Anthem: Bioware's next Mass Effect-like IP

[Baconeggcheese]

I just honestly believe that’s a distinction that is being pushed forward since mobile gaming started becoming a big thing, with many of them opting to lock gameplay itself behind paywalls, making games that just stick to selling cosmetics or small boosts to distance themselves from it.

Thing is its a really old term that long predates those kinds of games. It was being used back when to describe F2P games and how they were monetizing themselves.

*points at League of Legends* Clearly a fuckin lot… and that’s one of the games that allow you to get skins trough just playing the damn thing (From what I’ve heard, I don’t really play it much in years),

Did they start? I haven't played since one of the first seasons but you couldn't earn skins back then as far as I remember.

which makes me wonder why games like Fallout 76 and Anthem are asking 60€ for the base game instead opting for a better in-game shop, which fair prices and more shit.

That's something that's boggling my mind right now, how is it that a game that's clearly intended to sell you a hefty amount of cosmetics under a company known for having super shady business practices is not giving me anything to spend money on? How is this supposed to work? What's their end game here?

People praise the shit out of it because it’s more a Diablo game than Diablo 3 and doesn’t cost you anything to play, thus the majority doesn’t really give a crap if a couple of players paid voluntarily 60$ to look like a clown or not.

Honestly at this point I think its more to do with diablo 3 not having any new content drop than anything else. I didn't see people rushing over to PoE while diablo was still getting updates. Was more like a niche "proper successor to diablo 2" that people who really wanted that could pick up.

Also the point is that your char looks absolutely terrible if you don't drop big money. There's no realm where that's defensible to me, just the prospect of it is enough to hamper my initial enjoyment full well knowing I'm not going to stop looking like a hobo at any point in my gameplay until I drop $.

But as I said, you’ll always have some people complaining about shit, no matter how you do it,

That's not the point being made though, its not just that people will complain... its how they're taking place. People wanted this game to fail before anyone had ever touched it, its something I don't often see. People are looking to any issue to validate their opinion and making everything a much larger spectacle than it deserves, while giving 0 credit where credits due.

There's a difference between harsh criticism because people are passionate about a product and want it to succeed vs people just looking for any opportunity to shit on a game while having no intention of playing it or buying it and then sticking around in a thread for months like a very very sad person who seriously has things missing from their lives.

But that goes both ways, shitting on a game just for the sake of it is just as silly as defending them as if we own anything to these companies

The thing is the good conversations can't happen if they're being drowned out by all the nonsense. Which ends up with people needing to chase the nonsense away in order to attempt to have a better dialogue.

For instance reddit was being flooded with shitpost threads about loot drop rates. I made a constructive feedback post about what some of the general actual issues are with loot, and this thread may as well have not existed with how buried it was. As soon as a Dev responded to me linking it which drew eyes to it, people were dropping gold and plat on me, I got to have some decent conversations about all the different points being made. The kind of discussion that should be taking place was happening for a brief moment.

That kind of critique and conversations would be great, but unfortunately right now that requires a dev to even get eyes on it.. and even then its still nowhere near as popular as anyone finding literally any issue the community can jump on for the short amount of time it'll take before the devs fix it... and then the community will completely forget about the topic because why acknowledge that they're actually putting in the effort to try and make the best of a bad situation? People would rather drop the "oh but who gives a shit about effort, they should have done it perfect from the get go!" line.

what I kind of don’t fully understand is the base price of these games, but whatever.

Businesses and investors want money, I'm more amazed that the price hasn't increased in as long as it hasn't.

PS: Fucking hell this is becoming pretty long now, sorry about that mates.

Just the nature of the beast, gotta bring up 3 points to counter one, and then 3 more points for each one of those 3 points, until one of us finally breaks down and can't be assed to read and respond to all that.

(that's also why I clip a sentence instead of quoting whole paragraphs, just to save space).

Now, bioware can hide behind the BS statement of "oh well, things change" but that doesn't change the fact that they could have at least told gamers what they showed is no longer the case. They had time to set things right.

But that's exactly my point, they were really transparent the entire time. Its not like they kept any of this on the down low and then bamboozled everyone, people just seem to think anything less than a massive announcement of "HEY GUYS, WE CUT THIS THING CAUSE REASONS" means there was intentional scheming going on for malicious purposes.

Also that was a really weird thing to link, all of those are pretty much "nice to have"'s as opposed to things that really matter. Like why would I care about or want to be forced to go find the strongholds out in the world before I can que into them at which point I will never enter them from the world again. What does that really add to the game?

Added additional post from another guy on this yesterday. Your item level seems to impact the quality of loot dropped (not the GM difficulty alone), so it seems to potentially impact both solo and group play.

The solo aspect of that is something everyone knew about right? We go through that progression for the first like 20-30 hours of play just getting through uncommon to purple, figured people would have noticed that was going on along the way.

The really head scratching thing is why they supposedly linked it to others in the group. That makes absolutely no sense and I can't fathom why that exists... because that had to be intentionally made.

[quras]

SNIP...
But that's exactly my point, they were really transparent the entire time. Its not like they kept any of this on the down low and then bamboozled everyone, people just seem to think anything less than a massive announcement of "HEY GUYS, WE CUT THIS THING CAUSE REASONS" means there was intentional scheming going on for malicious purposes.

Well, you do have to be under the belief that bioware/ea has gamers best interests at heart when it comes to selling their products to gamers. That is something I do not think many believe anymore. For me, I have no doubt it was done on purpose but nothing so strong a word as malicious but just their business practice to get it sold. This is live in game footage! Well no not really.

No doubt saying the same garbage I see elsewhere. It's a live service so we can just sell poorly put together game now. Take the money and work on fixing it a little at a time, stringing players along for years. Even if they quit we can talk them into coming back to take a look later plus, bioware already has your money anyway. So if you come back later and spend anything it's all positive for them.

Malicious? Probably not but I don't put it past EA. A shady used car salesman tactic? Yea, you bet.

Also that was a really weird thing to link, all of those are pretty much "nice to have"'s as opposed to things that really matter. Like why would I care about or want to be forced to go find the strongholds out in the world before I can que into them at which point I will never enter them from the world again. What does that really add to the game?

Depth. Just like unlocking way points first then can use them all the time. I've got to admit, the world looks a whole lot more alive looking at the things they took out vs what we got. Of course thats all subjective stuff so to each their own but I think more would have liked that stuff to be in game than out given the post.

[Edge-]

https://www.reddit.com/r/AnthemTheGa.../?context=1000

Man, the accuracy of these theorycrafters is amazing. They're reverse engineering things and are damn near spot on.

[Eleccybubb]

https://www.reddit.com/r/AnthemTheGa.../?context=1000

Man, the accuracy of these theorycrafters is amazing. They're reverse engineering things and are damn near spot on.

I just feel bad tbh that these days players have to go to these kinds of lengths to get a product that shouldn't in this state out of said state.

It's a damn shame that a good chunk of devs these days are lazy, incompetent and lack passion for the craft.

[Vineri]

I just feel bad tbh that these days players have to go to these kinds of lengths to get a product that shouldn't in this state out of said state.

It's a damn shame that a good chunk of devs these days are lazy, incompetent and lack passion for the craft.

It's not always the dev's fault, IMO, but rather a product of their environment.

Dev's with superior management and high aspirations succeed.

Dev's with sub-par management get a lot of heat (undeserved, it should really fall on management / higher ups). They end up failing, though. The Cook sinks with the ship, sadly.

Oh well my 2 copper.

[Baconeggcheese]

Well, you do have to be under the belief that bioware/ea has gamers best interests at heart ... For me, I have no doubt it was done on purpose but

I think anyone paying attention to how these devs have been interacting with the community can tell that these dudes are passionate and they care about the community and the game.

I feel pretty safe that a more realistic answer is they probably had super grand ideas and bit off more than they could chew + other internal issues (lead died in 2017, others walked off project, etc) and ended up having to cut to get the game out.

Depth.

We have very very different ideas on what adds meaningful depth to a game I guess.

[Baconeggcheese]

*raises white flag* you win this round, but you’ll never win the war!
Also, that reminds me that I didn’t get to watch Glass, god damnit.

Ah shit that came out didn't it? I wanted to go back and watch the first two and then it. So far behind on so many things, just don't have the time these days.

[yasiru]

https://www.reddit.com/r/AnthemTheGa.../?context=1000

Man, the accuracy of these theorycrafters is amazing. They're reverse engineering things and are damn near spot on.

So what did they actually find out or prove? There is nothing in their "letter" that even shows any testing they've done, much less what the results were. The majority of their letter is just them tooting their own horns hoping to get a direct audience with the devs. There are quite a few other reddit posters that have actually tried to figure out things...

- - - Updated - - -

Ah shit that came out didn't it? I wanted to go back and watch the first two and then it. So far behind on so many things, just don't have the time these days.

FYI, Glass comes out on blu next month, April 16th.

[Katchii]

Truthfully, the way I look at it given your question is, did any of those other companies before the release of their game also make a showing of their changes? If not then yea. You likely were going off old material that tainted your decision. I don't think scammed is to far off from a bullseye.

I will add though, I also think anthem is taking the brunt of a lot of fed up gamers and how a number of released AAA games have been down right poorly developed with little to no polish and plenty of bugs and thats before you start adding in shitty business practices of loot boxes and cash shops and the game heavily designed around those things. Skipping the steps of a game has to be good first.

So yea, I think anthem is also taking waves of negativity from pissed off gamers that built up from other games combined with anthems plethora of problems. The sad part is given anthem, it deserves it.



Like I said. It seems like something new from a poorly designed game every few days.

Anthem deserves criticism for the things it fucked up for sure, but I just can't help but feel like all this bashing is like kicking them while they're down. Especially the whole scam thing you're bringing up. That seems unnecessary, especially when it's an extremely common thing among video games, like it's just getting tacked on because....why not the games getting shit on anyway, might as well pile everything on.

Again, not necessarily disagreeing, but Anthem has enough REAL problems with it that adding one like that on to the end, when most games have similar things, just seems petty.

[kaelleria]

Dev confirmed latest conspiracy theory is just that... A conspiracy theory.


Loot drops are based on Luck, pilot level, difficulty level and mob type, that's it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AnthemTheGa...easian_player/

[Edge-]

Dev confirmed latest conspiracy theory is just that... A conspiracy theory.


Loot drops are based on Luck, pilot level, difficulty level and mob type, that's it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AnthemTheGa...easian_player/

Sweet, glad they clarified that. It's a fair concern given some of the issues, and this kind of quick response is what they need to be doing to keep folks from getting too carried away.

[LazarusLong]

I think anyone paying attention to how these devs have been interacting with the community can tell that these dudes are passionate and they care about the community and the game.

I feel pretty safe that a more realistic answer is they probably had super grand ideas and bit off more than they could chew + other internal issues (lead died in 2017, others walked off project, etc) and ended up having to cut to get the game out.



We have very very different ideas on what adds meaningful depth to a game I guess.

Some quotes from the Glassdoor reviews.

Studio leadership is untrustworthy, unaccountable and obsessed with politics - Bad creative and business decisions are allowed to survive for years and destroy the projects that get stuck with them - Sub-studios are the public scapegoats for the Edmonton mothership's failures - Constant high turnover at all levels, with many replacement hires being temp workers who don't receive any benefits

This culture change wasn't for the better either. It reshaped the company and a lot of infighting happened because of this.

* Front-line management is often unfairly expected to do the jobs of two people. They must simultaneously act as advanced individual contributors and as people managers. This leads to frequent burnout by the company's brightest. * Double standards. Upper management does not practice what they preach. Cronyism. This is clearly evident during promotion and bonus time. * Several teams have recently been centralized, and are now managed out of EA's HQ in Redwood Shores. This experiment has been a disaster. Remote management of employees can work, but EA is going about it completely wrong, and is causing serious damage to the studios they should instead be supporting. * Good news is shared. Bad news is hidden. It does not take a genius to figure out what the real state of things is at any given time. * Hand fulls of employees are frequently still in the office working at 3am. This is worn as a badge of honor, and absolutely should not be. * There is still too much Us vs. Them between BioWare's Edmonton and Austin studios. This has been going on for years. *

[Yriel]

Some quotes from the Glassdoor reviews.

You get reviews like that from every single big developer, be it Blizzard, CD Projekt Red, Rockstar etc.
People just have to realize that these big companies pay big money but have not the best working conditions, that it's not the perfect dreamjob where you play nintendo or sit under indoor trees all day like in the videos. It's just how big companies function.
That doesn't mean they don't have passionate people there.

[WoWGoneBad]

I am tired of hearing the word Contracts in this game....

Contracts imply there is a form of payment. I get some payment for the Purple ones but not for the regular ones. I get coins in Freeplay than contracts.......

[kaelleria]

http://blog.bioware.com/2019/03/19/a...launch-update/
Post launch update..

Not really anything new, but communication is good.

[Edge-]

http://blog.bioware.com/2019/03/19/a...launch-update/
Post launch update..

Not really anything new, but communication is good.

I wouldn't really call this communication, at least nothing meaningful. It's a nice, "Hey guys, we know you're unhappy with the game and we're again promising to fix it." which...we've heard a few dozen times already, this time it just comes in "official blog post" flavor.

Some of the bits are a bit infuriating to read ("we also had a degree of issues that did not reveal themselves until we were operating on the scale of millions of players." what...did nobody notice the loading screens internally? : P) but it's not bad. Think the CM's do a much better job of coming off as authentic and genuine in their posts than Hudson does based on their Reddit posts, but it makes sense that someone higher up needed to make the post.

Now just start detailing plans, because folks are still restless!

[kaelleria]

I wouldn't really call this communication, at least nothing meaningful. It's a nice, "Hey guys, we know you're unhappy with the game and we're again promising to fix it." which...we've heard a few dozen times already, this time it just comes in "official blog post" flavor.

Some of the bits are a bit infuriating to read ("we also had a degree of issues that did not reveal themselves until we were operating on the scale of millions of players." what...did nobody notice the loading screens internally? : P) but it's not bad. Think the CM's do a much better job of coming off as authentic and genuine in their posts than Hudson does based on their Reddit posts, but it makes sense that someone higher up needed to make the post.

Now just start detailing plans, because folks are still restless!

There's a livestream tomorrow... He probably should have mentioned that.

But yeah I agree. This was probably for investors or something.

[Edge-]

There's a livestream tomorrow... He probably should have mentioned that.

But yeah I agree. This was probably for investors or something.

Naw, investors don't care about blog posts. I get it, this is likely to try to tamp down concerns from the community that they're not listening (which are silly, they clearly are and have been). Forgot about the livestream tomorrow, doubt I'll be able to watch it so I'll catch up on it from any helpful summaries afterwards.

[quras]

I think anyone paying attention to how these devs have been interacting with the community can tell that these dudes are passionate and they care about the community and the game.

Oh yea, like every game developer it's all a passion project and they are all about the community. So lets relase a bugs filled game that will take months to just get back in order. That whole passion thing is nothing more than some Pr BS from them.

I feel pretty safe that a more realistic answer is they probably had super grand ideas and bit off more than they could chew + other internal issues (lead died in 2017, others walked off project, etc) and ended up having to cut to get the game out.

We have all head that before too. Oh how they wanted to do more but it was just to much for them. I doubt that has any truth to it at all.

We have very very different ideas on what adds meaningful depth to a game I guess.

Probably but when I see what was taken out when it came to the game would. Even those little scripted encounters would have made the world all that much better. finding the entrances out in the world would have helped as well but you are right. We likely have different ideas on what depth is among who knows what else.

Anthem deserves criticism for the things it fucked up for sure, but I just can't help but feel like all this bashing is like kicking them while they're down. Especially the whole scam thing you're bringing up. That seems unnecessary, especially when it's an extremely common thing among video games, like it's just getting tacked on because....why not the games getting shit on anyway, might as well pile everything on.

Again, not necessarily disagreeing, but Anthem has enough REAL problems with it that adding one like that on to the end, when most games have similar things, just seems petty.

Then we should be tacking that on it other games as well because it's a shit move. I do think as you they are taking a lot of flack but it's deserved in my eyes. there is not way they could convience me they didn't know the state of their game and sold it anyway.

They deserve every bit of the negativity. If more is piled on that applies to what they have done. Then thats a good thing and I fully thing they scammed people with that let me show you this in game footage that isn't there.

[Katchii]

Then we should be tacking that on it other games as well because it's a shit move. I do think as you they are taking a lot of flack but it's deserved in my eyes. there is not way they could convience me they didn't know the state of their game and sold it anyway.

They deserve every bit of the negativity. If more is piled on that applies to what they have done. Then thats a good thing and I fully thing they scammed people with that let me show you this in game footage that isn't there.

From when was that footage you're referring to taken though? Things change, get removed, updated, tweaked, etc... in development all the time, hence the ever present qualifier "this is not a finished product and things are subject to change."

I don't feel like they (ANY developer) have to let us know every tiny detail that gets changed while the game is still in development, that would be a ludicrous amount of completely non-value added work on the parts of the development team.

Calling it a scam when a finished game has some things different than the same game while it is in development seems like an extreme exaggeration just for the sake of being inflammatory towards the game.