Random Game Thoughts Thread - March 05 - March 11

[Frindis]

@Zimbaly I like that perspective. Easy to forget when you are used to eating more processed food and having supermarkets just a stone's toss away.

 

[DXCHASE]

The new expansion for Destiny 2 still calls and i have been playing it slow which most Destiny 2 players do not do. Its in part do to work and playing the campaign when we (family) can all get on and due to spending too-many-to-admit hours trying to kill the FIRST BOSS IN WO LONG:FALLEN DYNASTY lol. Seriously it makes me question games

 

[ZedClampet]

@Zimbaly I like that perspective. Easy to forget when you are used to eating more processed food and having supermarkets just a stone's toss away.

Where I live, if you kill a deer, either on purpose or by accident, the authorities have to take it for testing. Mostly they check it for radiation. If it's okay, they give it back to you.

 

[ZedClampet]

I played the RE4R demo, and when I was setting it up, I put everything on Ultra except for ray tracing, and the game informed me that I would need 13 GB of VRAM. Obviously, I didn't have that, but I played it with those settings anyway, and was getting over 100 FPS everywhere with no stuttering or anything. Not sure why they think I need that much VRAM.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

The new expansion for Destiny 2 still calls and i have been playing it slow which most Destiny 2 players do not do. Its in part do to work and playing the campaign when we (family) can all get on and due to spending too-many-to-admit hours trying to kill the FIRST BOSS IN WO LONG:FALLEN DYNASTY lol. Seriously it makes me question games

Did you ever play Sekiro? Wondering if those skills are transferable. I played 15 minuties of Wo Long just to try it out, performance was very weird for me. Was stuttering like hell even if it was displaying 70 FPS. Turning settings to performance got rid of the stutter, but I have plenty to get on with for now so I'm happy to wait for a patch so I can maybe play with some pretties on.

Where I live, if you kill a deer, either on purpose or by accident, the authorities have to take it for testing. Mostly they check it for radiation. If it's okay, they give it back to you.

In the UK you legally arent allowed to pick up roadkill if you're the one who hit it. To discourage people going GTA style hunting I guess. Here in Finland if you hit an Elk its 50/50 whether its you or the deer.

 

[ZedClampet]

Did you ever play Sekiro? Wondering if those skills are transferable. I played 15 minuties of Wo Long just to try it out, performance was very weird for me. Was stuttering like hell even if it was displaying 70 FPS. Turning settings to performance got rid of the stutter, but I have plenty to get on with for now so I'm happy to wait for a patch so I can maybe play with some pretties on.



In the UK you legally arent allowed to pick up roadkill if you're the one who hit it. To discourage people going GTA style hunting I guess. Here in Finland if you hit an Elk its 50/50 whether its you or the deer.

We have Elk, too, but I've never hit one. (Elk cam)

 

[Zimbaly]

@Zimbaly I like that perspective. Easy to forget when you are used to eating more processed food and having supermarkets just a stone's toss away.

I had some older cousins. They lived up in Sudbury and had a small basic cabin up north in this camp ground that was more like an area for hunters. It was in the middle of nowhere and there were no towns around cept hours away. I can see why they'd do that.

Also I know some areas are even more remote. I certainly would not turn down a fresh deer if I'm in the middle of nowhere.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

We have Elk, too, but I've never hit one. (Elk cam)

Its a pretty big danger here, lots of the motorways have long sections of elk fencing and underpasses.

OTI: Improvements in car safety behind sharp decline in deaths from elk, deer collisions

More than a dozen people were killed every year in Finland during the 1990s by accidents involving elk, but this figure has now dropped to between one and four per year.

yle.fi

There was a wolf on one of the islands to the east of here last year though, and theyre fairly common in the smaller cities. Partners Dad sent some wolf track pics the other day from his garden.

.... Oh yea game thoughts.

Little ones been sick for a couple days. Led me to try Untitled Goose Game, which has been pretty funny as a novelty for her. Made a change from Ni No Kuni which we are also slowly making our way through still, she loses patience with the battles, and I made a commitment early on to try and copy Mr Drippys hoarse Rhod Gilbert style welsh accent which I've been regretting, there's not as much voice acting in that game than there should be. Also played a bit of Super Luckys Tale because it was on Gamepass and looked cute, its a 3d platformer, seems well made for that sort of thing so far.

Still playing Atomic Heart and Troubleshooter. Still having fun there, Atomic Heart is so uneven, at times I feel like I'm playing a top class game and then something jank happens. The music is weirdly inappropriate at times, the main character will ad lib something weird out of nowhere, its been unclear what exactly needs doing a few times, and Ive been stuck in scenery and had to reload more than in any other game I've ever played. But when its good its really pretty good.

 

[mainer]

@Frindis road kill in some areas is like winning the lotto. I've met people that have gotten animals literally just hit. When you're out in the middle of nowhere far away from any major city or even a small town. The deer that was just hit by someone is like gold, only food is way more valuable then money.

This is so true. I see/read about this a lot in areas of sparsely populated Northern Maine. Many people up there depend upon hunting for food & survival, and getting a fresh deer or moose roadkill is a windfall. I'm not talking about a 3-day-dead raccoon scraped up off the pavement, but a freshly killed deer or moose. It happens frequently up there, especially with all the logging trucks flying down narrow, curvy, two-lane roads. The small, local sheriff's departments actually encourage it, but gods help you if a 1200 pound moose crashes through your windshield.

 

[Frindis]

@mainer A friend of mine from Barcelona had never seen a moose in his life and one day he was jogging on some road in Norway. He noticed a cow with her two calves that were standing in the road looking at him. He told me he didn't know what to do, so he just jumped into a bush and hid there. A month or so later I and some friends bought him a moose cap and some moose drinking glasses for his 18th birthday. Good times

 

[Zloth]

... due to spending too-many-to-admit hours trying to kill the FIRST BOSS IN WO LONG:FALLEN DYNASTY lol. Seriously it makes me question games

Lost Odyssey had a stupidly hard first boss, too. Still, I wish it would get ported to PC from XBox. (With added ray tracing, just cuz.)

Where I live, if you kill a deer, either on purpose or by accident, the authorities have to take it for testing. Mostly they check it for radiation. If it's okay, they give it back to you.

RADIATION!?!? Do you live near a power plant or something?

 

[ZedClampet]

Lost Odyssey had a stupidly hard first boss, too. Still, I wish it would get ported to PC from XBox. (With added ray tracing, just cuz.)
RADIATION!?!? Do you live near a power plant or something?

No. I live near where they made the original atomic bombs, and where they still enrich uranium for the nuclear arsenal. For many years they were very careless, and we have high radiation zones all over the place. It's kind of like Chernobyl, but on purpose.

Lots of high security defense contractors and military installations in the area. Just for fun, you should go for a relaxing drive there and ignore the "Restricted" signs. You'll get to have heavily armed personnel pushing your face into the asphalt as Apache helicopters hover nearby ready to take you out if necessary. They do have fencing and guard houses, but you aren't allowed to get that far.

Actually knew a woman who was new to town, and she got lost during her lunch break. They kept her cuffed and lying face down in the dirt for over three hours. She is Muslim, though, which didn't help her out any.

 

[DXCHASE]

Did you ever play Sekiro? Wondering if those skills are transferable. I played 15 minuties of Wo Long just to try it out, performance was very weird for me. Was stuttering like hell even if it was displaying 70 FPS. Turning settings to performance got rid of the stutter, but I have plenty to get on with for now so I'm happy to wait for a patch so I can maybe play with some pretties on.

I did play Sekiro but i got to some boss down the line and didnt finish it, like most of my souls game playthroughs lol. Wo Long, it runs ok for me with the occasional stutter when someone attacks suddenly and then i miss my parry, but not enough to have a complaint about.

I do however think part of the reason i have a hard time with this boss is the abysmal control scheme they have for the game. Theres also a "dead space" in the movement as if you are using a controller. So as you move your mouse, if its not fast enough, your character wont turn.

 

[Brian Boru]

@PointnClicker01 If you haven't played Call of the Sea, I think you'd like it—especially for free

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I did play Sekiro but i got to some boss down the line and didnt finish it, like most of my souls game playthroughs lol. Wo Long, it runs ok for me with the occasional stutter when someone attacks suddenly and then i miss my parry, but not enough to have a complaint about.

I do however think part of the reason i have a hard time with this boss is the abysmal control scheme they have for the game. Theres also a "dead space" in the movement as if you are using a controller. So as you move your mouse, if its not fast enough, your character wont turn.

Ah I forgot you mentioned the dead space mouse thing before sorry, that probably doesnt help in a game where you need to react pretty fast. Think the stutter I was getting must have been something different as it wasnt intermittent. More like I remember trying to play games with a CPU below recommended specs except lowering graphics settings fixed it. Only played a bit so maybe that would have changed later.

 

[Pifanjr]

Epic isn't done with Epic Games Store exclusives, it's just focused on big ones

Epic-published games like Alan Wake 2 will be EGS exclusives, not that there was much doubt about that.

www.pcgamer.com

I personally don't really mind, I play about as many Epic games as I do Steam games now I think (though all of them freebies). But I expect this will make a lot of people upset.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I do have a vestigal attachment to Steam, and rather buy stuff on there. But I dont hate Epic, I just fear change

I'll be playing Alan Wake 2 at some point for sure, liked the first game and Control even more.

 

[ZedClampet]

Epic isn't done with Epic Games Store exclusives, it's just focused on big ones

Epic-published games like Alan Wake 2 will be EGS exclusives, not that there was much doubt about that.

www.pcgamer.com

I personally don't really mind, I play about as many Epic games as I do Steam games now I think (though all of them freebies). But I expect this will make a lot of people upset.

Sounds like they are moving the focus to games that they are publishing and maybe a few AAA games that they can convince with cold hard cash. I don't really have a problem with that. If GTA VI is a timed exclusive, that could be hugely successful for them. Of course, the vast majority of people just go get their exclusives at Epic and then go back to buying other games at Steam. Not sure what they can do about that other than lower the everyday prices.

I'll play a game every now and then on Epic, but it's rare. They really have only given away a handful of games that I'm interested in. My order of play is Steam (by a huge amount), Game Pass (again a huge drop off after Game Pass), Ubisoft Connect, EA App, Amazon Prime, Epic and then GoG. It's mostly about where the games are that I want to play.

Anyway, we should enjoy the Epic freebies while they are still here. Can't see them doing that after this year. Their Fortnite money is drying up.

 

[Zloth]

The Unreal money, on the other hand.... is there any engine out there that can compete with it?? Is Unity still better at something? There will always be games with weird requirements that will need their own, custom engine, but most don't.

 

[ZedClampet]

The Unreal money, on the other hand.... is there any engine out there that can compete with it?? Is Unity still better at something? There will always be games with weird requirements that will need their own, custom engine, but most don't.

Based on the numbers I saw when I did a search for it, Fortnite is still making about $2 billion a year (down from over $5 billion) while the Unreal Engine and its marketplace was earning around $220 million a year and the store was still losing money due to giveaways and exclusive deals.

 

[Brian Boru]

Is Unity still better at something?

I haven't used either in battle, but as far as I know Unity is much easier to use if you need functionality beyond the other game maker apps. There is a useful visual editor, but also programming support to get more advanced stuff done. I think it dominates the mobile dev scene.

Unreal on the other hand is hardcore I believe, you need C++ chops to produce goodies in it.

Both engines are used in many industries beyond gaming—eg medicine, architecture, movies & TV, industrial design.

Fortnite is still making about $2 billion a year (down from over $5 billion)

Crazy numbers!

 

[ZedClampet]

Unreal on the other hand is hardcore I believe, you need C++ chops to produce goodies in it.

This used to be true for sure, but they've come up with something call "blueprints" now (I hope that's actually the name) which supposedly allow you to do practically anything without programming. I haven't actually tried it yet.

 

[Pifanjr]

Of course, the vast majority of people just go get their exclusives at Epic and then go back to buying other games at Steam. Not sure what they can do about that other than lower the everyday prices.

I was curious, so I looked up some statistics...

"A mere 100 games accounted for half of Steam’s entire revenue in 2017."

Seems like it would be a decent strategy to get some of those big sellers exclusive on Epic at least, even if they don't get the other sales.

"In 2019, Steam’s sales revenue dipped by an estimated 47%. [...] One of the heftier blows to its ruling status came in the form of the Epic Game Store, which managed to snatch away a large chunk of titles and companies from Steam."

This seems to indicate Epic is already doing a pretty decent job at stealing some of Steam’s revenue.

I can't find any proper statistics about the average size of a Steam library. The only number I see is 10-11 games, with SteamSpy stated as the source, but I can't find that number on their site and don't know how it's calculated. I'm not sure Steam has enough numbers publicly available to make an accurate estimate and it seems I'd have to dive into the Steam API myself if I want to find out.

But it seems like it's a pretty decent strategy to focus on only the most profitable games for now, instead of trying to replace Steam as the default store in the short term.

 

[ZedClampet]

I was curious, so I looked up some statistics...

"A mere 100 games accounted for half of Steam’s entire revenue in 2017."

Seems like it would be a decent strategy to get some of those big sellers exclusive on Epic at least, even if they don't get the other sales.

"In 2019, Steam’s sales revenue dipped by an estimated 47%. [...] One of the heftier blows to its ruling status came in the form of the Epic Game Store, which managed to snatch away a large chunk of titles and companies from Steam."

This seems to indicate Epic is already doing a pretty decent job at stealing some of Steam’s revenue.

I can't find any proper statistics about the average size of a Steam library. The only number I see is 10-11 games, with SteamSpy stated as the source, but I can't find that number on their site and don't know how it's calculated. I'm not sure Steam has enough numbers publicly available to make an accurate estimate and it seems I'd have to dive into the Steam API myself if I want to find out.

But it seems like it's a pretty decent strategy to focus on only the most profitable games for now, instead of trying to replace Steam as the default store in the short term.

Those stats are very questionable and the conclusions drawn are incorrect. Epic has never done more than about $300 million in sales on the store, so there's no way it could be capable of hurting Steam's revenue by 47 percent (also, a more reputable site shows that sales were only down 15 percent that year). Steam's sales that year were 4.5 billion, about 20x greater than Epic's

Also, your article cherry picked the 2019 numbers because the next year Steam's sales went up by 62 percent, and they have stayed in that general area even though Covid wasn't nearly as big a deal last year. Steam's sales were actually higher the last two years than they were in 2020.

As far as the top 10 games making half the money, that wouldn't be surprising (if it's actually true), but the top three games probably make most of that, and that kind of thing isn't going to happen to Epic. They aren't going to secure CSGO, DOTA or PUBG as exclusives.

 

[Brian Boru]

they've come up with something call "blueprints" now (I hope that's actually the name) which supposedly allow you to do practically anything without programming

Yep, that's it, it replaced Kismet when UE4 was released. But since it/they are scripts, I expect they're more for rapid prototyping—would surely be far too big a performance hit for production code. But dunno… just wildly guessing