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 Grimskul wrote:
Yeah, EA totally wasted the license trying to make their usual microtransaction machines.

Thankfully Ubisoft never does anything even close to that, so we're safe.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:
Yeah, EA totally wasted the license trying to make their usual microtransaction machines.

Thankfully Ubisoft never does anything even close to that, so we're safe.

This is a valid criticism.

But Ubisoft can at least put a competent game together, so that still put them a leg up on EA XD

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:
Yeah, EA totally wasted the license trying to make their usual microtransaction machines.

Thankfully Ubisoft never does anything even close to that, so we're safe.

I'm not a fan of Ubisoft either, especially with the sexual harassment cases being made in the last year. I'm no fan of the Division or what Assassin's Creed has become, so I'm more excited that the with the exclusivity license being expired that other developers that aren't the big guys like Ubisoft, Bethesda or Activision might have a chance to do Star Wars justice and explore things not tied to the movies or just Jedi/Sith.

only recent Ubisoft games I've played have been Assasins's creed and farcry 5 and while they did have microtransactions, it was essentially optional, and they at least didn't have random boxes. I'll accept microtransactions but random loot boxes outside a F2P MMO are unacceptable

With Ubisoft it varies from game to game sadly. Wildlands was great, but then a year later they overloaded it with lootboxes and random gakfethery that gave you cosmetics and better weapons, but you had to drop a crapton of money on it to get it, as they pretty much removed everything from the cosmetics shop beforehand and put that all in said boxes.

But the seem to have learned from this mistake, hopefully? Most of their games allow you to buy cosmetics or utterly useless "time savers" (resource packs) that an iota of playing the game would immediately negate.

BrianDavion wrote:
only recent Ubisoft games I've played have been Assasins's creed and farcry 5 and while they did have microtransactions, it was essentially optional, and they at least didn't have random boxes. I'll accept microtransactions but random loot boxes outside a F2P MMO are unacceptable

"Optional".

If they didn't want you to buy them, they wouldn't be in the game.

They also banned a load of custom quests that gave you loads of experience in the recent Assassin game when users made their own quests using the game engine (as allowed by Ubi) so that Ubi could defend their experience real money boosters.


And I'd remind that this is a singleplayer game. It's not an mmo with running costs and rolling updates and the like; its a single complete package that does not functionally need things like real money experience boosters as part of the experience. I'm honestly shocked Ubi has got away with it - back in the day I recall several games getting 0 or near enough, score reviews when Games for Windows Live launched and was going to charge for multiplayer. IT was such a huge backlash from the magazines and reviews and sales that MS relented very quick (though it killed off several games like Universe at War).

Fast forward to today and Assassin's Creed is selling really well with really abusive singleplayer microtransactions for experience boosters included. Something that should have had the community up in arms

Yeah, another thing Ubi needs to stop putting in their games: arbitrary levelling XP grinding and locking things behind high XP levels, but gotta sell those useless XP boosters somehow.

It was really annoying when they did it all of the sudden in Far Cry whatever the one is called where it goes all Mad Max and personally, Breakpoint got IMMENSILY better after they implemented the ability for players to remove the whole grind for loot and enemies having levels bullgakkery, allowing you to truly freely roam the island as intended.

Exactly, I consider it abusive that they are putting mmo style mechanics into a singleplayer game.

All its there for in a singleplayer game is to stretch out the game length and encourage you to pay more money to advance faster. It's purely there to generate profit with no benefit for the player what so ever.


In MMO games one can appreciate it because you are playing on servers; the developers are having to add new content all the time; support the game and if its optional payments then chances are there's a lot of free players using up space too etc... So you can appreciate the need for such a system of generating long term income for the company because in return you're getting long term game support.

In a singleplayer game you're not getting anything for your money. At least with firms like Paradox where you get some titles with a lot of optional DLC; the DLC is optional and provided it keeps selling they keep making more and more content. Games like Crusader Kings 2 and Stellaris or Warhammer Total War (yes that's Creative Arts) have become massive singleplayer (and multiplayer) experiences through such a system - the company and the gamers both benefit.

 Overread wrote:
They also banned a load of custom quests that gave you loads of experience in the recent Assassin game when users made their own quests using the game engine (as allowed by Ubi) so that Ubi could defend their experience real money boosters.


And I'd remind that this is a singleplayer game. It's not an mmo with running costs and rolling updates and the like

Well, partly. It IS a single player game. But for some reason they insist these games run with an online component so you can see screenshots other players take in game, spawn random missions based on other players dying, and have a weird leader board competition or whatever it is. So there are 'running costs' for an online component, because they're running something that all this crap communicates with. Though personally I think a lot of players would happily do without it.

Eh thing is online leaderboards and daily quests are pretty low-level online components. It's not really anything like the amount of data and storage that an mmo needs; plus many mmos run server side rather than user side so there's that too.

Ergo this game can run fully offline and not lose any real major features. Even things like daily quests can be replaced with a quick random quest generator.

It has no "need" for the online as part of the game experience.

As far as I understand it the President of EA didn't want to contract with Disney for the Star Wars games. It was a deal put in place by his predecessor that he wanted out of as the new president wanted EA to focus on their own properties that they could monetize. Its why Battlefield was so poorly handled. They just wanted a quick cash grab to help run out the contract. It backfired horribly on them (as Im sure all of you know).

Anyway well see what happens. Odd they would use the "Lucasfilm Games" label as I believe that was the name of the games division before they changed the name to Lucasarts in the Late 80's Early 90's.

 Overread wrote:
Eh thing is online leaderboards and daily quests are pretty low-level online components. It's not really anything like the amount of data and storage that an mmo needs; plus many mmos run server side rather than user side so there's that too.

Ergo this game can run fully offline and not lose any real major features. Even things like daily quests can be replaced with a quick random quest generator.

It has no "need" for the online as part of the game experience.

Oh, I agree. There's no need at all, and personally, I find it distasteful and intrusive.
But there's obviously some back end that they chose to add and now have to support.

Its an industry trend that they decided to chase of their own volition (same as Blizzard did with Diablo 3), and it makes the game worse. But the companies involved seem to think there's additional profit in it despite the extra cost (both in development and maintaining the 'always online' architecture).

 MDSW wrote:
...puts on cynic hat...

They will probably just take the Tomb Raider games and overlay IJ over LC - instantly ready to market!

More like Uncharted these days - Tomb Raider sadly became survival horror rather than Tomb Raider.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
only recent Ubisoft games I've played have been Assasins's creed and farcry 5 and while they did have microtransactions, it was essentially optional, and they at least didn't have random boxes. I'll accept microtransactions but random loot boxes outside a F2P MMO are unacceptable

"Optional".

If they didn't want you to buy them, they wouldn't be in the game.

About 100 hours into AC:Odessey about half way through main quest I think) and not spent a penny but happy to wonder about as its fun.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 MDSW wrote:
...puts on cynic hat...

They will probably just take the Tomb Raider games and overlay IJ over LC - instantly ready to market!

More like Uncharted these days - Tomb Raider sadly became survival horror rather than Tomb Raider.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
only recent Ubisoft games I've played have been Assasins's creed and farcry 5 and while they did have microtransactions, it was essentially optional, and they at least didn't have random boxes. I'll accept microtransactions but random loot boxes outside a F2P MMO are unacceptable

"Optional".

If they didn't want you to buy them, they wouldn't be in the game.

About 100 hours into AC:Odessey about half way through main quest I think) and not spent a penny but happy to wonder about as its fun.

yeah there's this rediculas claim that AC Oddessy needed you to buy the XP boost but frankly that was bullony. I managed just fine without, maybe that was the case if you wanted to skip the side quests but I didn't I enjoyed those.