OS Neutral Realms of Arkania Remake Coming to Steam (pre-order now)

Absolutely will be picking this up on Steam. Hopefully it does well and the other two in the series get the treatment as well.

txa1265 said:

Sadly right now this game is a complete mess:
- at least half the text is German in the English language version
- Graphics have overlapping elements
- Missing text
- no clues for those just starting out - basically if you haven't already played, stay away.

There is supposed to be a patch coming later today, hopefully that will help some stuff. I will chime back in tonight with second impressions.

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Well, that is some sad news. I hope they get it fixed up.

I do own the original series from gog.com so hopefully those came with manuals (I'll have to check) to get me up to speed if needed. I imagine there are resources on the web to help there too. I have a friend who loves this series so I can ask them things if I need to.

Steam should pull games like this, but they never do and is the main reason I cut back to zero on what I spend with them.

txa1265 said:

People put a lot onto Steam, but they are just the distributor. Should GameStop and Best Buy have pulled SimCity or Diablo III or Dungeon Lords?

The first patch didn't do much that I could see, but eating no longer made me more hungry I have set the game aside for now, but will keep tracking patches - which are supposedly coming daily at this point.

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If they where/are not fit for purpose and by that I mean virtually unplayable as is Realms, most games have a few bugs and glitches but Realms is a total mess.

Saying they are just a distributer is no excuse to carry on selling a broken products.

Washac said:

Saying they are just a distributer is no excuse to carry on selling a broken products.

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They can only do something about it if they know there is a problem, which means customers have to report the issue to them. I don't have a history of buying crappy or broken games from Steam, so I can't comment on how they would handle it, but in the least I can see them taking care of the customer.

Washac said:

Steam should pull games like this, but they never do and is the main reason I cut back to zero on what I spend with them.

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Wait... you don't buy from Steam because a few of the games are rubbish or broken? Is this a joke?

roadbloc said:

Wait... you don't buy from Steam because a few of the games are rubbish or broken? Is this a joke?

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I did NOT say because a game is rubbish.

Games that are broken to the state of Realms and or games that are not fit for purpose as in cannot be played because of bugs that are show stoppers.

Glitches I can live with show stopping bugs I cannot.

Washac said:

I did NOT say because a game is rubbish.

Games that are broken to the state of Realms and or games that are not fit for purpose as in cannot be played because of bugs that are show stoppers.

Glitches I can live with show stopping bugs I cannot.

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Whatever.

So you don't use Steam because of the possibility of buying a broken game? That's like saying you don't shop at Tesco because you might be unlucky enough to buy a packet of crisps that turns out to be empty.

You are aware that Steam has an awesome refund policy (as does Tesco) if you don't like the game you've bought?

Maybe I'm crazy but I don't buy games on day 1. I wait for the reviews and especially the user feedback, checking the game's forum to see what if any issues have arisen, etc. Then and only then would I make a purchase and only if I really must play it right now. Otherwise, I try to be smart and wait for sales since I already have quite the backlog to play through.

So I do not need to rely on Steam, MAS, Amazon, etc. to protect me. I take care of myself. I trust me best anyway and it turns out I do pretty well this way. I encourage others to adopt this wait and see approach too because far too often games ship in less than satisfactory condition and sometimes worse, such as this disaster of a release sadly.

In this day and age I don't know how anyone with any experience in gaming for any length of time could buy on day one and really be surprised if the game needs patches, etc. It happens all the time. And it does not matter where you buy it. None of the retailers test every release or any release. They just sell stuff like any other store.

Actually, there is one exception in terms of testing and that would be gog.com but they are a unique case in that they configure old games to work on modern hardware and create their own installers for them, necessitating some testing before release (hopefully!). Yet, they ship games with problems too. So checking the game's forum there before a purchase is wise as well.

txa1265 said:

Wouldn't that be cause to do proper research, rather than blame the distributor?

So ... how many games released with 'show stopper bugs' have you 'day 1' purchased on Steam that led you to this? Genuinely curious ...

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Stay curious...................................

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roadbloc said:

Whatever.

So you don't use Steam because of the possibility of buying a broken game? That's like saying you don't shop at Tesco because you might be unlucky enough to buy a packet of crisps that turns out to be empty.

You are aware that Steam has an awesome refund policy (as does Tesco) if you don't like the game you've bought?

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No, because a packet of crisps is bought as seen, therefore I would know the bag was empty...............................

txa1265 said:

I very often pre-order or buy on day one if it is a game and genre that I am interested. Generally these are small developers or indies, so I put something into supporting them as a general rule. Sometimes the games are crap at the core or just not finished, and my money wasn't well spent. That is a risk I choose to take.

I have yet to ask for a refund from Steam - I accept the responsibility and consequences for my own actions. I know, strange concept in our 'no accountability' world.

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Well, I can appreciate a choice to accept the risk. I'm sure plenty of releases also turn out fine. And maybe if I didn't have a backlog of games to catch up on I might choose similarly, so that I'd have something new to play.

My comment was more directed towards Washac's decision to just abandon Steam altogether because some releases there (not surprisingly) have issues. Of course they do. This should come as no surprise and so to avoid that problem one does not need to forgo all the good deals on Steam, etc. but rather just wait and see on new releases before spending one's hard earned money.

Dirtyharry50 said:

Well, I can appreciate a choice to accept the risk. I'm sure plenty of releases also turn out fine. And maybe if I didn't have a backlog of games to catch up on I might choose similarly, so that I'd have something new to play.

My comment was more directed towards Washac's decision to just abandon Steam altogether because some releases there (not surprisingly) have issues. Of course they do. This should come as no surprise and so to avoid that problem one does not need to forgo all the good deals on Steam, etc. but rather just wait and see on new releases before spending one's hard earned money.

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Not abandoned it all together I have just spent as I say zero for quite sometime because of all the problems I read about with Steam releases. I do watch Steam and if I see something I may be interested in I read about in the Steam forums etc etc, and if people are having problems I just walk passed it and watch for the next release I may be interested in. Then along comes Realms of Arkania, big big interest with this one, then what do I find, it is really unfit to play by the time it is sorted out I will have walked past another release, and so it goes on, hence I spend zero.