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Why the fuck is Witcher 3 #15 on the Codex top 101?

Non-Edgy Gamer

Grand Dragon
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So getting her impaled on the spike was the good ending then? :M

The character herself isn't meant to be a tranny, but still, that's gonna stay with me a while. Yuck.

edit:
Apparently the guy goes by "Tamara" now btw.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
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the-witcher-3-10-yennefer-memes-that-prove-the-game-makes-no-sense-article-image5.webp
 

Harthwain

Magister
Joined
Dec 13, 2019
Messages
4,818
Witcher 3 is one of the best RPGs ever made on any platform, I don't know what you're on about.

It has the perfect mixture of immersion, visuals, sound and music, atmosphere, writing and dialogues, quests and stories, gameplay and builds / stat fuckery.
It is not even an RPG. It is an action adventure like Zelda. Just less original (The Switcher is just Elric) an with more decline (bat senses and quest arrows).
Eh, Dark Souls is listed higher despite being an RPG even more nominally than TW3 (as good as Dark Souls is, as a game). So I don't really get all the surprise with TW3 being on the list and being so high. In a way it's in the similar vein to Gothic games, especially TW3, with its attempt to create a whole world that gives an impression of being alive.

It may be "less original", but point me to "Elric the Role Playing Game". It may have more decline (and I do agree here to a degree), but it also has more content and production values are really high (writing, voice acting, quests, etc.). This is why I am not surprised many people like TW3, even here, despite me dropping it relatively quickly.

Oh, and "it is not even an RPG"? Bro, what is an RPG? Because the way I see TW3 does have - nominally - all the elements other RPGs have: quests, experience points, choices (and consequences), skills... You ought to present a comprehensive metric before you drop a bomb like that, because Gothic, too, can be called "an action adventure" game. Hell, we even have hack'n'slash on the list (Diablo)!
 

Robotigan

Learned
Joined
Jan 18, 2022
Messages
397
ITT: lots of people who like to think they are elitist but are really just hipsters with a narrow focus. Depth of rpg mechanics is not the only criterion for what makes a good rpg, Witcher 3 beats all the listed competiton in terms of atmosphere, presentation and quality of writing.
Let me give you the rundown, Codexian culture is a fascinating case study in online social communities. Codex was founded back in 2002. So ask yourself, what were the popular RPGs for anyone who was online (read: owned a computer not a 'kiddie' console) back in the early aughts? What hit new titles were those users playing? Well, it's a who's who of the very top of the 101: Fallout, Baldur's Gate, Deus Ex, Kotor, Morrowind. And those are just the biggest hits, but basically any notable RPG from that era makes an appearance on the top half of the list: Neverwinter Nights, Gothic, Wizardry 8, Icewind Dale, Jagged Alliance 2. And what are the underappreciated box office bombs from that era? The cult classics only snobs play to flex their genre credentials? Why, only 3 of the top 5 RPGs of all time: Planescape Torment, Arcanum, and V:TMB. There's essentially no filter here, if you and your buddies worked in games development in 1999 and wanted to turn your D&D homebrew into a computer game, you were a titan of the genre as far as Codex is concerned.

As much as Codex denounces casuals who just play the hit newer titles, it's pretty obvious that's what Codex was doing back then. All these late-90s/early-00s games push plenty of much more influential titles from an older generation down the list. Sure some of these titles like Krondor, Ultima, and Might & Magic get a shoutout from aficionado's who really know their stuff, but there's virtually no discussion about these games. They're there only for the record. Rather than the end-all-be-all of critical RPG analysis, it's more useful to think of Codex like an early-2000s internet community frozen in amber. The favorite games on here will always be whatever reminds them most of those halcyon days when they were kids playing the latest CRPG releases. Newer design innovations or even revisiting really old pre-1997 design philosophies isn't appreciated much on here.

Another question you may have, why are there so many Poles, Serbs, and other flavors of Eastern European on this forum? What about everyone from the more populated and prosperous Western half of the continent? Well there's a clue, prosperous, as in access to international markets and the money to buy the latest products like video game consoles. Because of Soviet-era restrictions and top-down economic management, these countries basically only had access to office computers and pirated discs. So naturally Computer RPGs is one of the hot genres over there. The dominant political attitudes in these countries also marries well and reinforces the similar sentiments that exist in CRPG communities: socially conservative, distrust government (and any other big, influential institutions), very Christian, despise anything that even smells like communism. But anyway, this explains why CDPR--a source of national pride for Poland and culturally closer to Codex's political leanings--got so popular on this website despite chasing after every trend Codexians claim to hate.
 
Joined
Aug 27, 2021
Messages
698
Or maybe it's because people with less than 1 year to their accounts got to vote, and the vote was rigged. That could also be the reason, but that part is stories to tuck children into bed at night.
very Christian, despise anything that even smells like communism
I wish...
It's true, I was supposed to be an independent observer of the vote counting and they kicked me out and put pizza boxes over the windows. I heard them inside chanting "Combat forever, story never" and they ran the same ballots through the machines multiple times!
 

017

Novice
Joined
Dec 28, 2021
Messages
47
OP****:
  • Is more than 30 years old, and no longer lives with his parents - this changed after his methhead parents died, so he inherited the shitty shack they owned and is now his, by law.
  • Uses the word "nigger" in an unsophisticated manner, in an attempt to color himself superior to whoever he is communicating it. Do note, though, that he uses this word only on the internet, and would not dare to do this in real life, especially when faced with one individual of the race he so carelessly tried to offend for the sole reason of being edgy.
  • Actively browses 4chan, unironically, namely /pol/, /v/, /b/, and /gif/, the latter solely for the reason of easy access to tranny pornography.
  • Actively jerks off to anal sex (which is homosexual by default (not that there's anything wrong with that**)).
  • Actively jerks off to bizzare, abnormal pornographic materials, all of which so degenerate they only enhance his inability to perform when faced with a real woman***.
  • Has no significant other, whether male or female (or any other non-binary sexual identification, as if that would matter), in spite of the attempts at acquiring one.
  • As such, he has subjected himself to involuntary celibacy and has since convinced himself that he does not need a woman, because women are, as he himself often puts it, whores, and only care for alpha males (also known as chads) who have an unfair genetical advantage over him, or rich males, something that he has never been able to become as a result of a lack of personality, intelligence, and confidence. This particular perception, as it is important to note, was born out of becoming an avid follower of the MGTOW movement, who he himself regards as "revolutionary", "mindblowing", "truly woke", and "based" (of course), as well as of Jordan Peterson, in his mind the greatest philosopher in human history, and a patron of the modern man.
  • Plays video games way too much due to a lack of social life, the lack of which is involuntary as well.
  • Plays video games way too much due to a lack of a fulfilling professional success, the lack of which is voluntary in his mind, but subconsciously involuntary, as the coping mechanisms have long since dulled any logical perception of this disgusting individual.
  • The two points above have given him the validation to believe that he is an expert in the field of being a "video gamer", and his deluxe collection of RGB-enhanced Razer peripherals has only enhanced this belief, as he has invested money in his "video gaming experience (tm)", and has thus become not only emotionally, but also financially attached to his one and only hobby of, indeed, playing video games.
These points have, in spite of OP's efforts, rendered his opinion as utter shit and a desperate attempt of showcasing superiority; a thin veil if there ever was one.

**There's, of course, nothing wrong about a man, who would naturally copulate with a woman by entering her vulva, to want to copulate with her by entering her anus, coincidentally the only spot where a man could, well, have sex with another man.
***This actually has not happened yet, so this particular case is inherently an assumption, but too many signs, reinforced by supreme knowledge of human psychology, unfortunately point towards that.
****While the description above reflects the nature of the creator of this thread, these traits are largely shared by luj1 as well.
 
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Non-Edgy Gamer

Grand Dragon
Patron
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
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Messages
14,970
Strap Yourselves In
And what are the underappreciated box office bombs from that era? The cult classics only snobs play to flex their genre credentials? Why, only 3 of the top 5 RPGs of all time: Planescape Torment, Arcanum, and V:TMB.
In 2002 still? Impressive, considering that VTMB wasn’t released until 2004.

The indie dev scene wasn’t that big back then. There was no kickstarter. There wasn’t even Steam until 2003 and even then it wasn’t as open. So yeah, we all played the big titles because no one was making anything else other than a handful of Roguelikes, which we also played.

Arcanum may have been big on PC, but that was when “big” was selling 200,000 copies. Skyrim sold over 30 million by 2016. 7 million in the first week. For you to pretend Arcanum is anywhere near mainstream is laughable. Same with PST. VTMB and PoE were both horribly broken at release, but we played them, and their audience increased over the years with fan patches.

Besides, as someone who’s been here since 2003, I can say that there were plenty of people who were disappointed in Morrowind. I myself hated NWN. Plenty of people (including the site’s founder SP), who thought Baldur’s Gate represented a decline in terms of combat. Saying that we all universally liked these games just because we played (and often pirated) them is inaccurate. As is going off straight user polls.

A 15yo who plays Oblivion on his Xbox and comes to this site thinking it’s hot shit is a casual. That’s who came here for Morrowind, that’s who came for Oblivion, that’s who came for Fallout 3 and Skyrim.

Yes, these people are casual gamers. They need things dumbed down for them. Their consoles couldn’t handle the latest graphics. It wasn’t elitism to point this out at the time, it was seeing the industry transform from something that was aimed at our demographic (CRPG players), and into something made for console kids. (As in, literal children, not the man children of today.)

So yes, you probably got called a faggot for liking Bethesda’s walking sims, but there was a reason behind that other than “muh elitism”. We didn’t like you, or your taste in video games because devs actively ruined the industry for you. Watching Eidos gut the idea of sprawling levels like in Deus Ex for the consolized “smaller, deeper” levels in DX2, for example.

You cannot compare trash like Fable or Oblivion to Realms of Arkania: Star Trail, Baldur’s Gate, or even Gothic and say “yes, these are two games made for the exact same audience and anyone who doesn’t like them both is just an elitist.” The industry was changing to please the lowest common denominator and *gasp* we didn’t like it.
 
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Robotigan

Learned
Joined
Jan 18, 2022
Messages
397
So yes, you probably got called a faggot for liking Bethesda’s walking sims, but there was a reason behind that other than “muh elitism”. We didn’t like you, or or taste in video games because devs actively ruined the industry for you.

You cannot compare trash like Fable or Oblivion to Realms of Arkania: Star Trail, Baldur’s Gate, or even Gothic and say “yes, these are two games made for the exact same audience and anyone who doesn’t like them both is just an elitist.”
You're right, CRPGs like Baldur's Gate and Fallout were not made for me. Probably because in 2002 I was 7 and the only games my parents allowed me to play was stuff like Putt-Putt and Bernie's Typing Travels. Not to blow your mind, but that was 20 years ago. Now I'm a 27-year-old software engineer with 5 years of industry experience. It's kind of funny actually. Skyrim was one of the first WRPGs I played, but since I didn't own an Xbox or PS3, I had to install an extra stick of RAM on the family computer to meet the minimum memory requirement then bootcamp a Windows partition. Not rocket surgery or anything, but probably more effort than you went through to install and run Baldur's Gate. Observing the radiant AI and digging around through console commands was a big reason I elected to major in Computer Science.

This notion that streamlined design is for stoopid normies is nonsense. Instead, I'd posit that what makes a design truly elegant is to take an incredibly complex backend and present it to users as simply and intuitively as possible. Even the cleverest programmers greatly appreciate a neatly-structured, well-commented program that follows all the best practices and exercises readable syntax. No one wants the chore of having to parse someone else's byzantine codebase while also trying to think through their own tricky applications. Right now I'm working with an api that has redundant usages like `update incident` and `create update` and it's maddening to deal with. Any engineer wants to reduce their mental load wherever they can so they can focus as much as possible on their problem of interest.
 

BanEvader

Guest
OP****:
  • Is more than 30 years old, and no longer lives with his parents - this changed after his methhead parents died, so he inherited the shitty shack they owned and is now his, by law.
  • Uses the word "nigger" in an unsophisticated manner, in an attempt to color himself superior to whoever he is communicating it. Do note, though, that he uses this word only on the internet, and would not dare to do this in real life, especially when faced with one individual of the race he so carelessly tried to offend for the sole reason of being edgy.
  • Actively browses 4chan, unironically, namely /pol/, /v/, /b/, and /gif/, the latter solely for the reason of easy access to tranny pornography.
  • Actively jerks off to anal sex (which is homosexual by default (not that there's anything wrong with that**)).
  • Actively jerks off to bizzare, abnormal pornographic materials, all of which so degenerate they only enhance his inability to perform when faced with a real woman***.
  • Has no significant other, whether male or female (or any other non-binary sexual identification, as if that would matter), in spite of the attempts at acquiring one.
  • As such, he has subjected himself to involuntary celibacy and has since convinced himself that he does not need a woman, because women are, as he himself often puts it, whores, and only care for alpha males (also known as chads) who have an unfair genetical advantage over him, or rich males, something that he has never been able to become as a result of a lack of personality, intelligence, and confidence. This particular perception, as it is important to note, was born out of becoming an avid follower of the MGTOW movement, who he himself regards as "revolutionary", "mindblowing", "truly woke", and "based" (of course), as well as of Jordan Peterson, in his mind the greatest philosopher in human history, and a patron of the modern man.
  • Plays video games way too much due to a lack of social life, the lack of which is involuntary as well.
  • Plays video games way too much due to a lack of a fulfilling professional success, the lack of which is voluntary in his mind, but subconsciously involuntary, as the coping mechanisms have long since dulled any logical perception of this disgusting individual.
  • The two points above have given him the validation to believe that he is an expert in the field of being a "video gamer", and his deluxe collection of RGB-enhanced Razer peripherals has only enhanced this belief, as he has invested money in his "video gaming experience (tm)", and has thus become not only emotionally, but also financially attached to his one and only hobby of, indeed, playing video games.
These points have, in spite of OP's efforts, rendered his opinion as utter shit and a desperate attempt of showcasing superiority; a thin veil if there ever was one.

**There's, of course, nothing wrong about a man, who would naturally copulate with a woman by entering her vulva, to want to copulate with her by entering her anus, coincidentally the only spot where a man could, well, have sex with another man.
***This actually has not happened yet, so this particular case is inherently an assumption, but too many signs, reinforced by supreme knowledge of human psychology, unfortunately point towards that.
****While the description above reflects the nature of the creator of this thread, these traits are largely shared by luj1 as well.
You doing okay buddy? If there's something bothering you we can talk it over. You'll feel better. Want a hug? Come here big boy, let it all out.
 

Non-Edgy Gamer

Grand Dragon
Patron
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 6, 2020
Messages
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Strap Yourselves In
We didn’t like you, or your taste in video games because devs actively ruined the industry for you.

Damn, that's crazy. Wonder why that happened? Oh well, I'm sure it was just random chance.
When did I say that it was? PC game companies expanded into the console market and then ignored the fanbase that had previously kept them in business.

Money. Simple as. Didn't mean we needed to be happy about it.
 

Non-Edgy Gamer

Grand Dragon
Patron
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
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Messages
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Strap Yourselves In
You're right, CRPGs like Baldur's Gate and Fallout were not made for me. Probably because in 2002 I was 7
That's...completely beside the point. I'm talking about the sort of person the game was made to appeal to, not who specifically at that time. Quit thinking the world revolves around you or whatever age you are.
Now I'm a 27-year-old software engineer with 5 years of industry experience. It's kind of funny actually. Skyrim was one of the first WRPGs I played, but since I didn't own an Xbox or PS3, I had to install an extra stick of RAM on the family computer to meet the minimum memory requirement then bootcamp a Windows partition. Not rocket surgery or anything, but probably more effort than you went through to install and run Baldur's Gate. Observing the radiant AI and digging around through console commands was a big reason I elected to major in Computer Science.
Good grief. The nigger puts in a stick of RAM, looks at some Todd Howard totally-not-scripting and suddenly he thinks he's a genius.

Congratulations on being a code monkey. I don't really give a shit though.
This notion that streamlined design is for stoopid normies is nonsense.
You were an eleven-year-old and you want me to take that as a benchmark of the level of intellect of Skyrim players at the time. Think about that.

Again, you've missed the point entirely. My argument is that the Codex was bitter because they saw the industry being streamlined for children such as yourself and dev studios abandoning the audiences that previously kept them in business. That it wasn't elitism.
Even the cleverest programmers greatly appreciate a neatly-structured, well-commented program that follows all the best practices and exercises readable syntax. No one wants the chore of having blah blah blah
We get it. You're very smart. 5 whole years of experience. Good job.
 
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Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
PC game companies expanded into the console market and then ignored the fanbase that had previously kept them in business.

Yeah, it's almost like that audience wasn't actually keeping them in business or something.
But that's simply not true, gamedevs have always been obsessed with unending expansion and never content with the profit their games make.
Bioware could have kept on making "Bioware-style" games forever, something that is an obvious hole in the current market. But they didn't, because they wanted the mythical nonexistent "wider audience".
 

Non-Edgy Gamer

Grand Dragon
Patron
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
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Messages
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Strap Yourselves In
Yeah, it's almost like that audience wasn't actually keeping them in business or something.
Except they were in business for years and made millions off said audiences.

No, it's almost like they saw the opportunity to make tens of millions more and took it.
 
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