Well I did get around to mowing the lawn, but beyond that I've done nothing so far in May. I just sleep, eat, and doom-scroll. Decided on my SPECIAL stats for starting Fallout 4, but still haven't actually hit the Play button. Ugh.
I reinstalled Grim Dawn 'cause we were talking about it, and yet I don't necessarily see myself playing it again. I would probably try the Oathkeeper class 'cause it didn't exist when I was first playing, but I don't know what to pair it with; nothing in particular catches my attention.
Yeah we're still working on getting the quotes/replies fixed; you have to scroll up to reply to the correct person after you hit the button, and even then it doesn't want to quote for some reason. It's a struggle lol
Anyway, I already own Grim Dawn: I played a...Demolitionist? I don't remember the class names, but I was dual-wielding guns for my first playthrough. Was kinda disappointed, but that's probably on me for picking a boring "stand around going pew pew" playstyle. It wasn't engaging enough, in my opinion.
I saw GD released a couple more expansions since then, so maybe I should give it another look!
Edit: In a twist of fate, I already own the expansions despite never playing them. Must'a had the mindset to return but never did; fuck it, no time like the present lol
@Crusader2010 "I have no F idea how to stop feeling like this and actually start playing games. It's very hard to even open any game most of the time and i'm sick of it :("
I feel ya. Alongside my bipolar and depression, I tend to deal with what my therapist calls "analysis paralysis", meaning I get stuck thinking about what to play or do rather than just...you know...picking something. "Do I watch more of Fallout today? Do I mow the lawn? Do I play a game? Which one: Lies of P, Fallout, Armored Core, or something else?" Too many options, so instead of doing anything in particular I do nothing at all :/ It fucking sucks, and I'm struggling to enjoy what should be my "free time."
I usually have to rely on finding a game I get really sucked into, such that I can push through my negative feelings and just mainline it for a while. Unicorn Overlord was like that, for a bit anyway.
Thanks for reading it :D I think I remember playing Ogre Battle - didn't that have Tarot cards you could collect that did...things? It's been a long while: I was like 5, playing it at a babysitter's house lol.
I love Tactics Ogre too, but that has different gameplay. Tactics Ogre Reborn is so long I had to take a break from it after 96 hours on a single Steam playthrough. Still haven't finished the main story D: Will have to go back and finish it at some point!
@Lemushki Horizon: Zero Dawn is a fun time - I played it when Sony ported the game to Steam. Mouse + keyboard controls worked much better than I expected.
Bought Forbidden West for my PS5...and the game remains unopened, with the receipt still taped to it lol. I wonder if they'll let me return the game for full value, two years later; I'd probably end up buying the sequel on Steam as well, for consistency's sake.
Not gonna lie, I was sort of tempted to return to Diablo IV with this overhaul, to check out what I've missed since Vanilla/release. Thankfully, D4 stopped being on sale over on Steam - my temptation to buy it again to avoid Battle.net was thwarted.
...not the best idea I've ever had, but the point is that I won't be going through with it: I'm celebrating a small victory against impulsive purchases lol.
Uninstalling Hearthstone and Marvel Snap means I have more free time than I know what to do with lol.
That said, I haven't started anything new since reviewing Unicorn Overlord 'cause I was sick. My current plan for May is to play Fallout 4 until Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door comes out on the 23rd. Never played the former, while TTYD was one of my favorite games as a kid so I'm excited to play it again!
A wandering eye might disrupt me playing Fallout, but I'm pretty focused on getting Paper Mario so I doubt my strategy for the back half of May will change. Played a demo for Gestalt: Steam & Cinder on Steam, which was pretty cool, but that comes out on the 21st; too close to TTYD.
After I'm done with Mario, it'll be about time to get back into Elden Ring to prepare for the expansion in June!
Tunic's been sitting on my Steam Wishlist for a long time now: I just never pull the trigger during a sale. I wonder if I'll ever get around to buying it.
13 years of service, so that's about $186 a year, or $15 a month. That's not that bad.
...of course, that leaves off the fact that I own a Switch, a PS5, and older consoles, along with the stuff I've bought for them. Plus I purchased a Steam Deck, which is another $700 added onto the number above lol
I can understand being annoyed about such things - I was as well, obviously, as I took the time to mention it - but I also feel like it wasn't too much of a big deal after the initial "wait, what?" negative feeling that came with getting burned by it. I just reoriented my brain to open every chest regardless of my inventory space, remember what monsters were nearby, then come back knowing I would immediately be set upon. It wasn't completely harmless - I had to refight a boss because I had the gall to leave her arena to sell my stuff before proceeding to the next boss behind her - but it became less egregious and more a slight annoyance most of the time.
That being said, one major problem (if the Last Epoch forums are to be believed) is the ongoing war between the loot systems. You see, LE incorporates a "choose your playstyle" direction, wherein you make a (non-binding) choice that influences how you acquire loot. You can play with items bound to your account in the Circle of Fortune, but they get increasingly better as you go, or you can just use the Bazaar to buy and sell items you want. The latter became like the defacto option for late-game individuals, because you want specific things and the Bazaar lets you go get them. I went with Circle of Fortune because I played by myself anyway, and I could tell on some level that, while I was swimming in more treasure, it wasn't necessarily the treasure I wanted. So that was a letdown.
This had started as a "don't worry, you'll enjoy LE anyway" reply, but then it got more negative than I intended lol. Just trying to be honest with you! The game still hasn't begun its Season-equivalent stuff, so I stopped playing after a bit to enjoy other games. I will definitely come back - which is probably more than I can say of Diablo IV - but right now I don't feel compelled to rerun the same content repeatedly.
TL;DR: Give it more time for the Seasons to begin, and for the kinks to be ironed out, and we could have another champion of the genre like Path of Exile. It's still fairly new.
I don't understand the premise of your question. This article is one person's opinion (my own), not a declaration that Out of Games is cutting ties. I don't speak for everyone. The others (and I) will still report on the game, until such a time as it closes shop for good or something happens where we can truly no longer support them.
I may not play the game anymore - and frankly believe other players must take a hard look as to whether or not they should do the same - but I'm still gonna do my job.
@anchorm4n "If everybody went F2P the game would be dead."
This might be one of the more radical things I say, but if enough people felt slighted such that they stopped investing into their fun-time with Hearthstone, to such an extent that it actually threatened Blizzard's bottom line and they subsequently pulled the plug on the game, then perhaps it was time for Hearthstone to go. I've always liked you from our time interacting via custom cards and the like, but I genuinely hate when people say that line. It might not be your general intention, but the sentence implies that you're willing to overlook the impact they've had on other paying customers so long as the game continues to exist for you to play. And that's not okay :/
If everybody did go F2P - because they felt they could no longer support the game monetarily - the game would be dead, and that fate would frankly be deserved.
"For my part, I keep playing Hearthstone. I play since Open Beta have all cards I need, have a few k gold and over 100.000 dust. The game became 100% free to play for me since years. Negative changes to quests, real money offers and pre order nonsense don`t bother me."
So "I've got mine" means the negatives can be safely ignored? That's a selfish mentality: others such as myself have struggled to keep up, and the situation with the Weekly Quests was likely a last-straw situation given everything I addressed above. I didn't even get into the various other means by-which Blizzard has given with one hand and taken with the other.
I have/had been playing since Vanilla, with a small haitus for personal reasons between Argent Tournament and Un'Goro, and I still don't have a full collection. I just couldn't play enough to reach that state, given my job (two if you count this website, or HearthPwn before it), different games I want to play, and various other challenges that compete for my time. To reach that goal of getting from where I was to where you apparently are required an unreasonable amount of playtime...or money, buying Preorders. The game simply doesn't provide enough to get there without absurd levels of dedication, even with all the additional "generous" means you seem focused on. I played long enough to know it has gotten better in some ways, yes; I will concede as much. But that doesn't mean the game is healthy for our wallets or respects our time properly, nor can we just ignore the attempts to chip away at the positive gains we tirelessly complained for.
Because that's what happened, lest you forget: Blizzard wasn't getting more generous out of the kindness of their hearts. We as players fought for those gains, and it still hasn't been enough in the grand scheme of things. So to see them scaled back is a shock to the system, and people such as myself are coming to the realization that the partnership between player and company is an uneven one. It is a relationship that needs to be reassessed coldly, without the shiny colors or token rewards clouding our judgement anymore. And for some of those players, including the writer of this article, the reality is that we cannot continue subjecting ourselves to this abuse.
I have another job, one that usually leaves me tired at the end of the day. I'm not alone in this regard, either: many of us are volunteering our time when able to do so. I know that means sometimes we can't keep up, or things fall through the cracks, but I had every intention of addressing the Hearthstone drama. Believe me, I wasn't letting this one go.
I was hyping myself up for some BG games yesterday, but after seeing what happened to the XP quests, I closed the client. If they won't respect my time, I'll just stop playing.
I've wavered between staying and quitting Hearthstone a couple times now - mostly due to the ratio of expense/enjoyment - but now I have to consider that they just don't want people like me. I play a couple times a week when my dailies fill up, instead of multiple games every single day. They're trying to push me to play more, but in reality I would rather just bail and focus my resources elsewhere.
My dad and I used to drive around town to Pokemon hotspots; it was an enjoyable bonding experience. Until he backed into a pole, and we stopped playing lol.
Well I did get around to mowing the lawn, but beyond that I've done nothing so far in May. I just sleep, eat, and doom-scroll. Decided on my SPECIAL stats for starting Fallout 4, but still haven't actually hit the Play button. Ugh.
I reinstalled Grim Dawn 'cause we were talking about it, and yet I don't necessarily see myself playing it again. I would probably try the Oathkeeper class 'cause it didn't exist when I was first playing, but I don't know what to pair it with; nothing in particular catches my attention.
Yeah we're still working on getting the quotes/replies fixed; you have to scroll up to reply to the correct person after you hit the button, and even then it doesn't want to quote for some reason. It's a struggle lol
Anyway, I already own Grim Dawn: I played a...Demolitionist? I don't remember the class names, but I was dual-wielding guns for my first playthrough. Was kinda disappointed, but that's probably on me for picking a boring "stand around going pew pew" playstyle. It wasn't engaging enough, in my opinion.
I saw GD released a couple more expansions since then, so maybe I should give it another look!
Edit: In a twist of fate, I already own the expansions despite never playing them. Must'a had the mindset to return but never did; fuck it, no time like the present lol
@Crusader2010 "I have no F idea how to stop feeling like this and actually start playing games. It's very hard to even open any game most of the time and i'm sick of it :("
I feel ya. Alongside my bipolar and depression, I tend to deal with what my therapist calls "analysis paralysis", meaning I get stuck thinking about what to play or do rather than just...you know...picking something. "Do I watch more of Fallout today? Do I mow the lawn? Do I play a game? Which one: Lies of P, Fallout, Armored Core, or something else?" Too many options, so instead of doing anything in particular I do nothing at all :/ It fucking sucks, and I'm struggling to enjoy what should be my "free time."
I usually have to rely on finding a game I get really sucked into, such that I can push through my negative feelings and just mainline it for a while. Unicorn Overlord was like that, for a bit anyway.
Thanks for reading it :D I think I remember playing Ogre Battle - didn't that have Tarot cards you could collect that did...things? It's been a long while: I was like 5, playing it at a babysitter's house lol.
I love Tactics Ogre too, but that has different gameplay. Tactics Ogre Reborn is so long I had to take a break from it after 96 hours on a single Steam playthrough. Still haven't finished the main story D: Will have to go back and finish it at some point!
@Lemushki Horizon: Zero Dawn is a fun time - I played it when Sony ported the game to Steam. Mouse + keyboard controls worked much better than I expected.
Bought Forbidden West for my PS5...and the game remains unopened, with the receipt still taped to it lol. I wonder if they'll let me return the game for full value, two years later; I'd probably end up buying the sequel on Steam as well, for consistency's sake.
Not gonna lie, I was sort of tempted to return to Diablo IV with this overhaul, to check out what I've missed since Vanilla/release. Thankfully, D4 stopped being on sale over on Steam - my temptation to buy it again to avoid Battle.net was thwarted.
...not the best idea I've ever had, but the point is that I won't be going through with it: I'm celebrating a small victory against impulsive purchases lol.
Uninstalling Hearthstone and Marvel Snap means I have more free time than I know what to do with lol.
That said, I haven't started anything new since reviewing Unicorn Overlord 'cause I was sick. My current plan for May is to play Fallout 4 until Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door comes out on the 23rd. Never played the former, while TTYD was one of my favorite games as a kid so I'm excited to play it again!
A wandering eye might disrupt me playing Fallout, but I'm pretty focused on getting Paper Mario so I doubt my strategy for the back half of May will change. Played a demo for Gestalt: Steam & Cinder on Steam, which was pretty cool, but that comes out on the 21st; too close to TTYD.
After I'm done with Mario, it'll be about time to get back into Elden Ring to prepare for the expansion in June!
Tunic's been sitting on my Steam Wishlist for a long time now: I just never pull the trigger during a sale. I wonder if I'll ever get around to buying it.
13 years of service, so that's about $186 a year, or $15 a month. That's not that bad.
...of course, that leaves off the fact that I own a Switch, a PS5, and older consoles, along with the stuff I've bought for them. Plus I purchased a Steam Deck, which is another $700 added onto the number above lol
I can understand being annoyed about such things - I was as well, obviously, as I took the time to mention it - but I also feel like it wasn't too much of a big deal after the initial "wait, what?" negative feeling that came with getting burned by it. I just reoriented my brain to open every chest regardless of my inventory space, remember what monsters were nearby, then come back knowing I would immediately be set upon. It wasn't completely harmless - I had to refight a boss because I had the gall to leave her arena to sell my stuff before proceeding to the next boss behind her - but it became less egregious and more a slight annoyance most of the time.
That being said, one major problem (if the Last Epoch forums are to be believed) is the ongoing war between the loot systems. You see, LE incorporates a "choose your playstyle" direction, wherein you make a (non-binding) choice that influences how you acquire loot. You can play with items bound to your account in the Circle of Fortune, but they get increasingly better as you go, or you can just use the Bazaar to buy and sell items you want. The latter became like the defacto option for late-game individuals, because you want specific things and the Bazaar lets you go get them. I went with Circle of Fortune because I played by myself anyway, and I could tell on some level that, while I was swimming in more treasure, it wasn't necessarily the treasure I wanted. So that was a letdown.
This had started as a "don't worry, you'll enjoy LE anyway" reply, but then it got more negative than I intended lol. Just trying to be honest with you! The game still hasn't begun its Season-equivalent stuff, so I stopped playing after a bit to enjoy other games. I will definitely come back - which is probably more than I can say of Diablo IV - but right now I don't feel compelled to rerun the same content repeatedly.
TL;DR: Give it more time for the Seasons to begin, and for the kinks to be ironed out, and we could have another champion of the genre like Path of Exile. It's still fairly new.
Naturally Zok Fogsnout is buffed *after* I commit to stop playing the game lol :/
I don't understand the premise of your question. This article is one person's opinion (my own), not a declaration that Out of Games is cutting ties. I don't speak for everyone. The others (and I) will still report on the game, until such a time as it closes shop for good or something happens where we can truly no longer support them.
I may not play the game anymore - and frankly believe other players must take a hard look as to whether or not they should do the same - but I'm still gonna do my job.
@anchorm4n I know I was a bit... aggressive? in my previous reply, but I don't think we have to stop being friendly towards each other 🙂
This subject has brought out a lot of passion from all camps, for real lol.
@anchorm4n "If everybody went F2P the game would be dead."
This might be one of the more radical things I say, but if enough people felt slighted such that they stopped investing into their fun-time with Hearthstone, to such an extent that it actually threatened Blizzard's bottom line and they subsequently pulled the plug on the game, then perhaps it was time for Hearthstone to go. I've always liked you from our time interacting via custom cards and the like, but I genuinely hate when people say that line. It might not be your general intention, but the sentence implies that you're willing to overlook the impact they've had on other paying customers so long as the game continues to exist for you to play. And that's not okay :/
If everybody did go F2P - because they felt they could no longer support the game monetarily - the game would be dead, and that fate would frankly be deserved.
"For my part, I keep playing Hearthstone. I play since Open Beta have all cards I need, have a few k gold and over 100.000 dust. The game became 100% free to play for me since years. Negative changes to quests, real money offers and pre order nonsense don`t bother me."
So "I've got mine" means the negatives can be safely ignored? That's a selfish mentality: others such as myself have struggled to keep up, and the situation with the Weekly Quests was likely a last-straw situation given everything I addressed above. I didn't even get into the various other means by-which Blizzard has given with one hand and taken with the other.
I have/had been playing since Vanilla, with a small haitus for personal reasons between Argent Tournament and Un'Goro, and I still don't have a full collection. I just couldn't play enough to reach that state, given my job (two if you count this website, or HearthPwn before it), different games I want to play, and various other challenges that compete for my time. To reach that goal of getting from where I was to where you apparently are required an unreasonable amount of playtime...or money, buying Preorders. The game simply doesn't provide enough to get there without absurd levels of dedication, even with all the additional "generous" means you seem focused on. I played long enough to know it has gotten better in some ways, yes; I will concede as much. But that doesn't mean the game is healthy for our wallets or respects our time properly, nor can we just ignore the attempts to chip away at the positive gains we tirelessly complained for.
Because that's what happened, lest you forget: Blizzard wasn't getting more generous out of the kindness of their hearts. We as players fought for those gains, and it still hasn't been enough in the grand scheme of things. So to see them scaled back is a shock to the system, and people such as myself are coming to the realization that the partnership between player and company is an uneven one. It is a relationship that needs to be reassessed coldly, without the shiny colors or token rewards clouding our judgement anymore. And for some of those players, including the writer of this article, the reality is that we cannot continue subjecting ourselves to this abuse.
Look what happened to find its way into my email inbox a few minutes ago! What convenient timing!
@FortyDust Don't know if I can alleviate your opinion of us, but we hadn't reported on it in-part because I hadn't finished writing this:
https://outof.games/news/7246-hearthstones-10th-anniversary-negative-player-reception-and-where-we-go-from-here/
I have another job, one that usually leaves me tired at the end of the day. I'm not alone in this regard, either: many of us are volunteering our time when able to do so. I know that means sometimes we can't keep up, or things fall through the cracks, but I had every intention of addressing the Hearthstone drama. Believe me, I wasn't letting this one go.
I was hyping myself up for some BG games yesterday, but after seeing what happened to the XP quests, I closed the client. If they won't respect my time, I'll just stop playing.
I've wavered between staying and quitting Hearthstone a couple times now - mostly due to the ratio of expense/enjoyment - but now I have to consider that they just don't want people like me. I play a couple times a week when my dailies fill up, instead of multiple games every single day. They're trying to push me to play more, but in reality I would rather just bail and focus my resources elsewhere.
More time + money for other games, I guess...
So Unicorn Overlord is fantastic, and I'm having a great time with it. I thank you for mentioning it here! @FortyDust
My dad and I used to drive around town to Pokemon hotspots; it was an enjoyable bonding experience. Until he backed into a pole, and we stopped playing lol.