Financial Year Backlog Challenge Thing

[Quikdrawjoe]

Finished the Rocket League DLC except for the one I didn't buy yet.

[freddie1989]

Well I am finally getting round to doing an update having only played one game since I joined. I finished off Infamous Second Son last night and have to say I really enjoyed it. Not sure how I feel it ranks against the others, I would say I perhaps prefer Cole as a character but good nonetheless!!
 

Games played
Infamous: Second Son
 
Cave-ins
 
DLC

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

So, I finished DOOM yesterday, which meant that I could sell or trade it. I thought to myself, I could keep on getting new games, or I could look at my abandoned pile.

 

Okay, little more backstory. Next to my backlog, I have an "abandoned" pile. This consists of a few games which I obtained, and got rid of again before I played them through. These games are:

PS4

Borderlands Handsome Collection, Witcher 3, Dragon Age Inquisition. Games which I got used (traded) when they were just released. I played them a bit and got distracted by other games, even though I liked these. It was a shame to have them lying around while they were worth so much so I figured I'd trade them on again for something I would actually play, and get them at a later time. Up until two weeks ago, Fallout 4 was part of this list but I traded another game for it so that one's part of my backlog again.

Trackmania Turbo. Played through it, liked it but I didn't get that far into it, it's so difficult... Another trade, trade on. The only reason I'm counting this as abandoned instead of just finished is because I aim to get it back when it has VR.

Watch_Dogs. Got this used very early on (I'm a mathematician working with computers, of course my first trophy had to be "hello world"). I didn't like it though, for that much money it was a disappointment. I brought it back to the store for a full refund and decided I'd give it another go when it was cheap, maybe I'd like it then. Very very cheap.

PS3

LittleBigPlanet 2. Got this used after everybody talked it up, to play with the missus. We both got very annoyed by it very quickly, brought it back to the store for a full refund.

Prince Of Persia Sands/Thrones/Warrior. Got this digitally but a very annoying very obvious bug that was never fixed made sure I could not continue on my savegame in Sands and would have to start anew. I was already annoyed by the game before that and I just tried to get through it but after this I vowed not to touch it again.

 

 

... So, in light of not spending money this year but also finishing what I started, I looked at a few things I knew.

• I love sandbox games, that is to say games with an open environment. I've played all Assassin's Creed games, platinuming several. I've played Witcher 2 and 3, Fallout 3/Vegas/4, Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim, Saints Row 3 and 4, GTA 3/SA/4/5, Just Cause 2 and 3, all Rocksteady Arkhams, Sleeping Dogs... Several of the mentioned franchises would be ranked among my favourite games.
• I am very bad at playing through big sandbox games. Out of the above, I have never finished any Witcher/Bethesda game. Even though they can be quite wonderful, I just get lost without a few explicit directions.
• I have taken Fallout 4 from the abandoned pile and put it in my backlog little over a week ago.
• During the next year, I'm getting at least two new sandbox games: No Man's Sky and Horizon Zero Dawn.
• Skyrim is getting remastered, giving me another chance at playing it.

... Fuck it. My next year is The Year Of The Sandbox (And VR). Bring it on, I'm going to finish them all.

 

Long story short... I traded DOOM for Witcher 3, taking that one off of my abandoned list and into my backlog once more

I already played a few hours in it but I'm going to restart it, I haven't played it for much too long.

 

Game Update

Played some Catalyst again. I just did the first mission when I tried it a few days ago, so I'm now at the hideout, about to talk with Noah.

 

DAMN ME and my Assassin's Creed reflexes! I turned away from the door at first because it looked like a "no memory of this area" wall from AC! Sigh, this is starting at a good note it seems...

 

... So, I played about two hours today and I must say this game is much better than I expected it to be after the mediocre reviews. There's definitely a lot they improved from the last game. I love that it's an open world, yeah you're running the same bits from time to time but that just means it feels more real somehow. It's more like a city and less like a track. Especially because there's actually stuff to do, be it delivering packages or stealing computer chips. The yellow balls are a bit of a bummer since every single other collectable has an in-game explanation but these spheres just 'exist' without any form of justification.

 

I seem to have some problems getting the controls to respond like the game says they should. Whole bit about traversal attacks, using to hit enemies while running past them but whenever I try to do so, Faith just stops in her tracks to hit the guy while being shot at from five different angles. Ugh...

 

Anyways, the game seems like much more fun this time around, I'm anxious to see if they can keep it up for the entire game.

 

 

 

New stats. These are the most recent, SFSG.

 

BILLYHORRIBLE - August 1, 2016

GAMES PLAYED THROUGH:
Ratchet&Clank (played through story)
(obtained and started 2016/8/1, finished story 2016/8/4)
DOOM (continued and finished story)
(obtained 2016/7/1, started 2016/7/1, last played before event 2016/7/9, continued and finished 2016/8/7)
 
ADDITIONAL GAMES PLAYED:
Broken Age (continued on story)
(PS+ October 2015, started 2016/3/23, last played before event 2016/4/4, continued 2016/8/5)
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (post-story freeroam stuff)
(played on X360 on release in 2013, played on PS4 in August 2014, story long since finished, not part of official backlog)
Mirror's Edge Catalyst (started)
(obtained and tried out on 2016/8/5)

3 PURCHASED GAMES:
 
DLC (AUD 20 out of 20 REMAINING):
 
ADDITIONAL CAVE-INS:
 
NON-PLUS GAMES OBTAINED FOR FREE:
traded: game from before event -> Ratchet & Clank -> Mirror's Edge Catalyst

traded: game from before event -> Witcher 3
 
GAMES PRE-ORDERED BEFORE STARTING EVENT:
No Man's Sky
South Park: The Fractured But Whole
Horizon Zero Dawn
 
BACKLOG AT 2016/08/01
PS4 12 games and 19 free games
PS3 10 games and 29 free games
VITA 0 games and 10 free games
SNES 23 games
 
CURRENT BACKLOG:
PS4 12 games and 19 free games   -0
PS3 10 games and 29 free games   -0
VITA 0 games and 10 free games    -0
SNES 23 games                               -0

CURRENT EXPENSES:
$0.00
 
LAST UPDATE:
2016/08/07

 

I don't know yet if I want to add something about my abandoned pile because I feel like I would have to explain the term, but yeah the pile went from 9 to 8 today. This way I'll at least have my starting number written down somewhere if I ever want to do something with it later on.

Edited August 8, 2016 by BillyHorrible

[NetEntity]

Prince Of Persia Sands/Thrones/Warrior. Got this digitally but a very annoying very obvious bug that was never fixed made sure I could not continue on my savegame in Sands and would have to start anew. I was already annoyed by the game before that and I just tried to get through it but after this I vowed not to touch it again.

 

Hm. I haven't encountered a single bug in my two playthroughs of SoT. I may sound biased, but the Sands is the easiest and quickest game in the series. It took me two days to run through it, and the full playthrough took less than the 7 hours combined... it's not that much of a hassle to start over.

I can see that the Sands Trilogy may seem annoying and aged to those who aren't familliar with the series, but in my opinion, you're missing out.

Edited August 8, 2016 by NetEntity

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

Hm. I can see that the Sands Trilogy may seem annoying to those who aren't familliar with the series. I haven't encountered a single bug in my two playthroughs of SoT. I may sound biased, but the Sands is the easiest and quickest game in the series. It took me two days to run through it, and the full playthrough took less than the 7 hours combined... it's not that much of a hassle to start over.

I am familiar with Prince Of Persia in general... Played through the other two trophy-included titles, twice. Liked them enough to try the older ones...

 

This is the bug I encountered, linked the first thread I found but there's many people having problems with this. If you exit the game or die at a certain point, Farah keeps standing on her pressure plate but it does not do anything any more. What makes matters worse is that it apparently is not only in the PS3 version, they just lazily ported a bug they never fixed.

http://forum.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?155183-need-help-with-a-glitch-in-Prince-of-Persia-Sands-of-Time

 

I'm not saying it was a tough game but I wasn't enjoying it that much. It really is a hassle to start something over if you already didn't like the game to begin with, before you encountered a bug that made you force to start all over again. I've got many games in my backlog which are much more enjoyable, I'd rather ignore Sands and play other stuff.

[xFalionx]

So, I finished DOOM yesterday, which meant that I could sell or trade it. I thought to myself, I could keep on getting new games, or I could look at my abandoned pile.

 

Okay, little more backstory. Next to my backlog, I have an "abandoned" pile. This consists of a few games which I obtained, and got rid of again before I played them through. These games are:

^ contents^

 

DAMN ME and my Assassin's Creed reflexes! I turned away from the door at first because it looked like a "no memory of this area" wall from AC! Sigh, this is starting at a good note it seems...

 

... So, I played about two hours today and I must say this game is much better than I expected it to be after the mediocre reviews. There's definitely a lot they improved from the last game. I love that it's an open world, yeah you're running the same bits from time to time but that just means it feels more real somehow. It's more like a city and less like a track. Especially because there's actually stuff to do, be it delivering packages or stealing computer chips. The yellow balls are a bit of a bummer since every single other collectable has an in-game explanation but these spheres just 'exist' without any form of justification.

 

I think my best friend would never talk to me again if I were to abandon the Witcher 3 once I get to play that game. When he got that game he literally did nothing else for a week than playing that game.

Also, strange with the PoP glitch, but that's the bane of old AAA games. Before there were patches old games that were rushed by publishers stayed broken and I guess you could call that a faithful port if it even includes the bugs.

Anyways, I don't know which one it was but I have great childhood memories of one of the first games in the series. Got that for free on the PC in some PC game magazine and loved it.

I think in the end there was a scene where you gotta escape from the Dahaka, if that rings any bells to anyone.

Edit: I think it was The Warrior Within, no clue which part of the series that is, though.

 

I could see that thing with the walls happening to me. It's so annoying when you just wanna climb top of something that you see in the distance before being cockblocked by one of those memory walls, but they are a great mechanic to guide you in an open world environment. But I'm only half way through Brotherhood right now, so there's lots of that coming for me once I get another parcour craving.

 

Wow, I actually believed that the new Mirrors Edge was gonna be the same style of "follow the story while running this predetermined course" gameplay. Now I want it even more. :/

 

 

And I'll post my next detailed update once I stop being so incredibly lazy, in case anyone is wondering why I'm so quiet in terms of updates.

Edited August 8, 2016 by xFalionx

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

I think my best friend would never talk to me again if I were to abandon the Witcher 3 once I get to play that game. When he got that game he literally did nothing else for a week than playing that game.

Also, strange with the PoP glitch, but that's the bane of old AAA games. Before there were patches old games that were rushed by publishers stayed broken and I guess you could call that a faithful port if it even includes the bugs.

Anyways, I don't know which one it was but I have great childhood memories of one of the first games in the series. Got that for free on the PC in some PC game magazine and loved it.

I think in the end there was a scene where you gotta escape from the Dahaka, if that rings any bells to anyone.

Edit: I think it was The Warrior Within, no clue which part of the series that is, though.

 

I could see that thing with the walls happening to me. It's so annoying when you just wanna climb top of something that you see in the distance before being cockblocked by one of those memory walls, but they are a great mechanic to guide you in an open world environment. But I'm only half way through Brotherhood right now, so there's lots of that coming for me once I get another parcour craving.

 

Wow, I actually believed that the new Mirrors Edge was gonna be the same style of "follow the story while running this predetermined course" gameplay. Now I want it even more. :/

 

Well i definitely liked The Witcher, I'll probably love it once I play through it. It doesn't keep a high used price after so long for no reason, you can get AC Unity and Syndicate here for only €5 more...

 

Yeah I think the memory barrier is a good mechanic, it was weird at first but after a few games I''m used to it. It's just now that EA is being an ass and using a similar texture for something I actually had to walk into...

 

Yeah the new Mirror's Edge is open world. I already like it a lot better than the first one, it looks really nice and feels more natural. I might even not get rid of this title that quickly and just keep doing the open world stuff for a while... But first: No Man's Sky. It comes out tomorrow for me but I do hope that the publishers give the go ahead later today to just sell the game over here, once the stores in the USA open and they can get it as well... They do that kind of thing on occasion. I got AC Black Flag four or five days early!

 

And no, this is not the store breaking contract. They've been very clear on always waiting for the official go-ahead, I always pre-order from the same store and have had to wait for the actual release date a few times as well.

Edited August 9, 2016 by BillyHorrible

[helicene]

I... still need to get back into the Witcher 3. >_>

I played it for like 3 hours at launch, and struggled to get into it. Watched my sister play it for a dozen hours or so too. Geralt controlled like a dump truck on ice, and I found the combat incredibly boring and clunky. And I get it, the Witcher lore, but the pirouette thing was tiresome after like the fifth time. I really, really don't like either Yen or Triss (I'd much rather bone Shani or Roche or Ciri or Iorveth or...) so I have no interest whatsoever in that relationship drama. I didn't like Gwent at all, and I was irritated that I'm probably going to have to invest quite a bit of time in it to get the platinum. First game I regretted buying a season pass for at launch. Still, I own it now and I hear they've tweaked the controls a bit, and maybe if I bump the difficulty from broken bones to death march it'll be less boring. The exploration and monsters at least were pretty amazing, and I love that a lot of Slavic myths and legends are included.

Maybe after I sink several dozen hours into No Man's Sky (it shipped! Yay!) I'll load up TW3 again. I do want to like it, I'm itching for another open world RPG experience and I admit I didn't give it a fair chance.

Oh. And Fail:

I did cave in and buy The Fall. It was 90% off and I had credit in my account and next thing I knew 90 cents were gone. :T

[xFalionx]

I... still need to get back into the Witcher 3. >_>

I played it for like 3 hours at launch, and struggled to get into it. Watched my sister play it for a dozen hours or so too. Geralt controlled like a dump truck on ice, and I found the combat incredibly boring and clunky. And I get it, the Witcher lore, but the pirouette thing was tiresome after like the fifth time. I really, really don't like either Yen or Triss (I'd much rather bone Shani or Roche or Ciri or Iorveth or...) so I have no interest whatsoever in that relationship drama. I didn't like Gwent at all, and I was irritated that I'm probably going to have to invest quite a bit of time in it to get the platinum. First game I regretted buying a season pass for at launch. Still, I own it now and I hear they've tweaked the controls a bit, and maybe if I bump the difficulty from broken bones to death march it'll be less boring. The exploration and monsters at least were pretty amazing, and I love that a lot of Slavic myths and legends are included.

Maybe after I sink several dozen hours into No Man's Sky (it shipped! Yay!) I'll load up TW3 again. I do want to like it, I'm itching for another open world RPG experience and I admit I didn't give it a fair chance.

Oh. And Fail:

I did cave in and buy The Fall. It was 90% off and I had credit in my account and next thing I knew 90 cents were gone. :T

Since the friend I mentioned was talking about Ciri all day (at least enough to make someone without any kind of Witcher experience remember the name ), she'll probably get the Geralt treatment somewhere along the game. You might also like Gwent more once you get some more cards, those collectible card kind of games tend to be pretty boring with standard cards. It can't be bad, at least, since that same friend spent his second week of Witcher craze pretty much only playing gwent and he even wanted to buy me the tabletop simulator on Steam so we could play it together. (Well, that and Cards against Humanity, that is.)

As for the battle system, the only time I tried it was in the Witcher 2, which sadly didn't run very well at all on my PC, so I had chunky 15-20 FPS. That's why I only played for an hour or 2 but in that hour I must say that I found the battle system to be extremely confusing. I don't know if they changed it up a bit but having to cast different spells to different enemies, while those were relatively inaccessible for something you had to use all the time made it really frustrating and I think it took me like 20 minutes to beat the tutorial fight... But I do like games that feature mythology of different cultures. (Gotta try out the God of War series some time in the future)

 

I think I might be the only one but I don't really get all of the No Man's Sky hype. I mean yeah, it's a procedurally generated universe with a focus on exploration but I think that's gonna get boring pretty quickly. Despite the feat of generating a universe and keeping it up online so people can actually meet, which will probably not happen too often given the size of a universe, I don't think it has long lasting gameplay since once you've explored lots of the planets they are all gonna feel kind of similar.

But it might just be my inability to play the game since I'm one of the old generation cavemen around here who don't own a PS4 yet. But then again, I think it's horribly overpriced for the gameplay you get.

 

Don't worry about those 90 cents, just add them to the DLC pool and you'll be fine. At least as long as you don't start getting as many deals as SFSG, who will most likely be running into allowance problems towards the end of the year.

Edited August 9, 2016 by xFalionx

[Edunstar84]

I... still need to get back into the Witcher 3. >_>

I played it for like 3 hours at launch, and struggled to get into it. Watched my sister play it for a dozen hours or so too. Geralt controlled like a dump truck on ice, and I found the combat incredibly boring and clunky. And I get it, the Witcher lore, but the pirouette thing was tiresome after like the fifth time. I really, really don't like either Yen or Triss (I'd much rather bone Shani or Roche or Ciri or Iorveth or...) so I have no interest whatsoever in that relationship drama. I didn't like Gwent at all, and I was irritated that I'm probably going to have to invest quite a bit of time in it to get the platinum. First game I regretted buying a season pass for at launch. Still, I own it now and I hear they've tweaked the controls a bit, and maybe if I bump the difficulty from broken bones to death march it'll be less boring. The exploration and monsters at least were pretty amazing, and I love that a lot of Slavic myths and legends are included.

Maybe after I sink several dozen hours into No Man's Sky (it shipped! Yay!) I'll load up TW3 again. I do want to like it, I'm itching for another open world RPG experience and I admit I didn't give it a fair chance.

Oh. And Fail:

I did cave in and buy The Fall. It was 90% off and I had credit in my account and next thing I knew 90 cents were gone. :T

 

 

Since the friend I mentioned was talking about Ciri all day (at least enough to make someone without any kind of Witcher experience remember the name ), she'll probably get the Geralt treatment somewhere along the game. You might also like Gwent more once you get some more cards, those collectible card kind of games tend to be pretty boring with standard cards. It can't be bad, at least, since that same friend spent his second week of Witcher craze pretty much only playing gwent and he even wanted to buy me the tabletop simulator on Steam so we could play it together. (Well, that and Cards against Humanity, that is.)

As for the battle system, the only time I tried it was in the Witcher 2, which sadly didn't run very well at all on my PC, so I had chunky 15-20 FPS. That's why I only played for an hour or 2 but in that hour I must say that I found the battle system to be extremely confusing. I don't know if they changed it up a bit but having to cast different spells to different enemies, while those were relatively inaccessible for something you had to use all the time made it really frustrating and I think it took me like 20 minutes to beat the tutorial fight... But I do like games that feature mythology of different cultures. (Gotta try out the God of War series some time in the future)

 

I think I might be the only one but I don't really get all of the No Man's Sky hype. I mean yeah, it's a procedurally generated universe with a focus on exploration but I think that's gonna get boring pretty quickly. Despite the feat of generating a universe and keeping it up online so people can actually meet, which will probably not happen too often given the size of a universe, I don't think it has long lasting gameplay since once you've explored lots of the planets they are all gonna feel kind of similar.

But it might just be my inability to play the game since I'm one of the old generation cavemen around here who don't own a PS4 yet. But then again, I think it's horribly overpriced for the gameplay you get.

 

Don't worry about those 90 cents, just add them to the DLC pool and you'll be fine. At least as long as you don't start getting as many deals as SFSG, who will most likely be running into allowance problems towards the end of the year.

I would really be surprised about Geralt and Ciri. Haven't played the game, but I read most of the books. She goes on her own adventure and doesn't seem to have much contact with Geralt. 

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

Since the friend I mentioned was talking about Ciri all day (at least enough to make someone without any kind of Witcher experience remember the name ), she'll probably get the Geralt treatment somewhere along the game. You might also like Gwent more once you get some more cards, those collectible card kind of games tend to be pretty boring with standard cards. It can't be bad, at least, since that same friend spent his second week of Witcher craze pretty much only playing gwent and he even wanted to buy me the tabletop simulator on Steam so we could play it together. (Well, that and Cards against Humanity, that is.)

[...]

 

I think I might be the only one but I don't really get all of the No Man's Sky hype. I mean yeah, it's a procedurally generated universe with a focus on exploration but I think that's gonna get boring pretty quickly. Despite the feat of generating a universe and keeping it up online so people can actually meet, which will probably not happen too often given the size of a universe, I don't think it has long lasting gameplay since once you've explored lots of the planets they are all gonna feel kind of similar.

But it might just be my inability to play the game since I'm one of the old generation cavemen around here who don't own a PS4 yet. But then again, I think it's horribly overpriced for the gameplay you get.

 

Isn't Ciri a bit young for Geralt? I played a few hours and I'm getting more of a father-daughter vibe, older brother even perhaps but nothing romantic.

 

I liked Gwent for how little I played, it's got a good set of rules. Might get a real set some time in the future.

 

No Man's Sky: just open any thread on here and you'll see there's lots of people who aren't hyped for it (and in fact have jumped on the "hate the hyped game" bandwagon). The developers even say it's a weird niche game. The point is just to chill and be in awe, which I intend to do. Don't know if I'll last far past 20-30 hours but that's much more than games usually last with me anyway. I have actually gotten tomorrow and the day after off of work, going to dive right into the game. After those two days I may have had my fill and return to other games, perhaps playing an hour of this every day first, whatever. I'll see what happens. It helps that I'm a fan of outlandish sci-fi and of exploration, No Man's Sky has my name written all over it, it's the ultimate exploration game with a big dose of "sit back, relax and enjoy the pretty pictures".

Edited August 9, 2016 by BillyHorrible

[xFalionx]

I would really be surprised about Geralt and Ciri. Haven't played the game, but I read most of the books. She goes on her own adventure and doesn't seem to have much contact with Geralt.

Isn't Ciri a bit young for Geralt? I played a few hours and I'm getting more of a father-daughter vibe, older brother even perhaps but nothing romantic.

 

I liked Gwent for how little I played, it's got a good set of rules. Might get a real set some time in the future.

 

No Man's Sky: just open any thread on here and you'll see there's lots of people who aren't hyped for it (and in fact have jumped on the "hate the hyped game" bandwagon). The developers even say it's a weird niche game. The point is just to chill and be in awe, which I intend to do. Don't know if I'll last far past 20-30 hours but that's much more than games usually last with me anyway. I have actually gotten tomorrow and the day after off of work, going to dive right into the game. After those two days I may have had my fill and return to other games, perhaps playing an hour of this every day first, whatever. I'll see what happens. It helps that I'm a fan of outlandish sci-fi and of exploration, No Man's Sky has my name written all over it, it's the ultimate exploration game with a big dose of "sit back, relax and enjoy the pretty pictures".

 

Well, I'm only telling from the little bits I could decipher of his fanboy chattering and basically Ciri and Triss are the only 2 names that stuck with me (already knew Geralt. ), so at least she should get some screen time.

Like I said, got no experience there, just an hour or 2 of Witcher 2 and a few weeks of someone who really liked the game telling me things about it that I mostly forgot by now. 

 

I'm far from hating No Man's Sky and I can't really understand why anyone would hate the game. My main gripe is the price. There are lots of better exploration based games, that already feature even better gameplay at lower prices. Take Starbound as an example for a really great exploration game with outlandish planets and lots of stuff to explore while still following a storyline. If the game was available for 10€ it might also be on my list of games I'd like to play when I get a PS4 but at a steep price 60€ there are way more and better sources of enjoyment available. That's why I'm surprised around 95% of the internet is hyped beyond reason about it.

Edited August 9, 2016 by xFalionx

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

I'm far from hating No Man's Sky and I can't really understand why anyone would hate the game. My main gripe is the price. There are lots of better exploration based games, that already feature even better gameplay at lower prices. Take Starbound as an example for a really great exploration game with outlandish planets and lots of stuff to explore while still following a storyline. If the game was available for 10€ it might also be on my list of games I'd like to play when I get a PS4 but at a steep price 60€ there are way more and better sources of enjoyment available. That's why I'm surprised around 95% of the internet is hyped beyond reason about it.

 

Much of the hate just seems to be people not liking that other people like No Man's Sky though. That has gotten only worse after the price reveal because how dare a smalltime developer ask for a price that's still less than the €65 we give out to most AAA games these days. In my eyes, they very well deserve this price. I pre-ordered the €80 Limited Edition, I figured at the start that if I can hand over €100 to Ubisoft every year for another Assassin's Creed game with statuette, then I can definitely give these developers some as well.

 

It's a full game, it deserves a full price. If my expectations are correct then I'll play this game more than I've played perhaps any game at all. It can be seen as too expensive if you're just not that into the game and/or if you wait for all games you want to drop in price, but the most commonly used argument ("indie games should be cheap") is absurd.

Edited August 9, 2016 by BillyHorrible

[xFalionx]

Much of the hate just seems to be people not liking that other people like No Man's Sky though. That has gotten only worse after the price reveal because how dare a smalltime developer ask for a price that's still less than the €65 we give out to most AAA games these days. In my eyes, they very well deserve this price. I pre-ordered the €80 Limited Edition, I figured at the start that if I can hand over €100 to Ubisoft every year for another Assassin's Creed game with statuette, then I can definitely give these developers some as well.

 

It's a full game, it deserves a full price. If my expectations are correct then I'll play this game more than I've played perhaps any game at all.

 

I think my opinion on the matter is just pretty influenced by my philosophy of comparing the price of a game with the amount of time I'll be spending in it and some other various things like story, gameplay, setting and in the end it just doesn't feel worth it. But when you rarely have access to money, and when you do it's not a large amount, I think that this philosophy makes a lot of sense.

Another influence is that I don't really give any consideration to the team behind the game. If an Indie game would give me the same amount of content a AAA game would give me, I'd be happy to pay the same price for it. Now, the thing is that most AAA games are worse than Indie games nowadays, meaning that you already have better games than those 60-80€ games for the standard Indie price of 10-20€, which means that I could get three times as much enjoyment out of the same amount of money if I were to buy those instead. Bumping NMS, which surely could use the higher price because of server costs and so on, up to 60€ despite its content being rather lackluster for a good Indie game just makes it instantly go to my pile of ignored games that I might get in 10 years when they cost as much as they are worth. Its a sad thing, really but it's just how I work and when I have the thought of that in the back of my head, that I could have gotten more out of that money it just ruins the experience.

 

You could say that I turned into the poor version of Scrooge McDuck.

 

But like I said I really don't understand why you'd hate it. I mean OK, since the game is out my Youtube subbox is exploding with content I don't care about and the internet is spewing that stuff at me like I was swimming under the Niagara falls but that's not the fault of the developers or the game itself. And then there's the price, which will inevitably go down once a few years pass and the hype dies down.

Edited August 9, 2016 by xFalionx

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

I think my opinion on the matter is just pretty influenced by my philosophy of comparing the price of a game with the amount of time I'll be spending in it and some other various things like story, gameplay, setting and in the end it just doesn't feel worth it. But when you rarely have access to money, and when you do it's not a large amount, I think that this philosophy makes a lot of sense.

Another influence is that I don't really give any consideration to the team behind the game. If an Indie game would give me the same amount of content a AAA game would give me, I'd be happy to pay the same price for it. Now, the thing is that most AAA games are worse than Indie games nowadays, meaning that you already have better games than those 60-80€ games for the standard Indie price of 10-20€, which means that I could get three times as much enjoyment out of the same amount of money if I were to buy those instead. Bumping NMS, which surely could use the higher price because of server costs and so on, up to 60€ despite its content being rather lackluster for a good Indie game just makes it instantly go to my pile of ignored games that I might get in 10 years when they cost as much as they are worth. Its a sad thing, really but it's just how I work and when I have the thought of that in the back of my head, that I could have gotten more out of that money it just ruins the experience.

 

You could say that I turned into the poor version of Scrootch McDuck.

 

But like I said I really don't understand why you'd hate it. I mean OK, since the game is out my Youtube subbox is exploding with content I don't care about and the internet is spewing that stuff at me like I was swimming under the Niagara falls but that's not the fault of the developers or the game itself. And then there's the price, which will inevitably go down once a few years pass and the hype dies down.

 

I double-checked if there is a "Scrootch McDuck" but I'm now comfortably sure that you mean Scrooge

 

I added to my previous post, probably after you already started typing, because there are legitimate reasons (some of which you mention) to not like a game's price.

 

I do think that we can't bash it on content though. Yes, there's little story but the content is huge, all those unexplored planets... That is something that you have to "get" of course, it's not your average sandbox with main missions and side missions.

[xFalionx]

I double-checked if there is a "Scrootch McDuck" but I'm now comfortably sure that you mean Scrooge

 

I added to my previous post, probably after you already started typing, because there are legitimate reasons (some of which you mention) to not like a game's price.

 

I do think that we can't bash it on content though. Yes, there's little story but the content is huge, all those unexplored planets... That is something that you have to "get" of course, it's not your average sandbox with main missions and side missions.

Oh wow, yeah I mesed that one up. He's called "Dagobert Duck" in the German version of Ducktales, which I've watched to death when I was younger, so I've only heard it a few times in English.

 

Yep, that update wasn't there when I started typing. Logically I'm all for setting the price for a game to what it's worth, I just think this particular example might have overdone it a little. For example 40€ would already be a lot more reasonable if you ask me.

 

I didn't word myself correctly there. What I was trying to say, as before, is that with the type of content it's gonna get boring relatively fast without regular content and gameplay updates (which made games like Minecraft last for so long). That's the main problem with procedurally generated sandboxes, they get old pretty fast, which is why they commonly only cost around 10€. But I'm not 100% familiar with all activities that you can do in NMS so there might be some more meat to this space exploration game than I have in mind.

Edited August 9, 2016 by xFalionx

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

Oh wow, yeah I mesed that one up. He's called "Dagobert Duck" in the German version of Ducktales, which I've watched to death when I was younger, so I've only heard it a few times in English.

 

Yep, that update wasn't there when I started typing. Logically I'm all for setting the price for a game to what it's worth, I just think this particular example might have overdone it a little. For example 40€ would already be a lot more reasonable if you ask me.

 

I didn't word myself correctly there. What I was trying to say, as before, is that with the type of content it's gonna get boring relatively fast without regular content and gameplay updates (which made games like Minecraft last for so long). That's the main problem with procedurally generated sandboxes, they get old pretty fast, which is why they commonly only cost around 10€. But I'm not 100% familiar with all activities that you can do in NMS so there might be some more meat to this space exploration game than I have in mind.

He's Dagobert Duck in Dutch as well but I've got loads of English Scrooge comics here, all by my favourite Disney artist Keno Don Rosa.

Most procedurally generated games are not this big (in fact, none of them are). The size and possibilities combined with the graphics make this game worth €60 in my eyes, and yes I balked at the prices of The Talos Principle and The Witness.

Regular updates are planned and should be free, at least mostly. Because the planets are all generated already, the updates will be about ships and possible activities. Planned future updates mentioned in today's news item are freighters and building your own base. There are whispers of a possible VR update. And so much they haven't told us yet...

[Evil_Joker88]

Stuff about No Man's Sky

 

 

Response to No Man's Sky

 

To sum up i too don't understand the hype about NMS... but i don't like Walking Simulators at all... i played Dear Esther once (read that's ported to current gen ) and thought never again... the worse case scenario was Proteus some weeks ago ... Dear Esther was at least a game with good graphics to my eyes ... but both games have nothing else to offer than looking at the gras

 

And also taking the estimated time playing a game into consideration for how much money i want to invest i do too

If i can buy a 100+ hours game like Skyrim Legendary Edition (PC) for 16€ i enjoy it far more than only a Assassin's Creed with 40 hours

Even more than a Call of Duty with a 6 hours campaign ... (i don't like mp modes or even mp games )

[xFalionx]

To sum up i too don't understand the hype about NMS... but i don't like Walking Simulators at all... i played Dear Esther once (read that's ported to current gen ) and thought never again... the worse case scenario was Proteus some weeks ago ... Dear Esther was at least a game with good graphics to my eyes ... but both games have nothing else to offer than looking at the gras

 

And also taking the estimated time playing a game into consideration for how much money i want to invest i do too

If i can buy a 100+ hours game like Skyrim Legendary Edition (PC) for 16€ i enjoy it far more than only a Assassin's Creed with 40 hours

Even more than a Call of Duty with a 6 hours campaign ... (i don't like mp modes or even mp games )

 

Oh, NMS does have lots of stuff to do but given that the world is so large you're probably gonna start seeing things which are pretty similar more often, making the exploration part a little dull. This might still take longer than your usual AAA game, though. Depending on how much you like the gameplay you could easily be spending 30-40 hours in the game before it starts to feel repetitive.

And there are interesting gameplay elements like actually having an impact on the environment, meaning if you mine too much or hunt too many creatures you may actually change the ecosystem of the planet you are messing with. There's also combat and other stuff but I'm not that well informed.

Like I stated somewhere around 6 times by now: NMS has lots of engaging gameplay but it's really likely to get dull before you end up getting your 60€ of gameplay and would leave people like me with bad afterthoughts.

 

When it comes to that value balance I'd still say there's exceptions. Skyrim on one hand shouldn't be the standard to compare games to as it's really one of the most exceptional games of the last few years on a value standpoint while others like the CoD games or other online games really shouldn't be rated on the single player story mode alone since that's simply not what the game was made for, regardless of wether you like the MP or not. 

My most standard state of evaluation would rate a game as OK when I pay 1€ per hour of fun. Compared to a movie that's still really cheap since you get about 2 hours for you 7-11€. Then from there out, if it's 2€ per hour it might still be worth more than checking out a movie but it already feels like a bad deal, which is my grime with No Man's Sky. But then there's also the great games clocking in at 1€ per 2 or more hours like my nice AC heritage collection. 20€ for 5 games with roughly 30 hours each. That's with about 1€ per 8 hours an astonishing deal. Almost as good as Skyrim. And since lots of Indie games have such low prices it's easy to for them to fall into the letter category. 

Then there's also the fact that most Indie devs don't need 60€ per customer to cover their expanses. Others like the team who developed NMS might need a higher price to actually host servers for their universe to be playable like an MMO, then there's also the high graphics and the high number of employees compared to your usual 1 or 2 man Indie developer. So I can get the price but still, the lingering feeling of wasting the ability to get something better with that money kills the fun, or limits it to say the least.

 

That payment dilemma is also one of the biggest problems with the AAA industry. They herd their workers like cattle, paying them low and overworking them to get those games out frequently enough to cover their expanses. Nowadays producing a high quality game that caters to the standards of the modern gamer is a lot more expansive than it used to be, that's one of the reasons we're bombarded with annoying DLC instead of the free content updates, which they should have been. Without that money most of those big companies would have had to file bankruptcy by now since it's just that bad. On the other hand, Indie developers are thriving right now since the graphics, which turn out to be the most important development cost don't matter as much when the main selling point of your game is a good story, innovative gameplay or a unique but simple artstyle. So while I hate the high prices of those AAA games and the fact that the companies hammer out 1 game after the other without improving much at all, and the obnoxious amounts of DLC that should have been content of the game as a whole product int he first place, I kinda feel bad for them. Maybe this whole price ordeal will get better once developing games becomes cheaper again through advances in technology like the ability to can an object in the real world and make it into a game object to bypass modeling and texturing work and other things.

 

 

Well, that was a lot of text and I won't be mad if people were to skip this wall of text, so my basic point is that you shouldn't mistake games for less than they actually are and cut those AAA developers some slack because somehow my monologue went there.

 

Most procedurally generated games are not this big (in fact, none of them are). The size and possibilities combined with the graphics make this game worth €60 in my eyes, and yes I balked at the prices of The Talos Principle and The Witness.

Regular updates are planned and should be free, at least mostly. Because the planets are all generated already, the updates will be about ships and possible activities. Planned future updates mentioned in today's news item are freighters and building your own base. There are whispers of a possible VR update. And so much they haven't told us yet...

 

Well, actually in terms of scale, they are indeed as big. Take something like Minecraft as an example, simply because it fits this situation and everyone should get what I'm talking about here.

To explore a world in Minecraft and discover every bit of terrain there is to discover in all 3 dimensions it might probably even take longer than to explore the 18 quintillion planets there are since there's an incredible amount of terrain that generates before the algorithm stops and you travel around a lot slower than in NMS where you are sitting in your space ship and making that huge universe in scale maybe as big as a whole Minecraft world. Actually the only procedurally generated game that would come to mind, which has significantly smaller world than NMS is Terraria, which will still easily keep you busy from 100 hours to somewhere around 500 hours (my current playtime in Terraria on steam alone (and I played that game long before it was out in steam) is 524 hours and the game still does not feel boring to me and I intend to plat it on my vita as well as play some more on the PC as new updates are released).

So overall while it sounds really big, if you set the scale to a comparable level it's actually just your average procedurally generated sand box exploration game when it comes to size. What sets it appart from other games like it is probably mostly the online aspect, event hough you won't be finding that many people but that in combination with actually having an effect on the environment and in the feeling that another player can and might see what you did with that planet gives it a lot of character.

 

It's great to hear that there are still developers who release free content updates and I can see the housing aspect work really well but only if they implement some kind of teleportation device allowing you to revisit your home without hindering the exploration part of the game. Depending on the quality of that base building system it might be a really nice feature.

Edited August 9, 2016 by xFalionx

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

Yeah I'm not going to post an update nor am I replying to everything, playing No Man's Sky is too damn much fun.

The planets are HUGE and for now very diverse, I've just seen one solar system without much repetition. Five very different biomes.

... so, bye, I'll probably post something before the weekend.

[xFalionx]

Yeah I'm not going to post an update nor am I replying to everything, playing No Man's Sky is too damn much fun.

The planets are HUGE and for now very diverse, I've just seen one solar system without much repetition. Five very different biomes.

... so, bye, I'll probably post something before the weekend.

Have fun with that.

 

And yeah, I was talking more on a level of having seen multiple dozens of solar systems before you start seeing things that seem familiar.

Edited August 9, 2016 by xFalionx

[Evil_Joker88]

When it comes to that value balance I'd still say there's exceptions. Skyrim on one hand shouldn't be the standard to compare games to as it's really one of the most exceptional games of the last few years on a value standpoint while others like the CoD games or other online games really shouldn't be rated on the single player story mode alone since that's simply not what the game was made for, regardless of wether you like the MP or not. My most standard state of evaluation would rate a game as OK when I pay 1€ per hour of fun. Compared to a movie that's still really cheap since you get about 2 hours for you 7-11€. Then from there out, if it's 2€ per hour it might still be worth more than checking out a movie but it already feels like a bad deal, which is my grime with No Man's Sky. But then there's also the great games clocking in at 1€ per 2 or more hours like my nice AC heritage collection. 20€ for 5 games with roughly 30 hours each. That's with about 1€ per 8 hours an astonishing deal. Almost as good as Skyrim. And since lots of Indie games have such low prices it's easy to for them to fall into the letter category.

 

Well i do make that comparison despite your saying   And that's why i hardly buy many Shooters and never bought a COD before

Oh and yes, Skyrim is still my nr. 1 RPG so far... i never played in PS3 and i think i wont due to the saying of technical errors occuring... but seeing a PS4 remaster?? :wub:

 

And that explanation of time spent refering to the cost sounds good .... never had such a detailed plan but my main aim is to spent less money... never thought of buying a game for day 1 price or even pre-ordering

 

But back to topic i spent some money again

 

I started yesterday with Playstation All-Stars Battle Royal and knew that there's one and i'd be only matter of time when i buy this... it's already happened   

 

So there goes another 1,99€... in comparison to my Bioshock purchase this is crazy... 1 Min playing compared to dozens of hours in Bioshock

[AARCT1C]

Backlog game #6 - The LEGO Movie (PS Vita).

[xFalionx]

I'm still pretty interested in what they did to the story to remove all those planets... Well, I'm gonna see in like 4 years or something when the next big Sony console is out and the PS4 becomes affordable. Or maybe I'm gonna watch the movie, who knows.

 

Well, since KissCartoon decided to upload the movie yesterday, I went ahead and watched it. Turns out it's nothing like the first game at all. I'm pretty sure it's not that much like the reimagining either, otherwise I'd be surprised that there's still planets to explore. I think the only things that are vaguely similar to the original are the beginning and end of the movie but that's still by a stretch.

If Insomniac went ahead and based the game on the movie, and I'm pretty sure that's what they did, they could have literally left any planet out of the storyline since they just didn't matter there. 

 

They were also pretty lazy in terms of the scenery as the majority of the movie takes place in spaceships or bases that look like spaceships from the inside instead of showing the beautiful landscapes of the different planets that were in the game.

And while they made the established characters feel out of character at times, I guess if you aren't familiar with R&C this movie might be pretty fun but this kinda disappointed me even with the mediocre expectations I had after reading some of the reviews. :/

There were some other things that didn't make any sense in the movie (like species from a different galaxy being present in large numbers in the galaxy that the movie takes place in) but for people who already love R&C there's some references thrown into the mix as well as the never before seen backstory to one of my favorite villains of all time.

 

I've also got no idea how they would make a second movie, or a reimagining of the second game since they changed something that would kind of prevent the second game from happening...

 

 

Well i do make that comparison despite your saying   And that's why i hardly buy many Shooters and never bought a COD before

Oh and yes, Skyrim is still my nr. 1 RPG so far... i never played in PS3 and i think i wont due to the saying of technical errors occuring... but seeing a PS4 remaster?? :wub:

 

And that explanation of time spent refering to the cost sounds good .... never had such a detailed plan but my main aim is to spent less money... never thought of buying a game for day 1 price or even pre-ordering

 

I'm the same way, I'm not really into shooters and the only 2 CoD games I have around ,besides the one I got when I was an edgy 13 year old, came with my used PS3.

But then again, the MP of CoD Ghosts turned out to be a lot more fun than the previous experiences I had with CoD games. Probably mostly because it's older and people didn't like it as much for some reason so there's almost no little kids terrorizing your ears.

 

Yeah Skyrim is probably the game I played the second longest with ~320 hours, right before that would be Terraria with 524 hours. I'm not into the remaster, though. I think they should have rather focused on a new elder scrolls game since the original Skyrim is still very playable and almost up to modern standards besides graphics. What would have needed a remaster by now are Oblivion and, even more urgently, Morrowind. Those are still great games, in some aspects even better than Skyrim and they are just old and ugly to look at if you don't mod them.

 

Yeah, I usually also figure in things like the quality of the story and other factors. Some games might be so good and so much fun that they are just worth their 2€ or 3€ per hour, while others might not really be worth their 1€ per 2 or 3 hours.

And when I like a game a lot, like really really much, I'll get it as soon as I have the money, even though I'm sure the price will drop in the future.

Edited August 10, 2016 by xFalionx

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

Okay, I have a wee bit of time to write a few things before I can get back to the game.

If you're comparing No Man's Sky to Minecraft in terns of how large it is then I'm sorry but you really have mistaken the scale of No Man's Sky. I have close to twenty hours in the game now and I've only been on seven planets.The planets themselves are huge and it takes long to discover even when using your starship, when I moved on to my second star system I wasn't even close to seeing everything on the planets of my first system. There's so much to discover even on a single planet... be it monoliths and ruins or trading posts or experimentation labs or wildlife or crashed ships and so on and so on...

The seven biomes that I have found are all very diverse. Even the two barren planets are nothing alike. I've seen snow, toxic rain, radiation, sunset lakes, forests... and I haven't even seen the stuff they talked about like thunder or extreme weather. Maybe it will get repetitive after two dozen planets or so but it will take damn long to get to two dozen planets...

Say what you want but I'm enjoying myself immensely. I see why some people can't stand it though. There's very little to actually "do" except for getting resources and exploring planets/flora/fauna/lore. If you're up for something like that though then you will have a great experience with a very relaxing game that makes you look in wonder so many times...

I'll see if I can get some pictures uploaded somewhere somehow without an account.