October 2023 PCG Article Links and Discussion

[Johnway]

i had hoped to play some of the steam demos curated but alas nothing really sparked any interest for me. The only game that raises eyebrows is robocop, but i have misgivings if its any good. Apparently its ok, but the problem for me is playing as robocop, would feel like playing as a tank and you have little choice but to take hits here and there. I doubt we'll expect him to crouch, vaulty over low walls etc. But i could be wrong. Will wait for reviews.

 

[ZedClampet]

After slaying 666 cows, Diablo 4 player makes major breakthrough in the hunt for the secret cow level

Players are scouring a secret cellar for the next step.

www.pcgamer.com

I love reading about these sorts of things. I really hope there is a secret cow level for these folks. For me, this mystery is better than the game itself. As the article notes, however, this may be an in-progress thing, and the level may not even be in the game yet (if it ever will be in the game).

 

[Brian Boru]

^ sounds like bull to me

There was a similar thing in [one of] the original Command and Conquer— 3-4 secret ant missions you accessed by clicking on ~4 bolts in some UI screen. That was my first Easter Egg if I recall correctly, and I was really chuffed about it

There were also extra hidden dinosaur missions in one of the games, probably a Red Alert. They're all included unhidden in the Remaster.

How do people find game secrets?

You know those Easter Egg articles/videos, eg: https://www.pcgamer.com/this-windows-10-easter-egg-managed-to-stay-hidden-for-nearly-37-years/ https://www.pcgamer.com/darktide-easter-eggs/ The first one is Windows 1.0, not Win 10! Throw in walkthrus too, just for fun. So… anyone know anyone who...

forums.pcgamer.com

 

[ZedClampet]

'Squadron 42 is now feature-complete and has entered its polish phase', says Chris Roberts

"When we have the locked release date, you will be the first to know".

www.pcgamer.com

It would seem that part one of the Squadron 42 trilogy is nearing completion. It doesn't look like my kind of game, but it does look good.

 

[Zloth]

'Squadron 42 is now feature-complete and has entered its polish phase', says Chris Roberts

"When we have the locked release date, you will be the first to know".

www.pcgamer.com

It would seem that part one of the Squadron 42 trilogy is nearing completion.

If "nearing" is a relative term, we've got a loooong wait. Though, if it comes out in the next year, at least there will be something sane to compare Starfield with.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Alan Wake 2's PC requirements may leave AMD RX 5000-series and Nvidia GTX 10-series users high and dry

A potential lack of mesh shader support may leave older generation cards out in the cold.

www.pcgamer.com

Guess I have an actual reason to upgrade this winter now. Damn.

 

[Brian Boru]

Oh no! Sth won't run on my 1060—the horror

 

[Colif]

Diablo 4 finally fixed its loot problem, but now it has an inventory problem

Have mercy for my poor inventory.

www.pcgamer.com

No, It should have fixed its Inventory problem long ago. Not now, we told them... they stupidly designed system so that everytime you look at a character, the game loads their entire inventory in. So adding 1 tab to everyone means more lag for everyone.

Reason I stopped playing is I have run out of space. If every character had the amount of space that most other ARPG now supply to you, it wouldn't have ever been a problem. But no, they added more items and nowhere to put anything.

Wow! (as in the exclamation, not the game), Season 2 starts soon. I forgot about that. Maybe once they fix inventory I will play again.

 

[JarlBSoD]

Diablo 4 finally fixed its loot problem, but now it has an inventory problem

Have mercy for my poor inventory.

www.pcgamer.com

No, It should have fixed its Inventory problem long ago. Not now, we told them... they stupidly designed system so that everytime you look at a character, the game loads their entire inventory in. So adding 1 tab to everyone means more lag for everyone.

Reason I stopped playing is I have run out of space. If every character had the amount of space that most other ARPG now supply to you, it wouldn't have ever been a problem. But no, they added more items and nowhere to put anything.

Wow! (as in the exclamation, not the game), Season 2 starts soon. I forgot about that. Maybe once they fix inventory I will play again.

And the still havn't fixed the major problem, that the entire item system is crap, they need a total overhaul of the entire itemisation so finding loot becomes fun again.

 

[Colif]

Torchlight 2 - Get a legendary and think can make an entire character just to use this.
Diablo 4 - Get a legendary and sell it unless you need the aspect. Leave it on ground as it will show up in stash anyway. More junk to sell. I thought uniques were going to be special, no... they just don't show up until you hit Tier 3 and they you get endless repeats. Nothing is special in that game...

(TBF that isn't a fair competition. People who made Torchlight 2 made Diablo 2, whereas the people who made Diablo 4, didn't. Diablo 3 & 4 made by people who adapt wow, they inherited it and DIablo from their betters. they don't make anything new anymore. They just copy. )

No, I don't know what you mean. They would need an entire new game to do that. Its all about collecting aspects and finding the perfect rare item to turn into a legendary. It took me two months or so to realise I don't need to collect everything... but if they going to make Aspects the most important thing, we still need space to put them.

I wouldn't mind one day being able to play more than one class. Its why inventory needs to be fixed. Every character should have space to store things they aren't carrying around... Not just a communal one.

 

[JarlBSoD]

They focused way to much on "customising" items. I don't even see why you need to customize them at all in an hack&slash game. Sure, runes and jewls etc in sockets is one thing. Having to reroll basic stats and afixes and on top of that finding an aspect you need is just... urgh. The loot system in Diablo 2 wasn't perfect but you could have 1 item drop that all classes could consider using without modifying it. Diablo 3 more or less did away with that but still had decent loot in RoS, atleast you felt you could find something cool from time to time, D3 had it's own issues though, like to much focus on class specific items and WAY to much focus on SET items. D4 is just... i'd rather play something else D4 has potential but they have to fix so many major issues that i doubht they can pull it off without making a total overhaul in the next expansion.

The combat system is actually kinda fun, I found Barbarian to be super boring but that is personal taste. But in general it isn't half bad. The storry is amasing etc etc but many core systems are meh

 

[Colif]

Only play through story once, then its optional for all other characters... I didn't find it that interesting really. Boss rush towards end, I did it in a group and got to last boss way faster than I thought we would.

they balanced my favourite build into nothingness. One day it might work, maybe season 3. If I bother playing it again.

 

[stormluisss]

The idea that video games are getting out-weirded by chess is something I find deeply disturbing.

Don’t be afraid, chess video games will soon be made and this will not stop us from discussing them here. (or maybe this already exists, I'm not sure)

 

[DXCHASE]

Skull Island: Rise of Kong review

It’s a gibbon that this is the least ape-pealing game of 2023.

www.pcgamer.com

I didnt think something would come out thats far worse than the LoTR Gollum but man, i just played a little bit of this for free and im amazed at what passes in 2023 as a game. Then you read about the timelines of these games and it should give you a clue just how bad it is in the gaming industry.

This coupled with the fact that the Game of The Year is a game that has 0 microtransactions and was made as a full game that worked rather great upon its release.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Oh no! Sth won't run on my 1060—the horror

Last time I got caught by something like this was when Bioshock needed Pixel Shader version 3.0, either it doesnt happen very often or I've been lucky up to now.

 

[ZedClampet]

If RDNA 5 can't turn things around I have a tough time believing AMD will stick around in PC graphics for much longer

Could AMD give up on discrete gaming GPUs and stick to consoles and APUs?

www.pcgamer.com

I don't have any real evidence with which to disagree with this, but seems like a 17.5 percent share of a large market would be sufficient to reason to stay in that market. The GPU market was $40 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow to $400 billion by 2032 (for a lot of things other than just gaming). Who would want out of that?

@Kaamos_Llama better upgrade to Nvidia just in case haha

 

[Brian Boru]

Last time I got caught by something like this

For me, that was probably Crysis in 2007. Not too long after that, I stopped buying new release games—around the time they stopped releasing demos.

Who would want out of that?

I think he's just talking about the top end of PC-only cards—but that's not clear to me. No reason AMD would drop mid-range since that should be nearly free money for them, given they'll have most of the tech from their console, APU and other markets.

Another factor is Intel's foray. I haven't seen if they're eventually aiming for the top end of the market, or will stay at the mid and low ends, which would really squeeze AMD a lot harder—they may not have the price advantage v Intel that they have v Nvidia.

Discrete graphics cards for PCs must be nearing the end anyway, apart from workstation-level parts. I'm guessing integrated graphics should be fine for gaming by next decade.

 

[ZedClampet]

For me, that was probably Crysis in 2007. Not too long after that, I stopped buying new release games—around the time they stopped releasing demos.



I think he's just talking about the top end of PC-only cards—but that's not clear to me. No reason AMD would drop mid-range since that should be nearly free money for them, given they'll have most of the tech from their console, APU and other markets.

Another factor is Intel's foray. I haven't seen if they're eventually aiming for the top end of the market, or will stay at the mid and low ends, which would really squeeze AMD a lot harder—they may not have the price advantage v Intel that they have v Nvidia.

Discrete graphics cards for PCs must be nearing the end anyway, apart from workstation-level parts. I'm guessing integrated graphics should be fine for gaming by next decade.

They've already apparently given up on the high end cards. I think he's talking about all discreet gpus. Not sure about integrated being okay for gaming by the next decade. I'm kind of expecting ARM to take over around the time of the next consoles, and I'm not sure how all of that is going to work.

 

[ZedClampet]

Oh, also, like it or not, things like ray tracing are here to stay, and I'm not sure integrated cards will be able to run that any time soon, and Nvidia keeps adding new tech every year that's going to make it hard for most people to switch to integrated.

 

[JarlBSoD]

Only play through story once, then its optional for all other characters... I didn't find it that interesting really. Boss rush towards end, I did it in a group and got to last boss way faster than I thought we would.

they balanced my favourite build into nothingness. One day it might work, maybe season 3. If I bother playing it again.

I found the storry being one of the games strong points. But i am not going to play S2, I will wait for a while longer, maybe even to the first expansion, if i ever play again.

 

[Colif]

Oh, also, like it or not, things like ray tracing are here to stay, and I'm not sure integrated cards will be able to run that any time soon, and Nvidia keeps adding new tech every year that's going to make it hard for most people to switch to integrated.

its unclear what support for RT the new AMD Strix Point APU will have but as they not making any 7500 XT models as the new APU will be equal in power to a 3080

AMD Ryzen 8000 "Strix Point" APU Leak Points to 16 RDNA 3.5 CUs

PerformanceDatabases has uncovered details relating to an alleged engineering sample of AMD's Ryzen 8000 "Strix Point" APU—likely insider sourced CPU-Z screengrabs from early last month revealed that the upcoming Zen 5-based laptop chip (in their words): "is built on a 4 nm Process and features...

www.techpowerup.com

I expect APU will get RT capabilities so Nvidia will keep having to add features to make people even look at them.

 

[ZedClampet]

its unclear what support for RT the new AMD Strix Point APU will have but as they not making any 7500 XT models as the new APU will be equal in power to a 3080

AMD Ryzen 8000 "Strix Point" APU Leak Points to 16 RDNA 3.5 CUs

PerformanceDatabases has uncovered details relating to an alleged engineering sample of AMD's Ryzen 8000 "Strix Point" APU—likely insider sourced CPU-Z screengrabs from early last month revealed that the upcoming Zen 5-based laptop chip (in their words): "is built on a 4 nm Process and features...

www.techpowerup.com

I expect APU will get RT capabilities so Nvidia will keep having to add features to make people even look at them.

Nvidia is several techs beyond RT now. AMD is struggling to stay relevant, hence the article.

 

[Colif]

I don't see that happening (article)

If AMD stopped making GPU, good luck ever getting a cheap Nvidia card ever again. Intel aren't going to save you, they just as likely to charge stupid amounts too. Nvidia wouldn't need to try, do you want another 4060 card as that how you get one.

 

[JarlBSoD]

I don't see that happening (article)

If AMD stopped making GPU, good luck ever getting a cheap Nvidia card ever again. Intel aren't going to save you, they just as likely to charge stupid amounts too. Nvidia wouldn't need to try, do you want another 4060 card as that how you get one.

Not like you can get cheap Nvidia cards now anyway (new ones) But AMD needs to step up their game for all of our sakes.

 

[Colif]

RDNA 4 may not shake the tree very hard but RDNA 5 could be more competitive than they have been... but we won't know for a few years. Probably due out in 2026.

rumour is the top end RDNA 4 GPU were canned and they only doing low end next gen so that they can concentrate efforts in making RDNA5 killer.

Not like you can get cheap Nvidia cards now anyway (new ones)

without some competition it would get worse. Some people would love it if AMD just went away as then they wouldn't have to think about who to recommend. These people are short sighted and don't see downsides to only having one choice.