pseudopop

This week the free games on Epic Games are Earthlock and Surviving the Aftermath.

The games are free until November 23, 2023.

Earthlock

"Earthlock is an indie developed, adventure RPG inspired by the classic 3D RPGs of the late 90's, with a fresh take on turn based combat and character progression."

Store page: https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/earthlock-e7d979
Steam rating: Mostly Positive
Steam page (for info & reviews): https://store.steampowered.com/app/761030/EARTHLOCK/

Surviving the Aftermath

"Survive and thrive in a post-apocalyptic future — resources are scarce, but opportunity calls! Build the ultimate disaster proof colony, protect your colonists, and restore civilization to a devastated world."

Store page: https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/surviving-the-aftermath
Steam rating: Mostly Positive
Steam page (for info & reviews): https://store.steampowered.com/app/684450/Surviving_the_Aftermath/

Earthlock gameplay:

Surviving the Aftermath gameplay:

15 minutes ago, GoncaloL said:

In their site they have a Black friday synth bundle https://klevgrand.com/products/black-friday-synth-bundle-2023 For 79$
that includes Tomofon, Speldosa, Jussi, Hillman and two Tomofon expansions, it seems a very good deal to me

I agree. 😭

Just now, audioschmaudio said:

@pseudopop yes, I know, but I'm not sure if the free upgrade to Legacy is also true for people who got the license second hand. Because technically it means that I did purchase it after November 2022.

According to u-he's customer support it applies to second hand licenses also, or at least to the one I purchased.

3 hours ago, Anxiousmofo said:

Hoping Tomofon shows up a bit cheaper elsewhere. That'd be swell. 

It's already €10 cheaper than what I paid less than two months ago when I thought I was getting a good deal. In addition to that:

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Choose two Tomofon Extension packs (worth $30) for free with every purchase of our multi-layer wavetable synth Tomofon!

They are just twisting the knife, aren't they? I'm going to stop buying things outside of November.  

6 hours ago, audioschmaudio said:

Zebra 2 second hand is an option too, but I haven't seen a good offer yet 

You probably know this, but it would be a better option because it gives you Zebra Legacy for free* AND an upgrade path* to Zebra3 (for about €30 if I recall correctly). That's something to take into account when considering the price. I managed to buy Zebra2 in last July, so they are out there if you have the patience (and luck).

* if it was originally purchased before November 2022, but I don't think it was sold after that anymore.

3 hours ago, audioschmaudio said:

U-he Zebra still is on my wishlist.

Were you thinking about buying the Zebra Legacy or are you trying to find the original Zebra 2 on the second hand market? Because every now and then there is someone selling the latter, albeit not very often.

 Now I have to pump my knob myself.

4 hours ago, jngnz said:

Are you sure? Because the sale notes explicitly mention crossgrade and loyalty options.

You're right, it does. I didn't read that email. But earlier today I couldn't see those offers reflected in the prices. Maybe their site was glitching. I'll have another look once their site comes back online.

18 minutes ago, jngnz said:

75% off Talos 🤔

Same as last year.

The upgrade prices are disappointing, though. I have Chorus Lite and Areia Lite and my price for the complete versions is only $40 less. Easy pass.

Last year or the year before they had a crossgrade offer for people who had Nucleus and wanted to buy Jaeger. No such treat this year.

Nearly on topic: I watched a YouTube video where someone lamented that the basses in EZbass are only partially sampled, meaning that if you play the same note on different strings it plays the same sample. Is this something that has been fixed in the expansions or do they suffer from the same limitation?

@Bapu, you probably know the answer to this, right?

1 minute ago, Cohagen Wilkinson said:

Hey, thanks man! We've been working on our first family of instruments (3 launched, 6 to go!) for years now. It's been a long time running. We're trying hard to avoid mistakes like this that could tarnish the brand, but they do happen. I hope y'all don't hold it against us! Turns out, November is pretty crazy in our industry 🫠 

Well, I for one am now open to purchasing it again, so well done with the damage control.  

Eh, nevermind, then.

5 minutes ago, D-Fused Sounds said:

Hi you all guys, I'm Luca from D-Fused Sounds Team, I'm really sorry for what happened  within the GForce M-Tron Pro,  we made the best to fix this as soon as possible and refund you all in the shortest possible time. Unfortunately it was missed the digit of one "9" at the end of the price , making it €12.99 instead of €129.99 and created this hardship, apologize from all the staff here at D-Fused Sounds and this is a lesson for us, triple check in future 👍

Ecommerce software should have some kind of system to prevent errors like these. Just a simple notification saying "Woah, are you sure about this?" whenever the discount is more than 90% would help a lot.

3 minutes ago, Kirean said:

I think it might be 49 bucks if I didn't own it already. But then it might be more if I didn't own Pigments too. From I've seen, I think people get the best deal when they go from Pigments to V Collection to FX (ie. crossgrade will be cheaper than upgrade.) Don't quote me on any of it though.

Thus, Pavlov needs to step up, pony up and let us know how it turns out this year!

Well, I actually went ahead and bought the V Collection. Yes, I couldn't wait even three hours, but in my defense it has been on my shopping list for three years or longer. I believe this is the lowest price they have offered me, so why not.

It shows up in my account, but it's not affecting the price of the FX Collection yet.

7 minutes ago, Kirean said:

I have FX Collection 3 which is why they're asking money to upgrade to FX Collection 4 (ie. pay for the four new plugins that came after FX3).

And as much as I hope not, they'll ask money to upgrade when V Collection 10 gets released.

Sorry, bad phrasing on my part again. I was just wondering if owning V Collection 9 might get you a further discount on FX Collection, but apparently not.

40 minutes ago, Kirean said:

Last year I bought Pigments first for 99 > After that Collection for 149 and finally FX3 for 49. 

And yeah. Wondering about upgrading to FX4 myself. Just four new plugins (or three, if I hadn't fumbled getting MS-20 free when it was offered). Then again, individual price is then 17.25 which is better than Plugin Alliance's current pricing and Arturia is a lovely company (or at least, their products are).

So you have Collection V 9 and they still ask 69 monetary units for the FX Collection upgrade?

€149 for V Collection 9 . I think within the next three weeks I'm about to own a lot more synths from Arturia.  I currently have only Pigments and Analog Lab.

€69 for FX Collection upgrade on the other hand isn't as tempting, but we'll see.

Edit: Do you think the price will change for either if I buy the other one?

1 hour ago, jngnz said:

They're just pissing off absolutely everyone now, aren't they?

What do you mean? I don't follow their shenanigans.

The fact that the price is inflated by 50% on the developer's site makes me immediately dislike this library.

I know it's not as funny anymore but I have to finish what I started. Sorry everyone.

♫ On the second day of their sale UAD offered me
A pricey channel strip
It's a disappointing offer indeed! ♫

I expect a torrent of cheap (compared to retail price) licenses available on the 2nd hand market in the following weeks...

27 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

No disagreement, I thought you were saying that Cinesamples strategy might have changed and  I was just trying to explain why that might happen and why it's natural,  and even smart, for that to happen (because the business learns as they roll out this new line). And yeah, I forget that this is just a deals section and not a site on strategy! I was just geeking out to be really  candid. 

Also, re-reading my post, I'm guessing you might have inferred something I didn't intend. I wasn't correcting you. I was just agreeing with you, but my phrasing was clumsy enough that it could have been misinterpreted as if I was correcting you, I wasn't. You could modify the first sentence to start,

"I absolutely agree that Cinesamples may be doing something today that is different than when they first created their plan, as they should be learning as they go and making adjustments. I can easily see how they could end up completely replacing KONTAKT with Musio in the future and making tiers for their libraries:  a basic level with basic features and lighter weight libraries and an advanced/pro level with every feature presently contained in the KONTAKT libraries. " 

Alright, thank you for clearing that up. I sometimes try to read between the lines but I'm dyslexic when it comes to that.  

I have no idea what Cinesamples strategy is and I suppose that is why Musio confuses me so much. The quotes I shared were in essence the only things I found that pointed at something, but they seemed to point at opposite directions. Perhaps that is indeed because Cinesamples themselves have been figuring things out and learning along the way, like you said.

2 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

Maybe I didn't highlight it, but I wrote that the reality is, when a KONTAKT sample developer takes the leap to make their own sampler or player, if it takes off, there's no question that they're going to reassess their relationship with KONTAKT/NI and it makes a lot of sense. [...]

Sorry, I'm not sure what is the point you're trying to make here. I don't think I disagreed with you, but perhaps I said something that you feel contradicted what you wrote earlier?

In any case, when I said that the Musio isn't as pro as Kontakt, I phrased it poorly. I meant to say that "even if the current Musio libraries aren't as good as their Kontakt versions...". It seems that Cinesamples is definitely trying to make the Musio player as good as they can. They certainly have invested a lot of time and effort in it.

BTW, Musio has a 14 day free trial, so you can try Musio if you want to.

56 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

I've heard from multiple developers that Mike (I actually forget which Mike stayed and which left) from Cinesamples sees Musio as the entry level to Cinesamples products. They're targeting home hobbyists and students and plan to pitch them upgrades to KONTAKT versions. So the idea is that a Musio version will never be as sophisticated as the KONTAKT version, but it's a lot less expensive. As someone who's just a middle-aged hobbyist, I'd probably mostly be happy with the Musio versions unless scripting was a major factor. Piano in Blue in Musio? Absolutely.  Tina Guo  Legato Cello, I'd opt to upgrade to the KONTAKT version.  

While I didn't hear this directly, I think it makes a lot of sense  strategically and is consistent with Mike's public statements. That said, if Musio were to really do well, I could also see Cinesamples deciding to leave KONTAKT behind and do a pro version of Musio.

It seems you are correct. I found this on another forum:

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We toyed with this idea and decided that the non-pro market that we're really trying to break down the barriers to entry to orchestral writing won't like this approach [...]

Which is further supported by this:

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The Kontakt versions of all our products in general provide significantly more "detailed" control over various elements of the samples, while Musio is designed to provide a high-quality sample and keep things streamlined, simplified, and unified across the board as much as possible. We kept it to the essential controls that apply to the most instruments (Dynamics, Expression, Reverb, and some other controls depending on the patch like ADSR and other DSP effects). We wanted to focus on providing a greater breadth and depth of available sounds in one plugin rather than trying to emulate Kontakt's well-established functions that we use in our Kontakt libraries (which we are still selling, so we don't need to mimic them exactly in Musio).

But they have also said this:

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I think people will find that - on average - Musio instruments have many improvements over their Kontakt versions. Much of the Cinesamples instruments have gone through an extensive re-editing, re-denoising, re-tuning, re-mapping process.

And there is also this:

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There are currently 23 Musio-exclusive collections, including CineStrings Pro, Industry Brass Pro, and Gina Luciani Cinema Flutes, with many more in the works.

So even if the Musio isn't as "pro" as the Kontakt libraries, after my sleuthing I'm pretty sure it's going to be worth the money for me and I'm happy that I didn't buy the Kontakt version of Industrial Brass.

34 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

From my recollection, one of the big differences with the Musio libraries vs the KONTAKT libraries is that the Musio platform doesn't have the sophisticated scripting that is part of their KONTAKT library equivalents. Musio libraries also don't have the detail and mic position options of the KONTAKT libraries. In short, Cinesamples positions the KONTAKT versions as upgrades for Musio users.  I think for many home hobbyists, Musio is a very good option. Beyond the question of whether the line will have longevity,  the big question for me is whether I can give up the KONTAKT scripting on a library that makes it so realistic and playable. It really wouldn't matter on a piano or vibraphone library,  but string libraries are a different story.  

Industrial Brass was released on Musio first. This Kontakt release came later, but I can't say if they added some fancy scripting to it or if it's a 1:1 port. But that's the reason I decided to skip the Kontakt version.

And my understanding is that they are bringing more mic positions and articulations to Musio versions, but like you said their player doesn't support scripting on the same level as Kontakt does. I'm not sure if that means that they are going to sell Kontakt versions as upgrades, though. Do you have any source for that?

It's very difficult to find reliable information about the exact differences between the different versions of the libraries.