I've seen a big uptick in "prove you're a human" screens recently. Our ISP had issues the other day, and I suspect I was assigned a new IP (I've had previous ones for years). I've been attributing it to that. But, now I'm wondering if it's something else.
Former graphic designer turned software developer with 10+ years of professional experience. Most recently, I've been building highly dynamic frontends with React. Prior to that, I was re-writing legacy desktop applications as web based with Vue + Go + Postgres. I'm comfortable working across the stack, and adapting to new (or old!) technologies.
Currently working on a VST plugin in C++, and I have explored a number of other areas over the years. Such as: mobile, games, graphics programming, and embedded systems.
While most of my work has been web focused, I'm open to working in other areas. Check out my website, sectionfourteen.com, for more detailed info.
Former graphic designer turned software developer with 10+ years of professional experience. Most recently, I've been building highly dynamic frontends with React. Prior to that, I was re-writing legacy desktop applications as web based with Vue + Go + Postgres. I'm comfortable working across the stack, and adapting to new (or old!) technologies.
Currently working on a VST plugin in C++, and I have explored a number of other areas over the years. Such as: mobile, games, graphics programming, and embedded systems.
While most of my work has been web focused, I'm open to working in other areas. Check out my website, sectionfourteen.com, for more detailed info.
Former graphic designer turned software developer with 10+ years of professional experience. Most recently, I've been building highly dynamic frontends with React. Prior to that, I was re-writing legacy desktop applications as web based with Vue + Go + Postgres. I'm comfortable working across the stack, and adapting to new (or old!) technologies.
Currently working on a VST plugin in C++, and I have explored a number of other areas over the years. Such as: mobile, games, graphics programming, and embedded systems.
While most of my work has been web focused, I'm open to working in other areas. Check out my website, sectionfourteen.com, for more detailed info.
When I finally started using the internet to figure out what I'm supposed to do next on some of the quests, I couldn't believe how many of the answers were "Talk to the NPC three times in a row to exhaust their dialogue".
Like, are you shitting me? Why? After a while, I would do this to every NPC, every time. But, yeah, it's a bad design.
The entire franchise is filled with what one would consider objectively bad designs
It makes for a deeply unique experience overall
Perhaps the one you’d most object to is the DS1 DLC, that people paid money for, lacking instructions for access. It involves killing a specific enemy and returning to a previous location.
At the time, people forked over cash and had to prowl the whole game playing spot the difference.
It has gotten worse. Shadow of the Erdtree requires you to kill a boss (Mohg) hidden within a SECRET AREA (Mohgwyn Palace) hidden within ANOTHER secret area (Consecrated Snowfield).
And the Consecrated Snowfield is only accessible if you find two parts of a hidden medallion, the first in a castle later in the game than the lift it operates. The second is hidden in a jar underneath a mountain. But you can't just smash the jar, you have to talk to the NPC inside the jar twice before you'll get the medallion.
To be fair, there is a different way to get to Mohg. You can talk to Varre at the Rose Church in the Lakes of Liurnia, and he gets you on the quest line that gets you there. You basically have to invade 3 (i think) people's worlds, PvP, doesn't matter if you win or lose, or there is one NPC that you can do an invasion on in Altus Plateau. Then he'll give you an item that just needs to be soaked in the blood of a maiden (and it's made explicit what you need to do, not just left for you to figure out). After that you get the letter and he will take you to Mohg.
It's not secret, but it's not exactly easy; you can find one part of the medallion just by exploring (iirc its description says what it's for), but not sure if the second half is that straightforward.
And even then, while an item may say "use it here", if it's been dozens of hours since you got it you may just straight up forget about it.
That said, I think that the target audience for the DLC was always people who thoroughly played through the game.
Same with the other games' DLC; for Bloodborne's you need to be yoinked by an invisible enemy while in posession of an item; while it's very possible people were accidentally yoinked on their first playthrough, they will forever know that the item is a trap and will avoid getting yoinked.
(unless the item in question explicitly said "get yoinked to go to DLC", I forgot)
Oh, yeah, the Snowfield itself is secret enough, but getting to the palace afterwards is just a matter of exploration. The teleport is not that hidden.
FWIW, after you get one half of the medallion, get invaded by Gideon's lackey and then talk to Gideon, he will tell you to look for the Albinauric woman, so at least they give you this much.
All in all, I find the quests in the base game relatively straightforward, but anyone with any prior experience in their games will have an inkling that if they care about quests' results, you need to double-check with the wiki.
Well for DS1 DLC, you had to kill an enemy from one of the latest area you unlock, then go to the back of an early zone, without any indication that you had to do so.
> That said, I think that the target audience for the DLC was always people who thoroughly played through the game.
That's true, but it is strange that you get there and get early-game upgrade materials, like Smithing Stone 2, etc. It seems like they wanted to emphasize that the Scadutree Fragments are the important things for scaling, and not your Base Game level, but you already have to be pretty high level and upgraded to beat Mohg.
Partly the jank is just a cost thing. Even major studios struggle with branching and merging stateful quest lines in game. I guess From picked a system that is cheap, robust, but kind of annoying for players, who forgive it because they otherwise love the game.
To some extent it's a design decision maybe. From makes games that are harsh and unforgiving, but not too harsh - you can mess up bits of quests but not end up unable to get an ending (afaik) which kind of matches the gameplay (harsh but not rage-quit inducing).
Yeah, it did always get me as a design issue. I get that "there's more to ask them" is valid. But there's never an indication of "OK I've said everything now". You only find out when they start repeating themselves.
"Make the person repeat what they just told you" as a process is very immersion breaking.
It's... interesting design, in that there's a puzzle or chance element I suppose. Especially Elden Ring encourages exploration, because there's almost always a reward for wandering and exploring in terms of items / abilities.
The NPC / quest thing means that, unless you go online, you will need multiple playthroughs and exploration to get every quest done, OR you need to engage in a community - the quests and lore are often all discussed, disseminated, notes compared, theories crafted, etc in the community after the release of a new game.
Whether that's good or bad design I'll leave up to opinion, but it's interesting.
(personally I don't have the time to do multiple 100+ hour playthroughs so I followed guides online)
I thought the loudness war was over? This was a hot topic for many years in the music production community. Sad to see it still persists. Especially since the answer to any loudness problem is to simply for the user to turn up the volume.
The loudness war in the strict "we must compress and slam everything as much as possible to make our stuff sound good on the radio" sense is over thanks to Spotify et al doing loudness normalization, but there's still an open question of "how much compression does sound good?" which is extremely subjective. A lot of modern music is louder than peak loudness war stuff just because the creators want their music to be slammed to shit. I listen to/make aggressive bass music and -5, -4, -3 LUFS are common. (By comparison, some of the common examples of loudness war era CDs like Definitely Maybe and Californication sit between -8 and -6 LUFS.)
> Especially since the answer to any loudness problem is to simply for the user to turn up the volume.
This isn't quite true as compression addresses differences in volume. Unless you expect the listener to actively turn up the volume during the quiet parts and down during the loud parts of your song, or be listening in a completely quiet environment with nothing but the music so they can appreciate the dynamics--which is the way a lot of vinyl aficionados do listen to music.
Plenty of this happening on the other end too. I've received the same exact spam e-mail about an open position from 3 different e-mail addresses / names. It's nuts.
On an unrelated note, your localias project is really cool! Going to give it a spin tonight.
Former graphic designer turned software developer with 10+ years of professional experience. Most recently, I've been building highly dynamic frontends with React + utility apps in Go. Prior to that, I was re-writing legacy desktop applications as web based with Vue + Go + Postgres. I'm comfortable working across the stack, and adapting to new (or old!) technologies.
Currently working on a VST plugin in C++, and I have explored a number of other areas over the years. Such as: mobile, games, graphics programming, and embedded systems.
While most of my work has been web focused, I'm open to working in other areas. Check out my website, sectionfourteen.com, for more detailed info.
reply