Diecast #374: No Man’s Leftover Meatloaf

Diecast – Twenty Sided

I have a No Man’s Sky rant for you this week. Yes, I realize I’ve cooked you this dish before. Yes, I’m aware that you’d prefer something novel instead of leftovers from 2016. Like I said on the show, we really need another procgen space game because I’m going to lose my mind if I keep coming back to NMS in search of what I want.

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Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac.
Diecast374

Link (YouTube)

Show notes:

00:00 Valheim

It’s the classic conundrum when a new update comes out: Do I use my existing endgame save, and thus stroll through the new content overpowered? Or do I start a new game and spend hours grinding my way to the midgame to experience the content as intended?

Paul chose the first one for Valheim, while I chose the second when returning to…

01:53 No Man’s Sky

I want to stress that I’m not complaining about broken promises. I’m basically in agreement with Internet Historian that the last five years of free expansions have cleared Hello Games from the charge of being liars and con artists.

However, that doesn’t change the fact that this is a horribly designed game with a monstrous interface, a self-defeating gameplay loop, and a progression system that was designed by an alien that’s never played a videogame before.

It’s not a con. It just sucks.

22:18 Elden Ring

Link (YouTube)

A new Dark Soulsian game is out, so it’s time for another cultist recruitment drive. This time around the general public is apparently asking for a quest log. And like everything else they ask for, they’re being told that they’re trying to ruin the game and shut up you just don’t understand git gud.

I totally get why you wouldn’t want a Ubisoft-style quest log and waypoint markers cluttering up the HUD. I agree that modern games are way too eager to vomit a to-do list onto your screen. I can totally see how putting a waypoint marker in Elden Ring is like putting markers in Portal to show you where the portals should go.

On the other hand, I can also understand why someone might ask for a journal screen or whatever. Jason Schreier suggested keeping a pen and paper handy while playing the game. That’s a great idea! Only instead of paper, I want to keep track of things in a text document. And hey, rather than pausing the game so I can alt-tab over to my text document, wouldn’t it be cool if the game could just populate the text document for me? Let’s call it a “log” of quests. And wouldn’t it be cool if there was a button I could use to quickly look at this log from within the game? Wouldn’t that be more immersive than putting down the controller and turning away from the screen to consult a notebook?

On the other hand, there’s value in the player not knowing something is a quest. If someone mentions praying at a “fiery door”, I might think they’re just sharing their backstory. But if my quest log suddenly gains an entry for “Find the fiery door and pray at it” then I know this is a quest. And maybe having that entry would deny me the chance to make the connection on my own.

It’s an interesting debate, but like all Dark Souls criticism it quickly devolves into a weird sort of orthodoxy where it’s assumed that only True Fans understand the game well enough to criticize it, and the only people who are true fans are the ones who recognize the game as unassailable perfection.

Also worth noting is this video on Returnal, which I mentioned during this segment.

Link (YouTube)

As someone who would find the game too frustrating to play, I really appreciated this all-spoiler breakdown. Highly recommended.

35:57 Mailbag: Shades of Colourlessness

Dear Diecast,

I hope this mail finds you both hale and hearty.

Continuing my old man spree I dug up some games that I used to play a lot on Windows 3.1 (e.g. Hocus Pocus).

I was struck by how differnt they look in colour. Maybe this is just the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia talking, but when I used to play them on my old black-and-white monitor they looked far more striking.

Do you guys think games look better in black-and-white compared to in colour? How do you feel about games with dedicated B&W modes, like L.A. Noire and Tsushima? Am I just being an old curmudgeon yelling at clouds?

Vale,

-Tim

43:12 Mailbag: TV shows

Dear Diecast

Two new and popular TV shows ended fairly recently, The Book of Boba Fett and Peacemaker, have you seen them and if so then what are your thoughts?

Best regards from Bobby T.

50:54 Mailbag: Save Scumming

Dear DieCastles,

The practice of save scumming is pervasive in video games, and is a problem for any game designer whose game has a save system. What measures do you think that designers should take to deter players from (ab)using the system? Can you think of any examples of games that you’ve played where you you were tempted to reload after dealing with some adversity, but you avoided doing so, and why? Or do you think that save scumming is an acceptable practice, and not worth worrying about from a design perspective? Curious about your thoughts either way.

Regards,

Zeta Kai