Community MetaSteam | January 2019 - Steaming along through Epic storms

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Knurek

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Oct 16, 2018
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Back to Popstars, can anyone explain how was the AR being done in the performance.
zky says he watched it live, so it's not something being added in post.
Doesn't look like something being beamed to special glasses, since the public isn't wearing these.
Doesn't look like a Miku type thingy, since it has 3D-ness during the camera flyby, and also is done in daylight with good contrast.
The fact that AR is reflected onto floor just... well, floors me.
That dragon is also something else, casting real(?) shadow onto the onwatchers...
 
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Wok

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Back to Popstars, can anyone explain how was the AR being done in the performance.
zky says he watched it live, so it's not something being added in post.
Doesn't look like something being beamed to special glasses, since the public isn't wearing these.
Doesn't look like a Miku type thingy, since it has 3D-ness during the camera flyby, and also is done in daylight with good contrast.
The fact that AR is reflected onto floor just... well, floors me.
That dragon is also something else, casting real(?) shadow onto the onwatchers...
A large screen in the background.
 
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zkylon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOxkGD8qRB4
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nono it same AR as the dragon, they add the 3D kdas in post

i just saw it live cos they had giant screens lol

for the dragon shadows i believe they might've done a 3D model of the stadium over which to cast the fake shadow the dragon would project. similar to the reflection effects of the KDA members

it's all really well done
 

Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
Nov 12, 2018
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Base is taking (some) form!
I found a Lava Geyser in the Jellyshroom Caves below, so I built a Thermal Reactor there and built a line of power connectors to tap into that energy from my base above. With that new permanent influx of energy that also works during night, I could now build a Moonpool, and can use the Scanner Room without it sucking all my energy reserves dry (especially during nighttime...).
The Multi-purpose room in front was what I started with. It basically has all my stuff. A bunch of lockers, a fabricator, modification station, power cell and battery rechargers, radio and medkit fabricator. Will likely deconstruct and rebuilt a lot of the second floor stuff until I'm happy with it.
Next steps will be building a Prawn Suit, gathering materials for upgrading my Seamoth depth modul (300m is not deep enough anymore!) and looking for more Cyclops fragments.
 

zkylon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOxkGD8qRB4
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How then is this scene handled?
how these AR things go is they have a special camera with previously choreographed movements down a set path that in this case the artists have to also play with

so in the bit soyeon is rapping with her akali double she looks at a position they've rehearsed the character is gonna be at

anyways, this camera has the ability of recording its position data and feeding it to a fake camera in some rendering software that then processes it and uses it to calculate where to place characters in relation to this data. this is then rendered on top of the live footage. they've also rehearsed this to make sure the video they've rendered has matching lighting conditions, has all the fancy floor reflections, etc. but it is live, and so the position the camera guy is is the position the fake camera is as well

this stuff requires a lot of rehearsal and planning, specially at the crazy complexity they were working with. which kind of explains when it broke a little bit

this is all post production so as a live spectator you don't really see anything, but they were broadcasting it on giant screens on top of the stage so it was still hype as hell

there's some more cool insights here on how they did the dragon thingie: /dev: Summoning the Worlds Dragon – Nexus
 

Kyougar

No reviews, no Buy
Nov 2, 2018
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Happy Birthday, Kurt Russell :D

Back to videogames *cough* zkylon The character Kai'sa feels very passive/sad or in the background a lot, while the other three are more forward or aggressive. Does it have to do with her role/lore in the game?

Also her vocalist Jaira Burns isn't featured as much, although I heard she co-wrote the lyrics and is the background voice.
 

Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
Nov 12, 2018
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Tales form Subnautica:

I now have a Prawn Suit and a Cyclops submarine.
My Seamoth can go 900 meters deep.
I scanned a friggin Reaper up close \o/. (Stasis Rifle is the best thing ever)
Found a ton of new Biomes in the deeper depths alongside new big creepy fishes. Though I'm getting used to it.
Encountered and scanned (thanks again Stasis Rifle!) a Juvenile Ghost Leviathan - I do not want to know how big a grown one is.
I guess next up I'll build some upgrades for the Cyclops, mine some stuff with the Prawn suit and enter that one Alien Research facility I found.
 
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Kurt Russell

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY Kurt Russell!!! 🎂🎉🎂🎉🎂

have an awesome one, man! :D


Happy birthday Kurt Russell !!
Happy Birthday, Kurt Russell :D

Back to videogames *cough* zkylon The character Kai'sa feels very passive/sad or in the background a lot, while the other three are more forward or aggressive. Does it have to do with her role/lore in the game?

Also her vocalist Jaira Burns isn't featured as much, although I heard she co-wrote the lyrics and is the background voice.
KDA is the only good thing to ever come out of league

_ _ _ _ _ _

Happy Birthday Kurt Russell
Thank you! :wd_heart:
 

Snakethesniper

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Jan 11, 2019
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Just tried the resident evil 2 demo and I'm very surprised by the performance. Maybe it's because there are no open spaces but with high/medium settings I got steady 60 fps on my GTX 970!
Also the game looks great, the correct mix of TPS aiming/controls and the inventory management and puzzles like the old survival games. Basically what The Evil Within did
 
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Kurt Russell

SUPREME OVERLORD OF EVIL
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zkylon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOxkGD8qRB4
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happy birthday bumbo

next year come to buenos aires and i'll get u drunk beyond repair

Back to videogames *cough* zkylon The character Kai'sa feels very passive/sad or in the background a lot, while the other three are more forward or aggressive. Does it have to do with her role/lore in the game?

Also her vocalist Jaira Burns isn't featured as much, although I heard she co-wrote the lyrics and is the background voice.
yeah most definitely (tho it doesn't come close to ziggs not even appearing in the trailer for the odyssey skinline despite being one of the few that got one of those skins)

there's two answers to this that have been going around and i think they're both true at the same time
1- kai'sa as a character previously to kda was already pretty bland and unremarkable. ppl had been pretty critical of her design since release, her story of being trapped in the void (league's lovecraftian monster dimension) for 10 years and only surviving through wits, luck and finally that bodysuit that's a living alien monster thing, aren't really reflected neither on her looks (cos she still has that dumb untarnished perfect face) or her personality (she's randomly super literate and isn't scarred or traumatized in the slightest, which is weird considering the effect the void had on other characters in the game), this translated into her kda design also being the blandest and most forgettable, specially compared to three of the strongest personalities and base designs in the game. a lot of people were like they should've put katarina or something instead

2- i heard from some people that k-pop bands tend to have a member that's usually doing less vocals because they're the 'dancer'. they tend to fade into the background a little more and be less relevant compared to the rest. i can't verify this cos i don't know much about kpop but that kind of matches kai'sa's role in the video perfectly

KDA is the only good thing to ever come out of league
what about me??
 

Wok

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Ex-User (307)

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Happy Birthday, Kurt Russell :D

Back to videogames *cough* zkylon The character Kai'sa feels very passive/sad or in the background a lot, while the other three are more forward or aggressive. Does it have to do with her role/lore in the game?

Also her vocalist Jaira Burns isn't featured as much, although I heard she co-wrote the lyrics and is the background voice.
Zyklon gave you the answer with her normal character background, but they also wrote it into her K/DA background:

An "interview": Interview: Inside K/DA - Universe of League of Legends

And: their official K/DA backgrounds: https://universe.leagueoflegends.com/en_US/kda

Basically it says:

Ahri: Lead Vocalist
Evelynn: Lead Vocalist
Kai'Sa: Lead Dancer:
Akali: Rapper

And the interview confirms Kai'Sa is the lead dancer and supposed to be the one designing the choreography for the fictional group.
 
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I was away for a few days without internet access, and I thought when I returned home, Epic would have bought Valve and Microsoft by then.
I'm disappointed. :giggle:

---

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Kurt Russell !

:wd_caketato:
Have a great day!

---

And, some late well wishes to you, AHA-Lambda as well!
I hope you ate a lot of cake, and got many Epic Games Store games gifted to you. :p
 

Kurt Russell

SUPREME OVERLORD OF EVIL
Sep 6, 2018
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Gameplay:


Guide on how to play

---

Happy Birthday, Kurt Russell
happy birthday bumbo

next year come to buenos aires and i'll get u drunk beyond repair


yeah most definitely (tho it doesn't come close to ziggs not even appearing in the trailer for the odyssey skinline despite being one of the few that got one of those skins)

there's two answers to this that have been going around and i think they're both true at the same time
1- kai'sa as a character previously to kda was already pretty bland and unremarkable. ppl had been pretty critical of her design since release, her story of being trapped in the void (league's lovecraftian monster dimension) for 10 years and only surviving through wits, luck and finally that bodysuit that's a living alien monster thing, aren't really reflected neither on her looks (cos she still has that dumb untarnished perfect face) or her personality (she's randomly super literate and isn't scarred or traumatized in the slightest, which is weird considering the effect the void had on other characters in the game), this translated into her kda design also being the blandest and most forgettable, specially compared to three of the strongest personalities and base designs in the game. a lot of people were like they should've put katarina or something instead

2- i heard from some people that k-pop bands tend to have a member that's usually doing less vocals because they're the 'dancer'. they tend to fade into the background a little more and be less relevant compared to the rest. i can't verify this cos i don't know much about kpop but that kind of matches kai'sa's role in the video perfectly


what about me??
VLR is hella awesome!

Also, happy birthday Kurt Russell !


I wanna get drunk too :cry:
I was away for a few days without internet access, and I thought when I returned home, Epic would have bought Valve and Microsoft by then.
I'm disappointed. :giggle:

---

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Kurt Russell !

:wd_caketato:
Have a great day!

---

And, some late well wishes to you, AHA-Lambda as well!
I hope you ate a lot of cake, and got many Epic Games Store games gifted to you. :p
Thank you! :wd_kisses:
 
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lashman

lashman

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a few choice quotes from the podcast Sergey was on (via daxy who doesn't like us anymore because he never visits :cry: )

daxy said:
Going through the aforementioned podcast with Galyonkin and a bunch of really interesting tidbits came up already.

EGS will not focus on discovery like Valve. Instead, they will have a curated front page like the App Store. The primary way of "discovering" games will be developers giving out keys to streamers through EGS. Streamers of course are inventivized to "sell" games because they can get a cut of the sale.

You will also eventually be able to follow games and get notifications about big updates and such, which may help get visibility to your game.

Cloud saves coming around February.

By the end of 2019, EGS will open to self-publishing.

EGS will give developers as much info on players as is legally possible. He mentioned something about being able to see what other games consumers are playing. I'm not sure this would be allowed by default under GDPR however.

This data will not be publicly available. There will be an API that can be scraped to facilitate a potential "Epic Spy" but they will not offer that service themselves.

The launch build of games are tested for playability.

A little hazy on this part, but, from what I understood, EGS is currently also doing off-site marketing for the games that are on their store. I don't recall if that's just for exclusives. Don't believe they said anything about that once the store goes open for self publishing.

No massive seasonal sale events like on Steam. This is said to kill sales for games that don't do a discount in that period as well as for new games. Instead, games on sale will be featured alongside the regular stuff.

Another interesting thing from the podcast is that they had the dev from Hello Neighbor on, who basically said that Steam made up the smallest share of the sales (of the first Hello Neighbor game anyway). Most were from direct sales on their website. And when they gave out Steam keys, they got bombarded with questions on what to do with them. So there are a multitude of considerations intersecting here when making a choice on where to put your game, including whether your game has historically done well on the Steam storefront at all.

Listening to the 2nd half of the podcast. There's a lot to unpack there.

About interacting with influencers, sending keys, referral cuts.

Currently 5% cut for influencers by default (paid for by Epic), can change this as high as 100%. You can set it at 0% as well, but at the moment 5% will in any case be covered by Epic.

After a while, Galyonkin expects market standards to develop, e.g. for indies a 20% cut but for larger publisher backed games 5%. I thought this was kinda odd for him to say since indies need the larger share and it'd make more sense for 5% for indies at most. I guess this isn't supposed to be the lion's share of sales, but still. If a streamer manages to refer a 100 sales, great, but the dev loses 32% of the sale right there (12% + 20%), that's quite much. If this becomes popular and will be implemented on Steam, that's half of your revenue just outright gone. 55% even for Unreal Engine games.

Developer can automatically give out keys to groups of influencers. It isn't really clear if this was referring to specific sub-groups of influencers or broader groups like podcasters, youtubers, twitch, bloggers, press, etc.

There are different filters for influencers and press. The press won't get a commercial link. Influencers get a filter that indicates whether they are "verified" or not.

Unverified influences are all who applied to this program and went through a rudimentary check. They check that this person is indeed who they are presenting themselves as and whether they have a channel.

After a certain amount of referred sales, verified influencers are checked a second time. To check that everything is normal in terms of their content and other issues.

Together with the copy of the game that devs send to influencers they can include a short text what kind of game it is, links to guides, asset packs.

This was an interesting point: Epic doesn't want to give devs the ability to contact individual influencers, because influencers don't like it when they're bombarded constantly with personal emails. All they want from developers is that they're given the game and they'll play it. If devs want to contact them personally, they'll have to do that through other channels.

They also plan to implement something like subscriptions to influencers.

Final info dump from ep. 234 of the podcast with Galyonkin. I started writing in a more abbreviated way eventually. Hopefully it's still understandable. Inaccuracy/misinterpretation is possible -- apologies in advance if so. Where the answer was vague, I usually tried to indicate it as such.

Developer created promo codes for discounts/bonuses will eventually be possible.

Their in-app purchase policy is not yet fully finalized. Epic will most likely also take a cut. Galyonkin was not able to give a final answer on that.

Discovery will mainly take place outside of the store. Galyonkin draws parallels to a book store or theater, where you usually know what you're going to buy/attend before going there rather than look through what's available. Primarily new/featured releases are shown on the storefront.

There will be a news feed where you can follow games, developers, influencers. This sounds like it will be their second big pillar for discovery.

He said that _currently_ you won't be able to append your own launcher that will be launched from the EGS app, but this may change in the future. Given how Ubisoft handles its games on Steam and that The Division 2 is launching on EGS, I assume they've already made a change on this stance since this podcast's release.

It will be possible to generate keys like on Steam. They will not charge the 12% for those keys. Doesn't recommend it since other marketplaces typically charge a higher cut.

Games sold also on other storefronts probably will not be allowed to have a lower base price there. Differing sales of course are fine.

On exclusives. They pay for timed exclusives on PC. Mainly to finish financing ports or to assuage fears of the game not doing well on this new platform. Works like a minimal guarantee of sales and get money in advance.

It's not planned that the 12% cut will get higher. It might get lower, however, if they will be able to cut a better deal over time with payment processing companies -- but this won't happen any time soon.

Achievements will be there by the end of 2019. Reviews will also come eventually. No forums, no guides, no paid mods. Developer/publisher pages will also be implemented.

It will eventually be possible to launch non-Epic games through the launcher. You can pull in friends lists from Steam Galyonkin said. Importing games directly from other platforms, like GOG does, will not be done. He doesn't see the advantage of it.

Social features will be introduced, but it'll be somewhat different from Steam's. Couldn't give details yet.

Customer reviews are opt-in. Will have mechanisms to prevent review bombs. Expects that without review bombing, all developers will want to put reviews on their page. I don't think that's the case, since many of dev's complaints about reviews that I've read are about people not understanding games, using reviews as a faster support ticket, inappropriate content, and so forth. Review bombs are an issue, but not for the vast majority of games. These other issues are more commonplace.

Download speed limits will be possible.

The influencer/creator program will be their approach to Steam's curators.

Responding to complaints about EGS being focused on developers to the detriment of consumers (e.g. no forums, achievements, other consumer-facing features): initial focus was indeed on developers, the consumer focused featured are being worked on, they will have free games every two weeks for the entirety of 2019 (28 games total). Features for consumers will be introduced gradually. Concedes that even stuff on the backend for developers isn't fully finalized yet either.

Wants to have more social media integration. Currently already possible to connect Facebook, Vk, Steam, Twitch, PS, Switch, Xbox, and Google accounts.

Suggested regional prices are indicated for developers. Limited support currently. Shown as a %age discount rather than the adjusted number in the local currency, so developers have a better gauge on how much cheaper their game is sold for in lower income regions.

It will be possible to follow unreleased games.

"Cards" not planned. Considers it to have an undesirable effect on purchasing decisions, e.g. buying games you don't really want for the cards. Other collectibles, skins, or stuff like that will be possible. Not necessarily tradeable.

They're happy with the look of the store as it is now with its big tiles. Eventually things like categories will be introduced but in broad strokes this is how it'll look.

News feed will contain friends' activities. Not yet sure what activities exactly will shown there.

How they got Journey. They cut a deal with Sony. Paid for it by the sound of it. RIP dreams of a Steam version, I guess. Fair game since it seems to have been organized/funded by Epic though.

User profiles are planned for the beginning of "next year" he says, but I'm unsure whether he meant early 2019 or 2020.

Discusses different ways to address reviews and review bombing. A pop-up asking a player to review a game after closing it -- from what I understood the idea is that only a certain subset of players will then get to review it, it isn't something everyone can do at any time. Another option he mentioned was only allowing/showing reviews of people who have recently played the game. Instead of like/dislike system a numeral system, which is monitored and an algorithm removes the extremes -- this is a reference to a similar system implemented on some other website/service that I'm not familiar with. They're still figuring out how to best approach it. Galyonkin personally likes the post game pop-up idea.

To be clear: those are two different options they've thought of. Either or. In any case, it's still all a work in progress. Galyonkin was just airing different approaches they've considered. If you read on, he says that devs will have no moderation powers over reviews.

Developers will not be able to directly moderate reviews. They can flag them for review by Epic.

No plans for blockchain tech!

Currently, all regions get the same build of the game. So if you purchase a game in Russia, for example, it won't be that it only has Russian language in-game (as is apparently the case for some Ubisoft games). If this is requested by developers, it can be changed. (This response came up a lot by the way -- basically, if devs want a feature, it seems Epic is willing to do their best to implement it for them by launch)

No plans to get into the hardware business.

(In response to a question about this) Galyonkin is considering login using Steam account. Says why not. Will discuss it internally.

About price errors: if a user buys a game on the cheap through a price error and it's Epic's fault, they won't revoke the purchase. If it's a devs fault, it's up to them.

Aaaaand that's it. I don't think I'll do the same for the other podcast episodes. This took quite some time :')
by the way - if someone wants to turn that 👆 into a separate thread, go right ahead :)
 
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Kyougar

No reviews, no Buy
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a few choice quotes from the podcast Sergey was on (via daxy who doesn't like us anymore because he never visits :cry: )
If they are skimming on games, they will get less traffic on the store, less eyes on the store.
And especially if they are skimming on community features like Forums, activity feed or Chat. THOSE community features are the reason people have Steam open all the time without playing a game.

And they are thinking of doctoring reviews (either by skimming the extremes or only letting people randomly review a game with a pop-up and never when they want to do it). That plus the review opt-in is just a general big fuck you to consumers.
 
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lashman

lashman

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If they are skimming on games, they will get less traffic on the store, less eyes on the store.
And especially if they are skimming on community features like Forums, activity feed or Chat. THOSE community features are the reason people have Steam open all the time without playing a game.

And they are thinking of doctoring reviews (either by skimming the extremes or only letting people randomly review a game with a pop-up and never when they want to do it). That plus the review opt-in is just a general big fuck you to consumers.
yup .... it's pretty much "everything for the developers, nothing for the consumers"

like genuine hostility towards people buying games ... where a customer is "a scumbag until proven otherwise"

great business plan there
 

Line

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Dec 21, 2018
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So hmm, maybe I'll use MC to remember the games I played this year? Not like I post a lot elsewhere.

-Finished Anodyne.
Cool Zelda like, weird as hell, you go from the forest dungeon to the water dungeon to CHILD MURDER DUNGEON.
Puzzles everywhere, all the time, but not frustrating, just enough to get a lot of variety.
Does not overstay its welcome too, interested in the next Anodyne, in 3D.

-Tried The Vagrant.
Looks fucking amazing, plays decently well for a brawler, has little RPG elements and big breasted waifus (those designs seriously - a bra and assless chaps for the main character?).
I'll play more later.

-Tales of Vesperia.
Yup, it's a pretty good JRPG. It's also the last of its kind with an overworld and ridiculous missable side quests.
Gorgeous with a copious amount of Reshade (else it looks like you dropped your glasses in mashed potatoes), lovely cast but combat feels old. It may get faster (especially with animation cancelling in this version), but that does not stop characters from constantly missing their shots or plain hit the wrong side because they get stuck in a virtual line when they attack.
Still playable, but damn if the franchise didn't became better after that... and worse in some ways too, with extra RNG to regenerate your TP instead of... basic combos? I don't know, there's a lot of work to be done for gameplay in this series.
 

Kyougar

No reviews, no Buy
Nov 2, 2018
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yup .... it's pretty much "everything for the developers, nothing for the consumers"

like genuine hostility towards people buying games ... where a customer is "a scumbag until proven otherwise"

great business plan there
They just come across as elitists who think their customers are trash human beings and want to have nothing to do with them. They don't want to make forums because they can be toxic, the solution could be to heavily moderate the Forums, but that costs money and you have to interact with those filthy peasants!
we take your money but fuck off after you paid.
 
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lashman

lashman

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They just come across as elitists who think their customers are trash human beings and want to have nothing to do with them. They don't want to make forums because they can be toxic, the solution could be to heavily moderate the Forums, but that costs money and you have to interact with those filthy peasants!
we take your money but fuck off after you paid.
yeah, pretty much ....

it's basically "please buy our games, we need the money ... epic are giving us a better cut, so please everyone buy our games there ... ok?" ... and then when you already buy the game it immediately shifts to "we don't owe you anything ... don't contact us, we'll contact you ... don't even speak to us ... we made the game, you bought it, this is where our relationship ends"

well guess what - you can't have both ...
 

「Echo」

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Nov 1, 2018
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Mt. Whatever
So hmm, maybe I'll use MC to remember the games I played this year? Not like I post a lot elsewhere.

-Finished Anodyne.
Cool Zelda like, weird as hell, you go from the forest dungeon to the water dungeon to CHILD MURDER DUNGEON.
Puzzles everywhere, all the time, but not frustrating, just enough to get a lot of variety.
Does not overstay its welcome too, interested in the next Anodyne, in 3D.

-Tried The Vagrant.
Looks fucking amazing, plays decently well for a brawler, has little RPG elements and big breasted waifus (those designs seriously - a bra and assless chaps for the main character?).
I'll play more later.

-Tales of Vesperia.
Yup, it's a pretty good JRPG. It's also the last of its kind with an overworld and ridiculous missable side quests.
Gorgeous with a copious amount of Reshade (else it looks like you dropped your glasses in mashed potatoes), lovely cast but combat feels old. It may get faster (especially with animation cancelling in this version), but that does not stop characters from constantly missing their shots or plain hit the wrong side because they get stuck in a virtual line when they attack.
Still playable, but damn if the franchise didn't became better after that... and worse in some ways too, with extra RNG to regenerate your TP instead of... basic combos? I don't know, there's a lot of work to be done for gameplay in this series.
Mhm, Wishlisted Anodyne. Never heard of it before or found it in discovery queue either. Weird.

I was also thinking ReShade would be appropriate for Vespiria given all that bloom and blur, do you know what version of DirectX it is using?
 
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