Middle-earth: Shadow of War - PC, PS4, XB - Free update will remove gold, war chests and market

Eh? You’ve got to doenload an ‘upgrade pack’ to get the better visuals? Oh dear.

Played for a couple of hours last night. Thought it was great.

Buffalo wrote:Eh? You’ve got to doenload an ‘upgrade pack’ to get the better visuals? Oh dear.

I don't that's anything out of the ordinary buff. Hi res download packs have been about for a while and mean that people don't have to download all the extra Gb if they don't need it.

Well I never! More games should let you download the individual components you need *cough* Doom’s multiplayer *cough*

Albear wrote:

Buffalo wrote:Eh? You’ve got to doenload an ‘upgrade pack’ to get the better visuals? Oh dear.

I don't that's anything out of the ordinary buff. Hi res download packs have been about for a while and mean that people don't have to download all the extra Gb if they don't need it.

All the Xbox One X enhanced games (over 130 so far) require you to download the higher res textures.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-10-13-shadow-of-war-players-are-using-tricks-and-exploits-to-combat-loot-boxes

Nice. Just decline the T&Cs when you start and no loot boxes.

I wouldn't usually condone this but, as it's a mostly single-player game, I love that the PC players are cheating the gooseberry fool out of the sytem and getting as many boxes as they want as well.

Overall, we'd strongly recommend playing with quality mode selected to get the best image out of PS4 Pro. The other perk is that 1080p screen users get the residual benefits of super-sampling - plus broader draw distance settings depending on which mode you use. It's a decent bonus all round, and no-one really misses out.

That's the story so far. Shadow of War is a strong effort from Monolith with good performance, marred only by some low quality texture assets that look particularly poor blown up on a 4K screen. In turn, this means that PS4 Pro's 4K output may not have legs ahead of Xbox One X's launch. Despite its dynamic resolution concept working well, keeping image quality at around 1620p, the fact is PS4 Pro's in-game textures desperately needed an upgrade to suit its res boost. It leaves Xbox One X with a chance to take real advantage once it arrives, especially bearing in mind it has the extra RAM to support higher quality 4K textures - and we can confirm that quality and resolution modes remain in the X code, along with the ability to run the game at native 4K or with dynamic resolution scaling in play.

It's all about the options then and Monolith clearly feels it has more to offer in that regard for potential Xbox One X users. But for now at least, the PS4 Pro version is the best way to play on consoles. The 4K cinematics pack is a highly recommended download, and the game's quality setting at least upgrades draw distances to better suit a 4K experience. It goes way beyond what we get on a base PS4 in that sense, but the highly variable asset quality is a concern - if the full 4K texture pack from the PC version is available to X owners, it'll address the shortcomings of the Pro version and present a significantly improved look. And by extension, it may be the biggest gulf we've seen between Pro and X to date.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digit ... r-face-off

Yeah, looks alright.

Killing a LvL 16 Orc while only being LvL 3

Yeah, I've gone after the higher level orcs just because I can

Finished this yesterday. The game is basically a load of samey side missions disguised as story missions. Same gooseberry fool over and over, I was pretty bored by the end and just wanted it to be over so I could play evil within.

Boo! wrote:Finished this yesterday. The game is basically a load of samey side missions disguised as story missions. Same gooseberry fool over and over, I was pretty bored by the end and just wanted it to be over so I could play evil within.

I, over a month ago wrote:It will be functionally solid, not too difficult but padded out too much; reviewers will praise the graphics, nemesis system and orcs but say the story is superficial and too thinly-spread over the grind once the base sieges wear out their novelty.

Called it.

So I was given this as a present on launch day which was a nice treat as I didn't t have to give WB any of my money. I got the standard edition too.

I've now finished Act 3 (Act 4 is just a grind but I'll come to that)

So here is my review.

Spoiler free

I loved the original , bought it on Xbox One and then again on PS4 when I changed console. Completed it and all DLC.

Shadow of War had my attention from day 1 due to the bigger world and more things to do.

The game starts off with limited powers and takes a few hours before you can turn Orcs, the story is atrocious with the final parts of action 3 being beyond poor. Really it's like fan fiction.

The map has become a ubi soft map, so much to do but it's all busy work with little reward. The game does throw xp and skill points at the player which is great but the powers are very limited. A few base powers and then 3 tabs for each one, which you have to unlock with a skill point, but you can only have one tab active at any time per skill. So after a while you're spending points on stuff you don't really need or want.

The core gameplay is the same as before with more orc variation which is cool. However I did see a good few repeats which takes away some of the magic.

The fortress mode is a strange one, as long as you do the side quests to take out captains you remove different parts of a fortress's defense. Then go in and capture a few zones.

It's very grindy and that's what the 4th act of the game is. Upgrade, capture, defend bases from the enemy.

You need a lot of high level orcs for this and curreny to upgrade all defenses.

It's a grind and not really fun. As it's the same time and time again.

The loot boxes offer legendary orcs (which are rare in Game) and combat modifiers for them, so you can add a group or trolls to protect them or give them a poison weapon, or a warg to ride, or all of that and more. Basically pay to avoid the grind .

The game feels like the move from Arkham Asylum to Arkham Knight, it's bigger, more to do, but it's not better. It's just more and more stuff.

It's also a joyless game, nothing in it is exciting or fun. I'm feels focus tested to death as on paper it's amazing but to play it, it's without a personality.

I had the dlc tribute character turn up once in my playthrough and it was a cool little tribute to the guy.

Overall, if you can get the game of the year version for about 20 quid then it'll keep you busy for a while. But the grind is insane at the end and i question how many reviewers actually bothered to finish it. As it really takes away from what has gone before it.

5/10. Bigger isn't better,

So ive booted this up just now and its stuck on the load screen.

Any ideas?

Glowy69 wrote:So ive booted this up just now and its stuck on the load screen.

Any ideas?

Buy a loot box to start game!

KjGarly wrote:

Glowy69 wrote:So ive booted this up just now and its stuck on the load screen.

Any ideas?

Buy a loot box to start game!

Cheers mate.

Glowy69 wrote:

KjGarly wrote:

Glowy69 wrote:So ive booted this up just now and its stuck on the load screen.

Any ideas?

Buy a loot box to start game!

Cheers mate.

Try re-installing the game?

Godzilla wrote:
It's also a joyless game, nothing in it is exciting or fun. I'm feels focus tested to death as on paper it's amazing but to play it, it's without a personality.

This is pretty much how I felt about the first one. I got bored and gave up pretty early on. The gameplay was well executed but it just wasn't fun.

All the DLC has been announced. The 2 new tribes look nice enough but it's sad they were cut out of the main game. It'll be interesting to see where they go with a third game. I'd not be surprised if it was multi player only with loot boxes to support it.

So this has been gooseberry fool too, bought it digitally, sometimes it loads, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it hangs on the first screen, googling it the game seems riddled with bugs. Wtf has happened to games!

Free Game Updates – Coming July 17


We want to thank all of the Middle-earth: Shadow of War players, as we’ve learned a lot from you. Since we released the game last fall, we’ve been listening to your feedback and continue to update and improve the experience. With that in mind, we’ll be releasing a series of free updates in the coming months to offer current fans and new players the best Shadow of War experience we possibly can.



The core promise of the Nemesis System is the ability to build relationships with your personal allies and enemies in a dynamic open world. While purchasing Orcs in the Market is more immediate and provides additional player options, we have come to realize that providing this choice risked undermining the heart of our game, the Nemesis System. It allows you to miss out on the awesome player stories you would have otherwise created, and it compromises those same stories even if you don’t buy anything. Simply being aware that they are available for purchase reduces the immersion in the world and takes away from the challenge of building your personal army and your fortresses. In order to fully restore the core promise of the Nemesis System, we’ll be permanently removing Gold, War Chests and the Market from Shadow of War. This means the option to purchase Gold with real-world money and the ability to gain Orc Followers from War Chests will be removed. There will be a specific amount of time given for players to utilize their unused Gold. If players have unused Gold by the end of the time allotted to spend it, any remaining Gold will be converted to in-game items.



Additionally, we’ll be updating the Shadow Wars section of the campaign, where players defend their fortresses against Sauron’s repeated counter-attacks. This portion of the game will be improved with new narrative elements and streamlined for a more cohesive experience. For players who choose to continue with these on-going fortress defense missions, the Endless Siege update released last November will still be available. We’ll also be incorporating many other gameplay improvements that will be detailed in future build notes, including Nemesis System updates, new player skins, skill tree additions, gear system upgrades and progression updates, just to name a few that we’re excited about.



Please note that the above updates are free for all Shadow of War owners. The ability to purchase Gold will permanently cease on May 8, 2018. The permanent removal of Gold, War Chests and the Market will take place on July 17, 2018, at the same time as all other updates discussed above.

https://community.wbgames.com/t5/Offici ... -p/1831034