PC Gaming Discussion

**JeffHCross** · 08-04-2012, 05:22 PM

I'll agree with "foolish" or "questionable decision making", but not "money grubbing". Wanting to keep all the $$$$ for themselves is pretty much a modern business mindset. Valve's no different -- Valve just realized that they could make extra mounds of $$$$ by being a distributor.

EDIT: Actually, since Valve is a private corporation, they have every reason to play more nicely with others and be less money grubbing. So I guess rather than "modern business mindset" I should say "modern Wall Street mindset".

**morsdraconis** · 08-04-2012, 05:23 PM

Originally Posted by oweb26

15% of 3 million copies is alot of money. I can't say I blame them, I will agree it does suck and they rarely mark down anything which is why I don't use it.

Sent from my A500 using Tapatalk 2

It's FAR less than what they are paying for their own distribution service and servers to host all of their products.

Plus, putting their game on steam, they probably would have nearly doubled their profits compared to the sales that they saw through their own distribution service.

I mean, christ, they only sold 670,000 copies of it in North America (for the PC mind you). 670,000! They BARELY topped 2 million total world wide for the PC. That's ATROCIOUS.

Compare that to PS3 (2.24 million in NA) and Xbox 360 (3.69 million in NA) sales and you have to think there's a reason why people didn't purchase it for the PC and equate that to EA's refusal to use anything buy Origin for distribution of their product.

**I OU a Beatn** · 08-04-2012, 11:59 PM

I have never played any game that looks as good as Rage does on PC. Holy shit, my mouth dropped during the opening scene after you get picked up and are in the passenger seat for the first time. Incredible.

**oweb26** · 08-05-2012, 05:02 AM

Originally Posted by I OU a Beatn

I have never played any game that looks as good as Rage does on PC. Holy shit, my mouth dropped during the opening scene after you get picked up and are in the passenger seat for the first time. Incredible.

RAGE looked great even on console. I actually enjoyed the hell out of the game wish it was better supported and/or completed.

**gschwendt** · 08-07-2012, 12:20 PM

Black Mesa: Source (updating HL1 to Source engine) is finally getting closer to release it looks like... here's a leaked gameplay video that's about 4-5 weeks old.

Developer's statement
http://forums.blackmesasource.com/sh...198#post474198
There have been too many posts for me to reply to individually, but I'll go over the basic points I've seen crop up a bunch of times. I'll try to address everything as transparently as I can, because there's a lot of misinformation floating around.

Is this a leak? Was it released intentionally?
We had always been planning to release gameplay video(s) as part of the social media campaign, and we'd always hinted as such. Unfortunately, we ran into some difficulties while we were wrapping up the build (including several severe FPS drops and crashes) that delayed our plans for the media campaign and any gameplay videos. Once we got those sorted, we started to try to figure out what we could show off; the video that was posted to YouTube was a rough first cut outlining some possible action.

Someone showed someone else something they shouldn't have, and that someone else decided to share that something with the internet. And here we are today. Bottom line is that sooner or later, you were going to see what you saw; that's why we haven't tried to cover everything up or get it taken down. There's no conspiracy, we don't have any ulterior motives.

How old is the build of the game?
The build featured in the video is between four and five weeks old. The art assets, level design, lighting, sound effects and music, voice acting, weapons, gameplay mechanics, etc. are all basically final. You won't be seeing very many changes between what's in the video and what's in the final product.

Is the music actually in-game?
The music in the second half in the video is the actual song from the level, it hasn't been overlaid afterwards. It syncs up well with the action because it's been designed to; the song was specifically written for this area. The audio quality of the YouTube video doesn't do it justice though, and it sounds like the game's music volume was turned up too high while the video was recorded.

Why are there iron-sights in the game?
You can look down the sights of the .357 for a slight zoom and increase in accuracy at the expense of your rate of fire. It was a mechanic that was present in Half-Life: Deathmatch, but we've brought it into the singleplayer to help solidify the weapon's role. We've added an option to the main menu to completely disable that functionality, as a result of the feedback we've received from the video.

The .357 and crossbow are the only weapons that you can use the sights on, and they're for decent gameplay reasons. We aren't casualising or consolifying the mod; you don't have regenerating health, there aren't chest-high walls, you won't get strawberry jam on the screen when you're hurt, etc.

Why does everything look like crap?
The compression YouTube applies has blurred and darkened everything, even at 720p settings. You lose a lot of stuff like the scanlines on the HUD, the stars twinkling in the sky, the moonlight illuminating the launch pad and the hologram illuminating the control bunker, any real texture detail, outdoor characters, etc. I've got the original video at 1080p, and everything looks fine.

Why is the voice acting so bad?
Everything is intentional; the soldiers are meant to sound like over-the-top movie bad guys. We're not interested in trying to get you to empathise with the enemies.

Will this affect the plans for further media or the release?
It has, we're actually going to be moving some things forward. Time has never been on our side.

**I OU a Beatn** · 08-07-2012, 02:22 PM

Payday: The Heist is $4.99 on Steam(75% off) until August 9th.

**gschwendt** · 08-07-2012, 02:28 PM

Originally Posted by I OU a Beatn

Payday: The Heist is $4.99 on Steam(75% off) until August 9th.

Purchased.

**I OU a Beatn** · 08-07-2012, 02:36 PM

Same. I also noticed Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is 10% off and comes out the 21st of this month There's also a bundle that includes all the CS games, including Global Offensive for $18.69. Definitely tempted to get CSGO by itself.

**gschwendt** · 08-07-2012, 02:55 PM

Originally Posted by I OU a Beatn

Same. I also noticed Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is 10% off and comes out the 21st of this month There's also a bundle that includes all the CS games, including Global Offensive for $18.69. Definitely tempted to get CSGO by itself.

I was in the CS:GO beta... if you like CS, it's pretty much more of the same.

**I OU a Beatn** · 08-07-2012, 03:02 PM

I never played it before but for $14 I'm definitely interested. I love tactical shooters but haven't had one since SOCOM went down the drain.

I bought it but how does prepurchasing work? Do I just download it from Steam whenever it launches? It has a link on the receipt screen to "install games" but it doesn't do anything when I click on it. I assume you have to actually wait until it launches before you can start downloading it?

**gschwendt** · 08-07-2012, 03:15 PM

Originally Posted by I OU a Beatn

I never played it before but for $14 I'm definitely interested. I love tactical shooters but haven't had one since SOCOM went down the drain.

I bought it but how does prepurchasing work? Do I just download it from Steam whenever it launches? It has a link on the receipt screen to "install games" but it doesn't do anything when I click on it. I assume you have to actually wait until it launches before you can start downloading it?

Don't have too high hopes for it... it's a good game but it's still old and the guys that play in leagues and show up on public servers toting AWPs (one-shot kill snipers) are especially annoying.

As far as installing it pre-release, generally a couple of days before release it will be available for pre-install. It will download 99% of the files for you and then on launch day you just download the small remainder. You pretty much just have to be looking for it though... no way to queue it up before it's actually ready for pre-install.

**JeffHCross** · 08-07-2012, 08:35 PM

Originally Posted by I OU a Beatn

I never played it before

Never played ... what? CS? That can't be.

**I OU a Beatn** · 08-07-2012, 09:01 PM

Nope, never played it. I've never played any of the popular PC exclusive games.

**JeffHCross** · 08-07-2012, 09:07 PM

Originally Posted by I OU a Beatn

Nope, never played it. I've never played any of the popular PC exclusive games.

I'm... stunned. That might be the only popular shooter in history that I've played and you haven't.

**morsdraconis** · 08-08-2012, 04:35 AM

Originally Posted by JeffHCross

I'm... stunned. That might be the only popular shooter in history that I've played and you haven't.

I never played it either, but that's because I hate shooters like that.

**I OU a Beatn** · 08-09-2012, 02:26 PM

Quite surprised to see The Secret World available on Steam since it's published by EA. That gives me some hope that Crysis 3 and perhaps Battlefield 4 will be available on Steam as well. Hopefully.

**morsdraconis** · 08-09-2012, 02:44 PM

Originally Posted by I OU a Beatn

Quite surprised to see The Secret World available on Steam since it's published by EA. That gives me some hope that Crysis 3 and perhaps Battlefield 4 will be available on Steam as well. Hopefully.

Don't count on it. Anything that's basically a BIG release by EA is only available on Origin. The Secret World is on Steam because EA isn't going to make shit on that game. It's a bad $15 a month MMO that's attempting to be a 2008 MMO in 2012 when it's only free to play and buy and play MMOs.