Anthem: Bioware's next Mass Effect-like IP

[Gaidax]

oh fuck off, you honest think these big investment corps sell shares because you didn't like a demo?

As always, the moment a shares graph is posted people go full on retarded.

The earning call was less then perfect so stocks dropped. Thats how the market works.
The end.

Word.

10c.

[SirCowdog]

The problem is that nowadays, the market is dictated by """"content creators"""" e-stars who are blindly followed by a shitload of people unable to make their own view.

And Anthem is being bashed by those because "EA sucks", it is not being praised and even the neutral videos are quite rare. That's why I sadly expect that whatever the quality of the game, it may fail.

Literally every youtuber/streamer I've seen has praised the gameplay, while being wary of the cosmetic microtransaction pricing and technical stability. All based on the demo, which bioware has been VERY clear about it not only being out of date, but that it's problems are already fixed in the live version.

This is even from larger channels like Bellular and Heelsvsbabyface.

I suspect that as long as the launch goes well, and concerns about the amount of end-game content are addressed, Anthem will do pretty well. The problem is that most people only have the demo to go off of, and admittedly the demo didn't go very well. I know a LOT of people have eyes on Anthem, and if the game launches well, I think the same channels that were being skeptical will turn up the praise for the game. But conversely, if the launch goes badly, they'll all be "I told you so!" and Anthem will probably bomb. :/

[Jastall]

I think my greatest reservation is that fact that I don't believe Anthem was created as a multiplayer game out of a sincere belief that it would provide the best gameplay experience for the player, but rather to jump on the games as service bandwagon for maximum profit. Again, I do not blame Bioware for this. If you could make a shit ton of money this way you'd be stupid not to do so. It simply is not to my personal tastes which have, until now, been in accord with Bioware, so I'm sad to see that change. Anthem has potential, but from the demo I do not see it becoming great. I hope I'm wrong and Bioware is able to marry their narrative skill with the mutliplayer aspects, but that is a tough task. We'll see after release.

Took the words right out of my mouth. To me Bioware just isn't a studio that should be doing a looter/shooter. Had they been brought in to help, I dunno, DICE or someone else craft such a game with more emphasis on story and choices, I'd have been fine with it, but make the studio mostly known for its stories and character create a game in a genre where most people couldn't possibly care less about such things? What kind of nonsense is that.

This smacks of The Old Republic to me, EA chasing a trend and putting Bioware in charge of such a task. It crashed and burned with TOR, and Anthem may suffer the same fate as most previews, from both press and individuals, seem to arrive to the simple conclusion that it's just alright (when they don't follow the outrage train because muh evil EA). "Just alright" doesn't cut it these days however. Then again, this may be what I need. I want Anthem to do well enough that Bioware isn't in danger of being shut down by EA, but not so well that the studio gets rebranded and stops making the games I want them to make.

So personally I won't be buying Anthem on release, and maybe ever. I'm knee-deep in Warframe right now anyway, between that and WoW all my gaming time is consumed.

[SirCowdog]

oh fuck off, you honest think these big investment corps sell shares because you didn't like a demo?

As always, the moment a shares graph is posted people go full on retarded.

The earning call was less then perfect so stocks dropped. Thats how the market works.
The end.

It's entirely possible there was a snall reactionary dip due to the mostly lukewarm reception and review baswd on the dwmo(which was admittedly not super good).

It's also possible that investor faith in EA is exceptionally low right now, and even something relatively minor, like the poor reception of the demo, could have magnified effects. But you're right that no kind of significant change will show until the game actually launches

[kaelleria]

It's entirely possible there was a snall reactionary dip due to the mostly lukewarm reception and review baswd on the dwmo(which was admittedly not super good).

It's also possible that investor faith in EA is exceptionally low right now, and even something relatively minor, like the poor reception of the demo, could have magnified effects. But you're right that no kind of significant change will show until the game actually launches

It's not based on the demo. It's based on bad earnings and the general stock market as a whole.

[nekobaka]

Glad to see text chat thread get quite the attention.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AnthemTheGa..._cannot_speak/
Even EA's other title Apex is coming out with text chat. Having responses like this from devs really highlights the priorities.

https://twitter.com/BenIrvo/status/1093176192709079041

We have been upfront about this for a long time... We will not have text chat at launch. If we have news to share on this topic we will absolutely share it.

[D3athsting]

Devs undecided on chat feature in online games show how toxic gaming community has become

[Ophenia]

Devs undecided on chat feature in online games show how toxic gaming community has become

That's sad though, as Anthem doesn't have PvP, the community will likely be a lot less toxic than on any PvP-based game.

Warframe's community is the best example of a helpful and nice community.

[dope_danny]

I think the strangest thing about anthem so far is just how many people i'm seeing online use it as a total brand defence for EA. Literally going "its just cool to hate EA right now, these haters can't appreciate the library of amazing games" but when you ask them to name an EA game this gen that applies too they naturally peace out and vanish.

Like i get the term 'biodrone' exists for a reason and i'm sure that kind of brand defender knows this is the make or break that decides if the company gets taken out back and mythic'ed or not but to see people go into nuclear meltdowns about people "attacking the poor, hard done too little guy Electronic Arts" is crazy town.

[apelsinjuice]

Devs undecided on chat feature in online games show how toxic gaming community has become

Bioware has always hated text chat, Mass effect 3 and Andromeda multiplayer didn't have text chat on PC either.

[Eleccybubb]

No text chat in a modern online game is just dumb as hell.

And don't give me that baloney about "toxicity". Even some of the most basic multiplayer games have it.

[Onikaroshi]

No text chat in a modern online game is just dumb as hell.

And don't give me that baloney about "toxicity". Even some of the most basic multiplayer games have it.

I don't blame toxicity, not in a pvpless game. As with most things in life I blame the US gov't for making it needless difficult and expensive to add something as simple as text chat.

What person playing a video game is going to NEED something like TTS, there will be no blind people playing Anthem.

[Lahis]

I don't blame toxicity, not in a pvpless game. As with most things in life I blame the US gov't for making it needless difficult and expensive to add something as simple as text chat.

What person playing a video game is going to NEED something like TTS, there will be no blind people playing Anthem.

Maybe it us for illiterate people?

[Onikaroshi]

Maybe it us for illiterate people?

I suppose you could make an argument for Dyslexia, it's still silly to force companies to do something like, because we know what they'll do. Just not add the feature at all.

[apelsinjuice]

I don't blame toxicity, not in a pvpless game. As with most things in life I blame the US gov't for making it needless difficult and expensive to add something as simple as text chat.

What person playing a video game is going to NEED something like TTS, there will be no blind people playing Anthem.

Dont blame the gov for this, Apex Legends released like 3 days ago, a f2p BR and they have text chat with TTS, bioware just hate text chat and use it as an excuse this time

[Razamith]

I think the strangest thing about anthem so far is just how many people i'm seeing online use it as a total brand defence for EA. Literally going "its just cool to hate EA right now, these haters can't appreciate the library of amazing games" but when you ask them to name an EA game this gen that applies too they naturally peace out and vanish.

Like i get the term 'biodrone' exists for a reason and i'm sure that kind of brand defender knows this is the make or break that decides if the company gets taken out back and mythic'ed or not but to see people go into nuclear meltdowns about people "attacking the poor, hard done too little guy Electronic Arts" is crazy town.

God damn stop with the hyperbole. There's an equal number of "biodrones" as "EA can cure cancer and i'd still hate them" and you're pretty close to the latter (though both is in the vast minority). Just because someone is willing to evaluate each title that comes out while considering a companies past tendencies but not balls out condemning them for have the audacity to produce a game, does not make them a "fanboi defender" in anyone's mind except the idiots who hyperbolize.

- - - Updated - - -

On topic, from those loose release plans screenshots (assuming to be trusted) and the dev notes about "world-changing events' i still think it'll track closely to their release plans with like me3/meA mp releases of having an event/stronghold come out about every month or two (events would likely be more frequent). Still hard to say if its frequent enough for people not to get bored and move on, which happens easily with drought.

[Katchii]

Took the words right out of my mouth. To me Bioware just isn't a studio that should be doing a looter/shooter. Had they been brought in to help, I dunno, DICE or someone else craft such a game with more emphasis on story and choices, I'd have been fine with it, but make the studio mostly known for its stories and character create a game in a genre where most people couldn't possibly care less about such things? What kind of nonsense is that.

This smacks of The Old Republic to me, EA chasing a trend and putting Bioware in charge of such a task. It crashed and burned with TOR, and Anthem may suffer the same fate as most previews, from both press and individuals, seem to arrive to the simple conclusion that it's just alright (when they don't follow the outrage train because muh evil EA). "Just alright" doesn't cut it these days however. Then again, this may be what I need. I want Anthem to do well enough that Bioware isn't in danger of being shut down by EA, but not so well that the studio gets rebranded and stops making the games I want them to make.

So personally I won't be buying Anthem on release, and maybe ever. I'm knee-deep in Warframe right now anyway, between that and WoW all my gaming time is consumed.

I understand your stance, but saying SWTOR crashed and burned is completely false. It failed as a subscription MMO, or at least failed to perform up to EA's standards, but it's a pretty thriving F2P MMO and has been profitable for years.

If Anthem "suffers the same fate" that would mean it "failed" as a blockbuster game, but would still end up being a long term, slow burn but profitable game with a loyal fan base that supports it enough to make it worthwhile to keep the servers running and get updates every so often. From a business perspective, that's not really that bad. From a consumers perspective, I wouldn't call that great, but it's certainly not a failure.

[SkagenRora]

Colossus does fine damage. You can use all of the weapon types and they are the only mech that can use heavy weapons. Their ability damage seems good too they have a mix of hard hitting things like trippleshot mortars or the flak cannon which is like a mid range giant shotgun that does a fucking ton of damage to bosses and due to the spread basically gives you at least a fair amount of special location hits. They also have utility stuff like the bug zapper which does fair damage but is a HUGE cone in front of you that juggles the hell out of everything that allows you to break swarms and wade into them and wreck shit and flame throwers that are a bit narrower but better damage. On the stronghold in the demo on the swarm of bugs charging the capture point they are hilariously effective. Between my grenade launcher my ion thing juggling them and my other power I could hold the entire swarm by myself if I had to easily.


One nice thing is their ultimate is REALLY good easy to use damage. You get three shots of this giant freaking cannon and it not only does great damage but has a good blast radius as well and is a lot less fidgety trying to paint targets than something like the ranger. It also regenerates pretty fast that is one thing I got more and more used to in the demo don't sit on a full ult bar if you see a clump of nasties blow it to kingdom come the ult comes back fast when you are brawling so use it aggressively.

thanks for the feedback

[SirCowdog]

It's not based on the demo. It's based on bad earnings and the general stock market as a whole.

I'd say it has more to do with EAs blatant disregard for anything even remotely looking like decent, ethical behavior. People are sick of good games getting ruined by being forced to release early, and being chocked full of needless monetization to the exclusion of all else.

If it was JUST Anthem I'd say you'd be on point. But EA's stock prices dropping is a result of their continual pattern of behavior. It's finally lead to legal action in countries like Belgium and several states in the US. Their shitty release of battlefield 5 following an equally shitty release of Battlefront 2. It's a series of poor decisions which compounds the already dropping market, as you said.

I'm agreeing with you. I just think those "bad earnings" are 100% the fault of terrible decisions on the part of EA shot-callers. It remains to be seen if Anthem will follow suit, or be allowed to actually stand on its own merits.

[Roshar]

There's no text chat because PC is an afterthought.