Its not so much the outright tolls I’m concerned about (voting alone filters most out), as the general toxicity in the culture. Things like increasingly widespread personal attacks, decreased etiquette and consideration for others, and just the general death of discourse.
Like if you had modules and plugins that can work like legos to make a very simple game. AI can help get your initial game wired up.
This is basically how modern development tools (I.E. the Unity Editor) work - they let you import all the resources then provide a framework for connecting it all together.
That said, this process of connecting everything is also one of the parts AI is actually worst at. As AI doesn’t understand context or logic, it can’t fit things together in a complex or meaningful way, nonetheless a unique way. Its for the same reason AI is bad at large/complex programming tasks (like game development). AI can make passable (albiet not great) individual art assets, but when you need to fit them together in logical ways, things start to fall apart. The same problem applies to testing. Tests where an agent effectively hits random buttons aren’t very useful, since they’re too inefficient. You need logical, structured and/directed testing, which AI can’t meaningfully do.
Basically, for easy, boilerplate stuff, its going to be largely done by the engine, or assets you import. Anything else is too complex or too important for AI.
As is, theres no sign things will go that way quickly. The increase in larger mods is more a product of increased funding and increased (legal) support from publishers. Things like Roblox’s microtransactions make it very profitable, even if a lot of time or money is spent in development. For more general game development, most of it hasn’t changed in about a decade, and I don’t see AI affecting much. AI can’t reliably create good results in any field, nonetheless combining them. Basically, making any large project just costs too much to give away for free.
So, basically you’re describing open source, public domain game development (rather than just an open source engine like Godot) by the sound of it. This does happen, games like Luanti or Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, but very rarely. Unlike mods, which tend to be small, quick-and-dirty projects, game development is usually much larger in scope and more difficult. It’s normal for the process to take years of work from a collective of skilled developers and artists. That amount of work is usually just too much for someone to willingly give away for free.
There are free engines available, and many of the paid ones have cheap or free tiers available for smaller projects. Also, if you want to actually publish your mod, there are likely to be a bunch of costs, like buying licences to use copyrighted characters, settings, ect. Even more so if you want to publish your mod as a standalone product, where you need to buy a licence to resell the entire original game.
That said, prehaps it would help to think of the game engine as a foundation, and the games as a completed house. If you want to make something, you can look at existing houses and imagine putting an extention on, or a new coat of paint. If the house is particularly well contructed, maybe its even easy to do. Still, at a certain point, theres no more you can add or change without it being easier to tear everything down and start from the foundation, or entirely from scratch. Its not a limitation of the design of the house, its just an intrinsic fact when you’re working by building off someone else’s completed work.
Now, if we start from the foundation (engine) instead we have less to start with, meaning its going to be a lot more work than doing minor changes, but the hardest part is still already done for us. This is what most people do when making games. Its far more flexable than modding, esspecially because you have a selection of engines available at different prices, with different strengths, weaknesses and specializations. GameMaker for simple 2D games, RPGMaker for making jrpgs, Unreal for 3D action games, ect.
Finally, you could skip both these options, and design and build everything from scatch. Its the option that gives you most freedom by far, but its generally not worth it unless you’re making something thats very small, that is so unique that nothing else will work, or that you’re dedicated and what a perfect fit for.
Company-made games and standalone games aren’t going anywhere any time soon. Its a different type of project than modding/creating for games like Half Life, Gmod, Minecraft, Roblox, or VRChat. Making games within other games limits what you can do, because you have no control over the engine, and said engine is normally focused on an specific “base” mechanics set. For example, in Gmod, this is an FPS game. Modders can change this gameplay, but the further you push away from it, the less work is done for you, and the more you’re fighting the existing game. At a certain point, you may as well just make a game rather than a mod.
Depends on the use case. If its just to be a piece to fill the spot and nothing else, yes. That said, assets impact tone and gameplay, and if you’re trying to judge how something will feel or play, then sometimes you need something closer to the given use case. For example, if you have a survival horror game and are trying to judge the ambiance and visibility of an in-progress level, using wildly out of place assets will mess with the tone, and may result in difficulty in judging factors like the visibility of gameplay elements. Like was said before, the same role as stock assets and programmer art.
Stock assets (at least if you need more than the absolutely basics) cost quite a bit. Programmer art can work, but if you want something close to the tone of the finished product, still takes time and thus money. Slop is quick and free.
Frankly, given the fact that placeholder assets are literally meant to be utilitarian, disposable, “just good enough” work, it’s actually not a terrible use case. Placeholders are meant to be slop either way, so not much is lost by automating it, so long as it is actually removed after.
That which reinforces bias from innapropriate confirmation or unduly limits discussion of counter views.
The problem is that if that toxicity is widespread enough, and accepted enough, it does interfere with any discussion of opposing viewpoints. When helpful comments that advance the discussion are consistently burried under dozens of unhelpful ones, it makes it difficult to have a meaningful discussion, and incentivses those whose opinions that go against the ingrained group-think to leave. Akin to the Nazi bar allegory, allowing that sort of toxicity to fester just chases off anyone who doesn’t want to join in, leading to a echo-chamber.
The distinction is in the civility, not the topic. I just used AI because its one of the worst for it right now. People tend to see liking AI (or not hating it enough) as a good reason to attack people - again, not just death threats, but things like attacks on character, or other toxic behaviour. For a more mundane example, there was recently a post on the No Stupid Questions community, asking how Christians could justify not being homophobic or anti-abortion. The question itself, despite its validity, is downvoted significantly, and about half the responses are edgy, unhelpful quips rather than genuine attempts to answer the question - many of which with positive scores. That sort of thing is widespread, which quashes genuine discorse, thus, creates an echochamber.
I would argue Lemmy is less of an echochamber as I see more genuine LGBTQ2S+, Anarchist, Tankie, Antifa that reddit ever had. I think the smaller population here just chopped the top of the gaussian distribution curve, amd we have, relatively, a few less “normies”. People passionate, and articulate about their things.
I would argue that the open and often extreme hostility towards ideas that go against the group consensus still make it more of an echochamber. Like, for example, if you say something positive about AI and are spammed with deaththreats and other bad-faith character attacks, you’re not going to stick around, and even if you do, you’re not going to feel safe expressing that opinion, and that option will be effectively stompped out. This sort of behaviour is still very common, even outside of .ml, and just because some topics are more free than Reddit, doesn’t mean the problem doesn’t exist.
Personally, I haven’t noticed a decrease in content, but I have noticed a significant dropoff in quality of content, and in it’s place, has mostly grown toxicity. None of the racism, or anything that extreme (although, from what I’ve seen, my instance moderators have been doing a good job,) but so much of the content is insults, unhelpful snark, doomerism, elitism, and just general bad-faith arguments. It feels like all those who wantted to be helpful or supportive have given up or left, meaning no high-quality content and no meaningful discourse.
That said, it also feels like a wider cultural shift thats happened in the last year or so. Online culture as a whole feels more toxic, with fewer places to go for positivity or constructivity, and far more hate and abuse.
Generally for me, its all about the flow-state - generally anything with a strong primary gameplay loop thats not too hard to learn, but impossible to master. Roguelikes specifically tend to scratch this itch, since the genre is all about finding a strong core gameplay loop, and than milking every drop of enjoyment out of it. Things like Slay the Spire, Roboquest, or Crypt of the Necrodancer. Others games I like, that do this really well are arcade indie games like Hotline Miami and Anger Foot, and esports titles like CS2 and DotA2.
That said, my more niche interest in games is in hyper-specialized or experimental hardware. This includes more common stuff like VR, or flight sims with HOTAS, but also less intentional stuff. One of my personal favorites that unfortunately no longer works, was playing CS:GO with a joystick for movement. The analog movement allows for way more percise control in movement, and including allowing you to walk silently faster than is normally possibly. The downside is fact that you couldn’t counterstrafe, although given that I almost exclusively use the Negev, it wasn’t much of a downside.
I don’t think its changed significantly, but I also do think the impacts (good and bad) have become more far-reaching, and the bad esspecially has become more visible.
We’ve always had a generally evil ruling class, and that evil always ranged from “just” stealing from the populus to genocide and torturing people for fun (just as today). Unlike historically, we’re just aware of all of it, whereas a serf would barely know what their own lord was like, nonetheless one on the other side of the world. We’ve also always had those willing to work to build a better future. In the past, this was mostly limited to giving food and money, usually organized by religions organizations, and this continues, but we also now have thousands of other non-profits and tools, made and maintained by talented people who just want a better world. Think of all the people making educational videos, articles, software and more and giving it away for cheap or for free. Things like Wikipedia, VLC, and others would have caved to the rich and powerful decades ago if not for the fact that they’re committed to making the world better.
As a whole, yes. We’ve managed to make it this far, and have strived for progress the whole time. On an individual level, absolutely not.
Based on my own experiences and readings, I’d guesstimate that a good 10% of people are genuinely evil, and another 50% are morons. I would absolutely not bet on those odds when trying to get help. Still, that leaves another 40% who are decent enough to want good, and smart enough to act on it.
Dota 2 is great (I’ve got thousands of hours, and am still on the low side in my circles) but its hardly something I’d recommend for those who don’t want to spend time learning. Its like 50 hours to learn the basics, then another hundred to understand basic positioning and strategy.
And with good reason, given that high quality content is expensive. Even for a channel that is purely something as simple as video essays, if you’re doing a good job, its going to take hundreds of hours of research and writing, nonetheless something more demanding.
As someone who doesn’t pay attention to niche fighting games: Guilty Gear games are still being made? I thought they were a retro game or something. I think you’re overestimating it’s prominence. The only moden fighting games that come to mind as someone who has no interest in competitve play are Street Fighter, Mortal Combat (and Injustice), Smash Bros, and 2XKO. I’m don’t have confidence to say that fighting games aren’t growing, but the only news/attention I’ve seen for the genre since the launch of Street Fighter 6 has been a couple 2XKO trailers.
This isn’t a tier list tier list. Its clearly a tier list tier tier list.
Reddit search is way better. It even has operators for the search, and things like flairs that you can search by.