Why are so many Codexers like this?

[KeighnMcDeath]

Hopefully shit isn't created that function like stardock.

 

[Thonius]

I pirated a LOT of games when I was a broke child/teenager, nowadays I don't pirate any game.

I'd say that's probably the way it happened for most of us.
I bought the odd game as a kid/teenager/student, but most I... "found on a bus".

But nowadays I have income, so there's really no reason not to buy a game if I want to play it.
When you have the income but don't even want to spend the price of a meal on a game, you're a dick and should get your rectum cleaned with a mining drill for educational purposes.

Nowadays I don't even bother with piracy, like dude 99% of games are not worth the traffic.

 

[Tihskael]

RPG Codex has a Slav problem.

Wrong. Central and Eastern Europeans are producing amazing games(pf:km, kdc, etc) and amazing mods(ret for g2 for eg) while westerners only produce shirt like Diablo 3. DOS2 and etc.

I don't think you understand. Temple of Elemental Evil? Exile 3? Knights of the Chalice? Betrayal at Krondor? Any entry in the Ultima, Wizardry, or Might and Magic series? Apparently all these games are shit compared to Twitcher 3, the poster boy of AAA mainstream trash. You know where Skyrim, the other poster boy of AAA mainstream trash, ranked? It didn't even break the top 100. You know why? Because it wasn't produced in some second world shit hole. Go to any other site, and those two games are nearly always ranked side-by-side. If you can't see that obvious Slav bias, you're a fucking shill.

Yes thou maketh a fine point, good sir! Indeed a game like Skyrim is worthy of a Top 20 spot, preferably the first if I must say so myself.

 

[JarlFrank]

Oh god I remember the combining and broken up files. A nightmare. You still run into those today.

I remember getting a bunch of files off of rapidshare and regularly one or two would be missing and the niggers on the forums would never reupload them or respond where to get replacements but they would charge for forum membership.

Warez-bb was a pretty comfy experience in the golden age of Rapidshare. Forum went to shit after Rapidshare and Megaupload died.

Warez comfy? I blame them for filling the family PC with spontaneous Porn pop-ups when I was a teenager. And not all the porn I was looking at.

When one wants to search his games on the high seas, one needs to keep his anti-virus software and malwarebytes updated.

Also read the comments on the torrent download.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Also, what if your game has no gameplay and I get to see everything that's to see on youtube in 4K? Did you just lose a sale?

You probably gain sales because the longer people spend looking at your product the more they're likely to buy it.

 

[Ravielsk]

If you can't see that obvious Slav bias, you're a fucking shill.

Risen 1? Sure, better in almost every way.
Risen 2/3? Nah, not even close.

Witcher 3 is what I would best describe as a "bloat game". Its filled with content to the brim but so its so poorly stitched together that it undermines the whole package. Yes, you have a ton of quests but due to how leveling works half of those quest will be deep bellow your level and reward basically nothing in terms of exp or money. There is plenty of unique items to collect and build your own Geralt... until you pick up the first witcher set and realize they literary eclipse everything else in the game. Sure, you have a complex combat system open to experimentation... if you are max level because for some reason all the interesting shit is at the very end of each skill tree. Yeah the story is pretty good but its a 10 hour narrative stretched over 100 hour game so basically 90% of it might just as well not exist.
It becomes only more apparent when you compare the main game with the DLCs which are both comparatively "small" when measured against the main game but significantly better because they are not so overloaded with "stuff" they have no idea what to do with.

Risen is a smaller game in every way but it knows its a small game and works within that framework. The best way I can explain it is that when playing it I never got this notion that I am dealing with something the developers placed into the game world without really knowing why while with Witcher 3 I felt that way almost constantly. Kinda like the LORT and Hobbit trilogy. Hobbit is spreading one book over three movies and while never truly awful you can feel how its creaking under the strain of it all while LOTR trilogy comfortably adapts three books into three neat movies and just works.

 

[samuraigaiden]

Honest question to those who still pirate regularly. Many games are being given out for free on all PC storefronts these days. Has this trend impacted your pirating habits in any way?

 

[Ravielsk]

Honest question to those who still pirate regularly. Many games are being given out for free on all PC storefronts these days. Has this trend impacted your pirating habits in any way?

Yes, I get them on epic and then download them.

 

[Lhynn]

Honest question to those who still pirate regularly. Many games are being given out for free on all PC storefronts these days. Has this trend impacted your pirating habits in any way?

I trust pirate sites more than i trust the epic launcher.

 

[Modron]

Been forever since I've pirated anything, that said if ACE drm showed up in a decent game I would pirate that probably since that is basically just spyware for the central party since they in part fund tencent. But at the same time I don't really have to worry about that since China has decided to kill games.

Increasingly invasive DRM and EULAs like Days Gone is making pirarcy more attractive.

 

[Tarkleigh]

Didn't Denuvo more or less solve piracy for the AAA games that can afford its protection? While the release groups can get around this, it takes a lot of time and isn't garantueed, there are quite a few titles (like the most recent FIFA installments for instance) that simply are not cracked even years after release. And even if a crack is available, most games are sold right after release when a pirated copy shouldn't be available under Denuvo. And most big titles also sell a lot of copies on consoles where piracy isn't a thing.

And it is not like there is much to copy anyway. Good RPGs simply are not being made at the moment and I highly doubt piracy is the reason for this. Mass Effect (the last really big RPG series that comes to my mind) was a massive success and probably still would be if they hadn't fucked up the ending of Mass Effect 3 and everything about Mass Effect Andromeda. The problem is not piracy but a lack of talent across the industry.

Edit: Completely forgot about Cyberpunk making a quadrillion dollars despite no DRM at all. When is CDPR going bankrupt, OP?

 

[Fedora Master]

Honest question to those who still pirate regularly. Many games are being given out for free on all PC storefronts these days. Has this trend impacted your pirating habits in any way?

The only storefront I use is Steam. Everything else is just all around worse with even fewer good games.

If a game is on Steam and uses some sort of 3rd party launcher, like Ubisoft, it's an outright no-buy. Not that I'd ever care to play Ubishit.

 

[Ismaul]

Honest question to those who still pirate regularly. Many games are being given out for free on all PC storefronts these days. Has this trend impacted your pirating habits in any way?

Yes, I get them on epic and then download them.

Why not just pirate? You think encouraging Epic absolves your conscience? LOL

 

[Rincewind]

And it is not like there is much to copy anyway. Good RPGs simply are not being made at the moment and I highly doubt piracy is the reason for this. Mass Effect (the last really big RPG series that comes to my mind) was a massive success and probably still would be if they hadn't fucked up the ending of Mass Effect 3 and everything about Mass Effect Andromeda. The problem is not piracy but a lack of talent across the industry.

Not necessarily. If you can spend X amount energy to produce "Game A" that will sell 2 millions of copies, or "Game B" that will sell 30 millions, only the second option makes sense if you're doing it for the money. Of course, probably no-one in the team will have a particularly good time creating it, and the end result will perhaps lack "soul", but as long as the masses are buying it, any reasonable business person (who's otherwise uninterested in games) would pick option B.

RPGs, adventures, and generally all other genres that require thinking could only ever achieve mainstream popularity in the 80s and to some extent in early 90s when computers were used only by a small group of select people (mainly scientists, programmers, high-IQ kids, and all sorts of other computing enthusiasts). It's a simple fact of life that the average IQ of any group decreases as the group size increases... It just cannot be any other way! The money of a button-masher has the same worth as that of the most prestigious RPG or adventure gamer, so guess what types of games will be made if the main criteria is to cash in as much $$$ as possible?

It's frankly perplexing this topic comes up so often. Maybe some of you are too young to remember, but I can recall the writings of some more honest gaming journalist in quite a few computer gaming magazines around the mid 90s bemoaning the fact that the game "industry" has been increasingly about making money and less about creativity and artistry (well, the word "industry" should give everybody a clue). Many have predicted it will all go to shit very soon; basically that we will get more and more eye candy, huge team sizes and "design by commitee" type of games, and not even the rehashing of the same good old ideas, but the dumbing down of gameplay to the most basic levels.

Sounds familiar?

As long as there is money in big stupid AAA games, this will not change. The reason Easter European developers are thriving these days is because there are lots of RPG fans in those countries, the cost of living is much lower there, so they can make a very good living selling these games even in relatively small amounts in the massive US market to niche audiences. Then we have the indie developers (regardless of country of origin) who are on a mission to create good games, and fuck money.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

I'm sorry what

Anyway clearly OP is a good addition to this site and I expect many more quality postings.

 

[Skinwalker]

Why is there a nine-page PIRACY IS WRONG thread on RPGCodex RPG discussion?

 

[Tarkleigh]

And it is not like there is much to copy anyway. Good RPGs simply are not being made at the moment and I highly doubt piracy is the reason for this. Mass Effect (the last really big RPG series that comes to my mind) was a massive success and probably still would be if they hadn't fucked up the ending of Mass Effect 3 and everything about Mass Effect Andromeda. The problem is not piracy but a lack of talent across the industry.

Not necessarily. If you can spend X amount energy to produce "Game A" that will sell 2 millions of copies, or "Game B" that will sell 30 millions, only the second option makes sense if you're doing it for the money. Of course, probably no-one in the team will have a particularly good time creating it, and the end result will perhaps lack "soul", but as long as the masses are buying it, any reasonable business person (who's otherwise uninterested in games) would pick option B.

RPGs, adventures, and generally all other genres that require thinking could only ever achieve mainstream popularity in the 80s and to some extent in early 90s when computers were used only by a small group of select people (mainly scientists, programmers, high-IQ kids, and all sorts of other computing enthusiasts). It's a simple fact of life that the average IQ of any group decreases as the group size increases... It just cannot be any other way! The money of a button-masher has the same worth as that of the most prestigious RPG or adventure gamer, so guess what types of games will be made if the main criteria is to cash in as much $$$ as possible?

It's frankly perplexing this topic comes up so often. Maybe some of you are too young to remember, but I can recall the writings of some more honest gaming journalist in quite a few computer gaming magazines around the mid 90s bemoaning the fact that the game "industry" has been increasingly about making money and less about creativity and artistry (well, the word "industry" should give everybody a clue). Many have predicted it will all go to shit very soon; basically that we will get more and more eye candy, huge team sizes and "design by commitee" type of games, and not even the rehashing of the same good old ideas, but the dumbing down of gampley to the most basic levels.

Sounds familiar?

As long as there is money in big stupid AAA games, this will not change. The reason Easter European developers are thriving these days is because there are lots of RPG fans in those countries, the cost of living is much lower there, so they can make a very good living selling these games even in relatively small amounts in the massive US market to niche audiences. Then we have the indie developers (regardless of country of origin) who are on a mission to create good games, and fuck money.

I would partly agree, the expected profit plays a huge role. This is also why everything has to be a "service game" these days and single player only titles without any kind of microtransactions are pretty rare. The big game companies saw that they could make a lot more money by adding stuff like Fifa Ultimate Team and changed their games accordingly. This put pressure on single player titles - like the vast majority of RPGs - because it is not so easy to include this stuff there. And of course, other genres are more profitable than pure RPGs so most AAA studios make Shooters or whatever genre this generic open world stuff is.

But we can't forget that the costs to make a AAA game have exploded in the last 30 years as did the time necessary to do it. In the early 90s, SEGA could create a new Sonic in a year or maybe a bit more with a handful of developers, now you have huge teams working years on stuff like Cyberpunk. The burn rate for these studios is off the charts which is why they have to add this much monetarization. The problem was already present in the 2000s but the big push for open world in the 2010s made it really big (and to be honest, I don't think open worlds have added anything of value). This also stops all experimentation as no pubisher wants to bet 300 million dollars on a new innovative gameplay idea.

The good news is that there are signs that the industry has also realized that this is not sustainable and I think we will slowly see AAA games become smaller again in this decade which would be good for everyone involved.

 

[Seigneur Locklear]

Some devs get really bent out of shape over pirating, and I can see why. Contrary to popular opinion, pirating does have a significant impact even on smaller-mid indies. For larger studios/pubs, it's so significant they resort to dumbfuck tactics like Denuvo or other DRM just to stop day 1 pirating. People constantly scratch their heads over why, but the answer is simple: they do it because it impacts their bottom line. Stuff they won't usually say in public.

I've yet to see any data that suggest denuvo actually improves sales.
e.g., Total War: Warhammer released without denuvo, the sequel released with denuvo. The sequel has a peak playercount ~30k less than the first title.

I haven't either, besides the fact that big publishers still keep using denuvo. I think that in itself speaks volumes. Like I said, I doubt they'll ever release hard data on why they use DRM.

Big publishers use Denuvo because they believe that the first month of sale is the most important, and cracking Denuvo takes longer than a month. Many games remove Denuvo later in their life: Dishonored 2 launched with it but now it has been patched out.

For big publishers it's all about preventing early piracy so people who are hyped and wanna play RIGHT NOW have no other choice than to buy the game at full price.

A lot of AAA games aren't supposed to have long term appeal either, so pirates' word of mouth isn't a factor for them. The big hype for day one purchasers is important. Gotta create FOMO among your audience so they think they'll miss out if they don't play it right away.

It's the ultimate marshmallow test. A really good one, for adults.

 

[Fowyr]

RPG Codex has a Slav problem.

Reminder: Twitcher 3 was rated the 15th greatest RPG of all time by this "prestigious" site.

We have a certain Brazilian problem, not the Slav one.

 

[JarlFrank]

Honest question to those who still pirate regularly. Many games are being given out for free on all PC storefronts these days. Has this trend impacted your pirating habits in any way?

The only storefront I use is Steam. Everything else is just all around worse with even fewer good games.

If a game is on Steam and uses some sort of 3rd party launcher, like Ubisoft, it's an outright no-buy. Not that I'd ever care to play Ubishit.

I use Steam and GoG and sometimes buy from a developer's own site if it's not available elsewhere (rare occurrence nowadays but it still happens).

I boycott Epic because their store is a piece of shit with zero user friendliness (not even user reviews, comments, discussions... LOL) and the terrible business model of hogging exclusives.

 

[Üstad]

I only pirate shit games.

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

Honest question to those who still pirate regularly. Many games are being given out for free on all PC storefronts these days. Has this trend impacted your pirating habits in any way?

I don't pirate anymore but even so most of the time I don't even accept those. Friends sometimes message me with codes to redeem some random 4 year old Indie game that blew up on YouTube, in some client I'd never install but I just close the window.

Spoiler

 

[OSK]

So because of your "massive backlog" you did not play any of the great Fallout 2 total conversions that were released in recent years? Neither Fallout: Resurrection nor Fallout of Nevada? Not even Olympus 2207?

Let's see: Czech, Russian, and Russian. Why am I not surprised that the self-proclaimed Central and Eastern European patriot would suggest those? I have zero reason to trust any opinion of yours on games from those regions. It's because of people like you, I'm wary to trust anything I read on these forums about Eastern European games. I almost missed out on Underrail because of this shit.

My, my, what a sad poser you are :D

You're a fucking meme, Lord_Potato. How about you drop your tracksuit pants and Slavic squat your way down a kielbasa, you thieving Polack.

 

[Cryomancer]

I rather play the worst Eurojank/Slavclunk over the best low lethality gear farming cooldown managing woke game made in Commiefornia.

 

[OSK]

I rather play the worst Eurojank/Slavclunk over the best low lethality gear farming cooldown managing woke game made in Commiefornia.

I'd rather play good games regardless of where they are from and read reviews from people who base them on the actual game instead of blatant nationalism.