The Miscellaneous PC & vidya Games Thread

[Syt]

Watched some videos from people who could play a 45 minute demo of SWO (a heist mission, a mission to restart an abandoned reactor, some space combat) - main take aways are:
- fairly polished from what they saw
- hides its loading well (going through clouds to get to planet, travel cutscenes while loading next area, ... - PAY ATTENTION STARFIELD )
- traversal, combat, space combat are not revolutionary or pushing the envelope, but competent (it has the much maligned yellow paint to highlight climbable areas, apparently ... I don't have an issue with those, but it seems to have become a pet peeve for gamers recently )
- well designed environments and locations, giving a "lived in" feel
- remains to be seen how open the game actually is and how many different ways to tackle missions there are
- uncertain if the story will be any good

[crazy canuck]

Except I have known serious athletes.
And see the article I posted. Plenty of contrary evidence. It's a known problem.

Anecdotal evidence isn't evidence.  There's nothing in any of your article's anecdotes that demonstrates any link between sports and the criminal behavior or personal depression that those men suffered.  "I tried out for football, didn't make it, and football forced me to sell drugs" is not a plausible story.

Athletes failing to achieve as much as they desire in their sport isn't a "problem," it's just a fact of life.  And one that teaches valuable lessons in itself.  Sports will not be the last thing that disappoints them in their lives.

Qualitative evidence certainly is evidence.
I'd be interested to see some quant on the topic too but not having it to hand doesn't mean this problem doesn't exist.
Academies are not making big efforts to remedy a problem which isn't real.

Anyway. The core point was - having elite programming skills is directly transferable to a good job as well as allowing for nerdy hobbies.
Being good at football, whatever incidental soft skills you may pick up along the way, isn't.

It is a diminishingly small part of the work force that can function productively without the "soft" skills you think are not important.

[Josquius]

It is a diminishingly small part of the work force that can function productively without the "soft" skills you think are not important.

Thats a weird stretch.

Qualitative evidence certainly is evidence.
I'd be interested to see some quant on the topic too but not having it to hand doesn't mean this problem doesn't exist.
Academies are not making big efforts to remedy a problem which isn't real.

Anyway. The core point was - having elite programming skills is directly transferable to a good job as well as allowing for nerdy hobbies.
Being good at football, whatever incidental soft skills you may pick up along the way, isn't.

You have presented no qualitative evidence.  Just anecdotal evidence.

How on earth would you define qualitative if not anecdotal?

The problems at UK football academies are problems at UK football academies, not problems with sports.

Football is a particularly stand out example as there the rewards for success are so you do get larger amounts of kids devoting their life to pursuing it. Its also the sport I follow and have known people involved with so as an example its the one that sticks out in my mind.
Though if throwing balls in hoops or hitting them with bats has some non-sporting world application I'm not aware of then I'd be interested to know.

In both cases, it is the required intermediate skills (like programming for the amateur game makers or self-discipline for the athlete) that provide value, not the specifics of making pixels jump or throwing a ball in a hoop.

Programming is the core skill we are talking about with the programmers.
Playing their sport is the core skill for the sports people.
Self-discipline et al is common to both and completely outside of the point.

[Threviel]

Soft skills are not guaranteed when it comes to football, just look at Messi.

Anecdotally the football guys were very immature when I grew up. The one with motivation and skill never got very far and was a dimwit.

[crazy canuck]

Nothing in life is guaranteed.

There are a lot of very immature guys here.  Must not a plate sports.   

[grumbler]

How on earth would you define qualitative if not anecdotal?

Qualitative evidence is the expert analysis of a series of subjective experiences in an attempt to understand the issues of how and why.  It differs from anecdotal evidence in that it is focused on answering an analytical question rather than simply repeating what the subject said (the latter being anecdotal).

In any case, drawing conclusions about the skills of high-level athletes by presenting anecdotes from those who failed to develop those skills is pointless.

Football is a particularly stand out example as there the rewards for success are so you do get larger amounts of kids devoting their life to pursuing it. Its also the sport I follow and have known people involved with so as an example its the one that sticks out in my mind.

I suspect that you do not know any high-level athletes in football, since you don't seem aware of the life skills that high-level athletes attain in any sport.

Though if throwing balls in hoops or hitting them with bats has some non-sporting world application I'm not aware of then I'd be interested to know.

This is pure red herring argumentation and unworthy of response. 

Programming is the core skill we are talking about with the programmers.
Playing their sport is the core skill for the sports people.
Self-discipline et al is common to both and completely outside of the point.

Your example was not of programmers, though, but people making amateur video games.  Some of those might be programmers, many self-taught, and others are not.  In any case, self-taught programmers have no skills that are directly applicable to professional programming, though they may well have learned enough to make programming education much easier for them (as the self-discipline of top-level athletes will also make it easier for them to learn formal programming).

Serf-discipline is entirely independent of programming but central to achieving high levels of athletic accomplishment.

[Josquius]

Qualitative evidence is the expert analysis of a series of subjective experiences in an attempt to understand the issues of how and why.  It differs from anecdotal evidence in that it is focused on answering an analytical question rather than simply repeating what the subject said (the latter being anecdotal).

Qualitative evidence is anecdotal evidence.
What you're referring to here is a qualitative analysis.
You need to start with the core stories before you can attempt to do anything with it.
Any decent study in the social sphere involves a tonne of anecdotal evidence (suitably triangulated with data).

In any case, drawing conclusions about the skills of high-level athletes by presenting anecdotes from those who failed to develop those skills is pointless.

We're specifically talking about people who don't make it professionally. Those who did make it are irrelevant.

I suspect that you do not know any high-level athletes in football, since you don't seem aware of the life skills that high-level athletes attain in any sport.

I'm not going to claim to be best friends with Harry Kane, but I know a few folk who have been involved with the game.
The guy I mentioned who got pretty far in the Man Utd youth system, an elderly neighbour who had a full career at Newcastle Utd back in the day, I went to school with a girl who made it professionally and even played for England a few times, I haven't seen him for a long time but I used to know a guy who was a real up and comer and played in the England youth setup but had an unfortunate health issue and moved into making a career as a pretty top level coach.
So I'm not totally unaware of people involved with the game.
But anyway. This is all irrelevant as I never mentioned life skills. We aren't talking about life skills. They have fuck all to do with the topic.

This is pure red herring argumentation and unworthy of response.

Basically like everything you're saying. But boredom is what it is.

Your example was not of programmers, though, but people making amateur video games.  Some of those might be programmers, many self-taught, and others are not.  In any case, self-taught programmers have no skills that are directly applicable to professional programming, though they may well have learned enough to make programming education much easier for them (as the self-discipline of top-level athletes will also make it easier for them to learn formal programming).

Serf-discipline is entirely independent of programming but central to achieving high levels of athletic accomplishment.

I'm not sure how you're going to be making Mario 64 VR for an original N64 without an insanely impressive level of programming skills.
Its true there's not much call specifically for N64 programming. But I'd be very surprised if much of it wasn't in some way transferable to more modern needs. C, assembler, etc... these things are all still in demand.

Also FYI loads of programmers are self-taught. It's pretty surprising quite how few have CS degrees. The tech field  tends to be pretty relaxed when it comes to valuing actual skills over qualifications. I've worked with many who never went to uni at all.

[Zanza]

Anno 117:

[Josquius]

Funny. Renault apparently have a team whose job it is to mod one of their car models into various games. Both fitting and expected, and not.


https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/game-development/while-other-companies-do-expensive-crossovers-with-fortnite-renaults-been-modding-its-little-electric-car-into-garrys-mod-palworld-and-stardew-valleyand-the-mods-actually-look-good/

[celedhring]

Been playing the Hollywood Animal demo. It's like somebody made the tycoon game of my dreams.

[Syt]

There's also Movies Tycoon, though it seems more like a remake of The Movies.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2659050/Movies_Tycoon/

[celedhring]

What I like about Hollywood Animal is that the Hollywood Golden Age theme is pretty strongly executed, and the game has actually a good amount of depth. It is a pretty reasonable attempt at building a tycoon game reflecting how the business worked back then.

A lot of the features are not implemented in the demo. So hopefully it's not one of those overly ambitious games that then is never truly finished. We'll see, but it is very promising.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah I'm excited by it - and think studio era Hollywood is a really good setting for that type of game.

[Syt]

In a similar vein, I mentioned News Tower further up, in which you manage a 1930s New York newspaper - the game seems to be getting regular updates for now, and sits at Overwhelmingly Positive reviews so far: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1649950/News_Tower/

[garbon]

I see Paradox has cancelled another experiment. They shutdown studio and closed troubled Life By You.