Anthem

goon_magee

I might be missing something but apart from Mass Effect, what other high profile IP have EA abandoned? Battlefront 2 and Battlefield V both massively underperformed at launch yet those games continue to get supported. Battlefront 2 is a totally different game to when it launched and is still receiving regular content updates.

goon_magee

Watching the stream, Cataclysm looks interesting although not what I expected. Rather than a mechanics heavy encounter like a raid, it looks more like a new area with a few combat encounters scattered around with a score attack system at play. The higher your score, the better the loot you get when you complete the event.

Venom

goon_magee wrote: »

I might be missing something but apart from Mass Effect, what other high profile IP have EA abandoned? Battlefront 2 and Battlefield V both massively underperformed at launch yet those games continue to get supported. Battlefront 2 is a totally different game to when it launched and is still receiving regular content updates.

Deadspace
Command & Conquer
Medal of Honor
Dungeon Keeper
Ultima
Sim City

goon_magee

Venom wrote: »

Deadspace
Command & Conquer
Medal of Honor
Dungeon Keeper
Ultima
Sim City

Ah I totally forgot about Deadspace and Visceral, fair point. Not so sure I would agree that Ultima, Command and Conquer and Medal of Honour were abandoned as such though. Ultima had a lot of core titles and numerous spin-offs, as did Medal of Honour and Command and Conquer, so I'd argue that as series they had just ran their course, it's unreasonable to expect all good series to be kept around forever. Pretty sure Command and Conquer and Red Alert are getting remasters as well so not necessarily abandoned.

I don't know enough about the circumstances surrounding Dungeon Keeper or Sim City to comment. I'd have loved a Dead Space 4 though, 1&2 are two of my favourite games from last gen, and it sounded at the time like Visceral had some interesting ideas for 4 had they ever gotten the opportunity to make it.

degrassinoel

C&C was abandoned after their bioware/victory studio had a closed beta for that last C&C that literally was abandoned because of all the negative feedback regarding microtransactions, it would have been a Generals-esque type of game. Funnily enough i think the BWVictory studio was canned after that too.

https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/Victory_Games

Calhoun

I also don't think they could abandon battlefront 2 because Disney would have ****ed them up. They still have that IP now because they supported it.

As for Battlefield, we probably wont see the impact of that until down the line, the saving grace for 5 was the fact 1 did so well but they lost so much market share compared to what they gained with BF1.

I would say the next Battlefield they will be watching dice devs like a hawk.

nix

haha they canned the C&C remaster they were gonna do? They cant even do a successful remaster of their own games without fecking it all up... Shi!iiiiiiiiiiit :pac:

ktulu123

nix wrote: »

haha they canned the C&C remaster they were gonna do? They cant even do a successful remaster of their own games without fecking it all up... Shi!iiiiiiiiiiit :pac:

No they haven't cancelled the remasters. The were making a new C&C Generals game years ago that got cancelled. Here is the latest on C&C: https://www.reddit.com/r/commandandconquer/comments/bea82f/remaster_update_and_first_art_preview/

SolvableKnave

goon_magee wrote: »

I don't know enough about the circumstances surrounding Dungeon Keeper or Sim City to comment. I'd have loved a Dead Space 4 though, 1&2 are two of my favourite games from last gen, and it sounded at the time like Visceral had some interesting ideas for 4 had they ever gotten the opportunity to make it.

Sim City launched and it was an online only title. A SP city building game (with MP options yes) was online only. The largest city you could build was a medium. Variety of roads to be built was limited. Servers didn't work on launch (think Diablo 3 launch). They where on record as saying they couldn't reverse programme it to be offline, until a fan went ahead and showed them how by doing it himself. It ruined the franchise. THE city building game of the last 30 years pretty much buried by the mess that the 2013 version released in.

Amazon withdrew the digital version from their site because of the negative feedback.

There where issues with the engine too. Among a number of issues, it caused massive traffic jams. ALL traffic took the shortest route, causing everythign to come to a standstill.

It was just a terrible release.

Rattlehead_ie

...and in comparison then others like Cities:Skyline, which weren't without flaws either, made what was and still is a great game.

Canis Lupus

SolvableKnave wrote: »

Sim City launched and it was an online only title. A SP city building game (with MP options yes) was online only. The largest city you could build was a medium. Variety of roads to be built was limited. Servers didn't work on launch (think Diablo 3 launch). They where on record as saying they couldn't reverse programme it to be offline, until a fan went ahead and showed them how by doing it himself. It ruined the franchise. THE city building game of the last 30 years pretty much buried by the mess that the 2013 version released in.

Amazon withdrew the digital version from their site because of the negative feedback.

There where issues with the engine too. Among a number of issues, it caused massive traffic jams. ALL traffic took the shortest route, causing everythign to come to a standstill.

It was just a terrible release.

OT but what's it like these days do you know? I stayed clear of it because of the issues but I get a hankering to try it from time to time. I've tried to play Skylines but that's just too much hard work.

SolvableKnave

Canis Lupus wrote: »

OT but what's it like these days do you know? I stayed clear of it because of the issues but I get a hankering to try it from time to time. I've tried to play Skylines but that's just too much hard work.

Honestly haven't touched it in years. Last I played it was ok, got some enjoyment out of it, but not enough to entice me back.

goon_magee

SolvableKnave wrote: »

Sim City launched and it was an online only title. A SP city building game (with MP options yes) was online only. The largest city you could build was a medium. Variety of roads to be built was limited. Servers didn't work on launch (think Diablo 3 launch). They where on record as saying they couldn't reverse programme it to be offline, until a fan went ahead and showed them how by doing it himself. It ruined the franchise. THE city building game of the last 30 years pretty much buried by the mess that the 2013 version released in.

Amazon withdrew the digital version from their site because of the negative feedback.

There where issues with the engine too. Among a number of issues, it caused massive traffic jams. ALL traffic took the shortest route, causing everythign to come to a standstill.

It was just a terrible release.

Yeah, fair point. Has the IP been abandoned though? That's more what I was getting at, as I'm differentiating between EA making a **** show out of a franchise and flat out walking away from it Dead Space style.

SolvableKnave

goon_magee wrote: »

Yeah, fair point. Has the IP been abandoned though? That's more what I was getting at, as I'm differentiating between EA making a **** show out of a franchise and flat out walking away from it Dead Space style.

I'm not sure, though as said, I haven't played it in years, so other than a futuristic DLC they released a year after launch, I'm unsure what support they've continued with.

EoinMcLovin

Cataclysm out today, even though I doubt anybody is still playing the game

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

Muppet Man

I don’t suppose they fixed the loot system - i.e. total lack of legendaries for most players (although I do have a storm character maxed out at 788)

OptimusTractor

Can't believe it's already May, the year is flying by.

goon_magee

Definitely too little too late.

I had a lot of fun with Anthem and still swear by the core gameplay, but if they aren't going to shut this down entirely, then they should have just held this back and focused on whatever complete overhaul of the game (if any) they are working on in the background.

When your much hyped endgame activity turns out to be little more than what would qualify for a seasonal event in other games in the genre, it leaves quite a bad taste in the mouth.

The fact that this was almost stealth released says it all really. It needed to drop alongside a far more substantial update, or at least alongside a good chunky vidoc showing whats in the pipeline. This more just stinks of a bone they are throwing to the few hundred people who still play this, before quietly shutting the game down.

nix

goon_magee wrote: »

they should have just held this back and focused on whatever complete overhaul of the game (if any) they are working on in the background.

haha you mean Anthem 2?

:pac::pac::pac:

Calhoun

goon_magee wrote: »

Definitely too little too late.

I had a lot of fun with Anthem and still swear by the core gameplay, but if they aren't going to shut this down entirely, then they should have just held this back and focused on whatever complete overhaul of the game (if any) they are working on in the background.

When your much hyped endgame activity turns out to be little more than what would qualify for a seasonal event in other games in the genre, it leaves quite a bad taste in the mouth.

The fact that this was almost stealth released says it all really. It needed to drop alongside a far more substantial update, or at least alongside a good chunky vidoc showing whats in the pipeline. This more just stinks of a bone they are throwing to the few hundred people who still play this, before quietly shutting the game down.

It might not be dropped completely, look at SWTOR which Bioware austin also manage. They turned that around quite a bit and got something out of it.

They might try the same with this.

They could also just abandon it, depends on if they see the profit i suppose.

Nody

goon_magee wrote: »

Definitely too little too late.

I had a lot of fun with Anthem and still swear by the core gameplay, but if they aren't going to shut this down entirely, then they should have just held this back and focused on whatever complete overhaul of the game (if any) they are working on in the background.

When your much hyped endgame activity turns out to be little more than what would qualify for a seasonal event in other games in the genre, it leaves quite a bad taste in the mouth.

The fact that this was almost stealth released says it all really. It needed to drop alongside a far more substantial update, or at least alongside a good chunky vidoc showing whats in the pipeline. This more just stinks of a bone they are throwing to the few hundred people who still play this, before quietly shutting the game down.

Based on their latest quarterly call this is the likely route they are taking; they mentioned Anthem 3 times during the call and only to use as an example on how digital game download is increasing and is exactly how Mass Effect Andromeda got treated after the promise of "continued support" etc. like Anthem got as well.

YongYea made a video on it.

Penn

goon_magee wrote: »

Definitely too little too late.

I had a lot of fun with Anthem and still swear by the core gameplay, but if they aren't going to shut this down entirely, then they should have just held this back and focused on whatever complete overhaul of the game (if any) they are working on in the background.

When your much hyped endgame activity turns out to be little more than what would qualify for a seasonal event in other games in the genre, it leaves quite a bad taste in the mouth.

The fact that this was almost stealth released says it all really. It needed to drop alongside a far more substantial update, or at least alongside a good chunky vidoc showing whats in the pipeline. This more just stinks of a bone they are throwing to the few hundred people who still play this, before quietly shutting the game down.

Not overly familiar with this, but could it be that they had to release this DLC as part of a season pass people already paid for or something like that? So they had to release it rather than hold it back, cause issues with pre-paid DLC purchases and tarnished the Anthem name even further?

Muppet Man

Well, they definitely fixed the loot. And made the shield/armour levels of enemies easier to take down - especially noticeable in Strongholds. And there is definitely more people playing again. For how long -who knows.

Buddy of mine got 4 Legendaries and 10 masterworks from ONE Tyrant Mine stronghold on GrandMaster 2 level. And he never used to get any legendaries at all previous to that. In fact he ditched the game because he wasnt getting any at all despite his constant stronghold grind.

He and I are now averaging at least one legendary now per GM2 stronghold. Sometimes two. GM1 strongholds also throws them up from time to time

The strongholds themselves are easier as well. GM2 is now what GM1 was (or maybe easier). A good team can get through in 20 -25 mins. And GM3 is just a little harder than the old GM2. If that makes any sense. To contextulaise, a buddy of mine and I did a Tyrant Mine on GM3 last night in one hour, and we only had one other player for about 20 minutes (to the first chest). So we two manned the last two chests. With a full team of capable players, then the Tyrant Mine stronghold on GM3 would take about 30 - 40 minutes.

Havent played the cataclysm content yet. Still some weird ass glitches in there though.

Muppet Man.

Kiith

Have they improved the loading and the amount of screens you had to load through just to get into the actual game? That's what killed it for me, as the gameplay was very enjoyable, but having to sit through 2-3 minutes of slow walking followed by 2-3 minutes of loading screens just to do one mission was crazy.

Muppet Man

Kiith wrote: »

Have they improved the loading and the amount of screens you had to load through just to get into the actual game? That's what killed it for me, as the gameplay was very enjoyable, but having to sit through 2-3 minutes of slow walking followed by 2-3 minutes of loading screens just to do one mission was crazy.

Pretty much, you dont need to walk around Fort Tarsis anymore, unless there is a specific objective as part of the story line to go talk to someone. But basically when you start the game you are loaded into Fort Tarsis and you can immediately ignore everything by just pressing / holding "Y" (xbox). This then allows you to select from a range of game modes like stronghold, freeplay, cataclysm etc. You can also go to the forge from this screen and select/change/modify your javelin...

Its definitely a pain in a hoop walking around the fort, but that aint needed anymore. For example, last night we played 4 or 5 strongholds and never went near the fort. Just rattled them off one after another. The only delay now is just waiting for the stronghold to load (in technical terms, spinning up a server to host the game)

Muppet Man

goon_magee

Definitely some decent quality of life improvements.

Loot drop rates have also improved greatly..but....what's the point in having great drop rates if the gear is absolute ****. Even with the introduction of the cataclysm, there is no fun gear to chase and loot variety still sucks which is the bigger problem. If anything increasing drop rates has exposed even further how f*cking shallow the loot pool is.

Cataclysm is a load of bollocks as well. A 15 minute, shallow, easy, bland encounter with a n awful boss that's supposed to represent pinnacle content? No thanks, if I want to grind for a stupid seasonal currency to hand in to lifeless vendors I'll just boot Destiny 2 back up, at least there the rewards feel worthwhile and the content is actually fun to blast through.

juanpablo1983

Yeah loaded it back up the past week and really enjoying it. Only problem I have is not having any 'friends' that actually play it on my account. If anyone here wants to team up. I would be all for it.

Kiith

And have the added any cosmetics to the loot now? Unless i'm mistaken, there were zero different Javelin cosmetic gear outside of the cash shop.

Muppet Man

juanpablo1983 wrote: »

Yeah loaded it back up the past week and really enjoying it. Only problem I have is not having any 'friends' that actually play it on my account. If anyone here wants to team up. I would be all for it.

XBOX? my GT is Sharperkiller - add me! I'm on most nights. I usually play with a buddy from the US. Youre welcome to join.

Kiith wrote: »

And have the added any cosmetics to the loot now? Unless i'm mistaken, there were zero different Javelin cosmetic gear outside of the cash shop.

Honestly, I'm not big on customizations... so couldnt say for sure.

The lead producer now's leaves Bioware....

Reading back through this thread is quite the giggle

Anthem, the gift that keeps on giving :P