General Gaming News and Discussion

Zindan

Zindan

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Pyros said:
Tried the demo, honestly it seems pretty good, big question mark obviously being the monetization, seeing as how this is Vindictus by Nexon. I didn't do everything cause I didn't want to bother playing an alpha too much but cleared the first big chapter, bosses were pretty fun, the char I played(2h sword girl) was also nice and the parry/dodge system was nice enough with some amount of animation lock but some cancels too. The game looks really good and ran well enough considering how it looked, not any graphics options atm it's just a preset, had to lower it to medium for 4k 60FPS on my 3080 which I think is ok and medium looks a lot better than some other games on high. As for the booba, I had the slider I think at like 40% and they were still fucking huge, maybe cause I picked the thicc preset. Thighs the size of a tree. Classes are gender locked though like the original, so can't play big booba dual wielder or male sword and shield.

Pretty surprised they made a fairly high quality game, but it could easily be ruined by the mmo/monetization elements which they haven't talked about yet, so I'll wait and see.
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Yea, the game feels more polished than last years play test, plus with a lot more content. The screenshot I posted was using the default "thicc" preset, those booba are massive. Funny thing is that all the female npc's had big booba too, especially the Bar owner (Shayla). Been using Fiona and Delia mostly. Fiona is just really fast attacking with a Guard / Perfect Block, while Delia is a bit slower using a Parry/Block and Dodge (she does well vs. Bosses, imo). Didn't care for Lann as he has no Block/Parry at all, gotta dodge spam. I wish they had add a Ranged class.

I doubt the game will be out this year, so I'm going to do all the content they have available here and get all the outfits / finish the battle pass. Never played the first for more than 1hr (ugly as fuck environments), but I'm guessing this will be F2P with a Shop for cosmetics, monthly pass, season pass and rng boxes. Lots of Pay for Convenience.
 
Gavinmad

Gavinmad

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Control said:
Not to defend this thing in any way, but it's truly amazing that we're able to get AAA games for $60.
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If the games industry would just come out and say 'look, inflation is a thing, deal with it' then the inevitable price raise might go over better than bullshit like 'oh our game is Quadruple A so its worth a higher price tag'
 
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Captain Suave

Captain Suave

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Gavinmad said:
If the games industry would just come out and say 'look, inflation is a thing, deal with it' then the inevitable price raise might go over better than bullshit like 'oh our game is Quadruple A so its worth a higher price tag'
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When we were kids games cost the equivalent of $175. We've got it great now, and the only truly surprising thing is how cheap games are now in real terms. I suspect the decline in real cost is part of what's driving everything to try to be a godawful live service product.
 
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Seananigans

Seananigans

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Captain Suave said:
When we were kids games cost the equivalent of $175. We've got it great now, and the only truly surprising thing is how cheap games are now in real terms. I suspect the decline in real cost is part of what's driving everything to try to be a godawful live service product.
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The conversion from physical to digital basically absorbed any price increases to games over the past 2-3 decades.

I don't really mind that some studios are increasing their prices, it's helping to stratify the space even more, which helps to highlight the badass games in the $10-$40 range. Every game being $50 then $60 for so long was honestly sort of weird.
 
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Axiel

Axiel

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Control said:
Sometimes I stop for a second and ponder what an absolute beast of a money-printing machine Nintendo was in the 80's.
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Nintendo now is still a money printing machine even though they don't dominate the market. They don't offer anything physical most of the time, stay near full price long after release since used & rentals are fairly locked out.

Those games on your image came in pretty costly carts along with decent color box + manuals, they also reduced in price pretty fast after release due to used & rental markets eating their lunch. There were also unlicensed games that Nintendo made no money from.

Nintendo's model still works because their competition, modern AAA and mobile games; are bug ridden on release and filled with extra costs. Most AAAs suck even with patches and dlc purchased, and finding a good mobile game is like panning for gold alongside the Ganges River.
 
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Xevy

Xevy

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Captain Suave said:
When we were kids games cost the equivalent of $175. We've got it great now, and the only truly surprising thing is how cheap games are now in real terms. I suspect the decline in real cost is part of what's driving everything to try to be a godawful live service product.
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It's crazy I remember saving up $64 to buy Mario Kart 64 in like 1995 and that was a years worth of a 7 year old's money, birthdays and chores, and now most games cost the same and I just think "man, they're really gouging us here for this shit!"

In all fairness, sometimes they are gouging us, but yeah, I think people complaining about 40 dollar games they play for 500+ hours don't live in reality.
 
Grabbit Allworth

Grabbit Allworth

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Argarth said:
I'd buy it on GOG unless you want Steam Workshop support.
AMD sharpening (CAS) bundled with Reshade already works wonders on NWN2, as it does with pretty much every other game on the market.
Damn, getting the nostalgia vibes all over again =)

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I've had it on my GOG wishlist for a long time and have yet to see it go on sale. It's only $20 so I'm definitely being a cheapass.

To repent, I'm going to buy the best version on July 15th and lose a month of my life playing a few of the amazing 3rd party campaigns.
 
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Control

Control

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Xevy said:
It's crazy I remember saving up $64 to buy Mario Kart 64 in like 1995 and that was a years worth of a 7 year old's money, birthdays and chores, and now most games cost the same and I just think "man, they're really gouging us here for this shit!"

In all fairness, sometimes they are gouging us, but yeah, I think people complaining about 40 dollar games they play for 500+ hours don't live in reality.
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Yeah, it's weird to think about now. I think about paying $60 in 1985 kid money for 1943, and it turns my stomach a little. For Zelda or Final Fantasy though? Not bad. That was a fucking lot of 1985 kid money though.
 
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Grabbit Allworth

Grabbit Allworth

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Games would have a lot more profit margin (or simply not cost as much as they do to develop) if they'd cut the bottom 20-30% of performers that exist in literally EVERY studio with more than several dozen people.

But they'll never do that because it consists almost entirely of women, joggers, and mentally-ill, terminally-online, pseudo-activist they/thems.

Those leeches not only do nothing -- they actively drain resources needed elsewhere, create problems that wouldn't exist otherwise, and introduce elements to games that objectively reduce sales/fan reception. They also create insufferable cultures within studios that stifles good ideas/creativity.

In smaller, AA, studios -- nearly everyone is a specialist (programming guy, animation guy, music guy, narrative guy, etc., etc.). Sometimes you have a few people doing the same job and/or people fill multiple roles, but rarely do you have 10, 20, 30 people doing the same thing. However, AAA games are exactly the opposite. In some cases you have more than 50 people doing the exact same style of work and ANYONE who has ever been to college or participated in a project with a group of people knows that 80-90% of the work gets done by a handful of the most talented and/or motivated people in the group. The others might do something useful here and there, but it doesn't amount to much and would have gotten done even if they hadn't been present.

I don't know why I'm bothering to shout at the sky about this because it's not going to change. I guess I just get sick of hearing about how much it costs to develop games and hearing all the cries about industry layoffs just makes makes me say -- "Good." Odds are that were you were fucking useless and never should have been hired in the first place. Gaming studios DO NOT lay off talented programmers, artists, animators, etc. In fact, the opposite is true, they can't find enough of them and often can't pay them enough to stay with one studio which is exactly why so many of the best programmers are contractors and refuse to work for a single studio.
 
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Pyros

Pyros

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Grabbit Allworth said:
Games would have a lot more profit margin (or simply not cost as much as they do to develop) if they'd cut the bottom 20-30% of performers that exist in literally EVERY studio with more than several dozen people.

But they'll never do that because it consists almost entirely of women, joggers, and mentally-ill, terminally-online, pseudo-activist they/thems.

Those leeches not only do nothing -- they actively drain resources needed elsewhere, create problems that wouldn't exist otherwise, and introduce elements to games that objectively reduce sales/fan reception. They also create insufferable cultures within studios that stifles good ideas/creativity.

In smaller, AA, studios -- nearly everyone is a specialist (programming guy, animation guy, music guy, narrative guy, etc., etc.). Sometimes you have a few people doing the same job and/or people fill multiple roles, but rarely do you have 10, 20, 30 people doing the same thing. However, AAA games are exactly the opposite. In some cases you have more than 50 people doing the exact same style of work and ANYONE who has ever been to college or participated in a project with a group of people knows that 80-90% of the work gets done by a handful of the most talented and/or motivated people in the group. The others might do something useful here and there, but it doesn't amount to much and would have gotten done even if they hadn't been present.

I don't know why I'm bothering to shout at the sky about this because it's not going to change. I guess I just get sick of hearing about how much it costs to develop games and hearing all the cries about industry layoffs just makes makes me say -- "Good." Odds are that were you were fucking useless and never should have been hired in the first place. Gaming studios DO NOT lay off talented programmers, artists, animators, etc. In fact, the opposite is true, they can't find enough of them and often can't pay them enough to stay with one studio which is exactly why so many of the best programmers are contractors and refuse to work for a single studio.
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Thing is they don't really have to cut anyone, they're making tons of money already because yeah the price of games hasn't raised, but they sell so many more games even when the games have mild sales, that the point is moot. As usual it's more a question of "how much more can we make" rather than trying to survive. That's why they're slowly testing the waters by raising the prices, see if the consumers will still buy as many games or not.
 
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Rezz

Rezz

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I'd prefer it otherwise, but there's no stopping the price increase now. The market is primed for it. We have this sob story about developers being let go and nobody cares about devs and .... insert whatever you want here. And then there's audience capture. Some Nintendo people are akin to Apple people. They are in the ecosystem and they don't want out. They are going to pay the increasingly higher prices. Even if Devs aren't actually making more money; even if games aren't actually more expensive. The narrative is "look at the poor devs!" and people will pay.

It's dumb but it's reality.

Your average video game developer is using tooling developed by someone else and creating from there. They aren't writing graphics engines from scratch; they are almost always sourcing actual writers (regardless of quality. See: Life is Strange) vs. creating everything there from the ether. Developers outside of extreme outliers are not some underpaid class of refugees that are barely scraping by. It's a dumb myth. Even trash devs are making at least the equivalent of midrange salaries across the US. 100k+ if you believe a small search in google; 85k+ which is more believable and encompasses the bottom end. Don't believe the sob stories; video game developers make a shitload of money for what is effectively very little effort compared to most people in the US make.

But that doesn't matter; the prices will rise. Because big publishers have made the population believe this is some subclass of human who is barely scraping by. It's bullshit, and has been bullshit for at least 40 years.
 
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Captain Suave

Captain Suave

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Rezz said:
the prices will rise. Because big publishers have made the population believe this is some subclass of human who is barely scraping by.
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This is goofy. Games are a $200 billion global industry. No one buys games for pity. No one cares how or if companies justify their prices. Games cost what companies think they can get away with charging, and people buy it or don't as they think they can afford it. Maybe some articles get written, but the only problem with that is people paying attention to game journalists that aren't reviewing games.
 
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Rabbit_Games

Rabbit_Games

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Back in the early 80s, I would go around the neighborhood with my lawn mower and gas can cutting yards for $25. I would either spend that at the arcade, or on computer games. Today, I pay someone $25-$30 bucks to do my lawn.

I'm really surprised games don't cost more.
 
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Tasty The Treat

Tasty The Treat

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Burns said:
Damned weak willed nerds, it's all your fault!
View attachment 587626
www.gamesradar.com

Dragon Age maestro says EA always spoke about a hypothetical 'nerd cave' full of diehard RPG fans who would "always show up," so you "didn't have to try and appeal to them"

Maybe they were right, but they shouldn't have said it
www.gamesradar.com www.gamesradar.com
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I actually just started playing this game last night because I got it for free on PS+ and downloaded it after I got my PS5 Pro and installed a 4TB hard drive. It's definitely the type of thing I never would have bothered playing given any other circumstances. I basically got through the opening act and it's like I just have very little desire to keep playing it. The game plays like it's almost trying to have some Dark Souls style gameplay only the weakest rendition imaginable. The characters are just totally unlikable and cringe as well. Worst has gotta be the dialogue, I mean this is supposed to be some medieval fantasy setting and everyone is talking like they're some modern-day big city Americans. Graphics are probably the one thing I can praise it for, it looks pretty good at times but it's also got kind of a weak art style to it that brings that down.

I then decided to boot up Baldurs Gate 3 for the first time in a long time and holy shit is that a night and day difference, truly showing off the difference between a talented studio and a talentless one. BG3 is also a game that just truly lets me play it my way and make my own decisions, playing DAV gave me the feeling of constantly being railroaded into making one decision or reaction only with some different ways of wording it. Not even sure who the target for this is supposed to be, I'm guessing just the type of people they have running Bioware these days.
 
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Rezz

Rezz

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Captain Suave said:
This is goofy. Games are a $200 billion global industry. No one buys games for pity. No one cares how or if companies justify their prices. Games cost what companies think they can get away with charging, and people buy it or don't as they think they can afford it. Maybe some articles get written, but the only problem with that is people paying attention to game journalists that aren't reviewing games.
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No no, I'm not saying that people buy games because they are sad for the developers. I'm saying the narrative is "be sad for the developers." That's all.
 
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Big Phoenix

Big Phoenix

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Y'all forgetting the endless amount of micro transactions that infests games now? They already more than made up for keeping the price at $50-60 a few times over.

Gta5 is easily one of the worst offenders in history..they released that fucking thing what 5x over on top of the cash cow that is gtao.
 
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Big Phoenix said:
Y'all forgetting the endless amount of micro transactions that infests games now? They already more than made up for keeping the price at $50-60 a few times over.

Gta5 is easily one of the worst offenders in history..they released that fucking thing what 5x over on top of the cash cow that is gtao.
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But what about Second Sixtydollars?
 
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Control

Control

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Big Phoenix said:
Y'all forgetting the endless amount of micro transactions that infests games now? They already more than made up for keeping the price at $50-60 a few times over.

Gta5 is easily one of the worst offenders in history..they released that fucking thing what 5x over on top of the cash cow that is gtao.
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1749566158884.png
 
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