Look at this clown! First, they came out saying they weren’t even fans of the material. You have Henry Cavil in the lead role who is a super fan of the source materials arguing with you and the writers about the show. And then you finish it off by blaming the audience for your decisions. Mind you, the audience you have ultimately attracted is largely influenced by the decisions you have made throughout the production of YOUR show. The audience didn’t make this show, YOU did
If you're the executive producer, it's your fault that your team members fucked it up. If you cannot find a competent writer to properly express nuance on the screen, it's still your fault. You hired the wrong person to adapt the books. You are the boss, the final say, the one-ass-to-kick when things go wrong. The Witcher is not some nuanced story about regional distinctions in low-visibility communities told in short form, which seems to be his only acclaimed experience, followed by several production failures.
This entire interview comes down to "those lazy zoomers don't know how to appreciate good film." From the description of his past, massive failures it appears to be a problem with his process and ability, not an audience problem.
Honestly, better to pirate the game because ZA/UM fucked over the original devs and now they don’t get any money from the game’s sales - and it ruined any potential for a sequel.
I don't normally do this, and I'll go do some searching of my own, but any chance for a tldw on the video? What's the background? 2.5 hours is a bit much and the intro was sort of wandering and more or less.just repeated that yes, the game was stolen from them.
He was the CEO of Electronic Arts when the controversial loot box monetization was added to FIFA 09. He made news when he called developers “fucking idiots” over some developers’ reluctance to introduce monetization schemes earlier in the development process. There’s also the infamous clip of Riccitiello talking during a shareholder call about charging Battlefield players a dollar to reload their guns.
Look at this guy...I couldn't read all of the Bloomberg article due to paywall, so I don't know if this jackass actually provided proof of these "death threats."
While I don't condone them, it seems awfully convenient that an executive who's known to stir controversy with his monetization strategies received "alleged" death threats. I have a hard time believing it without proof because this guy is a sleaze ball greedy mofo.
In any group of people there will always be a tiny subset of the population who will pull this unhinged bullshit. It's unfortunate, but now the CEO gets to play the victim, and anyone who's against his bullshit gets to be painted with the same brush as the unhinged guy.
I never understand freaking out about death threats. If someone actually wanted to murder you, they’d be quiet and methodical about it, not grandiose. To be fair, I’ve never received a death threat so perhaps I’m not theeeeeeeeeeeee
I mean you are assuming the person who is trying to murder you is a rational actor but you can't really be a rational actor if you are threatening death to someone because of their shit monetization policies on your entertainment. Hell some people throw "Death threats" at people because they decide to change a reload speed by a fraction of a second. So yeah "gamers" can be quite unhinged. Hell you had idiots in Jan 6 who loudly stated their intention and beat a cop to death. Hell we have seen situations of weirdos getting close to celebrities (in their heads) then trying to kill them, and I imagine cases like that will only get worse with parasocial relationships getting a bit out of hand with modern influences and streamers.
That's the fallacy of trying to understand criminal acts. For the most part, if someone were as smart, logical, and thoughtful as you are when you imagine the best way to commit murder, the kind of person to actually try and commit the murder would not be as smart, logical, or thoughtful to have gotten into that situation in the first place.
There are exceptions, of course, but it's enough of a possibility that it's probably better to take them seriously than not.
Edit: typed all that, scrolled down, some other dude already said it
Absolutely. I enjoyed playing a bit of Smite at one point in time (mostly that big open area map) and some Heroes of the Storm, but I'm not a big MOBA guy. Decided one day to give League of Legends a try, why the hell not ya know?
I have never been called a 'fucking fag' and been told to kill myself more times in a 5 minutes period of time in the entirety of my 40 years on this flying shitball of a planet. Not in public school, not on Xbox Live while playing Halo, not from my abusive family, never.
Uninstalled that shit 10 mins later and went back to TF2 where I get called that only once an hour.
That's why I liked hots, the capability to block chat from the start and for everyone.
It's not really a problem in non-competitive modes, as people usually just use on-map alerts.
I enjoy League mechanically, played a lot, but it just got to be such a net negative that I can't do it anymore. I enjoy trying my best to win and I adore that feeling of a team coming together, but the toxicity was just too much.
They got more aggressive about banning people for chat stuff a long while ago. But the same people just find ways to be just as toxic with game mechanics and other more subtle communication.
Yeah, I don't know what it is about the League community, but they are some of the worst people I've interacted with in games. I've heard that apparently Riot has cleaned up their community a bit since the early days, but first impressions are tough to overcome.
Travel is gonna become boring if you have to travel the same road multiple times in the course of the game even if you have a bunch of cool stuff along that road. Eventually, I won’t give a shit about that stuff since I’ve seen it a million times. So I would hope there is still some kind of fast travel to go between places I have already been if the world is super big. Otherwise it’s just gonna feel like you’re padding the game for time to inflate a 10 hour story to take 40 hours to finish.
I think the better way to help fix this issue is random encounters, spawns, and a world that changes as the game moves along.
Moving along the same road can be made interesting if different things are happening every so often as you come through. New friendly encounters, new fights with different enemies, maybe randomly spawning treasure or scripted puzzle sequences that can appear dynamically around the whole world. Add to that a world that becomes modified by story events, maybe that road gets blocked and a different passage opens up that takes you to the same end destination, but with a new path and things to explore.
It's not an unsolvable problem, but it is something that goes by the wayside often.
One thing to consider too is scheduled events. Imagine a couple towns get together and throw a fair along a route that connects them, and you get to see celebrations and games and vendors who might sell trinkets that are hard to track down otherwise. Perhaps the local monarch goes on a hunt with the massive party of servants and knights that might entail, with different practices for different cultures. A band of cultists clears an area for several days leading up to their yearly ritual. It’s migration season for a certain species of animal/monster. There are so many possibilities!
Even just vendors passing through can be made more interesting. Do they carry their wares via backpack or cart? Are they being attacked by bandits? Wild animals? Are they trying to smuggle goods or services somewhere?
It all has to be programmed of course, which is the main holdup on what makes it so hard to flesh out those parts of the world.
I do also see weight in the idea that, past a certain point, traveling is just boring, especially if the only thing of importance is the Main Story Quest. Travel is also often boring in real life too but we can tune it out, or find little ways to pass the time and entertain ourselves during the more mundane moments. We’re not frequently afforded that luxury in games. When you’re playing a game and dealing with the downtime going from point A to B, often there is literally nothing to do except hold down the movement keys and deal with the occasional path change/obstacle.
The point of games is to be engaging, and if there’s nothing to do while traveling but look at the scenery and surroundings it will eventually get boring. Even if the travel gets interrupted occasionally for an encounter, I think it’s arguable to say that the content is literally not travel anymore and in fact papering over a bad travel system (if the only thing interesting is the stuff you find that you have to stop and take care of). Adding more unique/transient stuff along routes is only half of the battle; work has to be put in to make traveling enjoyable in and of itself for players to want to do it instead of skip it.
But as always, the best solution to our problem is to simply add more trains.
To add to this, DD1 has quite a number of NPC's that travel between regions and you can come across them. As you progress through the game their patterns and locations change.
I actually am ambivalent on the latter mechanic as it really makes it a pain sometimes, but it still has lots of ways that it can work well.
Depends on the reason for traveling. If you are headed down the road to a goal and keep getting sidetracked by random encounters in a way that is distracting you from the thing you want to do then they just make travel tedious.
It all comes down to why am I traveling and why are encounters on the road more engaging than the reason for being on the road in the first place.
And for the record, Itsuno does say that he thinks fast travel is “convenient” and “good” when done right.
Based on Dragon’s Dogma 1’s use of Ferrystones, as well as this mechanic returning along with oxcarts in the sequel, I think this director understands that there needs to be a balance. It’s good when it’s both properly implemented and has a purpose. You’re right that nobody wants to run up and down the same roads countless times, but it’s up to the devs implementing limited fast travel to make sure you won’t have to. Then it’s up to the player to decide whether fast travel is worth it for any given situation. Knowing when to use your fast travel and how to maximize it is a skill that you develop and should be rewarded for mastering.
But it also needs to have a purpose. In more arcadey games, I don’t like worrying about resources like that. But in more grueling games like Dragon’s Dogma, where the journey is often a very intentional part of the gameplay loop if not the main challenge itself, it fits right at home.
I have a former best friend who still somehow finds a way to fanboy over Musk, despite the excessive information about him and actions he's taken. All very public and easy to find information, yet never swayed the guy's opinion and the last time we talked about it he was still fanboying. It really should have been a warning sign of things to come with that friendship. Truly, only mentally and emotionally inept losers are still on Musk's side and the former friend's the only person I know who still has a favorable opinion of Musk.
Tough luck man. Have been in this situation a couple times.
Current working theory is that the reason are our relationship templates formed in childhood.
If someone has had abusive and/or gaslighting role models early on, they will not avert or even seek narcissistic relationships. I have been in this situation for a long time and am working for years to get rid of it.
This is what I think happens with people liking clear cut narcissists like musk and having friends who „somehow“ like him.
Sometimes people flock to a figure because they see them as a struggling underdog challenging the whole world.
But even that angle kinda falls apart when you remember that this guy is the wealthiest person in the world. He's not a brave rebel. He's not even taking a stance on something important, though he very well could, with his money.
I’m interested in playing this but I don’t own a PS5 and I’m not buying a whole console for one game. They would have gotten a day 1 sale out of me if they released it on PC.
Originally, they did plan to release it on PS5 and PC. My guess is Sony made a timed exclusivity deal with them, which Sony had done with companies before. SE shout themselves in the foot by taking it.
Ditto for me. I have all Final Fantasy games released on PC, but I can’t justify buying a PS5 for a single game. I’ve chosen to watch a let’s play of the game. Glad I did because it’s definitely not a Final Fantasy I’d play a second time.
A review bomb is when people start jumping down the game's throat with negative reviews for shit unrelated/peripheral to the game. If they're triggered by the actual core design choices of the game it isn't a review bomb.
These reviews are because the game is a money grubbing downgrade from the game people bought and had taken away from them, and this is the first opportunity they had to publish a review on a storefront. The motivation being the actual game means it can't be a review bomb.
No, it's still a review because you're still actively dealing with whatever it is you're complaining about.
"Hey, I really like/liked the core game play loop of this game but I think that it's gotten significantly worse than it was previously. It'd be nice if they changed it back?
That's depends on the business model. For one-off payment games, it still does considerable damage, whereas they don't gain much by you continuing to play.
For subscription games, your point stands much stronger.
It's a free to play multiplayer game. If you continue playing it, you're providing value for some other player who might spend money, so just by being in the matchmaking pool, they've got you where they want you, and they won't care about your review.
Yes, I answered your question with a question because your scenario was as absurd as you perceived mine to be. So I'll answer yours directly: "yes, but not at that scale". Because at that scale, it's a review bomb.
So if General motors was using slave labour to build their cars and feeding said labour with baby kittens, would you consider it a review bomb for someone to say 'You shouldn't buy the latest vehicle from General motors because of the way it is made'?
What if general motors came out and said that they think a great start to the day is to wake up and punch a dutchman in the face?
A review is, ultimately, a recommendation of whether or not you think other people should buy this product. If you can't recommend it because of something the company who made it did, to me, it's still a review. Because recommending that product is recommending financial support of that company. Not recommending it, is not supporting them.
For me a real review bomb would occur generally only in a case where a site like 4chan might suddenly spin a wheel of mayhem and pick a random game to just go shit on or something like that.
Why would 47k people choose to play the game when it's the worst game on Steam? Literally worse than a game like Bad Rats: the Rats' Revenge that fundamentally doesn't function correctly. For reference, its peak today was about 20 players.
Before you reply with something like "marketing", you seriously think that if Bad Rats launched today, and with the same marketing budget as OW2, that it would achieve anywhere close to 47k players peak 10 months after its release?
Like I said: you're disconnected from reality if you think OW2 is the worst game on Steam.
As far as I'm concerned they do. But my opinion doesn't decide the rating of a game any more than yours that's it's supposedly a better game than bad rats.
It's a product of everyone who votes giving their opinion, and the entire steam userbase has come to the consensus that Overwatch 2 is a particularly egregious example of it.
It cannot possibly be a review bomb when the reviews are legitimate opinions based on what the game is.
the previously referenced games all sit above 80% positive and yet have the exact same problems that you cite as OW2's reason for being bad
legitimate opinions
"the zeitgeist has told them that the game is bad" is not a legitimate reason for not liking OW2, hence accusations of review bombing
if you think there are legitimate reasons OW2 deserves the rating it has, by all means please provide them, but so far all you've given me are #badthings that also apply to basically all the popular F2P games on Steam.
it’s the game they gave me to replace the game i purchased.
if i bought a toyota camry, and 2 years later toyota said “sorry we can’t let you continue using your camry, here’s a corolla” you better fucking believe i’d be trashing toyota in every public space possible to warn potential customers.
in your analogy you bought a camry and mr toyota said "we're getting rid of this camry but don't worry i fought to get you a free corolla" and were fine with it and hailed mr toyota as a hero but then mr toyota left the company so the free corolla became poisonous and bad
Those games are not nearly as aggressive in their attempts to get you to buy shit. CSGO? a tiny ass fucking button to buy Prime. TF2? Don't even remember seeing a shop button.
OW2? Makes the worst, money hungry mobile free-to-play blush with how aggressive it tries to sell you shit.
tf2 drops crates every 30 minutes that's literally just an advert for the in-game store (which has a dedicated button pretty clearly labelled on the main menu)
If it does, I've literally never seen it, and I play regularly. The closest I ever got was the Halo MCC soundtrack in CSGO, and I'm pretty sure I only got that because I also have MCC on Steam.
my guy csgo crates were controversial enough a few years ago that people sued valve over them, and at no point did csgo come anywhere close to being the worst reviewed game on steam
how are you unironically out here saying that csgo doesn't drop crates?
leaving a negative review because of that would by definition be review bombing, because at that point you're not reviewing the game, but external context that surrounds it
"i liked overwatch 1" is not a valid review of the game overwatch 2, and people leaving reviews to that effect en-masse is pretty textbook review bombing
if you're reviewing specific things you don't like, that's reviewing a product
leaving a negative review because "OW1 was killed off" isn't doing that
if you want to discuss specific things you don't like, please provide some that would reasonably justify OW2 being literally the worst reviewed game on steam rn
leaving a negative review because "OW1 was killed off" isn't doing that
Leaving a review because "OW1 was killed off" and the intended transition route was a drastically inferior product, is in fact reviewing a product.
Context is actually an important part of reviews. Orcarina or Time looks like a shit game today, and needs the context of being a late 90's innovator to fully appreciate it. Likewise, a BoTW clone would look fantastic, a game changer, even...if a certain 2017 game hadn't already set the benchmark.
Calling something an inferior version of its predecessor, which was cynically shut down to push people to this inferior product, is worthy review information. It tells people that a superior product existed, and all this new product is, is the enshittification of it.
ow1 was shut down to avoid splitting the playerbase. when kaplan went on record saying that he'd fought to get ow1 owners a copy of ow2 for free everybody loved it, but now it's bad, actually? yes that makes sense
Orcarina or Time looks like a shit game today
comparing the entire landscape of gaming to a game is a very different thing to comparing it to a specific game
it would be like if somebody reviewed Baldur's Gate 3 by saying it was bad just because they liked the source powers from Divinity 2. as part of a review maybe it works, sure but as the bedrock and sole item of substance, it's useless.
your entire argument so far has been "I preferred the previous game therefore OW2 deserves to be the worst reviewed game on steam". even ignoring the fact that you've failed to articulate any differences past a vague notion of not liking that it's free-to-play, that's an almost laughably braindead take
And making comparisons between the two products is perfectly valid.
ow1 was shut down to avoid splitting the playerbase.
I'm sorry, are you an Activision/Blizzard employee?
I ask because only one of their employees could come up with such a bullshit statement. The core gameplay loops aren't different enough to cause that kind of split, and OW2 Is free-to-play. Anybody that wanted to voluntarily jump from OW1 to OW2 could have freely done so at literally no cost, if they so wanted.
They shut down OW1 to a) pump up the numbers for OW2 and b) to get OW1 players forcibly exposed to their F2P market.
when kaplan went on record saying that he'd fought to get ow1 owners a copy of ow2 for free everybody loved it, but now it's bad, actually? yes that makes sense
Definitely an Activision/Blizzard employee. Nobody else would miss the disingenuity of making such a statement about a free-to-play game.
comparing the entire landscape of gaming to a game is a very different thing to comparing it to a specific game
And my point is, taking into account the landscape, even in a macro level such as Activision's own behaviour with the series, including this very game, is relevant context worthy of being part of a review.
it would be like if somebody reviewed Baldur's Gate 3 by saying it was bad just because they liked the source powers from Divinity 2. as part of a review maybe it works, sure but as the bedrock and sole item of substance, it's useless.
Your analogy falls flat because Divinity and BG, though they share much of the same inspirations and development staff, are very different games. OW2 is basically OW1 with some minor tweaks and microtransactions.
The problem with OW2's mtx though is that the game makes it as hard as possible to ignore its microtransaction nature as possible, and they willingly hamper the user experience to do so.
Other than the MTX, OW2 is so similar to OW1, that without it, these reviews would be saying that they're essentially the same game. So what they're saying now, that it's OW1 enshittified, is valid.
your entire argument so far has been "I preferred the previous game therefore OW2 deserves to be the worst reviewed game on steam".
If that's what you took away from my comments, then I'm afraid you cannot read. That, or you're unable to discern from different users. All I've said was that people calling OW2 basically enshittified OW1 is not review bombing, because it's a valid review.
even ignoring the fact that you've failed to articulate any differences past a vague notion of not liking that it's free-to-play
Because there are very few differences and none of them are improvements. Like the shrinking of team sizes and available modes.
Also, F2P can be predatory as fuck, and Activision/Blizzard have most certainly been so here. they've even broken sales laws in countries like Australia.
OW2 is so similar to OW1, that without it, these reviews would be saying that they're essentially the same game
All I've said was that people calling OW2 basically enshittified OW1 is not review bombing, because it's a valid review.
Because there are very few differences
Okay so you clearly agree that OW2 doesn't deserve to be the lowest rated game on steam, since "there are very few differences", and you liked OW1.
I don't really care what semantic nonsense or mental gymnastics you have to apply to convince yourself that whatever caused it to be ranked so low doesn't count as review bombing.
Okay so you clearly agree that OW2 doesn't deserve to be the lowest rated game on steam, since "there are very few differences", and you liked OW1.
I do agree it doesn't deserve to be seen as literally the worst game on Steam. I never said otherwise. I hate, hate, HATE the MTX system...but as you said, this doesn't make it literally the worst game ever. MTX aside the game still works and the core gameplay loop is fun while you're in a match. Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing this is not.
Would I hit the Recommend button on Steam? No. The MTX strategy is a deal breaker for me. Whenever I'm not in a match I feel like a fucking product. At that point I'd rather just fire up another shooter because I straight up don't want to deal with that shit.
OW2 isn't a bad game. It is a predatory game. It is debatable which is worse (I consider predatory to be much worse than bad). Being predatory is plenty reason enough for a bad review.
You are really trying to downplay the power of marketing, but you seem to realize that gets people playing. Not only that but live service design is very effective at keeping people playing even when they are not having any fun whatsoever. Because they gotta grind the battle pass and such. Extrinsic rewards and habit-forming conditioning making up for a lack of intrinsic enjoyment.
Still, I would agree with you that it's not the worst game on Steam, but like I mentioned in the other comment, that's not what steam ratings mean. It means that the vast majority people would not recommend it, and that seems pretty reasonable.
i mean i ignored the second part because it was irrelevant
"You're entirely disconnected to reality if you think Overwatch 2 deserves to be the worst-reviewed game on Steam." doesn't say "deserves to be the worst game", so if we're playing the reading game maybe you should take the first turn
On Steam being reviewed poorly is not a matter of rating from 1 to 10, but how many people would recommend it or not. It's completely valid that the vast majority of people would not recommend this game even if it's not a 0/10.
yes obviously, and none of that changes anything about the fact that very clearly OW2 isn't bad enough to deserve the title of worst rated game on steam
You tried to argue with someone else over this, but the fact that more people played it, being F2P, means that more people can agree that they wouldn't recommend it. Given how Steam ratings work, that makes it the worst rated. There's no arguing how it is. You seem to take an issue with it as if it meant Gabe Newell personally stamped it with a 0/10, which is not how it works.
In Steam, being 4/10 for thousands of people is worse than being 0/10 for a couple people.
When I was young a dumb, I followed the anti-feminist YouTubers that used Anita Sarkeesian as their punching bag. I loved video games and bought into their idea that she was trying to ruin them. Now that I’m older and wiser, I can see that that was a load of baloney. I watched the original Tropes vs. Women in Videogames series and it was very level-headed and rational. There were a few things that the anti-feminist YouTubers said “well what about this???” and Anita actually covered that in the video but the YouTubers cherry picked and didn’t show the response. Anita has done a lot of good and has had so much hate and harassment that I feel she deserves a break.
A friendly reminder that the creators in the past have asked those interested in the game to pirate it instead, though of course I do not endorse such activities.
@CosmicApe Offtopic: I have no idea what game this is, but this is (not literally) what Light Yagami said in Death Note, when he got the book and transformed into Kira.
It's from Mass Effect, this is the character Mordin Solus catchphrase. CosmicApe is almost certainly refering to a (very good) cutsceen from one of the possible endings to the Tuchanka chain of missions in ME3.
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