The Crew - Catch All

Beta starts today.

Anyone here get in?

Since we’ve announced THE CREW last year, we’ve received many messages from players around the world, eager to get their hands on the game! We’ve heard you loud and clear, so the PC Closed Beta will be starting earlier. Get ready to play from Monday, July 21 to Friday, July 25.

As you know, we’ve been focused on delivering a bold new take on the driving genre: a massive persistent world loaded with exciting driving challenges, iconic places, amazing cars - and best of all, a world filled with friends to crew up with or rivals to compete against.

Here are a few tips about everything you need to see. Enjoy the ride!

The Map

Explore the entire United States with no loading screen and complete a variety of exciting challenges:
◾Midwest: all missions and skill challenges.
◾East Coast: all skill challenges.
◾Rest of the country (The South, Mountain State, West Coast): free roaming at will!

For the purposes of this Closed Beta, we will have missions and skill challenges available only in the Midwest and challenges in the East Coast. The final game will, of course, have missions and skill challenges throughout the entire U.S. map!

You will also have access to two PvP lobbies, one in the Midwest and the other on the East Coast, where several races will be waiting for you to prove your skills against other players!

The Cars

Expect to discover new vehicles that, in order to drive across a variety of terrains, you’ll be able to customize in the following specs:
◾The Street Spec: You’ll get this one in Detroit!
◾The Dirt Spec: This spec will be available in New York!

Remember that there are three other specs in the game—Perf, Raid and Circuit—and you’ll have a glimpse of those during this Closed Beta!

Playing with your friends

The Crew was built from the ground up as a breathing, living world, meaning that in this Closed Beta you will be able to play with your friends at any time – or challenge rivals from all around the world.

Finally, remember that this beta does not represent the final state of the game, and many changes will be applied before the final release on November 11!

Got my key this morning. Looking forward to giving it a whirl once the huge download finishes.

Wow is the frame rate really that bad or is it just the video?

breander wrote:

Wow is the frame rate really that bad or is it just the video?

Probably just the video. I know the guy who posted it and he has a beefy rig.

I just got my key today so will be popping in to check it out.

First few missions definitely seem enjoyable. Driving reminds me a lot of Burnout Paradise, cars feel light and "floaty". While I'd hope to be able to use my G27 on a driving title, the feel of this is screaming controller-only to me.

Framerate is locked at 30FPS regardless of Vsynch setting. That said, it's rock solid at 30 with everything maxxed.

Definitely concerned about the in-game microtransactions. They could definitely be flirting with making this pay to win.

I'm also "Elycion" on Uplay, friend me up if you're in the beta.

Elycion wrote:

First few missions definitely seem enjoyable. Driving reminds me a lot of Burnout Paradise, cars feel light and "floaty". While I'd hope to be able to use my G27 on a driving title, the feel of this is screaming controller-only to me.

Framerate is locked at 30FPS regardless of Vsynch setting. That said, it's rock solid at 30 with everything maxxed.

Definitely concerned about the in-game microtransactions. They could definitely be flirting with making this pay to win.

I'm also "Elycion" on Uplay, friend me up if you're in the beta.

You may have just completely killed my interest:( Was hoping for at least halfway realism focus. In what i'd heard, and maybe i heard wrong, this was supposed to be a somewhat realistic open world driving sim, not a pure action racing game. Also, major focus on micro transactions that aren't 100% pure cosmetic in a full price AAA title is...well i'm over it.

It's not realistic at all, and clearly is not intended to be. If you want realism then I'd suggest checking out Assetto Corsa (yeah, not open world I know.)

Microtransactions are definitely not limited to cosmetics. The currency can be earned through in-game actions, but my hunch is that the rate of income will be pathetic compared to the amount of things you may want to buy with it. I freely acknowledge my hard-line cynic stance on this particular game element, but Ubisoft's past actions have not exactly engendered my trust on such issues.

Still, what I have seen so far is a lot of fun. The story that I have played through so far is ripped right out of The Fast & the Furious and quite enjoyable.

I watched the Polygon Overview video for this one and my first impression was that they just took the driving portion of Watch Dogs and decided to make it an MMO.

Kehama wrote:

I watched the Polygon Overview video for this one and my first impression was that they just took the driving portion of Watch Dogs and decided to make it an MMO.

The driving feels good, and there's settings to get it to feel closer to the sim side of things. I suck at driving games, but this has been fun so far.

Watch Dogs was a very detailed (although I hear unrealistic) copy of a specific area. The places in The Crew are like highlights of an area with a lot of generic filler.

It is another open beta week (Mon-Fri) for The Crew. So, if you were in the last beta, you can play it again till Friday.

As for how the game is, it has some of the developers from the Test Drive Unlimited series working on this game. And the open world works similar to those games, but a lot more arcadey than a sim racer. The events appear to be very similar to what was in TDU games as well. Straight races, get to A to B, don't damage the car, outrun the cops, though I haven't see any taxi missions with a barf meter yet (likely didn't make it into this game. Special hidden cars are also done similar to TDU games where you have to find 20 wreck cars pieces per region and you'll be able to put the car together.

The word is very open world, you can drive pretty much almost anywhere, as for if there is anything to do for most of the spots is another thing. There are many different events and drive by quick activities, which will all be posted on your map once you find a radar dish location. Getting close to one of these spots does an assassin's creed viewpoint sort of thing, showing you everything in the area. Events are locked by your driver's (or it may be car's) skill level, so you'll be sitting around in the Detriot/MidWest area for events until you get to Level 10. You can still see all the available cities that they did put in the game by manually driving to them, or driving to the closest airport, which will let you warp to any other airport.

The two biggest cons I see with the game thus far is that frelling xp grind, though I have to buy another car to see if the grind is for your driver or for every car. If it is for every car, I'm dropping any though of ever getting the game. The other big minus with the game is that your car now takes damage. Some of it appears to auto repair on the fly, but you will have to get your car repaired. Why do I see this as a big deal? Any purchase done in game can also be paid for with "Crew Credits", a premium currency bought with dollars by the looks of it. So, you want the hottest car in the game, grid money for it or just pay for it outright. Oh, and there is also PreOrder cars and a Season Pass as well for the game.

And, there is easy ways to get into multiplayer crews of 4 or so people, but I haven't had a chance to try that out either.

Overall, I'm not sure what to make of it yet, there's potential for a lot of fun here, and the idea of driving cross country across the abbreviated nation is appealing, but will either have to play the beta some more or wait and see what other info comes from it gets closer to release.

Ugh, not sure how much I'm going to play this now, each car levels up independently. So, you have to level your car up before you can use high level parts. And get this, any parts you have 'unlocked' with one car doing mini events, are available to your other cars, if you pay for them. If you want them for free, you have to redo every mini event and get the bronze, silver, and gold to get all the parts for each car. And to top it all over, there is a random bonus attribute to each silver/gold part that will give you bonus top speed/acceleration/handling/etc. You'll have to end up grinding every mini event to get silver/gold on them to get every style of part for each car over and over again.

Oh, cars do not auto repair, you get more hit points for your car as your car level ups, yeah that makes perfect sense. And get this, sometimes the game will just force set the checkpoint to the next story quest, even if said quest/mission is impossible the way your car is equipped, again also makes complete sense.

And the amount of money you get for doing any drifts, near misses, overtakes, jumps, etc are a complete joke. Try to get a really huge chain of it going, and you may get 100g. Where to repair your car about 50% of the way will likely cost at least 500g.

The only plus side I have seen thus far is that, any place you have been to before, you can fast travel to, for no cost. Making the airport fast travel, to be completely worthless and pointless (and expensive because it costs money to travel by train/plane) once you have driven to a particular spot.

I'm not sure how much I would put up with this xp grind for every car if I did purchase this game, and because of this, I don't think I'll ever bother to purchase the game, even if it was really cheap. I was able to put up with the grind for some parts in the last NfS games because they all seemed to be minor improvements and not completely necessary. Here, you need xp to do events, to use parts, to get different kits for your car, and you need to do this for every car.

I don't know why seeing the grind in some games is such a complete turn off (The Crew, Guild Wars, Any JRPG) and I see a grind in other games to be completely fun or all the fun in the game (Beat Hazard Shadow Missions, Warframe). I'll probably try it one more night to make sure my opinion of the game stays for what it is, but I think I've gone from having an active interest in this game to being done with it.

I have two beta keys to share for upcoming The Crew PC Beta. If you'd like one, send me a PM.

I got in today. Will be jumping on after work. in about 1.5 hours.

Anyone else get in the console beta? Played for about an hour and a half on the PS4 last night. Having the open world be the United States is pretty cool, I spent the last 40 or so minutes driving from Detroit to LA. Driving through the Rockies in the snow, then into Las Vegas, into a desert, and then a forest of Sequoia trees before arriving in Los Angeles was fun. The different environments made something that could/should have been boring actually enjoyable.

The driving was fine, it is not Forza or Gran Turismo, and similar to Destiny it feels like a game that will be much more fun if you are playing with friends. I didn't like that while I was in Detroit if I was close to another player their mic would come through into my game, it was very startling to hear another voice out of nowhere or somebody coughing. The fact that there are "crew bucks" in the game that are clearly micro-transaction based is disappointing. Every time I went to buy something it asked if I wanted to use the in game currency or crew bucks and it got very annoying.

I don't know for sure how long it is going to be in closed beta, but it was enjoyable enough that I will definitely play more this weekend.

I'm not a huge racing fan, but I thoroughly enjoyed Test Drive: Unlimited and Driver: San Francisco on the 360, which just happen to be the games the developers of The Crew have worked on! That sure peaked my interest, added to my Steam wishlist. It got pushed to december (http://www.polygon.com/2014/10/6/691...), if the reviews are good, this just might be the christmas gift I get for myself.

Isn't the Crew going to be free to play?

Nope. Were you confusing it with a version of Drive Club that we're not going to get?

My girlfriend expressed interest in a racing game. Picked up Driveclub used, but I found it boring so I returned it and got the Crew instead. She feels it's too finicky, but I'm enjoying it. Anyone played much yet?

Umm, I really don't think this should be in the MMO forum. It's no more MMO than Diablo or Dark Souls.

I picked this up a few days ago on PS4. I haven't played a ton of it, but so far I really enjoy it.

Tom Chick over on Quarter to Three made a few comments about the need to change some of the driving assists that the game has on by default. I haven't tried it yet, but it seems a few people have and it seems to improve the driving experience.

Apparently you unlock the ability to send friends 'avatars' to go on missions for you at some stage. It seems to be a good way to make decent in game cash. If anyone else is still playing on PS4 feel free to add me as a friend.

Also am I the only one who finds it quite tough (as in I haven't got any yet) to get a gold result on any race or activity?

God help me I picked this up on Xbone to replace Forza Horizon 2 (I'm pretty well done everything in it) and have been having a blast. It really is AssCreed and cars in one.

How...how do the cars climb the towers?

I'm really enjoying this game, the little I've played. I can see how it'll get addicting.

Rickyzinger wrote:

Also am I the only one who finds it quite tough (as in I haven't got any yet) to get a gold result on any race or activity?

Yuuuuuuuuuup. Then again, I'm rarely doing an activity more than once.

Kurrelgyre wrote:

How...how do the cars climb the towers?

Very very carefully!

Just wanted to add a few notes for those interested in picking this up anytime in the future (this is after almost 30 hours of play in a few days -- yeah, I binged):

1. I have learned more US geography from this game than anything else in my life ever, but then, I'm Canadian.

2. The "grinding" in this game is fun a la Destiny. I never had a problem in the latter of just running around and shooting the crap out of stuff and getting rewarded. Ditto Forza Horizon 2 which gives you points for literally anything other than sitting around. The Crew's "grind" is fun in the same sense... the skill challenges, the instant gratification of earning gajillions of new things everywhere you turn, lots of symbols on the maps to collect etc... By the way, the "grind" of getting new cars is overblown. Unless you want the top end cars you should have no problem collecting a bunch.

3. One thing I want to get going are some actual "Crew" missions. I tried a solo one last night (since no one wanted to join up in my session/map/shard/server) and it was half an hour of pure crazy racing and frustration punctuated by a win by a hood length whooping victory. I can't imagine how much more fun it is with a crew.

4. Okay, biggest problem so far? The RUBBERBANDING. If you thought MarioKart X was bad you will truly LOL at the rubberbanding in this game. No seriously I was agog. On multiple occasions, I have led an entire race from start to finish, with a strong multi-second lead going into the last last last mini-stretch with nitrous on and seen a f*cking Mini cross the line ahead of me at ludicrous speed. So I tried an experiment, I stayed in SECOND for the last half lap or so and EASILY won on the last stretch. This has got to be fixed Ubisoft/Ivory Tower. It's f*cking stupid. At least it only appears to be in the story missions -- which by the way are ok, you don't go into driving games looking for plot.

5. Oh yeah, the randomness of police chases... maybe I'm really really good or really really bad. Who knows?

Anyways, I'm playing this on Xbone since its online is better than my PS4 in my house. Hit me up if you pick it up. It's fun.

I've been playing this a bit on the PC, I rather like it. It's like a fantasy version of Test Drive Unlimited (since the map is highly fictional, but flavored heavily with fantasy versions of US places).

The story missions can be quite annoyingly unbalanced in difficulty, partially due to the rubberbanding. The "Raid" missions I've played are the worst; destroy an enemy vehicle that is arbitrarily faster than you, meaning that you need to run the mission over and over until you have memorized the enemy's driving path well enough to figure out places to cut them off and ram them from the side. Lame.

However, the regular challenges are fun and the map is great, exploring and finding things is quite enjoyable.

scrub wrote:

4. Okay, biggest problem so far? The RUBBERBANDING. If you thought MarioKart X was bad you will truly LOL at the rubberbanding in this game. No seriously I was agog. On multiple occasions, I have led an entire race from start to finish, with a strong multi-second lead going into the last last last mini-stretch with nitrous on and seen a f*cking Mini cross the line ahead of me at ludicrous speed. So I tried an experiment, I stayed in SECOND for the last half lap or so and EASILY won on the last stretch. This has got to be fixed Ubisoft/Ivory Tower. It's f*cking stupid. At least it only appears to be in the story missions -- which by the way are ok, you don't go into driving games looking for plot.

The rubberbanding is hilarious. I bombed on a one on one chase and the guy basically waited at the next checkpoint. At least MK Wii kept the racers moving. (Btw, in case you've given up on the series, the Wii version was terrible, the Wii U version is glorious. I skipped the 3DS version.)

So, yeah, difficulty isn't really present in finishing a race, but early on it is tough to win Gold until you upgrade your vehicle.

I actually have no problem with MarioKart rubberbanding since that's just multi-player hijinks with my kids and buddies. But I didn't believe the critiques of The Crew rubberbanding til I saw it for myself. Wow!

scrub wrote:

I actually have no problem with MarioKart rubberbanding since that's just multi-player hijinks with my kids and buddies. But I didn't believe the critiques of The Crew rubberbanding til I saw it for myself. Wow!

Haha totally agree Scrub! Especially when I'm racing against something like a bus or a truck and they're catching up to my heavily modified car.

If anyone else is playing on PS4 I'd love to know and friend up. It's a great way to get some serious money in the game.

So, I've never hated and loved a game with such a passion as The Crew. Some story missions are literally impossible in Hardcore driving mode no matter how maxed out your car is. So, back to all assists back on. The last few story missions are a test of one's patience but if you come mentally prepared they aren't so bad -- but really, isn't that an indictment of the design already?

I will say this though... I've still plowed upwards of 150 hours in just screwing around and doing Award Pooint things, the game's internal achievement system. Just plain fun to drive around with some nebulous goal(s).

If it's for sale The Crew is a good pick-up for anyone who likes free roaming driving games.

So the first expansion for this came out last week. Has anybody bought it? I got the game as a gift last year, and, while I didn't really care for the racing, I did enjoy exploring the landscape while I listen to podcasts. I'd be interested to know if the expansion is worth a purchase.