Community MetaSteam | January 2024 - Let's get this year started!

[dex3108]

Finished my first Final Fantasy game today (FFVII Remake). It was kinda hard to stay silent few days ago when you were discussing it but i couldn't talk about it when i was like 60% through. I played and finished it on Deck in close to 39h (started it back in November and took few breaks before fully committing to it at the start of this month). I kinda have mixed feelings about it. Absolutely the worse thing about the game is pacing, it is awful. Then comes overall linearity of the game. And they did stretch this game a lot for no reason outside making i longer. But i liked characters and story even though there were few issues with that too, for example you finish emotional cutscene and first thing after that is Barret singing that tune of his ruining moment XD Or that story is heavily backloaded (i know i know, they were building things up and then giving you big exposition but in my opinion some things could be better spread out).

Combat is also mixed. For the most part is fine but there are issues like when you are fighting faster moving enemies and camera can be problematic when you are trying to track enemy. Or when game splits your party and you lose party member that you built with specific elemental power that enemy you are fighting is weak at. Switching stances being tied to animations is also issue for me (as far as i noticed you can't switch stances while animation is in progress) so game feel laggy during faster paced encounters.

I have other complaints like side missions, fast travel unlocking basically at the end of the game and then you can basically use it only for one chapter and that it, lack of meaningful choices for an RPG, kinda pointless collectables and mini games... But those are minor compared to what i mentioned before.

As i said i liked story and the characters and i will play Rebirth when it comes to PC but as a complete game it is not as good as others say, it is closer to 8/10 for me just because of the story, gameplay and rest of the game is closer to 7/10. And i am not big JRPG player, closest thing to it i played and finished before was Tales of Arise so take that into the account when you start screaming at me

 

[Derrick01]

From what I remember, you could designate up to 5 fast travel points of your own with those beacon things.

Yeah but if I'm remembering right they required a somewhat limited resource to be able to teleport. Or the beacons themselves were the limited resource, something like that.

Does he think he is making RDR2? Which to be fair people also think is boring at times.

Honestly I don't think any relatively modern open world should be without fast travel in some form. People love not using it when they're in the honeymoon phase of a game at the beginning but don't tell me when you're 50-100 hours in that you're still going to want to run manually back and forth everywhere, I won't believe it lol. I know because I'm the same way, I'm most immersed at the beginning to middle parts of these giant games and then somewhere in that last half to quarter I hit a "fuck it I just want to get this wrapped up" stage.

 

[dex3108]

Yeah but if I'm remembering right they required a somewhat limited resource to be able to teleport. Or the beacons themselves were the limited resource, something like that.



Honestly I don't think any relatively modern open world should be without fast travel in some form. People love not using it when they're in the honeymoon phase of a game at the beginning but don't tell me when you're 50-100 hours in that you're still going to want to run manually back and forth everywhere, I won't believe it lol. I know because I'm the same way, I'm most immersed at the beginning to middle parts of these giant games and then somewhere in that last half to quarter I hit a "fuck it I just want to get this wrapped up" stage.

Actually i never used fast travel in RDR2 (except for Online). And I played that game for close to 100h (that is not including Online) between PS4 and PC.

 

[Arc]

Looks like Rise was fixed on Steam Deck.

 

[Line]

Fast travel is always nice and good, and actually kinda like the way DD1 did it with rare stones giving the player some agency over what to do with them (or ignore them entirely), that's very King's Field 2.

But in general if the world is boring, it's a bit more complicated than just "make it good", and usually a combination of low (or zero for randomly generated ones) playable content density as well as the lack of level design.
Tons of games just take a flat map and just decorate it instead of starting with intent for the game world and then make the map. Having little puzzles, secrets, interconnected areas (and no need for that to apply to all of them) and guiding the player through vistas and points of interest makes a big difference in design, rather than just more map and then filling it up with "Ubi formula" elements.

And this I'm not too sure DD2 will do well actually, that wasn't a very strong point of the first game. Even if the combat encounters will be the main focus.

 

[yuraya]

I would love see more real hardcore games where fast travel doesn't exist at all. The first Dark Souls game pulled it off really well until they let you fast travel down the line. But that first half of the game was an incredibly brutal experience that truly had a great risk/reward push through structure. The sense of being stuck and trapped in a location in which you had to fight through because even if you turn back you will be forced to go down a path that is even harder. I'm sure many were turned off by it and quit as a result..but you can't help but admit that experience gave birth to an important genre many years later. That game conditioned a lot of gamers and a certain type of tolerance was created.

Modern day games have too many problems to pull it off as there isn't enough reward for adventuring in the giant open worlds. Bethesda kind of has this problem with all their games. In all their games you resort to nonstop fast travel after playing for 20-30hrs. With Starfield it was even more accelerated as so much of the game was segmented by planets, outposts, space, solar systems, cities etc.

I honestly wouldn't mind if Elder Scrolls 6 goes down this path. Don't let the game devolve into warping around the map to complete fetch quests. Maybe create special teleportation builds which require skill investment to fast travel. Otherwise it would be incredible if the game had real continuous adventure with giant cities without load screens, barriers n everything. Same applies to Witcher 4 and all other big games coming out in the future.

 

[Kyougar]

I like fast travel options that make sense in the Gameworld. That are not overly abundant or will cost a pretty sum if you want to use them extensively.

Like Morrowind for example.

• Boats
• Striders
• Mageguild Teleporters
• Mark and recall

all are either very restricted where you can go (cities) and for mark and recall, it is only 1 spot where you need to be at first.
Can't remember, but some of the other options also needed you to be there first, if I remember correctly.

Fast travel ala Skyrim totally takes away the sense of the size of the world, even if you need to get there first, when every shack and cave is a fast travel point

 

[spindoctor]

Yeah but if I'm remembering right they required a somewhat limited resource to be able to teleport. Or the beacons themselves were the limited resource, something like that.

From what I recall, you started with 2-3 beacons and you found a couple more later through story progression or world exploration. And having 5 customizable fast travel beacons provided greater flexibility than having more but static fast travel points.

I would love see more real hardcore games where fast travel doesn't exist at all. The first Dark Souls game pulled it off really well until they let you fast travel down the line. But that first half of the game was an incredibly brutal experience that truly had a great risk/reward push through structure. The sense of being stuck and trapped in a location in which you had to fight through because even if you turn back you will be forced to go down a path that is even harder. I'm sure many were turned off by it and quit as a result..but you can't help but admit that experience gave birth to an important genre many years later. That game conditioned a lot of gamers and a certain type of tolerance was created.

This touches upon the other thing I wanted to mention. The world of Dragon's Dogma was supposed to be dangerous and it got worse during the night time. You were supposed to feel a sense of dread when heading out of the city. That would completely disappear if they allowed you to fast travel everywhere. At the same time, I do appreciate that running back and forth everywhere can become tedious, especially if the world and quest design is not up to the mark. So I think a compromise with limited fast travel options is not too bad. It also makes DD a fairly unique game because there aren't many I know of that do this kind of thing.

 

[ZKenir]

Player count must be across xbox/gp and steam since steam didn't peak that high

 

[PC-tan]

Player count must be across xbox/gp and steam since steam didn't peak that high

So it's safe to say that vast majority of the sales are from Steam?



Is this true????

I wish I had that dudes luck. The dude turned $7 million USD into over $100 million USD


Obligatory: Nintendo Hire this man

 

[spindoctor]

Is this true????

I wish I had that dudes luck. The dude turned $7 million USD into over $100 million USD

The game has Valve recommended regional pricing across the board so they're earning substantially less than $30 per copy sold on average, and then there's Valve's 20% cut, but yes, they have easily cleared $100 million on Steam alone.

Phenomenal success and I'm really happy for them. Especially because we've now arrived at this stage of the 'discourse'


Twitter is completely flooded with people fighting over this game. I saw one tweet where someone was telling a Pokemon streamer/youtuber that (paraphrasing) they owed their success to Pokemon and were betraying them by playing Palworld. So basically we're arriving at the Hogwarts Legacy vitriol stage of this saga. Hopefully this time some people will see that this is not a good thing.

 

[ZKenir]

Palworld has a higher number of CCU today than yesterday at the same time, if this holds it might surpass Counterstrike today during asia prime time

 

[Censored]

Sony’s CEO says Playstation’s gaming future will be on PC, mobile and cloud.

Sony CEO Says PlayStation's Gaming Future Will Be On PC, Mobile, And Cloud

In a recent interview, Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida talked about PlayStation's gaming future, subscriptions, and Xbox.

insider-gaming.com

PC+Switch 2 is the combo.

 

[C-Dub]

I don’t even think Switch 2 should be part of the equation.

Whether it uses modified stolen assets or not (and it’s overwhelmingly obvious it does at this point) Palworld should be giving Nintendo and The Pokemon Company pause for thought.

You can’t ignore $150m+ gross revenue in 5 days. Multiply that by each of Nintendo’s core franchises likely to do similar numbers, plus the Nintendo tax that they can charge more for their games, and you’re essentially sitting on a mountain of value there.

I guess the big question is how much money does Nintendo siphon away from their own platform if they release on PC? My guess is it’s nowhere near the gains they’d get.

 

[dex3108]

I don’t even think Switch 2 should be part of the equation.

Whether it uses modified stolen assets or not (and it’s overwhelmingly obvious it does at this point) Palworld should be giving Nintendo and The Pokemon Company pause for thought.

You can’t ignore $150m+ gross revenue in 5 days. Multiply that by each of Nintendo’s core franchises likely to do similar numbers, plus the Nintendo tax that they can charge more for their games, and you’re essentially sitting on a mountain of value there.

I guess the big question is how much money does Nintendo siphon away from their own platform if they release on PC? My guess is it’s nowhere near the gains they’d get.

Eh they can ignore it because they kinda have lower expenses than Sony and MS while bigger profits. Their games cost way less to make than MS and Sony ones so they still have space for profit growth. Especially because they don't lower prices of their games that much.

 

[Mivey]

I don’t even think Switch 2 should be part of the equation.

Whether it uses modified stolen assets or not (and it’s overwhelmingly obvious it does at this point) Palworld should be giving Nintendo and The Pokemon Company pause for thought.

You can’t ignore $150m+ gross revenue in 5 days. Multiply that by each of Nintendo’s core franchises likely to do similar numbers, plus the Nintendo tax that they can charge more for their games, and you’re essentially sitting on a mountain of value there.

I guess the big question is how much money does Nintendo siphon away from their own platform if they release on PC? My guess is it’s nowhere near the gains they’d get.

Ninty will never abandon their own hardware. They are a private company, and clearly their investors are fine with locking games to their own devices and focusing on that strategy. If the WiiU didn't change their mind, then nothing will.

I'm more curious if Nintendo manages to not fuck up the transition to an new hardware generation. The Wii was crazy successful, arguably bigger than even the Switch is, and they still produced a complete flop of a console as its successor. It should be easy, just make Switch 2 backwards compatible and have a lengthy period where first-party games also get released for Switch 1, so you don't yeet away the entire audience all at once.

 

[C-Dub]

Nintendo is traded on the Tokyo stock exchange. It’s not a private company.

I believe it’s still a minority of the company that’s traded, with the majority being controlled by larger investors, but they still have annual shareholder meetings and are accountable to them.

I don’t think one game will move the needle, but if there’s people inside the company looking for evidence of potential, they’ve got more of it now.

 

[Durante]

Whether it uses modified stolen assets or not (and it’s overwhelmingly obvious it does at this point)

I don't think that's "overwhelmingly obvious". I admit I haven't looked into every single thing in detail, but what I've seen people post as evidence actually generally seems to confirm that they didn't directly "steal" these assets.

Usually, the underlying topology is different in ways that frankly, would be harder to accomplish by taking an existing mesh and changing it than by simply creating it from scratch.

Did they reference existing pokemon designs when creating their own? Absolutely, that's actually very obvious, and a valid point of contention. But it's legally quite different from directly using something, and that's a much less supported claim.

 

[C-Dub]

I don't think that's "overwhelmingly obvious". I admit I haven't looked into every single thing in detail, but what I've seen people post as evidence actually generally seems to confirm that they didn't directly "steal" these assets.

Usually, the underlying topology is different in ways that frankly, would be harder to accomplish by taking an existing mesh and changing it than by simply creating it from scratch.

Did they reference existing pokemon designs when creating their own? Absolutely, that's actually very obvious, and a valid point of contention. But it's legally quite different from directly using something, and that's a much less supported claim.

Artists on AAA games, looking at the evidence, have said to VGC that they’d testify in court to the fact that the assets were likely stolen.

Lawyers are also giving a dim view of it.

Palworld Pokémon plagiarism accusations pile up as CEO responds | VGC

Artists accuse it of copying 3D models; Pocketpair claims it’s received ‘death threats and abuse’…

www.videogameschronicle.com

This goes beyond “referencing” and seems pretty damning to me.

 

[Kyougar]

"Pokemon has nothing to fear and doesnt need to change, they will sell 20 million every game regardless"

I hear quite often.
BUT! will they be okay in the future? Will they still sell 20 million without changing, when their next-gen games look like this:

Sure Palworld is a different genre, but as the plagiarism debate clearly demonstrates, a Pokemon game can look better than a Nintendo 64 game.
Will the Pokemon gamers still be satisfied with that graphic? Will they still be satisfied with the gameplay mechanics when Palworld has so much more to offer regarding the Pokemons?
Palworld is showing what it MEANS to be a Pokemon of a specific type, having the gameplay mechanics that pokemon gamers only saw in the TV show.

 

[Jadax]

Tbh the biggest thing from this COULD be Nintendo taking PC gaming seriously. Imagine their games on Steam.

 

[Mivey]

Damn, is this an actual screenshot? That's literally something that could be from a PS2 game, in terms of asset quality. I'd been revisiting some 3D platformers from the PS2 era, and by god do many of them look far better (when rendered at higher res) than this.

 

[lashman]

Damn, is this an actual screenshot?

it is, yes

 

[Durante]

Artists on AAA games, looking at the evidence, have said to VGC that they’d testify in court to the fact that the assets were likely stolen.

I mean, I just read these quotes and frankly this: “You cannot, in any way, accidentally get the same proportions on multiple models from another game without ripping the models." is overreaching nonsense. (Which I guess the author of the quote noticed because they basically invalidate it right after)
Of course you can easily get similar proportions across multiple models when you base them on concept art with similar proportions.

It's exactly the kind of (accidental or deliberate) mixup of "copy" and "heavily inspired by" that everyone on that side of the argument seems to revel in doing, and which I think detracts from an actual discussion that could be had. But that's a discussion about originality and plagiarism, not about copyright infringement by directly taking assets.

It's also a bit of a strawman argument to talk about "accidentally" getting the same proportions: no one (or at least no one who deserves to be taken seriously) is claiming that they accidentally arrived at the same proportions, or their model style in general. They very clearly set out to make something heavily inspired by Pokemon, and ended up with some very similar-looking models. But that does not imply that they copied anything, and this distinction is really quite important.

Lawyers are also giving a dim view of it.

There are two lawyers in this article who seem to think that it would be hard to make a case. There's also one who speculates that there might be a case to be made based on taking those twitter model comparisons at face value, but again, I disagree on the substance of those.

 

[C-Dub]

Damn, is this an actual screenshot? That's literally something that could be from a PS2 game, in terms of asset quality. I'd been revisiting some 3D platformers from the PS2 era, and by god do many of them look far better (when rendered at higher res) than this.

Yup.

I rarely get into “lazy dev” rhetoric because it’s usually unfair. But Gamefreak are guaranteed a slam dunk for every mainline Pokémon game, yet they continue to underinvest.

I don’t think the actual people making the games are lazy, but institutionally/as a company, they absolutely are resting on their laurels.

 

[Durante]

Talking about plagiarism and Palworld, this is pretty funny:

Palworld Execs Brace for Hbomberguy Video

Palworld, an ARK-like game described as Pokemon with guns, has seen concurrent player numbers swell into record-breaking territory this week. But according to execs behind…

hard-drive.net

At press time Pocket Pair says that should Nintendo’s legal team also get involved they have lawyers equal to Nintendo’s but with guns.

 

[kio]

"Pokemon has nothing to fear and doesnt need to change, they will sell 20 million every game regardless"

I hear quite often.
BUT! will they be okay in the future? Will they still sell 20 million without changing, when their next-gen games look like this:

Sure Palworld is a different genre, but as the plagiarism debate clearly demonstrates, a Pokemon game can look better than a Nintendo 64 game.
Will the Pokemon gamers still be satisfied with that graphic? Will they still be satisfied with the gameplay mechanics when Palworld has so much more to offer regarding the Pokemons?
Palworld is showing what it MEANS to be a Pokemon of a specific type, having the gameplay mechanics that pokemon gamers only saw in the TV show.

Nintendo boys are a different breed of people and Pokemon fans are an even more special.

• People have been complaining about the dual edition games for over 20 years and has that had any effect on how much the games sell?
• There have been complaints about performance and graphics ever since the series went 3D and how did that affect sales?
• Costumers complain about the online features and has that had any effect?
• Newer games don't have all the pets and ever since gen 3 or 4 I've read complaints about lazy designs (iirc there's one that's literally an ice cream cone) and how has that affected sales?
• How has the fact that Nintendo games are expensive and remain expensive forever with barely any sales affected how many copies are sold?

I could go on... It's impossible to do a rational analysis of nintendo playerbase and pokemon in particular.
They will learn nothing, there will be complaints and the next game will still sell a ridiculous number of copies... and we'll reset the clock.

Funnily enough of all the franchises that could be service games pokemon is the most obvious choice. Just have a foundation with 500 pets and every 2/3 years release an expansions with more pets and new zones and dungeons, etc. It's so painfully obvious that I can't believe they didn't do it yet.
Doing it on a console would be a challenge but doable although it would be much better, future-proof and cost effective to do it in a PC-like environment.

 

[Durante]

People have been complaining about the dual edition games for over 20 years and has that had any effect on how much the games sell?

Honestly, that's the wildest part about Pokemon to me.
You almost have to admire them figuring out a way to split the content of their games and sell it twice for full price to their biggest fans, and to do so consistently over decades, without getting much backlash at all.

 

[ezodagrom]

Funnily enough of all the franchises that could be service games pokemon is the most obvious choice. Just have a foundation with 500 pets and every 2/3 years release an expansions with more pets and new zones and dungeons, etc. It's so painfully obvious that I can't believe they didn't do it yet.
Doing it on a console would be a challenge but doable although it would be much better, future-proof and cost effective to do it in a PC-like environment.

Yeah, even outside of pokemon, a creature collector live service/large scale MMO is something that I'm surprised hasn't happened yet.
Temtem tried to kinda be a creature collector live service game, but they don't want to expand the game with new areas and monsters, if I remember right they said it's too much work for something that players would clear in a few hours. :/

 

[ZKenir]

There are two lawyers in this article who seem to think that it would be hard to make a case.

everyone is also not taking into account that before release Palworld was subjected to legal reviews and apparently cleared those.
Now I don't know about copyright but for patents there are companies whose only job is to evaluate whether you changed your product just enough so that it doesn't run afoul of existint patents, I assume this is a similar service.

Ofc that is never 100% foolproof even in the case of patents

 

[Kyougar]

everyone is also not taking into account that before release Palworld was subjected to legal reviews and apparently cleared those.
Now I don't know about copyright but for patents there are companies whose only job is to evaluate whether you changed your product just enough so that it doesn't run afoul of existint patents, I assume this is a similar service.

Ofc that is never 100% foolproof even in the case of patents

I also think that Nintendo fears that they COULD lose and that would open the floodgates on ("clearly legally distinct") Pokemon designs either in merchandise or other games.

Right now, many are probably held back by the fear of the ominous "Nintendo Ninja Lawyers" while they (Nintendo) are mostly just sueing their own fanbase.

 

[ZKenir]

looks like Palworld's CCU are rising, time to see if it eats CS today or not

 

[Mor]

Tbh the biggest thing from this COULD be Nintendo taking PC gaming seriously. Imagine their games on Steam.

I have talking about this in some other places and while it won't happen in short-mid term, what I said is that Palworld's success will likely spark CONVERSATIONS among team members, nothing that goes towards "let's release this on PC" but more like "hey, this is serious business, could you imagine us there?" and what I'm 100% convinced is that we will see shareholders asking about Palworld in the next QA.

I mean, it's a fascinating topic, for some the game is fun but for some others like me, the real deal is what it is accomplishing by its numbers.

 

[Lashley]

Tbh the biggest thing from this COULD be Nintendo taking PC gaming seriously. Imagine their games on Steam.

 

[kio]

Yeah, even outside of pokemon, a creature collector live service/large scale MMO is something that I'm surprised hasn't happened yet.
Temtem tried to kinda be a creature collector live service game, but they don't want to expand the game with new areas and monsters, if I remember right they said it's too much work for something that players would clear in a few hours. :/

Temtem can be considered as sort of prototype of what can be done but to truly make it work you need a lot of resources and manpower, so it'll be very difficult to anyone except giant companies to make it a reality.
Writing this I was thinking valve could do it, they have the means and the infrastructure and it fits with their GaaS types of games they've been releasing since TF2 but I'm sure they lack the motivation for it.

 

[Durante]

looks like Palworld's CCU are rising, time to see if it eats CS today or not

TIme-aligned it's ~150k ahead of yesterday. If that holds up linearly it would barely not catch CS today.
(This is admittedly amusing to keep an eye on while working)

 

[Ge0force]

PC+Switch 2 is the combo.

Rather PC + Steam Deck + emulators for me. Buying new hardware to play a specific game doesn't make sense for me nowadays.

 

[Arc]

Changes at Riot and the Road Ahead

Here’s what these changes mean for our games and what players can expect from us going forward.

www.riotgames.com

Riot Games laid off 530 people (11% of the company). Riot Forge (aka the League of Legends spinoffs that were on Steam) is done after Bandle Tale. They're scaling down their card game as well.

TIme-aligned it's ~150k ahead of yesterday. If that holds up linearly it would barely not catch CS today.
(This is admittedly amusing to keep an eye on while working)

As of 7:30 AM EST it's up ~262k from this time yesterday. If the momentum keeps up, then CS2 will fall today.

 

[ezodagrom]

Temtem can be considered as sort of prototype of what can be done but to truly make it work you need a lot of resources and manpower, so it'll be very difficult to anyone except giant companies to make it a reality.
Writing this I was thinking valve could do it, they have the means and the infrastructure and it fits with their GaaS types of games they've been releasing since TF2 but I'm sure they lack the motivation for it.

True, a creature collector MMO would be a huge undertaking and a huge gamble too.

Outside of MMOs, I feel there's potential for open world creature collector games in general, pokemon has been going in that direction with their most recent games, but their games really need to be alot better from a technical point of view.
There's 2 upcoming open world creature collectors that I'm rather curious about, DokeV from PearlAbyss (though I don't like the overall art style of this game), and Nexomon 3 (which there's not much info about yet).

 

[Jav]

All these plagiarism allegations against the poor Nintendo and TPC are making my blood boil, right now my path is clear

I'm buying Palworld today

 

[ZKenir]

TIme-aligned it's ~150k ahead of yesterday. If that holds up linearly it would barely not catch CS today.
(This is admittedly amusing to keep an eye on while working)

I had assumed the growth would be non-linear since the userbase expands by 1m every day

Edit: seems to be accelerating

 

[Le Pertti]

Alright fine, you win, I might as well tryout Palworld on game pass when it has more patches.

 

[Durante]

I had assumed the growth would be non-linear since the userbase expands by 1m every day

Edit: seems to be accelerating

Yeah, it's about to overtake CS. Will most likely happen within the next hour.

 

[Jadax]

I also think regional pricing is helping A LOT.

 

[Nabs]

It beat Counter-Strike... Wow.

1,820,690

 

[Arc]

 

[lashman]

looks like Palworld's CCU are rising, time to see if it eats CS today or not

yes

 

[Le Pertti]

I think the reason Nintendo hasn't sued Palworld dev is because they want them to make all the money first, then sue and take it all. Can't sue someone that doesn't have any money.

 

[Hektor]

Palworld beating CS2 was pretty obvious when it sold over 2 million in less than 2 days, the real question is if it will beat PUBG

 

[lashman]

Palworld beating CS2 was pretty obvious when it sold over 2 million in less than 2 days, the real question is if it will beat PUBG

depends if Tim copies/buys it before it reaches those numbers