Shagger

Exclusives are important, at least on consoles, because we need consoles to exist. My reasons for that are explained on this other thread, so I would ask you to check that out. To expand on it, I'd call console exclusives a necessary evil. I get that they are annoying, but to who? People who have to go through the inconvenience and expense to own more then one platform? Well, yes. That IS the cost of not owning more than one platform. To make it clear right off the bat, even as a PC gamer myself, PC gamers have no right to call consoles "too expensive", so for them that excuse is invalidated right away. If they can afford to spend the hundreds if not thousands of dollars over the course of a console cycle to build and/or upgrade a PC, then $300-$400 is a mere pittance to play games on console. I'm sorry, but I never buy the excuse the "consoles cost too much" coming from them. I do feel sympathy for people when they can genuinely only afford one console. Then, that argument starts to have some weight. Unfortunatly, that's the way of the world. Exclusives define a platform, at least for anyone utilising some common sense. You buy a PlayStation to play The Last of Us, Uncharted, Horizon FW etc. You buy a Nintendo Switch to play Zelda BOTW, Mario, ect. You buy an Xbox to play... well, I don't think there will be another game excusive to an Xbox console ever again, but I digress. The point is consoles are not only good for PC players, but essential (as explained in that aforementioned thread), so if exclusives serve as a way to keep consoles alive, I'll go for it, despite the obvious annoyance they pose. Combine that with the low starting price, the freedom of games on physical media and the hassle free nature of a plug-in-play devices and consoles are something the gaming world wants. Even PC players need what consoles provide, not that many of them are prepared to admit it.

I love F1 as well, it is the pinacol of motorsport. So I know for a fact that there's no driver named Roger Federer in F1, mostly because Rodger Federer is a tennis player. So one of us is very confused, and I'm honestly not sure which one...

That's not entirely accurate. According to Linus Tech Tips (video below) the performance dips seem to occur while using AMD CPU's when paired with high end GPU's because of the way Windows 11 spreads the load of the current operation over more of CPU's threads. A better idea in theory, but it can slow the flow of data between an AMD CPU and a GPU because of the way AMD CPU's interact with GPU's. Video below. With other hardware set ups, it's looking like there's not going to be much difference at launch.

The only game I've played that features permadeath is Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice and that game handled it in it's own, unique way, so I'm not really the one to ask. Still, it's a brave choice for a developer to take because, as a developer, you have to get things like the difficulty balance, difficulty consistency, how the character upgrades and improves along with difficulty progression absolutely prefect. The margin for error for these things that exists for other games just isn't there if a developer chooses to include a permadeath. Another thing that needs to be perfect is the save function. Getting this wrong can literally break a game if's not not done right. Going back to Hellblade, I believe this very thing happened to Jim Sterling when he first reviewed the game. He hissed something he had to do, the game autosaved after the point he could go back, and because he missed this thing he couldn't go forward. To accommodate the game's permadeath, the game only loads from a single save file. In short, he was fucked and couldn't finish the game. Because of it, he actually gave the game a 1/10 at first, but once he had calm down and realised he has given the score out of pure anger and was being unfair to the game, he eventually changed it. Can't say I blame him though. Just because you missed one torch a game should punish you with an inability to complete it, but it does go to show how important getting this right is in such a game. Full scope on the Jim Sterling incident in this video.

That's totally fair. And like you said, it is gaming related, so it's appropriate. There is one really annoying thing about it, though. If one closes down the pop-up without muting it first, the audio will keep playing until the add has finished it's play cycle in the background with no way to shut it off. I don't know if that's a fixable problem or not or if it's even worth fixing given the add will only run for a couple of days, I just wanted to point that out to everyone in case they do what I first did.

This is exactly why, despite what the so called "PC Master Race" will say, we need consoles. Consoles effectively "tie down" game development so it doesn't run too far forward out of control. Without them, dev's would push games too far and too fast towards running on top-end hardware that a lot of people can't afford. Thus the install base is lowered. Combine that lower install base with the fact these games would cost even more to make, games would have to be even more expensive to buy and/or filled with more monetisation bullshit than they already are. This would push even more people out of gaming, lowering the install base even more creating even more expense for all parties, thus lowering the install base again. Basically, it would be a massive negative feedback loop that would cause the ecosystem of the gaming world to pretty much collapse. Look at Cyberpunk 2077. That game was developed to get the best out of PC's then they made console ports, and we remember how well that worked. That's why developers usually design their multiplatform games primarily as console games the further develop a PC version. Like it or not, that's the way it needs to be done.

Bumping this thread because Windows 11 is released tomorrow. From what I understand, the update will be available to download for existing windows 10 users via Microsoft's website. More info from CNET.

First things first, welcome to VGR. If you wish, feel free to introduce yourself and tell us more about you. Again, if you wish. On topic, Ray tracing is compatible with Nvidia 20 and 30 series cards. So to employ ray tracing, you don't necessarily need a top-end monster of a PC, just a fairly modern one. Werther or not your PC will be able to run said game with ray tracing comfortably will depend on your hardware, I agree, but also on the game specifically your graphics settings. So maybe people will sometimes find that leaving ray tracing off will be a better option for them of certain games, but it will always depend on the specifics of the circumstances. In the end, it's just another graphics option.

Well, obviously it's not gonna be the main focus, what I'm pondering is whether of nit it'll come up considering that aspect of Ellie's character wasn't addressed until the DLC came out. Like I said, I suspect it will come up, but It defiantly won't be the main focus.

I get the propose of the idea, but I don't think it work because we actually already have a system the covers that purpose already. That being the public message system on member's profiles; And, for one reason or another, people barely seem to use it. So, I don't see many people using a chatbot either.

People who post in a more spurious nature tend to do so in bursts, so imposing a post limit over 24 hours will most likely lead to them hitting a limit and then be left out of interacting with the community, possibly for hours, and I feel that will just make people feel unwanted. A better strategy imo would be to impost a limit over much a shorter proud of time. Whereas a longer period of limited posts would just simple stop people interacting on the forum completely for hours at a time, a shorter period of limited posts, lets say, no more that 4 posts every 10 minutes (that's only an example, what the figures should actually be requires more thght than that), would encourage people to use that time and put more thought into what they, basically making more quality posts, rather than rushing out one sentence posts every few seconds for the next half an hour. With that, nobody is ever "not allowed" to post on the site, but should still improve of the quality of what people post.

It's just like to point something out to everyone. The opening poster of this thread was a spammer, or possible even a scammer trying to draw people into clicking on a dodgy link that I removed and then banned the user. He tried the same thing on this thread. It's okay, the dodgy links were only up for a few minutes at most, so ultimately, no harm done. That's why I never deleted or locked the threads because with that link gone, they were no longer a threat. However, I am little concerned that people have just started posing on this thread completely oblivious to the fact that this was meant to be scam/spam post and nobody seems to able to tell difference. So, I'll ask everyone to look out for the signs. Are there links? Never clink on links unless the user is somebody who you know is a legitimate member and can be trusted. Is the user new? What other posts have they made? Check thier profile. Somebody who comes onto the forum and them immediately starts posting stuff without introducing themselves is a big red flag. Look at how a post is written. Is it generic and impersonal in nature? Take this post, the guy just posts a list of games coming out this month, that's just not how real people interact when on a gaming forum, especially when they first join. Most spammers, especially bots, don't create a profile, so a lack of a profile background or avatar is another to look out for. Look for other generic details in things like user names. Almost nobody would use an actual name on a forum like this, so look out for that as well as very unimaginative screennames like our friend "gamerlover22" here. I know this may be a bit of an overreaction on my part, but people interacting with threads like this as if they're totally normal is something happens a worrying large amount of times VGR and it leaves me a little concerned that people are going to get caught out. Please be safe and report a post if it looks wrong.

Well, it was a logical step for them to take. It's still cautiously optimist about Netflix's game steaming service, I just hope it's good.

I wonder if EA made a deal with Konami to help set up the reveal of thier follow up to thier legendary "It's in the Game" jingle;

Good luck on your trip. I'm sure the car will be worth it. See you the forum wherever.

You know what @m76, I've seen enough. You've proven for the last time that you cannot discuss or debate certain issues from an impersonal and mature base. Nobody can challenge what you say without you making it out as a personal attack and I'm no longer willing to tolerate those accusations, whether they be at myself or somebody else. The only way to avoid a scathing response from you is to blindly agree with you, and I'm not prepared to tell people to do that mostly because it's not their fault so few agree with you on VGR. We do not exist to acknowledge you, feed your ego and blow smoke up your ass. I'm going to discuss the next step with the site admin, but for now this thread is locked. Do not try to aggravate people or try to continue debating the issues of inclusion or sexualisation on other threads.

Despite saying it several times, I can't seem to get this through to some people. As long as what people are posting is within the rules, they can post as much as they like. Nobody, including myself and @DC, have the right to tell anyone they post "too much" just because people like yourself and @The Blackangel feel inconvenienced by the forum being busier. I know why people like yourself and @The Blackangel are complaining about this better than anyone. It's not like I enjoy going through page after page of recent activity looking for suspicious posts. I do that because I have to and do it without complaint because it's a good thing for the forum to be busier, to have more traffic. Yes, I'm ready to believe some people post more spuriously to earn more points, but the system is set up to reward people for being active and we're not about to change it just because a minority of our members feel inconvenienced by the forum being busy. The other problem with members complaining about this is that other people need not be burdened to the same extent as I am. Again, I've said this several times, but once again people can follow topics and even individual members to keep track of new content that interests you. If anyone does choose to "scan" the forum for new posts the same why I have to using the recent activity tab, the burden of doing so is also a choice of your own and there's nothing that I nor @DC can do to help you. To make this crystal clear. VGR staff will NOT order nor encourage people to post more or less often for any reason, least of all for other people's convenience, not even our own. What I will do is propose ideas to @DC to help make the forum easier to navigate now that is a bit busier than it used to be. For example, I think one simple thing that could help would be to increase the amount of topics that show per-page so one wouldn't have to go through as many pages of topics in order to get caught up. If anyone has other ideas, let's hear them, but we are not going to encourage people to post less.

Seriously @m76, given your history when it comes to discussing inclusion and how women are depicted in games, I'm struggling to understand why you even bothered to post this topic in the first place. Coming from you, this carries absolutely no weight whatsoever. You're not stupid, you must know how this looks coming from you. Not that this rant would be that relevant if somebody else was to say it anyway. So, I'm not even going to entertain you, not this time. You wanna piss and moan like a teenage boy mad that your mum took away your Playboy's, then be my guest.

I don't really feel like I have one. There's plenty of people out there that I admire for one reason or another, but I would go so far as to call anyone my "hero".

Here's what your supposed to do. Play every story quest and then every side mission except the very easiest one. Then, just stop playing.

When that happens, I do what I do best. Panic.

I'm not saying I'm proud of it nor ashamed, but my screenname on VGR is my real world nickname.

In some games, you're role playing the character, in some games you're merely observing. Like it or not, it's not really up to the player which one of these roles you hold when playing a game. If the option is there, it's by the game's design, not the players will.

I don't see Epic making thier planform appeal to publishers/developers as being such a terrible thing. GOG was there, but it had a very different claim of the market wasn't really meant to compete with Steam. Other services like EA's Origin and Ubisoft's UPlay were fairly indigenous for thier respective publishers and weren't the same thing as Steam. Let's face it, Steam held a monopoly and that's never good for the customer. In fact, I remember people screaming out for somebody to break that monopoly, and nobody offered a realistic alternative to Steam until EGS came along. Epic's strategy was to make thier platform appealing to publishers/developers with lower commission to gain traction. I see nothing wrong with that at least for small, independent developers accepting a better commission deal for exclusivity, especially since Steam has become a difficult place for such dev's to get thier games noticed in more recent years. This will always be a problem for Steam so long as they insist on having this "open door" policy with the piss poor quality control that goes with it. The problem for me starts when big publishers accept these kinds of deals, they have no excuse to deny a large amount of people the option of buying thier games where they want. I think both you and @Withywarlock are right, Steam got better with time and perhaps so could Epic, and maybe Epic should have leant the lessons through Valve's mistakes, but I get why Epic didn't copy Steam directly, such a thing would be doomed to fail. So, they try something a little different. Offer free games weekly to customers, better commission deals to developers/publishers and exclusivity deals. Some of thier policies I agree with, some I don't. I for one just refuse to deny the importance of competition in the game market on PC just because I don't agree with everything Epic does, especially when I have at least an many issues with how Valve handle themselves.

It has been common practice for gamers to be outraged whenever Epic, for example, has a game exclusively on thier storefront for PC, especially a major third party title. Werther or not you think that Epic are justified in doing that is another matter and not really the point of this thread, but it has been a big deal when it's happened. The thing is, though, I have just purchased Tales of Arise on PC. I looked around Steam, GOG and EGS to find that this game can only be purchased on Steam. So for people who have called Epic out for this, why is this OK? People who call out Epic for exclusive games always say it anti-consumer to have PC games only sold on one storefront, but surely that rule would have to apply regardless of what storefront that happens to be. So my question is, why is it never controversial when Steam does this, and it happens on Steam probably more often than anywhere else when it come to PC games, but people only every lift thier torches and pitchforks when Epic does it? Surely CDPR with GOG have the best policy by allowing even thier own games to be sold on other storefronts and Valve obviously don't do that either. Is this some massive hypocrisy or is there something I'm missing?