Anthem: Bioware's next Mass Effect-like IP

[Makabreska]

Honestly, I'm more surprised at the fact that it's not coming until July. This was a huge event/piece of content that was marketed alongside the launch and heavily implied to be releasing soon after. 5 months is pretty far from launch, and given what they've shown it looks like they still have quite a bit of work to do.

This concerns the hell outta me, because if they're this far behind on planned content like this, much less all the roadmap stuff that's been delayed indefinitely, how far behind are the on other content? How are a lot of the fixes/QoL improvements coming along, and how much, if at all, are they contributing to these delays? Why is the Cataclysm shaping up to be very different from what they were telling us it would be as recently as launch? It sure doesn't look like it'll "turn the world upside down" or be anywhere as ambitious or significant as they consistently made it out to be. Do we even get to fly into the eye of the storm like they did in the E3 trailer a few years back?

It raises so many other questions that make me continue to question whether or not the game has a future with BW running the show.

Oh come on. It's obvious, that the game is donezo. They keep delaying and changing promised content, and player base is just too low (<2.5k on Xbox last week). And about the E3 trailer, they didn't even have a proper game version, nor set development direction during trailer release, so I wouldn't really look at it as any kind of guideline. They couldn't be faithful to a roadmap released not a long time ago, why an E3 promo trailer from few years back would be any different?

[Faldric]

It raises so many other questions that make me continue to question whether or not the game has a future with BW running the show.

Judging by their recent output, its pretty obvious they got reduced to a skeleton crew. The question is if they have a separate team that actually rebuilds parts of the game for a re-release. Even they must see that their output is unacceptable and nobody will be around in July if they don't speed things up.

[Edge-]

Even they must see that their output is unacceptable and nobody will be around in July if they don't speed things up.

I hate going off of rumors, and the source isn't the best though he's been right on a few things (that mmogfails blog), but if his "leaks" are true then leadership is still blaming the players for the games problems. And based off their public communication thus far, I see no reason to believe they would hold this position. There seems to be no sense of urgency from the team to do...well...literally anything, and that they only communicate when they absolutely need to. Neither of which is helping them at all : /

[Gorsameth]

Honestly, I'm more surprised at the fact that it's not coming until July. This was a huge event/piece of content that was marketed alongside the launch and heavily implied to be releasing soon after. 5 months is pretty far from launch, and given what they've shown it looks like they still have quite a bit of work to do.

This concerns the hell outta me, because if they're this far behind on planned content like this, much less all the roadmap stuff that's been delayed indefinitely, how far behind are the on other content? How are a lot of the fixes/QoL improvements coming along, and how much, if at all, are they contributing to these delays? Why is the Cataclysm shaping up to be very different from what they were telling us it would be as recently as launch? It sure doesn't look like it'll "turn the world upside down" or be anywhere as ambitious or significant as they consistently made it out to be. Do we even get to fly into the eye of the storm like they did in the E3 trailer a few years back?

It raises so many other questions that make me continue to question whether or not the game has a future with BW running the show.

Best guess? They had nothing but idea's about Cataclysm's before launch and this is what they have been able to produce in the 3 months since launch.
This is also why there have not been more updates to the actual game, because what is left of their team after being cleaned out post launch has been spending their time working on this.

Why did they make all sorts of claims about Cataclysm's around launch? Because management is so far up its own arse they thought they could make it work, somehow.

[Baconeggcheese]

Hopefully we'll find out on today's livestream.

Yeah I pretty much had the same expectations, what worries me is I got the impression from the stream that they think the thing they came up with to go alongside cataclysms is the solution. Just the way they talked about it.

Jesse also just seems so done with all this shit. Like he doesn't even want to be there doing it and is just continuing because its his job.

Honestly, I'm more surprised at the fact that it's not coming until July. This was a huge event/piece of content that was marketed alongside the launch and heavily implied to be releasing soon after. 5 months is pretty far from launch, and given what they've shown it looks like they still have quite a bit of work to do.

This concerns the hell outta me, because if they're this far behind on planned content like this, much less all the roadmap stuff that's been delayed indefinitely, how far behind are the on other content?

I figured this was going to be the case as soon as we got that kotaku article. Based on what they said about them working in frostbite, it was more than likely going to be destiny all over again (Have heard that its a nightmare for them to make new content on destiny as well because of similar types of issues).

Consider how long the article claimed it could take them to fix a simple bug, and then look at how many bugs they've fixed since launch.

How are a lot of the fixes/QoL improvements coming along, and how much, if at all, are they contributing to these delays?

I mean, they've already made a bunch of them. Who knows though, I think bug fixes are more than likely the #1 thing contributing to the delays.

They likely spaghetti coded the game to get it out by the deadline, so now they're paying the price.

Why is the Cataclysm shaping up to be very different from what they were telling us it would be as recently as launch? It sure doesn't look like it'll "turn the world upside down" or be anywhere as ambitious or significant as they consistently made it out to be. Do we even get to fly into the eye of the storm like they did in the E3 trailer a few years back?

What were they telling us that this differs from? The only thing I remember them saying is replying to the raid question vaguely saying that this could potentially be their equivalent in that its "aspirational content". They made it painfully obvious it wasn't going to be a proper raid, beyond that I hadn't heard anything that even gave us a clue as to what the gameplay was actually supposed to be.

Now that I've seen it, it almost seems like the remnants of the game they were originally trying to make with the whole "survival" thing.

It raises so many other questions that make me continue to question whether or not the game has a future with BW running the show.

That's probably been my #1 concern from the get go. The game launched this way for reasons, and we have no indication that those reasons have been resolved. Our best hope was that for some reason them moving people off for DA4 would somehow leave them with the right people steering the ship... but that's just baseless optimism.

Its likely going to be a lot like destiny, its going to take many months to potentially years for it to get to a respectable state.

[zorkuus]

Its likely going to be a lot like destiny, its going to take many months to potentially years for it to get to a respectable state.

That's being a bit too kind. With all of its numerous problems Destiny still didn't lose a vast majority of its playerbase within months after release. It's very difficult to recover from that. Esp. when there is no set roadmap the players can look forward to. Right now it's just a guessing game whether they will fix the game or not.

[LazarusLong]

So they presented a timed event that will last for only 8 weeks and have even shitter loot system than the current game (lootboxes!).

Seriously, are there any competent devs left in Bioware?

[apelsinjuice]

So its a 8 week event, that they have spent several months working on when the game have so little content already?

[Temp name]

So they presented a timed event that will last for only 8 weeks and have even shitter loot system than the current game (lootboxes!).

Seriously, are there any competent devs left in Bioware?

I wouldn't blame the devs for the managers decisions.. The devs are probably doing their best with the shit they're given

[Lex Icon]

so i decided to give a go on my new pc and it's pumping out so much heat that i can feel the temperature rising around me while playing.. that's probably not a good thing right?

anyway i hope someone can pull off a game like this because the gameplay is the most enjoyable i've found so far and the aestethics is great.

[Temp name]

so i decided to give a go on my new pc and it's pumping out so much heat that i can feel the temperature rising around me while playing.. that's probably not a good thing right?

anyway i hope someone can pull off a game like this because the gameplay is the most enjoyable i've found so far and the aestethics is great.

Are you in a ventilated area? If not, it makes perfect sense.. CPUs and GPUs make heat, that heat has to go somewhere. If you aren't circulating air, the air around it will get warmer and warmer.

That said, check your CPU/GPU temps and make sure they don't get too high

[Lex Icon]

Are you in a ventilated area? If not, it makes perfect sense.. CPUs and GPUs make heat, that heat has to go somewhere. If you aren't circulating air, the air around it will get warmer and warmer.

That said, check your CPU/GPU temps and make sure they don't get too high

eh it's in the living room.. don't really know much about computers i only use em :P
never experienced anything like that before though and don't feel like tanking a brand new pc =/

[Greyvax]

The so called cataclysms look... god awful. Literally thrown together in a few weeks.

I'm sure what happened is they announced originally announced "cataclysms" as content in name only. The following day at bioware there was a team meeting to come up with ideas on what exactly the cataclysm should be.

The fact that it only lasts 8 weeks and rewards come in the form of RNG loot boxes is laughable. Literally trying to feed off FOMO to sell copies of the game.

The funniest part was when the lead designer said that you can compete for scores with other people in your guild.... when GUILDS DONT EVEN EXIST YET.

This game is a complete and utter disaster. They simply sold a list of promises and realized it was more work than they expected.

[Edge-]

Is it actually 8 weeks?

https://twitter.com/Darokaz/status/1134433523778117633

You’ll have to wait and see, but it would be pretty strange for it to be around temporarily and just go away completely...

BioWare fucking suck at communicating literally anything, holy shit. Literally everything all day, "8 week event, 2 weeks of leadup and 6 weeks of the full event and that's it." followed by their CM, as always, responding from his personal fucking twitter account (that he bitches about getting hit up on) rather than any official channel.

So it may last longer than 8 weeks in some way. How? We have no fucking clue because they won't fucking say shit. God damn their handling of this game is so infuriating and amateurish.

[Video Games]

They should have just scrapped this game a few years ago. If you spend more than a year in preproduction its already in trouble

[rhorle]

Is it actually 8 weeks?

https://twitter.com/Darokaz/status/1134433523778117633



BioWare fucking suck at communicating literally anything, holy shit. Literally everything all day, "8 week event, 2 weeks of leadup and 6 weeks of the full event and that's it." followed by their CM, as always, responding from his personal fucking twitter account (that he bitches about getting hit up on) rather than any official channel.

So it may last longer than 8 weeks in some way. How? We have no fucking clue because they won't fucking say shit. God damn their handling of this game is so infuriating and amateurish.

Context seems important here. The answer was in response to "I don't know if you guys can answer this but what happens to the cataclysm map after the 8 weeks? Does it disappear from the game? Become a new area to explore?"

He said that it would be strange for it to be temporary and disappear after 8 weeks. And that you will just have to wait and see what happens. There really is nothing wrong with that answer and is typical of any company that wants to save information for events. It really is mind boggling how many times people crucify Bioware over stupid stuff.

You also ignore the rest of the conversation to cherry pick an attack

"And I wasn't intending for this to be as cryptic as people are taking it. To put it more plainly, it would be kind of silly to just toss out content the team has worked so hard on and not use it in some way after the 8 weeks."

[Edge-]

He said that it would be strange for it to be temporary and disappear after 8 weeks. And that you will just have to wait and see what happens. There really is nothing wrong with that answer and is typical of any company that wants to save information for events. It really is mind boggling how many times people crucify Bioware over stupid stuff.

If they were remotely effective at communicating and hadn't just had a month-long communications blackout, I'd agree with this. But the issue is that they haven't been saying shit, and still aren't saying shit, so nobody knows what the hell is going on, what's being worked on, or what's really coming.

They don't have the kind of community support to allow them to vaguely tease shit like this, their community is already pissed that trying to get anything beyond, "No updates this week" is like pulling teeth from a lion on a cocktail of red bull and speed.

Literally all communications, "This is 8 weeks and done." to "What makes you think it's done after 8 weeks?"...uh...you guys did, you literally told us.

"And I wasn't intending for this to be as cryptic as people are taking it. To put it more plainly, it would be kind of silly to just toss out content the team has worked so hard on and not use it in some way after the 8 weeks."

We can crack jokes about how fucking terrible Jesse is at communicating (he really, really, really is hot-garbage on this front) because this is a perfect example of this, but this still says nothing. I see he's still communicating through his personal Twitter rather than using any official account today, at least he's talking even if he's just responding to a few basic questions.

Does this mean the zones will be re-used for other content? (which isn't going to make folks super happy given that there's a big lack of "new" stuff).
Is Cataclysm going to be returning in some other form down the road?

There's no strategy or coherent thought process to their communications that I can figure out other than, "We don't want to talk to the community unless we absolutely have to, and then we won't be too happy about that anyways."

[Video Games]

Context seems important here. The answer was in response to "I don't know if you guys can answer this but what happens to the cataclysm map after the 8 weeks? Does it disappear from the game? Become a new area to explore?"

He said that it would be strange for it to be temporary and disappear after 8 weeks. And that you will just have to wait and see what happens. There really is nothing wrong with that answer and is typical of any company that wants to save information for events. It really is mind boggling how many times people crucify Bioware over stupid stuff.

You also ignore the rest of the conversation to cherry pick an attack

"And I wasn't intending for this to be as cryptic as people are taking it. To put it more plainly, it would be kind of silly to just toss out content the team has worked so hard on and not use it in some way after the 8 weeks."

So they werent being cryptic, they just dont actually know yet. You dont have to keep defending the game, you know. Just let it go to sleep and be forgotten like other gaas.

[rhorle]

So they werent being cryptic, they just dont actually know yet. You dont have to keep defending the game, you know. Just let it go to sleep and be forgotten like other gaas.

I also don't have to irrational attack them or employees just because they say something I don't like. There really is nothing wrong with their statement. Plenty of other developers have said similar things with out being attacked.

- - - Updated - - -

Literally all communications, "This is 8 weeks and done." to "What makes you think it's done after 8 weeks?"...uh...you guys did, you literally told us.

So you got done saying they had a month long communication black out and then this guy teases something. And how they can't do that despite saying they were communicating before his comment. You are looking for stupid shit to get triggered over. This isn't the first time you've went off over dumb things despite your weird attachment to the game.

You even say the their is nothing wrong with the statement until you invent a reason to get triggered over it. Relax. Stop getting your undergarments in a twist.

[Video Games]

I also don't have to irrational attack them or employees just because they say something I don't like. There really is nothing wrong with their statement. Plenty of other developers have said similar things with out being attacked.

Critisizing an incompetent company is an irrational attack? Mkay. I hope theyre paying you for these posts