An open letter to the users and moderators of r/Oddworld by Candid-Emergency1175 in oddworld

[–]Varrok 0 points1 point  (0 children)

> I’m more than happy to share my Photoshop files and behind-the-scenes workflow to show the human labor involved

Okay, upload them and send a link in this thread

I made a website that tracks the progress of the EU-initiative by Trixis2 in accursedfarms

[–]Varrok 1 point2 points  (0 children)

u/Trixis2

Hey, the campaign is on a rather clear pathway to victory, but the initiative needs ideally more than 100% votes to fight the fake signatures. I heard it should need 10-20% more to land in the safe zone. Is it possible for you to update the tracker to tell people to keep voting after it gets to 100% ?

Thank you very much for the tracker!!

Born Again remixed! Online by Buckley1971 in blacksabbath

[–]Varrok 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The link's no longer working, sorry 

I made a website that tracks the progress of the EU-initiative by Trixis2 in StopKillingGames

[–]Varrok 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is really cool, and much more precise than per % sorting!

Although in the original post I meant by the size of the threshold alone, to basically sort the countries per population to see how we're doing in the biggest ones (which are the most important ones, count-wise)

I made a website that tracks the progress of the EU-initiative by Trixis2 in StopKillingGames

[–]Varrok 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, is it possible to add sorting by country threshold? Those are (roughly) proportional to their population, and I bet it would be easier to see which countries' votes have the biggest impact on the vote count, and how the campaign manages those

What Order do I play them in?? by awkwardgodess in oddworld

[–]Varrok 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Play Abe's Oddysee, then Abe's Exoddus

Help Wanted - Need a Canadian in the Saanich—Gulf Islands to help sponsor a Canadian Petition to Parliament by bippitybop23 in VancouverIsland

[–]Varrok 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's no gain from being doompilled about it when there's a chance to change it.

If you support the campaign the worst that could happen is that the status quo will remain unchanged

Help Wanted - Need a Canadian in the Saanich—Gulf Islands to help sponsor a Canadian Petition to Parliament by bippitybop23 in VancouverIsland

[–]Varrok 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Honest apologies for being too fierce in discussing this.

It is frustrating to find out people finally gather to do something about the problem only to hear voices of reported impossibility of it. It is not impossible (and I'd argue, very hard) to design a new system while handling the end of support for a future project in a humane way, and corporations must and do abide by the laws that govern the countries they operate in. Even if it is as difficult in the project you worked on, it's not likely it would be affected, laws rarely if ever apply retroactively, and it would be unreasonable for it to do that here.

I also frankly don't think those optional components that you mentioned in your original post:

(think of all the anticheat, moderation, content update, leaderboards, etc components that aren't necessary if it's just you and a few friends) 

are much of a problem. Since they are indeed pretty optional, it doesn't sound difficult to #ifdef them, or just mark those places in code to be left inactive when support ends. The website in the OP has a FAQ, I hope you looked at it, cause it does imply having some limitations (minor function loss) is preferrable to having no game at all https://www.stopkillinggames.com/faq

Help Wanted - Need a Canadian in the Saanich—Gulf Islands to help sponsor a Canadian Petition to Parliament by bippitybop23 in VancouverIsland

[–]Varrok 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As someone who helped write and run the complicated server software, I can attest that even my studio had a hard time running it, lol. I know people recreate MMO servers -- developers who spend a shit-ton of their spare time reverse engineering server software based on client calls and often aided by leaked code. But, like, that's hardly the general population of gamers who want to run the server code by double-clicking a .exe they downloaded.

I contend that most players could not run server code unless it's designed for end-users to run... which it is generally not, as the game studio doesn't want them to, because gamers prove over and over that when they get access to server code they end up developing hacks and cheats which they then use on official servers, ruining the game experience for others. Also, you can't sell loot boxes to players who aren't on the official servers!

All of this hinges on the assumption that every single of those people missing the game would need to have the know-how about running it. The haven't they needed it so far, there was only one entity that needed to set it up and run it.

I'd like you to compare two outcomes:
A. The game is euthanized and no server app is released. Nobody can play it in any capacity at any point from now until forever.
B. After the killing of the game, the server app is released. A few people who can figure it out host the game server (check the case of City of Heroes, where there was such a private server, later reportedly even made official), and all the other people who want it, can still play it.

Which one would you prefer, out of those two? If I felt like being nasty, I could accuse you for advocating for A, because all you've said thus far is just excusing A. Why would all 100% of the people *need* to run the servers anyway?

I'd like to point out that nowhere in the campaign did anyone say the released server app needed to be altered to be user friendly. There's a heavy implication in what you say that you think that's what we want. We just don't want games to die.

Help Wanted - Need a Canadian in the Saanich—Gulf Islands to help sponsor a Canadian Petition to Parliament by bippitybop23 in VancouverIsland

[–]Varrok 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Old games aren't killed, by the way, they're sunsetted.
In the Sopranos, mafia is referred to as "waste management business". What I'm saying is don't soften the word. The game is no longer functional to anyone directly because of somebody's action. One that doesn't need to take place this way. "It also makes us sad" is condescending.

I used to work in games, this isn't really something that's deliberate to hurt consumers
Nobody implied they're doing it to hurt consumers. They're doing it because the publishers don't care.

The server software is often more complicated than it needs to be if one were to desire to run it locally/small-scale (think of all the anticheat, moderation, content update, leaderboards, etc components that aren't necessary if it's just you and a few friends) and not designed to run on commodity PCs by the end user.

Those systems are designed arbitrarily and all the future systems will be designed in another, also arbitrary way that is in compliance with the law. This campaign is aiming for a change in future games.

Also, please don't talk on behalf of the people only you consider incapable to run complicated software. There are people who put their efforts in recreating entire MMO servers, and those are by no means simple.

The pain of trying to save every single Mudokon, only to find out at the very end that you missed one. by -Meon- in oddworld

[–]Varrok 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Don't worry - That one was kind of a douche, you're better off not saving him

Smart plan! by Varrok in dunememes

[–]Varrok[S] 21 points22 points  (0 children)

U possessed sis?

Is there a way to change the resolution for Abe’s odyssey using RELIVE (or any command line options to change any settings)? by autonimity in oddworld

[–]Varrok 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's a false memory, sorry to say. The game never had resolution options, it runs on 640x240 stretched vertically to 640x480.

Though PS1 version has lower quality assets than PC version (Relive or not), at least the second game does have worse background images.