Quoting: Patola

Quoting: BeamboomI don't play for score anymore, I don't play to win at a strategy board. I play for immersion. For fantastic experiences, gorgeous landscapes, excellent acting, touching characters, and a freedom to be and do what I want in a universe like the ones I see in the movies I love.
I don't sit on a machine capable of delivering me a holodeck experience just to play pong again. That's where you have me. Is that really something to patronise?

That was some brilliant writing. I am also from this time, also played games since PONG in "telejogo" circa 1979. And I also avoid small games like the Plague. And I am also angry at the developers that try and use Pixel Graphics as pretending "being artsy" instead of plainly saying it's the small budget. And I look for the same kind of experience as you, but never had read it explained so concisely and perfectly.

I guess I'm the counter point. I'm also from that era - I'll be fifty soon, but still gaming anywhere between 10 and 40 or so hours a week, depending on my social life. But most AAA titles last decade have bored me. For example, I loved the first two Nathan Drake titles on the Playstation, but only managed about 3 hours of the fourth. And the third was a drag from the midpoint on, although I completed it.

Similarly, I loved the first reboot of Tomb Raider, then played only about 4 hours of the second. I haven't bought the third yet, but likely will just to support Feral. It's not so likely that I'll invest much time in it.

Look at the candidates this year! Sure, we only have maybe four titles in that AAA bucket, but then there is:
SteamWorld Quest (beautiful hand-drawn graphics with intense card-based mechanic)
Supraland (stunning UE4 FPS)
Iron Marines (IronHide's usual high quality cartoon graphics and voice-acting)
Slay the Spire (hand-drawn cards, insane replayability)
Indivisible (fantastic animation work)
Pine (could almost be a Nintendo title, it's so pretty)
X4 Foundations (Massive, brave open galaxy sim/fighter)

...and I haven't even mentioned Streets of Rogue! :D

So I just don't get the negativity. I really don't!

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Quoting: Liam Dawe

Quoting: BeamboomI don't play for score anymore, I don't play to win at a strategy board. I play for immersion. For fantastic experiences, gorgeous landscapes, excellent acting, touching characters, and a freedom to be and do what I want in a universe like the ones I see in the movies I love.
I don't sit on a machine capable of delivering me a holodeck experience just to play pong again. That's where you have me. Is that really something to patronise?

I think it's more a case of the attitude. We're a niche, a tiny one and nothing has changed on that. Seeing people repeat the "there's no AAA games" thing over and over again just gets tiring. We are where we are, a lot of us enjoying what we have.

Perhaps it'll be useful to consider whether we add a "Steam Play" category next year. I'm all for celebrating devs who support us, and while I also believed Beamboom to be pretty negative (although well explained in the follow up), I suppose I've played a handful of excellent Windows-only titles this year and perhaps that needs to be recognised. Titles like Void Bastards, Witcher 3, (the absolutely incredible) Noita, Deep Rock Galactic, A Plague Tale: Innocence, Risk of Rain 2 and Wolfenstein: Old Blood.

I suppose what's interesting about that list is that only one is a AAA title and wasn't even released (in any form) in 2019.

So what big AAA titles WERE released in 2019 that I actually missed as a Linux gamer?

PC Gamer notes the following titles:

Best Ongoing Game: Sea of Thieves
Best Remake: Resident Evil 2
Best Character: Untitled Goose Game
Best Action Game: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Best Setting: Control
Best Expansion: Final Fantasy 14: Shadowbringers
Best Comedy Game: What the Golf?
Best Strategy Game: Total War: Three Kingdoms
Best Design: Slay the Spire
Best Open World Game: Red Dead Redemption 2
Best FPS: Apex Legends
Best Adventure Game: Outer Wilds
Game of the Year: Disco Elysium

Looking at that list, I didn't miss much. Outer Wilds, and Disco Elysium. But I wouldn't have bought the first anyway, because it's an Epic exclusive and I could play the latter anytime with it's Gold rating in ProtonDB.

Some might miss RDR2, but it's not my scene. Sekiro is meant to be a nice Souls-like, but again, not my scene and it's Platinum anyway.

So I'm pretty happy with both the state of Linux gaming, and this GoTY. You only have to rewind five years to remember that we didn't have anything. And with just under 1% market share, that's not really likely to change.

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Quoting: einherjarHuh, I could not find DXVK in the category "Favourite FOSS project" :O

Wow, yeah, that's surprising. Especially consider that both Wine and Proton are in there! I'm amazed that no-one nominated it!

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Quoting: antisol

Quoting: scainethink about the end-game, which is perfect, seamless support for all Windows games, on Linux.

Firstly, that's not my end-game. I'm not particularly interested in running windows games on Linux. I'd rather have Linux games.

That's the point. Once SteamPlay hits its visionary goal, there won't be any distinction.

As for the rest of your post, it's weirdly pessimistic. There are literally thousands of games I can already "play like native" and this is only the first year. In fact, there are quite a few titles that run better on Linux now than Windows 10.

Sure, the goal is visionary. And it isn't just about wine. It's about Valve and others encouraging more open development so that future titles aren't really "Windows" games anymore. It'll take years, perhaps decades, but look at the impact Vulkan has already had in such a short time. Look at DXVK that followed closely. Look at the maturity of things like SDL. It's all coming together nicely, I think.

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Quoting: DrMcCoyI played part of the first episode back when it was released, but stopped in the middle to wait for it all to be finished. Guess I can play it now :)

...Once I find time to play it, that is. Curse you, RL.

Not sure if RL is "Rocket League" or "Real Life", but either way, I get you.

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Quoting: antisolwhen "viable workarounds exist" with Wine being mentioned.

This is exactly what I predicted and why proton is not a good thing. It gives devs the option to just be lazy: "Just use proton. Oh it doesn't work? Well we don't actually support it, so tough. Oh, the problem occurred 2 hours and 1 minute into the game? I guess no refund for you."

I definitely get this attitude, but I suppose you have to think about the end-game, which is perfect, seamless support for all Windows games, on Linux. Might be years away, but as an end-game, it's a pretty special goal. And if that "seamless" support is dependant on using Vulkan, so much the better.

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I've waiting on this one - I feel a pay day purchase coming on!

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I played Act 1 all the way through in 2013 and was vagely surprised, at the end, to discover that it was a episodic release. Sadly, I never went back to it. I suppose episodic releases only really work if you can keep up momentum and stick to a schedule. There's no point in me buying Act 2 onwards now - I've long forgotten what Act I was about!

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Great idea! Sadly, I'm not available tonight, but good luck to all the players that take part. I've been meaning to pick this up for ages!

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Quoting: [email protected]Refund request rejected.

Same here. £11.84, bought directly from Steam. Played 10 hours. Rejected.

Psyonix really dropped the ball on this. This is just smoke and mirrors now.

edit: screenshot here: image [External Link]

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