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Comment by racl101 | Hacker News Reader

The moment Zelda does online multiplayer or does any kind of microtransactions I'm out.

We're all lucky that Nintendo is so technologically inept that they're perpetually 20 years behind the latest trends. Imagine what a shitshow Tears Of The Kingdom would be if it had Genshin-style gacha bullshit.

I mean it literally does have in-game vending machines that spit out little pods with items in them! But you pay with items you collect in the game. And it's not like a collecting thing, the items are just portable fans and platforms and wheels and whatnot for building.

... and you don't need any more than you'll just stumble on for free to advance in the game, and if you're a seasoned RPG-item-hoarder you'll beat the game never having used any of them, anyway, "just in case you need them later".

Yeah I've usually just been using each one I stumble upon once to see if there's anything new in it I don't have

I think I used a fan once to blow some sand, and a mirror to reflect sunlight for a puzzle in the overworld where they had mirror pods in a chest nearby!

Oh shit. I had stopped really paying attention to those pick-ups (I think I've used... maybe two? In more than 20 hours?) but now that you mention it, I think one I got was a mirror—I totally could have used a mirror to turn a 15-minute puzzle I did a couple days ago, into a 1-minute puzzle.

I wonder if affection for capsule machines is a Nintendo thing? Yoshi's Wooly World has capsule machines, and they're even less like real capsules machines—every machine has a 10 capsules, that's it, and they don't restock. Some of the things you get are labelled "common" and some "rare" and some "super rare", but ... the chance of each capsule is exactly the same. And if you buy 10, then you get all 10.

As far as I know, vending machines are just a big thing in Japanese culture in general. It's where the term gacha comes from, after all.

> We're all lucky that Nintendo is so technologically inept that they're perpetually 20 years behind the latest trends.

LOL. Yes that's true. At first I found it frustrating, now I find it as the key to their appeal. Maybe even kinda charming.

But yeah, by not chasing or trying to keep up with everyone they're kinda free to do their thing even on majorly old hardware.

At the end of the day, even though I own a PS5, 5 years from now I'll still remember how much fun I had with TOTK. I barely touch my PS5 as is. Waiting for Spider-man 2 and GTA 6 (who knows if that will even come out during the PS5 lifecycle).

But yeah, in my estimation, more Switch games are aging incredibly well. But that's just me and I care little about next graphics especially if the the game isn't fun or the gameplay isn't fun.

Why does 1 game every 4 years keep you attached to Zelda?

Maybe its my gigantic backlog of games, but I don't bother with Nintendo anymore. My bro or a friend will let me borrow their Nintendo system + Zelda for a few weeks. (its not like people really use their Switch...)

Nintendo does multiplayer without microtransactions (see Splatoon). It seems they don't care about mobile market and just license they franchises to whoever can make the most money.

What if the online multiplayer is fun?

Yeah there's a multiplayer Breath of the Wild mod which looks really fun. Of course Nintendo threatened legal action to its creators and streamers

Either they hold their ground and boycott playing the game or they don't. If something being fun is enough to tempt you to compromise your moral beliefs then you have a problem.

> If something being fun is enough to tempt you to compromise your moral beliefs then you have a problem.

My take might be naive, but isn’t pleasure in general — fun in this specific case — the chief reason that people compromise their moral beliefs?

Though I don’t particularly understand the moral judgment about online multiplayer. But I am sympathetic to judgments about “always-online” single player functionality.

I don’t think it’s a compromise of your moral beliefs to play a fun multiplayer game

Or at least it ought not to be

If it's fun, that's great. Adding multiplayer elements to otherwise single-player games or franchises usually just shits them up, though.

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