Couchpotato's Random RPG News

Originally Posted by henriquejr
STOP THE PRESSES!

Metro Exodus will only release on the Epic Store, but Steam preorders will be honoured.

Steam noticed on game's store page:

Notice: Later today, sales of Metro Exodus will be discontinued on Steam due to a publisher decision to make the game exclusive to another PC store.

The developer and publisher have assured us that all prior sales of the game on Steam will be fulfilled on Steam, and Steam owners will be able to access the game and any future updates or DLC through Steam.

We think the decision to remove the game is unfair to Steam customers, especially after a long pre-sale period. We apologize to Steam customers that were expecting it to be available for sale through the February 15th release date, but we were only recently informed of the decision and given limited time to let everyone know.

Dang, I was not counting on this

Originally Posted by henriquejr
STOP THE PRESSES!

Metro Exodus will only release on the Epic Store, but Steam preorders will be honoured.

Steam noticed on game's store page:

Notice: Later today, sales of Metro Exodus will be discontinued on Steam due to a publisher decision to make the game exclusive to another PC store.

The developer and publisher have assured us that all prior sales of the game on Steam will be fulfilled on Steam, and Steam owners will be able to access the game and any future updates or DLC through Steam.

We think the decision to remove the game is unfair to Steam customers, especially after a long pre-sale period. We apologize to Steam customers that were expecting it to be available for sale through the February 15th release date, but we were only recently informed of the decision and given limited time to let everyone know.

Dang, I was not counting on this

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
That should be illegal for a developer to get pre-order money off another service then switch release to another for an exclusive deal for a year. This is getting out of hand.

At least they will be honoring the Steam sales on release. If not it could be a lawsuit.

Originally Posted by azarhal
If people have the right to cancel their pre-orders and switch to another retailers for a better deal, I don't see why publishers should be doing something illegal for doing something equivalent…

In fact, they could have cancelled the Steam pre-order and refunded people in all legality. It's not like it would be the first time a retailers had to cancel pre-orders. Recent example: Gamespot with Kingdom of Heart III just a few days ago.

This episode features gameplay and commentary about the game Aeon of Sands: The Trial by Matt and Marco Pedrana of Two Bit Kid. It's a great new CRPG in the vein of early Might & Magic and Lands of Lore, but with a post-apocalyptic setting.

I don't why I'm doing demo Jimpressions lately. I guess it beats doing nothing. Anyway, this is the VIP demo for Anthem that I got my hands on played a bit. At least when I could play it after server issues and loading screen hangups.

Some 16 years before the announcement of “Diablo Immortal,” Blizzard’s dungeon hunting, hack-and-slash series nearly went on the go. Not on mobile phones – that tech wasn’t there. Rather, Diablo almost came to life on a Nintendo platform. Were it not for a changing of the guard within Blizzard, an equivalent of a “Pokemon”-inspired “Diablo” might have seen release.

Fresh from finishing “Diablo II,” on the hunt for a new project to keep himself busy, Blizzard North programmer Johnathan Morin had an idea. Tinkering with a concept of porting “Diablo I” to Pocket PCs, Morin caught a glimpse of a Game Boy development kit.

Picture a cartoon light bulb flashing over Morin’s head. “Wouldn’t it be cool to make like a ‘Diablo Jr.’ type thing?” remembers Morin. ‘Diablo Junior,’ in Morin’s mind, wasn’t to be a port. “‘Pokemon’ was really big at the time. We could do something similar where you could fight these monsters and get this whole different genre, age group, because ‘Diablo’ was for adults. That was the genesis of it.”

In the early days of Blizzard North, porting titles to handhelds became a specialty. “NFL QB Club” on the Game Gear was one example, making “Diablo” for Game Boy a natural extension for the studio, and the timing worked out.

Corey and Lori will be playing the second Quest for Glory game, Trial by Fire. The livestream will take place Thursday, February 14th starting at 6pm Pacific Time. We’ll be playing the EGA version, not the VGA fan remake.

We’ll be giving away a signed Quest for Glory II big box, an ERA portrait by Julia Miamata of the Crimson Diamond, and more prizes! This is a chance for us to get to know our fans and revisit our games.

The livestream will go until midnight. Feel free to drop in and say hi, even if you have plans with a special someone for Valentine’s Day.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Smells like the publisher made the decision this time not the developer. Anyway hope they enjoy that cash purse as we'll see how well it sells on the epic store.

An examination of the titular Mass Effect technology, as well as the real world theories surrounding the mysterious dark energy and dark matter.

It was an eventful VIP Demo weekend for BioWare. As I shared on Saturday, it started rocky, but we stabilized that afternoon and maintained it until we turned servers off Sunday evening. We learned a ton about our game, our service, and you, our community. We’re working hard to ensure everyone can enjoy the game exactly as we’ve designed it.

I’m particularly proud to be part of our amazing team across Austin and Edmonton. Their dedication and passion showed this weekend. Our war rooms in both locations were hot-beds of activity 24x7 all 3 days. We had fantastic support from EA and our partners.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is undoubtedly one of the most successful RPGs of all time so when it was announced that a multiplayer mod was coming to the game, the information blew up all over the internet. The modders behind the project, The Together Team, have already gotten 2,982 backers on patreon bringing in $8,575 USD monthly for the project, which will be free to download when it releases.

Let me start off by saying that I love phone games. The convenience and the ingenuity to make games work on a touchscreen device is amazing to me. Sadly, many games resort to the gacha form of monetization in order to progress past a certain point. This quickly becomes a monetary drain and one that turns me, and many others, off from the experience. I’ve been hurt before (looking at you Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes), and now tread carefully in the free-to-play mobile market.

With Stardew Valley, however, there is none of that, you pay $7 and that’s it. You’re done. No skins for money, no upgrades or fast-tracking for real cash, just good, old-fashioned, virtual farming like your grandpa used to do. Heck, I’ve even seen it on sale for as low as $4 which is a steal for the amount of game you get

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is an action/adventure hack and slash game that was the only only title released by the now bankrupt 38 Studios. Set in the Faelands, one of several regions of Amalur, the world featured many beautiful and diverse environments as well as intriguing characters and a compelling story. The gameplay was fun and dynamic, albeit too easy to advance and hit the level cap at 40 about halfway through the game. This made for a much less challenging second half, but the storyline was so engaging with surprise twists and turns, that it wasn’t too hard to overlook the ease of the later portion of the game. There was a lot that Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning got right and could have improved upon in a sequel. Alas, that wasn’t meant to be. A sequel was originally in the works, but then 38 Studios went bankrupt and Kingdoms of Amalur got lost in an avalanche of legal issues. However, there may be hope on the horizon as THQ Nordic recently purchased the rights to the franchise in September 2018, so perhaps the fascinating world of Amalur will have more stories to tell after all.

What would happen if you turned Mass Effect into an espionage RPG? You get Alpha Protocol a hidden gem from the 360 generation. Developed by the legendary Obsidian Entertainment and written by Chris Avellone, Alpha Protocol got way too much hate, admittedly some of it deserved. The RPG elements and non-linear structure to the story provided some amazing moments. You have complete freedom build your character however you want; a stealthy sneaking type, a combat focused fighter, or even a hybrid of the two. However, saying the core gameplay lacked polish is a total understatement. AI was a bit too terrible, camera was a battle in of itself, and the cover system was awful, but I still enjoyed my time with it because of the RPG elements. If a remaster was ever going to happen I would love to see some gameplay improvements above anything else.

Here is a look at some more Anthem gameplay using the Interceptor Javelin. The game is set on Ultra preset using 4K resolution and our usual RTX 2080 Ti rig.

This is unlike anything they’ve ever done and feels quite different from everything else on the market. Playing the demo this weekend, I find it hard to believe this came from the studio who put out Dragon Age Inquisition just a few years ago.

This is definitely a new side of Bioware, and while the first few weeks of 2019 are hectic with big releases, after spending some time with the VIP Demo this weekend, I think Anthem definitely has the potential to be the next big thing in the multiplayer space. But there’s a lot of work to do.

Admittedly, this doesn’t feel like the Bioware I know or love. True, I’ve played the smallest portion of the main game, but I barely recognise this studio anymore and that does make me sad. That said, there’s just enough of a trace in them in here that I’m optimistic the best is yet to come in the full game. This studio gave me some of my favourite games of all time and on that merit alone, I’m willing to give Anthem a chance to really win me over.

Idea Factory announced that the release date for Record of Agarest War Mariage will release a little earlier in the west than expected, the release date has been moved from its February 1 release date to January 31 on PC-via Steam.

Years ago, when Dark Souls was first ported to PC, the port left a lot to be desired. The game was in every way a strict port from consoles, maxing out at a low resolution for PCs, capping the framerate, and just generally not being up to modern standards for the platform. A fan who had been looking forward to the game who went by the username Durante managed to fix a lot of the port in a fairly short amount of time.

Since then, Peter "Durante" Thoman has been well known for his work on fixing under-par PC ports and has been called in for consultation on ports ahead of their release. His knowledge and skill set are acclaimed in the PC porting space, so it only makes sense for him to open up his own porting studio.

Law firm Migliaccio & Rathod made headlines last year after the release of Fallout 76. After multiple complaints over Fallout 76‘s quality and numerous other controversies, the law firm launched a lawsuit against Bethesda over deceptive trade practices. While it’s been quiet lately, the case is still alive, if the firm’s latest Instagram post is any indication.

March's 3.6.0 update will not work with the Windows XP or Windows Vista operating systems. Microsoft, Steam and most other game companies have already ended support for these operating systems, and we plan to do the same. This will also free up technical resources for other more impactful tasks. Thankfully, only 0.1% of users still use Windows XP or Vista. We encourage these users to upgrade to a more secure version of Windows that is actively supported by Microsoft.

We will still support a 32-bit client for users of 32-bit versions of Windows, but we strongly encourage users to use the 64-bit client if they can.

With no more support for Windows XP and Vista, we will also finally retire support for the DirectX 9 rendering mode, as DirectX 11 is fully supported in recent versions of Windows and is so much faster. By not having to maintain support for two versions of DirectX, we will be able to simplify a lot of code, making it faster.

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden (MYZ) is not a game that could have released if it dealt in half-measures. All aspects of this lovingly crafted XCOM-inspired adventure is touched with a sense of appreciation for pen-and-paper RPGs and RTS games alike. From its mature amalgamation of dystopian sci-fi and buddy drama meta-narrative to its tight controls and intuitive AI, MYZ oozes attention to detail. Unsurprisingly, the soundtrack inspires the same sense of rebellious design and polish, all thanks to the game’s composer: Robert Lundgren.

Hey everyone, this is a special announcement that will give you the background of every BoB member. We will reveal 3 more members of the crew, so be sure to check this post every day this week! And remember, Band of Bastards releases on February 5th.

But first, some quick tidbits about the soon-to-release DLC…

Features:

• Combat-oriented quest line with multiple endings
• New location “Kuno’s Camp”, filled with new characters with interesting stories
• Camp side-activity “The Ring of Bacchus”
• New items and a unique set of armor

At the 2019 Game Developers Conference, you can look forward to an array of talks from speakers across the video game industry. During the week,you'll hear from industry legends, niche experts, and amazing advocates, many of whom will want to learn about you and your work as much as you do theirs.

At GDC 2019, sound designer and composer Elitsa Alexandrova will be exploring the soundscape of two Assassin's Creed games: Assassin's Creed

Rogue, and Assassin's Creed: Origins. To introduce you to Alexandrova before her talk, we reached out for a quick Q&A that you can now read below!

The portal to the mythical world of Artara has once again reopened as indie studio Event Horizon is showering fans of its CRPG Tower of Time with a super-sized treasure trove of new content. The drop includes two new fully-fledged game modes called RPGlite and Permadeath as well as an array of character customisation options. The new modes will add fast-paced dungeon crawler and rogue-like elements to the huge 60+ hours of content that’s already available to brave tower explorers.

When we started building Dauntless over four years ago, we had a vision: No matter where you were in the world or which platform you were playing on, you would be able to play with your friends. Epic Games blazed a trail by delivering the first game with true cross-play on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, mobile, and Nintendo Switch. We are grateful to partner with them on Dauntless.

Everything counts to make a video game an immersive experience, from the smallest details of the UI to the art design, the graphics, and of course the gameplay – but there is an aspect that tends to be unjustly overlooked in spite of it having capital importance. We’re talking about sound. Imagine you are in the middle of a fight. The rasp of swords being unsheathed, the crunch of sand under the hooves of the horses, the screams and grunts of pain of soldiers – all that can make you feel in the thick of a battle, and that makes sound a very powerful tool for video games. Today we talk with Ugurcan Orcun, our Audio Director, who will offer some insights on how Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord approaches this area and what he is doing for the game.

Prepare to play with fire and control the battle by spreading damage over time, and consume your enemies via burst damage as a Pyromancer.

Most people know Pratchett as the author of Discworld, the famous fantasy series about a flat planet balanced on the backs of four elephants. However, what many people don't know is that the knighted author was also a massive fan of video games - so much so that he actually worked on mods for Oblivion, most of which were spearheaded by a Morrowind modder named Emma.

After making the transition from Morrowind to Oblivion, Emma sought to create a companion for herself. This resulted in the creation of Vilja, a Nord alchemist designed to keep Emma company as she traversed the world of Oblivion. While Emma originally created Vilja for personal use, even voicing the character herself, she eventually released her to the public with the help of fellow modder Charles "CD" Cooley. Vilja received a lot of admiration from avid players, but a particularly intriguing email titled "Praise for Vilja" came a few months after Vilja 1.0 launched.

We are very proud to share this HUGE piece of news with all of you: Operencia: The Stolen Sun will release exclusively through the Xbox One family of devices, including Xbox One X and Xbox Game Pass and the Epic Games store for PC.

Everyone here at Zen was at the edge of our seats watching Operencia debut to the world at the Kinda Funny Games Showcase in December, and all of us were glad that the reception was very positive from the RPG community. Since then we have put even more work into the game, and did a Closed Beta event to make Operencia even better by incorporating ideas provided by the testers. This dedication to quality caught the eye of our friends at Microsoft and Epic, which quickly led to mutual cooperation that will help us elevate Operencia in a way we would not be able to by ourselves. We really believe the game deserves this, and this is a fantastic opportunity to share the vision of the team with a lot of players.

Welcome to BATTLETECH 1.4! This release contains a number of quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes, as well as the official localized releases of BATTLETECH in French, German, and Russian. We have also improved performance for saving and loading games/

We play the demo daily, ironman-style (since we don't any have save/load functionality yet), then report issues and observations. Naturally, it's a very important step that highlights balance and interface issues, and suggests better ways of doing things. In Jan we fixed a lot of bugs that were getting in the way, implemented textbox messages (now the player gets a full picture of what's going on), reworked feats, and did the first balance pass. Combat is very challenging and even a single opponent can put an end to your career. Going alone against 3 guys tends to result in a very quick death, cover or no cover. The AI flanks you like there's no tomorrow and uses a full range of attacks.

Grenades are done, but we're still working on the visual effects. Gadgets are still not done (didn't have time); we got about half the armor/goggles/gas masks modeled but not textured yet; and we only have a handful of portraits needed for the demo. The demo is in a better shape than it was in Dec, but we aren't there yet.

I'm 12 hours into fantasy RPG Outward when I travel to its second region, visit the city of Berg for the first time, and buy my first proper backpack. Strange to say that buying a backpack feels momentous, but dammit, it really is. I feel triumphant to discard my primitive satchel and shoulder a real pack on my back. Not only does it fit more loot, but I can hang a lantern from it too, so I can have both hands free and still see in the dark. That's the kind of game Outward is, one where the things you take for granted in other games feel like a real accomplishment.

I’m intrigued in what Outward seems to be. And it’s really delightful to see something like this come from a small, relatively unknown developer. I’m eagerly waiting to pull up a couch and jump in with a friend when it’s out in a few months.

Outward, despite its flaws, is one of the most interesting open-world RPGs I've played since Divinity: Original Sin 2. With some work to the way combat feels and the much-needed addition of a minimap, I think Outward has the potential to shine when it's released.

There are a lot of things I like about Outward. But it seems a little too intent on not being user-friendly to its own detriment, even if its challenges can definitely be overcome. I’ve had a fair amount of fun with it, but also a large amount of frustration. Enjoying it will hinge on how hard the individual is willing to work to learn the game and push through its less user-friendly design aspects. Anyone who doesn’t like handholding will probably get the most out of it.

It really is difficult to convey to non-time travelers just how amazing Ultima Underworld was back in March of 1992. To be able to move freely through a realistically rendered 3D space; to be able to walk up and down inclines, to jump over or into chasms, even to swim in underground streams… no one had ever seen anything like it before. At a stroke, it transformed the hoary old CRPG formula from a cerebral exercise in systems and numbers into an organic, embodied virtual reality. In time, it would prove itself to have been the starting point of a 3D Revolution in gaming writ large, one that would transform the hobby almost beyond recognition by the end of the 1990s. We live now in a gaming future very different from the merger of Silicon Valley and Hollywood which was foreseen by the conventional wisdom of 1992. Today, embodied first-person productions, focusing on emergent experience at least as much as scripted content, dominate across a huge swathe of the gaming landscape.

Centuries ago, an Imperial expedition uncovered the lost Ayleid city of Garlas Malatar and built Fort Mistwatch within the ruin’s entrance. While the fort was intended to protect the Imperials as they looted the city below, a sinister power was uncovered by the expedition, resulting in the loss of the entire cohort along with knowledge of the ruin’s entrance. What they found buried deep within the ancient site, and their ultimate fate, remained a mystery until now.

We recently hired a new Narrative Designer, Matt, who helped work on our recent lore-heavy expansion, Betrayal! We took a moment to get some insights about Matt's role and his working life.

We are here, and so is a Grim Misadventure!

Last time, we revealed our big feature for v1.1.0.0, the overhauled Loot Filter! This awesome new feature is coming to all versions of the game with the patch coinciding with the Forgotten Gods expansion’s release.

We’ve had some significant updates since then though, in case you’ve missed them.

First up, we’ve updated the Game Guide with tons of information on all of the content and features coming in Forgotten Gods. It’s another massive expansion and we can’t wait to get it into your hands.

Are you ready for a new adventure? The roads aren’t safe anymore and a new threat appears on the horizon. As Radzigs loyal servant you, Henry, get to deal with a serious threat – but you are not alone. You ride with an infamous band of mercenaries to help to protect the lands… but can you really trust them?

A realistic medieval game demands realistic medieval combat! The documentary Fechtbuch not only charts Warhorse Studio’s quest to create a unique experience, but also presents medieval martial arts as a phenomenon and an important element of European history.

The story explores reincarnation through several generations, as the Archdemon continues to spawn even after the current Hero vanquishes them. In this SRPG, fight as the Hero (or Chosen One), who is trusted to produce an heir who can put an end to the Archdemon once and for all!

Get ready for a full month of exclusive content from Game Informer covering Obsidian's upcoming RPG The Outer Worlds. We'll be showing new gameplay, interviews with the original creators of Fallout Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, and Obsidian's CEO Feargus Urquhart

Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, and more PC classics make console debuts this year
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Beamdog and Skybound to publish six old-school RPGs