Dead Space 3 Catch-All

Maybe I just need to spend some more time with it. Darn. ;D

Yeah, that test chamber has a lot more options than the campaign demonstration does.

nel e nel wrote:

Lobster: from what the two developers who post on neogaf have been saying, the universal ammo is supposedly a place holder for the demo.

Yay!

That weapon upgrade system does look pretty cool.

Skipping the impressions until I play the demo. I'd like to try the co-op tonight, so if anyone would like to join, let me know. Anytime's good.

Dyni wrote:
nel e nel wrote:

Lobster: from what the two developers who post on neogaf have been saying, the universal ammo is supposedly a place holder for the demo.

Yay!

That weapon upgrade system does look pretty cool.

Hey! Don't quote me on that!

SallyNasty wrote:

You think you are excited - you should see my nipples!

This is what I get for clicking threads to games I have no interest in...

nel e nel wrote:
Dyni wrote:
nel e nel wrote:

Lobster: from what the two developers who post on neogaf have been saying, the universal ammo is supposedly a place holder for the demo.

Yay!

That weapon upgrade system does look pretty cool.

Hey! Don't quote me on that!

Too late! If it isn't true, I shall hold you accountable.

Blind_Evil wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:

You think you are excited - you should see my nipples!

This is what I get for clicking threads to games I have no interest in...

God I love this community.

Apparently there are going to be microtransactions in this. Which is.....wonderful. I'd link it but unfortunately I can't from the current PC. I'm telling ya, I really dislike the way some developers tend to handle games. To me it reeks of "We aren't quite confident in our products ability to meet predictions, so just in case here is another way to make a little cash".

First of all I'd like to say hello to Jason Isaacs nel e nel. How's your day been so far?

The Conformist wrote:

Apparently there are going to be microtransactions in this. Which is.....wonderful. I'd link it but unfortunately I can't from the current PC. I'm telling ya, I really dislike the way some developers tend to handle games. To me it reeks of "We aren't quite confident in our products ability to meet predictions, so just in case here is another way to make a little cash".

Anyway. I saw that earlier on RPS, and it just made me do a big sigh. I know, it appears to be optional, but it's one of those things where I'm thinking "Really? There's a time and a place for microtransactions, and this is not it". It just saps my enthusiasm for the game.

I played the hell out of DS2. If this one's anywhere near as good, I'm sure I won't mind grinding the resources out myself.

I don't think it's so much a lack of confidence as a proven formula. This is the way things go now. It sucks, but they're not going to leave money on the table. Remember, this is EA we're talking about.

This is probably my fault, as I bought the super suit in both DS1 and 2, and will probably buy in this time around again.

Scratched wrote:

First of all I'd like to say hello to Jason Isaacs nel e nel. How's your day been so far?

The Conformist wrote:

Apparently there are going to be microtransactions in this. Which is.....wonderful. I'd link it but unfortunately I can't from the current PC. I'm telling ya, I really dislike the way some developers tend to handle games. To me it reeks of "We aren't quite confident in our products ability to meet predictions, so just in case here is another way to make a little cash".

Anyway. I saw that earlier on RPS, and it just made me do a big sigh. I know, it appears to be optional, but it's one of those things where I'm thinking "Really? There's a time and a place for microtransactions, and this is not it". It just saps my enthusiasm for the game.

My worry with this kind of thing is...does it deliberately (if subtly) affect the rest of the game? In this case...do they make grinding for resources just that little bit extra tedious to subtly nudge you towards your wallet.

Never works on me though - I'll grind through the grindiest of grindy games so long as I have podcasts to listen to...

Dyni wrote:
nel e nel wrote:

Lobster: from what the two developers who post on neogaf have been saying, the universal ammo is supposedly a place holder for the demo.

Yay!

That weapon upgrade system does look pretty cool.

Figured I'd confirm what I claimed with some first-hand reports:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012...

apparently the universal ammo that showed up in demonstration videos, and indeed in the early version of the game I played, is a placeholder and will not be in the final version of Dead Space 3.
Scratched wrote:

First of all I'd like to say hello to Jason Isaacs nel e nel. How's your day been so far?

Not sure I get this, and why this is directed at me. But since you served, here's a return:

Actually reading the article and not quoting headlines reveals that it's for weapons crafting materials.

RPS wrote:

“You can buy resources with real money, but scavenger bots can also give you the currency that you can use on the marketplace. So you don’t have to spend [real world] dollars.

Paranoid Hyperbole strikes again.

So basically, it's the same thing as buying the booster packs on ME3: it just speeds up the process if you're not patient enough to play the game as it comes shipped. (i.e. you can ignore it and continue playing as is).

As Sally noted, they've been selling armor and weapon packs for Dead Space since the beginning, and the fact that RPS omits this suggests that whoever wrote this up either didn't do their due diligence, or is cherry picking facts to support a certain point of view.

RPS wrote:

If it’s necessary to have modified gear to succeed then scavenging for parts could become a grindy, horrible mess – and not the good sort of grindy horrible mess which involves Isaac’s boot grinding a necromorph into jam. The transaction then becomes a payment to avoid tedium. Or it may be that the crafted upgrades are more of a leveller, easing progress through the game’s more tricky sections for those who want a helping hand. That’s fine but it’s also often dealt with through a choice of difficulty levels and those (at least the easier ones) shouldn’t cost money or time to unlock.

While a valid concern, it's also negated by the fact that both of the previous DS games are beatable with the plasma cutter only - even on the most difficult settings.

LobsterMobster wrote:

I don't think it's so much a lack of confidence as a proven formula. This is the way things go now. It sucks, but they're not going to leave money on the table. Remember, this is EA we're talking about.

Agree with this right here. Microtransactions are a proven success, as seen by how many games have gone free-to-play over the last several years. It only sucks if you are incapable of ignoring things that don't interest you.

nel e nel wrote:

Agree with this right here. Microtransactions are a proven success, as seen by how many games have gone free-to-play over the last several years. It only sucks if you are incapable of ignoring things that don't interest you.

A bit off topic but, I think it's a slippery slope. It has been since the beginning of DLC and Microtransactions, and it will continue as long as the consumer throws out the cash. As of now it may or may not effect the core gameplay, but who's to say the developer won't make it intentionally that much harder for you to scavenge for parts to push you towards purchasing the quick fix? As a whole, I would say that most gamers nowadays are very lazy and either don't want to take the time to work for those prizes or simply don't have the time. Developers/Publishers aren't going to hit a point and say "Well we've made enough for now, let's not take advantage of our fans to make more money". You'll just see more of it in different forms.

Anyways, I hope Dead Space can stay relatively free of this type of business and I hope it doesn't effect the gameplay. They've shown enough change however for me to hold my money from a day one purchase, to a "wait a year" or "get used" purchase.

I just don't follow on how this takes advantage of customers as EA doesn't force you to take advantage of the system, and in fact you can play entire game without a single micro-transaction. If anything this is the customers cheating the system more than the system cheating customers.

SallyNasty wrote:

I just don't follow on how this takes advantage of customers as EA doesn't force you to take advantage of the system, and in fact you can play entire game without a single micro-transaction. If anything this is the customers cheating the system more than the system cheating customers.

I was implying that it could one day LEAD to that. Not that it is currently. The only thing it takes advantage of now are those as nel put it, incapable of ignoring such things. OR if the developers intentionally make it difficult to scavenge material to sway you into buying more.

The Conformist wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:

I just don't follow on how this takes advantage of customers as EA doesn't force you to take advantage of the system, and in fact you can play entire game without a single micro-transaction. If anything this is the customers cheating the system more than the system cheating customers.

I was implying that it could one day LEAD to that. Not that it is currently. The only thing it takes advantage of now are those as nel put it, incapable of ignoring such things. OR if the developers intentionally make it difficult to scavenge material to sway you into buying more.

I think this is alarmist at best, and paranoid at worst. EA might be trying to nickle and dime the more impatient players who don't want to grind (see the packs in ME3 multiplayer), but I don't think even they would be stupid enough to design a full price game solely around making it too difficult to progress unless you pay more money. That just doesn't make sense, from a consumer or business perspective.

From one of the developers posting on neogaf

If a player never purchases one of these MT packs he or she can play and complete the game just fine. As some have speculated in this thread, they're basically a shortcut. Almost all of the tuning runs on the game were completed with standard non-DLC Weapon Parts.
nel e nel wrote:
If a player never purchases one of these MT packs he or she can play and complete the game just fine. As some have speculated in this thread, they're basically a shortcut. Almost all of the tuning runs on the game were completed with standard non-DLC Weapon Parts.

Just saying...

I doubt they would make the game impossible, but I could see how they might have tuned it to be slightly harder/grindier to encourage spending more money on micro transactions.

The thing I find myself asking is if it's "just fine" without microtransactions, then why does it exist at all? A common refrain I've read in many places is why can't I just get the whole thing for the price they're charging? God knows they want to charge enough already to just get in the door, and that's before you get deluxe, ultra-deluxe, super-ultra-deluxe editions and so on with various cat helmets and dust collectors.

Additional content? Fine (well, most of the time). But this? Trying to contort my brain into a position where I'd be perfectly happy with the DS3 microtransactions would not leave me in a comfortable place.

meh

LobsterMobster wrote:
Scratched wrote:

The thing I find myself asking is if it's "just fine" without microtransactions, then why does it exist at all? A common refrain I've read in many places is why can't I just get the whole thing for the price they're charging? God knows they want to charge enough already to just get in the door, and that's before you get deluxe, ultra-deluxe, super-ultra-deluxe editions and so on with various cat helmets and dust collectors.

Additional content? Fine (well, most of the time). But this? Trying to contort my brain into a position where I'd be perfectly happy with the DS3 microtransactions would not leave me in a comfortable place.

It's because capitalism, Scratched. They sell it because people will pay for it. Maybe you won't, but enough will to make it worth it to them. Yeah it sucks, but that's the way it goes. What's to be done about it?

You could even think of it as two versions of the same game, for two different audiences. One version requires more time investment but not a lot of money, for people with more money than time (teenagers). The other requires a greater monetary investment but less time, for people with more money than free time (adults).

Holy crap?!?! I'm a teenager? Sha-wing!!!

You're... shut up.

Scratched wrote:

The thing I find myself asking is if it's "just fine" without microtransactions, then why does it exist at all? A common refrain I've read in many places is why can't I just get the whole thing for the price they're charging? God knows they want to charge enough already to just get in the door, and that's before you get deluxe, ultra-deluxe, super-ultra-deluxe editions and so on with various cat helmets and dust collectors.

Additional content? Fine (well, most of the time). But this? Trying to contort my brain into a position where I'd be perfectly happy with the DS3 microtransactions would not leave me in a comfortable place.

It's because capitalism, Scratched. They sell it because people will pay for it. Maybe you won't, but enough will to make it worth it to them. Yeah it sucks, but that's the way it goes. What's to be done about it?

You could even think of it as two versions of the same game, for two different audiences. One version requires more time investment but not a lot of money, for people with more time than money (teenagers). The other requires a greater monetary investment but less time, for people with more money than free time (adults).

So after playing the demo I have a few impressions:

Spoiler:

The Good:

- The graphics are pretty darn fantastic. The effects of the snow and the environment around Mr. Clark are amazing. I especially love the lighting in the "darker" area's.
- The weapons feel like they have a good kick to them. And with the first and secondary fire it adds to the variety.
- The crafting new weapons is a nifty little feature. Helps each weapon feel more unique.
- The Drill sequence was pretty darn impressive. Having a good mixture of tension and shooting.

The Bad:

- The planet just doesn't feel eerie at all. I didn't jump once.
- The cover and shooting mechanics are very clunky. The way Isaac moves just doesn't seem to work well with cover based shooting.
- While nifty, the crafting just seems a little more confusing. So many things I have to worry about. What was wrong with the node system? I thought it worked well.
- Having another character with you and talking to you takes away from the Dead Space feel. I don't like the idea of having a "squadmate".
- Bad guys and necromorphs with guns? Just feels silly and reeks of Resident Evilness.

Like stated before, not a a day one purchase for me. I'll wait a good long time for the price to drop.

Speaking of price drops...

Pre-order with Amazon nets you not just some bonus weapons but a 20$ credit toward a future purchase.

The facebook page is teasing something BIG coming on Sunday night. My guess is that it's the full launch trailer that was teased earlier this week. But in the meantime, the link on that post directed my attention to this:

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/iRMpvSl.jpg)

To get the N7 armor you simply need to have played Mass Effect 3. Here are the instructions on how to get your very own N7 armor for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC:
Play Mass Effect 3 and make sure you have a save file.
Purchase and play the full game of Dead Space 3.
Equip N7 armor and look awesome!

Cool.

Gotta admit, that armor does make you look like a bad-ass. Now where's the armor that makes this game look fun? Kidding!!!!!!! Man I hope this game turns out to be amazing.