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

[Gfted1]

On 11/30/2023 at 11:57 AM, melkathi said:

Edit:

Tried it on my phone. Crappy run of the mill mobile game that has you endlessly upgrading heroes and hoping to find some ultra epic super-duper rare hero P2W.

Ah bummer. Thanks for taking the bullet.

[kanisatha]

17 hours ago, melkathi said:

Stop wondering and forget about it.

It's just that I soooooo want to play a new Forgotten Realms game. But sadly for me, BG3 has turned out to be complete crap as far as I'm concerned. So I'm still left with that hankering.

But I suppose you are right. I need to forget about not just this game but any prospective FR game and accept that I'm never going to get such a game.

[Hawke64]

On 12/2/2023 at 3:05 PM, kanisatha said:

It's just that I soooooo want to play a new Forgotten Realms game. But sadly for me, BG3 has turned out to be complete crap as far as I'm concerned. So I'm still left with that hankering.

But I suppose you are right. I need to forget about not just this game but any prospective FR game and accept that I'm never going to get such a game.

If the official modding tools are released, there could be something interesting - there were some good modules for NWN.

[Hawke64]

Somehow disappointing:

Quote

Payday devs Starbreeze are working on a co-op multiplayer game based on storied tabletop RPG Dungeons & Dragons. It’ll be out in 2026, and Starbreeze are being upfront with the fact it’ll be a games-as-a-service-type game.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/dungeons-dragons-co-op-multiplayer-game-on-the-way-from-payday-devs

[Malcador]

 

[Hurlshort]

So excited to return to Vice City, but 2025? I need to forget about this for at least another year.  

[MrBrown]

Announcements of announcements. Desperate to tell they're still working on the game.

[Lexx]

3 hours ago, Malcador said:

 

The only thing I wonder is if the combat gameplay will be as dated as in all their other games. It's seriously the point I hate the most in RDR2... You headshot everything with auto-aiming and to compensate how easy it is, they are throwing a million dumb as bread ai soldiers at you.

[kanisatha]

7 hours ago, MrBrown said:

Announcements of announcements. Desperate to tell they're still working on the game.

Looks like 2024 is what's going to be my year of awesome RPGs. But with my luck it'll also be the year the world ends.

[Hurlshort]

7 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

Looks like 2024 is what's going to be my year of awesome RPGs. But with my luck it'll also be the year the world ends.

Uh, I think they are just revealing the game in 2024. It will probably come out in 2026.

[Keyrock]

I like Vice City and all but I would have much rather had a new setting. Hong Kong would be my first choice (Sleeping Dogs was awesome). If Rockstar is incapable of creating a new city/region, then take the game back across The Pond to Britain. At least that setting hasn't been used since the top-down games.

Edited December 5, 2023 by Keyrock

[Hurlshort]

42 minutes ago, Keyrock said:

I like Vice City and all but I would have much rather had a new setting. Hong Kong would be my first choice (Sleeping Dogs was awesome). If Rockstar is incapable of creating a new city/region, then take the game back across The Pond to Britain. At least that setting hasn't been used since the top-down games.

It will be interesting to see if we get a new city after this. They've now re-done all 3 of the cities from the previous generation, and I doubt they go back to New York for numero siete. But at this rate it will be over a decade before we find out.

What did they call their fake London?  I could see them doing that next.

[Keyrock]

5 minutes ago, Hurlshort said:

What did they call their fake London?

It was just London as best as I remember. 

[xzar_monty]

On 12/2/2023 at 5:05 PM, kanisatha said:

It's just that I soooooo want to play a new Forgotten Realms game. But sadly for me, BG3 has turned out to be complete crap as far as I'm concerned. So I'm still left with that hankering.

Why is it complete crap? I'm really curious about this.

I'm not even going to give it a try because it's turn-based only[*] and because the character interactions look frankly awful[**], but I'm very interested in your opinion nonetheless. I also happen to think that I may never get another game in a genre I thoroughly enjoy. Oh well, that happens.

 

[*] D:OS2 was total rubbish because of this; I'm not going to try another one.

[**] If you want to create cinematic scenes with characters speaking so that you can see their expressions, their mouths moving and so on, it has to be done incredibly well, othewise it just looks bad, significantly worse than the old-school approach of games like BG2 or PoE where you don't get to see any details like this at all. BG3 is not done incredibly well and so the graphics look just poor, illusion-breaking. (Most books are much, much better than most movies based on books, because everything is much more alive, nuanced and so on. Curiously, and in my view, most "old-school" games in the sense I just described are also much, much better than most games that attempt to create something like real-life graphics, because they lose so clearly to everything that is real life.)

[MrBrown]

5 hours ago, Hurlshort said:

Uh, I think they are just revealing the game in 2024. It will probably come out in 2026.

That trailer has a grand total of two still shots that might be in-engine, so there's no way of telling how ready it is. If you're an optimist, reveal next year, release 2025. If you're pessimist, reveal pushed back to 2025, release maybe 2027. Not trying to be a hater, I liked the previous DA games so I'll check this one out, but they're not being very convincing.

(Ok, I guess if you're really a pessimist you'll say it'll never come out.)

[melkathi]

45 minutes ago, MrBrown said:

 

(Ok, I guess if you're really a pessimist you'll say it'll never come out.)

 

Nah, they'll just change Dev team and give it to The Chinese Room or some studio like that

[Hawke64]

6 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

Why is it complete crap? I'm really curious about this.

I'm not even going to give it a try because it's turn-based only[*] and because the character interactions look frankly awful[**], but I'm very interested in your opinion nonetheless. I also happen to think that I may never get another game in a genre I thoroughly enjoy. Oh well, that happens.

 

[*] D:OS2 was total rubbish because of this; I'm not going to try another one.

[**] If you want to create cinematic scenes with characters speaking so that you can see their expressions, their mouths moving and so on, it has to be done incredibly well, othewise it just looks bad, significantly worse than the old-school approach of games like BG2 or PoE where you don't get to see any details like this at all. BG3 is not done incredibly well and so the graphics look just poor, illusion-breaking. (Most books are much, much better than most movies based on books, because everything is much more alive, nuanced and so on. Curiously, and in my view, most "old-school" games in the sense I just described are also much, much better than most games that attempt to create something like real-life graphics, because they lose so clearly to everything that is real life.)

I acknowledge that I was not asked but I would like to reply. My main issue at the moment is how poorly Larian handles the setting and the storytelling. (Also, the UI, system requirements, RNG, and the inconsistency of the character controls[*] but those I can get used to). The combat encounters can be minimised and the animations, while lacking, can be skipped. Though, at the max settings and 60FPS, the effects blur away the limitations of the mo-cap, so it at least looks technically well and some scenes (e.g. Dame Aylin's armour summoning or Astarion's companion quest ending) are over-the-top enough to be good.

On a positive note, I adore the immersive sim elements (would prefer if they were consistent, like in Dishonored), the number of diverse LGBTQ characters (especially that paladin), and the absence of DRM, MTX, and DLC.

[*] The turn-based combat, the real-time without pause exploration, the time-freeze dialogues where, as a bonus, the characters do not move for the onlookers.

15 hours ago, MrBrown said:

Announcements of announcements. Desperate to tell they're still working on the game.

Looking forward to it. Though, I am worried about the DRM - it effectively kills the preservation (as my recent experience with DA:I has reminded me). The game is also likely to be released half-complete with the patches and paid DLC coming for a year or two.

Edited December 5, 2023 by Hawke64

[MrBrown]

 

[kanisatha]

23 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

Why is it complete crap? I'm really curious about this.

I'm not even going to give it a try because it's turn-based only[*] and because the character interactions look frankly awful[**], but I'm very interested in your opinion nonetheless. I also happen to think that I may never get another game in a genre I thoroughly enjoy. Oh well, that happens.

I think I've posted about my reasons in the BG3 thread, so I may not be quite comprehensive here with my issues, but (not in rank-order) ...

Too much resources wasted on cinematics and VO that should've been spent on core cRPG elements.

Gameplay ddevelopment decisions were clearly made with what was needed for co-op play over single-player.

The entire combat system.

Avoiding combat results in lesser outcomes than fighting, and also results in less XP and loot.

Main story full of plot holes.

Too much disregard for decades of established FR lore.

The entire "origin" PCs concept.

The custom PC being the least attractive way to play the game because the custom PC is the least plugged into the game (your origin companions are more central to the game than your custom PC).

Choices throughout the game often not including obvious good-alignment options (or where good-alignment options are silly/unrealistic) and where choices favor playing evil (according to people I would trust on the Larian forum, there is no consistently good path the PC can take through the whole game, though a consistently evil path exists and is easy to accomplish).

All companions being some form of primadonna/diva/hipster type character, and not a single sympathetic character among them.

Poor writing. Period.

 

[Hawke64]

37 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

Choices throughout the game often not including obvious good-alignment options (or where good-alignment options are silly/unrealistic) and where choices favor playing evil (according to people I would trust on the Larian forum, there is no consistently good path the PC can take through the whole game, though a consistently evil path exists and is easy to accomplish).

All companions being some form of primadonna/diva/hipster type character, and not a single sympathetic character among them.

I agree with most of the points mentioned except these two. Ironically, the Evil, murderhobo-style, path is less developed than the heroic one, ranging from the fewer quests (the dead NPCs don't have replacements) to the increased difficulty. The only genuinely Good-aligned (CG) and sympathetic companion is Karlach, the tiefling barbarian. Also, Wyll, the human warlock, but the "I am the Blade of Frontiers and definitely not a warlock" thing might get on one's nerves.

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https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/skyrims-latest-update-brings-back-paid-mods-with-an-easier-way-for-creators-to-sell-their-work

Quote

 A new update for Skyrim Special Edition has introduced "Creations", a method through which community modders can sign up to the "Bethesda Game Studios Verified Creator Program" and then sell their work through the platform to receive royalties.

It's "paid mods", in other words, and a revival of an idea Bethesda launched and abandoned in 2015. The same update also broke existing mods dependent on Skyrim Script Extender (SKSE), a commonly used community-made modding toolkit.

...

The most imminent issue of the update was that mods reliant on the Skyrim Script Extender were broken in the process. SKSE is a commonly used toolkit that allows Skyrim mods to make more ambitious changes to the base game. SKSE's creators reacted quickly and have released an update which makes it work with the latest patch, but players will need to download the update if they want to continue using their old mods. You can find all the SKSE builds for download here.

There is a suspicion that Bethesda broke the older mods on purpose, as only the newly-developed independent mods are eligible for the programme, but I would bet on negligence rather than malice. Also, the GOG version should not be affected by the developers' poor decisions post-release.

Edited December 6, 2023 by Hawke64

[BruceVC]

On 12/5/2023 at 5:26 AM, Malcador said:

 

The latest trailer is excellent. Im very excited about this game 

It doesnt look very woke like I assumed,  nice stripclubs 

[Azdeus]

2 hours ago, Hawke64 said:

---

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/skyrims-latest-update-brings-back-paid-mods-with-an-easier-way-for-creators-to-sell-their-work

There is a suspicion that Bethesda broke the older mods on purpose, as only the newly-developed independent mods are eligible for the programme, but I would bet on negligence rather than malice. Also, the GOG version should not be affected by the developers' poor decisions post-release.

For what it's worth, practically every update Bethesda releases breaks the script extenders as far as I know. So it's more like business as usual.

I'm utterly unsurprised paid mods are back, but mildly shocked that it'd be with Skyrim and not Starfield. Must not be very many playing that ****.

[Malcador]

https://www.pcgamer.com/warhammer-40000-rogue-trader-review/

PCG's not a fan.  Although not sure what PCG is worth these days.

RPS seems a bit more positive

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/rogue-trader-is-the-first-warhammer-40k-game-ive-played-that-feels-genuinely-epic

Edited December 6, 2023 by Malcador

[MrBrown]

17 minutes ago, Malcador said:

https://www.pcgamer.com/warhammer-40000-rogue-trader-review/

PCG's not a fan.  Although not sure what PCG is worth these days.

Sounds very close to the Kingmaker and WotR experience. Pretty much as expected.

[melkathi]

36 minutes ago, Malcador said:

 

PCG's not a fan.  Although not sure what PCG is worth these days.

 

 

My experience with PCG is that they are racist idiots who will nitpick to find fault with any game that isn't made by anglosaxons.