple won’t be hurting for content anytime soon.

Completely agree. Elden Ring really is uniquely positioned to be “the game” to look at for game designers when seeing the advantages and disadvantages of the open world design. Compared to much of the rest of the industry, it really is the shining example of what an open world can be when the developers are passionate, competent, and truly wanting to make a genuinely great game, not just chasing trends.

You bring up some good points. And I’m about to veer off into “personal opinion” territory, so take this for what it’s worth.

But when I think about “running past enemies” in Dark Souls, I think about the tightly designed levels, and how I had to learn the layout before running by was a viable option. And if I wanted to explore an area, I would have to be cautious and alert. Compare that to Elden Ring’s open design, and I never felt like I had to “learn the map” nor be wary of my surroundings, I could just kind of run around without consequence and only deal with enemies when I wanted to on my terms.

And I’m sure you could come up with exceptions to these generalizations for each game, but they would be exceptions. On the whole, it’s a stark difference in “game feel”. And for me personally, taking the fear and need for caution out of exploration was a large deviation from what made a Souls game feel like a Souls game. Not that it is necessarily worse mind you, just different, and shifts the formula to be something quite different. Elden Ring made me feel like I was playing something closer to an Ubisoft open world or even Breath of the Wild a little bit (obvious differences aside, just the “vibe” I got). A really good Ubisoft open world designed by far better developers mind you, but that kind of design philosophy.

And as far as the “go fuck off and farm souls”, I could definitely see how ER was a more fun game for that. If you were really in the mood to “grind some Elden Ring”, having all that content would definitely be a huge benefit. I’m just not the target audience for it however, as I felt like the repetition of bosses and enemies just to fill the world with mini-dungeons and add content was largely “filler”. I’m not much of a fan of grinding to be honest.

This may largely come down to the evolution of my tastes as time has gone on, as I used to have a much more positive opinion on this type of design. For example, when I first played Fallout 2 I thought it was a huge improvement due to the massive dungeons you could find in random encounters, giving me days of content to play around with. Same with Daggerfall, the procedural generated quests and dungeons felt like an endless supply of content. But after replaying them, I couldn’t get past the feeling that it was all “filler content” (which sounds more derogatory than I mean it to, I’m just struggling to find the best word choice for this). Same is true for the mini-dungeons and evergoals in ER.

Compare that to DarkSouls, where if I wanted “more content”, I would instead just choose to replay the game. And when I do wind up wanting to replay one of these games, I greatly appreciate the larger focus on “hand crafted and finely tuned” content over the “open world buffet” methodology. And when it comes to replaying Elden Ring, I find myself skipping a significant amount of content, and thinking to myself “what if the time they spent creating that repetitive content went into more unique content”. Sure, there would be “less content” overall, but there would be “more real content”. (Not that Dark Souls was immune to this kind of copy paste content mind you, the Demon Ruins come to mind.)

Anyways, I let that rant get away from me, so thanks for sticking with it if you made it this far. Obviously my personal opinions on the changes Elden Ring made to the Souls formula are not overly common, as it is by far many many peoples favorite of the series. And to be honest, I absolutely loved the game as well, easily one of the best games ever made. My personal critiques are purely my own feelings on a very specific aspect of the series. Different strokes for different folks and all that.

You right.

lol, fair enough.

Couldn’t agree more. When open worlds were new and shiney, I enjoyed the sense of freedom and exploration. Now though, it usually just feels like padding. Like I’m being told I need to eat 20 crackers for every bite of burger.

Even worse when they are just big maps dotted with equally spaced event icons and way points that you are just expected to complete. Really makes me miss open world games that felt like they existed for their own sake like Morrowind.

As much as I enjoyed Elden Ring, I definitely felt like the open world added so little ta the formula, but took so much when you could just casually run by most enemies.

Good on ya! Fight the good fight!

Personally, I dug the “social stealth” mechanics in the early AC games, especially as it was a interesting deviation from the more line of sight based formula of the MGS games, and the light/shadow based stealth of the Theif and Splinter Cell series (everything old is new again in that regards), but I’ve always been a fan of stealth games anyway. And I found the climbing and parkour to be fun and novel at the time, even if it is extremely “automated”.

Was fortunate enough to just rent AC 1&2 for the 360 at the time, so uPlay never really entered into my decision making.

But yeah, if you were a completionist, I could see how that would get extremely boring. And Ubisoft’s business practices are super shitty.

Oh god, I hear people take 50+ hours on this one, if that turns out to be 42+ of cut scenes I’m out.

But honestly, doubt I could finish the game at all. I think I’d lose interest in about 8 hours, maybe 12? I have a tendency to drop overly long open world games randomly, even when I’m actively enjoying them. It’s a problem.

But if they don’t let me skip the overly long cut scenes… I would probably have a hard time coming back after the first night. You gotta be real good at your job to get me to watch a movie when I wanna be playing a game.

FTL

The side that isn’t getting up in arms over historical inaccuracies in the AC series, which has always been at best “history adjacent” and heavy on embellishment anyway?

Certainly you don’t mean the side that waited until the embellishment involved a black person to start giving a fuck right?

Yeah, I’ve heard the story is… not a particularly strong aspect of the game to put it nicely. Maybe like, a 90% sale. I’d pay $7.99 for it! I bet I could get it down to a buck an hour at least at that price.

lol, that’s a fair take. Though I do love learning about history in games. And I enjoy when games allow me the chance to live out some childhood fantasy. So in that sense, I do care about the color of pixels, and shape, and implied fiction behind it all.

But different strokes for different folks.