V20 feedback

[ushas]

There are some bugs, not dozens/hundreds of bugs - you have succeeded : )

Ok... If you say so...                                                                                     : )

(not that bug reports themselves made them go away, by the way)

[ushas]

I'm an old-school gamer. Or, should that read "I'm an old gamer"?

I have a collection of computer games starting from back in the old five-and-a-quarter-inch floppy disk days.

I'm used to buying a game, installing it and playing it. When it doesn't work like that, I get annoyed.
I used to get cracks for all my games because I thought it was laughable that game publishers thought that their disk was the only one I'd have in my drive.
Swapping disks constantly to play different games was just never realistic.

That's neat. Do you still grow your collection with physical mediums today?

I remember was so happy to get Baldurs Gate on 6 cds. But couldn't run it:/ So, um, borrowed the internet edition. Yeah cracks... those were often needed to be able to run games under wine at all. It's strange. You know, if we would all acted in accordance to licenses they wouldn't have so many customers...

Steam has cheapened the game's market. Just look at the absolute deluge of garbage on Steam. They opened the floodgates for any shitty developer to dump their barely playable garbage.

Not to mention Steam sales.
How does that help developers? "Oooh... that game looks interesting. I'll wait for a Steam sale."
Why pay full price when you KNOW that the game will be discounted sometime soon.
(by the way... if you buy a game on GoG and then it goes on sale shortly after, they give you credit of the difference, as though you bought it at the sale price)

Steam's cheapened the whole thing and the only one that has benefited financially... is Steam. They take a huge cut for just being a "store front".

The word which comes to mind is a monopol. They are google in this, not much sense in competing unless one comes with something groundbreaking.

They've canceled the greenlight. I dunno if Steam Direct will change anything. But, yeah, the catalogue is already quite huge, isn't it...
     Edit: Oh, just look at this:
     https://steamdb.info/genres/
     25K products in total!
     But fear not, only 2166 of them are EA

Though what's with the sales, wondering, does one have a say in when and how much his game is discounted?

My wife, and one of my best friends, love Steam. Both of them fully understand why I hate it. My friend even jokes that Steam has a flag on my account that tells them to f*@# me over.

Heh. Long time ago, there was this one day during which my head was hit four or five unrelated times (lost the count), not a once it was [completely] my fault. At the end of the day was paranoid even towards own bed! It's like you are asking for it or something

[Daithi]

(not that bug reports themselves made them go away, by the way)

*Clutches chest, gasps, and collapses*

@Nomad: Think there was something similar with HL2 that bugged me. It's annoying, but a good move from their perspective to convert HL buyers into steam users. Their big hit games probably made the platform. Concerning the products being removed though, that's most likely to do with the publishers. Have mixed feelings about Steam sales devaluing games, on one hand, it's promoting the idea that games shouldn't be bought at full price, but the sales can also be pretty good, though less so as the catalogue grows. TBH I think bundles are a much bigger threat than Steam Sales, and possibly subscription models if they take off

@Ushas: You can choose whether to opt in on a sale or not

[Nomad]

@Nomad: Think there was something similar with HL2 that bugged me. It's annoying, but a good move from their perspective to convert HL buyers into steam users. Their big hit games probably made the platform. Concerning the products being removed though, that's most likely to do with the publishers. Have mixed feelings about Steam sales devaluing games, on one hand, it's promoting the idea that games shouldn't be bought at full price, but the sales can also be pretty good, though less so as the catalogue grows. TBH I think bundles are a much bigger threat than Steam Sales, and possibly subscription models if they take off

Surely it's not publishers that pull your games, but Steam.
If I violate the Steam terms of service, or if the service shuts down, then I can't play any of my games on Steam. This hasn't happened to me, but that's not my point.
Why would you, or 2K games tell Steam to pull access to your games because someone... I don't know... cheated at Team Fortress 2 too much.


I actually got on here to congratulate you so far on having 10 positive reviews on Steam and no negative ones. Hopefully that helps it build up. Best of luck.


Edit:

Do you still grow your collection with physical mediums today?

Sometimes. Less so now with digital taking up most of the software space.
Now it's more likely Kickstarter where I'll get the physical box.
For example, I've signed up for (and may or may not eventually get physical copies of):
Star Citizen
Shroud of the Avatar
Wasteland 3

[Daithi]

Surely it's not publishers that pull your games, but Steam.
If I violate the Steam terms of service, or if the service shuts down, then I can't play any of my games on Steam. This hasn't happened to me, but that's not my point.
Why would you, or 2K games tell Steam to pull access to your games because someone... I don't know... cheated at Team Fortress 2 too much.


I actually got on here to congratulate you so far on having 10 positive reviews on Steam and no negative ones. Hopefully that helps it build up. Best of luck.

You're right, never thought of the TOS or cheating angle. Wouldn't have a problem with cheaters being banned in the game they are cheating in, but it would be unfair for them to lose the collection. Dunno if this has happened. Publishers can also revoke keys, sometimes they do this to gray market keys, if they have been bought with stolen credit cards or the likes. It seems unlikely that Steam would go under, but it would mean a lot of angry gamers if it did   - have been burned by smaller distributers shutting down and not paying out on sales. I suspect in one case, they actually sold the unused keys they had. As much as would like to support and work with smaller distributors, will likely stick to Steam GOG Humble in the future.

Cheers, it's a good enough start

[ushas]

Joining the congrats and luck wishes. Oh, seems 10 is a good number for the store page statistics

For example, I've signed up for (and may or may not eventually get physical copies of):
Star Citizen
Shroud of the Avatar

Ouch. Now, you need some luck:) Hope it will eventually end good, but seriously, they ought to stop selling virtual ships and houses. Besides one can buy land on Mars instead.

- have been burned by smaller distributers shutting down and not paying out on sales. I suspect in one case, they actually sold the unused keys they had.

That's unfortunate.

I recall using Desura before they went down. Though Itch.io seems all right, good for appraising free games. Sent bucks to Heroine quest devs, for example.

To be fair, GoG can also revoke access, but according to the current version of agreement policy they give 60 days period to download what already own. That's the benefit of drm free. Can imagine Steam can afford to pull more. There are always two sides of agreement, so if also publishers are able to do something it's because Steam allows that.

You can choose whether to opt in on a sale or not

Sounds limiting, tbh. At least you can gift keys in a promotion or so. Is this the reason to use middle-shops that sell steam keys? I've been confused why one would do that, as the end customer has to have a Steam account anyway...

Btw. 17 new EAs launched in five days.

[Nomad]

Ouch. Now, you need some luck:) Hope it will eventually end good, but seriously, they ought to stop selling virtual ships and houses.

To be fair, GoG can also revoke access, but according to the current version of agreement policy they give 60 days period to download what already own. That's the benefit of drm free.

Yes.... Star Citizen is suffering from feature bloat. I dislike their ship selling... but I'm not buying them, so I don't care if it helps them get it done.
Shroud of the Avatar seems even more mercenary to me in regards to them selling digital assets. They are trundling along though, so once again, I'm not buying them so I don't care too much. I think it just looks bad.

GoG can go down... but that doesn't affect anyone that has already installed the game(s) they bought.
All the games I own on GoG can be played whether I use GoG or not.
All the games I own on GoG can be played whether I have internet or not.
Neither of those points can be said of Steam, even for their single player games.

[ushas]

There have been two things you probably already dealt with/decided, but just in case:
-- possibly shop offer inconsistencies (see this thread)
-- not getting intel as well as racket not removed from the map after successful facility attack (if those are to be in v21)

Yes, and then Patriot is set to shoot small caliber initially, but medium caliber after upgrading. Shouldn't it be medium all the time? There is no chamber change or so.

[Daithi]

The shop offer inconsistencies is the lack of high calibre ammo? If so, have reduced the calibre of assault rifles to medium - it's likely high calibre will be for machine gun, and a couple of other high damage weapons.

Will do some racket attacks and figure out what's going on there.

Will keep patriot as is. It's been pointed out that pistols have disadvantages compared to other weapons, so using more common & cheaper ammo seems to be a good move.

[ushas]

Huh, you can re-read the feedback for yourself. I dunno what is or isn't intended or important. Apart HCR, recall Nomad not having enough ammo initially or so? While the higher calibers are offered but nothing to use them in yet. Etc...
Edit: though I don't remember much about the shop anymore, there wasn't interest to discuss it, so probably unimportant now. Will try to play all ranged party next version.

Don't know the arguments of has been pointed out, but balancing into making things samey usually pose a question, how does it make the game more fun... Thought revolvers being in the higher dam category than semi-auto pistols is their distinct trait. So it's a kind of surprise for me. However, the main point was only about that they use two different calibers.

[Daithi]

Did scan through it looking for the issue with the shop you were referring to, nearest thing found was the ammo. Will read again when less square eyed!

[ushas]

Was really only making a note in case it was on your own todo list. The shop having its first iteration and such. Seems it wasn't, so don't worry about it. Carry on, don't mind me please:)

[Nomad]

The only problem I've had with the shop so far is that ammo only seems to be added as 20 round lots and High Calibre ammo rarely came in at all.
I did the "up-level" the shop through the debug console and refreshed it a bunch of times. Ammo was still tight though.
This is just some tweaking that needs to be done to the shop inventory generation.

I suggested handloading. You have a workshop. Buy gunpowder and primers. Keep the empty shells and collect some lead. Use the workshop to make our own. Takes time and less money than buying bullets outright.
If possible... limit to how many bullets we already had (which is more work to implement) as we are reusing the shells. That's not required though.
Or... just make the shop generate a random number of shells, rather than just 20 (which is probably already intended).

I like the idea of handloading though.  =)

[ushas]

Thanks for info. Probably misremembered the ammo thing then.