Anthem

goon_magee · 30-05-2019 08:29AM

Looks to be some news on the cataclysm dropping tonight for anybody still interested. I'm curious to hear if it's going to arrive as a part of a greater overhaul, because if they end up releasing an update that only consists of the cataclysm and nothing else then I probably won't return for it. Similar to how they released the stronghold recently, without meaningful changes around the board and more content overall, there is no incentive to go back for one miserable playable piece of content.

degrassinoel · 30-05-2019 10:14AM

It's been getting hammered by news sources (youtubers and official magazines/papers) for the last few days about having no updates in may at all, contrary to their promises. They left it really late to announce that update. Gives me the impression they've just got a skeleton crew on this and left this sinking ship for DA4 or whatever else they have on the burner

https://twitter.com/anthemgame/status/1133825395369758720

Sephiroth_dude · 30-05-2019 10:20AM

EoinMcLovin wrote: »

Yeah, and they had a developer stream last night where they said the game is now early access and all the stuff they had planned on the road map is not going to happen for a long while as they try and fix all the bugs. One thing for sure, I can't see Bioware developing a new game for a long time

Here is what they posted on reddit last night

https://www.reddit.com/r/AnthemTheGame/comments/bgkgl3/update_on_anthem_from_the_development_team/

SolvableKnave wrote: »

To open with that Early Access bull$**** is just pi$$ing all over everyone who stumped up for the game. They MAY get the game they believe in to where they want it to be, and I'm sure people will still play it, but Anthem seems to be joining Mass Effect on the shelf.

They actually said the game was in early access? jesus christ, rip bioware.

Kiith · 30-05-2019 10:25AM

The got the gunplay and flying pretty much spot on for me, but everything else was a cluster****. Massive shame that it was forced out way before it was ready.

EoinMcLovin · 30-05-2019 10:34AM

Also they are not going to be present during EA Play during E3

Penn · 30-05-2019 11:10AM

Hey Everyone,

It’s been 10 weeks since the early access release of Anthem.

Jesus...

So glad I didn't bother with this game. Looked great and the gameplay intrigued me, but both Destiny games taught me hard lessons for this type of game.

This idea of full-price (plus premium editions) games still being considered "early access" weeks/months after release needs to be shot in the face.

Revoker88 · 30-05-2019 11:20AM

In fairness i think early access quote is about the one week early access for origin access subbers. They leave it vague enough that it feels like its a bit of a try on though.

Lack of decent loot really killed it for me,the end game did not feel rewarding and considering the content was so limited it was always gonna struggle.

It would be a big step for EA to abandon this,after what happened with Mass Effect Andromeda to abandon this as well,when plenty of devs are showing that games can be revived if the dev sticks with it,would be a major blow to their rep.

Whos gonna bother investing time and money in a game when the publisher will just pull the plug if there not instantly happy.

Penn · 30-05-2019 11:41AM

EoinHef wrote: »

In fairness i think early access quote is about the one week early access for origin access subbers. They leave it vague enough that it feels like its a bit of a try on though.

Yeah fair point, I suppose it could be read either way alright.

johnny_ultimate · 30-05-2019 12:13PM

Hey everyone,

It’s been ten weeks since some executive forced us to release an unpatched version of our game a few days early for people who were willing to pay more money...

gizmo · 30-05-2019 12:35PM

degrassinoel wrote: »

It's been getting hammered by news sources (youtubers and official magazines/papers) for the last few days about having no updates in may at all, contrary to their promises. They left it really late to announce that update. Gives me the impression they've just got a skeleton crew on this and left this sinking ship for DA4 or whatever else they have on the burner

It was always planned that a team at Bioware Austin would take over primary development duties from the main studio at Edmonton after release. The latter would then refocus on Dragon Age 4. It's one of the less shocking things from the behind the scenes article Jason Schreier wrote about the project a few weeks ago.

raze_them_all_ · 30-05-2019 01:02PM

Kiith wrote: »

The got the gunplay and flying pretty much spot on for me, but everything else was a cluster****. Massive shame that it was forced out way before it was ready.

Flying?? You fall with grace for about 20 seconds then touch ground

Calhoun · 30-05-2019 01:24PM

gizmo wrote: »

It was always planned that a team at Bioware Austin would take over primary development duties from the main studio at Edmonton after release. The latter would then refocus on Dragon Age 4. It's one of the less shocking things from the behind the scenes article Jason Schreier wrote about the project a few weeks ago.

What was shocking about it was the treatment of the Austin team by the main Bioware team, they seemed to look down on them despite Austin's experience with SWTOR ect.

Had they actually listened the game could have been in a much better position, i am actually hoping Austin can turn it around despite the main team.

gizmo · 30-05-2019 01:38PM

Calhoun wrote: »

What was shocking about it was the treatment of the Austin team by the main Bioware team, they seemed to look down on them despite Austin's experience with SWTOR ect.

Had they actually listened the game could have been in a much better position, i am actually hoping Austin can turn it around despite the main team.

Hubris doesn't really surprise me anymore unfortunately. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, Anthem was created by many of the veterans of the Bioware of old, the idea that the studio was a shell of its former self is a misnomer. As it turns out, it was their indecision and attitudes to the advice offered by the Austin team which led to the project becoming stuck in development hell for so long. It's all quite disappointing for something that initially showed so much promise.

Dcully · 30-05-2019 01:39PM

Kiith wrote: »

The got the gunplay and flying pretty much spot on for me, but everything else was a cluster****. Massive shame that it was forced out way before it was ready.

Pretty much yep, gameplay is excellent but there is just nothing to do.
I enjoyed the month i subbed to origin access for it but thank God i didnt splash out and pay full price for it.

30-05-2019 02:21PM

Biggest flop of the year easily

Venom · 30-05-2019 03:35PM

Fred The Red wrote: »

Biggest flop of the year easily

Despite the shocking state Anthem was in at launch, EA was never going to continue supporting the game properly unless it did gangbuster levels of sales. Seeing that those sales never materialized, it's no surprise to see just a skeleton staff being left to keep it just ticking over.

awec · 30-05-2019 03:59PM

Fred The Red wrote: »

Biggest flop of the year easily

Off the top of my head I cannot think of a game with as much hype that turned out to be such a complete non-event post launch.

Like it didn't last at all. It came out and was an instant disaster.

SolvableKnave · 30-05-2019 04:09PM

awec wrote: »

Off the top of my head I cannot think of a game with as much hype that turned out to be such a complete non-event post launch.

Like it didn't last at all. It came out and was an instant disaster.

Some people would say No Man's Sky.....

Nody · 30-05-2019 05:04PM

SolvableKnave wrote: »

Some people would say No Man's Sky.....

Or Mass Effect 3; or going further back CoD has had some big duds as well. Could go even more old school such as Duke Nukem Forever, Star Wars Battlefront 1 & 2 (the EA versions) or the grandfather of them all E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial on atari :P

Penn · 30-05-2019 05:19PM

That's the thing though, with NMS especially there was a huge uproar after its release about how shockingly bad it was, the lies from the developers, the glitches etc. The complaints about it caused a big stink.

With Anthem, it was more of a huge release and then just... it's okay, lacking in content, loot pretty bad... okay bye...

Even the complaints about it were never that huge, it was just a massively-hyped release and then it just began to fade out of people's minds. It became significant in its insignificance.

Calhoun · 30-05-2019 06:24PM

Penn wrote: »

That's the thing though, with NMS especially there was a huge uproar after its release about how shockingly bad it was, the lies from the developers, the glitches etc. The complaints about it caused a big stink.

With Anthem, it was more of a huge release and then just... it's okay, lacking in content, loot pretty bad... okay bye...

Even the complaints about it were never that huge, it was just a massively-hyped release and then it just began to fade out of people's minds. It became significant in its insignificance.

I think the complaints about loot really did damage it, for a looter shooter not to have a varied and interesting drops says something.

The other damage this game had was how EA is known to abandon non-performing IP.

goon_magee · 30-05-2019 07:46PM

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 · 30-05-2019 09:31PM

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 · 30-05-2019 09:47PM

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 · 30-05-2019 11:38PM

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 · 31-05-2019 01:17AM

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 · 31-05-2019 03:24AM

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 · 31-05-2019 03:55AM

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 · 31-05-2019 09:34AM

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 · 31-05-2019 10:26AM

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.

Anthem

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