[Megathread] Middle-earth: Shadow of War

[Mister Cheese]

wait.... they are honoring a dead dev by making him a DLC?

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I'm with this one!

To put it short they are putting Forthog Orc Slayer a "Mysterious stranger" character in as DLC in homage to the Executive producer Michael Forgey who died of brain cancer a while ago. The DLC is $5 and every purchase made $3.50 will be donated to his family to help support him. This isn't the issue itself though.

Most of the money would be going to his family however it seems WB has tacked on a disclaimer at the end of the trailer in tiny text that says that in only 44 US states will the money from the DLC be donated to his family. This also excludes Europe and anywhere else the game might be purchased. Which is probably where most of the money will be coming from. So most of the money from this DLC will be further lining WB's pockets because most people will not know that this DLC, while charitable excludes a lot of areas of the world. This is honestly pretty disgusting to say the least. Most game sites haven't reported this because I guess games journalists don't analyze stuff well enough. And WB has decided to share this information in the least obvious way possible which leads me to believe they just want to profit off the death of one of their developers.

Image below taken directly from the video around 2 minutes and 20 seconds in.

[ryanmahaffe]

We are blaming the game so much for what is WBs issues, Monolith lover the IP, they likely hate many of the things happening as well as a shitty publisher is attempting to turn something they are very passionate for into a new mega cash cow.

but lets still try to appreciate some of the great things coming out from this soon to be released game
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgZ0-kdyY5A

This is a great little song for the game.

[Archon14]

And you know it's petty BS when they put it in tiniest letters at the bottom of the screen.

[Deleted]

We are blaming the game so much for what is WBs issues, Monolith lover the IP, they likely hate many of the things happening as well as a shitty publisher is attempting to turn something they are very passionate for into a new mega cash cow.

but lets still try to appreciate some of the great things coming out from this soon to be released game
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgZ0-kdyY5A

This is a great little song for the game.

it looks really amazing.

[therealstegblob]

Shadows of Mordor was an awful fucking game. Boring gameplay, absolutely pitifully terrible writing, busted enemy AI, etc. I mean, like, for a game as well-praised as it was, it was REALLY fucking awful I am so shocked it was well received.

I'll assume the sequel will also be pretty shitty.

[OnlineSamantha]

Shadows of Mordor was an awful fucking game. Boring gameplay, absolutely pitifully terrible writing, busted enemy AI, etc. I mean, like, for a game as well-praised as it was, it was REALLY fucking awful I am so shocked it was well received.

I'll assume the sequel will also be pretty shitty.

I disagree. It played like Arkham City, and a a lot of people liked that. The nemesis system was also a really fun way to engage the player in my opinion. I agree the story was shit.

[therealstegblob]

I disagree. It played like Arkham City, and a a lot of people liked that. The nemesis system was also a really fun way to engage the player in my opinion. I agree the story was shit.

the Nemesis system was a cute idea, but once you realize how shallow it is, it got old quick. Yeah, wow, very interesting, an orc is nearly unkillable (or impossible to kill) unless you throw a bee at him. Absolutely amazing.

The game was also severely limited in what it let you do. I thought it'd be cool to turn a little outpost of orcs into my mind controlled slaves but woops, they start to despawn/respawn and are generally dick fucking stupid (because the AI was SO BAD) so what's the point. The overworld was quite tiny. The gameplay may not have been bad but I'd argue that it was quite generic and brought nothing new to the table.

Plus, I mean, god damn the story was just awful. Why the fuck it wasn't just a game about a Ranger running around using his (non-ghost elf) abilities to hunt down and slay orcs is wildly beyond me.

[OnlineSamantha]

the Nemesis system was a cute idea, but once you realize how shallow it is, it got old quick. Yeah, wow, very interesting, an orc is nearly unkillable (or impossible to kill) unless you throw a bee at him. Absolutely amazing.

The game was also severely limited in what it let you do. I thought it'd be cool to turn a little outpost of orcs into my mind controlled slaves but woops, they start to despawn/respawn and are generally dick fucking stupid (because the AI was SO BAD) so what's the point. The overworld was quite tiny. The gameplay may not have been bad but I'd argue that it was quite generic and brought nothing new to the table.

Plus, I mean, god damn the story was just awful. Why the fuck it wasn't just a game about a Ranger running around using his (non-ghost elf) abilities to hunt down and slay orcs is wildly beyond me.

Eh, taste is subjective. I enjoyed it, but I don't think it was the best game ever. It was a solid 7 or 8 for me. Also, the nemesis system, as far as I understand it, is not the weaknesses of different orcs. It's the system where certain orcs come back if you've "killed" them, and they level up when they kill you.

[Verdugo]

Eh, taste is subjective. I enjoyed it, but I don't think it was the best game ever. It was a solid 7 or 8 for me. Also, the nemesis system, as far as I understand it, is not the weaknesses of different orcs. It's the system where certain orcs come back if you've "killed" them, and they level up when they kill you.

And their personality being shaped by those events.

[therealstegblob]

Eh, taste is subjective. I enjoyed it, but I don't think it was the best game ever. It was a solid 7 or 8 for me. Also, the nemesis system, as far as I understand it, is not the weaknesses of different orcs. It's the system where certain orcs come back if you've "killed" them, and they level up when they kill you.

The weaknesses thing was a part of the nemesis system. I mean, yeah, it was kind of cool how if you died to an orc he'd shittalk you and if you kept dying, he'd say several different lines of dialogue- but like I said, it was pretty shallow and it got old quick. It didn't take long to hear all of the different orc voices/voicelines.

I have a couple of cool memories from the game, to be fair. This one time I was having a real problem with killing this orc captain (it was early on in the game, I was still learning mechanics and stuff and the orc was particularly overpowered, he had a fear of caragors and a bunch of ridiculous buffs like hatred of dying). Eventually, one time I run into him at night while it's raining. We fight for a little while until eventually some caragors path into our fight. He gets scared and I manage to one-shot him with a take down and the game goes all cinematic for a second as he falls to his knees and says something like "Oh, this is a bad way to go" and then I cut his head off. That was pretty cool, I'll give the game that much.

It was also neat to see orcs sometimes surviving when you killed them (though it made no sense that an orc you cut the head off of would come back with a fucking eyepatch or something), complete with different wounds and extremities missing.

I think there was certainly a very good game somewhere inside Shadows of Mordor. If it cut all the bullshit about the elf ghost and the dumbass backstory to the main character and wasn't about 1v1ing Sauron or some stupid shit like that, and instead the game focused more on having a more in-depth and expansive orc army/nemesis system, it could have been a really, really cool game. Good base concept, absolutely awful execution.

[Verdugo]

(though it made no sense that an orc you cut the head off of would come back with a fucking eyepatch or something)

Thats actualy the only way to kill them permanently, it even replaces thier corpse on the nemesis screen with impaled head to show you that he is done for.

[therealstegblob]

Are you sure about that? Perhaps I'm remembering wrong, but I for sure seem to recall that I had at least two orcs come back after getting their heads cut off. One of them came back with an eyepatch, which I thought was pretty funny.

[Verdugo]

Are you sure about that? Perhaps I'm remembering wrong, but I for sure seem to recall that I had at least two orcs come back after getting their heads cut off. One of them came back with an eyepatch, which I thought was pretty funny.

Maybe you just stuck your sword in their neck and twisted, orcs can apparently fix that.

Sauron wasnt called "Necromancer" for nothing I guess.

Anyway, I post this again, always remember the Saga of Prak Jaws.

[WintersLegion]

I believe the reason that if you live in certain states if you buy Forgoth your money doesn't go to charity has to do with your state laws same reason for if you don't live in America. It's like how you see when a company does a competition but people that live in certain states aren't eligible to participate.

[Mister Cheese]

I believe the reason that if you live in certain states if you buy Forgoth your money doesn't go to charity has to do with your state laws same reason for if you don't live in America. It's like how you see when a company does a competition but people that live in certain states aren't eligible to participate.

WB isn't doing anything about this though. They are sweeping it under the rug rather than just donating a flat 70% to a cancer charity or something. I don't know much about this kind of thing but it seems like something their legal team could figure out.

[Jastall]

I believe the reason that if you live in certain states if you buy Forgoth your money doesn't go to charity has to do with your state laws same reason for if you don't live in America. It's like how you see when a company does a competition but people that live in certain states aren't eligible to participate.

Which, as Totalbiscuit points out, they could easily have solved by donating an equivalent portion of all extra-US purchases to a Cancer research foundation, one chosen by the family perhaps. I'm not familiar with international laws on such matters, but I doubt there's anything that forces you not to donate this money to an appropriate organism.

As someone whose father died of cancer, I'm kinda-sorta fine with them making a bit of profit over this, some dev time did go into designing this character, even if I think all profits should have gone to a good cause ideally. I'm absolutely not fine with them hiding the fact that unless you're in 45 States of the US, all profits go to WB's pockets, rather than to the family as is advertised. I'm in Canada, and if I had a mind of buying the game, I'd have been strongly tempted to get the DLC because such a topic resonates with me. Only to have my dollars actually fund some executive's vacation in Dubai or some crap. And I doubt I'm alone here. This is borderline manipulative marketing on the back of a dead man, and a shitty move all around.

[GennGreymane]

[Orby]

I saw Jims video, pretty much mirrors what TB said and I still agree with them both

It makes me so sad that the publisher has devalued the hard work of the developers for this shit. Warner Brothers has become this criminal mob like company, making shit movie decisions and shit video game decisions for the sake of more money.

Do you think Warner Brothers are even aware? I bet they just see it as "good business" and that we wont understand because it's "good business " and that they think we're stupid because they are rich and have loads of money and thats makes them smarter than us. It's that ignorant mindset they must have. It's driven by greed. But at the same time they are blind to what they are really doing

I mean look at the first Shadow of Mordor, it was a good game that sold well on it's own merits, it didn't need all this shit that Warner Brothers are throwing at it, of course Warner Brothers did a little bit of fingering the honey pot at the time of this game release like the 'no review copies shit and the DLC stuff, but it was mild compared to this. Or maybe I answered my own question and that it was because the game sold well that Warner Brothers said "wow this game sold well let's sponge some more money out of this, I mean the first game did well but we can make 'more' money"

The funny thing is if this game bombs (which it probably won't), because of wArner Brothers dirty hands all over it, they'll blame Monolith and we wont see another Shadow of Mordor game again.

I wish publishers just focused on putting the games out there and got their hands off of the actual game, and leave it to the developers.

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

*snip*

But it's a "TRIPLE A GAAAAAME!"

[Jtbrig7390]

I saw Jims video, pretty much mirrors what TB said and I still agree with them both

It makes me so sad that the publisher has devalued the hard work of the developers for this shit. Warner Brothers has become this criminal mob like company, making shit movie decisions and shit video game decisions for the sake of more money.

Do you think Warner Brothers are even aware? I bet they just see it as "good business" and that we wont understand because it's "good business " and that they think we're stupid because they are rich and have loads of money and thats makes them smarter than us. It's that ignorant mindset they must have. It's driven by greed. But at the same time they are blind to what they are really doing

I mean look at the first Shadow of Mordor, it was a good game that sold well on it's own merits, it didn't need all this shit that Warner Brothers are throwing at it, of course Warner Brothers did a little bit of fingering the honey pot at the time of this game release like the 'no review copies shit and the DLC stuff, but it was mild compared to this. Or maybe I answered my own question and that it was because the game sold well that Warner Brothers said "wow this game sold well let's sponge some more money out of this, I mean the first game did well but we can make 'more' money"

The funny thing is if this game bombs (which it probably won't), because of wArner Brothers dirty hands all over it, they'll blame Monolith and we wont see another Shadow of Mordor game again.

I wish publishers just focused on putting the games out there and got their hands off of the actual game, and leave it to the developers.

Ya I already decided after all this shit ill be buying SoW used so WB doesn't receive any profits from me.

Fuck WB seriously.