/s: By submitting an encoded JSON post request to Steam’s most overloaded server, users may acquire a sale ticket token, which must then be cryptographically delivered to another user, salted with their Steam user ID.
There are services that will do this for you, but…charge a 50% premium to provide that service, because no technology is free.
Generally, the value proposition of subscriptions for publishers is the lack of friction for a lot of people.
You’re managing your expenses tightly, which is smart, but I think that’s not as common as you expect. A lot of people might hear about a cool game coming to Game Pass in two months, and for simplicity just decide not to unsubscribe even though they’re not playing it for the next month.
People also make theories that everyone uses the XBLGold promotion trick, but I also think that’s not so common.
Things like buying the console, buying add-on content for games, etc. People have a membership, and want to make more use of it- though MS likely doesn’t mind people keeping it to the basics, since they don’t make huge bank off of singleplayer gamers anyway. I won’t even deny, I’ve bought small microtransaction items in a few games I only access through Game Pass - but I’m sure other people do far more often than me.
I’ve got a GTX 1070; I found the new Robocop game to look really cool, but the demo didn’t run so well for me.
The funny thing is, I would’ve believed that this card would’ve been too old years ago, but most games I still buy don’t need anything beyond what it provides. I enjoy visual appeal, but I don’t often play my games to count the pixels and inspect individual hairs on eyelids. The graphical plateau is real.
The animation, art style, and music all seem fantastic. Doesn’t appear to be a very gameplay-drive game, but I could be wrong. Certainly could be very enjoyable for the story alone.
There’s three big moments in the game that I think got it for me; Amaurot, Close in the Distance, and The Dead Ends. But there’s plenty to feel more invested in, especially with all the side quests that focus on so many personal endearing struggles. Heck, even the Dark Knight job storyline has a great emotional payoff to it.
Trails in the Sky, at perhaps two moments. They’re very long JRPGs, and I could argue longer than they need to be with some not so great moments - but the payoff for their better characters is really good.
It’s often cited as “establishing backstory” to the rest of the Trails series. 1 and 2 are basically one complete story; but even the first game sets up a villain and resolution well.
(There is a third that dives a bit too far into setting up “background lore for twenty more games and little else”)
There may in fact be a few games where empty spaces and a sense of vastness actually contribute to the atmosphere and make for an enjoyable game. But NOT in a game that’s divided by fucking loading screens with not a single “vista” to look out at.
Someone working minimum wage wants to get the most of their refurbished PS4. They might try spending $60 on an unforgettable 12-hour singleplayer adventure, but then they’d run it a second time for achievements and have nothing else to play the rest of the year, having an old hospital and car bill to pay off. Instead, they either play F2P to stretch their dollar, or buy a 100-hour Ubisoft game padded with content. When they do get a bonus from work, they feel invested in that F2P and buy the skin they always envied.
I’m of course not suggesting these games are masterpieces, but it’s not so hard to imagine the appeals they cater to.
This is exactly what I’ve wanted. Anytime we get a plot point that fits in the following lists, I feel like it severely handicaps the writing potential of any other stories you could tell.
Humanity was created for the sole purpose of ???
Everything you’ve experienced is part of a simulation.
Our entire lives are lived for the fight against the ???. But it turns out that whole war was a conspiracy by the patriarchy.
There are many enemies around us. But we may as well throw our swords and guns in the trash, because the only ones who can fight them are the chosen ???, born with special powers.
Not much of humanity is left, so we need to preserve what we can and never ever get into any major conflicts.
This is true for a small category of sites I won’t name, but there’s also lots of sites that have a direct business relationship with the publisher. Ex: greenmangaming, gamersgate.
Blame the gray resellers. If the world courts had found those sites illegal, then devs could likely still set regional prices without having 90% of them getting resold to the outside world.
It seems to make for fun clips, but I can’t tell what the gameplay is other than walking into a room, seeing something, dying with no chance of escaping, and then hitting the “record clip” button for your audience.
I read about this game months ago, when it was released I was very glad to see that it was on PS Plus from Day 1. Since I am already subscribed to PS Plus, I have downloaded it and playing it right now. I really like the game up until now....
I tend to be less excited for prequels because of this. Good stories can go in a completely unexpected direction, for instance having a villain “win” in an unexpected way, or killing off characters you expected to survive. Prequels are often just an excuse to give more content of the same, especially in order to star someone that’s been killed off in other media.
I might be a bit unusual, but I feel like the main thing I’m looking for in a JRPG isn’t just good characters, but good storyline that gives each of those characters real moments to shine. Something in the vein of Cloud Strife
spoilerrevealing he built up a fake persona based on his idol
, or FFXIV
spoilerhaving your team resolve a generations-long war against dragons
. I have heard that Sea of Stars has one really impactful/good character in your party, but not heard much in the way of super-heavy story beats; and it’s seemed the same way for a lot of JRPGs that have come from the indie sphere.
It annoys me because I’m writing my own story, agonizing over excess word count and trimming every scene I can, but I still feel like they’re all additive and value - even if not to the core plot, to some very valuable theme.
Then I play a JRPG and there’s just a random scene where two characters go play hide and go seek for pure padding.
We here at Naughty Dog respect that, though they are great games, our fans have felt some exhaustion at seeing only remasters of Naughty Dog’s old games. Hence, we are proud to announce our newest project: Skyrim Remastered.
The only thing I wanted for the corruptor or was just to slightly reduce its giga giga armor so it doesn’t take a whole supply drop’s worth of ammo to whittle down. I know it’s meant to have a weak point system after you’ve foamed it off, but it didn’t seem to work for me, especially with the many low-accuracy weapons you tend to use and other enemies around.
The eight main heroes are receiving an alert about the empire starting its invasion, and the hero’s cousin is leading the charge? That scene deserves good VA. It’s dramatic, plot important, and can get you invested in characters.
A farmer is giving you a radiant quest to kill an optional boss? That kind of thing absolutely doesn’t need VA. It even means that people cycling through content can speed-read his introduction, and aren’t forced to listen to horrendous voice acting.
I get the impression any more urgent gaps will be covered by the community.
I’ve used my Deck in its desktop mode, plugged in a dock, for extended periods when I didn’t have access to my PC, and it was a decent enough experience for the most part.
People have floated this idea of “dockable devices” for decades. Microsoft even made a Windows Phone that did it. The only time it worked was the Nintendo Switch, where they sold the dock together - and even then, I think their studies showed that a majority of players only play in one mode.
So it comes down to consumer friction. What do they get in one box, and how likely are they to buy a second?
It’s great that the well-paid gamers have their options of exciting, linear singleplayer games. Realistically, if we want AAA gaming to be defined by that, it needs to be profitable enough, which means people buying those games on release consistently, and even maybe accepting the $70 price tags.
Some people do so - but many others are only buying one or two games a year due to shrinking personal budget. And those games need to fill the hundreds of spare hours they’ll have during that year.
The situation could be reversed if more people had a generously-sized personal budget; if they weren’t fearful of managing their rent each month, or debating whether to save a few pennies from their paycheck for retirement. $40 or even $70 for the hot new 10-hour singleplayer game of the month shouldn’t be a lot in the grand scheme of things, but it’s everything in a world with so much income disparity.
Any chance of this being a flop? Years ago, we would have said no way, but we’ve seen some high-profile screwups before. It’s certainly at the time period where Rockstar might have brain drain on its better developers.
A little while back, Netflix started putting out some games through its app. No further microtransactions, just a game (I think). It gets some good-hearted efforts like Valiant Hearts: Coming Home and Oxenfree. I feel like the best thing for genuine mobile games could be some kind of App Store that curates just to things like that, and disconnects from the past of cheap crap.
Imagine a popular subscription service like Game Pass tying into well-built story-based games, for instance. I think it could work out well.
What I mean is… sometimes people are very loyal to a videogame franchise or a company because they loved a game they released years ago (Silent Hill/Konami with Silent Hill 2, Blizzard/Bethesda with their respective golden eras, some could argue this happens too with Pokémon and Final Fantasy, etc). Ethical/consumer reasons...
The solution is slow depletion of title power in order to drive competition. Basically, encourage each others and yourself to explore other games that aim for the same goals as the original property, ideally expanded with some vision of innovation.
For Pokémon, players could likely try out Casette Beasts. For Silent Hill, there are other survival horror properties examining psychological properties of their heroes, like Cry of Fear and The Park.
I’ve got so many Like a Dragon games in my queue I don’t even know which to go for yet. I still didn’t finish Yakuza 6, bought Judgment 2, and now game pass has Isshin and MWEHN.
Much as I love abridged series and mods, I sometimes feel like there are people too invested in existing franchises that could have made something substantial if they ventured their creativity out of fan works. I’m sort of one of them - I made a lot of TF2 animations back in the day, and past a point realized for all my work I had nothing I could claim to have truly been made “from scratch”.
Not to disparage parody makers, just that I understand the sentiment.
Literally a used Switch game in a big, ridiculous bag with a “New” sticker on it. Imagine going into a GameStop with a game in a bag like this and convincing them to give you credit for it as “New”....
The act is very important in the event of an SEC investigation. Since I don’t hold stock in the company, I’m safe to say this, but basically if they wrote “Yeah, I don’t have any faith in the company itself, I just caught Wall Street tycoons making an insane short sell” then that comment could become a major exhibit in an exchange fraud case that makes them forfeit their shares.
Definitely hated their use of universal ammo to cater to their weird weapon system. Maybe I’m not quite into this kind of horror, but I also didn’t care much for the direction the story took right at its ending.
Don’t trust the software company to do what they have made legally sound claims to doing, and that hundreds of thousands of people have said they’ve done.
But do trust the script kiddies writing crackers not to install invisible keyloggers and ad trackers.
They’re often forced to equalize global prices because of sites like G2A. Even if they want to sell a game for the price of a Zimbabwean loaf of bread, G2A picks up a thousand copies of that and resells them in America, driving the global revenue down.
So, now no one in Zimbabwe gets cheap local prices because there’s no such thing as a “local” price. And the defenders of G2A use their own mental gymnastics to justify it.
Given the unremarkable difference in appearance I’ve seen on the “ultra modern” Unreal Engine 5 demos, I’m all for it. We can’t get the new generation right yet, let’s stay on the old where we can manage a consistent framerate.
Have you been spending hours trying to pass a level? Or maybe you are completely addicted to a newly bought game. Do you have a question about a game or would like to share something else? In the Weekly Discussion Thread, you can do it all!...
The one thing that pulls me away from JRPGs is when their story is too generic. All the best ones I’ve enjoyed had some truly unpredictable, or even just highly dramatic, elements to their story.
And I’ve rated them all below. I’m very glad Steam decided to do a big promotional event around them- it helped point me toward a lot of games I would have never tried/heard of otherwise. Some of the good ones might not be good the entire game, but they were at least good in the demo....
I understand you have a lot of demos to cover, though I can’t help but feel there’s some dishonesty about the Robocop demo. First mission gets you used to killing gangsters in simple corridors, though after that the demo actually gives a lot of focus on side quests, and very traditional “community policing”, including detective work, and many occasions of trying to find the best balance between community lenience and upholding justice. I even managed to avoid a gunfight in one case by finding clues and negotiating some of the gangsters down.
Maybe you played all that part and it just didn’t feel significant. I admit, it just felt pleasantly unexpected to me.
The upcoming Dawntrail expansion for Final Fantasy 14 will add a new Viper class as well as collaborations with Final Fantasy 11 and 16. Additionally, Final Fantasy 14 will be getting an open beta in mid-January or February 2024.
Hoping for fun times, but I guess I’m a little worried that the story for this expansion might lose appeal without a good conflict.
It’s very possible to make a well-written, region-localized storyline with lowered stakes than “potential end of all life”, I’m just uncertain how well they’ll do that given what the Warrior of Light has been through.
I was disappointed to hear allegations of toxic work environments in Moon Studios, the people who made indie darling Ori and the Blind Forest. So while abusive employers are certainly an important issue, it doesn’t appear to be one that’s specific to large companies. Furthermore, it was never going to get solved under the supervision of Bobby Kotick - a man who was never going to leave unless something like the Microsoft deal happened.
There’s lots of horrible companies in the world, and I salute anyone’s efforts to boycott the ones doing horrible shit. Part of the reason I’m ambivalent about the merger is, I don’t even buy (or care about the success of) Activision games. But I don’t see that as a topic directly relevant to corporate merging/growth. Two publishers merge, that hasn’t added to the amount of employee abuse going on in each of their studios.
GTA 6 is likely to skip PC again and only launching on current gen consoles (kotaku.com) angielski
I’m confused why Kotaku mentioning next gen in the title when Rockstar only commented on current generation PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
EU court rules people can resell digital games (www.gamingbible.com) angielski
Finally some good news! I’ve been waiting for quite a while for such a ruling....
Lies of P Critique (Joseph Anderson) (www.youtube.com) angielski
Xbox spends "over a billion dollars a year" on Xbox Game Pass (www.eurogamer.net) angielski
Whats your favorite Main Menu music? angielski
I’ll start it off - Legend of Dragoon has my heart with this one...
'Great' games I didn't play this year due to requirements angielski
Currently running a Ryzen 2600 and AMD 6700XT, older cpu with mid tier gpu. This is my round up of 2023 gaming...
Harold Halibut - Official Release Window Trailer (youtu.be) angielski
An adventure game with a stop motion-inspired art style about life on a city-sized spaceship submerged in an alien ocean.
What moment from a video game made you cry? angielski
For me, it was Princess Rosalina’s backstory in Super Mario Galaxy.
Bethesda Is Responding to Negative Reviews of Starfield on Steam (www.ign.com) angielski
Give Me Experiences, Not Obligations (www.gameinformer.com) angielski
Former Mass Effect lead writer says new narrative-focused studio will "avoid painting ourselves in a corner" (www.eurogamer.net) angielski
Sony facing $7.9 billion mass lawsuit over PlayStation Store prices (www.reuters.com)
'Today is the end of Steam': Argentina and Turkey floored by new Steam price hikes as high as 2900% (www.pcgamer.com)
The Steam Autumn Sale and Steam Award Nominations are Live until 28th November (store.steampowered.com) angielski
Nominations for the Steam Awards are now open!
Lethal Company reaches 100,000 concurrent players on Steam (nitter.net) angielski
Have you tried Sea of Stars? (seaofstarsgame.co) angielski
I read about this game months ago, when it was released I was very glad to see that it was on PS Plus from Day 1. Since I am already subscribed to PS Plus, I have downloaded it and playing it right now. I really like the game up until now....
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Falls Out of the U.S. Top 20 Games for the First Time in Six Years - IGN (www.ign.com) angielski
The Last of Us Part II Remastered - Announce Trailer | PS5 Games (youtu.be) angielski
The Last of Us Part 2 is Coming to PlayStation 5 - Insider Gaming (insider-gaming.com) angielski
Deep Rock Galactic: November Maintenance Update (www.youtube.com) angielski
Bigger Than Godzilla: Why Are Games Using So Many Gigabytes? (www.techspot.com)
SteamOS will be coming to other handhelds before you can install it on your PC 'because right now, it's very, very tuned for Steam Deck' (www.pcgamer.com)
The Hidden Costs of Long Playtimes in Modern Gaming (youtu.be) angielski
Take-Two CEO Says Publisher Is in 'Growth Mode' in Wake of GTA 6 Announcement (www.ign.com)
What are your thoughts in mobile games? (lemmy.ml) angielski
What are some alternative to soulless videogame franchises? angielski
What I mean is… sometimes people are very loyal to a videogame franchise or a company because they loved a game they released years ago (Silent Hill/Konami with Silent Hill 2, Blizzard/Bethesda with their respective golden eras, some could argue this happens too with Pokémon and Final Fantasy, etc). Ethical/consumer reasons...
[Fan Game] Bloodborne Kart - Release Date Trailer (www.youtube.com) angielski
Finally, Bloodborne on PC!!!1!1!1!1!
Coming Soon to Game Pass: Like A Dragon Gaiden, Wild Hearts, Football Manager 2024, and More - Xbox Wire (news.xbox.com) angielski
In a recent Capcom R&D presentation, Capcom has clarified it's stances on mods and PC gaming. (nitter.net) angielski
GameStop’s definition of “New” (lemmy.world) angielski
Literally a used Switch game in a big, ridiculous bag with a “New” sticker on it. Imagine going into a GameStop with a game in a bag like this and convincing them to give you credit for it as “New”....
Dead Space 3 producer "would redo it almost completely" (www.eurogamer.net) angielski
AITAH for pirating games before buying them?
Nowadays, the absolute vast majority of games that I play are shit tbh....
Capcom Reveals It's Working on a Next-Gen RE Engine Codenamed REX - IGN (www.ign.com) angielski
The Weekly 'What are you playing?' Discussion (lemmy.world) angielski
Have you been spending hours trying to pass a level? Or maybe you are completely addicted to a newly bought game. Do you have a question about a game or would like to share something else? In the Weekly Discussion Thread, you can do it all!...
I tried over 20 Steam Next demos so that you don't have to! angielski
And I’ve rated them all below. I’m very glad Steam decided to do a big promotional event around them- it helped point me toward a lot of games I would have never tried/heard of otherwise. Some of the good ones might not be good the entire game, but they were at least good in the demo....
Final Fantasy 14 Shows Off New Viper Class Alongside Final Fantasy 11 and 16 Crossovers - IGN (www.ign.com) angielski
The upcoming Dawntrail expansion for Final Fantasy 14 will add a new Viper class as well as collaborations with Final Fantasy 11 and 16. Additionally, Final Fantasy 14 will be getting an open beta in mid-January or February 2024.
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Microsoft closes $69 billion Activision Blizzard deal after Britain's nod (www.reuters.com)