Looks like FFVIIR is one of the free games for PS4 next month.

yup, not compatible with the free ps5 upgrade coming in june, though, apparently

Gravity Leap in Outriders would be a broken skill if there were PvP in the game. A 4-second immunity + teleport + heal + knockback/interrupt every 14 seconds. QQ.

But yeah, the Devastator looks like the most fun class, especially with a controller. Fuck cover. Who needs cover.

Here's a game for Hades fans.

Seriously, but what the FUCK is wrong with the Microsoft Store/Xbox app on Windows? Endless bugs. Who are these people? 90% of the worlds PC's run on this operating system, and their store interfaces are such utter shite. Gawd.

Wargame: Red Dragon (2014)

Metacritic page

RTS, Windows only. Some addons here.

"Diablo 4 Interview: 'It Was A Day 0 Decision.' Lead Developer Thoughts" (Rhykker)



It's focused on the open-world aspect of D4, but this recent interview also made me notice a set of fundamentally new class mechanics in Diablo 4 that're obviously not getting as much hype as they should.

(Discovered that Game Informer commentary videos are funny. Who knew.) In this Barbarian-focused gameplay video from a year ago, a couple of them are featured:


Barbarians can automatically switch among different categories of weapons when activating certain skills. This is a big deal. It massively diversifies Barbarian playstyle (unless gear is too streamlined for it to matter). It's also just plain cool... of course a Barbarian would be walking around with 3-5 weapons & gracefully switching among them after each swing. YES!

Druid's is similar, but with shapeshifting (bear & wolf).


Sorceress can sequester a skill into a special Enchantment slot (away from skill slots) to equip an extra passive. This is similarly a big deal - doesn't "change" class playstyle, but it gives Sorc an extra ability. Because she studied. She earned it.


Idk if this is the Rogue version... but Rogues will have access to diverging faction-type questlines (mentioned in the top vid) that will shape certain abilities. Unclear, based on the devs' comments above, if any of these is gender-specific or if that aspect is there for RPers. (Rogues traditionally are members of the Sisterhood of the Sightless Eye, hence female. These questlines expand the world to reveal additional Rogue organizations.)

Haven't found anything contradicting this, so afaik the August announcement that Amazon would be publishing one of Korean studio Smilegate RPG's games in N.America & Europe in 2021 is still valid. They didn't name the game, but the devs did so in a separate announcement reported only in Korean outlets, apparently. (You can copy the url into Googoo translate.)

It's Lost Ark.

It's currently (afaik) still in open beta in S.Korea, and you need a local phone number to sign up, although some people have gotten around the localization with the help of Korean nationals.

Anywez... video. It's from 2018, but whatever. He's a big Diablo fan, and a kiwi.



I thought about the fact that Amazon shuttered its game studio(s) a few weeks ago, after pouring half a billion $$ into it... and whether that bodes ill for the Lost Ark deal, but... nah.

I think the latest big announcement from devs is that the game is being revamped for Unreal 4 engine.

One more, thematic. I was excited about Wolcen back in the day, almost joined the beta, kicked myself when the price went up, etc. Now it's fully out.

'Tain't good.



Money: saved.

It's been fully out ages.

I've been playing the early access of this one. It's quite good.

3 weeks is the blink of an eye with these things, for me.

It looks like if you have old, 20 year-old saves for Diablo 2 they'll still work on the remake.
https://www.ign.com/articles/diablo-2-r ... save-files

A couple things still need clarification, and that's one of them (was rumored since the reveal). I'm still not sure if the original servers are being migrated/replaced. Being that most "saves" are probably server-side (online-only characters) that's where most of the impact will be felt, if the servers migrate. IOW idk if classic D2 is staying put - quarantined, like it is now, from the other Bnet games (you can't play D1 or D2 from the Bnet launcher). A few things could break if there's server migration planned & ppl aren't told.

...for local save files, if D2 characters are being migrated as-is, then they're migrating with a shit-ton of ridiculous items. There are 'duped' and 'bugged' items native to the code (which Blizz hinted they're leaving as is) & they're in the online-only environment... but the kind of items offline players create is ridonculous. I wonder if Blizz will actually tolerate that kind of economy during a title 'reset', where they're hoping to attract fresh meat new players.

Also... still waiting on confirmation that gore hasn't been sanitized (lazy-mode for the Chinese market, if anything). The before & after vids with Necro @ Radament's Lair highlighted the absence of Corpse Explosion in the "after" shot... yes, the mobs in the "after" shot are skellies, so no meat to explode, but the point is Blizz chose to show that video, knowing full well (or they should) the "before" has what Blizz themselves were calling "the best skill in the game" back in the day.

They've shown corpses, and pools of blood, sure. But gotta see those blood-guts, and gotta hear it go splat... the longer it don't, the more suspicion turns to affirmation. (D4 Rogue trailer shows demons being disemboweled, but it's bloodless. Not the same. ...and D3 Necro came out fully a year before the NetEase partnership announced for Diablo Immortal, so it's not reassuring.)

This new game somehow mixes a card game with Diablo.

Interesting. Combat looks fun... I guess the "card" component is about bringing a handful of spells (12?) from each category to the battle, and they'll rotate randomly as you use them. It's a little gimmicky, but from a Magic player's pov it's probably an interesting dip into the arpg format, and vice versa.

Level design looks too linear & cramped imo. Also, there's no way they're not monetizing decks... it's their thing, it's what they do. Go go D4!

Correction: your deck consists of 12 cards. So basically 3 items per spell slot, in 4 categories. Hmm. More gimmicky than I expected. I guess it could be interesting if there's real build diversity.



You can buy booster packs which give you more spell options yet somehow that's not a power advantage (especially in early game)? And they unlock unique artifacts? And new classes? Do tell...

Added: published by Perfect World Games, which is an mmorpg factory with lots of subsidiaries... and which apparently is also set to release a janky version of Steam for China.

The second confusing thing about D2 remastered is cross-progression. They say you can pick up where you left off on a different device... but you can't cross-play. Wtf does that mean? I haven't heard anyone spell it out. Say you create a character on PC... then you migrate to XBOX & continue with the character. You are now on XBOX. So when you log into the server on XBOX you... can't play with other XBOX players because it's a PC-created character? You can't play with PC players because you're now on XBOX (using a PC-created character)? Wth... why can't they fucking explain this petty shit?

Also, yeah, I bet it's not a technical issue, it's a licensing issue, and (I dare say) it's not Microsoft that's standing in the way, it's Sony. No one's said so - the devs are mumbling some bullshit about interfaces being different on different platforms, but that's obvious bullshit, because doy! Cross-progression!

If it's not Sony, then it's Activision making sure when we derps buy the game 2-3 times we subconsciously "feel" it's got something to do with this made-up barrier. (But it's Sony.)

I doubt it's Sony. Sony allows cross-platform games now and has for a while and other Activision games like COD have cross-platform.
That said none of the other Blizzard games have cross-platform.

-_-

Ok, so Sony apparently took the broomstick out of its butt in the last couple years.

Blizz's official UI excuse doesn't make sense given D2 remaster & cross-progression. I've been trying to square that circle, and I can't... how does a server-only PC-created character continue to play on console, but now without multiplayer? If that's even the plan. Nobody seems to know or care... nobody's asked them what it looks like.

arugula2 wrote:One more, thematic. I was excited about Wolcen back in the day, almost joined the beta, kicked myself when the price went up, etc. Now it's fully out.

'Tain't good.



Money: saved.

While I didn't dislike the game, it was quite a disappointment that I haven't touched since getting my first character to max level.