May 2024 General Game Discussions

[Johnway]

Weekend coming up and i was at a bit of a loss what to play next. i still have a massive backlog of unplayed games, but at the same time i don't have any feelings as to which one to play. In the end i settled on Cluster truck Although there are 90 levels (broken down into 10 worlds), i've done over half of them.

Did play some POE thinking perhaps i would get back into it, but tbh the love isn't there this time. I might call it quits and move on. Sod the cosmetic rewards. I'm not in love with it.

 

[neogunhero]

Am i the only one that doesnt get an itch to go back to a game ive beaten and played a lot because its suddenly popular again?

I usually don’t but I did catch the Fallout bug again with the show. To be fair I have almost 300 hours on FO4 and around 150 in FO76 prior to the shows release, so I’ve always been a big fan of the franchise. The Witcher and TLOU, nah, I played and beat those already, not a whole lot of replayability in those games for me.

 

[Brian Boru]

How the computer games industry is embracing AI

How the computer games industry is embracing AI

Developing computer games can be wildly expensive so some hope that AI can cut the cost.

www.bbc.com

"we were trying to build a police station and we asked the AI to populate it, and it came back with a doughnut on every desk"

"we were building an apartment and it kept consistently putting a sock under the coffee table. We wondered if it was a bug but it turned out we had labelled it a bachelor apartment"

 

[Zloth]

City of Heroes is celebrating 20 years. I'm a little dubious that all 20 years had a CoH available to everyone to play, but it's way easier to measure the time since opening day. There's a badge to earn and they dropped little glowing do-dads around town that, when clicked, will give you a fun little reward. And summon some classic enemies to ambush you.

 

[Brian Boru]

🌠 May the 4th be with you 🌠

 

[Brian Boru]

Are Early Access Games Worth It?

Are Early Access Games Worth It? The Pros and Cons Explained

Are Early Access games worth the money? Here's a look at their benefits and drawbacks.

www.makeuseof.com

I'll dip into a free demo for 30-60 minutes, to see if it's a game worth following for possible future interest some years later when it's complete, finished and modded. Other than that, no interest.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Are Early Access Games Worth It?

Are Early Access Games Worth It? The Pros and Cons Explained

Are Early Access games worth the money? Here's a look at their benefits and drawbacks.

www.makeuseof.com

I'll dip into a free demo for 30-60 minutes, to see if it's a game worth following for possible future interest some years later when it's complete, finished and modded. Other than that, no interest.

I dont buy EA games because I always want to play the final version so the cons there dont apply to me. I just wont buy something that gets stuck in limbo and it wont become unrecognizable if Ive never seen it before. If 1.0 is still buggy then that info is out there as well.

With games Ive played that actually made it out its been a huge benefit. Im glad there are people who enjoy watching games evolve and being involved in the dev process and conversation to make the final versions as good as they can be.

 

[Johnway]

Are Early Access Games Worth It?

Are Early Access Games Worth It? The Pros and Cons Explained

Are Early Access games worth the money? Here's a look at their benefits and drawbacks.

www.makeuseof.com

I'll dip into a free demo for 30-60 minutes, to see if it's a game worth following for possible future interest some years later when it's complete, finished and modded. Other than that, no interest.

generally speaking, i don't buy EA namely the rough nature and the mine field of delivery of the game. i generally wait for the game to be released, after a couple of reviews and sales before i sink money in. That said, i have gotten my hands on some EA games but namely keys from humble bundle etc.

 

[Johnway]

Looking at the hellivers 2 situation... damn. The bigger problem isn't people being lazy not wanting to sign into an account (although there are other reasons), the biggest one uses who bought Helldivers 2 and can't get a PSN account, so effectively, their version of helldivers 2 is unplayable.

Damn it. HD2 was popular, everyone was having fun and it looked like one of the few live service games that was actually working. They didn't need to do anything different and they would have ride into the sunset and go down in history as winners. But no, someone decided to push their luck and hurt sales and the good will garnered. yes, it was mentioned before the sale, but damn it, you shouldn't have sold it to people in countries that PSN wasn't available. Hell, should have just dropped the PSN thing and moved on. I see no other way to regain trust without doing that with perhaps a massive apology and a drop in price or something.

 

[Zloth]

Are Early Access Games Worth It?

Are Early Access Games Worth It? The Pros and Cons Explained

Are Early Access games worth the money? Here's a look at their benefits and drawbacks.

www.makeuseof.com

Missing con: you may get tired of the game before it's even done yet. What the developers put in after you play in early access will (presumably) be significant - but significant enough to start all over again?

Hypothetical con: the requirements for the game may drift beyond what your PC can handle. I've never heard of this happening, but I don't see any reason why it couldn't happen. Or maybe there's some Steam limitation that locks down system requirements once the public starts paying that I don't know about. <shrug>

Edit: Is this supposed to be in the Articles thread or General?

 

[Brian Boru]

Is this supposed to be in the Articles thread or General?

It doesn't matter which really, I put it here as other is for PCG articles.

 

[Brian Boru]

Falcon has a good 18m video on Gameranx today:

GREEDY Video Game Moves That SHOCKED US

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPUwaEAKUBE

 

[Pifanjr]

Missing con: you may get tired of the game before it's even done yet. What the developers put in after you play in early access will (presumably) be significant - but significant enough to start all over again?

I've played several Early Access games that were great well before the official release, like Minecraft and Don't Starve for example. Both games have added a ton of content since then, but I never really got back into them as much as when I first got them. I don't consider that a downside though, I enjoyed the games as they were when I played them, which is all that really matters to me.

Hypothetical con: the requirements for the game may drift beyond what your PC can handle. I've never heard of this happening, but I don't see any reason why it couldn't happen. Or maybe there's some Steam limitation that locks down system requirements once the public starts paying that I don't know about. <shrug>

I've had that happen with Space Engineers. My PC at the time couldn't handle playing on planets when they added those.

 

[Johnway]

So after 3 days the HD2 community have successfully made sony back down. But at what cost?i suspect that the damage has been done HD2 won't be the same with a large chunk of players not returning.

its going to take a while for it to return. Arrowhead and Sony will need to be very careful what they do next less they kill their darlings once more.


more personal news, currently i'm playing through Faith the indie horror game. nearly finished it. Will provide my comments soon. But safe to say, the audio of this game makes my ears hurt.

 

[neogunhero]

Played some more Fallout 4 over the weekend. As much as I love the game, I’m starting to get a bit bored after only 10 hours into the save. I just don’t have the determination in me to build up a settlement the way I would like to again. Maybe I’ve just played the game so much that I’m burnt out on it.

I’m in a slump again. So many games to choose from but nothing to play. I played a few rounds of Vampire Survivors but that’s never been a game I can play for long periods at once. I can do maybe an hour at the most before my eyes start to melt. Played some Insurgency Sandstorm for an hour, trying to get into Postal 4 but it’s just not like 2, a little bit of DUSK endless mode, that’s about it.

The only thing I’m playing “actively” is still Sea of Thieves. We started the third and final Tale in the Monkey Island quest line and we finally made it to THE Monkey Island(TM). For anyone who has ever been a fan of the Monkey Island games and likes SoT, this is a must play absolutely. They did it so perfectly, so faithful to the original games. I’m going to be sad once we finish it all. We may do the Pirates of the Caribbean Tall Tale after but I’m not nearly as interested in that as I am MI.

 

[Zloth]

GREEDY Video Game Moves That SHOCKED US

Now how about the greedy players' version? Many people are greedy, so you'll see it just about anywhere you care to look.

 

[Rolfil]

I've been playing Path of Exile, The Planet Crafter and Helldivers 2.

I've not played PoE in over a year and there's been a few nice changes including the ability to have multiple Atlas Passive Trees that unlock as you complete more maps.

I really like Helldivers 2. The shooting is just excellent in the game. I'm level 21 now and have a reasonable wide choice of Strategems to use now. The laser dog is excellent when fighting bugs.

The only issue I have is when players kick you out of the game at the end of a mission. Just this morning some one killed me, picked up my loot then kicked me.

 

[ZedClampet]

So weird. I logged into Steam this morning and had a credit on my account. Went and checked my emails, and they refunded a game that I bought in February. I didn't request a refund. The game hasn't been pulled from the market or anything. Just seems totally random.

 

[neogunhero]

So weird. I logged into Steam this morning and had a credit on my account. Went and checked my emails, and they refunded a game that I bought in February. I didn't request a refund. The game hasn't been pulled from the market or anything. Just seems totally random.

Do you still have the game in your library or did they take it away? That’s so strange.

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Almost finished with the Monkey Island Tall Tale in SoT. There was one section that I found incredible, but it’s a bit of a spoiler if you’re interested in the story of these missions.

Spoiler: The Lair of LeChuck SoT Spoiler

When you finally find all the golden idols and unlock LeChuck’s secret lair underneath Monkey Island, you have to navigate a twisting maze of a cave. Once you emerge out the other side and see LeChuck’s ship taking off, The Black Pearl comes crashing in and you have to hop on. From there you have to take control of this massive ship and navigate through the lava rivers chasing down LeChuck and his crew. This part of the level was AWESOME! Steering the ship through flowing molten magma rivers in a creepy underground cave was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had in this game. You end up in this large open area and you have to fight LeChuck by shooting rootbeer canon balls at his ship which was equally thrilling and fun. This was the best moment of the entire Monkey Island Tall Tale.

We have one small section left which I’m guessing will take an hour or less to complete, it was getting late last night so we stopped at the very last checkpoint. I can’t wait to finish this but I’m not sure what we will do next afterwards. There are a couple Tall Tales we can do, or we might start exploring the open seas and not do another Tall Tale for a little while. They are fun but it’s the linear story side of the game, we haven’t done anything in the open world yet.

 

[Hveðrungr]

So weird. I logged into Steam this morning and had a credit on my account. Went and checked my emails, and they refunded a game that I bought in February. I didn't request a refund. The game hasn't been pulled from the market or anything. Just seems totally random.

What was the game?

 

[ZedClampet]

What was the game?

Do you still have the game in your library or did they take it away? That’s so strange.

---

---

Almost finished with the Monkey Island Tall Tale in SoT. There was one section that I found incredible, but it’s a bit of a spoiler if you’re interested in the story of these missions.

Spoiler: The Lair of LeChuck SoT Spoiler

When you finally find all the golden idols and unlock LeChuck’s secret lair underneath Monkey Island, you have to navigate a twisting maze of a cave. Once you emerge out the other side and see LeChuck’s ship taking off, The Black Pearl comes crashing in and you have to hop on. From there you have to take control of this massive ship and navigate through the lava rivers chasing down LeChuck and his crew. This part of the level was AWESOME! Steering the ship through flowing molten magma rivers in a creepy underground cave was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had in this game. You end up in this large open area and you have to fight LeChuck by shooting rootbeer canon balls at his ship which was equally thrilling and fun. This was the best moment of the entire Monkey Island Tall Tale.

We have one small section left which I’m guessing will take an hour or less to complete, it was getting late last night so we stopped at the very last checkpoint. I can’t wait to finish this but I’m not sure what we will do next afterwards. There are a couple Tall Tales we can do, or we might start exploring the open seas and not do another Tall Tale for a little while. They are fun but it’s the linear story side of the game, we haven’t done anything in the open world yet.

The game was Weedcraft. I'd only played it for half-an-hour, but was planning to play more at some point.

Whenever you request a refund, you get an email acknowledging that you've requested a refund. At first, I thought that due to some cognitive problems I have that I had requested a refund and didn't remember it, but there's no email stating that I ever requested a refund for it.

What I'm thinking is that the person who requested the refund must have been past the 2 week period, and so the refund went to a customer service employee who just clicked on the wrong account.

 

[Zloth]

So weird. I logged into Steam this morning and had a credit on my account. Went and checked my emails, and they refunded a game that I bought in February. I didn't request a refund. The game hasn't been pulled from the market or anything. Just seems totally random.

Somethin's happening here. What it is, ain't exactly clear.

Somebody on the X4 forums had the same thing happen with X4:Foundations and Weedcraft:

Game refunded automatically by Steam :: X4: Foundations General Discussions

So, I just got a message from Steam telling me that X4: Foundations and Weedcraft Inc were refunded from my account. However, I didn't ask for any refunds. Anyone else with that issue? ːlunar2019deadpanpigː

steamcommunity.com

 

[Brian Boru]

Somebody on the X4 forums

said "I even player both for more than two hours each", which means it's not to do with being under the refund threshold.

 

[neogunhero]

While waiting for the girlfriend to get ready to play more Sea of Thieves, I’ve picked up Counterstrike again as a short time killer. It’s kind of embarrassing having the 10 Year coin show up next to my name in the scoreboard when my KD is 2-8 lol. I seen a lot of other people with the same coin do just as poorly as I did, I guess we’re all oldheads and past our CS prime. It’s unrealistic to think your gaming skills will stay the same forever especially if you’re not playing the same game very often, but man I was sucking bad on casual servers last night. One guy blamed me for throwing the whole match, causing every single person in the server to leave lmao. I seriously just suck that bad man I’m sorry I just don’t have the lightning fast reflexes anymore, but it was still a fun time overall. I don’t plan on playing Competitive anymore, so I’m not worried about how poorly I do, it’s just fun and familiar to play.


One thing I really don’t like about CS2 is the total lack of custom made community maps. Well, you can still download custom maps on the Workshop but it’s not the same anymore. I miss the days of CS:S, playing on some really crappy made AWP and DM maps, or playing TTT on a Lego/Minecraft inspired map. It was all very crude and amateurish, but that was the entire appeal. Someone spent time creating this map, learning Valve’s god awful map editor, and now people are having a good time playing on this map.

This was still here in CSGO, but it started to fade away. Community servers were tucked deep into the menus, so most people didn’t even realize CSGO had custom maps besides surf and lobby maps. Then when Valve started to implement custom maps into the main game, the focus for map-makers shifted. Now, they want to create the best, most polished maps, hoping for the chance to be included into the main game. That is cool and all, I totally support that and the people making maps, but it’s just not the same as it used to be.

Now on CS2, there is a weird built in Steam server browser that I’ve never seen any other game use, and the only custom maps running on community servers is a trading lobby map. It’s sad to see and I’m nostalgic of the past, but I understand the decision to move away from those kinds of maps. Of course I can still play CS:S and those kinds of maps I’m talking about, but now its full of sweats that have been playing the game for over 15 years.

Anyways, that was my rant on wishing there was still an amateur map making community in CS2. Things have changed, CS is bigger than ever, so the requirement for more polished, professional maps is very high. CS:S was when the amateur custom maps shined.

 

[ZedClampet]

Apparently I'm on a weird lucky streak. Yesterday, Steam refunded an old game I'd barely played, and today I ordered groceries from Publix, and they sent me, in addition to what I actually ordered, 5 pounds of various deli meats and 2 pounds of deli cheese.

They won't take things back once they've delivered them, so now I have to figure out what to do with 7 pounds of meat and cheese. They aren't interesting meats and cheeses. Just various kinds of turkey and ham (one low sodium ham). I'm not even sure what the cheese is. One of them looks like Monterey Jack, but I didn't read the label.

I may divide it up in a cooler and meet Guido half-way and give them some. There's zero chance we're going to eat that much deli meat. We don't even have any bread in the house.

Somethin's happening here. What it is, ain't exactly clear.

The man over there with the gun told me to 'beware', but I'm just going to ignore him unless I get more information.