I’ve done 2 full playthroughs. Have a 3rd solo started, and I have a multiplayer campaign going too.
It has truly been a long time since I’ve enjoyed a game like this. My two completed games, while similar (I was a ‘good guy’) the overall story and experience was different. Conversations that didn’t happen the first time, entire locations I missed. Since EA this game has been a 10/10.
I’ve put about 100 into my first playthrough, even with the extreme amount of bugs that locked me out of so many areas, quests, characters, etc(which I get downvoted for every time I mention that such bugs exist). But then work got in the way and I haven’t played in probably a month. I would guess I’m half way through act 3, or more. I really need to finish the game. Now that there has been a major update or two since I last played, I’m hoping the bugs I experienced are finally fixed, so I can start a new playthrough and get to do all of the stuff that bugged out. Kinda want to start again with the same character I have now, since I feel like she kinda got cheated, with all of the bugs. Also really want to play the new Cyberpunk and Tales of Arise expansions before that, too. And those are also a question of whether I load up my existing characters, or start an entirely new playthrough for each.
What parts are you having trouble with? The game has a serious learning curve but once you’ve got a full campaign under your belt it gets way easier. Try doing a run as a paladin or sorcerer (melee or caster) on explorer mode. Those two classes will be good for combat and dialog making your run easier. Also research how to create a proper character. The earliest levels are the hardest to get through since you’re super weak at those levels.
Skyrim is a first person action adventure game with RPG elements. Baldurs gate is a much more traditional fantasy RPG which I a focused on tactics and D&D core rules and character stories where action stakes a back seat. So it sounds more like you enjoy the action and immersion of Skyrim than the “RPG” side of it.
BG3 is really a love letter to the people that liked the original games and wanted more depth to the systems to try to capture the tabletop experience a little more. Since you described it as “clunky” I’m guessing that the slower tactical aspect is what you’re bouncing off of.
It honestly sounds like its just Not your thing. BG3 is about as modern as a game of this Genre can be. Dont force yourself through something you dont enjoy.
There’s a decent chance you might not be missing anything, it’s just not for you. Minecraft and Terraria are beloved titles that people put thousands of hours into, but I never got into them myself.
A turn-based CRPG is a very old-fashioned thing (the C stands for Computer), and it’s a pretty faithful adaption of a TT (tabletop, so pen-and-paper) RPG, which is even older (though the current ruleset for DnD is pretty new). I can definitely understand how Skyrim appeals to you but something like BG3 doesn’t; they’re fundamentally different games, and Skyrim is much faster-paced
Are you playing with a mouse on a PC? Try it with a controller, it completely changes the game. The PS5 movement system is vastly superior to the PC movement with a mouse.
I have never played a Baldurs game, but I’m planning to play this one when I eventually get a PS5… And I thought it would suck with conventional controllers.
I have it on both PC and PS5 and I greatly prefer it on PS5. My computer loads things faster, and it looks better, but the PS5 version is much more immersive and considerably easier to move around. Inventory management is a lot better on PC though.
Does it? I haven’t tried. When I tried to use a PS4 Pro controller in the past it messed it up and I had to reset it to use it with the console again. Can you use PS5 controllers with a Linux PC?
I don’t own a ps5, so I’m not 100% sure on the ps5 sync, but there shouldn’t be any issue for that as Sony put out a firmware update to make it work well with pc at one point. But for me with my ps5 controller, it works and pairs flawlessly, and the touchpad on the controller works as a mouse on the desktop.
Running around the world is better with a controller, but actually interacting with things is easier with a mouse. You can click the left stick to use a cursor for precise targeting.
For me it’s just being old… I love what I played but only had 1 opportunity to sit down and play it. I realized I love and hate the fact that there is sooooo much to do and think about. For me, my time is limited to an hour tops here and there, so sadly, this type of game just frustrates me because I am always looking at a clock, and I hate that. Wish I was a kid again, so I can actually enjoy all the great games coming out in recent years.
Starfield feels the same, I go back to it for an hour or two and I forget what I’m supposed to be doing. It’s fiddly and I don’t know where some of the menus are.
It follows the DAO formula very closely. Though it also improves on it in some ways. And IMO there is at least one thing that DAO does better, which is that the main player character gets some actual character development.
For anyone who.ließ the setting, check out the Anime Spacebattleship Yamato 2199. It’s fairly recent and there’s an older one as well. This game is highly inspired by it.
This is the first I’ve heard of Jumplight Odyssey. It looks potentially cool, but $30 for an early access title is a big ask in a year completely saturated with banger games, and based on the reviews it seems to need a bit more time before it is really ready. I’m not surprised, then, that it didn’t do as well as they hoped: if they hadn’t just announced that they’re stopping development, I would have put it on my wishlist to come back to in a year or two when it’s feature-complete, and when hopefully I’m not in the middle of so many other games already. If that’s a typical response, they probably didn’t get many sales.
Apparently any further sales of the game will have a cut going to even the staff that was laid off.
That’s commendable, but overall this is still an unfortunate development. I wonder if microtransactions in big games like apex and genshin are down this year? Is this an overall trend, or are people choosing to spend on one game, foregoing titles like Jumplight Odyssey for bigger spending on one (arguably less deserving) game.
I wonder if microtransactions in big games like apex and genshin are down this year?
In Apex? Yes, and we know this from investor calls. Not sure about Genshin or Honkai, but even Fortnite is making less money. This appears to be an entire economy problem, not a video game problem. Perhaps related to inflation and consumers adapting their spending in response (a potential explanation I offer with no expertise to fall back on).
It’s sad, but I think that the massive explosion of really high-quality smaller games means there’s ultimately less money to go around from buyers, all at the same time as big companies are consolidating funding into a few big-name series.
Anode Heart, Moonstone Island, Spirittea, My Time at Sandrock, Empty Shell, Quasimorph, Fae Farm, Sunkenland, Black Skylands, Techtonica, The Leviathan’s Fantasy, Forever Skies, Ghostlore, Roots of Pacha, Stranded: Alien Dawn, Homestead Arcana, Terra Nil, Sifu, Industries of Titan…
All of those released this year. That’s a LOT of really good small games (and that’s just from the games I got), even if they’re not all technically indie. I personally LOVE space games, as well as colony/group management sims, but Jumplight Odyssey just didn’t feel like my vibe, sadly.
I think that the massive explosion of really high-quality smaller games means there’s ultimately less money to go around from buyers…
I don’t think it’s so much that, as it is getting lost in the crowd. I’ve never heard of this game until just now, and I haven’t heard of half of the games you listed. There’s plenty of money to go around (just look at how well the Steam Deck has done), but nobody will buy your game if people can’t find it.
And that’s why big companies often do well by default; they have massive advertising budgets, so reaching their share of the market is often much easier.
Well that’s annoying. This is the first time I hear about this game and it looks kinda good. I hope the studio can turn around and restart development at some point
I recently finished the game for the first time and was thinking about to get Phantom Liberty extension too. Now I have to wait a bit longer. BTW in the article this part:
To ensure everyone knows it's not kidding, it even threw in a little fire emoji.
The fire emoji. It makes everything believable. xD
EDIT: If it’s true that Valve is also refusing to sell games that are sold for a lower price in other stores where steam keys are not being sold then I think there’s definitely a case here. I didn’t understand that was their policy but if so it sucks and I take back anything good I said about them being permissive. Thanks to this comment for finding the exact language in the lawsuit that alleges this.
I’d be interested to see what Wolfire’s case is, if there’s more to it that I don’t know about I’d love to understand, but if the article is characterising their case accurately…
claiming that Valve suppresses competition in the PC gaming market through the dominance of Steam, while using it to extract “an extraordinarily high cut from nearly every sale that passes through its store.”
…then I don’t think this will work out because Valve hasn’t engaged in monopolistic behaviour.
This is mainly because of their extremely permissive approach to game keys. The way it works is, a developer can generate as many keys as they want, give them out for free, sell them on other stores or their own site, for any discount, whatever, and Steam will honour those keys and serve up the data to all customers no questions asked. The only real stipulation for all of this is that the game must also be available for sale on the Steam storefront where a 30% cut is taken for any sale. That’s it.
Whilst they might theoretically have a monopoly based on market share, as long as they continue to allow other parties to trade in their keys, they aren’t suppressing competition. I think this policy is largely responsible for the existence of storefronts like Humble, Fanatical, Green Man Gaming and quite a number of others. If they changed this policy or started to enshittify things, the game distribution landscape would change overnight. The reason they haven’t enshittified for so long is probably because they don’t have public shareholders.
To be clear I’m against capitalism and capitalists, even the non-publicly-traded non-corporate type like Valve. I am in fact a bit embarrassed of my take on reddit about 7 or 8 years ago that they were special because they were “private and not public”. Ew, I mean even if Gabe is some special perfect unicorn billionaire that would never do any wrong, when he’s gone Valve will go to someone who might cave to the temptation to go public. I honestly think copyright in general should be abolished. As long as copyright exists I’d love to see better laws around digital copies that allow people to truly own and trade their copies for instance, and not just perpetually rent them. I just don’t see this case achieving much.
In one sentence, you’ve already demonstrated that you don’t understand how artists subsist at all. You’ve also confused the word “incentive” with “motivation”.
Look, I understand that money isn’t the primary incentive for (hopefully all) artists. But I don’t think a system where you effectively cannot make a living as a full-time artist is beneficial for society either. Since you’re an artist, can I ask how you subsist without an alternative source of income?
Commissions don’t give a damn about copyright. The end product is made specifically to please one person and reproductions are already worthless, since only Jimbo wants an impressionist picture of Blue Eyes White Dragon wearing a tutu. Jimbo ends up happy, since he got his picture, I end up happy, as Jimbo pays me for the time it took to paint it, and anyone else that manages to copy it can be happy as well.
I’m happy that you’re able to work on commission, but with all due respect, your logic is somewhat specific to your chosen medium. Various other forms of art—novels come to mind—would not be so unaffected.
Not only would they, they already are - that’s what crowd funding like Patreon is for, and it’s also how it gets used. There are hundreds of thousands of sites sharing “copyrighted” material produced for supporters, and yet no artist bothers going after them, because it’s irrelevant. The people who want that content enough to pay for it do so, anyone else is just tagging along for the ride.
that’s what crowd funding like Patreon is for, and it’s also how it gets used.
The vast majority of books are not crowdfunded lmao
There are hundreds of thousands of sites sharing “copyrighted” material produced for supporters, and yet no artist bothers going after them, because it’s irrelevant.
The real advantage of copyright to authors is not to prevent any and all unauthorized reproduction of their works, but rather to distinguish genuine reproductions in the marketplace. Authors don’t give a fuck about free online “libraries”, but you best believe shit goes down the second bootleg copies appear on shelves at B&N or on the Kindle Store. Consumers expect purchases made in legal markets to benefit the owner (ideally the creator) of the work.
For the record, I don’t particularly like the concept of copyright, and I really don’t like current copyright laws. My only concern regarding the complete destruction of copyright is the immense difficulty in determining the creator of the work that it would obviously create. There is absolutely no obligation to provide attribution for public domain works. You can even claim to be the creator yourself, if you wish.
I think probably the obligation, or rather, advantage, of attributing original creators for public domain works, is: how else will I find more of this work that I like? It would probably also still be frowned upon to just take a work wholesale and post it without crediting the creator, on the basis that it makes the creator harder to find, and makes work that you like harder to find. Whenever somebody ends up trying to pass off something without the author’s name, there’s usually someone close behind asking who did this, tracing the lineages of the media.
Agreed, there are clear advantages to giving credit when both parties are acting in good faith. There is nothing stopping me from claiming that I wrote Macbeth and asking for donations on my Patreon so that I can write Macbeth 2, save for maybe Patreon’s ToS (I haven’t read it). In the absence of all copyright law, I could do that with any work, including ones published this morning by an artist struggling to get by.
well yeah, my point is more that with macbeth, nobody would believe you, you’d obviously be full of shit. that might not be the case with artists struggling to get by, but I don’t really see that as being fixed by the current system, or really, by any legal mechanism, unfortunately. in the current system, struggling artists get sacked by that shit all the time when people steal their art and paste it to merch on redbubble, and can make money basically for free. bigger corps can just steal shit basically full throttle, if not in actuality, than in likeness, and, through monopolization of the mechanisms of distribution, like with music. the struggling artist becomes the exploited artist. streaming services become competitors on the basis of content rather than the features of their platform.
I appreciate the sentiment, and small-time artists do get way too much shit, but you are somewhat underrepresenting the mechanisms we have in place. YouTube holds the ad revenue generated by disputed content in escrow until the dispute is resolved. DMCA requests, as much as I don’t like them, are rather effective in this day and age.
bigger corps can just steal shit basically full throttle, if not in actuality, than in likeness, and, through monopolization of the mechanisms of distribution, like with music.
In this particular context big corporations have to be the most careful because they have the most to lose. Remember the Obama “HOPE” ad? This thing? All of these were serious Ws for relatively unknown photographers.
I mean, if we’re sort of going by DMCA requests, right, there’s upsides, but there’s also downsides. They get abused all the time, and there’s not a clear example in the public consciousness as to what constitutes fair use, so they can even be misused in good faith. Larger corporations can also have bots, or armies of hired outsourced cheap labor (usually in combination with each other) handing out youtube copyright claims left and right. The next step of the youtube claims system, specifically, is that you have to go to court, if you want to contest the claim, and court usually ends up in favor of the larger parties, either because they have the capability to have an out of court settlement, or just because they can hire the best lawyers, and it’s relatively hard for most artists to fund what might be a protracted legal battle. I wonder whether or not the effect is that it’s overall to the benefit, or not. Are these examples you’ve provided, are they representative, or are they examples of survivorship bias?
I dunno, I don’t have access to the numbers on that one, and it’s kind of hard to take artists at their word, because the plural of anecdote isn’t data, and because lots of artists don’t inhabit that legal grey space of copyright infringement, either out of just a lack of desire, or out of a self-preservation instinct. Then plenty of artists are also woefully misinformed people that blame the copyright-infringing artist for their copyright-infringing art. I think I’d probably want to prod a copyright lawyer on their take, as they would tend to see more of the legal backend, the enforcement, but then, there’s a little bit of a conflict of interest there.
I also think that on the basis of just like, moral arguments against copyright, we could make the argument, right, that the obama hope ad was extremely popular because of the circumstances around which it arose, rather than because of the specific photograph used. i.e. it wouldn’t be as popular if not for being a ripoff of a photo that was commissioned from some guy and then pumped out and thoroughly marketed and memeified. Sort of a similar argument to how piracy doesn’t really transfer over to sales, that there’s not an equivalent exchange going on there. The sales of the copy, or, the sales of the modified version, don’t transfer to the original, is the idea. But then, it’s kind of an open, hard to answer question, because it’s pretty contextual and it’s hard to read in hindsight. If the sales do transfer over to the original, if we get rid of the copy, then I think that crediting the original artist is probably the best thing you can do, because that drives more attention to the original, if the original is what people really wanted. That’s sort of like, a limiting mechanism for how popular a thing might get on the merit of something else, as I see it. You could legally enforce that, and I think it would probably be a pretty good move, but you also kind of end up swamping yourself with the same problems that any legal enforcement mechanism will have, of being heavy-handed, grey, primarily only able to be wielded by the powerful, so I think you could also make the case that whatever the public would enforce would be fine.
It wouldn’t be a problem if you didn’t need to sell the things you make and could just give them away.
So copyright is only useful to protect your profits. There are many people who put effort into many things not because they expect to make money but because of the act of doing it.
Just something to think about, not really sure what point im trying to make
At least in the US, we have a lifetime for exclusive rights, at which point the material moves into the public domain. It really seems like a good system to me.
It’s not a good system to have it be 50 years past the death of the creator. Having access to content in public domain has historically caused art to flourish by serving as a base for creators to build off of. But for the past few decades companies have been plundering from public domain while not contributing anything back.
Our original copyright system in the US gave a baseline 17 years of copyright, with an additional 17 years extension that you could apply to. 34 years is a perfectly fair span of time to get value out of your creation because nobody is going to wait that long to get access to art they want. But it also ensured that the public domain continually had new content added that wasn’t completely antiquated. This is the system we should be pushing to return to.
Copyright is a tool that gives creators the ability to commercialize their work. That its spirit, nothing more.
That’s what we are told is the purpose because otherwise we wouldn’t accept its existence. In practice it doesn’t work that way. The persistent story is that artists get very little compensation whilst whichever large entity is acting as the middleman for their copyright - often owning it outright despite doing nothing to make it - takes the vast majority of the profit.
It is a tool of corporate control, nothing more. Without copyright there would be no way a middleman could insert themselves and ripoff artists, take their money, and compromise their work with financially-driven studio meddling.
And the idea that the “spirit” of copyright is for artists, that completely falls apart when you understand that modern copyright terms exist almost entirely to profit one company’s IP - Disney is just delaying the transfer of Mickey Mouse into the public domain. That’s why copyright is now lifetime +75 years, or something ridiculous like that. That is not for artists to be compensated. Mickey Mouse isn’t going to be unmade when that happens. If Disney can’t operate as a business with all the time and market share they’ve built then they should just go under. There’s no justification for it beyond corporate greed.
Also without copyright there couldn’t be monopolies like Disney buying Fox, Marvel and Star Wars. That is an absurd situation and should be an indication that antitrust is effectively gone.
And as for artists getting paid, we’re transitioning more and more to a patron model, where people are paid just to create, and release most of their work for free with some token level of patron interaction. You don’t need copyright for that.
They bargain their rights because they’re eager for a shot at money. It is very hard breakout without one, if that’s your goal.
It’s incredible that you can say this and not understand that this is exactly why the relationship is coercive and gets abused.
Plenty of horrible things are legal; that is not the measure of what is good. Our entire economic system exists to benefit those with money. It’s always been that way. Can you guess who it was that decided we should have a political system that gives power to people based on how much money they have? It wasn’t poor people. Capitalism inherently drives towards monopolies.
I’m so worried about what will happen to Steam when Gabe dies. I really hope he has a successor picked out who is as ideologically stringent. Otherwise I’m going to lose a huge library.
I was under the impression that the policy required a game’s price to be the same on all marketplaces, even if it’s not a steam key being purchased. I.e. a $60 game on steam must sell for $60 off-platform, including on the publisher’s own launcher.
I just went to double check my interpretation, but the case brief by Mason LLP’s site doesn’t really specify.
If it only applies to steam keys, as you say, then I agree they don’t really have a case since it’s Steam that must supply distribution and other services.
But, if the policy applies to independent marketplaces, then it should be obvious that it is anticompetitive. The price on every platform is driven up to compensate for Steam’s 30% fees, even if that particular platform doesn’t attempt to provide services equivalent to Steam.
According to a Valve quote from the complaint (p. 55), it applies to everything:
In response to one inquiry from a game publisher, in another example, Valve explained: “We basically see any selling of the game on PC, Steam key or not, as a part of the same shared PC market- so even if you weren’t using Steam keys, we’d just choose to stop selling a game if it was always running discounts of 75% off on one store but 50% off on ours. . . .”
Does it though? It seems like Valve is targetting the fact, that you can’t run the same game on a different platform for different amounts. So if Valve gets 30%, and some other store gets less, then they ask you to not run it cheaper. I.e. you can’t sell on both stores for $40, and then set a permanent -30% sale there.
Yes, that is problematic. Not by itself, but coupled with a large captive userbase it is. As an example:
Let’s say you want to start a game marketplace, which simply runs a storefront and content distribution—you specifically don’t want to run a workshop, friends network, video streaming, or peer multiplayer. Because you don’t offer these other services, you keep costs down, and can charge a 5% fee instead of a 30%.
With Steam’s policy, publishers may choose to:
List on your platform at $45, and forego the userbase of Steam
List on Steam and your platform at $60, and forego the reduced costs your platform could offer
Obviously, pricing is much more sophisticated than this. You’d have to account for change in sales volume and all. Point is, though, that publishers (and consumers!) cannot take advantage of alternative marketplaces that offer fewer services at lower cost.
The question the court has to answer is whether the userbase/market share captured by Steam causes choice (2) to be de-facto necessary for a game to succeed commercially. If so, then the policy would be the misuse of market dominance to stifle competition.
And I think Wolfire might be able to successfully argue that.
This… misses the point? Of course the can not sell on Steam. That’s always an option.
The antitrust aspect of all of this is that Steam is the de-facto marketplace, consumers are stubborn and habitual and aren’t as likely purchase games less-known platforms, and that a publisher opting not to sell on Steam might have a negative influence on the games success.
If that consumer inertia gives Steam an undue advantage that wouldn’t be present in a properly competitive market, then it there is an antitrust case to be made, full stop. At this point, the court will decide if the advantage is significant enough to warrant any action, so there’s really no need for us to argue further.
But I really don’t like seeing Wolfire—which is a great pro-consumer and pro-open-source studio—having their reputation tarnished just because Lemmyites have a knee-jerk reaction to bend over and take it from Valve just because Steam is a good platform.
As I said, no need for us to argue further. The lawsuit has grounds, even if you don’t understand why. Read articles and legal briefs on the matter if you would like to learn more.
What right does valve have to discriminate against devs and publishers who are selling their game on other platforms? They have to compete for their business, not punish them for having a game that is more successful on another store that gives a higher revenue cut to the dev and a lower price to the customer.
They usually sign an exclusivity deal in exchange for funding the development of the game. David is alleging that steam pressured him in ways not covered by steam ToS. It’s not like valve funded development of receiver.
I think the reason why valve is doing this is because people might buy a game at a higher price, either on Steam or another storefront, and then complain that it was cheaper on Steam or another storefront and start demanding refunds or demand that Valve reduce the game’s price on steam.
What do you do then?
If you don’t address it, you’re automatically seen as the asshole even if it was the developer’s choice.
You can give out refunds, which makes you look like the good guy, but that also looks bad to companies like Visa or PayPal (my understanding is that large numbers of refunds tend to look bad to payment processors, even if the refund was initiated from the company and not the consumer). Granted, Valve is a big enough company that they shouldn’t have issues with that kinda thing, especially since they already offer refunds, but my understanding is that it still doesn’t look good to payment processors and can make them upset.
You can ask the developer to reduce the price on steam, but what if the dev says no?
You can force the dev to reduce the price, but now you’re even more of an asshole.
You can lower the cost on your storefront and cover the difference yourself, but now you’re potentially losing money. That, if I’m not mistaken, is actually anti-competative from a legal standpoint.
You’re kinda screwed if you’re trying to be the good guy.
That’s not even getting into how bad it looks if it’s cheaper on steam than somewhere else when you have a marketshare as large as Valve’s.
This is kind of necessary. You could open a store just selling Steam keys. You get Steam’s software distribution, installed user base, networking for free and pay nothing to them. Steam is selling all of those services for a 30% cut. Since your overhead is $0, you can take just a 1% fee and still turn a profit because Valve is covering 99% of your costs.
Steam could disable keys or start charging fees for them. As long as they’re being this ridiculously generous and permitting publishers to have them for free, some limitation makes sense.
I’m dubious, though. There must be a provision for promotional pricing. I’ve definitely bought keys for less than Steam prices.
As I said, Steam would be in their rights to enforce that pricing policy for Steam keys, because they provide distribution and platform services for that product after it sells.
But as @Rose clarified, it applies to not just Steam keys, but any game copy sold and distributed by an independent platform. Steam should not have any legitimate claim to determining the pricing within another platform.
David said in a blog post that the suit is specifically alleging price fixing tactics for other platforms that aren’t key sellers, but sell the whole game. Whether that holds up in court - we will see.
pcgamer.com
Aktywne