🚀 go-pugleaf

On Tue, 29 Nov 2016 20:37:05 -0500, Rin Stowleigh
<rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote:


I'm holding off on Watch Dogs 2 for now, for several reasons. First,
and most importantly, is that I've found Ubisoft open-world games to
all be pretty much the same, with a gimmick or two to differentiate
FarCry from Assassin's Creed from even The Club. They are big,
beautifully rendered maps filled with collectibles and side-quests,
and an almost tangential main quest. That is not to say I don't like
the games - I think they are well produced and very engaging - but
there is an unfortunate sameness to the experience. As such, I have a
hard time justifying spending $60 on what is, essentially, a skin-pack
for a game I've bought and played a dozen times before. 

The second reason is that it's based in San Francisco. SF is a lovely
town - I even used to live there briefly - but it is probably the most
overused location in computer games, and I'm rather disappointed that
Ubisoft decided to go there. One of the fun things about the original
game was that it presented us with a much less frequently used city -
Detroit - to explore. For a game already suffering from ennui because
of its re-used mechanics, re-using a location just makes it less
likely I'm going to buy on release.

Plus, Watch_Dogs 1 wasn't really the greatest game to begin with (it's
hacking was disappointingly underused), buying a game on release day
is a terrible idea anyway, and - in an era where I can get 30+ hours
of fun from a $1 phone app, it's hard to justify a $60 expenditure
just because the graphics are a bit sharper with a PC game. Not to
mention that huge Steam back-log I still have to work through...

On Wed, 30 Nov 2016 09:14:54 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Tue, 29 Nov 2016 20:37:05 -0500, Rin Stowleigh
><rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>I'm holding off on Watch Dogs 2 for now, for several reasons. First,
>and most importantly, is that I've found Ubisoft open-world games to
>all be pretty much the same, with a gimmick or two to differentiate
>FarCry from Assassin's Creed from even The Club. They are big,
>beautifully rendered maps filled with collectibles and side-quests,
>and an almost tangential main quest. That is not to say I don't like
>the games - I think they are well produced and very engaging - but
>there is an unfortunate sameness to the experience. As such, I have a
>hard time justifying spending $60 on what is, essentially, a skin-pack
>for a game I've bought and played a dozen times before. 
>
>The second reason is that it's based in San Francisco. SF is a lovely
>town - I even used to live there briefly - but it is probably the most
>overused location in computer games, and I'm rather disappointed that
>Ubisoft decided to go there. One of the fun things about the original
>game was that it presented us with a much less frequently used city -
>Detroit - to explore. For a game already suffering from ennui because
>of its re-used mechanics, re-using a location just makes it less
>likely I'm going to buy on release.
>
>Plus, Watch_Dogs 1 wasn't really the greatest game to begin with (it's
>hacking was disappointingly underused), buying a game on release day
>is a terrible idea anyway, and - in an era where I can get 30+ hours
>of fun from a $1 phone app, it's hard to justify a $60 expenditure
>just because the graphics are a bit sharper with a PC game. Not to
>mention that huge Steam back-log I still have to work through...
>
>

Just FYI, the setting for WD1 was actually Chicago rather than
Detroit.  Detroit would be a good setting for a new Bethesda title :
"Fallout V - Industrial Apocalypse"  :).   Then maybe they could do
DLC where Donald Trump brings back automobile manufacturing and turns
the whole city into a Roller Coaster Tycoon sort of game. lol

About the Ubi quest formula, that may be true but it's hard for me to
comment on WD2 from that angle, in fact it's hard for me to comment on
WD1 with regard to questing similarity since I spent all my time on MP
(which of course results in a different experience every time you
play) and never went back to SP.  My initial impression of WD2 is that
if there is a "been there done that" syndrome attached to the SP
campaign, it's probably because it shares a lot in common with the
Grand Theft Auto series.  But, that can be a good thing to some
people, especially if you enjoy exploring the peculiarities of a
modern-day city environment as opposed to a purely fictional fantasy
or sci-fi environment.  I picked up Dragon Age : Inquisition on a $5
black Friday special, played it for maybe 30 minutes before the
typical agony I feel from these D&D themed games sets in.  Despite
being highly technical in my career, I just don't have the nerd factor
in my personality to relate to all the magic and wizardry crap.  I
like games that have some semblence or reflection of reality, and as
much as I'd like to feel immersed in fantasy settings, I just can't. I
can play fantasy and sci-fi games, but they must have great gameplay
mechanics above and beyond the setting or story to appeal to me.

That brings me to my point about Ubi games.  I think my preferences
are not the norm, and that a lot of players care about story,
character development, cinematics, etc. when it comes to single player
games.  Therefore, Ubi and a lot of other games try to tick all the
boxes with the basic feature set players want (quest grinding,
crafting, etc) and use the setting and story as the differentiating
factor.  

The size of the budgets required these days to produce a AAA game make
it much harder to take new risks.  There may be an increasing reliance
on lower budget indie games to carve out new niches and trends rather
than to take on risky experiments with budgets like $50 Million.  It's
tough for creative types to try new things when there is a douchey
board of directors hovering over the company giving the stink eye to
anything they don't understand.

>it shares a lot in common with the
>Grand Theft Auto series.  But, that can be a good thing to some
>people, especially if you enjoy exploring the peculiarities of a
>modern-day city environment as opposed to a purely fictional fantasy
>or sci-fi environment. ...  I like games that have some semblence or 
>reflection of reality

    heehee I'm exactly the opposite for most genres; a driving sim or 
'historically-based' games like the AC franchise that depict real places, 
are the exception.  IN any case, I've also heard good reviews of the SP 
portion of WD2.  How violent/gangstaish is it?

rms 

On Wed, 30 Nov 2016 11:10:35 -0700, "rms"
<rsqui...@MOOyossmanMOO.net> wrote:

>>it shares a lot in common with the
>>Grand Theft Auto series.  But, that can be a good thing to some
>>people, especially if you enjoy exploring the peculiarities of a
>>modern-day city environment as opposed to a purely fictional fantasy
>>or sci-fi environment. ...  I like games that have some semblence or 
>>reflection of reality
>
>    heehee I'm exactly the opposite for most genres; a driving sim or 
>'historically-based' games like the AC franchise that depict real places, 
>are the exception.  IN any case, I've also heard good reviews of the SP 
>portion of WD2.  How violent/gangstaish is it?
>
>rms 

I haven't played enough of it to be sure, but nothing about the first
hour or so rubbed me as gangsta.  In terms of violence, I've mostly
been sneaking up on people and choking them out.  To some that's
violence and to others it's sport ;)  You start out with a taser gun,
so technically it may be possible to finish the game without even
killing.  I did buy a pistol, but it was right around the time I
switched over to MP hacking mode.  Most hacking matches usually end
with a successful hack, or an escape, but it can also end up in a
nasty shoot-out if the escape doesn't go well so I didn't want to show
up to a machine gun fight with a taser gun!  lol

One thing I will point it, a lot of things about the do kind of scream
"millenial" and are clearly designed to appeal to that age group.  I
understand is the target gaming demographic these days, but its kind
of an immersion breaker for me.

You could get a good feel for the overall vibe by looking at some
Youtube walkthroughs to see if its for you.

On Wed, 30 Nov 2016 13:44:52 -0500, Rin Stowleigh
<rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote:

>One thing I will point it, a lot of things about the do kind of scream
>"millenial" and are clearly designed to appeal to that age group.  I
>understand is the target gaming demographic these days, but its kind
>of an immersion breaker for me.

I've been playing single player a bit, but just playing in the world
sandbox style, without even working on quests or goals.  With all the
hacking mayhem you can cause, this can be quite fun in and of itself,
and of course any issues I mentioned above with millennial appeal in
the story line becomes a non-issue.  In fact as a sanbox game I'd have
to say its better than the GTA series.

I did have some issues that I will chalk up to teething pains for now,
such as the fact I found a place where once I was able to jump (or
parkour I guess since there is technically not a jump key) from the
roof of one building to a particular ledge.  However, it seemed
impossible to repeat when I wanted to go back and do it again.  So the
physics can be a little screwy at times.

I may get back to working on quests at some point.  

One small issue I have with games like this is the "new something
available!" syndrome, not just with this game but with others.  Like
many folks these days, I'm innundated with updates and notifications
for things in my real life.  I don't want notifications about things
in-game unless its something important.  I don't want a damn alert on
my phone in game telling me there are some new colors I can paint a
gun or whatever.  The GTA games are notorious for this as well,
incoming calls on your phone telling you to get somewhere else pronto.
I guess I just hate interruptions in general.

On Tue, 29 Nov 2016 20:37:05 -0500, Rin Stowleigh
<rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote:


>I played just enough single player to get a feel for the controls,
>bind my keys, and open up the multiplayer options, then started
>playing MP.
>
>My general feel matches what others say, they've put a lot more effort
>into it than WD1, San Francisco is interestingly portrayed with lots
>of things to see and do, visuals are great and probably anyone who
>likes GTA type gameplay will likely want to pick up this title.
>
>The real draw for me with WD1 was the amazing multiplayer hacking
>mode, so as soon as the option showed up on my in-game smart phone I
>had to give it a try.  Honestly?  Not disappointed but not wowed
>either.  It feels really like more of same.  I'm sure it's challenging
>to take something like the MP hacking and improve notably on it,
>because there's not much else you can do without fundamentally
>changing the gameplay.  It's kind of like the first time we saw Pong,
>we were amazed because it's the first time we played it, but the only
>way to come out with Pong 2, Pong 3, etc. and make it any other than a
>complete waste of time would be to do something dramatically different
>with gameplay, alienating the fans of the original.  


Just an update, I'm having much more fun with this game now than I was
when I wrote the above.

One of the things with WD2 is just that there is so much shit to do,
that the game feels kind of "cluttered" at first.  By that I mean
you've got these all these lines and markers on the screen indicating
hackable objects and such.  In that sense it feels more complex than
GTA games.

So, because of my (perhaps rare) tendancy to jump into multiplayer on
a game like this at the first possible opportunity, I end up throwing
myself right into the fire and missing out on some of the tutorials
that someone who starts out in single player might learn slowly and
gradually.  And that single player experience does benefit you in
multiplayer.

An example of the aforementioned complexity is proximity trigger
hacks.  For instance, assume I'm in multiplayer and I have hacked some
other player.  He is looking around for me, and suddenly he is able to
profile me (for those unfamiliar this means its time for the hacker to
run like hell if you still want to win the round because you've been
exposed and are out of hiding).  Well this usually means not only a
car (or bike) chase is going to occur, but to reduce the chances of
that player remaining on my tail taking pot shots at my head, I need
to do something to throw him off my trail.  One of the best way to do
that is to put a proximity trigger on an object up ahead of me, such
that he either has to swerve to avoid or risk getting blown up in the
explosion (either of which will help shake him off my tail).  But
placing the proximity trigger (at least using the mouse and keyboard)
may require a bit of forethought into how you bind your keys, because
you're going to be both driving and setting traps at the same time,
and this is a level of multi-tasking that is not really an issue in
GTA V other other games involving high speed chases.  Once you get
used to executing this sort of thing regularly and not worrying about
which key does what, the game becomes infinitely more fun.

So right now I'm still primarily doing multiplayer + single player
sandbox (just screwing with the environment and not working on quest).

It's a nice game and I recommend it for folks that like the genre.