E3 anyone?

I still need to check out Microsoft and EA's conference.

What do you all think so far?

Me, I think that GRAW looked incredibly pre-rendered and question how Ubi keeps getting away with the bait and switch.

How are people looking forward to Watchdogs 2 after what Ubi pulled with the first one?!

Yep, that's EXACTLY what everyone expected from Bethesda. Like carbon copied.

"Yay!" for Last Guardian getting a release date.

That new zombie game looks like it could be good or bad.

And I'm starting to think that Sony is repeating the same mistakes SEGA made with the Genesis. Only instead of releasing the 32X and the SEGA CD back to back to compete with one another, it's VR and NEO.

You all?

 

Because the average consumer is not willing to do a thing if it would mean a slight inconvenience to them. Such as completely boycotting one Ubisoft game where the bait and switch turned out the worst. But that would mean not playing a game they want to play, so they won't do it...
Ubisoft will do that as long as they can get away with it. Financial pressure is the only thing that could stop it imho.

 

Nah. MS is doing the same. It's basically consoles are going the way of mobiles. Fresh hardware every so often. There is still a point to it over upgrading your desktop GPU every few years as there is almost no cheating on console and people do like to just not think about having to deal with it all.

 

VR

 

But notice how they didn't say PC. They kept saying Windows 10.

 

Some mildly interesting developments so far. Microsoft leaned into its hardware announcements, and was quite keen on promoting its exclusive-to-Microsoft titles. Sony came strong with a fairly focused slate of crowd-pleasing big-budget titles. (all with a very cinematic vibe)

No one has noticeably dropped the ball this year. The software has been front-and-center, with the hardware developments pushed to the sides. About what I expected. Still disappointed that I didn't hear anything about the Vita platform, but that's just me.

 

At this point, I don't imagine Sony has any expectations for the Vita in NA. If they say anything, it'll probably be at TGS. They might get into hardware then too.

 

I wasn't expecting, just hoping. The fact that they didn't even mention the Vita was pretty much par for the course. As a fan of the platform, it is just a little frustrating for me that the potential of the Vita gets a bit squandered. All I really want is a decent revision/update to the firmware. A bit of polishing for the interface would go a long way to making the system more appealing.

Whoooof. The new Zelda looks really pretty. But the extended Pokémon interview/preview is really boring. Just kills the pacing. Nintendo's Treehouse is not blowing my skirt up.

 

I don't shop at the Windows Store. Just Steam. Guess I'll have to make exceptions for Gears of War.

 

I was slightly disappointed that it was Skyrim instead of Oblivion. Oblivion needs a new engine badly. It crashes more than any other game I have ever played. Newer graphical effects would be nice but I'd settle on a new engine. At least Skyrim will benefit from a new engine too. Modding on a 32-bit editor is too limited.

 

So it's just the PC version with an ENB mod.

 

Modders are hoping that it will come with 64-bit binaries. Memory restraints are one of the primary reasons for crashes.

 

It's what you want anyway if you want to play DirectX games in the not too distant future. The lure of the newness is irresistible to many developers.

 

It's unavoidable. Any kind of exclusive content will do it. Half Life 2 + Steam for instance...

 

To be fair the Windows Store (specifically "Games for Windows") was not the greatest thing ever.

I think Microsoft is attempting to combat this with their cross platform thing and buying one copy of a game and being able to hop between Console and PC as you wish.

Some of my friends don't have Overwatch for PC (nor the PC to run it), but they do have an Xbone. It'd be awesome if I could just hope on my Xbox and play a few games with them without having to buy another copy.

 

Technically, it's not. Since both the Windows Store and Steam exist, they are technically in competition with each other. A true monopoly would be if Microsoft and Steam cozied up to each other and came to an agreement on how to split the profits from digital distribution.

Our current scenario is just a matter of one company competing far more effectively than the other, and raking in most of the market share as a result. People don't gravitate toward Steam because its the only option. They gravitate toward it because it continues to be one of the best options.

And the Windows store continues to be one of the worst. Let's not kid ourselves, Microsoft would hack off one of their own limbs in order to be in Valve's position. And we have no guarantee that they would do a better job of it if they were.

 

I think it's zealotry against MS products/services than zealotry for Stream though

I think GOG is in a position to be a (much much smaller) rival to steam.

 

Windows Store's biggest problem is the curator's are letting too many truly useless and bad apps through that are intended to deceive users into thinking those apps are the equivalent as what's at Apple or GooglePlay or something else.

I've also seen a surplus of very bad apps using old cartoon cell drawings for now public domain Warner Brothers and other cartoons. And workout apps and nutrition apps that were something like a National Enquirer cover page article on how to loose 50 lbs in 10 days.

I do have some very good Windows Store apps but I've unfortunately found that it's easier to search for good apps and games if I filter for MS as the publisher because of all the junk apps in their Windows Store and... well that doesn't leave me inspired for an app I choose to publish there's chances. I still will eventually mind you.

 

I see lots of people saying this, but it's not an option to do Oblivion or Morrowind. These HD remakes are basically just replacing textures and effects. Models, animations and most things are generally left untouched. As a game gets older like Oblivion it is not possible to get passable results without actually remaking the game and that's not easy money.

Just look at the Wii-U Zelda HD games, the models are completely unchanged.

 

Many people asked me, after the trailer, if the new zelda was made with unity ... it has some signature quirk of someone building from the engine out of the box feature I do remember the first reveal had me saying "is that unity chan shader?", now they have at least tweaked it

lol that's improbable

Spoiler: Gif, does it look like unity? >_>

 

I want the new Zelda in VR!

 

Man, Zelda looks pretty!

Ugh, Square Enix clearly has no idea what they're doing anymore.

I just tried to look at what they had and everything is a mess.

Finding content from them is a chore, they can't be bothered to attach stills to some of their videos, and all of their presentations are a jumbled unrehearsed apologetic train wreck.

Then outside of E3 is no better.

They take decades to create new content, they do remakes of all the wrong titles, they don't capitalize on their brands with satellite games like they used to, Final Fantasy refused to stop trying to copy the Star Wars prequels, while all the Eidos properties are just old and musty.

They're circling the drain FAST.

 

Agreed, but a remaster is only truly necessary for Oblivion at this point in time. A recreation of the Morrowind engine is already being developed by a very active team. They're managing an update every two months.

http://openmw.org/en/

Daggerfall is in a similar situation as well but with slower progress.

http://www.dfworkshop.net/

Oblivion (and Arena but far fewer people care about that) is about the only one with a highly active fanbase that is not receiving a fan-based attempt to bring the engine into the modern era. What is happening is an attempt to remake Oblivion with the Skyrim engine but it'll be a great deal different because of it.

 

Bethesda just confirmed it too. Nothing like unrestricted memory limits on a very heavily modded game.

https://twitter.com/gstaffinfection/status/742818176497385472

 

A conservative user, I see. It's completely unplayable for me now

 

I see where you're coming from, but in reality I imagine all that will lead to, is every big AAA publisher launching their own plattform like uplay or origin. They'll not want to keep giving their xx% share to valve and as soon as the market demonstrates they can get away with rolling their own solution, they will. And since no amount of better service on the side of steam could undo that, because it's about money and not about healthy competition, I doubt that it will do much good for steam users. If you want to take the new steam refund policy as an example of origin market pressure doing something good, this may or may not be true. Afaik there has been legal pressure on valve to offer refunds based on EU laws, since years before Origin made steps in that direction.

 

Well the new david cage looked interesting

And this one

 

And TES6 will be VR. Don't look for any confirmation about that, but you can bet on it right now.

This is the end of my Elder Scrolls adventures; I'll stick to Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim 32bits. And, no, I don't think that Oblivion, nor Morrowind, need to be remastered.

 

I'm confident it will support virtual reality but it won't be a requirement.

Their content doesn't need to be remastered but the engine is very much in need of an overhaul. Morrowind's engine simply does not work well with modern hardware and Oblivion's engine has always been crash happy. Supporting 64-bit is vital as well since most of the CTD (Crash-To-Desktop) errors are actually caused by the engine running out of memory (memory leaks are a major problem with their engine).

 

Ok - I got my first look at the deus ex mobile game, and wow, no, terrible. I know a regular dx game wouldn't be possible yet for mobiles, but dang, when I see dx games, I assume awesome. I was pumped after the animated intro sequence, but the gameplay came up and I was like..... ughhh.....

Anyway it prompted me to look at the other dx game coming out (not for mobile) and it looks freakin' cool.

 

You mean Deus Ex The Fall, or Deus Ex Go?

 

Was there more than one mobile game?! Anyway it was Go.

 

That looks way better! The new one for consoles and pc looked really awesome, I didn't see any mention of that yet from e3, but it was called "mankind divided", I think they talked about it last year but have about wrapped it up now.

 

If I remember correctly TB did a "wtf is..." on "the fall" and said it's crap.

 

They ported it to PC and as a PC game it was sub par. (and I think that's the version that TB "reviewed")

 

That's what I meant, actually. So will, probably, Skyrim special edition.

They have better things to do than dwell on old games. They must look forward, not backward. doing what you say would be a waste of time, resources and money.

Morrowind works very well with modern hardware, provided you don't install tons of crap mods with it; same for Oblivion.

 

Mod is what makes the game playable

 

Very true for Morrowind. Non-regenerating magicka feels like punishment. The others? Nice to be able to upgrade the textures, signs and maybe stealth, but mostly very enjoyable as-is.

 

Technically that's closer to "Price Fixing". A more monopolistic behavior would be if Microsoft decided not to allow Steam (or other providers) to run on PC, or if by cozying up they actively worked together to shut down / drown out other viable services.

 

What's the point of buying and playing a Bethesda game if you only barely mod it up? I'll play at least one game through the content completely vanilla but after that I'll go nuts with mods. Better Cities, Open Cities, Unique Landscapes, etc. Some of the best mods just gobble up memory in order to function. A 32-bit client is barely adequate for light modding.

 

Meh, never really cared about E3. And in future when my company grow big, I probably won't attend either unless they'll let "regular Joes" in as well, not just some journalists and youtubers. I just hate such elitist "in your face" shows.

//edit: That not to say that I'm "anti convention". For example, when I will be able to afford it, I would attend (both as publisher and as the gamer) PAX, because they also let regular gamers in if they have money for ticket.

 

That first vanilla playthrough lasts me roughly 50 to 150 hours in bethesda games. After that I don't necessarily want to play too much more of it. I'd be interested in a Fallout 4 total conversion with challenging survival in a zombie apocalypse. The landscape and mechanics feel like they'd work well, but I doubt anyone will make a decent version of something like that.

 

I'm up to about 359 hours in Skyrim. I've yet to beat the main quest.

 

I don't get why Skyrim is getting the overhaul and not Morrowind or Oblivion.

Or Fallout 3 and NV for that matter.