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Idle Thumbs Megathread | Indepth discussion inbetween horsebags and birdsounds

C

chaobreaker

Member
Chris was super on point with that discussion with Hitman 2016 discussion being split by ideological differences.

The steam reviews consist of players who praise the game itself, those who give it a thumbs down due to some bad experiences with its always online connectivity, and those who give it thumbs down due to not agreeing with its episodic content distribution. I initially suspected a good precent of those negative reviews were by steam users that don't own the game but have an axe to grind but surprisingly a lot of the negative steam reviews are by accounts that spent at least 4 hours in the game.
 
R

Roarer

Member
chaobreaker said:
Chris was super on point with that discussion with Hitman 2016 discussion being split by ideological differences.

The steam reviews consist of players who praise the game itself, those who give it a thumbs down due to some bad experiences with its always online connectivity, and those who give it thumbs down due to not agreeing with its episodic content distribution. I initially suspected a good precent of those negative reviews were by steam users that don't own the game but have an axe to grind but surprisingly a lot of the negative steam reviews are by accounts that spent at least 4 hours in the game.
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Yes, it's interesting to see how ideologically driven some of these opinions are. I've seen it with other games as well; people who have played dozens of hours of the game and who clearly state in the review that they love playing it, but this one thing, be it always online, DLC, a specific bug or whatever thing the current trend hates on is in the game, then the reviewer suddenly can't recommend the game anymore and it is deemed shit.

To me, this sort of mentality of a hard line in the sand is really difficult to understand. Like the guys on the cast were saying it seems to be part of an activist internet culture in which reviews, forum posts and social media tactics are used to voice an opinion and, IMO, skew the public perception (because it is usually a vocal minority using these tactics).
 
C

chaobreaker

Member
Roarer said:
Yes, it's interesting to see how ideologically driven some of these opinions are. I've seen it with other games as well; people who have played dozens of hours of the game and who clearly state in the review that they love playing it, but this one thing, be it always online, DLC, a specific bug or whatever thing the current trend hates on is in the game, then the reviewer suddenly can't recommend the game anymore and it is deemed shit.


To me, this sort of mentality of a hard line in the sand is really difficult to understand. Like the guys on the cast were saying it seems to be part of an activist internet culture in which reviews, forum posts and social media tactics are used to voice an opinion and, IMO, skew the public perception (because it is usually a vocal minority using these tactics).
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Yeah. It's very similar to Gamergate and other angry activist movements revolving around video games. I mean I don't condone people protesting against always online single player or episodic content but it bums me out to see this proper Hitman sequel everyone wanted since Blood Money being used as a podium.

The same thing happened to that Baldur's Gate DLC.
 
S

Sloane

Banned
Roarer said:
To me, this sort of mentality of a hard line in the sand is really difficult to understand. Like the guys on the cast were saying it seems to be part of an activist internet culture in which reviews, forum posts and social media tactics are used to voice an opinion and, IMO, skew the public perception (because it is usually a vocal minority using these tactics).
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Yes and no. There's definitely some kind of hive mind at work and some people are complaining just out of principle, but, at least for me, it's as difficult to understand why this game "needs" to be online all the time.

It's a singleplayer game, you can't really gain anything by cheating, it already has two kinds of DRM (one of which, Denuvo, apparently is waterproof at the moment) -- so why does it have to be online and why does it have to throw you out if you disconnect from the internet instead of automatically switching to offline mode or whatever?

I've played Hitman for about 15 hours so far and I really like it but I've also been thrown out about a dozen times for no good reason, so, personally, I can understand the frustration on some level.
 
R

Rufus

Member
Sloane said:
It's a singleplayer game, you can't really gain anything by cheating, it already has two kinds of DRM (one of which, Denuvo, apparently is waterproof at the moment) -- so why does it have to be online and why does it have to throw you out if you disconnect from the internet instead of automatically switching to offline mode or whatever?
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I think the online requirement is part of Denuvo.
 
C

Chris Remo

Member
Sloane said:
Yes and no. There's definitely some kind of hive mind at work and some people are complaining just out of principle, but, at least for me, it's as difficult to understand why this game "needs" to be online all the time.

It's a singleplayer game, you can't really gain anything by cheating, it already has two kinds of DRM (one of which, Denuvo, apparently is waterproof at the moment) -- so why does it have to be online and why does it have to throw you out if you disconnect from the internet instead of automatically switching to offline mode or whatever?

I've played Hitman for about 15 hours so far and I really like it but I've also been thrown out about a dozen times for no good reason, so, personally, I can understand the frustration on some level.
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Yeah, I tried to disclaim a few times on the podcast that I wasn't trying to dismiss any individual complaint. I was just reacting to what seems like an entirely prepackaged set of extremely strongly held opinions as essentially a litmus test.

It really reminds me of modern political polarization. It's essentially impossible to have a good-faith debate about issues because everything has been pre-decided based on the identity politics of those involved.
 
S

Sloane

Banned
Rufus said:
I think the online requirement is part of Denuvo.
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I'm not sure, but it's definitely not a requirement in other Denuvo games.

Chris Remo said:
Yeah, I tried to disclaim a few times on the podcast that I wasn't trying to dismiss any individual complaint. I was just reacting to what seems like an entirely prepackaged set of extremely strongly held opinions as essentially a litmus test.

It really reminds me of modern political polarization. It's essentially impossible to have a good-faith debate about issues because everything has been pre-decided based on the identity politics of those involved.
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Yeah, I get that and, on the one hand, I believe that Hitman certainly doesn't deserve the 55% user score or whatever it currently is at because the game itself is great and, I agree, a fair share of those thumbs down reviews probably has been written "just because".

Still, the "kind of always online" component really feels like such an unnecessary and potentially troublesome addition to the game here in the way it is designed, which makes it, in my opinion, not a great example of identity politics -- and it's also very different from what happened to the Baldur's Gate DLC someone else compared it to.
 
C

Chris Remo

Member
Sloane said:
I'm not sure, but it's definitely not a requirement in other Denuvo games.


Yeah, I get that and, on the one hand, I believe that Hitman certainly doesn't deserve the 55% user score or whatever it currently is at because the game itself is great and, I agree, a fair share of those thumbs down reviews probably has been written "just because".

Still, the "kind of always online" component really feels like such an unnecessary and potentially troublesome addition to the game here in the way it is designed, which makes it, in my opinion, not a great example of identity politics -- and it's also very different from what happened to the Baldur's Gate DLC someone else compared it to.
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So, again, I need to stress that I'm not calling into question any actual specific complaint. Calling something "identity politics" doesn't mean I'm saying it's wrong. You can have an entirely reasonable belief about some particular issue that still fits very cleanly into a packaged-up set of opinions that you adopt with less intellectual rigor than one might imagine if you were actually approaching of those issues without already identifying with a particular group or worldview. I have plenty of political beliefs, for instance, that I think about very deeply, and plenty of others that if I'm being totally honest, I probably hold largely because they belong to the same larger meta-belief-structure that my really personally-determined beliefs do—rather than because I actually assembled my entire worldview and set of beliefs intentionally from the ground up.

This is inevitable and human and not in itself a bad thing; the thing that concerns me is the weaponization of this natural tendency into hardline opposing camps, from governmental politics, to cultural/identity politics, all the way down to relatively inconsequential stuff like video games. There's just a clear difference between considering and pointing out the unreasonable usage of always-on DRM, and rattling off an extremely-obviously-canned set of opinions from a laundry list of Internet Gamer Grievances that is formed in an echo chamber of other aggrieved Internet Gamers.

I mean, I'm sure I do this myself in all kinds of arenas! I think it's almost an inescapable facet of always-connected hyper-politicized modern life. But it's still a bummer.
 
S

Sober

Member
Jake describing what happens when you read a book while trying to go to sleep is absolutely true. I'll wake up reading something like Lord of the Flies and drift off mid chapter and then wake up and wonder how the kids got ahold of a plasma rifle.
 
S

SmiteOfHand

Member
Mildly OT but..
I just watched the FOO show. Either everyone is tallish or I am shortish. All the same I looked into the cold, calculating, polygonal eyes of Vanaman. They looked into my soul. For real, though, the way the eyes kind of look around and occasionally look directly at you is crazy unnerving.

Also I tried to steal everything I possibly could from the hands of Jake. I wish objects lasted even a second or two before disappearing when you let go. I wanted to make it rain typewriters.

I want all podcasts delivered this way, even though I know it is impractical.
 
A

ACE 1991

Member
Hey Chris, just wanted to thank you for, in a roundabout way through Idle Book Club, recommending Never Let me Go. I Started it last week and I'm about halfway through the novel, it's pretty great so far. I particularly like the way in which Ishiguro presents the minutiae of the protagonist's relationships with central characters.
 
C

Chris Remo

Member
ACE 1991 said:
Hey Chris, just wanted to thank you for, in a roundabout way through Idle Book Club, recommending Never Let me Go. I Started it last week and I'm about halfway through the novel, it's pretty great so far. I particularly like the way in which Ishiguro presents the minutiae of the protagonist's relationships with central characters.
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Oh hey cool! You're welcome!
 
T

thenexus6

Member
Although I didn't watch it live I noticed a Hitman stream on my YouTube subs this morning. I am going to run home after work today and work that asap. Gonna be so good.
 
T

thenexus6

Member
Starting it now Chris and Spaff are playing.

I kinda wish the overlay they use with all the buttons was slightly smaller so the gameplay screen was bigger.

Edit: The ditched the overlay during the stream!
 
J

Jake

Member
thenexus6 said:
Starting it now Chris and Spaff are playing.

I kinda wish the overlay they use with all the buttons was slightly smaller so the gameplay screen was bigger.

Edit: The ditched the overlay during the stream!
Click to expand...

I'm working on new fun-but-less-intrusive overlays too.



ALSO you guys should check out the Wizard Jam games if you haven't. There is some hilarious shit going on, and most of the games from this year have been released:

Dev forum threads for the games (lots of good stuff in here)

Wizard Jam website full of download links and more screenshots.
 
Haunted

Haunted

Member
Mafro said:
They've started a new Dark Souls 3 character on this weeks stream and of course Nick just killed badass Uchigatana guy first time by forcing him off the ledge.
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The streams are great.

I really enjoy Nick and Chris and their Dark Souls 3 experiment (can one beat a Dark Souls game solely on chat recommendations while ignoring/rejecting every bit of info the game gives out).

Good fun!
 
J

Joeku

Member
thenexus6 said:
Although I didn't watch it live I noticed a Hitman stream on my YouTube subs this morning. I am going to run home after work today and work that asap. Gonna be so good.
Click to expand...

I've now watched this and I want to say that Hitman is one of those game series that works pretty much exclusively as a video game because nobody would accept the bumbling tomfoolery that makes it work in any other form of media. It feels like it's one of the few non-puzzle/non-simulation games whose experience could never be translated into another medium. Agent 47 could never throw coins over and over while dressed as a housecleaner on screen; no guard could announce "Somebody's doing something they shouldn't" loudly to nobody around him in a book, and nobody would paint a man disguised as a golf coach sitting in a fling's bedroom after having poured rat poison into her champagne.

Good on the Thumbs for getting into the silliness of Hitman in the right way.
 
T

thenexus6

Member
Joeku said:
I've now watched this and I want to say that Hitman is one of those game series that works pretty much exclusively as a video game because nobody would accept the bumbling tomfoolery that makes it work in any other form of media. It feels like it's one of the few non-puzzle/non-simulation games whose experience could never be translated into another medium. Agent 47 could never throw coins over and over while dressed as a housecleaner on screen; no guard could announce "Somebody's doing something they shouldn't" loudly to nobody around him in a book, and nobody would paint a man disguised as a golf coach sitting in a fling's bedroom after having poured rat poison into her champagne.

Good on the Thumbs for getting into the silliness of Hitman in the right way.
Click to expand...

I really hope they get a chance to play one of the next elusive targets in Hitman.
 
T

Thraktor

Member
Joeku said:
I've now watched this and I want to say that Hitman is one of those game series that works pretty much exclusively as a video game because nobody would accept the bumbling tomfoolery that makes it work in any other form of media. It feels like it's one of the few non-puzzle/non-simulation games whose experience could never be translated into another medium. Agent 47 could never throw coins over and over while dressed as a housecleaner on screen; no guard could announce "Somebody's doing something they shouldn't" loudly to nobody around him in a book, and nobody would paint a man disguised as a golf coach sitting in a fling's bedroom after having poured rat poison into her champagne.

Good on the Thumbs for getting into the silliness of Hitman in the right way.
Click to expand...

I actually picked up Hitman after watching the stream and I'm really glad I did. I also agree completely with the statement I believe they made when they initially talked about Hitman on the podcast that it's the perfect episodic game. If this were a full priced standard release I probably would have just rushed through each of the levels and left it at that, but because you're limited to one level at a time you get sucked in to the challenges and the escalation missions, which is where the real meat of the game is. Unlike a game like Dark Souls, the satisfaction of mastering Hitman isn't a matter of mastery over the game mechanics, but rather mastery over the levels themselves. Knowing the physical layout of the levels is obviously useful, but more important is knowing the actions and behaviours of the people within the level.

Levels in Hitman are as much a slice of time as they are of physical space. Every character in the level will start along a pre-determined path and set of actions from when you enter, and learning what those actions are, and how the characters react to your own actions, is really what the game's all about. It's what lets you sneak through the level without being seen, to take out your target the brief moment they're unguarded, only to sneak out again without anyone knowing you were there. It's impossible to achieve that degree of mastery, or perhaps even know such a degree of mastery even exists, without experiencing that slice of time over and over, and the episodic nature of the game encourages you to do just that. It effectively becomes Groundhog Day - The Game, if Bill Murray shaved his head and ran around strangling people.
 
T

thenexus6

Member
Over the last few podcasts alot of people on the Idle forums said they purchased Hitman solely from them talking about it on the show. So they are doing Gods work, because its probably one of my favourite games of the year but so many people are turned off when they hear episodic. When the episodic nature is perfect for this game.
 
L

LifeBrandRobot

Member
Are these guys purely PC gamers? I checked out their podcast because I'm looking for something new to listen to and I like what I heard. Thing is, one of the hosts mentioned not owning a PS4. I enjoyed the episode but if they don't talk about console gaming I will have to pass. Need something to relate to.
 
K

kenta

Has no PEINS
LifeBrandRobot said:
Are these guys purely PC gamers? I checked out their podcast because I'm looking for something new to listen to and I like what I heard. Thing is, one of the hosts mentioned not owning a PS4. I enjoyed the episode but if they don't talk about console gaming I will have to pass. Need something to relate to.
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Not "purely" PC gamers but they definitely lean that way. I'd still recommend listening; their insights and observations often apply universally. I don't even own a PC but the majority of games that come out nowadays are on both PC and console so it kinda doesn't matter which direction they lean
 
L

LifeBrandRobot

Member
kenta said:
Not "purely" PC gamers but they definitely lean that way. I'd still recommend listening; their insights and observations often apply universally. I don't even own a PC but the majority of games that come out nowadays are on both PC and console so it kinda doesn't matter which direction they lean
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll check out a couple more episodes.
 
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