All Aboard the 2016 Hype Train

[Bartimaeus]

You know you are getting old when you actually struggle to think of a game you are looking forward to...

I've been that way for a few years, now...and I'm not exactly old, . The current gaming landscape has just kinda worn me out and I just don't see anything I'm interested in anymore...

[Raithe]

It's hitting that point where you have the hype.. but that portion of your head is going "It looks interesting, but I'm not willing to spend that much money on it. I'll wait till it's on sale 5 months down the line".

 

The constant hype of games and then not quite deserving it for one reason or another is definitely reaching a saturation point. I'm not sure if this is because the older you get the more critical you are of things you spend your budget on, or if it is that hype is just getting even sillier.

[Mamoulian War]

I think it's both, silly hype and more rational thinking as we age

[Undecaf]

Torment, Deus Ex and XCOM 2. That's about everything I can think of to look forward to in one way or another.

[majestic]

You know you are getting old when you actually struggle to think of a game you are looking forward to...

 

By that metric I've been old for 17 years now, and I'm a few years over 30.

Edited January 26, 2016 by majestic

[Oerwinde]

You know you are getting old when you actually struggle to think of a game you are looking forward to...

I have games I was excited for sitting on my HD unplayed, so its hard to get excited for new ones

[Vaeliorin]

It's hitting that point where you have the hype.. but that portion of your head is going "It looks interesting, but I'm not willing to spend that much money on it. I'll wait till it's on sale 5 months down the line".

 

The constant hype of games and then not quite deserving it for one reason or another is definitely reaching a saturation point. I'm not sure if this is because the older you get the more critical you are of things you spend your budget on, or if it is that hype is just getting even sillier.

This is me.  I've got a couple games I'm interested in (there are 14 on my Steam wishlist), but other than XCOM 2, there's not a one of them that I'm willing to buy at more than $10-15, simply because I've been burned so many times by games that looked interesting, but turned out to be just terrible (for me.)  I think I've finally managed to get buying Bethesda games out of my system at least (I keep buying them when they're very on sale trying to figure out what people see in them, and I just find no enjoyment out of them.  If they had non-terrible game mechanics they might be fun, but...that's unlikely to happen.)

 

So, other than XCOM2 and the various kickstarters I've backed, the only thing  I'm looking forward to (and I don't know when it will release) is Defender's Quest 2.

[redneckdevil]

It's hitting that point where you have the hype.. but that portion of your head is going "It looks interesting, but I'm not willing to spend that much money on it. I'll wait till it's on sale 5 months down the line".

 

The constant hype of games and then not quite deserving it for one reason or another is definitely reaching a saturation point. I'm not sure if this is because the older you get the more critical you are of things you spend your budget on, or if it is that hype is just getting even sillier.

I'll be quite honest, I think the reason I think like that isn't due to price (I've gone without eating and smoking for a game I really had to have) but more along the lines of......there's just to many damn games out there compared to when I was younger. My backlog is what's killing most hype for me. When I was younger it seemed the flow of games was just right looking back because they weren't constantly coming out so I had a chance to devour and savor the games over a nice period of time. Now with real life as a single father and steam sales of new AND older games, tbh my library's good for years to come of playing games I've never played or beaten. I guess with a huge backlog and counting real life but I'm going to go with backlog lol, it's hard to really get excited for games when u already got all these other games ur trying to find time and motivation for.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Many years ago, I made the decision to only buy games I know I'll play and finish. If I know I'm not going to play it, then why am I giving my money away? I never bought into the Steam and GOG sales with buying games and never playing them.

 

As for this year, I can only think of one new game I'll be playing. Torment.

[Nepenthe]

Mostly Deus Ex, to the point where I was quite annoyed when they pushed the date back. Not that I don't have a backlog after the last couple of years, but I'm slowly catching up, so I'd like to see something more this year. Hoping that they a) release the new Mass Effect and b) it's actually good. Cyberpunk and Dishonored 2 are on a vague day 1 list in my head somewhere, but I have no idea when they are coming out (either).

 

Late edit: Siege of Dragonspear, too. I'd forgotten about it.

Edited January 28, 2016 by Nepenthe

[FlintlockJazz]

There wasn't anything I was really hyped for, I actually felt kinda meh about gaming in general, but then bloody Luridis showed those trailers for No Man's Sky.  I had heard of it but never really got round to looking into it until now, but goddamn that is like my perfect game!  Damn you Luridis!

[Luridis]

There wasn't anything I was really hyped for, I actually felt kinda meh about gaming in general, but then bloody Luridis showed those trailers for No Man's Sky.  I had heard of it but never really got round to looking into it until now, but goddamn that is like my perfect game!  Damn you Luridis!

 

I sure am sorry how it ended up turning out FlintlockJazz. No Man's Sky ended up being yet another failed space sim. Space games are hard to do well and those developers whom would attempt such without sufficient research are asking to put a lot of man-hours into reliving mistakes that countless others have made. It seems Hello Games went to the genre half-****ed and found themselves making the same mistake that the Limit Theory developer made. Perhaps I should make a rules list for the small team and indie devs that fancy the space genre...

 

Rule #01: Understand the biggest problem in open world space sims: that of universe scale IRL, game world space and the limitation of floating point limits in consumer GPUs. Someone on your development team must understand linear algebra, trigonometry and Cartesian mathematics to a high degree. Indeed someone must understand 3D engine architecture deeply and be able to plan the game mechanics and/or 3D engine work-arounds from the very beginning to compensate for this core problem of the genre.

 

Rule #02: Do not focus entirely upon Randomly Seeded Procedural Generation, if indeed you choose to use it at all. Commonly abbreviated as "Procedural Generation" is, by it's very nature, at odds with the depth design element. Things like faction affiliations, ship choice and universe economics become much more difficult when everything is randomized.

 

Run afoul of #2 and people will accuse your game of being "a mile wide and an inch deep". Run afoul of #1 and you'll be announcing that the universe won't feature gas giants, planets will be small, and space backdrops will feel wrong because planets and moons are in gravitationally impossible proximity.

 

It is pretty sad that it turned out the way it did and it's no wonder to me why publishers have largely abandoned the genre. Developers, indie or not, frequently bite off more than they can chew trying to make a space sim on a whim. The truth is, even if it's only single player, a modern space sim akin to 1994's Frontier Elite II would require a back-end nearly as complex as any MMO. Last time I looked at XML document from my latest X Rebirth save game, it was 1,340,766 lines long and it's only got half a dozen start systems in the whole game.

Edited September 30, 2016 by Luridis

[Hurlshort]

The hype train comes full circle.  

[the_dog_days]

I'm tempted to write something about getting excited about '17 releases but I'm too old and bitter to get worked up enough to mock.

[Blodhemn]

Nothing for me. AAA is flash, Indie rarely compels me to even play, much less actually complete.

 

My gaming this past year has been nothing but old games and lurking to see what Cain and Boyarsky are up to.

[melkathi]

I'm tempted to write something about getting excited about '17 releases but I'm too old and bitter to get worked up enough to mock.

Hyped is a strong word, but I am looking forward to Expeditions: Viking

[Gfted1]

I guess the only thing Im hyped about is BATTLETECH, although Im not even sure when its scheduled for release. The recent update was an interesting read with one of the og artist.

[Nonek]

Hype is the first stop on the route to disappointment.

 

That said i'm also quite looking forward to Expeditions: Vikings, finally a game dealing with the interesting aspects of Norse society, rather than Skyrims (and most other games) idiotic and cliched pseudo Viking Nords.

[Fenixp]

That said i'm also quite looking forward to Expeditions: Vikings, finally a game dealing with the interesting aspects of Norse society, rather than Skyrims (and most other games) idiotic and cliched pseudo Viking Nords.

Is it? I wouldn't exactly call Expeditions: Conquistador a historically accurate game. Also, what about the DLC for Mount and Blade: Warband, Viking Conquest? While I own it, I didn't invest a significant amount of time in it, wonder if it's good after the vigorous patching it received.

Edited October 1, 2016 by Fenixp

[Nonek]

What a surprise.

[Luridis]

The hype train comes full circle.  

 

They so carefully pruned that pre-release footage that I never imagined gameplay would be so incredibly shallow. I dare say that most board games are more compelling than "scan creatures" and "refill your shields with titanium", as if the latter mechanic makes sense to anyone who's ever played Elite, Wing Commander, Independence War, Freelancer, etc.

[HoonDing]

Terrible year.

[Luridis]

I should add this... This was done by someone whom understands the number scaling problems in space games. Kudos to them.

 

http://youtu.be/OBYRIZA44Eg

Edited October 3, 2016 by Luridis