Community MetaSteam | December 2020 - Empire of Doom

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Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
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Some thread on game making got me interested. So question. Does the effect that make games look like models / miniatures have a name ? Is it a lightning effect ?
 
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Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
7,704
15,601
113
Some thread on game making got me interested. So question. Does the effect that make games look like models / miniatures have a name ? Is it a lightning effect ?
I dug a little on the topic and obviously found Octopath Traveler and its ‘2d hd’ art. But in my mind the effect was far older than the game. I think I’m talking about tilt shfting.
 
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Wildebeet

First Stage Hero
Dec 5, 2018
798
1,883
93
I have to admit my first reaction to PD GaaS and episodic is, well, what can they really do here? Perfect Dark has always been not that good. They'd need a total reinvention of the game to make it modern and interesting. Stick too close to the original and people will complain that it's a 7/10 shooter that feels too old school. And if you're going to reinvent the game, why not just make a whole new franchise without the problems of the series? Just to appease people who like to demand random stuff? Hard to see the point of it. Just dump that shit on mobile and move on. (I'm sorry, I know that's wrong but Donkey Kong 64 made me this way.)

Perfect Dark is that pure nostalgia type game, where people don't really care about a return to the series, they want a return to the literal past. Actual time travel to experience that N64 Rare hype again. It wasn't a very good game at the time. PD doesn't do its setting very well like Goldeneye did. It's a series of scifi cliches and dumb characters. Few memorable levels. And obviously PC was where the shooters were in those days so it had that to unfavorably compare to.
 
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Alextended

Segata's Disciple
Jan 28, 2019
5,461
8,524
113
I dunno how good PD could be considered today, but it's basically a Goldeneye unlicensed sequel so in that I don't think it's outdated or surpassed by any modern/PC shooters, I would love to have that kind of objective based relatively complex level with conditions stealth action experience, neither Half-Life-esque linear adventures nor COD style action romps scratch the itch even if they occasionally do a set piece of the sort. But I agree in that I don't see how it could be gaas or whatever if that's their goal and maintain these elements, it's most likely to be something very different. Still, that's not unheard of or anything, companies often use an existing IP for something altogether different instead of make up a new one. Like Prey as one example, which only retains the name and nothing else (and even the cancelled Prey people hyped and wanted had basically nothing to do with the original game, just in a different way to the new one)...
 
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Ge0force

Excluding exclusives
Jan 12, 2019
3,982
13,792
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Belgium
[UWSL][/UWSL]
Well it took them 2 years to realize obvious
And yet the very same article calls our complaints "trifling issues":

It's also pissed a lot of people off. From fairly trifling issues about having to use a separate launcher other than the de facto PC darling Steam, to the slightly less trifling issues around aggressive platform exclusivity and its poor infrastructure when compared to Steam.

Anyway, as I said earlier today: Epic has clearly no intention to try to build a better platform than their competitors, but rather brute forces their store and services towards consumers by making deals with devs and publishers. Sadly many people are too blinded by the coupons and free games to care.
Great game, one of the best Zelda clones out there.
 

Wildebeet

First Stage Hero
Dec 5, 2018
798
1,883
93
to the slightly less trifling issues around aggressive platform exclusivity and its poor infrastructure when compared to Steam.
Wow. I skipped that article, but I'm glad to know that being concerned about a big company trying to consolize PC gaming and push me onto a service that barely functions is now less trifling. We're gaining respect!
 

Line

meh
Dec 21, 2018
1,543
2,608
113
Great game, though the dungeons take too much from Zelda 1. Overly long and obtuse later on.

In other news, playing Grandia 2.
I like it a lot, combat is definitely a joy, it's amazing to be able to end battles without getting hit with good planning of abilities and movement to cancel enemy attacks in a "turn" based game.
It's what Final Fantasy wish the ATB would have been, but came nowhere close in 15 games.

What surprises me the most is the characters, where you expect to find tropes... and they look the par that for sure... but they're also not complete twats, can show empathy and realize that they're being nasty and make amends, and the basic plot of the evil god waking up is turned on its head in the first two hours when it's... actually kinda fighting in your party on and off?
The game doesn't wait for a mega reveal to tell you that no, you're not here to fight a righteous war on evil, even if the denizen of the world feel like it is.

Even the bad guys that you confront are shown to not be straight up evil, but thinly veiled allegories for flaws of humanity, and the game makes it clear that defeating the "source" of the problems in the form of a typical JRPG boss is not helping, and it's humans that to need to work on their problems.

Hell, I just saw the main character in a JRPG telling an NPC that no, he's not gonna do her dirty work because he's not going to jump to conclusions and she has no proof.
Like, what. :face-with-open-mouth:
A main character that actually makes sense :thinking-face:, and... also an atheist in a world that really despise them, this is... actually really interesting to follow and faaar from the usual trappings of JRPG?
What the hell happened, why don't we have more JRPGs like this.

Now on the other hand, game's 20 years old, and it's pretty ugly... and excessively linear.
But it really nails other important aspects.
 

Valdien

✵ Chaos! ✵
Mar 26, 2020
1,254
2,727
113
Toronto
Great game, though the dungeons take too much from Zelda 1. Overly long and obtuse later on.

In other news, playing Grandia 2.
I like it a lot, combat is definitely a joy, it's amazing to be able to end battles without getting hit with good planning of abilities and movement to cancel enemy attacks in a "turn" based game.
It's what Final Fantasy wish the ATB would have been, but came nowhere close in 15 games.

What surprises me the most is the characters, where you expect to find tropes... and they look the par that for sure... but they're also not complete twats, can show empathy and realize that they're being nasty and make amends, and the basic plot of the evil god waking up is turned on its head in the first two hours when it's... actually kinda fighting in your party on and off?
The game doesn't wait for a mega reveal to tell you that no, you're not here to fight a righteous war on evil, even if the denizen of the world feel like it is.

Even the bad guys that you confront are shown to not be straight up evil, but thinly veiled allegories for flaws of humanity, and the game makes it clear that defeating the "source" of the problems in the form of a typical JRPG boss is not helping, and it's humans that to need to work on their problems.

Hell, I just saw the main character in a JRPG telling an NPC that no, he's not gonna do her dirty work because he's not going to jump to conclusions and she has no proof.
Like, what. :face-with-open-mouth:
A main character that actually makes sense :thinking-face:, and... also an atheist in a world that really despise them, this is... actually really interesting to follow and faaar from the usual trappings of JRPG?
What the hell happened, why don't we have more JRPGs like this.

Now on the other hand, game's 20 years old, and it's pretty ugly... and excessively linear.
But it really nails other important aspects.
I finished my third playthrough of Grandia 3 a few months back. I wanted to see if the combat held up since it's release on the PS2, or was it just something I liked back then. The story, characters, and linearity are still the most awful aspects about Grandia 3, but man, the combat is stellar. I ended up liking it even more since there was a layer of combat depth that I had completely missed out on in 2005. You can take down late-game bosses without taking a single hit by performing air combos. Every boss in the game can be "no-damaged". No damage in a JRPG? Outright absurd, but it just proves how well-designed the combat is in the Grandia series (including Xtreme). I wish more JRPG games with semi-active battle systems would learn from this.

This video is a good example of how powerful air combos are in G3:

Grandia 3 is definitely best looking game out of the series.
I love all four games simply because of the combat. There's just nothing quite like it.
 
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CommodoreKong

Mercenary in the Badlands
Jun 15, 2019
644
1,792
93
Got three foils over the past week. Looks like Steam decided to make up for all the years they've been holding them back :dmcblob:
I've gotten 2 winter sale foils. I feel like Valve must of intentionally increased the rate of foil drops to see if more people would buy/trade foil cards if drop rates were a little higher.
 

dummmyy

Dumb fool
Nov 14, 2018
622
1,496
93
HELP, please! I'm thinking of buying a friend Nier for his birthday tonight 12am PST, but I remembered reading (or hearing) that the PC port was on the other side of being good. Is it a headache to get running well, or will there be a better version of it? Thanks!!
 

NarohDethan

There was a fish in the percolator!
Apr 6, 2019
8,942
24,801
113
HELP, please! I'm thinking of buying a friend Nier for his birthday tonight 12am PST, but I remembered reading (or hearing) that the PC port was on the other side of being good. Is it a headache to get running well, or will there be a better version of it? Thanks!!
It was never fixed. You'll have to install SpecialK.
 

QFNS

Plays too many card games
Nov 18, 2018
1,172
2,838
113
It's a fucking crime that SE never fixed Near A Tomato. The game is a masterpiece and they never even bothered to fix relatively minor PC issues. Just sad. Anyone playing it will want Special K to fix several things about it. The game is great, but the port is not.
 

Line

meh
Dec 21, 2018
1,543
2,608
113
A lot has been happening in 2020.


I especially like this part, which shows that hidden gems exist:
Yay Genshin Impact... :tightly-closed-eyes:
Mostly in the list to slap his economic model though... :tired-face:
And it's a bit disingenuous to say that you need hundreds of dollars to get characters, while that might rely on a bit of luck, you do get mountains of rolls and it's totally possible to fully max out the gacha part of the characters even as pure f2P (talents are the random part, character progression and gear is not related though). Most of them at least, the time limited ones, ok, that sucks.

Completely ridiculous to consider this game of all things to be the herald of gacha crap on the mainstream though.
Mate, we're taking PC gaming here, that's where it started.
And... gacha games have been the bread and butter of sports games in particular, except it costs 69.99€ every year too. Hell, there's not many GaaS that don't have lootboxes already.

But as I've already said, I don't even mind gacha shit if it means games cost me 0€ and release all their content patches and expansions for 0€.
I'm done spending AAA prices, I keep my money for small devs that deserve it more than the megacorp exec's Bentley collection.
 

Dragon1893

MetaMember
Apr 17, 2019
1,493
3,652
113
Finished Hellblade. It's a cool game. The combat doesn't have much depth but it actually feels very good. You spend most of the game looking for symbols in the environment to unlock doors which gets old.
You never see any UI on the screen, everything is conveyed to the player through sounds and visual cues that are part of the game world. It's a very dark and depressing game from start to finish which might not be everyone's cup of tea.

I might tackle Castlevania LOS2 next. As my PC gets older it's forcing me to focus more on my backlog. I just hope Nier and P5S run well, they don't look like very demanding games so it should be fine.
 

beep boop

MetaMember
Dec 6, 2018
2,170
4,558
113
I enjoyed Hellblade’s aesthetic component as well but the part where I had to play it felt too slight and uninteresting given the amount of time it demands of you.

They develop this unique audiovisual experience but then the part where you play it is walking (way too far) to a coordinate, doing one or two things to solve a ‘puzzle’ or engaging in super basic combat. Perplexing.

I think it’d have played better and been more well-rounded as a walking sim with minor interactions like Stanley Parable.
 
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Ge0force

Excluding exclusives
Jan 12, 2019
3,982
13,792
113
Belgium
Well that was an experience experience. Croatia got hit by another earthquake 6.3 on scale and we felt it 100km from epicenter. Shit was moving seriously at the office on the 3rd floor.
I only witnessed a single earthquake here in Belgium. I was only 10yo and it was scary as hell, especially because it happened at night. I really thought our house was collapsing for a moment, there was so much noise!

I hope everyone is ok in your country.
 

dex3108

MetaMember
Dec 20, 2018
3,053
14,378
113
I only witnessed a single earthquake here in Belgium. I was only 10yo and it was scary as hell, especially because it happened at night. I really thought our house was collapsing for a moment, there was so much noise!

I hope everyone is ok in your country.
Croatia got hit the most. Here in Bosnia so far no damages. But damn it was strong one.
 
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lashman

lashman

Dead & Forgotten
Sep 5, 2018
30,364
85,133
113
Well that was an experience experience. Croatia got hit by another earthquake 6.3 on scale and we felt it 100km from epicenter. Shit was moving seriously at the office on the 3rd floor.
stay safe, man! :negative-blob:
 

LEANIJA

MetaMember
May 5, 2019
2,949
7,386
113
Austria
Yeah, Sisak in Croatia was the epicentre (again!) after yesterdays 5.0 quake, today was 6.1 or 6.4 (sources differ). We felt it here in southern Austria (and all over the country, it was even noticeable in Germany, I heard), everything was shaking, felt like we're on a boat... we're safe though, nothing damaged. But god I hope everyone in Croatia is okay, they really had it shitty with quakes this year.
 

Tomasety

MetaEyesMember
Jun 8, 2020
882
3,448
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Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
7,704
15,601
113
Got hit by the crazy bug yesterday night, during an alcohol induced bout of insomnia. Thought I could do something with my life. Ha.
Installed Blender, watched the first tutos and fiddled with it. Like every past attempts I crashed on the complexity of the tool and some things I couldn’t do, like loop cutting at a specific location.
Then I watched a motherfucker create a 3d character from scratch. It was incredible, creepy (the skin and teeth part) and hope crushing.
I woke up at square one, in my usual mediocrity.

On a related stupid idea, if I learned a programming language, which one ?
 

Le Pertti

0.01% Game dev
Oct 10, 2018
8,278
21,202
113
45
Paris, France
lepertti.com
On a related stupid idea, if I learned a programming language, which one ?
Come talk programming !:D
 
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