December 2023 General Discussion Thread

[BeardyHat]

To buy or not to buy? Two games are on my mind: Alan Wake 2 and Immortals of Aveum. The gameplay of Immortals of Aveum seems more in my type, but Alan Wake 2 is a much better game. Don't know which one I'm going to buy. Damn, I don't even know if I will buy it at all. The price of other games on my wishlist is too high or they're further on the priority list. There's also a nice GOG package available on Humble Bundle. I own some of the games, but it's dirt cheap, so I'm also considering this. Just please don't say "Buy both games! And the package!"...

I always say get what sounds most appealing to you, not the zeitgeist game.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

You should be able to go to My Docs > My Games > Starfield > Saves and delete as many as you want there; I'm not entirely sure if this will remove them from the cloud saves, but it may end up being easier? Maybe.

I'm playing the Game Pass version, and it must do things differently. I have checked, and I do have that folder, but there is nothing in it. As far as I have been able to find, the only way to do it is to delete save games one by one in the game. It really sucks they made it like this. What I really wish is that they had the option to only keep your last 10 saves, or whatever, and automatically delete anything older.

 

[Brian Boru]

On Steam, the game categories … are honestly chosen by players

Have a peek at the tags on this:

The Talos Principle: Serious DLC on Steam

The new Serious DLC replaces the godlike voice of Elohim with completely NEW, rewritten and humorous Serious Sam narrative, recorded by longtime voice actor John J. Dick. It also includes a new Serious Sam player model.

store.steampowered.com

 

[Brian Boru]

Alan Wake 2 PC users rated it 76 percent positive on metacritic (the actual score would be something like a 6 out of 10, but metacritic doesn't count things that way), but the same users apparently gave it a 4.8 out of 5 on Epic. Yeah, right

You must've checked the wrong game—Metacritic is in line with Epic:

 

[Brian Boru]

After like 130 saves or so

Aw, my heart bleeds for you! You need to play Far Cry 6—one of the abysmal 'features' of its UI is you get 3 Save slots, and good luck figuring out how to get a save in there!
I do know that start a new game gets one of 'em…

But yeah, in general saving is very player-unfriendly at AAA level. Go Indie, where the devs can't afford thousands of servers

Grim Dawn

…

DUSK

May I recommend an in-between game? Days Gone.

"Buy both games! And the package!"

We await your confession…

China to increase curbs on video gaming industry

New plans to restrict the online gaming industry in the country send shares in tech giants tumbling.

www.bbc.com

"restrictions are aimed at limiting in-game purchases and preventing obsessive gaming behaviour"

 

[ZedClampet]

You must've checked the wrong game—Metacritic is in line with Epic:

You're a tad confused. I was comparing Epic's supposed user reviews with the user reviews on metacritic.

Let's do an apples to apples comparison. Voidtrain is on both Epic and Steam. On Epic, the game scores a stellar 90%. On Steam it scores a mediocre 76. Meanwhile, FC24 has an 86 on Epic and a 57 on Steam. The only game I checked that was close was Satisfactory, but that's only because Satisfactory has a 97% on Steam.

Have a peek at the tags on this:

The Talos Principle: Serious DLC on Steam

The new Serious DLC replaces the godlike voice of Elohim with completely NEW, rewritten and humorous Serious Sam narrative, recorded by longtime voice actor John J. Dick. It also includes a new Serious Sam player model.

store.steampowered.com

Is this really Brian or has someone hacked this account?

"Action" "Adventure" and "Indie" are a lot more accurate than what was given as examples on Epic. Plus, this is incredible cherry picking. You picked a DLC that has less than 100 reviews.

Let's look, instead, at Satisfactory, because it is on both store and because I'm lazy, and I already have it pulled up.

On Epic, the only category is "Great for beginners"

On Steam, the categories are "Base Building", "Automation", "Open World" and "Crafting".

Satisfactory is definitely not "Great for beginners". I feel the rest of it speaks for itself.

 

[ZedClampet]

But yeah, in general saving is very player-unfriendly at AAA level. Go Indie, where the devs can't afford thousands of servers

Indies are definitely much better than most AAA games at save files. Well, maybe "better" isn't exactly the way to put it. More generous sounds more correct. Some of the indie devs I use don't get Steam's cloud saves exactly right. They work, but clearly not exactly as intended. Actually, after working with the Weed Shop cloud saves, I had a long discussion with myself about whether they were clueless or geniuses. It was a bizarre system that nevertheless worked better than any other cloud saves I've used. Meanwhile, I told the Big Ambitions devs that if I played much more I was going to crash Valve by filling their servers with all the irrelevant information they were saving.

 

[Brian Boru]

You're a tad confused

Sorry to confuse you—let me make it clearer. I was replying to your statement that I quoted, ie "Alan Wake 2 PC users rated it 76 percent positive on metacritic"

The current actual situation is:
Alan Wake 2 PC users rated it 88 percent positive on MetaCritic.

the rest of it speaks for itself

Sorry for more confusion. Again, I was replying to your statement that I quoted, ie "On Steam, the game categories … are honestly chosen by players". I picked a low-interest game to make it clear that anyone can add any tag they like anytime.

I'm not going against your argument, I could care less about Epic's ratings or tags.

Indies are definitely much better than most AAA games at save files

Oh I didn't realize Indies were doing cloud as well these days. My crack was assuming they saved locally

 

[BeardyHat]

I put about 2 hours into Dwarf Fortress this evening and well, I'm not sure. In theory, I love it; in practice? It's a lot of research, which I don't necessarily mind, but I'm not sure if I'm up for that right now or not.

I've put over 300-hours into Rimworld and DF isn't that much of a stretch, but by the same token, it might be a level of complexity that I'm just not up for.

I tend to think of myself as loving very complex games, but truth be told, I generally prefer simplicity. All the granularity in the world, I find, doesn't usually amount to a whole lot.

Basically, I'm trying to decide if I should request a refund or not

 

[ZedClampet]

Sorry to confuse you—let me make it clearer. I was replying to your statement that I quoted, ie "Alan Wake 2 PC users rated it 76 percent positive on metacritic"

The current actual situation is:
Alan Wake 2 PC users rated it 88 percent positive on MetaCritic.



Sorry for more confusion. Again, I was replying to your statement that I quoted, ie "On Steam, the game categories … are honestly chosen by players". I picked a low-interest game to make it clear that anyone can add any tag they like anytime.

I'm not going against your argument, I could care less about Epic's ratings or tags.



Oh I didn't realize Indies were doing cloud as well these days. My crack was assuming they saved locally

I can assure you I am not confused, but I see where the confusion is.

#1, Your 8.8 score is incorrect because you took all users instead of just PC users. This is important because there were optimization problems on PC.

#2, The real score is 8.2. I didn't explain how I got my number, and that's my fault, but I'm in bed with a laptop with a broken keyboard, so I'm not explaining now either, also partly because my method could be debated, and I'm not in the mood.

#3 Even had your 8.8 been right, I calculated the standard deviation between the two sets to be .02 and with further calculations determined this deviation to be statistically significant. But it wasn't even 8.8, it was 8.2, so the deviation is even greater. This implies there is something wrong with one of the sets of data, and since MetaCritic's data is right there to check, I'm going to guess it's Epic's obviously bogus data that is wrong. I further checked 3 more games and Epic's scores are complete BS. I would bet everything I have on it and not lose a second of sleep.

Having worked in the survey business, you could tell me what score you wanted Starfield to get, and I could write a survey that would generate responses very close to your number. Epic is gaming the system. They are liars.

#4 Your argument for the categories doesn't address my statement about Steam's categories being "honestly chosen" versus Epic's using them as marketing tools. I didn't say they were 100 percent accurate. I said they were "honestly chosen" by players.

Sure, you can find the rare game with a joke category, but everyone knows Dark Souls isn't "casual"..

Steam's categories are overall fairly accurate and helpful. I use them every day. Epic's are just marketing. See "Great Fun" and "Great for Beginners". They aren't honest. They are sales pitches from a company that just got fined a fortune for being shady and tricking children into making purchases.

#5 Whether you are a AAA developer or a solo dev, Steam's cloud saves are stored on Valve's servers at no extra cost to the developer. Some developers simply choose not to put in the work to use it.

 

[Brian Boru]

Your 8.8 score is incorrect

Well heck, you're right! Clearly, there's a first time for everything I'm not a fan of MetaCritic's messy site, that's not the first time it's caught me out—but at least I'm not alone. Do you know if the console scores are also wrong?

I prefer OpenCritic, which scores it 89 from 147 professional reviews—amazing they're all also so far off the mark.

Your argument

As stated:

I'm not going against your argument, I could care less

…

Steam's cloud saves are stored on Valve's servers at no extra cost to the developer

Oh, nice

 

[D10S]

#1, Your 8.8 score is incorrect because you took all users instead of just PC users. This is important because there were optimization problems on PC.

the rating for this game being affected by minor bugs is ridiculous. in fact, this game launched with a LOT fewer issues than other triple-A titles from recent history.
The game is terrifyingly terrific imo, the best storyline writing/character creation in a story-driven thriller I've seen in years. Problem is, people have become accustomed to repeatable mediocrity, as long as you can upgrade GUNS and GEAR and LEVEL UP all the time. I could play AW2 all day and night long, hours fly by.

 

[ZedClampet]

I prefer OpenCritic, which scores it 89 from 147 professional reviews—amazing they're all also so far off the mark.

I'm not sure what mark you are referring to. If you mean the user scores from metacritic, that's probably not unusual. Professional reviews and user reviews are often at odds. I'm sure that critic reviews of FC24 are nowhere near the Steam user review scores, even accounting for the fact they are on different scales. The only thing that bothers me is comparing Epic's supposed user scores versus user scores from elsewhere. Epic's user scores are impossibly rosy.

 

[ZedClampet]

Played some Lethal Company with my kids and my daughter's friend. That girl is hopeless. She dies every mission. As Guido said, her only purpose is to make us spend more money on supplies.

My job, as the safety valve, is easier than their jobs, so after about 9 deaths in a row, I asked her if she wanted to switch with me. Guido immediately called me over Steam and said, "Don't do that, please. She'll die anyway."

It didn't matter. She didn't want to switch. She enjoys being eaten by monsters every mission. But she's fun and enthusiasitic, so I enjoy playing with her. She just isn't any help.

Despite her lack of assistance, we are on a new record run for us.

 

[D10S]

I'm not sure what mark you are referring to. If you mean the user scores from metacritic, that's probably not unusual. Professional reviews and user reviews are often at odds. I'm sure that critic reviews of FC24 are nowhere near the Steam user review scores, even accounting for the fact they are on different scales. The only thing that bothers me is comparing Epic's supposed user scores versus user scores from elsewhere. Epic's user scores are impossibly rosy.

I'd give it 10/10 or 5/5, or max/whatever.

 

[ZedClampet]

I'd give it 10/10 or 5/5, or max/whatever.

I enjoyed the first one. I don't really know what you do in this game, though. I know you do a lot of investigating, which isn't really my thing.

 

[BeardyHat]

Well, I'm all done with Dwarf Fortress; that was quick.

I basically just don't have the mental bandwidth to sit here and read wiki's, watch tutorials, etc. I'm figuring the game out, but I think I get 90% of the enjoyment out of Rimworld (which I have 300-hours in) that I would out of DF and I A) Already know the game and B) Never had to spend dozens of hours researching the game before I can actually make any progress.

Ended-up refunding at 2.2-hours. Though, I was curious and decided to test the executable, which still works regardless. Does not really matter though, because I have zero desire to spend anymore time on it.

 

[D10S]

I enjoyed the first one. I don't really know what you do in this game, though. I know you do a lot of investigating, which isn't really my thing.

Yeah, a lot. you uncover the story one element every 15-30 minutes, depends how much walking around you like to do (I do a lot of it, listen to recordings a few times, then look at screenies I took ater I'm done playing). I personally love it, not because I prefer slow games, but because I love great storyline writing, dialogues, cutscenes and character creation. I hate when these days all games are "open world", meaning the story is just an afterthought created just so that a player has an excuse to visit all the locations they created. In AW2, it's so all intricate and well-written, and the pace is just right for the player to follow what's happening.
Out of respect for how good it is, I bought Alan Wake Remastered on Epic too, despite owning and having played the first one. I think I'll be playing it in between AW2 sessions to refresh my memory, I don't remember much from the first game.

 

[ZedClampet]

Yeah, a lot. you uncover the story one element every 15-30 minutes, depends how much walking around you like to do (I do a lot of it, listen to recordings a few times, then look at screenies I took ater I'm done playing). I personally love it, not because I prefer slow games, but because I love great storyline writing, dialogues, cutscenes and character creation. I hate when these days all games are "open world", meaning the story is just an afterthought created just so that a player has an excuse to visit all the locations they created. In AW2, it's so all intricate and well-written, and the pace is just right for the player to follow what's happening.
Out of respect for how good it is, I bought Alan Wake Remastered on Epic too, despite owning and having played the first one. I think I'll be playing it in between AW2 sessions to refresh my memory, I don't remember much from the first game.

Sounds good. Just not really my thing these days. Used to love games with great narratives, but lately the only games I really get into are sandbox games.

 

[D10S]

Sounds good. Just not really my thing these days. Used to love games with great narratives, but lately the only games I really get into are sandbox games.

Frankly, I've played thousands of hours of recent sandboxes, and I wish we could have linear, story/dialogue-driven games back.
I mean, the best sandbox I played in the last few years was AC Odyssey, but I think Black Flag is still a hundred times better, despite not being that open.
What I mean is that all this free roaming is mostly meaningless. The only proper sandbox is rdr2 imo.

 

[ZedClampet]

Frankly, I've played thousands of hours of recent sandboxes, and I wish we could have linear, story/dialogue-driven games back.

Haha, I'd completely quit gaming if I had to play those games. They bore me to tears. But I used to play them all the time. Have tons of them in my Steam library.

Bet you a dollar I put more time in sandboxes than you (I'm retired)

 

[ZedClampet]

Frankly, I've played thousands of hours of recent sandboxes, and I wish we could have linear, story/dialogue-driven games back.
I mean, the best sandbox I played in the last few years was AC Odyssey, but I think Black Flag is still a hundred times better, despite not being that open.
What I mean is that all this free roaming is mostly meaningless. The only proper sandbox is rdr2 imo.

Those are okay, and I've played them. They aren't the kind of sandboxes I like, though. I like more complex sandboxes with more to do and more freedom. The main one I'm playing right now is Medieval Dynasty. Satisfactory is one of my all-time favorites. I love it when there is essentially no story at all.

I put a few thousand hours into Warframe, which is similar to the types of sandboxes you are talking about. Basically, I don't care for AAA games, though. Probably haven't finished one in years, not like the games you are talking about. Strategy games are a different story. Love those. But they aren't sandbox.

 

[ZedClampet]

Those are okay, and I've played them. They aren't the kind of sandboxes I like, though. I like more complex sandboxes with more to do and more freedom. The main one I'm playing right now is Medieval Dynasty. Satisfactory is one of my all-time favorites. I love it when there is essentially no story at all.

I put a few thousand hours into Warframe, which is similar to the types of sandboxes you are talking about. Basically, I don't care for AAA games, though. Probably haven't finished one in years, not like the games you are talking about. Strategy games are a different story. Love those. But they aren't sandbox.

@D10S I take that last part back. I finished Remnant 2 this year. It's not a sandbox. It's a linear shooter. And I loved it. Too bad other devs have no imagination.

 

[D10S]

@D10S I take that last part back. I finished Remnant 2 this year. It's not a sandbox. It's a linear shooter. And I loved it. Too bad other devs have no imagination.

Got it on the wishlist too.

 

[ZedClampet]

The pigs in Ranch Simulator are just a mess to deal with. They are very profitable, but I came close to just pulling out my gun and killing them all. It was time to cull my first pig. I tried to lead it out of the pen, but it wouldn't go. But every other of the 20 plus pigs took off straight for the open gate. I closed the gate, but one pig was clipped through it and managed to get out. I roped it and tried to bring it back in, but it wouldn't come through the gates. Meantime, several other pigs ran for the exit. By the time all was said and done, I had 5 pigs on the outside. I just killed them all and filled my coolers with meat. Now I have to make sausage with all that meat. I will never open the pig gates again. The only reason I did it this time is because killing a pig scares the rest of them. But from now on I'll hop the fence with the stunner and kill them inside the enclosure.