legend

31 minutes ago, chakoo said:

 

I normally don't factor those people into my thoughts because they don't need this in the first place for their propaganda. We've learn that just making shit up and repeating it is all you need.

I'm not worried about it capturing more people than the crazies, I'm worried about it giving the crazies more reason to do something insane.

4 minutes ago, ThreePi said:

 

Yeah, initially I think its going to be a mess. But I don't think it'll mature enough to strongly influence this election. It seems easy enough to spot that anyone trying any funny business will get called out right away. Going into the future I think it'll just be like how no one trusts Google searches anymore because its predominantly slop that's been SEO'd to hell.

I sure do hope you're right about it not affecting the election!

Just now, chakoo said:

The sora stuff is impressive but I think people are over blowing how good it is. There is tell tell signs in all the videos it was done with AI. I'm a strong believer in the 80/20 % where its quick to get to that impressive 80% but it will take a really long time to ever finish that remaining 20%. 

For the malicious uses, I don't think that final 20% matters. Too many people are already willing to believe more blatantly obvious propaganda.

2 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

Perhaps, but when confronted with actual financial reality for the company by following such a course of action...who knows?

Yeah, I can't say for sure he would stay strong and veto it on principle even if would lead to ruin, but given the history of how he's run the company since the early days when he continued to push through financial problems, I could easily see him sticking to his guns.

1 minute ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

They don't "have" to, but I'm sure they really, really don't want to piss off an entity that owns nearly 1/3 of the company to the point where that entity would decide to sell its stake which could very well cause a capital issue!

I wouldn't be surprised if Swen told them to get fucked if they actually pushed on something he opposed strongly.

10 hours ago, ThreePi said:

 

Are we? Perhaps this just leads to a scenario where the media/internet is so flooded with cheap AI generated nonsense that people will start to inherently distrust anything on social media and bring about a return of reputable human-curated content. On a small scale, looking at stuff like the Wirecutter being one of the few bastions of seemingly honest consumer product reviews.

Humanity will eventually be able to navigate this. But the the first few years will have growing pains and this is coming out right during a presidential election with one of the most corrupt and incompetent candidates the US has seen. So it's not great!

19 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

 

Ehhhhhhh...that's kinda/sorta bending the truth a bit.

 

Larian absolutely does have "shareholders" (Tencent owns 30%) - it's just that they're "private" shareholders, not "public" ones.

 

 

Sure, but I think their meaning stands. Tencent doesn't voting rights (according to the article) so they don't have to make decisions with them in mind.

I think Larian has become my favorite developer.

'We don't have shareholders, but we also don't think about them,' Larian Studios uses its stage time at the DICE Awards to speak out against a brutal industry climate | PC Gamer

WWW.PCGAMER.COM

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"Building games that are actually fun is going to make you the most money, that's it."

1 hour ago, Keyser_Soze said:

Finally a music video that can appeal to @legend

 

 

That's some weird shit!

Peer review is only marginally better than nothing. And sometimes it keeps good stuff out!

1 hour ago, sblfilms said:

 

This is actually my brother Connor, who I have shared an account with since the days of IGN. It was kind of a running bit at this point, but probably 90% of the posts on the account were me me over the last 7-8 years  He is more of a lurker by nature.

 

I am good. I don't hate anybody here. I actually miss many of you goobers, even the ones who were kinda jerks  I have pretty much removed all internet socialization from my life (except for my very narrow baseball twitter account for during the season), and have intentionally leaned in to real world interactions as I think on balance digital communication has been a net negative for society. 

 

I am busy with my kids schooling, and now have a couple more kiddos I am tutoring through college. My oldest will be done with his bachelors next spring, so I have been doing a lot of LSAT prep stuff with him as I think he will take that this Fall? I am not entirely sure of the timeline quite yet on when he should take it. But it is a fun test. I did a few of the practice tests that are old LSAT exams, and it is legitimately a fun type of test.

 

I also am neck deep in a new business venture that involves a lot of travel. I've been in LA a bunch lately for meetings, and was in Park City for Sundance. The basic gist of the new company is we are a booking platform for filmmakers and theaters to connect to help fill the gap vacated by the major studios in the post pandemic world. The dummies gutted a lot of their theatrical production pipeline during the pandemic thinking that their direct to consumer dream was finally here. Whoops. Warners for example is probably 5 years away from being back to their old production output. So, so, so dumb. But it opens the door for what I am working on. It was really interesting to see how few movies sold out of Sundance as even the streamers have tightened their belts and aren't dropping dollars all over the place like they did through the 2023 film festival cycle.

 

I am having more and more conversation with filmmakers (directors and producers), as that is the side of the equation I understand the least. But the response has been really positive and I think we can crack the nut on making it a viable mechanism for theatrical distribution. Getting more content into cinemas, more varied content, and with more flexibility for both the content owners and the theaters is quite the trick to pull off, but I feel more certain of this than anything I've done in my professional career to date. My goal is to get out first title into theaters in January 2025, and I think we are on track for that. I'll hopefully have a decently far along version of the website in the next 8-ish weeks. I'll post a link so you can tell me what you think.

 

Anyway, if anybody wants to reach out to me, send me an email to sblfilms at gmail and I'll give you my cell number. I'll be all over the map the rest of the year at various film festivals and always enjoy sharing a meal with the D1Pers.

Glad things are still going well!

2 hours ago, stepee said:

 

I think the point of a single standard with no manufacturer variation (the 3D0 method) is so Sony can have their system, Xbox their system, maybe even the chips inside (bulky) tvs! And they can all play the same games, or you can play those games online. What I didn’t think about as I was spitballing are manufacturing costs. I’m not sure how that works on a supply line level.

 

But what's funny is with the last two systems, they are so close, they practically are already on the same hardware platform! It’s almost not that different of an idea besides you would have cross buy essentially - and maybe other companies would make their own XboxPS’s.

 

As for my other idea, at the end of the day I don’t think Sony or MS or anyone will be interested in consoles soon as it’s not worth the investment and cost and Cloud will become more viable and that is what they will target along with PC. 
 

So, I think actually stream lined steam boxes or something like that are the best chance 10-15 years from now for people who still want local machines but don’t want the hassle of a typical Windows pc.

If the hardware can't vary and different makes cannot be differentiated, I'm not sure why that would be an appealing business model for manufacturers. And if they do vary, then you're back to the software-hardware problem I described. It honestly seems easier to just port to the other platforms than try to find a model where this works for one neutral fixed hardware spec with (presumably) a common OS/driver stack.

There may come a day when just making games work across a range of hardware specs does kind of just work. PC has gotten better with time. And if it does, then I think this prospect opens up more because you can allow different manufactures to differentiate themselves with different hardware without a software problem. But we're still not there and may not be for some time. I don't see manufacture's jumping to it until then.

1 hour ago, best3444 said:

 

Can't tell if you're joking. 

 

Don't read my spoilers: 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

I cannot believe Jesse, Wedge, and Biggs died. Unless they magically appear soon. I genuinely thought I was at the end of the game when sector 7 got demolished. Then they got the ancient story rocking. Phew!

 

This game is LEAGUES better than FF16. The music is absolutely incredible. 

Yeah FF7R's soundtrack is second to none.

That scene is awesome. It's kind of hilarious to go back and watch the CG of it from the OG in comparison  

vs

The story beats hit so much harder with the better technology.

1 hour ago, stepee said:

 

Well one of my ideas was TO have fixed hardware targets! The standard includes a fixed hardware target and all console makers follow that. Then when technology advances enough the group behind the standard would update it to a new spec and people making the universal consoles/handhelds etc can create new machines that follow the new standard. This is kind of the 3D0 idea as skillz said.

 

My other more pc like standard would still address the ease of use by having the device makers work that on the UI level to make sure the settings are set best for the device. Steam OS is pretty close to there for actual supported games/features as far as never having to really troubleshoot things. The times I do have to is 99% of the time due to me trying to run things that aren’t verified.  This is probably a slight modification on the Steambox idea. The standard would essentially be the minimum requirement for the game. The standard would be more like a verification seal the device would get by the group behind the standard. 
 

I think the latter wouldn’t work well for casuals but could be a good middle ground for people who don’t want to use a Streaming service which the ultra casuals could use! But that same streaming license for the game would be valid for a device should they get one later as long as that device meets the minimum requirement standard. 

 

Or something! I’m not sure if we are quite there yet but I do think we are close especially as we get cloud as a backup for people. Cloud I think could work like how when you buy a disc today it includes a digital copy. You essentially get a license that works on all devices that can actually run it.

 

I think the companies can figure it out soon if they want to :P

I think having a standard hardware set is hard and kind of at odds with the very idea that different manufacture's make different things with varying levels of quality. 

Maybe something that will help emphasize why gaming is different and harder to do is that TV and music are just data and the manufacturer is free to make any hardware and software they want to consume that data. Games are not just data, they're also software that has to directly interface with the hardware the manufacturer provides. Consequently it's hard to have manufacturer variation. And if there isn't manufacturer variation, there is really no point to make a single platform from the manufacturer's side.

Having a nice console like interface on PC is all well and good, but it's a separate matter from the problem I'm highlighting.

1 hour ago, skillzdadirecta said:

This is really where the industry should be heading... game consoles should be basically like TV's or DVD players. Different companies could make them, but they play everything (except Nintendo). Console exclusves hurt the business more than help, especially with game development being so expensive. Imagine if Sony movies and music ONLY worked on Sony devices... it's a stupid business model.

A lot of people have echoed and expanded on what you said here, so my reply is to them too, but just quoting you seems easier  

The main issue with gaming not be able to adopt the DVD/Music frameworks is that gaming is a *vastly* more volatile technology. Yes, you can have better or worse speakers, but the core functioning of the media will work the same across devices because that level of technology is heavily codified.

Gaming, not so. New tech develops every year and it's complex enough that it doesn't "just work" on different hardware. The primary advantage consoles have over PC is fixed hardware targets. (Even if you have a pro unit, that's not much more to design against compares to PC).

Without fixed hardware targets, the volatility of the technology means there will be problems. What you end up with is exactly what we already have: the PC market. The scene is more stable today than it was before, but it's still not perfect. And while many of us are happy enough to deal with those issues (I primarily game on PC), it's still a problem for large portions of the population.

But hey, if the game industry wants to try this and decides linux is the neutral territory, thereby making linux more viable for gaming, I won't complain!

Not sure if Rebirth looks much better in detail, but the overworld is far bigger than any environment in Remake.

Also, this is good news.

I am watching and enjoying!

30 minutes ago, best3444 said:

@legend JFC 

 

  Hide contents

That entire scenario of Cloud dancing and dressing like a woman was gold. You were correct it was amazing. 

 

1 minute ago, Bacon said:

I've watched somewhere between 300-500 individual anime series.

Anime sucks.

Your opinions tend to lack a middle ground though  

41 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

Trust me, I've made up for it  

I'm trying to reflect on why that is the case, but I don't actually have great answers. The best I got is a combination of culture shock and the fact that the game has *so many fucking tutorials* at the start and it takes a long time before you are even in the main rhythm of the game.

Just now, Mr.Vic20 said:

This is my exact journey, but I bailed at around the 4 hour mark. I just couldn't take another screen of high school life text, it was killing my metaphorical soul! so you are saying I just need to suffer for a bit and all will be revealed?

 

Persona 5: It gets better! 

 Well, that's how it happened for me at least! I absolutely had the same reaction early on.

Games rarely majorly surprise me in terms of my ultimate opinion after a few hours. Good can go to great (and vice versa), and bad can go to terrible, but rarely cross that good/bad line.

But there is one major exception, which was Persona 5. I had no interest in it and I didn't watch anime. I felt pretty confident I wouldn't enjoy it. But a lot of people here and elsewhere recommended it (e.g., @Rev ). After the first few hours I was like "god this sucks, this is not for me, but I hear it gets better so I'll stick with it longer." At 10 hours in I was at "Okay, it's not that bad." At 20 hours in I was at "I'm enjoying it." At 50 hours in I was at "This is really good!" By the end I was at "this is one of my favorite RPGs!"

That's when I decided I should give anime more of a shot.

12 hours ago, best3444 said:

Game is dope. I hit a city that is very detailed and beautiful to look at. In the Colosseum it a fighting competition now. I'm easily beating this before Rebirth at this rate. 

You're getting close to the Honeybee, the greatest sequence in the game.

6 hours ago, Bacon said:

Uh, is this real?

 

 

Looks like some LOD textures failed to load.

51 minutes ago, Biggie said:

The exploration is poorly done. Things like items and chest are placed basically right in front of you where you are going to be walking to advance the game. There is no sense of discovery at all. 

The game's not wide open for sure, but the chests you're talking about were not meant to be exploration rewards. They're for preparation of what's next and to keep you going forward. So that's not exactly a meaningful statement  There are definitely other things to find that you have to look around for.

That all said, if that was your one issue, that won't be a problem in Rebirth.

1 minute ago, best3444 said:

 

I did do that. For instance I was in a section where there were 3 turret guns and a big machine and I litteraly couldn't dodge all the attacks. Like it felt cheap in a way. On normal your health drops so fast. 

There's usually a counter for everything. Machines can often be fried with lightning. It's also possible your materia setup isn't good?