Random video game news... Bring me a bucket, and I'll show you a bucket!

[LadyCrimson]

^ I'm not into such games, but from everything I've seen/heard re: Concord, it just didn't offer anything interesting enough to move players from other games to that one. There are only so many games a single person can dedicate themselves to, and MP games that need constant regular players --- just can't expect many dozens of them to all be hugely populated. I guess the dev/publisher hope is always that yours will be the next big thing, but perhaps there isn't going to be a next big thing again for a while.

I mean, even outside of online games, you have the same situation with other genres. City builders, survival, open world rpg etc - how many of those do we all need per year. Why should I play this or that when I can just keep playing 7 Days to Die. It's getting so most of these games kinda look exactly the same on the surface. I love my smaller dev/indie games, but even that is horribly oversaturated these days. And worse, many of them look more and more like pure asset flips/all the same art/3d model with almost no innovation/uniqueness. Sure many may still be "ok" or at least pass the time but...it gets tiresome trying to navigate it all.

Consumer burnout cycles. Concord maybe just hit a bad timing.

[Mamoulian War]

16 hours ago, Hawke64 said:

Judging by Alan Wake II, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, and Larian's D&D game being critically and commercially successful, I would say that racists, homophobes, and transphobes claming that Concord's failure is anyhow related to "wokeness" are purposefully lying. The market oversaturation, combined with the price and the lack of marketing are more likely reasons.

IMHO, 40EUR price tag in the era of full games costing way over 100 EUR is most likely scapegoat as well.

[uuuhhii]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ossianstudios/pathfinder-the-dragons-demand/description

 

20 day left and 60 percent funded

not looking good

[Hawke64]

8 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

IMHO, 40EUR price tag in the era of full games costing way over 100 EUR is most likely scapegoat as well.

The comparison should be with the direct competitors. Other team-based PvP FPS, such as Overwatch 2, Apex Legends, and Valorant, are free-to-play. Or even the older ones, such as Counter-Strike 2 and Team Fortres 2 (I might be wrong here - it has been years since I played PvP). Arguably, Helldivers 2 is somewhat similar and costs $40, but it is PvE/co-op only, as the developer said, "to reduce toxic elements from the community. We want an environment that's supportive, fun and where we all are fighting on the same side!" (the original Xitter link does not seem to work, so https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/helldivers-2-will-never-get-pvp-because-arrowhead-dont-want-a-toxic-community).

Additionally, at the moment, by the time a game is content-complete and reasonably bug-free, it is also safely in the £10-15 price range or lower, unless one wants to support the developers or to be a paying tester. Granted, the large publishers are quite good at exploiting the FOMO, while the audience might be vulnerable to it.

[MrBrown]

https://www.ign.com/articles/sony-delists-original-horizon-zero-dawn-on-pc-forces-psn-requirement-for-remaster

[Hawke64]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/a-few-hours-with-new-arc-line-reminded-me-that-setting-doesnt-mean-much-in-an-rpg-if-the-characters-arent-interesting

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I do think the bones are here for a decent CRPG in a potentially interesting setting, but it's safe to to say the game doesn't put its best foot forward. Hopefully it's hiding in that nifty coat somewhere.

Not a favourable preview, but I am curious about the setting and ambivalent about the turn-based combat.

---

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/in-pagan-party-based-rpg-banquet-for-fools-you-can-doodle-your-own-spells-in-blood

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The latest to catch my fancy is party-based RPG Banquet For Fools, out in Early Access today with a demo. Created by two-person Hannah and Joseph Games, it casts you as one of the Vollings - a race of gaunt elven humanoids, hailing from the same school of manky action-figure as Judero, who have been shunned by their gods and have accordingly turned to paganism.

Specifically, you're a lord who has set up a spice farm on a "cursed" island, the former home of a long-dead civilization. This certainly sounds like a foolish thing to do, and it's no huge surprise that everybody on your farm has gone missing. So off you trot with a team of four custom-generated companions to solve the mystery, and also make up gnarly spells by daubing your blood on trees.

The game sounds interesting, though the system requirements are rather puzzling (50GB for v.1.0) and I have not finished the developers' previous game, Serpent in the Staglands (the saves are told to be possible to import).

https://steamcommunity.com/app/3172700/discussions/0/4851030238680772668/#c4851030238681356426

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Banquet is entirely non-linear. Early Access 1.0 only has some starting areas as we're focusing on bugs and balance, but eventually you'll be able to go in any direction you'd like from the starting fort. For instance Caravanner-boats will allow your party to diegetic fast travel to other villages and forts, and you'll be able to do this right from the starting town.

There is quick saving and a field of save slots, outside combat encounters there is no limitation on saving.

Keyboard controls are all rebindable in the options menu, there's a keyboard diagram you can move things around on for it.

Serpent did have respawning enemies if you didn't destroy the whole clump or if enough time passed. Banquet enemies are all individual characters, so they will not respawn, every Volling is named and every monster has its own day and night patrols, and sleeping location.

If an area is cleared simple creatures do come in to fill it, what creatures come depend on the environment, but it is designed to be more of a simulation rather than just respawning more foes.

Hope that helps. If you played any of Serpent and have those files you can import them and change some of the lore of the world and some more direct ways which we'll be introducing down the road. There's a button on the main menu that'll automatically collect your most recent auto save if you don't have the [] and grab any data it can.

 

[melkathi]

May have to try this out when it is ready.

 

 

[BruceVC]

https://www.gamingbible.com/news/platform/pc/elder-scrolls-6-rival-bigger-skyrim-free-248247-20241007

This games map is 5 x bigger than Skyrim and was created by a former Bethesda developer 

It seems to have some interesting mechanics, @Wormerine wormie what do you think? Day 1 purchase?

" Hunt nightmarish monsters from ancient folklore in a mysterious open world, collecting their enhanced sense powers and discovering elemental arrows. Beware, the hunter is also the hunted,” teases the synopsis.

It’s essentially a first-person open world action-adventure with a good dashing of horror thrown in there for good measure too.

Rather uniquely, the UI exists within the game world so, for example, you’ll actually need to glance down at your quiver to see how many arrows you have left.

Tattoos on your hand reveal your health and active powers, while symbols on your bow reveal your noise levels which are important to keep an eye on if you don’t want to alert nearby predators as to your whereabouts. " 

 

[uuuhhii]

how many player are still delusional enough to believe bethesda can make decent game

[Azdeus]

57 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Rather uniquely, the UI exists within the game world so, for example, you’ll actually need to glance down at your quiver to see how many arrows you have left.

Tattoos on your hand reveal your health and active powers, while symbols on your bow reveal your noise levels which are important to keep an eye on if you don’t want to alert nearby predators as to your whereabouts. "

1998 called and wanted it's mechanics back.

Frankly, it's objectively worse, since you don't get to look down at the characters cleavage.

[BruceVC]

17 minutes ago, Azdeus said:

1998 called and wanted it's mechanics back.

Frankly, it's objectively worse, since you don't get to look down at the characters cleavage.

Its an usual mechanic that true, Im not sure how practical it is 

I like the concept of a UI so you can see stats and information easily 

[MrBrown]

2 hours ago, BruceVC said:

https://www.gamingbible.com/news/platform/pc/elder-scrolls-6-rival-bigger-skyrim-free-248247-20241007

This games map is 5 x bigger than Skyrim ...

 

That's a big negative for me. None of Bethesda's games needed bigger maps, they needed more variety in what's already there.

[MrBrown]

Didn't know games still went gold

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1845910/view/4697907940253179422?l=english

[bugarup]

What does that even mean, enough people clicked on "Preorder"? Aaaanyway, was about to say "Will buy when it's 75% off", but then read that it's going to be a "parry timing" setting in it, meaning there's parry mechanics, and I hate parrying in games with  power of thousands of blue suns. Memories of some scrawny crackbrain with sh†tstained pants and bent, rusty fork parrying my flaming radioactive maul delivered by 10str character with all the melee perks in FO4 still cloud my mind in red hot searing rage. 

[Wormerine]

2 hours ago, MrBrown said:

Didn't know games still went gold

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1845910/view/4697907940253179422?l=english

34 minutes ago, bugarup said:

What does that even mean, enough people clicked on "Preorder"?

"Going gold" used to mean that the game has been completed and put on a disc ready for duplication and shipping.

What I assume that means here is that the final build have been finalized and they will be working on day1 patch till release. I assume that means the game has been certified for release on various platforms as well.

[Hurlshort]

15 hours ago, uuuhhii said:

how many player are still delusional enough to believe bethesda can make decent game

I assume it is a similar number to the players that are delusional enough to think Bethesda makes bad games.

Starfield isn't perfect, but it is a very solid game. It also doesn't seem like any of their titles have bombed. Fallout 76 was the closest they've had to a flop, but they keep releasing updates and apparently it has enough players to keep it active. It helps that the show was a huge hit and attracted new players to the IP. Bethesda isn't hurting, so I'd say the delusion is either widespread, or maybe they just aren't making games for you.

I get it. There are plenty of things that bother me in Bethesda games. But by and large they do a lot of stuff right, too.

[Bartimaeus]

17 hours ago, MrBrown said:

That's a big negative for me. None of Bethesda's games needed bigger maps, they needed more variety in what's already there.

Bigger worlds in video games inevitably means lower content density and more walking around with not much to see or do...

...But given that it's a Bethesda game, I'm not certain that it's necessarily a bad thing to put more space between the player and the game's writing/design.

Edited October 10 by Bartimaeus
Though in my humble opinion, Ubisoft is the true 'king' of open world video games: at least Bethesda's games don't *usually* feel like the same handful of bits of content copy and pasted about a thousand times...or even just AI-generated.

[Hawke64]

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Though in my humble opinion, Ubisoft is the true 'king' of open world video games: at least Bethesda's games don't *usually* feel like the same handful of bits of content copy and pasted about a thousand times...or even just AI-generated.

The "Radiant" quests are RNG'ed, but yes - Bethesda puts effort into the world-building, setting, and location design (I still dislike those dungeons from Oblivion, though). Ubisoft does not seem to do so.

[kanisatha]

I thought going gold meant preorders for the game had crossed 1 million.

[Gfted1]

Sunderfolk is a couch co-op tactical RPG you play with a phone. No, really. - Ars Technica

[Zoraptor]

2 hours ago, kanisatha said:

I thought going gold meant preorders for the game had crossed 1 million.

The whole gold/ platinum sales thing never really seemed to catch on much in gaming as compared to music.

(IIRC the reason for the term is that the master disc they used for duplication in gaming used to be differentiated from 'normal' silver discs by being coloured gold instead. That would then be sent to the fabricator)

[Wormerine]

5 hours ago, kanisatha said:

I thought going gold meant preorders for the game had crossed 1 million.

Yeah, gold, platinum, diamond that's a music means, but if I remember correctly what each category means differs country to country.

In gaming it refers to development milestone

https://news.ubisoft.com/en-us/article/P8R9SX3LGlQrlXuTuwAfQ/games-explained-from-game-engines-to-going-gold

[MrBrown]

14 hours ago, Gfted1 said:

Sunderfolk is a couch co-op tactical RPG you play with a phone. No, really. - Ars Technica

In this other article https://www.wargamer.com/sunderfolk/interview-gloomhaven-inspired-by-board-game they talk quite freely about how it's drawing from the Gloomhaven board game. Which I found funny, because game developers generally avoid mentioning other video games like the plague. Apparently it's ok if it's an another media?

And Gloomhaven has it's own video game too.

Edited October 11 by MrBrown

[ShadySands]

I have a phone. I got it to play some Blizzard game way back when but then forgot about it. Maybe I can finally use it.

Edited October 11 by ShadySands

[MrBrown]

https://www.engadget.com/gaming/steam-now-tells-gamers-up-front-that-theyre-buying-a-license-not-a-game-085106522.html?guccounter=1