Useless gaming news & chatter

[Goreschach]

Easy there, Frankie.

[Senses]

Maybe I'm jaded but is 2015 like the worst year of PC gaming ever so far?  This is the first year I can't think of a single game I'm looking forward to and scanning site after site reveals only a couple of mildly interesting indie kickstarters.  Are they finally out of good ideas?

[schild]

It's 3 months, and no way. Couldn't be worse than 2014.

[Senses]

Well I'm bored damnit.

[Kail]

AAA gaming has been mostly "please God don't fuck this one up" for a while now, for me.  They put out some solid stuff but it's hard to know if you're looking at the next Shadows of Mordor or another Assassin's Creed: Unity without being able to actually play it (if daddy Ubisoft will please let us publish reviews of his game, that is).

There's a few games I'm keeping my eye on.  The new Batman game, Arkham Knight, could be good.  Bloodbourne, obviously.  Blood Bowl 2 is supposed to release in the next few months.  No Man's Sky maybe.  The reboot of Star Wars: Battlefront.  Witcher 3.  Plus the usual heap of janky indie stuff.

[Lucas]

Pillars of Eternity comes out this week, and while the game mechanics are not exactly something new, it could be quite an immersive experience if you are into CRPG stories and lore (yep, I'm guilty of being a CRPG LARPer  ). Possibly better than both Wasteland 2 and Divinity:OS

[Senses]

Pillars of Eternity comes out this week, and while the game mechanics are not exactly something new, it could be quite an immersive experience if you are into CRPG stories and lore (yep, I'm guilty of being a CRPG LARPer  ). Possibly better than both Wasteland 2 and Divinity:OS

Thank you for this, I am so in.

[lamaros]

I hope PoE is good. Been a long time since a great RPG. Divinity was only good.

[Cyrrex]

Doesn't Bloodbourne come out like tomorrow?  Gasp!  I am not ready for this yet.  Unless for some reason it doesn't somehow come close to living up to any of the Souls games, that already makes 2015 better than 2014.  Also, I have said it before, but Dying Light is a lot better than what it has been given credit for.  I like it waaaaaaaay better than any AC game, and at least a little better than Mordor IMO, and I liked Mordor....it compares best to those games, by the way.  Still sorta looking forward to GTAV on PC, and Battlefront 3?  Hell yeah.

No way can 2015 be worse than 2014. 

[Falconeer]

Bloodborne comes out tomorrow in North America and a whole 17 hours later in Europe. That fucked me the wrong way as I organized a little event with some friends who took time off work months ago just for this. Only to find out we are gonna get it the next day. I wanna punch myself in the face hard.

Also, Dark Souls 2 was just last year, so Bloodborne has to top it to make 2015 better than 2014.

[MrHat]

I think that Kickstartered Pillars game comes out this week too.

[Yegolev]

Also, Dark Souls 2 was just last year, so Bloodborne has to top it to make 2015 better than 2014.

This doesn't seem difficult, but we shall see.

I'm going to also nominate Dying Light as surprisingly good.

[schild]

Still haven't gotten through the intro of Dying Light.

[Trippy]

Twitch hacked:

http://blog.twitch.tv/2015/03/important-notice-about-your-twitch-account/

[Cyrrex]

Still haven't gotten through the intro of Dying Light.

Not sure what bothered you so much about the intro.  I thought it was just standard fare cheesy action movie intro scene that we've seen a million times before.

[schild]

Still haven't gotten through the intro of Dying Light.

Not sure what bothered you so much about the intro.  I thought it was just standard fare cheesy action movie intro scene that we've seen a million times before.

That's precisely why.

[Falconeer]

YEAH BABY!

Convoy release announcement.

On Steam, April 21st 2015.

[Cyrrex]

Still haven't gotten through the intro of Dying Light.

Not sure what bothered you so much about the intro.  I thought it was just standard fare cheesy action movie intro scene that we've seen a million times before.

That's precisely why.

I guess I knew you were going to say that.  Even so, you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  The story is totally servicable and works just fine for the context of "zombie apocalypse".  The quests are fun (side quests as well).  The controls are great.  The parkour is great.  The loot and itemization works nicely.  The choice to do it first person rather than third person was brilliant.  The game is long.  It looks faaaaaaantastic.  There is very little not to like, unless you are turned off by the cheesy intro, or the fact that it is yet another zombie game (albeit easily the best of the current zombie games).

[Trippy]

YouTube rumored to be working on Twitch competitor.

[Goreschach]

[Fordel]

Is the youtube live streaming thing still complete ass?

[KallDrexx]

As someone working as a startup dealing with live streaming I'll say this about youtube.

From a user perspective, Youtube live streams are pretty damn good.  The quality is good (though some people watching our multi-stream outputs thought that UStream's audio was a bit better) and Youtube is the only streaming service that has live DVR functionality for live streams.  I can pause, rewind, and fast forward even if I join in the middle of a stream.

From a broadcaster perspective, their interface is complete ass and overly complicated when all the gamers want to do is start pushing video and it be "there".  It's setup for scheduled broadcasts which the gamer crowd has no interest in.  It does make broadcaster's lives good though due to automatic creation of VODs from the live streams once done.

I think that if they have a better way to find live video (especially event/game related searching, and probably a live stream dedicated sub-portal) and make the broadcaster tools not complete ass, they can own the game streaming market (non-exclusive agreements notwithstanding, though they definitely have the manpower to compete on this front).

[Goreschach]

Youtube will absolutely not make inroads with the twitch base due to it's automated copyright flagging.

[Trippy]

If YouTube will allow for higher upload bitrates than Twitch they'll get people to switch cause holy fuck does the quality on Twitch suck.

[Cyrrex]

I am convinced that YouTube is ripe for being subverted.  The ads are getting infuriating.  Even just a year ago they were relatively benign.  Now you get them for every video start, regardless of whether it is on PC, iPad, or TV app.  I think I have even seen ads come in during the middle of a video if I am not mistaken?  Anyway, someone is going to come along with something that provides the same services, but with a less intrusive revenue model.  It would have the added benefit of simultaneously destroying all the PewDeePies of the world, at least temporarily.

I mean, these things never survive for long, do they?  I will admit that I am quite possibly wrong, but I feel this particular cloud needed yelling at.

[Falconeer]

I was as mad and frustrated as you are. Then I installed AdBlock and I haven't seen a single YouTube ad in a year.

[apocrypha]

I was going to say, I thought that YouTube ads had disappeared, then I remembered I have AdBlock on every device.

[KallDrexx]

LOL I was wondering why he said the ads were getting infuriating when I can't remember the last time I saw one.  Didn't even realize Adblock was blocking them.

It was hillarious when AGDQ 2015 was going on and they kept going "And now a break for commercials" and they'd just stand around talking for 30 seconds and then be like "And we are back".  I was so confused, until I realized that adblock blocks twitch ads.

[Lucas]

Ok, guess it's time for me to learn hockey.

Sports Interactive is resurrecting the "Eastside Hockey Manager" franchise (they previously developed titles for it between 2004 and 2007). Extensive interview with Studio Director Miles Jacobson:

http://www.ehmtheblueline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=13579

Facebook page (public, of course), with lots of screenshots:

https://www.facebook.com/eastsidehockeymanager


Oh, it comes out this evening on Steam Early access, 6pm UK time   (discount for owners of FM15   ).

If you like Hockey, but never got into the FM series well...you can't go wrong with Sports Interactive :)

[Falconeer]

This could be the end of me. I have to try as hard as possible to forget its existence.

[Soulflame]

Last week has seen at least two separate threads (one on GAF

Found your problem.

Edit: Also, after six generations of Pokemon games and countless releases, I don't think it would be a bad thing for someone if not Nintendo to do a more difficult Pokemon-style game with perhaps a more adult aesthetic.

My issue is more that the game play hasn't really evolved in a long time, other than annoying gimmick battles that get added in, then quietly dropped when it turns out no one likes having to put up three pokemon, which then randomly rotate into battle.

As for harder, grittier pokemon, tell them to shut up and do another nuzlocke run.

[Fordel]

If YouTube will allow for higher upload bitrates than Twitch they'll get people to switch cause holy fuck does the quality on Twitch suck.

The quality would suck all the same on whatever youtube provides. It's not the provider, it's the streamer causes the shit quality. Most streamers just don't have PC's or connections capable of delivering the full 60 at any top end resolution.

[Trippy]

Twitch *strongly* recommends you don't stream at higher than 3.5 Mbps unless you are a partner. Yes most people have crappy streaming setups but even the top partner streamers are usually stuck with crappy 720p streams (or 1080p streams with crappy frame rates, pick your poison) cause Twitch doesn't have the infrastructure to both allow higher bandwidth uploads and allow multiple resolutions downloads/streams. E.g. watching the professional DOTA2 steams on Twitch suck donkey balls cause those are at 720p running with a horrible downsampling filter (i.e. the casters are running at 1080p or higher natively).

[Fordel]

Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5Punp3djLM

 

[calapine]

I wasn't sure if yet another Early Access Survival game that may or may not take of deserves it's own thread. But the trailer looks pretty, so a post in this thread seems justified....maybe?

Savage Lands - Survival Fantasy Game