Leaderboard

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/the-witcher-3s-redkit-mod-tools-launch-may-21st-enabling-a-new-era-of-ambitious-overhauls https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/animal-well-review Steam discussions mention the controls not being possible to rebind, which is a deal-breaker for anything that is not a visual novel with 1 button controls. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/orpheus-may-be-missing-from-hades-2-but-hes-returning-to-role-playing-musical-stray-gods --- About the petition, it was initiated due to Ubisoft pulling The Crew, which had a single-player yet server-reliant mode, from the players' libraries. It is not the first time they are doing this, but before that it was "just" DLC for the older AC games. I would strongly prefer the publishers to be legally encouraged to respect their customers purchases. If the publishers in their wisdom, made the DRM in a single-player game to rely on the servers, surely they can spend work-hours on untangling the dependency. The smaller developers are usually nice enough not to try doing this.

There is no Light I suppose, the sexism is to indicate that they are safe to kill. I think, the setting is post-apocalyptic. The protagonist has a rather interesting manner of holding swords. It is nice that the story and the gameplay fit well together. The first boss. Aspire: Ina's Tale Islets The final island: Did the timed challenge. Sheepo (The screenshots cover the full game). Kidnapping the eggs of local population on the behalf of an intergalactic organisation. Most locals don't care, the relatives of the eggs, do, though. Late-game bosses and ending. Fallout 4 Far Harbor, ending: Xanadu Next

Burning incense may appease the machine spirit. Reciting the proper litanies is also always advisable.

We are aware of the Location Obstructed building bug in Grounded. The team is currently working on a solution for this issue and we'll update players as soon as we have more information to share. Please note that the issue seems to occur with bases built around or on large objects such as the oak tree, wood pile, picnic table or other large in-game landmarks. If you run into any other issues during your time with Grounded please feel free to submit a support ticket. Obsidian Support Thanks

I actually forgot that I even owned The Crew, I guess that it's been a while since I used Ubisofts launcher. I hope that the campaign gets some traction, there are active petitions going on now in the UK, Australia and Canada while there is a lawsuit going on in Brazil. I'm hoping to hear about options in the EU as Swedish authorities are useless here.

I feel that Putin's strategy now is to try and take Khar'kiv and then use it as leverage and a bargaining chip to force the Ukrainians to accept an end to the war on Russia's terms.

While I'd agree (and that trailers give this feeling too often these days), one can also go too far into another direction. Like this one. It tells me so little I searched for a brief plot synopsis because I couldn't tell even the tiniest thing about what it would be about - not even what genre/s it might fall into. I guess it got me curious enough to look up the movie tho, so it worked in that sense.

Entropy is really incredible spell but is disapointing with direct damages. The 100% crit conversion is not fading with CC / pure DoT effects. It is the same for Charm or Sleep effects, they dont fade with CC / Pure DoT. For this reason Entropy and Call to Slumber are together completely mad (but not cheesy thing because there is always a risk). I made a topic about Entropy and every attacks that work well with it, and before that another about sleep effect if you want to know more about this.

Finished Islets. In general, very nice mechanically, the story is not exactly deep, but nice. Review: Then purchased and completed the developer's previous game, Sheepo. Not as good as Islets, but generally fine. Review: Tried VtM - Swansong. It did not run on the main PC, judging by the error message, the issue is with the OS. On Steam Deck, the poorly-made saving system is significantly harder to mitigate, so probably will play on the spare PC some time later. Tried Xanadu Next. Refunded - between the screen flickering (resolved by running in the window mode), crashes (resolved by deleting the intro movie), the mouse-only movement (not resolved, and the boring combat (not resolved), it did not seem to be worth the time. Finished Fallout 4: Far Harbor. It was generally fine. The body-hiding part of the assassination was a bit ridiculous - with some luck, I could have disintegrated the body during combat. Tried Brain Marmalade, a platformer. Got stuck in 5 minutes. The controls are not rebindable, the resolution cannot be adjusted in-game. The art is fine, stylised like pen sketches. Started Aspire: Ina's Tale. After Islets and Sheepo, mind-numbingly boring. Looks lovely, but so, so shallow. The story follows a priestess who is trying to escape a sci-fi-esque tower. There are some light environmental puzzles, but they are not exactly challenging or engaging. Continued There is no Light. The protagonist is blissfully silent. Got repeatedly punched in the opening cut-scenes and I still don't quite get the logic, but the visual design is nice and controls are very comfortable and rebindable.

Replaying Allen Wake on the Xbox. This thing is still fun.

Not sure if this has been mentioned in here before, but a sequel to the Orphan Black sci-fi series is coming out June 23 on AMC. It stars Krysten Ritter of Jessica Jones fame. I enjoyed the original, particularly the remarkable work of Tatiana Maslany who simultaneously played more than five different and completely unique characters, so I'm looking forward to it.

Manor Lords - I don't profess to actually understand detailed mechanic workings, it's all too obscure/inconsistent/glitchy perhaps, but you do stuff enough times and you figure out what works. Hence, I have reached the point where I can restart, get to 600+ population, and then get bored. At least in terms of sandbox. On the one hand, I appreciate I can grow at my own pace. On the other hand, when there is no reason to keep growing (especially since the multiple-region stuff isn't it) outside of "town painting" a region, no risk or buildup left to do (I can literally walk away for hours and it runs itself with no problems) apparently for this game, 600 or so is the magic "I'm done" number. I've barely tried the combat. It sounds way too buggy with perhaps too dramatic a difference between too easy and irritatingly rushed.

Not only did Arkane's fall start under Bethesda, but Zenimax covered up how bad things were in the Austin studio so Microsoft would focus more resources on Starfield.

This is a bit simplified. They only really "split" by the time Dishonored 2 and Prey were being developed in tandem. But even then, people switched places (I mean, Colantonio is from France himself). Also, even Redfall lists almost two dozen people from Lyon in the credits. Or, to let Raf Colantonio do the talking (note his huge follow-up post to this also). But in general, what happened in Austin is a good example of destroying studio culture. Arkane have been a very specialized company since their very inception. This naturally included what people they at all hired. And now they were tasked to do a multiplayer, open world CoOp shooter kind of game. It's akin to Hollywood encouraging Sofia Coppola to do the next Furious movie. Why? Becuz popular. In fairness, this started under ZeniMax. I personally didn't get much Arkane vibes upons Redfall's release. And had looked up the game's credits before it became public what happened. By watching the credits as well as checking people on Linkedln, it was apparent that a lot of people were brought in from all over the open world gaming action industry. This included Anthem's OW lead designer, and numerous other people who prior worked on Mafia, Destiny, Saint's Row et all. Some of those joined as late as a year prior to Redfall's release. So Arkane lost people that were hired specifically for the type of games they were specializing in, those people quit and left. To hire new ones just for Redfall. However, if it weren't for people working on a Marvel IP in Lyon, they may be in trouble now as well. Not sure if posted already. But 'd love if Arkane had gotten a chance at that announced Indiana Jones game rather than MachineGames. For a start, perfect fit for their type. See Thief's grave robbery missions, with fantastic in-universe maps for all your archeological needs. Secondly, Indy is still strong enough an IP, even if the last movie disappointed. Is it really the CORE of their very type of game that's not blockbuster worthy? Or is it rather their package? Until Baldur's Gate 3 came around, party-based tactical RPGs were seen as a niche as well. Turn-based ones even moreso. The notion was: No matter the rest of the game or what you're aiming for as an OVERALL EXPERIENCE: If you include THIS feature, you're going to go niche.

I mentioned elsewhere, Grounded being Obsidians most successful game to date... Not sure why, but I seem to remember it started out as a "small thing" with a limited team and then sort of exploded in scope with growing popularity. If not already, I hope some day we get a post mortem on the game with its history These are Steam numbers only, not including GamePass/XBox https://vginsights.com/game/962130 4,381 active players (42 min ago) 7,841 active players (24h peak) 88.9% positive reviews $55.8m gross revenue 2.2m units sold 49 hours avg play time 22.5 hours median play time While they (Obsidian) usually know how to make crpgs, survival games and base building is not what they're known for. Edit: Scratch that part about XBox... no idea if Steam also sells XBox games Edit2: Adding GamePass players, it had 10 million players in 2022 https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2022/02/10/grounded-reaches-10-million-players/

Very similar situation there to Arkane I would have thought, they made games that review well, generally, but didn't sell well. Hi Fi Rush had great word of mouth, but it still took 5 years to develop and didn't sell (or 'sell', for gamepass) as well as its reviews or word of mouth implied. The main difference seems to be that Tango got chopped off earlier in the process, before making a Redfall but after the founder left.

What.. what year is it?

pretty sure outer world would do better if come out now anti bethesda sentiment are as high as it ever was no need to worry about that dying down anytime soon

Only Alpha Prololol 2 can save Obsidian now

Imagine being able to talk to animals in the future via ai translators. Would be wild.

Using algorithms to decode the complex phonetic alphabet of sperm whales Just, wow. I can imagine it's like trying to talk to a completely alien race. Where do we even begin?

Long history of this happening. Recent example: Embracer. Older example: EA's Bioware deal also included Pandemic Studios, which they obviously wouldn't have bought if it wasn't a bundle deal since they closed it down in the first major round of layoffs post acquisition.

Hades2. It's alright. More of the same so far. Like really more of the same. Improved, but in 6 hours nothing popped up which would explain why this sequel had to be made (money, obviously, but I am still willing to give Supergiant benefit of a doubt). That said, EA seems rather chunky and quite complete in many aspects, so it is not possible that more cool stuff is yet to come (or still to appear in this build). One thing was mention so far, which I am not sure what it is supposed to be - so I am looking forward to finding out. Street Fighter6 update - I decided to switch my main - while Luke, whom I have been using up until now, is supposed to be by far the strongest character currently in the game, I felt I was reaching a peak of what I was able to achieve with him. To move foward I would have to get the hang of his perfect timing charge attacks, and figure out his rush combos - which at the moment are a bit too much for me. So I switched to the good, old Ryu. I am still getting used to it (tend to miss inputs a bit more often for now), but he seems more straightforward and deliberate.

I'll bite. Avowed underperforming = realistic. The Outer Worlds 2 doing the same = realistic. Obsidian being turned into Bethsoft junior / Fallout game factory liners = a possibilty. At least they'd be working on an IP they like, hey. In particular considering how freakishly long it takes to churn out these games these days -- and that delivering BIG IP blockbuster product corporations care about becomes slower and slower a process. Who was Football World Champion back when the last Dragon Age released? On which console did the last GTA game first release? When did the last Elder Scrolls main game come out, discounting re-releases? Does anybody even remember the last Mass Effect, for that matter? If you can positively answer these, chances are, you're a pretty old fart.

Ouch. Austin Texas being shut down is not surprising - I would mourn it as they create one of my fav game out of Arcanes output (Prey!), but allegiedly Redfall already drove most of that team away. Tango Gameworks though.... that's surprising. Hi-Fi Rush was the best thing XBOX released so far. Unless a lot of developers went after Shinji Makami when he left the studio, or something. Well, Grounded has been doing shockingly well, and Pentiment was super low budget. We will see how Avowed and Outer Worlds2 will do (not feeling great about Avowed so far...!).

Our first OBS Community Blog by @Gorth is now live: June and July are also written. Please DM if you have a musing in mind ...

I have now reduced difficulty in Troubleshooter to Easy, down from Hard. I am not mentally prepared to figure out the min maxing required to finish DLC 2 on hard. Or normal for that matter. I may go down to story difficulty, since at 300 hours, I am only interested in seeing where the story ends

If Obsidian eventually gets shut down too at some point, I'm hoping for somebody to mod the **** out of The Outer Worlds. We've shut down the best. Now try the rest. At Microsoft, we cut corners so you don't have to. Who, who, whoa, it's Spencer's!

This is probably wishful thinking, but Microsoft probably bought Bethesda for the Bethesda, not necessarily all of the other developer's Bethesda owned. They wanted the big IP's that Bethesda has. Obsidian and inXile are separate deals. It looks a lot worse if they go in and shutter them. But yeah, if Avowed or Outer Worlds 2 doesn't hit sales expectations, it could be very bad. So make sure to buy a copy and leave it running all day long to help them out.

MS going to close down Tango Softworks and Arkane Austin TX. WolfEye have set up their first ever offices in Austin TX just last year. That's the new studio by Arkane's founder Raf Colantonio, which already has quite an illustrious roster for people familiar. Any bets accepted there's more ex-Arkanes going to pop up in there? Every ending is a new beginning. Also, before anybody speculates: The dichotomy between Austin and Lyon has never existed like that. Arkane have never been a company of two studios. Rather a studio of two locations, with people moving between them as well (see Harvey Smith moving over to Lyon to direct Dishonored 2 and then going back). That's firstly a misconception that Colantonio himself has corrected multiple times. Secondly, if Lyon weren't working on a rather popular IP as we speak (Blade), I could imagine MS pulling the plug on them too. If Blade is gonna bomb... edit: Dang, @mkreku beat me to it.

The debacle around The Crew comes to mind. Also, might aswell drop this; https://www.stopkillinggames.com/ Short version Long version;

End of the day, if you enter into a contract in any other field and find you're losing money you can't arbitrarily decide to cancel the contract, with no consequences. If your options are literally literally shutting down a server or going bankrupt... your company is figuratively literally in the crapper already. Otherwise you're just trying to dodge obligations that you don't think you should fulfill because now they're costing you money- and often trying to get people to buy [sportsgame_currentyear] instead of playing [sportsgame_currentyear--] they'd otherwise be perfectly happy with. Software companies have got away with a load of crap you wouldn't get away with if you were selling sandwiches, beds, cars or even service contracts like catering or cleaning just because it's software. So your Suicide Squad game released 3 months ago as a GaaS and sold appallingly? Tough noogies, that's the risk you take as a company, Warners. It costs you money to run the servers for the 27 people playing it you say? That's the risk you take. You can tell how hard up WBD is, Dave Zaslav only took home 300mn in pay and stock options over the past three years, wonder how many servers even 1% of that would keep running... [yes, I know it isn't shut down, yet]

<disclaimer> I am not a lawyer </disclaimer> To me it is a bit like the different approach to garbage in different countries. In Germany, you pay for your garbage weight allowance. It is your garbage. You have your own bin. You have a padlock on the bin so no neighbour can sneak their garbage into yours and have you pay for it. In Greece, you do not have your own bin. You dump the garbage (ideally) in the city's garbage bins. You pay the city tax based on the square meters of your home, and the amount of actual garbage you produce is irrelevant. As a result though in Germany, throwing something in the garbage does not automatically relinquish ownership. In Greece it does. Taking this to gaming, does a permanent shut down of servers allow for the argument the company is relinquishing it's financial interests in the specific title and therefor a non-profit, community run server or a community coded removal of the always online system should be allowed?

Darkspore when EA shut down the server. It was always online even when playing single player. Yes, it wasn't a great game, but because co-op didn't do well, people couldn't relax in single player anymore? Any Microsoft Xbox live game when Microsoft decides to stop the live service on PC back in... Can't remember when. City of Heroes on the other hand proves that if the company is willing, it can allow the community to create the means to enjoy the game, even when the company has no more financial interest.

It's really depressing to see how people defend the megacorps for free.

Can't believe it needs to be said, but it is Bruce: mods are always use at your own risk. Eh, that's a massive non sequitor. If a company goes bust it also can't repay its debts, doesn't mean the laws saying it has to repay its debts are stupid because there are circumstances where they can't and don't. Gift cards, warrantees, obligations for items to be in reasonable working order and more all can- and usually do- go poof if the company does. You're not going to have lost the source code yet still be supporting a game, you need the source code for that, and the summary specifies reasonable working state when support ends. For physical goods that's a usual requirement under consumer guarantee legislation, no real reason for it not to be for digital goods*. So no trying to sue Looking Glass Systems or Paul Neurath personally for an old copy of System Shock 2 not working due to SafeDisc: it worked fine, when support ended in 2000. *indeed, the guarantee of reasonable working order for a reasonable timeframe already applies to software here as digital delivery is not excluded from the Fair Trading nor Consumer Guarantees Acts- and it cannot be contracted out via EULA. Even used to be mentioned specifically in the Steam Subscriber Agreement. And now that I check, still is:

Probably shouldn't have submitted that forum poster romance fanfic to the Community Blog Gorth anonymous Blog submitter.

They are anonymous contributions, right?.... right?

Hello trolls, friends, and denizens! I am fairly excited to share that our first three community blogs are in process and the first will be pushed on May 7th, and then the others will be published of each following month. I look forward to sharing such wisdom and insight that is courageously offered by our community members. If you have a musing you are considering, please PM me, as it is great to have a queue of posts lined up!

First of all, in a party a Druid can be more fun than a Monk because he can meke more roles (CC, DD, Healer), but other considerations about why choose monk remain. Druids are less powerful in PoE2 for many reasons: as Boeroer said, wildstrike abilities/talents in Poe1 are far more effective than in Poe2; as a consequence of first point, and for other little aspects (i.e. element talents/abilities like Scion of Flame which work in Poe1 for wildstrike don't work in Poe2), spiritshift is weaker in poe2; elemental talents/abilities (Scion of Flame, Hearth of the Storm) is more useful in Poe1 for boosting spell damage and Druids have many elemental damage spells (above all shock and burn). +1 PEN in poe2 is weaker as effect; best druid spell in poe1 (Relentless Storm) is less good in poe2, stun are better contrasted in the second game, while in the first maybe is the best spell considering also any other caster class; in poe1 all pg are single class and they are not perfectly balanced but you can compensate easily (with scrolls and items in particularly) but not in poe2: druids miss most of all confusion, paralysis and charming/dominating scrolls/items not present in poe2; they have bad tier 6, 7, 8 and 9 spells, only exceptions are Great Maelstrom and Avenging Storm (but this one is maybe better in poe1). So single class is near a non-sense powerful-wise for a druid, they can skip tier 8 and 9 for a multiclass optrion. In poe1 all are single class, so this is not a problem and spiritshift last levels balances out for weak spells (not as in poe2); as @thelee pointed out (and I will never end to thanks him ), Pollen Patch with Least Unstable Coil is cheesing in practice (an almost endless source of Briliiant), Avenging Storm and Great Maelstrom are very great spells, so it isn't true that last level Druid spells are so bad. But, excluding tier 9 spells that you don't have in poe1, tier 6, 7 and 8 spell seem better in poe1 than poe2 (Rotten Skull and Sunlance more powerful in the first game i.e.); many spells work better in Poe1: Taste of the Hunt, Form of the Delemgan, Rot Skulls and many are more case of use (Charme/Hold Beasts); subclass doesn't add much to class, indeed, maybe disadvantages are worst than how are the benefits; SOLO maybe fury or shifter can go but power-wise maybe better stick on Animist, in a group Lifegiver as a sense but also here: perhaps more loss than benefit... (to be true Shifter can be a good choice). In poe1 plain-old-single-class Druid can do almost all roles very good without problems/detriments/thoughts etc... Spell system: learning all spells without spending ability points is a very great thing; a part Lord Darryn's Voulge (but it can't go over superb level) better soulbound items in poe1 for druids better passives/abilities and many more to choose in poe1. There are only one exception: Watershaper. If you manage to play Tekehu or a mod for playing such a subclass, it is very powerful with many great spells foe-only Or maybe there are some things in poe2 for druids better of poe1: great maelstrom at level 9, touch of rot at level 1 (deleted in poe1, who knows why...) and empower spells works good with poe2 druids.

I probably beat you to it, but it's all out of my hands at the moment

"The Top 10 Reasons I left gaming and became a withered husk of my former self - number 3 will surprise you!" Maybe break it into parts and pitch each part? Nothing in Fio's post indicates you couldn't have multiple bites at the blog (cue Fio clarification). Based on Fio's wording, I think they'd want a blog post to tie into Obsidian's games in some way.