Community MetaSteam | June 2023 - halfway through the year

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dex3108

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Dec 20, 2018
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I mean, PH3 is 100% WFH since its founding.

Obviously you can't do this with people who cannot effectively self-manage.
You are small company. With or without WFH smaller company is it is easier to manage things. Even if Respawn was fully in studio I doubt that Jedi Survivor would be better optimized because they didn't care about optimization even for previous game. But when you add to that type of management WFH then things can only get worse. Optimization and QA is already tough things to do even in "normal" work conditions.
 

Durante

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Oct 21, 2018
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I disagree with the assumption that WFH necessarily leads to worse outcomes, even at larger companies. Given the amount of time many people waste at offices (and in commutes!) I don't see why this would be the case.
 

C-Dub

Makoto Niijima Fan Club President
Dec 23, 2018
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Feels like it’s been the longest time since I was excited for a Street Fighter game as much as I am SF6.

Plus I’m super stoked to go through Ghost Trick with my partner.
I disagree with the assumption that WFH necessarily leads to worse outcomes, even at larger companies. Given the amount of time many people waste at offices (and in commutes!) I don't see why this would be the case.
Remember that the push for ending WFH isn’t about productivity.

Control freak managers and landlords are pushing for it and making up any excuse they can because WFH affects their sense of control and bottom line.
 

MomoVideo

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I work for a pretty large company ( around 2k people around the country) and about 95% of people work from home. We did not see any decline in performance so we are sticking with the current WFH policy even tho the pandemic is theoretically over.
 

ezodagrom

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PSO2 NGS, the global team mentioned that an upcoming new type of quests/dungeons that are going to be released in August were originally gonna be part of the initial "ver.2" update, and in their opinion these warrant the ver.2 name, hmm...
I'm skeptical about these since the previous attempts at new types of dungeons in NGS were all very underwhelming, but I guess I'll wait and see.
 

Paul

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Jan 26, 2019
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Thanks for the thread Mor

Summer sucks though

WFH is awesome (I am "working" from home right now) but I do think it lessens productivity in certain people (probably incl. myself, heh)
 

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
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Funny / sad / obvious excerpt from the French streamer, ex gaming journo :

’The first thing you realize in this profession is that sometimes there are funny, interesting, passionate people who make shit games. And that there are human trash who make great games.‘

He then mentioned Chris Taylor and Kojima has being in his bad people list. It’s funny, sort of celebrity gossip for nerd, and he was the first to acknowledge it was his experience and that maybe he himself was the asshole.
I mean, yeah, obvious, but it felt sad. Maybe I empathized too much but I imagined being in his shoes and yeah, not cool. There are all these great people, and look at all this shit they release. And there are these insufferable twats and they shit classics.

edit
Now I know quasi nothing about Chris Taylor, but there seemed to be a consensus in the chat about him being… an acquired taste. Does he have a ’reputation’ ?
 

Kyougar

No reviews, no Buy
Nov 2, 2018
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I disagree with the assumption that WFH necessarily leads to worse outcomes, even at larger companies. Given the amount of time many people waste at offices (and in commutes!) I don't see why this would be the case.
I never understood the "gotcha" about people being unproductive in WFH, so that we all have to come back into the office. Don't those people/companies have targets/handling times/productivity monitoring? I mean, I'm working in the call center industry and if I slack off, my supervisor would be breathing down my digital neck very fast.

Many of the people who demand a return to office are either the office social bees who like to go from cube to cube and talk with everyone, the people who mad a science out of looking productive with the least amount of work, or middle managers who fear there whole existence is endangered because they cant roam the floor.

Oh, and don't forget the "wee need to slam in-person or our project will never complete" people who seemingly can't work without exchanging ideas in-person. (90% of the time, they are just bad employees who are leeching off of the work of their peers)


On the other side, you get an even greater pool of people who are either more productive or who would never come into an office in the first place
  • people with social anxieties
  • parents who can better plan their days and the demands of looking after a kid in WFH, even better with a flexible worktime where you can set your own hours and work at the time where the kids are in Kindergarten/School/asleep and stop working when you need to bring them to a location or pick them up
  • minorities or marginalized people who don't get abused at the workplace
 

Li Kao

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Jan 28, 2019
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Looks like the new update for Darktide was a dud ? Read some bad steam reviews.
Cool, I don' t need another purchase. Not cool. Boltgun made me in the mood.
 
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Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
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Finally!!!
Yah, but what the Lord gives, the Lord takes. Front Mission 2 Remake has been delayed on Switch. And if I was always gonna replay the first one, the star of the show is imho the second one, for the first time fully translated.
 

Aaron D.

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Jul 10, 2019
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i hate summer it's too hot. but thanks for the new thread. Also here is some game codes from last Humble Choice.

The Invisible Hand
[Hidden content]

I nabbed Invisible Hand. Thank you 「Echo」!

I wondered how the open key lasted this long and then I remembered that I'm a big dumb nerd, that's why.

Any game tag that says Sim/Economy/Strat is like pure catnip, lol.


Thanks for the new thread, Mor!

Super curious how Aliens: Dark Descent turns out. I know licenses can be hit & miss, but the genre slotting for this one is totally my jam. Coming in at a nice price too.

Looking through my Wishlist for titles with actual June release dates uncovered a few items of interest.



 

yuraya

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May 4, 2019
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Its still crazy to me Konami is doing this. Next year is 20 year anniversary so it makes sense for it to come out around Q4 2024.

The screenshots look surprisingly good. I can't tell what engine it is tho. The tall grass looks like FOX Engine but them fluffy leaves look like Unreal or something else maybe.

Also speaking of 2004 I sometimes forget how disgustingly stacked that year was.

Half-Life 2 and CS Source
San Andreas
Halo 2
Snake Eater
Madden 2005
NFL 2k5
Twin Snakes
Far Cry
Doom 3
Dragon Quest VIII
Resident Evil Outbreak
Hitman Contracts
SMT Nocturne
Everquest 2
World of Warcraft

2007 and 2015 came were great as well but I don't think we will ever see a year like 2004 again. I was able to play quite a lot of those too thanks to hustling used PS2 games lol. That peak PS2 era was special.
 

DollEyes

Out of Mana
Apr 17, 2019
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I finally started playing Tinykin. Meant to play it last year but never got around to it and forgot about it.

I spent close to 90 minutes in the first level just to 100% it and I’m loving it so far. The exploration is quite enjoyable and it’s pretty charming and cute.
 

Arc

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Sep 19, 2020
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The Etrian Odyssey titles are doing better on Steam than I would have imagined. Currently #7 on the global charts and over 4000 concurrent across all the games combined. I bought the collection because I'm an Atlus fanboy, but I don't plan to play it for a long time.
 

Lashley

My ho ho hoes 🎅
MGS3 wishlisted. Man, I can't wait.

Thanks for the new thread Mor. Lots of interesting indies this month, especially Dordogne looks awesome!

This month will also be very important to me because I'll be signing a contract for a new job after working more than 20 years for my current employer. I currently have two job offers that I like: the fist one is as .NET developer in a company that creates software for hospitals. I'll have to study A LOT in preparation for this job (advanced C#, javascript, HTML, CSS, React, JSX, noSQL etc) and 2 times a week I'll be on the road for 2 hours. But I get a nice (electric) company car and the possibility to grow as team leader. The other job is for a big HR company and is more relax: database maintenance + design, analysis for new features, user management, creating advanced reports etc. No car here, but the company is merely 3km from home, the teamleader is awesome and I already know a few people who work there. Decisions decisions... but I'm looking forward to it. :)
Hey, grats Geo! Wishing you all the best in whichever job you decide :)
 
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yuraya

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I don't understand how devs waste so many years of their lives working on games they don't want to make. This was so dumb to do. Just make Prey 2 or Dishonored 3. And put it on Gamepass. Even if its a flop its still better content that drives subscriptions and brings in core gamers. As opposed to Redfall which is just a giant time and money sink that brings in nothing except bad PR. And now those devs that made Prey are mostly gone and you have a GaaS shell of former studio. I don't even know what Phil gonna do with them now. Shut them down I guess or send remaining devs to work on other Bethesda/Xbox games. Maybe find and fuse together former old devs into a new Arcane studio to work on singleplayer stuff. They may have to acquire/hire other devs to pull it off but either way this is sad.

Also fuck Zenimax. They did the whole Saveplayerone thing at that one E3 and then go on to greenlight games like Redfall afterwards. Basically destroyed a studio and what they are good at to chase some stupid Borderlands/Ubisoft $$$ trends.
 
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Mivey

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Sep 20, 2018
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I don't understand how devs waste so many years of their lives working on games they don't want to make. This was so dumb to do. Just make Prey 2 or Dishonored 3. And put it on Gamepass. Even if its a flop its still better content that drives subscriptions and brings in core gamers. As opposed to Redfall which is just a giant time and money sink that brings in nothing except bad PR
Developement of games takes years, remember. This project started long before Bethesda was bought by Microsoft and I really hope someone at Microsoft will have a chat with Bethesda about what they are going to do with Arcane's great IP that is just being wasted
 
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Stallion Free

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Looking at the Sony release cadence:
2020 - 1 game
2021 - 1 game
2022 - 5 games
2023 - 2 games released, 2 more scheduled

I think we are set for at least 1 more drop this year, but I could see it being 2 more? I just don't see how much longer they can drag out Ghosts, Demon's Souls, and Gran Turismo since they were all in the Nvidia leak.

I hope we get more info on the rumored Horizon 1 remaster/remake thing - I don't want to 100% the current release if it's just going to be replaced.
 

Lashley

My ho ho hoes 🎅
Looking at the Sony release cadence:
2020 - 1 game
2021 - 1 game
2022 - 5 games
2023 - 2 games released, 2 more scheduled

I think we are set for at least 1 more drop this year, but I could see it being 2 more? I just don't see how much longer they can drag out Ghosts, Demon's Souls, and Gran Turismo since they were all in the Nvidia leak.

I hope we get more info on the rumored Horizon 1 remaster/remake thing - I don't want to 100% the current release.
horizon 1 remake is at least 3 years away on Playstation, so 5 at least on PC
 

ezodagrom

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I don't understand how devs waste so many years of their lives working on games they don't want to make.
At the end of the day it's a job for them, sometimes many just only have two choices, work on something they don't want to, or quit and try to find another job, and seeing as according to the article 70% of the devs have quit, many took option 2.
But not everyone can just quit a job even if it's something they don't like, sometimes they just don't have any alternative.

It's a project that the devs didn't want to work on, but it's something that both the project leads and the higher ups at Bethesda/Zenimax wanted (while at the same time not offering proper direction), and it's them who call the shots.
 

yuraya

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At the end of the day it's a job for them, sometimes many just only have two choices, work on something they don't want to, or quit and try to find another job, and seeing as according to the article 70% of the devs have quit, many took option 2.
But not everyone can just quit a job even if it's something they don't like, sometimes they just don't have any alternative.

It's a project that the devs didn't want to work on, but it's something that both the project leads and the higher ups at Bethesda/Zenimax wanted (while at the same time not offering proper direction), and it's them who call the shots.
This story is a classic example of why publishers who pursue GaaS and multiplayer shit should always form a new studio to do so. Hire a bunch of new temps if you have to and keep them if the GaaS is hit. But It should never be at the expense of another well established team that is specialized at making other type of games. Now they basically destroyed a good singleplayer team and got fuck all in return with a dud like Redfall. Oh and ofc the idiot executives who made these decisions got rewarded with a giant payday in the Microsoft buyout. Must be real nice to fail upwards in life.
 

MomoVideo

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I suspect that until the very end, the devs hope that their game ends up okay and that everything will come together. Sadly that's often not the case.
 
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C-Dub

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I will probably get MGS Delta because I'm a big fan of the series, but for sure the Master Collection is the real prize. MGS1, 2 and 3 in one package on Steam.

I'm sure it's coming to PC, but Konami needs to actually confirm that rather than saying it's coming for "Modern Platforms" and only talking about the PS5 version.
 

toxicitizen

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Oct 24, 2018
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I will probably get MGS Delta because I'm a big fan of the series, but for sure the Master Collection is the real prize. MGS1, 2 and 3 in one package on Steam.

I'm sure it's coming to PC, but Konami needs to actually confirm that rather than saying it's coming for "Modern Platforms" and only talking about the PS5 version.
Until they actually confirm it's coming to other platforms, I'm just going to assume it's exclusive to Sony due to being some idiotic, low-effort "classics" bundle that's just the PS1/PS2 versions running on BC. Mostly because of the inclusion of the original version of MGS1. I'd love for them to actually put in the work into porting it to modern platforms but I'm not going to assume that's what they're actually doing until they explicitly say so.

As for Delta, I'm there day one no matter one but it would be really disappointing if it turns out to be just a 1:1 remake. The entire reason people were asking for a remake of MGS3 was because they imagined how it would be with MGSV style gameplay in a more open/seamless map. Don't just recreate those tiny maps with higher fidelity. I don't need a complete reimagining here, just a little bit of modernization.
 

yuraya

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I will probably get MGS Delta because I'm a big fan of the series, but for sure the Master Collection is the real prize. MGS1, 2 and 3 in one package on Steam.

I'm sure it's coming to PC, but Konami needs to actually confirm that rather than saying it's coming for "Modern Platforms" and only talking about the PS5 version.
They probably have nothing to show for now and waiting on more news + release date before we see a Steam page.

I would guess we get more info at maybe Tokyo Game Show later this year and then hopefully Steam page + release shortly after.



As for Delta, I'm there day one no matter one but it would be really disappointing if it turns out to be just a 1:1 remake. The entire reason people were asking for a remake of MGS3 was because they imagined how it would be with MGSV style gameplay in a more open/seamless map. Don't just recreate those tiny maps with higher fidelity. I don't need a complete reimagining here, just a little bit of modernization.
There is no way the gameplay will be a 1:1 in the remake. That old school isometric gameplay was a product of its time so I fully expect the remake gameplay to be near identical to MGSV and maybe feel a little bit of MGS4 as well. It wouldn't surprise me if they cut out the camo and some of the survival elements since those won't really mesh well with MGSV mechanics. Hopefully they keep every little thing. Either way all the menu mechanics will need a rework to make it feel modern.

But the cutscenes, linear levels, boss fights, story will have to be 1:1 ofc. Those things will make it all feel like a 1:1 remake. If they try to do anything else they will fuck it up badly and piss everyone off. Most of the hard and creative work is already done for them. They just need to brute force their way with fancy modern tech work graphics and use all the MGSV code to put it all together. If they try to do anything else it will just fall into dev hell and we probably never see it lol. Unless they get Kojima as some type of consultant. I have no faith in them otherwise.
 

C-Dub

Makoto Niijima Fan Club President
Dec 23, 2018
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As for Delta, I'm there day one no matter one but it would be really disappointing if it turns out to be just a 1:1 remake. The entire reason people were asking for a remake of MGS3 was because they imagined how it would be with MGSV style gameplay in a more open/seamless map. Don't just recreate those tiny maps with higher fidelity. I don't need a complete reimagining here, just a little bit of modernization.
I think there's scope for them to merge some of the areas together or get rid of the loading chokepoints in the level design so it's one seamless thing, but I wouldn't expect miracles in terms of level design changes.
 

dex3108

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Dec 20, 2018
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I disagree with the assumption that WFH necessarily leads to worse outcomes, even at larger companies. Given the amount of time many people waste at offices (and in commutes!) I don't see why this would be the case.
My point was that in case of Respawn they already showed that they don't do that great job with Unreal even at the office environment. So going WFH didn't help and probably made things bit worse in regards to that. And that fits with my personal experience where people who are tough to manage in office environment are even tougher to manage with WFH.

And regarding WFH in general, it's not good or bad. It depends on the team and individuals how it will work. some people prefer one other prefer other but how they all work as a team is most crucial. I tried WFH for 2 months, said never again and went back to the office for example.
 

Censored

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Oct 8, 2021
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got my cdkeys code:
downloading on Deck, I hope it works well, SFV was my most readytogo played game.
remember if you Link your capcom Street Fighter V CAPCOM ID you get Super Street Fighter II Turbo as a bonus when you play Street Fighter VI on any plaftorm .
-You can start the game by going to Multi Menu > Gallery > Game Center -
 
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yuraya

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I think there's scope for them to merge some of the areas together or get rid of the loading chokepoints in the level design so it's one seamless thing, but I wouldn't expect miracles in terms of level design changes.
Even with linear levels the remake will feel like a very dense game without load checkpoints. It should be very impressive with all the jungle trees, foliage etc. The screenshots they shown look good.

Snake Eater was such an ambitious game for PS2 hardware. The framerate would turn to slideshow in certain chaotic late parts of the game. One of the few PS2 era games I played that did that. You could actually feel the hardware locking up lol. MGS2 looked incredible as well for a 2001 title.

Its a shame Kojima wasn't a PC lead dev back then. I imagine Snake Eater would have been as mindblowing as Crysis by 2004 standards if it wasn't held back by the weak PS2 hardware. All the dense environments in that game looked great. Nobody really made a game like that back then and even to this day you don't see that many jungle/forest dense games.
 

Aaron D.

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I will probably get MGS Delta because I'm a big fan of the series, but for sure the Master Collection is the real prize. MGS1, 2 and 3 in one package on Steam.

I'm sure it's coming to PC, but Konami needs to actually confirm that rather than saying it's coming for "Modern Platforms" and only talking about the PS5 version.
Yeah, I'd be happy with a slightly modernized straight port of the early MGS titles.

Something along the lines of the magic Nightdive Studios works with ports like Turok 1 & 2, etc.

I'd take that in a second over a heavily modified remake/rerelease. Just something to clean up the textures with nice controls and framerate.



But much like when people go, "Bloodborne on PC when?!?!" And I'm all like, "No...Hot Shots on PC when?!?!"

What I'd really want out of the deal is a Nightdive Studios rerelease of MG Acid 2.
 
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