Whether it has terrible dialogue, too many bugs, lacking in technical prowess, cost way too much to make or is simply too preachy. It all boils down to a single problem: corporate suits sucking the soul out of the project, devoiding it of any passion one could possibly have. It looks, feels and smells like an empty shell of a game because that is exactly what it is. Nothing stands out because every decision was calculated with the goal to moderately please everyone in the room, resulting in compromises stacked on compromises all the way down.
The often sloppily implemented progressiveness in these products quickly starts to look like an afterthought. Perhaps to shield themselves from criticism after they realized what they’ve created or maybe they slapped it on when they realized their story has literally nothing to say about anything and is a hollow shell of a product.
Whatever the case, soulless slob does more harm than good to anything their creators associate it with, so I totally get why someone wouldn’t even want to read about that aspect of the game in a review. It’s just one more of several symptomps of a bad product.
You nailed to describe my frustration with Frontier perfectly. They really are the EA of Zoo and Theme Park games to the point I’m not buying their games anymore even when they’re well made on a technical level and interesting to me. They’re just way too greedy.
Many fans of RTS and Halo swear on Halo Wars when it comes to RTS on a console. Apparently, they really figured out how to do it right, but I haven’t played it myself.
I guess you’re just playing the wrong ones, really. The Age of Empires games (specifically 2 remake) have been celebrating a decent comeback and AoE4 was released to critical acclaim. Of course Blizzard won’t release anything worth your time anymore, but not everyone is Blizzard. As for turn based RPGs: They’re more popular than ever and I genuinely don’t know what you’re talking about. Turn based JRPGs are hugely popular and even CRPGs can be hugely popular if done right.
It’s okay. The Fediverse assured me again and again it won’t matter how much Tencent owns of your company so as long as you “don’t think about them (Tencent)”. Whatever that means.
He can’t decide that and is purely speaking from a perspective of a (legendary) game dev with more experience than some studios have as a whole. He’s been longer in the game than almost anyone else for better or worse.
I’m doubtful of their GaaS promise after they already added premium skins to the game via twitch drops last month. Time will tell, but I know the gaming industry a little too well to just take their word for it.
Luckily you don’t have to believe me because, as I said they essentially take ownership as they have stated here. There are very rare cases where this exception is the case or even possible. I mean this clause doesn’t start with ‘You own your mod, unless…’ for a reason. It starts with pretty much ‘You do not own anything unless…’. Larian are developers, not good samaritans. They’re hoping to get something out of this and given their next game will be even more expensive, I’m sure this little silver mine will come in handy down the line. Just taking a look at the mods that are trending tells you they take ownership of almost everything by default.
Note that Larian essentially takes full ownership of anything you upload on their own mod Loader and that you can still install external mods despite claims from some players that you can’t.
I’ve seen some wild discourse on the Steam forums in recent days so let me remind you: It will take some time for some mods to be updated so stay patient.
You may also run into issues with the update itself even if you never used mods. Larian is aware and recommends a full re-download and installation which of course can be very frustrating. Maybe it’s worth waiting a couple weeks or months before jumping back into the game.