Creston wrote on Jan 26, 2019, 17:02:

Slick wrote on Jan 26, 2019, 14:52:
But it costs monies to scale down rather than scale up. That's the only "logical" reason I could think.

Of course, which is why they don't do it. But how much monies have they lost with their pisspoor first impression?

Well, for me they lost ALL money with the way they handled Andromeda support, that was the last EA game for me, after Andromeda I just flat out uninstalled Origin. Honestly don't plan on buying anything EA makes anymore either. If I wanted to get a corporate game experience I'd play an Ubisoft game. At least Ubisoft makes games I actually DO want to play (Anno)

Obviously I am the crass minority in that radical stance, but I haven't really missed any experiences by not buying any EA games anymore. EA, much like Egosoft, just fucked me one too many times.

By the way, I love that phrase

Alamar wrote on Jan 26, 2019, 16:14:
If the full game doesn't force you to take Ranger first, I may get interceptor first, Storm second, but won't know for a month ; )

I'm pretty sure I read you can choose your suit at the start.

Slick wrote on Jan 26, 2019, 14:52:
But it costs monies to scale down rather than scale up. That's the only "logical" reason I could think.

Of course, which is why they don't do it. But how much monies have they lost with their pisspoor first impression?

I was quite looking forward to this but the demo is simply a shitshow.

Slick wrote on Jan 26, 2019, 14:09:
I'm torn whether I should try the Storm, or the Interceptor. I think you only get to choose one right? No interest in the tanky juggernaut-looking one... but that probably means he'd be good to pick for launch, as most groups won't have a tank.

Storm is fun... The Lightning Strike attack from the video's feels soooo good... Especially compared to some other things you can put in that slot... Though I got one that's basically a smaller radius Fire Grenade... With 5 charges...

The long term hover is also fun, and referring to the bad AI from earlier, a bit broken with some mobs. For others, they'll just shoot you up there, but you can still dodge, so it's good times once you adjust.

The Interceptor looks fun too though... Did a stronghold with one last night and it looked pretty cool...

If the full game doesn't force you to take Ranger first, I may get interceptor first, Storm second, but won't know for a month ; )

But it costs monies to scale down rather than scale up. That's the only "logical" reason I could think.

I wish that more game devs wore the real suits at that company... it seems like all of the corporate-level decisions are just BAD FOR BUSINESS. Why the fuck don't their stockholders demand that they kick these fuckers out?

Slick wrote on Jan 26, 2019, 09:54:
Actually, for every one of those people, they EACH got 3x giveaway VIP codes to give to friends. And they would have no idea how many of those would get used until the game went live. So a 300% spread on total server capacity, plus the usual headaches of everyone trying to log in at once, when normally it's spread out a bit more through the day.

Fine, so you take all pre-orders and all premiere customers, multiply by 4, and then prepare for that number, then scale down if you don't need it. You know, if you were a company that gave one shit about your customers or their first-impression experience. It is way easier to scale down than it is to scale up while shit is running.

This, however, is EA, who gives absolutely no fucks and whose suits literally whimper at every VM that needs to get spun up, so you get this bullshit.

I'm torn whether I should try the Storm, or the Interceptor. I think you only get to choose one right? No interest in the tanky juggernaut-looking one... but that probably means he'd be good to pick for launch, as most groups won't have a tank.

Working better this morning. Managed to do an entire mission without any problem. I played it solo (private mode), although the game pushes you to play multiplayer. Mech was fun to fly around in and hover. Felt like badass, until I ran in to a wall. I'm interested in seeing other mechs now.

Seems like it could be fun. Fix the walk speed in town though. Way too slow.

Mordecai Walfish wrote on Jan 26, 2019, 13:18:
And the paid beta testing under the guise of "pre-order" continues.. when will people learn? Never buy any AAA priced game unless thoroughly reviewed and confirmed working. Just not worth the gamble anymore unless you've got more money than you know what to do with, or like to be stressed when playing games. There are so many good titles out there that it just boggles the mind that people find this necessary.

It's funny how we always shit on them for running blatant demos under the guise of "beta" jsut cause gamers thinks it sounds cooler. But this one is called a "demo" and we complain that it's just a beta.

In this case at least it's an actual beta as it's pretty borked. Let the hilarity continue.

Just played a mission with a full group and the lag was so bad... took about 3-4 seconds before any key i pressed resulted in an action. I'd die 5 seconds after i was in cover, it was just awful. And for some reason my character was unable to run and just started walking backwards no matter what direction i pushed. Moonwalking DLC $4.99 =p

This build is buggy to begin with (supposedly most of the bugs are already solved in the "gone gold" build), but ontop of the servers that are running on a bank of TRS-80 scientific calculators... it's just embarassing.

You know, who needs to make sure the first impression of a 100+ million dollar launch goes smoothly. They needed to do more closed alphas. If you think it's bad now... LOL! it was much worse.

And the paid beta testing under the guise of "pre-order" continues.. when will people learn? Never buy any AAA priced game unless thoroughly reviewed and confirmed working. Just not worth the gamble anymore unless you've got more money than you know what to do with, or like to be stressed when playing games. There are so many good titles out there that it just boggles the mind that people find this necessary.

peteham wrote on Jan 26, 2019, 11:37:
- Conversely, the people waiting this out for the n-th time will be there to ruin New Guy(tm)'s cut scenes with discord chatter.

I generally have the game on my speakers, and the headset for Disc... I'll just pop it off for cutscenes/dialog, because, yes, holy fuck, I want to be able to follow shit along... Though most games, my first character will be solo for similar reasons as this and other things you mention. The game is annoying in that every time you launch a private mission, it asks you to confirm that yes, holy shit, you really do want to do this shit solo...

peteham wrote on Jan 26, 2019, 11:05:

Red886 wrote on Jan 26, 2019, 10:39:
i only care for one question: is it a proper rpg?
sad that Andromeda was butchered for this

From what little can be seen in the demo, that's a nope. You can talk to NPCs in "town". Some give you a flavor text option A or B. Others just say stuff when you poke them.

So Diablo 3 with mechs then?

First come first severed. Sorry I only got this last one left.

Enjoy!

Anthem VIP

7D4W-2BW3-Z4GG-8D8L

eRe4s3r wrote on Jan 26, 2019, 11:51:

Slick wrote on Jan 26, 2019, 09:57:

jacobvandy wrote on Jan 25, 2019, 18:51:

eRe4s3r wrote on Jan 25, 2019, 18:37:
Sorry for sniping 1 thing, but fov 45? You sure about that? Because I'd need a bucket and not just a bag at 45, that'd be like ramming your face directly into the screen. Heck, not even ADS in iron sighting (ie, zooming in) uses 45° fov without blacking or blurring out the edges because it robs you off so much peripheral view that it makes anyone with that problem instantly sick.

So maybe better I don't even bother with the demo then.

If that number is correct, I'm sure it's vertical FOV, which a lot of games reference instead of horizontal. 45 vertical is 72 horizontal.

Oh that was just hyperbole from me. I think it's 55-60 uhhh vertical? which is usually what console games have by default, I think? I'm not an expert. I usually play @ 88 in games, is that vertical? Honestly I don't fucking know. The game is just using an unmodifiable telephoto lens that makes me want to puke.

Since this is clearly confusing for everyone
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_of_view_in_video_games

Fov 60 is hor+ and the standard, and I assume that's what they use in this game too. Hor+ means horizontally scaled, but vertically locked. Fov of 60 is what PC gamers lovingly call the bucket fov.

Vertical fov is never even mentioned because that's not what changes when you change FOV.

https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Glossary:Field_of_view_(FOV)

Slick wrote on Jan 26, 2019, 09:57:

jacobvandy wrote on Jan 25, 2019, 18:51:

eRe4s3r wrote on Jan 25, 2019, 18:37:
Sorry for sniping 1 thing, but fov 45? You sure about that? Because I'd need a bucket and not just a bag at 45, that'd be like ramming your face directly into the screen. Heck, not even ADS in iron sighting (ie, zooming in) uses 45° fov without blacking or blurring out the edges because it robs you off so much peripheral view that it makes anyone with that problem instantly sick.

So maybe better I don't even bother with the demo then.

If that number is correct, I'm sure it's vertical FOV, which a lot of games reference instead of horizontal. 45 vertical is 72 horizontal.

Oh that was just hyperbole from me. I think it's 55-60 uhhh vertical? which is usually what console games have by default, I think? I'm not an expert. I usually play @ 88 in games, is that vertical? Honestly I don't fucking know. The game is just using an unmodifiable telephoto lens that makes me want to puke.

Since this is clearly confusing for everyone
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_of_view_in_video_games

Fov 60 is hor+ and the standard, and I assume that's what they use in this game too. Hor+ means horizontally scaled, but vertically locked. Fov of 60 is what PC gamers lovingly call the bucket fov.

Vertical fov is never even mentioned because that's not what changes when you change FOV.

Slick wrote on Jan 26, 2019, 10:15:
Also speaking of the 3x friend passes to give away, I have 2x left. I was gonna give them away on my stream, but I got shit to do this weekend, so I'll give it away here. First come first served. I don't know how it works, they just give me a link, good luck!

https://www.ea.com/en-gb/games/anthem/anthem-demos/redeem?token=b25Jem1VWT0jTSMxMDAwMDAwMDcyODMx

Grabbed one of those. Thanks Slick.

Some random jumbled thoughts after playing through the demo twice with a group of friends.

- Feels more like a beta than a demo. Not because of stability (not a single crash) but because it feels a bit... Unfinished.
- Gameplay as a whole is better than I thought after seeing vids, but the *gunplay* sucks. Skills/spells/whatever is where it's at for doing damage, the guns are just pea-shooters.
- Mouse & keyboard controls for flying are almost insultingly bad, especially under water. Pretty much every preview mentioned this, but I had to try it before realizing just how bad. The fact that they think this is OK for release is surprising to me, and probably indicative of the attention the PC version is getting...
- Haven't seen menus this bad in a while. Just one hour in, managing your inventory etc. is already starting to feel a bit nightmare'ish. Ripped straight from the console version with rudimentary PC input on top.

Finally, the way dialog/back to town stuff between missions is handled, makes for a terrible co-op experience:
- You're ALL stuck in town until the last slow-poke clicks ready. You can't mess around, shoot trash mobs or grab some collectibles. You HAVE to wait in menus or tinker with load-outs until the whole party is ready to go out again.
- Your friends that haven't seen a particular cut scene yet get to feel like they're making everyone else wait (and they totally are). You're more likely to skip all dialog than listen to it.
- Conversely, the people waiting this out for the n-th time will be there to ruin New Guy(tm)'s cut scenes with discord chatter.
- Having to walk everywhere in this space just sucks. It's like Everyone's Gone To The Rapture again.

Red886 wrote on Jan 26, 2019, 10:39:
i only care for one question: is it a proper rpg?
sad that Andromeda was butchered for this

From what little can be seen in the demo, that's a nope. You can talk to NPCs in "town". Some give you a flavor text option A or B. Others just say stuff when you poke them.

I'd be careful to judge the game by the demo. When even EA/Bio admit that the demo was changed massively from the "real" game then you should know to be wary.

For one, according to reports, the demo was simplified and made considerably easier, i.e. no/less grind in the demo compared to the real game. You will most likely spend a few dozen hours in the full game before you get to the same level of "kewl shit" equipment/skills etc. as the demo content.

I mean, when even EA/Bio themselves are warning people because of the demo vs. real game discrepancies then you only have yourself to blame if you preoder or buy on release.

It is amazing that veteran gamers like y'all here keep falling for the latest AAA hype again and again and again and again... even when EA is involved and when there are HUGE RED FLAGS all over the place.

Oh well, it will be fun watching all the whining and squirming on release though so buy, buy, buy, please!