Hard pass, although the non micro-transactions stuff looks pretty solid. I don't like the theme either, so I'm hoping someone is going to take this system and apply it to a setting that isn't generic enough that it's barely recognizable even as LotR.
As for the whole "without microtransactions games would be way more expensive or not exist" argument, then fine - if you can't turn a profit without adding all this nonsense, then maybe you shouldn't be making the game?
It's not even the cost that turns me off - I would probably buy a more expensive game up front if it was the standard - it's the fact that I have no trust in that the game hasn't been rebalanced to encourage you to make those purchases. Seems pretty suspect to me that someone would include a way of spending more real money on in-game content and not design their game in such a way to encourage you to spend that money. I'm honestly just kinda tired of it, and this game is the most recent of many that has just worn my patience with that stuff down to the bare bone. Playing games is a hobby that I do to have fun and enjoy myself, not get bombarded by ads and led down the path of trying to trick me into spending more money on something I've already thrown down 60+ bones for. Quit trying to upsell me, please.
Eh, I'll skip this one. Might be other people's cup of tea (presumably they will tell me to lighten up and stop taking things so seriously soon enough) and that's cool, but low effort trolling that is a bit boring is readily accessible if I just fire up twitter so I don't need to watch a 40+ min video featuring it. Excited to see the first terror mission though, that's going to be a spicy one.
There's a serious lack of my favourite part of ZMF's lists every year - the weird backlash in the comments sections, perhaps 2016 has taught us all to chill as a survival mechanism.
It got me especially hard, because of the unexpected permanence of video game save files - they're made to stick around forever, but only really for the benefit of someone picking it up in the short term and wiping them over and over due to size limits, most games end up left unplayed again forever once finished up (barring your favourites). Seeing someone's progress there (or even yours, from years ago) is somehow still a very fresh reminder, because of the whole digital never decaying (well, for the most part, bit rot is a thing) as a concept.
mysteriousdrd's comments