Tyranny + Bastard's Wound Expansion Thread

[Bubbles]

the RPG guy there that would have reviewed Tyranny did the Dishonored 2 review

Sounds like that might be a trend; Bee has also abandoned her Tyranny playthrough in favour of Dishonored 2. I wonder how much potential buzz Paradox might have squandered with their choice of launch date.

 

[Fry]

Despite the paranoid raving here, most reviewers actually finish games and there's zero evidence any of the major sites exchange review scores for money. You'll be seeing a lot more "review in progress" as other publishers join Bethesda in not providing early review copies.

As I've said before, if you think game reviewers are corrupt, you're really going to love the dark future. Publishers now have an army of streamers they can control with zero editorial oversight. It's now 100% hype 100% of the time.

 

[LizardWizard]

Despite the paranoid raving here, most reviewers actually finish games and there's zero evidence any of the major sites exchange review scores for money. You'll be seeing a lot more "review in progress" as other publishers join Bethesda in not providing early review copies.

As I've said before, if you think game reviewers are corrupt, you're really going to love the dark future. Publishers now have an army of streamers they can control with zero editorial oversight. It's now 100% hype 100% of the time.

 

[Lacrymas]

That one guy who got fired for reviewing Kane and Lynch 2 negatively despite the magazine/site being paid to have a positive one will claim otherwise :p That can't be an isolated case (of being paid for positive reviews), so the optimism for non-paid reviewers is quaint. Larian (probably Swen, since he does all the talking) explicitly said that they made Cyseal with the knowledge that most players (I'm not sure about reviewers, but I think they are included) don't complete games.

 

[Sentinel]

Despite the paranoid raving here, most reviewers actually finish games and there's zero evidence any of the major sites exchange review scores for money. You'll be seeing a lot more "review in progress" as other publishers join Bethesda in not providing early review copies.

As I've said before, if you think game reviewers are corrupt, you're really going to love the dark future. Publishers now have an army of streamers they can control with zero editorial oversight. It's now 100% hype 100% of the time.

Unless you have half a brain and disregard everything a streamer says about a game he's playing before release.

 

[Fry]

Despite the paranoid raving here, most reviewers actually finish games and there's zero evidence any of the major sites exchange review scores for money. You'll be seeing a lot more "review in progress" as other publishers join Bethesda in not providing early review copies.

As I've said before, if you think game reviewers are corrupt, you're really going to love the dark future. Publishers now have an army of streamers they can control with zero editorial oversight. It's now 100% hype 100% of the time.

Shitty opinions don't equal corruption.

There are lots of bad writers reviewing games they have no business touching. Doesn't mean IGN/Gamespot/Whoever is taking money for scores, just that they're not very good at their jobs.

 

[GrainWetski]

http://www.pcgamer.com/dragon-age-2-review/

 

[Bubbles]

The best RPG of this decade? Nine more years will tell, but for now, yes.

I still remember this line five years later; that's the hallmark of a great review. I hope Prime Junta will come up with something similar for our Codex review.

 

[Infinitron]

"Darker, sexier, better" is one of the all-time greats. A true classic of the genre.

 

[Bubbles]

Oh, of course. And

Not gamings best story, but maybe its best storytelling.

is also deeply, deeply beautiful.

Seriously, that review should be put in a shrine somewhere.

 

[Fairfax]

Despite the paranoid raving here, most reviewers actually finish games and there's zero evidence any of the major sites exchange review scores for money. You'll be seeing a lot more "review in progress" as other publishers join Bethesda in not providing early review copies.

As I've said before, if you think game reviewers are corrupt, you're really going to love the dark future. Publishers now have an army of streamers they can control with zero editorial oversight. It's now 100% hype 100% of the time.

There's a lot of shady shit going on with streamers and youtubers. For instance, Video A is the one where the video creator is paid to promote game X for the publisher. They have to disclose the endorsement because of FTC regulations. However, the creator also makes videos B, C, D, or streams for several hours, all hyping up game X without that content being a part of the endorsement program. The publisher pays them more for Video A because it's an unspoken agreement that other videos or streams are also part of it, so there's nothing to be disclosed.
Even worse are the press key distribution platforms. There's one (I don't remember if it's Terminals or Keymailer) where you have to submit your content after getting the key and inform the publisher whether it was positive or negative coverage.

I heard Paradox doesn't mind negativity reviews if the channel is still worth giving keys. Guess I'll see it for myself soon enough.

 

[Agesilaus]

If I need a review, I just look at a "let's play" video on youtube. If the user talks too much, I just turn the volume off. Alternatively, I go to a forum and listen to the word on the street.

 

[Fry]

http://www.pcgamer.com/dragon-age-2-review/

Shitty opinions don't equal corruption.

 

[Bubbles]

There's one (I don't remember if it's Terminals or Keymailer) where you have to submit your content after getting the key and inform the publisher whether it was positive or negative coverage.

Yeah, Evolve Terminals want to know your review score. The Codex still has constant dealings with Evolve though, so I'm fairly certain that they don't care too much about getting a negative opinion from us (like the Great Whale Road preview).

Keymailer mostly target LPers, so they don't care that much about hard grades.

 

[Lacrymas]

I'm also pretty sure it's not as direct as "here's a wad of cash, give our game high scores and good reviews", I bet it's more manipulative and subtle than that. Like the publishers/companies paying for ad space, creating ultimatums/embargoes like "you can't release your review before date X unless you give it an arbitrary high score" or creating content for that site by proxy and the site is reliant on that etc. Not to mention that Kane and Lynch guy. Like I said, reviewers are probably not professionals and the sites/magazines have no journalistic standards, so the reviewers are replaceable and content low quality. That's why we get the amazing already-mentioned reviews. I.e. don't trust mainstream reviewers :p

 

[Bubbles]

It's no surprise at all, but an Obsidian employee has confirmed that some of the skill checks are just for "flavor":

The other two options in this dialog are more flavorful ways to get the prisoners out, the first non-gated option will accomplish the same result.

Athletics: "[Life them out.] None of you look all that heavy... give me your hand."
Lore: "[Improvie a level.] One of those spears looks loose. Uproot it and I'll use it to pull you out."

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...d-dialogue-options-that-i-qualify-for.982515/

The third option tries to suggest that you'll lose time or put yourself in danger, but apparently it makes no difference at all.

I wonder how many of the skill checks actually unlock a result that could not be accomplished with one of the regular dialogue options. Somebody should make a list.

 

[Fairfax]

It's no surprise at all, but an Obsidian employee has confirmed that some of the skill checks are just for "flavor":

The other two options in this dialog are more flavorful ways to get the prisoners out, the first non-gated option will accomplish the same result.

Athletics: "[Life them out.] None of you look all that heavy... give me your hand."
Lore: "[Improvie a level.] One of those spears looks loose. Uproot it and I'll use it to pull you out."

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...d-dialogue-options-that-i-qualify-for.982515/

I wonder how many of the skill checks actually unlock a result that could not be accomplished otherwise. Somebody should make a list.

I remember the athletics check in that picture being bugged. As for the "flavor", most conversations in the game are chokepoints, so I'm not surprised.

 

[Mortmal]

Sales seem to go terrible though

And you base this on...?

... the fact that Tyranny can barley stay in the steam top 10 in the first week of it's release and competes at the moment with games like GTA V at full price and the highly unpopular Football Manager. Seems like it's struggeling but maybe I'm wrong and this sells hundreds of thousands of copies.

Dont think its selling so bad , have a look at this sample of randomly chosen, perfectly healthy steam customers , the weekend after dungeon rat release:

Now the weekend after tyranny release:

Its nowhere near a bethesda release but still a few playing it.

 

[Azarkon]

Despite the paranoid raving here, most reviewers actually finish games and there's zero evidence any of the major sites exchange review scores for money. You'll be seeing a lot more "review in progress" as other publishers join Bethesda in not providing early review copies.

As I've said before, if you think game reviewers are corrupt, you're really going to love the dark future. Publishers now have an army of streamers they can control with zero editorial oversight. It's now 100% hype 100% of the time.

They're not as bad, because as long as you have a brain, you can tell when the game they're playing is shit. Unless you're talking about those guys who just talk about a game and never show it, but I think most people have caught on with that.

 

[Reapa]

Despite the paranoid raving here, most reviewers actually finish games and there's zero evidence any of the major sites exchange review scores for money. You'll be seeing a lot more "review in progress" as other publishers join Bethesda in not providing early review copies.

As I've said before, if you think game reviewers are corrupt, you're really going to love the dark future. Publishers now have an army of streamers they can control with zero editorial oversight. It's now 100% hype 100% of the time.

but don't streamers stream gameplay? it's hard to hype crap when people see how crappy it is.

 

[Fry]

Despite the paranoid raving here, most reviewers actually finish games and there's zero evidence any of the major sites exchange review scores for money. You'll be seeing a lot more "review in progress" as other publishers join Bethesda in not providing early review copies.

As I've said before, if you think game reviewers are corrupt, you're really going to love the dark future. Publishers now have an army of streamers they can control with zero editorial oversight. It's now 100% hype 100% of the time.

but don't streamers stream gameplay? it's hard to hype crap when people see how crappy it is.

It's pretty easy to be selective about what they show and they're not usually playing through the entire game on the stream. A sample may or may not be an accurate representation of the whole.

 

[Lilura]

Part II has been posted.

 

[jungl]

developer at obsidian spilled the beans that they designed the archons based on WWE superstars. voices of nerat bray wyatt. Tunon and Beden are Kane and Undertaker.

 

[Prime Junta]

The best RPG of this decade? Nine more years will tell, but for now, yes.

I still remember this line five years later; that's the hallmark of a great review. I hope Prime Junta will come up with something similar for our Codex review.

But Infinitron specified neutral-positive. That kind of thing is a bit OTT for that, don't you think?

 

[ilitarist]

Bubbles said the game is easier than PoE but on Path of the Damned difficutly it's much harder, at least in the beginning. I only did PotD in PoE as my second playthrough so maybe there was some subconcious knowledge that helped me but here I have to replay every second fight for several times.

I'm currently stuck at

Spoiler

the crossing. Getting there was easy enough and I thought that I had to do it before all the subquests (i did 2 in eastern part of the map), but the final fight on roofs of the village is killing me again and again.

I have to say I'm very disappointed with magic spell constructor. Not mechanically but thematically. This fantasy world has a very good use of magic: it's mysterious. You have Voices using sort of telepathy but not quite, and he has those eyes. Verse and her sisters fight as a song. Kyros sends powerful edicts. This is the magic you get in Tolkien or other good fantasy writers: truly arcane power with no defined limits and yet apparently not powerful enough to solve real problems. It's great. But then you need spells in fantasy game, so apart from real magic we have fireballs and lighting bolts. And we also can't have magic users real problems with magic-resistant enemies, so some staffs attack with physical damage even though it looks like magic.

This part is design by committee in its worst.