(Forwarded from the Vintage Story reddit, as I believe this appears to be relevant to more games often.)

Yesterday on the Vintage Story discord, there had been reports that some mods were mysteriously crashing, one of which being the Caves n Caverns mod. But the leading cause didn't come from it or a compatibility issue, but instead came from a completely different mod; ConfigLib, a popular dependancy for many mods, one that was made by one of the game devs itself. Turns out, ConfigLib had a feature implemented that was meant as an anti-cheat feature that deals with encryption.

The idea is precarious at best, but clearly it's harming usage of other mods by just interrupting your game client. But when it was released, it was deemed "pointless" now it was exposed, and was just removed. End of story.

I'm not going to dive into the reasons why this was added, but there is a stern thought that doesn't sit well with me; This is code that directly affects your game or other mods. And it is code that is NOT disclosed to be added (logically, but still). Personally this feels like a strong breach of trust because appearantly they found it no problem at all to sneak in code against its users knowing, and now this has been exposed, what more secret code are we supposed to expect to find in this- or other mods, that we don't know about yet?

I think sneaking in code is dangerous. An Easter egg, reference or homage/credit is one thing, but something like this is a whole another level.

And the peace we are expected to accept is; "you found it, it's updated and removed, carry on."?

Some comments in the original that are food for thought;

If the dev was okay doing this to one of their mods- what are we supposed to expect from all the other mods that dev made we haven't found out about yet?

The only anti-cheat mod that should exist, is the one you knowingly choose to add to your client/server.

This is a particularly dangerous move of an official dev implementing their own ideas into a game that were rejected by the other members of the team initially.

Had a blast with this game. Highly recommend if you like re4 and sh2. No you don’t need to play the first game.

Full thoughts in this short video I made if anyone cares.

https://youtu.be/cIG8wfr2Swo?is=NKA74nQbgzhR_y9P

We all love games... but sometimes games want to hurt us. When I get frustrated with my favorite game (Rimworld is my current favorite game and if you play it, you know how bad it gets) I have a backup.

My comfort game when something egregious happens is Totally Accurate Battle Simulator, as I have the ability to create custom units with some pretty nice and calming music after my favorite character dies.

What are your favorite things to do when your games gone sideways?

What is everyone getting? Both eventually for me, but for now, can't decided which one to start with.

To be able to play while working from home is a blessing. Either in your afternoon break or afterwards.

For me, North & South on the NES.

Heroes III is 27 years old and somehow it is still one of the easiest games for me to recommend, largely because of Horn of the Abyss.

HotA isn't just a small mod. At this point it feels like the continuation of Heroes III that we never officially got.

You get three completely new factions: Cove, Factory and now Bulwark... five full campaigns, new heroes, artifacts, creatures, terrains, map objects, spells/mechanics, balance changes and a ridiculous amount of QoL improvements. The HD Mod is integrated too.

What impresses me most is how carefully it respects the original game. The art, music, lore and mechanics still feel like Heroes III rather than somebody bolting a modern mod onto a 1999 game.

Factory in particular is fantastic. It embraces the weird science-fantasy side of the original Might & Magic universe with automatons, engineers and technology while still somehow looking completely at home beside Castle, Dungeon or Necropolis.

And HotA isn't only for campaigns.

The competitive/random-map scene is enormous. Templates such as Jebus Cross, Jebus Outcast and Duel essentially turn Heroes III into a completely different kind of competitive strategy game. There are also decades of community-made scenarios and maps to explore.

For single-player, after the original campaigns I'd absolutely recommend playing the HotA campaigns, especially Forged in Fire. And once you start looking into custom maps, Heroes III becomes almost bottomless.

That's the crazy thing about this game: it isn't surviving purely because of nostalgia. It's still being developed.

A game from 1999 just received another faction in 2026, a major Steam release, Workshop support and continuing balance/content updates from a community that has been keeping it alive for decades.

If you like turn-based strategy and somehow never played Heroes III, this is probably the best excuse you're ever going to get.

Heroes III + Horn of the Abyss. Highly recommended.

What are your impressions? I hope they add innovations from Horn of the Abyss expansion.

I grew up pretty poor in an immigrant household, and video games were basically a luxury we couldn't afford. I loved games growing up, but I almost never actually owned them. I'd go to friends' houses to play their games or borrow games from acquaintances.

When I eventually started buying games myself, my rule was basically never pay full price. Bundles, 80-90% sales, used copies, whatever. Paying $60+ for a game genuinely felt irresponsible.

Fast forward to now. I managed to dig myself out of poverty and make pretty good money for my age. At this point, I make enough in an hour to theoretically buy 2-3 AAA games at full price.

And yet...

I still feel guilty spending $60-$70 on a fucking video game. I'll see a game I really want and think, "Yeah, I could buy it right now." Then my brain immediately goes:

"Or you could just wait a year or 2 and get it for 70% off."

Deluxe editions? Preorders? Basically a war crime even though I wanted them so bad.

$70 for a game I know I'll play for 50+ hours somehow feels like I'm being financially irresponsible, even though I'll casually spend the same amount on other things without thinking twice.

I know this is probably leftover poverty mentality, but I genuinely don't know how to get out of it. Rationally, I understand that I can pretty easily afford it with my current financial situation, but emotionally my brain still treats buying a full-price game like I'm making mistake.

Has anyone else experienced this after growing up poor and eventually becoming financially comfortable? How the hell do you teach your brain that it's okay to spend money on something you enjoy without feeling like you've committed a financial crime?

Hello everyone,

I have a question: as someone who spent decades gaming on potato PCs that could barely manage medium or even minimum graphics settings, I finally decided to treat myself to a somewhat high-end PC and I’m having an absolute blast with it so far (but honestly even now a part of me still expects every new game to somehow not work, and I’m always a little nervous about putting even older games on max settings :D).

That said, I often have the impression that many games, even when I run them on Ultra/Very High, don’t look quite as sharp or polished as they do in screenshots I see online.

Is that because those screenshots are photoshopped, or because people use graphics mods, reshades, etc.? Or could there be something else affecting the image quality on my end?

Or am I just imagining things?

Two upcoming launches that lean on combat, both very well reviewed.

Budget for only one.

Played the Witcher 3 and completed it, but not its expansions. Loved it. Been meaning to get back, might wait for the remaster.

Played Onimusha when it had Jean Reno, loved it. Haven't touched the series since.

I'd be playing mostly on a pc, maybe the steam deck if any of them run well (not required though).

Been eyeing both of these for a while and now they're the same price. Which one should I go with? Both are great I'm sure, but I love everyone's thoughts.

...on the Switch 😂

Fatal Frame is my favourite franchise ever; I am so excited to replay and stream the series in October.

one of my fav games is Zelda: Link's Awakening DX. a friend of mine was playing it so I made a checklist for her.

she wanted to 100% it but also stay spoiler free.

anyway, then others started helping me with other games, and so we started expanding it. check if your favorite games are on here already

https://hundowiki.com/games/legend-of-zelda-links-awakening-dx

Omnimusha or The Blood of dawnwalker, which one to get this week?

Both are coming out at the end of this week, just wondering which one everyone is going with or if they’re going to bite the bullet and get both. Personally I’m on the fence, I would love a good vampire game and story to get into but on the other hand the combat on omnimusha sounds like it’s so good and rewarding that it’s really caught my eye after not even having it on my radar a week ago. I know whatever game I decide to get this week, the other game will be purchased sometime down the road either on sale or just in slow month of releases but I would like to hear everyone’s thoughts on both games and if anyone has got they’re hands on either of them

Is this EA squeezing money out of us again because they can or is there something I'm missing that genuinely makes it more expensive to operate on console?

Edit: Sorry I messed up the title. I meant more expensive on console than on Steam. Also I'm looking at U.S. pricing.

So I loooooooved black and white 1 AND 2, when they came out, played the shit out of them. never seen a game like that after that (or maybe I missed it), recently I tried Masters of Albion, which is from the same guy, and is supposed to capture the fantasy of Black and White . . . I guess. it doens't feel the same at all tbh, and it is mixed on steam with low reviews.

So why don't we get anything like black and white anymore ? is it like, no one wants a game like that these days, or you guys want something like that too ?

Also would be nice to share the games that are trying to capture that feeling of being GOD, while being super interactive with people and world without being a deep sim game.

How much do you think the physical 64GB Switch 2 cartridge adds to cost?

The cheapest microSD cards are around $12, but the game carts are high speed so would be a little more.

They charge $10 more for physical releases, so assuming a full game is on the card (not all are), they are taking a small loss. I'm okay with paying $10 more for physical.

It will never happen, but it would be cool if Playstation retired discs but then suprise announced "physical" media by way of a game cartridge.

With the PS6 Portable confirmed, this would be a cool bonus. Cartridge based games like the Switch since a disc wouldn't be the best for a handheld due to disc getting destroyed when moving around (like the 360) etc.

One can dream!