The sad thing is they probably started development around the same time as Avengers (they had a very long development time), so were back in the horrific era where every game has to be a GaaS - yet in the four years of development after Avengers flopped, they didn’t until near the end figure out GaaS games were…

That’s got to be one of the most insane-person responses to a game I’ve ever seen, which is saying something given how long I’ve been on the internet.

“both politically and personally, guy’s a douchebag”

Yeah it’s like, I really am a little concerned about his worldview (please don’t make this game into about how “cancel culture” and people being “mean” online destroyed society, there’s a real danger based on the description lol), and he really only knows how to make one game.

He’s cannot complete that challenge because he’s got a very limited but also very vivid imagination for societies and worlds, and extremely “aging NYT columnist” politics/worldview. I don’t say this with hate because I really enjoyed Bioshock and I love the style of the worlds he comes up with but it is a real…

I mean I’d actually watch that over this for real.

I am steepling my fingers right now so surely this is true!

I don’t think I am selling it short, I think you’re unaware of the actual mechanics of VT2/Darktide combat (most of which were also in the original VT), and I don’t blame you for that because I played dozens of hours of it without becoming aware of them until I watched a few VT2 videos and was like “Oh holy shit why…

“Starfield seems to be heavily inspired by No Man’s Sky, for example.”

I can believe gravitate towards games that don’t have them.

Except this is bullshit with no actual attempt to “improve society”.

In theory there should be a “big difference”, but in practice, it’s less clear that there is, and it seems to me more like people will make excuses for some games, but not for others. Which is fine, I guess, nobody has to like all games, but it’s a weird and unreliable double-standard.

It’s definitely good to hear they mentioned Vermintide. One of biggest criticisms of Bethesda is that they seem to be almost completely unaware the rest of the games industry even exists, in interviews - especially Todd Howard. I think this is a huge part of what holds them back - the leadership doesn’t seem to have…

Are they selling boosters, though? It kind of sounds like not but maybe I missed something?

I 100% guarantee that every single person who starred this post buys a full priced game with microtransactions within the next 12 months. Probably within the next three in most cases.

I don’t get why they didn’t prioritize making the combat look and feel better. It was the biggest criticism of Bethesda’s games (melee combat is dire in all of them), it was an issue in The Outer Worlds and it’s clearly something that needed fixing. Furthermore, games like Vermintide/Darktide show first person melee…

That’s a fusion reactor of a take.

The fuck are you talking about? The only RPGs which don’t have “missable” quests are some totally linear JRPGs - and even most JRPGs have missable quests now (FFXVI sure does).

This sounds considerably more cursed than Mork and Mindy ever was.

I think the issue with the MSQ is that the entire first 50-100 (or more!) hours of the MSQ are incredibly boring fetch quests, most of them with no significant or long-term-relevant story to them. It’s some of the most old-fashioned feeling content in MMOs. That does improve (after getting even worse for a while with…