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STEAM 2013 Announcements & Updates VIII - Don't ask when the sales are starting.

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N

nexen

Member
Kirosia said:
I prefer Bioshock became I'm impatient and enjoy the FPS aspect. SS2 was not something I could get into, mostly since I got my arse handed to me. I'd have to quicksave constantly to keep myself from having too little fun, but I'm aware that says more about my lack of skill than the game itself. There are people who love SS, I'm just more of a Bioshock fella. Plus I like the story and setting, I read the plot synopsis for SS and it did not blow my mind at all, as some have claimed.
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The mindblowing part of SS2 was that it had a plot twist at all. Back then it was almost always "HERE IS BAD GUY. GO KILL HIM."
Well, that is still kind of true today...but at least we get the occasional quantum mechanical many worlds you are your own murderer fun fest.
 
D

Deadbeat

Banned
It's funny how hardcore game design that doesn't hold your hand is somehow consideredantiquated. I didn't pay ss2 until a few months before bioshock and wow was bioshock a step backwards. But that's how it is nowadays.
 
W

WhirlwindMonk

Banned
Raytow said:
SS2 may be terrible to someone that just started playing recently as in "boy those are terrible graphics" but other than that, the gameplay itself shits all over the biocrap that Levine been churning lately.
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As someone who played the demo a bit years and years ago and then picked it up on a Steam sale, I have really enjoyed the game. Admittedly, I did use mods to improve the graphics, which helped, but I just followed this guide and I had a very nice looking game up and running easily. I haven't gotten around to beating it yet, but I'm pretty sure I'm getting close.

Best part was when my wife and I were sitting in the computer room, she's playing Guild Wars 2, I'm playing SS2, and I get to the point where SHODAN just croons "You murdered their young!" The look I got from my wife was priceless.
 
A

Arthea

Member
Boss Doggie said:
Nah, their actions throughout the year have been... odd.
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If you mean their bundle, that might be not that weird as it seems, if sales of those games dropped almost to nothing, bundle still made nice money.

Talking about EA, we aren't going to get Peggle 2 on steam, are we?
 
N

nexen

Member
Deadbeat said:
It's funny how hardcore game design that doesn't hold your hand is somehow consideredantiquated. I didn't pay ss2 until a few months before bioshock and wow was bioshock a step backwards. But that's how it is nowadays.
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I think it is unavoidable. The bigger budget you have the more copies you have to sell therefore the more people and skill levels you have to support. The steeper the learning curve the more people there are that will bounce right off of it.
 
I

Intheflorsh

Banned
ModBot said:
Instructions for participants:
I am giving away a Steam key. To enter this giveaway, send a PM to ModBot with any subject line. In the body, copy and paste the entire line below containing the key.

Rules for this Giveaway:
- If the key is already taken you will not receive a reply. Replies may take a minute or two:


Monaco -- MB-56A6BCE95DC58166 - Taken by nexen
Click to expand...
In celebration of GOTY season, I'm giving away one of my favorite games this year.
 
G

Grief.exe

Member
kafiend said:
It just shows EA would do ANYTHING not to be voted Worst Company in America yet again.

/cynical
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You are correct. EA did a similar thing after TOR's disastrous launch, and subsequent stock value loss. Same situation is currently happening with BF4.

iWOHkF2tb6YwX.jpg
 
D

Deadbeat

Banned
nexen said:
I think it is unavoidable. The bigger budget you have the more copies you have to sell therefore the more people and skill levels you have to support. The steeper the learning curve the more people there are that will bounce right off of it.
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But dumbing down the game doesn't get more sales. We have seen this time and time again.

Hardcore gamers don't buy it and the cod audience continues to ignore it.
 
M

More_Badass

Member
Played some more Not The Robots:

- There are upgrades found throughout the levels, providing things from an extra inventory slot (so you can two abilities rather than just one) and a scanner to see what abilities are contained in a box

- Found some cool new abilities. Dig lets you remove a wall and Sprint give you a few seconds of boosted speed. Dig is especially cool because it lets you alter the layout of a level, opening up new paths for you to use

- You also get extra points for eating all furniture and taking no damage. Upon death, you rank up and can unlock permanent upgrades
 
G

Grief.exe

Member
nexen said:
I think it is unavoidable. The bigger budget you have the more copies you have to sell therefore the more people and skill levels you have to support. The steeper the learning curve the more people there are that will bounce right off of it.
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I disagree, this is what the large publishers want investors to believe during their quarterly conference calls. Of course, if you have been following these calls, you would notice that this practice has been almost universally failing the past couple of years.

There is still significant profit to be made catering to the hardcore player. You don't need a 500 person development team, $100 million marketing budget, or cater to 12 year olds to make a successful game.

Market it correctly, develop efficiently, and cater to your audience.

The typical '12 year old demographic' doesn't seem to branch out to games other than Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed anyways. Again, as evidenced by the last couple of years. I can see why publishers would chase that audience, look at the success of the games I did mention, but ulterior evidence would suggest it is a fruitful endeavor.
 
N

nexen

Member
Deadbeat said:
But dumbing down the game doesn't get more sales. We have seen this time and time again.
Click to expand...

I don't think that reality supports that assertion. Most of the top ten games I see in the NPD time and time again are all pretty forgiving, simple to play games. Especially compared to pretty much anything considered popular just ten years ago.

Grief.exe said:
I disagree, this is what the large publishers want investors to believe during their quarterly conference calls. Of course, if you have been following these calls, you would notice that this practice has been almost universally failing the past couple of years.

There is still significant profit to be made catering to the hardcore player. You don't need a 500 person development team, $100 million marketing budget, or cater to 12 year olds to make a successful game.

Market it correctly, develop efficiently, and cater to your audience.

The typical '12 year old demographic' doesn't seem to branch out to games other than Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed anyways. Again, as evidenced by the last couple of years. I can see why publishers would chase that audience, look at the success of the games I did mention, but ulterior evidence would suggest it is a fruitful endeavor.
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This isn't what I said at all though. There is a good profit to be made by correctly supporting the niche hardcore market, sure, but not at the current costs of top-tier game development. If you drop the kind of money EA/Acti do on their leading titles then having a significant portion of gamers be unable to successfully play the game would be disastrous. Whether they would make more money overall by supporting a smaller audience with a lower budget - I have no clue. I agree that rightly or wrongly they are all chasing the dragon of the runaway COD-style hit, where the revenue returned is so high that the stratospheric budget doesn't even really matter anymore.
 
I

Intheflorsh

Banned
Grief.exe said:
The typical '12 year old demographic' doesn't seem to branch out to games other than Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed anyways. Again, as evidenced by the last couple of years. I can see why publishers would chase that audience, look at the success of the games I did mention, but ulterior evidence would suggest it is a fruitful endeavor.
Click to expand...

I think Jim Sterling put it best: the reason why games that mimic call of duty will never be successful is because gamers who want to play call of duty want to play call of duty.
 
D

Deadbeat

Banned
nexen said:
I don't think that reality supports that assertion. Most of the top ten games I see in the NPD time and time again are all pretty forgiving, simple to play games. Especially compared to pretty much anything considered popular just ten years ago.
Click to expand...
That's not what I'm talking about at all.Games made casual from the ground up like assassins creed isn't the issue. Taking a hardcore game and dumbing it down is the issue. Nobody wins.
 
G

Grief.exe

Member
Intheflorsh said:
As if it wasn't slimy enough already to imply their critics are homophobes...
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And the boycott they are referring to was due to the horrible state their game was in. I'm sure you could find homophobic statements if you were, say, browsing Youtube.

Of course, I find homophobic statements and backwards opinions while watching a cookie baking video on that site.

Madrugador said:
Not really important, but that Colombian guy in there isn't mistranslated. I'm pretty sure he's just speaking like Yoda, which would probably mean he isn't a bot xD
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That is actually really cool Madrugador.
 
N

nexen

Member
Deadbeat said:
That's not what I'm talking about at all.Games made casual from the ground up like assassins creed isn't the issue. Taking a hardcore game and dumbing it down is the issue. Nobody wins.
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Bioshock and Skyrim are two good counterexamples though. Both have been dumbed down compared to their predecessors and both have enjoyed commercial success eclipsing the more complicated versions.

Are there really any more hardcore, mass market games left? The most complicated thing I see mass-marketed today is Battlefield. Indies are picking up the slack but I can't think of anything from the major publishers off of the top of my head. Wait, no, Dark Souls is pretty hardcore.

Stallion Free said:
I calculated it out and Far Cry 3 is precisely infinity^2 times better than Far Cry 1 and ~infinity times better than Far Cry 2.
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I like the cut of your jib.
 
O

Omega

Banned
I installed ME1 Updated/Improved Texture mod months ago and ended up uninstalling the game. If I re-install it, will the mod still be there or do I have to install it again?
 
N

nexen

Member
KenOD said:
You need three jibs to make a bigger bomb sack.
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Ugh, don't remind me. I spent hours searching for a jib. Just when I was about to give up one grabbed me from the brush and bit my arm off because I couldn't mash 'x' fast enough.
 
W

woo and indeed hoo

Banned
I am continuing my ruthless backlog playtesting and discarding of games until I find one that clicks. Feels good man. Fourth time lucky with Anodyne. I'm getting a real nostalgia for the original Pokemons [which is a good thing]. Back to it now [fingers crossed I continue to like it].
 
N

nexen

Member
woo and indeed hoo said:
I am continuing my ruthless backlog playtesting and discarding of games until I find one that clicks. Feels good man. Fourth time lucky with Anodyne. I'm getting a real nostalgia for the original Pokemons [which is a good thing]. Back to it now [fingers crossed I continue to like it].
Click to expand...

I loved Anodyne. It was like playing through someone's fever dream.
 
S

Stallion Free

Cock Encumbered
nexen said:
Ugh, don't remind me. I spent hours searching for a jib. Just when I was about to give up one grabbed me from the brush and bit my arm off because I couldn't mash 'x' fast enough.
Click to expand...

I paid close attention and had most of my storage maxed or almost maxed before I finished 5 or so missions.
 
G

Grief.exe

Member
Rock Paper Shotgun No Man's Sky interview

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/12/09/first-look-no-mans-sky/

“I hate doing this, but it is the simplest way to give people hooks for the game. Games that we will get compared to, rather than I would compare us to, would be Minecraft, DayZ, but also Dark Souls to an extent and probably Journey.” Murray is torn by these descriptions. “I hate the idea that people will go around and say, ‘It’s like Minecraft but in space.’ Fuck off!”
Click to expand...

Exploration and resource gathering are the ways, really the only ways, in which the game is similar to Minecraft. The planets you land on aren’t cube-shaped and it’s unlikely you’ll build a house on them. They are the equivalent of Minecraft’s network of underground caves: exciting to find, unique to you, and full of materials which give them significance and value despite not being handcrafted.
Click to expand...
 
N

nexen

Member
Stallion Free said:
I paid close attention and had most of my storage maxed or almost maxed before I finished 5 or so missions.
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I still need a some unique kill for my wallet or loot bag, forget which.
Game is so very pretty, but I'm having trouble with the idea that I've transitioned from scared tourist to unstoppable one-man-army because someone tattooed me.

Still I like it better than Far Cry 2.
 
M

MMBosstones86

Member
Hotline Miami really is something. Had to give it a break a few months back because one of the chapters was just anger banging me (10 i think?). Just played for 20 minutes and made it through 2.5 chapters. In Trauma now and things are really getting fucked.

Feels great when everything clicks.
 
T

TheFightingFish

Member
So I popped in (digitally that is, this is the Steam thread after all) LOTR: War in the North from the recentish Humble Bundle. And good gravy does that game ever make a bad first impression. First off my TV's 1366 x 768 resolution was not supported, so I had to play it non-stretched at 1024 x 768 with big old black columns on either side. Which would be ok for a game from like the early 2000s, but not for one this recent. Then in the game it's just such a muddy mess to look at, really unappealing art direction on display. Brown characters fighting brown orcs on top of crappy brown ground textures. With an occasional gray building. Put in 15min and then deleted local contents and moved it to the "Done with it" category. I liked the Dark Alliance games back in the day, and I like Lord of the Rings, but this was not for me, especially with a big library to work through.

edit: Crappy art example added.
AzmimXi.jpg
Click to expand...
 
S

Stallion Free

Cock Encumbered
TheFightingFish said:
So I popped in (digitally that is, this is the Steam thread after all) LOTR: War in the North from the recentish Humble Bundle. And good gravy does that game ever make a bad first impression. First off my TV's 1366 x 768 resolution was not supported, so I had to play it non-stretched at 1024 x 768 with big old black columns on either side. Which would be ok for a game from like the early 2000s, but not for one this recent. Then in the game it's just such a muddy mess to look at, really unappealing art direction on display. Brown characters fighting brown orcs on top of crappy brown ground textures. With an occasional gray building. Put in 15min and then deleted local contents and moved it to the "Done with it" category. I liked the Dark Alliance games back in the day, and I like Lord of the Rings, but this was not for me, especially with a big library to work through.
Click to expand...

It looks nice at 2880x1620 and locked at 60 fps. The art direction looks pretty pleasant then.
 
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