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

[kanisatha]

6 hours ago, Hawke64 said:

Shadow of the Road | Announcement Trailer

Judging by one of my old Steam posts getting random replies, the game is closer to a turn-based tactical stealth game, rather than a full CRPG, but I might be wrong. So, while I am not particularly interested (unless full stealth/no kills is an option), it might be good for the fans of the genre.

Too bad it's TB combat, so not interested.

[Mamoulian War]

Tales of Graces f Remastered has been announced for January 17, 2025. Hopefully Bamco will still offer physical PS4 version.

 

[Mamoulian War]

And Suikoden I and II Remasters will be comming in March 2025.

 

[Hawke64]

21 hours ago, kanisatha said:

Too bad it's TB combat, so not interested.

GreedFall 2 | Early Access Overview Trailer

Quote

Dive back into the unique world of GreedFall again in an even deeper RPG experience. Uprooted from the island of your birth, find your freedom, explore the old continent and forge your destiny through alliances, scheming and battles!

Greedfall 2 is RTwP, though I am concerned about the performance. Otherwise, Spiders do make something close enough (but not on the same level) to Bioware. Their games have been mostly technically solid (either tactical or fast enough; on the other hand, rogues/consumables users have been OP) and the stories have had only one major weird drama plot twist per game (e.g. the gates in the frozen city in Bound by Flame; splitting the squad was clearly impossible /s). I am curious how the story is going to work to logically lead to the start of GF1, though if I am not mistaken, the communications with the island were scarce, so it is possible that GF2 will end at the same time as GF1 without the plot lines affecting each other, especially if the MCs are in different continent cities. It would be great if the saves were transferable, of course.

---

Edit.
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/greedfall-2-developers-call-a-strike-over-working-conditions-lack-of-gender-equality-and-parity-and-global-mismanagement

Quote

Workers at Nacon-owned Greedfall 2 studio Spiders have penned an open letter “to their employer” detailing grievances over a period of several years, and called for a strike in response to “management’s continued refusal” to take their concerns seriously. 44 of Spider’s 95 workers have signed the document, made public through French union Stjv in the hope that it “will finally push management to act in the best interests of employees and the company.”

I hope that the employees will achieve adequate working conditions and fair salaries. Considering that the developers are based in France, it should be the likelier outcome.

Edited August 28 by Hawke64

[kanisatha]

Yeah, GreedFall2 is on my Steam wishlist, though I'll have to wait until it is out of EA to get it. I also now have GF1 on my wishlist; waiting for good sale price for that.

[HoonDing]

Greedfall 2 looks extremely janky even compared to Greedfall 1.

 

[majestic]

Huh. Get home, turn on computer, see YouTube telling me that one of the channels I subscribed to released a new video, which is a rare enough occasion. Then get overly excited to see it's from Joseph Anderson. Could it really be? Could it finally be here?

Yeah, nah. It's about Shadow of the Erdtree.

God dammit Joe.

 

[Bartimaeus]

I've watched several of this guy's videos and he has just never done it for me, so I guess I can be thankful that I don't care, . Long and short of the boss stuff (which is the bit I was more interested in, since I really do not care about the open world design one iota) seems like the DLC bosses are hard, but they're almost all comprehensible which makes them fun and interesting to play instead of incomprehensible like a number of bosses in the base game are, which is not fun to play or engage with. I think my favorite bit of FromSoftware content is the Artorias of the Abyss in DS1, whose bosses are all harder than almost anything you can find in the base game but who are all quite fair and well-telegraphed in their movesets, so if it's similar to that, I could certainly understand his point of view.

[Wormerine]

20 hours ago, majestic said:

Then get overly excited to see it's from Joseph Anderson. Could it really be? Could it finally be here?

I am a Witcher.

I have finally bought the Erdtree and redownloaded the Elden Ring. As I was waiting for it to finish downloading, the video popped up on my feed . I will play the DLC first before Joseph convinced me that I actually didn't enjoy it that much.

I need to decide now if I want to reload my old save and continue with the DLC, or replay Elden Ring.... I didn't consider replaying it, but than I booted it up and now I kinda want to. Eh, we will see.

[MrBrown]

https://www.remedygames.com/article/remedy-and-annapurna-announce-a-strategic-cooperation-agreement

[Wormerine]

Something to wash off the bitter taste of Mimimi’s shut down. 

 

[MrBrown]

A year since release, and they've now gone full circle and are making Diablo 4 quite similar to Diablo 3.

https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/diablo-4s-next-update-makes-season-of-loot-reborn-look-like-a-hotfix-a-new-level-cap-of-60-new-difficulty-levels-and-the-return-of-runewords-all-in-season-6

[MrBrown]

https://www.ign.com/articles/concord-is-estimated-to-have-sold-only-25000-units-heres-why-analysts-think-its-failing

[Lexx]

Damn, this is like the first time in years that I have visited ign. Didn't recognize that website at all. Feels so... completely different.

[Malcador]

 

[MrBrown]

This epitome of disaster has been interesting to follow. https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/3/24234909/sony-concord-ps5-shutdown-poor-sales-launch-pc

[uuuhhii]

3 hours ago, Malcador said:

 

 

fancy combat look like dai too much

why did it take so long if bioware are still using the same garbage engine

[bugarup]

And now I'm vaguely interested to play only to find out if the miniature door on that lady's head has a practical purpose or just a decor. 

[majestic]

Back at the end of May Wolcen Studios announced that come September, they will shut down the multiplayer functionality for Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem, citing unsolvable issues with their current technology and codebase as a reason that they cannot keep supporting the game. That, and probably also because they never added any microtransactions to the game, meaning there never really was a steady stream of income from the multiplayer part, and the game costs 25€  on Steam.

They have extended that deadline to September 17th now.

Quote

Dear Wolcen Community,

We’ve read your comments, and, seeing that quite a few players are still doing their best to get the Dawn’s Healing achievement, we have decided to postpone shutting down the servers until September 17, 2024. During this time, we will work on finding a good equivalent for it that can be unlocked while playing offline.

We would also like to confirm that there will be an "Import Online Character" button in the game’s menu that downloads and converts your online character to an offline one, even when the server are already shut down.

The Wolcen Team

Dawn's Healing is an achievement yout get for reviving a fallen party member. They're actually still working on finding a replacement for the achievement so players can complete them all even when multiplayer no longer exists.

I'm pretty sure they're honest about the reasons for the shutdown being more a technical quagmire than a financial one. First of all Wolcen Studios is a tiny developer, small enough to be called an indie studio, and they financed the development through Kickstarter. I backed the game at a tier that allowed me to play the early versions, which were incredibly different from the final product (also used to be called Umbra, not Wolcen). The game used to have this enormous open world to run around in, just without much content, and the final release version had much smaller corridor-style levels, more akin to what Diablo 2 did in its third act. Still, those early versions had a fun charm to them that was lost with the more professional official release. Right at the end of the tutorial area before accessing the open world in the alpha builds you found a spell that shoots lightning, called "Unlimited Power" - it was just hilarious.

Anyway, what I want to say is that from that development alone it seems like they ran into issues with their intended game design and changed it. It also took them so long to develop that the neat ideas they had for the then somewhat lacking ARGP genre were just, you know, not that novel any more when it finally came out. it is also a game that I think really shows the pitfalls of Kickstarted campaigns taking off and being more successful than initially planned. They raised double the amount of money they wanted for their original vision, and, just like the Pillars of Eternity campaign, they scrambled to come up with stretch goals, one of them being the multiplayer part.

I am convinced that it was that stretch goal that ultimately killed the open world aspect of the game they promised. So what they eventually released was a decent ARPG for a small studio, with some fun mechanics and okay gameplay. I should probably replay the game now that the final story elements are out. I played it for a while, but the final chapter of the campaign released sometime afterwards.

[HoonDing]

I think Veilguard has reasonable chances of becoming a blockbuster.

Looks much better than Avowed.

[Mamoulian War]

Harebrained Schemes are working on Survival Horror RPG.

On their FB Page few days ago, they have also mentioned, that they were not able to secure Shadowrun, nor Battletech licences for the foreseeable future.

[Serrano]

7 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Harebrained Schemes are working on Survival Horror RPG.

On their FB Page few days ago, they have also mentioned, that they were not able to secure Shadowrun, nor Battletech licences for the foreseeable future.

I'm surprised they didn't get the Shadowrun licence renewed, I thought the last three games were well recieved? I guess the publisher wants to go bigger or something and make the next Cyberpunk. Their loss.

Edited September 4 by Serrano

[Humanoid]

I wish HBS well, but alas I don't play horror games.

As for Veilguard, I'm choosing to skip that preview in order to wait for a less curated one.

[LadyCrimson]

  Fishing? Well it's cool and all, and gives one more to "achieve." I often like fishing.
But one can't deny at this point that essentially, Hello Games seems to now just be testing mechanics/tech re: Light No Fire using No Man's Sky. Maybe to gauge what players think of such. Which isn't a complaint, just an observation. Makes sense really. And perhaps in the end they'll add so much I won't feel like I "have" to play a MP-focus LNF.

 

[BruceVC]

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/one-of-the-most-strange-and-cruel-survival-sandboxes-ive-played-has-sold-23-million-copies/

Because Im about to play Kenshi I found this interesting sales update

It reached  2.3 million sales by  April, great success for a small company