What I would also note is that the story in BG3 is still very linear. The branching paths are small deviations along the main path and can affect the ending, but the story doesn’t really change a whole lot so it’s not as daunting as it sounds.
The differences in choices in BG3 are more like flavor so that the story doesn’t railroad you into a certain character archetype. Replaying BG3 and making different choices mainly just rewards you with different companions and cutscenes, new paths through the 3 main areas, and more or less different side quests or even parallel main quests.
In the endless exploration, yes. In the myriad of other slapped together mechanics that don’t really tie into the exploration at all, no.
The exploration of new planets is well implemented, but that’s existed since the game launched. If you were happy with that then, you’ll be happy with it now. But the game was panned due to there not really being anything else to it. And after all these years and added mechanics there still sort of isn’t.
This game has added so many systems over the years, but it still just hasn’t really grown into anything of substance. It’s a game where the only real “thing to do” is mindless busywork. 200 new systems, all created to a standard of absolute minimum viability, none of them are very rewarding on their own, and none of them really create interesting interactions with each other. It’s like they every system was added with the idea that they’re optional, which makes them all feel unnecessary.
You can build bases now, but there’s no real reason to other than to do so. There are settlements you can become the leader of? But what that entails is essentially nothing. The game is designed from the ground up for you to move from planet to planet without lingering too long on any particular one, and yet they added a bunch of mechanics based around specific planets.
The game is essentially a trudge from shooting gallery to shooting gallery, with a large open world to do very little of consequence in. There isn’t really anything more to it than what’s on the surface. Either you enjoy the slow burn cowboy experience or you don’t. It doesn’t really get any better.
I saw some “review bombing” on his game Heartbound.
heartbound is his game. It’s not published by the company he resigned from. It also isn’t just people review bombing it for some unrelated reason. His game has been in early access hell for years with no sign of ever releasing to the people who’ve backed him and paid for it. And after he started getting all this attention, various developers have been digging into his code and finding out that’s it’s coded horribly, and the chances of him finishing the game with the way it’s coded are low. And in PirateSoftware fashion, he’s been having his fanbase brigade, harass, threaten, and abuse the developers who criticize his coding instead of praise it, which has only made it blow up even more. It’s not review bombing of the reviews are legitimately criticizing the game. The fact that they’re so recent is because Pirates poor behavior is putting his game in the spotlight.
So my take here is that he was worried that reaction would spread to the other studio
Your take would be wrong. He didn’t say he resigned because he was worried about the publishers games getting potentially review bombed in the future. He said they had been review bombed, in the affirmative. Which was yet another PirateSoftware lie.
I disagree, but I don’t know much about him.
Well this keeps coming up and it’s getting really weird that you keep making the point of “Here is my opinion on something, strong enough to believe others are wrong, even though I’m ignorant to most of what’s going on here”.
Perhaps before you make any more assertions you should just go and… figure out what it is you’re talking about? I don’t mean to be rude but your opinions just mean less than nothing when they’re admittedly based on ignorance. Ive explained a lot to you here and it’s not even close to all of it. Before you go defending him more, you should see what he’s actually about.
I don’t think he’s been swatted. In fact, a lot of the “backlash” that Pirate has complained about has also been debunked.He said he had to step away from his role at a game publisher because people were “Reviewing bombing all of the company’s games”. Somehow he didn’t realize that game reviews are public and in the case of Steam reviews very detailed. People went right to the Steam reviews and found that literally none of the games had been review-bombed.
On the contrary, since the backlash started he’s been calling for his fans to brigade and mass report anyone who criticizes him, live on stream. He filed a lawsuit against a guy who made a game and put a cameo of Pirate in his game as a cockroach wearing Pirates signature wizards hat. (A cockroach is the wow term for people who do what Pirate did)
As for the resignation, generally companies don’t like to have people who are ongoing, unapologetic public menaces to be the faces of their company. Any consequences Pirate faces are all of his own doing. If you’re going to be a public figure, you have to understand that you’re going to be held accountable for your behavior by somebody.
Isn’t that par for the course for streamers/youtubers though?
No.
I’ve seen people claim to be “indie game devs” when they’ve never actually released a game, or if they did, it made so few sales as to be little more than a hobby.
That would in fact make those people indie game devs. Thats not a high bar to meet. Pirate likes to word it as if he was a game dev in the industry, and often leaves the context of him just working in QA out. As for the cybersecurity role, his role dealt mostly with the human aspect of the business. Compliance, awareness training, etc. the most active things he did were social engineering phone calls. Yet he has explicitly calls himself “a hacker”.
they’re all working their way to the boss together 2. they start getting wrecked, so some (all?) decide to bail 3. he casts some spell to help his team get out, using up the rest of his mana 4. his teammate is about to die and asks for help he keeps running, as was the plan 5. he gets roasted for not helping out, and explains that we has out of mana and couldn’t do anything even if he wanted to
You’re missing a step here. 3.5. He chooses not to use the items he has that would have restored his mana. Which changes number 5 a bit as a consequence.
he gets roasted for not helping out, and explains lies that we has out of mana and couldn’t do anything even if he wanted to (Even though he could have. He just didn’t want to)
Maybe he’s as bad as everyone says, but I haven’t seen enough actual evidence of that.
Well you have done a pretty good job of focusing on just two of the things he’s been in hot water over, and avoiding all the other evidence that’s out there you haven’t seen. So yeah I wouldn’t want you to jump on a bandwagon without any evidence, but at the same time you’ve explained that you haven’t seen most of the evidence. So I’m not sure what the point of you weighing in here against the people who have seen all the evidence, from a perspective that hasn’t seen the evidence is.
There are hours and hours of video, photo, and written accounts of other events so I’m not just going to recap it all here for you, but it’s all out there for you to find. One of my favorites is when he’s playing another MMO on stream and a dungeon run his party does is ruined by someone accidentally pulling an extra mob. Pirate proceeds to be a huge dick about it. He doesn’t give the person who pulled it the benefit of the doubt like you have to Pirate. At the end of his rant it’s pointed out to him by his own chat that he himself was the one who pulled the mob lol. After which instead of apologizing, he then says he’s not sorry about what he did. He’s so unabashed about his view that only other people make mistakes.
The WoW thing wasn’t about being selfish, it’s just one of a dozen or more incidents of him being a narcissistic bully who screws other people over and can’t take accountability for anything.
And nobody is giving him too much shit for simply being a nepo baby. The Blizzard thing is about him being a fraud who’s been caught repeatedly lying and misleading people about his credentials and work experience in order to appear like an expert. He uses his time at Blizzard like a magic wand to expel criticism, going so far as to misrepresent what he even did at Blizzard to appear like an authority when people criticize him.
The backlash against him has been well earned by bad behavior over a long period of time, most of which involves him treating other people poorly for his own benefit.