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[pudel]

Be original. Find new designs and mechanics to interest players. Give us something we haven't seen before. At least make some well designed character art that is good to look at.

That basically counts for all games. Multiplayer and singleplayer.

Its just very hard to achieve...and becomes more and more harder the more games being released.

 

[GermanZepp]

I really feel bad for the devs and I can't help but feel the toxic gaming community is partly to blame. The game has issues but its really not that bad and most people would have realized that if they gave it a chance.

Of course I think Geoff also gets some of the blame because he set unrealistic expectations with how he presented the game.

Shifting the blame to the community is not te way man. There are thousans of games coming out every year competing for our time. They need to sharp the pencil whem making numbers.

 

[Zacfoldor]

It was probably always doomed but would have had some chance if they had just shadowdropped the thing instead of putting it front and center at TGA. It proves the power of the zeitgeist and shows the neo internet where any press is good press is an antiquated saying that no longer applies. The internet will hate gangbang your game by not playing it while also making it the main fucking source of entertainment for them at the same time.

There was a time when people were too disconnected, too stupid to make something like this happen. I'm kinda proud that so many people are able to hate something but not also consume it with this amount of success. Perhaps if we were this controlled about everything we do I wouldn't be excited about an AI designed post human society or some type of Pluribus joining. <3

That said, I'm still feeling a tad sorry for these game devs. They were just dreamers doing what they loved guys. It's not their fault they planned a game out of time. It's somebody's fault but not the individual devs.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

I really feel bad for the devs and I can't help but feel the toxic gaming community is partly to blame. The game has issues but its really not that bad and most people would have realized that if they gave it a chance.

Of course I think Geoff also gets some of the blame because he set unrealistic expectations with how he presented the game.

Feel bad for the devs?

Make something gamers want and this wasn't it

Feel bad for the devs?

If its true there were a few of the same devs on this game that worked on Concord those devs need to be cleaning toilets at the worst truck stops after Taco Bell has a buy one get one free night

Get them out of gaming

 

[TintoConCasera]

We already have a legion of similar games, this never stood a chance at standing out from the pack.

This is the key of the matter, imo.

A single-player game doesn't need to reinvent the wheel in order to be successfull. Just be a fun game, people will play it and move on.

Meanwhile people don't have time to play each and every GAAS out there, so when a new one comes out it really needs to make a "bang!" or else it will just go as it went. Helldivers 2 and Arc Riders managed to do that, while HG didn't.

Great game in the making, dropped off it for a while but god dam its slick.

imho the best ARPG there ever was.

 

[kpopSuperstar]

How long until they realize people who like live service games already found their forever games?

It's not that, we see Arc Raiders and Helldivers 2 do great. But you need a combination of a solid game and proper continues development. If a game is good, like Arc Raiders, it becomes interesting to see what they add and change, if a game is weak, like Highguard, you don't give a shit about a new map or whatever.

There are still millions of people who are willing to try the hot new thing. It's just that it needs to be a 90+ thing, a middle of the road game has no chance.

 

[clarky]

imho the best ARPG there ever was.

No lies detected. Can't wait for 1.0 shit is wild. Act 4 was tremendous.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Was it that bad? I'm completely clueless about this one.

It's good and bad.

The game is reasonably fun when you're winning or in close fights, but 33% of the time you're just running around for 2 minutes picking up loot as fast as you can and instantly realize it doesn't matter because your opponents can head click you way easier than you can head click them.

And actually, it's not 33% of the time because of all the players that quit the game, the high skill players stuck around longer.

It's basically that scene from Deliverance .

 

[TintoConCasera]

No lies detected. Can't wait for 1.0 shit is wild.

Yeah I'm waiting for the full release to give it another go. Will get another week of vacation like last time and no-life the shit out of it as if I was playing Diablo 2 back in college hahaha.

Act 4 was tremendous.

That's great to read! I wasn't too excited about the endgame stuff so I really hope the later acts are just as good if not better than the first 3 acts, which already felt like a full game to me lol.

Not that the endgame is bad, but it just didn't manage to grab me. I wonder how it'll be once the game is in 1.0, probably with tons of improvements since I played it.

 

[LordCBH]

Aged like milk left out in the hot, summer sun.

 

[OuterLimits]

I think the overwhelming majority here and on social media were pointing out how retarded the GaaS push was,

Early on there were a significant amount of defenders. Or perhaps people in denial arguing that somehow the usual strong Sony single player releases wouldn't be impacted by the new GAAS focus.

Plus to be fair, I do think there was interest in seeing what Factions would be like. However, once that go canceled and shit like Concord was released, even many vocal Sony defenders started criticizing their strategy this gen.

 

[xanaum]

Well, some of us, myself included, saw this disaster coming from the very first minute of that TGA trailer.

It was a GAAS that already smelled like "nobody asked for this," and there are at least two lessons here for anyone willing to learn.

1• Even a massive media machine like TGA can't hype or manufacture interest if the thing has no soul.

2 • Don't greenlight or even start developing a game without actually researching whether people want it, especially if it's not doing anything innovative and is built on tired, generic design and concepts.

 

[GateofD]

gamers can be stupid, but most can tell when something has no soul in it,

 

[Puscifer]

Damn.

The game must have been a total dud.

From the "one more thing" at the Game Awards to laying off staff in less than two months.

Brutal. Feel sorry for the staff.

It being "one more thing" killed it IMO.

Geoff's introduction implied it was spiritual successor to Titanfall and then we got this.

 

[xrnzaaas]

Aged like milk left out in the hot, summer sun.

Yup, turns out you do need them after all, especially if it's a f2p game. A game with singleplayer content can live on even if the interest is mild, for a multiplayer-only game that's a death sentence.

 

[FoxMcChief]

This time next year, will Bungie exist?

 

[FMN]

If this were true, then Helldivers II, Marvel Rivals and ARC Raiders would have failed miserably. That's obviously not the case. Good games that know how to lure and retain players can still succeed - but it's such a tough market to crack that most games will fail miserably and only lose money.

It's too early to tell if those games will retain players for the long run. Good for them that they made their money early through game sales though (ARC and HD2).

 

[BbMajor7th]

-guard

 

[GateofD]

 

[Ogbert]

Aged like milk left out in the hot, summer sun.

And note he states not 'super huge'.

But that still means 'huge'.

I barely made it past the tutorial. There's an all consuming feeling of pointlessness about this type of competitive title. Lolloping around like a deranged crack fiend, opening chests and marvelling, in ADHD awe, at the purple and orange items. For what? A staged shootout five minutes later.

Complete slop.

 

[LordCBH]

And note he states not 'super huge'.

But that still means 'huge'.

I barely made it past the tutorial. There's an all consuming feeling of pointlessness about this type of competitive title. Lolloping around like a deranged crack fiend, opening chests and marvelling, in ADHD awe, at the purple and orange items. For what? A staged shootout five minutes later.

Complete slop.

They were so proud to say "from the creators of Titanfall" in their announcement, and then dropped peak zoomer slop instead of a spiritual successor to Titanfall. A TON of people would have been interested in a spiritual successor, not this garbage.

 

[diffusionx]

I just want to point out that 2,000 simultaneous players is still way more successful than Concord ever was. I think Concord got that during the free open beta, maybe.

 

[Dorago]

I'll answer that question, Paul.

The expectation is that you have a modicum of gaming sense to understand that 3v3 on large maps is a fucking terrible idea.

The expectation is that you have enough artistic experience to know that your game looks plain as fuck and has no visual hook.

The expectation is that you have more than a handful of heroes in a competitive hero shooter when your rivals already have 40 or more.

The expectation is that you'll do a decent amount of testing, take the feedback, and make improvements before you release.

The expectation is that you'll properly market the game. Not announce it, go radio silent, and then launch a little over a month later.

The expectation is that if you're going to try something different, you either make damn sure it works or make it a separate mode and see how it fairs. See testing.

The expectation, in a nutshell, is that you have a company that actually knows what the fuck it's doing. None of these things, by themselves, would have immediately killed the game. Adding them altogether? This is the result.

This is the same amateur hour stuff we saw with Concord. In fact, this game might have died even faster than Concord if it was charging an entry fee like that game did. It was quite possibly the only thing this game did right by being F2P.

A thousand times this.

The industry has been perfecting mediocrity since Xbox Live debuted over 20 years ago.

Publicly traded companies have sucked the creativity, artistry, and skill out of video games EXCEPT for the ones created out of that system.

The problem is graphics tech isn't advancing much, but that's coming slowly but surely.

 

[Dorago]

Anyone remember this one? I think it was the original big multiplayer flop of this kind
I haven't heard anyone talking about it in years, everyone completely forgot it.

Some of yaz might have been in diapers still, but an amazing number of these Hero-slops were released to try and cash in on the Overwatch hype.

 

[Polaris]

It's amazing how this game (and studio) crashed and burned almost entirely due to no fault of their own.
The Game Awards placement made it a bigger deal that it actually was. Had it lauched without it like they originally planned, more than likely it would've been rather forgettable instead of the nuclear mushroom cloud it turned into.

 

[xanaum]

Anyone remember this one? I think it was the original big multiplayer flop of this kind
I haven't heard anyone talking about it in years, everyone completely forgot it.

This also reminds me of the total GAAS disaster, and it even has the same energy as LawBreakers back in 2017, made by the arrogant Cliff Bleszinski.

 

[MayauMiao]

IGN's being IGN.

 

[DeepEnigma]

IGN's being IGN.

IGNorant Consistency.

 

[PeteBull]

IGN's being IGN.

And they gave godhand 3/10, those soulless sellout e-prostitutes
Edit: To no1s surprise ign gave veilguard 9/10

Dragon Age: The Veilguard Review - IGN

A reinvigorating sequel for the series that leaves no doubt about its place in the RPG pantheon.

www.ign.com

Dragon Age: The Veilguard refreshes and reinvigorates a storied series that stumbled through its middle years, and leaves no doubt that it deserves its place in the RPG pantheon. The next Mass Effect is going to have a very tough act to follow, which is not something I ever imagined I'd be saying before I got swept away on this adventure. Enjoyable action combat, a fantastic cast of allies with sweeping story arcs all their own, top-notch cinematics, and moving, nuanced character writing are the wings on which this triumphant dragon soars, pulling out all the stops in a whirlwind tour of Northern Thedas and capping it with a terrific finale that's built on memorably tough choices and consequences. If we never get another Dragon Age, at least it got to go out on a high note.

 

[DeepEnigma]

And they gave godhand 3/10, those soulless sellout e-prostitutes
Edit: To no1s surprise ign gave veilguard 9/10

Dragon Age: The Veilguard Review - IGN

A reinvigorating sequel for the series that leaves no doubt about its place in the RPG pantheon.

www.ign.com

Gatekeeping for their bros.

 

[nikos]

Shame because, from what I've played, the game is actually fun. At the very least, it has a solid foundation.

They could have taken some time to get things right instead of immediately laying people off. Plenty of devs have turned games around.

If they've got no confidence in the game, I'm not going to spend time or money on it.

 

[Last Hearth]

This is the key of the matter, imo.

A single-player game doesn't need to reinvent the wheel in order to be successfull. Just be a fun game, people will play it and move on.

Meanwhile people don't have time to play each and every GAAS out there, so when a new one comes out it really needs to make a "bang!" or else it will just go as it went. Helldivers 2 and Arc Riders managed to do that, while HG didn't.


imho the best ARPG there ever was.

Yeah, I would compare single player games to build hotel. People spend the money and spend a few days there, your hotel can be really nice, but it can also be very generic, as long as it fit people's needs, they will pay you for a few days of stay. A GAAS game is like building an apartment building next to an existing one and hoping that people move from their current apartment to yours. It's not enough that it's just as good as their current apartment, people are already comfortable there, they may come by and check out new building, but unless you have a really good hook, or something happens are their current place that really ticks them off, they aren't going to go through the hassle of moving. A lot of executives fall into the trap of, if we make our game as good as Fortnite, people will play our game like they play Fortnite. No, they already have fortnite, offer them something, even if it's just as good as fortnite, isn't enough incentive to switch games.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

The game looked insufferably generic. So much so that I would say it could have been designed entirely by AI and I would have believed it.

Fantasy Knights on horseback firing AK-47s isn't in anyway innovative or original.

Western devs just need to hire better artists. Ones that haven't spent their entire career aping Pixar movie or League of Legend art styles.

They should send their artists back to school to learn what actually constitutes an iconic character design.

Too many offensively generic, sanitized and safe character designs coming out of Western games development these days. As such, gamers just aren't inspired to want to play your games.

 

[uncreativename]

It's amazing how this game (and studio) crashed and burned almost entirely due to no fault of their own.
The Game Awards placement made it a bigger deal that it actually was. Had it lauched without it like they originally planned, more than likely it would've been rather forgettable instead of the nuclear mushroom cloud it turned into.

Are you saying it would've been nicer for them to get no players at all? They still would've had to lay people off and (I assume) shut down the game, either way.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

IGN's being IGN.

Go to make sure to remind game companies no matter how shit your game is we'll always give you at least a 7.

So please get your advertising sales team to send over your banner ads and ad fees.

 

[Neon Xenon]

Agreed. Seem like its in dev hell. Do none of these studios know how to make a game?

Fair games concept: Make payday like game with extraction elements but bad ass with characters and aesthetics ripped from HEAT, The Town etc. One team plays the robbers and another is the cops. Plan your heist while the cops need to react to which bank on the map you are going for. 3-5 minutes head start. New map each season and skins from popular heist movies. You don't need to reinvent the wheel.

No purple in the game.

This isn't rocket science.

On the idea of a heist game doing something new, something like Fairgamedollarsign looks so much worse when something like Den of Wolves is right there being a cyberpunk heist game from people who worked on Payday 1 and 2. No idea when it hits Early Access, but it at least looks potentially interesting when at least one of the heists involves diving into someone's consciousness.



I'm fine with 10 Chambers taking their time on Den of Wolves, but I do want to see more this year.

 

[Northeastmonk]

It's like they release these F2P PvP games every other week. Haha! But the staff are dropping like flies trying to make a banger that lasts longer than a weekend.

That sucks. I can't say I'd be motivated if I was a zoomer in college to go make games. Especially when you got all that exposure and it didn't last longer than a weekend?

I use to care long enough to install it. I'd much rather invest in what I actually want. Where Winds Meet was good. This sounded cool, but I would rather save my drive space.

 

[Antwix]

It's amazing how this game (and studio) crashed and burned almost entirely due to no fault of their own.
The Game Awards placement made it a bigger deal that it actually was. Had it lauched without it like they originally planned, more than likely it would've been rather forgettable instead of the nuclear mushroom cloud it turned into.

Completely disagree. They had a unique opportunity to disprove all the negative sentiment from the Game Awards show. Their game obviously wasn't liked by most people and no one stuck around. 100k CCU fumbled. It's actually quite simple: the game wasn't fun for most so people didn't keep playing it.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

At 1,400 now when yesterday same time was about 2,400. Should drop below 1,000 tonight as it looked like late night it dropped to 1,216 on steamdb.

I think what happened in yesterday's big drop is the news of layoffs spooked any remaining fringe gamers who were thinking of trying it F2P. And any core players bailed too since the studio is gone and roadmap content is basically dead (unless maybe they churn out one last Feb update if it's already done. They probably wont even do that.) So today another huge drop.

The game had trended during these low days at around 150-250th in Steam rank pending time of day. Now it's at #523. So bad, I had to scroll to page two of the Max 500 listings filter.

Any hour now Cash Cleaner Simulator and Scrap Mechanic will pass it. And they will since their weekly trending have held up better than HG.

 

[clarky]

On the idea of a heist game doing something new, something like Fairgamedollarsign looks so much worse when something like Den of Wolves is right there being a cyberpunk heist game from people who worked on Payday 1 and 2. No idea when it hits Early Access, but it's at least potentially interesting when at least one of the heists involves diving into someone's consciousness.



I'm fine with 10 Chambers taking their time on Den of Wolves, but I do want to see more this year.

Much better than that fairgames trailer if a little generic. I still would go with something in the real world, so you could do movie tie in's etc. I think something more grounded in reality would suit the genre more. Like COD when it goes all futuristic, people hate that shit.

 

[Sticks]

 

[ungalo]

Not to be edgy or anything but i think we're entering a phase where i'm not going to be sad about a lot of closures. There's not a lot of beloved studios still around.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

IGN's being IGN.

IGN wouldn't say stupid shit..

 

[ReyBrujo]

Fail fast methodology. They can later get a new team to reskin the game.

 

[TheLikou]

Feel bad for the devs?

Make something gamers want and this wasn't it

Feel bad for the devs?

If its true there were a few of the same devs on this game that worked on Concord those devs need to be cleaning toilets at the worst truck stops after Taco Bell has a buy one get one free night

Get them out of gaming

When people say devs, they are not saying the higher jobs making the decisions. They are talking of an everyday programmer that had no decision in the project and is trying his best to provide to his family and now he lost his stability. A lot of times devs see that the project is not appealing, but it's not easy to just jump ships these days.

 

[ResurrectedContrarian]

From now on.......can we STOP WITH THE GAAS IS SAFE BECAUSE IT DOESN'T COST $200M LIKE SINGLE PLAYER GAMES?!?! All you hear from the anti-single player game crowd is that GAAS is safe for companies because the games don't cost much to make and here we are with a Concord 2.

bring back single player campaigns as industry focus

Please let the GAAS era die horribly with massive game corporations who committed to it tanking one by one and major platforms all going offline. Nothing could be a more beautiful outcome to me.

 

[Hollywood Hitman]

At 1,400 now when yesterday same time was about 2,400. Should drop below 1,000 tonight as it looked like late night it dropped to 1,216 on steamdb.

I think what happened in yesterday's big drop is the news of layoffs spooked any remaining fringe gamers who were thinking of trying it F2P. And any core players bailed too since the studio is gone and roadmap content is basically dead (unless maybe they churn out one last Feb update if it's already done. They probably wont even do that.) So today another huge drop.

The game had trended during these low days at around 150-250th in Steam rank pending time of day. Now it's at #523. So bad, I had to scroll to page two of the Max 500 listings filter.

Any hour now Cash Cleaner Simulator and Scrap Mechanic will pass it. And they will since their weekly trending have held up better than HG.

 

[Audible Silence]

Anyone remember this one? I think it was the original big multiplayer flop of this kind
I haven't heard anyone talking about it in years, everyone completely forgot it.

unfortuneatly everyone thought it was another overwatch clone but it was nothing like overwatch. it was a great game. more similar to Smite. haven't played Deadlock but it sounds similar to this also.

 

[Dr. Samuel Hayden]

One to go

 

[DeepEnigma]

So... no Highguard DLC content trailer at today's State of Play?