Other than the mob vote changes, Im not really a fan. More regular, small updates feels like it makes it harder to make the large, sweeping changes many areas of the game need, as well as adding a lot of extra work for modders to keep things up to date.
I personally found the Inscryption scratched the same itch, albient in a different way. Its a very different game, being a sort-of narrative driven, Slay the Spire inspired card game. I won’t go into too much detail, given that spoilers, mechanical or narrative, take away a lot from the game, but I found that Inscryption did a great job of juggling a bunch of different mechanics to ensure I constantly had new tools to master, while also encouraging more lateral exploration through its plethora of secrets, and drip feeding story fragments to be peiced together as I progressed.
Theres a whole plethora of ranked, competitve Minecraft games, ranging from time trial type survival challenges, to parkour, to classics like Survival Games (battle royale) and Spleef. Alternatively, for something more casual, just use a whole variety of minigames.
As a viewer or as a player? As a player, I’d be interested interested in joining for Dota, and maybe CS2. As a viewer, Dota, CS2, or maybe some of the classics that are easier to understand on a surface level like Age of Empires or Smash Melee. That said, it’d obviously depend on specifics; as much as I love any excuse to play more Dota, for example, I only have one consistent teammate and tend to rely on randoms for other lanes.
Considering that its already been effectively announced unofficially, and whats been leaked is in a very unfinished state, I expect they’ll wait until its more polished before putting any real marketing weight behind it. They may even be extra late, considering the rocky launch of CS2, with it still lacking much of the content from CS:GO.
Given the significant changes between trailer and gameplay, as well as the delays, I’m guessing the hero got reworked and simplified a lot during development. In his current state, he seems far too simple given the dev time. Still interested to see how he plays around though.
PlateUp can be fun in 2 player co-op. If you’ve played Overcooked, its basically a clone of that, but turned into a roguelike. Its not the longest or deepest, but its still solid, and the price is very fair IMO, esspecially if you get it on sale.
The vehicle challenges were definately the weakest part, but on average, I still enjoyed them. In particular, a lot of the wingsuit courses and land races were fun, and actually took advantage of the game’s strongest elements.
At least personally, its a lot of the shorter, gameplay-focused games that always leave me wanting more, or wanting to further improve, without having some unbeatable new-game++++++++ mode or anything overly RNG based.
A couple games I’ve 100%ed that still have significant bonus/optional content outside the main plotline include:
Inscription - Willingly played through the story twice and spent nearly as many hours on the bonus new-game+ mode. Super solid gameplay, that while well explored in the base game, leaves plenty of room to further experiment and perfect your strategy.
Just Cause 3 - while there is a ton of bonus content, its not overly hidden, and the core gameplay is solid enough that challenges feel fun and rewarding, while travelling around gathering collectables is satisfying in a chill, podcast-listening, but not unengaging way.
Hotline Miami - after completing the game, I wanted to go back and get a A+ on every level because the gameplay was fun and I felt I still had more room to grow. “The puzzle” wasn’t as fun, and I did use a guide, but I was just happy for any reason to play through the game again.
Wolfenstein the New Order - again, just a solid gameplay loop that made me want to keep playing, with bonus objectives that worked as an objective rather than a chore. Also, unlike later ID shooters, it doesn’t have the “beat the whole game without dying” achievement, which just feels too punishing over mistakes that may be minor or downright unfair.
I like both, but as others have said, the apm focus in RTS games really puts a cap on my enjoyment of the genre. In theory, I should love the genre, and I usually like the single player Campaigns or skirmishes against bots, but as soon as apm becomes a significant factor, I lose interest. Maybe I should learn some with a pause function, so I can see how I feel about those.
Honestly, even those are pretty overkill to make a competing storefront. All you’d have to do is to offer lower prices and/or take a smaller percentage while matching at least a fraction of Steam’s functionality (unlike Epic) or actively working to screw over customers (also unlike Epic). If a store sold games consistantly 5% cheaper than Steam, even without controller options, good support, a built-in forum, explicit Linux support, ect., I’m confident it would be reasonably successful. Just look at Humble and Fanatical. While they do (mostly) sell Steam keys, their prices are arguably what made them a success, not the features you get after redeaming the Steam keys.
Even beside that, the ideas you provided are all pretty minor. If you’re willing to throw more significant amounts of money at the platform, like many before have, you can go a lot further than that even. For example, seeing as Steam’s discovery algorithm is one of the bigger benifits Steam provides, you could one-up them by providing off-platform marketing for games launching on your platform. This would be a way to bring devlopers and players alike to use your platform without screwing over either. Similarly, you could take a page out of Epic’s book and do giveaways regularly. Alternatively, you could use a less generous system such as “buy anything and get x game free” or “every $10 spent gives you a chance to win x game bundle” to make it more sustainable, and/or allow you to market specific underperforming games. It isn’t that hard to come up with ideas that would allow a competitor to do well. You just have to do that rather than putting all your resources into trying to take games away from players, and harvest their data.
I’d personally say its like a 7 or 8/10. Its probably the most mechanically varied and deep PvE focused survival game, but at the same time, it does really feel incomplete. Building lacks options, end-game content is often finicky or tideous, and performance issues can make the game near unplayable in enemy-dense regions.
I know in previous posts, you’ve talked about leaderboards and comparing stats to friends. For those who might be embarrassed by their stats or who would be anxious comparing stats, is ir possible to hide these menus and/or play the game without them? In particular, is it possible to play with other social features still enabled?