games

This is for the like 4 people here that might be interested. I want to start a Hexbear Racing League and hotlap leaderboard. How I imagine the leaderboard will work is like this: post your system and game, the track, the car, and the track conditions. Then post proof of the lap time. I will curate the lap times into a spreadsheet/document that we can all see, and I will update it as new laps come in.

Other racers may then challenge your hotlap time. This will force people to use cars on tracks they may not be familiar with, but that's how we get better. Also, it's helpful to see how someone else's line affects their time.

I might also set up a discord if there is enough interest in it to facilitate the need. If we can get enough people interested in it, I would like to start a regular extremely low stakes live event for us to race against each other. I think this could be a fun way to meet some new people and have a good time.

So to start things off, here is my submission: PC/Assetto Corsa 1; 4:57 on the fan made Battenbergring in the Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale. Track conditions are dry with 100% grip. This isn't my personal best, but it's within a second of it and I didn't record that so I'm not submitting it. I need to work on my heel toe and I know I'm leaving time on the table around those hairpins and through the village.

Edited to post a link to the free download for the track https://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/battenbergring.51838/

Edit: Edit: There is a post in the comments that has a ping list, comment on it if you'd like to be pinged when someone submits a new lap or challenge to an existing lap.

And to clarify, please feel free to submit your own personal best on whatever track and whatever game. Just notate your system or console, the track, track conditions, the car, and the time. I'll keep track of them and I'm sure someone will want to try to beat it. I will need some kind of proof. A vid is best since then I get free racing content from some of my favorite people.

Continuing on from yesterdays revolution in 1894, the French, with a bit of help of the Soviet Union, were able to establish the Paris commune. Which at some point just flipped the whole of France communist.

Now I was looking at my relations and it's not looking good smh

In other news, in 1903 Teddy Roosevelts US declared war on us to force us to go capitalist.
In return I now could also define some wargoals and I chose to do the opposite to them.
If they lose, which looks like a likely outcome at this point(we got a bigger army and they already tried doing naval invasions when it was still Russia), they will have to become a council republic, ban slavery and liberate California.

We'll see how it goes....

Don't get me wrong. I've played roguelikes. I've enjoyed roguelikes. But I think I can safely say that for every single roguelike I've played, I would've had a lot more fun if it kept the basic mechanics but were something other than a roguelike.

To me, at least, random chance + limiting the player's information + permadeath is one of the most horrid combinations of mechanics imaginable. The sky-high difficulty of most roguelikes all but demands the player make near-perfect decisions at all times... except, with the limitation of the player's ability to see e.g. what's in the next room, the player can make an educated guess at best. "Do you pick the room that has a 70% chance of being the best choice or the one that has a 30% chance of being the best choice?" The 70% room is objectively the correct choice, but even if the player knows the game well enough to know which room is the 70% room and pick it every time, they're still eating shit an average of 30% of the time, and that's generally enough to cost a run.

Of course, that's not even the worst way the RNG can fuck over the player. A run may very well be doomed before it starts. I remember reading that for one old roguelike - ADOM, I think it was - the very best players in the world could manage about a 50% win rate. Think about that. Even at the absolute peak of human skill, half of all runs are total wastes. The outcome was already decided. There was no point in even starting the game. The whole thing was an exercise in futility that you were roped into with the carrot that maybe it would actually be winnable. That's more akin to an elaborate joke than a legitimate game.

It's even worse in roguelike deckbuilders, I think. Obviously, you need good deck synergy to win. It's not usually difficult to figure out which cards work well together. The issue, though, is finding those cards. Early in the game, you'll hit a point where you're committed to whatever deck theme you decided to go with - switching would be so costly that it would essentially guarantee a loss. What happens when the game suddenly decides to stop giving you the cards you need? You lose. How do you know which kinds of card you'll be getting? You can't. So, pick a theme. There are right and wrong answers, but the game won't give you any indication as to which is which. You'll get your answer when you're staring at an imminent loss and realizing that every ingame choice you made in the last half hour was made completely irrelevant by what you did in the ten minutes prior to that.

Full thread: https://nitter.moomoo.me/ziepoopenfarten/status/1754688858938081506?t=dug_TFMobuOI1WZMuPcMmA&s=19

Just finished the revolution, which I kind of stumbled myself into, and was able to form the Soviet Union in 1894.

I thought this was pretty early, what year where you all able to get communism to kick off in your saves?

from this translated source: https://junkerhq.net/MGS2gameplan.pdf

I didn't know that. It led an amazing life, what else can you say? It was an amazing console, whether you agree or not. It was an amazing console that had an amazing life.

Looking at all the Youtube thumbnails in my feed in the past 24 hours, Xbox died somehow. RIP John Halo and Mark Fenix

Now Eventually You Do Plan to Have Cyberpunk In Your Cyberpunk Game Franchise, Right?

tag yourself, I'm the anonymous Dragon Age II defender (I haven't played that game in like 10 years but I honestly remember having an alright time with it, then again I haven't played through Origins so I don't have that to compare it against)

So, you wish to die quickly?