Back to the Past: Call of Duty WWII
Got an update for this.
The loot box screen is hilarious.
Everyone remembers when the Allies secured Normandy after Private Ryan got a Legendary rank weapon and perk from his loot box and was able to push further in land due to his sick gear.
On one hand developers said this will cut out tedious grinding for prestige and other items and abilities.
On another hand you have to pay money (for a chance, not a guarantee) to get it.
Lootboxes/gacha gambling microtransactions seem to be here to stay in games both big and small.
I hope not all games hop on this max profit train, as they lose some fans but make so much more money in many cases. Double prices and losing a quarter of your fanbase still means a big short and possibly long term profit. Especially since its continuous spending on gambling to try to get low probability items and tons of useless 'common' drops. It's possible and likely in these types of games to spend $100s and not get what you want, or spend $1000 or more for a single item. Extract constant cash from a consumer over a long period of time.
I think I might need another main hobby.
I have not ever seen a situation where I've liked a gambling implementation system, and I'm still looking. It's situational, so maybe I'll find a case where I like it and think its well executed.
The loot box screen is hilarious.
Everyone remembers when the Allies secured Normandy after Private Ryan got a Legendary rank weapon and perk from his loot box and was able to push further in land due to his sick gear.
On one hand developers said this will cut out tedious grinding for prestige and other items and abilities.
On another hand you have to pay money (for a chance, not a guarantee) to get it.
Lootboxes/gacha gambling microtransactions seem to be here to stay in games both big and small.
I hope not all games hop on this max profit train, as they lose some fans but make so much more money in many cases. Double prices and losing a quarter of your fanbase still means a big short and possibly long term profit. Especially since its continuous spending on gambling to try to get low probability items and tons of useless 'common' drops. It's possible and likely in these types of games to spend $100s and not get what you want, or spend $1000 or more for a single item. Extract constant cash from a consumer over a long period of time.
I think I might need another main hobby.
I have not ever seen a situation where I've liked a gambling implementation system, and I'm still looking. It's situational, so maybe I'll find a case where I like it and think its well executed.
Last edited:
Spartakrod
Judeo-Spartacist Bolshevik-Kabbalist
- Location
- Sanctum Arcanorum
- Pronouns
- Fae/Faer/Faers/Faerself
Jim is understandably disappointed
I don't think I've really bought any triple A games this year and the increasingly gross gambling system implementation has only helped me avoid that whole sphere of gaming even more.
Plus, what's there really to be excited about anymore? Yet another CoD? Yet another Ubisoft radio tower open world sidequest bonanza game? This year's annual EA sports game? Another Bethesda RPG with shallow combat mechanics and mediocre writing?
The high end of game developers feel so stale these days, maybe that's why they're going all out on post-purchase monetization to make more money rather than take a risk with anything particularly novel.
I don't think I've really bought any triple A games this year and the increasingly gross gambling system implementation has only helped me avoid that whole sphere of gaming even more.
Plus, what's there really to be excited about anymore? Yet another CoD? Yet another Ubisoft radio tower open world sidequest bonanza game? This year's annual EA sports game? Another Bethesda RPG with shallow combat mechanics and mediocre writing?
The high end of game developers feel so stale these days, maybe that's why they're going all out on post-purchase monetization to make more money rather than take a risk with anything particularly novel.
- Location
- The Hague
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It's not just any Call of Duty, it's a return to its roots - fighting Nazis. I can't prove this or anything, but I am absolutely certain that the uptick in actual real world Nazis is due to Call of Duty 4. It popularised everything but Nazis, which left us with a ten year gap where mainstream video game entertainment didn't really feature them as antagonists.
Whales make effort meaningless. Why make a game when you can just feed a whale's achievement addiction?
Spartakrod
Judeo-Spartacist Bolshevik-Kabbalist
- Location
- Sanctum Arcanorum
- Pronouns
- Fae/Faer/Faers/Faerself
The way I see it, this future either leads to the mobile gamification of most of the triple A industry or the legislative hammer coming down like a meteor to wipe out the proverbial dinosaurs.
A lot of the complaints he has seem to have been evolving.
Steam and TF2 and CSGO had the reskin trade, where it was found people preferred purple and flame decals on their guns instead of stock images or camo, flashy colors and tacticool attachments.
Then they added server wide announcements when someone unboxed a legendary or paid a certain amount.
COD is taking this further, by having drops happen live in front of players in free roam lobbies and matches, with announcements as well.
A lot to try to build envy, jealous and desire and social status around certain items, or recognition. Try to make a community around it, sometimes with a trading market, but sometimes without.
Activision also recently patented a system that isn't officially in use here from known info, but is pretty nasty to try to build addicts.
It rigs the match maker so every few games a person who doesn't buy loot boxes is matched with a team of people with high level, flashy and powerful gear, with higher ELO and presumably higher skill.
Once a person gets presumably stomped in by and loses hard to the uneven match making, an incentive pops up to encourage trying to buy their own loot with gambling or other microtransactions. Perhaps a subscription or temporary season pass that affects drops somehow or other things.
The company apparently hired psychologists along with programmers to try to maximize results for the majority of people. Make it so the average person doesn't get so angry they quit, but make them frustrated and give them a potential money based 'solution'. The program apparently only does this deliberately nasty match making every once in awhile.
I wonder if this niche thing, how it will evolve.
AAA games as it are now are becoming very expensive to make and very risky. Even a basic game to run with 'acceptable' graphics and hardware for modern consoles needs to have a huge budget. And then the rest of the game needs to be made, with gameplay and story often a secondary focus. There's a high bar for many fans for acceptable graphics, perhaps not the majority but definitely a big amount, or at least a vocal, influential minority. Maybe even a big deal for as high as 40% of fans. Standards for what is good graphics also likely vary. These all cause budget bloat, along with marketing costs.
Instead a mobile or cheaper game with low budget have shown they can reach a broad audience and make a lot of money, like League of Legends or Clash of Clans or Candy Crush, with an estimate of nearly a billion downloads, at some points between 1,000 to 100,000 downloads per day or more. Wide appeal.
Or slightly more niche appeal and massive profit from whales. World of Warships or Fire Emblem Heroes or FGO could be considered this this. Still millions of downloads so not totally niche even for a 'free' game, but considerable money made for their install base size.
Or both, somehow get a broad appeal game with a lot of whales.
And these games are often very low risk and low budget games and marketing.
I wonder if the video game market will diversify into more, lower budget, less wide appeal but more niche titles designed to milk whales for money.
Last edited:
Triggerhappy
Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through
- Location
- SoCal
Are you saying the Nazi's thought it was safe to come out because they hoped people had forgotten killing Nazis was fun?
- Location
- Georgia, US
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Since no-one posted the Zombies trailer I might as well do it:
For the game as a whole I've enjoyed the campaign trailers and zombies IMO looks amazing. I doubt this will be a masterpiece but I wouldn't be surprised if I buy WWII someday and get a fair amount of enjoyment out of it.
For the game as a whole I've enjoyed the campaign trailers and zombies IMO looks amazing. I doubt this will be a masterpiece but I wouldn't be surprised if I buy WWII someday and get a fair amount of enjoyment out of it.
Last edited:
Aodyssey
The glass will not protecc you
- Location
- Chaldea
The campaign was very well done. Respectful and far more willing to face the worse parts of WWII without making them obscene for its own sake. It felt like a step in the right direction - away from the spectacle and more towards the classic Saving Private Ryan/Band of Brothers feels.
Otherwise, there's still the dumb enemies flood and waffling flammen is still as dumb as it was. Surprisingly, they took away the historically accurate overshield in lieu of First Aid Kits like the older games.
Otherwise, there's still the dumb enemies flood and waffling flammen is still as dumb as it was. Surprisingly, they took away the historically accurate overshield in lieu of First Aid Kits like the older games.
My opinions.
The good, I liked the story as well. Though I liked Infinite Warfare's more and am a little disappointed it sold so much worse.
The bad, the gameplay still feels stale as I'm still burned out about COD game mechanics. Maybe next release. Combined with the microtransactions which I don't like supporting, this isn't a buy for me.
It's interesting how there's some anti women people in some of the COD comments on some of their fan forums and other comment places.
That French resistance woman got a lot of hate from some people.
I wonder if Medal of Honor Underground or COD's Tanya Pavelovna would have gotten similar levels of hate with the same level of Internet.
It is also interesting how the arguments of some who didn't like the concept changed.
'It's unrealistic!' When it was pointed out how females in the French resistance are in fact more realistic then Rambo fighting through thousands of enemies troops solo, the arguments changed to 'It's irrelevant, women in the French resistance doesn't matter'. "It ruins my suspension of disbelief/immersion/mindset/expectations of a WW2 shoot bang game"
Many commentators seem to dislike having women in a minor role, nevermind a more major combat, leadership, main character or otherwise more active role or story relevant role. Not even a minor, unvoiced or just screaming helpless background role for some people.
I wonder if some of the comments are 'trolls' but it doesn't matter. They believe in the concept enough to parrot it and encourage others to have such beliefs. Even without Poe's Law.
The good, I liked the story as well. Though I liked Infinite Warfare's more and am a little disappointed it sold so much worse.
The bad, the gameplay still feels stale as I'm still burned out about COD game mechanics. Maybe next release. Combined with the microtransactions which I don't like supporting, this isn't a buy for me.
It's interesting how there's some anti women people in some of the COD comments on some of their fan forums and other comment places.
That French resistance woman got a lot of hate from some people.
I wonder if Medal of Honor Underground or COD's Tanya Pavelovna would have gotten similar levels of hate with the same level of Internet.
It is also interesting how the arguments of some who didn't like the concept changed.
'It's unrealistic!' When it was pointed out how females in the French resistance are in fact more realistic then Rambo fighting through thousands of enemies troops solo, the arguments changed to 'It's irrelevant, women in the French resistance doesn't matter'. "It ruins my suspension of disbelief/immersion/mindset/expectations of a WW2 shoot bang game"
Many commentators seem to dislike having women in a minor role, nevermind a more major combat, leadership, main character or otherwise more active role or story relevant role. Not even a minor, unvoiced or just screaming helpless background role for some people.
I wonder if some of the comments are 'trolls' but it doesn't matter. They believe in the concept enough to parrot it and encourage others to have such beliefs. Even without Poe's Law.
That seems more than a little far stretched to me and I think you do yourself and the topic a serious disservice by trying to simplify an issue as complicated as the rising popularity of "nazis" to a single game franchise or indeed computer game sin general....
- Location
- Georgia, US
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yup, misogyny is a hell of a drug. Fundamentally "realism" is just a pre-text, they don't want female characters and everything else is just a smokescreen.
Burning Baron
This position needs more entrenching.
- Location
- In here, not out there.
Once again, the real meat is multiplayer, with a single player campaign all of about six hours long.So, is it worth the 60 bucks to drop or not?Infinite Warfare sort of burned me slightly in the grand scheme of things and Ghosts was something I got when it was on a Steam sale.
- Location
- Georgia, US
- Pronouns
- He/Him
That doesn't really answer if it's worth it or not, also I've bought Call of Duty's for the campaign+zombies before and found it worth the price so what is the meat of the game is a tad subjective
- Location
- Brisbane
What got my goat watching LP's was that they had to shoehorn a bunch of American GIs into the Maquis/SOE missions. The whole Nazi shivving adventure game thing looked quite fun.
Also, WTF was up with the Germans spamming Stukas everywhere?
Play it and I love it. I pick up the mauser and immediately abandoned it seconds later. Like the fuck?!, no wonder why you guys lose the war. Slow ass firing rate. M1-Garand all the way!. At least until I got the BAR, light machineguns, MG42 etc. Like holy smokes, I'm the only one in the battlefields running with machineguns, while lesser mortals carry rifles and submachineguns.
- Location
- Great Falls, Montana
As I told you in SB:Play it and I love it. I pick up the mauser and immediately abandoned it seconds later. Like the fuck?!, no wonder why you guys lose the war. Slow ass firing rate. M1-Garand all the way!. At least until I got the BAR, light machineguns, MG42 etc. Like holy smokes, I'm the only one in the battlefields running with machineguns, while lesser mortals carry rifles and submachineguns.
Actually it's the difference between US and German (and remember, Nazis simply evolved from Imperial German doctrine) infantry doctrines. When comparing the infantry rifle units of the US and Germans, it starts to become like night and day.
For the US, rifle infantry is centered towards the rifle than anything. Since assault rifles haven't become a thing yet, the M1 became the centerpiece of US rifle infantry and the US's definitions on MGs were specific to the caliber not how it was used.
For the Germans, rifle infantry was centered around the machine gun, usually the GMG that is the MG-34 or the MG-42 in the LMG role. Germans had their MG definitions on the actual roles and setups not the caliber.
This is how a German Infantry Squad is usually setup:
Basically a ten man squad that is led by a squad leader and has the MG team intergrated with the squad. It pretty much caused German Infantry Platoons to look a lot like this:
(remember, this is four squads of BURTTTTTTTTT we're talking about here)
The US on the other hand had squads looking like this:
Also, helpful video on those who need a more in-depth look into German infantry tactics during WW2:
Also the US infantry composition video:
Railyn
fluffy
- Location
- my comfy bed
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Don't think anyone here has mentioned the zombies mode, so I'll drop in my two cents: It's really good! In effect, WWII Nazi Zombies is a more streamlined version of what's come before. You've still got your layered objectives, your labyrinthine maps, your shortcuts and traps and all of that good stuff. They have, however, given a lot more information to players up front, and added a bit more leeway to the general gameplay, so it's easier for people who aren't great at Zombies to feel reasonably useful instead of just hanging around dead for the majority of every wave after 15 or so.
There's a "simple" primary objective for the map that's detailed for you as you complete it; they'll throw your next step onto your notebook for you to check at any time. (Of course, there's another primary objective that they don't tell you about, if you're looking to scour the map for clues.) Buy points for your current weapons are highlighted through walls when you bring up your notebook so you don't get lost trying to remember where the heck you picked up that gun you just ran out of ammo for. You can buy a shield that'll protect you from three lethal hits before needing to be re-purchased, at an escalating price. Perks aren't lost immediately after going down; rather, your bleedout timer has breakpoints, and at each of these breakpoints you lose one more perk, so if you're helped up right away, you don't have to run around the map grabbing your perks before you're useful again. The loadout system works surprisingly well, with each of the four special abilities and all the mods I've seen being quite useful, if situational.
About the only things that are kinda crap are the powerups you get out of loot boxes (I've just been ignoring those, honestly) and the game's strange obsession with spawning zombies ten feet in front of you while you're running, to the point of literally dropping them out of the sky.
Overall, it's a really enjoyable experience, and it feels a lot more welcoming than Black Ops 3 Zombies did.
There's a "simple" primary objective for the map that's detailed for you as you complete it; they'll throw your next step onto your notebook for you to check at any time. (Of course, there's another primary objective that they don't tell you about, if you're looking to scour the map for clues.) Buy points for your current weapons are highlighted through walls when you bring up your notebook so you don't get lost trying to remember where the heck you picked up that gun you just ran out of ammo for. You can buy a shield that'll protect you from three lethal hits before needing to be re-purchased, at an escalating price. Perks aren't lost immediately after going down; rather, your bleedout timer has breakpoints, and at each of these breakpoints you lose one more perk, so if you're helped up right away, you don't have to run around the map grabbing your perks before you're useful again. The loadout system works surprisingly well, with each of the four special abilities and all the mods I've seen being quite useful, if situational.
About the only things that are kinda crap are the powerups you get out of loot boxes (I've just been ignoring those, honestly) and the game's strange obsession with spawning zombies ten feet in front of you while you're running, to the point of literally dropping them out of the sky.
Overall, it's a really enjoyable experience, and it feels a lot more welcoming than Black Ops 3 Zombies did.
Last edited: