January 2024 PCG Articles, Links and Discussions

[DXCHASE]

Diablo 4 season 3 will give everyone the only loot that matters: a little robot friend

Robots and trap-filled dungeons come to Sanctuary later this month.

www.pcgamer.com

Hurray! Kinda... So Diablos next season starts next tuesday. Details were revealed today with a dev stream coming this thursday.

We will be getting a pet (im assuming well be able to buy pets and skins for them for now on), new questline (these have been painfully short in the past), new dungeons called "vaults" new gear, items, emotes etc. along with the addition of a leaderboard for a gauntlet coming later in the season. This season will also add raytracing to the game and we will be getting an extra stash tab (@Colif )

Never get my hopes up for these seasons although they improve the game on every one imo but it drops on my long weekend so thats a plus.

 

[Colif]

One.. wow. Hold me back.
I want characters to have more space, not just the bank. That is the main problem I have.

 

[Colif]

3 have achieved the crash now.

 

[Zloth]

It's a conspiracy. Devs are trying to get us used to the idea that crashing is a GOOD thing!

 

[ZedClampet]

Palworld could be a delight if it wasn't so invested in being awful

Shockingly, animal cruelty doesn't make for a fulfilling experience.

www.pcgamer.com

Moderators wouldn't approve my comment on the main site, or they are just too busy, but in any case, I'll put it here:

This developer has a long history of vastly improving its games during early access. Craftopia was a thin shadow of what it is today when it first launched. They update at an insane pace, too. All in all, I'm really looking forward to this when it launches tomorrow.

Labor and animal jokes don't bother me. Craftopia is filled with them. It's a very Japanese sense of humor that may offend some people, but I'm good with it.

 

[ZedClampet]

Palworld could be a delight if it wasn't so invested in being awful

Shockingly, animal cruelty doesn't make for a fulfilling experience.

www.pcgamer.com

Moderators wouldn't approve my comment on the main site, or they are just too busy, but in any case, I'll put it here:

This developer has a long history of vastly improving its games during early access. Craftopia was a thin shadow of what it is today when it first launched. They update at an insane pace, too. All in all, I'm really looking forward to this when it launches tomorrow.

Labor and animal jokes don't bother me. Craftopia is filled with them. It's a very Japanese sense of humor that may offend some people, but I'm good with it.

Holy cow. The game just launched and has almost 400,000 concurrent players and Very Positive (88 percent) user reviews, which is especially good for an early access game. One review says, "What Pokeman should have been."

Congrats to some of my favorite devs. They've hit the big time.

Edit: Reviews are now 90 percent positive. Will be interesting to see if the number of concurrent users gets higher later today or if it stays around the same as the Asian players finish up and the Europeans and Americans take over.

 

[Colif]

It sold 1 million copies today.

I was coming to comment on that article. Its not real, its just graphics, stop getting upset about killing things in games. Especially since you write for a Games site... its not like its the first.

What Pokeman should have been."

Could you kill your own Pokemon?
I totally missed that game, I was the wrong generation. So all I know about it what I seen in speedruns.

 

[ZedClampet]

Could you kill your own Pokemon?
I totally missed that game, I was the wrong generation. So all I know about it what I seen in speedruns.

PCG has significantly overstated the fact that you can kill your animals. While that is a possibility, there's no real benefit to it. So far as I can tell, and I played it quite a bit yesterday, all you get for killing your animal is a small amount of resources, the ones that always drop when you kill that type of animal.

The labor stuff is greatly exaggerated, too. You provide all your animals with living space, food and recreation. They take breaks whenever they get tired, often going to the spa or having some food and a nap, and then they go back to work until their shift ends.

Both the labor and the pet killing are just non-issues in reality. The game makes some jokes about them. That's about it. Games like Conan Exiles, where you enslave people and they work around the clock, are significantly worse than this game if people want to find something to complain about.

 

[Colif]

Both the labor and the pet killing are just non-issues in reality. The game makes some jokes about them. That's about it. Games like Conan Exiles, where you enslave people and they work around the clock, are significantly worse than this game if people want to find something to complain about.

Why complain about an old game, especially one that very few people play... you don't get clicks... better to complain about something brand new right now. Non issues are NEWS

 

[Zloth]

Its not real, its just graphics, stop getting upset about killing things in games.

That's not a free out. Not in any form of entertainment. Remember this scene from Independence Day?

View: https://youtu.be/hUlIOw4-3RM?si=bXEAZxfILq5PJ1lO

The movie had to save that dog. HAD TO! Millions of people were dying in that scene but, if we had seen that one innocent dog get swept away by the firestorm, it would have tanked the whole movie.

We see it all the time in video games. Killing adults is fine - killing children is NOT fine.

"Gibs" are a nice border case. People would explode into chunky bits all the time back in the 90s but, as the graphics got good enough to make those chunks gross, they faded. They didn't fade away completely - plenty of shooters and "edgy" games get pretty gruesome, but plenty of others just have people fall over and stop moving, or pull some crazy ragdoll physics out.

 

[ZedClampet]

That's not a free out. Not in any form of entertainment. Remember this scene from Independence Day?

View: https://youtu.be/hUlIOw4-3RM?si=bXEAZxfILq5PJ1lO

The movie had to save that dog. HAD TO! Millions of people were dying in that scene but, if we had seen that one innocent dog get swept away by the firestorm, it would have tanked the whole movie.

We see it all the time in video games. Killing adults is fine - killing children is NOT fine.

"Gibs" are a nice border case. People would explode into chunky bits all the time back in the 90s but, as the graphics got good enough to make those chunks gross, they faded. They didn't fade away completely - plenty of shooters and "edgy" games get pretty gruesome, but plenty of others just have people fall over and stop moving, or pull some crazy ragdoll physics out.

One interesting aspect of this is that this game has a large comedic side to it, especially the labor practices. Comedy used to be immune from this sort of inane criticism. The most ridiculous part is that the game isn't actually cruel at all, just some of the jokes are. But, for instance, if you get the message that a pet is "slacking off", the only real thing you can do about it is to make them happier, like building the spa. What's more is that the animals are made to look like they absolutely love working. For instance, if you have an animal not doing anything, and they suddenly get a job to do, little excited emojis fly out of their heads, and they hop up and down for a couple of seconds before rushing off to do their work. And whenever you start to craft something, any pet not doing anything rushes over to help.

Speaking of your gruesome stuff, there was a sniper game that came out a few years ago that when you did headshots the game would go into slow motion and you would see identifiable pieces of skull, hair and brain exploding out. It reminded me of the Zapruder film watched in slow motion. It wasn't my type of game, anyway, but honestly I wouldn't have wanted to see that over and over again. The difference is that, while I didn't care for it, I don't have any problems with them doing it that way, and if I had a games journalism job I wouldn't post a long story decrying the fall of human morality.

 

[Brian Boru]

there was a sniper game that came out a few years ago that when you did headshots the game would go into slow motion and you would see identifiable pieces of skull, hair and brain exploding out. … I wouldn't have wanted to see that over and over again

That's probably Sniper Elite, which has made its name partly due to an evolving killcam since the first one ~20 years ago. You probably remember SE4, which had what you describe, and got very tiresome and immersion-breaking after a few repeats—not fun having 3 successive shots planned and you're suddenly punished for being too accurate!

Thankfully you could turn the stupid thing off tho and play it as a sniping game rather than a 'Mom, look at me' cinematic tricks set.

 

[Colif]

Comedy used to be immune from this sort of inane criticism.

Yes, in a more sane past when people could laugh at themselves and not take EVERYTHING seriously. So many classic comedies couldn't be made now... Blazing Saddles? Most of the Monty Python movies.

Now everything is serious... which sucks when you don't take anything serious. People get offended at everything. It is sad. I want to go back.

the things you can kill in games and not get complaints is pretty small now.

Why not put more reality in... did you know plants communicate and scream when in pain? Imagine living in a world you could hear that.

 

[Brian Boru]

People get offended at everything

It's a transition, later this century it won't matter if a million get upset with you cos there'll be a billion who are not upset. It will all be drowned out in its own bedlam, like the clouds skidding along being shouted at.

Or something like that—feel free to disagree if you don't like

 

[Pifanjr]

That's probably Sniper Elite, which has made its name partly due to an evolving killcam since the first one ~20 years ago. You probably remember SE4, which had what you describe, and got very tiresome and immersion-breaking after a few repeats—not fun having 3 successive shots planned and you're suddenly punished for being too accurate!

Thankfully you could turn the stupid thing off tho and play it as a sniping game rather than a 'Mom, look at me' cinematic tricks set.

I personally liked the kill cam. Flashy cinematic tricks have their moments too.

Yes, in a more sane past when people could laugh at themselves and not take EVERYTHING seriously. So many classic comedies couldn't be made now... Blazing Saddles? Most of the Monty Python movies.

Now everything is serious... which sucks when you don't take anything serious. People get offended at everything. It is sad. I want to go back.

the things you can kill in games and not get complaints is pretty small now.

Why not put more reality in... did you know plants communicate and scream when in pain? Imagine living in a world you could hear that.

I don't think people get more easily offended, it's just that the offended people are a lot louder now, because giving them a platform is an easy way to get clicks. Not to say that so called ragebait is exactly new either, but it seems to be more widely adopted as a tactic than before.

 

[ZedClampet]

That Pokémon with guns game, Palworld, just sold 4 million copies in 3 days and it isn't slowing down

Pikachu and a Glock both with the serial numbers filed off.

www.pcgamer.com

Just an update.

This thing is already the fifth most-played game in Steam's history by concurrent players just three days after launch⁠—3,000 more Palworlders at peak hours and it'll unseat Dota 2, while recent triple-A heavy hitters like Hogwarts Legacy or my beloved Baldur's Gate 3 and Elden Ring trail far behind.

What a lot of people are missing is that it is actually a very good game. User reviews are up to 93 percent positive and still rising. The world is massive and well-designed. There are over 100 "Pals". The crafting and building are very deep, as are the upgrades and RPG mechanics. This game could have easily been a full release, but the developer is determined to expand it even more.

 

[Colif]

What a lot of people are missing is that it is actually a very good game. User reviews are up to 93 percent positive and still rising. The world is massive and well-designed. There are over 100 "Pals". The crafting and building are very deep, as are the upgrades and RPG mechanics. This game could have easily been a full release, but the developer is determined to expand it even more.

The fact it got attacked pretty fast shows its a good game. No point attacking a game that is bad. No one will take any notice of your comments then. Its only the ones everyone is playing that are seen as bad.

Shame a lot of their audience doesn't take any notice of them anymore. PC Gamer magazine was one of the few magazines that reviewed games 20 years ago... now its so main stream everyone does it and people might be more inclined to watch videos of the games they are interested in than reading words. Generally find out more. Quicker.

 

[ZedClampet]

Generally find out more. Quicker.

For me written reviews are much faster. First of all, every Youtuber these days has about 20 seconds of intro music. By then I'm a third of the way down the page of the review. Then the Youtuber usually has a intro to the video ("You've heard the controversy!...blah blah blah"), and by then I'm halfway finished with reading the review. But more importantly for me, it's easier to skim the written review than it is to skim a video review. But there are definitely a good number of people who prefer video reviews.

*****

Speaking of people getting offended. As you say, no one will get offended at what I'm about to show you because no one is playing the game, so being offended won't bring them as much attention.

In Game Store Simulator, people with mental health problems will come to the store at some point during the day. They stand in front of the shelves, wave their arms around their heads and say, "I am crazy". This scares away your customers. The solution? Pull out your bat and beat them over the head hahahahahahahahaha

In the picture below, you can see the "crazy" customer and the symbol for the bat right behind her. Obviously, I don't find it funny to attack people with mental health issues with a bat, but what I find hilarious is that someone put that in a game, especially one that is otherwise completely normal.

By the way, my shelves were empty because it was day 2, and I could only afford so many games. This was right before closing.

 

[Brian Boru]

written reviews are much faster

If you're picking random sources for each, I agree. However, I know my subbed YTers, who are 95+% of what I watch—eg one guy I start his video and press the 'L' key 3 times to get me 30+ seconds in, at which time he's starting the useful info.

Some written reviews have a summary up top, which is often helpful in deciding to scan or leave. Some also have sub-headings in the article, which is great for getting the bits of interest and skipping the rest.

Have you tried the newish written summaries of videos produced by AI? I haven't, yet. Could be very helpful once the summaries become reliable.

 

[Pifanjr]

That Pokémon with guns game, Palworld, just sold 4 million copies in 3 days and it isn't slowing down

Pikachu and a Glock both with the serial numbers filed off.

www.pcgamer.com

Just an update.



What a lot of people are missing is that it is actually a very good game. User reviews are up to 93 percent positive and still rising. The world is massive and well-designed. There are over 100 "Pals". The crafting and building are very deep, as are the upgrades and RPG mechanics. This game could have easily been a full release, but the developer is determined to expand it even more.

I'm personally a bit skeptical about whether the game stays fun in the mid to late game. It wouldn't be the first game that becomes crazy popular for a week or two and then everyone drops it because they realise it isn't actually all that great once you're past the first few hours.

My wife doesn't care about such things though and has already decided to buy the game, so I suppose I'll get to see for myself.

 

[ZedClampet]

If you're picking random sources for each, I agree. However, I know my subbed YTers, who are 95+% of what I watch—eg one guy I start his video and press the 'L' key 3 times to get me 30+ seconds in, at which time he's starting the useful info.

Some written reviews have a summary up top, which is often helpful in deciding to scan or leave. Some also have sub-headings in the article, which is great for getting the bits of interest and skipping the rest.

Have you tried the newish written summaries of videos produced by AI? I haven't, yet. Could be very helpful once the summaries become reliable.

Blind skipping through videos aside, I can read a review faster than I can watch one. But the major difference is that when you move around in a video, you are "skipping", while when you move around in a written review, you are "skimming". Makes all the difference in the world.

But, first admitting that I don't really care at all about YouTube game reviews, I did attempt to run an experiment using AI. I asked Google Bard and CoPilot to give me summaries of Angry Joe's Angry review of BG3. Anyone offering AI summaries of reviews is probably using CoPilot's API.

Google Bard failed entirely. It gave me a summary that initially sounded right, but it soon became clear it was inaccurate to the point that I didn't even have to check the actual video.

CoPilot, on the other hand, gave what appeared to be an accurate summary, so far as I could tell. My plan had been to check it against the video, but the video was mostly unwatchable for me, gratuitously wasting my time. From what I did gather from skipping around the video, CoPilot gave an accurate (and vastly shorter) summary.

The next video that came up in my search was gameranx's review. That video was only 16 minutes, so I decided to try that one, but when I asked CoPilot for a summary, the summary was clearly wrong, so i didn't end up bothering to watch the video. CoPilot was clearly combining the early access review with the final review.

So, as you said, accuracy is going to be a problem here, and based on my understanding of generative AI, it may never be fixed. At the very least, it will be a long journey. AI in its current form will be given lots of new bells and whistles to make it more useful in helping you to create content for one thing or another, but as far as being an accurate source of information goes, I don't see that being fixed without a lot of human intervention. Maybe that's the plan. I don't know.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Written reviews are easier to navigate for almost everything to me. Videos are usually for entertainment first.

I dont really care about Palworld or the guys opinion, having little interest, having not played the game and only seen a little footage the games humour comes across as dumb satire. I read the article a couple times, and it seems to me he just didnt like the game very much, but theres a big 'anti woke' movement in vogue and anything presenting as that is attacked. They could have been more aware of that if they really wanted to avoid a backlash. I dont see how doing this purely for rage clicks would be beneficial in the long run. I think they just have some younger liberal leaning staff members and the culture of the site is reflecting that in some articles.

OTOH what the game does do is blatantly rip of the designs of actual Pokemon possibly using AI, itll be interesting to see what Nintendos lawyers think about that.

 

[ZedClampet]

Written reviews are easier to navigate for almost everything to me. Videos are usually for entertainment first.

I dont really care about Palworld or the guys opinion, having little interest, having not played the game and only seen a little footage the games humour comes across as dumb satire. I read the article a couple times, and it seems to me he just didnt like the game very much, but theres a big 'anti woke' movement in vogue and anything presenting as that is attacked. They could have been more aware of that if they really wanted to avoid a backlash. I dont see how doing this purely for rage clicks would be beneficial in the long run. I think they just have some younger liberal leaning staff members and the culture of the site is reflecting that in some articles.

OTOH what the game does do is blatantly rip of the designs of actual Pokemon possibly using AI, itll be interesting to see what Nintendos lawyers think about that.

The problem with your statements is that as I remember the article, he was pretty positive about the game itself, but didn't like the animal cruelty or labor stuff. In fact, the article's headline essentially says that was the case. Personally, I loathe the anti-woke crowd, but they do have some valid points if you can get past their toxic stupidity.

As for the game's humor being dumb satire, it really isn't if you actually play the game, but I can see how a summary of humor from the game might look that way.

As for it being a rip-off, I've read an article produced by actual lawyers, not click-bait artists, which explained quite well why Nintendo wouldn't stand much of a chance in court. It boiled down to three things: 1) Similar is not enough. If it were, the entire entertainment and games industries would be in serious trouble. 2) Nintendo essentially waved its opportunity to sue by allowing games like Temtem and other knock-offs to exist. Furthermore, pet collecting in some game genres has become standard. 3) The presence of guns in Palworld makes it a whole other thing and means it was meant for a different audience than Pokemon.

The accusations about generative AI are ignorant. Everyone needs to understand that this game went into production about 5 years ago. There is no AI TODAY that could create a 3D model of a Pokemon variant, much less was there one 5 years ago. If they used generative AI, all the AI did was spit out a picture which their artists then made models of and painted. Who cares? Personally, I think generative AI should be used by everyone. It's stupid not to. No great technological advance has ever been stopped because of the fear of lost jobs. Are people still writing out books using quills and ink jars? Are teams of workers still plowing fields with hand implements? AI is here and it's going to be used and artists are going to lose some jobs, and I don't care because that's the way it has always been and the way it will always be.

 

[Brian Boru]

when you move around in a video, you are "skipping", while when you move around in a written review, you are "skimming". Makes all the difference in the world.

Good point, that is a significant diff.

as far as being an accurate source of information goes, I don't see that being fixed without a lot of human intervention

Hmm, pity. Your results are disappointing, maybe in 30s

 

[ZedClampet]

Good point, that is a significant diff.



Hmm, pity. Your results are disappointing, maybe in 30s

It's not that it can't be done sooner. It's that accuracy, for whatever reason, was never the end goal. I'm not even sure if they care right now. They want overworked employees to use it to edit their documents or create layouts for reports or make pictures for their ads or web page, or even to write blog posts. Asking it for complex information is "just for fun" and not to be taken seriously.

On that sports forum I read, you wouldn't believe how many people say they type in their reports and ask the AI to reword them.