Actual SaaS products advise that you should always make a purchasing decision on what there is, not what there is down the road. It's quite applicable to GaaS.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
After 4 months, has Anthem gotten better?
- Thread starter Alcântara
- Start date
Actual SaaS products advise that you should always make a purchasing decision on what there is, not what there is down the road. It's quite applicable to GaaS.
Why though. Final Fantasy XIV's failure was seen as an existential threat to the company's future. Is Anthem anywhere near that important to EA? It has no history and fans have no investment in it.
I'd much rather see BioWare chalk this up to a failed experiment and get back to what they know they're good at.
EA can try again with another GAAS, it'd be easier for them to start from scratch at this point then un-poison the Anthem brand.
shinobi602 any thoughts or anything to add, Mr. Administrator? I recall you being one of the more regular and vocal Anthem players here and a fairly big apologist as I remember it.
Your absence in these discussions is conspicuous.
Your absence in these discussions is conspicuous.
They should have called it "Stapp" instead of "Dylan." It got hype for a brief moment before a prolonged embarrassing flameout.
Fair, but I think there's an established audience there that are interested in the game because it's tied to an IP that they're already, heavily invested in.
Also, given Fallout 76's sales figures, I think it's going to be difficult to spin the game as a success, without a large number of updates. I do believe they can make a good game if they stick with it, but whether the rest of its potential audience will consider giving it a go, is another issue entirely. And for Anthem, a game without an existing fanbase, I think that issue is much harder to surmount.
Shooting is fun. There are many abilities and it is basically class-less; you can combine whatever abilities you like. The visuals are amazing and the story is not the garbage people like to color it because there are several degrees between amazing, good, average, mediocre, subpar, bad, and trash that many people forget purposefully. Tone is very different from the trilogy, though because the whole background (of the protagonist) is not military, so characters in general are a bit more lighthearted.
Case Study:
Fallout 76 releases first.
- Reviews terribly. Bugs everywhere. Huge performance and visual issues. Lacklustre gameplay, no real endgame, and poor player interaction.
- Today - Big showing at Bethesda's E3, with a BR mode shadow drop and detailing a big update adding NPCs, companions for your camps, and a new main quest. Lots of new content since launch adding new events. Lots of bug fixes fixed. Performance issues almost completely solved. Player camps now incredibly useful and interactive, especially thanks to player stores.
- Reviews terribly. Bugs everywhere. Loading screens everywhere. Lacklustre gameplay, small world, short story, bland endgame.
- Today - EA pretended it didn't exist at E3. Roadmap has been abandoned. All content delayed. No new content announced. Game is still atrocious, with no new content in sight, and no sign from EA that they care to fix it.
- Reviews very well. Performs well. Looks great. Solid gameplay with good endgame.
- Today - Big showcase at E3. Three new content updates announced and dated for the year ahead. Loads for the players to look forward to at regular update intervals.
No, not really?
What would you want me to add? You seem to be misremembering as I don't think I've talked about Anthem all that much on here except for a few posts here and there. Actually I think I gave very level headed thoughts on my time with it on my personal blog, not that you need that for anything.
After the plans for the roadmap got disrupted, I think Anthem might be done for. Unless somehow whatever team of Bioware is on it now pulls a FFXIV and brings it from the ashes. Which I don't see happening with EA being their daddy.
Why is Division 2 represented by Falcon?
Case Study:
Fallout 76 releases first.
Anthem releases second.
- Reviews terribly. Bugs everywhere. Huge performance and visual issues. Lacklustre gameplay, no real endgame, and poor player interaction.
- Today - Big showing at Bethesda's E3, with a BR mode shadow drop and detailing a big update adding NPCs, companions for your camps, and a new main quest. Lots of new content since launch adding new events. Lots of bug fixes fixed. Performance issues almost completely solved. Player camps now incredibly useful and interactive, especially thanks to player stores.
Division 2 releases last.
- Reviews terribly. Bugs everywhere. Loading screens everywhere. Lacklustre gameplay, small world, short story, bland endgame.
- Today - EA pretended it didn't exist at E3. Roadmap has been abandoned. All content delayed. No new content announced. Game is still atrocious, with no new content in sight, and no sign from EA that they care to fix it.
Conclusion: Division 2 launched last, best, and with a great plan for a robust content roadmap. Fallout 76 launched in an awful state but has slowly begun a turnaround and might even be a solid Fallout game by the end of the year once its big NPC update drops. Anthem was shit, still is shit, and EA looks hell-bent on keeping it shit.
- Reviews very well. Performs well. Looks great. Solid gameplay with good endgame.
- Today - Big showcase at E3. Three new content updates announced and dated for the year ahead. Loads for the players to look forward to at regular update intervals.
I hope that doesn't mean a future movie/show starring Anthony Mackie will fail to meet expectations.
i went in at launch, 60+ hours in the game, and enjoyed it quite a bit up to that point. just not enough at the end game. im one of the ones that keeps saying that itll be interesting to see what this game turns into 6+ months down the line, but ehhhhh...even if it doesnt, i feel i got my money's worth with the game.
Yeah I might just check it out then. It goes on sale for pretty cheap.
edit: Thanks!
Fair point. There is no financial reason, nor any emotional reason to do it. But, everyone likes an "under dog story" (even though BioWare is no where close to being an under dog). I'm just down for giving a second chance. A few gaas tend to make a comeback, so who knows? Maybe they could as well. Though I'm not holding my breath. If it happens, I'll be there. If it doesn't, I won't care and I'll just continue to ignore it. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the game given over to the Austin studio now? The gaas BioWare studio? The studio they should have taken advice from now? If so, then BioWare proper can move onto other projects fully.
Anthem's problems aren't destiny's problems though
Destiny had players stick to it and hope for better things. Loot cave got shut down but was an actual point bungie looked at and thought "people just want better ways to get loot" and actually responded appropriately
People have abandoned Anthem and they dont seem to have plans to correct anything or plans to even do anything. THe cataclysm stuff is not gonna be it
Bioware is enormous and represents like a 1/7th of the company's developers, so just shutting them down is crazy, especially for a company as poorly diversified as EA.
A Realm Reborn basically shut down square for 2 years because they threw everyone they had at it because the FF brand is the pillar of the company and they recognized the damage they did. The first step they did, was Japanese 'fire' the leads responsible for that mess. Most of the shitty leaders and managers that guided Bioware through ridiculous crunch and frostbite trouble for the past 10 years are still there. It's not that EA won't let them, but that Bioware itself needs to start to give a fuck about how it's run, but the old guard bro club there is strong.
ARR took 3 years and probably double anthems budget to get done. Square was willing to put in those resources because it's a sub mmo and has the revenue potential to earn it back. That kind of profit doesn't exist in some cosmetic store model for a lackluster supported loot shooter. The games been handed off to a small team in Austin who itself is supporting an mmo alongside this game. The main part of Bioware are washing their hands of the game and moved on to DA4 praying to God it helps recover their good name. EA sold their 4 million on hype alone, and probably feel grateful for that and want to move on just as much as Bioware does because, ultimately, the IP means shit to them.
I knew this game was utter trash from the Alpha. The thread here with some people saying "I'm getting this day one!" drove me crazy because I saw all the underlying problems from the get but didn't want to break nda. They were all fine breaking it to say how much fun they were having but I kept my comments simple while disagreeing with the defenders. I have never seen such a bad game have so many ardent supporters go to bat for it.
It needs to be accepted as a fact that EA makes bad games that are of poor value. Don't buy them at launch ever. Maybe buy them later if there is nothing else on the planet to do but NEVER buy them at full price.
It needs to be accepted as a fact that EA makes bad games that are of poor value. Don't buy them at launch ever. Maybe buy them later if there is nothing else on the planet to do but NEVER buy them at full price.
Siege is probably the best example. Game was broken at launch but Ubisoft kept at it and it paid off big time.
Loved the game but without any actually updates that were promised fuck it. With destiny 2 seasons not adding any strikes or story missions I was full on board with something that did just that.
2nd strike with BioWare for me, they can just fuck off now.
2nd strike with BioWare for me, they can just fuck off now.
I haven't even played either game and I could've told you this. For starters, Anthem came out at a time when Destiny 2 was in an incredible place and The Division 2 was right around the corner. Anthem had to be just about perfect if it wanted to make so much as a dent in the shared-world shooter genre...and it fell very, very short.
One of the biggest differences between Fallout 76 and Anthem: the latter game's problems were far more fundamental. Despite the embarrassing comedy of errors that was Fallout 76's first few months, the foundations for a good experience were always there; it was always a very serviceable game set in a gigantic, well-crafted world with a ton of things to do, and with lots of potential for future growth. Anthem's struggles were far more pathetic: things like level 1 guns being the most powerful thanks to a busted scaling system (you really don't want hard-earned loot to feel worthless in a genre like this), and an endgame that felt largely pointless, especially at a time when it didn't - and still doesn't - seem like any substantial content is going to arrive.
Today, Anthem is barely hanging on by a thread, while its competition is firing on just about all cylinders. Its roadmap was basically torn up, while Fallout 76's ambitious roadmap is being followed to a T. Destiny 2's future is looking incredible, especially ever since Bungie broke free from Activision, and The Division 2 is definitely no slouch in this department either. Anthem, to borrow a phrase, came at the king(s) and missed.
It is, at best, mediocre. It was an interesting mess when it was bug riddled and broken. Now that it's fixed, it's just dull.
Well, let's not go nuts. They have a gigantic amount of work to do still to make that thing anywhere near "good".
No way. Yes it was broken at launch, but Siege was fundamentally, a good game at launch.
They saw exponential growth over time, but they never failed to garner a community to begin with.
I was there, crashing every day. Shooting t-posed characters. Rebuilding the party after every game.
Indeed. There are a lot of games that follow that path, For Honor being the other stand out one in my mind, but those survived because the people who were interested in the projects stuck around. SF5 was the same way, though handled in a much clumsier method.
The people I know who played Anthem at launch, hated it, and bounced once they got to the end game stuff. That game failed to impress in pretty much every way.
Last edited:
Read the article, and it saddens me because the initial pitch casey hudson made 5(6)? years ago sounded so promising. Years of development and all these people working for this end result is depressing.
I just bought it last week for 20 bucks out of best buy. I have no point of reference for this game but I am having fun. (XBOX)
they were many people here who were super hyped for the game and just didn´t want to hear the truth. there were quite a few people predicting this will be a trainwreck, myself included.
From that article it sounds like Frostbite was definitely a problem but it sounds like mismanagement was a bigger issue. They didnt even have the overall concept nailed down until way late in the process.
Enjoyed this line from that article.
"Anthem felt like a seed that had the potential to grow into a full-blown tree, but it was planted in concrete and watered with energy drinks. "
Good luck with that. You still need to grind out those Javelin repairs. And nobody plays the game.. and when you find a group for the strongholds nobody dies because the game is braindead easy.
Last edited:
I truly feel awful for Bioware man
The postmortem of this game ought to be an interesting case study at least
they will try to come back with some massive update and shit, but its going to be too late for it.
I guess I wasn't clear on your definition of "turning it around"
I've seen a lot of free to play games left to die, this is probably the first situation in which a very high profile launch from a well-known studio who have been long established has had their entire roadmap canceled and it essentially being left adrift.
By all accounts they fucked up a lot of the fundamentals right out of the gate so I think it's hard to bounce back from that. There was someone explaining a while back how the situation was different from Final Fantasy 14 because core components of the design were pretty flawed, so you can't just simply patch and lightly retool some things and bounce back.
By all accounts they fucked up a lot of the fundamentals right out of the gate so I think it's hard to bounce back from that. There was someone explaining a while back how the situation was different from Final Fantasy 14 because core components of the design were pretty flawed, so you can't just simply patch and lightly retool some things and bounce back.
Which is insane when you look at the fact that it's one of the top selling games this year. If that isn't enough to get it support, then wtf is wrong with EA
Had ridiculous marketing behind it.
Player base shrunk immensely, Dev team has struggled adding anything significant etc...
I think EA realized this was dead.
Like at this point you're EA, do you inject money into this disaster or do you finance Mass Effect 4 ?
I understand why they'd rather move from that dumpster fire.