Anyone playing The Division?

 

Going to pick it up tomorrow. Any thoughts on it yet or are you still waiting?

 

Waiting. Still no idea what it is, really.

 

I personally like Rome2 more than Attila - combat and strategy wise Attila might have the advantage but I find things like the increased "difficulty" in food/resource management a big inconvenience (less that it decreases with time and more the fact that there is no longer a national "stockpile"). Plus it has a more varied map/troops (and while Roman are one of my favourite factions I really find the West Roman starting position a bit too bothersome - especially for more relaxed playthroughs).

 

Did you miss the open betas? They showed pretty well what kind of game it is.

 

Nope, because I played the Destiny Beta and learned my lesson there.

 

Why yes, I am a glutton MMORPGs.

 

I'd agree about needing a party to make it enjoyable, the lack of one is what killed Destiny for me almost straight off the bat

 

You'll have people defending that by saying there are plenty of out-of-game resources for 'matchmaking', but they've always been a bummer and a pointless barrier.

It's even worse in the Division though because, while you seemingly have actual matchmaking, the 'survival game' mechanic of 'who can you trust?' in pvp sounds like a nightmare with randoms.

In other unrelated news, Riot seem to have bought the studio behind Rising Thunder (amongst other things). It's not a new thing for them to be acquiring studios, but I always just assumed it was to compliment LoL. Curious to see if they're going to diversify and become a more traditional mega-publisher like EA or Activision.

 

Supposedly there's been talks inside Riot for the past couple years about making their own fighting game with League characters. If they still want to do that, acquiring one of the few companies with knowledge making high-skill fighting games is a good way to make it work. This is the most likely outcome, given that they're shutting down Rising Thunder and moving the team to another project.

The more paranoid rumor is that they were bought because Riot wants to own EVO (the big fighting game tournament). The two co-owners of EVO also founded and run the Rising Thunder studio, so it's kind of possible. Not sure if it'd be a good idea seeing how the FGC flips out about esports, but it's wouldn't be the craziest thing to happen in esports.

 

Riot have always maintained that they want to make games other than LoL. There was a claimed leak a few years ago that they were making a card game which got scrapped after Hearthstone came out.

 

Bought the division today. Spent an hour trying to log into a virtual laptop for a virtual character so I can activate his imaginary government sanctioned powers so I can go shoot people. Gave up and went to go shoot lots of people in broforce.

Good to know ubisoft still can impress.

 

A fighting game with League characters in the style of Rising Thunder (no execution) sounds fucking awesome!

 

I'm going to go against the trend and say I'm enjoying the hell out of The Division. It's gorgeous, I haven't had a technical problem with it (any beta or yesterday after release), and while I'm sure it would be truly impressive going at stuff with a well-formed team, I don't feel it takes away from anything being alone - I think if anything, it makes the setting more pronounced - the small details like hearing people's last phone conversations, seeing the echoes of events that happened leading up to present time... I love it.

Will it be worth full price to everyone? Probably not. Do I feel like I'll get my money's worth? Easily.

 

So I picked it up yesterday, got a few hours done and the initial thoughts are positive. You're able to get the missions done by yourself if alone and frankly speaking the person I teamed up with had yet to learn about cover so once he quit things actually got easier.

The bullet sponge effect is a bit annoying, like wasting 60 bullets on one guy just seems ridiculously excessive but overall, I'm enjoying it. And can definitely see myself going through til the end of the game.

 

The only issue I can see with it atm is 'dude with gun' enemy getting boring. Let me know if there's an alien invasion in act 3, lol.

 

I just downloaded the Bravely Second Demo, I am so fucking excited for this game.
/points to avatar