Yeah, my thought is that this is a game they'll be supporting for 8-9 years so what the fuck does it matter if it runs like dogshit on day one? Don't fucking buy it until the performance increases and the problems you mentioned are ironed out.
It really is that simple.
Anyone that expected this game to be perfect on launch was clearly not around whenever Cities: Skylines launched. The performance was godawful to the point that I refunded it. A couple of months and a couple of patches later shit was cleared up and I repurchased it. Didn't have an issue after that.
So yeah, the whole "Why doesn't this brand new game not have the same performance and features as a nine year old game with numerous DLCs and mods?" thing is getting fucking tiresome.
I don’t think it’s crazy to expect games to have playable performance levels when they release. Not to mention it’s a sequel so you’d think they would learn some things after fixing the first one.
Yeah the fucks up with all the Paradox apologia in this thread? I also remember Cities: Skylines on release It ran fine and my rig was shitty back then. It was a perfectly functional little city builder. People loved it and it was called the new Sim City! “Just wait two years and put down another $50 on dlc bro. Ur dumb for expecting it to be good now.” Nah this shits unacceptable. If a game needs to be supported for years before its considered good then an honest developer would call it an early access game. Ya know, those games that get years of support, updates, and features for free.
Yeah but it’s Paradox as the publisher who is the one setting the parameters of them having to build a game that is designed to support 10 years of DLC like all of their other products because that’s their monetization strategy.
Publishers still have a lot of power in a games development. They can set deadlines and dictate the direction they want a games development to take. Seeing as this is a recurring problem with games Paradox both develops and publishes, its easy to see who is to blame here.
DLC part pisses me off also. I know this game isn’t developed by Paradox but it seems to be a trend in Paradox games where you need to spend the base price + an absurd amount of extra money to get the developer’s “true vision” or whatever. It’s really annoying.
To get most of the base game features that are currently present in Crusader Kings III, you would’ve had to spend a sizeable chunk of cash on DLC for Crusader Kings II.
I completely agree. I think the point of the commenter you’re replying to is that this is the kind of game that will fix these eventually. It’s still disappointing for a launch, but eventually it will probably become better than CS1.
I just bought Fallout 4 GOTY for $5 the other day. Look forward to doing the same in a few years when Cyberpunk 2077 has a final release with everything fixed and polished. There’s so many good old games, why buy anything brand new.
And this doesn’t forgive devs for buggy initial releases either, because I’m not throwing money at something until it’s actually done.
The base game of 2077 is pretty good now that 2.0 is out. My biggest issie with it at launch was the lack of cyberspace for hacker player characters. Felt like the game was funneling me towards standard FPS gameplay, even if there are a lot of options within that realm
Exactly this. No man’s Sky is apparently decent nowadays too.
Part of the issue is that publishers make studies sign contracts with fixed release dates, with heavy penalties for delays (even though basically any software project ends up going over time).
But yeah, just go through the backlog of older games, this way you also don’t need the latest PC either to play on max settings.
Preorders. It used to be that you had to preorder the LOTR special edition on DVD with figurines to make sure the shop had existences… then Kickstarter bastardized it into “pay to maybe get something”… and Steam jumped onto the bandvagon of “pay hoping it might work some day”.
Not sure how the point about Kickstarter is relevant but it’s not Steams fault devs are releasing unfinished games.
And I wouldn’t say it went straight to bad digital preorders. I feel like that is a more recent phenomenon and digital preorders were better years ago.
I’d much rather play the game in its current state than waiting 3 or 4 months, i have a pretty beefy system and i dont mind low framerates in a strategy game. If you don’t feel the same then don’t pick it up, wait the 3 or 4 months and enjoy it then.
The problem is that they don’t communicate this and still ask for the full price.
Imagine I’m a gamer who wants to buy and play a working game today, not in half a year. Nothing on their store page indicates that the game isn’t in a playable state yet, so I’d pay full price for a game I can’t actually play. That’s misleading at best, and a downright fraud at worst.
They could easily fix this by delaying the game or launching it as early access for people who don’t mind playtesting a half-finished game, but they didn’t.
It’s kind of baffling how we accept this as pretty much the standard for major releases these days. Why would we be okay buying anything else like this? If I bought a pair of shoes and they had issues that made them unwearable until I got them repaired I would be irritated as fuck, and obviously this would be unacceptable for a store to sell them like that.
I doubt the average player looks up whether the devs came out to warn players their game runs like shit before buying it, I think they just buy it. Similar to how people probably don’t check to see if a movie director has mentioned how bad the sound mixing and lighting is in a movie before going to watch it. Might be a crazy take but imo the onus isn’t on the person buying the game to make sure the game is finished, let alone looking up articles on the game to make sure the devs didn’t admit that it runs like ass and isn’t finished. Though with how often it happens and how often there’s people that excuse it maybe that’s where we’re at now, you reap what you sow and whatnot lol
Anyone buying a full price title without looking it up with a quick Google search or reading reviews on Steam is far gone from my compassion.
You can even refund it so easy it’s not even worth the outcry and i don’t even pretend to care about anyone pre-ordering digital downloads.
It’s shitty that these devs have to put the games out too early, but it would save everybody’s money and nerves if you just start to see releases today as early access because that’s what they all are. There are many companies out there which don’t say a peep and i won’t wreck anyone who at least tries to give a heads-up !pre! which anyone who cares could get easily for free.
This is not what I’m talking about, because the vast majority of people buying the game won’t have seen this. It’s not enough that the info is somewhere on the internet, it needs to be front and center when buying the game.
We didn’t have god damn tunnels in CS1 when it was released and people were raging about the city being limited to 9 tiles.
If company admitted performance issues before release is the hill that these people are willing to die on, well go ahead then. Back then the alternative was either cities platinum series or the abomination sim city became and neither of those was any good. At least now you have something more modern than sim city 4 to fall back on if CS2 disappoints.
The problem is, this sets a precedence in the gaming industry (and in the consumer’s minds too) that it’s fine to consume 16 GB of RAM, not on a late game megacity but on a new save.
Games like this are also pretty palatable at low framerates imo, certainly much better than an fps or something. If the gameplay is solid I’ll definitely pick it up. I like to have it as a second monitor game.
I’m sorry, but your reasoning is absolute nonsense. Maybe game developers should unionize, but suggesting that it should work like Hollywood is pretty ridiculous.
The huge studios would function just like in Hollywood.
Okay, so fuck the developers at big studios just like how most of the people working on movies get fucked now? You think because a deal was reached by the union that the big studios aren’t still just running to the bank with their loads of cash? The recent strike (and most strikes in Hollywood) were mostly about residuals. You know why? Because people who aren’t above the line in the credits get shit pay. At least in the games industry most people are employees, get paid up front, have a salary, and whether the game succeeds or flops they get their money. And most people don’t get laid off between games. You’re getting paid your salary even while there is downtime. In Hollywood, if the movie flops(*), you’re shit outta luck, my friend. Hope you’re happy with whatever you made during production and you’re able to find your next gig quick. Because you’re not an employee of the studio, you were working for a production company on this one movie and now you gotta fend for yourself because the movie’s done and so is this LLC.
(*) which brings us to the big fucking asterisk in how Hollywood “works”. Movies don’t make money. Not on paper anyway. It’s so bad, it even has its own name: Hollywood Accounting. The gist of it is that they use creative accounting techniques so that profit sharing agreements (like the residuals that were just fought so hard for by the unions) pay as little as possible.
And yeah they would want to pump out those blockbusters, but nothing would stop indie developers from developing.
What stops indie developers from developing now? Indie game developers have it way better than indie movie makers. They have better platforms for distribution, a larger audience, and much lower cost to entry.
I would allow for consistent and fair discussions for the unions and studios as to how pay will be done.
Yeah, because that’s what Hollywood is known for…
It will also put in safeties for crunch and other abuses.
Crunch (and other abuse) still happens in Hollywood production, so… Nope, sorry.
I’m just saying [the Hollywood model] makes way more sense as a model for how modern AAA games are made.
No fucking way. As someone who was a salaried employee for 15 years in the A to AAA game industry over 7 projects, some of which failed but I still got paid, with bonuses and stock awards and job security, please fucking no. I’m glad I didn’t have to fight for a new gig every couple of years and hope for residuals.
Very well said. I think there is an argument that the gaming industry would benefit from more unionisation (there are very few sectors that wouldn’t benefit from it!), but emulating Hollywood doesn’t seem like the answer.
I think it’s fair to say they’re are some significant similarities between the two industries. They both focus on large, multi year creative projects with unknown returns. I’m not sure emulating Hollywood is the answer, but they can at least look at how existing Hollywood unions have approached addressing any similar problems
Indie game developers have it way better than indie movie makers. They have better platforms for distribution...
It kills me that there's no Steam or GOG for TV and movies. My options are either Blu Rays, when they exist, or streaming, even if I buy the movie outright.
You mean delivering an actual file/media that you can watch without streaming? I know Netflix has the ability to download stuff to watch offline later. I assume other platforms support something similar. That’s pretty close to steam or gog where you don’t own a copy of the game, you own a license to use their copy.
Edit: But yes, I do sometimes wish I could pay per title and not have to worry about subscriptions to maintain access to certain things.
It's not close enough if I want to run it from a PC or Steam Deck. They only allow it on mobile where they can enforce their DRM. Then those downloads are only good for a few days before they need to be renewed and they run into all sorts of technical problems trying to enforce the DRM.
Dude. It’s called a pet peeve. They’re allowed, and even people who have very stressful lives have them. It’s definitely better than shit-talking random people on the internet - just skip the thread if you don’t care about it.
I’d say that they’re more of an issue for people under a lot of stress. It just adds an extra stress point. In fact if OP was not stressed, they probably wouldn’t mind it enough to post a rant about it.
If it reaches the threshold the European Comission is forced to formally answer to it, which requires them do a full review of the subject and this greatly increases the probability of something being done.
Sci-fi survival builder: you’re on a massive spacecraft that ends up crash landing on an ocean planet; your goal is to figure out wtf happened and find a way off the planet. This game is 80% feel-good tropical diving simulator; and 20% thalasaphobic deepsea horror. This has become one of my go-to “idk what to play” games that I keep returning to for a nice digital tropical vacation… with a dash of fleeing in terror from, uh… spoilers. No really though, if you don’t already know this game’s story, DO NOT start looking up videos and posts etc about it - just buy it and dive in.
Valheim is more combat oriented, but is probably my favourite survival crafting game after Subnautica. You’re playing vikings trying to earn their way into Valhalla. I die a lot. Very fun.
Planet Crafter is more chill, more jank, and more linear, but it’s a survival crafting game that is clearly heavily inspired by Subnautica. You are sent to a mars-like planet to terraform it as part of your prison sentence. It’s a great podcast game, just build and explore and watch numbers go up.
Less on the survival crafting side of things, the environmental storytelling is also really good in Outer Wilds and Return of the Obra Dinn. Very different games, but they were actually what I went to after Subnautica to scratch that itch and it worked weirdly well.
The audio in this game really seals the deal. You’re just swimming along collecting resources and hear a terrifying roar. But you look around and can’t see where it came from… Do you keep going or nope the fuck outta there and go take a breather in your life pod for 20 mins while your heart rate comes back down?
Depends on what you want. If you want more of Subnautica story then get it. If you want more Subnautica style going into the depths, Below Zero doesn’t go that deep and about half the game is actually above water. While I loved Subnautica I felt pretty disappointed by Below Zero.
Yeah what Valve is doing is great. Hopefully they will become more mainstream in the future and become more known with the super casual crowd. Nintendo definitely needs more proper competition in the handheld market.
Also FYI it’s Phillips with double L, Philips with one L is the Dutch electronics company.
I mean… Phillips heads are hood for what they’re actually designed for, which is, uh, to strip really easily so they don’t get over-tightened. Which is irrelevant if your manufacturing is precise enough.
I hate not being able to pause a game, particularly a single player game. I think Elite Dangerous solidified my hatred of this, by not telling you the game is still running when you’re on the “pause” menu.
“B-B-BU-BUT it’s a simulation and you can’t pause real life so it makes it more real”
It’s a game, even if it’s a simulation game. It’s a toy for grown-ups. A very nice and fun and relaxing toy, but a toy nonetheless. It’s not more important than a phone call, call at the door, crying child, hungry cat, partner who needs a hand with something etc.
This probably extends to being able to save anywhere and rejoin later, but I think that one is covered pretty well by everyone else :)
The problem with Elite Dangerous is that it is basically an online game, even in solo play and they never bothered to figure out a way for solo players to pause.
I think it probably has something to do with online play, though, since Fromsoft’s multiplayer model revolves around invasion. Granted you can turn it off, so obviously there should be a pause option, but I have a vague hunch that the two issues are related from a dev/engineering perspective.
Elite dangerous is a multiplayer game. If you want to go do something else and don’t have time to put your spaceship somewhere safe, you can always exit to the main menu. It only takes a few seconds and when you come back your ship is exactly where you left it.
The game definitely has issues, but not being able to pause isn’t really one of them
I never really bothered with the multiplayer mode in it - I know the game was built with a multiplayer back end, but they did promise a single player mode, and they do present the game as having a single player/solo mode.
Obviously different things annoy different people, and I do get what you mean about quitting and restarting etc, but it was enough for me to stop bothering to play it and play X4:Foundations instead. I did still get over a hundred hours play out of it, so I don’t exactly feel hard done by, but if quitting to the main menu works, then it’s clearly mechanically possible for them to let you pause it, they just didn’t want to.
On one hand it can be damaging to take away opportunities from kids, on the other hand roblox is massive groomer haven; I genuinely don’t think the kinds of connections they would make there would be worth the long term harm that may result for being involved in that shit.
Ultimately I think you did the right thing by banning it. You’re locking out like a 10th of their social life but those aren’t contacts they want.
Yeah we’re giving him and his friends alternative multiplayer games to have fun on with each other. It’s not like we’re killing his social circle - we’re just upgrading the forum.
Do you know any of the friends’ parents? Maybe you can all gather some ideas together and have a more uniform policy on what’s banned and what might be fun alternatives.
I agree with this. Roblox is huge and often how kids of an age socialize/play. Teach them why mtx aren’t okay, and protect yourself from having to pay.
Get them into some irl stuff too. DND group, sports, book clubs, etc.
This 2D platformer metroidvania has memorable characters and very cool worldbuilding. You switch between characters to match their abilities to the right situations. They live on a living, planet-sized creature and are fighting off the parasites that are slowly killing their creature-planet. You’ll swim through its blood vessels and explore its organs.
It’s not super long—I finished the story in 9 hours. It’s just about the right length to satisfy.
Donkey Kong (1981) popularized having different levels in a game to progress a storyline. Until then, you would have the same level over and over with increasing difficulty
Battlefield 1942 always stands out to me as the one that popularized large scale online battles on big maps with vehicles. At the time it was revolutionary in online gaming.
Command & Conquer: Renegade came out around the same time as well, with similar features. I kinda wish that game had a sequel as well.
Another gameplay feature that comes to mind is the exclamation/question mark above NPC characters for quests. I remember it first from WarCraft 3, but I think it really kicked off with World of WarCraft to get adopted by many more games.
I don’t remember being possible to spawn on teammates in BF1942, but definitely remember it as a first to select spawn points on map like Battlefield always did.
I can’t remember if that mod had squad spawns. But I definitely remember playing it a lot, that was an absolutely revolutionary mod with so much content, not to distract from other great BF1942 mods though. I believe the original DICE team originated from that mod team to create Battlefield 2 as well.
DICE hired a few of the DC devs to work on BF2, then promptly laid them all off about 6 months or so after release, and then the laid off devs and others who weren’t hired made Kaos Studios, and made Frontlines: Fuel of War and Homefront, before being corporate acquisitioned into non existence.
There were a few BF42 mods that, on certain maps with certain vehicles, allowed you to spawn in vehicles.
IIRC, Forgotten Hope had a number of para-assault maps that allowed players to spawn inside of the aircraft they would parachute out of.
I believe you could also do this in… I can’t remember the name of it, but the Star Wars themed 42 mod (which the BattleFront series either largely copied or was directly inspired by), I think it had some spawn-in-able vehicles as well.
Also BF Vietnam, the official game, used a similar concept of having ‘tunnel exits’ that could be built/placed by Viet Cong engineers, which were placeable spawn points, and the US had the ‘Tango’ … mobile river boat with a helipad thing… which was a mobile spawn point.
I am 99% sure it was BF2 that first introduced being able to spawn on a player, I don’t think any of the mods for the earlier games pulled that off always had to be a vehicle or placeable static object.
I’m not sure I’ve ever had more fun with any game than I did with BF1942. It was just so much fun. There were games with smoother play and deeper mechanics and better graphics, but none were as fun. The dumb mechanics made it amazing, like being able to lie down on the wing of a plane and snipe people while your buddy flew, or dive bombing and parachuting out at 10ft above the ground to capture a point, or shooting the main cannon from a tank into a barracks that has 15 people spawned inside it, or piloting a goddamn aircraft carrier and running it aground to get to a spawn point safely. It was so stupid but so fun.
EA did this thing a while back where they saw people were still playing Bad Company 2 on PC on community servers. They updated the game to require a login to EA’s server on boot, then took those servers down. Always online is cancer.
They finally killed off BC2? So I can finally give up on the futile effort of reinstalling the game every year, in hopes that maybe I’ll find a populated server this time around?
I miss that game so much. Rush was so much fun. The maps were designed perfectly for that game mode, unlike future BF titles where it’s a tacked on feature. It was so good, that I found out the hard way that I actually don’t like Battlefield games, after wasting money on BF3, 4, and Hardline, and hating all of them. I just want more Bad Company games.
It was dead last time I tried playing (because of the login thing). Unless someone made a community patch to bypass the login prompt, I guess.
You’re pretty much in the same situation I’m in. BFBC2 was the last Battlefield game I liked, and it was because Rush was so much fucking fun in that. I hate how much the newer ones kind of mostly focus on Conquest, personally.
Conquest is not my idea of fun, either. It’s a lot of running back and forth between the same objectives over and over again until someone wins. To me there’s no thrill in that.
I like the concept of “push/bomb/capture the objective and move on to the next phase of the map” in any game that has it. Used to play a lot of Team Fortress 2 and Overwatch because of it. But now I’ve moved past those games as well. Overwatch has an issue where the meta evolves faster than I can keep up, and TF2 has the opposite problem we’re the meta doesn’t evolve at all because Valve doesn’t update the game. So I’ve stopped playing shooters for now until something new comes out that satisfies my desire for this kind of gameplay.
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