Video Game News and Miscellany

[Ravenpoe]

I still remember the shit Poe and I played when 3 was originally released. It was painful.

That's because the game was balanced around microtransactions in the form of the real money auction house. To fix the game they had to remove all of that and entirely rebalance the game and loot system, which is why Activision probably sees diablo 3 as a failure. They can't make any further money off of it, there's no place for microtransactions.

So it doesn't surprise me that Blizzard announced they're moving into mobile development for all of their IPs. The chinese mobile market is much more welcoming of the type of continued monetization that activision is looking for.

 

[Jay]

That's because the game was balanced around microtransactions in the form of the real money auction house. To fix the game they had to remove all of that and entirely rebalance the game and loot system, which is why Activision probably sees diablo 3 as a failure. They can't make any further money off of it, there's no place for microtransactions.

So it doesn't surprise me that Blizzard announced they're moving into mobile development for all of their IPs. The chinese mobile market is much more welcoming of the type of continued monetization that activision is looking for.

 

[PatrThom]

source

--Patrick

 

[GasBandit]

Wonder what they're gonna do for the cutscenes.

 

[Frank]

If I don't get HD Joe Kucan, I don't want it!

From God, to Kane, to Seth.

 

[ThatNickGuy]

Some Telltale games have been removed from Steam as developer prepares to shutter its doors.

I'm not gonna lie. I'm sad Telltale turned out this way. I enjoyed their earlier adventure games like Sam & Max and Tales of Monkey Island. And The Walking Dead Season 1 is near perfect for the genre. Plus, I only JUST started playing Season 1 of Batman last night and I'm really enjoying it. Just to be on the safe side, I bought Season 2 in case it disappears. I know if you buy the game on Steam, it's still available to download in your library; similar to when Alan Wake was removed. I regret not getting Tales of Monkey Island, though. I played through it once on PS3 and always meant to get it again on Steam. Now I can't.

But I'm sad more for the creative staff because, while I know the company's games had its detractors, I enjoyed them for what they were. It's on the upper executive end where things got messy. Trying to grow faster than was healthy. Shoving out the same kind of game over and over, thinking it would repeat the success of the first Walking Dead season. Using the same game engine and not looking to improve. So many idiotic mistakes. But for the games themselves and the creative staff, I'm going to miss Telltale.

 

[PatrThom]

Some Telltale games have been removed from Steam as developer prepares to shutter its doors.
I regret not getting Tales of Monkey Island, though. I played through it once on PS3 and always meant to get it again on Steam. Now I can't.

As someone who never got the chance to play it AND who now has a kid with whom this could be a great bonding thing, I also regret it (unless I already did and just don’t know it).

—Patrick

 

[ThatNickGuy]

As someone who never got the chance to play it AND who now has a kid with whom this could be a great bonding thing, I also regret it (unless I already did and just don’t know it).

—Patrick

It's still on console stores and GoG if it helps.

 

[AshburnerX]

There is a non-zero chance that Skybound Entertainment will just buy the rights to the rest of the series when they are ready to release the rest of the last season. I doubt Robert Kirkman would let something with his IP just vanish when he has more than enough capital to just bring it under his umbrella. He already did it with Season 4.

 

[GasBandit]

Cliffy B is NEVER making another game.

 

[Ravenpoe]

Cliffy B is NEVER making another game.

Good

 

[AshburnerX]

Cliffy bought into his own hype a long time ago and it's basically destroyed his career. These days he's just sort of chasing the tails of other studios instead of doing original work, and that's when he's not doing stuff like... diverting resources from paid work to IPs he personally has a stake in....

 

[Null]

Who?

 

[GasBandit]

Who?

Cliff Bleszinski. 20 years ago he was one of the bestest game developers ever, and one of the star devs at Epic Games (then Epic Megagames). He worked on Jazz Jackrabbit, all the Unreal games, and was lead developer on the Gears of War series.

Then in 2012 he left Epic, and hasn't done anything good ever since and gets salty when people don't adore him. His company, Boss Key Games, went under, and there were no refunds.

 

[Null]

Cliff Bleszinski. 20 years ago he was one of the bestest game developers ever, and one of the star devs at Epic Games (then Epic Megagames). He worked on Jazz Jackrabbit, all the Unreal games, and was lead developer on the Gears of War series.

Then in 2012 he left Epic, and hasn't done anything good ever since and gets salty when people don't adore him. His company, Boss Key Games, went under, and there were no refunds.

Oh okay. I've played literally none of those, though I know a lot of games use the unreal engine

 

[Ravenpoe]

Cliff Bleszinski. 20 years ago he was one of the bestest game developers ever, and one of the star devs at Epic Games (then Epic Megagames). He worked on Jazz Jackrabbit, all the Unreal games, and was lead developer on the Gears of War series.

Then in 2012 he left Epic, and hasn't done anything good ever since and gets salty when people don't adore him. His company, Boss Key Games, went under, and there were no refunds.

Also, his big masterpiece with bosskey games, his big innovation, was to... Make an overwatch clone. Hero shooters were the big thing that everyone was chasing, and he decided to chase trends.

And when that failed, he decided to truly innovate by making a battle royale game.

 

[ThatNickGuy]

Welp, this looks like it was worth the wait. Holy shit, Xen looks gorgeous.

 

[bhamv3]

Welp, this looks like it was worth the wait. Holy shit, Xen looks gorgeous.

Holy shit, that's completely unrecognizable from the original Xen levels. I didn't know the Source engine could look this good.

 

[ThatNickGuy]

That's a shame. I have a Link and quite like it. I much prefer it over using my phone or something. I don't know why Valve is discontinuing them. https://t.co/FkesmV7FrL

https://www.pcgamer.com/amp/steam-l...ompletely-sold-out/?__twitter_impression=true

 

[GasBandit]

I don't know why Valve is discontinuing them.

No manufacturing and shipping costs on software.

I love my steam link. I'm so glad I snagged it. Sometimes it's just much better for watching movies from my computer when my chromecast is just not in the mood to work right.

 

[Fun Size]

I still haven't plugged mine in that I bought last year. I should try it.

Hell, I should find it.

 

[Far]

Red Dead 2 multiplayer launching at the end of the week, Rockstar still being Rockstar in regards to PC release of the game.

 

[AshburnerX]

In other news... Fallout 76 has hit $35 about two-three weeks after launch, because of poor review scores and low player population.

 

[Ravenpoe]

In other news... Fallout 76 has hit $35 about two-three weeks after launch, because of poor review scores and low player population.

Eventually it will become the $20 early access game it is

 

[ThatNickGuy]

They'll introduce a NEW kind of payment system:

Paid-to-play.

 

[DarkAudit]

In other news... Fallout 76 has hit $35 about two-three weeks after launch, because of poor review scores and low player population.

I'd been to Sunnyside in the late 80s. What do I need the cleaned-up version for?

 

[Frank]

https://kotaku.com/playstation-classic-the-kotaku-review-1830668016

Sounds like the Playstation Classic is even shittier than it's lineup of games could promise.

Some of the games are ripped from PAL versions, so they run at 50 hz, slower than their NTSC counterparts, even on the North American version of the PSC. 9 of the fucking games on it. Holy shit Sony, that's an even bigger dropped ball than the lineup of games themselves.

 

[Hailey Knight]

So ... no ability to add more games in the future? The word pre-loaded was a little misleading then, Sony.

My Vita full of PS One games is a better PlayStation Classic than this thing.

 

[Frank]

I'm still aghast at the non-60 FPS Tekken 3.

Fucking why?

 

[figmentPez]

This video on game controllers is kinda all over the place, it jumps around between modern and retro, and doesn't even group all the controllers for a single system within a single segment, but I still found it very entertaining, with quite a few entries I'd never heard of before.

 

[ThatNickGuy]

Fallout 76 players given lifetime ban for homophobic attacks.

Good. For something like this, a 3-day suspension would've been sufficient enough punishment. But then the idiot went and double down:

"It was just a late night of having fun and after the first encounter (seen on my channel) we felt it would be fun to offend them somehow. You can call that evil but I think it's just playful immaturity," he said. "I do not regret the incident. I will not apologize, given the opportunity. I don't plan on doing anything like this in the future but to be fair I didn't plan the initial incident, I just found them and decided to go through with it."

Kid, at that point, you earned that perma-ban.

 

[figmentPez]

Steam Link for Raspberry Pi (3B and 3B+) is now in beta. This is presumably why they killed off the Steam Link hardware.

 

[ThatNickGuy]

Steam Link for Raspberry Pi (3B and 3B+) is now in beta. This is presumably why they killed off the Steam Link hardware.

For the luddites who don't know, what is Raspberry Pi? I've never heard of it before.

 

[figmentPez]

For the luddites who don't know, what is Raspberry Pi? I've never heard of it before.

A Raspberry Pi is a tiny, single-board computer based around a "system-on-a-chip" processor. Depending on the model they run from $5 up to ~$35, and don't require much else to be up and running, since they combine processor, RAM, and often WiFi, bluetooth and more. A Raspberry Pi, an SD card, and a USB Micro power adapter are the bare minimum to start doing stuff. Though for most applications you'll want a display and some sort of input device(s).

Between running the Steam Link app on a Pi, and running it on a whole bunch of different Android based devices, there's not much reason for Valve to sell their own hardware anymore.

Another thing you can do with a Pi (or similar single board computer), build a better Playstation Mini:

 

[figmentPez]

the first Psychonauts 2 trailer: