Videogames Latest: Starfields of Glory

[Werthead]

Bethesda has an exclusive contract with AMD, so it's unlikely that anything officially supporting nVidia tech, like streaming, will be in the game. Whether that still allows people to get around it with workarounds is unclear.

For example, Bethesda will not officially support nVidia's DLSS tech in Starfield but they will not prevent modders from doing so (and, amusingly, sent the guy modding DLSS into their existing games an early copy of Starfield).

[Toth]

So, finished the last campaign mission of Railway Empire already quite some time ago. It... went really smoothly, even though in the end I didn't care much for the bonus missions involving San Francisco, as the city was in too bad a position. If the developer's idea was to make the last mission far easier by all the other ones by only letting the player prove they understood the mechanics tasked in the previous missions... well done! Well, not entirely well done, because my major gripe is the game not telling you how to do any of these things properly.

After the campaign, the game offers various "scenarios" as well as DLC campaigns. I've read the DLC campaigns are far easier than the original scenarios, so I thought I try those and start with the start. The Britain campaign. Actually a pretty fun one. You start with 600.000 pounds (with the costs being exactly as the dollar costs in the main game... and aside new and more plentiful resources, the game plays exactly the same), which is very little given that most mission let you start with 2 Million. Thought I lost too much time at the early stretch where you have to make 8 profitable routes, as I still used signalling stations at first, then realized I don't have the money for that, used small stations with manual tracks instead, intending to replace them once I got more funds, but only at the very end realized I could just borrow the money and be done with it. Damn. Still, the focus on growing cities and getting more and more space to develop from basically nothing into a huge train web covering the entirety of Britain (didn't have funds to buy out the Irish railway company) made it quite motivating and while I do think it doesn't justify its price tag as a separate DLC, it was still fun as part of the complete edition. Now eventually I wonder whether I should try the Germany campaign...

[Werthead]

Erm.

Weird premise aside, the game has an ambitious goal: it uses a procedural generation system so every time you start a new game the map is different, and characters are reassigned to different roles. Allies in one playthrough will be bitter foes in the next. Procedural storytelling is something some games have flirted with, but this looks like a big attempt to push the idea forward.

[Heartofice]

I know there isn’t a specific total war thread now, but I find the going’s on with CA and Warhammer 3 quite interesting. 
 

Basically the new Shadows of Change DLC is causing a lot of outrage due to its pricing and seeming lack of content. It’s priced at £20 pretty much which to me doesn’t sound outrageous but I know to others sounds steep.

CA recently put out a post to address concerns but probably made things worse by wording it in a way that it could be taken as a threat: ‘buy our DLCs or we will stop making content’

Again, I didn’t really read it that way but it seems a lot of people did.

Either way, this all feels symbolic of a lot of things with games these days. Warhammer 3 is a game released with lots of bugs and bad design, many of which haven’t been fixed a year after release. Almost all of the new features like survival battles and settlement battles have been rolled back to the point where you mostly will never encounter them due to them being so unpopular.

Communication from CA is pretty bad and there is a general sense that they are under resourced and over worked, patches are released that just break the game and it takes months to fix. 
 

The last DLC was actually pretty good, but really I think trust in the community is really low, there were plenty of complaints about price and lack of content with that too. 
 

On top of that; the new historic game, the Egypt one who’s name I can’t remember, has very little buzz about it and is a continuation of the pretty lame Saga version of total war.

 

[Mr. X]

On 8/17/2023 at 5:04 PM, polishgenius said:

Been casting about a bit post-Zelda. Want to do some RPGing, but not really feeling the stack of JRPGs I've got right this second, and the hype about Baldur's Gate had me wanting to go a different route, so... I picked up a game in my backlog totally unlike Baldur's Gate, of course.
 

Have you played Islets at all? It's a pretty easygoing Metroidvania that I started after finishing TOTK and have been enjoying it. Definitely works well as a game I don't need to think too much about while still being fun.

On 8/18/2023 at 12:27 PM, Denvek said:

I think when I played it I started the block moving first and then rushed ahead to get on and destroy the first block, but after that it was pretty much the same as you.

That's what I did as well.

[Ser Not Appearing]

Finished Celeste (or at least reached the summit). Great game and I'm actively horrible at it. Dashing in the direction I intend is about a 50/50 proposition, tbh. It's kinda wild how strong the disconnect between brain and thumb is.

Tried streaming Minecraft with my son and his buddy and it was maybe the most frustrating gaming experience of my life. Not sure I'll return to that to beat the Ender Dragon but that had been the original plan.

Maybe I'll stream Vampire Survivor multiplayer with the kids instead. Starfield can't get here soon enough.

[polishgenius]

15 minutes ago, Mr. X said:

Have you played Islets at all? It's a pretty easygoing Metroidvania that I started after finishing TOTK and have been enjoying it. Definitely works well as a game I don't need to think too much about while still being fun.

Yeah I played it on release lol. Enjoyed it. The mechanic of the islands coming together is a really neat twist on the Metroidvania thing. 

 

 

I picked up Blasphemous, since I never played that- I wasn't quite sure if I'd like it, but the second one looks really up my street so I figured I'd sample the first one on sale and see how it goes. Not started yet, though.


I did start Vampire Survivors. I see the appeal, but it hasn't really hit, for me. I'm finding the balance between 'items that don't quite gel, making it frustrating' and 'items that make you nigh invincible and needing to do almost nothing for 25 minutes till the half-hour-boss comes and merks you' to be messy. 

[Werthead]

9 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I know there isn’t a specific total war thread now, but I find the going’s on with CA and Warhammer 3 quite interesting. 

I get the impression that Sega have seen CA's assembly to get TW games out relatively quickly (compared to most modern AAA titles) and the audience's willingness to pay startling amounts of money for what I consider to be microcontent as a way of generating funds in an increasingly unreliable marketplace, and they're now leaning into that hard. Hence them stopping work on Three Kingdoms to focus on a direct sequel (no information on which has yet emerged), possibly more tailor-made for the lucrative Chinese market (the Chinese profit for both Three Kingdoms and Warhammer III is apparently very high), and them creating Total War: Pharaoh as an outgrowth of their extant work on Troy.

They seem unwilling to give the fans what they have repeatedly asked for for a decade at this point - a Medieval III or Empire II - because both those projects would be massive, would take years, might require a new engine (Warscape can generate impressive visuals but its codebase is apparently old, confused and outdated at this point, having been in continual development for over fifteen years) and would be very expensive. Sega also seem to feel that non-fantasy content is not lucrative enough, so have made CA basically break their promise to keep making historical games, and they seem massively adverse to making the games "too hard," so prevent CA from fixing the broken AI in the series, despite it being a massive problem in almost every single game (and despite modders improving the AI almost immediately on release).

My main hope at this point is that they keep going long enough to complete Medieval II Remastered and then TW can really go die in a fire. The series has drifted so far from its best and what it used to do really well that it's quite sad to see. I remember when they released Medieval II and that was a complete game was colossal amounts of content and a year later they released Kingdoms which dramatically upgraded the base game and added a colossal amount of new content and that was it. No "Legendary King" packs released two years later which allowed you to play as El Cid or whatever bollocks.

What they really need is a competitor. There must be enough ex-CA people out there who could get together and create a competitor project. It's not like these time periods are copyrighted. Medieval: Complete Conflict or something. Create a good game and maybe CA itself will get its mojo back.

Edited August 20, 2023 by Werthead

[Heartofice]

16 hours ago, Werthead said:

I get the impression that Sega have seen CA's assembly to get TW games out relatively quickly (compared to most modern AAA titles) and the audience's willingness to pay startling amounts of money for what I consider to be microcontent as a way of generating funds in an increasingly unreliable marketplace, and they're now leaning into that hard.

Almost certainly, they have got dollar signs in their eyes when they see how the audience for DLC in Warhammer titles have been. To be fair to CA, they actually have in the past put lots of work into their DLC, and the races and mechanics often push the boundary of what is expected in these games. I am more than happy to pay for that content because I can see the value in it. It doesn't ever feel like micropayments or being conned into paying for cosmetics or even cheats to make the game easier.
 

16 hours ago, Werthead said:

They seem unwilling to give the fans what they have repeatedly asked for for a decade at this point - a Medieval III or Empire II 

I know Medieval is a common demand from fans, and it would have been one of mine a few years ago, but these days I cannot see how it could possibly excite me, given that the core code base of Total War is pretty much set out, as you mentioned, and it's really not going to do anything revolutionary with the concept. Right now it would be Warhammer without any of the fun bits. It's almost impossible for me to go back to something like Rome 2 now as it feels too barebones. Plus you can see all the same mechanics being swapped in and out of each game in a new guise. What I'd really want is a mix of total war and CK3, with Paradox levels of complexity alongside cool battles.

Empire is a game I would really like to see because the first game could easily have been the best and most ambitious of all of them, but it never felt finished. 

Either way, without a huge overhaul of the engine, there is no point hoping for anything big in the future. The saga games just look incredibly pointless right now, watered down versions of Warhammer with no real hook. I worry for how Pharoah is going to perform

For all the negativity towards WH3 I do think the dev team keep trying to make the game better and there is a lot to applaud them for. I still love the game, but I do think it is a shame just lacklustre many of the features it led with have done.

Right now WH3 is basically the same as WH2 with a couple new elements and races. That wasn't what was promised. They totally misjudged the audience and what they want. Their first mistake is concentrating on the narrative / Realms of Chaos map over its all in one Immortal Empires map. Most players lose interest in the narrative map after one play through, especially after the Bear Soul plot which led to zero replayability and was plagued with issues.

Essentially CA have rolled back on everything because almost every single one of their big ideas was a flop so they have removed it from the game. It's very sad. I would have liked more survival battles if they weren't so long, but now they barely exist. Its just sad.

Edited August 21, 2023 by Heartofice

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

Hey remember when CA used to make historical games like Shogun II and we were all kinda hopeful for a WW1/2 style game to follow, maybe even futuristic titles ? Yeah….no let’s just continue with the LOTR clones forever. I hate this fantasy crap they’ve gotten into, TW for me was always a historical series. Loved all the quotes on the loading screens also…

@Heartofice check out Darthmod Empire , it addresses your concerns about the game feeling unfinished.

Anyone knows what’s happening with Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines II? I was so excited back in 2019 for that game , saw the trailer and since then no updates essentially other than studio shuffles. 

Edited August 21, 2023 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[Heartofice]

1 minute ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

 

@Heartofice check out Darthmod Empire , it addresses your concerns about the game feeling unfinished.

 

Yeah I've been using Mods like Darthmod from before I even had Steam as a way of installing them. It certainly made a massive difference to that game. I don't use mods with Warhammer as I feel like I get the content with the vanilla version.

On the topic, it's funny how a game like Civ 6 is so heavily improved by UI mods. I can't imagine ever going back to playing it without the mods. 

[Werthead]

That is a neat truck.

[Argonath Diver]

How about we can have that as an early shuttle to fly around in-game?

I forgot how rapidly the release of the game is coming up. I got a free copy via a graphics card purchase and it'll be my first proper use of this system. In the meantime I'm considering a heavily modded playthrough of Fallout 4, which I never got close to completing - I am just such a stubborn isometric game enjoyer that the 3d games never could keep me going as well as the 90s games. I think it'd get me better prepped for a Bethesda 1st/3rd person open world type game again.

[Rhom]

1 hour ago, Argonath Diver said:

How about we can have that as an early shuttle to fly around in-game?

 

If we did... could we be far from having a Winnebego like SpaceBalls????

[Ser Not Appearing]

Feel like I'm dodging bullets trying to avoid Starfield spoilers at this point. With that said, here's some non-spoiler hype:

 

I haven't, and wouldn't recommend, reading replies. Bound to be spoilers there.

[Werthead]

Still insane that we're getting a Homeworld 3. Not until February, but looking good.

 

[Werthead]

Marketing fluff trailer, but nicely done. And Inon Zur's scores never disappoint.

 

 

Edited August 22, 2023 by Werthead

[Fez]

After looking at a few more trailers, I'm thinking maybe Armored Core VI actually isn't a game for me. That kind of impersonal (I haven't seen a single human character model or artwork) mission-structure game gets boring for me way too quickly; like the Ace Combat games.

But I do want something new to play while waiting for Starfield and patches for BG3. Maybe this would be a good time to get Shadow Gambit actually, or one of the other small games I mentioned before.

[polishgenius]

38 minutes ago, Fez said:

But I do want something new to play while waiting for Starfield and patches for BG3. Maybe this would be a good time to get Shadow Gambit actually, or one of the other small games I mentioned before.

 

Get this it looks delightful 

(I have it already myself tbh, just waiting to start it till the weekend when I go on holiday and can dig into it a bit)

[Ser Not Appearing]

I've spent a good amount of time in Vampire Survivors recently. Able to play with the kids now is great (they keep asking to stream it as if people are watching, lol) but I also found out there's DLC and it's super cheap. Started trying to unlock stuff. Lots more depth to delve.