General Video Game Thread
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Fallout 76: I play on the PC. What makes it worth buying, though?
Firstly, I logged in planning to play a couple hours and drop off. Nine hours later the beta was ending and I was still logged in. My play experience, in that nine hours, was me and some random guy I just met tromping around the wasteland doing random stuff. We had an absolute blast just running from some 'Wanted' guy who kept following us around the map, just out of sight but ever-close. We fought enemies way above our level and screamed in terror as a herd of Anglers chased us across an irradiated lake-bed. The fact that you can drop in and just blammo, group up on the fly with no expectations is great. Team not working out? De-team and go your separate ways.
Also, it never felt tedious like Fallout 4 did. The leveling/perk system is entirely, entirely different and based around getting packs of perk cards and ranking them up and assigning them, which you can change up as needed such as swapping out Lone Wanderer (when you are alone) for team-based perks. You aren't completely locked in but it doesn't feel like your choices don't matter. I took lock picking, the other guy had some hacking perks. He hacked the terminals, I picked the locks. It was nice synergy. We got toys we never would have gotten alone.
On the topic of lack of tediousness, there's some really cool encampment systems. Firstly, you have your basic camp. A small area that -persists- every time you log on. I don't know if it disappears when I log off, but as soon as I was on, bam. There was my camp. My turrets, my walls, my everything. You can move stuff around, scrap it, upgrade. Etcetera. The prices for furniture/recipes is really, really high and cap gain is super low so buying my welcome mat felt like a triumph. Aside from the basic camps...
Are contested camps. Claim a power plant and you can build a ton of defenses and goodies, but other people can attack it and claim it from you. It's a great PvP element that you are not required to take part in, but when you do claim a contested area... you can build some truly massive bases. The build area is huge and there's a pretty lenient object budget you have to work with. There's benefits, too. Like easy mining spots, or access to fusion cores and fusion-core charging (I believe) and other hijinks.
There's also daily quests, drop-in events for large numbers of players, and all sorts of things you can do aside from 'X quest, Y quest'. The amount of content on the game is amazing, and you can repeat much of it if you like. There's easily a hundred hours of playtime for a casual, easily-bored player and much, much more for anyone who wants to really sink their teeth into it.
The only problem I ran into was, in some really, really dense areas I had some choppiness from my crappy graphics card. That was it. So yeah. That's why you should buy Fallout 76. I liked it enough that I bought a friend of mine a copy as well, just so he'd play it on PC instead of PS4. So it's got my endorsement.
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@admiral
Must you engage in pvp to gain contested areas?
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@thenomain said in General Video Game Thread:
And it suffers a lot of SSDG (same stuff, different galaxy).
I'm with @Ganymede . I think ME:A got a lot of seriously unfair pressure put on it, but it was a very playable game nonetheless.
And I'm also super curious to follow up on some of the little mysteries they put in and never explained, but drew me into the story, because I play the hell out of everything and explore as much as I can.
It might have some SS'DG but there is plenty of new to follow up on as well.
Racism isn't Tinkerbell. It doesn't need you to believe in it for it to exist.
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@thenomain Nope. I claimed an area from a group that was nearby and they didn't come destroy me. But if you do claim a contested area others can take it from you if you don't stop them.
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I called Andromeda playable, yeah, it just wasn’t very good storytelling. I even enjoyed playing it when the head of the space station looked like a two dollar whore, before the patches, and I still think the story was better than FO4 or Skyrim.
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@admiral said in General Video Game Thread:
@thenomain Nope. I claimed an area from a group that was nearby and they didn't come destroy me. But if you do claim a contested area others can take it from you if you don't stop them.
Can the game be solo’d?
Let me rephrase: Is the game enjoyable solo’d?
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
@thenomain The game can be solo'd. It seems like it would be enjoyable solo as well. I planned to play it solo myself during the beta...
But then I ran into people. And the team dynamic just sort of happened. For the socially awkward, it doesn't seem hard at all to play within a group. Or if you like, to avoid a group. The players-per-map is kept at a small enough number that you don't need to worry about being mobbed or having too many people around you.
When the game fully opens, I plan to mix my solo and teamplay. I will do a lot of solo stuff, such as building my camp and doing the 'flavor' quests. Then I will team up and go exploring. The game allows for both.
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@thenomain said in General Video Game Thread:
I called Andromeda playable, yeah, it just wasn’t very good storytelling. I even enjoyed playing it when the head of the space station looked like a two dollar whore, before the patches, and I still think the story was better than FO4 or Skyrim.
Okay, I'll bite.
Why wasn't it "very good storytelling"? What QUALIFIES as "very good storytelling"? What are you comparing it to?
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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Hated ME:A. Had so many bugs, including a couple that kept me from advancing the main plot. Liked it better when they patched it. Then patched it again, and again, and again. Now it's a game I even replay every so often, mostly because I have trouble finding games I think I'll like.
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@ganymede said in General Video Game Thread:
@thenomain said in General Video Game Thread:
I called Andromeda playable, yeah, it just wasn’t very good storytelling. I even enjoyed playing it when the head of the space station looked like a two dollar whore, before the patches, and I still think the story was better than FO4 or Skyrim.
Okay, I'll bite.
Why wasn't it "very good storytelling"? What QUALIFIES as "very good storytelling"? What are you comparing it to?
As a boilerplate, I am notoriously easy to disappoint, whether I read too much into things or just have high standards.
What I want from a story is something done well. Take Star Wars, the original. It was little more but the standard Hero’s Journey, but it was done with passion and consistency and brought a sense of epicness to the table.
With video games I look for what the game seems to be promising and I judge whether or not it delivers. In the case of ME:A, it promised the exploration of something completely new in a vast and, at first, lonely place.
What we got was none of that. The stakes were taken from “fight to establish a foothold” down to “never mind, you’re just talking to people and solving their problems again”.
I was excited to find my character nearly falling to their death. I was even willing to ignore the magic and waving at ancient technology and glowing data streams, an effect that I believe was used exactly once more in the entire game even in the exact same situation, like the cutscene people and the game design people were rushed and didn’t have time to be consistent or tie the pieces together or something.
I was excited to find a Nexus barely functioning, but then it turns into a standard hub. Unlike ME1 and 2 and certainly 3, there was no sense that my character was involved in making things better. I felt like the car mechanic who brought a spare battery.
Ryder was more involved than Hawke, but like DA2 it was more smaller stories with only some impact, almost no stakes.
As an introduction to the world it was fine, but as a prequel, not as a stand alone story.
We all know why this happened, it was just bland, it was fine, it was okay. It was not tight. It was not impactful. And it was not consistent.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
@thenomain said in General Video Game Thread:
What I want from a story is something done well. Take Star Wars, the original. It was little more but the standard Hero’s Journey, but it was done with passion and consistency and brought a sense of epicness to the table.
Comparing ME:A to Star Wars is a problem.
If we're going to talk about the Hero's Journey, then the Pathfinder's Journey, to me, is far more faithful than what Luke went through. Whereas the journey into the unknown isn't about magic (the force) or some ominous threat, initially (the Reapers), ME:A did bring that out with the Kett and their masters.
Comparing it to DA2 is also problematic, given that they are of different genres entirely (tactical fantasy v. FPS).
Still, like some, I think ME:A got unfairly pooped on. We all expected something grandiose like ME3, I guess, but that, in retrospect, is an unfair comparison. As ME looks like and is a horrible game relative to ME3, the only real comparison that ought to be made is whether ME:A lives up to future games.
For me, I compared ME:A to ME, and found ME:A fully and completely superior in story and play. ME:A is about as close as you can get to an open world ME game, and it delivers to that extent. ME:A gives us functioning vehicles that are gasp actually kind of useful and fun to bump around in. ME:A introduces us to a new kind of threat: an indoctrinating race that seem really close to the servants of the Reapers, and, for all we know, could have the precursors thereto or a splinter-group of Indoctrinated that could bring back the horror of the Reapers in a meaningful way (after all, the game is set way after the events of the first ME trilogy). There is, or was, a lot there to explore.
And then EA shit the bed.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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@ganymede said in General Video Game Thread:
Comparing ME:A to Star Wars is a problem.
If I were a writer, you'd have a more elegant response. You asked, I answered.
If I were prepared for the challenge I would be able to link how Star Wars hit the Hero's Journey beat for beat. If you are saying that Ryder refuses the call for more than a few moment or ever meets a mentor, I'm going to have to ask for more. (n.b., I don't consider the AI a mentor. He's slightly less lost than Ryder.)
You think that ME:A does this better than Star Wars?
Comparing it to DA2 is also problematic, given that they are of different genres entirely.
Telling a good story is independent of genre. The way the story is told is almost certainly different, but if you want a better parallel:
The Marathon trilogy was created by a small Mac-only game company called Bungie. Its story was beautiful. Even Marathon (original) was weak on the whole but pulled it together by creating a compelling reason to move on beyond "shoot the bad guy and reach the end of the level".
The story told in Halo was a little above average (and IMO went downhill). It was made by a medium Xbox-only game company called Bungie. There was little to no compelling storytelling, and call be bizarre but I liked the Library level.
Both were FPS. One had a storyline, a plot, and arcs. The other was Halo.
Still, like some, I think ME:A got unfairly pooped on.
I don't know how many times I have to say that I found ME:A a playable game, so let me reiterate: It was fine. It was average. It had its moments, but to me has the same problem as Skyrim where the plot is not as strong as I enjoy. (Skyrim is very much a game not for me. Man that thing is boring as hell, and my over 130 hours of gameplay prove how compelling boring can be. Don't ask me about my FO4 hours. *cough*370*cough*)
I think ME:A got a little more poop than it should have, but EA shit the bed in early stages of development. The game was doomed from the start and as a franchise that I really, deeply like, it is heartbreaking but not at all surprising.
Incidentally, my favorite part was the end which felt like an even more open race-to-the-end call-back to ME1.
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Incidentally, I don't think that Blizzard deserve the crap it's getting from Blizzcon. I think they're poorly handling it, so a little crap is understandable, but bloody hell, people.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
@thenomain said in General Video Game Thread:
If I were prepared for the challenge I would be able to link how Star Wars hit the Hero's Journey beat for beat. If you are saying that Ryder refuses the call for more than a few moment or ever meets a mentor, I'm going to have to ask for more. (n.b., I don't consider the AI a mentor. He's slightly less lost than Ryder.)
Luke doesn't refuse the call; he wants to take the call immediately, but can answer once his adoptive family is killed. (Sort of deus ex machina, if you ask me.) Ryder's mentor is his/her father, with whom his/her actions are always measured. We could run around in circles for hours. I accept that we have differing opinions.
Telling a good story is independent of genre. The way the story is told is almost certainly different, but if you want a better parallel:
No, no, that's it, that's what I mean to say: that the way a story unfolds will be different between genres. How the story in DA2 should unfold in a way different than in ME:A, and, frankly, I liked both stories for different reasons. I just don't compare them, due to significant differences in genre.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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@ganymede said in General Video Game Thread:
Telling a good story is independent of genre. The way the story is told is almost certainly different, but if you want a better parallel:
No, no, that's it, that's what I mean to say: that the way a story unfolds will be different between genres. How the story in DA2 should unfold in a way different than in ME:A, and, frankly, I liked both stories for different reasons. I just don't compare them, due to significant differences in genre.
I don't have the language to answer your question to the level that you want, but when I buy a game sight-unseen it's because of recommendation or relation to a game line that I already like.
The commonality of what I consider a good game is the strength of the world-building and story-telling. (And how easy it is to play. Going back to Mass Effect 1 is hard. Gah.)
Bethesda's treatment of the Fallout world is far lazier than Obsidian's was, and FO76 looks like a lazy treatment of "we have all these assets so let's write a story around it". Compare FO:NV which barely had any Supermutants in it and told a far more compelling story than FO3 on the same engine.
Not that being lazy with assets is the deal-breaker; I think ME is a stronger story than ME:A and the game was put together with fewer set-pieces than Dragon Age 2.
I'm reminded what Yahtzee says about Portal: It's tighter than a walnut's corset. This is what I like. Or the Witcher 3 approach: Yes there are side-quests but you are always being reminded of the story.
I expect BioWare to make a story that unfolds well regardless of the game style, but after ME:A and FO4 I will have to treat any more IP from them with the deep suspicion of lost trust. Hell, DA2 had that for me but I gave DA:I a chance and I'm glad that I did.
In converse, Witcher 1 and 2 were hard games to even play and I resisted playing Witcher 3 until it and its DLCs were on a $15 sale, and now Cyberpunk 2077 is on my "shut up and take my money" list.
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I guess what I want is a good story well-told, and for that I will put up with a lot of gameplay elements I wouldn't normally care for. (Borderlands 2, e.g.)
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Whose excited for Diablo Immortal. Eh?
Eh....?
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@bobgoblin Not me. If I wanted a Diablo game on the go I could get it on the Switch. And it's not even Blizzard making it, they're contracting someone to do it.
D4 or bust.
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For all the well warranted complaining about it my prediction is that it will go on to be Blizzards 2nd most profitable game after WoW. It's breaking into a new market (Asia) with micro transactions that will eventually dwarf what they could get for PC game sales.
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@bobgoblin The Blizzcon footage was legit hard to watch.
The guy who asked them if it was an off-season April Fool's joke is my new hero.
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@bobgoblin said in General Video Game Thread:
Whose excited for Diablo Immortal. Eh?
China.
Sorry, let rephrase:
Anyone who was surprised by anything at Blizzcon should be ashamed. I don't even follow Blizzard and actively try to avoid them these days and even I wasn't surprised.
I'm not even surprised at the vitriol from the fans, though they should also be ashamed. Seriously, guys, enough. Oh no, your pretendy fun-time was neither pretendy nor funy-timey enough! NOOOOOOOOO! My heart bleeeeeeeeds!
I am a little surprised at how Blizzard approached this and how they're reacting. You'd think they were a big game company or something and could afford a halfway decent PR department that would've seen all this coming from a mile away and responded with something measured. But no.
Blizzard should've known their audience, a rabid group of fans who spent money to be there in person, and handed them kiddy-toys. Pre-announced, heavily-telegraphed toys, but toys nonetheless. I don't know what they were thinking.
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Diablo: Immortal is a brilliant idea, tapping into a huge market that Blizzard hasn't touched - and they went about it entirely wrong.
If they had announced this alongside information for Diablo 4 I don't think there would have been a single peep in the room, but of course this wasn't what fans wanted.
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