On February 28 2019 23:14 Plansix wrote: I like that casual gamer is now someone who only plays 1-3 hours every day. Mind you, if you did any other hobby on the planet 1-3 hours every day, people would say it is a fundamental party of your lifestyle. But Gamers are magical, special creatures.
On February 28 2019 19:30 Latham wrote: I just wanted to chime in and say casuals are important for a game at launch and further down the road when expansions launch, but it's the hardcore player retention that matters. The players that will stick to your game for months or years, not the ones that flocked to it because it's new, and will leave when the next awesome title comes out next month. It's not even about a % of those hardcores becoming spender whales, it's about stabilizing the numbers of concurrent players to gauge the interest level.
Many games are still alive because of a solid cult-like following of dedicated/hardcore gamers despite being old(er). Company of Heroes 2, Warcraft 3 TFT, Guild Wars 2, Monster Hunter Series etc. just to name a few I actually play myself.
Also don't forget about the elephant in the room which is StarCraft: Brood War. Despite not having balance patches or expansions made for the game it flourished because of its hardcore community playing on private servers like Fish IcCup, Garena etc.
It stuns me how few of these developers have learned any meaningful lessons from by far the most successful comparable game: World of Warcraft.
Even today, with WoW under constant fire for fucking up each expansion more and more, WoW at its worst is superior to all of these games that are trying to mimic its format (only with 1st/3rd person shooter mechanics). There's zero excuse for these games to release the way they do. Nil. None. The trailblazer games have been and gone. Lessons should be learned.
I am sure developers would love to develop games like Blizzard of the past. But sadly, publishers demand that games shipped in specific time frames and sometimes even demand demos as pre-order bonuses that might pull resources away from the final game.
Casual players are not determined by the hours/day ratio in the new game they play but how long they stick and how many they play in a longer on average. And by my standards casuals don't go over 7h/week on average based on a longer time frame.
This is bad planning on the developer side of things. If they lay before you this plan you need to price it accordingaly and then you need to plan with some backup time. But thats just me xD
Is Bioware Edmonton working on any other games? or is this it?
Its interesting how Bioware Edmonton had to use the Frostbite Engine. Its Pierre Trudeau's "Branch Plant" economy lament happening in 2019 at a high tech level. What happened to the days when Watcom C was used for building everything from compilers to operating systems?
Oh ...Whoa ...Canada. Just sad man. So many veteran people have already left....if Bioware Edmonton goes down it'll be sad.. but its really looking that way.
On February 28 2019 23:14 Plansix wrote: I like that casual gamer is now someone who only plays 1-3 hours every day. Mind you, if you did any other hobby on the planet 1-3 hours every day, people would say it is a fundamental party of your lifestyle. But Gamers are magical, special creatures.
On February 28 2019 19:35 iamthedave wrote:
On February 28 2019 19:30 Latham wrote: I just wanted to chime in and say casuals are important for a game at launch and further down the road when expansions launch, but it's the hardcore player retention that matters. The players that will stick to your game for months or years, not the ones that flocked to it because it's new, and will leave when the next awesome title comes out next month. It's not even about a % of those hardcores becoming spender whales, it's about stabilizing the numbers of concurrent players to gauge the interest level.
Many games are still alive because of a solid cult-like following of dedicated/hardcore gamers despite being old(er). Company of Heroes 2, Warcraft 3 TFT, Guild Wars 2, Monster Hunter Series etc. just to name a few I actually play myself.
Also don't forget about the elephant in the room which is StarCraft: Brood War. Despite not having balance patches or expansions made for the game it flourished because of its hardcore community playing on private servers like Fish IcCup, Garena etc.
It stuns me how few of these developers have learned any meaningful lessons from by far the most successful comparable game: World of Warcraft.
Even today, with WoW under constant fire for fucking up each expansion more and more, WoW at its worst is superior to all of these games that are trying to mimic its format (only with 1st/3rd person shooter mechanics). There's zero excuse for these games to release the way they do. Nil. None. The trailblazer games have been and gone. Lessons should be learned.
I am sure developers would love to develop games like Blizzard of the past. But sadly, publishers demand that games shipped in specific time frames and sometimes even demand demos as pre-order bonuses that might pull resources away from the final game.
Casual players are not determined by the hours/day ratio in the new game they play but how long they stick and how many they play in a longer on average. And by my standards casuals don't go over 7h/week on average based on a longer time frame.
This is bad planning on the developer side of things. If they lay before you this plan you need to price it accordingaly and then you need to plan with some backup time. But thats just me xD
You see, I view the concept of casual gamers as a construct created to serve as a gate keeper to a hobby or simply a way for people to place themselves as the most important customer to a consumer product. It is "not a true" of video games, if we treat video games like bands or professional sports.
On February 28 2019 19:30 Latham wrote: I just wanted to chime in and say casuals are important for a game at launch and further down the road when expansions launch, but it's the hardcore player retention that matters. The players that will stick to your game for months or years, not the ones that flocked to it because it's new, and will leave when the next awesome title comes out next month. It's not even about a % of those hardcores becoming spender whales, it's about stabilizing the numbers of concurrent players to gauge the interest level.
Many games are still alive because of a solid cult-like following of dedicated/hardcore gamers despite being old(er). Company of Heroes 2, Warcraft 3 TFT, Guild Wars 2, Monster Hunter Series etc. just to name a few I actually play myself.
Also don't forget about the elephant in the room which is StarCraft: Brood War. Despite not having balance patches or expansions made for the game it flourished because of its hardcore community playing on private servers like Fish IcCup, Garena etc.
It stuns me how few of these developers have learned any meaningful lessons from by far the most successful comparable game: World of Warcraft.
Even today, with WoW under constant fire for fucking up each expansion more and more, WoW at its worst is superior to all of these games that are trying to mimic its format (only with 1st/3rd person shooter mechanics). There's zero excuse for these games to release the way they do. Nil. None. The trailblazer games have been and gone. Lessons should be learned.
In my opinion they should not look to WoW but rather Borderlands 2. First you make something like BL2 (same level of quality and content) and then you just improve on the multiplayer and count your money.
On February 28 2019 19:30 Latham wrote: I just wanted to chime in and say casuals are important for a game at launch and further down the road when expansions launch, but it's the hardcore player retention that matters. The players that will stick to your game for months or years, not the ones that flocked to it because it's new, and will leave when the next awesome title comes out next month. It's not even about a % of those hardcores becoming spender whales, it's about stabilizing the numbers of concurrent players to gauge the interest level.
Many games are still alive because of a solid cult-like following of dedicated/hardcore gamers despite being old(er). Company of Heroes 2, Warcraft 3 TFT, Guild Wars 2, Monster Hunter Series etc. just to name a few I actually play myself.
Also don't forget about the elephant in the room which is StarCraft: Brood War. Despite not having balance patches or expansions made for the game it flourished because of its hardcore community playing on private servers like Fish IcCup, Garena etc.
It stuns me how few of these developers have learned any meaningful lessons from by far the most successful comparable game: World of Warcraft.
Even today, with WoW under constant fire for fucking up each expansion more and more, WoW at its worst is superior to all of these games that are trying to mimic its format (only with 1st/3rd person shooter mechanics). There's zero excuse for these games to release the way they do. Nil. None. The trailblazer games have been and gone. Lessons should be learned.
In my opinion they should not look to WoW but rather Borderlands 2. First you make something like BL2 (same level of quality and content) and then you just improve on the multiplayer and count your money.
The Borderlands path is exactly what EA/Bioware did...
Take a fun, successful single player franchise (Borderlands, Mass Effect), force in unnecessary multiplayer content that impacts the main content (Borderlands 2, ME3), push a beloved franchise to a side-team to milk (Borderlands Pre-Sequel, ME:A), and throw your main efforts on a multiplayer flop (Battleborn, Anthem).
On March 01 2019 07:32 Plansix wrote: You see, I view the concept of casual gamers as a construct created to serve as a gate keeper to a hobby or simply a way for people to place themselves as the most important customer to a consumer product. It is "not a true" of video games, if we treat video games like bands or professional sports.
I don't really think that too many people view it as a gatekeeping or "not a true" of video games. A gamer is a gamer. It's just annoying that these days developers cater to the casual gamer much more to someone who plays games "more seriously". Casual gamers often don't finish games, they play for a small amount. Their interest often wanders from one game to the other quickly and they often don't stick to a single game for long. Hence building a game "for the casual gamer" is a recipe for disaster, cause they'll bail ship quick enough. Casual gamers don't bring stability to a game, they don't give a constant playerbase, both things that are needed for a "live service experience, we plan to deliver for 10's of years" The problem with developers catering to the casual gamer, is that the non-casual gamer gets screwed in the process, while if the developer would focus on the non-casual gamer, then there'd be enough there for everyone. It's like cooking a shitty pasta+ketchup instead of a proper dish. Both a foodie and a person who only eats shit all day will enjoy the proper dish, but a foodie wouldn't enjoy the pasta+ketchup that tastes like shit and has no effort put into it. It also means they can release unfinished shit like anthem and keep a majority of the casual gamers satisfied,without actually doing their goddamned job at developing a video game.
On March 01 2019 07:32 Plansix wrote: You see, I view the concept of casual gamers as a construct created to serve as a gate keeper to a hobby or simply a way for people to place themselves as the most important customer to a consumer product. It is "not a true" of video games, if we treat video games like bands or professional sports.
I don't really think that too many people view it as a gatekeeping or "not a true" of video games. A gamer is a gamer. It's just annoying that these days developers cater to the casual gamer much more to someone who plays games "more seriously". Casual gamers often don't finish games, they play for a small amount. Their interest often wanders from one game to the other quickly and they often don't stick to a single game for long. Hence building a game "for the casual gamer" is a recipe for disaster, cause they'll bail ship quick enough. Casual gamers don't bring stability to a game, they don't give a constant playerbase, both things that are needed for a "live service experience, we plan to deliver for 10's of years" The problem with developers catering to the casual gamer, is that the non-casual gamer gets screwed in the process, while if the developer would focus on the non-casual gamer, then there'd be enough there for everyone. It's like cooking a shitty pasta+ketchup instead of a proper dish. Both a foodie and a person who only eats shit all day will enjoy the proper dish, but a foodie wouldn't enjoy the pasta+ketchup that tastes like shit and has no effort put into it. It also means they can release unfinished shit like anthem and keep a majority of the casual gamers satisfied,without actually doing their goddamned job at developing a video game.
What's more interesting. BioWare already tried catering to the casual players during their SW-TOR experiment named Knights of the Fallen Empire(KotFE expansion), when they didn't provide ANY content for the hardcore gamers, actually offended the hardcore gamers and in MMORPG they catered to the single player(!!) casual(!!!) players. The result was that the game bleeded players like never before(except the launch). They know it doesn't work in the long term(KotFE was the best expansion launch) and it's just a short term benefit.
While yeah, BW Austin isn't BW Edmonton(or whoever created Anthem) it's still EA, it's still even BW and they should know better by now.
I'm quite astonished how developers can't learn from others mistake or even their own mistakes!!
Edit> BTW the need to cater hardcore gamers is more than "long term player base". It's the hardcore gamers who create the guides, who create the stat ratio, who lure the forum/social sites, give advice etc. You need the hardcore gamers because they essentially do the first line of customer support and PR. They also help in the game when they give advice during harder group content to the newer players(if they join newbie groups). The more hardcore gamers you can sustain the better.
The guide thing is a good point. I'd imagine that some beginner weapon/progression/raid etc guides are quite an important part of a looter-shooter for a new player wanting to start off. Also a part the developer usually does not provide themselves. Not properly at least.
On March 01 2019 07:32 Plansix wrote: You see, I view the concept of casual gamers as a construct created to serve as a gate keeper to a hobby or simply a way for people to place themselves as the most important customer to a consumer product. It is "not a true" of video games, if we treat video games like bands or professional sports.
I don't really think that too many people view it as a gatekeeping or "not a true" of video games. A gamer is a gamer. It's just annoying that these days developers cater to the casual gamer much more to someone who plays games "more seriously". Casual gamers often don't finish games, they play for a small amount. Their interest often wanders from one game to the other quickly and they often don't stick to a single game for long. Hence building a game "for the casual gamer" is a recipe for disaster, cause they'll bail ship quick enough. Casual gamers don't bring stability to a game, they don't give a constant playerbase, both things that are needed for a "live service experience, we plan to deliver for 10's of years" The problem with developers catering to the casual gamer, is that the non-casual gamer gets screwed in the process, while if the developer would focus on the non-casual gamer, then there'd be enough there for everyone. It's like cooking a shitty pasta+ketchup instead of a proper dish. Both a foodie and a person who only eats shit all day will enjoy the proper dish, but a foodie wouldn't enjoy the pasta+ketchup that tastes like shit and has no effort put into it. It also means they can release unfinished shit like anthem and keep a majority of the casual gamers satisfied,without actually doing their goddamned job at developing a video game.
Edit> BTW the need to cater hardcore gamers is more than "long term player base". It's the hardcore gamers who create the guides, who create the stat ratio, who lure the forum/social sites, give advice etc. You need the hardcore gamers because they essentially do the first line of customer support and PR. They also help in the game when they give advice during harder group content to the newer players(if they join newbie groups). The more hardcore gamers you can sustain the better.
Wholeheartedly agree on and support & PR part. Also think about Twitch, Youtube and e-sports (I know, lol). Hardcore players will create a buzz all around the web about your game. They'll try to communicate with you (the developer) through reddit, discord. Even if you don't like the majority of the criticism they give you or disregard their point of view because you're the developer, you know better, these people will help you see where the game "hurts" and could use polishing. Hardcores will create mini tournaments with 50-100$ prizes over the weekend, they will make guides like you guys stated above, and if you provide them with the tools - they will create maps and mods for your games, which can by par and away extend the life expectancy of your game easily by years while you put in shitty microtransactions in...
Best example for me here is the Total War series by Creative Assembly. Their games pretty much thrive with game overhauls and balance patches/bug fixes made by the community.
But most importantly... hardcore players will try, and WILL break your game. They will find out the most optimal builds, the best timings, best strategies, best skill rotations, break boss line of sight, get them stuck on geometry and bug them out etc. etc. They WILL find the path of least resistance, whether you like it or not as a developer.
Things are getting ugly with Anthem. A group of people are claiming Anthem completely shuts down their PS4. Sony is issuing refunds to some customers. Some people are claiming it bricked their PS4. Who knows what is and isn't true. Any way you look at this... WHAT A MESS compared to the Apex Legends launch.
some middle-of-the-road Giant Bomb game reviewer guys with a really boring track record stated Anthem hard crashed and caused the entire PS4 to shut down. They then had problems restarting their PS4 but eventually they got the PS4 working again. Given their non-descript history as Giant Bomb employees a highly suspect this is happening. I can't see these guys BS-ing about this.
On March 01 2019 16:49 Godwrath wrote: Borderlands never was a singleplayer game.
Borderlands 1 , 2 and the Pre-Sequel can all be played as a single player. Borderlands has no PvP.
Ok wow. The "get 15 treasure chest" is among the mos annoying stuff I ever had to do in a game. Even with guides I have trouble finding this much (maybe they changed this after ppl were flying around on GM3 just opening chests?)
Otherwise, still having a good time. Some of the NPC's have really funny / sad / tragic stories to tell. Sure, they won't change much and there is no grand decisionmaking involved, but still.
Can't believe most ppl rated this at around 6.5/10 I would give it 8 -8.5/10 in a heartbeat. Though I'm still not at the endgame.
On March 05 2019 17:13 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Things are getting ugly with Anthem. A group of people are claiming Anthem completely shuts down their PS4. Sony is issuing refunds to some customers. Some people are claiming it bricked their PS4. Who knows what is and isn't true. Any way you look at this... WHAT A MESS compared to the Apex Legends launch.
some middle-of-the-road Giant Bomb game reviewer guys with a really boring track record stated Anthem hard crashed and caused the entire PS4 to shut down. They then had problems restarting their PS4 but eventually they got the PS4 working again. Given their non-descript history as Giant Bomb employees a highly suspect this is happening. I can't see these guys BS-ing about this.
On March 01 2019 16:49 Godwrath wrote: Borderlands never was a singleplayer game.
Borderlands 1 , 2 and the Pre-Sequel can all be played as a single player. Borderlands has no PvP.
PS4 machines are old. They can be very dusty inside, thus overheating can be an issue because this is a demanding game. Overheating is always manufacturer's issue or maintenance issue.
The question is, whether the PS4 overheats or whether Anthem has a broken code inside that does invalid operations. If this was Bethesda, i would say it's both
the stuff i'm hearing/reading is it has nothing to do with overheating. the system does not shutdown during long play sessions with other games. it shuts down quickly without the PS4 system being warm.
lol how can this happen? I'm not much into coding and stuff. Specially the part about "not starting anymore"? This would mean the game has some influence over the booting sequence?
On March 06 2019 00:44 Harris1st wrote: lol how can this happen? I'm not much into coding and stuff. Specially the part about "not starting anymore"? This would mean the game has some influence over the booting sequence?
No, just 2nd hand accounts of people with badly maintained consoles running into overheating problems when playing demanding games.
On March 06 2019 00:44 Harris1st wrote: lol how can this happen? I'm not much into coding and stuff. Specially the part about "not starting anymore"? This would mean the game has some influence over the booting sequence?
The game can request an operation only PS4 Pro can provide thus it can shutdown PS4 via a demand which cannot be satisfied. I am no PS4 programmer, this is an example which should be handled both by Anthem and by SONY. Considering SONY was a little laxing in the past with their coding(*cough* certain hardcoded key and huge information leak *cough*) I think it may be possible. Although this should just shutdown the application, system should be robust enough to survive this.
Obviously if the system crashes many times it gets corrupted thus not loading anymore.
A lot of shoulds and making up. I haven't seen an RCA and I doubt anyone will
EPT
