• Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
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    7 months ago

    Ahh, the days before games companies hired the casino slot machine UX designers. An elegant game from a more civilised age.

    • Zeth0s@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Millennials as well. I get bored with modern games. Grinding all day for a pink weapon skin. Tf, I don’t care what color are my skins. Give me a good old challenge

      • tryptaminev 🇵🇸 🇺🇦 🇪🇺@feddit.de
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        7 months ago

        I mean it is a nice extra, if and only if the core gameplay is enjoyable. Porbably most triple AAA titles would be fine with all the secondary stuff, if they whould have just put a little more effort into making a fun game first and foremost and then add the other stuff afterwards.

        But of course adding loot boxes to a fun game is a different process than designing a loot box ecosystem and then trying to fit a game into it.

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I don’t think this is even Gen-X. Certainly this Gen-Xer grew up on Atari with very obvious 8bit and even text based games. I don’t recognize this one and we had few or no first person shooters

      My “complex world” game was the computer texting to me “you have entered a maze of twisty passages, all alike”

      I don’t know what the tail end of the Xers played, so maybe.

      I had to look it up, but the last of the Xers were born in 1980. This looks like a 2000’s game, so they would have been adults

    • nilloc
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      7 months ago

      Yup early millennials too. That game was my go to for most of 2000.

  • m_r_butts@kbin.social
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    7 months ago

    Someone please tell me that “no brand tie-ins” gives this away as a joke, and I just didn’t get the joke. That can’t be something people actually want, right?

    • DrQuint@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      It’s not a joke. But it’s not sincere either.

      It’s a criticism.

      Because yes. People DO want brand tie-ins. Literally look at Fortnite. It peaks in popularity during brand tie-ins.

      • theneverfox@pawb.social
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        7 months ago

        Not brand tie ins, that’s like a coca cola ad on one of the walls. People don’t want brands, they want characters and IP… They want crossovers

    • enkers@sh.itjust.works
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      7 months ago

      You couldn’t just let me believe that people today are idiots and that I didn’t just get wooshed, in peace, could you?

    • skulblaka@kbin.social
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      7 months ago

      I’m thinking something along the lines of the Minecraft Lego sets for instance. Which, credit where it’s due, were pretty cool.

    • Matombo@feddit.de
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      7 months ago

      man I was jecking out the toy island recently and i saw a carrera oracle redbull race track right next to one with “non-lego” lego brick buildable cars and the mario kart themed one.

      I tell you: one day these crossovers and brand tie ins and market consolidation will lead us to the ultimate mono brand multiverse -> Think of Mario Raving Rabbits in Avenger costumes lego figures as playable characters in fortnite

  • KᑌᔕᕼIᗩ@lemmy.ml
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    7 months ago

    We had mods. They’re a bit like skins and new content, only free and far more creative. They are what you call microtransactions today but you didn’t have to sell your right arm to get them because anyone could make them.

  • mctoasterson@reddthat.com
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    7 months ago

    CS 1.6 was peak gaming. There were servers with Warcraft 3 mod where you could pick your race and level up to receive additional modded abilities and items, and it would save your progress over months. Not to mention the map customizations.

    Also, no paying for season passes or DLC, no paid skinpacks, no censorship or embedded ads or tracking. And custom porn sprays.

    EDIT: there were definitely skins, they were just free downloads from modders. And they were client side so you could see them but other players would just have their own skin or default for the same item.

  • onlooker@lemmy.ml
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    7 months ago

    Trollbait, it has to be. “no brand tie ins” is genuinely hilarious to me. I’m picturing a videogame reviewer going like: “The game is an artistic and a technical milestone. The gameplay is also the smoothest we’ve seen so far. Unfortunately, the game does not feature a Ronald McDonald skin or even a Slurpee coupon, so we have to give it a 7/10”.

  • speaker_hat@lemmy.one
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    7 months ago

    It was pure gaming.

    No advertisments, no marketing, no extra costs.

    The only way to get better was to play more.

    How can it not be fun?

    Good ol’ days, thank you VALVE.

      • artaxthehappyhorse@lemmy.ml
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        7 months ago

        I believe the thank you was regarding the mod-friendly mindset of early valve. A section in the game menu for loading new mods and it shipped with a mod (TFC, which was based off a community mod for Quake)

        • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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          7 months ago

          I don’t know about the launch release, but the Game Of The Year release is the one that shipped with TFC, plus (what we now know as) the GoldSrc SDK was on the disc. Every tool they’d made they used to build Half Life, they put on the disc and gave to customers.

          • Poop@lemmy.ca
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            7 months ago

            Fucking legends.

            So many great games and mods came out of this… Counterstrike, Day of Defeat, Sven Coop, They Hunger. The amount of hours of gameplay for the price of a single game is unbeatable. Many people started their careers as Half-Life modders.

            I believe you are right as well, my friend had the game new and I think the SDK was there, but not TFC.

  • slaacaa@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    God I miss those times, it was all about skills. Cheating was also also extremely rare in CS (according to my memories) during the earlier 2000s. Loved that game

        • space@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          7 months ago

          There still are community servers for old games like CS 1.6. Personally, I prefer CS:Source which feels less dated, controls feel much better, and the game works properly on widescreen monitors.

          The point is that there is still a dedicated player base. You can still play them.

  • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I used to play LAN Quake at Uni before 3D graphics accelerating boards (and before that things like Pacman and Manic Miner on a ZX Spectrum and before that arcade games) and I ain’t a boomer.

    Boomer games are more like this

    • RickyRigatoni@lemmy.ml
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      7 months ago

      Zoomers genuinely think everyone more than two years older than them are boomers. Same as how actual boomers thought everyone more than two years younger then them were millenials.

      • pomodoro_longbreak@sh.itjust.works
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        7 months ago

        So weighty.

        Actually, I played a pirated version of Q1 back in the day so it wasn’t until later that I got the full audio experience of (playing with the CD in the rom drive, which was required to listen to listen to) the music, and man that game is A LOT CREEPIER with all that ambient wailing and moaning and like, gnashing of babies, that the full, sculptural soundtrack provides.

        • Poop@lemmy.ca
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          7 months ago

          The soundtrack for Quake was by Nine Inch Nails too. Probably one of the best game soundtracks still I would say.

  • PraiseTheSoup@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    I don’t even claim free season pass rewards because I couldn’t give a fuck less about your cosmetic trash. Gameplay is king in this household.

  • Colour_me_triggered@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    Boomer entertainment is more playing the original castle Wolfenstein while smoking meth and beating your meat to tucker Carlson telling you you’re degenerate scum who’s going to hell.

      • GreenMario@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        Jedi Knight II had a tight mod scene. Every Star Wars character in the movies and books was made playable damn near with lots of new Star Wars themed maps and goofy shit to duel in. Good times.