Sven_

Risky, but if it works out, Intel opting out of TSMC may pay off. Intel relies on Xe3P graphics chips from its own production - a stroke of genius or a risky experiment? | igor´sLAB

I'm personally more interested in who's the first to decisively beat the raw rendering power of the 2020 3060 Ti -- but for 300 bucks (or lower). Back then, that was a 400 MSRP card. 2025, still nothing. You can genuinelly see this "entry level Ghetto" by now visually in PC Games Hardware's reviews of the more recent cards in their overall rankings.

I can't believe that so many RPGs are still mainly focused on "stuff you kill". Fallout, Torment and even some of Ultima are three decades old now... And I like "stuff you kill". If it's the main course though... Honestly have a typical industry playtest in front of my eyes, the kind of best industry practice that ensures nothing ever too special gets made. With half the testers going: "This is boring! Where's ma stuff to kill!" Well, go back to Call Of Duty. Not yer kind of game. It's a pity. As if combat, violence and death would be treated as something a bit more special, it may actually turn out to be something MEANINGFUL. Rather than just repetition / an awesome obstacle course that's in there so to pose a challenge. "Oh, another one down. Loot, loot, loot!" Then again, what am I complaining about? I've still got KCD2 on my disc for the time being.

The music was reused in the (lore) trailers. I found the unusual percussion combat music in Deadfire pretty refreshing. His PoE soundtracks were good overall, but that was pretty out there. Wonder how that was received. Usually the music in this type o' game is more your standard orchestral epic LOTR music fare (maybe mixed with a bit of Conan The Barbarian if the composer is REALLY going wild. ).

Now that Paradox has royally screwed it all up: Fampyr Bloodlines, make it happen.

Monster Hunter Wilds is the next game to break through the 1,000,000 concurrent player mark on Steam. Every major publisher currently be like: Nonstop action+monsters is clearly THE way to go. "Guys, please make this project more like Diablo, er, MH Wilds, or else no funds!" Warhorse+Larian+Owlcat like this.

Since Prey et all were mentioned, I'm really curious what Wolfeye's game is gonnna look like. Because that sounds like my "perfect" game: Fallout mixed with more Colantonio-styled Immersive Sim. But that's off-topic now. To balance it out, it's not just YouTubers. And this is a more positive take on Avowed vs Skyrim: Avowed Does Skyrim Combat Better.

Yeah, wasn't meant to say otherwise. Just wanted to point out that Obsidian may have set up themselves for some of the (sandbox/simulation) expectations that Avowed doesn't fulfill. Their initial idea was to make a "Skyrim-Like" set in Eora -- and they let the world and the press know about it early. Like REAL early, note the dates on all of these. This was no doubt influenced by how hot Skyrim was at the time. Obsidian's Bold Future: Eternity Meets Skyrim, A Second KS | Rock Paper Shotgun Obsidian CEO: “I’d love to turn Eternity into more like a Skyrim product” | PC Gamer And what Avowed actually was gonna be like, was kept rather ambiguous for long. Consequently (?), this is another "Skyrim article" that just came out yesterday.. Avowed's inert cities remind me just how good we had it in Skyrim and Oblivion | PC Game Of course it's silly to expect every game to have that level of simulation (though Ultima 7 is still worth investigating for a lot of devs 'til today...) And Obsidian have been never known for it (nor Black Isle before them). This bit to me seems a valid point to make though.

I'm genuinelly asking how this stuff actually sells units. This is product that's not even needed. For years. If companies would have discovered thirty years ago that they can just milk it, PC gaming would be an absolutely tiny niche by now, moreso than it ever used to be in the 1980s. And Commodore were probably still around, offering the affordable multimedia/graphics machines for the masses. Back when 3d cards first appeared, 3dfx started with the mission to bring affordable Silicon Graphics quality to home PCs. Given that this is barely about gaming product anymore anyway... maybe that's the answer to my question.

This they'd probably brought upon themselves. And it all started early... (Imagine a picture of Feargus having a bunch of Dollar signs flying over his head -- like back at Interplay, when he sold the idea to Bioware that they should turn Battleground Infinity, the demo they pitched to him, into a D&D game). Given that even Obsidian regulars (including me) had no robust idea what the game was gonna be like until like it actually released, some of that Skyrim still sticks. It's even still mentioned in numerous press reviews. Even after the reported reboot way back, at which point it was all apparently scaled back. And made more similar to The Outer Worlds (in terms of world structure, either way). At one point early on Avowed was going to be a co-op game as well. Compare that to Pillars, where there was zero doubt about what the game was gonna be from day #1. Both for the devs as well as the public. A part of marketing and PR is setting expectations. Bethesda may have failed to do that as to Starfield themselves. Lots of people clearly expected there to be an actual space simulation in there, like actual travel. However, similar type of games or features are always going to be compared. See also Cyberpunk 2077, where people compared it unfavourably to the open world sandbox of GTA 5. The same to some extent had happened to the Mafia games before as well, which were more focused on a narrative in an open world-ish setting, as opposed to a sandbox. However, Cyberpunk was hyped up to be the biggest, most immersive, most real thing ever. So real you'd forget you'd play a game... that's the impression you got from all the buzz either way. People would have always put that to the test. And the ACTUAL next GTA better live up to it all, or else...

How's performance for you? Considering that I'm on a 270 bucks RTX 3060, initially I was fairly thrilled when I could pick the high preset and not have any drop. Then I discovered that the game has upscaling enabled on any preset except the absolutely highest (which prompts a warning that it'd be only for the bestest of best rigs). And without upscaling being enabled, I get a few drops in the waterfall sequence even with everything to low (still playable mind). But then this is my first ever Unreal Engine 5 experience -- only ever upgraded to the 3060 in December. And people argue with UE5 tech, upscaling tends to be mandatory. Indy (based on id Tech) and obviously KCD 2 (heavily modified CryEngine) are pretty damn fine. But UE's lumen stuff = GPU killer. But then the original Gothic was capped to a whopping 25 fps... and don't get anybody started on Khorinis and its harbor in Gothic 2.

Yeah, that'd be a different kind of experience. I think the first Pillars in particular had quite a bit of combat though, moreso before the first patches that tried to get rid of the Owlcat-style filler trash. Unlike Owlcat, Obsidian took the criticism they got serious for their next game. I find it amazing that so many RPGs are this focused on combat in general. That's nothing against combat, still love Icewind Dale and the like. But... at times you get the impression an extra amount of it is only inserted as the notion is that else people with shorter attention spans would switch off. Warhorse too argued it would be a major risk to have this little (mandatory) combat in Kingdom Come -- lots of quests build around "mundane" activities in general, including learning how to read. This singular focus on violence else is really fascinating though. It makes projects such as KCD or Disco Elysium stick out from the crowd as soon as they hit the market. Bit of a stereotype, but with game/RPG development being less dominated by males, and game audiences also becoming older and broader, it's interesting that violence is still such a huge part of most RPGs. That's in parts why the original Fallout was such a revelation. A game allowing you to flee from a lot of (random) encounters, not even engage with them, and being able to convince the BIG BAD at the end of the game to reconsider his plans. And even the Realms Of Arkania trilogy (based on the German Dark Eye / Das Schwarze Auge Pen&Paper) had less combat than contemporary D&D games at that time. Mind you, there was still a good number of it, including traditional dungeon romps. But it also had sort of CYOA text adventure sections / choices way before Pillars did them -- some of which allowed you to sneak around a few encounters if the following skill check went through. Speaking of which, these text sections don't cost the world and could also bolster a possible Pillars tactics game without making the budget skyrocket. Even Owlcat went with them.

There's hunger at Obsidian for a Pillars of Eternity Tactics game after Avowed, says studio design director Josh Sawyer, but it doesn't sound like it'd get that Baldur's Gate 3-size budget he was fantasizing about | PC Gamer Fallout, er, Pillars Tactics. I actually think this could work though. Does anybody remember Blackguards? This wasn't "just" a string of tactical battles. There was narrative and sort of (simple) exploration in between the tactical bits too. Would be no Pillars 3 per se, naturally.

Gothic remake demo coming out today. I think game remakes are mostly kinda dumb these days, unless it's remakes of games from ancient times (System Shock). In particular considering that games take forever to make, when it was but a year back in the day (see Gothic 2). That's lifetimes spent by some talented people on something you already know... Gonna try the demo out anyway.

The night sky in KC:D : r/kingdomcome Then again, there's at least one or two Operation Flashpoint veterans at Warhorse, one of the most immersive games I've ever played (back in 2001 it was mind blowing). That had a mission where you were deep behind enemy lines, hunted, and had nothing but the night sky as orientation as well. I wish I'd played KCD1 on hardcore back in the day. After completing it once, you naturally know all the locations. Btw. , I think this is also one of the parts where they made KCD2 more accessible without compromising the core experience (really, devs "dumbing down" their games should take a closer look at this in general.) The first region has Trosky Castle reigning strong. You can see it from almost everywhere. (It also looks so damn pretty). Trosky meanwhile is just North of your starting position into the open world, where there's vendors, a place to make camp and rest, etc. Without mods, your position so far is shown on the map anyway, as hardcore mode is only offered with a later patch. But as to orientation, visual landmarks are KEY.