Been running the Echoes of Reality thing (is it considered a stronghold?). Tried running it on GM3 last night and noticed there’s an extra battle section. I was a bit underpowered however and we timed out before completion, so I’m not sure how the loot shakes out vs GM 1/2. It does seem as if more people are running GM 2 than GM 3 though, but I’m wondering if the drop-in/reinforcement mechanic is in play for the Cataclysm.
I also got into one of the Freeplay timed Storms, but I was the only person in my instance who got in, and I had zero clue WTF I was supposed to do.
“I believe this ship has a great future”, shouted the captain from his lifeboat.
Those are weird. There are different types of storms that work slightly differently, but several of the ones I’ve done have been something like, a wave of enemies shows up - you beat them, then crystals appear and you have a set amount of time to destroy them. That set amount of time is usually pretty tight, something like 30 seconds, and if you don’t destroy them then you’re dropped out of the instance. If you succeed, you see another wave and then a third. And that’s it, you drop out after that but it’s a win condition.
rei
3090
“So tell us your most recent project.”
“I was responsible for Anthem’s launch!”
“Welcome aboard!”
I know REI will take me off his Christmas card mailing list but I just picked up Anthem from Gamefly for $12.99 which seemed like a good price to get a little Iron Man Rocketeer action in while the servers are still alive and crunching ones and zeroes.
https://www.gamefly.com/game/anthem/5014227
KevinC
3092
Ben Irving strikes me as being woefully incompetent at every game he touches. The game may have a slim chance with him out of the picture.
KevinC
3093
It’s easily worth $13. The game is a blast to play at first, it just completely falls flat at the end as a looter shooter. The feel of playing Iron Man is great, though.
Yes, if you go into Anthem thinking it’s a looter shooter you’re definitely setting yourself up for a letdown.
Questions of his competence aside, if he left to take a job somewhere else, I think it’s far more likely that this is an ominous sign for Anthem’s future support, and that he saw some internal writing on the wall.
KevinC
3096
Oh for sure, I just wanted to take the opportunity to heap scorn on the guy. I’m not sure why he was ever given the job to begin with. Good riddance, but yeah it’s probably the captain jumping into a lifeboat while he still can. If the Cataclysm stuff is the result of half a year of working on the game and is all they have to show for it, this title is doomed. It needs a 2.0 type overhaul and it doesn’t look like it’s going to get it.
That knowledge actually compelled me to pull the trigger at this price. I am not much of an ‘end game’ player and more of a filthy tourist. With Destiny 1 and the Division 1 I mostly just played through the story with a tiny bit of futzing around after that, but I don’t do much grind for better gear.
Yeah, grinding for gear is not something I found fun in Destiny with the exception of when the actual missions were fun and challenging. And then it was the missions themselves that were fun.
Tempted by that price for Anthem, but I think I’ll pass for now. Just up to my eyeballs in good games right now.
Oghier
3099
The current endgame is the Cataclysm. It’s good. There’s definitely a learning curve to first survive and later maximize points earned, but it’s a lot of fun once you feel comfortable in there. It’s also releasing in stages, and there are three major encounters we have not seen yet.
Along with another slew of QOL changes they’ve released, this really is a step in the right direction. A big step. To me, the question is whether they can continue steppin’ at a reasonable pace.
rei
3100
I don’t see a roadmap (!) or anything substantial planned AFTER Cataclysm ends other than an end to any/all new content by putting the game into maintenance mode.
Ben Irving said there is a Bright Future, so thats something to look forward to. :)
rei
3102
The insulting less-than-zero communication from this game’s team after a fully-engaged pre-launch period is unparalleled.
The Division 2 just announced their early player feedback program.
Oghier
3103
Well, that’s the question. We don’t know whether Bioware is telling the truth when they say there are big plans for Anthem, or whether the next step is a skeleton crew and maintenance mode. I am cautiously optimistic, but that’s my default state in everything ;)
rei
3104
Par for course, they appear to have nothing planned. As the game director abdicated his responsibility and disappeared with everyone else who worked on it, handling ‘live services’ over to the B-team at BioWare Austin (who took 6 months to come up with this tiny bit of content without doing any major revamps or fixes shows how under-resourced and under-committed they are) …now that he’s bailing he says "it’s in good hands with …the two useless community leads (who don’t use official channels when they are hiding from their players but their personal Twitter accounts) who sporadically tweat from those personal accounts.
Those aren’t game directors or anything. They’re just community managers who aren’t even good at THAT job.
Do you think they handled Anthem post release worse than post release support for Mass Effect Andromeda?
Shutting down a game would qualify as big plans yah?
