i feel this ... just yesterday when i seen that yakuza gaiden was coming to gamepass i had that why am i sticking with PS as my system of choice with it feeling ... i have a pc that can play these games and even tho its coming to gamepass i'll probably not play it on my pc .. to me even tho its been multiplatform for a good while now it started as a PS exclusive series so at this point all the games except og 1&2 sit nice and pretty on my shelf ...to the point that i have a copy from play-asia ordered for this entry since the west isn't getting a physical edition. so now its do i risk the hand pain playing on my ps5 which i sorta hate ( tho i was mostly ok with ff16 by my suprise) or do i not wait n play via gamepass on pc with a more comfortable controller but feel weird cause i don't have trophies for it like every release since 3 .... its a very weird feeling. and its only 1 example
i never thought too hard about the outsourcing cause i'm suire its different for each studio .
the first time i recall Hearing about it was deus ex :HR , imo as someone who never played previous games i thought the game was great but the boss fights were iffy ... turns out the boss fights were that way cause they had outsourced them so instead of being like the rest of the game where you had a certain amount of freedom to go at a fight/lack of with however you approach things the bosses were pretty much hope you speced out well enough for this arena battle of sorts cause your fighting this boss right here.
the next time i recall really hearing about it was xenoblade chronicals 2 .. all those weird oversexualized characters? alot of them were suposabily outsourced like that owl humanoid character with oversized jugs.
this is just 2 examples i recall off the top of my head but we've heard of plenty of them over the years .. between playtesting art assets and other areas. honestly idk how i feel about it in terms of if it helps or hurts a game. plenty of little indie devs outscource parts of games that they don't know how to do and it works out great . other times you get something big and it can go either way too.
As for starfield ... i think bethesda got too big in the head as a company . i've always enjoyed BGS games sure over the last decade or so they've started to get a lot of flak for their bugs and slightly outdated tech n what not but at the core i always thought they're games were good enough to deal weith it . ...... till now . i've played 14 hours of starfield and personally , i might sorta hate it. the world feels rather soulless, i know they intended to a point design-wise of going for the more blan space aesthetic but thats not the issue . its not even the ai generated barren copy pasted random worlds that are my issue cause frankly i haven't gone to them yet tho i don't want it . no ... my issue as their handcrafted city/towns just feel heartless. it used to be they would put enough care into their locations that they felt lived in , every place had a story of some sort , every npc had a name, or a job at least. starfield tho ? you get to new atlantis and more often than not you look at an npc and they are just 'citizen' no random overly played comment like a city/town gaurd like skyrim for example. then on top of that even the ones who are characters/named they just feel blan. sure the dated animations and graphics don't help matters but i don't think thats the real issue here when older titles had the same issues but still had heart to their characters even if they were sorta throwaway ones.
Idk , with each game BGS puts out i feel like the games loose a little something each time. morrowind was great , tho i watched a video about a dude complaining about all that was missing from daggerfall before it. personally i never played any entries previously so i can't compare. but what i can compare is morrowind to oblivion .. we went from indiviual armor pieces to less parts and no robes over armor . skyrim? removed the ability to have clothes And armor on period. we won't speak of weapon types. i believe each entry had less factions each time also. those are just 2 examples of things being 'lost', that said i still thought they were good games anyway. fallout isn't my prefered setting so i fell off of both 3 and 4 but 4 definately didn't feel as enjoyable to be in. and 76 was a different beast by design .
To me i think they've just gotten too big to actually put the care they used to into the games they make. idk if outsourcing has alot to do with it or if its a design and management issue or a money issue, but the care just doesn't feel like its there the way it used to be. starfield might've added some layers but it feels very much not worth it and thats a shame, but more of a shame is idk if i care about elder scrolls 6 if this is the care they're putting into a new IP they've been wanting to make for gods know how long .
Anyway this got longer than i actually planned on typing, i just woke up and all i've done is type lol.
TLDR: idk if outsourcing is the major issue but i'm sure it doesn't help things .
i don't think it Needs to be , But it would make things easier , every time i play a nintendo game i get all sort of messed up cause of not just button placement being swapped vs xbox but because confirm/cancel is the other button like old japanese rpgs used to be in years past. honestly i think its mostly just weird like that cause everything adopted the western controls vs east but idk
i pretty much always go for the default /medium . usually thats how something is 'ment' to be played and balanced around it . if i have a hard time i have no qualms about dropping it down to easy if i just care about the story or something , i'm there to have fun with a game so i don't need to get frustrated unless its just That type of game in the first place ...that said i don't usually bother with overly difficult games, only game i bumped up in recent memory was one of the yakuza entries i was replaying a few months back for throphy reasons
@jonnyp: sounds like i should give it another go then :) it probably won't be for a good few days but when i do i'll see if i have anything to add , its good to see dev addressing issues/concerns tho :)
ahh i still think that would be a game dependant thing but i lean more towards no that shouldn't be a thing . idk i feel like if you had that option in most games you'd miss too much to make alot of them honestly worth playing in the first place ( maybe zelda and skyrim opening aside ) instead i'd then say maybe that style game just isn't for the person if they would want to skip that deep into games ( like that mass effect 2 example) i'd instead say they should try something arcadey or rogue-like/lite a more 'do-y' game if you will vs a talky/texty game
Ok i gave it a go . Let me start by saying i think taking Paperboy and turning it into a VR game is a neat idea, cause thats what this sorta is. I think the core mechanics and concept are overall pretty sound.
My first gripes however is the tutorial and control/perspective settings.
When you launch into the game there are only sound settings and while those are great to have i found that my perspective wasn't exactly the best but i pushed start anyway. once into a level i found i was clipping a bit into the ground and the bike handelbars were over my head so i was forced to quit out of the game and readjust my bountray settings . there was no way i could see to fix/change this in game and i didn't know How to quit out of thegame other than to take my headset off and use my mouse to exit via steam proper as none of the buttons helped.
Upon reajusting my headset's boundry settings i reentered the game and while it didn't look much diffent it was a bit better. I double checked the settings to see it i'd missed anything and i had not so i believe that is something that i think should be added is a way to readjust your playing area.
I once again loaded up the first level , there is a tips sorta style loading screen common to most games but i found that it was a bit too fast to read so i just sorta ignored it . once into the game again it was definately better than my previous attempt to start , the handel bards and basket were sorta low but much better than before when they were way above my head , i sorta intuitively pressed stuff like any person who's played games for about 30 years and funbled my way into the controls , they aren't rocket science but a pop-up on first play or a controls section in the menues would have made something like that helpful i think for others.
I looked at the steam page before i'd started the game up and honestly if i'd never played paperboy and hadn't actually looked at the video vs pictures i frankly would not have really known what to do , but because i had i just sorta started trying to grab my newspaper and started tossing them at things , its pretty simple gameplay and it works but there were a number of times where i felt it went too fast to be able to get rid of barriers and also due to the on rails nature of it and how my perspective was i felt like i should have been able to sorta steer towards the middle of the road more , honestly that part wasn't a big deal but it felt weird the first time through.
When i'd completed the level the completed screen showing what i'd done popped but saying i'd done X and i needed to do Y to open but the next level which was pretty helpful so i deciced to give it another go . Loading the stage up again i was able to read more of the loading tips and realised it was the tutorial/instructions. i still couldn't finish reading them but knowing thats what it actually was now i can flat out say that i think thats a bad spot for them and would recomend a pop-up at least upon first play either instead or in addition to this. Anyway i completed the level and unlocked the next . i had still missed come objectives but they were for non-robot and mailbox things and i frankly have no idea what they want me to hit otherwise still.
The second stage was wintery themed and it was a nice different scenery showing variety to the world i guess, it was much of the same as before which is expected and i did just that. This level has hills however and while i found the flater roads of the first level to be pretty friendly for the most part i instead found the hills on this stage to be kinda awkward. the bike acts like you would sorta expect in that it tilts its angle rather in a realistisc sorta manner for going uphill , the consequence of that however is that your basket of newspaper changes position and personally i found it harder to reach for leading to me not actually having anything in hand and missing point i would have otherwise gotten. i'm not sure if this is an intended difficulty spike or not.
In addition to this slight difficulty spike from the hills i also found near the tail-end of the stage i was also starting to get a tad motion sick on them. i don't play a ton of VR games because i do have motionsickness issue so i was originally hesitent to redeeem the code but i'd figured i'd been a week so if it was still there ( obviously was) it was worth giving it a try to give feedback, with the first stage i had been plensently suprised to have no motion sickness issues but by the end of the 2nd stage i decided that i'd given it a well enough go having gotten some time in to provide feedback and well here we are .
Overall i think its a neat little game with but i think it could use some work. at $25 on early access tho i would not recommend it tho sadly . i might not have gotten far enough in to give it a fair shake to seee if it would be worth someones money at that price in theres depth and such but at first glance i would've been upset if i paid more than 10 Especially in early access. I do however thank you for the code and for letting me give it a try . i don't play stuff often in VR since i usually find it a pain so i hadn't actually touched my quest 2 since last year and while it wasn't amazing it was pretty easy to get running and play for the most part which is nice i was worried i was going to have to look for my link cable but it actually worked really well with airlink which was a nice suprise considering you'd mentioned using a link cable instead.
Anyway here are some highlights of thoughts...
Neat idea
Mechanically works
Nice visual aesthetic
Needs better tutorial
Would benifit from Settings options having alignment adjustments options
Up hill parceptive can cause difficulty spike and motion sickness issues
Price point seems steep at first glance for early access offerings tho that could change.
Again thanks for the code and letting me try it out , i hope the feedback is helpful for you and your team, i'll probably boot it up again n see if there are any other thoughts i might have to add after but overall i think its a solid neat little idea that just needs work.
grabbed the top code , i'll give it a go later tonight when i have the room to myself and see how it goes . i'm suprised this post was made almost a week ago and the code was still there honestly , i'll report my thoughts back.
i mean its not not 100% with everything but the site does have that already, it was build ( tho poorly handled after a while) into the site design when they redesigned it . its in the videos dropdown>shows and then you can just click from there . most shows have 'seasons' if they have multipul games or are spaced in diffenet years n stuff .. tho i'd how well the video player works on aslot of them, this new player gives me issues like everyone else and idk how things are on youtube since i use the site cause of that vary reason of having playlists
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