Various game stuff

[Thaed]

Dunno. Probably. Depends how good Beyond Earth is, and if I get back into PoE/LoL.

[JensenBakura]

Dunno. Probably. Depends how good Beyond Earth is, and if I get back into PoE/LoL.

It sounds like it's built very heavily on Civ 5 mechanics, and so I'm pretty confident it will be good. I do think Civ 4 was superior though, especially in how they handled religion.

[Thaed]

Yeah, Civ 5 was the first Civ I've played, so I wouldn't really know the difference.

[badfo]

AFAIK Wildstar has done poorly. Sold less than 500k at launch and didn't retain players. Unless I'm forgetting something it's done worse than any other AAA mmo that's launched in a long time.

Fair enough. My friends talk about it like it's the greatest thing ever.

It didn't seem like a bad game in the beta, just not for me.

And apparently not for a lot of other people.

I thought it was better than ESO, but ESO is doing better.

[JensenBakura]

AFAIK Wildstar has done poorly. Sold less than 500k at launch and didn't retain players. Unless I'm forgetting something it's done worse than any other AAA mmo that's launched in a long time.

Fair enough. My friends talk about it like it's the greatest thing ever.

It didn't seem like a bad game in the beta, just not for me.

And apparently not for a lot of other people.

I thought it was better than ESO, but ESO is doing better.

That might just be because ESO has a brand behind it, whereas I think Wildstar is a new IP.

[badfo]

[
That might just be because ESO has a brand behind it, whereas I think Wildstar is a new IP.

Well, duh.

I also think Wildstar devs were crazy if they thought they were going to be anything other than a niche game. People shit on Blizzard for making raiding more accessible but it's clearly part of their success. Wildstar catered to a niche audience and seemed to expect mainstream results.

Nothing wrong with niche games. I enjoy a lot of smaller titles nowadays much more than massive AAA on a whole.

[JensenBakura]

ESO actually boggles my mind. I can't think of any word more disgusting than "online" to attach to an ES title.

It's like Coca-Cola releasing a new product based on Hedgehog urine.

[Thaed]

[
That might just be because ESO has a brand behind it, whereas I think Wildstar is a new IP.

Well, duh.

I also think Wildstar devs were crazy if they thought they were going to be anything other than a niche game. People shit on Blizzard for making raiding more accessible but it's clearly part of their success. Wildstar catered to a niche audience and seemed to expect mainstream results.

Nothing wrong with niche games. I enjoy a lot of smaller titles nowadays much more than massive AAA on a whole.

I dunno, nothing I've seen that they said made it seem like they expected mainstream results, they've been all about capturing a hardcore raiding experience from the outset.

[badfo]

[
I dunno, nothing I've seen that they said made it seem like they expected mainstream results, they've been all about capturing a hardcore raiding experience from the outset.

That was their design. And the result was a niche experience that disappointed them financially and has caused them to end their update cycle. Both pretty classic signs of not meeting their expectations.

They achieved a niche result, And yet they are exhibiting all the classic signs of an MMO that failed to meet expectations. Seems like they were aiming for more than a niche result. Or they are cynical fuckers out for a cash grab (and it wasn't a very good cash grab, so I doubt that).

Whether that qualifies as expecting a mainstream result I suppose is more semantics than anything, but it's hard to believe all their scrambling post launch is because they achieved what they expected.

[Thaed]

That was their design. And the result was a niche experience that disappointed them financially and has caused them to end their update cycle. Both pretty classic signs of not meeting their expectations.

They achieved a niche result, And yet they are exhibiting all the classic signs of an MMO that failed to meet expectations. Seems like they were aiming for more than a niche result. Or they are cynical fuckers out for a cash grab (and it wasn't a very good cash grab, so I doubt that).

Whether that qualifies as expecting a mainstream result I suppose is more semantics than anything, but it's hard to believe all their scrambling post launch is because they achieved what they expected.

Fair enough. Probably they expected the niche to be larger than it ended up being. Some of the scrambling can also be attributed to the game launching too early, they basically said in beta that NCSoft was rushing them out of the door, despite everyone telling them the game needed a lot more polishing.

Still, I'm curious to see if they can turn things around in the next couple of patches. The game is good at its core, it just needs more... Something.

[pano]

I haven't played it, but I here Wildstar is doing well. At some point I probably need to go back to SWTOR. I was so disappointed with it I don't think I even reached level 10.

SWTOR is absolutely a disappointment, but not getting further than level 10 and judging the game is pretty rough. Especially if you played a Jedi, because Tython is pretty much the low point of everything.

[Pewps]

not if you're a sith pureblood jedi

[JensenBakura]

I haven't played it, but I here Wildstar is doing well. At some point I probably need to go back to SWTOR. I was so disappointed with it I don't think I even reached level 10.

SWTOR is absolutely a disappointment, but not getting further than level 10 and judging the game is pretty rough. Especially if you played a Jedi, because Tython is pretty much the low point of everything.

I was a smuggler. If a game is so unenjoyable I just want to stop playing and never look back, I think I'm within my right to do so, no matter how short a time I've spent with it. I'm not trying to make a universal statement as to how good/bad it is, just that It was so unenjoyable for me I had to stop playing. If others were able to get more enjoyment out of it, that's fine. I sometimes I give a game less than an hour - like Diablo 3 (which I thankfully tried before I bought). The extra frustration with SWTOR was that I had bought it at full price and had that little fun playing it. That almost never happens to me with a game I buy up front. I got probably 100 hours out of Star Trek Online, and that game was so flawed it's guts were spilling out of it's nose.

[pano]

I guess I read that as a judgement on the game, not pure enjoyment on your part. My bad.

To be honest though, I feel like you went in completely blind if you couldn't make it further than 10 levels without disliking it enough to cut-n-run. What were you expecting from it? What did it fail to deliver early on?

IMO, Smuggler has a great chapter 1 story-wise (up to level 30ish). But cover is poopy. At 10 you would've got stealth and heals. Game-changers.

[Pewps]

Inquisitor and Sith Warrior truly have the best stories. They're 10/10 all the way through. I'm told the Agent one picks up in the 2nd half of the game.

[Thaed]

I thought Agent was pretty great the whole way through, and was at it's best at the end of Act 1. Agent was also the only class (so far as I know, remember) that actually had multiple endings which were effected by your choices earlier in the game.

[JensenBakura]

I guess I read that as a judgement on the game, not pure enjoyment on your part. My bad.

To be honest though, I feel like you went in completely blind if you couldn't make it further than 10 levels without disliking it enough to cut-n-run. What were you expecting from it? What did it fail to deliver early on?

IMO, Smuggler has a great chapter 1 story-wise (up to level 30ish). But cover is poopy. At 10 you would've got stealth and heals. Game-changers.

The story didn't inspire me, the gameplay felt like a failed attempt at WoW 2.0, the social/RP options were very limited, the team up mechanic annoyed me. Add to that all the negative vibes that had been building with the direction of the game...

STO was a great platform for RP, and a strong RP community, and I enjoyed the look and feel of ship combat.

[badfo]

Inquisitor and Sith Warrior truly have the best stories. They're 10/10 all the way through. I'm told the Agent one picks up in the 2nd half of the game.

You are so bad at opinions.

[Pewps]

Best story definitely wasn't anything on the Republic side, which only leaves Bounty Hunter and IA. The Siths win by default.

[badfo]

Warrior was a fan fiction power fantasy and Inquis suffers from a boring vill and poor pacing.

[Pewps]

Warrior was a fan fiction power fantasy and Inquis suffers from a boring vill and poor pacing.

Power fantasies are the best, though and the Inquisitor's voice actor is the best. I just think you're being a negative nancy.

[badfo]

I just hate the Warrior story. I wouldn't call Inquis the best but it has a solid chapter 1 and peters out heavily.

[pano]

The story didn't inspire me, the gameplay felt like a failed attempt at WoW 2.0, the social/RP options were very limited, the team up mechanic annoyed me. Add to that all the negative vibes that had been building with the direction of the game...

STO was a great platform for RP, and a strong RP community, and I enjoyed the look and feel of ship combat.

If you can spend 100 hours in STO and can't manage 10 levels in SWTOR then your expectations of the game were so far off the reality. I really can't think of anything else to say. You went in blind, baby.

Don't get me wrong, there's still loads of problems with the game, but I can't help but feel like you were too jaded going into the game to get anything out of it. Which is fair enough in many ways, because the devs were pretty retarded (following the game was a mistaaaake). Anyway...

Re class stories: I have only finished Trooper on Pub side. It was pretty good, although Chapter 1 was the high point (as is my experience with most classes). I've finished all Imperial classes, and Agent was the most fleshed out and consistently interesting. I generally agree with badfo on Warrior, but I'm in a serious relationship with Vette so I can overlook some flaws. Warrior gameplay is generally un-fun though.

Of those I finished, here's my ordered list:
Agent
Inquis
Trooper
BH / Warrior

BH was too Mando heavy, Warrior was just a mess. Vette and Blizz are both top tier companions though. Inquis had loads of issues too, but I'm super biased there so whatever.

[badfo]

I guess since I have to do it. I've probably done it a ton anyway. Tier list!

badfo tier: Agent
Sub-badfo tier: Smuggler. Trooper (both great chapter 1s)
Middle tier: Knight, Inq (solid chapter 1s)
Sub-middle tier: BH (rare in that its chapter 3 was the best. Forgettable / terrible otherwise) and Consular (just.... meh)
Shit tier: Getting run over by a car
Sub-shit tier: Warrior

[Pewps]

I can't handle all this Warrior hate