[No Commentary] Sea of Thieves --
As often I doth protest too much, I feel like... at least in THIS case, the version polluted with uncanny puppetrcraft is the... ... ... "less unbearable" alternative. If I may grudgingly be forced to admit so myself (under extreme duress), at any rate.
If you're willing to tolerate my unseemly alternative lifestyle choices and want some insight as to WHY we're doing all this? Well... it MAY be gleaned to some small degree here (no promises):
• [VTuber] Sea of Thieves -- #00. Chara...
Now, bring me that draw distance and field of vision:
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This one's just a little "bonus" addition.
Being as this is the bleeding edge of... six-year-old games-as-a-service slightly-less-than-massively-multiplayer-always-online design paradigms... crossed with just a pinch of western game dev decisions and/or problems which will now be YOUR problems, dear player... PLUS a heaping spoonful of the "PC master race" meme dolloped on top... ... ... well, things were going to get complicated no matter what, it's just a matter of how much "it just works" we were going to reasonably expect.
Just kidding, this is a Rareware game. A Microsoft era Rareware game. Seeing all the exposed wires and confusing little bits and bobs poking out from under the hood is a FEATURE and it shows just how COOL a piece of genuine software engineering you're interfacing with. That's all! (Plus obligatory Britishisms and odd spelling choices. They actually FIT the setting for a change, though!)
Mark my words. This is neither the first nor the last time I'll be tweaking these things. In just the time since this was captured and I put off describing any of what went on in it... I've had to fix at least three major technical, visual, and control concerns... and several more of those are lurking in store that I just... didn't want to deal with. And we'll see what THAT costs me in terms of professionalism and presentation!
...not counting the issues that I'm definitely just making harder on myself for no other apparent reason than... because I can.
It's always FUN to learn where the out-of-the-box settings and input norms of TWO distinctly different eras and ecosystems are just jammed together in one place and see which one gives way first!
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Since I'm probably going to refrain from complaining in any level of detail or capacity later on, let's just catch a few of them, not all of which are in any way the game's fault!
Did you know this game is one of the few I've run across thus far (baby steps!) that DEFAULTS to an unbound framerate? Don't you usually need to opt into that, with the stern warning that you'll possibly generate some extra instabilities as a result? (Fun fact: the warning is still here, but the opting in has already been done FOR you!)
The keyboard and mouse setup is super sprawlingly comfy with a bunch of eras-old conventions of where certain types of actions are located, and no pesky need to inform players, just assuming they know how those things work. It's a game with guns and melee attacks in it! They'll be fine! Multiple interact keys? They'll figure them out! Context clues!
Shockingly, the controller layout is super cozy and almost... entirely comfortable? The game even has radial menus! Y'know, the things analog sticks make sense for, but keys and scraping-and-clicking input devices might struggle a bit with?
Heck, I only learned you CAN aim and sprint because of the conventions they absorb for these functions in this mode... but of COURSE it happens that I "learned" the ropes by the OTHER input method. (I was too lazy to plug in a controller meant to be used more monogamously with its own intended subcomputing television attachment device.)
"Inverted" aim! Makes sense one way for a mouse. A different way for a joystick! ... ... ...unless decades of conventional unwisdom have trained you to think the opposite! ...from decades of conventional wisdom PRIOR instead training people to believe otherwise! Huzzah!
And what if I want to put on a saucy poppet wench show o'er starboard side? That surely won't complicate matters one bit! (The high seas SURELY can't be any more graphically rigorous than free-roaming the fightin' streets of Metro City, riiiight?)
And I (wisely?) haven't even chosen to dig into what might be in store if I decide to retrofit "traditional" two-thumbed controls with gyro aiming! I swear! It's not weird! (No, YOU'RE weird!)
The game defaults to a 720p viewport for windowed mode, but full native resolution if you put it on the big screen. You can also only change the latter in menu form... you freely drag the former! Dynamism!
And I'm PRETTY sure the "recommended" settings of BOTH "Mythical" for one set of options and "CURSED" for an entirely other indicates to me that... ... ... this ancient unlost software has no idea what Moore's Law has been up to in the meantime, and can only vaguely guess at certain bits and throw up its arms in disgusted resignation at the others.