October 2023 PCG Article Links and Discussion

[Pifanjr]

Diablo 4's season 2 patch fixes almost every problem I've had with it since launch

There are so many changes, you could almost call it Diablo 4 2.0.

www.pcgamer.com

Has anyone here played Season 2? I don't remember anyone mentioning Diablo IV recently, either on here on from the people IRL I know who used to play it.

 

[ZedClampet]

I just rolled my eyes at that headline and didn't even bother to read it.


A sandbox simulation?? I don't think very many people want that. A proper sandbox game would be a game with NO quest scripting at all. It might have goals, but getting to those goals would be entirely on you: no scripted wizard to educate you on the magic system then getting killed so you can go on and be the hero, no scripted betrayal by a loved companion. The game might have wizards partial to training young hero types and it could have a loyalty and hidden motive systems for people that choose to follow you, but nothing pre-set. Kenshi would be an example of that.

They sound awesome and, if you like that kind of thing, they have insane replay potential. The stories aren't nearly as good as stories written by skilled writers, though. Also, a lot of people (most?) really don't want to mess with the whole "discovering what is fun for you" thing. They come with a lot of "discovering what is not fun for you" time, after all.

A game could always give sandbox'y side activities, I suppose. Breeding & racing chocobos in Final Fantasy 7, for instance, or playing the game for extra long so you can fight optional bosses. I don't remember anything like that in any Bethesda game, though.

They may not actually want it, but they certainly talk like they do. In any event, there are different types of sandboxes. Bethesda's games have been called that for many years, though they differ significantly from pure sandboxes.

 

[ZedClampet]

Diablo 4's season 2 patch fixes almost every problem I've had with it since launch

There are so many changes, you could almost call it Diablo 4 2.0.

www.pcgamer.com

Has anyone here played Season 2? I don't remember anyone mentioning Diablo IV recently, either on here on from the people IRL I know who used to play it.

There was an article on PCG about the game not doing well long-term. I didn't read it, so I'm not sure what they meant, but I assume player counts plummeted, although it wouldn't surprise me if they meant Twitch views.

 

[ZedClampet]

Unity CEO Riccitiello steps down, effective immediately

Now ex-CEO John Riccitiello has been the face of several business decisions unpopular with both developers and gamers.

www.pcgamer.com

I don't even want to know what the severance package is. The price change fiasco was devastating and will be felt for years with so many developers saying they were going to switch engines. But that's a big job, switching engines, and maybe chucking the CEO will be decent damage control.

 

[Zloth]

I don't think you'll get a better "proper" sandbox experience than by playing an open-world table-top RPG with a decent game master(GM).

They've got scripts! They never stick to them, though.

They may not actually want it, but they certainly talk like they do. In any event, there are different types of sandboxes. Bethesda's games have been called that for many years, though they differ significantly from pure sandboxes.

Huh, I'm seeing some people calling them sandboxes, but I'm seeing others saying no. There aren't very many sandbox-style games, especially in the RPG genre, so the definition might be shifting to something that will be of more use. <shrug>

 

[Pifanjr]

They've got scripts! They never stick to them, though.

I've definitely ran games without any notes whatsoever, just letting the players come up with stuff they wanted to do and improvising what happens.

 

[Johnway]

Unity CEO Riccitiello steps down, effective immediately

Now ex-CEO John Riccitiello has been the face of several business decisions unpopular with both developers and gamers.

www.pcgamer.com

I don't even want to know what the severance package is. The price change fiasco was devastating and will be felt for years with so many developers saying they were going to switch engines. But that's a big job, switching engines, and maybe chucking the CEO will be decent damage control.

Good riddance to that jerk. When he helmed EA he made some absolutely toxic decisions that killed beloved developers and i believe he was at the helm when EA was voted the worst company of the year. Only last year called those who made (mobiles) games and didn't monetize the hell out of them as fools. The idea of gaming as artistry, for fun or passion are completely foreign to those that just after the money. They will milk the company dry with their avaricious desires; the player is just another cash cow to farm and put to slaughter.

The greasy scumbag and his kind in the AAA industry need to go. But there is no justice in this world and he will just be slotted into another CEO position to poison another industry/company.

 

[Brian Boru]

his kind in the AAA industry

So it's not clear John—do you like these guys, or not?

Personally, I think avarice gets a bad rap, so I'm founding the…
Avarice Support Society—Home Of Legal Extraction Schemes.

Currently working on logo and acronym…

 

[Pifanjr]

The top 100 PC games

Welcome to the 2024 edition of the PC Gamer Top 100—our annual list of the best PC games around.

www.pcgamer.com

I only checked #10-1, but it seems like I should really get around to playing Disco Elysium and XCOM 2 one of these days. I already own them but haven't gotten around to either of them.

 

[Brian Boru]

Re the Top 100:

The main test of a Top 100 game is, simply: "Do we think it's good?"

The categories​

• Quality: How good is it? A purely personal rating of its calibre as a game (60% of the Top 100 Score)
• Importance: How noteworthy is it? Its influence both within games and without. (15% of the Top 100 Score)
• Hotness: How exciting is it? The community's excitement for new updates and news, or the buzz it creates in online discussion. (15% of the Top 100 Score)
• Playability: How playable is it? How well its UI and systems hold up today, and how easy it is to get running on modern systems. (10% of the Top 100 Score)

"We'd love to hear what you think of this approach. We think it's fun to dissect and compare games in this way, and as we think about applying this approach to other kinds of coverage it helps us to know what you think of it.
Email editors@pcgamer.com."

Baldur's Gate 3

"The Top 100 is voted on in July, in part because it also runs in PC Gamer magazine. This is how we've always done it, and it's never previously been a problem. But this year, one of the best RPGs of recent times was released… in August. Baldur's Gate 3 received the highest review score we've awarded in over a decade. It's unquestionably a Top 100 worthy game. But, because of the cut-off date, it isn't in this year's list."

 

[Brian Boru]

Top 100

Flicking thru the list, some I noticed:

More than 15 years old

88. Fallout 2 1998
86. Alpha Centauri 1999
63. Deus Ex 2000
62. The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind 2002
56. Thief: The Dark Project 1998
42. Doom 1993
29. Planescape: Torment 1999
13. Baldur's Gate 2 2000
5. Half-Life 2 2004
4. Dwarf Fortress 2006

Thought they'd be higher

75. Grand Theft Auto 5 2015
64. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020
54. The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim 2011
23. Elden Ring 2022

Not a definitive list

The methodology involved—see my previous post above—had me expecting probably too much. Nice approach, sadly not matched by the result. Off the top of my head, here are a dozen games/series which would likely get a lot of support—NB not a 'games I like' list, I like half of them:

Age of Empires
Batman
Bioshock
C&C Generals ZH
Civ 4
Crysis
Dark Souls
Factorio
Far Cry
Metro
Quake
Red Alert 2
Subnautica

So is it worth the considerable effort to produce a list which is limited by the personal playing experiences of the participants?

 

[Zloth]

So is it worth the considerable effort to produce a list which is limited by the personal playing experiences of the participants?

Yep. Because it's really interesting. Not just today, either - they keep a link to that list at the top of the page for several months. (Maybe year round?)

No Civilization on the list was a big surprise to me. Alpha Centauri is kinda-Civilization, but it doesn't play like the rest with its ability to customize units and the story that plays out over the course of the game. 4X did pretty poor in last year's list, too, if I remember right.

OH! The reactions are different on the web page versions! For Metal Gear Solid 5 (#33), there's no mention of it being a "sandbox" game in the magazine.

OH Again! It's all one page, making searching really easy!

It's tempting to get a little meta on this. Give each game points according to the reverse order (so #1 gets 100 points, #100 gets 1 point), then total up the scores over the past 10 years. Throw out all the games that came out after mid-June 2013, and you've got a list of Good Old Games. The data entry portion, though.... eww.

 

[Pifanjr]

More than 15 years old

4. Dwarf Fortress 2006

I think for Dwarf Fortress everything before the Steam release is considered an alpha or beta version, so the "real" release year is 2022.

So is it worth the considerable effort to produce a list which is limited by the personal playing experiences of the participants?

Just as much as it is to release reviews that are limited by the personal experiences of the reviewer.

 

[Brian Boru]

Yep. Because it's really interesting

As a historical curiosity? Or some other reason?

Just as much as it is to release reviews that are limited by the personal experiences of the reviewer

Oh sure, but I'm questioning the effort to collect this list, which is a lot more than straight reviewing work. There's a major effort went into this, and my management antenna is beeping madly at the lack of RoI—unless there's a R I'm missing.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I like reading the top 100 lists, of course they miss games that I would have put on there but they always will. Sometimes it reminds of games I forgot about that I'd like to try, and its fun to read about games you enjoyed as well.

The comments are always the same, I bet it gets a fair amount of traffic just from the 'but what about ma X game' crowd.

 

[ZedClampet]

I would say the list is complete nonsense, but I can't be bothered to go through it.

I will say, however, that their eternal adoration of Disco Elysium baffles me, but, then again, they loved Dear Esther, which could objectively be deemed the worst written game of all time.

********

Sorry, but the 8-hour demo of co-op survival RPG Enshrouded isn't long enough for me

Base-building, traversal with grapplers and wingsuits, and a big, mysterious open world has me wanting more. Now.

www.pcgamer.com

 

[Johnway]

So it's not clear John—do you like these guys, or not?

By kind, i mean his type. As in my kind of people or i like all kinds of things.

Didn't look too deep into the PCG top 100 apart from the top 10 and honestly i don't have much to say bout it. I mean disco elysium being no1 sound ok ( i've not played) and there wasn't any crazy decisions. Usually at this point we would see a readers top 100 and that's when things get interesting.

naturally nearly to the end of the year i will probably give my GOTY or the ones i liked the most that i played through 2023. i might also do one for doom wads. but the fact that every wad i play is from the cacoawards anyway they're all winners. Although myhouse is a definite shoe in for a cacoaward without a doubt.

 

[DXCHASE]

Diablo 4's season 2 patch fixes almost every problem I've had with it since launch

There are so many changes, you could almost call it Diablo 4 2.0.

www.pcgamer.com

Has anyone here played Season 2? I don't remember anyone mentioning Diablo IV recently, either on here on from the people IRL I know who used to play it.

Season 2 starts next tuesday. They had a campfire chat last week and one yesterday marking all the new changes. I dont have high hopes for it tbh. I can barely get to a 100 because of pure boredom with doing 1 or 2 activites over and over again. This new season is adding an event but we'll see how far the content goes once its released because i have NO DOUBT that people are going to be full of complaints for this season

 

[Pifanjr]

Season 2 starts next tuesday. They had a campfire chat last week and one yesterday marking all the new changes. I dont have high hopes for it tbh. I can barely get to a 100 because of pure boredom with doing 1 or 2 activites over and over again. This new season is adding an event but we'll see how far the content goes once its released because i have NO DOUBT that people are going to be full of complaints for this season

That explains why I hadn't seen anything about it yet.

 

[Zloth]

The comments are always the same, I bet it gets a fair amount of traffic just from the 'but what about ma X game' crowd.

Good to see somebody else that wants one of the X games on the list!

 

[ZedClampet]

Cities: Skylines 2 devs warn players of performance problems: 'we have not achieved the benchmark we targeted'

Ahead of the city builder's release on October 24, the devs want to "manage expectations on performance."

www.pcgamer.com

Very smart move. Don't surprise people with it on launch day.

Blizzard pulls Diablo Season 2 trailer that got almost everything wrong, its fumbled sums stunlocking this streamer with laughter

There's a lot to unpack here.

www.pcgamer.com

What you get when a member of your marketing team never imagined they'd have to remember any math at all.

 

[Zloth]

What you get when a member of your marketing team never imagined they'd have to remember any math at all.

Saw that post coming!

 

[ZedClampet]

After saying 'We've been spending way more money than we earn', Epic turns on the money hose to lure game devs into releasing their golden oldies on the Epic Games Store

Devs, Epic wants your good old games.

www.pcgamer.com

This and the other change they are implementing are going to be great news for Epic's bottom line. Instead of forking out big bucks to publishers, they are simply offering 100 percent of the profits for the first 6 months.

To be fair, that probably won't be a ton of money for the developers, but it's a good first step to fixing Epic's money problems.

As far as the old games goes, if Epic does this right, it could seriously impact GoG.

That was a joke. Epic won't do this right. There will be no DOS box for very old games, and you won't be able to find these games in its store, anyway.

 

[Zloth]

The "Now on Epic" program lets companies that haven't gone to Epic at all get 6 months of pure profit if they move at least 3 over. These are the kinds of things I like seeing from Epic! Now throw OUT the damned exclusive and I'll be happy to shop there.

 

[ZedClampet]

These were the 10 most-played demos on Steam this month

A survival RPG, indie Japanese racing game, and cozy MMO top the list.

www.pcgamer.com

Top 10 demos from the latest NEXT Fest. Probably most are still active, although I think the Enshrouded demo is being pulled on 10/22 for some reason.