[HN Gopher] Mailbag: Sausage Men
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       Mailbag: Sausage Men
        
       Author : davikr
       Score  : 85 points
       Date   : 2022-10-31 14:43 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (garry.blog)
 (TXT) w3m dump (garry.blog)
        
       | ouid wrote:
       | these sausage men are great, and I personally consider their
       | cartoonish, everyman nature to be a selling point. Bob's Burgers
       | has a similar aesthetic, and people complain about it. Anyone who
       | says that its a bad decision though is empirically in the wrong.
       | 
       | No one gives positive feedback on anything, so you are almost
       | always doing the right thing by ignoring negative feedback below
       | some threshold. I hope that this person and their friends have
       | not one iota of influence on your character design.
        
       | moss2 wrote:
       | Damn those are some gross sausage people. Will definitely buy.
        
       | allenu wrote:
       | I was with the author until I got to the picture of the sausage
       | people. I like the idea of normal-looking people, too, but these
       | all have the same face! Their eyes, nose, and mouth are all in
       | the same locations. None of them stand out in any way. They're
       | remarkably... unremarkable.
       | 
       | They don't have to be attractive, but at least make them look
       | different from each other.
        
       | beloch wrote:
       | The sausage men are genius.
       | 
       | Rather than being instantly modded out of S&Box by new players, I
       | predict these will be modded _into_ Skyrim and a host of other
       | games in a very short period of time.
       | 
       | Who wouldn't want to see Whiterun peopled entirely by sausage men
       | at least once?
        
       | n42 wrote:
       | it's hilarious seeing two worlds collide like this and reading
       | the "HN take" on how to succeed in video games.. garry has always
       | found success by following his gut as a gamer and building what
       | he wants to play. I have no doubt this game is going to be a wild
       | success. and if it isn't, I don't think he cares too much, so
       | long as he's proud of the thing he built. in any case, failure
       | wouldn't be because of some sausages.
        
         | lmm wrote:
         | Looking at the screenshots, I have to disagree; these really do
         | look bad enough to make the difference between the game
         | succeeding and failing.
        
           | n42 wrote:
           | talk to me in 2-3 years when your kids are playing this
        
       | draw_down wrote:
        
       | dwrodri wrote:
       | I hadn't heard news on s&box for a long time. When I saw the
       | poker video, I audibly laughed out loud. If s&box can be a less
       | exploitative, and more adult-oriented version of Roblox, I think
       | they're onto something wonderful.
       | 
       | Given that >50% of the Roblox userbase wasn't alive when Garry's
       | Mod first released on Steam[1], I'd love to see a proper essayist
       | (video or written) do a proper retrospective on the influence
       | that the game had on the industry. Was it the first commercially
       | successful "The Game Engine Is The Game"? It came out around the
       | same time as Falling Sand(2005). Falling Sand was similar in that
       | it had no objectives, but I doubt many would call them the same,
       | as GMod truly encouraged players to create their own game types
       | within the sandbox. Personally, I have yet to experience a
       | variant on Prop Hunt or Trouble in Terrorist Town that truly felt
       | like it "elevated" those genres beyond the modes I played as a
       | kid on different GMod servers. But perhaps I haven't given the
       | newer games a fair chance.
       | 
       | 1: https://backlinko.com/roblox-users#age-distribution-of-
       | roblo...
        
       | Night_Thastus wrote:
       | IMO, they're in a weird place. Their proportions/shape are
       | clearly cartoon-y, but the rest of them is relatively
       | "realistic". It makes them a little unsettling.
       | 
       | If the whole art style was more cartoon-y, then they'd fit right
       | in. As is, they feel a little mismatched.
       | 
       | That's just me though. And they are unique
        
         | tveita wrote:
         | > And they are unique
         | 
         | Maybe excepting
         | https://store.steampowered.com/app/450540/Hot_Dogs_Horseshoe...
        
         | simjnd wrote:
         | This is exactly what the "Pixar-style" animation has been about
         | for the past decade: super realistic textures but cartoon-esque
         | proportions.
         | 
         | I wouldn't be surprised if as development progresses more and
         | more assets get their own cartoon-esque remodel, as OP said it
         | is still very early.
        
       | qikInNdOutReply wrote:
       | Only 5%-10% of your customers will ever give feedback, of that
       | only 1 % will complain loudly about bad service, product faults,
       | etc. The rest will smile, wave and never use your product again.
       | Also way more will bad-word-of-mouth you if you screw up.
       | Something like this feedback is the only warningshot you might
       | ever get during a product release. Thus, paneltest it
       | annonymously way ahead of time.
        
         | n42 wrote:
         | I think Garry Newman knows a thing or two about how to handle
         | toxic gamer feedback..
        
         | draw_down wrote:
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | overthemoon wrote:
       | I agree with the assessment of eg Fortnite models that are all
       | colorful and beautiful. Gets tiresome. I see the appeal, it
       | wouldn't stop me from playing a game, but especially as games
       | with heroes or champions or whatever proliferate, as in-game
       | fashion and cosmetic customization in multiplayer only becomes
       | more popular, it becomes a wash of boring indistinguishable
       | colors and hot people. They're unique in that they're distinct
       | from one another but boring because those differences don't mean
       | anything. Kudos to them for doing something a little different.
        
       | vxNsr wrote:
       | There's something about the size of the hands that goes in
       | uncanny valley territory. That being said I'm not a big open
       | world game player so no need to care at all about what I think,
       | there's no chance I'm buying this game.
        
       | zxexz wrote:
       | I've played Garry's Mod on and off for almost 20 years. One of
       | the first games I ended up buying instead of pirating, actually
       | causing me to buy the Orange Box :)
       | 
       | The "non-sexiness" (for lack of a better word) of the character
       | models was literally never an issues. It was charming and fun
       | because it's a sandbox. Don't like it? Just change it yourself.
       | My only gripe here is that the default character model will no
       | longer be random city 17 civilians!
        
       | zebracanevra wrote:
       | May be worth reading this update from September, where more
       | facial features/clothes were added to the sausages:
       | https://sbox.facepunch.com/news/september2022#ClothingandHai...
       | https://sbox.facepunch.com/news/september2022#CitizenSkin
       | 
       | Makes them have a little more character.
        
       | JTbane wrote:
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
        
       | xnorswap wrote:
       | Michael Scott is a likeable character? Good at his job?
       | 
       | Isn't he famously unlikeable and bad at his job?
       | 
       | I didn't watch more than a couple of seasons of the US office,
       | did they really give him that strong of a "redemption arc" that
       | he's seen as likeable and an effective employee?
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | bityard wrote:
         | Towards the end of the series, his redeeming quality was that
         | he actually did try to care about his employees a little bit.
         | He usually tried to "do the right thing" but failed in terms of
         | execution.
         | 
         | But yeah, he was still pretty incompetent the whole way through
         | the series. That was the whole reason for the character to
         | exist, so I don't know where the "good at his job" came from.
        
           | whatshisface wrote:
           | Michael Scott comes out with a pretty good score if you rate
           | him on the duties of a manager alone. He kept all his
           | employees aligned with what the company wanted them to do
           | despite the fact that their behavioral tendencies were
           | invented by sitcom writers, made them all feel like
           | performance would be rewarded even in an environment where
           | promotions never happened,
        
         | autoexec wrote:
         | > Isn't he famously unlikeable and bad at his job?
         | 
         | He was always an excellent salesman and under his "leadership"
         | his branch was often said to be outperforming others.
        
       | gnarbarian wrote:
       | in my opinion a lot of the humor and enjoyment in Gary's mod was
       | in the hilarious physics based violence. that generation of
       | gamers had a much tougher stomach for that sort of content. (I
       | still love it). look at soldier of fortune 2 footage for example.
       | 
       | these days unfortunately developers believe they need to be more
       | sensitive to appeal to a different (wider?) audience of people
       | who will be able to better appreciate unspeakable violence on
       | cartoony characters.
       | 
       | I think the realism is funnier because it's more shocking and
       | visceral. like dead baby jokes and dark humor in general. dead
       | baby jokes aren't funny when you replace the babies with stuffed
       | animals.
        
       | bityard wrote:
       | > I tend to think that a lot of people have the general feeling
       | that real looking people are nicer than good looking people.
       | That's why it's always such a surprise when someone good looking
       | isn't a complete arshole, suprising enough to tell people that
       | they aren't an arshole. Because the assumption is that good
       | looking people are arsholes.
       | 
       | I'm one of the nicest people you'll ever see!
        
       | egypturnash wrote:
       | These little guys feel like they are coming from a distinctly
       | British puppet/stopmotion animation vibe of Schlubby Middle-Class
       | Cartoon People. They'd fit in right next to Wallace and Gromit.
       | 
       | If this is a complaint they're getting a lot of then I feel like
       | the proper response to this is an "I Hate Sausages" switch in the
       | prefs that has a 75% chance of replacing all these models with
       | generic artist maquette models, and a 25% chance of initiating a
       | mode where the game just starts dropping slippery sausages
       | everywhere until the entire level is completely impassible and
       | running slower and slower because it is filled entirely with
       | sausages.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | aliqot wrote:
         | "Why not make ugly people"
         | 
         | .. scrolls down ..
         | 
         | "hey that mechanic guy looks like m-"
         | 
         | ok HN, you guys got me this time. well played.
        
       | nsxwolf wrote:
       | Well, put me in the "I don't like sausage people" column.
        
       | SuoDuanDao wrote:
       | I feel like this is one of those instances where it's better to
       | be polarising than blandly likeable. That said, I would fall on
       | the 'don't like' part of that polarization for most games - some
       | games this feels very appropriate for though.
        
       | monkpit wrote:
       | I think the model is great in a sandboxy kind of way - you don't
       | feel weird launching the sausage man out of a cannon, it makes it
       | funnier. It's kind of like complaining that crash test dummies
       | don't have wigs on. Who cares?
        
         | gnarbarian wrote:
         | it's a matter of taste. I think the realism is funnier because
         | it's more shocking and visceral. like dead baby jokes and dark
         | humor in general. dead baby jokes aren't funny when you replace
         | the babies with stuffed animals.
        
       | davidork wrote:
       | i always played as the burnt corpse, but the sausage people add
       | to the wackiness. time to reinstall gmod
        
       | throwaway23u232 wrote:
       | You now have a huge head hitbox in an FPS game engine. The stock
       | models will need to be thrown out if you had intentions of a
       | location based damage shooter.
       | 
       | More energy should be put towards the framework, & usability with
       | sensible defaults, and less on character studies.
        
       | JohnJamesRambo wrote:
       | I have to agree, those look like crap. It would affect if I
       | wanted to play the game.
        
         | glasshug wrote:
         | Totally agree with you. Crap-looking people are so much more
         | cozy and comfortable to play with. Will definitely play s&ndbox
         | when it comes out!
        
         | googlryas wrote:
         | They wouldn't be good looking humans, but as a non-gamer since
         | basically half life came out, I actually became more interested
         | in the game after seeing them. They have ineffable character
         | compared to Fortnite models.
        
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       (page generated 2022-10-31 23:00 UTC)