How does this KEEP GETTING WORSE??
And this is not even beginning to touch content and features from other released versions of these games from 20 years ago not present, like four-screen splitscreen."
It’s so cool and amazing that we finally have home theatre systems in every fucking house, and that’s when devs decided we don’t get split screen anymore. Modern hardware is wasted on modern devs. Can we send them back in time to learn how to optimize, and bring back the ones that knew how to properly utilize hardware?
It’s so cool and amazing that we finally have home theatre systems in every fucking house
Yeah I’ve noticed this too and it bothers me. We had 4 way split on 20inch tube tvs on hardware that measure their ram in MBs… But on modern 75+inch tvs on consoles with GBs of ram… Nah, too hard. You need to buy 4 copies of the game and have 4 separate setups… and probably need to be in 4 separate houses.
Couch co-op dying is basically when I stopped bothering with consoles all together. If I’m going to use a glorified PC, might as well just use a full fat PC and ignore consoles all together. I miss the N64 days.
We had 4 way split on 20inch tube tvs on hardware that measure their ram in MBs
And were still compute-bound. Things like the N64 pretty much used resources per pixel, mesh data being so light that the whole level could be in the limited RAM at the same time – and needed to be because there weren’t CPU cycles left over to implement asset streaming. Nowadays the only stuff that is in RAM is what you actually see, and with four perspectives, yes, you need four times the VRAM as every player can look at something completely different.
Sure you can write the game to use 1/4th the resources but then you either use that for singleplayer and get bad reviews for bad graphics, or you develop two completely different sets of assets, exploding development costs. I’m sure there also exist shady kitten-drowing marketing fucks who would object on reasons of “but hear me out, let’s just sell them four copies instead” but they don’t even get to object because production-wise split-screen isn’t an option nowadays for games which aren’t specifically focussing on that kind of thing. You can’t just add it to any random title for a tenner.
You know, a fun game doesn’t have to be built to use all available resources.
Modern hardware is wasted on modern devs. Can we send them back in time to learn how to optimize, and bring back the ones that knew how to properly utilize hardware?
I think a lot of the blame is erroneously placed on devs, or it’s used as a colloquialism. Anyone who has worked in a corporate environment as a developer knows that the developers are not the ones making the decisions. You really think that developers want to create a game that is bad, to have their name attached to something that is bad and to also know that they created something that is bad? No, developers want to make a good game, but time constraints and horrible management prioritizing the wrong things (mostly, microtransactions, monetizing the hell out of games, etc) results in bad games being created. Also, game development is more complex since games are more complex, hardware is more complex, and developers are expected to produce results in less time than ever before - it’s not exactly easy, either.
It’s an annoyance of mine and I’m sure you meant no harm by it, but as a developer (and as someone who has done game development on the side and knows a lot about the game development industry), it’s something that bothers me when people blame bad games solely on devs, and not on the management who made decisions which ended up with games in a bad state.
With that said, I agree with your sentiments about modern hardware not being able to take advantage of long-forgotten cool features like four-screen splitscreen, offline modes (mostly in online games), arcade modes, etc. I really wish these features were prioritized.
It’s not a question of capability. It’s a question of cost-benefit spending developer time on a feature not many people would use.
Couch coop was a thing because there was no way for you to play from your own homes. Nowadays it’s a nice-to-have, because you can jump online any time and play together, anywhere in the world, without organizing everyone to show up at one house.
It’s a question of cost-benefit spending developer time on a feature not many people would use
Which is super ironic when you look at games that had an obviously tacked-on, rushed multiplayer component in the first place, such as Spec Ops: The Line, Bioshock 2 and Mass Effect 3
What do you think would happen if the mod authors filed a DMCA takedown against the game?
Their lawyers tie you up with a lot of legal fees trying to get you to defend it, if you don’t they take you to court for a frivolous suit.
Either way they win and you lose, even if you’re right.
I don’t see it playing out positive unfortunately.
Can the lawyers on the receiving end of a DMCA takedown take the other party to court for a frivolous suit? I thought one of the problems was that there is no recourse for those on the receiving end of a bad DMCA takedown?
What I think would happen is the modders send a DMCA takedown, and EA either does take it down, or they file a “we’re not violating copyright, promise” form and then that’s the end of the DMCA. If they file the “we’re not violating copyright” form, then from there the modders can file a normal copyright violation suit if they choose.
Right, EA would file a counter-notice. Then the modder would have to get lawyers involved and file an actual legal complaint, and EA would respond with their lawyers.
But once they file the counter-notice, you could just stop there. They could sue you for filing in bad faith, but I’ve never heard of that happening.
Nothing. Modders suddenly feeling they should be paid is really entitled and kind of crazy. Hey I made some fan art of a marvel character, should marvel pay me?
Modding isn’t a job, and you can’t make money off of someone else’s game
Their art, their copyright.
They don’t expect to be paid, but they do expect that their copyright not be violated.
They might expect pay in exchange for granting a license to use their copyright art.
Hey I made some fan art of a marvel character, should marvel pay me?
When they use that fan art in the next official marvel movie, yes absolutely they should.
But it’s their character, you didn’t ask permission to make the art out of a copyright, why should they pay you?
They’re still taking something they didn’t make and selling it as though they did. I have every right to write and film a Batman movie, spend as much time I want making it professional, and then show it to people, as long as I don’t charge them for it. That doesn’t give Fox or whoever the right to take my movie and charge for it instead. Even if I did break the law by making people pay for it, the actual owners would only be entitled to that money, not to go make mroe money off of it themselves. It’s still my work even if it uses concepts invented by someone else.
There’s a reason every franchise under the sun has mountains of fanart and fanfic without the companies that own them trying to take control of it: it’s blatantly illegal.
It’s their character, but it’s your work.
They cant just steal your work for their own monetary gain, just the same as you cant steal their character for your own monetary gain.
Both sides have contributed something here, but one side is profiting off the other through theft.
But the rub is, under fair use you can’t profit from it though, so as soon as you accept payment, now they can sue you. So in the end, they win and get it for free regardless.
If the rights holders enter into a contract and pay you for your work, I don’t think they can turn around and sue you for making a profit off of it. I’m no lawyer, but I don’t think the law is that far gone.
But how can they make a contract? Signing it would violate fair use exemption before that could be argued.
Corps are abusing a conflict within the laws, it’s not even a loophole, it’s just the unfortunate way the laws that protect each person/industry don’t agree.
Profit is not explicitly one of the four factors of fair use.
Well yeah, if Marvel released their next movie and it was literally the fan art.
You’re conflating two different things.
There’s modders who whine about working for free. And yes, modding is a choice.
Where in this incident is stolen work.
It’s not work . I’m currently modding a game, it’s a hobby. And I’d be entitled as hell to think I should be paid for it.
This “pay the modders” thing will just lead to more micro transactions. You want to download that created wrestler in the new game? It was made by so and so, you now owe. $9.99. fuck that
It’s not about pay the modders so much as if the developer of the game took your mod, put it in the game proper, claimed it was their work, and charged people for it.
Can you link your mod files so I can sell them without your knowledge or consent please? Seeing as you have no problem with it…
Yeah they’re up on the games site for free
If you make something and give it away for free, that’s fine.
If you make something and I sell it to the masses for a profit without your permission that’s theft.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/work
I found several definitions where this meets the definition of “work”, but I’m interested to hear your argument about how “time and effort spent doing a task” is not work.
Nobody hired you to mod someone else’s art. It’s a hobby. I can’t put brush to someone else’s painting and demand payment
This is the wrong comparison. If you painted a modified version of an existing painting, the original painter can’t take your work and sell it against your will.
Actually it’s more like you modifying someone else’s video game and then selling it as your own
It’s EA. That’s how it keeps getting worse.
The original was EA, this re-release is Aspyr, so as bad as EA are I’m not convinced that they’re to blame here.
Wait… I just had to look them up. The company behind kotar?? Okay now that fucking hurts. I’m used to the fall of EA but… Damn
Aspyr is the company behind KotOR’s mobile, Linux, and modern ports. Bioware was behind the original KotOR, and they were bought and ruined by EA.
Okay, I should have looked a little more I was just looking at the years. It sounded like the original release years. That’s what I get for half assidly googling while I work lol.
So it’s like when Rockstar turned the GTA remasters over to the phone people and we ended up with a clusterfuck.
Aspyr’s KotOR port was considered pretty good, I believe. I was disappointed in their Civilization series ports for Linux because their netcode was incompatible with the Windows versions, which is baffling to me, considering Linux users are already siloed so much in other ways. But the games ran okay, so it wasn’t all bad.
But yeah, I haven’t really heard any good updates or news come out of Aspyr for a while. If I recall correctly, they were the original devs for the KotOR remake, which was going to be their first game from the ground up from a technical perspective. But they had that taken away from them after working on it for a year or two, which is crazy. It must’ve truly been awful.
The mobile KotoR port was completely broken and you could never leave the Jedi Temple planet.
Jade Empire crashed on launch and was never fixed but they kept selling it.
Ask me how I know. Fuck Aspyr, they’ve been shit for at least 10 years and I wont ever touch their products again.
