• 0 Posts
  • 29 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: December 22nd, 2023

help-circle


  • The only thing I know is that access to the specific purchase might get blocked, if there’s a payment issue. Not Steam directly, but a friend of mine once bought Diablo 3 for WoW gold on Battle.net, something happened after a while, and he lost access to the game, dunno if the other side refunded the game or whatever. All the other games still worked, but he’d have to buy D3 again to play it. I would be surprised if Steam blocks the whole account.

    If they mean you buy a game, then there’s a problem with payment, but they should still let you download and play, that’s dumb.

    The part about Steam Support being extremely slow is also old news. I think that’s been a lot better for years now. I don’t know if it was around the time they were forced to implement refunds, but I think that’s all outsourced now, and you don’t have to hope a Valve dev checks the support mailbox anymore.



  • Finally, some real examples, where EGS is better than Steam, that actually impact people and might make them use EGS. Price is probably the most important one. If someone from Argentina pays like half as much on EGS as they would on Steam (don’t know how much it actually is), because EGS actually accepts their local currency and they don’t have to pay in USD or something, then it makes sense to switch to EGS

    Also, EGS is better for devs than Steam, with revenue share, now even more so, as mentioned in the post. I don’t think a lot of people will buy on EGS solely for that reason, but it is something.

    The OP says global preloading and gifting are going live soon

    That’s why I mentioned them. You basically said, people (maybe unjustly) talk shit about EGS because of missing features like that, when they also have some advantages over Steam, and then talk about the most mundane stuff. “I might not be able to pre-load this game, but at least I can cap my download at 13468kb/s.” Those two are not the same.

    It was very convenient to have everything in one place

    As I said, with the button to switch to the Chat inside the Steam app, it’s basically the same. What is the real difference of clicking that button and switching to a different app, compared to clicking that button and switching to a new screen inside the same app? I genuinely can’t think of one. You could argue a separate app is better, because now you can open both apps at the same time in split screen, so you can browse the store or community pages, while chatting (I wouldn’t do that, but it’s possible).

    I’m not sure the discounts offered via bundles on Steam are an overall better deal compared to Epic offering cashback of 5% on everything, sometimes increased to 20% (like now)

    Probably not, most of the time, and this post doesn’t detail what bundling for EGS means. Steam has normal game bundles and the Complete-your-Collection bundles, which is dynamic and can give some extra discounts.

    However, with Steam keys from legit third-party sites, you might get an even better deal at times, maybe better than on EGS, so I don’t really know where it’s the cheapest.


  • Wishlisting specific Game Editions would be nice, but how are you comparing nice-to-have features like that or custom download limits to stuff like Pre-Loading, Gifting, Bundles, etc.

    For me, a separate Chat app for Steam is also a complete non-issue. I can’t really think of anything, that would improve, if it was integrated in the normal Steam app. Separate download and one initial login less? You can launch the Chat app from the Steam app itself, so you don’t even save that single extra tap to launch it, and for the user it’s basically the same as an integrated chat.




  • Looks exactly the same as all the other non-future Anno games, although I don’t remember if your citizens disliked living next to a pig farm in 1800.

    I don’t remember if I ever played through a story mission or scenario in the previous games. I always just start an Endless Game, set the difficulty all the way down, with no other NPCs, and just build until I’m satisfied. Looking forward to doing the same thing here.


  • Yes, but it would still be nice to have in the middle.

    I went back to check in Eternal, and I was wrong about that game showing the progress on the icons in the middle of the screen. Just like Dark Ages it just shows charges that are ready to use, and the progress in the full HUD on the edges of the screen. Seems like I just need to get good and look at the full HUD, like I did in Eternal.



  • the player character expressed flagrant disregard for any narrative elements

    They don’t. Doomguy does like two things in the very beginning, but it’s not like they don’t care, but rather about what Hayden has to say and his justifications for everything that has happened, that’s the part which he doesn’t want.

    You meet Hayden later in his office, with a few minutes unskippable “cutscene,” but it’s not like Doomguy ignores him or jumps out of a window in the middle of it.


  • I’m currently playing the game, got like a handful of levels left. It’s a good game, but with the way the Doom games have evolved and changed over the time, I don’t think you can really say “if you like that Doom, you’ll like this Doom.”

    I definitely enjoy the gameplay of Eternal more, but Dark Ages is really good.

    The feel of running around is great. You sound massive, your jumps create shockwaves and kill enemies. If you’ve played Boltgun, it’s like that.

    The shield is feels great. The charge is awesome, just like the Meathook was in Eternal to get right next to your enemy, and fodder demons just explode on impact.

    Parries feel good, but are extremely easy. The timing is super forgiving and the range is massive.

    I think a big thing, that not many people are talking about, are the difficulty sliders. You can change so many things, but ID just ignores 90% of them with their presets. You can change so much stuff, and make it feel like a completely different game. Crank up the game speed and just zoom around. Increase your and the enemies damage, so it’s all about dodging, or you get one-shot. Make the projectiles slow, but a lot more deadly.

    There’s still some ammo management, but it’s not like Eternal, not even like 2016. Your melee attack, that you can use for the execute drops ammo, just like the Chainsaw, but you’re using it regularly anyway. Some guns also have upgrades that shooting demons with it also drops ammo for the weapon.

    The game is a lot more story heavy, but just like in Eternal you can just skip it and not read the Codex entries.

    The mech stuff is alright, but pretty basic, but also really short segments. The dragon is cool in theory, but I really hate these parts, and they just drag on for far too long. Flying around just isn’t fun.

    Weapons are pretty good, and I have some favorites. The normal Combat Shotgun with upgrades is great this time and not just outshined by the Super Shotgun immediately. That Ball-on-a-Chain gun is also really nice, with some cool upgrades. Because you don’t really have any ammo issues if you use the melee regularly, I’ve just used one gun for long stretches of time, because there’s just no reason real reason to switch, and you can just use what you want.

    The devs always said in Dark Ages you’re like a tank, but with default settings on Nightmare difficulty, you’re made out of paper. Projectiles are extremely dangerous, and enemies like to spawn behind you and shoot you in the back. The game is actually not great on telling you where you’re getting attacked from, and there’s just always tons of enemies around and some deaths can be kinda frustrating.

    Then there are also some minor UI/UX issues. You get small icons in the middle for your melee charges, but they don’t show the progress like in Eternal with the Blood Punch. There’s no dedicated Map button, just open your Dossier, which remembers your last screen, which is annoying, because you want that map 99% of the time. Sprinting has this terrible vignette effect around your screen, and you want to sprint all the time, but you can only disable all screen effects, which includes some stuff I’d like to see.

    For some dumb reason, the Fast Travel option, at the end of a level has been removed, so if you miss a secret, you’ll have to play the level again. There’s also tons of points-of-no-return, so you’ll have to stare at the map constantly, to make sure you haven’t missed anything, which makes the lack of a map button so terrible.

    After I’m done with my Nightmare run, I want to do another one, where I play around with the sliders a bit. I want to turn up the game speed, but will probably lower the damage and projectile speed to compensate.



  • The music is by Finishing Move. They’ve mostly done music for Xbox stuff, like Halo: MCC, Halo Wars, Crackdown 3, even MSF, but also Borderlands 3, or Callisto Protocol.

    Mick Gordon was already out for the Doom Eternal DLC, Andrew Hulshult did that (Dusk, Amid Evil, Prodeus).

    I’ve read a bunch of comments, where people are specifically calling out Marty Stratton, Studio Head at id. He posted an open letter to reddit, placing all the blame for issues with the music and soundtrack for Doom Eternal on Mick Gordon (which Mick later refuted with evidence).





  • The ~2010’s, official game review scandal which all big videogame influencers like IGN, G4tv, Gamespot etc… (this was before instagram and tiktok) got bribed by corporations

    Got any sources for that? Unless you think advertisement are bribes, this didn’t happen.

    Jeff was fired because he didn’t want to change his low score for a Kane & Lynch game, after Gamespot was pressured by the publisher, who was running some huge ads on Gamespot. He also said that usually this doesn’t happen, because the review side and marketing on these big sites are completely separate, and the reviewers don’t hear of these complaints. In his case however, Gamespot had new execs, who got cold feet, and caved. They left shortly after.

    I have never heard of anything else like this happening, except from angry fanboys, that think reviewers are on the take, when Zelda gets an 8.8.