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However as much as I want to be hyped for it, the recent trend of triple A games from western companies has been lackluster or average at best, and this is most likely going to be an epic store exclusive (going by the Epic/Gearbox partnership, and recentish comments by Pitchford), which kinda kills my enthusiasm personally.

Also, more coming later as the description of the video states:

Mayhem is coming! Tune in tomorrow at 11am PDT / 2pm EDT at Borderlands.com for Gearbox’s PAX East livestream.

Didn't see Gaige, so no buy for me.

Scooter is also absent, so the Telltale Games story is also 100% canon then, no surprises there but with TTG going tits up, you never know. Makes me wonder if we'll get a cameo by Rhys and Fiona.

Probably my all time favorite game franchise. Can't wait!

And here I had hoped Gearbox was dead.

 BrookM wrote:
Didn't see Gaige, so no buy for me.

Scooter is also absent, so the Telltale Games story is also 100% canon then, no surprises there but with TTG going tits up, you never know. Makes me wonder if we'll get a cameo by Rhys and Fiona.

Rhys is in the trailer, and a 4chan rumour says he'll appear in game as CEO of Atlas.

I've dumped an unhealthy amount of time into the Borderlands franchise at this point, so hype doesn't quite cut what I'm feeling for this announcement. Can't wait for a good shoot and loot game to play with my friends again.

Excited to the max limit.

That's (Teeny?) tiny Tina with bunny ears?!

Mechas!

Guns!

Explosions!

Heck yeah!

GUNS WITH LEGS!

Though I don't think we'll see it until the end of the year or next year at best, but still glad its happening. Whilst Gearbox has some questionmarks over them with other titles; they have always come through solid with Borderlands!

I want to be a claptrap vault hunter.

 Necros wrote:
I want to be a claptrap vault hunter.

Have you played the Prequel game?

Maybe I've played too much of the other games, but it feels more of the same to me. Could be good, could be bad. Loved Borderlands 2 and Tales from the Borderlands, but couldn't stand the Presequel.

Though I am glad to see Rhys. Still, no Gaige.

I actually prefer the core gameplay of TPS to BL2. No slag, better Vault Hunters, and the Oz kits/low G made the base shoot and loot playstyle more enjoyable. It was the level design and pacing that really did the game in (and Pickles, fething Pickles). Ever playthrough was a total slog to get to the Drakensburg of just running back and forth across a tedious zone with no vehicles and frustrating fights.

But I'll take Vault Hunters like Athena and DoppelJack over Maya and Axton any day of the week, and I did not miss mandatory slag.

Lasers were cool too.

Looking forward to playing as the Beastmaster or MechaGirl first. I'm secretly hoping the Beastmaster is just Loaderbot as a Vault Hunter.

I'm curious to see how much of the formula that made the first two games so much fun (didn't play the prequel or rpg so can't comment on those) has been ruined by the mechanics and practices the industry has adopted since 2012. Loot boxes, season passes, live services, etc.

 warboss wrote:
I'm curious to see how much of the formula that made the first two games so much fun (didn't play the prequel or rpg so can't comment on those) has been ruined by the mechanics and practices the industry has adopted since 2012. Loot boxes, season passes, live services, etc.

Well season passes aren't really anything good nor bad, they are just long term pre-orders and I seem to recall BL has had them before in 2.
Loot boxes (for real money) is pretty much mostly focused at online games and whilst BL has a strong MP element its also often had a strong singleplayer side to it; furthermore much of their interaction stuff was gold-codes that the ygave away for free.


Honestly much of it I can't see working for the BL formula unless they radically change things up in how it works and is marketed.

I hope they will stay on Steam, seems to me bad if they would change to epic due to infrastructure and other problems.
Also tencent.

Not Online!!! wrote:
I hope they will stay on Steam, seems to me bad if they would change to epic due to infrastructure and other problems.
Also tencent.

The main reason developers are jumping to Epic exclusivity for a year is basically because Epic are throwing a BIG bag of serious money at them. Which to be fair is often how distribution platforms secure early adaptors to their system over the established competition. The only real reasons Epic are getting such a backlash is because

1) They've "poached" several games on pre-orders and KS which originally said they were coming out on steam/gog/other platforms and are now changing that to Epic for a year's exclusivity.

2) Epic store isn't as well rounded as steam's store is right now.

3) OMG I have to install ANOTHER launcher. OMG this is sOOOOOOO Much EFFORT Gah I have to fill in my email and a user name and GAH. Oh wait its done I'm on there oh and the world hasn't ended.

4) Epic has had some legitimate issues with regard to account security.


My personal only concern is that Epic store might lack the foresight to last long term. Ergo they are offering a serious under cutting on the percentage of profit division to developers. Now might be because Epic also draws revenue through their Unreal Engine Licence, that they are able to take a smaller cut of distribution profits and yet have the whole package add up to a viable income that gives them enough profit to reinvest to provide for capable long term growth and support of their distribution platform. Or it might be in a few years they are struggling to meed global demands for support of their network because they are taking too little in profits to give them enough to invest into their own infrastructure. Only time will tell on this one. Competition in the market doesn't have to be a bad thing and store-front for the PC network are pretty easy to make use of and many gamers already use several (anyone with any MS titles is likely already using Origin; GOG is very popular esp for old games and Steam is almost mandatory for a modern gamer. Uplay and Battlenet are also up there with Origin so already that's a good 5 storefronts for the whole market; only two of which are universal and not tied to a specific developer/publisher.

 Overread wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
I hope they will stay on Steam, seems to me bad if they would change to epic due to infrastructure and other problems.
Also tencent.

The main reason developers are jumping to Epic exclusivity for a year is basically because Epic are throwing a BIG bag of serious money at them. Which to be fair is often how distribution platforms secure early adaptors to their system over the established competition. The only real reasons Epic are getting such a backlash is because

1) They've "poached" several games on pre-orders and KS which originally said they were coming out on steam/gog/other platforms and are now changing that to Epic for a year's exclusivity.

2) Epic store isn't as well rounded as steam's store is right now.

3) OMG I have to install ANOTHER launcher. OMG this is sOOOOOOO Much EFFORT Gah I have to fill in my email and a user name and GAH. Oh wait its done I'm on there oh and the world hasn't ended.

4) Epic has had some legitimate issues with regard to account security.


My personal only concern is that Epic store might lack the foresight to last long term. Ergo they are offering a serious under cutting on the percentage of profit division to developers. Now might be because Epic also draws revenue through their Unreal Engine Licence, that they are able to take a smaller cut of distribution profits and yet have the whole package add up to a viable income that gives them enough profit to reinvest to provide for capable long term growth and support of their distribution platform. Or it might be in a few years they are struggling to meed global demands for support of their network because they are taking too little in profits to give them enough to invest into their own infrastructure. Only time will tell on this one. Competition in the market doesn't have to be a bad thing and store-front for the PC network are pretty easy to make use of and many gamers already use several (anyone with any MS titles is likely already using Origin; GOG is very popular esp for old games and Steam is almost mandatory for a modern gamer. Uplay and Battlenet are also up there with Origin so already that's a good 5 storefronts for the whole market; only two of which are universal and not tied to a specific developer/publisher.

Competition by monopoly is no competition, that is my bone with epics tactic, also Account security is the least off the security and privacy issues Epic has.
Not to mention that they also have not applied the correct consumer laws in regards to Europe.

To be fair it took steam years just to add refunds as a basic consumer right.

As for competition by monoploy that's basically what we've had with steam for years already. Don't forget quite a few games are tied into steam through steamworks and as a distribution system - even many games that "come on CD" now basically have nothing on the disk and still have to download off steam when you install them (even if the disks have stuff a launch patch is often required on most games).

Also don't forget that, thus far, Epics monopoly only lasts for a period of 1 year within the contact. So in theory all those games can come to Steam and GoG later. Of course in the computer game world a year can be the whole lifespan of some games and certainly the peak for multiplayer is going to be in that first year.

 Overread wrote:
To be fair it took steam years just to add refunds as a basic consumer right.

As for competition by monoploy that's basically what we've had with steam for years already. Don't forget quite a few games are tied into steam through steamworks and as a distribution system - even many games that "come on CD" now basically have nothing on the disk and still have to download off steam when you install them (even if the disks have stuff a launch patch is often required on most games).

Also don't forget that, thus far, Epics monopoly only lasts for a period of 1 year within the contact. So in theory all those games can come to Steam and GoG later. Of course in the computer game world a year can be the whole lifespan of some games and certainly the peak for multiplayer is going to be in that first year.

I belive australia bullied Steam into propper refund policy, frankly still better then Epic which should allready have applied it but didn't.

 Overread wrote:

3) OMG I have to install ANOTHER launcher. OMG this is sOOOOOOO Much EFFORT Gah I have to fill in my email and a user name and GAH. Oh wait its done I'm on there oh and the world hasn't ended.

I think you're misinterpreting the complaints for this one as I haven't seen or heard anyone complaining about the effort in signing up or signing into a launcher. What they complain about is that they'll have yet another piece of bloatware running constantly as a background process at startup slowing down their computer (not everyone, even gamers, is knowledgeable enough to remove it from the list of startup programs) and the inconvience of having their friends bifurcated into yet another separate program instead of being accessible by one. Neither of those affect me personally but they're at least the two most specific common complaints regarding a separate launcher that I've seen or heard. YMMV.

Okay kids, Borderlands 3 goes here, not the whole Epic wotsit discussion.

Or at least not until we know for certain.

Until then, take it to a topic of its own please.

 BrookM wrote:
Okay kids, Borderlands 3 goes here, not the whole Epic wotsit discussion.

Or at least not until we know for certain.

Until then, take it to a topic of its own please.

Epic Games release on Sept 13. Everywhere else Spring of 2020. 6 month exclusivity deal.

Told you so......

Yeah, the writing on the wall was there for everyone to see tbh.

I have a number of fears about this game.

First, is are we going to see this game jump its formula to chase profits like many other gaming companies are doing these days.

Second, We've played this game basically twice before, if there isn't going to be anything new, something exciting, other than reskinned characters, and reskinned environments, this will be a pass for me.

Third, the exclusivity deal nullifies the top two issues I have. I won't support any company that does this.

What about all the Assassin's Creed games and anything by Ubisoft? Or anything that is on Origin, Battlenet or only on GOG?

Heck steam itself has a LOT of exclusive titles that are bound into it that can't be installed on other systems. A lot of games that are tied into Steamworks can only run through steam.


So Epic Exclusivity isn't anything new. Plus BL3 was not announced on any other distribution platform and Gearbox haven't taken any pre-order money for it in advance. Ergo this is jsut a game deal and is fresh news. Right now its rage that its going to Epic Store, but that's basically almost mindless rage that's akin to "hate EA" or "hate GW" - ergo a lot of it is just people hating to be part of the crowd.

Plus its only a 6 month exclusivity deal so its not too crippling.



ALSO BL 1,2 and presequel are all getting free updates! Though its likely only going to be the biggest difference for 4K systems the view side by side I'm seeing floating around are showing a general overall improvement in the crispness of detail! It's likely most noticeable on BL1 as its the oldest of the three games.

 Overread wrote:
What about all the Assassin's Creed games and anything by Ubisoft? Or anything that is on Origin, Battlenet or only on GOG?

Heck steam itself has a LOT of exclusive titles that are bound into it that can't be installed on other systems. A lot of games that are tied into Steamworks can only run through steam.


So Epic Exclusivity isn't anything new. Plus BL3 was not announced on any other distribution platform and Gearbox haven't taken any pre-order money for it in advance. Ergo this is jsut a game deal and is fresh news. Right now its rage that its going to Epic Store, but that's basically almost mindless rage that's akin to "hate EA" or "hate GW" - ergo a lot of it is just people hating to be part of the crowd.

Plus its only a 6 month exclusivity deal so its not too crippling.



ALSO BL 1,2 and presequel are all getting free updates! Though its likely only going to be the biggest difference for 4K systems the view side by side I'm seeing floating around are showing a general overall improvement in the crispness of detail! It's likely most noticeable on BL1 as its the oldest of the three games.

Except one issue, ubisoft aswell as battlenet and Origin are specific company games launchers. (EA, actibliz and ubisoft)
The Epic store is a market place like steam.
So yes the timegated exclusivity Deals are in fact something new, except allready often a reality on consoles allready.

 Overread wrote:
"hate EA"

I don't need a crowd to tell me to hate EA. I hate them because every other piece of news out of the company is something awful, and they've personally cheated me out of things I paid money for. feth um. Awful company. Treats their customers like brain dead money bags (and are tragically proven right more often than not).

And at the end of the day, Steam doesn't really have "Exclusives." Steam has things that are only available on Steam by virtue of being a Valve product, or because Steam was directly involved as a publisher. I've never heard of Steam ever in any of its agreements forcing market exclusivity on anyone (to be fair, they hardly needed to cause the market offers little competition). Epic Games isn't making any games or even publishing much. They're just trying to bully a slip shod product onto the market place by grabbing up games and giving the developers and publishers good deals so long as they get the game all to themselves for a little while.

So yeah, there's hate. There's hate cause there's some douche bag running through the grocery store grabbing up all the apples and saying "mine" and all anyone wants is their dumb apples. Not another piece of junkware on their PCs to keep track of.

Not Online!!! wrote:

Except one issue, ubisoft aswell as battlenet and Origin are specific company games launchers. (EA, actibliz and ubisoft)
The Epic store is a market place like steam.
So yes the timegated exclusivity Deals are in fact something new, except allready often a reality on consoles allready.

What about games like Company of Heroes? Or heck many of the modern Total War games - games which are tied into the steam store directly.
Currently the only difference is that you can buy those games on other online stores - or rather you can buy a code to activate them on Steam - only.

The only difference is that Epic Store doesn't/won't have codes you can buy to activate games and let you buy them on Fanaticals/Humble/Steam/etc....

Currently the only difference is that you can buy those games on other online stores - or rather you can buy a code to activate them on Steam - only.

This is excactly how steam is not as exclusive.
Unlike Epic, not saying steam as a quasi marketplace monopoly is something good but Epic is somehow worse and goes out of it's way to further be bad for consumers.

I am also fairly certain that their general terms break multiple rulings of countries.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LordofHats wrote:

 Overread wrote:
"hate EA"

I don't need a crowd to tell me to hate EA. I hate them because every other piece of news out of the company is something awful, and they've personally cheated me out of things I paid money for. feth um. Awful company. Treats their customers like brain dead money bags (and are tragically proven right more often than not).

And at the end of the day, Steam doesn't really have "Exclusives." Steam has things that are only available on Steam by virtue of being a Valve product, or because Steam was directly involved as a publisher. I've never heard of Steam ever in any of its agreements forcing market exclusivity on anyone (to be fair, they hardly needed to cause the market offers little competition). Epic Games isn't making any games or even publishing much. They're just trying to bully a slip shod product onto the market place by grabbing up games and giving the developers and publishers good deals so long as they get the game all to themselves for a little while.

So yeah, there's hate. There's hate cause there's some douche bag running through the grocery store grabbing up all the apples and saying "mine" and all anyone wants is their dumb apples. Not another piece of junkware on their PCs to keep track of.

Also this, i remember when I had to, multiple times, call to them due to activation issues for bf 4.
Not only impolite but also one of their suggestions was to just rebuy the game...... But EA is EA and there's a reason for the worst companies awards it accumulated.

A Borderlands game created during the era of Lootboxes and "Live Services".

This is going to be a DLC-disaster, and that's before we even get to the Epic Store bull gak (I mean there are already 3 versions besides the $200+ collector's).

Think I'll give this one a miss...