I'm not particular for card games, but I like the IP, so I'll probably give the genre a go now :)

Quoting: no_information_hereJust because SteamWorld has an area named Vectron, I have to leave this here...
https://vimeo.com/202443968 [External Link]

Siemens might take offense :) (and the Forum doesn't support all unicode smileys :()

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Another target group: People like me, who play to relax. Work has enough challenge, I'm very much interested into not-challenging games sometimes.

Heck, during my master thesis I spent some weaks just digging a large hole in minecraft XD

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Ugh... The gameplay looks nice, but the way the blending of wall-visibility is handled makes me dizzy. That seems awkwardly distracting. It is one of those small details, that can ruin a game for people susceptible to motion sickness, regardless of how good it is otherwise.

Just like that recent trend of animating website content when it comes into the field of view... (Often intentionally, sometimes as a side-effect of loading images only once their area is visible, instead of beforehand).

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Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: Shmerl

Quoting: F.UltraI assume here that it's part of the 30% cut so if they would open this to any one then a dev who only publishes on GOG or the Epic store would utilize these nodes for free. Not that this would be a bad thing but I understand if Valve is not interested in it.

I'd rather guess, if they open it to everyone, developers will pay them some fee for it, to be able to use however they want. Like it's with any cloud service like OpenShift, GCP, AWS and what not.

Of course, but now Valve have decided many moons ago that they cover all such things with their 30% cut. Then again, any one could in theory create a version of these Steam Networking API:s that added the NAT traversal bits and charge a small fee for it. I don't honestly think that it would be a viable business model, but it's feasible.

Main issue is probably, that Valve have no reason to provide such a service. Their source of income is their store, so they build services, that make using the store attractive to developers. Why would they invest into a service, that effectively strengthens competitors?

Such a service would need to come from a third party. But then the developers would have to pay for it -- and keep paying for it indefinitely. In the end it would be GameSpy all over again. The Steam-tied solution has the advantage, that the services are likely to remain available just as long, as access to (downloading) the game remains available, as Valve either (a) has no relevant costs, because barely anybody is playing anymore or (b) they still get revenue from occasional sales, by keeping the online services up.

Idealism aside, given limited developer resources, I can't imagine a better outcome.

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Quoting: 14Looks like it could be fun, but not to look at.

On that I disagree. I like these minimalist styles, especially for simulation games were visual clarity is often an issue, especially with 3D graphics.

I am curious how they handle the underground. So far the only games I have known to do that well (no delay when slicing, convenient navigation) were in 2D, specifically Dwarf Fortress and Towns.

For 3D, being able to disable perspective to produce fixed-angle isometric views would also help greatly, but I haven't seen it done yet.

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Regarding Valve's own IP, I think that might actually be quite risky. HL2 was regarded as a revolutionary shooter; I can only see THAT particular hype-train crashing full-throttle into a wall. At this point, HL3 cannot possibly live up to the expectations.

Quoting: tmtvl

Quoting: BeamboomTotally unrelated but:
Seeing screenshots like that, and then looking over at screenshots of our indie games... And... Yeah, well...

Yeah, indies are neat and all, but most just aren't worth it.

Mostly a personal preferrence though. Recently, most AAA titles had me grow tired, before I even finished them. Indies have a better chance for me. In part it is because AAA titles have a tendency of artificially inflating their content for being able to market that "100h+" or "open world". And the low-fi graphics of many indies are often done in a way, that adds character, or creates more visual clarity than seen in AAA games.

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I'm not normally a friend of twin-stick gameplay, but with the exploration aspect it might actually be interesting for me :)

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Quoting: iiari- There's Tencent, a huge Chinese company with tentacles all over the industry (including Discord) with tons of money and influence and Chinese companies in other industries have not hesitated to use that money and influence to artifically undercut (dumping) and extinguish competitors.

The main reson I am concerned abou Tencent, is that China has a high tolerance for abusive F2P models and the extensive grind connected to it. "Pay your way to the top? Why not, after all that money had to be earned."

As such I am rather scared about the long term influence on the quality of the games.

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Quoting: CybolicOne of these days, one of these games will exit Early-Access and be reviewed well; that's when I'll be ready to go back to building my little space colony.

Better to look for games in early access. It is normal for these games to be fun in EA, but never really leave it other than by "we don't have any money left, we need to finalize it".

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Sounds like just the right thing when stressed out from work :)

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