If Larian simply releases an honest to god Addon to BG3 like they used to be in the early 2000s, they're going to break the internet, I think. A complete game that is good with a complete addon that is good... Kinda like Witcher 3 with Blood and Wine, etc.
In the US, expansion packs were the general term used.
For example, RCT2 had the Wacky Worlds and Time Twister expansion packs. Empire at War had the Forces of Corruption expansion. While some were called add-ons, those were typically like tiny things, one-off characters or whatever.
I feel like the only one who still remembers that DLC simply means “DownLoadable Content” and can apply equally to big expansions as it does to MTX. The name comes from the delivery method more than the content itself. Keep in mind, it was first coined when the primary method of content delivery was selling shit on a disc, so easily distinguished from things you could buy in the store irl vs what only was available as a download.
The infrastructure of the Internet at the time made it easier for this to be smaller things. But now? Dude, we are downloading 120GB games and sometimes updates off Steam and nobody is batting an eye anymore. lol
Yeah, in my mind expansions were map pack discs released for Halo and Ghost Recon, DLC was promotional armor from Pepsi codes. That's obviously warped since 2004, but in general, that's what it felt like back then.
These are still being released for many games. Xenoblade 3 was released as a full 100+ hour RPG with basically zero bugs and no microtransactions at all - the DLC included a full new story expansion worth 40+ hours, new characters, battle system changes, an entirely new world to explore, etc. They could sell the fucking thing separately and it would be fine as a standalone if it weren’t for it bookending the series in plot.
Releasing a good, finished game, with a good, finished DLC campaign that respects the player should be standard and expected. It’s not something that should be considered unique to Larian - but we need more like these and I’d love them to bring a Xenoblade 3:Future Redeemed size expansion, like the ones you mentioned, to BG3.
Edit: the old fallout 3 expansions were great too iirc
If you have nothing else to play and want a simple open world game set in and around Hogwarts, it’s perfectly servicable as long as you pirate it. Don’t expect to be blown away by it though.
I assumed that after literally nobody or any media outlets have talked about it since release. Telltale sign of bang on average game. Probably great for potter fans and boring for those who don’t care or haven’t seen the films/read the books.
I would - and I hate my saying this - rather recommend Avatar then. Yeah it’s a Ubisoft game. I know. Yeah, it needs a beefier machine to actually look really pretty.
But oh my fucking hell is it pretty when cranked up. And it helps the generic open world gameplay a lot to be this awesome looking. Fun to just wander around and take in the scenery, even when you leave the jungle areas and go to the plains and see the wind-swept grass and all.
Don’t worry, even if this one is cancelled, all the other generic, bland and boring live service shooters still exist. You won’t be able to tell the difference.
I think it would be better for all involved if we figure this out now. Existing Voice Actors should not have their performances used without their explicit consent. Any performances used by current or past voice actors must have explicit consent and compensation. “New” voices generates by AI must be sufficiently differing from existing performances and any existing performances used in the generation must have consent by the original voice actor.
New creations from existing training data from an actor should have some type of royalties involved. The complication with that is the AI tools are largely a black box and it can be murky on where things come from.
Thats a solid and necessary addition. This comment section alone has already done more than any regulators. Its like they’re afraid to at least lay down protective ground rules so VAs can continue to eat. Too much profit salivation.
That's correct, but it's important to distinguish something explicitly here. The voices may not be copyrightable, but the dialogue is, as long as it's not also generated by AI (i.e., dynamically generated). Also, the trained model that generates the voice is still proprietary: only its product (and only the sound itself, not the words if the speech is from a script) can be openly used.
Existing performances must not be used to train models. If you wish to train a model you should need explicit consent and hire an actor to record such data. The actor should also receive royalties when the resulting model is used for a commercial purpose.
See, minus the royalty part (in most cases) this has been how VOCALOID, SynthV and the like has more or less operated for two decades now.
They listed reasons why the PS5 and XboS were not the platform of the year, but nothing about the Steam Deck. It seems like the reason they claimed the Switch was the platform of the year was due to exclusives, so I suppose if that’s their only metric I guess the Switch wins out by a longshot. But I gotta say in any other metric except maybe raw usability (due to some UI bugs) the Deck wins against all other current platforms.
My main problem with the steam deck is probably portability and battery life. I have used it very seldom on the train to work, but I imagine it would be very cumbersome.
I will try it again when I am finally done with TOTK on my switch.
And then there is always the question: Is the steam deck really an unique gaming platform when it’s really just a small laptop.
I even find the Switch a bit too cumbersome for transit use! The PSP was the perfect size for me, but a modern version would be too underpowered for everything nowadays I guess.
If you ask me, the Steam Deck’s battery is its biggest weakness, however it completely depends on what you’re playing. I can play Cyberpunk 2077 on the Steam Deck graphics preset for roughly 90 minutes but I played Arkham Knight for 30 minutes and lost only 10% of the battery. Dead Cells takes only 5% in 30 minutes. That is to say battery life is completely dependent on the game you choose to play, but at least you have the choice, whereas many crossplatform AAA games just aren’t on the Switch.
The portability difference is also notable. The Deck is a chonky boi, though imo it’s not as big a difference as some people would say. They both fit well in a backpack.
However, I completely disagree with you saying that the Deck isn’t a new platform. Nothing has existed like the Deck before because yes, it’s a gaming laptop that’s dramatically more portable and more gaming-oriented than any gaming laptop ever before. The control options alone make it the best controller ever invented (here’s hoping for a Steam Controller 2.0) and the flexibility to plug anything in via that USB C connector is fabulous.
Sharing my Steam library between my PC and my Steam Deck is just the icing on the gravy.
I still use my Steam Controller fairly regularly. It’s so handy and I love the dual track pads.
I really want a 2.0 because as much as I love the trackpads, having only one stick for something like a driving game just doesn’t work well. I also can’t get over how nice it is being able to have a full 16-button controller PLUS buttons that can invoke keyboard shortcuts like alt-tab or move the mouse if focus gets lost or something.
I’m surprised you don’t like the feel of the Deck. It’s honestly the most comfortable any controller has felt sitting in my hands. It beats the ergonomics of the Switch by a mile too
Something about the travel of the analog sticks was immediately and immensely off putting to me. Not the feel of the plastic surface that your thumbs rest on, but the physical feedback of moving the sticks.
I dunno it’s parhaps a nitpick but I went from ‘holy shit I need this’ to ‘eh it’s a cool device’ within 30 minutes of play time.
Lol I can respect that. Everyone’s got their preferences.
I do think it’s funny that at first I was like “eh, it’s cool” then I bought into the hype, got one, and touched it maybe a dozen times the first year I had it. But now the more I use it the more I fall in love lol
The Steam Deck really is a very unique gaming platform. The Proton compatibility layer is a work of art. Crossover, Valve, and the WINE community should all be regarded as gaming heroes. I can play so many games on my Steam Deck that I never would’ve thought possible 5 years ago.
Being able to add your own external or custom games to your library, and still being able to make custom controls for those games, is just pure joy.
What’s really exciting is seeing the constant flow of games go from unverified to verified. It just keeps getting better.
The best part about the Steam Deck one might argue is being able to install ANY operating system you want on this thing. Want to play Destiny 2 and Fortnite really badly? You have the nuclear option of installing Windows. Want to take Linux gaming to the next level? Install Bazzite. Its up to you. YOU are in control.
Sorry, I just really wanted to speak my 2 cents about how much I love the Steam Deck. I hope I made some salient points.
Akin to portability, the Steam Deck’s sheer weight is a factor even when it doesn’t leave the house. The SD will sometimes give me strain in my hands or wrists while the switch feels like a feather in comparison. If a game is on both steam and the nintendo eshop, I usually will get it for the switch.
I love my SD a lot, but battery life and weight are influential in a handheld for me.
I take my Deck with me when I travel. The case is a little on the larger side, but it fits in a backpack under a plane seat. I do tend to have the opposite problem with the switch though, my hands cramp up because the joycon grips are so small. Battery life is an issue though, I can get maybe 3 hours out of it if the plane doesn’t have an outlet.
It is a little hard to call the Deck a platform on its own because the library is all borrowed from an existing client and Valve doesn’t really make games anymore, but for people who have a PC library or are looking to start one and don’t necessarily have the money to throw at a whole gaming PC, the Deck is a solid choice for something portable-yet-powerful - it’s good enough to run Elden Ring pretty stable. It’s also really good for gen 6 and older emulation, both because the hardware is capable and because Valve doesn’t give a fuck what you do with it.
It seems like the reason they claimed the Switch was the platform of the year was due to exclusives, so I suppose if that’s their only metric I guess the Switch wins out by a longshot.
Steam Deck, being a PC and all, has more "exclusives" than every single currently sold console combined by an enourmous margin.
But naturally by 'exclusives' they mean hugely funded "AAA" games from Nintendo or Sony or Micrsosoft.
Nintendo never makes high power consoles that’s not really their area. So I’d be surprised if this is true.
And what does PS5 equivalent graphics even mean? We just talking screen resolution or are we saying it can push the same poly count. I’d be prepared to accept it might get 1080p maybe 4k on a good day, but that’ll only be on low poly assets.
Apparently the ps5 comparison is because they ran the same tech demo that the ps5 did 2 years ago. But that doesn’t really mean anything. At this point Nintendo may still be working with a wide range of specs on prototypes before finalizing a decision about what the console will be.
I compared my wealth to Bill Gates and turns out he makes more money just existing for 1 minute than I will make in my entire life. But we are comparable.
And even if some prototype device is, that doesn’t mean the production device will be, once things like heat and power usage have to really be accounted for.
It doesn't even matter a lot if it does have really good graphics capability. Nvidia is good at that (though whether they'd price that where Nintendo wants is questionable). The question is what Nvidia can give in a CPU, because the only ARM CPU out there that's actually interesting in terms of efficient per core performance is Apple.
There's no such thing as a "gaming chip" when it comes to CPUs. Are you trying to tell me that you can't plug a GPU into the PCIe slot of an Ampere Altra? Do you honestly believe that a game compiled for ARM magically won't run on a server chip due to some kind of hardware block that detects games and says "nope, not gonna run that?"
Also, Nvidia makes the processor in the Nintendo Switch, and I linked chips from two other manufacturers in my comment.
There are performance traits you have to have to be even in the vicinity of functional for gaming, and they're the opposite of what you need for a server. Yes, I'm saying that if you put a gaming GPU into any of those chips, the performance would be fucking terrible. You need fast clocks and IPC with low latency, not lots of cores and high bandwidth. High "Performance per core" in terms of server parts does not mean that it can do anywhere close to the same work per core a consumer, gaming focused chip can do. The design parameters are completely different.
The processor in the Switch chip is the reason the Switch has such a limited AAA library. It's not mediocre. It's not serviceable. It's fucking terrible.
Why even try this? You can refund games within two hours of gametime or two weeks from purchase date. The moment someone launches the game, it’s immediatley obvious that it’s not Helldivers and smashes that refund button.
If a kid’s got their parent’s credit card, I doubt they will bother with requesting a refund. They’ll just smash other ‘buy’ buttons until the game they want is downloaded. I’m sure some adults are like this, too…
It’s going to get reported and found by Steam pretty quickly. Steam already holds onto the money from sales for 2 weeks in case they need to issue a refund. Once they discover the scam, which will take less than a week, they won’t hand over any of the money.
There’s probably a decent number of people that buy a game and don’t install it immediately. I often do this when something is on sale. By the time they realize they didn’t get what they were after, it may be outside the refund window.
its not insane unless you’re doing completionist stuff, you can easily cap a few sets of armor for key purposes just with chest loot and some monster mashing. I created a second game on another user account after my first game (with duped gems, etc) and its not really grindy until you try to max out like a third set of armor.
you can get most of the battery cell upgrades by opening chests from exploring (and where the chests are becomes obvious if you collected a few old maps) and following the main story. The problem is exploring the depths isn’t all that fun. I never even used duping to get battery in my original game- by the time I explored the depths fully I was maxed out.
That’s it, I never played Nintendo games because I never had their hardware. For me personally it’s just not worth getting into their closed ecosystem. Basically same reason I never had anything apple.
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