RANDOM VIDEO GAME NEWS

[Labadal]

 

 

Reusing assets is not an issue for me and has rarely been before.

Dragon Age 2?

One of few instances and that was because there were many other issues I felt the game had.

[Blodhemn]

 

Why resurrect ugly?

Because creating a whole new array of assets costs an incredible amount of money and effort? Some of us liked visuals in Age of Decadence. They were low-definition, certainly, but they also fit the setting and tone of the game perfectly.

 

I know. For me, it's just ugly all over again. Do not want.

[ShadySands]

I thought it looked better than AoD

 

Did they tighten up the graphics on level 3 or something?

Edited October 22, 2016 by ShadySands

[Wrath of Dagon]

Dungeon Rats is kind of like a combat expansion pack for AOD, so asset reuse is not an issue. But you now get a controllable party and 3 difficulty settings. Of course if you didn't like the AOD combat, there's no reason you'd like DR, unless it had to do with difficulty or lack of.

Edited October 22, 2016 by Wrath of Dagon

[Labadal]

Btw, Dungeon Rats will only cost $9 when it releases. (It will have a 10% in its first week.)

 

That's a more than fair price, imo.

[Hurlshort]

I will probably pick it up. It may be something I just tinker with for a few hours, but I appreciate what the developer is trying to do and have no trouble tossing them (him?) a few bucks to keep the dream alive.

[Wrath of Dagon]

It's like 6 people at this point, counting the illustrator and the composer.

[Katphood]

No matter how bad the SP campaign in Infinite Warfare will be, it will never be this bad:

 

 

Give me back Bad Company, DICE.

[Lexx]

Damn. Was looking forward to it. There are only so few WW1 themed games, now there is one who had the potential to be good and then ofc it is crap.

[Fenixp]

Well, more accurately, TB says it's crap. Which doesn't actually mean it is. This Idiotech's review felt more or less like a straight reaction to TB's points:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FWG7Tsygr0

But generally, a lot of the internet seems to enjoy it a ton. Expecting Battlefield campaign to be challenging and realistic seems a bit silly, of course it'll be Hollywood-esque glorification of war. Doesn't necessarily mean it's bad at it tho. I won't be buying it for full price, certainly - but it seems like a lot more fun than most BF campaigns I have played. Or Modern Warfare ones for that matter.

Edited October 23, 2016 by Fenixp

[Majek]

I thought SP campaigns in battlefield were afterthoughts anyway, and people only played it for glorious MP.

 

And actually listening to TB ? The horror.

[Blodhemn]

Nobody plays BF for the campaign. That'd be like playing Elder Scrolls for it's dialogue.

[Keyrock]

While TB and I do see eye to eye on a great many things, he does have a set of pet peeves and biases (as do I) that I strongly disagree with.  That said, I do always appreciate his opinions, even when they wildly differ from mine, because he wears his biases on his sleeve and he's not afraid to be brutally honest and drag a game through the mud (and not for ideological reasons).

 

As for BF1, I think Blodhemn nailed it.  Who buys Battlefield for the campaign?  It's always been primarily about the MP.

[HoonDing]

Press F to dodge mitrailleuse fire.

[Katphood]

Nobody plays BF for the campaign. That'd be like playing Elder Scrolls for it's dialogue.

Well, don't know about The Elder Scrolls series but people used to play Fallout for its dialogues.

 

As for BF, people somehow tend to forget how awesome the campaign in the Bad Company games were and how the new Battlefront game disappointed them because it didn't have a campaign at all. With that being said, even the multiplayer isn't the same anymore. The "clunky controls" in the Bad Company games forced you into being more tactical but Battlefield 4 for instance didn't feel anything like the older Battlefield games, unless you are playing the Hardcore mode which deactivates the radar and makes the game somewhat enjoyable. Otherwise you get stabbed, sniped, shot etc. withing minutes because in the regular mode people simply rely on the radar and run around the map and engage whatever comes their way as if they were playing Quake 3.

 

Really don't understand why DICE decided to suddenly abandon the Bad Company series after the second installment. The story seemed to have a long way to go and it was interesting. Guess EA figured out it could make a lot of money by giving some of the older whiny COD fanboys a new home and a new way to hate COD. 

Edited October 24, 2016 by Katphood

[Blarghagh]

Nobody plays BF for the campaign. That'd be like playing Elder Scrolls for it's dialogue.

 

This reminds me of how World of WarCraft players say people only play that game for raiding.

[marelooke]

 

Nobody plays BF for the campaign. That'd be like playing Elder Scrolls for it's dialogue.

 

This reminds me of how World of WarCraft players say people only play that game for raiding.

 

 

Nah, there's some weirdos that enjoy Arena PvP as well.

[Blarghagh]

Actually, they had to add a raid mode that you can queue for with the push of a button to justify their continuing to make them, because not enough people actually raided to justify the cost of making raids. Back in 2013 there was a Blizzard post explaining why that mode exists, and it include this quote (emphasis mine): "We don’t want to restrict raiding again to

 

People underestimate the amount of casual players who will buy a game simply for the single player experience. I'm sure 90% of the people who buy Battlefield do so for the crappy single player experience.

[Mamoulian War]

Well, this words is the reason, why I have left WoW in WotLK and never came back. They made raiding so easy, that our extremely casual guild have cleared Naxxramas on our first raid week. It is OK to make the game more accessible, but making it so easy that you can raid it blindfoldly is stupid.

 

Anyway back to BF1 topic, yes, I do believe, that most of the buyers of the game do it for the SP campaign. They'll play few MP missions and go to another game. Only small fraction of people stay with MP in any game for more than 3 months...

[Blarghagh]

I know what you mean. We cleared the new Emerald Nightmare raid in one week and my guild goes in blind (i.e. nobody knows tactics). At least they have Mythic mode these days, which gives a serious challenge, but only

 

But even with how easy it is now, an estimated 8% of the playerbase cleared Blackhand during WoD on any raid difficulty including LFR - which you can win by pressing a queue and going afk - according to some numbers MMO-Champion published last year. Comparatively, about 60% killed the first boss of that instance - the majority of WoW players cared so little about raiding that they can't be bothered to afk until the end of a raid instance - and this was in an expansion where there was little else to do than raid (I'm convinced at this point that the emphasis on raiding in WoD was why the subscriber numbers dropped as quickly as they did, because that expansion was even worse for casual players than it was for the hardcore). Raiding is not and will never be the primary action people do in WoW. Most subscribers just quest by themselves. It's surprising but true.

 

Which is my point - of any game, assume that less than 10% play it the way its meant to be played or how gamers think it should be played. When I still worked in game dev you don't want to know how many people would complain that the easy modes of our casual mobile games were too hard. Similarily, when I was young I didn't know anybody who played StarCraft online which everyone says was "StarCraft's strength", but I knew plenty of people who used cheatcodes to beat the campaign. Go figure.

Edited October 24, 2016 by TrueNeutral

[Hurlshort]

Actually, they had to add a raid mode that you can queue for with the push of a button to justify their continuing to make them, because not enough people actually raided to justify the cost of making raids. Back in 2013 there was a Blizzard post explaining why that mode exists, and it include this quote (emphasis mine): "We don’t want to restrict raiding again to <1% of the player base" implying that what hardcore gamers consider the meat of the game was, at least at some point in the game's lifespan, played by only less than 1% of the playerbase.

 

People underestimate the amount of casual players who will buy a game simply for the single player experience. I'm sure 90% of the people who buy Battlefield do so for the crappy single player experience.

 

But the Battlefield games started out with no single player experience at all.  I'd say the number is fairly reversed, maybe 10% actually buy BF for the single player experience.

 

It doesn't surprise me at all that most people play WoW to run around zones and do quests.  That's the way the game hooks you in at the start.  How many hours does it take you to get your character to raiding levels?  I've never raided and I've played WoW off an on since the start. 

[Blarghagh]

Yeah but it had a bot mode. I don't know any numbers about Battlefield but I remember reading that Unreal Tournament's bot mode was played more than the online game too, and that game was even more online focused. Since Battlefield added single player, I assume the number has skewed. Why else add single player at all if you're doing fine with just the multiplayer? Why don't more multiplayer only games become succesful? Other than Overwatch, I believe every multiplayer only game that wasn't free to play in the last couple of years was a bust, right? I can't remember any real successes (I firmly believe the disappearance of bots has a lot to do with this). Nobody played Evolve until it went Free to Play and that game was hyped as hell.

 

To answer your WoW question: It depends on the route you take. The game encourages questing and for a new player with no heirlooms or tricks that's probably going to take you days rather than hours - I'd estimate 4 to 7 full 24 hour days worth of playtime. I leveled a toon from level 1 to level 100 right before Legion launched in about 12 hours chainrunning dungeons in full heirlooms. My quickest max level character was the free level 100 boost that came with my Legion pre-order (I normally don't pre-order but I was going to play this whether it was good or not, help me I'm addicted), the existence of which has probably helped with the massive level grind for a lot of people. Of course making a new player level 100 right away and throwing all these abilities at them when they never explain how to even play game is a bad idea, but really this game has enormous problems in its new player experience anyway so fair enough.

Edited October 24, 2016 by TrueNeutral

[Lexx]

I played Evolve for a few hours, but people were really hostile and obviously it was my lack of skill that lost the match, not the lack of teamplay. I quit and now regret the 60€ I've spend on it.

 

Back in the days, the idea of multiplayer was so awesome. Nowadays, the only time I play multiplayer is when I can do coop with friends. Everything else annoys the hell out of me or just bores me to death.

Edited October 24, 2016 by Lexx

[Chilloutman]

I played Evolve for a few hours, but people were really hostile and obviously it was my lack of skill that lost the match, not the lack of teamplay. I quit and now regret the 60€ I've spend on it.

 

Back in the days, the idea of multiplayer was so awesome. Nowadays, the only time I play multiplayer is when I can do coop with friends. Everything else annoys the hell out of me or just bores me to death.

Well I still enjoy MP from time to time, I jst prefer games where:

 

A) I don't need to spend lifetime to be at least decent

B) MP sessions are quick enough that it doesn't matter if I screw up (WH total war have MP games for around 10 minutes - perfect for me)

[Fenixp]

I mostly dislike MP, including co-op often enough, because there's a whole bunch of people who depend on me sitting at a keyboard for x minutes in a row. Like when I'm playing a SP title, I just pause it and bugger off to pee or make a tea, talk to my wife or pet a rat. Playing MP game tho?

"No, bladder, we're staying here for the next 15 minutes still."

"No, honey, wait until I'm finished with this match and then I can talk to you."

"No, rattie, wait until OUCH god damnit here, take a treat and bugger off."

 

I quite enjoy couch MP tho.

Edited October 24, 2016 by Fenixp