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STEAM | January 2016 - Out of cash, out of cache

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Dr Dogg

Member
Right for some odd reason my Xbone doesn’t want to upload any screenshots. Although there are no restrictions on any content they might be blocked at MS’ end. Oh well guess you’ll just have to use your imagination until tomorrow or some other soul with a proper capture card posts some.

So The Division, what is it? You’ve heard it’s like a MMO, maybe even compared to Destiny. Well if you want to get reductive sure but it’s more along the lines of an online, instanced open world, cooperative, third person, squad based, tactical come cover based shooter with custom classes and rarity graded loot. So sort of like a mix up of Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell and Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer in an open world. Yeah I know that was a mouthful so I’ll try and break down the content of the beta into smaller chucks and layout the progression as I go.

You start off the beta in the midst of things on a helicopter with a rather battered and bandaged lady. You get dropped off at Chelsea Pier which has become a makeshift base camp for Division agents. This is one of the social spaces, every district is supposedly has one. Here you can run into other players, form up squads, buy and sell stuff at vendors, talks to NPCs who will update your map with side content and collectables (come on it’s a Ubisoft game, you knew this was coming) there’s also a situation board which appears to also update your map with activities as well. You can highlight other agents you see running about here, inspect their gear, invite them to your group and access their Xbone profile and such as well as access options to Matchmake your party to either your friends online or the yahoos currently playing the game.

Once you’ve tooled up, chatted up all the good looking Division Agents and filled your clipboard up with stuff to do you can set off into the island of Manhattan. You already had a main objective when you got of the chopper but you can go fuck about in the map to your heart’s content.Once you leave the social space you are now in your own instanced version of the game. There’s no loading screens you pass through a checkpoint and you’re seemless into your map with your squad. You can go after the side missions if you like, go scouring for collectables, just explore the map and poke around buildings or press on with the story. For now we’ll focus on the story mission which is to defend a collection of agents outside the Post Office building and reestablish it as a Base of Operations. So you do have a simple mini map in the top left as well as the main 3D map that you can bring up (not as swanky as in the trailers of course) that you can plot way points and show you the way to your destination ala a navigation line. You’ll also see all the side content and missions on here you discovered from the NPC’s and Situation Board back in the social space. So as you press on to your objective you will run into NPC’s that require help (they will ask for your health items in exchange for equipment or will be held captive by the loons running around New York) or enemies out on patrol. So we’re going to get into some combat now.

Being pretty much a cover based shooter if you stay out in the open too long you’re going to go down pretty fast. Playing solo you’re going to die and then have to restart while in a group you have a bleed out time to be revived. Your loadout can consist of 1 sidearm (which has unlimited ammo) and 2 primary weapons (limited ammo but gives you scope to define the type of role you want to play and the weapons you like) which can equip different class of weapons or 2 of the same if you wish. You also have various items or clothing/armour that confer armour values and higher level items can give perks and stat bonuses Cover mechanics work pretty much the same way as all Ubisoft titles since Splinter Cell Conviction. There will be a prompt on the screen to enter cover at the press of the A button, whilst in cover you can move to the next item of cover by moving the prompt over to it and holding down the A button (you’ll run and /or slide into it then) and move left you left along the cover item using the analog stick as well as move round corners by holding forward (so slightly different than SC/WD). Whilst in cover you have the usual shooter option to blind fire or ready your weapon for more precission with weapons that have scopes or sight having a zoom toggle too. Grenades are on the dpad and a press of the left direction will bring up an arc and right trigger with throw the grenade (you can cancel out of the grenade throw via the dpad, ADS, weapon swap etc). So standard fair right? Well you do have some powers to use too.

Now while there are classes for each power you’re not tied to anything, so you can mix and match different discipline as well as swap things round at any time, nothing is committed when you select it. The three branches are Medical (which has healing and support based skills), Tech (which has gadgets and explosives) and Security (so stuff like shields and portable cover). These abilities are broken down into tiers (that I’ll explained how they are unlocked later) with the first tier and a skill point to spend unlocked from the start of the beta. You can chose from the Medical skill Pulse (scans the environment a short distance for enemies and objects), the Tech skill Sticky Bomb (fires a remote triggered explosive like a grenade launcher) and the Security skill Ballistic Shield (pretty much self explanatory although you can only use your side arm). As you level up, progress through the story and complete side content you start to unlock further tiers to each discipline as well as upgrade the use of skills to enhance their use further (the Pulse ability for example will get increased range and the ability to pot more types of objects). These are called mods and there’s around 3 per skill with I think 1 active at a time.

So anyway we get to the Post Office and engage the enemies in battle. You have your standard grunt that is level appropriate for the mission or area of the city that depending on the strength of your own gear will dictate how difficult the situation is and time to take them down. As you move close to them a health bar appears above their head which shows their level and health. Once aimed (or scanned with the pulse ability) at they will be tagged so that you and your squad can see them. There is also a leader enemy to be engaged outside the Post Office. These have more health and armour (represented by a segmented white line above their healthbar) with their healthbars being a different colour to distinguish them from the other adversaries. They’re quite smart appropriate to the level and will seek cover, try to flank you, react and pull back if you’re overwhelming them. Nothing too complex but a bit more than just a shooting gallary.

After we clear out the enemies outside the Post Office and can now reestablish it as our Base of Operations. This is like the Social Space at Chelsea Pier though this is your own space. It is also instanced and populated with vendors and NPCs. The first task while you’re here is to reestablish the 3 wings, the Medical wing, the Tech wing and the Security wing (hmmm they sound familar) which will aid The Division in taking back Manhattan. So each wing needs an NPC to function, for which you must undertake a story mission to rescue them. For the beta you only have access to the Medical wing mission but as you complete these missions to rescue these NPCs and further missions as well you unlock further components of each wing. These then open up further tiers in the skills available to you, wing specific perks and talents that act and enhance your agent passively to various degrees (eg one of the Medical perks will increase the amount of healthpacks you can use). As of the beta their is limited access to the perks and talents of the Medical wing and none at all for the Tech or Security wings. There’s a breakdown of what’s available in the full game in the beta OT though.

A couple of other points of interest in the Base of Operations is your stash where you can keep items in storage and where your extracted Dark Zone loot appears (more on the Dark Zone later on or tomorrow), a vendor for weapon mods, a resuply box that refiles your ammo, grenades and medpacks and some nice flashy overlays present in the environment now you’ve unlocked each wing showing you where they are and the percentage of the activities, missions and unlocks for each wing you’ve completed (this really needed a picture to explain it better).

Right then we’ve reestablished the Base of Operations, the next task is to go resucre the NPC to staff the Medical wing. This is the next story mission which you can either play solo, invite your friends to your squad or matchmake a squad. You can play these types of mission at normal or hard difficulty (don’t know if there are other options but that’s what’s available in the beta) and you can replay them after you’ve finished them too. So I’ll not go into too much detail about the content, well truth be told there’s not much to spoil here, but I’ll give a shot run down of the mission. You need to go rescue a team of doctors being held captive in Madison Square Gardens, which has you progressing through the building which consists of an entrance foyer, a lobby, pass through an area overlooking the basketball court, a bar/restaurant area split in to two sections but with full sight line and finally the roof top area. Now being cover shooter there’s plenty of chest high objects to duck behind with some being permanent covers whilst others are destructible. You face off against various waves of enemies of various compositions. You have melee enemies who will rush you down, mid range enemies who will press and flank you and long range enemies who will snipe you if you are out in the open stay in one place for too long. Tackling these all at the same time does give you some variation and priority targets to go after. Then for the end of the mission on the rooftop you have a ‘boss’ encounter which is like the leader enemy we faced earlier outside the Post Office. They have more health, are armoured and have a much more harder hitting weapon than the others. Also the larger your squad and higher the difficulty the more challenging the mission becomes. Enemy numbers increase as do health pools and damage dealt it seems.

Once that’s done and we’ve rescued the NPC to staff the Medical wing the next job is to go complete some of the side missions tied to the Medical wing to help progress that along and unlock its perks and talents. As far as I can see that’s it for the story content in the beta, there’s no more Medical wing main missions and none for the Tech or Security wings bar some smaller objective ones.

There’s still quite a bit to go over but this is getting to be quite large and I’ve got stuff to do. I’ll flesh out the rest of the details about the side content, types of collectables, size and density of the world map (as well as what’s available and what possibly be the limits to the map in the full game) and the PVP Dark Zone component later on tonight when I’ve played more.

Also that's a lot of words of the top of my head! Hope it makes sense. Also I'm about for the next 45 mins so nay simple questions fire away.
 

AlanOC91

Member
Level 35 or so in Dragon's Dogma...seriously considering putting the game down though. The combat system is so damn good but you spend way too much time doing some of the most boring and inane shit. It's one of the best RPG combat systems wrapped in an awful world and mostly boring sets of quests.

The way people talk about the game I thought I'd be spending most of my time fighting dope giant monsters and stuff like that.

I'm starting to feel the same. Around 20 hours into the game.

Combat is excellent but running around and doing crappy quests is getting old very, very fast. Fighting Dragons and stuff is an adrenaline rush while the rest is a complete bore.

Picked up RE0 last night and have been playing that instead of Dragons Dogma recently.
 
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So The Division, what is it? You’ve heard it’s like a MMO, maybe even compared to Destiny. Well if you want to get reductive sure but it’s more along the lines of an online, instanced open world, cooperative, third person, squad based, tactical come cover based shooter with custom classes and rarity graded loot. So sort of like a mix up of Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell and Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer in an open world. Yeah I know that was a mouthful so I’ll try and break down the content of the beta into smaller chucks and layout the progression as I go.

Also that's a lot of words of the top of my head! Hope it makes sense. Also I'm about for the next 45 mins so nay simple questions fire away.

And.. sold~!

Thanks for the writeup, you're the best!
 

Dr Dogg

Member
Is it good or another Destiny/Watch_Dogs/watered down AAA game?

Obviously can't speak for the full game but I get the feeling it's going to have Destiny's issue of main content being blown through really quickly and side content getting repetitive. Gameplay has enough to it to hold my attention for a while and the Dark Zone stuff does seem like it will hold my attention more than the PVE stuff will. There's really not enough content in the beta to gauge how good or long the story content is but it's more coherent than what I've experienced with Destiny during its beta. But that's a worry right there. Could you blow through the PVE stuff in a week or two? If so what's the hook or endgame stuff to keep you coming back? Is it going to be move on to PVP or is their going to be stuff to keep those only interested in PVE worth loging in everyday? The beta doesn't answer those questions but looking at what's available there I think a lot of folks are going to be wary. Servers were fine on Xbone but then again there's probably only a handful in that demographic. The Uplay test on PC tomorrow is going to make or break me whether I get this on launch.
 

Dr Dogg

Member
THE DIVISION PR working overtime on GAF. Gotta get that January bonus.

I'll have you know my waffle is unbaised waffle. It's not an AssCreed or Watch Dogs, I've not formed that much of an attachment to it yet. And I doubt I will from what I've played. In the beta OT you can see some folks saying they blasted through what I posted above in 30 mins and I did it way quicker than that with a 3 man team. And that's your main story content for the beta right there, the rest is side missions and collectable stuff.
 

Admodieus

Member
Level 35 or so in Dragon's Dogma...seriously considering putting the game down though. The combat system is so damn good but you spend way too much time doing some of the most boring and inane shit. It's one of the best RPG combat systems wrapped in an awful world and mostly boring sets of quests.

The way people talk about the game I thought I'd be spending most of my time fighting dope giant monsters and stuff like that.

Yeah, I've stopped playing because the overworld traversal/stamina system was just dragging me down
 

Ban Puncher

Member
Just got back into FOB invasions.

Ganking people's shit is the best.


And when they show up to stop you but fail miserably?

Flavour Country.


ZAivSCX.jpg
 

gelf

Member
Yeah, I've stopped playing because the overworld traversal/stamina system was just dragging me down
That's why I haven't even bought DD yet. It bothered me a lot on PS3 so I'll only get the game when I feel in the right mood to go though that again. I still want to eventually as I never actually finished it thanks to my save corrupting and killing my motivation.
 
some numberz

Dragon's Dogma: 212,153 ± 9,886
Resident Evil 0: 41,632 ± 4,380
Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak: 50,830 ± 4,840
Oxenfree: 8,593 ± 1,990
Punch Club: 114,366 ± 7,260
Crypt of the NecroDancer: 399,375 ± 13,559

I would like to know what Capcpom expectations for DD were.
Some nice sales, Necrodancer is slowly crypting to half of million
Punch Club sold surprisingly good
poor Oxenfree..
New Homeworld seems to be a good game.




I will upvote, although unlikely their indie go go campaign will be successful

Not bad for RE0, thought I heard someone say it did way less than that which had me worried.
 
OK, WTF? This is heartbreaking.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC
Owners: 15,370 ± 2,662

I need to finish Bloodborne before DS3.
Also, please don't go posting tons of screens, I want to go in as fresh as possible.
 

Ban Puncher

Member
OK, WTF? This is heartbreaking.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC
Owners: 15,370 ± 2,662

I need to finish Bloodborne before DS3.
Also, please don't go posting tons of screens, I want to go in as fresh as possible.

Came in $10 over-priced. During future sales though I think it'll have legs.
 

Deques

Member
I finished three games in three days and they are not what I listed earlier >.<
Planning which games to play didn't go so well as I wanted it to be, but it's still three more games finished :D

Game 04: Another Perspective - 2016-01-26
d904637bed13557c7e3d05b0f11c254911404b55.jpg

A puzzle platformer game. The stages aren't too difficult to solve, but some gave me a challenge.

Game 05: Clandestinity of Elsie - 2016-01-27 - 100%
2893f3883979ba3602ea98687d036c65e2b5c2fb.jpg

A small horror game. This game isn't much of a horror game, but it scared med a few times. I find the story interesting as you uncover more mysteries of the hero.

Game 06: Egg Returns Home - 2016-01-28
d90ff41fecae7c50906f4732daf8263bfd4e8977.jpg

You roll an egg from start to finish, there are 30 stage plus 10 bonus stages. I only played 30 stages and finished the game within 30 minutes.


Link to 52 games challenge
 

Arthea

Member
I finished three games in three days and they are not what I listed earlier >.<
Planning which games to play didn't go so well as I wanted it to be, but it's still three more games finished :D

Game 04: Another Perspective - 2016-01-26
http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/apps/305920/d904637bed13557c7e3d05b0f11c254911404b55.jpg[/IMG

[B]Game 05:[/B] Clandestinity of Elsie - 2016-01-27 - 100%
[IMG]http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/apps/379320/2893f3883979ba3602ea98687d036c65e2b5c2fb.jpg[/IMG

[B]Game 06:[/B] Egg Returns Home - 2016-01-28
[IMG]http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/apps/363790/d90ff41fecae7c50906f4732daf8263bfd4e8977.jpg[/IMG

[URL="http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=192057333&postcount=648"]Link to 52 games challenge[/URL][/QUOTE]

not even one word about any of those?
 

Tizoc

Member
How the heck did Punch Club manage to get such interest? Was it discounted some where?

Yo Capcpom-
In the Pachinko & Pachislo sub-segment, unit sales of "Resident Evil 6" strongly increased with the support of loyal fans, which has backed the improvement in revenue as it contributed to the increase in sales. However, sales of "Asura's Wrath" remained weak.
You know what you gotta do to make them strong ;)
 
yeah... it totally is

Most underrated and under-appreciated gem.

At least the fan translations for the crossbell games have taken a new wind.

Came in $10 over-priced. During future sales though I think it'll have legs.

It's such a drop from the first game, even taking into account how long it has been on sale.
Owners: 170,521 ± 8,864

I really hope a price drop will kick up the sales, I certainly expect them to, but knowing everything those guys went through to localize this particular game... And I really want TC to make it over.
 
It's such a drop from the first game, even taking into account how long it has been on sale.
Owners: 170,521 ± 8,864

I really hope a price drop will kick up the sales, I certainly expect them to, but knowing everything those guys went through to localize this particular game... And I really want TC to make it over.

Don't expect a larger price discount. They'll do 20% at most iirc

XSEED isn't going to evaluate based on sales of SC alone, they will wait and see how it does as a whole. SC gave them more sales for FC which still brings them profits.
 

Arthea

Member
It's such a drop from the first game, even taking into account how long it has been on sale.
Owners: 170,521 ± 8,864

I really hope a price drop will kick up the sales, I certainly expect them to, but knowing everything those guys went through to localize this particular game... And I really want TC to make it over.

I don't think we are getting TC or steel, or Crossbell, or Nayuta, etc. How I wish to be wrong in this.
It's a pity we don't know how those games sold on consoles, for reference, I mean including FC and SC. We only know that FC sold poorly on PSP.


edited: Falcom abandoning PC is even more heartbreaking, because it makes all future steam releases less likely to happen.
 
Don't expect a larger price discount. They'll do 20% at most iirc

XSEED isn't going to evaluate based on sales of SC alone, they will wait and see how it does as a whole. SC gave them more sales for FC which still brings them profits.

Sorry, I don't mean an actual price drop, I mean during steam sales.

I don't think we are getting TC or steel, or Crossbell, or Nayuta, etc. How I wish to be wrong in this.
It's a pity we don't know how those games sold on consoles, for reference, I mean including FC and SC. We only know that FC sold poorly on PSP.


edited: Falcom abandoning PC is even more heartbreaking, because it makes all future steam releases less likely to happen.

I just want them in the west, I don't expect entries that don't have a PC version to be ported.
 

Arthea

Member
I just want them in the west, I don't expect entries that don't have a PC version to be ported.

It was a possibility, if Trails sold amazing, but it was never meant to be.
Or if Falcom continued developing PC games and then porting those on consoles, but it was probably too expensive for them.
oh well, life is unfair, after all
 
So The Division, what is it? You&#8217;ve heard it&#8217;s like a MMO, maybe even compared to Destiny.

$20 says it dies just as quick as R6: Siege. I don't care how good the game is - I'm sure as hell not dropping $80 Canadian on it, especially when I can't even get UPlay to function properly on any other game I boot up either.

In other news, I finally tried playing a game that I won from a giveaway here a year or so back, and was the lucky "winner" of 100-plus entrants: Cryostasis.

I now understand why that game was delisted from the Steam store. The jank is real.
 
Happy (33th!) birthday for me! Don't know, maybe i should bough myself ROTR or just stick to DD:DA (and i'm glued to this great game!). Or maybe buy Witness (but i still not beat The Talos Principle DLC!)

Happy Birthday! The Witness seems really different to The Talos Principle even though they are the same genre.
 

Arthea

Member
Can someone explain me Romance of the Three Kingdoms 13 price? 83&#8364; is too much even for batshit crazy pricing policies of KT.
Also those 5 people who bought it, can't even play it, it just crashes right away, amazing....



edited: bah... I couldn't be more wrong, there are 7,640 people playing it right now.
It can't be right, can it?
 

Asgaro

Member
And I'm done with the Fixed-Wings Showcase. Pretty crazy that such a deep and unique mechanic of the whole game was
absent in the campaign.
It's a different feel compared to the on-foot parts. Aiming is difficult, a couple millimeters make the difference between direct hit and dozens of meters away. So you can see using a keyboard was tricky. A good flight-stick would do these parts justice and more fun. Ever since Star Citizen and Elite, getting one makes more and more sense, hm.

This was my first ever attempt at landing (WebM). So color me surprised that amidst all correct landing route adjustment, gears & flaps enabling and speed throttling, it didn't end in a screeching fireball at the end of the runway.

Anyhow, I did all optional tasks as well, landing mid-mission for resupplying, wiping out foot soldiers and aerial take-down of a chopper. There are several ammunition types which behave different. Some have much shorter range, others different destructive force. I probably made it tougher on me by mistake since I couldn't manage to lock on certain missiles to enemy vehicles. Would have saved me a couple reloads. Ammo count is important but I got indoctrinated by the many games where ammo is just a never ending loop of an eight.

What these things, the tricky plane controls and forced ammo conservatism leads to, is great satisfaction once all stars align and you get good hits at the enemy. To my surprise does the mighty Gatling Gun feel the best with its heavy metal roar and great ammo tracing.

Here some nice hits. First some rocket hits (WebM) and some Gatling Fun (WebM). And a second Gatling Party (WebM).

Somehow the website these webm's are hosted on, got flagged by ESET:


I've seen this happen before with content in the SteamGAF starting post. (The start post in this 01/2016 thread doesn't seem to trigger anything.)
 
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