Community MetaSteam | February 2024 - Let's bring democracy into the zone with love

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PC-tan

Low Tier Weeb
Jan 19, 2019
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Playing persona 3 for the first time in >10 years gives me a whole whiplash as to how unwordy it is.
No characters telling you the same shit every day, not everything being mentioned 3+ times.

Actual word economy, creating actually good pacing.

I hope they learn something from that for Persona 6
Bring back Devil Summoners I tell you.

And I'll make sure they do the stuff that you ask as well.
 

Dragon1893

MetaMember
Apr 17, 2019
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Playing persona 3 for the first time in >10 years gives me a whole whiplash as to how unwordy it is.
No characters telling you the same shit every day, not everything being mentioned 3+ times.

Actual word economy, creating actually good pacing.

I hope they learn something from that for Persona 6
Yeah, I pointed this out a few days ago on Era. The game is a lot quicker to get down to business at the start. The pacing at the start of P5 is horrible and I hope P6 follows P3's example.
 

Kyougar

No reviews, no Buy
Nov 2, 2018
3,297
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As a PC gamer since the 90s:

We had with Microsoft:
  • Windows OS
  • Flight Simulator
  • Age of Empires
  • Mechwarrior
  • Starlancer
  • Asherons Call (MMORPG)
  • Midtown Madness
  • Close Combat
  • etc.

Why would ANYONE think that Microsoft would abandon PC gaming in the 2000s? This is Madness! They would NEVER gut their gaming focus on PC, because they have a stake in Gaming with Windows!

Never bet against Microsoft doing the stupid thing.
Also: Console gaming is as "dead" as PC gaming was in the 2000s.
 

Madventure

The Angel of Deaf
Nov 17, 2018
1,670
5,755
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The more I read/watch about Helldivers 2, the more I'm considering buying it. I'm just not sure it's fun to play with randoms. Anyone here has experience with this?
The easiest description of the game someone gave for it on the discord before it took off like a rocket that I can sort of agree with ( haven't played Earth defense force, but I can see it) is Deep Rock Galactic + Earth Defense Force

So in that sense lower difficulties you'll be fine for teaming with randoms but in the really high difficulties you will end up sort of hating yourself most likely until people sort of learn the "etiquette" that people assume to know already from the first game or like for example from Deep Rock galactic. Like Ammo call downs have 4 packs, so each person gets one pack. If someone calls down a weapon that's their weapon.
Lol you know stuff that's seemingly obvious but isn't

That's a long explanation for... Yeah playing with randoms is fine! There's like 10? difficulties so I mean its fun either way
 
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PC-tan

Low Tier Weeb
Jan 19, 2019
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Looking back at the whole thing with Palworld and ripoff and stuff like that. There is stuff that people will say, hey yeah I liked that thing and I took the idea of what I'm currently working on from that. You may also have situations where it just happened by coincidence and stuff like that.

Dumb question of mine since I have never played RE7 besides the demo. Is there any part of the game that has you turn a valve or anything in order to turn off steam from a pipe that is preventing you from moving forward? Or is there anything like that in The Evil Within games (one of those is a first person game? Or was that just a mode that they added post release or something?) Since in that case I imagine it was more of a coincidence than anything else.


I mention that since I just saw Paprika is theaters, this along with Perfect Blue and I think Ghost in the shell for some reason seem to be what people feel inspired (actually more than inspired, that a lot and not just a few, movie just completely ripped off those movies) all movies that came out after the year 2000. I saw this one clip from these film critics that basically all movies after the year 2000 can be traced back to those 3 movies or something like that. I just thought it was wild.



As far as Persona 3 and my experience with it, I have only played P3P and that was for maybe 3 hours max on the PSP. I never played FES or the OG version of the game. I do have the PS5 version of P3R, but I feel like I would like to play FES first followed by P3P before finally getting around to playing P3R. By the way I own 3 versions of P5R. I have the original PS4 collectors edition of the game, I have the PC version of it and I have the switch collectors edition of the game.
 

Mivey

MetaMember
Sep 20, 2018
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I believe the 50:50 split is for CCU, not copies sold.
If we assume that CCU is proportional to sales, at least for newly released titles, then it would indicate it did similar numbers on both. Why should there be large number of people on PC or PS5 who buy a full price title on release and then decide to ignore it
 
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Mivey

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Sep 20, 2018
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I have been playing Atelier Meruru , the third title of the Arland trilogy of the Atelier series and making some headway. I'm in Year 3 now, and basically met the goal of building up the town of Arls.

Meruru is clearly the most polished title in this trilogy. It very cleverly reduces the focus on time limits on all the goals you need to meet, as well as for requests. The story is also far clearer in its structure, compared to the weirdly open ended Totori. Overall a fairly polished experience, and yet I can't help but feel that this game is just wasting so much of its potential. Clearly, the slice-of-life idea of the series with a focus on a real life calendar that slowly progresses day by day would lend itself to so many obvious ideas. Like, why aren't there actual seasons, like winter, spring, summer and fall? Why are there no yearly events, like your protagonists birthday, or holidays and other special days that give you a sense of the passage of time, as well as some nice world building. It's all so simplistic and barren. I guess these games are developed on a shoe string budget and likely on a very short time frame too, because I can't explain this complete disinterest in making this wold richer and more interesting.

Do future Atelier games get better about world buildling and just general depth of writing? I'll probably still play them, the overall game loop is addicting, but it's just a shame how little the dev seems to care in making more with its franchise.


EDIT:
on a not-so-minor note, I also can't believe how terrible the PC ports are. Every time you open up the menu on the Steam Deck, there is a 2 second lag, where everything freezes. And this is someting that all three titles of the Arland trilogy have. Just so fucking terrible
 

Durante

I <3 Pixels
Oct 21, 2018
4,056
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I have been playing Atelier Meruru , the third title of the Arland trilogy of the Atelier series and making some headway. I'm in Year 3 now, and basically met the goal of building up the town of Arls.

Meruru is clearly the most polished title in this trilogy. It very cleverly reduces the focus on time limits on all the goals you need to meet, as well as for requests. The story is also far clearer in its structure, compared to the weirdly open ended Totori. Overall a fairly polished experience, and yet I can't help but feel that this game is just wasting so much of its potential. Clearly, the slice-of-life idea of the series with a focus on a real life calendar that slowly progresses day by day would lend itself to so many obvious ideas. Like, why aren't there actual seasons, like winter, spring, summer and fall? Why are there no yearly events, like your protagonists birthday, or holidays and other special days that give you a sense of the passage of time, as well as some nice world building. It's all so simplistic and barren. I guess these games are developed on a shoe string budget and likely on a very short time frame too, because I can't explain this complete disinterest in making this wold richer and more interesting.

Do future Atelier games get better about world buildling and just general depth of writing? I'll probably still play them, the overall game loop is addicting, but it's just a shame how little the dev seems to care in making more with its franchise.


EDIT:
on a not-so-minor note, I also can't believe how terrible the PC ports are. Every time you open up the menu on the Steam Deck, there is a 2 second lag, where everything freezes. And this is someting that all three titles of the Arland trilogy have. Just so fucking terrible
I'm not sure I'd agree with characterizing Totori as "weirdly open-ended", but it's still my favourite Atelier game so I might be biased :p

Later games do introduce things like recurring seasonal events. But you can't really expect more polish from them until probably Ryza or so. In the Dusk and Mysterious trilogies they still did some wild experimentation.

I think the answer to many of your questions is really that Gust wasn't disinterested in doing X, but that they were basically creating one of these games every year with a small team and small budget.
Honestly, compared to how some other Japanese companies languished particularly during that part of the PS3 era I think they did pretty well.

And yes, the PC ports are really bad.
 

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
7,876
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I tried Anno 1800 yesterday and I’m afraid I can’t.

The tutorial is not up to the task and I spent far more time than I’m cool with struggling to make sense of the UI, which to me is really not great.
The absence of real pause drives me up the wall, I want chill, not almost chill with npc talking and things happening because we are only in some bastard slow motion.
The game has one unique save, regularly updated, which just nuked my 6 hours run, and I don’t feel like restarting.

I is buggy, more than I can tolerate. 3 times during this 6 hours playthrough I had to kill the task, because sometimes the UI just disappears. You can’t do shit.
And yeah, this save system is brr. I understand it’s a way to avoid save scumming, a terminology which in itself gives me urges to punch the people using it, but it comes with legitimate drawbacks I wouldn’t consider to be in the same ballpark. I was dumb, wanted to please a Faction by going to war alongside them. Turns out it was against the military and economic behemoth of the run. And she won’t drop the war, even if I shower her in money. Run ender. I would frankly have appreciated a regular save system.

Did I mention it’s buggy ? The game seems to do some unholy things with its saves, like it used a pair of them and loaded whatever.
I could, on several occasions, reload the same save and be thrown into a different game state.

I feel bad not loving such a well regarded game.
 
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Kyougar

No reviews, no Buy
Nov 2, 2018
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I tried Anno 1800 yesterday and I’m afraid I can’t.

The tutorial is not up to the task and I spent far more time than I’m cool with struggling to make sense of the UI, which to me is really not great.
The absence of real pause drives me up the wall, I want chill, not almost chill with npc talking and things happening because we are only in some bastard slow motion.
The game has one unique save, regularly updated, which just nuked my 6 hours run, and I don’t feel like restarting.

I is buggy, more than I can tolerate. 3 times during this 6 hours playthrough I had to kill the task, because sometimes the UI just disappears. You can’t do shit.
And yeah, this save system is brr. I understand it’s a way to avoid save scumming, a terminology which in itself gives me urges to punch the people using it, but it comes with legitimate drawbacks I wouldn’t consider to be in the same ballpark. I was dumb, wanted to please a Faction by going to war alongside them. Turns out it was against the military and economic behemoth of the run. And she won’t drop the war, even if I shower her in money. Run ender. I would frankly have appreciated a regular save system.

Did I mention it’s buggy ? The game seems to do some unholy things with its saves, like it used a pair of them and loaded whatever.
I could, on several occasions, reload the same save and be thrown into a different game state.

I feel bad not loving such a well regarded game.
I had no issues with bugs that I can remember with Anno 1800 but maybe it is a new problem with the new DLC or something.

Best Tutorial is watching someone else playing it.
 

Mivey

MetaMember
Sep 20, 2018
4,298
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I'm not sure I'd agree with characterizing Totori as "weirdly open-ended", but it's still my favourite Atelier game so I might be biased :p

Later games do introduce things like recurring seasonal events. But you can't really expect more polish from them until probably Ryza or so. In the Dusk and Mysterious trilogies they still did some wild experimentation.

I think the answer to many of your questions is really that Gust wasn't disinterested in doing X, but that they were basically creating one of these games every year with a small team and small budget.
Honestly, compared to how some other Japanese companies languished particularly during that part of the PS3 era I think they did pretty well.

And yes, the PC ports are really bad.
I guess I was a bit surprised with how Totori kinda out of nowhere introduces the element of going on that boat journey, which happens super late into the plot. Given how it's arguably far more important than the wandering about part that makes up 80% of the game, it felt a bit unfocused. Not a bad game, liked it more than Rorona. One thing about Totori that also caught me by surprise was how the mother comes back in the true ending. Not sure I like my JRPGs to pick up some of the worst habbits of VNs. Also not having her be dead undermines and trivialises a lot of the plot, but that's another whole discussion about writing in JRPGs
 
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Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
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I had no issues with bugs that I can remember with Anno 1800 but maybe it is a new problem with the new DLC or something.

Best Tutorial is watching someone else playing it.
I swear, I just looked into it more and the game seems to indeed offer multiple saves. Just have to try a theory and I'm back, if it's that I can say it's the worst UI I have seen.
And the disappearing UI seems to be solved by Alt+Enter. How fucking polished.

edit.
It's the worst UI ever, confirmed.



YOU HAVE TO CLICK ON THE MINUSCULE BOX UNDER THE GIANT ONE TO ACCESS YOUR SAVED GAMES !

Fuck me.
Send help.
I'm nuclear fusioning.
 

Kyougar

No reviews, no Buy
Nov 2, 2018
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I guess I was a bit surprised with how Totori kinda out of nowhere introduces the element of going on that boat journey, which happens super late into the plot. Given how it's arguably far more important than the wandering about part that makes up 80% of the game, it felt a bit unfocused. Not a bad game, liked it more than Rorona.
Haven't played Totori, Meruru and Rorona yet (they are fucking expensive)
But I fell in love with the Ayesha and Eschatology titles. Especially Eschatology is so fucking cozy. Those were 10/10s for me, while the later titles (Sophie, Ryza, etc) are only 7s
 
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Durante

I <3 Pixels
Oct 21, 2018
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IMHO you could argue that the Atelier which started this particular conversation (Meruru) was the last "indie" Atelier.

But certainly none of those made since Gust was bought by K-T.
 

Knurek

OG old coot
Oct 16, 2018
2,527
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EDIT:
on a not-so-minor note, I also can't believe how terrible the PC ports are. Every time you open up the menu on the Steam Deck, there is a 2 second lag, where everything freezes. And this is someting that all three titles of the Arland trilogy have. Just so fucking terrible
Did you try using the custom dxvk made especially to fix the terrible PC Atelier ports?
 

Mivey

MetaMember
Sep 20, 2018
4,298
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Did you try using the custom dxvk made especially to fix the terrible PC Atelier ports?
The base version of that is not compatible with the Arland games (you get gibberish text). There is a fork that does actually support those games: GitHub - TellowKrinkle/atelier-sync-fix: Workaround for low GPU utilization in recent Atelier games (look under releases). This improves the graphical fidelity and enables better anti-aliasing, which is nice. But it does not fix the lag when opening the menu.
 

C-Dub

Makoto Niijima Fan Club President
Dec 23, 2018
3,992
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Same here brother. And I had to visit the office as well, for meetings. Shit sucks!
Ugh. I’m in tomorrow, but all I’m gonna do is have a bunch of Teams meetings, because all my team are remote. But I have to go into the office “for collaboration”.

And then I’m trapped in the office for a user research session from 5pm to 6pm. Sigh.
 

QFNS

Plays too many card games
Nov 18, 2018
1,293
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The first time I actually qualify for some in person user research for Sega and Blizzard is the weekend my wife is getting dental surgery and I can't fuck off and go play videogames for several hours. Sadness. Oh well, they would not have liked my feedback on D4 probably lol. Idk what Sega wanted tho.

Infinite Wealth is still really fun, but uh... I need some non spoiler answers for when you get whatever mingame it is that gets you a shitload of money cause there's so much I want but it's sooooo expensive. Anyone got deets on how far I need to get to unlock whichever game breaks the economy?
 
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Kvik

Crossbell City Councillor
Dec 6, 2018
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Downunder.
bsky.app
One thing about Totori that also caught me by surprise
There is one ending where Totori along with her family visited her mother's grave. I love this ending better than the true ending since it provides some closure and signifies her growth both as a person and a competent alchemist.

You won't see another Atelier dealing with loss as a theme until ... Lydie and Suelle, perhaps?
 

ezodagrom

JELLYBEE
Nov 2, 2018
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Portugal
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Did you try using the custom dxvk made especially to fix the terrible PC Atelier ports?
The base version of that is not compatible with the Arland games (you get gibberish text). There is a fork that does actually support those games: GitHub - TellowKrinkle/atelier-sync-fix: Workaround for low GPU utilization in recent Atelier games (look under releases). This improves the graphical fidelity and enables better anti-aliasing, which is nice. But it does not fix the lag when opening the menu.
PCGamingWiki has this version listed for the older Atelier games:
 
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Durante

I <3 Pixels
Oct 21, 2018
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PCGamingWiki has this version listed for the older Atelier games:
Oh, I didn't know about this. That's some very nice work. I love the shader hacking to selectively enable sample rate shading.
 
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