Anthem: Bioware's next Mass Effect-like IP

[Black Goat]

Oh they knew it perfectly well, that's why they were originally intending to timegate the 4 tombs part of the story that already burnt out big part of the playerbase on just how ridicuously and pointlessly grindy it was and relied on terribly thought out mechanisms to be completed.

I mean, I felt genuinely bad for telling my friends to play this game with me. I immediately knew endgame was a cycle of utter shit, and there was nothing on the forecast to solve that problem.

Hell, I haven't kept up with it. There's probably still nothing to look forward to.

[Big Thanks]

I mean, I felt genuinely bad for telling my friends to play this game with me. I immediately knew endgame was a cycle of utter shit, and there was nothing on the forecast to solve that problem.

Hell, I haven't kept up with it. There's probably still nothing to look forward to.

IMO the only salvation for this game is if they actually create new Dungeons or Scenarios in a World of Warcraft "seasonal" way.
It also doesnt help you cant "target" loot.

Do you think BW is able to create new Dungeons or Scenarios at this point? And keep them coming?

I doubt.

[Makabreska]

I'm no game designer or business guru. But it absolutely blows my mind how a project of this scope, with this much riding on it, that internally they didn't play the game for 10-12 days and realize there is absolutely nothing interesting to do at endgame. This game never stood a chance with people that inept at the helm.

I mean, aren't these people gamers to a degree? Who is testing this shit and approving it? It's a blast if you play 15-30 mins of it, but play for a few days and realize this is a terribly thought-out product that was teased for years. Seriously, WTF.

Check Kotakus article, it explains nicely what a shitshow Anthem production was.

[shammypie]

So wait. This one guy

1. Is all the bad reviews?
2. Lynched a studio on his own?

Studio lynched itself. Let's face it bioware fans we knew this game was going to flop from the beginning. Most gaming studios turn to crap after 3 major AAA titles. It's a slow burn after all they are sitting on mountains of cash and it's their own success that ruins them. It's not even unique to video games just look at Marvel. Swallowed by a bigger shark called disney that puts out machine generated crap that we eat up because at least it's high quality crap compared to low grade poo that indy companies spill out by the dozens. Mass Effect and Dragon Age were bioware's golden children and when they started suffering in quality with deadlines, trying to diversify to all audiences and forget who built them, and make games that stock holders want people to play and games that players want to play. That's it

[quras]

See that's the problem, you act as if the game is a total failure

It's not a total failure. I'm sure bioware and ea were all to happy to take in the cash they could before it was found out the game was a hot mess.

SNIP..

That's some thing that you can criticize but to act as if this is the worst game ever is just dishonest imo.

It's just one of the worst games to come out. Not the only one of course but there is a lot to criticize anthem for and well beyond the limited scope you mention.

But thats entirely my point.

Whats the biggest "sin" of Anthem?

Clearly thats bioware. They are themselves the biggest sin of anthem. From their massive lack on management all the way to the marketing and PR that sold a misrepresented product that is a half-ass game. Broken the day it was sold to gamers for a full price while they sit back knowing how poor it was.

1)Bugs (fixed)

Just some are fixed and the ones fixed breaks new things. The constant battle to fix a game that wasn't ready for release but don't hold biwoare accountable for month after month? Sorry, They deserve whats happening to them and the constant negativity.

2)Noob game design

Is it really noob design? I don't think so. It's mainly terrible management. The design is well enough. It's implementation is just shit.

Does it really need "more than a double tap and constant lynching" for noob game design?

You bet it does. bioware and in turn ea deserve no less then what they are getting in return for selling such a poorly put together game. Management deserves the backlash for how the anthem project was handled. Anthem deserves a while lot of continued negative criticize and not because of noob game design. I don't think it's that. It's more like piss poor management and development. A bug filled game beyond any scope that one would deem normal combined with a poor loot system and even worse/generic loot. So yea, anthem and bioware does deserve more than a double tap of lynching here. They get no pass here for the garbage they sold to the public no matter how much you personally got out of the game. Overall, the game is a hot mess of which I have no doubt a few got some enjoyment out of because they were willing to tolerate with the garbage. A vast majority of gamers were not so willing and should never be expected to be.

How the hell do you want the developers to improve the game if all we do is lynch them?

Doesn't matter to me actually. If it gets better thats great. I'll be pleasantly surprised but it doesn't condone how they handled and sold anthem to the gamers. bioware created this mess. Sold this mess to gamers under a vale of lies while knowing all along it was a hot mess and had been for a very long time. All the while hoping they could hide behind the game as a service line to fool gamers into sicking around. It bit them in the ass in the worst way so if they make it better thats great but it doesn't mean any lynching them should stop. That bioware will just have to live with and maybe next time they wont do the same thing.

Welp...you did it internet...you killed Anthem, and by the looks of it, any hope of future updates.

time will tell but you know what? Maybe the next company to release a game wont be so foolhardy. Maybe they will remember what happened to bioware and anthem and release their game in a much better condition then anthem was.

[GrimReaper673]

time will tell but you know what? Maybe the next company to release a game wont be so foolhardy. Maybe they will remember what happened to bioware and anthem and release their game in a much better condition then anthem was.

This sums it up. Anthem had the misfortune of launching after the debacle of FO76. The gaming community's patience was already razor thin. I will say though, that Bethesda has been markedly better at taking their lumps, communicating, and at least trying to right the ship. The radio silence from Bioware is more telling than anything else, imo.

[quras]

This sums it up. Anthem had the misfortune of launching after the debacle of FO76. The gaming community's patience was already razor thin. I will say though, that Bethesda has been markedly better at taking their lumps, communicating, and at least trying to right the ship. The radio silence from Bioware is more telling than anything else, imo.

I believe that wholeheartedly.

I think it started with battlefront 2. Then FO76 came and it was a cataclyst on an already brewing fire to which gamers were well tired of.

There was a lot of high hopes riding on anthem and it wasn't some made up BS hype gamers cooked up this time. bioware did the hyping all on their own with hyped up videos that were for the lack of better words. Littered with lies to hype their game.

Patience was running thin as you say and the way anthem was released in such a horrid state was the last thing people expected from bioware. It was too much garbage for one sitting from a game company people thought had a good grasp on how to make a game. They knew the game was broke and sold it anyway for a premium price and thats a really hard thing to just move on from. It looks like a move from ea and bioware to Recover what they could and hope gamers would listen to the GAAS trash PR talk and wait on bioware to fix it.

Add all that to the lack of communication, lack of changes that gamers expressed were troubled areas and I think somewhere along those lines gamers lost any and all the patience they had.

Watching reddit mods now try to add in some vague rules about postings screams heavy handed moderation incoming if even soft posts that are negative removed and deleted if the mods don't like the tone. Just throw it into some vague popcorn mentality rule set and move on. It will be interesting to see what happens over there.

[Edge-]

I think it started with battlefront 2. Then FO76 came and it was a cataclyst on an already brewing fire to which gamers were well tired of.

Battlefront 2 was slammed for different reasons largely surrounding the monetization, IIRC it was pretty solid when it released in terms of the game itself.

It started, if we want to trip back a bit (and it could likely be earlier) with Destiny. And then The Division. And No Man's Sky. And then Destiny 2. And Fallout 76. And a handful of other titles mixed in there (Battleborn could fit that bill, possibly. Same with Evolve).

Eventually, folks get tired of games launching as a dumpster fire and needing to wait a year or more for them to fix their shit. As I've said, it seems that unfortunately for BioWare they just happened to be the latest game at the time these frustrations boiled over and the patience wore out.

We could go back further to MMO releases, but that's always been a niche community in the broader gaming scene. It wasn't until Destiny and other similar titles started landing that this issue made it to the mainstream/general gaming audience, who have far less patience than us MMO nerds.

[Miyagie]

I think it started with battlefront 2. Then FO76 came and it was a cataclyst on an already brewing fire to which gamers were well tired of.

I dont get hyped for games since Peter Molyneux opened his Schantmaul and only buy games after i saw some gameplay vids after release.

[Dextroden]

Battlefront 2 was slammed for different reasons largely surrounding the monetization, IIRC it was pretty solid when it released in terms of the game itself.

It started, if we want to trip back a bit (and it could likely be earlier) with Destiny. And then The Division. And No Man's Sky. And then Destiny 2. And Fallout 76. And a handful of other titles mixed in there (Battleborn could fit that bill, possibly. Same with Evolve).

Eventually, folks get tired of games launching as a dumpster fire and needing to wait a year or more for them to fix their shit. As I've said, it seems that unfortunately for BioWare they just happened to be the latest game at the time these frustrations boiled over and the patience wore out.

We could go back further to MMO releases, but that's always been a niche community in the broader gaming scene. It wasn't until Destiny and other similar titles started landing that this issue made it to the mainstream/general gaming audience, who have far less patience than us MMO nerds.

No, we can't go back to MMO releases because people get upset if you point out that GAAS is cousin to the MMO. There's absolutely nothing similar in games that bill themselves on years of narrative and continued support if you nitpick the word massively.

But Jim Sterling finally made the connection, so maybe that'll change soon since his word is law.

[Nathasil]

I think a huge part of the problem is that game studios are all so corporate now. i want to believe gamers would be more forgiving towards nerdy guys who just pushed out a game that happened to be very flawed (=shit) but it honestly was what they believed in and lived for the last 2 years of their life.

Nowadays most game devs that you actually "see" are either suits themselves or held on a short leash by them and you can litterally read the "...but the prime reason for this feature was monetization" between everything they say.

And maybe there is no real way around that? Studios are born small with lots of passion, they grow, they become corporate, they die...but there always are enough new small studios around to rise up and thankfully with todays technology it is indeed quite easy to make a decent game with a small team and limited resources.

That last fact, that small studios are actually able to push out great games with very little budget today, just makes gamers (rightfully) expect much, much more from the large studios they loved since childhood with almost infinite resources at their disposal.

[Dextroden]

I dont get hyped for games since Peter Molyneux opened his Schantmaul and only buy games after i saw some gameplay vids after release.

Thank you for this reminder that the gaming community is doomed since it can't avoid overhype and now we want to pretend that pre ordering will stop.

[Edge-]

No, we can't go back to MMO releases because people get upset if you point out that GAAS is cousin to the MMO.

Personally, I don't give a shit about that. I've been saying these games are functionally MMO's since day one and I maintain that position today.

There's absolutely nothing similar in games that bill themselves on years of narrative and continued support if you nitpick the word massively.

But there have been more narrative driven MMO's like Secret World where the narrative was prioritized over gameplay content, so they exist.

But Jim Sterling finally made the connection, so maybe that'll change soon since his word is law.

I do my best to ignore him and his garbage. Haven't put much, if any, stock in what he has to say in years.

[Dextroden]

Personally, I don't give a shit about that. I've been saying these games are functionally MMO's since day one and I maintain that position today.



But there have been more narrative driven MMO's like Secret World where the narrative was prioritized over gameplay content, so they exist.



I do my best to ignore him and his garbage. Haven't put much, if any, stock in what he has to say in years.

He's fun to watch occasionally if you want to laugh at a guy who's a mile up his own ass thanks to his fans.

[Gaidax]

Why not just say on a "review" the game is bad?

Why do we have to endlessly make fun of it? Killing all hope for future updates?

Are you implying players are to blame for this situation?

Players are "killing all hope for future updates?" How so? By not playing a poor game? Or by saying mean stuff on forums?

See - the thing is shit, there was a positive engagement from the community at the beginning, but Bioware could not even handle that with their terrible CM team that literally had nothing constructive to say themselves. So shocking that community went south seeing Bioware radio silence.


Players can't "kill all hope for future updates" by posting mean threads on forums - WoW is a great example of that, because despite all the bitching it's still being played by millions.

What "killed all hope for future updates" is shitty game design by a studio and publisher who could not man up and cancel the game and instead went for a cash grab to recoup losses at expense of their reputation. So yes, they should pay that reputation price for the $$ they managed to grab.

[Yriel]

Are you implying players are to blame for this situation?

Players are "killing all hope for future updates?" How so? By not playing a poor game? Or by saying mean stuff on forums?

By going on and on and on and on with their whining. It's ok so say the game is shitty and stop playing it but hanging out for months and months on its forums whining about the game and shitting on people still playing is kind of childish.

It's not a total failure. I'm sure bioware and ea were all to happy to take in the cash they could before it was found out the game was a hot mess.


It's just one of the worst games to come out. Not the only one of course but there is a lot to criticize anthem for and well beyond the limited scope you mention

Well i disagree. There are so many worse games out there. Even from Bioware themselves, i had much more fun in Anthem than in ME:A or DA:I. Both of them were much worse.

Battlefront 2 was slammed for different reasons largely surrounding the monetization, IIRC it was pretty solid when it released in terms of the game itself.

It started, if we want to trip back a bit (and it could likely be earlier) with Destiny. And then The Division. And No Man's Sky. And then Destiny 2. And Fallout 76. And a handful of other titles mixed in there (Battleborn could fit that bill, possibly. Same with Evolve).

Well Battleborn wasn't bugged, people just didn't play it because Overwatch released at the same time. And as a MOBA it had enough endgame through PvP. I quite liked it.

[Dextroden]

By going on and on and on and on with their whining. It's ok so say the game is shitty and stop playing it but hanging out for months and months on its forums whining about the game and shitting on people still playing is kind of childish.



Well i disagree. There are so many worse games out there. Even from Bioware themselves, i had much more fun in Anthem than in ME:A or DA:I. Both of them were much worse.



Well Battleborn wasn't bugged, people just didn't play it because Overwatch released at the same time. And as a MOBA it had enough endgame through PvP. I quite liked it.

Alright. I'm gonna be super rude.

I'm lukewarm on Dragon Age games. But if you are actually saying Inquisition is objectively worse than Anthem is(Not you liked Anthem more. You specifically stated it is a worse game), you are being absurd just to push this idea the playerbase killed the game.

Bonus round. Why hasn't Bethesda completely clammed up and given up on 76 when it gets dump trucked regularly?

[quras]

By going on and on and on and on with their whining. It's ok so say the game is shitty and stop playing it but hanging out for months and months on its forums whining about the game and shitting on people still playing is kind of childish.

When a game is that bad and released the way anthem was I disagree. It deserves the continued negativity so that any new player isn't scammed into spending money on a game that at this time just isn't worth it.
Do you gaming buddies a soild and get as much warning out there as possible. Don't let them make the same mistakes by being uninformed.

Well i disagree. There are so many worse games out there. Even from Bioware themselves, i had much more fun in Anthem than in ME:A or DA:I. Both of them were much worse.

As a whole you are in an extremely small group them. It's great you found some enjoyment but clearly the larger group of gamers and gaming community disagree.

glad you could pull out some entertainment from anthem but you are one in an already extremely small group that did given the backlash this game is getting. Anecdotal sure but you'd be hard pressed to convince me it's not true given the state of things.

Are you implying players are to blame for this situation?

Players are "killing all hope for future updates?" How so? By not playing a poor game? Or by saying mean stuff on forums?

See - the thing is shit, there was a positive engagement from the community at the beginning, but Bioware could not even handle that with their terrible CM team that literally had nothing constructive to say themselves. So shocking that community went south seeing Bioware radio silence.


Players can't "kill all hope for future updates" by posting mean threads on forums - WoW is a great example of that, because despite all the bitching it's still being played by millions.

What "killed all hope for future updates" is shitty game design by a studio and publisher who could not man up and cancel the game and instead went for a cash grab to recoup losses at expense of their reputation. So yes, they should pay that reputation price for the $$ they managed to grab.

Well said. This is not some player driven scenario where gamers killed a game.

bioware did that all on their on.

[Yriel]

When a game is that bad and released the way anthem was I disagree. It deserves the continued negativity so that any new player isn't scammed into spending money on a game that at this time just isn't worth it.
Do you gaming buddies a soild and get as much warning out there as possible. Don't let them make the same mistakes by being uninformed.

I believe you are wrong. Even in this Thread if you go back to when the game was released and a few months after you can see that most people here that actually played the game found it fun. It just gets boring in the endgame due to it's lack of content.

To act like the gamer police that has to actively stop people from buying the game (now at discount prices) is absurd. Have you even played it?

As a whole you are in an extremely small group them. It's great you found some enjoyment but clearly the larger group of gamers and gaming community disagree.

glad you could pull out some entertainment from anthem but you are one in an already extremely small group that did given the backlash this game is getting. Anecdotal sure but you'd be hard pressed to convince me it's not true given the state of things.

I'm not sure. ME:A is universally disliked and yes, DA:I is my subjective opinion, i had to force myself through it since the combat and the story was so unbelievably boring... at least Anthem has fun gameplay.

[Gorsameth]

Bioware had the same opportunity to right the ship as every other company that brought out hyped games that turned out shit.
By doing something about it

They didn't.
So they keep getting shit for it.
The only one at fault is Bioware for not sorting out the problems and doing something about it.

Even No Man Sky managed to turn itself around while people kept on shitposting. If Bioware can't do it its not the fault of people posting about how shit the game is on the internet, its the fault of the developer for not a) making a better game and b) fixing the shit they released.