marelooke

That part where she complains about not being able to play a first person shooter with a controller. #despair Game looks pretty good though, noticed I was already following it on Steam too. About $150 million a year, if I'm not mistaken. Not too shabby. To put that in perspective: it was one of the best selling games on Steam in 2018, purely through in-game purchases... https://store.steampowered.com/sale/winter2018bestof/ Daniel Erickson described it as "basically a huge, sprawling, ever expanding BioWare storyline with a multiplayer marketplace, social spaces and PVP". So, more like the episodic format of KotFE, and less like Ilum PVP. more on that from the perspective of someone who did QA for the game early on That was really interesting. I kind of wish they'd stuck with their original vision. But their inability to "sell" DA:O to marketing kind of explains that (also explains why all those AAA titles tend to end up looking so samey, I guess...) I found this interesting though: This is basically what Digital Extremes does with Warframe. At one point I took an extended break and an e-mail about an event got me back into the game.

Instead of only making games in genres they're good at, the developers try to expand into every popular genre, and usually fail miserably. Not only Obs but even Blizzard fumbled. I'm not sure I'd blame Bioware this time. It's worth remembering that SWTOR wasn't initially conceived as a MMO to kill WoW -which in retrospect justifies the awful choice of engine- and "sources claim" that they have repeatedly attempted to make a more traditional KotOR (even going so far as building a prototype), but EA just isn't down with the idea. This jibes with their constant push to make everything a service that players can keep going back to, which was precisely their reason for canceling Ragtag and Orca. Anthem looks to me like an attempt to catch lightning in a bottle in the vein of ME3MP, only designed from the get-go to be their billion-dollar-per-annum shooter holy grail. I don't need to consult my magic 8-ball to see that it's going to fall short of that. Out of curiosity, what was SWToR initially conceived as? I can't remeber it ever having been brought up that it was not initially conceived as a MMO. Also I'm pretty confident they could have had a WoW killer (or at least a decent competitor) if the game had been released in an actual finished state, as it was many a guild fell apart because it took months for them to get the "endgame" to a playable state (source: I was there). If instead they could have worked on new content they might have been able to keep something going, at least for a while. Indeed, and it's not just about the monetization aspect. Most other games in the genre are just first person "tranditional" MMOs (aka WoW clones), they badger you into playing daily with "daily heroics", "heroic dungeons", "raid lockouts", the works. The entire progression is locked behind these mechanics, this is the case for Destiny 2, it appears it will be the case in Anthem. I have no idea about the Division but I suspect it's also the case there. Warframe does not have any of that(*)(**), despite being grindy as hell the game oddly enough manages to respect your time to an extent very few other MMOs do. If I don't feel like playing for a week I just don't, there's no "need" to keep up or fall behind, moreover unlike other games Warframe is not in the habit of having "timed" stuff, as in there's no gear that is here and will be gone forever if you don't get it now(***) and the same goes for the vast majority of cosmetics (there is/was some minor stuff tied to partnerships with things like Twitch, Steam and some other things though). Rewards for timed events do, eventually, make their way back into the game in some form or another (sometimes takes a very long time, but it has always been the case so far in the 5 years I've been playing the game). Now this leads to some issues, but I'd rather DE continue innovating along this path rather than revert to the tried and, imho, tired time gating employed by virtually everybody else. (*) technically there are Sorties, which are daily, but their rewards are not mandatory for any content in the game. (**) there used to be Trials (raids), which did have lockouts, but those were scrapped pending a rework, their rewards were moved to Eidolons, open world bosses that you can kill as many times as you are able in a single day (or rather, night). (***) three very specific items excepting as those were part of the Founders packs, which basically boils down to them being "Kickstarter rewards" for those supporting the game before it was able to stand on its own.

Throwing a fit about someone throwing a fit. It was funny to watch the entire thing to be sure. Jim Sterling, of all people, covered the thing in the most level headed way (and also articulated quite well what the problem is with the entire Epic deal without even having to go into the total lack of features of the Epic store or terrible reputation of Epic and its current owners). It seems Jim also was the only one that didn't feel the need to drum up additional drama by attributing a ragepost by a single dev to the entire studio. Either way, nothing's changed for those of us not interested in supporting underhanded business deals. EDIT: in case anyone actually cares. It turns out the 4a Games apology for the raging dev was actually written by their publisher as per: https://www.reddit.com/r/metro/comments/amrtja/a_statement_from_4a_about_the_epic_games_store/efojo7s/

Tried the Anthem demo over the weekend (even bothered to install Origin for it), and...I ended up just quitting the game during the first mission (mission was bloody long, by the way). It's an obvious console-first game with a horrible PC UI, bad defaults (unplayable for me without fiddling with at least the mouse sensitivity, even in the hub area) and a clunky movement system. The last one is especially baffling since everyone appears to be going ape over how awesome the Anthem movement system is. Has none of those people played Warframe? Did everyone just play with a controller? Because, aside from flying being practically unusable with mouse+keyboard I found general movement finicky as well. Both Warframe and Destiny 2 feel well smoother to me, movement-wise. Anthem is a powers first game, and in that respect is more akin to Warframe than to Destiny 2 (where power usage is heavily tempered with cooldowns). But unlike Warframe the gun they gave you in the Anthem demo felt like a total peashooter (judging from what I read it's not just this weapon either, guns really take a back-seat) and the powers have, imho, long-ish cooldowns, for how dependant you are on them. Oh, and enemies are total bullet sponges, even the trash tier ones. They also do love their staggers (which are, imho, pretty badly communicated to the player, which might have lead me to consider movement clunky as it felt like the game was unresponsive before I figured out what was going on) Graphics wise, I also don't really get the hype. Maybe I need to get my eyes checked but the game didn't look any better than the competition to me. Oh yes, and I did play solo, which they heavily discourage, so that's on me, but I'm personally not interested in games where I must do every little thing in a group, especially any and all story missions (I quit Guild Wars 2 when I ran into the final "story quest" being a mandatory dungeon, which they've thankfully rectified by now). So if you don't mind grouping up for everything then the game might be OK, as I'm sure having more people compensates for the amount of bullet sponge enemies they throw at you. Anyway, after the demo this went from a "Might pick it up if it reviews well" to "Meh, might pick it up if it ever goes on sale to see if they've improved it".

That is, at least as of writing, true.

Pretty well thought out discussion, they have some prior videos about the Epic store (some from before the Metro Exodus drama) too which address a bunch more concerns with the Epic store. EDIT: this is the one from December, iow before the Metro Exodus drama: Eh the fact is, there's a ton of games being released on Steam weekly, and most of them are really bad. And this is because it's currently VERY easy to release a Steam game - they barely even check it, and even if it doesn't conform to Steam guidelines, they will often just say "you should fix it, but it's ok if you don't want to". I've released a few games over the last 6 months and honestly this kinda shocks me how Steam goes for quanity over quality. People hating Epic are the same ones who a week earlier were screaming how terrible Steam is. Throwing silly tantrums is what that community does best. Funny thing is, after they're done crying, they will buy the game anyway, even if they have to download a different store client for that. Actually, it's currently really difficult to get your game on Epic store because they have high quality standards, but the stupid mob doesn't seem to realize that yet. There's enough valid reasons to dislike this entire situation, if you prefer to just go along with it that's your prerogative, doesn't make people that disagree with you necessarily stupid though, and calling them such doesn't reflect particularly well on your point.

I've been hopping between Warframe, Destiny 2 and, recently thanks to some people on these forums, Diablo 3. Man, I sure do appear to like my grind I also tried Monster Hunter World and wasn't all that impressed, maybe I need to give it more time, but so far it hasn't really done anything to draw me in. I got the Destiny 2 expansions after playing the free version for a while and while I did hit level cap I'm still making my way through the Forsaken campaign (or I should be, anyway). I still don't really get the Warframe comparisons. Both games are co-op shooters where you have "powers" and that's kinda where it ends. Destiny 2 is extremely stingy with power use and has rather bullet spongy enemies if you don't manage to hit their weak spots consistently, which is quite the contrast to Warframe where spamming powers is the norm and if you're somewhat geared enemies just die when you look in their general direction. I also often find myself killed for no reason I can discern (or because some event dropped something out of the sky that killed me) in Destiny, it's rather an annoying experience and it happens way more than I'd like. "Killed by the architects", har. Oh yeah, one thing Destiny 2 and Warframe do very much have in common is that both games explain basically nothing and rely heavily on player made resources to teach newcomers the game. But that's been a trend in MMOs for a while, I guess.

Wow, I haven't played in such a long time I didn't even recognize that character screen, when was that changed?

Fortnite is a lot bigger than ME3 though; of EA's properties maybe the Sims and FIFA would come close but that's about it. EA came up with Origin because Steam tried to strongarm them into essentially becoming a subsidiary of Valve on PC- a tactic which worked for smaller players like Paradox who had to drop Connect or be kicked from their most lucrative store. The reason they did it is simple enough, if they sell 5 million copies of a game on Origin it's the financial equivalent of selling more than 7 million on steam even without taking into account them being able to control their own product instead of being beholden to Valve. As for security, let's not forget that apart from the myriad of long term minor issues steam has and had they were also outright hacked, multiple times. On the more fundamental level, all this stuff illustrates perfectly that a lot of PC fans and game franchise fans are actually just steam fans. They want the fripperies and appearance of competition so long as no one offers an actual alternative and so long as any 'competitors' can be shut down by Valve at a moments notice by revoking their right to steam keys or are niche like GOG. I don't find it hard to believe that people aren't interested in "competition" to Steam by companies with just as bad a reputation as Valve. That doesn't make them "fanboys" in my eyes. In fact the idea of being a fan of a store or service seems rather...odd...to me, but humans are gonna human, I guess. And yeah, Gog is "niche" in the sense that they don't have a long-standing reputation of screwing over their customers at very turn. Pretty good niche to be in, from where I stand.

Well it has a serious edge over Steam - Deep Silver needs to make like 10%(?) less sales for the same profits. At the same time, exclusivity is the strongest leverage that'll bring people to use Epic store, therefore allowing Epic store to cut more exclusivity deals. I for one am having a lot of fun looking at even Valve themselves being butthurt over all of this, after over a decade of quasi-monopoly (which they still have by the way, Epic store may very well fail - but it's the most serious contestant we've seen yet) Oh, don't mistake my annoyance to any form of loyalty to Valve. I was plenty annoyed way back when they forced Steam on me with Half Life 2's Orange Box, however at the time they provided a good enough service and there was, as far as I remember, no notable competition. So far nobody with their own store has been able to one-up Valve, at best they are a shallow copy of Valve's functionality with many more caveats (eg. Epic's owners). Gog being the only exception as they offer DRM free games and don't push their client down your throat, which is also why they have managed to get a foothold without having to resort to bottom-tier tactics like what Epic is pulling now. Yeah, there's that too. Though "Linux version" usually just means Ubuntu so whatever. That's my main worry with the Obsidisoft deal as well though. (that and that Windows store is probably the worst excuse for software delivery platform, ever) Well it has a serious edge over Steam - Deep Silver needs to make like 10%(?) less sales for the same profits. At the same time, exclusivity is the strongest leverage that'll bring people to use Epic store, therefore allowing Epic store to cut more exclusivity deals. They will be paying them directly for the exclusivity as well, I don't think there's any doubt about that. Given the success of Fortnite Epic already has a very large install base to leverage much as Valve had after HL2. I suspect there will be some deep sales on their exclusive titles during the year of exclusivity to really test how committed people are to steam. And let's be honest, PC gamers have not exactly got a stellar record of sticking to boycotts... Well, how much that install base buys them remains to be seen. I'm sure Origin had a rather large install base due to forcing it upon ME3 buyers, didn't particularly get them anywhere though. The main question is how much of that install base already has most of their games on Steam? The ones that have little investment there might be able to be persuaded, assuming the Epic store is any good (feature comparison with Steam didn't look too great for them, and that didn't even include all the security, privacy and refund policy concerns) Sure, many are loud but will buy the game anyway. Some of us are old (enough) to not think much waiting a year for a game though. I will admit that the definition of "a long time" has shifted rather severely with growing older. How many there are of us? Who knows, I guess Deep Silver is bound to find out. I think the entire thing is just sad. Like, "sigh, shake my head and walk on by"-sad.

Oh well. Saved me some money as I'm sure it'll be cheaper a year down the line. I'm just not sure what they think they're gaining. Epic and Deep Silver are just angering a whole bunch of people this way for little gain as, unless their "store" has some serious edge over Steam, the sheer inertia of everyone having a huge catalogue on Steam just means everyone will be right back to Steam for the next game. Oh well whatever, at least EA has decided to comply with the law, for now (warning: Jim Sterling): Of course they're seriously messing with their customers as these games are designed with the loot box economy in mind, so most of these games that simply disable these loot boxes become "handicapped". Some information about Anthem's monetization leaked, though nothing is set in stone the fact that they're considering these prices is reason for concern as is the fact (as noted by someone in the comments) that the store appears to be on a timer. Will be interesting to see how things turn out. EDIT: spelling EDIT2: added Anthem news

a) Go here (Hverir, Iceland): b) Cry a whole lot and start rethinking the life decisions which led up to the point of smelling that with dozens other tourists I was here recently (Wai-o-tapu, NZ): And honestly, the smell wasn't all that bad. It didn't even cling to the clothes we were wearing. So I guess not all of those areas were created equally, or we got lucky with the weather, or, I guess, I don't mind sulphur all that much

There is a VIP demo that is available early to people who pre-order or have Origin Access, chances that this will be used by some "journalists" to get their reviews out early are, hmm, let's say 100% and even if you have total faith in video game journalists this demo will be used for previews etc. Either way it will result in skewed initial impressions. Whether this is done on purpose by EA/BioWare is another discussion but it certainly does give a bad impression, especially with their track record.

What? Why would anyone sane believe that the demo has the same "balance and economy" as the review copies? Why wouldn't they? I'd expect a demo to be representative of the final product. If it's not then a demo is simply useless, or worse, deceptive, as you can't base a buying decision on it. Especially for this game, which is a looter shooter after all, messing with the balance and economy is a pretty big deal being that's what those games are built around. Aka, your average "game journalist", which will probably use the VIP demo for review as that's as far as I understand the only way to play the game before full release. Waiting for full releases of games before reviewing is for chumps anyway, as is revisiting a review in case the developer does something questionable down the line, but I digress. Fwiw, he's posted a follow up after EA/BioWare responded to the demo concerns:

So basically the demo (which supposedly is the version that is sent to reviewers...) has different game balance (much easier) has a totally different economy compared to the final version... *Sigh* And I really wanted this game to actually turn out well, but if they're already pulling stuff like this... I mean, the game can still turn out well, of course, but if they feel the need to hide "the grind" and the monetisation scheme, yeah, not really inspiring especially knowing EA is the publisher... Ironically enough Anthem so far looks like a Destiny clone with some Warframe influences tossed in, and I'm not sure how much patience for monetisation shenanigans Destiny players still have left.

Monster Hunter World was on sale, so I grabbed that due to all the praise it's been getting.

On Windows 10 Alt+Win+Print Screen tends to work for games not running in true fullscreen. It's what I used for Destiny 2 (which doesn't have a native screenshot feature)

So basically, Metro Exodus is: *Female Protagonist *Ubisoft/WB Games Style Open World * More Mad Max Than Metro * More Color *Vehicles are actually drivable off a rail and have purpose It certainly looks and sounds better than their previous games, that's for sure! I'm much more excited for it now Errr, not sure if serious but: protagonist is the same guy from Metro 2033 and Last Light: Artyom no no well, being outside tends to do that sounds like it, though they're rather "floaty" driving according to SkillUp From the things I've seen so far it plays very much like the previous Metro games, which, thankfully, isn't anything like Far Cry, but isn't quite S.T.A.L.K.E.R. either. Looks like we'll have to keep waiting for a successor to Call of Pripyat (oddly enough while CoP was easily the best of the series, mechanically, I still tend to replay SoC when I get in a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. mood) but I'll happily take a worthy successor to Metro Last Light. Some more opinions from SkillUp: First time in a long while I'm actually genuinely excited about an upcoming game. If I weren't iffy about the season pass thing I might even haven broken down and pre-ordered as, unless major red flags pop up, this'll be a day one buy for me anyway (that'll be the first time in like a decade, if we don't count Kickstarter games)

I can only nod at those, SOMA was such a great great game. Oh god, the first of those invisible guys in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. in those underground tunnels certainly left an impression (and a bunch of empty clips). And those labs... *shiver* In the same vein the original Ishimura from Dead Space really left a mark. I strolled through Dead Space 2 being rather unhorrified in general but...

On topic, made it to Mastery Rank 26 in Warframe. Huzzah.

So what did the crazy lady have to say? ...what? Why are you looking at me like that?! Glad to hear it's turning out nicely, I had made a mental note about that one when episode one launched.

Yes! If we are lucky we will be migrated to the blissful software also used on the Forza forums. Oh, the anticipation! /s

Yup. But after the merger, there may be a little more stability that they no longer feel the need to store their original works in an escape pod. If Microsoft were interested in producing further games in the Eora setting, it makes sense for them to not want to arrange licensing for it, or prevent DRIL from independently marketing Pillars-themed board games or frozen dinners or whatnot. In some ways, it bodes well if you like Pillars of Eternity; it appears that Microsoft does too, and they have deep pockets. Feargus has frequenstly talked about a Pillars game that looks like Skyrim. Including the IP in the aquisition makes this more likely to happen. Honestly, I would play that...BUT the kicker is that lots of folks like Skyrim and Co. because of it's moddability. If you take out making easy mods, it becomes just another generic game that is quickly forgotten. At this point I see the same coming to The Outer Worlds, tbh. If it's not possible to make a house mod in one day, the majority of mod creators will pass up on it and it'll never get the same status as Bethsoft games have right now. Yes, these games are popular on console too, without mods, but I'm fairly sure the constant hype due to activity on PC has a big part in it. Just look at Mass Effect. The games are mostly praised high, but do folks talk about them the same way they talk about Bethsoft titles? No, not at all. Modders are quite wiling to put in quite a bit of effort assuming the foundation is there and they know that said effort won't be wasted. If the engine is open and the company is committed to sticking with it so that the modders know the effort they spend now will still be valuable later then I'm sure you can get a good modding community going (and I'll Beth this is one of the reasons they stick with the Creation Engine instead of tossing it for something new). The main issue is to keep people around for long enough that modders can "get going", Fallout 4 was released over 3 years ago and I'd say the modding community has only really got to the more advanced stuff like a year ago (keeping in mind the GECK was only realeased like a year after the game's release) and is still ramping up in some respects. That's pretty long after most people are "done" with a game nowadays. If you then manage to build an actual good game on top of that open foundation then you might just have a "The Elder Scrolls-killer"(*) on your hands *) I just couldn't let the chance to dig up that old trope pass me by, sorry (No, not really... )

It appears to me as if it's mostly companies that deal with end users that don't give a toss about this (re: hypernormalization?). When dealing with other companies (or governments, I imagine), leaks like these mean lost business most of which probably won't be coming back soon, unless the competition that it went to gets hit by the same type of deal.

At this point in X Rebirth I'm not sure which of the following is the hardest: combat figuring out the systems dodging bugs figuring out whether a problem I'm having requires #2 or #3 Case in point, given how the story so far has seemed like a big tutorial I've mostly been following that (well, I did put some wares in the freighter you get at the start hoping I'd be able to turn a profit on those. Then I appear to have lost the freighter due to progressing the story... ). Anyway, went through the missions and got to the point where I had to join the rear-guard for a freighter rescue operation. Except...nobody else joined. So I got swarmed by like 5 (or so, didn't quite have time to count them) Reivers and promply went ka-boom-ski (on that note, that's one looong game over screen). On reload I had to first kill one guy, then the rest appeared, along with my allies. Suffice to say things went a lot smoother that time... (and got me a new freighter. Which was not-so-coincidentally when I noticed the old one went bye-bye)