Videogames: All Valves on Deck

[Ran]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Digital Foundry made a great point the nVidia 3080 and higher (so 3090, 4070, 4080, 4090 and associated ti-classes) have sold a combined ~14 million units, possibly more, and that's not including AMD alternatives.

How many of these 30-series cards were used for mining rather than gaming, I wonder?

[Werthead]

46 minutes ago, Ran said:

How many of these 30-series cards were used for mining rather than gaming, I wonder?

This is the number of 3080+ cards used on gaming PCs via the Steam hardware survey, taking into account all 130 million plus regular Steam users. Miner-only setups would not be counted. Also, anyone who has a 3080 and up card and uses it for games but doesn't have Steam, which is insane to me but apparently not unknown (i.e. people getting crazy setups and then only using PC Game Pass).

[Kalbear]

4 hours ago, Werthead said:

Digital Foundry made a great point the nVidia 3080 and higher (so 3090, 4070, 4080, 4090 and associated ti-classes) have sold a combined ~14 million units, possibly more, and that's not including AMD alternatives. That compares to around 21 million sales of the Xbox Series X/S (with more S sold than X). And it's probable, from simple hardware comparisons, that 3070s and maybe 3060s will be able to run GTA6 without too much problem (assuming even half-competent PC optimisation, granted that is not a given these days).

So why the fuck is Rockstar not releasing GTA6 on PC at release? The excuses for why they did during GTA4 and 5 were already thin, but the commercial arguments for not doing it are very bizarre. There's literally more RTX3080+ PC gaming systems out there than Xbox Series X.

Because most of those cards are in mining rigs. Or possibly laptops that aren't being used for serious gaming.

Also, I'll say again that developing for pcs is significantly harder at the quality levels they want. It really isn't the market and with gta 6 they know people will buy consoles to play it anyway. They aren't gonna lose many sales. They will lose a ton of dev and qa time.

Edited December 9, 2023 by Kalbear

[Arakasi]

It’s hard to make PC games when you’re making a game that pushes graphics to the limits. You have to cover all different pc setups which just makes it a lot harder than covering what the 1-2 versions of each major console?

[Werthead]

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Because most of those cards are in mining rigs. Or possibly laptops that aren't being used for serious gaming.

Also, I'll say again that developing for pcs is significantly harder at the quality levels they want. It really isn't the market and with gta 6 they know people will buy consoles to play it anyway. They aren't gonna lose many sales. They will lose a ton of dev and qa time.

Except, as they said, they're not in mining rigs because they got the stats from the Steam hardware survey. Unless those mining rigs are also running Steam for some reason.

Someone else made a point that there is 1 higher-end gaming PC for every 3 PlayStation 5s, which is pretty bonkers given PS dominance of the gaming space. 

Edited December 9, 2023 by Werthead

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

Ive not played any Rockstar game except Red Dead 2 and even that i found boring, not sure why people like those games except for the sandbox, city sim stuff. the actual story, characters and gameplay is fucking dull

Edited December 10, 2023 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[Slurktan]

7 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Ive not played any Rockstar game except Red Dead 2 and even that i found boring, not sure why people like those games except for the sandbox, city sim stuff. the actual story, characters and gameplay is fucking dull

WTF is this sentence.  Is this like a sarcastic comment so everything other than the stuff you listed is dull?

[polishgenius]

37 minutes ago, Slurktan said:

WTF is this sentence.  Is this like a sarcastic comment so everything other than the stuff you listed is dull?

 

Rodrigo has this thing where he cannot imagine why anyone would like anything he doesn't like and will say so loudly and often, but also gets really uptight if someone doesn't like something he does like. It's best just not to engage when he starts with that shit. 

[Werthead]

I fired up GTA5 again for the first time since (checks Steam notes) 2015. I did full replay of GTA3, VC, SA and GTA4 during the pandemic so it seemed logical to finish off the series.

I don't think the latest remaster has percolated back onto PC yet, since it has ray-tracing and is more optimised for SSD which isn't the case on the PC version, but decided it wasn't really worth waiting for. Even running on a 4090, GTA5 can be bizarrely taxing, I think due to an un-optimised FSAA mode. Since that's really not worth bothering with, I turned that off and immediately got 100+ fps at 4K with everything yanked up to maximum. I put it back down to 60fps though to keep the card cooler. Still looks pretty awesome. Night City from Cyberpunk 2077 does look better, but the much sunnier environment, the less-dense roads and far superior vehicle handling make playing GTA5 almost as outrageously impressive. Rockstar were so far ahead of the game. Christ, this was a PS3 game in its original format.

The big weakness is the same as in the other GTA games and in RDR2, an almost pathological hatred of letting you finish missions the way you deem fit. If the game wants you to do a mission stealthily it will tell you, and get pissed off if you go in all guns blazing, and if it wants you to go in all guns blazing it won't have much tolerance for trying to do a stealth run. That's something they really need to fix in GTA6.

[IlyaP]

4 hours ago, Werthead said:

The big weakness is the same as in the other GTA games and in RDR2, an almost pathological hatred of letting you finish missions the way you deem fit. If the game wants you to do a mission stealthily it will tell you, and get pissed off if you go in all guns blazing, and if it wants you to go in all guns blazing it won't have much tolerance for trying to do a stealth run. That's something they really need to fix in GTA6.

They're like the anti-Warren Spector of game designers, and this is why I bounced hard off every GTA release thus far.

[l2 0 5 5]

I'm making my way to the end of Alan Wake 2. For those that have played, wondering your thoughts on the two protagonists.
 

Spoiler

Whose POV do you prefer? At this point, I like Saga's considerably more than Wake's. I completed the Nursing Home area with Saga and then switched over to Wake and Initiation 5 and stayed with him till completing Initiation 8 the other night. It seemed like a grueling run, but I felt that he was behind Saga and wanted to get him caught up. An extended stay in the Dark Place wasn't my favorite experience. And this may be because I did 4 initiations straight through with Wake before being forced to go back to Saga (albeit 6 and 7 were really short), but I prefer doing one here and there instead of a marathon like I felt compelled to do. 

Saga's POV to this point has been my favorite (On my way to the sheriff's station now). I prefer the investigation she's completing in the Bright Falls area opposed to Wake's campaign through the Dark Place. It's a nicer aesthetic and I prefer the connections she's trying to make to solve the various cases she has open compared to Wake trying to write his way out of a nightmare. I still like his part but just prefer SA. 

 

Edited December 13, 2023 by l2 0 5 5

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

Anyone else hyped for the new Blade game ? I love Arkane Lyon and this being their first 3rd person game has got me excited ! Plus that French devs passion at TGA was infectious. The Blade universe is also perfect for an Arkane game setting wise. I just hope they don’t tone it down. 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

On 12/9/2023 at 9:01 AM, IlyaP said:

We're currently in the middle of the worst heatwave I've ever experienced, with temperatures of 113F (45C) outside, so I'm indoors with cider and an industrial strength fan, playing Dragon Age: Inquisition, as when it's this hot, the brain needs a game that doesn't impose many demands upon it. 

I’m doing a similar second playthrough ,but with The Witcher 3. Had forgotten how much fun even the side quests were in this game! It’s also an excellent palette cleanser after watching the Netflix show and a good companion piece for my re read of the book series. Really helps that it has an excellent NG+ mode, so I don’t need to spend time grinding for top gear again.

Edited December 12, 2023 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[Werthead]

19 hours ago, l2 0 5 5 said:

I'm making my way to the end of Alan Wake 2. For those that have played, wondering your thoughts on the two protagonists.
 

  Hide contents

Who's POV do you prefer? At this point, I like Saga's considerably more than Wake's. I completed the Nursing Home area with Saga and then switched over to Wake and Initiation 5 and stayed with him till completing Initiation 8 the other night. It seemed like a grueling run, but I felt that he was behind Saga and wanted to get him caught up. An extended stay in the Dark Place wasn't my favorite experience. And this may be because I did 4 initiations straight through with Wake before being forced to go back to Saga (albeit 6 and 7 were really short), but I prefer doing one here and there instead of a marathon like I felt compelled to do. 

Saga's POV to this point has been my favorite (On my way to the sheriff's station now). I prefer the investigation she's completing in the Bright Falls area opposed to Wake's campaign through the Dark Place. It's a nicer aesthetic and I prefer the connections she's trying to make to solve the various cases she has open compared to Wake trying to write his way out of a nightmare. I still like his part but just prefer SA. 

 

Spoiler

Saga is the more interesting character, but having played two previous games with him (and having him cameo in a third), I was fairly invested in Wake's story.

I do think the Dark Place ended up becoming increasingly tedious towards the end, so I tried to alternate Saga and Wake more regularly so as not to have a massive ton of Dark Place episodes to do one after the other. The real world environment was more interesting.

 

[l2 0 5 5]

3 hours ago, Werthead said:

  Reveal hidden contents

Saga is the more interesting character, but having played two previous games with him (and having him cameo in a third), I was fairly invested in Wake's story.

I do think the Dark Place ended up becoming increasingly tedious towards the end, so I tried to alternate Saga and Wake more regularly so as not to have a massive ton of Dark Place episodes to do one after the other. The real world environment was more interesting.

 

Spoiler

I completely agree. I've only played Alan Wake. Didn't get to American Nightmare or the additional chapters in Wake 1. I understand Control would've been a good idea as well.

I was invested in his story in 2, but Saga's journey was more effortless to enjoy for me. Going back I would split their playthroughs more evenly. Once I got to Watery I couldn't switch to Wake. That chunk through the Nursing Home had me in a stranglehold.

The Initiation 5-8 gauntlet I ran was at times burdensome towards the end. More my fault than anything. Overall fantastic game barring anything weird happening down the stretch. Can't see them fumbling anything at this point. This game has been meticulously constructed at every level.

 

Edited December 13, 2023 by l2 0 5 5

[Caligula_K3]

I've started playing Elden Ring, about 7 hours in. I haven't done much aside from go around Limgrove slowly leveling up, completing dungeons, looting things, killing bosses, and getting killed by Margit. I'm having a great time. I appreciate that it's removed a lot of the most annoying (though not all) features of the Dark Souls games. It's also nice to play a FromSoftware game where I'm not anxious every single moment- it's great that you can ride away from fights you don't want to complete, or give up on a hard boss and return later on, or just take a moment to appreciate the beauty of the world.

Thanks, by the way, to everyone who posted in the Elden Ring thread a couple years ago. Your tips have been very, very helpful.

[Heartofice]

Creative Assembly have released a blog post from their leadership about the recent debacle with their overpriced and under delivering Total War games.

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/message-from-total-war-leadership-dec-2023/
 

A kind of staggering admission of guilt which shows just how much the backlash has hurt them. 
 

The interesting point is that they have decided to just release a free update for whoever bought the latest DLC for Warhammer 3, which a bunch of new content. This obviously pushes back their release schedule by quite a lot but seems to be a necessary step to win back good will.

They are also lowering the price of Pharaoh and giving out refunds to anyone who bought it to reflect the new price. Their plans for this game seem to have dramatically changed after nobody bought it too. 
 

This all seems pretty positive and good news, they have clearly been pretty complacent with the franchise for a while and internal troubles have made them lose focus. 
 

Personally I’ve totally lost interest in the game as it feels so incomplete and half baked. But I’d love to play some really good total war in the future 

[Darryk]

Time for Medieval: Total War 3

[l2 0 5 5]

The Last of Us Online Cancelled

Not terribly shocking since they've gone quiet for a long time on this project, and there were rumors 4-5 months ago about it being put on ice. 

They say they would have had to put the whole studio's resources into this post launch for years to come and it would have diminished their efforts in singe player games. If this is true, I'm fine with it. I'd never want ND to sacrifice their single player narrative games despite how fun Factions was. Guess this got bigger than they thought it would be. 

I did find it odd how/when they announced No Return (and all of Part 2 Remastered for that matter). Not even two months passed since TLOU Day (9/26), and they announce the whole project on a random Friday evening in November after it was leaked. Why not announce this massive project on TLOU Day? Especially when the announcements/content was so thin. It was pretty much a Troy Baker concert and knick knacks for a bookbag. 

They must've realized this a while ago which prompted them to make No Return that way you get some new, sort-of-online, mode for the game. Just wish they would make it a co-op. Easier said than done, I'm sure. 

[Corvinus85]

8 hours ago, Heartofice said:

They are also lowering the price of Pharaoh and giving out refunds to anyone who bought it to reflect the new price. Their plans for this game seem to have dramatically changed after nobody bought it too. 
 

They will also provide a free DLC which was supposed to be a regular DLC. And they intend to expand the map and add more factions. They'll pretty much merge it with Troy, because people found Troy's campaign map files within Pharaoh, so this was a likely intent in the far future. But now it will probably come sooner since they discovered there was no money to milk off this one.

I returned the game after playing 2 hrs because it wasn't worth the price even though it had some interesting campaign features. I'll probably pick it up again at the reduced price and maybe with a Steam sale on top.