500k active players isnt dead. fallout76 is dead.

[quote]500k active players isnt dead. fallout76 is dead.[/quote] Like 14 million people bought the game. So... yeah....its dead.

I don't think anyone **wanted** to run the game. I think the game has been severely damaged, and possibly crippled by. 1. Poor management of the company. 2. Poor coordination due to expansion of the company too rapidly. (Bungie went from 200 employees nearly a thousand in less than 10 years) 3. Because of Points 1 and 2....you had factions within the company working their own agendas. This led to two major management shake ups....and endless fighting for control over the game. 4. So you wound up with everyone focused on what they wanted the game to BE....and going off in all directions at once.....rather than working with what the game actually was. And making the best version of THAT game. 5. As an organization, Bungie is arrogant. While they are brilliantly creative, they know next to nothing about good RPG game design....and they refuse to learn from anyone who does. Blizzard tried to help them....but Bungie is basically doing the OPPOSITE of everything that has led to Blizzard's decades of success. Sort of like the angry 15 year old who thinks he knows everything. But Bungie's pride keeps them looking backwards to Halo's success....and married to the notion that they can simply do whatever they like, and the gaming public will not only accept it....but will love it. ...and that won't fly in 2019. OTOH. Look at BioWare. The only reason that Anthem is still a viable franchise at this point is becuse BioWare is doing the OPPOSITE of what Bungie is doing with Destiny. They are transparent. They are interactive. They are nimble. They announced a major patch for the 12th to address the lingering stability problems. Are introducing many requested QoL changes to the game. As well as having already diagnosed the causes of the power-down crashes that were happening on PS4....and have announced that a fix is already in process. This is Bungie's competition here. If Anthem can hang on through this difficult birthing process, BioWare will not only position themselves to eat Bungie's lunch.... ...they'll eat Bungie's soul, the way things seem to be going in Bellevue right now.

Bungie should fear The Division 2, not Anthem. Anthem is developed by a bunch of single player devs forced to make a service game that was apparently developed in a sealed bunker where no lesson from other service games managed to get through the walls. Anthem is broken to the core and dead on arrival. The so called "transparency" of Bioware is nothing but a marketing tactic because they need every selling point they can get with a game that can't stand on its own feet.

Disagree. This is just how new online, persistent world games launch. The only games that manage to avoid this same cycle are games that release into the hothouse environment of being PC only games..... ...and then only port over to consoles once they've gone through their growing pains and problems out of the spotlight like Warframe, DCUO, and now Black Desert Online have done. If you think even the Division 2 is going to avoid some of this next week? I've got bad news for you. It is just too fashionable to hate on games, and to profitable to streamers and content creators to create negative narratives around games. They'll sink their teeth into The Division 2 as well. It'll be a hit with Division fans.....but others will take their pound of flesh. [quote] The so called "transparency" of Bioware is nothing but a marketing tactic because they need every selling point they can get with a game that can't stand on its own feet.[/quote] That's your own cynicism talking.

No loot shooter game launched in such an abysmal state. 1 model for every weapon type, the level 1 weapon being the strongest in the game, no character stats, no endgame content, endless loading screens. Nothing except for the "Ooooh I'm Iron Man pew pew" works in this game. Anthem is a turd. A very shiny and pretty one on the surface, but that's about it. There is a reason why it's the lowest rated loot shooter at launch, by the press and the users.

The Division launched in worse shape. Much worse shape. I know because I logged a lot of hours playing both games. Lots of people want to exaggerate Anthem’s problems because it’s trendy to hate developers. Especially EA.

Yeah, your fanboy conspiracy theory about EA falls apart a little if you look at how Apex Legends is received, currently sitting at a Metacritic score of 88. EA is the publisher by the way, not the developer. And The Division wasn't nearly as bad as Anthem at launch. I have 1000+ hrs in The Division 1 and you're just talking nonsense, probably to shill for Anthem.

Oh stop. Why do you think Respawn launched the game in SECRET? The only person talking nonsense here is you. I was a Day one, hardcore player of The Division....and to the extent that you think it is a great game....you can thank players like me. Because that game was a rolling DUMPSTER fire when it launched, because it got pushed out the door at LEAST a year before it was ready...and we had to go to WAR with Massive in order get them to turn it into a good game. When the game launched: 1. Story missions were bugged and wouldn't launch. 2. You'd repeatedly fall through the map to your death. 3. There was a bug that crashed people's accounts, and locked them out of them. So the game was literally unplayable. That bug took Massive a MONTH to fix. 4. The end-game was vacant. All it was grinding the same story missions over and over again....against OBNOXIOUSLY bullet-spongy enemies. As one Division forum poster staid it, "The game is RPG-shooter. The problem is that we're playing an RPG, and the NPCs are playing a tactical shooter." 5. Security measures on the PC version of the game were non-existent. So hackers and other cheaters ran unchecked in the DZ. 6. The DLC content was so poorly QA tested that exploits ran amok when the first two incursions were dropped....and don't even get me started on how horrible and not-at-all fun they were (and still are) to play. The first 6 months of The Divison was a TRAIN-WRECK and practically wrote the book on how NOT to manage a video game. Because they came within a hair's breadth of destroying their own game. But to their credit Massive finally realize that the game was practically unplayable after 6 months.. They put the entire franchise on hold...and turned to their community and basically said, "We know that this game is in a bad state. Even WE don't enjoy playing it anymore. Help teach us how to make the game you'll like to play". The community rallied around the game. Massive swallowed their pride.....and LISTENED. They took three months to overhaul and redesign major parts of the game. What game out the other side was a game that felt more like the campaign experience we fell in love with....and put the game on the trajectory that turned it into a good game by patch 1.8..... ...and laid the groundwork for the sequel that is about to drop next week. Like I said. I KNOW what the -blam!- I'm talking about because I was there from the beginning.

Look, there are 2 groups that review and rate games. Press & users. Both groups have spoken [b]very[/b] clearly on what was and is the inferior game of the two. By far. You can ramble and disagree all you want, it won't change a thing. I played TD1 since Beta as well and clocked around 3k posts on their forums, so what? Anthem is a turd.

[quote]Anthem is a turd.[/quote] Your opinion....and you're welcome to it. Its the same opinion that people have given Destiny. The Division...as well as Anthem. Not to mention other games I've enjoyed playing. [b]I didn't let other people tell me what to think then....and I'm not going to start now[/b]. YMMV. But I'm not going to let you spin fairy tales about how good The Division was at launch. Because it wasn't. In fact it had one of the worst launches of a AAA game I've ever seen. In a long LINE of bad launches of Ubisoft published games.....and it was one MUCH worse than what Anthem is going through. ...and BioWare is fixing their problems MUCH faster than Massive did. Since it took us almost 6 months to get Massive to even ACKNOWLEDGE those problems. Never mind fix them.

I've never said that The Division was so good at launch, you're heavily projecting here. But it wasn't nearly as bad as Anthem, which is broken to the core. That's not my oppinion btw. It's the opinion of the public and the press.

[quote] But it wasn't nearly as bad as Anthem, which is broken to the core. [/quote] ...and that's the fairy tale. The problems that Anthem has are limited to their netcode. Which BioWare is inexperienced at. So basically you have a problem of the game locking up or crashing when you are playing in multiplayer....or problems with lag if someone has a poor connection. Historically, those kind of game problems get fixed....get fixed pretty quickly....and BioWare is living up to that developer trend. The Division had ALL of those problems, plus issues of game-breaking exploits. The inability to detect and stop cheaters in PVP modes on PC. Game-breaking bugs that locked players out of the game for over a month. Plus people falling through maps...shooting through walls...and a whole host of basic quality-testing problems. THESE are the facts. Not only did I live through them, and experience them. So did your precious "public and press". Because they were documented extensively. You either weren't playing the game at the time (which is what I suspect) or you have a VERY selective memory. TLDR: I've played almost 100 hours of Anthem....and haven't fallen through their map once. Playing the Lincoln Tunnel mission I once feel through through the roof of the tunnel to my death THREE TIMES in the same play session. Once fell through the map twice in the SAME LOCATION during the Time Square mission.

I acknowledge the issues The Division had at launch, you're projecting again. I even criticized most of them in the forums at the time. But these problems weren't remotely as bad as the game damaging the integrity of your console or the Level 1 weapon being the strongest in the game, thus rendering all the grind pointless. The facts are that neither Destiny, nor The Division, were rated as poorly as Anthem on their respective launches. And rightfully so, because there was a working game under all the issues they had at launch. Look, you have your minority opinion and that's cool. Enjoy Anthem for all I care. But the verdict is out there and your individual perspective won't change a thing about that. Cheers

[quote]But these problems weren't remotely as bad as the game damaging the integrity of your console or the Level 1 weapon being the strongest in the game, thus rendering all the grind pointless.[/quote] Neither are Anthems. I own a PS4...and am familiar with the screen in question. The game has basically triggered a bug in the PS4 operating system and is forcing an emergency power down. That is NOT a fault of the game....that is a fault of SONY. No game---no matter how poorly designed.----should be forcing that machine to do that. So all you keep doing is making one biased assertion after another, with little-to-no understanding of the issues that are involved here. As well as no acknowledgement of the extremely hostile and biased environment that Antherm has had to operate in. [quote]Look, you have your minority opinion and that's cool. Enjoy Anthem for all I care. But the verdict is out there and your individual perspective won't change a thing about that. [/quote] "The majority isn't always right". As Emerson noted, the truth isn't a popularity contest....and I have zero interest in other people telling me what to think. But I'm not going to let you get away with putting your opinions out there as fact. The Division was a dumpster fire at launch...and one of the worst AAA launches I've seen in the last 20 years. Fact. It was a game that needed another year of development...and nearly sefl-destructed as a result. Credit to Massive in preventing that from happening and ultimately turning the franchise around.

Yeah I day one’d the Division and remember it exactly this way. Now I don’t think they got it turned around until literally the very end, but they did try...

IMO----and those of a lot of others-----Patch 1.8 was a watershed. It really was the version of the game that Massive and Ubisoft should have launched. ...and that version of the game served as the template for the development of the sequel. Which still seems to be getting pretty positive word of mouth through two betas. Despite the manufactured outrage section of content creators trying to stoke hostility towards it as well. Massive deserves a LOT of credit for turning the franchise around when they could have simply taken the money and ran. But nothing whatsoever is gained by trying to pretend that the game was better than it was at launch... It was dumpster fire that Massive deserves credit for hanging in there and fixing.

I did play the beta, and the game felt much better. The audio issues were annoying, it is a beta. DZ felt a lot better, experienced little if any chicken dancing. I’m looking forward to it.

LOL....the Chicken Dance. I remember it well........ I played the closed beta a few weeks ago....the game has some of the old bugs of the first game. But it looks gorgeous (Massive has really turned a corner with their ability to work with Snowdrop), and it really looks like they're building on the success of the first game. It still had server issues to work out as well. But things looked good for where they were at the time.

I don’t know if I would say it’s dead, or even dying, but is failing hard to maintain and recover playerbase and the short comings in the game’s design and execution are compounding.