General Video Game Thread

[Arkandel]

@Testament In this brave new world you won't need local storage almost at all (especially since there won't be any buffering - that doesn't do anything for gaming).

On the other hand... well, we won't ever own games any more, at all. Not even through DRM; as long as your subscription is current you'll be able to play the catalog you're paying for, else you got nothing.

Then again no more having to own a beastly machine just to run the latest games. Your processing power will be nearly irrelevant. Why upgrade?

... That last one is going to make things reaaaally awkward for the relations between Dell and Microsoft, for example.

[Thenomain]

@Arkandel

It will be decades, or at least a decade, before the current generation gamers give up on hardware, and hardware manufacturers will do everything in their power to stay relevant.

It’s the next generation of gamers that Google should be eventually aiming towards. Google hasn’t shown the patience for anything but data collection, and those things that go directly into that business. Casual gamers could carry the short- to medium-term, but for now streaming boxes are still a loss leader at best.

That the entire business world is poised to make subscription model de facto across all industries (lead mostly by Netflix et al and Office 365) is why companies won’t give up.

Google is not positioned to answer VR gaming, which will replace PC gaming about the time we get to where Google is aiming now.

[Arkandel]

@Thenomain said in General Video Game Thread:

@Arkandel

It will be decades, or at least a decade, before the current generation gamers give up on hardware, and hardware manufacturers will do everything in their power to stay relevant.

I'd say we're still a few years ago for at least the 5G to be in place so the bandwidth needs alone are met. But if that existed I really don't see why gamers would be so attached to their current hardware if what they get in return - portability, large catalogues instead of paying $60+ for triple-A games, etc - is better than what they have now. I have decent machines, an XBone and a Switch and I'd give those up in a minute.

It’s the next generation of gamers that Google should be eventually aiming towards. Google hasn’t shown the patience for anything but data collection, and those things that go directly into that business. Casual gamers could carry the short- to medium-term, but for now streaming boxes are still a loss leader at best.

That's true but Microsoft is doing the same thing and they have plenty of gaming street cred by now. Amazon is throwing their hat in that race, and their deep pockets shouldn't be discounted.

The real issue anyone but Microsoft will have is finding support from game developing companies to make titles for them. Especially the large names in the field. That's where the real corporate war will be, since without major games even if they do wonders on technical side they'll be dead in the water, and those companies are going to be super concerned about what leverage they'll have in this brave new era.

As for hardware companies, they're either shitting their pants right now or already counting on selling directly to cloud data centers which in a way might be a good thing for them - way less customer support needed, for example, and fewer models of machines to put out every year.

[Ghost]

2020. Masquerade Bloodlines 2, baby.

PC, Xbone, PS4.

Trailer Link

[Auspice]

@Ghost said in General Video Game Thread:

2020. Masquerade Bloodlines 2, baby.

PC, Xbone, PS4.

Trailer Link

OMG read the thread dude

You're so 17 hours ago.

[Ghost]

@Auspice SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGH.

[Auspice]

@Ghost said in General Video Game Thread:

@Auspice SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGH.

Here, have an in-depth article about it instead.

(Just don't go into the comments section. VG247 has had to be full-on the ban button for the 'BUT POLITICS DON'T BELONG IN MAH GAMEZ' crowd. To which my response is: Vampire is politics. git gud newbs.)

[Ghost]

@Auspice Haha thx I'll read it. I'm way excited about this game, but hang on, I'm accessing my mutant ability to see into the future....

Zack Smith was hired on to work on a WoD video game. If he is in the credits, this will become a contentious video game despite this political buzz

CoughCoughCough.

Sorry, seeing the future takes a bit out of me. Seriously, though, that topic is probably 4 hours away, or 4 hours after someone gets their hands on the game's credits.

[Auspice]

@Ghost said in General Video Game Thread:

@Auspice Haha thx I'll read it. I'm way excited about this game, but hang on, I'm accessing my mutant ability to see into the future....

Zack Smith was hired on to work on a WoD video game. If he is in the credits, this will become a contentious video game despite this political buzz

CoughCoughCough.

Sorry, seeing the future takes a bit out of me. Seriously, though, that topic is probably 4 hours away, or 4 hours after someone gets their hands on the game's credits.

I dunno if he was, but so far it's: 'you're allowed to make whatever character you want (female, male, non-binary, etc etc) and the gender pronouns in the game are flexible to that choice' and the 'but mah gamez and politics' crowd are flipping their shit.

To the extent that some are going 'PC CULTURE AREN'T ALLOWING DEVS TO MAKE THE STORIES THEY WANNA MAKE'

So seriously, it's: 'Do you guys have any remote fucking clue what V:tM even is?!'

[Ghost]

@Auspice said in General Video Game Thread:

@Ghost said in General Video Game Thread:

@Auspice Haha thx I'll read it. I'm way excited about this game, but hang on, I'm accessing my mutant ability to see into the future....

Zack Smith was hired on to work on a WoD video game. If he is in the credits, this will become a contentious video game despite this political buzz

CoughCoughCough.

Sorry, seeing the future takes a bit out of me. Seriously, though, that topic is probably 4 hours away, or 4 hours after someone gets their hands on the game's credits.

I dunno if he was, but so far it's: 'you're allowed to make whatever character you want (female, male, non-binary, etc etc) and the gender pronouns in the game are flexible to that choice' and the 'but mah gamez and politics' crowd are flipping their shit.

To the extent that some are going 'PC CULTURE AREN'T ALLOWING DEVS TO MAKE THE STORIES THEY WANNA MAKE'

So seriously, it's: 'Do you guys have any remote fucking clue what V:tM even is?!'

That's fuckin awesome (make who you want) and even more awesome if there is a sort of...dont wanna say romance but mature element to it. Bloodlines 1 had strippers/sex in it. Vampire can be a very sexy game. I say "Hell yeah, bring on the options.

You're right, tho. These people don't really understand VtM. Even v5 introduced a progressive-political LGTBQ+ Gangrel and a female-led Tremere sect fighting against the clan's patriarchal boys club bullshit.

If they did it right and fair(with modern gaming quality), this video game could be a big hit.

[Auspice]

@Ghost

It is p. awesome. But yeah, lot of the gamergate toxic crowd crying about politics and I'm just over here like, 'Do you even Vampire?'

So any of them argue in my sphere (I don't wanna delve into a fucking article comments thread), I'll just be in the stance of: git gud newb. This isn't some random ass Battlefield or CoD. This is a game whose roots are in politics.

[Rucket]

Re: politics in games.

It's pretty funny that Ubisoft tried to say Division 2 was apolitical, but the there's a LOT of similarities between the True Sons and the Proud Boys, lol. Though I guess making people drop shiny guns and making shooting fun helps to keep people from thinking about it too much.

[Jaded]

I'm very late, sorry guys. I have a scoop but many of you may have noticed it. Bloodlines 2 is up for Pre-Order as of today, which is about all I can say. I was encouraged to tell people interested to check out and sign up for the Paradox forums for Bloodlines, there should be a lot of stuff coming out about it in the weeks ahead. I can say what I learned gives me some good high hopes for the game.

But as always, it is a pre-order. Do so at your own risk.

[Ghost]

@Rucket I dunno. I'm playing Div2 right now and I can say it doesn't really preach. The baseline content is political, but then again it doesn't matter the politics of a fictitious president or what his platform is; if DC gets hit by a virus and terrorism, it is what it is.

It's not very "oooo-rah save Murica". It's more "Hey this settlement of people dont have running water because a group of lawless shitheads have overtaken the water supply. Let's help get water to those kids."

I'm actually really a fan of how it shows progress. At the beginning a settlement in some building might be bombed out without food, but after a few missions you come back and they're all "Hey, we we're able to put together a video game system and school for the kids, and the hydroponics garden is set up to grow food."

As far as games that are run around and shoot guns, I think it's a more community "help each other", which I think is nice for a change.

[Thenomain]

@Arkandel said in General Video Game Thread:

That's true but Microsoft is doing the same thing and they have plenty of gaming street cred by now. Amazon is throwing their hat in that race, and their deep pockets shouldn't be discounted.

And we're seeing the fracture of Steam just as we've seen the fracture of Netflix. So unless Google pulls an Epic (or the positive side of that: a Nintendo Switch), the developers won't want to partner with them for any level of exclusivity.

Maybe they want to show the game companies that they have the infrastructure, but Amazon is so far ahead of them in that race that Google is on extremely perilous ground. They need to take the--honestly extremely slight--momentum that their market announcement has given them and push that snowball into an avalanche.

Search, maps, home automation assistant. This is all Google does so much better than anyone else that they can feel confident in their stability. Gaming? Google has bungled almost every other project except News and I guess you could say Android (though I would stay it's not a finished product).

As for hardware companies, they're either shitting their pants right now or already counting on selling directly to cloud data centers which in a way might be a good thing for them - way less customer support needed, for example, and fewer models of machines to put out every year.

The only hardware infrastructure company that should be shitting their pants right now should be Intel, because they fell asleep on their pile of gold and let AMD slip in with its Ring of Invisibility. The big server companies are of course fighting tooth and nail, but this fight started with AWS, and then Angry Birds, and has only been getting bigger from there. I don't know how much of this server architecture is based on Intel chips, but I'd bet a dollar that even a little research would reveal "less every day".

No, what I see out of Google is a proof of concept that was most recently tried by the Nvidia Shield. If Google is positioning their...thing to the end user, it will assuredly fail, save for the fluke of Casual Gamers which very well could long-tail it to serious position. They could very well be trying it as a way to worm into the collective conscious over iterations, like how the Microsoft Surface started as a crap not-laptop-not-tablet and is worthy of almost its current pricetag, or the Apple TV was nonsense generation over generation until the lightbulb went off, but this relies on Google sticking with a concept longer than a year.

And I'm still kind of bitter about Wave.

[Rucket]

@Ghost said in General Video Game Thread:

@Rucket I dunno. I'm playing Div2 right now and I can say it doesn't really preach. The baseline content is political, but then again it doesn't matter the politics of a fictitious president or what his platform is; if DC gets hit by a virus and terrorism, it is what it is.

It's not very "oooo-rah save Murica". It's more "Hey this settlement of people dont have running water because a group of lawless shitheads have overtaken the water supply. Let's help get water to those kids."

I'm actually really a fan of how it shows progress. At the beginning a settlement in some building might be bombed out without food, but after a few missions you come back and they're all "Hey, we we're able to put together a video game system and school for the kids, and the hydroponics garden is set up to grow food."

As far as games that are run around and shoot guns, I think it's a more community "help each other", which I think is nice for a change.

Yeah I agree with all of that, I just meant that as far as enemy faction goes, a lot of the dialogue and shit I've seen from the True Sons reminds me of a mix of hard right wing militias and the Proud Boys, lol. It's not incredibly overt, but stuff is there. But yeah, the progression on settlements and doing quests to give settlements new ways to feed themselves/entertain themselves/educate themselves/whatever is pretty sweet.

[Ganymede]

Is the Division 2 the same grind that the Division was? Like, that’s sort of how I felt about it, when it came to the hardware you could pick up.

[Jaded]

Anyone keeping an eye on Cyberpunk 2077, CDPR has stated that it will not be an exclusive for any launcher - Steam or Epic - and that they are projecting to release late 2019 or early 2020.

They have also confirmed that there's going to be a boatload of small free DLC content and at least 3 DLCs on the size and scale like those produced for The Witcher 3.

[Sparks]

@Ganymede said in General Video Game Thread:

Is the Division 2 the same grind that the Division was? Like, that’s sort of how I felt about it, when it came to the hardware you could pick up.

It's a looter-shooter, so, yeah. Some degree of that grind is pretty much a staple of the genre. Both as you level, getting better gear along the way, and then even moreso once you reach endgame.

Grinding for weapon mods or materials or Frame blueprints and components (someday I will get Nova Prime! Someday!) in Warframe. Grinding for exotic weapons in Destiny. Grinding to get the best masterwork or legendary weapons and components (what do I have to do to get a Truth of Tarsis to drop??) in Anthem.

[Insomnia]

@Arkandel said in General Video Game Thread:

On the other hand... well, we won't ever own games any more, at all. Not even through DRM; as long as your subscription is current you'll be able to play the catalog you're paying for, else you got nothing.

We don't own games as it is now. You might own a physical copy of the game, but when you "buy" a game, you are really buying the permission to play the game, the company can revoke your access from the game at any time, for any reason. It's more obvious with online games when they stop updating servers and easier when they revoke digital keys. But if a company decides it, you just have a fancy, and expensive coaster.