Shadow of Mordor (Shadow of War)

Sephiroth_dude

http://www.gameinformer.com/games/middle-earth_shadow_of_war/b/playstation4/archive/2017/10/05/game-informer-review-middle-earth-shadow-of-war.aspx

9.5

Mickeroo

M!Ck^ wrote: »

If grinding and bloated is your idea of being fun.....

Not sure what you're on about,. I'm just glad it's looking like the game might actually be good after all the controversy if the reviews are anything to go by.

Generic Dreadhead wrote: »

Well to be fair, I changed from "Day 1 pre-order" on this to "Maybe pick it up at X-mass" so will check HLTB to see what the consensus is

I'd be surprised if the main campaign isn't doable in a similar amount of time to the first game's if you ignore the extra stuff. Think I spent about 30 to 40 hours on the first but would have been under half that if I hadn't bothered with all the filler.

Generic Dreadhead

Mickeroo wrote: »

Think I spent about 30 to 40 hours on the first but would have been under half that if I hadn't bothered with all the filler.

Was there much filler?

i killed all the captains in the 1st region, branded/killed all the ones in the 2nd and did the whole upgrade path for the Bow and Sword (sidequest thingys) and had my main skill tree totally done and that was like ~16 hours

They said the games final act is 15-20 hours (I'm guessing thats the "Shadow Wars" referenced earlier) in the video review i posted above. I don't know how that reflects on the 1st 3 (?) acts though in terms of runtime

Mickeroo

Generic Dreadhead wrote: »

Was there much filler?

i killed all the captains in the 1st region, branded/killed all the ones in the 2nd and did the whole upgrade path for the Bow and Sword (sidequest thingys) and had my main skill tree totally done and that was like ~16 hours

They said the games final act is 15-20 hours (I'm guessing thats the "Shadow Wars" referenced earlier) in the video review i posted above. I don't know how that reflects on the 1st 3 (?) acts though in terms of runtime

Did you get all the trophies/achievements? If I hadn't bothered doing that I would have finished up at around similar playtime to yourself I'd imagine. It seemed on par to the likes of the assassins creed games in terms of filler to me.

Generic Dreadhead

Mickeroo wrote: »

Did you get all the trophies/achievements? If I hadn't bothered doing that I would have finished up at around similar playtime to yourself I'd imagine. It seemed on par to the likes of the assassins creed games in terms of filler to me.

Nope. But I had 87% of the base games trophies when I finished. Didn't have/play the DLC at the time

Zapp Brannigan

Cancelled my pre-order. I can wait until Christmas for this to drop in price.

Falthyron

Yeah, I have enough games to be playing at the moment... (Dishonored 2 + Death of the Outsider, South Park: Fractured but Whole in a few weeks, and then Wolfenstein 2). Then a fair few indie titles to get stuck into as well (Transistor, Edith Finch, Sexy Brutale, Darkside Detective).

Shadow of War can wait. When I am craving a massive open world game with plenty of filler, I'll pick it up with a discount (hopefully!).

A part of me wants this game to fail though. The dirty practices (Charity DLC, and the loot boxes) have really put me off the game. I want to see more repercussions for following through on these kind of business models. Then again, people, jobs, etc. Its hardly a 3D animator's fault for what a publisher decides to do. I'll buy it on discount, that's a fair middle-ground! :pac:

jcd5971

J. Marston wrote:

Flicking through the reviews here...

J. Marston wrote:

and I'm seeing phrases like...

J. Marston wrote:

Wasn't going to buy it anyway but those reviews have put me off it anyway.

Huh?

Reviewer: this game is actually really good.

Marston: well thank **** I dodged a bullet there.

jcd5971

Honestly it seems like some people here are determined to see the worst in this game no matter what reviews it gets.

J. Marston

jcd5971 wrote: »

Huh?

Reviewer: this game is actually really good.

Marston: well thank **** I dodged a bullet there.

They're generally positive but I'm put off by the comments like "bloated" and "gigantic time sink" and "Bigger but not necessarily any better than the original".

2Mad2BeMad

happily get this game day one, looks like alot of fun
and if its anything like the 1st game well then its money well spent

jcd5971

That's fair enough, just was looking at the links and thinking these are all positive.

Its getting very good coverage I have to say. I will get it on launch anyway.

And I suppose I should give a bit of feedback to you lads that are going to hold back for a while.





Although as you'd safely guess from my profile pic I'm a huge huge lord of the rings fan so may be biased.

Mickeroo

Mickeroo wrote: »

Not sure what you're on about,. I'm just glad it's looking like the game might actually be good after all the controversy if the reviews are anything to go by.

Sorry, wasn't very clear

Alot of those reviews contain the words bloated and grind; this is a direct consequence of the microstransactions IMO

Mickeroo

M!Ck^ wrote: »

Sorry, wasn't very clear

Alot of those reviews contain the words bloated and grind; this is a direct consequence of the microstransactions IMO

In fairness only two of the review blurbs in that link used those words and even then they said it was a good game regardless so I'm not too bothered.

Penn

M!Ck^ wrote: »

Sorry, wasn't very clear

Alot of those reviews contain the words bloated and grind; this is a direct consequence of the microstransactions IMO

But most of them said the bloat and grind only starts to occur in the endgame, in order to get the 'true' ending, but that the game up to that point doesn't require any grind or microtransactions at all.

Penn

Penn wrote: »

But most of them said the bloat and grind only starts to occur in the endgame, in order to get the 'true' ending, but that the game up to that point doesn't require any grind or microtransactions at all.

That's fine. But that doesn't make it ok.

jcd5971

Penn wrote: »

But most of them said the bloat and grind only starts to occur in the endgame, in order to get the 'true' ending, but that the game up to that point doesn't require any grind or microtransactions at all.

end game in literally every game is about drinding to get best gear sets and builds etc.

Sephiroth_dude

I'll get for it christmas, I'm gonna be getting AC origins in a couple of weeks.

mrkiscool2

jcd5971 wrote: »

Honestly it seems like some people here are determined to see the worst in this game no matter what reviews it gets.

Yup, not going to deny that is me. To me, no matter how good this game is, the sh1tty practices have turned me off it so much. WB are money-grabbing asshats who don't deserve my money. If I do pick it up, I'll be buying it second hand and not investing any money into Microtransations or DLC. I'm getting sick and tired of, not only microtransactions in almost every AAA game but also this loot box culture, where you don't even know what your hard-earned cash is getting you. It's vile.

Venom

mrkiscool2 wrote: »

Yup, not going to deny that is me. To me, no matter how good this game is, the sh1tty practices have turned me off it so much. WB are money-grabbing asshats who don't deserve my money. If I do pick it up, I'll be buying it second hand and not investing any money into Microtransations or DLC. I'm getting sick and tired of, not only microtransactions in almost every AAA game but also this loot box culture, where you don't even know what your hard-earned cash is getting you. It's vile.

100% agree. This lootbox crap in full price games needs to be knocked on the head from the get go or we will suffer it for years down the line. Not gonna touch this game until a steam sale.

Exactly the issue. If people continue to support this crap by purchasing the game day one then it will only get worse. That's honestly why I'm so passionate about not supporting this game.

Sonics2k

M!Ck^ wrote: »

If grinding and bloated is your idea of being fun.....

I'm pretty sure they just mean it's a massive game.

Honestly, very few AAA games these days are in any way grindy, that's a rather old-school way of doing games.

Falthyron

Sonics2k wrote: »

I'm pretty sure they just mean it's a massive game.

Honestly, very few AAA games these days are in any way grindy, that's a rather old-school way of doing games.

When a game is described as 'open-world', it almost implies 'grindy' (The Witcher III, being the only clear exception I can think of). Developers know they have to fill this open world with stuff (otherwise, what would be the purpose of having such a massive space to play in?), but they also don't have time to produce deep and varied content alongside the main story. You only have to look at the likes of many UbiSoft titles described as open world, the new Batman games, the new Tomb Raiders, etc. Most of them have filler like: collect 200 items, find all the 'X', unlock every area, see all vistas, etc., etc. Very few games actually have quality side-quests or things to do that complement the main story or yield a decent reward.

Sticking the 'true ending' behind a wall of tedium is lazy, and a cheap way of justifying the 'open world', 'hours and hours of content' marketing that games of this nature market themselves as. Having said that, the 'open world' elements of Shadow of Mordor were okay, iirc. Collecting parts of the weapons, the various challenges, freeing the slaves, and the runes, weren't too bad. But if Shadow of War follows Batman and the 200 Riddler Trophies then its a bad omen for what else the game has as filler.

Sephiroth_dude

30 for pc on g2play, very tempting .

Sonics2k

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

30 for pc on g2play, very tempting .

Give it a few weeks and that'll drop to €20 or less

degrassinoel

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

30 for pc on g2play, very tempting .

lol said i wouldnt but i bought it for cheap this morning and it's pretty good - well, it's more of the same SoM with some nifty new sh1t and garrison missions like they had/have in WoW.

streaming a bit here if you're interested

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX_0dVxzEeM

Sephiroth_dude

degrassinoel wrote: »

lol said i wouldnt but i bought it for cheap this morning and it's pretty good - well, it's more of the same SoM with some nifty new sh1t and garrison missions like they had/have in WoW.

streaming a bit here if you're interested

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX_0dVxzEeM

Same here, very stuttery on my rig on though.

Dcully

PC users, how does it operate with mouse and KB?

I played the first game with a pad untile the pad broke and i never got past maybe 20% of the game as i just lost interest.

Sephiroth_dude

Dcully wrote: »

PC users, how does it operate with mouse and KB?

I played the first game with a pad untile the pad broke and i never got past maybe 20% of the game as i just lost interest.

I just tried it there and found it awkward too be honest.

keane2097

I played through the first one with a mouse and keyboard and it was awkward as ****.

degrassinoel

Dcully wrote: »

PC users, how does it operate with mouse and KB?

I played the first game with a pad untile the pad broke and i never got past maybe 20% of the game as i just lost interest.

found it awkward too, but i just dropped the sensitivity on mouselook for both axises and it's grand now - seriously dropped it to around 20% on each. Binding are as odd as they were with SoM

sweetie

Anyone get their Gamestop 39.99 pre-order delivered yet? Sent tuesday, hopefully comes today.

Sonics2k

Jim Sterling as uploaded his early impression video of this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SObJQSTUs64

I suppose if there's one thing I like about Jim Sterling, that almost makes up for him being an attention seeking knob at times, is that he's very honest in the video.

At it's core, it's another great game and is fun to play, and the reason people got annoyed about the loot boxes and similar is because they want to really enjoy the game itself.

Lone Stone

i played the crap out of the first one, the whole loot box crap put me of buying it. Tempted to pirate for the first time in like 10 years :pac:

Why is he an attention seeking knob?

Kiith

Don't like loot boxes and don't want to have to grind for hours to get the final ending? Then cheat I'm sure WB will take this down soon enough, but they can **** right off. I might use the cheat now, and not actually use them till later in the game.

www.pcgamer.com/shadow-of-war-loot-box-cheat/

keane2097

What's the cheapest this is floating around for PC at the moment, for someone who doesn't know where to even start looking?

SolvableKnave

Kiith wrote: »

Don't like loot boxes and don't want to have to grind for hours to get the final ending? Then cheat I'm sure WB will take this down soon enough, but they can **** right off. I might use the cheat now, and not actually use them till later in the game.

www.pcgamer.com/shadow-of-war-loot-box-cheat/

Looks like the page has been removed

Generic Dreadhead

I still had it open

Amid the divisive loot box trend, PC players have been finding their own way to deal, foremost in Middle-earth: Shadow of War. By using Cheat Engine scripts to give themselves unlimited Mirian, some players have found it's possible to buy a infinite supply of loot and war chests, drowning themselves in uruks and gear. In the NeoGAF thread that tipped us off, members are going back and forth on the ethics of the exploit, and sharing methods for pulling it off.

HOW SHADOW OF WAR'S LOOT BOXES WORK

Find out how much they cost, what they give you, and whether or not they're necessary in our Shadow of War loot box breakdown.
To be clear, Miriam is not the premium currency that requires real money to purchase, and the silver tier of chests do not reward legendary uruks or gear—those are saved for crates you need to buy with Gold, the premium currency. But you can still accrue a formidable army and enough powerful gear to take on Shadow of War's greatest challenges with ease.

The cheat is made possible using third-party tools like Cheat Engine to manipulate the game files, a common practice until the advent of online-everythings and microtransations. It's an especially strange cheat since the ability to give yourself infinite uruk friends and gear makes the presence of premium loot boxes in a single-player game stand out as totally unnecessary. They're there to make money. That's no surprise, but the exploit diminishes the value proposition of the premium crates, which are already a questionable addition.

But is changing the value of a free in-game currency using cheats to earn unlimited digital items wrong if it shares the same market and item pool with the premium currency and loot? Is it theft, or is it up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-B-A?

With microtransactions effectively tripling the value of the game industry in recent years, I wouldn't be surprised to see publishers take action against such exploits, even if cheat codes and digging through game files are an ages old hobbyist tradition.

We don't condone altering game files without first considering the effects it could have on your save files and any possible legal repercussions. To get clarification on the latter point, we've reached out to WB and will update if we get a response.

SolvableKnave

Generic Dreadhead wrote: »

I still had it open

Figured out why it seemed to have been removed, i spelt loot as loof.

degrassinoel

keane2097 wrote: »

What's the cheapest this is floating around for PC at the moment, for someone who doesn't know where to even start looking?

cdkeys have it for a reasonable price, though it's more expensive now than it was the other day, got it for 36 i think.

https://www.cdkeys.com/pc/games/middle-earth-shadow-of-war-pc-steam-cd-key

Kiith

Kiith wrote: »

Don't like loot boxes and don't want to have to grind for hours to get the final ending? Then cheat I'm sure WB will take this down soon enough, but they can **** right off. I might use the cheat now, and not actually use them till later in the game.

www.pcgamer.com/shadow-of-war-loot-box-cheat/

Up WB games bolox
Delighted

Generic Dreadhead

https://twitter.com/JimSterling/status/918526153962422272

Billy86

That last reply... was Gamestop's response to him pointing out how loot boxes take advantage of people with gambling issues (or vulnerable to developing gambling issues) really "well yeah but cheats used to be free so you've got no point"!?

I mean, that literally only helps prove the guy's point!

Lone Stone

well i caved and bought on it on steam, i might just refund it. Kinda has that whole dragon age inquisition thing where you unlock things to go find from a tower, and all that typical go save dude from being executed it looks lovely but yeah i dunno just feels so repetitive already.

sierra117x

Billy86 wrote:

That last reply... was Gamestop's response to him pointing out how loot boxes take advantage of people with gambling issues (or vulnerable to developing gambling issues) really "well yeah but cheats used to be free so you've got no point"!?

Yeah from what I've heard your end game options are either to grind hard or else pay for decent orcs in loot boxes. I mean games where never intentionally driving you towards using cheats. They where potentially difficult but any game that let you grind your way past difficulty wasn't really doing it right.

So anyway totally agree. Shot themselves in the foot here

I'm normally the type who can't hold his piddle when new games on day one are concerned but even I've managed to resist the urge to buy this. Add to that I'd normally be the type to embrace a grind but there are too many alarm bells around this even for me

Sephiroth_dude

Must say I'm really enjoying this.

Generic Dreadhead

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

Must say I'm really enjoying this.

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Taylor365

I'll probably pick this up in 2019.

Sure it's not going anywhere :pac: