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STEAM | April 2014 - Insert witty title here.

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I meant (and said?) completely boycotting the game, not being disapointed by the graphics / game. For all acounts the actual game is still really good, and a worthy sequel to DS (even if its not revolutionary or anything). But hey, opinions, everyone have them, can I please have mine too? thanks :p

If they were lied to and are disappointed with the end-product I don't see how boycotting it is an extreme or unwarranted reaction. What Bandai Namco engaged was a fairly shitty bait and switch. Not in the same league as Aliens Colonial Marines because the end result isn't as terrible but the action of using a misleading build of the game to sell it was the same.

If people don't react to these terrible practices, they'll simply continue.
 

masterkajo

Member
Just finished the first episode of The Wolf Among Us. Wonderful game! The characters, voices, atmosphere, lore and story is just wonderful. And that ending of episode one.
 

Grief.exe

Member
New Dark Souls II shot

Downsampled from 4k

i5DW9OTWzAOVI.jpg
 
Durante got access to Dark Souls 2, he is doing an article for PC Gamer.

anticipation intensifies. Game will most likely unlock around store refresh time, right? Guess I can get away with only taking a half day vacation, which is excellent.

ugh that fucking DS2 pc thread... why did I even pop in there

avoid like the plague. If the thread has 'graphics' or 'comparison' in the title, avoid at all costs.
 

HoosTrax

Member
Remind me again why image quality is something we care so deeply about with regards to Dark Souls II?

I mean the first game had interesting and unique art direction, in terms of the dark, gothic design, but I don't remember playing it thinking the visual quality was remarkable in terms of technical execution.
 

koma

Member
Ok, it's time to share for me too, even if it's nothing major :p

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Dwarfs!? -- MB-C9106982BF8BCFFE


t1397254015z1.png
 
Here are my thoughts on it.

Does the blame truly rest on From/Namco, or journalists?

Since around early January, both From and Namco have been fairly upfront with what the game looks like. They have shown up at all trade events with playable demos, footage, and screenshots from the retail game. They even released footage, screenshots, and a beta dating back to early December that was representative of the retail build. There have been oversights here and there, but the majority of the message has been the actual retail build since December/January.

These were seen by hundreds upon hundreds of journalists and not a single one asks or mentions the missing lighting system?
From hasn't been disingenuous, just not exactly transparent throughout. Should they have said something? Sure, but Japanese culture being what it is and hindsight being 20/20 I don't exactly blame them.

We deserve a better class of journalists, and everyone deserves to play the excellent Dark Souls II. Don't let a little miscommunication come between you and the sequel to one of the best games of all time.

(1) This doesn't help when a lot of fans go on "media blackout". So even if journalists report on it, or show it off, the fans might not see it (I've been on blackout for it until I couldn't avoid some of it because of the console release and then the downgrade stuff).

(2) I went to search for some footage and I found this official video (at least I think it's official).

http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/8zqwpd/dark-souls-ii-forest-of-death-interview-and-new-footage

It's funny, because in a lot of spots, it is like you say... but then I hit the 3 minute mark (give or take) and just before it there's old (?) footage of walking down the stairs with the torch followed by the fight which I'm pointing out -- it's hard to tell in a youtube video, but I find myself wondering if that's the new lighting or the old lighting.

(3) It's possible people could think that the "retail build" footage (as you label it) might be not fully polished yet and would expect the areas to come together more like the higher quality footage/images shown.

I'm not disagreeing with you -- the game journalists in the industry suck. It may or may not be their fault, but the truth is they're outright terrible most of the time.
It's still a really bad situation though... that's what happens when you have a ridiculously loyal -- almost cult following type -- fanbase.
 

didamangi

Member
Remind me again why image quality is something we care so deeply about with regards to Dark Souls II?

I mean the first game had interesting and unique art direction, in terms of the dark, gothic design, but I don't remember playing it thinking the visual quality was remarkable in terms of technical execution.

Mostly because of the earlier demo that has good lighting versus the retail version, that's the crux of it I think.


Welcome to the club, maybe we should make a leaderboard to see who save the most from playfire rewards:))
 

-MD-

Member
Welcome to the club, maybe we should make a leaderboard to see who save the most from playfire rewards:))

Funny thing about that, I would have gotten it for $14 if they loaded my playfire rewards from the last week or so but my credit was locked at $18 for whatever reason, as soon as I clicked purchase the remaining credit I was waiting for loaded into my account.

So it was already there it just wouldn't let me access it, weird.
 

Dr Dogg

Member

Cheers for the link. Meeh I can kind of see where they might have got the impression (a frame of latency added due to single threaded) but that's some massive assumptions and conclusions to jump to. But hey don't let the facts get in the way of a good story, right?

Remind me again why image quality is something we care so deeply about with regards to Dark Souls II?

I mean the first game had interesting and unique art direction, in terms of the dark, gothic design, but I don't remember playing it thinking the visual quality was remarkable in terms of technical execution.

I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of people playing Dark Souls II, on either console or PC don't even have their monitor or TV calibrated correctly. Now I'm not saying everyone needs to go out and drop £120/$160 on a Spyder and get your gamma spot on but I would like to hope that they understand that even out by a fraction can throw a spanner in the works for IQ.
 

Creamium

shut uuuuuuuuuuuuuuup
I'm playing Outlast. It's gonna give me a heart attack and I'm loving it. In the 'your only option is running' category, this has Amnesia beat so far. I'm a sucker for the haunted/abandoned asylum horror trope though.

my favorite moment was when
the two naked twins sandwiched me and I jumped out of the window as a reflex, which was the way to go
 

HoosTrax

Member
I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of people playing Dark Souls II, on either console or PC don't even have their monitor or TV calibrated correctly. Now I'm not saying everyone needs to go out and drop £120/$160 on a Spyder and get your gamma spot on but I would like to hope that they understand that even out by a fraction can throw a spanner in the works for IQ.
I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that I run Lightboost on my monitor full-time, so my color balance is completely out of whack anyway, for the sake of performance. So I'm definitely one of those color reproduction heathens :(.
 

didamangi

Member
Funny thing about that, I would have gotten it for $14 if they loaded my playfire rewards from the last week or so but it was locked at $18 for whatever reason, as soon as I clicked purchase the remaining credit I was waiting for loaded into my account.

So it was already there it just wouldn't let me access it, weird.

Should've pm radMonkey here, he gets them to fixed a problem with my rewards and get their cs to finally resolved my issue after around 6 days without reply pretty sharpish. Boss.

I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of people playing Dark Souls II, on either console or PC don't even have their monitor or TV calibrated correctly. Now I'm not saying everyone needs to go out and drop £120/$160 on a Spyder and get your gamma spot on but I would like to hope that they understand that even out by a fraction can throw a spanner in the works for IQ.

Most people using nvidia cards and hdmi connection should probably use the full range toggle application that Durante made as well to see if they get better colors.
 

-MD-

Member
Should've pm radMonkey here, he gets them to fixed a problem with my rewards and get their cs to finally resolved my issue after around 6 days without reply pretty sharpish. Boss.

Thanks for the heads up, I'll make sure to do this in the future.
 

HoosTrax

Member
I like achievements as much as anyone, but this is really a bit extreme.

5NegeGy.png


I did the math, and it'll take me 813.6 hours to platinum this game if I were so inclined.
 

Rhaknar

The Steam equivalent of the drunk friend who keeps offering to pay your tab all night.
If they were lied to and are disappointed with the end-product I don't see how boycotting it is an extreme or unwarranted reaction. What Bandai Namco engaged was a fairly shitty bait and switch. Not in the same league as Aliens Colonial Marines because the end result isn't as terrible but the action of using a misleading build of the game to sell it was the same.

If people don't react to these terrible practices, they'll simply continue.

you assume they, like a comic book villain, created this amazing looking version to get people to pre order or something, and then MUAHAHAHAHA IT WAS A LIE. that is yours, or anyone that thinks like that, right. As is their right to boycott or whatever.

I think they got in over their heads, couldnt get the game to not run like complete horseshit looking like that, and had to sacrifice a lot, which happens a lot in the industry. again, opinions.

and with that, im done with this. I dont go in the other thread for a reason, I have no interest at all in arguing about this here either. you think what you want, Ill think what I want, everyone wins :)
 

mrgone

Member
Hack 'n' Slash should be hitting Early Acess soon.

This is awesome! I remember it getting a lot of votes during last year's fortnite, but I thought Double-Fine had ultimately gone with Spacebase as the full-release game. I'd completely missed that this was being developed for wide release too.
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
I'm having a hard time jumping on the Dark Souls II hype train.

I stopped playing Dark Souls on Steam after having issues with GFWL. I felt hopelessly lost at the beginning of the game, and the fact that it would crash randomly didn't help any.

I would probably play again if Namco ends up patching out GFWL and porting to Steamworks. After that, if I like the game, I'll buy the sequel.
 

Levyne

Banned
Dark Souls was the only GFWL game I've played and I didn't have any trouble with it. Lucky me I guess, but also limited exposure.
 
Giving back some love to the bros :)

ModBot said:
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Press the quote button to the left of this PM, select the quoted text, copy, and paste in the thread. You can remove these lines from the version you paste.

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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.

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- Do not trade keys you win off-site to enrich yourself. Don't try to claim games you have no interest in collecting or playing. Don't claim games to give them to friends off-site.
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Guacamelee! Gold Edition -- MB-3CBA158ACFB04694 - Taken by Sammichu. 1 entrants total.


t1397170360z1.png
 

Dr Dogg

Member
I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that I run Lightboost on my monitor full-time, so my color balance is completely out of whack anyway, for the sake of performance. So I'm definitely one of those color reproduction heathens :(.

I wish I had a LightBoost 120hz monitor instead of my regular no strobing one :(

Hahaha I think some people know that what they are seeing is an accurate representation, maybe over saturated and blown out colours are more appealing to them, who am I to judge if that's their preference? But when some one feels the need to vent about image quality when they don't know how much they themselves are destroying it, that kind of invalidates their opinion.

Most people using nvidia cards and hdmi connection should probably use the full range toggle application that Durante made as well to see if they get better colors.

I forgot about his past wizzardy.

To be fair though there's also a section of people that thing by selecting full range that they are getting more regardless if their display supports it or not. I mean christ it's not like it's that hard to check if your panel supports it or not.

Here's and easy test anyone with a pc can do. Just open paint and create 5 black squares with 8 bit RGB values of 0/0/0, 5/5/5, 10/10/10, 15/15/15, 20/20/20 save it as a file that you can view on the device your screen is connected to so you can see it (obviously making sure it has the full RGB pallet). Set it up for full range and then view the picture. If all 5 squares are unique variations then you're good to go. If the first 4 square are the same tone when you have it set to full range you've just clipped 46,000+ colours.
 
I'm having a hard time jumping on the Dark Souls II hype train.

I stopped playing Dark Souls on Steam after having issues with GFWL. I felt hopelessly lost at the beginning of the game, and the fact that it would crash randomly didn't help any.

I would probably play again if Namco ends up patching out GFWL and porting to Steamworks. After that, if I like the game, I'll buy the sequel.

I took me about 9 hours to finally hit my stride in Dark Souls, but once I did, I really started to enjoy it. I think the turning point for me was learning how to parry and how to break block. That's when I felt like I had a chance and started getting hooked on the game.
 

didamangi

Member
I'm having a hard time jumping on the Dark Souls II hype train.

I stopped playing Dark Souls on Steam after having issues with GFWL. I felt hopelessly lost at the beginning of the game, and the fact that it would crash randomly didn't help any.

I would probably play again if Namco ends up patching out GFWL and porting to Steamworks. After that, if I like the game, I'll buy the sequel.

One of the reviews, I think rev3games? stated that the beginning of DS2 is way better at explaining/guiding you around the game.

Hope you'll continue playing DS btw, it's the one game on steam you wouldn't want to miss really.
 

catabarez

Member
I wish I had a LightBoost 120hz monitor instead of my regular no strobing one :(

Hahaha I think some people know that what they are seeing is an accurate representation, maybe over saturated and blown out colours are more appealing to them, who am I to judge if that's their preference? But when some one feels the need to vent about image quality when they don't know how much they themselves are destroying it, that kind of invalidates their opinion.



I forgot about his past wizzardy.

To be fair though there's also a section of people that thing by selecting full range that there are getting more regardless if their display supports it or not. I mean christ it's not like it's that hard to check if your panel supports it or not.

Here's and easy test anyone with a pc can do. Just open paint and create 5 black squares with an 8 bit RGB value or 0/0/0, 5/5/5, 10/10/10, 15/15/15, 20/20/20 save it as a file that you can view on the device your screen is connected to so you can see it. Set it up for full range and then view the picture. If all 5 squares are unique variations then you're good to go. If the first 4 square are the same tone when you have it set to full range you've just clipped 46,000+ colours.

This is very educational. I'll be sure to test this out.
 

Dr Dogg

Member
This is very educational. I'll be sure to test this out.

Well on a computer monitor you're good to go. Well unless your still rocking an EGA monitor for the early 80's that is but then you'd had more serious issues to address :p

This is applies to TV's more over.
 

Aaron D.

Member
Thanks for Euro Truck.

No worries. I really should have picked up a handful of ETS2 keys when it was on sale for $4.99 last week. It's the freshest game I've played in years.


Thanks for Tropico 4 :D.

Hawkie recommended it to me when I was delineating some of my fascist plans for when I am dictator great ruler of all I survey, in Steam Chat, so I'll be glad to give those plans a whirl :p.

It's still the modern city builder to beat. After the cluster-f that was Sim City, T4 feels like a warm blanket of awesomeness.


Thanks for FTL: Faster Than Light, I been wanting to try it

You picked a great time to hop on board on the heels of a sweet content update.

Thanks for participating all!
 

Levyne

Banned
All this display talk is giving me the upgrade itch. But I kind of want to wait until G-sync, 120hz, 4k, IPS or at least most of those points, so I'm talking several years down the line. I feel like you must really need a monster to push past 60fps, though.
 

HoosTrax

Member
All this display talk is giving me the upgrade itch. But I kind of want to wait until G-sync, 120hz, 4k, IPS or at least most of those points. I feel like you must really need a monster to push past 60fps, though.
Well this is an interesting point, because on one hand, you have the VR initiative, and on the other, you have the high-end monitor initiative; I wonder which is going to win out or whether they'll co-exist happily. I mean, monitors obviously will always be the versatile solution, particularly for extended use. And there are probably games like RTSs where VR would be more of a neat parlor trick and not really add much to gameplay.

If it's a question of, you have $300 or $400, which upgrade do you pick, I wonder what I would do.
 
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