June 2024 Game Discussion Thread

[ZedClampet]

My daughter is a meat shield

She and two friends are playing Rust with Guido. She said their strategy is for she and her friends to make sure they are the targets of the enemy while Guido kills them. Said the strategy is working great. Everyone dies but Guido. I guess that qualifies as a successful strategy

 

[Brian Boru]

updated Steam reviews don't get bumped to the front

Yeah, that's a waste of what are likely to be the most useful reviews.

Mind you, it doesn't happen here either—don't think I've ever seen it happen on a forum. Would make catching sneaky spammers easier, as well as the obvious 'normal' benefit. But of course, even a temp reordering of posts in a thread would cause confusion…

I wonder are Steam reviews organized as threads? Each one has to be linked to something to make it appear in the right place. But as they're not forum-like sequential conversations, reordering by last-edited date shouldn't matter 🤷‍♂️

 

[ZedClampet]

I wonder are Steam reviews organized as threads?

No clue, but it seems like the last edited date should be usable somehow.

 

[ZedClampet]

Yeah, that's a waste of what are likely to be the most useful reviews.

Mind you, it doesn't happen here either—don't think I've ever seen it happen on a forum. Would make catching sneaky spammers easier, as well as the obvious 'normal' benefit. But of course, even a temp reordering of posts in a thread would cause confusion…

I wonder are Steam reviews organized as threads? Each one has to be linked to something to make it appear in the right place. But as they're not forum-like sequential conversations, reordering by last-edited date shouldn't matter 🤷‍♂️

It's a weird system whatever it is. I've tried all I can think of to reset the written-on date, like changing the review from positive to negative, completely deleting the old review, etc. and nothing works. You are locked in to the date you originally reviewed the game no matter what you do. I guess this is to prevent losers who are farming awards and upvotes from changing something small in their review to go back to the top or deleting and rewriting the review exactly as it was before. There are people who will do anything for any amount of recognition they can get. The top reviewers would be nothing but attention starved clowns, upvoted by the large group of people who think a picture of a cat made out of letters is art's highest form.

Welp, I guess I've accidentally explained why it is the way it is.

 

[Colif]

Mind you, it doesn't happen here either—don't think I've ever seen it happen on a forum. Would make catching sneaky spammers easier, as well as the obvious 'normal' benefit. But of course, even a temp reordering of posts in a thread would cause confusion…

It could be seen as bumping. If edits made the posts number one, whats to stop people editing posts everyday to stay on top.

Its a behaviour frowned on by forums everywhere so I guess Steam just went with flow.

Its probably against the rules here... looks

Non-productive posts will be removed. This includes posts that don’t add anything to the ongoing discussions, such as posts that exist to keep a thread at the top of results, individual threads to say “hello,” (feel free to introduce yourself in this thread instead), or that generically ask people to post secrets about a game.*

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sort of. The unproductive posts rule removes most attempts at bumping
the anti bumping guidance in the forum tips post linked to the above rules

Don't bump posts, claim "First!" or give single-word replies. Clear and correct answers will encourage more people to stop by and engage with our community.

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there are ways to show edits to mods to approve them but it can slow down forum response time if a post needs to be approved by a mod when one isn't online. Also depends how many posts/edits you get per day.

 

[Colif]

AI is just the new Metaverse... what I mean is, two years ago everyone wanted to make the metaverse that took off, and no one worked together enough to achieve anything... AI is the same, all these companies want to make the one that works, but if they worked together and not against each other, we might actually get somewhere...

Wonder what next Buzz word is, guess need to wait 2 years.

 

[BeardyHat]

AI is just the new Metaverse... what I mean is, two years ago everyone wanted to make the metaverse that took off, and no one worked together enough to achieve anything... AI is the same, all these companies want to make the one that works, but if they worked together and not against each other, we might actually get somewhere...

Wonder what next Buzz word is, guess need to wait 2 years.

Metaverse, Crypto, NFTs, AI.

It's all sold as breakthrough technology and no executive wants their company to be last on the bandwagon.

One thing that has been cool about AI is my buddy is using it to generate images, assist with puzzles and encounters here and there for our D&D campaign, so that's pretty neat. DMing takes so much time and energy, I haven't done it in years, but I wonder if it would be a lot quicker that way.

 

[ZedClampet]

AI is just the new Metaverse... what I mean is, two years ago everyone wanted to make the metaverse that took off, and no one worked together enough to achieve anything... AI is the same, all these companies want to make the one that works, but if they worked together and not against each other, we might actually get somewhere...

Wonder what next Buzz word is, guess need to wait 2 years.

AI is here forever. It's still the very early years, but it's improved dramatically in the last year. I use it every day, and my wife's company uses it extensively. On the other forum I use, one that has very few gamers and creatives, AI is considered one of the great achievements of human technology. There are a lot of small business owners there, and they love it. Even in gaming, a recent survey said over 70 percent of developers are using it for one purpose or another, and a game came out the other day, the hotel simulator thing, where every art asset was made by AI.

 

[Colif]

i just meant the terms.
We don't have real AI yet, we have LLM. It will be years before we get one that understands what its saying.

 

[ZedClampet]

Men, I know this is a new era, one that I'm too old for, but is it too much to ask that you stop buying all the women's clothing?

In clothing store simulator, any customer who comes into the store is equally likely to buy any product in the store. On the one hand, who cares if the male customers buy $300 of women's clothing? But the thing is, what is the point of trying to carry a proper selection of both men's and women's clothing if it actually doesn't matter at all? Does any particular product matter? No, you can sell anything, and this is particularly frustrating because you can design your own clothes. Why even bother?

 

[Colif]

TF2. 30k of the population are actual humans approx.
Steam online count is 75k
Difference is bots, some are farmers, some are traders. most just idle & Collect items that are given out... okay
So are the only people who buy items in game? I ask as if there are up to 2x more bots than players, eventually you would think the players would just stop.
Or can they sell items to game for cash?

From watching 2 videos a little longer I found the player base isn't where the profit is. Its selling items to traders. But those traders rely on people playing and in recent weeks the players have wanted Valve to fix it... so I guess valve gets a portion of the money from every trade? So why would they want to stop it if game is making money still and they don't have to do anything to get it.

The game is free, balancing act between keeping the players happy and not cutting into any profit you make from bot trades.... no wonder it hasn't changed.

I guess its like wow, you only know its dead when even the trader bots stop playing.

 

[Colif]

TIL Star Citizen has a DLC worth 48000USD

Legatus pack

The Legatus pack includes all ships either 'in concept' or released currently in Star Citizen, along with a large variety of extra items such as ship paints and...

starcitizen.tools

It does include all the ships... in a game that still hasn't been released... Earth 2 vibes hit me again.
Want to buy this fake island? Buy an NFT? Selling dreams again.

Must be nice to have 48k to spend on pixels. Sure, if this like other trading games, they could make it back... in time.

 

[Zloth]

My daughter is a meat shield

Oh!!! If it was just your daughter, I would say that she's tanking. If it's a bunch of them, though, we need a new term: "zerg tanking."

P.S. Yes, the recent PC Gamer blog podcast whachamacallit has put terminology to the forefront. The zerg rush is not dead, gorram it!

 

[ZedClampet]

i just meant the terms.
We don't have real AI yet, we have LLM. It will be years before we get one that understands what its saying.

We have AI, what you are talking about is AGI, but I don't think that will ever happen. Likely there will never be an AI that understands what it is saying. To make a machine aware is just science fiction. Wouldn't we have to understand that in humans first? And we are no closer to that understanding today than we were 2000 years ago. We know more about the brain, but nothing about "I think; therefore I am". It is still the plaything of philosophers, both religious and secular. Science can say almost nothing about it.

People think we can upload our brains to a computer and live on. All that accomplishes is making the computer dumber. You don't actually live on. Your awareness, whatever that is, dies with you. That's something that can't be created by algorithms.

I suspect that eventually we'll have to realize that we are more than our meat computers.

 

[BeardyHat]

TIL Star Citizen has a DLC worth 48000USD

Legatus pack

The Legatus pack includes all ships either 'in concept' or released currently in Star Citizen, along with a large variety of extra items such as ship paints and...

starcitizen.tools

It does include all the ships... in a game that still hasn't been released... Earth 2 vibes hit me again.
Want to buy this fake island? Buy an NFT? Selling dreams again.

Must be nice to have 48k to spend on pixels. Sure, if this like other trading games, they could make it back... in time.

Time to get in on the ground level, you can't afford not to buy in.

Conversely, $48000 is almost double what I paid for all 3 of my cars combined.

 

[Brian Boru]

double what I paid for all 3 of my cars combined

Shrewd investment, I've heard there's an imminent rise in the price of scrap.

 

[Colif]

AGI meant to happen in the next 20 years, but we currently don't have the computing power to do it... when I say that, I mean worldwide. We need to progress more to be able to just run the program.

that pack announced in 2018, turns out some whales have bought it multiple times already. If you already have a fleet, it is a quick way to make it bigger.

 

[Hveðrungr]

AGI meant to happen in the next 20 years

AGI is like fusion power: it's twenty years away, and it was also twenty years away twenty years ago, and it will still be twenty years away in twenty years' time.

 

[Colif]

So if AI = Baby steps, get back to me when baby is talking (aka AGI)

 

[BeardyHat]

Shrewd investment, I've heard there's an imminent rise in the price of scrap.

Hey, I resent that! Only one of them has been sitting the garage, immobile, for almost 5 years.

 

[neogunhero]

Fallen Aces: Early Access initial release review/thoughts

Bought and completed what’s initially offered in Fallen Aces’ early access release. There is one full Act, with 5 chapters/levels in it. Took me 4.5hours to complete but I didn’t 100% all secrets and what not.

My initial thoughts while playing this game is that it is a true to form immersive sim. The levels are large, intricate, full of secret pathways and climbing obstacles to get into hidden areas or to bypass sections of the map. The game gives you the tools to approach however you want. You could go for a no detection stealth run, no kill pacify run, or kill everyone and go guns blazing. I choose to play what came naturally to me, so of course that involved a lot of bloodshed.

This game is my JAM. I love any game that lets me stack barrels on top of each other to get to the roof of a massive apartment building just to find hidden secrets in an area most people wouldn’t think to go. In true Deus Ex fashion, this game had me scrubbing every corner of the game looking secrets and hidden paths. I found a lot of them but didn’t 100% the game.

The combat is fantastic. Melee combat is simple but difficult to master. Firearms have very limited ammo and is usually really scarce to find around the levels so you can’t rely on them all the time. You can pick up almost any object and throw it, with larger objects doing more damage. AI didn’t ever feel unfair on Normal difficulty, but challenging at times, especially when you have a group of melee goons and one in the back with a gun all coming at you at once.

The story is really good too! This is the most voice acting in a New Blood game I’ve ever heard and so far the voices are great. I really like the cutscenes in a pulp comic style, I just think they could use a bit more refinement for full release whenever that is. Without giving away any spoilers, the games story took an unexpected turn that was really interesting. It makes me really excited to see where the game heads in terms of story and how that influences gameplay in later Acts.

So far what we know is coming in the future is a level editor and Workshop support. That will be such an awesome addition to this game, because the combat is too damn good for it not to have some custom fighting levels, maybe even an Endless mode.

Right now there isn’t a whole lot on offer, but for $10, the level of quality shown here already makes it well worth it for any FPS immersive sim fan who doesn’t mind waiting a while to get more content. ~5 hours to beat the story at a moderately slow pace, still with lots of secrets to discover, I think it’s worth it to get in early before the price raises.

 

[BeardyHat]

Fallen Aces: Early Access initial release review/thoughts

Bought and completed what’s initially offered in Fallen Aces’ early access release. There is one full Act, with 5 chapters/levels in it. Took me 4.5hours to complete but I didn’t 100% all secrets and what not.

My initial thoughts while playing this game is that it is a true to form immersive sim. The levels are large, intricate, full of secret pathways and climbing obstacles to get into hidden areas or to bypass sections of the map. The game gives you the tools to approach however you want. You could go for a no detection stealth run, no kill pacify run, or kill everyone and go guns blazing. I choose to play what came naturally to me, so of course that involved a lot of bloodshed.

This game is my JAM. I love any game that lets me stack barrels on top of each other to get to the roof of a massive apartment building just to find hidden secrets in an area most people wouldn’t think to go. In true Deus Ex fashion, this game had me scrubbing every corner of the game looking secrets and hidden paths. I found a lot of them but didn’t 100% the game.

The combat is fantastic. Melee combat is simple but difficult to master. Firearms have very limited ammo and is usually really scarce to find around the levels so you can’t rely on them all the time. You can pick up almost any object and throw it, with larger objects doing more damage. AI didn’t ever feel unfair on Normal difficulty, but challenging at times, especially when you have a group of melee goons and one in the back with a gun all coming at you at once.

The story is really good too! This is the most voice acting in a New Blood game I’ve ever heard and so far the voices are great. I really like the cutscenes in a pulp comic style, I just think they could use a bit more refinement for full release whenever that is. Without giving away any spoilers, the games story took an unexpected turn that was really interesting. It makes me really excited to see where the game heads in terms of story and how that influences gameplay in later Acts.

So far what we know is coming in the future is a level editor and Workshop support. That will be such an awesome addition to this game, because the combat is too damn good for it not to have some custom fighting levels, maybe even an Endless mode.

Right now there isn’t a whole lot on offer, but for $10, the level of quality shown here already makes it well worth it for any FPS immersive sim fan who doesn’t mind waiting a while to get more content. ~5 hours to beat the story at a moderately slow pace, still with lots of secrets to discover, I think it’s worth it to get in early before the price raises.

This is on my to buy list. Had it on my wish list for ages now and was eagerly anticipating release and I do have to say, I'm a little disappointed it's not a full release yet, but I'll probably still pick it up.

 

[neogunhero]

This is on my to buy list. Had it on my wish list for ages now and was eagerly anticipating release and I do have to say, I'm a little disappointed it's not a full release yet, but I'll probably still pick it up.

I’m hoping with the great foundation the exists already, content shouldn’t take too long to come by. However on the Early Access info section on their Steam page, it does say they expect to be in EA for 1 or 2 years.

When I finished the last chapter, on the “thanks for playing” end screen, they did mention to have Workshop and level editor support out later this year, and that will definitely increase replayability of the game while we wait for full release.

 

[ZedClampet]

Of the four games I highlighted as releasing today, 3 of the 4 have 100 percent positive reviews.

Horror Tales, El Dorado, and Clothing Store are the 100s

Avatar is at 71 percent positive

They don't have a lot of reviews yet, of course, but Clothing Store and Horror Tales both have more reviews than Avatar

 

[Zloth]

I've been playing Expeditions: Rome and having a lot of fun with it. Mostly. There's some dumb stuff: the legion battles don't seem fun at all so far and, when you finish a battle, you have to wander all over the map to pick up the loot that drops, which is just straight-up tedium. The classes are interesting, and the battles have been very fun, though, and that's where it looks like I'll be spending the most time once the tutorial stuff finishes.

It's weird to hear names pronounced in (possibly) old Latin. Centurian -> Kantaurian, Asia Minor -> Aseeah Meenor. Also, I've got three people in my party of six named Marcus.

P.S. Way better than Expeditions: Vikings.