We've been through this before. Since the big "videogames cause violence!" hoopla, we have decades of data showing otherwise. But, I guess it's difficult to sue "the mass delusion that is American gun culture," that makes the sentence "easily accessible weapons of war" not the issue, but rather a video game. So, gotta try to get their cash from somewhere, I suppose.

The first game spent about three years in early access, gathering feedback and being improved. Below Zero spent about two years in early access. This one is (supposedly) less than a year away, GaaS monetized, and no one's seen as much as a screenshot? If that's not a sign of guaranteed quality, I don't know what is.

At least it's a good reminder to give Subnautica a replay.

Thank the gods we live in a time with digital distribution and thus no scarcity, we can all wait for reviews if/when it finally gets released. I would be rather surprised if it turns out well at this point, but stranger things have happened.

For those who insist on keeping the ancient art of pre-ordering alive.. Your money, your choice, but you don't get to complain if it turns out to be a turd.

Prez wrote on Feb 25, 2023, 16:18:
I am sort of amused in a disconnected way by things like the metaverse and Web3.0, since I have only a vague, old person understanding of such things. I pay only enough attention to see how much of a dumpster fire things like this become.

I just wish they'd stop using the term Web3, pretending that adding ponzi schemes to the internet is in any way similar to the revolution in functionality brought on by Ajax.

jdreyer wrote on Feb 15, 2022, 20:26:
There's no reason something like this couldn't last 10 years with mild repairs and battery changes.

Except they used a gallon of glue in there to make sure battery replacement is hell.

One takeaway is that there is still no end is sight for development

In other news, Sun is still pretty warm.

Freddie wrote on Jan 16, 2022, 23:08:
This is not surprising...making a game about a subject matter which has killed over 5mil people worldwide is in bad taste.....regardless if it's theme is to eradicate it. Something like this is just 'too soon', at least not while we are still neck deep in the damn thing

I agree, making a board game in 2008 with the name of an event that took on new meaning in 2019, was way too soon.

Based on the Steam reviews, this is an Early Access title pretending to be a full release. Complete with half baked features, "coming soon" tags in the UI, lack of optimization and bugs galore. I wish developers would stop doing this crap. Launch as EA or finish the damn game before releasing. I'll keep it on my wishlist, hoping for actual completion in a year or two.

Mike1233 wrote on Nov 6, 2021, 08:25:
Try to tell a drug dealer to stop selling drugs because it's bad and you'll have the same success rate as a petition.

It seems to be that someone launching a petition against a drug dealer, identifying him and where he peddles his goods, and getting a lot of signatures and attention, would at the very least cause him to move somewhere else.

But it's a failed analogy. Publicly traded companies' worth is tied to the stock market which is almost wholly tied to perception of value. Even just the fear of a kind of publicity negatively affecting stock prices could force management to take action. If for no other reason than to try to save their bonuses.

Unfortunately, in my experience this kind of crappy leadership culture tends to be a rot from the top, not the bottom. Which means, unless they replace a lot of management staff, that they'll probably just get better at hiding it rather than making any real changes.

Kxmode wrote on Feb 8, 2021, 01:19:
Epic needs to step up their game if they want to compete against Valve.

No kidding. The pace at which Epic are adding functionality to their launcher/store makes it seem like they hired someone to work on it for 2 hours a month. Of which an hour is lunch break.

Kxmode wrote on Jan 25, 2021, 02:30:
I can't believe you decided to go the McDonald's route for quality comparison. Cyberpunk doesn't give people stomach problems when they play it.

True, it gave them seizures instead.

For those not in the know: Cyberpunk 2077 included (they've since modified it in a patch) a light sequence very similar to what's used in a clinical setting to induce an epileptic episode. They helpfully included an epilepsy warning... buried in the EULA.

Quinn wrote on Jan 17, 2021, 06:09:
this is just another cowardly lynch mob pouncing at the first sign of weakness. It's nothing. It means nothing. It isn't unique. Every company has to deal with the mob one way or another.

What country do you live in that has this as a work culture? Seriously, it sounds horrifying and I can promise you it is not a universal thing. Believe it or not, there are entire countries on this planet where the workplace is not a war between "management" and "workers". Where no manager would feel disgruntled workers are "waiting in the shadows". I pity you and hope you find yourself in a more healthy work environment in the future.

jdreyer wrote on Jan 3, 2021, 18:27:
So my fam and I have been doing a lot of gaming lately, including L4D2. There are 4 of us, so one of the games I wanted to play was Evolve by this same studio.

Not related to this studio, but if you're on the lookout for a 4 player co-op game (works fine with 2 or 3 as well), my strong recommendation would be for Deep Rock Galactic.

VaranDragon wrote on Nov 13, 2020, 02:49:
I got to the part where you get the shotgun and I stopped playing. I guess I can't get past the weird way you move through the world, the teleporting is seriously off-putting

Is normal/smooth/fps/whatever they call it, movement something they added after you played it? Personally, I preferred teleportation but with the movement requirements of combat I found that I had to push myself to get used to smooth movement. I did stop playing it during a pitch dark portion later on though. I really dislike the horror element of the game, especially when they put you somewhere without vision just so you can have stuff jump out at you. I don't mind creepy, I do mind jump scares.

Slick wrote on Nov 6, 2020, 03:54:
it's been 4 years, I'm not gonna miss it.

I think you can safely sleep for months and still not risk missing out on the details of this election. It's one for the history books.

Quinn wrote on Aug 27, 2019, 04:04:
It was modern WoW. But my point is that we just wanted to run through the content asap because our goal was just to level up and journey through the classic part was just terrible, because it felt really old.

We differ quite a bit in what we want from the game, then. I always found the end-game content to be boring and much preferred the leveling experience. Modern WoW, to me, made the leveling experience so simple and uninteresting that there was no reason to keep playing, so I quit.

I do believe you'll hate classic. Considering they revamped the lower levels with Cataclysm, to try to cater to the new audience, the original classic will likely be unendurable for you as it's even further removed from what you prefer.

Quinn wrote on Aug 27, 2019, 03:27:
A friend and myself rolled new characters like half a year ago. The "classic" part was pure fucking agony, dungeons included, and we couldn't get to the expansion content soon enough.

Did you somehow play what's currently referred to as WoW Classic at that time, or just roll new characters in "modern" WoW? Because if the latter, the _whole point_ is that that experience is not even remotely comparable to Classic.

I obviously can't speak to whether it would be your cup of tea or not, but gameplay wise they are so different I'd argue they can be thought of as different games within the same setting.

Also known as the weekend the servers are flooded by smurfs and hackers. It's the one weekend out of the season that I'm the least likely to play the game, for that reason.

eRe4s3r wrote on Dec 12, 2018, 06:04:
This game is a good example of everything that is wrong with games as a service.

Your post is a good example of everything that is wrong with people making comments online.

necrosis wrote on Nov 14, 2018, 21:14:
Is this to try and win back people after they bowed to Chinese law?

They did this the previous season finale as well (that's when I started playing the game, so I don't know if they've been doing it even longer).

I wonder how many who are outraged over those textures being changed to unify builds, are also outraged at how movies/games tone down nudity and cursing to not get hit by unreasonable age ratings in the US.