Community MetaSteam | January 2021 - It's Rare to See a Medium So Well-Done

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Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
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Insomnia (or more precisely completely fucked up sleep cycle there). Planning to play Wasteland 2.
I can’t believe how much I love playing this game. It’s bugged, stands together with strings and tape, it’s super bland looking, and I fucking love it.
 

Derrick01

MetaMember
Oct 6, 2018
1,116
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I'm enjoying Yakuza Like a Dragon but not as much as I could be due to this painfully bad combat change. I predicted it would be the slow turn based jrpg combat I was dreading and...yep it is. I feel like I'm playing a game from 1993 and no that's not a good thing. The majority of battles are filler junk that take longer to clear than before and it's harder to avoid regular patrolling enemies than it was in past games, their aggro range is ridiculous. Most of the jobs from what I can tell offer no real satisfying difference from each other. Most have a raise stat/lower enemy stat moves or two to go along with offensive moves you use HUNDREDS of times (I already have the challenge for using skills over 300 times and I'm only in chapter 6), if only to make things go a little faster since the battles aren't challenging at all and I could have cleared them all mashing attack if I wanted to. The rest of the game is standard yakuza fare and almost to a fault. I know many are relatively new to the series but I've been playing them since Y3 so a lot of these minigames are getting really stale for me.

For the life of me I'll never understand what people see in turn based jrpg systems. They're the pinnacle of outdated design. I agree the series could have used a change but it didn't need to go backwards in time to a period when consoles couldn't handle anything too complex or fast. It's especially bad in a year when FF7 Remake came out and completely changed its mid 90s battle system into something extremely fun, modern, and kinda unique too.

edit: I should clarify that I'm only talking about turn based jrpg systems. I like turn based in crpgs and games like xcom and I find them very engaging. The way jrpgs do turn based is outdated and dull though.
 
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texhnolyze

Child at heart
Oct 19, 2018
3,596
8,616
113
Indonesia
The main problem with turn-based JRPG is the move animations.

It's cool to see them for the first few times, but you're going to use and see the moves hundreds, if not thousands of times throughout the 50-100 hours of playtime. In CRPGs and strategy games, moves are more on the simple side and much more natural and bearable to see over and over again. And yeah, the combat is usually more engaging than your average JRPGs. The only engaging combat system in turn-based JRPG that I can think of is the SMT series with their weakness and one more system. It's a good thing that Yakuza 7 copied that, but they failed to follow the snappiness of SMT combat. Instead, they make it worse somehow with how characters can learn and use lots of moves, which makes combat slower than it already is.
 

FunnyJay

Powered by the Cloud
Apr 6, 2019
1,475
3,860
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Sweden
Their digital store flops, so they buy an entire mall. Truly Sweeney has beaten Gabe in the storefront wars
What if they set up like a physical but digital store?

You travel to the store, go in, get a physical shopping cart, walk around a bit looking at displays of games, then use a computer at each display to individually purchase the game through the EGS storefront?

That has to be efficient and unique, right?
 
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SaberVS7

Average Date a Live Enjoyer
Jan 23, 2020
234
763
93
New Build.



Whaddaya Think?

RTX 3090
Ryzen 5 3600 (Plan to replace with one of the Zen 3's when they're more widely available)
32GBs of DDR4-3600
Two Samsung 980 Pros @ 1TB each
1250W PSU

And topped it off with that beast of a monitor right there. 4K, 144Hz, HDR.

Everything I could ever need and want.

Averages in the 60's in Cold War at 4K with all RTX features turned on with DLSS.
 

Dragon1893

MetaMember
Apr 17, 2019
1,578
3,854
113
Fuck mondays. Fuck them.

New Build.



Whaddaya Think?

RTX 3090
Ryzen 5 3600 (Plan to replace with one of the Zen 3's when they're more widely available)
32GBs of DDR4-3600
Two Samsung 980 Pros @ 1TB each
1250W PSU

And topped it off with that beast of a monitor right there. 4K, 144Hz, HDR.

Everything I could ever need and want.

Averages in the 60's in Cold War at 4K with all RTX features turned on with DLSS.
Not jealous at all. Nope.
 

Mor

Me llamo Willy y no hice la mili, pero vendo Chili
Sep 7, 2018
7,077
26,035
113
New Build.



Whaddaya Think?

RTX 3090
Ryzen 5 3600 (Plan to replace with one of the Zen 3's when they're more widely available)
32GBs of DDR4-3600
Two Samsung 980 Pros @ 1TB each
1250W PSU

And topped it off with that beast of a monitor right there. 4K, 144Hz, HDR.

Everything I could ever need and want.

Averages in the 60's in Cold War at 4K with all RTX features turned on with DLSS.
DOPE! :blobeyes::blobeyes::blobeyes:
 

dex3108

MetaMember
Dec 20, 2018
3,289
15,208
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Meanwhile I am still waiting for tracking to get updated since December 10th :(

But friend did submit inquiry to USPS because people say that it helps. So we will see XD
 
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SaberVS7

Average Date a Live Enjoyer
Jan 23, 2020
234
763
93
I may misread the scale but isn't that a TV at this point ? :sweaty-blob:
Isn't it too big ?
(yeah, yeah, that's what she said)
A little cramped.

Evidently super nice otherwise, eh :cold-sweat:
No, the TV was just out of frame, to the right of the Switch and empty box of tissues.



You are out of handkerchiefs. :ninja:



And I can see that you have activated RTX on the side of your PC case.



Ok fixed.

And yeah, the case has glass sides that open via magnetic latches. Gave me a real incentive to engage in Cable Management for once, because I would stare straight into my sins every day I sat down.
 

Deku

Just nothing
Oct 19, 2018
4,340
8,805
113
20XX
www.seikens.com
No, the TV was just out of frame, to the right of the Switch and empty box of tissues.

Ok fixed.

And yeah, the case has glass sides that open via magnetic latches. Gave me a real incentive to engage in Cable Management for once, because I would stare straight into my sins every day I sat down.
Maybe you should work on the cables that are lying on the floor? :p
Just saying
 
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LEANIJA

MetaMember
May 5, 2019
3,154
7,653
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Austria
SaberVS7 Nice machine! Too colourful for my taste, of course, but neat specs =)

~

@Epic buying a mall: they probably got sick of people telling them to implement shopping carts, so they decided to research that elusive, exotic feature by the only way they know to do things: spend millions on something. :smart-thinking-blob:
 

Gamall Wednesday Ida

Just a loon, apparently.
Dec 4, 2020
350
1,030
93
France
www.youtube.com
I mean I guess it could be a lot worse but those are not really good sales numbers. Sure that the PS5 was hard to get but if you look at the hardware sales. In Japan the PS5 sold 100k+ since that was all the stock that they had and it only sold like 18K+ that is rather decent but not really that good either. It is one of the special new games on the PS5 that you can only play on PS5.
Yes, but in Japan, it did the same numbers as "Spiderman: Miles Morales".

Given that one is a remake of a very niche game, and the other is a classical big budget AAA 7-to-77 wholesome-for-the-whole-family game, branded with one of the most popular superheroes in the world (according to my very superficial understanding of such trends), I for one would not have expected to see them do the same numbers at all.

Is Spiderman maybe not that popular in Japan?

And with Europe those 16 place does not seem that high.
Would be bad numbers for a COD, but for a Souls game on limited hardware, to show up at all, I take as a good sign.

Surely nobody expects a Souls game on every shelf? There is a large-ish hardcore fanbase that can be relied upon to buy the games, it's guaranteed ROI, but it's not going to shake the world.

I wonder what proportion of that fanbase might be on PC at that point, though? No idea.

There are at least 1+ million PS5 that have been sold (I think that there is more than that actually) but how many copies of Demon Souls have been sold?

But then again Souls games seem to be among the games with the lowest attach rates on consoles. Compared to other SIE games I don't think Bloodborne ever reached 10+ million copies sold. And SIE has something like a 10% attach rate on their games on average, while other companies like Nintendo have something much closer to 20% I think.

I didn't buy Demon Souls because later on it might come to PC but also because you know that in 2 years the game will cost $10USD instead of the current $70USD.
At the time, Sony said BB sales "exceeded their expectations".

No time to look for more numbers, it's Monday and all that...
 
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bobnowhere

Careful Icarus
Sep 20, 2018
1,680
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Anyone have a steam Human Fall Flat key they want to trade for? My niece wants the game.

Thanks, you know who!
 
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Line

meh
Dec 21, 2018
1,617
2,786
113
The main problem with turn-based JRPG is the move animations.

It's cool to see them for the first few times, but you're going to use and see the moves hundreds, if not thousands of times throughout the 50-100 hours of playtime. In CRPGs and strategy games, moves are more on the simple side and much more natural and bearable to see over and over again. And yeah, the combat is usually more engaging than your average JRPGs. The only engaging combat system in turn-based JRPG that I can think of is the SMT series with their weakness and one more system. It's a good thing that Yakuza 7 copied that, but they failed to follow the snappiness of SMT combat. Instead, they make it worse somehow with how characters can learn and use lots of moves, which makes combat slower than it already is.
That's why I like the old Dragon Quests the most, pacing wise. No bullshit about dancing before battle, watching the painfully slow and ugly animations go off in 3D (hi DQ9, blight on the franchise), extra "cinematic" cut scenes all the time to fill in those CDs... just here's your enemy, choose your skill, here's a fire sprite, next.

All those very real JRPG problems are entirely technical... but not because consoles couldn't handle it in the 80's, but because the PS1 was all the rage, and you needed those fancy visuals. And that also added extra loadings, and shit framerates, for the triple combo.
But now at least we're going back to faster, snappier combat. Or just with an option to remove the busywork.

Though I can only laugh when Derrick01 call XCOM and the like as a better option, as they are now the kind of game that suffer from utterly pointless animations repeated a million times while their originals didn't waste time. ESPECIALLY for movement, XCOM is disgustingly bad with constant shuffling around of the ennemies while... nothing even happens on screen because you haven't spotted them!
 
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fantomena

MetaMember
Dec 17, 2018
9,743
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One of the bigger Norwegian newspapers wrote today about Steams 25 mill ccu record, they rarely write about games. And what do they call it? "Gaming-platform Steam" not "Gaming-launcher Steam".

Even a newspaper who don't really write about games calls Steam a platform and not a launcher.

Just thought it was funny.
 

Mor

Me llamo Willy y no hice la mili, pero vendo Chili
Sep 7, 2018
7,077
26,035
113
One of the bigger Norwegian newspapers wrote today about Steams 25 mill ccu record, they rarely write about games. And what do they call it? "Gaming-platform Steam" not "Gaming-launcher Steam".

Even a newspaper who don't really write about games calls Steam a platform and not a launcher.

Just thought it was funny.
I mean, it's not just 25 million users, it's 25 million CONCURRENT users from which 7.4 were playing games (about 29-30% of total) so it's kind of impressive and it also happened at the very beginning of the year.

Do you think you can share a link or take a picture of said newspaper? it would be kind of amazing.
 

Snakethesniper

Time Traveler
Jan 11, 2019
937
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Just managed to finish a first run of Streets Of Rage 4 with blaze but I've noticed that only 9.2% of the player got the achievement. Considering that the achievement for beating the final boss is at 48%, just nobody used blaze
 
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lashman

lashman

Dead & Forgotten
Sep 5, 2018
31,076
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The Bleem Powered Marketplace simplifies retro gaming – download, open, play.

January 4th 2021, San Antonio Texas, United States – Piko Interactive has acquired the Bleem! brand name from David Herpolsheimer, former president of the Bleem company. Continuing their intent of keeping the past alive, Piko is launching an online digital marketplace called Bleem!.

Bleem Powered represents commercial preservation of older titles from now defunct platforms. Releases made available through the store front will come as complete downloads. Each release will include the necessary software to make the game run as intended.

“We will be making available titles on the Bleem Marketplace that we would never release on Steam or Good Old Games [GoG]. Some of these releases will be available exclusively on our new storefront. We are also excited to work with independent and homebrew developers in monetizing their releases and reaching new fans.” Stated Eli Galindo, owner of Piko Interactive and Bleem Powered.

The intent of the Bleem Powered store front is to be the go-to location for gamers wanting that console feel on PC. Nintendo Entertainment System, SNES, Sega Genesis, the Game Boy line, TurboGrafx-16, PS One, and more will be supported. Additional platforms will be supported on an as needed basis.

Third party publishers will be able to use the custom wrapper through publisher partnerships. This will allow them to use the wrapper on their own Bleem Powered releases or when publishing on Steam or GoG. This wrapper is not required for publishers to publish game of the Bleem Marketplace

“Making things easier for gamers is our goal. The Bleem Powered storefront is just an extension of that intent. It really is as simple as download, open, and play. Working with outside companies to publish their games on the storefront will give gamers even more choices.” Stated Eli describing the scope of the retro gaming marketplace. He continued with, “We will also be acquiring licenses for catalogs of games to be released on the Bleem store.”

Piko Interactive is well known in the retro gaming community for preserving classic titles. They have also developed a reputation for completing many titles as well as creating brand new releases. The Bleem Powered store front will not be a software download, it will only be a website. This saves gamers from having to deal with additional software they do not want, or need, to play their favorite games.

Forward thinking actions with the Bleem Powered marketplace includes offering commercial licenses. This will allow arcade machine manufacturers, emulation boxes producers, etc. to launch with legal full libraries of games ready to play out of the box. Intellectual property owners will see an extremely competitive revenue split when publishing on the Bleem Powered marketplace. In an unprecedented move, Piko Interactive games will be made available in a manner that gamers can use the ROM file with their flashcarts or emulators of their choice. Additionally, Piko Interactive is working on making the digital games compatible with GOG Galaxy launcher.

Media contact: Eli Galindo
company name: Piko Interactive LLC
Website: http://store.bleempowered.com



also - that website address is just ...

 

Mor

Me llamo Willy y no hice la mili, pero vendo Chili
Sep 7, 2018
7,077
26,035
113





also - that website address is just ...

Piko already bombed enough on two well positioned platforms because their content wasn't hot enough for people to care (and the only thing people cared that was glover never released, sooo)

So the thing is, do they really think it will be any different on their own platform no one knows? I mean, have they checked their numbers on Twitter? their interactions? if so and they decided to go ahead with this, congrats, you already braver than me.

I have the feeling this will bomb so hard that they will comeback to Steam and GOG and won't complain ever again, that or make their own console like Madz tried to do.
 

Dragon1893

MetaMember
Apr 17, 2019
1,578
3,854
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Just managed to finish a first run of Streets Of Rage 4 with blaze but I've noticed that only 9.2% of the player got the achievement. Considering that the achievement for beating the final boss is at 48%, just nobody used blaze
Damn, she was the first character I beat the game with and even in the old games she was my favorite.
 

fantomena

MetaMember
Dec 17, 2018
9,743
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I mean, it's not just 25 million users, it's 25 million CONCURRENT users from which 7.4 were playing games (about 29-30% of total) so it's kind of impressive and it also happened at the very beginning of the year.

Do you think you can share a link or take a picture of said newspaper? it would be kind of amazing.
 

Snakethesniper

Time Traveler
Jan 11, 2019
937
1,685
93
New Build.



Whaddaya Think?

RTX 3090
Ryzen 5 3600 (Plan to replace with one of the Zen 3's when they're more widely available)
32GBs of DDR4-3600
Two Samsung 980 Pros @ 1TB each
1250W PSU

And topped it off with that beast of a monitor right there. 4K, 144Hz, HDR.

Everything I could ever need and want.

Averages in the 60's in Cold War at 4K with all RTX features turned on with DLSS.
Nice build! I was looking on amazon for my country an the RTX 3090 is like 2.000€
 

QFNS

Plays too many card games
Nov 18, 2018
1,222
2,972
113
Thinking about getting into Total War Three Kingdoms after I finish Ori and the Will of the Wisps. Any advice for a Total War noob?
 
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gabbo

MetaMember
Dec 22, 2018
3,518
5,563
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Toronto





also - that website address is just ...

I feel like i should understand more of this, but all I'm getting is flashbacks to being 12 and playstation emulators. But yeah, avoid steam and gog with your retro releases, that can't fail, right?
edit: Oh god that website. It's like the psychedelic levels from Psychonauts threw up all over a Bleem logo
 
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Blu

MetaMember
Mar 12, 2019
925
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Just managed to finish a first run of Streets Of Rage 4 with blaze but I've noticed that only 9.2% of the player got the achievement. Considering that the achievement for beating the final boss is at 48%, just nobody used blaze
Looking at the steam achievements she's still the second most used with Axel being 9.3. I think a lot of people used the retro character (as I certainly did) when they were unlocked. Don't know if you have to only play as the character throughout or finish with them. Since they made switching so easy it's possible people just switched around for variety.
 
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