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
He’s not wrong since games pricing hasn’t kept up with inflation. If it had we’d be buying $120 games. The problem is wages also haven’t kept up with inflation either. If gaming companies had increased the prices they’d have fucked themselves.
Gaming is one of the cheapest hobbies and forms of entertainment there is. The price I have paid per hour for playing my favorite games is miniscule compared to something like seeing a movie.
I could also point out: If the main sales race was for the gold-plated base copy of a game, instead of nickel and dining people who only have nickels and dimes, then it’s possible we would have a gaming world entirely focused on churning out AAAA singleplayer experiences, back to putting out trilogies of obscure gaming experiences.
This is not blaming gamers for not accepting higher prices for incomplete games; publishers moved where the money was, and I don’t blame them. I blame the rest of OTHER industries for not updating their wages so the world is livable and people have extra for entertainment.
That’s another thing if they could allow specific api and opensource those parts they remove so someone can create mod that brings all of this back. Like we removed it but we make those things opensource, do what you want, we don’t care. It’s not in paid version of our app.
I think everyone understands that nintendo are bad guys in this this situation but pocketpair is just scared. They just say we want to get over it as soon as possible to focus on our game. I understand that small company is scared of old, long timer in this business. But they need to turn it over because if they behave like a sheep they will be eaten by wolf.
If they could change narrative and simply add. We removed those things and replaced it with this but we don’t care what you do with our game. Here is api. Do what the fuck you want.
Sorry, I meant that most companies do fixes to comply with local legislations/sentences and then ignore them everywhere else, Pocketpair can’t do that because they are being sentenced in their home jurisdiction, so their infractions in other jurisdictions could and would still be brought to court.
Giant Bomb deserves more than a thread hanging off the Polygon story post. I don’t think it’s ever looked nearly this dire.
I don’t remember exactly how I stumbled across GB, but I think it came up randomly during TheSpeedGamers Final Fantasy marathon in 2009 (which was the inspiration for the first GDQ marathon in 2010). They weren’t necessarily the first to do the very personality-focused, video heavy, gaming coverage, but they definitely went at it the hardest and with the fewest fucks given about doing anything the “right” way. I’ve spent over 16 years now following the site and the people that have come through it, the Giant Bomb Extended Universe. I couldn’t possibly quantify the impact they’ve had on me over the years. It may not technically be the end but I don’t see a path forward from here.
Giant Bomb deserves more than a thread hanging off the Polygon story post.
Agreed. Giant Bomb pioneered so much in games media, and for it to end like that is such a shame.
As far as I am concerned, the GB I loved was already struggling after Alex, Brad and Vinny left ; and it ended for good when Jeff Gerstmann was fired abruptly (again !). This news still saddens me however, and I wonder what will be the legacy of GB down the road.
Without knowing anything (beyond what’s said in the article) about Giant Bomb, I’d assume it’s the same path forward as when the F-word fucked up Gamepedia beyond all recognition. Find alternatives. In the case of Gamepedia other wiki hosting services, like Miraheze and wiki.gg, and more independently-hosted wikis. And some of the wiki.gg admins were Gamepedia admins, as far as I’m aware - it sounds like a similar restart may well end up being the case here too.
It sucks, especially because the F-word is good at search-engine optimisation, but it’s not the end.
I’d rejoice, but I’ll believe it when I see it happening consistently. I want smaller, denser, and richer worlds. Not giant, sprawling, and barren. It doesn’t add anything to a game for me if I have to walk or drive 10 minutes to get to my next location and it’s just empty in between.
When asked if he was sure that Albion couldn’t be copyrighted due to its historical context, he replied: “I don’t know if I’m honest, I don’t really know… I hope so. I mean you would think that the responsible person I should be, I would’ve spent the last six months in lawyers’ offices…”
I played Braid ages ago, and it was okay. I can see it being influential when it first came out when there wasn’t many indie games.
Don’t think I really want to play it again though - it told it’s story and that was that. Unless it adds tons more levels or something, I’m not sure what value the remaster adds.
It’s sadly one of many “platformers with interesting mechanics but slow and clunky controls” that the industry has moved away from.
I’ve only heard of the creator making official statements a few times - but they were all like “im the only person in the world making a game that completely innovates its genre every time” and “my remaster is selling like dog-shit”
I took one videogame design class, and the lecturer was like - this guy is a massive douche, but his game is amazing, so he’s allowed to be~
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.
It has nothing to do with AI, it’s just plain old automation, but they solve most of the issues you get with making automated tests in non-discrete 3D playspace and they do that in a pretty solid way. It’s definitely something I’d love to have implemented in the games I’m working on, as someone who worked in QA and now works in development. Being able to have mostly reliable way how to smoke-test levels for basic gameplay without having to torture QA to run the test-case again is good, and allows QA to focus on something else - but the tools also need oversight, so it’s not really a job lost. In summary - I think the talk is cool tech and worth the watch.
However, I don’t think AI will help in this regard, and something as unreliable and random as AI models are not a good fit for this job. You want to have deterministic testcases that you can quanitfy, and if something doesn’t match have an actual human to look at why. AI also probably won’t be able to find clever corner-cases and bugs that need human ingenuity.
Fuck AI, I kind of hope this is just a marketing talk and they are actually just improving the (deterministic) tools they already have (which actually are AI by definition, since they also do level exploration on top of recorded inputs), and they are calling it an “AI” to satisfy investors/management without actually slapping a glorified chat-bot into the tech for no reason.
No offence to folks who like Mario games, but I don’t personally feel good playing them. They have a working class protagonist who works to maintain monarchic status quo (fighting evil kingdom to defend another kingdom). Also the games encourage violence toward turtles. Not cool in my books.
Anyway, jokes aside, I’m not getting a Switch 2 anytime soon, will probably get a Steam Deck before that.
Everyone knows Mario is cool as f–k. But who knows what he’s thinking? Who knows why he crushes turtles? And why do we think about him as fondly as we think of the mystical (nonexistent?) Dr Pepper? Perchance.
Interested too see how piracy works for the switch 2. I will not buy one, as much as I enjoy Nintendo’s games I cannot stand their software experience (UI, shovelware) or their eco system…how many peripherals do you need!?
videogameschronicle.com
Ważne