Hangout The Games Hangout Thread

[xi0]

Because I just consider it a minor inconvenience. I don't like it but I'm not upset about it either. What actual effect does it have on me as a gamer? Click a different icon? I'd rather have all my games in one place, of course. On my list of problems I have with things in the game industry exclusivity deals probably aren't even in the top 10. It's an problem a can deal with. Unlike..

1. Microtractions and lootboxes (This stuff is like cancer)
2. The mindless trend chasing that murders good studios (First shooters, then MMOs, then mobile games, then MOBAs, then open world games, now live services.)
3. Charging into an all digital future before the actual infrastructure is in place (Where I live it is not)
4. Steam's absurd "We don't want to be bother with it" store management is. (Hire some quality testers and fix your recommendation algorithms you assholes!!)
5. Insufficient testing/bug fixing and a "patch it later" mentality. (Gone gold doesn't mean anything anymore)

I'm not defending Epic. What they are doing in forcing people to use their platform at no benefit to them. That sucks. But to me it's a small thing.

I don't know man, I think exclusivity deals are about as anti-consumer as anything the games industry does. If a company literally funds the game's development and it's produced inhouse, then companies making a game exclusive makes a bit more sense. Like what Sony usually does. Would I want access to any game on any platform? Yes. But timed exclusives or what Epic is doing on PC is much worse than a simple inconvenience to me.

My take on your points

1. I'm uncertain if there's a road back from that stuff at this point, short of lawmakers getting involved. For me, I can tolerate MTX and Lootboxes if it isn't tied to game progression, especially if the game has PVP in any form.
2. It's nothing new, it's just made worse by how forced game development seems to be these days.
3. You mean lack of hard copies of games, I guess?
4. I think you're right about the algorithm thing for sure, but I would prefer Steam's policy towards games now to something like overzealous curation. Of course cynical things like Rape Simulators probably shouldn't be sold, but I don't think Steam should take a stance of quality assurance when it comes to these random games. Unless it's something like what I mentioned or a blatant asset flip.
5. Agreed, nothing more to say.

 

[TrienDarkform]

You mean lack of hard copies of games, I guess?

Or even stuff like expecting you to always have an internet connection (I travel a fair bit), or one of sufficient bandwidth/etc. (rural location, home internet tops out at 4mbps, and a small download quota that some people in other places would probably blow through in a single day)

 

[Jammin]

Or even stuff like expecting you to always have an internet connection (I travel a fair bit), or one of sufficient bandwidth/etc. (rural location, home internet tops out at 4mbps, and a small download quota that some people in other places would probably blow through in a single day)

That's exactly what I meant. There are a whole host of problems around that stuff that people with better internet and many game companies don't realize are there.

Like the fact that you can never choose whether or not to download 4k textures which bloats the file sizes of game completely unnecessarily. And the whole idea of streaming consoles. For people like me that's not viable and won't be for probably like 10 years if not more. Everything about games increasing reliance on high internet speeds becomes a problem when a pretty huge chunk of the audience doesn't have that. But little to no consideration is given to that.

Their answer tends to be "get faster internet" while not realizing that in many places and situations you literally cannot do that.

 

[xi0]

Or even stuff like expecting you to always have an internet connection (I travel a fair bit), or one of sufficient bandwidth/etc. (rural location, home internet tops out at 4mbps, and a small download quota that some people in other places would probably blow through in a single day)

Yeah DRM such as this is big pain in the balls. Even better is the companies who pay money for this shit, only for it to be cracked in a matter of days anyways. So they used money to pay for Denuvo or something and then they lose money on the people who pirate it to avoid it. At this point you'd think that they'd realize they aren't preventing piracy with something like Denuvo, they're causing it...

 

[Jammin]

Looks like Outer Worlds has joined the Epic Store exclusive games list. This isn't going to stop is it?

 

[xi0]

The Outer Worlds and Control will launch on the Epic Store, not Steam

Epic will distribute Control, The Outer Worlds, The Sinking City, Afterparty, and Industries of Titan.

www.pcgamer.com

It's not just The Outer Worlds, I was also really looking forward to Afterparty and The Sinking City. I enjoyed Oxenfree a lot and was really looking forward to Night School's next game for years. I guess they really don't want my money though... There's also the news that Quantic Dream is going multiplatform with their existing games and they'll be EGS exclusives as well.

It seems like the 30/70 vs 12/88 cut thing doesn't even matter to them. Phoenix Point's devs let slip that 100% of their preorders could have been refunded and they still would have turned a profit thanks to Epic's cash transfusion. If you really think about it, if the revenue cut really mattered to publishers, more games would have been on Discord and Humble Bundle, which take even less of a percentage than Epic does.

 

[scav]

got one mission left on XCOM 2. i wanna give a shot at survival/crafting for my next game. Was thinking ark survival evolved but now i'm leaning toward Dragon quest builder.

 

[Jammin]

The Outer Worlds and Control will launch on the Epic Store, not Steam

Epic will distribute Control, The Outer Worlds, The Sinking City, Afterparty, and Industries of Titan.

www.pcgamer.com

It's not just The Outer Worlds, I was also really looking forward to Afterparty and The Sinking City. I enjoyed Oxenfree a lot and was really looking forward to Night School's next game for years. I guess they really don't want my money though... There's also the news that Quantic Dream is going multiplatform with their existing games and they'll be EGS exclusives as well.

It seems like the 30/70 vs 12/88 cut thing doesn't even matter to them. Phoenix Point's devs let slip that 100% of their preorders could have been refunded and they still would have turned a profit thanks to Epic's cash transfusion. If you really think about it, if the revenue cut really mattered to publishers, more games would have been on Discord and Humble Bundle, which take even less of a percentage than Epic does.

Man, Epic is just hell bent on starting something with Steam. I know they have a lot of money from Fortnite but if Valve actually starts to feel threatened we're going to have a PC version of the console wars. Except in this version Steam locks up everything. Valve can cut waaay bigger checks than Epic can and I feel like people wouldn't even be angry about it at this point.

I suppose on the bright side if Epic and Valve end up in a true war the customers will win because that's going to drive pricing down and developer funding up.

got one mission left on XCOM 2. i wanna give a shot at survival/crafting for my next game. Was thinking ark survival evolved but now i'm leaning toward Dragon quest builder.

Good luck the last part of that mission is INTENSE. First part is not so bad. But that final bit I found to be really challenging.

I've played both. Ark Survival is great but only with friends. I can't recommend that single player. Dragon Quest Builders is the better option for that. Though I would also reccomend taking a look at Tenshi if you haven't. It's a hardcore survival building game but with more of a party based focus. It's a pretty neat game.

 

[scav]

Good luck the last part of that mission is INTENSE. First part is not so bad. But that final bit I found to be really challenging.

I've played both. Ark Survival is great but only with friends. I can't recommend that single player. Dragon Quest Builders is the better option for that. Though I would also reccomend taking a look at Tenshi if you haven't. It's a hardcore survival building game but with more of a party based focus. It's a pretty neat game.

lol now i feel like i'm in for a bad surprise for the last mission. Gonna try to finish the game tonight.
I'm indeed looking for a good single player experience. Tenshi? what's the full name of the game?

 

[Jammin]

lol now i feel like i'm in for a bad surprise for the last mission. Gonna try to finish the game tonight.
I'm indeed looking for a good single player experience. Tenshi? what's the full name of the game?

Sorry it's "Kenshi" not "Tenshi". It's PC only, so I hope that's not a problem.

It's a bit like a cross between a survival game and Mount and Blade: Warband

 

[scav]

Sorry it's "Kenshi" not "Tenshi". It's PC only, so I hope that's not a problem.

It's a bit like a cross between a survival game and Mount and Blade: Warband

ah i'll pass lol not a fan of playing on my toaster.
Finished XCOM 2, and you were right last part of the last mission was a pain in the ass. fucking avatars and acid bomb. truly a good game, i'll comeback later and try a legend run. Hope it get released on the switch one day so i can play on handheld

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 21, 2019, Original Post Date: Mar 21, 2019 ---

speaking of nintendo, i really loved the nindie direct. Pine, Cuphead and Cadence of hyrule are day 1 buy for me. And i'm amazed they let an indie team working on a semi zelda game.

 

[Jammin]

ah i'll pass lol not a fan on playing on my toaster.
Finished XCOM 2, and you were right last part of the last mission was a pain in the ass. fucking avatars and acid bomb. truly a good game, i'll comeback later and try a legend run. Hope it get released on the switch one day so i can play on handheld

When your emotionally prepared you should try a run with the expansions. They add some cool new classes and equipment and also some enemies and missions that are designed to destroy your self esteem.

Like with the War of the Chosen if you kill a Chosen you get it's equipment. But that is much MUCH easier said than done.

 

[TrienDarkform]

This arrived today...

Classic Mitsuda, rearrangements of 25 tracks from the original soundtrack... mmmmm.....

 

[Jammin]

Bloodlines 2 is real and coming Q1 2020!

 

[xi0]

Bloodlines 2 is real and coming Q1 2020!

Steam is an option on the preorder section, but along with EGS, GOG, and the Paradox store. It's also already on the Steam store too..... but I'm still not convinced. I've been hurt too many times before.

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 22, 2019, Original Post Date: Mar 22, 2019 ---

Really good news from a story perspective. Looking forward to his work on Dying Light 2 as well.

 

[Jammin]

Steam is an option on the preorder section, but along with EGS, GOG, and the Paradox store. It's also already on the Steam store too..... but I'm still not convinced. I've been hurt too many times before.

Well that stuff aside I was pretty pleased with what I heard from the devs. Sounds like Hardsuit Labs has been working on this game a while. And working under the idea that this game should look, feel, and play like the original. Bringing in as much as they could to make that happen.

 

[xi0]

lol sorry, any exciting announcement is usually tempered a bit these days for me since a lot of games I'm looking forward to have been casualties of this nonsense. But yeah... Hardsuit Labs doesn't have the best pedigree IMO, but it seems like they've brought in the right people to set this up for success perhaps. I guess we might be seeing more at PAX East or E3.

 

[SonOfDaws]

Bloodlines 2 is real and coming Q1 2020!

Man.. I thought that said Bloodborne 2....

 

[Jammin]

Man.. I thought that said Bloodborne 2....

One day.

In the meantime though, I think this might actually be better.

 

[scav]

speaking of bloodborne, seikiro shadows die twice look really great. I'll have to get it at some point.

Yesterday i played the demo of Dragon quest builders, it's really addicting. I'm still hesitating because the 2 come to the switch in july

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 26, 2019, Original Post Date: Mar 26, 2019 ---

when you spend 2h doing pretty much nothing on Dragon quest builder after work. never knew i needed that game until now lol