Assassin's Creed: Odyssey

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Moggy
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PostRe: Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
by Moggy » Tue Oct 09, 2018 8:12 am

I miss the days where to progress quicker through a game or to power up easily you just needed to buy a magazine or wait for Patrick Moore to get around to it.

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Photek
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PostRe: Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
by Photek » Tue Oct 09, 2018 10:15 am

Parksey wrote:So I'm not sure why people are suddenly incredulous that he's saying this about Odyssey. I imagine it's because. They are suddenly irked that he's doing it towards a game they like. His approach is neither surprising or particularly outrageous.

Or, yaknow, maybe some people don't watch the dude regularly or at all so it is relatively outrageous if many other reviews barely mention things he bases an entire video on.

Parksey wrote:Firstly, how do you know something like the XP tweaking isn't affecting you? It's very likely you're only playing the game on "default" so you have no real indication as to what the game plays like under the boosted settings. Those that have, have said that it isn't a case of making the grind faster, it also makes the grind better. They say the game progress seems much smoother with the boost on.

Pure conjecture based on a couple of opinions. Who's to say the XP wasn't tweaked at all from what was originally envisioned and have nothing to do with MT's.

Parksey wrote:Secondly, since when has "something doesn't affect me, therefore it's fine" been a great excuse for anything?

Who is it effecting negatively then? You can't pose such questions as rhetorical when they clearly are not.

Parksey wrote:Thirdly, Unisoft don't need this microtransactions. They aren't supporting the game's development, they aren't funded some niche product and the game would exist, and make a big profit, either way. They are merely trying to monetise and eke out every single penny for every facet of the game. It might not effect you now, but the practice is spreading to other parts. We already see bits of games carved up and sold off as extra. We see preorder bonuses and about ten different editions at launch. With Odyssey, even how early you get to play the game was monetised.

Welcome to capitalism. I don't think early access should be monetized either but you could levy "big company doesn't need the money" to any vacuous inane discussion, its lazy.

Parksey wrote:We are buying a £50 product anyway. We shouldn't be paying more still to make our progress through the game smoother (remember, not necessarily faster, but better from a gameplay perspective).

Conjecture again.

Parksey wrote:No doubt people will say, "well, if people are happy to do that, then that's their choice". But it isn't always a choice is it. You haven't really "picked" a slower XP grind. You've been lumbered with it and offered an upgrade for cash.

I kinda agree with this, people shouldn't have to pay for an 'easy' mode fore example but lots of games don't offer it so it does offer a choice albeit a monetized one.

Parksey wrote:For me, the fact that Odyssey is a good game, doesn't change all that. Is it less palatable if the game was somehow naff? These are choices likely made by the development team anyway, so whether the game is good or not is irrelevant.

Well, it is relevant, the video is titled AC Odyssey impressions yet you get next to zero information about the game at all.

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PostRe: Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
by Parksey » Tue Oct 09, 2018 10:38 am

So Photek, if you're arguing with me based on conjecture have you played through the game twice, once on default and once with the XP boost?

And you also accuse my point of "conjecture" and then follow it up with, "and who's to say...". There are opinion pieces out there by people who have tried the game under both conditions and say that progress feels.smootger with the boost on, as I described. They mention having played Origins too and that Odyssey throws up more times when you are gated off from the "flow" of the game because of your level. This of course happened in Origins too but they said it was more obvious and jarring here.

Unless you've also played the game with the boost on, then you're rebuttal my point as "conjecture based on a couple of opinions" is based on... conjecture of the game based on your.. own opinion?


The point is, neither of us are developers on this game or involved in the publishing arm. It's unlikely someone is going to come out and say how the decision to stick a paid XP boost came about.

Photek wrote:
Parksey wrote:Secondly, since when has "something doesn't affect me, therefore it's fine" been a great excuse for anything?


Who is it effecting negatively then? You can't pose such questions as rhetorical when they clearly are not.


I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here. I'm pretty sure that this can function as a rhetorical question (the rhetorical answer being that I don't think that is a great excuse). But still, it was more about the general feeling amongst some games that a certain microtransaction are fine as it isn't going to affect them.

And as I argued in my post, we actually have no way of telling if this microtransaction is affecting us when we play the game. We don't know whether the XP has been deliberately borked, if it's the same, how much we would have to grind etc. had their been no boost. We can't say definitively whether it's been engineered for cash.

And finally, Sterling's video was labelled "Impressions" and that's what he gave. Did you watch the video? He focused on a certain aspects but he gave his impressions. It wasn't supposed to be a review.

I can give or take Sterling's stuff, as he can be grating at times too. But I find it weird that you'd get annoyed by him on this. I'm not sure what you wanted from the video and from him. Sterling does what a lot of YouTube personalities do. I've gotten back in to Destiny 2 recently, and a lot of "impressions" videos for that game, were people latching on to one aspect and going with it. It's still an "impression".

You seemed to be quite irked by this, possibly thinking I'm berating the quality of the game, which I'm not.

I'm berating the practice behind XP boosts like this. If we could wholly determine that they haven't manipulate gameplay to suit their microtransaction - not something either of us can definitely prove - it would still be a pretty shoddy business decision to try and make money off the back of your £50 by decreasing the time it takes to level up in return for cash. The fact the game is good, you like the game or aren't affected personally, is irrelevant of the decision Unisoft made, and continues to make in most of its games.

And even if the XP boost WAS something just for part-time gamers, with only a few hours to play each week and who wanted to move through the game a little quicker, maybe just see the story stuff, why should this still cost them extra, in a full price title? That's a defense that comes up a lot and which I don't think really sticks.

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PostRe: Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
by jawafour » Tue Oct 09, 2018 10:39 am

Photek wrote:Or, yaknow, maybe some people don't watch the dude regularly or at all so it is relatively outrageous if many other reviews barely mention things he bases an entire video on...

Maybe I'm misinterpreting your point, Photek... but this screams "most news outlets don't talk about the controversial aspects so why does Sterling?".

No-one (bar Sterling!) is saying that the game is bad; it looks cool. It seems odd to want to wash over the additional payment aspects, though. It feels like you're annoyed about people questioning them.

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PostRe: Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
by Banjo » Tue Oct 09, 2018 10:45 am

Are people still surprised/bothered by Sterling? I rather like his view, though agree that his arguments tire fairly quickly (good 7 minute videos bloated to 15+). What I like about his stance is that he refuses to budge from it, as the industry has gradually normalised these practices over the past decade to the point where consumers will be perfectly content to shrug and let it happen.

As for the faux-outrage persona of Sterling's, I don't think he's doing it for clicks. He does his main stuff ad-free and is primarily supported by Patreon, so any money that he would be making out of a persona would do him a fat lot of good for building his brand (he even repeatedly refers to himself as a mid-tier at best Youtuber, he ain't going to be knocking at the door of the big dawgs) but above all else I think some people overlook a key reason why he gets so worked up about these practices. He's the kind of person that is susceptible to them. He's spoken at length about his own tendencies towards addiction and the dark spiral that it can be, and the effective gambling practices that are MT's are viewed as predatory by him; preying on individuals like himself that will feel compelled to partake, that may not have that willpower to simply go 'nah'.

Aside from that, can anyone comment on the Exploration Mode and 'Ubisoftness' of this game? I fizzled out on Assassins Creed at the time of 3 and my small attempts to give later ones a try (Black Flag and Syndicate) bored the life out of me. Exploration Mode sounds like a cool thing that inspires a teensy bit of hope, but I wonder still about the general structure of the game. To be fair the only real thing that tempts me with this game is my raging erection for Shadow of Rome back in the PS2 days and am gutted we don't get that many action games set in that era.

_wheredoigonow_
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PostRe: Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
by Gemini73 » Tue Oct 09, 2018 11:02 am

How I'm reading Photek's stance is "I'm enjoying AC Odyssey, so don't you dare criticise it on any level".

As for Jim Sterling, ranty as he is, he's only really attempting to tackle an area of modern games, one that needs to be debated, when pretty much every other gaming outlet is choosing instead to ignore it because they're frightened of upsetting AAA publishers.

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PostRe: Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
by NickSCFC » Tue Oct 09, 2018 11:09 am

Gemini73 wrote:How I'm reading Photek's stance is "I'm enjoying AC Odyssey, so don't you dare criticise it on any level".


It's Sea of Thieves and SOD2 all over again with him :lol:

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PostRe: Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
by Photek » Tue Oct 09, 2018 1:30 pm

jawafour wrote:
Photek wrote:Or, yaknow, maybe some people don't watch the dude regularly or at all so it is relatively outrageous if many other reviews barely mention things he bases an entire video on...

Maybe I'm misinterpreting your point, Photek... but this screams "most news outlets don't talk about the controversial aspects so why does Sterling?".

No-one (bar Sterling!) is saying that the game is bad; it looks cool. It seems odd to want to wash over the additional payment aspects, though. It feels like you're annoyed about people questioning them.

There's one things mentioning them (like they are mentioned in ACG's Review) and another to have an entire video focused on them.

I don't even own the game, I don't care if it's any good or not I'm simply making the point that Jim Sterlings video was bollocks.

EDIT: Nicks back on ignore. :datass:

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PostRe: Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
by Gemini73 » Tue Oct 09, 2018 1:59 pm

Photek wrote:
I don't even own the game, I don't care if it's any good or not I'm simply making the point that Jim Sterlings video was bollocks.


In that case then, and assuming Jim has played it, then I think it's safe to also assume that he's more qualified to comment on the ins-and-outs of the MT implementation found in Odyssey than you are.

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PostRe: Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
by Photek » Tue Oct 09, 2018 2:09 pm

MT's in this are the same as MT's in Origins according to a few reviews,articles and Jim himself.

Shouldn't you be in school man?

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PostRe: Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
by Tafdolphin » Tue Oct 09, 2018 2:10 pm

Photek wrote:MT's in this are the same as MT's in Origins according to a few reviews,articles and Jim himself.

Shouldn't you be in school man?


Why are you like this?

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Photek
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PostRe: Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
by Photek » Tue Oct 09, 2018 2:12 pm

I'm just like to that to certain folk, for reasons.

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PostRe: Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
by Gemini73 » Tue Oct 09, 2018 2:34 pm

Photek wrote:MT's in this are the same as MT's in Origins according to a few reviews,articles and Jim himself.

Shouldn't you be in school man?


I'm beginning to see why few here like you.

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PostRe: Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
by Photek » Tue Oct 09, 2018 2:35 pm

Better to be hated than.....well I don't want to be banned. As long as I trigger folk that's good enough for me.

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PostRe: Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
by Gemini73 » Tue Oct 09, 2018 2:46 pm

Photek wrote:As long as I trigger folk that's good enough for me.


So you freely admit you've just been trolling this entire thread for kicks?

Well that settles that then.

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Moggy
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PostRe: Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
by Moggy » Tue Oct 09, 2018 2:56 pm

Photek wrote:Better to be hated than.....well I don't want to be banned. As long as I trigger folk that's good enough for me.


The most triggered guy on the forum is trying to trigger people? :lol:

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PostRe: Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
by Gemini73 » Tue Oct 09, 2018 3:03 pm

Moggy wrote:
Photek wrote:Better to be hated than.....well I don't want to be banned. As long as I trigger folk that's good enough for me.


The most triggered guy on the forum is trying to trigger people? :lol:


Indeed.

Considering Photek publicly announced he'd put Nick on his ignore list (again) I think it's safe to say who's getting triggered. :lol:

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PostRe: Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
by Photek » Tue Oct 09, 2018 3:04 pm

If it makes you feel better you made the grade.

As for triggered, dude you've talked about me in threads I never posted in. :lol:

:datass:

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Moggy
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PostRe: Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
by Moggy » Tue Oct 09, 2018 3:05 pm

Photek wrote:If it makes you feel better you made the grade.


Shouldn't you be in school man?

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PostRe: Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
by Photek » Tue Oct 09, 2018 3:07 pm

:lol:

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