Community MetaSteam | October 2021 - Guardians of Ashes: Maiden of Empires

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Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
Nov 12, 2018
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Have to say, so far I'm quite enjoying Final Fantasy 15. Still feels like I'm in the prologue after close to 6 hours though, so I can't really say anything about the story yet, it's basically "go on a road trip with the boys while running errands and hunting monsters and all that stuff" so far, lol.
I really like the atmosphere though and it has quite a bunch of idiosyncracies that are quite fascinating, and lots of "pointless" small details everywhere that add to the charm. It's pretty interesting.
Also found a dungeon while running around (the mines) and while it looks like I'm really not supposed to be in there yet, the parts I already explored were super good.
 

dex3108

MetaMember
Dec 20, 2018
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I like mystery and atmosphere in Gotham Knights a lot. I mean one of my favorite part of Arkham games was old Gotham in Arkham City. But i am still sad that they went with RPG route and levels/healthbars. I am tired of RPGfication of all of these games.
 
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Durante

I <3 Pixels
Oct 21, 2018
4,045
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I don't know how accurate it is (especially not since it was a good while ago), but I remember reading that GOG required developers to upload builds to an FTP server and then have GOG push it to the store. Steam allowing developers to do everything by themselves definitely wins out in terms of usability and speed.
You can do your own GoG builds, for Galaxy at least, for a few years now.

The tooling/backend isn't quite as reliable as Steam's, but at least it's there.
 

Le Pertti

0.01% Game dev
Oct 10, 2018
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fantomena Yeah played both and loved them! Only bigger RPG that I have yet to play is Pathfinder. I have it installed but I never really play on my Mac, whenever I want to play I go to my xbox. But Sable will be a good palate cleanser and after that Ill find a good nice meaty RPG again.
 
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fantomena

MetaMember
Dec 17, 2018
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fantomena Yeah played both and loved them! Only bigger RPG that I have yet to play is Pathfinder. I have it installed but I never really play on my Mac, whenever I want to play I go to my xbox. But Sable will be a good palate cleanser and after that Ill find a good nice meaty RPG again.
Try Persona 4G?
 
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eonden

MetaMember
Dec 20, 2018
275
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People like to watch the Russian stream.



I think that is because it is the all-star game, and people want to listen to Dendi and his mates.

Dota is huge in Russia.
Chinese numbers are lower because they are mostly in their china only platform. Spanish Dota is mostly Facebook / Youtube.
 
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spindoctor

MetaMember
Jun 9, 2019
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In between watching Dota matches I just wanted to talk a bit about how teams are chosen to compete in the International (TI). Skip this post entirely if you give no fucks about Dota (this is the last wall of text I promise).

Valve runs a year long league called the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) in which professional teams travel all around the world to compete in various tournaments. They are awarded DPC points based on their performances in these tournaments. At the end of the year, the top 12 teams who got the most DPC points are directly invited to TI. In addition to this, near the end of the DPC season, Valve also runs regional qualifiers for all 6 major Dota playing regions (NA, SA, EU, CIS, SEA, China) for the 6 remaining slots at TI. The participants of these regional qualifiers typically consist of teams who could not qualify on the basis of their DPC points, but they also have some other teams who have to go through qualifiers due to rules about roster changes and such.

We now have our two finalists for this TI.

The first team is PSG.LGD (yes, that PSG). They are a Chinese team and China is widely considered the strongest region for Dota. They have the most high quality players, teams, professional organizations and tournaments and the amount of competition there ensures some extremely high quality Dota comes out of that region. LGD are the best Chinese Dota team and probably the best team in the world. They are overwhelming favorites to win the entire tournament and have been even before we knew when and where this edition of TI was going to happen. So far LGD have played 15 games at this TI and their win/loss record is 13-2.

The other finalist is Team Spirit, the winners of the CIS regional qualifiers. They're a young team and I believe it's the first time any of them are participating at TI. They're not a particularly well known or famous team and nobody really expected them to go too far in the tournament. In fact, in the first 2 days of the group stages, they lost 6 games and were on the verge of getting eliminated. Then on the third day, something changed and they started playing like they had nothing to lose. They won their next 8 games and reached the main event. They lost their first match at the main event and dropped to the lower bracket which meant every subsequent match was an elimination match. And since then they have absolutely dominated everyone who has had the misfortune of coming up against them. They eliminated the 2 time defending champions and the best teams from the SEA, CIS and EU regions. It has been a joy to watch them play the game.

And now, we've reached the last match.

This final is a match between the titans of Dota against the fearless underdogs. You could not write a better story for this tournament.

The TI grand finals start now


EDIT : fixed an error
 
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Wok

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Oct 30, 2018
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France
In fact, in the first 2 days of the group stages, they lost 8 games in a row and were on the verge of getting eliminated.
I have just checked and they lost 6 games.


Their first opponent was Team Secret. Their second opponent was PSG.LGD. Just bad luck to start the tournament against the best teams. :toucan:








Draft analysis with Ceb:

 
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Mivey

MetaMember
Sep 20, 2018
4,285
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Witcher 1 is the best Witcher game.
I respect this view, even if I think Witcher 3 wins just by virtue of its sheer number of amazing side quests.
But there's something about the first game that is just appealing, being such a pure CRPG that isn't concerned with dumbing things down. Unless I'm confusing things, Easy mode in Witcher 1 is just the game giving you more explanations and things, not making anything actually easier.
 
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Mivey

MetaMember
Sep 20, 2018
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I bought the first collectors edition of Witcher 1, and read the art book before playing it and came to the card collectible section and was like “wow what kind of game did I get”.
Wondered for a long time if the developers were poking fun at how women are often portrayed in those games, by making them in a sense into literal objects, cards, that you pick up. Of course, I was probably giving the young CD Projekt devs more credit than I should have.
 

Dinjoralo

None shall remember those who do not fight.
Dec 6, 2018
944
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I'm immune to normal horny stuff, so the cards in The Witcher barely phased me when I played it to prep for The Witcher 3. Though I don't think I did most of the romance stuff anyway.

I remember seeing a quote-tweet thread flipping this around and explaining why "the right" hate speedrunning, with logic that actually fits how right-wing people operate, but that was last night and I'll be eff'd if I can find it again.
 

Digoman

Lurking in the Shadows
Dec 21, 2018
854
2,390
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Wondered for a long time if the developers were poking fun at how women are often portrayed in those games, by making them in a sense into literal objects, cards, that you pick up. Of course, I was probably giving the young CD Projekt devs more credit than I should have.
Yeah... I'm going with "more credit" to then here. But since I did "collect" all of them, I guess I can judge too much.

In the end, it was probably a group of 99% male developers trying to make a small game more adult, in 2007. Can't expect anything different. Just two years earlier we were getting that incredibly cringe butt in the Prince of Persia Warrior Within.

Back on the topic though, I love Witcher 3, but you can really see all the passion that went into the first one. It was something special. Also the main story is probably the best one of all three IMHO.

Now... I think my only "controversial" opinion in picking a game from a series is Bioshock 2, and not only for the gameplay (which is indeed the most fun I had playing them). Yes, the intro and the twist of the first one left an incredible impact, but a few months ago I was trying to remember things about the series and to my surprise most of the moments I could recall were from the second one. Including the ending.

....


... AND FINE, I'm going to watch the final of the International. If I start to play Dota 2 again I know who to blame :p
 
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Wok

Wok
Oct 30, 2018
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You are playing against Team Spirit. Etc. :happy:

... AND FINE, I'm going to watch the final of the International. If I start to play Dota 2 again I know who to blame :p
Don't play again. Just watch the final and stop there. 😇
 
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Aaron D.

MetaMember
Jul 10, 2019
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Followup thoughts on NJ.

I randomly saw one of my favorite Twitch streamers playing this and had to stop the stream like 20 minutes in so I could immediately purchase the game for myself.

This thing has atmosphere locked down. Sports a creepy, surreal vibe. Not like horror, but more like folklore / fairytale bizarre characters and story beats. It’s unsettling but at the same time curiously engaging where you want to inhabit the world to see where everything goes next. An interesting balance.

Gameplay feels great where it’s equal measures walking sim with combat and enemy/boss encounters (kinda like Elder Scrolls I guess?). Movement speed is surprisingly hyper-fast and feels great (though it’s not an action game). I think it’s cause the map is so big. Also has those Dark Souls path unlocks where areas loop back into themselves creating shortcuts for easy back & forth traversal.

The entire production is made by one guy out of Norway. Music, art, coding. Everything. And it’s only $12.

Just keep in mind that as it's a one-man production it's a bit crusty around the edges. Everything fits together and works just fine, only don't go in expecting TLOU2 production values or polish. I personally find this approach to game design endearing as hell. What I love about solo dev projects is that it's the undistilled vision of a single mind without compromise. A window into the creativity of a single person that isn't muddied by dozens of other voices in the room. It feels so pure and refreshing.

I'm just amazed of the sheer scope of this project with all the above taken into consideration.

Easily going down as one of my surprise hits of the year (don't worry PowerWash Simulator, I still love you baby).
 

pinson

Junior Member
Sep 6, 2021
141
444
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Canada
Have to say, so far I'm quite enjoying Final Fantasy 15. Still feels like I'm in the prologue after close to 6 hours though, so I can't really say anything about the story yet, it's basically "go on a road trip with the boys while running errands and hunting monsters and all that stuff" so far, lol.
I really like the atmosphere though and it has quite a bunch of idiosyncracies that are quite fascinating, and lots of "pointless" small details everywhere that add to the charm. It's pretty interesting.
Also found a dungeon while running around (the mines) and while it looks like I'm really not supposed to be in there yet, the parts I already explored were super good.
Yes! It gets a lot of hate nowadays, but I still loved that game when I first finished it years ago. I thought the "four bros on a road trip" aspect of the story was really interesting and well developed and the main villain is one of my favourite in any FF game. Combat was a bit all over the place but I think it did the job well. Oh and the soundtrack was sublime!!

You're in for a treat my friend. I really need to replay it too! I haven't touched any of the post launch content they added.
 

SaberVS7

Average Date a Live Enjoyer
Jan 23, 2020
239
765
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Renovated my setup about a week ago. My ego got damaged when I had some technical-difficulties stemming from having too few monitors and desk-space during a video-call with my boss, and I couldn't let that stand. Also needed an excuse to go out and buy tripods for my Index stations.




I'll make Commits with my right hand, and play Rimworld with my left. I'll take a Potato Chip.... And eat it.
 

Vantr

Junior Member
Feb 15, 2021
246
910
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... AND FINE, I'm going to watch the final of the International. If I start to play Dota 2 again I know who to blame :p


Especially when Marci comes out. I plan to get a few games in when Marci gets released.


After that game 3 excited to see how the rest of the series pans out. Looking at the game 4 draft and I feel like the series might go the full 5 games.
 

dex3108

MetaMember
Dec 20, 2018
3,441
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More i play it, more i am getting annoyed by the Far Cry 6 story. It is just another trope of one person army where all work is done by you. I don't feel that i am in the middle of some kind of guerilla warfare or revolution. And having most of the cast young adults with funny names or behavior doesn't help either. I mean any half capable army would steamrolled these fighters in a day.
 
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