After VtM 1’s tumultuous release, not to mention the drama surrounding the sequel’s development, that makes sense to me.

That being said, I don’t think it’s quite as big a leap as the person above is making it sound. To use their words, The Chinese Room are known for “strong art direction, atmosphere, and story, [and] weak gameplay”. They also suggest that the games TCR make are “the exact opposite” of Bloodlines 1. Which is kinda boggling my mind, cause I’m pretty sure the critical and user consensus of that game is that it excelled in its art direction, atmosphere, and story, and fell comparatively short in its gameplay. In fairness, I think he was referring to the limited open world nature of VtM 1 vs the straight linearity of the “walking sim” genre, but still. I’d argue the most memorable section of VtM is the Ocean House Hotel, which is, basically, a linear walking sim level, and it’s not as though the og game did a ton with its open world.

Now there’s an argument to be made that Paradox made the wrong call by doubling down on the peripheral elements of the game, rather than hiring a team that has ARPG gameplay bonafides, but I think that’s only an argument that can be made with the benefit of hindsight. Additionally, is it true that the gameplay/combat of VtM2 is glaringly bad? I can’t speak for myself, but the handful of reviews I read characterize it as serviceable at worst. Which, again, seems right in line with the first game.

I’m very much on the outside looking in though.

Apropos of nothing more than my idle speculation, I’d guess they will return to the transport tycoon genre if they are able to do so. Before Skylines took the crown from SimCity as the preeminent example of the genre, they made the Cities in Motion games, which were narrowly focused on improving the mass transit of existing cities (as opposed to building the city itself). I know the second CiM game had some interaction between the city and your efforts as transportation czar (in the same way you could indirectly influence a citiy’s development in, say Railroad Tycoon), but the emphasis was always on transit. I imagine the newly independent team will want to keep their focus narrow, unless another publisher swoops in to replace the safety net.

Sorry man, I’m not knowledgeable enough about computers to provide a summary, but I’ll mention this fun tidbit: apparently, the shipped version of task manager contained thus guy’s home phone number in the code by accident. He commented it out, but left the phone number in there, which means he can find instances of the source code being hosted online by reverse searching his home phone. Which is still a number he maintains, and he asks people not to call. Which is a bold thing to leave in the video imo

Rad! I love the docs that Danny and the rest of the team do, and I just watched a bit of the preview they did of the tavern keeper game. Glad they’re having success enough to expand a little.

Tyl what til means!

I think you might reconsider what qualifies as “best case scenario” if you end that statement with “when this thing goes, it’s taking the industry with it”. Like, best out of a bad bunch, for sure, but the best possible outcome?

Ah, the old adage holds true: everytime Morrowind is mentioned, someone starts a fresh install.

Man, if they aren’t putting “It’s David Cronenberg’s Kenshi, more or less” on the metaphorical box, they’re making a mistake.

Unfortunately, you are mistaken. Ross is indeed the founder of the initiative. If you look at the SKG homepage you’ll see Ross is the sole contact listed.

Additionally, here is a PC Gamer article from April 2024 (the month The Crew’s servers shut down) which cites Ross as the founder of the initiative.

I believe he may have reduced his most visible contributions to the movement after it became about gathering signatures in the EU, since he is not a citizen. I could be wrong on that front though.

Are you insane, or have you achieved CHIM?

Not that there’s an appreciable difference…looking at you, Michael Kirkbride.

TIP TEAM!

Try these cool moves, like, playing the game!

…God I miss forum-based let’s plays. I was never a SA member (Something Awful, not Sturmabteilung, though there’s probably some degree of overlap there), but I did browse the lparchive website once upon a time. Some folks put so much effort into their presentation, I want sure where the game ended and the LP narrative began.

There was one in particular that was an LP of the Blade Runner adventure game. That’s a game I had watched my dad play on our family Compaq back in the day, so I thought I knew what I was getting into, but the combination of the game having secret narrative branches (that change based on a random seed when you start a new game, I think) and the posts being written in a first person, hard-boiled noir style, made me think that we had played different games.

For sure! You’ve convinced me to give it another look after unfairly writing it off. It sounds much more interesting than I originally anticipated.

Could be that I’m a product of a country which produced Kevin Costner as Robin Hood, and therefore don’t have the best grip on the culture cross the pond, but I feel like suggesting “Arthurian”=“Irish” might get you in trouble in certain pubs.

Interesting. I remember taking a look at the previous game from a couple of years ago because, in spite of myself, edgelord dark fantasy is still appealing to me if it’s done knowingly (which is different, I’ll hasten to add, from not taking it seriously). However, one glance at the screenshots told me it was a deck-building game and I immediately disregarded it. It’s just not a mechanic or loop that I enjoy.

However, given that this appears to be to Skyrim what, say, The Outer Worlds is to Starfield (narrative tone notwithstanding), my interest is piqued.

Are you enjoying the game?

I mean, would you say modern Italian culture is the same as Roman culture? Devoid of context, the idea that your civilization evolves over time isn’t a bad one from a fluff standpoint, and, as another user mentioned, it increases the likelihood of niche or late-game specific civs getting play, so I can see mechanical benefit too.

That being said, if anyone said the execution fell flat, I’ve no reason to doubt them.

Love me some Goth Gamer Nation, but the other creator is unknown to me. Always happy to find another creator though, thanks for the recommendation.

I mean, that’s the goal of all of these AI companies. If you peruse any marketing material for Google, Microsoft, ChatGPT, Grok, etc. they almost all mention the “agentic capabilities” of their flavor of spyware.

Personally, an AI model which is capable of doing tasks like this would actually interest me. However, no organization (for profit or otherwise) is trustworthy enough to have access to all of the data on me that it would take to make an agentic AI actually useful, so, for me, it would have to be something I run locally. However, rather than invest all of the time, effort, and money into learning how to make that happen, I think I’ll just call the damn dealership and schedule an appointment. I may suffer from terminally online brain rot, but I’m not so paralyzed by human interaction I can’t make the occasional phone call.

AgenTic, not Agenic. As in, an AI that acts as your agent. Meaning, the goal would be to have an AI model that you could direct to perform certain tasks in the background while you focus on other things.

For example, youre in the middle of doing something or another when you remember that your oil change is due. You pull up KraftonAI and tell it to “book me a service appointment for my vehicle at the dealership this weekend”. The AI proceeds to work on that task in the background, only prompting you for input if it meets a road block it doesn’t understand.

No, you’re fine, I totally understand the mistake. I AM a pretty big HoMM fan and I was unaware that they had licensed out the IP as well, so I can’t blame you for not knowing.