AAA Games- Looking Ahead

[NickNozownik]

They're all meh. Just meh. Something that I would play for an hour or two and never touch again. I prefer games with mod support, map/scenario editors and sandbox or skirmish mode.

 

I still have some hope for Total War games. They got dumbed down and sieges in Warhammer 2 were designed by a complete and utter lunatic, but they're still fun to play. To be fair they got some things right in Rome 2, like making multiple tribes and city states instead of having something like one big united Germania.

[davisev5225]

22 hours ago, NickNozownik said:

They're all meh. Just meh. Something that I would play for an hour or two and never touch again.

 

That's intentional.  They don't want you spending a long time on one game, they want you to burn through it quickly so you feel compelled to buy another game, and another one, and another...

[KoolHndLuke]

37 minutes ago, davisev5225 said:

they want you to burn through it quickly so you feel compelled to buy another game, and another one, and another...

True. But when I look at my Steam and GOG account and have well over 200 games that I've probably only played 25% of, I stop buying new games. Plus new games usually have to be out a full year or so for the devs to patch all the bugs for their all too often hasty release and have dlc/bonus content available. 

 

 

Edited September 15, 2022 by KoolHndLuke

[Grey Cloud]

29 minutes ago, KoolHndLuke said:

Plus new games usually have to be out a full year or so for the devs to patch all the bugs for their all too often hasty release and have dlc/bonus content available.

Amen to that, brother.

 

The other side of that coin is the Larian BG3 way with "early access". Two years on and it's still in EA with a "planned release date sometime in 2023". ?‍♂️

It will be interesting to see just how "bug free" it is on release. ?

[Splendor Solis]

I can't even remember the last AAA game that looked promising. To be honest, most games just bore me. There are so few games that can keep me engaged for an extended period of time while allowing enough freedom and creativity to let you flex your brain and see what kind of stuff you can do. Not interested in paying $60 to follow the linear story of a jedi survivor or to fly into an island with 29 other players and get killed by someone I can't even see. Or maybe some multiplayer game, a shooter or a MOBA perhaps, where literally every detail of the game has been planned out by the devs and you have to have fun their way, and the only gameplay is how good of a robot you are. If you ever did find something funny or innovative, they'll patch it because you're playing their game wrong. There's a mix of engagement so you don't get bored and freedom so you can have fun that few games get right. There are some games that do look fun to play for a bit, but when you ask "Is this really worth the price?" it rarely is.

[steelpanther24]

20 hours ago, Splendor Solis said:

I can't even remember the last AAA game that looked promising. To be honest, most games just bore me. There are so few games that can keep me engaged for an extended period of time while allowing enough freedom and creativity to let you flex your brain and see what kind of stuff you can do. Not interested in paying $60 to follow the linear story of a jedi survivor or to fly into an island with 29 other players and get killed by someone I can't even see. Or maybe some multiplayer game, a shooter or a MOBA perhaps, where literally every detail of the game has been planned out by the devs and you have to have fun their way, and the only gameplay is how good of a robot you are. If you ever did find something funny or innovative, they'll patch it because you're playing their game wrong. There's a mix of engagement so you don't get bored and freedom so you can have fun that few games get right. There are some games that do look fun to play for a bit, but when you ask "Is this really worth the price?" it rarely is.

 

Wow, I could almost swear that you are talking about CU and NGE for Star Wars: Galaxies.............what a promising start to an inglorious demise. 

[davisev5225]

13 minutes ago, steelpanther24 said:

 

Wow, I could almost swear that you are talking about CU and NGE for Star Wars: Galaxies.............what a promising start to an inglorious demise. 

 

NGE actually managed to surpass the Pre-CU concurrent subscriber numbers, but it took almost 5 years to do so (if I remember the interval correctly).  They also did some really good encounters/quests in that time.

 

Also, ATMOSPHERIC FLIGHT in the last month of the game!  What a waste to close it down after they figured that one out. 

[steelpanther24]

1 hour ago, davisev5225 said:

 

NGE actually managed to surpass the Pre-CU concurrent subscriber numbers, but it took almost 5 years to do so (if I remember the interval correctly).  They also did some really good encounters/quests in that time.

 

Also, ATMOSPHERIC FLIGHT in the last month of the game!  What a waste to close it down after they figured that one out. 

 

Hm, but the wrong kinds of players, all those wanna be young padeowans running around with light sabers out because the bounty hunters were nerfed.   Those players did not have the staying power and would look for the next big game when their interests waned, never to return.    Of course this debate has been hashed out over the years, with SOE admitting to mistakes that cost them a legal way to print money.    I loved my farmer/hunter/smuggler hybrid character that was working to see if he was force sensitive.  That said, I still had fun with it in its final year, and enjoyed the massive space fights as much as the mmo battles between the rebs and imperials.

[davisev5225]

13 minutes ago, steelpanther24 said:

 

Hm, but the wrong kinds of players, all those wanna be young padeowans running around with light sabers out because the bounty hunters were nerfed.   Those players did not have the staying power and would look for the next big game when their interests waned, never to return.    Of course this debate has been hashed out over the years, with SOE admitting to mistakes that cost them a legal way to print money.    I loved my farmer/hunter/smuggler hybrid character that was working to see if he was force sensitive.  That said, I still had fun with it in its final year, and enjoyed the massive space fights as much as the mmo battles between the rebs and imperials.

 

TK/Pike/Brawler/a-little-bit-of-Medic here.  I missed the hybridization of the Pre-NGE skill trees, but did become one of the glowbat wielders you seem to despise. 

 

I was THIS CLOSE to unlocking Jedi before they released the NGE.  There was no way I wasn't going to have a Jedi character after that.  ?

Edited September 21, 2022 by davisev5225

[Grey Cloud]

Checked again today and Crimson Desert hasn't said anything since July of last year and that was release will be delayed while Dragon's Age 4 still says release in 2023.

Wonderful.

[davisev5225]

8 minutes ago, Grey Cloud said:

Checked again today and Crimson Desert hasn't said anything since July of last year and that was release will be delayed while Dragon's Age 4 still says release in 2023.

Wonderful.

 

I'm worried about DA:4 since DA:I was so polarizing.  I personally never finished the game because it was just so... bland.  Given how the new Saints Row "reboot" went as well, this seems to be a trend in AAA - take no risks and do nothing special.

 

I hope I'm wrong here, but I suspect that DA:4 will be extremely lackluster and a bit generic when it lands.

[Grey Cloud]

21 minutes ago, davisev5225 said:

I hope I'm wrong here, but I suspect that DA:4 will be extremely lackluster and a bit generic when it lands.

Thanks. ☹️

To be honest I'm not looking forward to it that much as the story seems to be going to revolve around that bald elf twat who I never had in my party.

[steelpanther24]

1 hour ago, davisev5225 said:

 

I'm worried about DA:4 since DA:I was so polarizing.  I personally never finished the game because it was just so... bland.  Given how the new Saints Row "reboot" went as well, this seems to be a trend in AAA - take no risks and do nothing special.

 

I hope I'm wrong here, but I suspect that DA:4 will be extremely lackluster and a bit generic when it lands.

 

59 minutes ago, Grey Cloud said:

Thanks. ☹️

To be honest I'm not looking forward to it that much as the story seems to be going to revolve around that bald elf twat who I never had in my party.

 

 

Ok  a bit of clarification.  DA:O is DA1, DA:I is DA2, what is DA3 and DA4?    I know there was an expansion pack/dlc for DA:O which I liked, but I haven't played DA:I.

 

[davisev5225]

2 hours ago, steelpanther24 said:

 

 

 

Ok  a bit of clarification.  DA:O is DA1, DA:I is DA2, what is DA3 and DA4?    I know there was an expansion pack/dlc for DA:O which I liked, but I haven't played DA:I.

 

 

Negative.  The release order is:

 

Dragon Age: Origins

Dragon Age 2

Dragon Age: Inquisition

 

DA:4 is just nomenclature for what will be the 4th release in the series.

[kazusa touma]

I feel like the shift in art style to realistic is what has ruined AAA games for me as a whole. The whole "we play video games as an escape" thing applies to this ig. I took a pause and played a few mobile "waifu" titles and was simply taken aback by the quality of characters. If only mobile games weren't built as a reverse ATM it can genuinely be fun with the best of both worlds, AAA Game environments with gorgeous and cute characters.

 

In recent memory the only AAA game which I kinda enjoyed was marvel's spiderman. Gameplay & story elements are great but as the game progresses they just give you more map activities to do and it kept ramping up which genuinely annoyed me to the point I just wanted to do the story and be done with it.

 

I also played Fatal Frame 5 MOBW (not sure if its AA or AAA) and while gameplay was really limited, really liked the "fan serviceness" of the game (like actually wet clothes), and the story was also really touching which makes me look forward to other fatal frame titles on PC, or take it up via emulation.

[jxm]

Oh, nice, a thread to complain about how everything was better in ye olden tymes, when an actually good game was merely one moving pixel and two pixel-bars going up and down!

 

Oh yes, I miss the tymes when we got chasened through the mazes of ye olden Pac'O'Man ...

 

Seriously, something I realized as I grew older ... its usually on oneself that things are shit and not as fun as you thought they should be still ...

[davisev5225]

2 hours ago, jxm said:

Oh, nice, a thread to complain about how everything was better in ye olden tymes, when an actually good game was merely one moving pixel and two pixel-bars going up and down!

 

Oh yes, I miss the tymes when we got chasened through the mazes of ye olden Pac'O'Man ...

 

Seriously, something I realized as I grew older ... its usually on oneself that things are shit and not as fun as you thought they should be still ...

 

There's been a trend for a long time for video games to become more generic, just like movies have.  The reason is that corporate bean counters do "risk assessments" and decide that anything too "different" is too much risk and might not make a return on investment, so innovation mostly doesn't happen anymore.  It's so obvious that professional reviewers routinely use descriptors like "generic Ubisoft open-world game" to describe things because they all blur together.

 

That you haven't noticed it is frankly surprising.

[Guest]

On 9/23/2022 at 5:11 PM, davisev5225 said:

 

There's been a trend for a long time for video games to become more generic, just like movies have.  The reason is that corporate bean counters do "risk assessments" and decide that anything too "different" is too much risk and might not make a return on investment, so innovation mostly doesn't happen anymore.  It's so obvious that professional reviewers routinely use descriptors like "generic Ubisoft open-world game" to describe things because they all blur together.

 

That you haven't noticed it is frankly surprising.

 

 

Add to this ESG, which is nothing but social credit score for companies, imposed by Blackrock so that these companies can borrow money from them. If they don't follow their guidelines, they don't get the money to make a new game. 
Some could argue indie games would be the way to go, but these are also being cucked by ESG indirectly, because if they do non-woke work, they will never be able to grown as a company. Developers will always have this dilemma of doing what they like versus doing what the sharks demand. 

Edited September 24, 2022 by Wolfstorm321

[steelpanther24]

On 9/23/2022 at 1:28 PM, jxm said:

Oh, nice, a thread to complain about how everything was better in ye olden tymes, when an actually good game was merely one moving pixel and two pixel-bars going up and down!

 

Oh yes, I miss the tymes when we got chasened through the mazes of ye olden Pac'O'Man ...

 

Seriously, something I realized as I grew older ... its usually on oneself that things are shit and not as fun as you thought they should be still ...

 

Of course, the older gamers will do that.   FO1 was a bug filled, frustrating game......but one that was completely new and fun, at least the way they built the impact of your actions, the story and the scene.    I went back to play FO1 and........stopped when I had to shoot Ian to get him to move when he trapped me in a corner.  

 

However, as stated elsewhere, this isn't a case of just nostalgia.   Gaming is now a business for many, no longer  a passion.   How many Assassin Creed games are there?  How many Elder Scrolls?   LA Niore was (in my opinion) a fun game, but I am not sure if I want to play "LA Niore 5" because I enjoyed the world, the characters, etc.  

 

Perhaps some are just pining for the days of their youth, but which new games do you think establish a new, exciting environment?  

[Modoverload22]

Just gunna leave this here

[sen4mi]

On 9/10/2022 at 4:12 PM, KoolHndLuke said:

You've gamed for decades now and seen it all come and go. So like myself, I guess most have had this convo with friends to determine kinda where we've been with the industry and modding and where we're headed. The general consensus so far seems to be that both are diminished and heading downhill fast.

 

I'll hit some key positive points here in no particular order;

 

The pros of new AAA games

-- Newer games look better/have sharper graphics

-- Newer games generally play better/have better control schemes

-- Newer games generally have a lot more content and/or cover bigger areas

-- Newer games generally are offered across multiple platforms

 

So with all this going for new games, what is it that's missing in your opinion? What do you like/dislike about newer games compared to those of ten or twenty years ago?

 

From my perspective. new games have higher quality *assets* however, they tend to exhibit characteristics which seems to indicate some ignorance of their underlying data structures.

 

It's sort of a "package deal", maybe.

 

Edit: But I do not agree with a concept of "moral piracy" - if you have the talent to pirate games, and you think games are worthwhile, I think you should be authoring games. But if you instead claim games are not worthwhile, I think you should avoid playing them.

Edited September 25, 2022 by sen4mi