Random video game news... Games are the most elevated form of investigation

[melkathi]

With Early Access my problem is, that by the time you finally have a finished product, I am burned out on the game.

 

A bit like Age of Wonders 4 at release...

[Keyrock]

I think people buried the lede concerning the Microsoft acquisition of Activision. Call of Doody and Diablo are all fine and well, but Activision owns the Arcanum IP, which is to say that Microsoft now owns the Arcanum IP. Forget about everything else, Arcanum 2 is now possible. This needs to happen. WE HAVE TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN.

[kanisatha]

1 hour ago, Keyrock said:

I think people buried the lede concerning the Microsoft acquisition of Activision. Call of Doody and Diablo are all fine and well, but Activision owns the Arcanum IP, which is to say that Microsoft now owns the Arcanum IP. Forget about everything else, Arcanum 2 is now possible. This needs to happen. WE HAVE TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN.

But won't that be direct competition for the new inXile steampunk game?

[Gfted1]

Ive had bad luck with Arcanum. Back in aught aught when it came out, the physical copy I purchased had two "Disk 1" (or maybe two "Disk 2"), so I could never install the game. Then I bought it on GoG, spent way too much time creating my character, then died 10 steps into the game from a wolf killing me. Turned it off and never went back.  

[Keyrock]

13 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

But won't that be direct competition for the new inXile steampunk game?

I don't think so. There's room for more than 1 steampunk game at any given time. Plus, Clockwork Revolution is likely releasing in 2024. Arcanum 2, even if they started pre-production today, would likely be at least 2 years away.

[Wormerine]

3 hours ago, Keyrock said:

I think people buried the lede concerning the Microsoft acquisition of Activision. Call of Doody and Diablo are all fine and well, but Activision owns the Arcanum IP, which is to say that Microsoft now owns the Arcanum IP. Forget about everything else, Arcanum 2 is now possible. This needs to happen. WE HAVE TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN.

Who would make it, though? Would Arcanum IP made Tim Cain be willing to come back from semi-retirement?

I also worry, if Arcanum 2 could even be as ambitious as the original was. Arc1 was probably too ambitious, but I am not sure anyone would be willing to invest into what made Arcanum special.

[Zoraptor]

2 hours ago, Gfted1 said:

Then I bought it on GoG, spent way too much time creating my character, then died 10 steps into the game from a wolf killing me. Turned it off and never went back.  

A story as old as time.

Or at least as old as Chris Avellone's Arcanum Let's Play.

[HoonDing]

I dropped the game in those mines.

[Humanoid]

I fairly recently tried a new save, telling Virgil to bugger off at the start of the game. It did not go well.

[melkathi]

For you or for Virgil?

 

Did you promptly cease being the living one? Or living period?

[Humanoid]

Only the true Messiah denies his divinity, and I delivered my denial in the strongest possible terms.

[HoonDing]

 

[SellSwordDev]

Man, I've been meaning to play Arcanum for the longest time. There's no excuse to be honest, other than a massive backlog of 20+ games.

[Wormerine]

Josh Sawyer would be up for making Pillars of Eternity3 if he got a lot of budget fot it. So... still no hope for PoE3?

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/obsidians-josh-sawyer-wants-to-do-pillars-of-eternity-3-with-baldurs-gate-3s-budget

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

6 minutes ago, Wormerine said:

Josh Sawyer would be up for making Pillars of Eternity3 if he got a lot of budget fot it. So... still no hope for PoE3?

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/obsidians-josh-sawyer-wants-to-do-pillars-of-eternity-3-with-baldurs-gate-3s-budget

I think if BG3 does very well, and everything I've seen points toward it having doing very well, then there's going to be at least some interest in trying to recreate that. PoE 3 seems like an obvious contender for Microsoft to try that and I'd think Sawyer would be a natural choice to helm it. So maybe a bit more optimistic than no hope.

[Lexx]

Question is, why did Deadfire (apparently) fail so hard? Was it the pirate setting, or was it that PoE1 got overhyped hard and the majority of players actually didn't really like it?

Personally I never finished PoE1. Game felt too long, middle was a slog, and I'm really not a fan of rtwp combat blobs.

On the other hand, I played through Deadfire 2 times (new playthrough right after the first one!), despite the rtwp blob combat. Guess I managed better, because I think pirates are cool. Also the game is quite a bit shorter. My only issue with it is that the side-content islands felt like nothing but simple fillers, and that many of the quests felt very formulaic. Like, by now I can 100% predict which choices will show up for me, what exactly I can do, and how it very likely will turn out.

Edited October 21, 2023 by Lexx

[Wormerine]

19 minutes ago, Lexx said:

On the other hand, I played through Deadfire 2 times (new playthrough right after the first one!), despite the rtwp blob combat. Guess I managed better, because I think pirates are cool. Also the game is quite a bit shorter.

Is it shorter? If my memory serves me well both games were in around 80h marks.

[Lexx]

I believe it is much shorter than PoE1. Don't think I've spend 80 hours on a playthrough.

[MrBrown]

My impression was always that PoE1 was much shorter.

[Sarex]

8 hours ago, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

I think if BG3 does very well, and everything I've seen points toward it having doing very well, then there's going to be at least some interest in trying to recreate that. PoE 3 seems like an obvious contender for Microsoft to try that and I'd think Sawyer would be a natural choice to helm it. So maybe a bit more optimistic than no hope.

I wouldn't mind seeing him take another crack at it, if for nothing else but to see how or if he would change the formula.

[Humanoid]

I actually fired up PoE last week. On loading, I saw that four of my six party members (who I'd completely forgotten their names) had a level-up pending. I went through the level-up process for one of them after reading a bunch of spell and ability names, after which I couldn't be bothered doing the other three and quit.

BG3 and Solasta co-op controlling two characters each feels right to me. I have a parallel BG3 single-player run which feels right at the edge of what my brain can track, which is helped by pre-existing knowledge of the D&D rules. Micro-managing six characters with completely alien classes and abilities to me is just overwhelming and I can't handle it.

[Hawke64]

11 hours ago, Wormerine said:

Josh Sawyer would be up for making Pillars of Eternity3 if he got a lot of budget fot it. So... still no hope for PoE3?

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/obsidians-josh-sawyer-wants-to-do-pillars-of-eternity-3-with-baldurs-gate-3s-budget

Pillars of Eternity does not need to compete with whatever Larian is making - despite the cursory similarities, they are fundamentally different.

Larian cannot write or design UI or combat encounters, while constantly disregarding the lore for no reason (from the Divinity 1 MC in D:OS2 to the Emperor in their latest title, and that lore was not even theirs to take a dump on).

Obsidian, on the other hand, has excellent writing, relatable characters, meaningful and impactful choices, amazing graphics and UI, and engaging combat and stealth. Also, the pause function and system requirements. VA and mo-cap are a waste of resources for CRPGs, while the only paise-worthy aspect of Larian's games is the ability to skip all those mo-capped voice-acted scenes with a well-launched fireball (i.e. immersive sim elements). Which occasionally breaks the narrative (e.g. the boss thrown into the chasm teleports onto the platform to die in a cut-scene), because even this was poorly-implemented.

While it is unlikely with Microsoft, I would definitely back another PoE game.

---

Length-wise, I think, Deadfire was shorter, which was most welcome.

[Hawke64]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/meet-the-men-hiding-their-fifa-ultimate-team-addiction-from-their-families

Quote

 Producer Matt Prior and executive producer Andrew Wilson, now EA’s CEO, were taking note of the gacha boom in Asia. Having also admired a short-lived trading card mode from a previous FIFA spinoff game in 2007, they decided to try and combine the two. It would be called FIFA Ultimate Team. It’s safe to say it took off. But if opening packs to get football player cards was such a lucrative business, why aren’t Panini and Topps, the companies that make the football stickers I spent my pocket money on, recording similar profits?

“Without a shadow of a doubt, there are clear correspondences between loot boxes and problem gambling,” says behavioural scientist Dr. David Zendle. Considered a world expert on the subject, Zendle has been investigating this link for as long as Gaurav has been spending money on Ultimate Team. “If you look at the roulette-like way that CS:GO, for example, presents the opening of the loot box, and then you look at the spinning of the wheel on even a classic fruit machine, there are striking visual and auditory similarities,” he tells me from his office at the University of York.

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

4 hours ago, Sarex said:

I wouldn't mind seeing him take another crack at it, if for nothing else but to see how or if he would change the formula.

I would very much like to see more mid and big budget RPGs that aren't off-brand Elder Scrolls things. Sawyer is a component guy and I think he'd be able to make something I'd enjoy more than BG3 if he had the budget.

One thing though, BG3 characters are absolutely insane and that works for me. Stuff like His Majesty or the foot fetish goblins are absolutely great and a hypothetical PoE3 would benefit from some of that zany nonsense.

[kanisatha]

21 hours ago, HoonDing said:

The problem I have with these games is their pawn system. I don't like that complete strangers can take my pawns for use in their game.