I don't mind a game being subscription based, but it better be an amazing game if it wants my money month after month. And no way will I give $60 up front, knowing there will be a continued cost, until I know that the game is great.

So it's down to them. If it's truly a great game, people will pay whatever it takes. If it's yet another WoW clone ("Oh wait, we do this and that so much better then WoW...really!"), they'll fade away.

I honestly believe some of these companies don't really even care about making great games anymore. Just put out enough product to produce a mild profit and they're happy. ESO probably knows if it gets X number of subs, they'll make enough to keep running, so that's good enough. Those of us looking for a great Elder Scrolls game will be disappointed and they don't care. We're not their audience.

Hoping for the best from this one but really not expecting much. Too many easy mode considerations IMO.

Then again, sometimes a game still shines. I expected to be so disappointed in the new X-Com because of so much of the complexity of the original being cut. It's a great game though and I'm glad I took a chance on it. Maybe this Thief will be similar despite some of the odd design choices.

CJ_Parker wrote on Aug 7, 2013, 21:21:

Blackhawk wrote on Aug 7, 2013, 20:25:
What screenshots are you looking at?

The right ones.

I count nine light sources without even trying, and some can be assumed on the walls pointing away from us.

That's why I said "visible light sources". Though it's hard to identify in the pixel puke what stuff is even supposed to be at all. Oh, and where the feck are the shadows? None of the characters casts a single shadow.

There are no black borders, only black in the negative space.

Semantics and nitpicking. There's a big fat black ugly fucking border right there which shouldn't be there if the developer gave half a shit about improving their engine from a decade ago.

Flat floor tiles? Look at the lighting - the worn floor tiles and bricks are very clearly uneven.

There is a miniscule fake effect of variations in ground height. Look at a game like Company of Heroes 2 which has a similar perspective but offers infinitely more detail per scene and even deformable terrain (another one of those features you'd think that maybe after a decade they would adopt for a RPG like PE so e.g. a meteor shower spell would leave visible terrain deformation etc. or you would creatively add terrain deformation as a gameplay feature like pools of water that could be turned into impenetrable walls or shields of ice... blahblahblah... basically creative shit, you know, so stuff that is not like what Obsidian are doing here with their rehash...).

I have no idea what you're looking at. I see visible light sources all over, shadows from the characters (not all of them but a screenshot can hide that), textured flooring. Agree with you on the lack of fog of war but I'm hoping they did that on purpose. I'm looking at these on my home PC monitor. Are you looking at them on your phone or something?

Yep, and call me crazy but I'd rather have the time and money spent on ... well, basically everything else, then 3D for this particular type of game.

This can't get here soon enough. Looks great!

Just picked up Enemy Unknown on the summer Steam sale and really have been enjoying it. I do miss the more open world, character, general randomness of the original though. Xenonauts has been scratching that itch but it's still so buggy I've decided to hold off until it's much further along in development.

Anyway, maybe they'll add some more of the original flavor to sequels/expansions. Still a can't miss game IMO.

PropheT wrote on Jul 29, 2013, 22:34:

HorrorScope wrote on Jul 29, 2013, 19:33:
"The fact that Diablo II was still on shelves and still being played, in Korea particularly, 10 years after the fact of its release was something that I think Blizzard was kind of like… “Hey, we got the price of the box and not much else out of that.”

I think I'd be pointing out that there's a lot more to get out of a game that's that popular than just wondering how they could get more money from it, like the large number of people who would just buy Diablo 3 immediately just because it was Diablo 3. If anything, by not realizing that and by implementing the auction house and some of the things mentioned in that interview, they've shot themselves in the foot and taken away a good chunk of that good will if and when the next game does get released.

Maybe that's the problem now, though. If they're more interested in making a game that will make them constant money than they are in making a game so good that people are still playing it ten years from now, they aren't going to achieve either.

Exactly. He's looking at it all wrong because he's on the wrong side of the fence... a developer who see's the business end and not one of us customers. The problem with his view is how short sighted it is. They've crushed all the loyalty that was built with DI/DII that led to the sales of DIII. Blizzard products use to be instant buys. They lost that with this crap business model.

So hmm, I wonder what that will have Blizzard execs talking about 10 years from now... if Blizzard still exists. Probably something like, "Geez, we should have just cranked out a great game in a reasonable amount of time, slapped a fitting price tag on it and sold it without all the hidden financial agenda oozing from it's pores."

I'm with the masses... give me SP first.

I love the sound of this. It seems like a game-world (universe?!) I can disappear in for many, many hours. I just keep getting the feeling that it seems too much to pull off. Looking forward to giving carving out my own little corner of the universe though.

I remember when I use to say that about Blizzard. How times have changed.

I still remember being excited about finding new gear like, level 5 leather gloves, being nervous adventuring into a new zone, teaming up with strangers that eventually became friends, etc. That sense of wonder for a MMO game world has been gone a long, long time. It's too bad. As much as I dislike WoW now, I consider the early years (being my first MMO) some of my best times gaming.

I know it's not a game play trailer, and it will in no way influence my decision to buy (I've become SO cynical with big AAA releases, expecting to be disappointed in some way and this one is no different), but damn, that's some great CGI there. Watching in low res I thought is was live action as well.

Yep, and it really feels like the original so far. Lots of work still to be done though. I've gotten quite a few crashes, missing art all over the UI, and the AI is a work in progress. But they got the atmosphere right! If they work out the kinks, fans of the original will love it.

Picked it up last night. Only played a half hour or so and yep, really feels like the old X-Com with updated graphics and UI. I played a bit of the old X-Com a few months ago and STILL loved it. This seems like the perfect re-do. You can tell there's still lots of work to do but they have a great start.

Oh, it supports modding too. I can only imagine what the community will come up with.

One of those games I decided to try based off hearing about it over and over. I can't believe I almost missed it. What a great little game!

Prez wrote on Apr 24, 2013, 16:33:
To be clear, LgFriess' qoute incorrectly attributes m00t's point to me. While agree that a few things were lost in the translation by Firaxis, I am nowhere near as nitpicky about the minor ways the remake strayed from the original as he is. In truth the remake did the most important aspects of the gameplay right, and did the XCOM name justice.

Sorry about that Prez, got messed up in my line deletion.

m00t wrote on Apr 24, 2013, 14:18:

Prez wrote on Apr 24, 2013, 13:52:
Additionally, in the original game, the Alien team had an actual agenda and missions it had to accomplish. It wasn't some silly linear script with a handful of pre-set landscapes. If you intercepted the alien craft attempting a mission or part of a mission, they could fail their mission and their score would go down. It was like playing against a real opponent. The new "X-Com" has none of this.

This is a great point. What's the new indie x-com remake coming out? Xenonauts? Hopefully they do it correctly. I don't need it to be pretty. Just a more modern interface and some cleaned up game play (looking for that last hiding sectoid for an hour can go).

Beamer wrote on Apr 24, 2013, 10:44:

Cutter wrote on Apr 24, 2013, 10:43:
Its biggest failure was the lack of a random map generator and/or editor. We'd all still be playing it if had that. Huge mistake not to do that. Huge.

Screw editor. It needed to be random. Enemy placement needed to be random and roving rather than 3 guys in the same places, sitting there until discovered, and occasionally teleporting in front of you. And it needed to stop showing that damn in-engine cinematic every single time you come across 3 new enemies. Every time. Every damn time!

YES! To me, this is something that just had to be in the game. Had to. It's as important as having aliens and space ships. And more randomly generated maps too. The entire x-com experience was feeling like some unknown horror is sitting off out there in the dark somewhere, behind/in some building with god knows what inside. The original game nailed this perfectly and it hasn't been matched since.

Cyanotetyphas wrote on Apr 4, 2013, 15:38:
Sort of weird timing for them to be throwing this again, there's no announced anything.

Anyone think this is when Titan will finally be revealed? My money is on Battle Chess MMO or The Lost Vikings MMO.

It'll be interesting to see when they actually release Titan. Thinking that it will suck a large chunk of subs from WoW, when do you release a product and not kill the existing cash cow. Or will Titan be so different, they won't pull many WoW subs. They'll have to time it to catch WoW on the way down.

Is that time now? I don't know. They still have like 10 million subs don't they? So maybe announce Titan now, release it as WoW is down to 5-8 million active subs?

MMO burnout seems to be setting in so deep now. I can't imagine any MMO,even a Blizzard MMO, ever coming close to WoW numbers.

I played beta through cata, quit mid way through cata and can't bear to log into any of the recent MMO's for any more then a few months. That original magic is long gone.

I want to believe that there will be a great rebellion against the expansion and/or D4 and sales will be horrible. If not, companies like ActiBlizz will just keep on putting out crap. It just kills me to see such great franchises ruined.

For all that is holy in the land of PC gamers, don't buy their over marketed, shallow, microtransactioned crap release. Spend your money on the great indie games that have been released or on the AAA titles that have truly earned your cash. That's the only way they'll hear us.