curiosus

Theres nothing unique about RFID tags, thats some I don't understand this marketing talk for they didn't want to make them amiibos. A LEGO Mario switch game could read these tags or connect to the Mario, but if thats the plan it will probably focus on the bluetooth connection to Mario.

I was hoping for a massive Princess Peach's castle when they announced this the other day. This is a weird toy idea with the built-in LCD and the crotch hole for scanning RFID tags. He also seems to have a bluetooth button on the back, hopefully that's just for updates or some optional remote control, its a big fail if this requires a smartphone tether. Theres already a lego theme with its own AR game app and I'm not convinced its following EU data protection laws fully.

I've only been watching the specials for the last few years. The discussions were just exhausting and not that interesting. At this point maybe just skype the deliberations and record video on both coasts. Use the time in san Fran to do fun stuff together instead, its certainly what i'd rather be watching and I hope also more fun to make.

Sweep you generalised about a bunch of people, their opinions, tried to link them all to harassment of this dev for holding those opinions and then you ask that people don't get personal with you? Your opening post is flamebait to use a 10 year old term and very much seems to contain a personal vendetta. I don't think you are anywhere near providing a balanced view as you are trying to claim, it reads as someone with an axe to grind. That you don't want to engage with reasonable reasons to be unhappy with Epic's behaviour and keep going back to the nutty stuff is evidence enough. Its also focusing the debate on the nonsense, you talk about not feeding the trolls and then focus exclusively on responding to them and noone else? Some self reflection please.

Exclusivity is not for consumer benefit, Epic has been very open about using it because they aren't ready to compete on marketplace features, in the short term this is disruptive and we aren't getting anything out of it, on the whole its been entirely negative because of the responses, and yes Epic caused that regardless of the people taking things too far, it was an entirely predictable response in this industry. Maybe things play out over the long term and Epic finally improve on and dislodge steam and we end up with cheaper prices, better stores, and more choice; thats not something I'd take purely on faith, and I won't be using Epic until they wind down exclusivity and their store has something to offer. But the video-on-demand industries idea of service choice, content split across expanding numbers of services is something many executives would love to bring about, if only people wouldn't yell at them so much. Stadia is Google trying to do just that. There is good reason to be fearful of Epic, very few corporations are good citizens these days, and this whole mess has been about Epic's benefit and noone elses. The better market split for devs is just PR, ofc they have to offer that to even get a foothold against steam, its not evidence of generosity just basic business sense.

Should people be harassing devs? Absolutely not. Should they be voicing their negative opinions en masse over decisions they disagree with? Absolutely. I don't for a second think most of those people are being reasonable with their complaints and they need to dial it down a few notches, but I also expect a large proportion of the communication they received was genuine, if we weren't living in an age of anger maybe this would have been a letter writing campaign. Angry people are not great at clearly expressing themselves, that doesn't necessarily mean they are wrong.

If mass effect was actually written in a way that made living with the consequences and branching stories a fun and worthwhile experience I'd say carry on.

But its not at all. It has a very specific narrative it wants to tell and the player is punished for losing characters. Some Mass Effect fans would like to pretend the writing holds up in all possible choices but it just doesn't. Thats not a knock against Mass Effect, noone has yet fully realised branching stories in a way that works well. Living with the consequences to uphold an imaginary ideal of what Mass Effect could be is ridiculous, play it for what it is a narrative driven game with a primary canon.

@baconhound: I've been pretty negative about my disappointment over the dlc plan but everything else is great. Its worth picking up the expansion at 50% off and if you've still got more stuff to do in levels the bank is a good snack to get you back in. I'm close to 100% unlocks so was looking for something more significant to get my teeth into. They even added a new mechanic in bank that I've emailed them about before (it involves wet floors).

I've done maybe over 75% of the challenges now, in 2 runs, would have 1 but a bunch of them were missing on release day. Its a really great map but I can't get over how small it is. Still holding out hope that the resort is massive, but I expect its another small one.

I won't be buying expansion passes or any dlc at launch for hitman 3, its a real bummer to have to take that position but I can't support a publisher with such a bizarre and out of touch DLC strategy. The expansion pass is half price right now so there was no reason at all to pick it up at launch, there were a few cosmetics in January but waiting a few months to get them would have been fine. I bought early because I trusted IOI but didn't think about WBs track record. Its about the right price now at 50% off, but I'd rather get 50% or 100% more content and pay a sensible amount for that extra content.

I was happy with Hitman 1, the DLC was priced reasonably, everything was communicated clearly. Apart from patient Zero which was after they lost their publisher and needed cash because Square were unreasonable. We got a few sentences describing the DLC last year so WB could shrink it if the game sold badly. And now the 2 bonus missions have ended up as special assignments a fairly big downgrade.

WB also ruined the Arkham series with bad DLC and not delaying when more work was needed (Arkham Knight). They have form ruining franchises but I'm primarily looking at my experience with Hitman 1, versus Hitman 2 and the only reasonable explanation for the worsening DLC experience is WB even if they didn't have form.

Saying this is standard practice is ridiculous, this industry is routinely screwing Devs and consumers. Not doing right be people's salaries, not properly funding development, gouging consumers, coming up with 'surprise mechanics' and wondering cluelessly why they are so hated that government is going to have regulate them. This industry is massively profitable for the right people (publishers and shareholders not devs). This greed is not excusable, defendable or normal its just become routine. Its only seems irrelevant to Hitman because its everywhere. That doesn't mean I'm gonna be happy that its ruining one of my current favourite franchises. I would spend more on Hitman if only the content was there, even if WB was still publishing, but I've never seen them even react to this stuff beyond trying to blame their devs for Arkham.

The episodic model was a huge success, pricing quibbles aside. I doubt IOI changed the model, they had a full year to see how successful it was after the initial whining vanished. Thats something coming from WB, the release model, forcing the game out when it needed a few more months polish, the prices and tiering of DLC is pretty standard for all games they publish. And its crap, that says nothing about IOI because its been forced on them by their publisher, and we've seen what they can do when a publisher is not forcing them to follow a bad release formula.

£45 for main game, £33 for expansion pass is what I'd tell you if you asked me how much any WB game costs. Thats a great price for the main game, and massively overpriced for 2 extra levels. The first of which is good but on the small side. Don't defend shitty DLC practices like this its, the responsibility all falls on the publisher, this is WBs usual greedy approach. Is a bad value proposition and not letting IOI deliver the singleplayer content I want to see. I gave them the benefit of the doubt over patient zero because it was priced reasonably, they were up front about what it was, and that they needed money because of their situation. That doesn't make it ok for their new publisher to keep that going rather than give IOI the money to develop properly. WB is selling out IOI and the fans.

Perhaps worried for the studio is a bit of an exaggeration, I am sure WB will keep funding them and they will make 3. But things are moving in the wrong direction content wise and they are losing the audience they captured in 2016. The obvious answer to me is invest more and put out more content or allow the studio to use the same model as the first game, but the obvious answer to games producer execs, is cut funding and blame the studios. WB seems to have the same overpriced bad dlc model for every game.