Community MetaSteam | November 2019 - You Can't Spell Steam Without EA

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Spamlynguist

I can never decide on an avatar
Dec 31, 2018
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Played Door Kickers: Action Squad with a streamer (inelious) through Steam Play Together just now and had a goddamn blast! Got disconnected a few times but overall it was very smooth.

I fucking love that this is possible now, bless Steam
 

Alextended

Segata's Disciple
Jan 28, 2019
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The game that is totally not Pokemon but that actually looks a lot better than Pokemon Sword/Shield just launched.

I don't think it looks better than Sword & Shield, more like oldemon with some flash-like art? Edit:mobileversions are f2p/cheap so people can maybe try?

What makes it better? Or better than Disc Creatures?
 

Kandrick

Junior Member
Jun 10, 2019
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Switzerland
I almost bought Devil May Cry 5 from cdkeys for 12.99 but i remembered it's on Xbox Gamepass, so maybe it'll show up on PC gamepass soon or in a Humble Bundle Monthlychoicething.

I'm not in a rush to play it so i think i'll wait.
 
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OMEGALUL

Junior Member
Apr 15, 2019
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is anybody having difficulty accessing the front page on steam? I can't access it on the client and on the browser.
 

Blu

MetaMember
Mar 12, 2019
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Damn they canceled my steam controller carrying case. Hopefully the controller ships soon.
 
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yuraya

MetaMember
May 4, 2019
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So is Rockstar really not gonna let us prepurchase and preload RDR2 before the 5th? And its like a 100gb game :(

Would have been so convenient to purchase everyting off my cart at once during this sale ughh. They are such trash for doing this stupid 1 month deal with Epic.


It's not about not having it at launch or even not wishing to support it, just being dismissive about it as he clearly was. Maybe he fixed it with his later reply but the original comments were clearly dismissive of VR as a whole and therefor by extension anyone who enjoys or is working on it in its current form (which will honestly be roughly the same form in 5 years time or whenever PSVR2 drops or they start thinking about it for Xbox at all). Don't expect PSVR2 to make Index look like a NES or whatever people like saying about VR being in its initial steps comparable to such old systems. The hardware is mature, yes improvements will come just as monitors and controllers also improve out of VR but the groundwork is laid down, and the game design is not at NES levels because while VR offers things you can't do elsewhere peripheral game design know how and game technologies apply just the same to it so a lot of software is also mature. The one thing missing was bigger companies willing to invest and flesh out ideas already seen by smaller developers and indies but that's slowly changing too (and Oculus funded higher production value stuff from day one so it wasn't nonexistent or anything either, just more rare than indie developers going at it).
I mean he has to kind of be dismissive otherwise he would lead on the Xbox community to believe that VR is coming for Scarlett at launch. It seems like he is walking a thin line and just scared to fuck up pr for next year the same way they fucked it all up back in 2013. They are just not in position to tell people to buy anything other than a console next year. If they try to tell people their purchase would be an incomplete experience it will all backfire badly. Their entire focus is gonna be Gamepass, Scarlett, 4k gaming and magical SSDs.

Also the whole anti social experience is terrible argument from some of these suits. Gaming has always been a loner hobby. VR doesn't change much imo. Phil just seems like he is walking the walk with his approach. He is taking a risk and it can backfire pretty badly if VR booms next gen making Xbox lag so far behind. But again after the fuck up of 2013 and them being in third place this gen...they are not in position to market VR to Xbox owners right now.

As for the PSVR I think the jump from PSVR--->PSVR2 is gonna be huge. The headset will have much better tracking, higher framerate, FOV and will benefit a lot from a much more powerful PS5. Sony already having an established VR store just gives them a very bright future. But again their focus just like Xbox has to be to put the new consoles inside households first. Nothing else will matter until they do. Console VR for now is gonna suck but I think it will be much better in a couple years.
 

Alextended

Segata's Disciple
Jan 28, 2019
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I mean, his damage control post was better so why make the first one dismissive to then need damage control lol? No excuses. VR is not our focus with Scarlett, we're putting our all in a great lineup of games and powerful hardware, or whatever, is a fine statement that doesn't give VR an edge or imply they're worse off or even imply they're out of touch with the potential of new technologies just because they aren't doing them right now. Not to mention contradict statements from other Microsoft teams like the Microsoft Flight Simulator team quickly shifting from "no vr, probably" to "a high priority" or whatever equivalent for them.
 
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Tizoc

Retired, but still Enabling
Oct 11, 2018
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Oman
ko-fi.com
TIL about z value and z table in terms of probability.

I only needed a youtube video to teach it for me in about 5 minutes :v
 
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PossiblyPudding

sometimes a doctor of rhythm
Apr 17, 2019
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It's my birthday, I am in full existential crisis, can't afford to replace my 970 nor buy a new monitor or a VR headset (end of 2019 : everything was 500 bucks), can't even afford discounted games, and to top it off I'm freezing my butt over here. So cold that I can't shake the feeling that I left a window open, even when I fully know I didn't.
:unamused-face:
So sorry to hear it's been a rough start to your birthday though after reading the pages following this I'm so happy to see that it's turning into a better one. You deserve to have a great day today and I can only hope it continues to improve! :cat-heart-blob:

Happy birthday my friend! Things will get back on track for you, keep your spirits up and know we're all here for you anytime! :smiling-face-with-smiling-eyes:
 

Matimeo

MetaMember
Oct 21, 2018
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As far as VR and Microsoft. The business case is just not there. Which is why all resources were shifted to AR , and Mixed Reality just allows MS to have a way to keep the door open for when VR is worth it to them business wise. XBOX is a subset of Microsoft, which people love to forget. AR is where the money is and will be in the future.

AR is mobile , while VR is a gaming console. I dont need to tell you the difference in potential profit margins.

VR does have huge issues with being anti social. Humans are social by default. Often core gamers forget this, big business is not interested in catering to niche core audiences as a primary focus. Sony has done quite a bit of work with VR, and figuring out experiences where others can participate without use of a headset in the same room. Oculus has also done quite a bit in pushing VR as a educational tool, however it only really works if everyone has a headset which is just not feasible, hell we cant even guarantee every student get the books they need.

AR has had similar issues. If you read research done by MIT and other schools decades ago , one of the many things holding back AR is social related.
Oculus also did alot of work around sharing VR experiences with non VR devices. Where AR has a huge advantage is mobile, far less fidelity and resources needed, less worries over making people ill, and huge huge advertisement opportunities . Early Hololens, social was a huge issue and what made them shift away from consumer for now.

VR also has huge accessibility issues. Not just cost, and no hardware and interaction standards which are issues in itself but there are just a large subset of people who will never be able to really enjoy VR for various reasons. No one has the bandwidth or resources to focus on these issues, when AR just looks like a much better case overall. AR is also much cheaper to develop for, much more expensive to equip a dev team with multiple VR headsets, etc.

Streaming will also surpass VR, as a standard as it just has much larger reach and focus on cloud by many big players will continue to push this. Phil has limited resources, and needs to stay aligned with Microsoft. So much of these decisions have been made for him.

XBOX will continue to invest in cloud because Azure is the future of MS - see Jedi contract,
XBOX will continue to invest in services because that is the future of MS per Satya ( note Office, Windows, all have become services)
XBOX will continue to support AR efforts because of hololens , see recent military contract

XBOX will do anything to support those 3 pillars as they align back to MS.
VR just doesnt fit in that plan at the moment. Things can change quarterly, but even Oculus expected to be further along.

I know many people may not agree but gaming has always been hugely social.
The easier a game was to share the more popular it got. Even something like solitaire, can be observed and thats super key in growing a market.
One of the reasons gaming has seen such a huge rise in popularity, is related to how accessible gaming is these days, how easy it is
to share various experiences both in person and remotely.
 
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Alextended

Segata's Disciple
Jan 28, 2019
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How is AR more mobile than VR? Unless you mean actual mobile app AR stuff or like the 3DS stuff, and not Microsoft's Hololens stuff? And how does that mean anything to a console like Xbox? Might as well ditch that and make a portable system only then? AR for gaming is also even more niche at this time than VR is (again, outside the use of AR in mobile apps, but as a thing/hardware fully focused on it). The AR money right now if for enterprise/business stuff and VR has a good presence there itself, maybe you've missed it, from military training to car manufacturers to health care industries to whatever else. Also, it's pretty clear local multiplayer games have gone the way of the dodo the past generations so gaming really isn't that social to most people outside the online space VR can accommodate. If that wasn't the case we wouldn't be waiting for the next Overcooked sensation but get a nice stream of games. And again, nobody said to add it if they don't wanna invest in it at this time, just that it's ridiculously narrow minded to dismiss it. PSVR2 aint gonna be ready any time soon either after all.

Have you tried (good hardware/software) VR?
 
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Durante

I <3 Pixels
Oct 21, 2018
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VR does have huge issues with being anti social.
It's not really more "anti social" than any other core gaming. Which, yeah, could absolutely be an issue for the true "mainstream", but core gaming is still a massive and profitable industry.

Sony has done quite a bit of work with VR, and figuring out experiences where others can participate without use of a headset in the same room.
Indies have been doing that successfully since the Oculus DK days, really.
I'd say the single most important early milestone game in this respect is "Keep talking and nobody explodes", and that was originall on DKs, then GearVR in its initial commercial release, followed by PC and then everything else. And it's a combined VR / non-VR party game I've seen groups of complete non-gamers get extremely excited about.

AR is also much cheaper to develop for, much more expensive to equip a dev team with multiple VR headsets, etc.
That seems like an extremely weak argument. First of all, current AR HW is actually more expensive than VR hardware.
Secondly, even for the indiest of indie developers (in the western world at least) the expense of VR HW is almost completely immaterial. You can get multiple full sets of high-end VR HW for the monthly cost of one decent programmer.
 
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NarohDethan

There was a fish in the percolator!
Apr 6, 2019
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That actually looks... Very nice? I even thought his apartment looks pretty big for Japan. I'm sure it's not the case everywhere so he's lucky. Go Bandai!
Ofc I know nothing about how Bamco manages its studios but I think this was a 'good day', or at least for him.
Also, it is nice to see how he manages his time. Like yeah bitch time for some gunpla.

And finally, how can he be so thin if he just eats from konbinis D:
 

NarohDethan

There was a fish in the percolator!
Apr 6, 2019
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And in case someone was wondering, my FarCry copy is already listed on my uplay account, I guess the service is just slow
 
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low-G

old school cool
Nov 1, 2018
898
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Stolen from the other place

This is 90% my software development life currently, beat for beat, except we have free snacks and drinks, and sometimes there are free food trucks. 30 years ago that would have been very different. I wonder if it's all Docker, scrum meetings, video games in the office, etc most everywhere?

English really needs a word like 'douki' for people who were hired around when you were and are at about the same skill level though.

I prefer the higher cubicle walls though. Some of our offices have the low ones and those places creep me out.
 
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Amzin

No one beats me 17 times in a row!
Dec 5, 2018
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How is AR more mobile than VR? Unless you mean actual mobile app AR stuff or like the 3DS stuff, and not Microsoft's Hololens stuff? And how does that mean anything to a console like Xbox? Might as well ditch that and make a portable system only then? AR for gaming is also even more niche at this time than VR is (again, outside the use of AR in mobile apps, but as a thing/hardware fully focused on it).
That seems like an extremely weak argument. First of all, current AR HW is actually more expensive than VR hardware.
Secondly, even for the indiest of indie developers (in the western world at least) the expense of VR HW is almost completely immaterial. You can get multiple full sets of high-end VR HW for the monthly cost of one decent programmer.
I disagree with most of his points (but, no set of company higher ups have ever in the history of corporations consistently made nothing but common sense educated moves anyway so the argument is pointless because execs and their decisions are generally not actually exceptional), but he did specify the mobile (smartphone) being a big chunk of AR development, which is true, although it's also generally a gimmick feature most people turn off because it kills their phone batteries and doesn't affect the game itself at all. There's potential for mobile AR tech to be way more interesting than it is but the programming effort for it is nightmarish compared to just laying game graphics over whatever you're looking at with no actual interaction.

I don't expect AR to make any ground in home gaming until there is real holographic / projection technology because otherwise you're essentially just dealing with VR in a different, maybe worse, way. PSVR has been middling but persistent, PCVR even before HL:A had been growing steadily, and the tech is well past the "early adopters" phase. Despite all that, I really don't see any reason Xbox would invest in VR unless they can straight port Windows VR, and possibly even SteamVR, to it and use existing hardware. And at that point it's less of an "investment" anyway.
 

Joe Spangle

Playing....
Apr 17, 2019
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VR for me is actually more social than normal gaming. I play games on my own in my flat and the only time ive had anyone else come over to play games is to try out or have a play on the VR.
 
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