The Epic Games store for PC and Mac [2018-12]

[Deleted member 2197]

As I noted in another thread, my Comcast network connection (which I have a router for) pretty much caps my monthly 1 TB data cap just streaming video so it's not something I'd use for this.

I thought that was the case for a couple years. I also use my own router and recently I went over 1 TB (movies on TUBI), so called Comcast to avoid any overage fees. The account rep looked up the account and stated there was no data cap (1 TB). When the bill arrived it reflected normal monthly charges did not include any overage fees.

 

[BRiT]

In some areas Comcast does not enforce it. In other areas they very rigidly enforce it. If you have no competition of fiber from other ISPs, they will enforce and charge extra. Cox Commu6does the same bullshit.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I thought that was the case for a couple years. I also use my own router and recently I went over 1 TB (movies on TUBI), so called Comcast to avoid any overage fees. The account rep looked up the account and stated there was no data cap (1 TB). When the bill arrived it reflected normal monthly charges did not include any overage fees.

Perhaps it depends on area. This used to be the case on Comcast here. There was a 1 TB cap that wasn't enforced. But a couple years ago they started to enforce it.

Now I have 2 "grace" months where I can go over without a charge. But after that, I'll get charged 10 USD per 50 GB block used over that (up to a maximum of 200 USD extra).

The only way to get around it in my area is to pay 50 USD extra or enroll in Gigabit Pro (300 USD per month in my area).

Here is more information on it.

https://dataplan.xfinity.com/faq/

I can only guess you live in a state where there isn't a cap. 27 states according to that FAQ have a cap in place. Comcast has been slowly rolling it out around the country. Lucky me, I was in one of the first states to get it implemented.

Regards,
SB

 

[Silent_Buddha]

No onto my next beef with EGS.

Patch notes. Or the lack of them? God, the more I used this POS service, the more I realize just how good Steam is.

So, Phoenix Point got a patch today? What did it fix? Who the F knows unless you go looking for it online. On Steam, the developer likely would have posted the patch notes for you to see. EGS? You can go F-yourself, they certainly aren't going to do anything to make the user experience better.

Thinking about it, EGS is the best place to go if you want to sell a shitty game and get people to buy your game.

• No user reviews. So you can't see what people with similar tastes (if they leave a decently written review) think of the game. I trust user reviews far more than I trust website reviews, as long as I both to read reviews to find people who like the same things that I like in my games.
  • Even more important if you consider that some publishers are now doing tiered releases on their games. First release the game to website reviewers, then after a few weeks implement things that might have gotten them a negative review (like predatory monetization).
  • For example, in BL3, Gearbox screwed things up so badly post launch that many people got fed up with it and left the game.
    • Unless you regularly visit gaming websites (most gamer's don't) you might have blindly bought the game without knowing the issues that people are having.
    • It's better now, so not as much of an issues, but was certainly bad for a while. Now imagine if this happened with a developer that just stopped updating their game?
• Lack of Patch notes. Did the game get patched? What got patched?
  • Lack of user reviews make this even worse. Did a patch break things? Did it fix something that was broken at launch?
• Lack of developer news.
  • Is the developer still supporting the game after launch?
    • Are there plans for patches to fix launch issues?
    • Patches to fix issues with patches?
  • Did the developer just take the money and run?
    • Steam's game community forums are great for this as user can notify other's of this
    • Developers have a chance to address concerns from their communities.
      • Especially valuable for smaller indie developers.
• ARGH.

Maybe this is why almost all of the exclusive launches on EGS has been a buggy pile of shite on launch. No user reviews means that users can't warn potential buyers to wait.

So, MechWarrior 5 is being streamed a lot today. And...OMG, I was shocked by how many more Streamers are actually just blasting EGS now. Many of these people used to be vehement supporters of EGS and people that figured this would be a good alternative to Steam. Now after months and months of being forced to use it, they're realizing that Steam was actually really good, even with some of the problems that Steam has. Them being force to use EGS has made them realize that Steam has implemented so many things to make their life easier that they are constantly seeing the lack in the EGS.

And they wonder why the "F" Epic are throwing money at developers for exclusives instead of making their store better. It's not like they can't see what other stores have done. And for some of the streamers that have been following EGS community updates. Evidently EGS are continually failing to implement the things they promised to implement. Constant and endemic delays in rolling out the things they promise to the community that they've lost faith in Epic's ability to deliver on their commitments.

Seriously, who is running EGS? A bunch of university interns? Or maybe EGS is just an advertisement for Steam? So make it purposely bad so people will want to use Steam?

This is even more mind boggling when you consider Tencent owns 40% total (48% stake) of Epic Games. One of the largest, if not the largest game stores online? Then again, perhaps the Tencent online store is shite also?

Regards,
SB

 

[Putas]

While the lack of progress on the store features is striking, there is no excuse for Steam taking 30% cut.

 

[Deleted member 2197]

The only way to get around it in my area is to pay 50 USD extra or enroll in Gigabit Pro (300 USD per month in my area).

You might see some relief come January 2020. It seems Comcast may have a new 275 mbps package with unlimited data for about $105/month, and a Gigabyte package for $135/month. Not sure you can use your own router but for all the Stadia users who have been complaining that might be a moot point.

 

[Davros]

My god budda how did you survive in the days before game launchers

 

[Silent_Buddha]

My god budda how did you survive in the days before game launchers

Like a caveman. Managing a library of CDs.

But now I live in the modern day. Why would I want to go back to being a caveman and not having things to make my life easier?

I'm not a luddite. Which is what it feels like whenever I'm forced to use the EGS.

Sure, first world problems, but so are refrigerators and freezers. Remote controls for appliances. Computers and the internet. Smartphones and hair dryers. Washing machines and lawn mowers. Etc. All things that aren't necessary but sure as hell make life more convenient and allow us to make better use of our time.

Online storefronts have progressed significantly in the past 20 years. Why would I want to go back to how it was 20 years ago? EGS is a massive regression in the online buying experience, so why in the world would I ever want to voluntarily use it?

Regards,
SB

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Lack of developer news.

Much of the game "news" right now a splash screen from dev/publisher asking to be nominated for the 2019 Steam Awards.

This is not news, this is begging. I don't want it in my game library. Similarly it's quite common to see that the "news" channel for a game is just a bunch of ads for different games by the same dev/published. I don't want this in my storefront either.

Much of what you like about Steam, I dislike. Much of what you dislike about EGS, I like. Keep the promotional stuff to the store-side of the client and out of the library-side. None of my physical shelves at home for items I own are ad-boards for manufacturers, why should my digital shelf be different?

 

[green.pixel]

You might see some relief come January 2020. It seems Comcast may have a new 275 mbps package with unlimited data for about $105/month, and a Gigabyte package for $135/month. Not sure you can use your own router but for all the Stadia users who have been complaining that might be a moot point.

You US folks are really gouged by the telco cartels.

 

[PSman1700]

But now I live in the modern day. Why would I want to go back to being a caveman and not having things to make my life easier?

PC gamers had to go modern a long time ago, you cant even buy pc games in a physical store anymore since awhile. Like it or not digital stores are the future, even on consoles (though only one store there)

 

[Deleted member 2197]

You US folks are really gouged by the telco cartels.

Yeah, hopefully "net neutrality" protections will return under future administrations. Unfortunately political with republican majority this time around benefiting telco's.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Much of the game "news" right now a splash screen from dev/publisher asking to be nominated for the 2019 Steam Awards.

This is not news, this is begging. I don't want it in my game library. Similarly it's quite common to see that the "news" channel for a game is just a bunch of ads for different games by the same dev/published. I don't want this in my storefront either.

Much of what you like about Steam, I dislike. Much of what you dislike about EGS, I like. Keep the promotional stuff to the store-side of the client and out of the library-side. None of my physical shelves at home for items I own are ad-boards for manufacturers, why should my digital shelf be different?

Yeah, one of those features just saved me. Destiny 2 has a bug (not fixed in days now) where it keeps autodetecting your display and throwing out your resolution and HDR off settings.

Thanks to the Steam community forum, someone posted a workaround that allows me to play the game. Otherwise, I'd be deleting Destiny 2 off of my system.

Also nice to see that the Destiny 2 news page let's people know that Season of Dawn has started. I stopped playing a few weeks ago, so this let me know to check out the game again. After which I promptly ran into that bug and almost deleted the game.

The Steam Warframe page also has developer news of the Empyrean content update. Thank goodness for Digital Extremes that it isn't on EGS otherwise they'd have no way to post that information there.

I've still yet to see patch notes for Phoenix Point, so EGS can still go screw themselves.

Regardless, I'm glad EGS serves you better than Steam. I wouldn't have a problem with EGS if they weren't spending millions of USD in an attempt to corner the online PC game store market...not by making a better product. But basically acting like Intel back in the early 90's. Except instead of paying OEMs to not sell Athlon CPUs they are paying developers to not sell their games on competing stores.

And the only reason they can do this is that Fortnite subsidizes the store.

But whatever, each day that goes by, more and more people get fed up with Epic's BS. But then, that's why there's no user reviews. Can't warn other people about a bad product if the company doesn't allow you to do it.

Regards,
SB

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Yeah, hopefully "net neutrality" protections will return under future administrations. Unfortunately political with republican majority this time around benefiting telco's.

All this stuff with Comcast started WAY before Net Neutrality went away. And whether we have it or not, I'd still have a bandwidth cap. I'd still have overage charges. And they'd still be able to charge whatever they wanted because there's no competition for them in my area as it's too small a market for Century Link (the only other ISP here) to upgrade infrastructure in order to compete.

That's completely different from say, Las Vegas, where there are multiple ISPs (including Century Link) offering gigabit internet for cheap due to the competition and market size. Again, not affected in the slightest by whether Net Neutrality exists or not.

Regards,
SB

 

[Deleted member 2197]

All this stuff with Comcast started WAY before Net Neutrality went away. And whether we have it or not, I'd still have a bandwidth cap. I'd still have overage charges.

Sure, pre-current administration the argument was still ongoing in favor of Net Neutrality, but it was far from being finished. If Net Neutrality had been completely implemented there would be no overage charges or any other silliness. You would be treated exactly the same whether or not other competitors exist in your area, which is not what is happening in the current administration.

Restoring net neutrality and "banning internet and cable companies from instituting data caps and throttling consumer access to the internet" is definitely a key platform difference found lacking in the current administration. It's definitely needed and something already recognized by our neighbors across the pond.

 

[Putas]

Thanks to the Steam community forum...

Because without Steam it wouldn't be posted elsewhere...

The Steam Warframe page also has developer news of the Empyrean content update. Thank goodness for Digital Extremes that it isn't on EGS otherwise they'd have no way to post that information there.

Because they don't have a web...

 

[Scott_Arm]

Steam is a hideous mess, so I pretty much never use any of the community features. That's probably why I don't have any real issues with the epic game store.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

So, watching the late shift (Bikeman, Cream, others) on Twitch. They went back to World War Z because it just released a new horde map.

And...2 of the 4 lost their CLOUD saves in the EGS, so all of their progress was reset. Evidently this isn't the only game where this has happened to some of them.

One of them speculated that he lost his CLOUD saves when he did a clean install of Windows. Although why in the world CLOUD saves should care whether your reinstall your Windows is a bit of a mystery.

As this was someone who is used to wiping his system occasionally so it isn't like he forgets to enable cloud saves, especially as some of his other games on EGS didn't lose his saves.

The other people had no clue why they occasionally lose their cloud saves on EGS (they don't experience this with their Steam games) in some of their games.

Yay EGS?

Regards,
SB

 

[Deleted member 2197]

Epic Games Store has more than 100M users
January 15, 2020

More than twelve months have passed since the launch of the Epic Games Store - and the steam competitor has mixed up the PC industry, generated $ 680 million in sales and attracted 108 million registered users. But how successful have exclusive games like Metro: Exodus and Borderlands 3 really been? Epic provided the following numbers:

• 108 million Epic Game Store customers overall
• $680 million spent by PC gamers in the Epic Game Store
• $251 million spent on third-party games in the Epic Game Store
• 73 free games given away in 2019
• 200+ million free games claimed by customers
• The average rating of all the free games in 80 percent

The most popular games in the Epic Game Store in 2019 were World War Z, Satisfactory, Dauntless, Untitled Goose Game, and The Outer Worlds, Epic says. Furthermore, the team will extend its free games program to 2020. Not only that, but Epic Games will sign up more exclusive deals in 2020.

https://www.guru3d.com/news_story/epic_games_store_has_more_than_100m_users.html

 

[zed]

I installed this about a week ago, trying out unreal engine.
WTF does it cause my pc to run at 80% gpu. It’s a 2d shop front! Sure I have a onboard gpu but it’s rediculous.
The less said about the epic engine/editor the better,
Is this normal?, I download character one of the genesis characters, decide I don’t want the character but will keep the fx, so I decide to move the fx folder elsewhere. Big mistake! I started this operation at 7pm, it finished at 9.30pm!
I am not bullshitting, it took more than 2 hours to move some files. Ok then I decide I want to delete the directory. One and a half hours later it finally has deleted everything.

Wtf did epic, think it was a good idea to write their editor in python?