Anthem is ceasing development.

vegeta535 said:
Gaming as a service has gotten a bad rep and it is beautiful. It is a kiss of death if mentioned by a company. It seems people are finally waking up to how bullshit MT are.
Click to expand...

I feel like the concept could work, but since it's only really coming from AAA studios it ends up just feeling like an excuse to release substandard games and promise "updates".
 
Balkroth said:
I grabbed it for like $5 at the end of last year I think, I really enjoyed playing it honestly. Not something I would have played a lot of, but wasn't bad.
Click to expand...
The campaign and a few hours past that to repeat some fun things is really fun. It's not a bad game, it's just waaaaay overhyped to be something it really wasn't.

But in spite of their fondest wishes it was a "game as a service", it really does end, at least in terms of your fun level.
 
I still have no idea what to do with all the little gem things I pick up......I'm sure its for crafting, but I never crafted a single thing :p Soloed the campaign and got to the end boss who was too tedious to solo, so I bailed on the game. Fun for $8 bucks. Was hoping for some more variety
and some different landscape changes and maybe more than 3 boss monster variations.........you know, I never even bothered to unlock any other suit besides the default one. The Destiny Ripoff Wizard one.....the Hulk Smash one....and the "Seriously who chooses this one" crappy pre-Alien from Prometheus one......

Tech Demo.
 
I never played Anthem - as I sort of saw all of it coming and figured that if it was good, I could just pick it up after the fact (the no preorder rule).
That said I think it's at least semi-foolish to do nothing with Anthem, just from a practical monetary standpoint.

All the game requires is direction, story, and a good feedback loop. Which is a lot I grant you, but the engine, graphical assets, and movement are all already in there which is arguably the bigger part of the work. 'Back in the day' before Unreal Engine was a commonly sold dev tool, a massive amount of resources went into engine development.
Taking all the graphical assets and having coders and writers fill in the rest could probably make a half-way decent game out of what is there. The hardest part is probably finding a team lead with a vision for what Anthem should be, and the will to carry it out. As it stands, its a diluted form of other games while missing its own identity: and while the power fantasy of flying around in a mech suit is great, it's not enough without the other systems on top of it. Based on all the prelaunch videos, if they would have executed well, I probably would have picked it up. There's a lot to like out of a PvM, team-based/squad-based, FPS/RPG.

Typical EA though to not figure out solutions for the problems. But on balance there is I suppose wisdom in understanding the "sunk cost fallacy" and simply going another direction. I guess it all comes down to what it would take to make a better game out of what is there. Kudos to Square-Enix to literally building an entirely new game out of FFXIV rather than cancelling - but they are such an exception.
 
tumblr_o3uhex7ZQ71tlq22qo1_500.gif
 
UnknownSouljer said:
I never played Anthem - as I sort of saw all of it coming and figured that if it was good, I could just pick it up after the fact (the no preorder rule).
That said I think it's at least semi-foolish to do nothing with Anthem, just from a practical monetary standpoint.

All the game requires is direction, story, and a good feedback loop. Which is a lot I grant you, but the engine, graphical assets, and movement are all already in there which is arguably the bigger part of the work. 'Back in the day' before Unreal Engine was a commonly sold dev tool, a massive amount of resources went into engine development.
Taking all the graphical assets and having coders and writers fill in the rest could probably make a half-way decent game out of what is there. The hardest part is probably finding a team lead with a vision for what Anthem should be, and the will to carry it out. As it stands, its a diluted form of other games while missing its own identity: and while the power fantasy of flying around in a mech suit is great, it's not enough without the other systems on top of it. Based on all the prelaunch videos, if they would have executed well, I probably would have picked it up. There's a lot to like out of a PvM, team-based/squad-based, FPS/RPG.

Typical EA though to not figure out solutions for the problems. But on balance there is I suppose wisdom in understanding the "sunk cost fallacy" and simply going another direction. I guess it all comes down to what it would take to make a better game out of what is there. Kudos to Square-Enix to literally building an entirely new game out of FFXIV rather than cancelling - but they are such an exception.
Click to expand...
SE made ffxiv worse with the rerelease. Sure 1.0 had it issues but nothing in current ffxiv is satisfying. Story is not bad at least.
 
After CD crapped the bed, there's no dev or pub that is above another.
Gaming is has been broken for over a decade, basically since day 1 patches became the norm.

No game is finished before launch and the reason why we shouldn't be feeding into the current GPU frenzy.
We pay $700+ for GPUs to play $60+ games that will be playable a year later. A year later the game and GPU can be bought for a fraction of the price, yielding a much better experience.
 
It came with a nvidia card I had bought and after install realized in a few hours of play I would rather get a cheaper card and not have ANTHEM.
 
OutOfPhase said:
The campaign and a few hours past that to repeat some fun things is really fun. It's not a bad game, it's just waaaaay overhyped to be something it really wasn't.

But in spite of their fondest wishes it was a "game as a service", it really does end, at least in terms of your fun level.
Click to expand...

Yea, I am really enjoying the campaign, but kinda got stuck at the Tomb where I have to team with people and, well, there's not people to team with,
 
zamardii12 said:
Great video on this:

Click to expand...

That basically reinforces all my educated guesses about the game and issues behind the scenes. But in saying that it also affirms that so much of the game is already "complete". If they had 1-2 years of focused non-mismanaged development they could probably make an excellent game out of the shell that is there (I literally said it needs a team lead with a strong direction for the title, and basically the video said the same thing - execs gave no direction and development meandered). To reiterate: just use all of the existing assets and focus on core gameplay and level design and they'd probably end up with an excellent title.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
That basically reinforces all my educated guesses about the game and issues behind the scenes. But in saying that it also affirms that so much of the game is already "complete". If they had 1-2 years of focused non-mismanaged development they could probably make an excellent game out of the shell that is there. To reiterate: just use all of the existing assets and focus on core gameplay and level design and they'd probably end up with an excellent title.
Click to expand...
I'm sorta hoping they take the gameplay, and the assets and recycle them into a new game.
 
Lakados said:
I'm sorta hoping they take the gameplay, and the assets and recycle them into a new game.
Click to expand...
Not gonna happen. EA just devours things and then never bothers again if anything has the slightest hint of failure. Honestly I'm surprised that Bioware just hasn't gotten the axe yet.
EDIT: Which to be clear I think is a terrible shame, but I'd just read my earlier post for my complete thoughts.
 
I can't think of anything Anthem did well enough that would be worth salvaging for another game. Flight was the best aspect of it, but that wasn't so good that other games haven't done it better. When I played it, I had more fun running around shield-bashing enemies like a bulldozer than shooting anything. Everything was so spongy, that did like 5X more damage than my guns, too. Plus, I didn't have to worry about running out of ammo all the time. The graphics were "meh" and it had performance issues all the way through the final updates. I'm all for cutting the whole thing loose and using it as a learning experience. I'm still surprised it turned out as good as it is. If they left the flying out, it could have been up there with the most disappointing games ever.
 
What other game did flight of your character model (no vehicles, it isn't the same thing at all)?
 
Domingo said:
I can't think of anything Anthem did well enough that would be worth salvaging for another game. Flight was the best aspect of it, but that wasn't so good that other games haven't done it better. When I played it, I had more fun running around shield-bashing enemies like a bulldozer than shooting anything. Everything was so spongy, that did like 5X more damage than my guns, too. Plus, I didn't have to worry about running out of ammo all the time. The graphics were "meh" and it had performance issues all the way through the final updates. I'm all for cutting the whole thing loose and using it as a learning experience. I'm still surprised it turned out as good as it is. If they left the flying out, it could have been up there with the most disappointing games ever.
Click to expand...
Everything you're describing as an issue just comes down to game design and core gameplay loop. If anything balancing is the part of the game that would take the least amount of time to change and overhaul.
The point of game like Anthem isn't to be completely original (in reality literally no game is, every game is derivative so if that's your criteria then basically you'll be disappointed 100% of the time) - it's to create a franchise that is fun and make money. In the case of a game like Anthem it clearly is supposed to be in the same vein of game as the other titles it's readily compared to, Destiny 2 or the Division. But in this case with an RPG twist, mech suits, and survival being key distinctions (which was axed as noted in the Gvmers video before launch).

No criticism on you, but this is like describing a film to people without vision. It's hard to show rough cuts to people that can't understand what the refinement process does - you're focusing on the problems like say pacing or perhaps sound design (which obviously the devs and filmmakers are aware of) but you can't see the bones for what they are or what a finished product could be - the point of the rough cut is to rough everything in. Not to give an example of a completed polished look. This is generally why I try to not show people non-final images - most "normal" people don't know how powerful retouching is or how dramatically a color grade will change a final product. It's also why in game trailers/demos vertical slices are used and bullshots are used because again most normal people can't see past what things "are" to what they will eventually end up as with time. Some of that can be deceptive as the game may not end up going that way - but used inside of the best intentions it's supposed to show where the game is headed after all the work is complete. Again, saying all of this to say again that a big chunk of the most difficult work is done in the game already and all of its assets could literally be used to make virtually anything else. Your focusing on the mechanics is missing the point - they could turn it into virtually anything else. Entire systems could relatively easily be replaced and anything and everything related to combat could be changed. They could re-balance everything, make entirely different/new skills, they could create a skill trees, they could create monster families, they could create proceduraly generated maps (perhaps for boss/loot zones), they could create an environmental hazard system, they could create a day/night system, rework every weapon, create an entire inventory system, create an entire crafting/collection system, they could do any number of things to dramatically change the gameplay loop and mechanics.

We're both commenting essentially on a game that was half-finished (this is a rough cut that was just pushed out the door as it was - mostly incomplete). That didn't have solid direction until the last year and change of development and then got pushed out the door. It shows two things: 1) that a great deal can be accomplished in a relatively short period of time (albeit at the cost of stress casualties) and 2) if there was more clear, concise direction for a long(er) period of time a lot of systems can be fleshed out properly without (relatively) a lot of time. The great irony is this basically also happened to ME:A. The entire game was really made in the last 18 months when EA more or less stated: get it done or die. But the entire time preceding all of that had tons of managerial miss-steps and no strong visionary at the helm.
 
I thought the game was really good about a month or so after it's release however replaying the same missions got boring. I really think they should have added PvP to keep people coming back, it would have been awesome!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top