Sanya Juutilainen posted:

Having tried all of those, I have to disagree. Even if Steam is terrible (mostly from getting obsolete UI-wise), Origin, uPlay and others are even more terrible (I don't know how they manage to do it, tbh). The only decent store launchers (not talking about single-game stuff like Elite's launcher, though that one has its own problems as well) I can think of are Battle.net and WG launcher at the moment, and even those I uninstall instantly when I am taking breaks from their games. Though to be honest, maybe uPlay and origin improved their functionality lately (hahaha, I doubt that).

To me, an info about free game on uPlay / Origin / Epic / few more stores just means I won't get it. It's just not worth getting extra bloatware into the PC.

Rotten Red Rod posted:

Well, anyway, I'll admit that I don't know why Aliens: Colonial Marines shipped like that and that I was speculating. I was just using it as an example of something being missed at least partially because of turnover.

My main point is the technical debt of unfinished assets + turnover is probably what is causing the long unfixed issues to pile up in SC and keeping them from using previous work to create new assets.

History Comes Inside! posted:

If I already have to use Uplay, Origin, Bethesda launcher, GOG Galaxy, battle.net and Steam why should I be mad about EGS?

Genuine question I've somehow completely missed whatever the drama is.

AbstractNapper posted:

Here's the gist of it. Very broad strokes, don't get mad at the messenger:
- EGS is a very "early days" platform which has no forum, no shopping cart, no streaming services (...). People have also reported missing email confirmation system (not my experience) and that the client would share or scan your Steam activity or something for statistics. Kind of shady stuff.
- Epic gave money to an increasing amount of developers for timed exclusivity against apparently only Steam (other platforms may get the games earlier).
- The above happened at least three times (that I know of) for crowdfunded projects, where the backers had already been promised/ (or had chosen when asked) Steam (or other) keys. The announcements from the devs on switching platforms were considered blatant and/or insulting/trust-breaking to their backer base.
- The above happened while pre-orders on Steam (and maybe elsewhere) were already active, and those were refunded in most occasions (as far as I know).

So (probably a lot of) people have their reasons to be mad at EGS.
You don't have to be, though.

Scruffpuff posted:

"You need a Bethesda account and an internet connection to play Doom 1."

peter gabriel posted:

All game launchers / stores are great

Scruffpuff posted:

A good thing to do is wait. I find it solves most of my problems. I pick up games a couple years after they launch and it gives me the following benefits:

1 - A more stable build with the worst bugs usually resolved
2 - Store exclusives may have expired
3 - More DLC content, often included in the base price of the game
4 - Base price of the game dramatically reduced
5 - I can play the game with the graphics maxed out because I have better hardware than the game was designed for and have a superior experience

The negatives:

1 - If it's a live service game said service may be degraded or in the worst case nonexistent
2 - I miss out on the experience of playing with the first-day passionate and not at all toxic playerbase (this may actually be a positive)

In fact, my best advice is to wait 20 years and play the game on an emulator from a team of passionate gaming archivists. This will help you avoid "You need a Bethesda account and an internet connection to play Doom 1."

Jobbo_Fett posted:

How can we know development hell if we've never been to development heaven?

AbstractNapper posted:

Agreed on all accounts. There are maybe one or two games that I will be convinced to get day-one (or close to it) per year, if they get extremely positive reviews and are really appealing to me. (eg last year it was "Return of Obra Dinn").

And I am still waiting on GTA5 because there's zero chance that I'll play it right away, even if I get it at a very very low price.

Beet Wagon posted:

I'm choosing to be furious about the Blizzard launcher. Nobody seems upset with that at the moment, so that's my fresh new niche for saying relevant. Eat poo poo with your reasonably functional game launcher, Blizzard, you loving hacks.

Sarsapariller posted:

Meanwhile in Space Games That Kickstarted Years After Star Citizen news:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1EiYqKgJ8o

Zaphod42 posted:

As we said a page or two ago, there's no reason to fix any of this because none of it is final. There's no design yet. This is all just a farce.

If there was a design document they could build a game to match that document and improve parts of it that aren't right, aka, bugs.

There is no design.

Nobody at CIG knows what the dogfighting is supposed to be like, so nobody can say definitively what's wrong. Is the braking a bug? Is the acceleration a bug? Is turning a bug? Don't know!

Everybody's got their own idea, and at this point they've been working on this disaster of a codebase for years and most of them are probably just killing time like its The Office until they can go home each day, since they know their efforts aren't going to amount to anything.

Why work super hard on something when you know that in a week someone is going to delete all your code and create something new, that then breaks and you have to fix that? There's no point. Just leave it broken, let them replace it, and then fix the real system.

Except we're never getting the real system because they haven't even started designing it. They're stuck now on this massive massive massive debt of promises that would cost a fortune to implement, and they need more income to keep the lights on and keep paying to develop things they've promised, so they have to promise more things, and then to make those things they need to promise more things...

They're so far deep into a massive hole of debt that the idea of actually designing the game properly and shipping it is beyond them. Its not ever going to happen.

The smartest thing SC can do right now, the thing any producer with the least bit of experience would make them do, would be to cut EVERYTHING and start over with a very minimal set of promises and build an MVP on that. But they can't do that because it would mean admitting they've lied.

AbstractNapper posted:

Here's the gist of it. Very broad strokes, don't get mad at the messenger:
- EGS is a very "early days" platform which has no forum, no shopping cart, no streaming services (...). People have also reported missing email confirmation system (not my experience) and that the client would share or scan your Steam activity or something for statistics. Kind of shady stuff.
- Epic gave money to an increasing amount of developers for timed exclusivity against apparently only Steam (other platforms may get the games earlier).
- The above happened at least three times (that I know of) for crowdfunded projects, where the backers had already been promised/ (or had chosen when asked) Steam (or other) keys. The announcements from the devs on switching platforms were considered blatant and/or insulting/trust-breaking to their backer base.
- The above happened while pre-orders on Steam (and maybe elsewhere) were already active, and those were refunded in most occasions (as far as I know).

So (probably a lot of) people have their reasons to be mad at EGS.
You don't have to be, though.

peter gabriel posted:

All game launchers / stores are great

AbstractNapper posted:

Next crowdfunding project I'll support will be when hell freezes over

Scruffpuff posted:

Funny I haven't heard about the Operating System. Without that initial launcher, none of the other launchers would even have a platform to function on. In fact, gently caress HARDWARE too, since the OS won't work without it.

It's launchers all the way down, and they're all poo poo.

I play all my games the old school way, in my mind, just like the citizens.

Zaphod42 posted:

But like you said, its uPlay/Origin/Epic. Not just Epic.

I've been that way since goddamn like 2004 dude. I've been like "gently caress I hate Origin, I don't want to install Origin to play this game". It sucks but that ship has come and gone, its reality.
That's why getting mad about EGL makes zero sense to me. Where were y'all all these years?

Nah, its something that's cultural, its popular online to hate so people do it without thinking about it. Its mob mentality.

There's TONS of exclusives on EA but nobody says poo poo. But then a game is EGL exclusive and people lose their goddamned minds.

"But they're buying indies! Nobody else did that!"

Uhhhh, EA does that every day. But I have never once seen a twitch stream explode with "gently caress ORIGIN gently caress ORIGIN" the way that every EGL game announcement does right now.
People are just waiting for their chance to hate on EGL now. Its all memes.

AbstractNapper posted:

Here's the gist of it. Very broad strokes, don't get mad at the messenger:
- EGS is a very "early days" platform which has no forum, no shopping cart, no streaming services (...). People have also reported missing email confirmation system (not my experience) and that the client would share or scan your Steam activity or something for statistics. Kind of shady stuff.
- Epic gave money to an increasing amount of developers for timed exclusivity against apparently only Steam (other platforms may get the games earlier).
- The above happened at least three times (that I know of) for crowdfunded projects, where the backers had already been promised/ (or had chosen when asked) Steam (or other) keys. The announcements from the devs on switching platforms were considered blatant and/or insulting/trust-breaking to their backer base.
- The above happened while pre-orders on Steam (and maybe elsewhere) were already active, and those were refunded in most occasions (as far as I know).

So (probably a lot of) people have their reasons to be mad at EGS.
You don't have to be, though.

Quavers posted:

Zaphod42 posted:

The smartest thing SC can do right now, the thing any producer with the least bit of experience would make them do, would be to cut EVERYTHING and start over with a very minimal set of promises and build an MVP on that.

Tsar Mikey posted:

I'm mad at the Red Alert 1 launcher for yelling WARNING: TOP SECRET MILITARY SOFTWARE DETECTED and then my grandma thought I was hacking the government.

Scruffpuff posted:

In fact, my best advice is to wait 20 years and play the game on an emulator from a team of passionate gaming archivists. This will help you avoid "You need a Bethesda account and an internet connection to play Doom 1."

Beet Wagon posted:

I'm choosing to be furious about the Blizzard launcher. Nobody seems upset with that at the moment, so that's my fresh new niche for saying relevant. Eat poo poo with your reasonably functional game launcher, Blizzard, you loving hacks.