OT: Video Games/Computers/Gadgets/Gizmos

[ReasonablySober]

Since it’s coming to Steam, is Diablo IV worth a look? I am not up-to-date on it other than seeing a lot of “endgame sucks” type comments online. Got a little itch for a Diablo-like, but maybe I’ll wait another six months for either the Grim Dawn expansion or hopefully Diablo 2 Resurrected coming to Steam.

I've read that the latest patch fixed all the big problems people had with Diablo IV, but I'm skeptical. I think the next time I want more Diablo in my life I'll just re-install Diablo 3.

[ReasonablySober]

Just found out about Clone Hero. Now I want to play nothing but Clone Hero.

[MikeIsGood]

Some of the early chatter on C:S2 has scared me off. Not about the content - I never had the grand delusions that all DLC from the 1st game would be part of the base 2nd, like some apparently did - but the performance is pretty concerning. The minimum and recommended specs were increased about a month ago; videos from content creators who have been given access to the game to stream, effectively for marketing, have been full of stuttering, slowness, etc.; and, maybe even more concerning, the content creators have been given full freedom to talk about everything, positive or negative, except performance. Like they've explicitly been restricted from talking about it, and some have alluded to talking about it in future videos. Foreboding.

I ultimately cancelled my preorder, just not confident in it being able to run well enough on my ~3 year old, formerly high-end PC. Sucks, because I wanted everything on offer and it saved like $30, but just not confident enough it'll work well enough at launch. Will wait for performance feedback.

[ReasonablySober]

Beat Lu Bu in Wo Long on the first attempt. I would guess the percentage of people who've done that is in the low single digits.

[ReasonablySober]

Some of the early chatter on C:S2 has scared me off. Not about the content - I never had the grand delusions that all DLC from the 1st game would be part of the base 2nd, like some apparently did - but the performance is pretty concerning. The minimum and recommended specs were increased about a month ago; videos from content creators who have been given access to the game to stream, effectively for marketing, have been full of stuttering, slowness, etc.; and, maybe even more concerning, the content creators have been given full freedom to talk about everything, positive or negative, except performance. Like they've explicitly been restricted from talking about it, and some have alluded to talking about it in future videos. Foreboding.

I ultimately cancelled my preorder, just not confident in it being able to run well enough on my ~3 year old, formerly high-end PC. Sucks, because I wanted everything on offer and it saved like $30, but just not confident enough it'll work well enough at launch. Will wait for performance feedback.

Why wouldn't you just try it out on Game Pass? It'll be there day one.

[MikeIsGood]

Some of the early chatter on C:S2 has scared me off. Not about the content - I never had the grand delusions that all DLC from the 1st game would be part of the base 2nd, like some apparently did - but the performance is pretty concerning. The minimum and recommended specs were increased about a month ago; videos from content creators who have been given access to the game to stream, effectively for marketing, have been full of stuttering, slowness, etc.; and, maybe even more concerning, the content creators have been given full freedom to talk about everything, positive or negative, except performance. Like they've explicitly been restricted from talking about it, and some have alluded to talking about it in future videos. Foreboding.

I ultimately cancelled my preorder, just not confident in it being able to run well enough on my ~3 year old, formerly high-end PC. Sucks, because I wanted everything on offer and it saved like $30, but just not confident enough it'll work well enough at launch. Will wait for performance feedback.

Why wouldn't you just try it out on Game Pass? It'll be there day one.

Well, I don't have Game Pass. But Game Pass day 1 also doesn't solve the preorder/save $30 thing for me. It's really just about how well the game runs under recommended specs (3080 ). If I'm confident from others that it would run fine on a 2070, I'll be buying it. Content isn't really the issue for me.

[KidA24]

I just got sucked back into Factorio.

Building bigger hits me so well

[ReasonablySober]

I didn't think there would be a chance in hell I'd be skipping Lords of the Fallen, but goddamn, I think I might. Reviews have been brutal.

[MikeIsGood]

Yeah, I can't claim to know much about the genre, but it sounds pretty mid, as the youths say.

[MikeIsGood]

Spoiler:

Some of the early chatter on C:S2 has scared me off. Not about the content - I never had the grand delusions that all DLC from the 1st game would be part of the base 2nd, like some apparently did - but the performance is pretty concerning. The minimum and recommended specs were increased about a month ago; videos from content creators who have been given access to the game to stream, effectively for marketing, have been full of stuttering, slowness, etc.; and, maybe even more concerning, the content creators have been given full freedom to talk about everything, positive or negative, except performance. Like they've explicitly been restricted from talking about it, and some have alluded to talking about it in future videos. Foreboding.

I ultimately cancelled my preorder, just not confident in it being able to run well enough on my ~3 year old, formerly high-end PC. Sucks, because I wanted everything on offer and it saved like $30, but just not confident enough it'll work well enough at launch. Will wait for performance feedback.

Why wouldn't you just try it out on Game Pass? It'll be there day one.

Well, I don't have Game Pass. But Game Pass day 1 also doesn't solve the preorder/save $30 thing for me. It's really just about how well the game runs under recommended specs (3080 ). If I'm confident from others that it would run fine on a 2070, I'll be buying it. Content isn't really the issue for me.

I just thought about this again when I popped into the thread and remembered you were just getting into PC gaming a little bit with Steam/streaming. Unrelated to this C:S2 convo - FYI that PC Gamepass performance (via the Microsoft store) has no baring on Steam performance. They are different builds; can think of it almost as different consoles. I believe you play Gamepass on your Series, but FYI in case you hear about PC games' poor performance on one or another platform (usually the MS Store because they just get ports instead of full builds).

[ReasonablySober]

Yeah, I can't claim to know much about the genre, but it sounds pretty mid, as the youths say.

It's tough because the two most positive reviews I've seen are from Youtubers whose livelihoods are tied to this being a game that people play.

[GoldenAntlers]

Since it’s coming to Steam, is Diablo IV worth a look? I am not up-to-date on it other than seeing a lot of “endgame sucks” type comments online. Got a little itch for a Diablo-like, but maybe I’ll wait another six months for either the Grim Dawn expansion or hopefully Diablo 2 Resurrected coming to Steam.

I played it for about 5 hours total, including the free weekend. Diablo (1), like many people, was one of my first 3 online video game experiences. It was revolutionary. D4... I dunno man, it doesn't seem to have much to offer me.

[ReasonablySober]

Spoiler:

Why wouldn't you just try it out on Game Pass? It'll be there day one.

Well, I don't have Game Pass. But Game Pass day 1 also doesn't solve the preorder/save $30 thing for me. It's really just about how well the game runs under recommended specs (3080 ). If I'm confident from others that it would run fine on a 2070, I'll be buying it. Content isn't really the issue for me.

I just thought about this again when I popped into the thread and remembered you were just getting into PC gaming a little bit with Steam/streaming. Unrelated to this C:S2 convo - FYI that PC Gamepass performance (via the Microsoft store) has no baring on Steam performance. They are different builds; can think of it almost as different consoles. I believe you play Gamepass on your Series, but FYI in case you hear about PC games' poor performance on one or another platform (usually the MS Store because they just get ports instead of full builds).

Yea, I don't know how it works on PC. I assumed it was like any other software; you downloaded the full version and the performance was tied to your rig. That's why I figured Game Pass would be a good route to take. Try it out, see how well it runs. You can probably get a free trial since you're not a Game Pass user.

[MikeIsGood]

Spoiler:

Well, I don't have Game Pass. But Game Pass day 1 also doesn't solve the preorder/save $30 thing for me. It's really just about how well the game runs under recommended specs (3080 ). If I'm confident from others that it would run fine on a 2070, I'll be buying it. Content isn't really the issue for me.

I just thought about this again when I popped into the thread and remembered you were just getting into PC gaming a little bit with Steam/streaming. Unrelated to this C:S2 convo - FYI that PC Gamepass performance (via the Microsoft store) has no baring on Steam performance. They are different builds; can think of it almost as different consoles. I believe you play Gamepass on your Series, but FYI in case you hear about PC games' poor performance on one or another platform (usually the MS Store because they just get ports instead of full builds).

Yea, I don't know how it works on PC. I assumed it was like any other software; you downloaded the full version and the performance was tied to your rig. That's why I figured Game Pass would be a good route to take. Try it out, see how well it runs. You can probably get a free trial since you're not a Game Pass user.

Yeah all good, I really meant it as informational as you dip into PC gaming. Since you do have Gamepass - not sure if that means you have it on PC too and can also stream that? - didn't want you to hear about poor performance for some game on the MS Store and then in turn avoid it on Steam, too.

[ReasonablySober]

Spoiler:

I just thought about this again when I popped into the thread and remembered you were just getting into PC gaming a little bit with Steam/streaming. Unrelated to this C:S2 convo - FYI that PC Gamepass performance (via the Microsoft store) has no baring on Steam performance. They are different builds; can think of it almost as different consoles. I believe you play Gamepass on your Series, but FYI in case you hear about PC games' poor performance on one or another platform (usually the MS Store because they just get ports instead of full builds).

Yea, I don't know how it works on PC. I assumed it was like any other software; you downloaded the full version and the performance was tied to your rig. That's why I figured Game Pass would be a good route to take. Try it out, see how well it runs. You can probably get a free trial since you're not a Game Pass user.

Yeah all good, I really meant it as informational as you dip into PC gaming. Since you do have Gamepass - not sure if that means you have it on PC too and can also stream that? - didn't want you to hear about poor performance for some game on the MS Store and then in turn avoid it on Steam, too.

I think the performance is going to be the same on Steam as it is on Game Pass. They're basically the same thing, both tied to how well your system runs any particular game.

The only service that would be different would be Xbox Cloud Gaming, but that's more like GeForce Now. I've dabbled a bit in both but I wouldn't want to make that my primary way to play games.

[Ayt]

Spoiler:

Why wouldn't you just try it out on Game Pass? It'll be there day one.

Well, I don't have Game Pass. But Game Pass day 1 also doesn't solve the preorder/save $30 thing for me. It's really just about how well the game runs under recommended specs (3080 ). If I'm confident from others that it would run fine on a 2070, I'll be buying it. Content isn't really the issue for me.

I just thought about this again when I popped into the thread and remembered you were just getting into PC gaming a little bit with Steam/streaming. Unrelated to this C:S2 convo - FYI that PC Gamepass performance (via the Microsoft store) has no baring on Steam performance. They are different builds; can think of it almost as different consoles. I believe you play Gamepass on your Series, but FYI in case you hear about PC games' poor performance on one or another platform (usually the MS Store because they just get ports instead of full builds).

What? That isn't true.

[MikeIsGood]

Spoiler:

Well, I don't have Game Pass. But Game Pass day 1 also doesn't solve the preorder/save $30 thing for me. It's really just about how well the game runs under recommended specs (3080 ). If I'm confident from others that it would run fine on a 2070, I'll be buying it. Content isn't really the issue for me.

I just thought about this again when I popped into the thread and remembered you were just getting into PC gaming a little bit with Steam/streaming. Unrelated to this C:S2 convo - FYI that PC Gamepass performance (via the Microsoft store) has no baring on Steam performance. They are different builds; can think of it almost as different consoles. I believe you play Gamepass on your Series, but FYI in case you hear about PC games' poor performance on one or another platform (usually the MS Store because they just get ports instead of full builds).

What? That isn't true.

Maybe just in the games I have run into, then. But it does happen. And that point aside, performance differences between the versions per storefront can be vastly different. It isn't as simple as same machine/same specs/same experience. Just not how it works, which is the point I wanted to share as an FYI for him.

[ReasonablySober]

Spoiler:

I just thought about this again when I popped into the thread and remembered you were just getting into PC gaming a little bit with Steam/streaming. Unrelated to this C:S2 convo - FYI that PC Gamepass performance (via the Microsoft store) has no baring on Steam performance. They are different builds; can think of it almost as different consoles. I believe you play Gamepass on your Series, but FYI in case you hear about PC games' poor performance on one or another platform (usually the MS Store because they just get ports instead of full builds).

What? That isn't true.

Maybe just in the games I have run into, then. But it does happen. And that point aside, performance differences between the versions per storefront can be vastly different. It isn't as simple as same machine/same specs/same experience. Just not how it works, which is the point I wanted to share as an FYI for him.

I think you might be confusing the Game Pass library you play on your Xbox S/X and PC, and the one that's streamed via Cloud Gaming (Beta).

[MikeIsGood]

What? That isn't true.

Maybe just in the games I have run into, then. But it does happen. And that point aside, performance differences between the versions per storefront can be vastly different. It isn't as simple as same machine/same specs/same experience. Just not how it works, which is the point I wanted to share as an FYI for him.

I think you might be confusing the Game Pass library you play on your Xbox S/X and PC, and the one that's streamed via Cloud Gaming (Beta).

I absolutely might be confused. I had Gamepass for PC about a year ago as a trial, and you had to operate out of the Microsoft Store. As in, you downloaded games from the MS Store, launched them within the storefront, and then had Xbox achievements (of course). I have no idea how streaming works or what that offering looks like.

I'll shut up about it now

[ReasonablySober]

I've gotten sick of rotating through average to below average Xbox controllers over the last three years. Even the ones I've really liked have ended up having drift and stutter issues. I finally caved this week and picked up an Elite Series 2. I have Best Buy's membership that gets you a nice warranty on gear so I probably should have taken advantage of it and picked up the controller earlier.

I swapped out one of the sticks and the directional pad. Played around with the software a bit. I like it a lot.