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Comment by ChancyChance | Hacker News Reader

I'm a 50+ gamer and I could care less about refresh rates, any first-person shooters (I guess that's two FPS I don't care about!), photorealism, and dance/emotes. Stanley Parable was probably the last time I was blown away by a game. I'm glad to see more indie titles on Steam, but it is hard to sort through the chaff.

Also: AARP commenting on over 50? /sighs/

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I'm another 50+ gamer - I tend to like MMOrpgs but I'm not a fan of PVP..I prefer a nice story based setup. I also like lots of 'leisure' activities like crafting, hobbies, fishing, collections, housing and cosmetics (I find them all to be good to relax/chill or kill time with). I can't really handle the current 'pixel-art' craze - I waited to long for stuff to progress beyond that. But I've found Lord of the Rings Online to have a really good story, tons of stuff to do, and huge zones to explore. At 16 years old, the graphics are not exactly 'cutting edge' - but they're not bad, and they are overhauling them. ESO wasn't bad either. Harvesting in FF:ARR was an RSI inducing click fest but it was really pretty and I think it has housing now. ArcheAge was way too much like a second job...

edit: spelling

WoW floored me, it was what I had always wanted in a game since first playing Ultima (I). The grind and the silliness finally killed it tho (plus trying to wrangle time to play after putting the kids to bed, I got very little sleep for 2 years). Funny you mention LotR online, as my guild lost a number of players to it when it first came out. Didn't know it was still alive and kicking! I kinda lament missing Eve Online, that also sounded fun.

EDIT. Mac support deprecated on LotR. :( And I only use my PC through Remote Desktop... maybe i'll give it a whirl anyways....

Oddly enough - Wow and Runescape are like the only 2 we didn't play...WoW's art style just never appealed. But we played SWG/SWTOR, EQ/EQ2 (lots of EQ2 - one of our favorites), Darkfall, FF:ARR, ESO, Ryzom, DDO, CoH, New World, Aion, Riders of Icaraus, Project Gorgon ( Very unique though a bit rough)

Now we're waiting on Ashes of Creation, Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen.

We just end up going back to LoTro a lot because its very casual friendly, the story/quest lines are awesome, its HUGE! (one of the largest maps second only to WoW and procedurally generated IIRC). Level cap is 140 now, so lots of stuff to do and see without having to 'end game grind'..Oh! and PVP in LoTro is called "monster play" - its literall the "freeps vs the creeps" - you can play as one of the "free peoples" (human,elf, etc) or as a "monster" - giant spider, wolf, orc, etc. You 'monster' characters actually have their own progression and skills and can be leveled like your 'regular' characters.

Anyway - I hope you can get it working! If it helps, it runs under proton/Steam on Linux too!

Steam Link is remote desktop for PC games; it basically makes games that grab the mouse playable remotely.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/steam-link/id1246969117

> I kinda lament missing Eve Online, that also sounded fun.

EVE Online is still alive. You could even play for free (alpha character), till you know if you would like to continue and hit the alpha characters' restrictions. But please be aware that EVE (well, still) does not have a learning curve but a learning cliff! ;)

Photorealism is definitely something that I feel is way over-targeted. It has never been something that makes or breaks a game for me. Even worse, games that try to sell themselves on photorealism tend to be a negative sign of the gameplay. I much prefer any other cohesive artistic style. I don't think any of my favorite (/most played) games have a style of realism: (Modded) Minecraft, Factorio, Civilization V/IV, Slay the Spire, Stellaris, Terraria, Rocket League, (Old School) Runescape, and RimWorld.

> Photorealism is definitely something that I feel is way over-targeted. It has never been something that makes or breaks a game for me.

It's bugged me for years that so many people don't see this. Photorealistic Candy Land is still just playing Candy Land, but so many people are driven by photorealism and eat it up.

It depends a lot on what sort of game it is I think. If the game relies on triggering human environmental instincts to be enjoyable, like forest-feeling, or fire-feeling, or bird-feeling, etc, then more photorealism seems helpful, if not all-important. If it's mostly about something else then not really helpful.

Ikr. So hard to filter thru the trash. I find a nice guided semi-open world game is my jam. Disco Elysium. Last of us. Uncharted series. I do enjoy some of the tight metroidvanias as well. Dead cells. Ori. Etc... Happy hunting!

You have to be only 55 to join AARP, so seems relevant - 50+ is probably the easiest survey data to get.

The woman who sold me my last phone was probably in her early 20s, and she joined AARP for the discounts on her phone plan.

Off topic: the old farts in the picture hold the controller like old farts. The default way for people my age to pick up a Playstation or Xbox controller is to have your trigger fingers nowhere near the R1, L1 buttons....

I'm so old I can't get the hang of those new-fangled controllers. :)

Presumably you're talking about the claw grip? Didn't realize that was the new default. Orthopedic specialists, take note.

Whoa, I didn't know that! TIL.

You do not have to be 55 to join AARP. You have to be 18+. There are some benefits only 50+ are eligible for though.

I feel like almost no one knows this. It would be fun to join, get some AARP swag to display at work and then casually talk up your anti aging regimen to everyone.

I like FPS depending on the style and gameplay. Frantic MMO FPS such as CoD don't have any appeal to me, but as I said before, I liked Quake 4, and since then I played a number of FPS, most of them purchased from GOG: Crysis, Far Cry 1 and 2 (truly excellent game in many respects), Doom 3, Immortal Redneck, F.E.A.R. (another masterpiece)... What I didn't like was the Half-Life series, even though I can easily see how foundational they were for the genre. Too much puzzle solving.

Now I mostly play action RPGs, I'm currently playing Dragon Age: Inquisition. Nice game, although there are various aspects in which I am less than impressed.

Parent is right, the least thing I worry about are fps above 24, refresh rates, and insane difficulty levels. I play most games on Normal or Easy difficulties.

I'm a 50+ game author, ha ha. Curiously though, I'm not much of a gamer. Maybe I don't care too much for first-person shooters either.

If you liked The Stanley Parable, the creator of the game made a sort of meta game about the development process called The Beginner's Guide. It's not in the same league, but it's an interesting experience.

Stanley Parable was pretty awesome in it's simplicity. Right there with you when it comes to high tech fancy graphics and animations and over the top storytelling instead of adding the equivalent manhours to gameplay.

The original HL mod was curious since it recycled assets and had an other worldly feel carrying over

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