PoE Reviews

[covr]

Can't wait till Sensuki starts sending death threats to PoE reviewers (in addition to just stalking them).

Sensuki = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-gQ3aAdhIo

 

[J_C]

Oh dear Obsidian ....

I have one of the press accounts. Not really sure how much I'm allowed to say at this point.

The game is really good so far. Feels like Baldur's Gate 3. Lore seems crazy deep.

It is crashing to desktop on probably ~30% of all scene transitions (map loads) for me, though. Save often!

Yeah, I don't get it. I've got 35+ hours playing the game without a single crash.

It is not always the game's fault. It might be his shitty configuration, which is full of spam, adware, maleware and garbage applications.

 

[polo]

Oh dear Obsidian ....

I have one of the press accounts. Not really sure how much I'm allowed to say at this point.

The game is really good so far. Feels like Baldur's Gate 3. Lore seems crazy deep.

It is crashing to desktop on probably ~30% of all scene transitions (map loads) for me, though. Save often!

Yeah, I don't get it. I've got 35+ hours playing the game without a single crash.

It is not always the game's fault. It might be his shitty configuration, which is full of spam, adware, maleware and garbage applications.

His rig is shit, and 32bits. It was indeed his shitty config.

 

[J_C]

I asked him anyway - I'll find out for ya.

It's the IGN editor though so I think he may have a better computer than that.

They are spoiled by consoles. They are no longer able to build working PCs.

 

[Sensuki]

He posted again. He's actually not reviewing the game.

Edit: To clarify - I'm not reviewing the game. I'm a features guy, and I'm playing on my own time to evaluate other coverage opportunities. I can't speak for what anyone else is doing, but there's all kinds of reasons press might need early access to do their job besides reviewing a product. Prepping guide content, capturing video... any number of special projects.

 

[ArchAngel]

He posted again. He's actually not reviewing the game.

Edit: To clarify - I'm not reviewing the game. I'm a features guy, and I'm playing on my own time to evaluate other coverage opportunities. I can't speak for what anyone else is doing, but there's all kinds of reasons press might need early access to do their job besides reviewing a product. Prepping guide content, capturing video... any number of special projects.

That is good because I still dream that one idiot reviewer that gave a low score to WL2 because the game kept crashing for him only.

 

[Raghar]

The issue is probably the 2GB per process memory limit for 32-bit systems, and he's got a 1GB integrated graphics card, so his system memory would probably be eating into some of that 2.5GB he's got left (especially Windows 7).

He actually doesn't have an integrated card

As I game developer I think:

Game reviewers should have deep knowledge about HW, computers and related stuff, because otherwise they can't properly decide if what they are seeing in early access reviewer copy is a drastic bug, that would be patched, or a development feature.

It's not fucking movie industry to receive an ex-movie reviewer who think the only requirement is a popularity, and a grammar.


BTW, XP could use more than 2 GB for applications, and it's called 4GB limit because 32-bit sytem is using: "a & 0xFFFFFFFFL" for actual resolving real RAM addresses. Standard configuration of XP used 2GB for system, because it didn't want to interfere with programs, the program could use about 1-2 GB from the rest on a 4GB system. When program was made a large page aware, it could use more at users risk. The standard 1/2 of space for system and 1/2 of virtual space for programs could be configured, up to 3GB for application. However it caused some risk for user as drivers were not guaranteed to be able to comply with this limitation, and could cause crashes, loss of sound, and stuff like that. There was also problem with only 1 GB space left for system, which would be severally constrained, and might be forced to copy stuff just for proper housekeeping. Note that, System could access and use more than 4GB, it just needed to abide by that restriction I wrote in quotation marks. Practically the only really visible application of this would be an additional cache before swap file, and that would mean larger chance to lose data on crash, so I wonder if they bothered. (Additional benefit of having more than 4 GB on 32-bit system is ability of OS to have some protected space in RAM that normal drivers/viruses/application can't access, and ability of recover from crash. XP didn't have that ability. MS thought they would switch to XP-64, but then they started heavily push Vista.)

Of course this didn't mean applications could use all of that 4GB, because physically OS couldn't use all these directly accessible 4GB either, at least 3MB are reserved for MB resources PC wouldn't work without them, and about 200 MB is reserved for communication with GFX card. Note that in 32 bit, NVidia drivers permit 4GB card on top of that WITHOUT decreasing size of accessible RAM. (Thus I could run 5 GB RAM using program on 32 bit OS. 3GB on system, 2 GB in CUDA on GFX card. I think Titan works too, but I don't know how much System RAM are drivers using for keeping info about GFX RAM. If they are smart, they are just using few arrays that point in GFX RAM where is all that info, and do majority of stuff through CUDA. New version of NVidia cards would have ARM on board, which would do what was normally done by CPU.)

BTW using 3.6 GB RAM on 32 bit system to be able to run highly RAM consuming game, and have 60 pages opened in browser simultaneously is kickass. (And so is using dual boot XP for games and x64 Linux for actual programs.)



Well we are living in age of 64 bit systems, where RAM is cheap, and third party engines can be inefficient as they want. (Also where majority of developers sucks in programming skill.)

 

[Roguey]

I hope this was a valuable learning experience for that guy.

 

[Rutteger]

For example, Sensuki is blue lady.

I don't know that dress looks black to me... Maybe the internet can decide for us.

 

[Sensuki]

From the Kotaku guy (who I knew was going to love the game anyway)

You know how back in the day you'd be playing Baldur's Gate or Planescape and then suddenly you'd look up and it'd be midnight? Well, uh, yeah.

Yeah man. This game has the same exact feel. They recreated so many IE details, all the way down to enemy health saying Injured/Badly Injured/Near Death/etc.

 

[Ninjerk]

Oh wow, Badly Injured?!

 

[Havoc]

NEAR DEATH?! GOTY! 10/DORITOS!

- Dinosaur Inquirer

 

[Havoc]

(Where's my copy, you fuckers?! I just can't wait for my normal copy!)

 

[Jaedar]

I must admit I don't understand why reviewers get the game before backers. The goal is surely to generate positive buzz about the game, and backers are the ones who like this stuff enough to put down money blindly.

Seems like it would be wasted potential to not exploit this.

And I'm not just saying this because I want to play the game.

 

[Sensuki]

From the IGN guy

This game is not especially easy on Normal Difficulty. At least for me and my party makeup.I've wiped a few times within the first 3 levels, and had to take on a dungeon boss multiple times before I got him tanked correctly and took him down.

Edit: It's not especially hard in a scary way either. Feels properly balanced.

 

[Athelas]

had to take on a dungeon boss multiple times before I got him tanked correctly

Sounds like he kept dying to disengagement attacks.

 

[Ellef]

That'll teach him for moving in combat.

 

[Havoc]

Feels properly balanced.

 

[dukeofwhales]

I must admit I don't understand why reviewers get the game before backers. The goal is surely to generate positive buzz about the game, and backers are the ones who like this stuff enough to put down money blindly.

Seems like it would be wasted potential to not exploit this.

And I'm not just saying this because I want to play the game.

Because otherwise the reviews that get all the clicks are the ones which are out quickest, because they are the ones most upvoted on the reddits and first listed on the metacritics. Not by coincidence, these are also the writers who have played the game the least, and have the most rushed review. By giving them a week to play and an embargo it means they aren't racing to get review out first. A necessary evil, I think.

Backers are going to be buzzed about it whether they play it this week or next, so there's no loss there.

 

[Jaedar]

I must admit I don't understand why reviewers get the game before backers. The goal is surely to generate positive buzz about the game, and backers are the ones who like this stuff enough to put down money blindly.

Seems like it would be wasted potential to not exploit this.

And I'm not just saying this because I want to play the game.

Because otherwise the reviews that get all the clicks are the ones which are out quickest, because they are the ones most upvoted on the reddits and first listed on the metacritics. Not by coincidence, these are also the writers who have played the game the least, and have the most rushed review. By giving them a week to play and an embargo it means they aren't racing to get review out first. A necessary evil, I think.

Backers are going to be buzzed about it whether they play it this week or next, so there's no loss there.

My point is that backer buzz + review buzz > review buzz, and if the goal is to gain as much buzz on release as possible the logic seems pretty cut and dry.

What you are talking about is more review embargos, which do make sense, but as I understand it those end on monday anyway, so that would be a good time to also let backers start talking about the game by having them play it.

 

[dukeofwhales]

Yeah if the review embargo ends Monday then it's not unreasonable to let the backers have it then too (I thought it was Thursday with release). I do think reviewers having the game before players is necessary to (hopefully) ensure higher quality reviews, though.

 

[coffeetable]

My point is that backer buzz + review buzz > review buzz, and if the goal is to gain as much buzz on release as possible the logic seems pretty cut and dry.

and duke's point is that if there isn't an embargo, reviewers rush to get their reviews. the broken age catastrofuck demonstrates that backers can't be trusted to hold to an embargo, so they don't get it early

 

[Sensuki]

had to take on a dungeon boss multiple times before I got him tanked correctly

Sounds like he kept dying to disengagement attacks.

I watched the Arvan Eleron stream, he got several characters KO'd from Disengagement attacks and was out of health after 3 beetle encounters on Normal (I'm not laughing at him either, I'm laughing at the mechanic)

 

[Seari]

I hope casuals get annoyed enough by it that Obsidian will have to remove it in a post patch. They might not even notice that engagement is killing them though.

 

[Sensuki]

Hehe, I can always point it out on reddit or something after a month or so