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STEAM | June 2015 II - Click the Monsters You Monster

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Arthea

Member

Just copy pasting my steam review.
I think that it's best to go into this VN blind, that's why I'm putting part of my review in spoiler tags. These aren't really spoilers but rather surprising things.
An Octave Higher is an interesting VN, I could recommend for anybody, mostly because it's not a dating sim, it's not lewd, it's not gory or depressing, nor silly.
It is a branching story about people, music, magic, science, revolution, betrayal and life.
It has multiple main characters, or rather story is told from point of view of several characters, what's unusual for a VN.
There aren't that many choices, but most of those matter. As the story is branching, there are several endings.
A game is accompanied by classical music, what's also somewhat unusual. Music is definitely strong part of An Octave Higher.
It's rather long, takes about 10 hours to finish.
Visual part is weak one. While backgrounds are nice and detailed, characters are somewhat simplistic and don't go well with those backgrounds, also there is certain lack of variety here.
OTOH writing is not bad, even with some mistakes there and here.
 
http://community.wbgames.com/t5/Official-Announcements/PC-Update-June-27th/m-p/581703

We are slowly getting there. Rocksteady should lead devs from the start.
That's quite some progress for the short time.

Always wonder how these things are being done in the background. Does Rocksteady take complete reign or do they just send a couple people overseeing the work?
Another thing is optimization. Read a lot about it and use it myself but I'm not quite sure how or what is exactly being done. Are textures, models, LOD, effects downscaled until performance is up to a goal or the opposite. They have a goal and refine engine and code-stuff, bits and bytes (I_have_no_clue_what_I'm_saying.jpg)?
 

Chariot

Member
That's quite some progress for the short time.

Always wonder how these things are being done in the background. Does Rocksteady take complete reign or do they just send a couple people overseeing the work?
Another thing is optimization. Read a lot about it and use it myself but I'm not quite sure how or what is exactly being done. Are textures, models, LOD, effects downscaled until performance is up to a goal or the opposite. They have a goal and refine engine and code-stuff, bits and bytes (I_have_no_clue_what_I'm_saying.jpg)?
In my headcanon it went down like the Godfather's baptism scene.
what's up with a new gaf logo? Any occasion? It's not permanent change, I hope.
Dude. Love won. The USA did good for once!
 
I've played a few hours of Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas, and I have to say I'm really enjoying it. It's obviously heavily inspired by Zelda (specifically, Wind Waker) but that's a really good thing because it captures the spirit of the Zelda series well.

I'm about 17% complete according to the in-game counter after 2.5 hours but I think I'm actually about a third of the way though the main story. So I'm guessing it'll be about an 8-10 hour game. I recommend it if you're a Zelda fan and are looking for something to play.

Dude... that game IS Zelda.
 

dex3108

Member
That's quite some progress for the short time.

Always wonder how these things are being done in the background. Does Rocksteady take complete reign or do they just send a couple people overseeing the work?
Another thing is optimization. Read a lot about it and use it myself but I'm not quite sure how or what is exactly being done. Are textures, models, LOD, effects downscaled until performance is up to a goal or the opposite. They have a goal and refine engine and code-stuff, bits and bytes (I_have_no_clue_what_I'm_saying.jpg)?

I am not expert but they can improve performance by memory management. They can work on what and when to load, what textures to load and when etc. And I think that Rocksteady was too busy with console version and now that game is out their engine team is fixing what Iron Galaxy F-ed up. And there is nothing worse than fix things after others.
 

rtcn63

Member
what's up with a new gaf logo? Any occasion? It's not permanent change, I hope.

tumblr_inline_nmyx04Q5gR1sq85qv_500.gif
 
Is there any way to completely disable steam's annoying update queue system? I know I can manually start them but I like those things to just happen and not sit for 5 hours.
 

Servizio

I don't really need a tag, but I figured I'd get one to make people jealous. Is it working?
I am not expert but they can improve performance by memory management. They can work on what and when to load, what textures to load and when etc. And I think that Rocksteady was too busy with console version and now that game is out their engine team is fixing what Iron Galaxy F-ed up. And there is nothing worse than fix things after others.

I wonder if Iron Galaxy isn't receiving a lot more credit for AKs state than it deserves. It's been pointed out their name isn't even on the box, and the only mention is a 12 person team in the credits. No logos at start up either.

And it's been said before, but WB is ultimately responsible for whatever state a game ships in. They hold the purse strings, they set the release dates, they give the go/no-go when it comes to delays. Unless you see a lawsuit for outright deception against whoever was in charge of the port, it's probably safe to say someone at WB decided to ship despite what they were told.
 
D

Deleted member 125677

Unconfirmed Member
Finally finished the last three or four levels of Bit Trip Runner. Holy hell, my brain is melting now
 
Looks like my average cost per game on Steam over the last 8 years has been $1.005. That's heavily skewed from the early years where I was paying $5-10 a game; this year I'm averaging $0.53. That's sub app store pricing levels.

How is that possible? Are you counting bundles etc, or is everything purchased through steam? Just curious, because as someone who's averaging like 6.5€ a game that doesn't seem possible without including retail bundle purchases.
 

Parsnip

Member
Is there any way to completely disable steam's annoying update queue system? I know I can manually start them but I like those things to just happen and not sit for 5 hours.
Afaik, no. But Steam has always done this scheduling business anyway. It just didn't tell you about it before.

I wonder if Iron Galaxy isn't receiving a lot more credit for AKs state than it deserves. It's been pointed out their name isn't even on the box, and the only mention is a 12 person team in the credits. No logos at start up either.

And it's been said before, but WB is ultimately responsible for whatever state a game ships in. They hold the purse strings, they set the release dates, they give the go/no-go when it comes to delays. Unless you see a lawsuit for outright deception against whoever was in charge of the port, it's probably safe to say someone at WB decided to ship despite what they were told.
Yup.
We don't actually know what IG did or didn't do on the port.
"Additional engineering and PC support" doesn't exactly scream a big role.

IG also did Steamworks conversion for Asylum and City, those worked pretty good.
 

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
How is that possible? Are you counting bundles etc, or is everything purchased through steam? Just curious, because as someone who's averaging like 6.5€ a game that doesn't seem possible without including retail bundle purchases.

That's including every game I have on Steam, regardless of whether I bought it, was gifted it, got it in a bundle, etc. In other words, everything I actually got for everything I actually paid.
 

Uzzy

Member
Bought some books today. I was going to buy the Street Fighter 25th Anniversary Artbook too, but the comic shop I bought these two from was selling it for £45, which is pretty eye-watering considering I can get it for £30 online.


Anyway, wish I noticed that Total War: Attila was on a free weekend earlier. Only just downloaded it so I've barely any time to try it out.
 
I wonder if Iron Galaxy isn't receiving a lot more credit for AKs state than it deserves. It's been pointed out their name isn't even on the box, and the only mention is a 12 person team in the credits. No logos at start up either.

And it's been said before, but WB is ultimately responsible for whatever state a game ships in. They hold the purse strings, they set the release dates, they give the go/no-go when it comes to delays. Unless you see a lawsuit for outright deception against whoever was in charge of the port, it's probably safe to say someone at WB decided to ship despite what they were told.

At the same time, it wasn't someone from WB who deliberately coded in the 30fps cap or forgot to include rain, AO etc.

Someone did make this not fit for release software before someone else from WB decided to release it anyway.

So can anyone explain to me why it wasnt in there from the start. I mean it took like 4 days to implement it...

They finally decided to give a shit about the PC version.
 
Finally got around to playing and completing Wolfenstein: The Old Blood. Absolutely loved the ending and the bittersweet way they tied it to The New Order. Machinegames Wolfenstein's are such beautiful anachronisms, first person shooters without multiplayer and amazing single player campaigns that have a lot of environments to explore, secrets to find and a lot of replayability. These games just marry so many things that made old FPS's great to lot of modern conventions so well. I just want to re-play The New Order now when I should probably move on to something I have yet to even play.

The New Order and Old Blood are the best first person shooters since Half-Life 2.

Afaik, no. But Steam has always done this scheduling business anyway. It just didn't tell you about it before.


Yup.
We don't actually know what IG did or didn't do on the port.
"Additional engineering and PC support" doesn't exactly scream a big role.

IG also did Steamworks conversion for Asylum and City, those worked pretty good.

It does. It means they handled the PC port. I mean, I don't understand why everyone is fixated on there only being 12 people working on the PC port. Iron galaxy are not creating content, they are not making the game, they were just making the content Rocksteady creates work (or not) on PC. All you need is a small team of programmers.

The question is who did the software quality assurance. Iron Galaxy likely just pushed builds to Rocksteady if they had internal QA, it not then some massive WB QA farm located elsewhere or an external QA vendor contracted by WB.

At the end of the day all parties involved knew the state of the build they were releasing, however Warner Bros ultimately made the decision to go ahead and release it.
 
I bought a generic PC controller and did let my young brother playing Lego Marvel almost all the evening, it was so heartwarming seeing he so happy wrecking the city while playing as Hulk. :)
 

ExoSoul

Banned
The question is when to expect dollar's redesign, the text below united states in particular
gjn0hOv.jpg

Not anytime soon unless you also expect a constitution rework. It's fine to be acceptive of others but a country still has its identity, heritage and culture. Expecting that to change just to be more friendly to anyone is naive.
 
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