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

[Alextended]

I mean, I get they've modified a lot but seems kind of reaching to think Valve will allow them to give their own engine however modified away for free, even as a modable game it'd be reaching as I'd imagine Valve want to do it first and benefit from that as they did with HL1 and HL2 in the past as they wouldn't have sold nearly as much without mods, but if people can instead get the engine, for free, release their thing stand alone or even sell it, they won't mod theirs (at least in total conversion fashion, I guess fans of the lore and what not may still make additional content for the base game like DLC/maps/modes/campaigns).

If they allow it it's crazy and probably means they don't have such plans of their own or maybe they feel they've also modified the engine on their side so much they can still offer the better product and service by miles so that people will still prefer them outside whatever community s&box can muster, I dunno.

Just that they're considering it speaks volumes and I don't get the negative talk about them just because they stopped someone ripping off their own game and releasing it as its own thing separate from their products, like duh, what did they expect, at least make it somehow require the original game, or ASK them first. Especially since the project seemed more dead than alive regardless so it's not like some amazing team working wonders was out of the blue shot down.

 

[yuraya]

Meanwhile I'm just sitting here pouting that it's another survival game and not a...how should I put this...more structured game(?)

I didn't want actual pokemon with guns but something closer to that than what we got at least.

PC gamers love survival co-op games. Seems like every year at least one blows up big on Steam.

Sons of the Forest
Vrising
Valheim
Palworld

As all the recent ones that come to mind.

Even The Day Before had the hype going for it until people found out it was a different type of game altogether.

 

[Madventure]

The pokemon "inspired" designs are stupid to me in that pokemon designs are stupid as fuck to me anyways

Here's a cat! We glued a coin to its face!

Here's a sentient icecream cone!

Here's a pig that has to constantly bounce on its tail or it's heart stops beating and it dies instantly!

Here's a pokemon that's literally a dead child! OoO Spooky!

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

While I liked Palworld, I requested a refund for now and will get Tekken 8 instead.

 

[NarohDethan]

I'm all for shitting on projects using AI assets but I feel like people are vastly overestimating how much effort you need to make "Pikachu but red".

Parody game has designs that look eerily similar to the thing it's a parody of? No way, must be AI.

Eh, no one would give a shit about this game if it wasn’t for the strong resemblance the creatures have with Pokémon.

 

[fantomena]

I don't care at all if they blatantly copied Pokemon, to be honest.

 

[C-Dub]

If they used AI to generate assets lifted from someone else’s work, that’s not good.

I typically don’t care much if Nintendo or TPC loses money or has their stuff ripped off, especially if it passes the “legally distinct” hurdle, but if it was made from an AI model trained on work created by TPC artists then that shit needs slapping down.

This kind of thing devalues the work of artists and is a wet dream for scumbag capitalists.

 

[yuraya]

I know the post was deleted and I didn't see who made it but....playing old games is great

I've been doing it for years and I would say at least half of my playtime every year is for older titles. Everything from the 80s, 90s and early 2000s.

Modern day games are very exhausting (especially AAA stuff) and discourse around them can be even more exhausting. I would go as far as to say that playing older titles is needed to constantly rejuvenate your love for gaming in general.

 

[Mivey]

Been playing a lot of Outcast Second Contact recently.

Surprisingly engaging Eurojank title. I believe some former Ubisoft devs who made the original in 1999 and somehow got some funding for a full on remaster using the Unity engine. Visually really striking and charmingly rough around the corners.

Plays well on the Steam Deck, albeit it at 30 FPS. Very hard on the CPU, as it simulates every single NPC, with complete activity cycles. Despite its miniscule size compared to modern open world titles, Outcast really shines at giving you the feeling of being in a wild and dangerous world

 

[QFNS]

Been avoiding Pokemon for my entire life so far. Not changing for Pokemon with guns.

Been playing the Spiderman Remastered and I like it so far but not excited at being a cop. They really love the cops in this game for whatever reason. Still super fun swinging around and webbing shit.

 

[Arc]

It's just getting silly. This might wind up being the best selling Steam release of 2024.

 

[Sobatronix]

Palworld's launch is not great, is historic WTF. Getting close to BG3 and Hogwarts Legacy numbers by January 20th is fucking insanity

 

[Alextended]

It's pretty obvious the style is ripping off Pokemon but not much else of the gameplay is so that's fine tbh. But let's not pretend it doesn't try to do that with the pals. On the other hand, it's not like any of the actual Pokemon-likes could device something so unique, they're all based on real/fantasy animals and there are gazillions by now, all that differentiates others is some more unique general art style or if they're like, totally mechanised or digital or some other major style difference (and that probably still includes some look alikes). But again the game's not really like Pokemon at all and you could replace the palmons with, Idk, gacha waifus and husbandos and it'd be the same (if not even weirder with all the eventual factory line stuff and having them all slaving away beyond the basic survival/action). This one instead has a very similar style as Pokemons are quite sterile CG-like in most 3D games. It's not like they can stop people from having any kind of pet system in games because they happened to make one of the oldest/most popular around it and keep expanding it since, that'd be absurd.

They're gonna have to deal with it. If AI was used it was probably just in the overall concept phase and then they refined the art, made the 3D models etc., so it's not like it can be accused easily like a game that only has simple 2D art and all of it generated with small edits, there's real work included here. But I guess if ol Nintendo can prove the AI was trained on Pokemons or that they even specifically asked it to cook up Pokemon-like stuff then they may have a real case (and if they do get sued they probably do have to reveal their tools and work flow in court rather than make it up on the spot as being all manual without AI). However I don't think they'd have to use AI to devise these designs so hopefully they went legit about it in that humans were doing the ripping off manually, not AI, lol.

Love to see Steam generate more indie hits.

 

[Kyougar]

Is it ripping off some designs? Yes.
But I severely question that it was done with AI. Especially when we have weekly threads pointing out how companies use AI art for promotion that has glaring anatomy issues that are spotted instantly.

Could they have used AI to make the base models and then make them presentable? Sure, but that would surely take more time than ripping/tracing the existing models.

 

[Parsnip]

It would be pretty insane if they can keep that going.
"PUBG selling a million every 2-3 days" or whatever it was levels of insane.

Personally don't have any interest in it, but I'm entertained.

 

[PC-tan]

I have high high hopes for Dragon Quest Builders 3.

Survivor crafting co-op games can be fun. I do think it's a shame that DQB2 was not as big as it could have been and that DQB1 never released on PC at all.

This is the main tack a way from Palworld is that I don't think there has been another game recently that has been as big as this game and has so many different "talking points". People love the game, people hate the game. Basically what ever you can name (that "gamers" love and hate) are all magnified in this game by 100000X. Crazy stuff. I was even some stuff about, wow crazy the game is political Correct since it doesn't give you a Male or Female option and instead just said body type 1 and body type 2???????


I am just glad that I don't work in the video game industry at all. It's just so wild, everything.

You have people that are saying, lawyers are going to be involved, it supports AI and stuff. You have animal cruelty, you have slavery, it's only on Xbox and PC. Stuff about games pass doesn't kill game sales. Funny game. Stuff about how Pokemon can learn from this game. And way more stuff.


Going back to DQB3. I do hope that it happens. I like the other DQB games, they were fun. They had a story like to them (which was nice) they also had stuff that you could do at your own pace.


Are games just getting to stagnet? Are we even creating new genres anymore? All you need is a crazy idea and make a game about that. For Palworld wouldn't that be, hey what If we took an monster trainer game and we were able to do more stuff with those monsters. In Pokemon (well prior to Arceus) you didn't really have a reason to capture multiples of the game Pokemon.


Something I have found crazy is how Isekai has become insanely popular and yet we aren't making many games based off that. And I'm not taking about just licensing a Isekai LN and turning it into a game. I'm talking about making a game based off what makes Isekai popular. Wouldn't that partially be survival crafting games? You would also have quest and stuff that you would go out and hunt monsters for the local NPC (you know.....have a party that you can maybe have 3 of your other friends join you, sort of like in Monster Hunter, but the main difference is this would be more story driven rather than just, go kill a monster and stuff.



Sorry I just want to write a lot more stuff but my mind is all over the place.



I still find it funny how there are people saying, it's copying Pokemon go play Pokemon..... Oh you want a go mon trainer game, try playing DQM on Switch....... Yeah SE should have just released that on PC as well if they really wanted more people to play the game (which they won't for a few more months....

One of the biggest issue that I had with DQB2 is that I wanted even more control over what was happening in my base. I wanted to be able to sell stuff and make things. I wanted to be some one in my own Isekai story and help my village grow and become an empire.... Sadly you can't do that since there is a limitation to the number of monsters that you can have in DQ and also only a limited number of NPCs on your island.... Just sooooo much potential.....


Sorry for rambling, but it's all just do dumb. Any way if you like PalWorld good for you, if you don't like it, that's okay as well. Choose what ever you personally want.

 

[Derrick01]

Is it ripping off some designs? Yes.
But I severely question that it was done with AI. Especially when we have weekly threads pointing out how companies use AI art for promotion that has glaring anatomy issues that are spotted instantly.

Could they have used AI to make the base models and then make them presentable? Sure, but that would surely take more time than ripping/tracing the existing models.

I don't believe AI was involved but it's pretty clear they're plagiarists, they did the same in their last game which I only recently saw. That's really not any better than using AI, before AI that was the worst thing you could do in the art community.

 

[PC-tan]

Palworld may actually pass 1 million. It has less than 12 hours to do so.

 

[Alextended]

 

[Dragon1893]

Noticed that Ryse Son of Rome is Deck verified so decided to finally give it a shot. Locked it to 40fps with high settings and it's still a very nice looking game. The combat feels satisfying but will probably get repetitive, but considering it's a 6-7 hour game that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

 

[PC-tan]

950k+ now



Looks like the budget for making Palworld was ¥1 billion yen. Less than $7 million USD.



From the sounds of it. It took them 3 months to make this trailer.
This was back in 2021. They said that if people liked the trailer that they would make the game, if people didn't like the trailer then they wouldn't even bother to make the game since they wouldn't be a le to afford it. Also back in 2021 they only had 10 employees. So just making that trailer alone took away from Craftopia dev time.


Originally the game was only going to take just 1 year to make. But instead they ended up taking almost 3 years based off that positive feedback that they got from the initial trailer.


Another headline could read, "Cryptobro doesn't know how to run a video game company and almost bankrupts it, but gets very lucky with the game actually being fun in the end and is able to make the company profitable".




Also crazy how back in 2021 the issues that are brought up now, were not brought up then. Even going back as last heart, IGN has a video about PalWorld and called the game Pokemon with guns.


I feel like the Pokemon with guns thing really took off at the Xbox show case thing and not when the game was first shown off at Indie Live Expo (or maybe it was?)


Anyway the head dude himself did say that people did mention how the Pals looked similar to existing Pokemon designs and that they took note of it, but people overall seemed to be willing to look past that since the game looked interesting.



Also "this game game out of nowhere"? If that was the case then why did Xbox make a deal for Gamepass?

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

 

[spindoctor]

There it is.

People are losing their shit on Twitter over this game. It's hilarious.

 

[PC-tan]

I mean they are correct. In the tweet they are saying that this now makes them the domestic game with the highest player count on Steam. It was previously Elden Ring.


So officially, Palworld is now the highest player count Japanese games on Steam.


Sorry Tekken 8, Yakuza 8, and Ace Attorney (all of which are releasing in a week or so?)

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

I wanted to buy an item for Awesome Games Done Quick from Fangamer, but shipping is $14.

 

[Ge0force]

There it is.

Suits at Nintendo are probably calling their army of lawyers instead of realizing how much money they miss by ignoring PC.

 

[Censored]

How many time before Epic (or Tencent) buys palworld devs and lock the game on EGS.
People, just enjoy this game is on Steam, you like it or no.

 

[dex3108]

Tim Sweeney after another random Steam game achieves grand success

How many time before Epic (or Tencent) buys palworld devs and lock the game on EGS.
People, just enjoy this game is on Steam, you like it or no.

If they would to do that they would get so much sh*t because they laid off 1000 people last year due to their purchases.

 

[ZKenir]

this is obviously just for fun and playing with regressions but I giggled

 

[Lashley]

Nice to see another indie achieve success.

 

[kio]

The fact they're having this level of success means nintendo's army of lawyers are already in full combat uniform and preparing to strike and even if I don't completely agree with the ripoff allegations the truth is in a drawn-out court battle they have no chance of beating nintendo.
Like Icarus they flew too close to the sun and it'll backfire.

As an aside, is there any design concept nintendo fanboys think nintendo doesn't own? It stopped being funny and now it's just sad...

 

[Cacher]

Discussion - What are you currently playing? (Week 4 of 2024)

New week, new thread! What are you playing? Tears of the Kingdom for me. Oh, and also the most popular MMORPG in the world, Reality Online! It can be fun as times, and also be very exhausting because I can't check my status in the game!

metacouncil.com

 

[ezodagrom]

The success of palworld makes me wonder how a full fledged large scale creature collector mmo would do, I feel there's an untapped market for large scale multiplayer creature collector games.

 

[fantomena]

Nintendo fans now when they see someone talking about Palworld or even worse, playing it

 

[Arc]

I'm guessing the 4 million announcement will be later today with 5 million by Wednesday and 6 million by next Sunday, and even then I feel like I'm being conservative.

Tim Sweeney after another random Steam game achieves grand success

It's using his engine and backend. The house always wins.

 

[fantomena]

It's using his engine and backend. The house always wins.

Im not sure about that since Steam is getting all the mindshare. Players are not like "Oh man, this game is using the unreal backend, Im gonna support the Epic Store now!".

 

[lashman]

I'm guessing the 4 million announcement will be later today with 5 million by Wednesday and 6 million by next Sunday, and even then I feel like I'm being conservative.

 

[ZKenir]

back to 1mil and rising, EU people logging in I guess

 

[Censored]

Another Code: Recollection ROM is dumped.
So ready to play on Steam Deck xD

PS: runs perfect on yuzu.

 

[ZKenir]

lmao from palworld discord announcement

Server Outage Notice:

As the number of concurrent players across all platforms exceeded 1.3 million, the Epic Online Service is currently experiencing outages due to an unusually high load worldwide.

This is causing connectivity issues with co-op and servers.

We are sorry for this inconvenience and we are working to recover stable operation as soon as possible.

Thank you for your patience

 

[Arc]

lmao from palworld discord announcement

So 300k on Game Pass. Also it's beating Starfield's 1 million pretty handily.

 

[fantomena]

So 300k on Game Pass. Also it's beating Starfield's 1 million pretty handily.

That is extremely lousy for game pass as I assume it takes both Xbox and Windows Store in consideration.

No wonder there is all these negative game pass articles lately about growth having been stagnated.

 

[ZKenir]

That is extremely lousy for game pass as I assume it takes both Xbox and Windows Store in consideration.

No wonder there is all these negative game pass articles lately about growth having been stagnated.

that number would be higher, the issue is that palworld on xbox/gamepass is an older build with bugs because the patches gotta go through MS certification process so it's lagging behind steam

Anecdotal but some people are trying it on GP and buying it on Steam due to that

 

[fantomena]

that number would be higher, the issue is that palworld on xbox/gamepass is an older build with bugs because the patches gotta go through MS certification process so it's lagging behind steam

Anecdotal but some people are trying it on GP and buying it on Steam due to that

But how many playing it on Xbox or Windows Store is online enough to know tha the Steam version is better?

Like I would assume someone playing on Xbox would also not care about the Steam version much the same way if the game was on Playstation, PS players would not care about the Steam version.

 

[Arc]

The Game Pass version doesn't have dedicated servers and only allows up to 4 players while the Steam version has support for 32 player servers. Also Pocketpair followed Valve's regional pricing suggestions to a T which is extremely rare nowadays.

 

[Lashley]

gamepass version is outdated, missing features and the storefront still fucking sucks

 

[ZKenir]

But how many playing it on Xbox or Windows Store is online enough to know tha the Steam version is better?

Like I would assume someone playing on Xbox would also not care about the Steam version much the same way if the game was on Playstation, PS players would not care about the Steam version.

I think you're overthinking this, some people know because of WoM when asking about the game on discord/twitch/reddit/whatever, some don't.
if they are interested after the GP try they might buy steam version for that better experience, if they don't have a pc they don't.

The Game Pass version doesn't have dedicated servers and only allows up to 4 players while the Steam version has support for 32 player servers. Also Pocketpair followed Valve's regional pricing suggestions to a T which is extremely rare nowadays.

this is also true

 

[Stone Ocean]

The fact they're having this level of success means nintendo's army of lawyers are already in full combat uniform and preparing to strike and even if I don't completely agree with the ripoff allegations the truth is in a drawn-out court battle they have no chance of beating nintendo.
Like Icarus they flew too close to the sun and it'll backfire.

Nintendo is the most litigious company in the entire industry, they have Minority Report lawyers that will C&D you if you as much imagine a fangame, I think that if they wanted to sue they would have done it so long ago, specially considering this game was featured on the Geoffies last year.

 

[Mivey]

Another Code: Recollection ROM is dumped.
So ready to play on Steam Deck xD


PS: runs perfect on yuzu.

Hoping my physical copy arrives some time next week. It's was supposed to be shipped, but no tracking link yet.

 

[ZKenir]

posting it here, some people might be interested

GitHub - GloriousEggroll/ULWGL: Unified Linux Wine Game Launcher

Unified Linux Wine Game Launcher. Contribute to GloriousEggroll/ULWGL development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

WHAT IS THIS?

This is a work in progress POC (proof of concept) for a unified launcher for windows games on linux. It is essentially a copy of the Steam Linux Runtime/Steam Runtime Tools (steamrt / steam-runtime-tools · GitLab) that Valve uses for proton, with some modifications made so that it can be used outside of Steam.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR OTHER LAUNCHERS (lutris/bottles/heroic/legendary,etc):

• everyone can use + contribute to the same protonfixes, no more managing individual install scripts per launcher
• everyone can run their games through proton just like a native steam game
• no steam or steam binaries required
• a unified online database of game fixes (protonfixes)

right now protonfixes packages a folder of 'gamefixes' however it could likely be recoded to pull from online quite easily


The idea is to get all of these tools using this same gamelauncher.sh and just feeding their envvars into it. That way any changes that need to happen can happen in proton-ge and/or protonfixes, or a 'unified proton' build based off GE, or whatever they want.