BioWare's new IP: Anthem

2. You keep hopping on CP2077 yet you havent even played it!

I don't need to have played the game to read about its issues...I've said from the beginning that I'm interested in buying the game so I will continue to keep tabs on its patch progress...same with any other product or service...do you need to see every movie, book or TV show to form an opinion on it or do you read reviews and opinions from people who have seen it?...I do my research on the best OLED to buy, games, 4K Blu-rays, computer hardware etc and make an informed decision

if you're buying everything first and then deciding whether to keep it or not you're not doing it the right way...or worse buying something and then justifying your purchase decision
 
I don't need to have played the game to read about its issues...I've said from the beginning that I'm interested in buying the game so I will continue to keep tabs on its patch progress...same with any other product or service...do you need to see every movie, book or TV show to form an opinion on it or do you read reviews and opinions from people who have seen it?...I do my research on the best OLED to buy, games, 4K Blu-rays, computer hardware etc and make an informed decision

if you're buying everything first and then deciding whether to keep it or not you're not doing it the right way...or worse buying something and then justifying your purchase decision

Naa your dismissed, you only have media and their circle jerk.

protip, the game is not that bad on PC, its largely the consoles. I played at release and really only the cop AI was noticible.
 
Naa your dismissed, you only have media and their circle jerk.

you sound like one of those people that buys something and feels the need to defend it at all costs ignoring any and all valid criticism or issues...you should have bought Anthem and defended it against the media 'circle jerk'
 
you sound like one of those people that buys something and feels the need to defend it at all costs ignoring any and all valid criticism or issues...you should have bought Anthem and defended it against the media 'circle jerk'
Nope, you just really have no idea what you are talking about, your caught in the echo chamber.
 
Its pretty sad, they have the core of a great game here, just so sloppy and lack luster in implementation. I really miss flying in all other games now.

wait I see you did defend it yet now for some reason are singing a different tune...
 
wait I see you did defend it yet now for some reason are singing a different tune...

Which one, Anthem or CP2077?

Anthem had a great core gameplay loop, the flight was amazing, but they where never going to fix it the way it needed to be fixed (personally I think they are incapable of doing so as they don't even realize what the game is). Its dead and should stay dead and frankly Bioware almost deserves to follow at this point, I'll personally give them one last crack with the next ME and DA.

CP2077 is fine, marred by a horrific console launch that is responsible for 95% of all the issues. On PC it is fully functioning and playable, with a few glitches and some broken questlines (I didn't have any break, so I think those people probably broke the event trigger system somehow, I did notice the triggers are poor in CP2077). The media caught wind of it and did what they always due, console gamers always complain the loudest, and then given the million(s) of copies sold on PC some people recorded their glitches (of which I have only see the bike T-pose, and only once). Que the internet circle jerk and your sitting here in February thinking its still a largely broken game. You wouldn't know any of this because your guzzling the bad news bear.
 
Its pretty sad, they have the core of a great game here, just so sloppy and lack luster in implementation. I really miss flying in all other games now.

Which one, Anthem or CP2077?

the fact that you couldn't tell which game you were quoting says it all about Cyberpunk and Anthem lol...you could literally post the same criticisms but swap out Anthem for CP2077 and you couldn't tell the difference lol
 
I'll shorten it for you, anthem is broken on a fundemental level driven by biowares lack of ability to decide what the game is. Its systems are fine, not glitchy, flight is fun and the game is there, it just is completely lacking mainly because the game just sort of ends with no end game grind or real idea of where to go next and Bioware knows it.

you're saying that Anthem's framework is fine as far as gameplay and mechanics...that does not equal being broken on a 'fundamental level'...endgame content is a different issue...you're agreeing with everything I said yet for some reason feel the need to argue because you're letting your CP2077 bias come into play
 
That's precisely the problem. There wasn't a vision for what the game was supposed to be.

Well what they created was in-itself a vision even if it wasn't fully realized. What was there I thought was good as far as environments and gameplay, but again I didn't play more than 2 hours or so of it so I can't say for sure what more would have been out there. I may fire it up this weekend and solo through it a little to see what more happened.
 
So much for Anthem I guess. Honestly, I think this decision was the right one. I don't see how overhauling a game people long forgot about would help anyone. Any potential goodwill they might have gotten expired 18 months ago. Not like the Anthem world had any particular noteworthy lore anyway. Put this team on the new Dragon Age or Mass Effect and let's all move on.

As far as comparing Anthem to Cyberpunk, I don't view them the same way. Anthem was a complete game...it just sucked due to conflicting ideas over what it should be. I never saw it as particularly buggy, just bad and disjointed. Cyberpunk is/was buggy as hell, but the vision is there.
 
They should've ended it when I said they should about a year ago. All the manhours wasted on this could've made Legendary Edition or DA4, or ME4 better.
 
you're saying that Anthem's framework is fine as far as gameplay and mechanics...that does not equal being broken on a 'fundamental level'...endgame content is a different issue...you're agreeing with everything I said yet for some reason feel the need to argue because you're letting your CP2077 bias come into play

No, I think Bioware cannot fix the game and you have no clue about CP2077. They are two separate things stated side by side.
 
Anthem's remaining diehard fans mourn its death

"In the end I just see missed potential all around with Anthem,...All those years put into a project that in the end amounted to very little. The time Anthem took from the studio could have been used to make two other games nearly. The world of Anthem probably could have made for a cool singleplayer RPG setting. Without Anthem we probably would have gotten expansions for [Mass Effect: Andromeda]. There's so much stuff you could say about Anthem and what it 'ruined', so for it to now be doomed to just fade into nothingness is pretty disappointing."

of the players I spoke to, the one common feature everyone talks about is Anthem's flying Javelin mech-suits. In the hyper-competitive genre of loot shooters, being able to soar around like Iron Man was one of Anthem's best ideas...

https://www.pcgamer.com/anthems-remaining-diehard-fans-mourn-its-death/
 
waaaaah what-about-isms waaaaaah!

Jesus christ dude, you recycle the same asinine and strawman arguments that I have repeatedly refuted. Quit being a sore loser and accept that you were categorically wrong about the state of this game at release and the prospect of it ever being fixed instead of carrying on with the intellectual dishonesty. :rolleyes:

And ROFL at again claiming the huge turn around of SW BF2....the gameplay is still trash and its a desolate wasteland in terms of having an active player base. And No Man's Sky isn't an EA developed or published game, what it has to do with Anthem seems to be based on your paper thin pretzel logic.
 
Didn't anthem at least made decent bank? It sold like 6 million copies. Idk of that also included the free giveaways with Nvidia cards. Still a turd of a game but people got sold hard on the hype.
 
Didn't anthem at least made decent bank? It sold like 6 million copies. Idk of that also included the free giveaways with Nvidia cards. Still a turd of a game but people got sold hard on the hype.
Yes, it made a lot of money. It's considered a failure, though, since it didn't generate a continuing revenue stream as a GaaS title.
 
Jesus christ dude, you recycle the same asinine and strawman arguments that I have repeatedly refuted. Quit being a sore loser and accept that you were categorically wrong about the state of this game at release and the prospect of it ever being fixed instead of carrying on with the intellectual dishonesty. :rolleyes:

And ROFL at again claiming the huge turn around of SW BF2....the gameplay is still trash and its a desolate wasteland in terms of having an active player base. And No Man's Sky isn't an EA developed or published game, what it has to do with Anthem seems to be based on your paper thin pretzel logic.

you keep making the same strawman arguments yourself about my position on Anthem...after playing it I've always said that it had endgame and other issues around the repetitive gameplay that needed fixing...I was hoping BioWare would fix it as I thought the basic framework was excellent in terms of flying mechanics and the basic gameplay loop...I don't have any regrets buying it at launch as I rarely pre-order new IP's and I got a lot of hours in it...you get this perverse pleasure out of EA or other developers/publishers failing

you seem to hate that other people may enjoy games that you dislike (which is 85% of games)...enjoy what you like and let other people enjoy games they like...I liked that asymmetric multiplayer Turtle Rock game- Evolve- as well...sometimes that's the way it goes...I'm sure you've bought some games that haven't been major hits as well...relax
 
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They should've ended it when I said they should about a year ago. All the manhours wasted on this could've made Legendary Edition or DA4, or ME4 better.

They had something like 20-25 people or whatever working on this. That wouldn't have made a lick of difference for other projects.
 
you keep making the same strawman arguments yourself about my position on Anthem...after playing it I've always said that it had endgame and other issues around the repetitive gameplay that needed fixing...I was hoping BioWare would fix it as I thought the basic framework was excellent in terms of flying mechanics and the basic gameplay loop...I don't have any regrets buying it at launch as I rarely pre-order new IP's and I got a lot of hours in it...

Nice revisionism there buddy, most of the arguments in this thread stemmed from you making excuses for EA/Bioware and dismissing valid criticisms about the state of the game at release and how it was marketed. Your position basically boiled down to it being okay for EA to take money from customers for half baked broken trash because there are enough precedents of other devs/publishers polishing their turds into a more acceptable state. Didn't work out that way now did it.

...you get this perverse pleasure out of EA or other developers/publishers failing

I get perverse pleasure from being right and not handing money to corporate scumbags like EA in exchange for garbage products.

you seem to hate that other people may enjoy games that you dislike (which is 85% of games)...enjoy what you like and let other people enjoy games they like...I liked that asymmetric multiplayer Turtle Rock game- Evolve- as well...sometimes that's the way it goes...

I couldn't give two shits what games you like, and I suspect many others in this thread feel the same way. As I have already stated, the arguments all revolved around you being an EA/Bioware apologist.

I'm sure you've bought some games that haven't been major hits as well...relax

Yup, Cyberpunk 2077....won't be pre-ordering CDPR games again, but you don't see me making excuses for them and dismissing anyone else's complaints about the shocking state of that game at release.
 
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Well what they created was in-itself a vision even if it wasn't fully realized. What was there I thought was good as far as environments and gameplay, but again I didn't play more than 2 hours or so of it so I can't say for sure what more would have been out there. I may fire it up this weekend and solo through it a little to see what more happened.

The game play felt clunky and awkward to me. Granted, I am an avid Destiny 2 player. Despite that games numerous issues, it's basic shooting mechanics are probably the best out there or damned close. Mass Effect Andromeda's combat felt better than Anthem's and the Iron Man mod for it handled flight better than a full on AAA release. That's not exactly good work on BioWare's part. I feel like there were a few good ideas there but the execution was fundamentally flawed. I didn't see something that could be polished and added onto. I saw something that needed a lot of its underlying systems replaced or totally reworked. I'm not saying there wasn't potential there, but it needed a lot more development and I think the executives at EA pulled the plug despite the huge cost sunk into it, because they knew it would take too much time to course correct.

There are other games in the genre already doing it better, and others on the horizon. Investing additional funding is one thing, but in my opinion, the game was probably more than another year away from being in the state it should have been in to begin with. It would then be starting over from scratch after everyone had already moved on.
 
They had something like 20-25 people or whatever working on this. That wouldn't have made a lick of difference for other projects.
20-25 people / a full year that's 30.000 man-hours. Yeah, you keep telling yourself that's nothing.

I don't think they expended that much effort on the legendary edition.
 
20-25 people / a full year that's 30.000 man-hours. Yeah, you keep telling yourself that's nothing.

I don't think they expended that much effort on the legendary edition.

AAA games have HUNDREDS of people working on them. So, no, a couple dozen people aren't going to make a huge impact.

Of course they put that much effort in LE. Stop being ridiculous.
 
20-25 people / a full year that's 30.000 man-hours. Yeah, you keep telling yourself that's nothing.

I don't think they expended that much effort on the legendary edition.

Certain aspects of the Legendary Editions wouldn't take much work to achieve. We do know that most of the work was concentrated on ME1, which has been reworked extensively based on what BioWare has stated on the matter. Porting the games to an updated UE3 isn't hard at all. In fact, I believe there are tools in the SDK for doing just that. Changing a few camera angles in cut scenes isn't a big deal either. While I have an idea of what's entailed in these things, I am far from an expert on that subject. What I do know indicates that these things wouldn't take all that much time. Now, I can authoritatively speak on the subject of retexturing the game as I've made texture mods for Mass Effect 2 & 3. Textures I worked on include both weapons and most of Shepard and some squadmate armors. I also have an idea of how this works on the dev side of things as I've known people in the business.

The way texture work is done in games, you normally have a higher resolution original texture and you scale that back to find a medium between performance and image quality. In ME3's case, file size was prioritized over everything else as they needed it to fit on two XBOX 360 discs. Unfortunately, I do not know what the sizes were on the original source files for the textures prior to its release. However, several objects that existed in both ME2 and ME3 (which shared many assets) were over 2K in size in ME2. It's likely 4K or higher textures exist for these objects and the 2K textures are scaled down from those.

As a result, all they'd have to do is go back to the higher resolution assets before they were scaled down to potato mode for the consoles and switch them out. Honestly, they can probably do this about as fast as we can with texture pack mods. Of course, its possible some textures may need to be upscaled depending on what the source files were like. In some cases that won't work. What I've found is that when upscaling, you can only increase the resolution of the texture by 4x at most before it starts to look really awful. Even then, you don't necessarily get anything from this as it won't really look better in some cases. Some textures in the game are only 128x128 instead of 4096x4096, which is what you'd want for 4K. You can't upscale textures that are that bad. Its one thing if they are for far away background objects (and many that small are), but there are weapons and even armors that are that bad in ME3. Unless they have a 4096x4096 original texture laying around, or at least a 2056x2056 texture to upscale a new one will be required.

I am basing a lot of this one what I've seen from the footage shown from the Legendary Editions. These don't look like the original game's textures upscaled. They are either from the original source files we never saw or they are brand new creations for this game. Potentially, there is a combination of both. ME2 doesn't need as much help on the texture front as ME2's textures were universally better and higher resolution than ME3's were.

If you need to create a new texture for something, you could be talking about several hours per texture depending on the complexity of the texture. Something like a single repeatable floor tile texture can be done in a few minutes or so. Making a new armor texture on the other hand is quite a bit more involved. I've done this from scratch and it can take dozens of hours. Not only does this require the time to do the art work but the time to test it in game under variable lighting conditions and make sure it looks good and doesn't impact performance or cause any issues. Do it wrong, and you'll get a blacked out mess in UE3. Do the normal map wrong and you'll get a seam in the middle of the texture that shows lighting differently on one side of the object than the other. Do it wrong and things will glow that shouldn't, or end up the wrong color etc.

Besides porting the game to a new engine, the mod community has done everything that BioWare is doing years earlier for free and charging for it. Once the tools were developed, these things didn't take all that long to do. We aren't talking about a massive effort on BioWare's part outside of ME1. My guess is that this hasn't really been in the works all that long and if it has been, the vast majority of the effort has been spent on ME1. However, depending on the texture situation, BioWare could have spent a lot more time on ME3 and maybe some of ME2 than you might think.
 
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