I see. So it’s like “Ask a friend” of anything. It’s a useful application though, if the responses come quick, with more users joining of course. Say, I got two outfits to wear and I want opinions. If users disclose their nationality, occupation, age group and gender, I’d want to know the responses come from say, all male, then I know people of my gender that have such and such jobs wear similarly so I’ll be more confident in choosing the outfit. I still don’t think it’s a game. You can make it fun to help out others by including daily quest, points system etc. Otherwise, I don’t know why I would want to spend my free time on others.

Genuine question. Why is this a game? Don’t the players just answer questions?

They just didnt manage to make it fast.

You are absolutely right. The vision for sequel can be good but the execution has to be equally sound too. In the ideal situation, I guess CS2 needs to be a rebuild of CS1 with a new engine, so it can fully replace CS1 right from the start, if not do something extra. They did a few things praiseworthy though, like baking in road lane customisation, which was done by mods in CS1.

But then, we are not too fair. Simulation games are different from RPG. Story has an ending and we want to see how it continues to develop. For simulation games, I don’t think players want anything to be removed on a sequel, unless they are absolutely bad design. Even so, players expect QoL here and there to make their lives easier, which alone can be the single reason to buy the sequel.

A great product does not necessarily mean there is a winning formula though. We have a trash sequel when the new game does not do something that the existing game does. Even worse, the existing features are locked behind additional payment, so why would players not continue to play the existing game?

KSP 2 - Let’s forget the technical disaster. A lot of features are missing at the start. You could argue that it’s in early access, but why would I pay for a product that does less? Then we add in the many bugs and performance issues, and you know it’s game over.

Cities Skylines 2 - Again, you can’t do everything you already can in CS1. Plus, the first game is supported by a huge number of mods. There’s really no reason to play the new title. Again, it does not perform any better.

This is a weird take but I think remake or remastered these days are more like sequels than sequels, just because they keep the story and mechanics.

I find that game developers or many businesses try to reinvent the wheel when there’s no reason to. Say the Subnautica sequel, why waste money on voice over, add a land mass, cut the beloved submarine, shorten the story and overall map size, all that. I will never understand and sincerely hope the next Subnautica title does not reinvent the wheel.

I have supported GoG for quite some years. I don’t understand why they keep pivoting different things to do.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I would support paying for the initial game as well as every major patch when a new OS came out. Say, they do something to make a game work on Win 11. One year later we have Win 12 so I don’t mind paying a little for the patch. Then one year later we have Win 13 and I’m willing to pay again if I still play the game.

I would also support paying for online servers for games that have multiplayer components. That takes money to maintain.

As others mentioned, GoG should stop wasting time on a launcher. Hell, even the installer. Just ZIP the whole thing for me to download.

Well said. It looks too clean/polished.

Seriously, don’t buy the game at launch. Wait till the GOTY edition because many features that we had in the past will be packaged as expansions.

Bow tie

MMO wise, it has to be World of Warcraft. Played it nonstop when I was young.

2nd place is Oxygen Not Included.

Perhaps the reason is more simple. When did we have a non-indie platformer title well received by the mass? I don’t think people want a combo of “platformer” and “AAA” (hence the price).

Witcher 3 and Skyrim are pretty good. RDR2 is great, particularly because you can see it coming.

Agree. Definitely a wait and see game.

It was already bad at the beginning. Never improved. Also, there seems to be no plan for a community driven mission system, so you can only play weird auto-gen ones.

RPG without only focusing on FPS. I quite don’t like ARPG these days that don’t have a good story but add a lot to combat mechanics.

So we have action in this ARPG. I wonder if they are confident enough to show RPG bits before launch. Judging purely by the trailer, the game feels nothing like DA.

Thanks for the explanation. Had the same feeling but couldn’t describe it. They definitely took the high fantasy route and even ‘cartoonize’ it further, which is kind of what DA is not about.

You mean you don’t have family, friends, colleagues, school mates or anyone you know personally who would benefit from this giveaway, so that you have to resort to a stranger? A nephew or niece is the perfect recipient for such a gift.

Same. It’s enough to team up with people at work so there’s no desire to do the same at home. I also don’t find grinding as much fun anymore. It used to be a fun way to spend time as a kid because we had too much time. Now, I don’t even pick a game which doesn’t have basic QoL features implemented.

My understanding is that Digital Foundry type of performance review is fine, but comments on how the control feels laggy or the game is a lower-tier copycat of Overwatch are not okay.

Yeah, that’s what I meant. I didn’t define the new generation, but in my mind people since the 80s are the new generation to me (I’m old). And you’re right, camping a store to buy something you never saw is of course the issue. And in my country, people buy a house before it’s even built, and that’s also an issue that is common in this ‘new generation’. So, this new generation tends to accept that buying something without seeing it is alright, and the gaming industry reflects that.

To be precise, the new generation is to blame, who constantly preorders a game, and spends a lot on mobile games. Companies realize that bad products sell, so why would they improve?

It was either the dungeon crawl game “Eye of the Beholder” or a Japanese translated strategy game “Romance of the Three Kingdoms III” on a floppy, around 1991-1993 I think.

TBH, this game is the only recent game with survival, base building and pet collection mechanics all mixed together. Some games require you to collect pet but then the pet doesn’t affect your survival or base building. Some games require you to farm stuff for survival and base building, but pet had no part in it. The game has just okay-ish quality and lots of QoL features are needed. The game also doesn’t have any ground breaking design. It simply mixes all elements coercively in a $30 package (even less with regional pricing). That’s how it gets the big win. Well deserved of course and I really love playing the game.

(If it costs $60, it would fail right at the gate.)

They sold it after achieving success.

Not recently, but yes.

Also, there’s regulation to disclose the probability in getting rewards from opening “chests”, which is actually gambling in nature.

No need. Asian countries are not blocked from using Twitch. It’s just Twitch won’t have local business in Korea now.