The Stardewification of everything continues - can't wait until Half-Life 3 finally comes out and it turns out that Black Mesa has purchased a dilapidated farm in the countryside that they've taken Gordon Freeman out of stasis to restore for them.
Reasonable question! It was a sub called “the_donald”. It started with a bunch of folks saying outrageous things that were satirizing Trump and his followers. Unfortunately it wasn’t outrageous enough because it was slowly taken over by true believers who spouted the same outrageous shit because they actually believed it.
Idk if this is “a reason” but leaving the launcher running without actually playing the game does count as playtime for steam, which may result in folks not being able to refund it if they don’t like it, and increases overall hours played.
Whether that’s part of why these games have useless launchers, or whether those things actually pan out that way, who knows.
I don’t think that’s part of why they do it. I’m an avid civ 6 fan, and I can say that the launcher is pretty unobstructive. Between launching from steam and launching from the 2k launcher, it takes about a minute. It’s likely to collect data, but honestly the only useful data they’d get is the pc hardware, the length of play, and common mods. 2k probably saw that they weren’t getting sellable data and decided to scrap the idea, honestly it’s probably the only decent thing the company has done in years.
Maybe, but for Civ 6 specifically the launcher came out a few years into the game’s lifespan, so I’m not sure they were doing it for whatever marginal revenue benefit that would be. I’d imagine selling DLC without Steam or whatever storefront getting a cut might be a motivating factor.
That’s just a by-product of how Steam works. Playtime is counted as long as the Play button says “Stop”.
For games without DRM (e.g. KSP), you can launch it from the Steam install folder without Steam running. Everything works perfectly but your playtime won’t be counted for the same reason.
Bethesda’s RPGs have always been shallow in the choice you have with dialogue and altering the story, but deep with the detail, world-building, and mechanics of gameplay. Arena is almost no different in the gameplay loop as Starfield. They went through various phases of how to use rules and complexity of certain systems, but have since settled in a formula established first by Morrowind and refined with Oblivion and further with Skyrim.
They are not about the story. The story is just kinda there to drive some motivation and give context to your own thing. They excel at immersing you in the world and allowing you to just play however you want without restrictions (such as being a god in everything without having to start over and build specific characters to do specific things). They have a pretty good track record of doing good environmental story telling and adding in all those little stories in notes and terminals that aren’t even tied to quests.
But when it comes to stories and dialogue? They had ONE game that was a masterpiece, Morrowind, and the rest have ranged from absolute shit to pretty good. And not one of them, not even Morrowind, actually have the same kind of choice and sweeping changes affected through dialogue get in a story-focused RPG like Baldur’s Gate. Bethesda will likely never have a game as well written as Morrowind again, because that isn’t what they are about.
They are very much about the action over the words. Despite the jank as fuck AI, the combat is still fun somehow (and imagine how much more fun it could be if the AI didn’t suck!), it’s incredibly easy to lose yourself in the world because of how detailed it is, and there are plenty of shenanigans to pull once you begin to dive in and see how everything works. Like, I can’t wait to completely fill one of the huge craters near my base with watermelons and then dive in.
This is it. Forget all the tracked on nonsense. The base building, the character management, production chains all that nonsense…
If you focus on the combat/looter aspect of the game, that part is actually pretty good. A world apart from the janky combat of Fallout, it actually feels pretty visceral.
They may not explode like in Fallout, but there is a new fun spectacle in town: Shooting out backpacks on low gravity environments and launching your enemies off world.
And this is why I didn’t buy Starfield. I loved Morrowind and was disappointed with Skyrim, and I think it’s because I prefer a tighter, more linear story and don’t like “messing around” as much. I watched a gameplay video, and the things that player got excited about (all the side content) really didn’t grab my attention, and the story itself seemed a bit flat.
I probably would’ve loved it as a kid, but that’s not what I’m looking for these days.
So for me, BG3 is the better game. But younger me would’ve preferred Starfield. They’re both great games, just for very different audiences. And I could totally see someone having exactly the opposite opinion as me, which just shows how great both are.
The reaction to Clair Obscur has been wild. I had a friend I haven’t talked to since high school - when we were both big Final Fantasy fans - reach out to ask if I’d played it. A bunch of guys at work are talking about it who I didn’t even know were gamers. I hope we see a lot more of these passionate, creative projects and the infrastructure to support them.
I was skeptical about it. I saw a lot of it being compared with Final Fantasy and I’ve been largely pretty disappointed with most Final Fantasy offerings since X.
Picked it up recently on the recommendation of another Lemming and, holy shit, this might be the best RPG I’ve ever played. Hands down, it’s that good. God bless the French. This game is making me feel things I haven’t felt since I was a teenager.
Seriously, I keep trying to get people to get a taste of it, to the point I’ve even gifted it. It’s been fascinating and beautiful and devastating. Haven’t finished it yet, but getting very close and I only regret it’ll have to end soon.
I originally wasn’t going to get it. I saw the Persona style combat menu and RPG… I have limited time to play games so I have to be picky.
I caught someone playing it… oh yeah, bought the game right away. The writing is amazing, and there’s no “grind” you often find with many of the JRPG-style games
Well, no.
Deep Rock Galactic has fully optional skin packs to make money and they're doing great.
Warframe has been chugging along for over a decade now and they're doing great. Beating the pants off of Destiny 2 for average player count.
The live service trick is that live service only works if the company actually cares about the product. Those two companies stand out because they legitimately care and have great communication with their communities.
So far Warframe has been the ONLY example of a good live service game. It’s the OG when it comes to the model, but it’s also the exception, and not the rule.
Destiny historically vasscilated between “fucking amazing” and “dumpster fire”. The problem has always been that it is near impossible to maintain that level of quality and entertainment consistently while also innovating on a regular basis. It is very difficult and very expensive.
They moved into “dumpster fire” territory significantly more than “fucking amazing”, sadly. Like one good expansion, three bad updates and two bad expansions, one good update.
“Live service” is a game that has an always online requirement. Just getting updates on the regular doesn’t make it a live service if the game works just fine without an Internet connection.
Single player Ubisoft games are all “live services”, due to some of them needing a constant connection to Ubisoft’s servers, and them having in-game shops that only work while online.
They’re the same thing. “Live service” is how Activision-Blizzard rebranded games that required to be always online. They also solidified the outline of things publishers at the time were already doing with their always online games, such as endless content players will have to buy.
Those documents leaked many years ago, and soon after that the moniker was changed from “always online” to “Live Service”.
I’ll try and find them, but first I heard from it was from Jim Stirling. “The Jimquisition” on YouTube, I think. Haven’t kept up with that guy in years.
DRG and Warframe also hit the critical requirement of actually being games that are fun to play!
I haven’t played a lot of WF, but I’ve got hundreds of hours on DRG. There is no grind. Getting holiday loot takes 5 to 8 matched total, and the Seasons are long and very relaxed. I maxed out XP for this season already and the next probably won’t start until at least this summer.
The community is going strong, the game is fun, Ghost Ship seems stable and like a nice place to work. It’s so stupid that more companies don’t see that they could run like this instead of chasing “get rich quick” corporate schemes that always alienate the fans.
Warframe’s MTX is so fair too. All of it can be earned in game, get items sell items for Platinum (paid currency) get the item from the shop.
The exception is the Fan made skins that are a few bucks. But those directly support the fan created skins.
Warframe is mostly pay-2-convenience.
The latest story expansion Warframe 1999 was phenomenal. If you havent played it yet, definitely follow through the main story it’s all tied together. One of the best stories that continue to deliver.
Seriously this sentiment is old as hell. This comic is old as hell.
The BioWare of today is not the one that made the original Baldur’s Gate. Shit, it’s not even the BioWare that made the original Dragon Age.
They’ve been a hollowed out shell chasing whatever “AAA” style sells the most for a long time now. If Baldur’s Gate 3 had come out before Witcher 3, you can bet your ass Veilguard would look and play a hell of a lot more like BG3, because it’s painfully clear they did everything they could to crib the speed of the combat in Witcher 3, which was the hot shit when they started development. Similar to how Inquisition was chasing the Open World fad. If Baldurs Gate 3 had been the hot shit when they began development? Veilguard would have played like that instead.
It is what it is, and this has been this way since at least Dragon Age 2/Mass Effect 2.
They’re just so risk-adverse. It’s the same as Andromeda, and Ubisoft is another great example. They’re so worried about getting the most players that they’re afraid to take risks. What if players don’t like this, what if the audience is smaller? Everything is done by committee and it becomes a fairly flat game.
The Witcher games have all had terrible combat, just getting slightly better each game. The folklore and universe are really what sells the Witcher games. Though the first one was still real bad.
I hated the combat in Witcher 3. The combat in Veilguard does not feel the same to me, so if it is biting the Witcher, it also improved it. I get they were probably chasing trends, but Veilguard is a solid action game. The author clearly has a bias to CRPGs, and a soft spot for Origins (as do I), but that does not make Veilguard a bad game. Just different
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