Interesting satirical theme, and they've nailed the RCT style
Community MetaSteam | September 2024 - The emperor protects, BOY!
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Interesting satirical theme, and they've nailed the RCT style
Exciting stuff. While most likely for Deckard, this is a step towards making sure they're prepared for a possible ARM future.
VR has felt a little stagnant these past couple years, but a wireless HMD would go a long way to making it convenient to use. Another VR title as fantastic as Half-Life: Alyx wouldn't hurt either.
How God of War Ragnarök was ported to PC
God of War Ragnarök is now out on PC, so we spoke to the team responsible to porting the game from PS5. We cover shader compilation, DX12 challenges and more.
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Use more disk space to avoid frame hitches, no stutter but without 5+ minutes shader compilation at start, proper ultrawide support. Only 4+ people team. Amazing.
Only played a little but seemed a very good portHow God of War Ragnarök was ported to PC
God of War Ragnarök is now out on PC, so we spoke to the team responsible to porting the game from PS5. We cover shader compilation, DX12 challenges and more.
Use more disk space to avoid frame hitches, no stutter but without 5+ minutes shader compilation at start, proper ultrawide support. Only 4+ people team. Amazing.
Yeah I do think it bizarre how much it is a bad thing to reuse assets in gaming. Still remember the drama when COD reused animations.
Reusing stuff should be the norm, as mentioned in the TV world, and movies, it's so common. Like most of the set of The Matrix was reused sets.
Reusing stuff should be the norm, as mentioned in the TV world, and movies, it's so common. Like most of the set of The Matrix was reused sets.
Previously, it was 70% more expensive
Now, it is 100% more expensive
So yeah, they've been bad for a while they've just decided to take the piss more.
Don't worry, they'll blame inflation.
Aren't we supposed to be able to use shared libraries simultaneously now?
Now that I think about it, Hiroshima was never reused which is surprising.
I know. But Kamurocho being in every game is easy to justify. Having Ichiban go back to Hawaii in the next game for "reasons" would be off putting because it would just be a repeat of what he did in the previous game. So they just came up with this crazy idea.
Now that I think about it, Hiroshima was never reused which is surprising.
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With steam families yes, but you can't play the same shared game at the same time.
Played four chapters of
and sadly... I left really underwhelmed. It is cute, both in 2D and 3D, but it does have too many tutorials... which wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't as if the game had little to do but watch those tutorials. The game yaps a lot, it's not particularly engaging and it's too often here to show you what you have to do on every single map, the camera spans in 3D are especially annoying after a while. The game doesn't let you do things as you want, and it doesn't let you out of its hands at any time, really. It's just insanely linear and the puzzles are not hard, they're just a bit slow and annoying to execute because your char can't do much but that one specific thing the level has for you to do.
Finding little "secrets" which are nothing more than artwork also becomes a bummer quite fast.
It reminds me of Cat Quest, where the dev removes so much of potential "frustrations" from the player that they end up making a game that almost plays itself and it's just boring.
And sadly, that's also what I feel in Astro Bot, not completed it yet, but it falls into the same mold. An extremely limited toolkit, a gimmick for a level that will hardly push back against the player... and a lot of those gimmicks are just kinda bad, like the boxing gloves or the shrinking backpack. It does manage to feel very Super Mario Galaxy at times, SMG2 in particular - when you get the "oh that planet does this, cute - oh I'm done - next one" where it tries to shotgun a bunch of ideas, do little with them, then go to another and another.
It's really dull. And I think all the little references were mostly a mistake in how they were done. Unlocking an Ape Escape inspired level with similar mechanics? Lovely! It's only a few minutes, but it's super cool. A little bot with a red bandana... I had no idea who that was.
It's Rudy from Wild Arms. I played the game multiple times and I didn't recognize him. What are more casual or younger players going to think about random ass references? It works in Smash Bros because trophies have a lot of text about them, their games, and what they were on. When you have only a few funny words and a vague semblance, it's just not enough.
Looking at the hub with all those bots that do nothing but wait on their little gacha bought toy... it does not inspire joy but just a sigh about a wasted chance to me. The comparison between the ones that get some amount of care and the others that are "hey look we got an agreement to put Ryu and Ken in our game" is painful..
and sadly... I left really underwhelmed. It is cute, both in 2D and 3D, but it does have too many tutorials... which wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't as if the game had little to do but watch those tutorials. The game yaps a lot, it's not particularly engaging and it's too often here to show you what you have to do on every single map, the camera spans in 3D are especially annoying after a while. The game doesn't let you do things as you want, and it doesn't let you out of its hands at any time, really. It's just insanely linear and the puzzles are not hard, they're just a bit slow and annoying to execute because your char can't do much but that one specific thing the level has for you to do.
Finding little "secrets" which are nothing more than artwork also becomes a bummer quite fast.
It reminds me of Cat Quest, where the dev removes so much of potential "frustrations" from the player that they end up making a game that almost plays itself and it's just boring.
And sadly, that's also what I feel in Astro Bot, not completed it yet, but it falls into the same mold. An extremely limited toolkit, a gimmick for a level that will hardly push back against the player... and a lot of those gimmicks are just kinda bad, like the boxing gloves or the shrinking backpack. It does manage to feel very Super Mario Galaxy at times, SMG2 in particular - when you get the "oh that planet does this, cute - oh I'm done - next one" where it tries to shotgun a bunch of ideas, do little with them, then go to another and another.
It's really dull. And I think all the little references were mostly a mistake in how they were done. Unlocking an Ape Escape inspired level with similar mechanics? Lovely! It's only a few minutes, but it's super cool. A little bot with a red bandana... I had no idea who that was.
It's Rudy from Wild Arms. I played the game multiple times and I didn't recognize him. What are more casual or younger players going to think about random ass references? It works in Smash Bros because trophies have a lot of text about them, their games, and what they were on. When you have only a few funny words and a vague semblance, it's just not enough.
Looking at the hub with all those bots that do nothing but wait on their little gacha bought toy... it does not inspire joy but just a sigh about a wasted chance to me. The comparison between the ones that get some amount of care and the others that are "hey look we got an agreement to put Ryu and Ken in our game" is painful..
Oh, right. You need to create a family. I thought it would apply to the existing family sharing.
Yakuza reuses way too much. Every single game has like 70-80% of the same content, it goes way beyond reusing assets or animations. You know every game is going to have the same minigames with like 2 new ones added to the rotation. A lot of them even keep the same combat styles and reuse the heat actions too.
There's an argument for smart reuse in games but yakuza is not it.
There's an argument for smart reuse in games but yakuza is not it.
This allows the series to focus on the actual meat, like the characters, great substories, crazy stories, etc, and keep costs manageable.
I think that asset reuse is fine but we need to think about the context. Yakuza gets away with it because (1) they have been doing this for years, (2) it is a necessary to set multiple games in Kamuracho because that is the "Yakuza" area in Tokyo and (3) the franchise has a realistic artstyle. Other than Yakuza, there is a limited number of franchise which can reuse assets heavily without getting roasted. Franchise with iconic designs like Pokémon, Digimon, Dragon Quest can surely do it, or Call of Duty and Battlefield where they can use the same gun models over and over again. Context is key here and I think it does not apply to every franchise out there, especially those games where artstyle change between entries is crucial to the brand.
I don't know anyone that plays yakuza for the stories, most of which are full of twists for the sake of having twists. Like I've played all of them except 8 and I can't really remember what any of them are about outside of a few pieces here or there.
I basically only play Yakuza games for the story LMAO.
In the past did Valve get roasted for refusing assets? I think those are some of the very few assets in games where a lot of people know them by heart. Heck you even have Hollywood now trying to reuse those assets. And someone one of those assets ended up in a Call of Duty game.
It's just not the aversion for reusing Assets in new games, but also as DLC in finished games.
I always bring this example and lamented it for years:
Why did Harebrained not go full into BATTLETECH Story/Mission DLC? They were at Paradox and surely no one at Paradox would say no to more DLC.
You had the finished game, the gameplay loop is fantastic, the presentation of the Main Story was already just voice lines and pretty images, why not make a few Mission/Story DLC? The Battletech Universe has such a breadth and depth of lore you could use.
I always bring this example and lamented it for years:
Why did Harebrained not go full into BATTLETECH Story/Mission DLC? They were at Paradox and surely no one at Paradox would say no to more DLC.
You had the finished game, the gameplay loop is fantastic, the presentation of the Main Story was already just voice lines and pretty images, why not make a few Mission/Story DLC? The Battletech Universe has such a breadth and depth of lore you could use.
apparently according to this games Steam page Jordan Weisman is Creative Director of this and the lead writer is the lead writer from the Shadowrun games
hell of a week for pirate stuff between this and the Yakuza thing
Looking at some tweets about stuff like Stellar Blade and Concord and how much the game made and stuff.
That game released at the end of April and by the end of June it had managed to make $23 million USD in sales (this is before Sony takes their cut). This is from their public filing information. I also still find it weird how they pointed out to MC user scores since that doesn't really mean much, seeing how easily it can be tampered with) overall by that point in time Sony seems to have made $7 million USD from stellar Blade (not including possible sales of PS5 units sold and other things that people may have purchased).
No idea how much it cost to make Stellar Blade but unless it cost anywhere near $20 million to make the game, then you could say that it would have been a better investment compared to what ended up happening with Concord. Maybe the amount of money would not have been that high but it would have been something in the ball park of what they are currently making with some of their PC ports? Making $10-$20 million in profit. Soore money could have been made by Sony.
Looking at titles like AstroBot, I'm still guessing that it will sell between 5-8 million copies in its lifetime.
These are my current guesses.
That game released at the end of April and by the end of June it had managed to make $23 million USD in sales (this is before Sony takes their cut). This is from their public filing information. I also still find it weird how they pointed out to MC user scores since that doesn't really mean much, seeing how easily it can be tampered with) overall by that point in time Sony seems to have made $7 million USD from stellar Blade (not including possible sales of PS5 units sold and other things that people may have purchased).
No idea how much it cost to make Stellar Blade but unless it cost anywhere near $20 million to make the game, then you could say that it would have been a better investment compared to what ended up happening with Concord. Maybe the amount of money would not have been that high but it would have been something in the ball park of what they are currently making with some of their PC ports? Making $10-$20 million in profit. Soore money could have been made by Sony.
Looking at titles like AstroBot, I'm still guessing that it will sell between 5-8 million copies in its lifetime.
These are my current guesses.
Not sure about Valve, but a recent example would be Tears of the Kingdom. It adds a lot on the Botw map but still attract quite a number of people roasting it on reusing the map.
Imo, movie is very different from games. To an average viewer many often things are not noticeable because they just come and go. Again, I am not rejecting the reuse of asset. It is efficient but not without consequences.
That's exactly what I like about it. The overly dramatic story telling that channels old drama TV shows, the side stories that vary wildly in tone, the crazy involved "campaign minigames" (where there is a story mode attached to them, like the Cabaret mini game and Real Estate mini game in Yakuza 0. It really is a series like no other.
I think the ones that complained were just a loud minority, tears still sold really well.
As long as games continue to review/sell well then reusing assets to make sequels and spinoffs is always ok with me. At the end of the day you are able to expedite the process and push out more content to your fans. If its efficient then its efficient.
But devs should definitely add additional stuff to make it less noticeable.
Like what From did with Dark Souls 1-3 + Bloodborne. You can tell they definitely reused a lot of animations/assets etc but they went out of their way to add so much new stuff into each game that it made everything about them feel unique. Touching/tuning up the setting and environments can go a long way. Lighting and mood is so different with all the Souls games too.
But devs should definitely add additional stuff to make it less noticeable.
Like what From did with Dark Souls 1-3 + Bloodborne. You can tell they definitely reused a lot of animations/assets etc but they went out of their way to add so much new stuff into each game that it made everything about them feel unique. Touching/tuning up the setting and environments can go a long way. Lighting and mood is so different with all the Souls games too.
This is amazing alright...
Looks cool!
Not on sale or anything but looks cool also...
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Man, Tears of the Kingdom still took like 6 years for it to come out. Something like Zelda Majora's Mask was the premier example, that I think was developed in 13 months, but it was just a different time. Developing games just takes a lot more time now (and also costs a lot more).
making my way through the single player campaign of Space Marine 2, and I feel like .. it's not very good? Like, the combat is fun and challenging, the visual fidelity is incredible and I dig its story so far (predictable but in line with what I expected from the previous game), but it feels like the devs have no idea how to make the campaign interesting, so every 5 minutes you get these boring "challenges", where you need to hold a place until a percentage meter slowly fills, or you need to protect a target from not hitting 0% on its shield or something. I'm in the fourth mission now and this stuff is still super dominant, The first game felt way more entertaining in its campaign than this.
Damn 
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Discussion - What are you currently playing? (Week 39 of 2024)
New week, new thread! What are you playing? I got married in Dragon Quest V. Went for a honey moon with Bianca to visit different places to view her comments. My younger self did not feel much when I was playing the NDS version years ago, but now... damn. This is a masterpiece. Working on...
metacouncil.com
Went back to Persona 5 again, had like 60 hours in it already, and it really feels great to be back, that background music at the cafe just felt so cozy again.
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Steam had an average of 27.3 million monthly active users in the European Union from February 1, 2024 to July 31, 2024. This is up from 26 million in the prior six-month period.
For comparison the Epic Games Store had 14.9 million monthly active users and the Microsoft PC Games Store had ...2 million.
I was under the impression Metaphor would be a much shorter than P5. Guess I was wrong. It's not like there's much coming out the rest of the year so bring it on.Damn
This is why I got bored with elden ring. It just felt and played like dark souls 4, they also reuse way too much.
It took me over 200 hours to beat the base version of P5Damn
Discussion - What are you currently playing? (Week 39 of 2024)
New week, new thread! What are you playing? I got married in Dragon Quest V. Went for a honey moon with Bianca to visit different places to view her comments. My younger self did not feel much when I was playing the NDS version years ago, but now... damn. This is a masterpiece. Working on...
Console only players when Steam reaches new records
Also me, its mostly for the story, side quests and open worlding that I love the yakuza games.
Escape From Tarkov is probably one of the best games that I've ever played. Bought it last month and have 30+ hours into it.
wonder if the developers will bring it to Steam once it hits full 1.0 release within the next 2 years? They said years ago that this was the plan, but they also seem to need the money which is why they've been nickel and diming their player base recently (PVE mode being a paid expansion, the COD like mode, Escape from Tarkov Arena, being a seperate paid game, tons of expensive editions to the game). A Steam release would probably bring in a ton of people who never heard of the game though.
wonder if the developers will bring it to Steam once it hits full 1.0 release within the next 2 years? They said years ago that this was the plan, but they also seem to need the money which is why they've been nickel and diming their player base recently (PVE mode being a paid expansion, the COD like mode, Escape from Tarkov Arena, being a seperate paid game, tons of expensive editions to the game). A Steam release would probably bring in a ton of people who never heard of the game though.
Same i play yakuza for the same reason
I finished the campaign yesterday in co-op with a friend and I didn't think it was particularly amazing either. It's still a good game with an unapologetic Xbox 360 era design philosophy. There's nothing wrong with that but it's very limited in how it presents missions. It brings back endless elevators and 'safe rooms' between parts of levels. Either to mask loading (which I doubt) or to provide logical breaks between the action. There isn't much variety in mission or enemy design throughout the campaign. The absolute most fun I had was when they give you the jetpacks so you can fly up into the air and come crashing down on enemies like a vengeful god but... it only happens about 3 times in the whole campaign. That was my biggest complaint with the game honestly.
It's a good game and it looks absolutely amazing but I would give it a 7 or 7.5 out of 10 rating and definitely not the 8s and 9s I've been seeing.
As you mentioned, they promised they'd bring it to Steam but I think the game is far too successful financially for them to need to now. At this point I'd be surprised if it actually does arrive on Steam at launch. Maybe later when their revenue dips from selling it direct to customers. It's the same with Star Citizen. Many years ago Chris Roberts said that there would be no problems getting the game on Steam because he knew Gabe Newell personally but now that they've made so much money on their own I'd be surprised if the game ever arrived on Steam.
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Both FFXVI and GoW Ragnarok reached new CCU peaks around 1 hour ago, 27.5k and 35.6k respectively.
In the case of FFXVI, if it doesn't reach a new peak after this, at least it managed to get close to FFXV, which I guess isn't bad for a late port with heavy requirements. When it comes to peak CCU numbers alone, this is the 2nd best single player FF launch on PC so far, right?
In the case of FFXVI, if it doesn't reach a new peak after this, at least it managed to get close to FFXV, which I guess isn't bad for a late port with heavy requirements. When it comes to peak CCU numbers alone, this is the 2nd best single player FF launch on PC so far, right?
For reference, the last mainline "Tales of" game peaked at 60k, but that was 3 years ago. Still it gives some perspective on how much money S-E is leaving on the table with their delayed ports.
But I think what will really drive that point home will be the numbers for (the simultaneous release of) Metaphor.
But I think what will really drive that point home will be the numbers for (the simultaneous release of) Metaphor.
Console only players: "Gaming being stagnant and so many devs struggling is because the covid bump ended, this has nothing to do with consoles struggling, it is just back to normal after Covid"Console only players when Steam reaches new records
Meanwhile steam: grows by 25% or 10 million CCU after Covid ended.
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