General Video Game Thread

[BobGoblin]

With the mass exodus of talent from Blizzard in various IPs, one almost wonders if they simply don't like the direction the company is going.

[Deleted]

Diablo Immortal is a reskin of Endless of God, a previous Diablo-clone by the company contracted to make Diablo Immortal.

Diablo Immortal is a reskin of a clone of a game. That's what has the fans pissed off.

[Insomnia]

Yeah, I don't believe that entirely. Maybe that's what most of the outrage is now, but that wasn't the case at the start. They announced it on mobile live at Blizzcon and it got immediate reactions. The review bombing was happening even before the Q&A panel even before the one guy asked if it was an early April Fool's joke. There were several hours when the outrage started that were because it was a mobile game, the re-skinning snowballed from that. Because heaven forbid a company go to a company who knows what they are doing, and get help with something they don't know how to do.

Also the whole removing negative reviews? While they probably removed comments, they can't remove likes / dislikes and that was probably Youtube itself; they have been working removing things like bots and spam to help properly reflect the like / dislike ratio.

People were expecting Diablo 4 news, even though they were told not to expect anything huge because of the rumors floating around. And when they didn't get it, they threw a tantrum. It's convenient to latch on to as the reason, but was't the root cause. It's because we live in an outrage culture now, and people believe review-bombing something they don't like will get them their way.

This is also not the first time Blizzard has done this, and they are actually being less sneaky about it than they did before; before WoW came out Blizzard went to Sony and asked them questions about EQ, how to do this, how to do that, but didn't tell them "Btw we're planning on making an MMO!" They got all the information and ran with it.

I'm not a Blizzard fangir defending them here. It was a shitshow on both sides, but Blizzard is getting blamed for some things they had no control over. I just think the reaction to it is way out of proportion, and to say it's because of a farming out a reskin is the issue is disingenuous. It might be part of it, but it's not the whole reason, not by a long shot.

[Jeshin]

@insomnia Blizzard is a PC powerhouse. It earned its position in the industry by catering to PC gamers. The antithesis to PC gaming is mobile gaming (in many peoples minds) and also mobile gaming is fraught with predatory tactics to leech more money from the end user. The mere fact that they are announcing a major Diablo product on mobile before releasing new content to Diablo 3 or a new Diablo 4 on PC is likely the root cause of the reaction.

TLDR - PC Master Race hates Mobile Gaming.

[Deleted]

@jeshin No. You are incorrect.

[Insomnia]

@jeshin Yes I know, though they are PC / Console now with overwatch, and they have other mobile games. To say Blizzard is just PC is silly, really. Mobile gaming is huge right now. But I still think the majority of the issue is the playerbase getting hyped up for Diablo 4 and not getting it. And that's on the community and not Blizzard. There are at least 4 Diablo things Blizzard is working on - likely a D3 DLC, D4, Immortal, Porting to Switch if I had to guess. D4 has gone through 2 game directors, and Blizzard has a habit of not announcing anything until they feel it's ready.

People are acting like Diablo Immortal means they will never get Diablo 4 which is silly. Because getting some news that fleshes out a franchise you love is better than getting no news, if it's not on a platform gamers like?

There are rumors going around that that were going to have a teaser for D4, but pulled it. I think they should have showed it, even if it was just Diablo eyes and a 4 somewhere, like Skyrim did; the fan base knows it's coming, that's why it built itself up expecting a D4 announcement. Do I think they should have shown it? Probably, a teaser with no information is at least confirmation.

It's just not all the reskin that people are upset about. It's just the most current issue.

[Jeshin]

@insomnia I didn't say they were just PC gaming, I said they were a PC powerhouse and their position in the industry was born from PC gamers. You could then surmise the bulk of people going to Blizzcon are likewise PC gamers and the bulk of people going to a set piece about Diablo are also PC gamers. It was the wrong crowd essentially to break that news too.

I didn't say that trying to break into mobile gaming was the wrong business decision. Nor did I infer the game is a reskin. You were talking about root causes and I think the root cause is PC gamers didn't get an announcement related to their personal interests at an event likely attended predominantly by PC gamers.

[Insomnia]

Right, there are a lot of PC gamers who go to Blizzcon, and they may be the majority that were there, but Blizzard has a lot of things that are not just PC. Diablo for Switch was launched the first day of Blizzcon - if it were all about PC players being upset about a non PC announcement, you would think there would be some complaining about that as well.

People built it up in their minds and expected it, and then they didn't get it. Blizzcon is for all of Blizzard properties, not all of them are on PC, and not everyone who enjoys Blizzard games only enjoys one of the properties. Diablo itself isn't and hasn't been exclusive to PC for a long time. Now granted Blizzcon started after WoW blew up, and that has always been PC only and a lot of people play Blizzard games only on PC. Platform might have a little to do with it, but again, not nearly as much as the hype the players built up in their minds for expecting a D4 reveal.

[Auspice]

@insomnia said in General Video Game Thread:

not nearly as much as the hype the players built up in their minds for expecting a D4 reveal.

I think you hit the nail on the head right here.

As much as people make it out to be 'PC vs other platform' or 'mobile game reskin' or anything else... I think it comes down to: people convinced themselves there'd be a reveal of Diablo 4, there wasn't, and they're taking out their displeasure on Blizzard rather than just letting themselves feel disappointed.

They should just take the Half-Life 3 kids out for drinks.

[Insomnia]

I mean Blizzard probably should have anchored the opening ceremony reveal with WC3 remaster rather than Diablo Immortal, that was a bit tone deaf. But change.org petitions to stop the game from happening? Just another reason to avoid fandoms.

Like I said when I was ranting about it on stream the other day; It's a silly thing to be angry about. You want to be angry about something? Be angry about the dog that ended up euthanized because he bit off a guys testicles, because that guy put peanut butter on those testicles to have the dog lick them off, and the dog, being a dog bit instead of licked. That's something worth being angry about, and there is so much more for people to be angry about. Or any number of things rather than a franchise people love having more of it, but not what they wanted.

[Wretched]

ON THE GROUND

I mean honestly, forget even that Blizz's Audience is a PC gaming one, Blizzcon is expensive, people go to that for BIG NEWS. They pay money to go, and usually the big announcements are real things, expansions and whatnot. They have skipped years because they didn't have much to offer that year. So there's people waiting for SOMETHING BIG, I mean remasting old games and all that nostalgia only goes so far. So when the big finale fucking happens and its... a Mobile game? Yeah, I watched the real time twitch chat response, even for people who didn't physically go, it was a YUGE disappoint for fans.

And then there were the people that started attacking the fans for being disappointed. Calling them misogynists for not liking mobile games. Then Blizz mass deleting comments from youtube. It was a disaster.

[Jaded]

This theory that fans were disappointed there was no D4 reveal seems to be more recent, with the rumor that a D4 teaser was made but not shown at Blizzcon.

Most of the people I talk to in the industry and the anger and upset they have are because the big capstone reveal was a mobile game targeted at people least likely to attend a Blizzcon event, and because this mobile game is being created by NetEase. Reskin possibilities aside its one of the mobile developers notorious for deep microtransaction practices in their games that target pay-to-win players and people who do not mind spending a lot of money to get ahead in a game.

[Tempest]

Old stuff, but thoughts on Persona 5?

I really dig Persona 3+4, with the combat system in them probably being the worst part for me, yet the games being pretty fun and playable despite that.

But the fact that Persona 5 is still 50$ annddd...I don't find myself super digging ANY of the apparent designs of the cast of characters has me leery.

[Insomnia]

@tempest My only complaint about Persona 5 is that if your character dies in the fight, the fight is over. Everyone else can faint and be revived, but nope, not you!

[Ganymede]

@tempest

I wasn't blown away by the game, but it was a lot of fun. I haven't played a modern JRPG in a long time.

The play is simple and fun. The storyline is pretty good. It is slick to look at.

But, I mean, I liked Final Fantasy XV a lot more.

[Tempest]

IDK where to look for decent game reviews these days.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey any good? Looks fun, but from what I recall of the old AC's, the gameplay is very...same-y.

[TNP]

@tempest said in General Video Game Thread:

IDK where to look for decent game reviews these days.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey any good?

Was wondering the same. I don't really like AC. But I was told this one is a lot more RPG oriented.

[Ganymede]

@tempest said in General Video Game Thread:

Assassin's Creed Odyssey any good? Looks fun, but from what I recall of the old AC's, the gameplay is very...same-y.

I have absolutely no frame of reference because, for me, it is the first AC game I've ever played.

There's a lot to do. There's a lot of little skills and tricks that I had to learn and get used to. The melee combat is much less forgiving than The Witcher III, and not as simple as The Last of Us. But I don't think it's as punishing as any of the Dark Souls game, and I like the combat a great deal more than Dragon's Dogma.

There's a lot to do. You can customize and upgrade a lot of things, I feel. You can customize your armor, your weapons, and your ship. It's sort of frustrating that I have to continually upgrade my weaponry, which can get really fucking expensive over time. I feel that this kind of forces you to take on the stupid-ass side quests that have no bearing on the game itself. Thankfully, the game is so gorgeous that running around the countryside is, in itself, a joy, like in Horizon Zero Dawn.

I'm not sure what your frame of reference is, but I find the game enjoyable. I am not as into it as I was Persona 5, but that's not a bad thing. Persona 5 kind of sucks you into that whole "one more dawn, one more day" progression so you can choose activities and boost your character stats. AC: Odyssey is more relaxed and probably won't cause you to stay up too late; once you're done a mission, you can go and do something else comfortably.

I would probably say that I do not regret picking AC: Odyssey over Valkyria Chronicles 4. I will probably end up finishing it.

But, shit, I am getting a little salty about some of the silliness, like knife-fighting sharks.

[Jaded]

@tempest
Everyone I know who has bought the game and have been playing feel like they've been required to pick up the permanent xp booster beyond the cost of the base game. The chief complaint is without it, the game is repetitively MMO grindy.

[Ganymede]

@jaded

Everyone you know who bought the booster are impatient babies.

Not that it helps much. Enemies scale with you until you get to around Level 14, it seems. And leveling is easy; it’s keeping your equipment updated that’s hard.