You mean the CEO’s didn’t just cut themselves a large bonus/raise and give a the people that actually made the thing a metophoric middle finger? That’s pretty great.
Never played crimson desert. Black desert was really well made but the monetezation is predatory.
I wonder which game made them more money.
If crimson desert heralds the end of the kslop mmo that would be great.
Kmmorpgs hold a special place in my heart though. One of spite and hatred.
RF Online, may it rest in the memory I had of it as a teenager, was my first foray into it. There was a brief window of time where the Grind excited me. There were no in game purchases. Of course there was a subscription. I killed two graphics cards and a CPU on it because I had it running 24/7. Then they nerfed the drops. Then they nerfed defences. Then they buffed the bosses so that only guilds with an extraordinary amount of players and wealth could beat them, THEN they made the game free to play and the 3-faction Chip Wars was never fun again.
Crimson Desert has no monetization like that at all. It’s a pay once get everything game.
And it’s absolutely fucking superb IMO, best game of the last decade.
It’s not that unusual, my wife’s at a AAA Japanese owned company and they do fat bonuses for everyone if a game does well (which isn’t a pay raise, but I get the desire not to make it permanent given the next game could flop). That includes people who aren’t even on the game, although I imagine it’s more if it’s your game.
But Japanese do it different from the US and people are expected to stay as long as they can, which is different from US job market. I imagine Korean and other non-US companies have pretty similar setups. Hell, even the US used to be like this before wealth inequality got so bad.
I would have been better off in Japan. My salary is kept “competitive” at my employer, and I HATE changing jobs (and its far too risky to with a kid, and id probably have to move anyway which is a deal killer).
The upside is that (so far) I have a pension.
It’s a mixed bag. Their economy is getting really bad and they have less workers rights by a bit, which is saying a lot since the US workers rights are bad. But yeah, loyalty is still valued, as is a sense of real teamwork.
My wife gets the benefit of working in the US division, so she doesn’t have those problems. Her pay would probably be better at EA or Riot, but we like that her company isn’t… well, them.
I’m getting mixed comments about this game.
A lot of people say it’s shallow as hell. While Others say it’s a mess of a game with a lot of deep mechanics. And the anti-woke crowd is hope posting nonstop about how incredible this game is to nobody.
Then I see posts like this where the company seems alright and rewarding the team, rather than the more common story of sell a billion copies then fire everybody.
No idea how I’m supposed to feel and no urgency to play this game when I’m still catching up on the best games released like five years ago.
It is both an incredible game and also, somehow, riddled with absolutely bonkers design decisions. It is overall a good game, but it has tons of small issues that add up over a session of play. I like it; but I would very much add a huge disclaimer along with my recommendation for it because it can be hard if you’re not a soulslike player (tho they have added easier difficulty modes since launch), the puzzle design is inconsistent to the point where the solution can often be super easy but figuring out how to actually interact with the puzzle is frustratingly unintuitive, and the quests jump around between characters and events in very nonsensical ways. One moment you’re just gathering herbs for the tavern keeper of a town, the next you’re sent off to fight some magical bandit way up in the mountains without any kind of segue or even having anyone talk about the boss.
It has depth to it mechanically; but a lot of mechanics aren’t actually used for much. Like you can use brooms to sweep floors and clean chimneys; after over 100 hours of play I have only had quests to use this mechanic TWICE; and one was the tutorial on how to use the broom right at the start of the game.
It can also be overwhelming with the controls. I haven’t used M&KB myself but it’s one of the ever present complaints about how shit is bound and what can’t be changed. Playing on controller is also kinda awkward as every single button has 3 or 4 possible contextual actions and you also need to utilize a lot of button combos; almost every possible combination you can press has some action associated with it. Doing some of the most awesome moves feels like you need 3 hands to pull it off consistently. Like grappling a high point, launching yourself into a ball and then using a special ability only activated from that spinning ball state takes 3 combos of buttons in rapid succession. Until you’re familiar with the whole sequence you will probably fuck up the input at some point, and if you’re not very dextrious you may never pull it off smoothly.
The graphics are also kinda weird sometimes. It can be incredibly beautiful, nearly photo realistic. Other times, like inside, at night, or during rainstorms, it looks uglier than a game from 2003.
The main thing keeping me going is that combat is fun as hell, and the feeling of the game is hella good. It’s very much like a fantasy RDR2; it just also has bafflingly bad bullshit like a Bethesda RPG does.
It’s this generation’s skyrim. Great if you retained your ability to wonder and have a lot of free time
It is kinda shallow compared to Skyrim though. A lot of mechanics are there just to use it once or twice (while struggling with controls) and then forget about it. The story is also abysmal and feels like one big AI hallucination.
I think being a kid when skyrim came out has clouded your memory of it
Oblivion Remastered was a amazing blast to the past with modern graphics. But man did I forget how much mods I threw on there to thoroughly expand on my oblivion experience.
I mean, there’s an actual story, and the gameplay loop is consistent in the right way. It was an actual game and not a randomizer of all kinds of half-baked ideas
Shallow is the only word I use to describe Skyrim in current year
Ideally they’ll do several dlc and updates for 2 3 years. That can be enough to make a good story.
Falcon on Gameranx has two or three vids on this over time. One specifically compares how it launched to how it is now after many patches and updates.
TLDR: He still feels it’s a mile wide and an inch deep, and not really his bag, but he lauds the devs for incorporating real feedback into patches. He was impressed by how fast and how many fixes etc. they’ve implemented since launch. I haven’t played it and am waiting for a sale, but I think his comments give it a fair shake.
I haven’t played much of it yet and after facing a consistent crash that made story progression impossible I also have no real desire to go back.
It’s not bad by any means, but you gotta carve out a big block in your gaming time for it, and I’m not in the right headspace for that rn.
