Batman: Arkham Knight

[Thrasher]

It's a little like voting. You think you're making a difference, but actually it's the 90% of mindless robot voters that are deciding the outcome.

And that kind of non-thinking is why I made my post. Perhaps a there are a few less robots. And few more thinkers.

 

[joxer]

I'm not sure where did this thread go, what robots and voters?

Back on track, Kotaku sums up pretty much all reported issues, official notes and actions the audience can take (means - refund):
http://kotaku.com/arkham-knight-pc-disaster-watch-day-two-1713637876

 

[Wisdom]

It always amuses me to read how people think they are sticking it to the man by not giving them any of their money. Take that!

They are "sticking it to" whoever by not giving them their money. Thats exactly how a free market works. The people that are retarded enough to purchase products based on... "well, everyone else bought it, I'll buy it too cause I'm a tool who can't NOT spend my money and I have no self control" are actually the problem.

Victim mentality is a disease. Superiority victim mentality is just as bad.

If you don't like something, don't buy it. If enough people don't like it, they won't make it continuously.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

The game runs pretty smooth for me, except for the occasional framerate drop. But nothing unplayabled. Running with everything as high as possible @ 1920x1200. But it is underwhelming. Especially since Textures seem to only be going up to normal? Of course, normal is a relative term, but it's weird anyway. But the limited graphics settings really is disappointing.

It's weird because, the studio that apparently handled this pc port also handled Bioshock Infinite on PC, and that turned out great.

Anyways, hopefully they'll fix/improve the issues. But I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Thrasher]

They are probably already working on their next game in their pipeline, but maybe they'll learn from their mistakes for it.

 

[JDR13]

I'll be very surprised if there isn't at least one significant patch. They put too much time and money into AK to not support it.

 

[Thrasher]

They released the game apparently knowingly in this state for PC (pc gamer sites didn't receive a review copy), yet no day one patches? Sends a message that they don't really care about the pc platform.

Support for AAA titles with long development pipelines seems to be less and less nowadays. I'd bet on at least 1 patch. Whether or not all the important issues (especially the hard ones, like performance) will be fixed remains to be seen. And I wouldn't hold my breath for that patch either....

 

[JDR13]

All of the previous Batman games received patches that fixed multiple issues. I don't see them not doing the same for AK, especially with the attention it's receiving over performance problems.

 

[BoboTheMighty]

Eh...Batman's personality is what irritates me more than anything from these games...Doc Strange( also trained to the highest peak of mental and physical prowess...seems like everyone is in this game) made more sense at the end.
Some should make a Zagor Te Nay video game instead.

 

[CelticFrost]

It is my youngest Birthday on Thursday and he wanted it for his PS4. I will check it out on that, maybe.

 

[joxer]

More bad things to add.
While PC version should have used nVidia's gameworks to add some more effects in the game, Eurogamer writes that PC version lacks of effects seen on consoles:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...rkham-knight-pc-lacks-console-visual-features

Just as baffling is the fact PC lacks key visual effects seen on PS4 even at its top settings. Ambient occlusion is cut from the game, bokeh depth of field is noticeably dialed back, and the transparency layer used for raindrops is cut from all surfaces as well. Gotham City is stripped of a great deal of atmosphere as a result, with areas appearing lighter without SSAO in place - despite this setting clearly being enabled in the .ini file.

Likewise, rain doesn't appear on Batman or the Batmobile as it does on PS4. The reflective, dewy sheen is missing across the city, though specular and normal maps remain identical to the console release. The PC's highest settings show very little difference otherwise to Sony's console, barring a tweak to motion blur velocity settings.

With a link to the vid that shows the game in current state on two different settings they conclude the article with:

With its crippled frame-rate, poor streaming, pared back feature set and bloated minimum and recommended hardware spec, Arkham Knight is bitterly disappointing and should never have been released in this sorry state. There's a massive amount of work required to get this version of the game into shape - as things stand, the experience is totally unacceptable.

This is definetly a new low. When cutting out effects from Watch Dogs on PC, Ubi at least made sure the same effects exist on all platforms. I'm not saying Ubi doesn't suck, but compared to this release, doesn't look nearly as bad as it did back then.

 

[Ripper]

If I had to guess, the hired devs that did the conversion were in a crazy crunch trying to meet the release date, and desperate not to break their contract by delaying. I didn't realise that the job had been farmed out, which makes some sense of it. I suspect that at the present moment, someone is having their testicles removed, and a considerable effort is being made to sort things out.

 

[Couchpotato]

If I had to guess, the hired devs that did the conversion were in a crazy crunch trying to meet the release date, and desperate not to break their contract by delaying. I didn't realise that the job had been farmed out, which makes some sense of it. I suspect that at the present moment, someone is having their testicles removed, and a considerable effort is being made to sort things out.

Probably true Ripper but this isn't the first shoddy PC port from developer Rock Steady, and publisher WB Games. It's also nothing new as PC ports have always had less funding, and development time compared to the console release.

Oh and the PC version also uses Denuvo DRM, and it's not mentioned on it's website. Despite what some vocals users deny it does cause problems for some gamers.

 

[joxer]

What I can't understand is why the PC port simply wasn't postponed for a month or two. Or since it's on Steam, why they couldn't just put it under Early Access?
Especially since it seems by impressions from consoles that the game is very good.

Sure, postponing gets the community grumpy a bit, but it wouldn't look nearly as bad as it is now.

 

[Thrasher]

Not a simple set of patches to fix this stuff. Also, capabilities missing from the port could be a breech of contract.

@J As I said above, delay could have constituted a breach of contract with the farmed out port work. That's why farming can lead to crap software. Don't forget the boss battles in DE:HR. Also contracted out. Contracts leaving out important parameters like performance numbers, can really screw you.

 

[Couchpotato]

Not a simple set of patches to fix this stuff. Also, capabilities missing from the port could be a breech of contract.

I agree as the games code is broken and certain features are not complete. So I can definably say this game is a bonafide candidate for a successful class action lawsuit.

As this controversy is much different then the idiotic Mass Effect 3 lawsuit.

Bottom line - PC buyers who pre-ordered got screwed, and they knew before launch.

 

[Wisdom]

Oh and the PC version also uses Denuvo DRM, and it's not mentioned on it's website. Despite what some vocals users deny it does cause problems for some gamers.

Tip,... if you had issues with Lords of Fallen, or DAI.. the same "fix" applies here. Works too.

 

[Ripper]

Very unlikely to produce a class action suit. In any lawsuit, you have to prove the loss that was caused to you. Hard to see how any video game could provoke a loss beyond a refund. The other developers could be potentially be sued by WB though, if they can make a case than the negative press has lost them sales, which they probably could.

EDIT: Having said that, I'd be truly amazed if that studio didn't get WB to sign off on the shipped version. I'd guess that the pressing question in the WB offices is "Who the fuck signed off on this thing?!"

 

[joxer]

Oh and the PC version also uses Denuvo DRM, and it's not mentioned on it's website. Despite what some vocals users deny it does cause problems for some gamers.

It's completely illogical that it can cause any problems since it's basically protecting an exe file from being changed which means it will use max 1% of one core in CPU.
Unless AK exe is 16+Gb big so it can't fit into RAM which is something I can't believe.
Generally I hate DRM schemes, but unlike some previous "solutions", Denuvo is not nearly as bad nor should affect performance at all.
The best proof is Dragon Age 3. I saw no performance problems with that one apart from DX crashes, and that's not caused by DRM but by erroneous code.

 

[Wisdom]

It's completely illogical that it can cause any problems since it's basically protecting an exe file from being changed which means it will use max 1% of one core in CPU.
Unless AK exe is 16+Gb big so it can't fit into RAM which is something I can't believe.
Generally I hate DRM schemes, but unlike some previous "solutions", Denuvo is not nearly as bad nor should affect performance at all.

Illogical or not, there are a plethora of threads of people detailing what it is accessing and many people have had issues with it.