marelooke

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)

X4 is getting relatively good reviews, so I fired up X Rebirth (curious what our resident X-masers think, assuming they're not all playing my favourite video game: "Wait and see"). Reasoning for picking X Rebirth (of all things): it's (supposedly) a dumbed down X version, so I, as a X-series rookie, might be able to ease into a "real" X game by using Rebirth as a tutorial (and X4 might get patched a bit in that time frame too, maybe drop in price some, you know, lots of possible benefits to be had)

Because online means monetization? That's honestly the only thing I can think of. Well, aside from the devs really liking the idea. Which is just weird, since the combat wasn't exactly considered Prey's strong point, which, imho, wasn't an issue with the single player experience (combat never bothered met at all anyway, personally). But if you turn it into a combat focused multiplayer DLC. Yeah, I don't know... Personally didn't much care for the last DLC either, which was rogue lite stuff. Almost makes it look like the DLC are just chasing hypes. As far as I know there's no single player, story driven, DLC planned at all so if anyone still has the game installed hoping for some story DLC, might as well free up some disk space and just hope we'll get a proper Prey 2.

I'm really happy for you, I'mma let you finish but Tandi had one of the best faces of all time At this point I feel almost obliged...

The Outer World has been in development for quite some time now, I don't think that the Microsoft deal could affect that. Also, Microsoft usually release their games on Steam as well as the Xbox/Microsoft store so there shouldn't be any worries. Given that they are fishing up studios to make "exclusives" it might become a concern (but, as noted, it won't affact The Outer Worlds, tough it *might* affect any sequels, assuming there will be any, I mean, depending on who owns the IP and such). I generally am not that bothered by where I get my games (I have my preferences, of course). If the game is good enough I'll put up with whatever Steam-clone they have (consoles are a no-go for me though). Alas, I also like race games and Forza has resulted in me absolutely loathing the Windows Store. It's just total and utter garbage and the thing hasn't improved in any measurable way between the release of Forza Horizon 3 (2016) and Forza Horizon 4 (2018). Hell, Forza Motorsport 7 still resets my language settings after every. single. patch. (or DLC or what have you, iow, at least once a month), thankfully at least Horizon doesn't rely on the Windows store to get something as frivolous as localization right, but geez...

Well at least her first name isn't Endeavour... Looking forward to this while at the same time being slightly worried about the Microsoft deal now. I mean, it shouldn't affect this game, but any follow ups...

Well darn, that's one creative way to discourage people from submitting support tickets...

Started playing the Prey Mooncrash DLC and...well, what can I say, so far I still really wish they'd just made a story DLC instead of this.

As it stands (one never knows) it's not even in the cards. There were some projects in that direction but none of them were good enough so they all got canned. At this point Valve's thinking (and I tend to agree) is that nothing they could release would live up to the hype that has built up over all these years. Fwiw the (or "a") draft for the Half Life 2: Episode 3 storyline was "leaked" by the (one of the?) writer(s) (who is no longer at Valve) so you could read up as to what at least that person had planned for Episode 3.