Community MetaSteam | February 2023 - A 90's dystopian adventure in the digiworld.
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Behold The PsychOdyssey!
If it seems like we’ve been a bit quiet here at Double Fine, there’s a few reasons for that. We’re proud to present Double Fine PsychOdyssey! Double Fine…
Yeah if it gets go9d word of mouth and reviews I could see Starfield hitting over 1 million ccu. If it doesn't it will still probably do very well.
I saw this video and it's pretty cool.
Crazy how huge of an influence Wizardry has had in the video game industry but it also feels like it hardly gets the recognition that it deserves (well at least outside of Japan, as mentioned in the video)
Also the company going out of business makes sense as peoples taste in games was just shifting and they were in a weird place.
Crazy how huge of an influence Wizardry has had in the video game industry but it also feels like it hardly gets the recognition that it deserves (well at least outside of Japan, as mentioned in the video)
Also the company going out of business makes sense as peoples taste in games was just shifting and they were in a weird place.
Easily one of the most incredibly problematic games ever released, and it's getting a whole lot of hand waives. Go figure.
I just tried out that city builder or w/e it is from Steamworld. Not bad, great game to play on my phone.
My hope with starfield is that the industry, meaning media and players alike, have the kind of awakening that they had with bioware and just refuses to accept the level of "quality" that bethesda puts out and gets away with. The current times we live in is one I'd describe as too obsessed with polish to the point where the internet will really viciously tear a game apart for being moderately buggy or having messy elements to it (think of stuff like forspoken's dialogue) so it stands to reason bethesda's on track to get brutalized. However in the past EVERYONE ignored these issues and even tried to use it as a benefit and that it's "part of the charm". And yes I'll admit part of my feelings on this is because I had to sit by and watch Obsidian get torn apart by the media for buggy games despite the games themselves being infinitely more ambitious than bethesda's (don't give me that BS about NV being more buggy, skyrim literally didn't run on 1 platform). I just don't know what will happen because it's been 8 long years since their last "true" game. The world, the internet and the game industry is SO different than it was back then. Everything is basically a half assed action RPG/open world game at worst now, and at best they push dangerously close to actual legit RPGs, so I just don't know how people will react to another very shallow BGS game.
Of course all this is assuming that starfield ends up as being just another bethesda game and not something that's insanely high polished and well executed. I mean that is technically possible I guess but I sure as hell won't make that bet, and nothing shown on the game so far gives the impression that this one will be different.
Hogwarts Legacy has surpassed 879k concurrent players.
In terms of all-time peaks, the game currently sits at #8 (according to SteamDB)
In terms of all-time peaks, the game currently sits at #8 (according to SteamDB)
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I don't disagree with you 100%, but on the same hand, Skyrim was a buggy piece of shit that crashed my PS3 over and over, but i still loved nearly every second of it while it did work.
And Oblivion will ALWAYS retain a special place in my heart. That was one of the first Xbox360 games that made me feel, "holy shit, we really hit next gen didn't we?" And I then proceeded to sink a thousand hours into it, warts be damned,
Few games can hold that power over me. And I'm someone who generally VASTLY prefers JRPG's to WRPG.
I have said before that Bethesda are the only open world games that I truly enjoy anymore.
However I probably won’t be getting it at launch. Not because of bugs, stutter issues or whatever. My main problem is I can’t see it launching any less than £50 and more than likely £60.
I could look past the bugs and issues when they where asking £30-£40. But not now, especially if they follow the high pricing. So I think it will be a first sale situation and even then it depends on how deep a discount.
On a more positive note.
been playing Dungreed. Nice little one more run game, kind of a Dead Cells lite. The only real negative is that it can make you want to play Dead Cells instead.
However I probably won’t be getting it at launch. Not because of bugs, stutter issues or whatever. My main problem is I can’t see it launching any less than £50 and more than likely £60.
I could look past the bugs and issues when they where asking £30-£40. But not now, especially if they follow the high pricing. So I think it will be a first sale situation and even then it depends on how deep a discount.
On a more positive note.
been playing Dungreed. Nice little one more run game, kind of a Dead Cells lite. The only real negative is that it can make you want to play Dead Cells instead.
That's Returnal for 40 paid. Slightly stressed out as it' my first purchase from eTail.Market, but GG.deals lists the site as 'not shady'.
Jason Schreier's thoughts on the shofar/1612. It starts with him clarifying that gorgonzola cheese can in fact be kosher. This was necessary because apparently at least one person thought the writer chose gorgonzola(which they though was not kosher) specifically the reinforce the antisemitism.
He IS critical of the goblins themselves as they appear in the franchise though.
He IS critical of the goblins themselves as they appear in the franchise though.
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I only very rarely post negatively about games. I'd generally rather just talk about games I enjoy, and there are so many good and even great games out there that aren't talked about enough that spending time writing about bad ones just seems like a waste.
And, no, this is not about any controversy, just about exceedingly shoddy game craftsmanship.
What I want to vent about is Super Neptunia RPG.
I was interested in this game for a while -- I actually do enjoy some of the other Neptunia games, and while they also have their fair share of issues, they have redeeming qualities as well. Also, side-scrolling JRPGs are relatively rare and I was looking forward to how that switches things up. So where did it go wrong? Basically everywhere, and that's the problem.
Almost every single system, implementation, or design aspect of this game is sub-par.
The overall level of care and interest which went into Super Neptunia RPG is perhaps best summed up by the name string of the first Steam trading card it dropped for me: "Neptunetrade1"
I have nothing to add to that, and I've dropped this game with no intention of going back to it.
And, no, this is not about any controversy, just about exceedingly shoddy game craftsmanship.
What I want to vent about is Super Neptunia RPG.
I was interested in this game for a while -- I actually do enjoy some of the other Neptunia games, and while they also have their fair share of issues, they have redeeming qualities as well. Also, side-scrolling JRPGs are relatively rare and I was looking forward to how that switches things up. So where did it go wrong? Basically everywhere, and that's the problem.
Almost every single system, implementation, or design aspect of this game is sub-par.
- Battle system? Grindy, overly simplistic to a staggering extent, somehow, at the same time, meaninglessly complicated, and with any difficulty completely eliminated by infinite item use and thus turned into more grind. There are literally 0 redeeming qualities to the battle system.
- Basic movement? Utterly shit. The art of movement and making it feel good in 2D platformers is incredibly refined at this point, and while I don't expect this degree of refinement in a low-cost JRPG what is presented here is beyond the pale. It's floaty, laughably bad at the fundamentals like collision handling, and utterly unsatisfactory to play. (See the spoiler at the end for extra ranting on this [1])
- Level design? Copy paste corridors, with little to no thought put into the layout or making them interesting. The one good idea in principle is having some small platforming / timed search challenges, but those are let down both by the controls issue noted above and, perhaps even more so, but utterly nonexistent signposting.
- Quests? Calling these MMO-tier does a disservice to even the lower tier of MMOs released when the genre booming in the wake of WoW.
The overall level of care and interest which went into Super Neptunia RPG is perhaps best summed up by the name string of the first Steam trading card it dropped for me: "Neptunetrade1"
I have nothing to add to that, and I've dropped this game with no intention of going back to it.
[1] I had some students create 2D games in small groups this semester, and it's not even at all about the game but primarily about experience in a larger scale programming project. Nonetheless, at least two of these groups (who are complete amateurs and spent only a small fraction of their studies over one semester programming an entire small game, without using an off-the-shelf engine) managed to make a 2D movement system that feels more satisfying and polished than the movement in Super Neptunia RPG. Let that sink in.
I'm in agreement with Schreier, my first reaction to the horn thing is 'what if it's just a fucking horn ?'
I didn't catch the gorgonzola thing but it speaks volume about the hate boner some people have for the game, to the point of absurdity. This is not me saying HP is not more than problematic or that Rowling isn't a piece of shit, but some people are reaching so much that it makes their legitimate issue looks worse for it.
Like, I saw someone on Mastodon argue that the trans character has been passive aggressively named because in Sirona Ryan you can find Sir, and Ryan is a male first name.
My takeaway is that I'm in agreement with something Schreier said and I feel deeply disturbed
I didn't catch the gorgonzola thing but it speaks volume about the hate boner some people have for the game, to the point of absurdity. This is not me saying HP is not more than problematic or that Rowling isn't a piece of shit, but some people are reaching so much that it makes their legitimate issue looks worse for it.
Like, I saw someone on Mastodon argue that the trans character has been passive aggressively named because in Sirona Ryan you can find Sir, and Ryan is a male first name.
My takeaway is that I'm in agreement with something Schreier said and I feel deeply disturbed
Rowling being a piece of shit isn't mainstream knowledge and her IP is bigger than her, like with having a trans character in this I can imagine a sequel having all the pronouns and character generator choices she would loathe (but love the money anyway so say nothing). Whether HP lives on or ends up in obscurity because she goes (more) unhinged and even publishing houses cut ties with her (but for that to happen you'll need a conveniently timed mainstream hit IP to take over its role, they aren't saying no to all that money either) it will not spread the messages she wants for long, even if she does with the money gained.
I wish I had the amount of free time like people who keep looking into such small things have. I don' really have the time to play the damn game itself.
Starfield is going to be Fallout 4 in space with a few upgrades. I feel like expecting anything more than that is just setting yourself up for disappointment. I think they will update their engine a bit and maybe bolt on raytracing or add some of the newer graphics upscaling techniques. I hope they will improve the combat feedback by bringing in some experts from id Software or Machine Games to help them out in that area. I also think they will simplify the RPG mechanics even more than their previous games. I don't know how they will do that but I have faith that they can find a way. They have been doing it in every single game since Oblivion. I think the space ship might add some interesting gameplay but beyond that I expect it to play exactly like their old games, including the million bugs and glitches they always ship with.
It's difficult to guess how the critics' reviews will go. I expect some will ignore all the problems just like they have in the past. It's possible others will actually dock points in their review scores. So I think the entire game review score range (of 6 to 10
) will be utilized. The internet reaction will be different, because, like you said, the internet has changed in the last 10 years. People have always shared bugs and glitches and memes of BGS games but I expect it to be far more pervasive this time around, and also to be more vicious and mean spirited. There will be sour grapes from some people who are unhappy that the game is not coming to Playstation. But beyond that, there will be people who actually hope for the game to fail or be bad or do poorly. There will be people who will take joy in belittling the game and those who enjoy it. This is something I've noticed in the last couple of years or so. Maybe I wasn't paying attention before (I'm sure there were people sending death threats to Diablo 3 developers 10 years ago) but it just feels like the level of gaming discourse has gotten much, much worse recently. This is obviously all conjecture but I predict the internet reaction will be a complete shitshow.The thing is, none of that is going to matter at all. There are millions of people who absolutely love the BGS game formula. Their sandbox open worlds are one of a kind and nothing else comes close. It's kind of crazy that in this industry full of trend chasing copycats, nobody (to my knowledge) has ever managed to replicate the BGS open world experience. This is the magic of BGS games that overrides all complaints about the stories and the RPG mechanics and the bugs and glitches and everything else. It's also why their games have (what I believe to be) the largest active modding community. A huge group of people who love their games so much that they are willing to fix them for free. To add entirely new adventures for free. To do it for more than 20 years across several games. It is crazy how much people love BGS games. That's why it won't matter whether the game gets a 9/10 or a 6/10 review. People will not give a shit if it gets a 1/10 review. Nor if the internet is being obnoxious about it. Nobody is going to be able to stop people from enjoying the game.
I personally didn't enjoy Fallout 4 much. I saw the ending coming a mile away and I hated the base building. I still played it all the way through. Just a few days ago I saw someone sharing a screenshot of a large town they had built in the game. It looked kind of ugly to me but it doesn't matter what I think of it because that person loved the game enough to build that town 10 years after it came out and he loved it enough to share it with the world. That person is definitely getting Starfield. And so am I. BGS games are a cultural monument in the industry just like Civilization or GTA. People with even the slightest interest will definitely play it.
My only concern with Starfield is how BGS handles modding. I'm worried that the game will be an always online/Denuvo protected title and that can significantly hamper modding. The other thing that worries me is that BGS might try to control mods by insisting that they use their Creation Club service and somehow block Nexusmods and the Steam workshop. Maybe they try their paid mods experiment again. Starfield is the kind of marquee title that they can try anything like this and get away with it. I'm just hoping they allow mods the way they have forever.
I've never really understood what "bethesda magic" even is because when I play their games I just see very shallow open worlds that don't really have any meaningful choices, or good writing (so I'm never eager to see what this new settlement has in store for me), or good gameplay. In the past I've seen their games described as wide as an ocean but deep as a puddle, and back in the oblivion or even skyrim days I could maybe see the appeal as we were still not really drowning in open world games/RPGs at the time. But now? They're everywhere you look, and just about all of them do most things better than Bethesda games ever did. I mean a lot of them even have dialog trees now which is more than fallout 4 had lol.Starfield is going to be Fallout 4 in space with a few upgrades. I feel like expecting anything more than that is just setting yourself up for disappointment. I think they will update their engine a bit and maybe bolt on raytracing or add some of the newer graphics upscaling techniques. I hope they will improve the combat feedback by bringing in some experts from id Software or Machine Games to help them out in that area. I also think they will simplify the RPG mechanics even more than their previous games. I don't know how they will do that but I have faith that they can find a way. They have been doing it in every single game since Oblivion. I think the space ship might add some interesting gameplay but beyond that I expect it to play exactly like their old games, including the million bugs and glitches they always ship with.
It's difficult to guess how the critics' reviews will go. I expect some will ignore all the problems just like they have in the past. It's possible others will actually dock points in their review scores. So I think the entire game review score range (of 6 to 10
The thing is, none of that is going to matter at all. There are millions of people who absolutely love the BGS game formula. Their sandbox open worlds are one of a kind and nothing else comes close. It's kind of crazy that in this industry full of trend chasing copycats, nobody (to my knowledge) has ever managed to replicate the BGS open world experience. This is the magic of BGS games that overrides all complaints about the stories and the RPG mechanics and the bugs and glitches and everything else. It's also why their games have (what I believe to be) the largest active modding community. A huge group of people who love their games so much that they are willing to fix them for free. To add entirely new adventures for free. To do it for more than 20 years across several games. It is crazy how much people love BGS games. That's why it won't matter whether the game gets a 9/10 or a 6/10 review. People will not give a shit if it gets a 1/10 review. Nor if the internet is being obnoxious about it. Nobody is going to be able to stop people from enjoying the game.
I personally didn't enjoy Fallout 4 much. I saw the ending coming a mile away and I hated the base building. I still played it all the way through. Just a few days ago I saw someone sharing a screenshot of a large town they had built in the game. It looked kind of ugly to me but it doesn't matter what I think of it because that person loved the game enough to build that town 10 years after it came out and he loved it enough to share it with the world. That person is definitely getting Starfield. And so am I. BGS games are a cultural monument in the industry just like Civilization or GTA. People with even the slightest interest will definitely play it.
My only concern with Starfield is how BGS handles modding. I'm worried that the game will be an always online/Denuvo protected title and that can significantly hamper modding. The other thing that worries me is that BGS might try to control mods by insisting that they use their Creation Club service and somehow block Nexusmods and the Steam workshop. Maybe they try their paid mods experiment again. Starfield is the kind of marquee title that they can try anything like this and get away with it. I'm just hoping they allow mods the way they have forever.
So I imagine no one has really tried to copy them because no one can really understand what there is to copy. Like the entire industry has tried copying open worlds with skill trees, loot, quests, enemy levels (sometimes even with level scaling) etc. The only unique thing I can think that BGS games do is saving where you drop items but is that really that important to making a great game or RPG? Even more so when you consider that's likely why their games are increasingly bigger messes, because they have to keep using that 20 year old frankenstein engine just to maintain that one feature that isn't even ultimately important but drains a ton of resources.
Apparently this is the optional boss theme in Octopath 2. Wow.
Gravity Circuit is an interesting Mega Man-ish game but with fists instead of blasters. Oh and a grappling hook.
Interview Theatrhythm : Hazama & Suzui (ENG) - Finaland
Votre site de référence sur la saga Final Fantasy et toute l’actualité Square Enix
FFT Remastered may have been soft confirmed.
It's been steadily growing the past few weeks, but the new case release helped put it over the top. It could take back the #2 all time crown from Lost Ark tomorrow.
I liked the demo even if it is more of the same. I know I should wait since I have a whole slate of RPGs I could play instead, but my FOMO senses are tingling.
I don't really see media and critics going hard after Bethesda this time around. The game being on Gamepass will help it too since it won't just be a 70$ game at launch. It being a new IP will also lower expectations a bit and generate new excitement. The game also is not coming to PS5 so it should be easier for them to deal with porting it to only PC and Xbox. Overall the amount of bugs and glitches should be much lower when they release it imo.
Andromeda was ripe for criticism because they dropped Shepard's story and there was a lot of bad writing/animation in it. Almost a comical amount of weird stuff at launch. You could really see the big step down in quality compared to what the original trilogy was. Especially those first few hours of the game.
The big thing that will make or break Starfield will be the 1000 planets imo. If they just riddle the game with boring fetch quests then I can see people rip into it really hard. For example "fly to planet 155 and scan some rocks"....then "fly to planet 275 and collect your reward" type of shit. If they can avoid those pitfalls the game should be received well. They need to have some interesting quests. They confirmed the game will have factions and those factions are at war etc. Also all the building mechanics from Fallout 4 seem to be here and even more on top of it. So even a basic side quest like fly to planet X and build a defense outpost will be much more fun than some shitty fetch quest. They've been decent in regards to branching quests. Starfield will really need them so they can't hold anything back. Using all their resources and manpower will be everything for them with this release. The biggest sin they can commit is having a large game like this being empty/lifeless across the board. They desperately need a lot of quests, side quests, companions and other interesting things to do. Modders will help a lot post release but it will take some time.
Hopefully this big delay they just had was used to add write in things like fun quests and not only to fix bugs. Bethesda has always also been great with DLC for their games. Fallout 4, 3 and Skyrim all had great post release updates so there will be plenty of room to fix a lot of inconvenient things with Starfield. The base release just needs to be solid.
For me, I have had many unexpected outcomes from even minor events in Fallout games that I remember years later. A good example is in Fallout 4, where I was just wandering around one day and came across an old woman living in a shack in the middle of the woods. As I got closer, I could see she was surrounded by cats. As a cat lover, it looked idyllic and lovely. I talked to her and then looted her house, of course, during the course of which I found packages of cat meat. Horrified, I immediately murdered the old woman. It felt like a job well done, until the cats all walked over and surrounded her body -- they were looking sadly and meowing. It then occurred to me that maybe she wasn't raising the cats for food, maybe just eating the old or injured cats? Either way, she was taking good care of them and they loved her. It was heartbreaking. I actually reloaded an old save so I could let her live.
The standard now for open world is Elden Ring, and while it blows away any Bethesday open world in every conceivable objective measure, it doesn't have the "charm" that is so hard to capture or even describe. I'm glad there's room for both.
Spiritfarer®: Farewell Edition - Regional Price Update - Steam News
Hey everyone, Today, we're approving and locking in Steam's latest regional price recommendations on our games. Some of these new prices are a big change (check out the full list here), so I want to give a little context. For those who are unaware, Steam doesn't simply use exchange rates to set...
This is probably one of the few actual explicit cases of a problematic game, with a terrible IP owner, director, and the shit is baked into the cake, and this is how game 'critics' are treating it. I've seen way bigger reactions from the community and critics from one-off comments by game devs, innocuous Easter eggs, benign visual or game design choices etc. But in this one everything is fine, sure, ok. I think it's just that when the going gets tough, the critics give up and make excuses. They got too much on the line to actually take a stand against anything. It used to be that just true commentary on corporate tactics were off limits in the games journalism space, but now it's the games themselves which are immune from criticism.
My personal stance is everything like this is death by a thousand cuts. I don't think less of someone who buys and enjoys the game. But it's the collective decisions that add up to the issues we have in society.
Never liked Schreier, and he's blocked me on Twitter for calling him out for bad shit years ago, so I know it's not everyone in games journalism. But overall the identity politics cause in gaming is completely dead IMO. There's nothing there.
Microsoft will boost gamepass numbers leading into the Starfield launch so keep an eye out for some deals. They'll probably have the 1$ for a month or 3 months. You know they want to boast about their subscriber numbers when the earnings come out. This will be their biggest release since Halo Infinite and will likely have even more engagement.
So if you don't want to buy it full price at launch just sub to GP for a month or wtvr. Beat the game and then wait for the GOTY version down the line. Their games are spammed with physical copies so resellers will have great deals. The Fallout 4 GOTY version was only like 10-15$ just 2-3 years after F4 came out iirc.
Yeah, game pass is sure gonna kick the potential ccu numbers on Steam down a notch, question how much. Like, if Starfield ends up at 1,2m ccu, would it have been 1,8m if game pass wasn't a thing?
Just to clarify things a bit, he is not saying that as game journalist, he is Jewish.
So I checked a bunch of Nintendo emualtors (NES, SNES, GBA etc.) and downloaded some roms and jeesus, those emulator have more features and options than what Switch Online provides.
Is he no longer a games journalist? I haven't followed him, obviously. If he is still a games journalist, he is saying it as a games journalist.
And launch them with Steam / Steam deck is awesome,
PS: I just noticed Steam Big Picture uses DualShock prompts if you have DS4 or DualSense connected.
If you're using Retroarch to play these, there's an option called autosave/autoload, that will immediately bring you back in game.
No need for skipping the intro screens and loading states, etc.
Harry Potter has history with terrible names for minority characters. Cho Chang, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Parvati Pavil. You can only give the benefit of the doubt so many times lmao
HP game just reached 800k ccu, making it the 3rd biggest b2p game on Steam. Insane to think that the second biggest, Elden Ring, was just last year,
Harry Potter more like Horrid Poopster
Like a Dragon: Ishin! gets Steam Deck Verified ahead of release
Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and SEGA are bringing Like a Dragon: Ishin! to Steam, and the good news is that it is already Steam Deck Verified.
www.gamingonlinux.com
Alan Wake 2 now "playable from start to finish", says Remedy
It only feels like yesterday we were all praying to the gods of impossible things that we might one day get a sequel to…
www.eurogamer.net
I never thought one day I would take Skyrim's (or Bethesda's in general) defense, and I can't believe I'm actually going to write this one sentence but...
Bethesda games are absolutely not "deep as a puddle"
Yes, I wrote that, and I'll defend it. You said it yourself: many games replicated:
but somehow they are not defended in the same way Skyrim is (in fact many actively dislike them). The truth is none of those things matter, or to be more specific these are not the things that make those games "unique". The reason why those game "fail" in copying Skyrim is exactly because they focus on those things, but those things are superficial, they're the exactly the things someone would replicate and then act surprised when players don't like their games. Now, it's easy to simplify Skyrim by saying "the game is better than the sum of its parts", and I'm obviously not denying things like how skills don't matter, quests have no choices, excessive amount of draugr dungeons, samey enemies, bad or randomized loot, how you clear one dungeon and suddenly you're the grandmaster of every guild in Skyrim, the dumb civil war, that damn Meridia's Beacon, and tons of other things. Skyrim is a very obviously rushed game for a dumb meme release date, but despite all of this it has an insane amount of "details" sprinkeld everywhere. Yeah, the quests are shitty, but the world those quests are in is not. Hell Id argue the actual gameplay of the Elder Scrolls games is ass and always has been, and yet it doesn't matter because the "gameplay" is only windows dressing (it's no wonder the games always have a difficulty slider which can go from enemies can barely cause you 1HP of damage while they die if you sneeze on them to this random draugr has more HP that a boss dragon). In fact I bet everyone hates the Elder Scrolls "gameplay" and yet they keep coming back because of everything else outside of the gameplay
Let's make some examples starting from the dungeons. The dungeons are all the same draugr/bandit/troll/vampire/necromancer lair with the same randomized loot and the same magical hidden door at the end that conveniently returns you to the entrance, and yet almost all of them have something that separates it from one another. Some are very in your face (linked to quest and guided from beginning to the end), others are less (may still have quests linked to them but you need to actually reach the place to activate it) and others actually need the player to discover the environmental storytelling on their own. You don't believe me? Let's see then (with links):
- What about the bandit cave "guarded" by a blind old man at the entrance (he is even "reading" and empty book). This cave is also an example of "environmental story telling". Sneaking around instead of murdering everything on sight as well as reading the journals and notes inside will reveal the bandits are planning to kill their leader and there is even a bit of a story about the caged wolf inside
- What about the cave inhabited by an "incel necromancer" obsessed with young females. The cave is probably the only place in game filled only with female draugr as well as the mind controlled ghosts of all his female victims. The boss has a unique dialogue if the player is female and even an alternate way of killing him by sneaking in and picking the soul gem he uses to control the ghosts. Once again go in murdering everything and you may never notice these details
- Did you know there is a second lighthouse in Skyrim near Dawnstar? No quest will ever bring you there, but there is a whole story to learn by reading the journals inside about how the Redguard family living there got killed by a Chaurus swarm. This place has a fully unmarked quest which requires the player to actually figure out the final step on their own by reading the journals (spoilers: putting the remains of the father inside the lighthouse brazier on top) that rewards a permanent buff
- How about the one bandit camp without any loot because the bandit chief didn't trust his gang and hid everything in a hidden stash elsewhere?
- How about the one non-hostile Hagraven in the whole game and her quest to kill a rival that locked her in?
- Or how Bloated Man's Grotto is completely different if explored before starting the Hircine Quest (and even features a unique sword)?
- Or the small cave with a dead farmer inside whose wife originaly though he eloped with another woman?
- Or the cave where you save a hunter from some spriggans that already killed his friends?
- Or the named Draugr who is mind controlling people who enter his lair to steal their life force?
- How about the ill named Lucky Lorenz (also featuring one of the 10 unmarked treasure maps, which point to the equally unmarked treasure chests which unfortunately still have random loot in them but are otherwise never hinted at any point in the game)?
- Or the guy pretending to be a merchant attacked by bandits who instead brings you to his gang members?
- Or the one Khajiit who went mad after his skooma withdrawal and murdered his whole party?
- Or the cannibal in the ratway?
- Or the one non hostile necromancer you can find trapped in webs?
- Or the dead bandit send by Isolda to recover the Sleeping Tree Sap?
- Or the one Dunmer who asks for the player help after her partners fled at the sight of a bunch of Draugr?
These are only a very small part of the unique interactions you can have in Skyrim's dungeons (and none of them were added by dlc, all are in the base game), and I intentionally avoided listing things that happen in quest based dungeons (like the crazy pyromaniac in the Sanguine Rose quest). The same "depth" can also be found in the cities, and again only if you sneak around or follow the npcs during their daily lives. Again, let's focus on Whiterun alone:
- Did you know that Braith is a bully because she craves her parents' attention?
- Did you know Jon Battle-Born has a secret relationship with Olfina Gray-Mane despite both families being in a feud (you can even occasionally see them sleep in the same bed)?
- Did you know that Nazeem despite his high and mighty dialogue doesn't even own a bed and sleeps at the inn (and his wife is most likely planning to get a divorce)?
- That Severo Pelagia will 100% die during the Civil War questline (most likely promting the inheritance letter since he is the earliest guy you can sell crops in the game)?
I assure you, it's possible to play Skyrim for hundreds of hours and still discover something you never knew even existed (the Scare My Enemy quest is the best example because of the triggers required to start it). Assassin's Creed may have a 100 bandits camps to clear, but they will always be the same. Skyrim has less Bandit camps and yet each of them is unique in some way. And I only scratched the surface with this post. And make no mistake, Oblivion and Morrowind are the same (even the Bethesda Fallout games are although I will admit they have less "unique" elements compared to Elder Scrolls on average). These elements are what make Bethesda games feel like a real world compared to many other Open World RPGs, despite the rpg element being really shitty (and yeah make no mistake, it was shitty in Morrowind too). These elements is why I love them and always come back to them, and honestly I feel this is why others love them too
tl;dr There is truly nothing like them. Other devs mistakenly focus on "gameplay elements" when they try to copy them while ignoring what actually makes them unique which is everything the player doesn't directly interact with.
All the fun in Skyrim is runined by the fact that the combat system sucks ass. And it always has. Oblivion and Morrowind weren't good either. No interest in Starfield for the same reason.
On to important matters, I finally rolled credits on Midnight Suns. Fun ending perfectly in line with the ridiculous stories they told thus far. I loved the little teaser of a second game (though based on the sales it sounds like there is 0 chance of that happening sadly). I think the next stuff is to continue to git gud at Hitman Freelancer, and await the return of Kiryu in Isshin!.
On to important matters, I finally rolled credits on Midnight Suns. Fun ending perfectly in line with the ridiculous stories they told thus far. I loved the little teaser of a second game (though based on the sales it sounds like there is 0 chance of that happening sadly). I think the next stuff is to continue to git gud at Hitman Freelancer, and await the return of Kiryu in Isshin!.
I can’t wait for Starfield.
BGS magic is real in my world and I’m still baffled at how it is seemingly impossible to recreate with other devs.
I think a lot of it has to do with how much of the limited I/O bandwidth BGS dedicates to AI, scripting, cell permanence, etc. routines running under the hood.
While industry peers seem obsessed with chasing that “graphics dragon”, BGS prioritizes system interactions over fidelity, and yes…stability and polish.
Wouldn’t change it for the world. BGS are a treasure in the industry .
BGS magic is real in my world and I’m still baffled at how it is seemingly impossible to recreate with other devs.
I think a lot of it has to do with how much of the limited I/O bandwidth BGS dedicates to AI, scripting, cell permanence, etc. routines running under the hood.
While industry peers seem obsessed with chasing that “graphics dragon”, BGS prioritizes system interactions over fidelity, and yes…stability and polish.
Wouldn’t change it for the world. BGS are a treasure in the industry .
It's crazy to think about how long it was that I was playing Dragon Quest Builders 2. I had a lot more free time back then since I was only working part time.
That game had so much content. I like DQB2 and I hope that they make a DQB3, I just hope that they build upon it and that they make it easier to assign people specific tasks and to be able to run multiple towns at the same time and that they are able to trade between one another (add an economy to the game SE)
That game had so much content. I like DQB2 and I hope that they make a DQB3, I just hope that they build upon it and that they make it easier to assign people specific tasks and to be able to run multiple towns at the same time and that they are able to trade between one another (add an economy to the game SE)
What's so special about Bethesda games' AI and scripting? Just basic routines that Gothic, Shenmue and Majora's Mask did about two decades ago (there were other much older games with such routines like Ultima since V, I just remembered these as 3D heavy hitters of their time) with next to no improvements since Oblivion and some pretty horrible combat AI that is laughable when they try to use it for "epic" events like the "war" scenes in Oblivion's main story. Sure, they have their own style of game that's been largely unchanged if not worse since Morrowind but let's not call that some kind of technical achievement like hearing the guards complain about taking an arrow to the knee for the nth time (memed for a reason) is some kind of magical thing. Besides, most any game that goes for a similar approach manages to have that sort of thing with no issues too, like Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Risen, Elex, etc. Also iirc the goal with Oblivion was to make them much more dynamic but it supposedly fucked up their actual game design as they went about wreaking havoc to satisfy their needs system (personally I doubt they could have ever made that work any better than in that dodgy The You Testament indie game, lol). Even Xenoblade did similar on Wii, granted like some (but not all) of the other examples here it's not the kind of game where you can kill everyone or do whatever but yeah, NPC schedules seem like a very doable thing technically for any games that want their day/night cycles and npcs to have that illusion, from Harvest Moon to RDR2 or whatever else.
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The truth, finally! I fully agree, I've tried Morrowind and Oblivion in the Xbox/360 and neither were fun to play. I've tried Skyrim for about 30min-1h and it just felt the same. I did like Fallout 3 and NV though, but not due to the peashooter feeling of the guns. If VATS didn't exist, I probably would've hated them too.
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