Funny you say that, Daggerfall is fondly remembered but only in spite of it’s procedurally generated overworld. Daggerfall’s openworld is extraordinarily barren, remarkably so. You literally will get lost if you walk more than 5 minutes from a town, and not in a fun way but because every direction you look is literally the exact same three tree and rock sprites and you lose sense of direction. Daggerfall’s overworld is so bare and empty and large it actively encourages you to engage in the fast travel system with fleshed out gameplay mechanics like camping supplies and vehicles.
More concerning than Bethesda’s decision to withhold early review codes from certain outlets is how heavily some sites are relying on the game to drive their business.
Unfortunately most of the folks in gaming media that I follow don’t write or produce proper “reviews” anymore. Reading a review from IGN or Gamespot… I don’t know anything about the reviewer so I take it with a grain of salt. Like with Starfield, I give the same weight to IGN giving it a 7 as I do with some no-name whatever tiny website I never heard of giving it a 9.5
Just have to read through the reviews. If someone docks the game for not letting you fly manually between solar systems like you do in Elite Dangerous then I just have to write-off the negativity because… of-course fucking not, did anyone expect that? With something like, the repeated knocks against the barren nature of the procedural generation leading to repetitive tedious travel - I take that more seriously, because it was something I was hoping they would have addressed when moving that direction. Something like the story sucking or the NPCs having cringey dialogue is completely subjective and means nothing without knowing the reviewer’s tilt.
That surprises me… each BGS game is extraordinary iteritive over the previous one ever since Morriwind. They’re like 20 years into iteritive design and arguably each iteration, while doing some interesting new things also takes a step or two back. Very obvious looking back over their history. They’re really a one-note-studio.
To all of a sudden expect Starfield would manage to be that revolutionary (to their formula) seems shortsighted. Even the concept of having a fully-realized BGS RPG with a near infinitely open space exploration system seems like an impossible feat. On a technical level, sure, but the space between planets would be empty and desolate… and even expecting an interesting procedurally generated continent is a big ask today, let alone a planet, let alone a solar system, let alone a quarter of a galaxy.
I see what you’re getting at, I could see how someone might assume an seamless outer space based on that. As soon as you realize how much of a technical undertaking that is though, it’s easy to assume they wouldn’t go that route and not have blown that horn 2+ years ago as a huge feature. Something like that combined with a BGS RPG would be massive and I can’t imagine a world where a company like BGS or Microsoft would be wanting to keep that a secret until release.
The Pillars and Pathfinder games are both relatively daunting in terms of world size and, at least for Pathfinder, the rules are much more gritty… remember Pathfinder is a spin-off of DnD 3.5e and sticks relatively closely to that. While BG3 is based on the much more “friendly” DnD 5e rules. Pathfinder is much closer to BG2 than BG3 is, gameplay wise.
The big differences between BG3 and the other modern CRPGs is that BG3 does an exceptional job at presenting unprecedented player choice in traversal and combat. Other games have dialogue skill checks and all that but traversing the world is flat, literally practically menu driven and combat is all measurements and numbers. BG3 has free-form qualities that, in the world of video games, have so far only been utilized in immersive sims like Deus Ex and, oddly enough, I’d say the modern 3D Zeldas.
I feel you on that front. I have a Steam Deck and use it over my PC 90% of the time and even have BG3 running well on it but I prefer to sit at my desk for this game because the clutter is so dense that I need that big monitor and mouse to pixel hunt for all the little items and clicky things hidden around the world… and being able to spin that camera quickly around with a mouse while traversing is super important to catching things
I’ve been really wanting to get a steamdeck. I’ve been playing a lot on my modded switch, but there is a lot I want to play that is not available on the switch....
I’ve had my switch for many years at this point, while my SteamDeck is barely 1 year old. I probably wouldn’t buy a switch today if I didn’t already have one but since I already have one I still use it very occasionally for exclusives I’m excited for (well, actually used it a ton for TotK recently). I don’t have my Switch hacked and would just rather not go through the hassle of finding clean roms to download. The only Switch game I played on my Deck was Diablo III (because the PC version has no controller support or controller-friendly UI) but with Diablo IV now it’s unnecessary.
All that being said, there’s very few Switch exclusives I’m interested in for $60 anymore, even on the horizon, Zelda was probably the last one unless Mario Odyssey 2 is released before the end of the system’s lifetime. And Zelda TotK was honestly the first game I bought for Switch in probably the last 2+ years… my wife played a few things on it but I had switched to PC exclusively (+Steamdeck) and PS5
My question is mostly for games available on Steam that you would still prefer to play on Switch. I imagine performance should be better on the deck for native/proton games, but there might be something else I am missing.
There’s not a game I prefer on the Switch over the Deck but I do think both systems have their merits. I’ve played through Zelda TotK on Switch recently and play my Deck more often (lately a lot of BG3)
The Deck is honking huge, while the switch is small. I much prefer the size of the Deck to the Switch but there’s a an easy argument to be made there for portability.
The Switch is just more dock-friendly. Any serious Switch owner (who would care about docking) owns a Pro Controller. Docking to and undocking from a TV just works perfectly 100% of the time. You can buy a dock for the Steam Deck and you could Bluetooth a controller but it’s definitely more finicky - specifically with some games especially.
Multi-person household. I have a wife and a kid. I’m very fortunate and my wife has her own Deck but we do share a Switch and a PS5. There were dozens of times I would have played Zelda or FF16 but my wife was using the console so I settled with my Deck. I could easily see the opposite happening if we didn’t each own our own Steamdeck
Hello y’all, I’m at my wits end. I got the GoG version of BG3 (cause DRM free yay!), but for the love of me I cannot get it to work. I’ve done so much googling and so many workarounds, I’ve installed .net, I’ve skipped the launcher, I’ve used the alternate .exe, I’ve tried proton experimental and 8 and hotfix, but...
I don’t have an exact answer for you but I can 100% confirm it works through Heroic.
Switch to desktop, install heroic launcher, install BG3 with default options to internal SSD, launch with Proton Experimental, it will say you need .net so accept the dialogue and download the exe, use Heroic to install the .net exe to the game’s prefix, go to the configuration again and add --skip-launcher (two hyphens at the beginning) to the launch commands.
That’s it, I did that and ran the game from desktop and then used heroic to add it to Steam. Now I launch the game straight through Game Mode. I also added Heroic as a non-steam game so I can launch it occasionally for patches.
Skipping the launcher is important, as is installing the correct .net exe. I’ve read that some folks had the game claim to be installed but then realized it never actually completed successfully because they ran out of disk space during the final step. It’s a very large install. I also read a one-off comment that power tools can break it, if you have that installed through decky loader.
I had pre-ordered prior to release and got it last July. The 256gb model but I’ve upgraded to a 1TB since then. I’ve had issues in the past with Heroic and debated simply running the game through Windows or installing GOG through Lutris but luckily Heroic worked.
Have you considered trying to just install GOG through Lutris? I run Diablo IV like that (via Battle.net of course) and it’s simple enough.
While Baldur's Gate 3 is being widely celebrated by fans and developers alike, some are panicking that this could set new expectations from fans. Good.
I’ve been playing BG3 and perhaps I’m misunderstanding but you only have one action and one bonus action per turn and you only have so many spell slots per caster. Unless you have a leveled spell as an action and a separate leveled spell as a bonus action and enough spell slots for both you’d be hard pressed to cast more than a single spell per turn per character
They’re called management sims, or in the case of Factorio a factory builder.
Rimworld is a colony management sim… check out Dwarf Fortress or Oxygen Not Included for similar games
Rollercoaster Tycoon is a theme park management sim, the obvious suggestions are Planet Coaster and Planet Zoo but also check out City Skylines.
Factorio is a factory builder, I would recommend Satisfactory or Dyson Sphere Program, there’s a few handfuls of those types of games. If you want to get a little wild look into Minecraft (Java edition) w/ mods - most easily something like the FTB Infinity Evolved or one of the new Direwolf packs, it’s arguably where the factory building craze started.
To be honest, I’ve never been able to get over the hump in ONI. I play for hours, have a blast but eventually things start falling apart and I’m not usually able to recover. That being said, I know there’s been some updates since last I played so I may go back to it soon.
Back in 2011 or so I got really into Minecraft mods. I think it was literally just Buildcraft and Industrialcraft. It involved many steps, putting folders inside the Minecraft JAR file, deleting meta INF files, etc. I stuck with it for a few years during which the scene exploded. I actually paid to host a website for my friend’s only server that just included links to the specifics mod versions and step by step instructions how to install them. It was around the same time FTB modpacks came out that I fell off, I played one or two SP worlds with FTB Infinity Evolved and had a lot of fun but Factorio and eventually Satisfactory scratched that same itch.
Aging gamers were reportedly delighted to see that a new video game called Eldric Quest has accessibility features catered specifically to people their age who do not have enough time to actually play a video game....
Deathloop is great, I got it right around release and played through it over the course of a few weeks.
It doesn’t take brainpower to solve. There’s a whole time loop puzzle but the most disappointing aspect of the game was that it’s a solved solution. The game spells out exactly what objectives to complete at which places and at what times. While you play through the game the first time you’re uncovering twists and clues as to how to solve the puzzle but instead of letting you deduce a solution the games builds out a step by step list of markers for you to follow.
It’s essentially the complete opposite of how The Outer Wilds, which has a similar time loop aspect with a puzzle to solve, handles it.
That being said, give Deathloop a shot because it’s still a fun shooter with neat mechanics that lean very close to immersive sim levels of freedom.
I tend to lean the same way, with a kid and busy job I just don’t have enough time to finish long games. Hearing something like FF16 is not 80 hours makes me happy.
That being said, I also lean toward sandbox games as I get older with no definitive ending. Factory builders, city builders, colony management sims, etc… even though those games can last hundreds or even a thousand+ hours. The difference is sandbox style games typically always allow you to quick save or save anywhere, and I never have to worry about finishing some storyline to feel good about my playtime.
Ever since the language puzzle in Tunic that got me to fill up 6 pocket sized pages of notes over multiple days while trying to puzzle it out as I tried to and, eventually, succeeded at translating the in-game “paper” manual, I’ve had a craving for games that force you to pull out a notebook and take notes/puzzle things...
Maybe not my favorite game but one of the very few games I truly felt required pen and paper were some of the old Might & Magic games - most notably I think of the first 3 games.
Those were first person dungeon crawling RPGs. They didn’t have, what later became termed “automaps”, but what is now just a in-game map. So if you wanted to look at a map you had to either buy real life books they sold called Cluebooks which had maps printed in them or you had to pull out the graphing paper and get to drawing.
It wasn’t just a limitation of the time, the games back then honestly treated it like a feature. I think it was in M&M3 that you could eventually cast the spell “Wizard Eye” and the entire point of the spell was to present to you a minimap of the surrounding area. NPCs and quests didn’t put icons on your map (there was no map), you were given directions and had to figure out how to get there.
Have you ever played a game and wondered what if you could do something that it doesn’t really allow you to do, for example being able to move around blocks in Minecraft fluidly instead of in sectors, edit the world in Hogwarts legacy with spells, be able to fly in a world like Elden Ring or Elder Scrolls with epic sky...
Maybe I’m mistaken because I haven’t played it as much as some people but this is pretty similar to Mount & Blade. I think if the NPC factions simply did more and were more effective at sieging one another it would be that almost exactly.
Similarly, Dwarf Fortress Adventure mode is almost exactly this but it leans deeply into roguelike survival and is still part of the old school ASCII version.
The problem is if you’re just a pawn in a dynamic procedural strategy game against NPCs it seems very easy for the factions to be procedurally put in a situation where one AI absolutely dominates another and the lack of control you would have over the bigger events would become frustrating.
I grew up an avid gamer. But now, among my 50-hour work week, helping my kids with their math homework, grocery shopping, and house chores, I’m no longer able to find enough free time to really dive into a game. I mostly play casual games that I can drop in and out of but forget about the 40hr+ games requiring commitment....
My kid is a toddler, I can’t play games around him, even on my Switch or Steam Deck because he’s too distracting and wants too much attention. My wife and I usually play games for about an hour after he goes to sleep and we finish all the chores (laundry, cooking, dishes, food prep, daycare prep).
Between about 9:00pm and 10:00pm, on weekends if either of us have the time we’ll try to get chores done during the day while he’s awake which would give us maybe one more hour.
That’s it though, probably a third of the time we spend that single hour with some other form of relaxation (TV, book, social media, maybe ½ a movie). Another third of the time we just have other obligations or extra chores - maybe we need to do taxes or buy airplane tickets or book hotels for travel. Then, probably one or two nights a week on average we’re just too tired to do anything past 9pm and go to bed early.
So… all said, maybe 3 hours of gaming a week on average. Every so often my wife or I will take the kiddo out by ourselves and the other will have an extra hour or two for whatever but that’s not every week.
I liked Skyrim and will defend it but Fallout 4 had some inexcusable problems. I still played it and had a lot of fun once the mods rolled in but the base game is a mess in terms of story, dialogue, role-playing, balance, graphics, animations, etc…
The settlement building was pure silly sandbox, there was no reason to engage with it, no benefit it provided, in fact it only introduced extra nuisance if you engaged (in the form of annoying settlement raid alerts). The dialogue options may have as well been nonexistent and all the skill check mechanics were stripped out in favor of the most bog basic charisma checks. The leveling and SPECIAL mechanics ended up meaning every character was exactly the same, there was no build variety past 10 or 12 hours. If you wanted to argue there was it by was only stealth or no stealth, melee or ranged, but the balance between them was fubar.
The game was extraordinarily disappointing as someone who was a huge fan of Fallout since the original, liked 3, and loved New Vegas. FO4 was a step back in every way EXCEPT first-person shooter mechanics which wasn’t even an true aspect of the franchise.
The one thing FO4 has going for it were mods. Like Skyrim before it, FO4 was completely reworked in multiple ways by different mods and that’s what basically saved the game for me.
Same here, though I'm only able to play an hour or two a night (dad checking in) and am only around level 30. I played the beta and the server slam and have tried a few classes. I agree that the camera is too close but I'm constantly impressed by the build variety - Diablo 3 was lacking in that regard and while I lived D2... it obviously wasn't very friendly to experimentation last the early stages.
Starfield's planets aren't all interesting, but they're not all "supposed to be Disney World" (www.vg247.com)
You'll probably find that a lot of planets in Starfield are pretty boring, but Bethesda says that's kind of the point.
Starfield review controversy traces game journalism's orbital decay (www.gamesindustry.biz)
More concerning than Bethesda’s decision to withhold early review codes from certain outlets is how heavily some sites are relying on the game to drive their business.
Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of August 27th
New thread! Whatch’a all playing!...
Is there any reason to have a Switch and a Steamdeck,
I’ve been really wanting to get a steamdeck. I’ve been playing a lot on my modded switch, but there is a lot I want to play that is not available on the switch....
[Question] Switch and Deck users, which games do you still prefer to play on switch?
My question is mostly for games available on Steam that you would still prefer to play on Switch. I imagine performance should be better on the deck for native/proton games, but there might be something else I am missing.
Help, is Anyone able to get the GoG version of Bauldurs Gate 3 running on the deck?
Hello y’all, I’m at my wits end. I got the GoG version of BG3 (cause DRM free yay!), but for the love of me I cannot get it to work. I’ve done so much googling and so many workarounds, I’ve installed .net, I’ve skipped the launcher, I’ve used the alternate .exe, I’ve tried proton experimental and 8 and hotfix, but...
Baldur’s Gate 3 is Causing Some Developers to Panic (youtube.com)
While Baldur's Gate 3 is being widely celebrated by fans and developers alike, some are panicking that this could set new expectations from fans. Good.
Process optimization games?
How do you call these games that let you macro-manage people/creatures/processes and you can watch your engine run?...
Game Introduces Easy Mode Called “I’m 35 and Have One Hour to Play This” (hard-drive.net)
Aging gamers were reportedly delighted to see that a new video game called Eldric Quest has accessibility features catered specifically to people their age who do not have enough time to actually play a video game....
I used to be concerned about a game being too short. Now I worry that it will be too long.
Title mostly describes how I’m feeling now....
What are your favorite video games that force you to pull out the pen and paper?
Ever since the language puzzle in Tunic that got me to fill up 6 pocket sized pages of notes over multiple days while trying to puzzle it out as I tried to and, eventually, succeeded at translating the in-game “paper” manual, I’ve had a craving for games that force you to pull out a notebook and take notes/puzzle things...
What type of game do you want to play that doesn't really exist?
Have you ever played a game and wondered what if you could do something that it doesn’t really allow you to do, for example being able to move around blocks in Minecraft fluidly instead of in sectors, edit the world in Hogwarts legacy with spells, be able to fly in a world like Elden Ring or Elder Scrolls with epic sky...
Working parents, how do you find time to game?
I grew up an avid gamer. But now, among my 50-hour work week, helping my kids with their math homework, grocery shopping, and house chores, I’m no longer able to find enough free time to really dive into a game. I mostly play casual games that I can drop in and out of but forget about the 40hr+ games requiring commitment....
Remember the hype around Fallout 4? (lemmynsfw.com)
Still like the game, even if it did not live up to expectations.
Diablo IV has been disappointing so far
The field-of-view is weird. Seems less isometric and more top-down and too zoomed in....