General Gaming Chat

[TCP]

I do agree that No Man's Sky is setting itself up for a ton of backlash when it finally releases.  They've been writing checks that their little indie game cannot possibly hope to cash.  It's expected for you to promote your game and build up hype for it, but they're making statements that make me recall memories of Peter Molyneux's Fable or Will Wright's Spore.  They're building up all these unreasonable expectations and things are going to get ugly when the game doesn't live up to them.

 

 

Not trying to be confrontational at all Jack, but I'd love to know what some of these claims they're making are?? I haven't heard anything like that, besides being a little vague at times on somethings (like if whether or not you can actually see other gamers).

[Mister Jack]

The main thing I remember is them saying that the universe is infinite and that no two players will have the same experience and that the game is so huge that you might never even see another player (I am REALLY doubtful of that claim).  Here's the thing, what they're saying might be technically true, but when it comes to procedural games that statement often feels like it's true in the same way that Obi Wan saying Darth Vader killed Luke's father is true.  Do they really have it set up in such a way where every planet you go to will seem brand new?  Or is this going to be the sort of thing where some planets have red dinosaurs while other planets have yellow dinosaurs? We really won't know until the game is actually out, but procedurally generated games like this have a tendency to oversell just how much variety they have to offer.  I also can't help but be skeptical of these gameplay demos we've seen at E3 and such so far.  I'm not saying they were necessarily prerendered video, but it is a controlled environment. It seems impossible to me that every planet is going to be bustling with life and color and activity like what we've seen in the previews.  If the No Man's Sky people actually have enough permutations in the game to keep it from becoming repetitive then I'll gladly admit that I'm wrong, but when I see marketers using the word "infinite" I immediately become suspicious.  There are only so many assets a four man team can make.

Edited February 15, 2016 by Mister Jack

[toxicitizen]

Yeah, I'm with Jack on that one. I wouldn't necessarily compare to Molyneux but I'm pretty skeptical about content quality when it comes to procedural generation. I think the main problem is that it's an incredibly ambitious game and Sony kinda went all in promoting it almost as if it were first-party. Those two things combined certainly didn't help keep expectations in check.

 

I kinda feel like the price point is what's going to make or break NMS. It was listed as a 79.99$ physical release on Amazon.ca a few months ago but that listing seems to be gone, so I have a feeling that might've been retailers jumping the gun because I can't see listings for physical copies anywhere now. As a full price release, I can definitely see a lot of people having issues with it and, personally, I'm out that's for sure. But as a downloadable game in the 20-40 range? They could probably get away with a lot more.

[Mister Jack]

http://www.howtogeek.com/243012/why-you-shouldnt-buy-rise-of-the-tomb-raider-and-other-pc-games-from-the-windows-store/

 

Well, so much for getting Quantum Break.  Silly me, I thought Microsoft had actually managed to do something right for once, but I should have known better.  They can't do ANYTHING right.

[Mal]

To add to what MJ posted about Quantum Break: http://www.overclock3d.net/articles/gpu_displays/quantum_break_s_live-action_episodes_will_be_streamed_to_save_hard_drive_space/1

 

Umm, for PC folks we have TBs capacity HDDs. For all platforms, do they think everyone lives in a magical land with fast internet speeds and no caps? Such an odd and dumb design decision. And it is a DRM which can/will take down the game for good once the servers are discontinued.

[TheMightyEthan]

You can also download the show, you don't have to stream it.

 

Also, the show is somewhat separate from the game, so it's not necessary to play the game.

 

*Edit - also also, from what I understand the purpose wasn't to save HDD space, it was to save disc space on the production discs that they have to ship to people who buy physical versions of the game. So that it doesn't have to be a 5 Blu-ray pack.

[Mr. GOH!]

Data caps are weird. Where are y'all that you have them? I've lived in rural Iowa, rural Wisconsin, and in multiple cities in the Midwest and on the East Coast and I have never had internet with a data cap that was not cell phone internet (for a very short while I had a 4g 'modem' while letting a room from someone with no internet when I first came to NYC).

 

Edit: Oh, I didn't realize Quantum Break also featured live-action episodes that look fairly shitty. Can't blame them for streaming the video, though, since sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo many gamers stream Netflix and Amazon and Hulu with wild abandon. In fact, it's probably a smart idea, if the episodes are truly like TV episodes and not live-action cut scenes.

Edited March 3, 2016 by Mr. GOH!

[TheMightyEthan]

I have a "data cap" at 350 GB/month on cable internet in rural Kansas.  It's really less a "cap" though and more a "guideline".  Nothing happens if I pass it in any given month, it's just that if I go over it too often they'll make me upgrade to the next tier or cancel my service.

[Mal]

The game has cutscenes which is the show and the PC version is restricted to streaming only. As for streaming content for a game... good luck if you live outside the US in some internet poor region of the world. 

[TheMightyEthan]

My understanding is the show is separate from what you would normally think of when you hear about a game's cutscenes.  The game follows the protagonist (obviously), and the show follows the antagonist.  I can't find anything that makes it explicit one way or the other though, so if you have a source please correct me.

 

I do stand corrected on the downloading part, that's only for Xbox One.

[Mal]

Now that I am home... okay, you can skip the show but that is like half your game content since what you do ingame will determine which version (of the 40) of the episodes (of 5?) you get. So the show is part of the game.

I'm not saying that the general idea of the game is bad (it sounds cool) but the implementation is not ideal, mirroring their scramble to solve giving people who play this game 200 episodes.

[TheMightyEthan]

Mountains out of mole hills.

[TheMightyEthan]

Microsoft has enabled what they're calling "cross-network play" for Xbox One.  It allows not just cross-platform multiplayer between PC and Xbox, but also any other console that will allow it, so potentially you could end up with cross-platform multiplayer between Xbone and PS4.  Even for enabled games though individual players will still have the option to limit their connection to other Xbox Live players (presumably if you feel another platform has a competitive advantage, like playing a shooter against people with m/kb).

 

The first game to support it is Rocket League, though from what I can tell atm it's limited to Xbox/PC and doesn't include PS4 (yet?).

[TheFlyingGerbil]

Wasn't it always Ms dragging their feet on cross platform, eg with portal. Hopefully it will become standard as it will make people's console purchasing decisions a lot easier. Wonder if they're doing it because they're behind Sony this time so it's too their advantage to offer it now as people can buy one even if their friends have a ps4

[TheMightyEthan]

Sony was always more about PC cross play, but this is the first I've ever heard of any console talking about cross-console play.

[TCP]

PS2/360 had cross-console play with FFXI, IIRC.
 

The first game to support it is Rocket League, though from what I can tell atm it's limited to Xbox/PC and doesn't include PS4 (yet?).

 

I wonder how that will work since Rocket League has PS4/PC crossplay already.

 

EDIT: Jeeze, Microsoft is really getting a lot of good will for this from around the internet. It's a good thing, sure, but I don't know if getting rid of a crappy policy is really deserving of praise. This is how it should have been in the first place.

Edited March 14, 2016 by The Cowboy Poet

[danielpholt]

Isn't it a mute point until Sony also allows it on their end?

 

Congrats you are allowing us to do something that is entirely based on someone else's ability to let us do the same thing.

[TheMightyEthan]

It's good that MS is opening up the system even if making use of it requires others to do the same.

[TCP]

My understanding was Sony was always open to it, hence them allowing PC crossplay on certain titles, which is surprising since they don't have a stake in PC gaming like Microsoft does. 

[deanb]

Sony allow it cos developers asked for it, didn't need much more than that. No advantage to them to disallow it either really. MS were stick in the muds on the topic, which they continue to do so on many other policies they have which in general are harming them in acquiring developers (Rocket League was a notable absence from their line-up until recently). Never ended up with the Final Fantasy MMO's either. Not sure if they got XIV in the end.

 

Of course from MS's end it's yet to be seen if they're just removing a policy, or if they'll actively develop API's to allow for example XBL and Steam cross play. Their wording seems like that's "no". Obviously Valve and Sony worked quite closely with the Portal 2 cross-play and free copies and such. Also Xbox One and PC isn't cross network, that's cross-platform. Kinda curious why they've not said "Xbox One and Steam Players" when that'd be more in-line with their new cross-network friendliness.

 

So yeah, seems they're getting a lot of goodwill for removing a detrimental policy, rather than working on any actual useful tools to aid developers on their platform.

[toxicitizen]

 

OH MY GOD I WANT IT NOW!

 

Oh shit, looks like they announced that June 28th is the release date and also confirmed a Steam release!

 

Sounds like the first two games might also make it to Steam but it's not certain yet. If it's not day and date, I think I'll just grab the Vita version anyway and double dip once it hits Steam.

Edited March 17, 2016 by FLD

[Mister Jack]

Is there such a thing as a program that will trick a game with local only co-op into thinking that an online friend is actually on the same machine with you?  I have indie games that I would love to play with friends but local play simply isn't an option for us and so few of these games have online play.  I know that such a thing exists for emulators legitimately purchased retro consoles, so you'd think it would be possible for some of these less demanding PC games too.

[TheMightyEthan]

There's probably a way to do it involving remote-desktop type programs, like Splashtop or something similar.  I know that Splashtop has the ability to show what's happening both on the local monitor and the remote session, but I don't know if it will allow inputs from both locations.

[deanb]

There's Hamachi, though it seems to have been massively overhauled since the days I used it in Uni:

https://www.vpn.net/

 

Seems this Evolve is picking up the slack though I've no opinion on it:

https://www.evolvehq.com/welcome

 

 

And a bunch of alts to try here:

http://alternativeto.net/software/hamachi/

[TheMightyEthan]

Do those allow actual local multiplayer, or just LAN?  Cause Hamachi at least just looks like a regular VPN, which would work for LAN multiplayer but not true local.