Games
Out of my friends list of 45 people, I know that's not a lot but still, small list of friends that I have that have played this game actively since the very beginning, two of them still play the game and one of them does not even subscribe full-time. Only when there's a major update.... When I asked every single one of my friends why they no longer play anymore the same exact reason was said. “They were taking over by an investment company, and now it just seems like a silly cash grab. They keep raising the prices, keep missing the mark, don't listen to players.” <<< One of my friends said this to me.... **So let's get the facts straight here** According to [Jagex full accounts report in 2008](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/03982706/filing-history/MjAyNDYwMjkzN2FkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf&download=0) from the UK government website, they made $10 million in profit back in 2008. So they were not operating at a loss. Their [profit for the year 2022](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/03982706/filing-history/MzQxNjQxMDEyMWFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf&download=0) is up to 38 million. Jagex's profit rose from £10 million in 2008 to £38 million in 2022, a 280% increase. From 2008's price of $7.95 to the current price of $13.99, the RuneScape membership price has increased by approximately 76%. **So in other words, Jagex profit has risen by 280% since 2008, and They raised the subscription by over 80%. If we count the entire lifespan of RuneScape, it's gone up by 180%. This is: corporate greed**. For reference, by the way, World of Warcraft has never once had to increase their subscription price ever. We also have bonds in our game, and RS3 is completely monetized. A monetized game and a subscription is absolutely insanity, when you add in percentage increases to the subscription price, that's just silly Edit: [A reddit user also pointed out](https://www.reddit.com/r/2007scape/s/GFRuzO9Wwd) that you have to pay $14 a month for EVERY character, even if you're part of the same account. WoW let's you have 60+ characters in your subscription.
Today’s game is Borderlands the Pre-Sequel. Me and a Friend are getting ready for something tomorrow. So we were low on time. We ended up playing some Borderland to save on time. I played claptrap. I don’t have much of a story this time due to just not playing very long, so instead I’ll talk about the game. I can see why this game was so well received back in the day. A lot of the humor still stands up well, at least imo, and the gameplay cycle is fun. One of the guns I had I could throw when I reload and they explode which is incredibly satisfying to do. On top of that Claptraps special perk is fun, especially when it irritates the people I’m playing with, such as one that makes them continuously fire according to my friend. Overall I had a lot of fun just playing around in the game with my friend and doing some side quests.
As the title says. PS5 is a pain in the arse for not putting patch notes on the console and I hate having to scour the internet to try and find what's new in an update. Whether it be "join our Discord" or Facebook pages or hoping someone posts it in a subreddit. So are there any sites or apps that do this well?
*Dagon* is originally a short story by the creator of the eldritch horror genre, H.P. Lovecraft. This version is a free game on Steam that converts his short story into a visual novel. A narrator reads through the tale while you experience the visuals and landscapes described in the story. You can look around you (and it supports VR too!) but you can't walk and explore. You're stuck in place and only move on as you advance the story.  Throughout the game, you can find hidden bits of trivia, which dive deeper into topics surrounding H.P. Lovecraft's life, the story itself, or other bits of background lore to help you understand the time period in which this story was written.  H.P. Lovecraft himself was terrified of the ocean and all aquatic life, ever since he was two years old; although he has no idea what event may have instilled that fear within him. However, he took that fear and translated it into a new genre of unknowable and incomprehensible horror that defied the rules for standard storytelling of the time. As someone who is also afraid of any body of water in which I can't see the bottom, I totally get it.  *Dagon* is a tale about a sailor who escapes from enemy capture on the high seas by slipping out in a small rowboat in the night. But when he awakes the next morning, he is no longer on the ocean, as a muddy land mass has risen above the ocean level, stranding him along with all sorts of hidden creatures from the deep.  He sees a peak in the distance and spends the next day and night journeying toward it, only to discover on the other side, a giant monolith illuminated in the moonlight, engraved with pictograms of horrifying creatures. But then a creature stirs from deep within a pool at its base...  As a narrative short story, this game will only take you maybe 30 mins or less to play through. But it's fun to search through each area for trivia to collect. There are 20 bits of trivia to find scattered throughout the core game.  The base game is free on Steam, but there are two separate short story DLCs you can buy for a few bucks each. The first is *The Little Glass Bottle*, a short story H.P. Lovecraft wrote when he was seven years old! It's a cute tale about treasure hunting in the ocean that has no horror elements in it. The second story is *The Railway Horror*, which was a nightmare H.P. Lovecraft experienced and wrote about to a friend of his. Both stories have eight bits of trivia each, giving you further background into Lovecraft's life and works.
Today’s game is Alan Wake. I finally started on Episode 6. I was hoping to clear it in one go and nab the Gunless wonder achievement too. So far I’m doing good. But I got stuck on this section in some woods where I don’t have any flares or flashbacks, and since I can’t use guns or I’ll lose the achievement, I’m basically at the hardest challenge yet I’ve had yet I think. On top of that my battery almost died so I put my console to sleep and plan to finish the last 10~ Minutes tomorrow and start on DLC 1 & DLC 2. The after that I think I might do American Nightmare before Alan Wake II. It’s not too long of a game so I should be able to clear it easily. This screenshot I took right outside the Majestic Motell. I want to also use this to talk about the games awesome attention to detail as well. While trying to avoid as many spoilers as possible, In one of the books we follow a protagonist who stays in this hotel, and he stays in the same room Agent Nightingale stayed in. He finds Agent Nightingale’s notes in the Air Vents while looking for a place to store his Dream Journal. Lo and behold. What do I find in the Air Vents in Agent Nightingale’s room?  Anyways, I love this game’s attention to detail. I really hope Alan Wake II has the same because it’s something remedy does well at on top of original gameplay imo.
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> You can’t really gauge its Steam reviews because there are only 13(!) total so far, reflective of a game that has launched with just a few hundred players. 224, as I’m writing this article. Sub-Concord levels. Yes. Concord is a unit of measurement now. The Concord legacy lives on.
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cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/20779359 > Been working on this one for a while and I'm eager to share it. UFO 50 is a collection of 50 retro-style games, and I decided to write a blog post reviewing every single one. Enjoy!
Coming to PC January 30th, 2025.
What game has the best thunderstorm? [@games](https://lemmy.world/c/games) [#games](https://hostux.social/tags/games) [#gaming](https://hostux.social/tags/gaming)
*Bendy and the Ink Machine* is a game about an animation studio that tried to bring their classic cartoon characters to life... with horrifying consequences.  You play a man named Henry who was invited back to the old animation studio he used to work at, by Joey Drew, the head of Joey Drew Studios (which is also this game's developer).  When you arrive, you find the place empty(?), but you also find a giant ink machine that you've never seen before. Through cassette recordings, you learn how to power it up and... before you know it, there's an ink demon running amok through the halls! You try to run for the exit, but find yourself falling deep into the bowels of the studio. From there, you're solving puzzles and fighting off ink monsters, while also hiding from Bendy himself as he awkwardly staggers around the floors randomly.  You also run into Sammy Lawrence, the former studio's music director, who accidentally ingested some of the ink and partially turned into an ink monster himself. He offers you up as a sacrifice for Bendy, hoping to be rewarded with his humanity.  At one point, you get a choice to head toward either The Demon or The Angel. I chose the angel and found myself at the mercy of a disfigured and insane Alice Angel from the Bendy cartoon series. I'm not sure what's on the demon side; perhaps I should replay it and try that route.  Eventually, you receive a sort of handmade black light that lets you see hidden messages on the walls that guide you. Once you beat the game, it will let you start the game with the black light. I'm excited to play this game over and see what messages I can find in the various rooms and hallways.   I first played this game when it was releasing in 5 separate chapters and I was hooked! Unfortunately, I never beat it. The instructions weren't clear back in the early versions of the game and I found myself wandering aimlessly around several floors, not sure what I needed to do. I don't think I ever finished chapter 3. Then I picked it up again last night and ended up beating the whole thing in a single sitting. It was much clearer with the full version of the game, and I powered through the whole thing in about 5 hours.  There is a spin-off called *Boris and the Dark Survival*, which is a top-down survival game where you play as Boris the Wolf. You collect supplies while trying to avoid Bendy as he roams around. According to its Steam page, the game will soon be renamed to *Bendy: Lone Wolf*, add a bunch of improvements and add-ons to the game, and increase its price. It's only $3 right now, so might as well snatch it up before it gets more expensive! Then there was a sequel to the main game called *Bendy and the Dark Revival*. You play as Audrey, an animator who found herself trapped in the dark studio at the mercy of Bendy and his ink monsters. There is also a free Steam game that came out this year called *Bendy: Secrets of the Machine*, which doesn't really give a description and its trailer is just a tease without explaining anything. I need to play that and see what it's all about. Finally, there's a upcoming game called *Bendy: The Cage*, which takes place during Bendy and the Dark Revival. It sounds like it will follow our original protagonist, Henry, during that game.
Today's game is Just Cause 4. I wanted to take it easy after an exhausting week of work. At this point i doubt i'll make much of a dent in Alan Wake II by Halloween, but it's better than burning myself out and not having fun. I picked Just Cause 4 because it was the one i had installed. I have more nostalgic memories of Just Cause 3 and dicking around in that. But Just Cause 4 is a lot of fun too with the balloons and stuff. I ran around and did a few missions and tethered some guys and their cars to some Balloons. You're seeing the after effects here. I also had a lot of fun strapping the boosters to the bottom of a car with balloons and getting in and turning it on. The car took flight and would crash into other cars. Has the same kind of chaotic feel as Red Dead Redemption and Wagon Surfing.
Today's game is Phasmophobia. Me and my Friend decided to celebrate finishing our midterms by playing this. We found out we actually have *turn on* the motion sensors, and then i watched my friend stumbler out into the front yard and get choked to death (I took a photo of the ghost while it happening and got some extra cash though! So really *who* won?). In another job my friend was bitching me out for taking photos because they're "useless". Jokes on him though because the $12 dollars we got after failing to guess right came from my photos of the sink. Here's a bonus photo of my friend up in my face while i'm trying to steal a cat photo from the house: 
Don't let the colorful kiddie-friendly graphics fool you; Pumpkin Jack is a game about literal hell on Earth. It takes place in a world where everything was so happy and peaceful, the devil himself got bored and decided to shake things up a bit by releasing monsters across the world. Humans didn't like having their peaceful lives interrupted like that, so they hired a wizard to protect them against the invading hordes of demons. In response, the devil summoned an infamous trickster known as Jack to take out the wizard. He granted Jack a jack-o-lantern body and offered to free his soul if Jack did this one task for him.  You play as Jack, roaming the lands and fighting various monsters who prevent you from tracking down the wizard. You recruit a crow, who helps you with ranged fighting while you engage in close-quarters combat.   Some places require you to explore and solve a simple puzzle in a place your body can't reach. In those situations, Jack will detach his head and let it crawl around on vine-like tentacles.  Despite releasing in 2020, this game feels like a classic Xbox 360 game from 20 years ago. From the graphic style to the gameplay, this feels like something you'd find in a bargain bin at the game store. It's entertaining, silly, and filled with mechanics that feel like they were designed for a controller.  Not to mention, each level is essentially a single path through various obstacles and enemies. If you do explore, it's only slightly to one side or another, looking for collectibles. If you find crow skull collectibles, you can exchange them for skins for Jack at a vendor who randomly pops up in each of the levels. You can also find gramophones. I believe the only purpose of collecting them is to get an achievement, but Jack does a little dance number every time you find one, which is mildly amusing.  The game itself is relatively short. There are 6 main levels, but various checkpoints and stages throughout each one. So it should only take you a few hours to beat the whole game. Plus, there are 20 crow skulls and one gramophone per level, so 120 skulls and 6 gramophones in total. Honestly, that's the most early-2000s game vibe I get from this - searching for pointless hidden collectibles that aren't remotely connected to the story. It's not a bad game, but as old-fashioned as the gameplay is, I definitely wouldn't pay more than $20 max for it. And hey! It's 88% off on Steam until October 20th, so you can get it for only $3.59 right now. Not a bad Halloween deal.
This Zombie Army franchise is actually a spin-off of the Sniper Elite video game franchise, which portrayed fictional Allied missions carried out by the series' main hero, Karl Fairburne, during World War II. The Zombie Army story takes place in a separate alternate history where Hitler, upon losing WWII, decided to enact "Plan Z" and resurrect all of the Wehrmacht's soldiers as zombies.  The first two Zombie Army games were compacted into a trilogy release with the third game. This trilogy had Hitler raising his undead army, being killed off, and then resurrected as a sentient zombie leader before being tossed in hell. This fourth and latest game has millions of zombies running rampant across Europe. It's discovered that Zombie Hitler is still leading the hordes from hell and is now amassing a new zombie army with which to invade Earth. You play as the hero from the Sniper Elite games, Karl Fairburne. Or, if you prefer, you can play as various other characters from the franchise (and even some from the Left 4 Dead franchise). I personally prefer to play as Jun, an original Chinese character for this game. Each character has different stats, so it's not just choosing a skin for your character; you have to be mindful of their abilities too.  Like the Sniper Elite games, one of the core mechanics of this game is to snipe zombies from afar. Thankfully, these are the clumsy, shambling, slow zombies, so you have time to line up shots, even in a short and narrow area. If you get a perfect aim on a vital organ, it rewards you with a slow-motion cutscene of your bullet firing, zipping across the map, and an x-ray view of the enemy's skeleton shattered or vital organs exploded by your bullet. With rotting zombies, though, there's not much difference between the x-ray view and their normal appearance.  These are supernatural zombies, raised with occult magic, so they don't stay dead. If you don't get a headshot on them, don't be surprised if their body suddenly glows with occult magic and comes back to life. A good way to ensure they don't get back up is to stomp on their corpse until it disintegrates in a gory mess. It'll sometimes release ammo and other beneficial items too!  I love the attention to detail in this game. All across the map, you can find zombie rats and crows with glowing red eyes. They leave you alone, but it's still super creepy how they just linger in the shadows, silently watching you. It's truly a world-building detail, which makes me think about how The Black Plague was spread through rats. I wonder if these rats would turn people into zombies if they got bit...  There are also other signs of the occult in the background, like a zombie hand running around each level that you can snipe for bonus points. Or these creepy china dolls that pop up in various places. Sometimes they're just dolls, sitting there unmoving in dark corners. Other times, they talk or move slightly. And sometimes you have mere seconds to shoot them before they just straight-up vanish into thin air after taunting you. Creepy dolls, man...    You can also find these random zombie heads that are technically alive, but unable to do anything. This one in particular, you could turn on the stove and cook it until it melts into the soup. I like the sign someone wrote on the wall behind the stove. Very important detail to remember!  I find it interesting that this game takes place in mid-1940s Europe, but the music in the game is reminiscent of '80s horror flicks, including posters for each mission that look like worn B-movie horror films from that generation. Also, when you pick up equipment and ammo during a mission, it makes a sound like an old-fashioned mechanical pinball machine from the '80s. It's like they kept the WWII setting from the Sniper Elite games, but wanted an '80s horror vibe for this game. Classic horror films from the '80s have been pretty popular in the past decade; I feel like Stranger Things helped to bring back that nostalgia for us millennials who grew up in the '80s and '90s, so they were probably trying to cash in on that nostalgia trip while it's hot.
Hi there, I'm hosting a dedicated server for satisfactory on my homeserver. It has 16 GB of ram which are 30% used WITH the game running and 4 cores which are barely touching 15% usage, also with the game running. I checked my connection and it is fairly stable, both on lan and wifi otherwise. I switched to lan so I could debug the connection but it seems like a different problem then wifi. The server is running in a container from this repo: https://github.com/wolveix/satisfactory-server. My guess would be that I maybe have accidentally limited the server in terms of ram or cpu usage. Will check. Let me know if anyone else has this issue. Have a good one. :)
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A co-op shooter set in the Control/Alan Wake universe... Seems neat.
