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Do the announced changes at Halo Studios (prev. 343 Industries) have you optimistic for the future of the franchise?

Yes 16 50.00%
 
No 12 37.50%
 
Still need convincing (sp... 4 12.50%
 
Total:32


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Definitely wasn't expecting for High on Life to get any DLC!







New report from MLex:

- Microsoft hopes that the remedy package offered to the EC will put pressure on the CMA.

- Microsoft has now formally committed to making Activision's portfolio of games, including Call of Duty, available on rival cloud-gaming platforms.

"More striking is the absence of any formal commitment to address key concerns raised by rival Sony about the deal's impact on its PlayStation, and Google about the deal's impact on its ChromeOS cloud-first operating system."

- As recently as Feb. 21 (the hearing), the EC still had concerns about those markets.

- Microsoft's offer comes after intense discussions with officials probing the deal, and the market test should be considered a good sign.

- Under the terms of its in-depth review, the commission has until May 22 to rule on the deal, although it will soon need to circulate a draft decision internally and to national authorities.

- The support of Nvidia has been key, according to MLex.

- The extent to which Sony would benefit from the remedy on cloud gaming is unclear. Sony's primary complaint has been that Microsoft would remove Activision Blizzard's games from its PlayStation, or at the very least degrade their performance on the Sony console to drive its users to the Microsoft Xbox. "That appears to have fallen on deaf ears at the EU competition enforcer."

- The offer from MS (to Sony) presumably still remains on the table. So, at some point Sony may say yes. In any case, most probably Sony will first shift its attention to the CMA.

"No doubt Microsoft will have pointed CMA investigators to the EU regulator's latest conclusions on that point. If Microsoft can get traction there and put a dent in the narrative against the deal, that would be no mean feat — but it may not be enough."

- However, the CMA's last public word on the subject (acceptance of behavioural remedies) still remains: "None of the circumstances in which the CMA would select a behavioural remedy as the primary source of remedial action in a merger investigation ... appears to be present."

Source: Idas

Would think in order to pressure the CMA they would have to get EC to approve it first but Idk.

Glad to see EC has seen through Sony's nonsense though, at least one major regulator is working properly.

If they deal with the Cloud SLC via EC then it may encourage CMA to accept the same terms, especially since CMA won't have to be the one monitoring it, that then would only leave the Console SLC which Microsoft is poking dozens of holes in, the SLC in Consoles has very bad maths in it which Microsoft have pointed out which blows apart a large basis of claiming an SLC...CMA will surely know that if that maths mistake isn't fixed it will be sent to CAT and CAT will rule in favour of Microsoft and send it back, at least, I would hope so.

Last edited by Ryuu96 - on 17 March 2023

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Well, since I'm stuck in a 2nd Diablo 4 beta login queue now, this time for 96 minutes, because I stopped playing to eat dinner and my Xbox went into sleep mode logging me out of the game in the process, here are my impressions so far at level 13 (max is 25 for the beta, 50 in the main game):

  • The art design and graphics blow Diablo 3 out of the water, it looks better in every possible way; textures, lighting, reflections, grass quality, cutscene quality, conversation camera, etc.. It looks all around darker and less cartoony, so if you like dark fantasy, this is definitely the game for you
  • It's definitely more difficult and all around less casualized than Diablo 3 and Diablo Immortal. When I played Diablo 3 on the free Xbox weekend, I already had multiple pieces of legendary gear by level 13, none so far in Diablo 4. I had tons of gear with gain health on enemy damage and health over time effects by this level in Diablo 3, still none of either in Diablo 4. In Diablo 3 and Diablo Immortal, you automatically target enemies around you in any direction with abilities from what I could tell, in Diablo 4 abilities only auto-target in a about a 90 degree arc in front of your character I believe, meaning you now need to quickly turn around while kiting enemies in order to actually hit them. In Diablo 3 you could dodge as much as you wanted, in Diablo 4 you have a 5 second cooldown on dodge, meaning it's much more difficult to evade attacks, which makes it especially challenging if you are playing a ranged build or class like I am (Sorceress). In Diablo 3, I was up to world tier 3 (difficulty setting) by the end of my free weekend and never died once the whole weekend, in Diablo 4 I started on World Tier 2 (only 1 and 2 are available in the beta) and I wiped 3 times on my first dungeon boss due to the aforementioned dodge cooldown. The XP and gold bonuses for each world tier are also lower than they were in Diablo 3, in Diablo 3 you got +75% XP and Gold on world tier 2 and +100% on world tier 3, in Diablo 4 world tier 2 only grants +20% experience and +15% gold. It's definitely an all-around more difficult and less casualized game than Diablo 3, which will surely make some people happy and some people less happy. 
  • Sorceress is pretty fun so far, but substantially more difficult to play than the Monk I was using in Diablo 3 and Diablo Immortal. I'm playing a Frost build with the lightning arc basic as an alternate for dealing damage to groups of melee enemies.
  • Storyline so far seems quite good
  • These queue times are atrocious, I had forgotten just how miserable Blizzard queue times can be from back when I played WoW Burning Crusade at launch in 2007. If the queues are this bad for the early access beta which requires a preorder or promotional code from KFC, I hate to think how bad they will be on the open beta next weekend unless they bring quite alot more server banks online before then.

Overall, I could see this being a 90+ meta game on launch, but only if they can make the servers more stable than this and greatly improve server capacity to cut down on queue times for the official launch.

Last edited by shikamaru317 - on 17 March 2023



Imagine having to wait in queue to play a demo, what is wrong with modern gaming. Bring back the OG Xbox days when gaming was actually fun.



Ride The Chariot || Games Complete ‘24 Edition



VersusEvil said:

Imagine having to wait in queue to play a demo, what is wrong with modern gaming. Bring back the OG Xbox days when gaming was actually fun.

Well, to be fair, login queues for popular MMO's on launch were a thing even back in those days. Diablo 4 is essentially an MMO RPG now, just one built with a smaller scale than Blizzard's other MMO RPG, WoW. You share the world with other players once you finish the tutorial/prologue zone, only dungeons and the prologue zone are instanced as far as I can tell.

Last edited by shikamaru317 - on 17 March 2023