fatalbanana

I own this game on disk. I actually like HL more than most others. I found it oddly relaxing at the time.

Does this mean they will be booting up the servers again?

Wasn't expecting this but, I don't know, I might pick it up again... for some reason. What a weird thing.

It would be nice if the carousel/grid view saved between pages/refreshes.

No "Recent Forum Posts" element on the home page is a bummer for me. I use that a lot.

I don't know if this is still to come but there's a lack of cohesion to the way tabs look and work on things like the wiki and profile pages. They just look old when contrasted with how everything else looks.

I'm not sure what the "Archived Shows" thing is supposed to be. I think an "All Shows" (if that's what it is) would be better/more clear.

Other than that I think the new site is cool! Thanks for all the hard work, it all looks nice and fresh and I'm excited about the full debut.

Edit: Afer using it a bit more I have to be honest, I don't like everything on the front page being a carousel. I will always switch to a grid view if it's an option and not being able to easily see descriptions without having to click on and then pause (autoplaying videos are the worst) every video I'm curious about is less than ideal.

I'm no designer but I think I would like this kind of design more if instead of horizontal carousels taking up so much real estate you had verticle ones, side by side that had extra room for descriptions and such beside the videos. Or maybe larger box-shaped carousels with room for more videos at a glance with space for descriptions. If any of those are out of the question at least have it so the description shows up when hovering over a video.

I would also like it if the individual shows were shown in the drop-down menu at the top. Maybe having the "Shows" label at the bottom of the list and having the list of shows populate beneath it would be better for me.

I don't know, just a few uninformed thoughts. :)

That's definitely how the game looks but I quite like it. I would totally get if it's not everyone's cup of tea but it works for me. If anything I wish it had just a tad bit more minimal contrast of colors but that's just me.

I do appreciate their (his?) commitment to the style though.

I'm only about 2-3 hours into it but I'm really digging it in short bursts. It's a game I have to take a step away from every once in a while or else I'm afraid I'll get bored of it.

I think it could be more clear about certain details and maybe a way to take your own notes within the game and attach them to certain characters. Overall I think the notebook and "memory sections" could be better laid out as you need to keep track of a good many things in a way that isn't easy to navigate for everything the game is asking you to remember. And I have a terrible memory!

With all that said, I'm really impressed by it so far and interested to see where it goes. If it keeps up it could easily be one of my favorites of the year.

Because they want to work in games and want to make money doing it. If you have a family to worry about and your skill set involves working in games their arent that many options available. Upending your career to start your own project and expecting to get paid a living wage for it out the gate seems farfetched to me. On top of that, it's constantly a competitive space because these big companies bread and butter are hiring blue-eyed and bushy tailed kids straight out of college expecting the job of there dreams working on games. Game development is notorious for seeing high turn over rates. That's why you see so many veterans in the industry working at so many different studios or going into publishing or sticking it out and ending up in leadership positions continuing the same cycle that was normalized to them over the course of their employment.

These have been ongoing discussions within game dev for a long time but only recently has it become a mainstream conversation among those in game critique/press. Maybe that will inform more people going into it or better yet make changes to give workers better conditions in the first place.

I don't begrudge you being indifferent but to present this as they had a choice in the matter is a bit disingenuous. That's why this is a big deal in the first place. Crunch is such an ingrained part of game development that it is an expected reality instead of an option you give to your employees so they can get some extra pocket cash if they choose to do extra work. More often than not the options available to devs is either crunch, release an unfinished game or risk your game you spent years working on getting canceled shortly before it comes out. All of these are a means to please publishers that set release times and schedules for what you're working on. They control everything about how the game comes out whereas devs need to actually do the work to get it made and do it in a way that pleases publishers. Also, keep in mind that these jobs are salary positions and more times than not overtime is unpaid. At the current time crunch is seen as the status quo of game development and not something you can opt in/out of that's why there's all this talk of unionization within game dev so we can get some collective bargaining up in this piece to give workers more of a voice within the industry.

People need to draw their own lines with this sort of stuff. I don't begrudge anyone saying this won't affect how they will play the game. When it comes to situations where separating the art from the artist becomes a notable part of the discourse it's worth it to take a step back and look at the whole picture. Should how games are made be separated from how they are consumed? That answer is different for different people but I think that's okay. I am someone who always wants to talk about video game culture and all the politics and social issues surrounding them but I think it's unrealistic and unfair to hold everyone to that standard.

With that said, I would like to see the people here that do want to just play the game in a vacuum to play and enjoy the game on its own merits but also engage with and talk about the realities surrounding its creation outside of what you've experienced with the game itself. Because it does matter and it is important to video games in general. Also, to get up on my high horse a bit, I genuinely think it makes us a better audience and better participants in the culture if we hold studious accountable for things like crunch and pay and stuff like that. I say this without a hint of bullshit gatekeeping but would like to see a mix of both worlds on this. You can enjoy the game as it exists and still consider what it took to get there and have these discussions of what is and isn't good business practices. At the end of the day, the thing we are consuming took more time, effort and resources to build than it did to play and it's okay to enjoy it as it is but also consider how it exists from the viewpoint of the people that made it.

It's hard for me to say how this colors my outlook of the game. I can't say I was that excited about it, to begin with, but I can say that with how all this stuff went down it's definitely not a good look on Rockstar. I think It's valid to make a wrong place wrong time argument here as of just a few years ago I could easily see this topic going under the radar. With culture reporting becoming more acceptable and gaining larger audiences it's great to see things like crunch and overworked/underpaid workers getting a spotlight within games critique. With that said the only shitty take on this as I see it is the one that says there is no way this game couldn't have been made without this kind of exploitation. That the creators' passion for making games justifies a company exploiting the shit out of them to get it done. No... just no.

Its good to see Rockstar being held accountable for this but at the same time disheartening to be a willing participant in an industry so willing to throw its creators on the sacrificial alter of 100 hour work weeks in the name of a multi-million dollar company content to boast about it as if it's a laudable practice. Exploiting creators under the guise of impassioned artistic sacrifice in able to not upset your publisher/shareholders and make release dates. It's gross and we can do better. This should be called out and you should be able enjoy the game despite of all this stuff but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be on your mind at the same time.

Hi there, welcome! Like others have said, as long as you come from a place of good faith and non-assholery you will find a good home in the forums here. It's personally the only place where I feel able to have meaningful conversations about games between strangers on the internet. It's rare when a topic completely devolves into harmful nonsense but it is still the internet so it pops up from time to time. The moderation may seem strict to some but I much prefer that to most other places.

We used to be more active (not to say it's anywhere near dead) but who knows, maybe some new faces will encourage more people to be more participatory in the forums here.

With that said, welcome and see you around!

@companionpube: I have read through your arguments in this thread and I want to just clarify a few things so we're all on the same page and not getting too lost in the woods. You don't deny that these are male dominated spaces but that has more to do with biological inevitabilities more so than societal and structural sexism. Forced representation as a response to structural/societal sexism is bad because they don't make for good stories and don't fix the underlying problems. Nothing needs to change about how women are represented and depicted because things are the way they are and if you don't like it you don't have to consume it. Anyone who challenges the current status quo of women's role in media is part of a feminist plot to undermine and water down media because they are misinformed or have a particular axe to grind.

Am I close? I'm being genuine here and not trying to be facetious or condescending I just want to make sure I'm getting your arguments right so we aren't getting hung up or steered towards off topic territory.

With that said can I ask you if you think sexism either structural (baked into the system) or social (generally shared and unknowingly spread) exists at all? Or are we all the way past that and simply dealing with biological realities? If you do think it exists do you have any solutions for it or is it something we have to decide to live with because there's nothing really to be done about it? Does/should media play any role in this in your opinion?

Sorry, I know I'm asking a lot but I think it's important.

No matter what I hear about RDR2 I just can't get excited about it. ...It looks expensive?

Maybe I'm being unfair and holding the standards of current Rockstar games against this new one but if it has the same problems as every other "new era" Rockstar game I will be less than interested. I say this all to also say that I will probably end up getting it anyway somewhere down the road and I'll probably enjoy the first bit of it and not want to play it again. I just don't need another overstuffed, horribly paced, overly long, expensive open world game with serviceable gameplay.

I don't mean to be such a downer and I don't hate Rockstar games but from what I've seen of RD they have a lot of cool features in there but will it address everything I find wrong with their usual game design? Hope so but we'll see I guess. If it does it will be something special for sure.