Ubisoft the new EA

[Carfax83]

Ubisoft seems to be garnering a lot of negative publicity lately, and particularly earning the displeasure of PC gamers due to the Watch Dogs downgrade fiasco and extremely poor optimization for PC architecture..

Then there's controversy surrounding Far Cry 4 wherein Ubisoft apparently seems quite content to not take advantage of the much greater processing power found in the PC platform, and is instead seeking artificially imposed parity with the current gen consoles..

And if this wasn't enough, whatifgaming is reporting that The Division is already being downgraded from what was seen in the impressive E3 demo due to the consoles' lack of power..

Linustectips recently put out a new YouTube video entitled Ubisoft is the new EA which focuses on the Watch Dogs ordeal and they draw comparisons to EA; though EA does seem to be turning a new page.

We PC gamers just can't catch a break it seems. I thought that the greater power and architectural compatibility of the PS4 and Xbox One would usher in a new era of high quality games, but it's the same old shit being replayed over again with developers being pressured to impose artificial parity across all platforms rather than taking true advantage of the power of the PC.

Though it must be said, that while Ubisoft is undoubtedly the worst offender, we shouldn't assume other developers will automatically be following suit. Some developers like CDPR for instance have too much pride and passion to restrain their ambition on account of not wanting to hurt the feelings of console gamers who would be crushed to know just how underpowered their consoles are compared to gaming PCs.

And that's why it's import for PC gamers to take care of those developers that cater to us by not pirating their games! It would be a shame that after all the good faith that CDPR has shown to the PC gaming community, that the Witcher 3 ends up being the most pirated game of 2015..

It remains to be seen whether other major developers like Bioware ascribe to the artificial parity nonsense like Ubisoft, or do the right thing. I think there's a 60% chance of Bioware developing their next gen games in our favor, as they have strong PC roots and the extremely capable Frostbite 3 engine, which is vastly superior to anything they themselves have ever made. Looking at Dragon Age Inquisition (which supposedly uses the PC as the lead platform), you can definitely see that they have allowed their creativity to run wild..

I guess we'll see when Dragon Age Inquisition launches in October of this year..

 

[lamedude]

Ubisoft will have to buy Capcom and turn Street Fighter into F2P garbage like EA did to C&C before I even Ubisoft in EA's league.

 

[BrightCandle]

Ubisoft has been a very controversial company for a long time, they nearly abandoned PC altogether a few years ago because their PC sales were so low. They have as a company for a long time focussed on sales to the console markets and not only poorly ported most of those games late to the PC but normally with absolutely terrible DRM.

Ubisoft's new strategy is to make every single one of their games have online features (much like EA). Its not DRM in quite the same way (artificial) because you do get a "feature" out of it, but I can't help but feel like the player invasion stuff is periphery to watchdogs and was only added as an always on DRM scheme to the game. EA pulled the same stunt less well with Sim City and its online communities aspect.

I don't see that either company is changing, its just worked out how to sneak the bad stuff out without getting criticised. I just look at my fellow gamers and their lack of critical awareness of the disease that infested all their games and shack my head. Its not that ubisoft is becoming EA, its that EA worked out how to implement Ubisoft's DRM without the criticism Ubisoft received and Ubisoft is now copying them. They both suffer from a console first mentality and have done for a very long time. Both have been pushing heavy DRM and their store has become required in both. Nothing changed, they just tweaked the formula very slightly and now its all OK or new. Its not, its the same stunts they have been pulling for about 8 years to combat piracy and hurt legitimate customers they just got a little better at it.

 

[RussianSensation]

"Right now we already took out quite a lot of screen space reflections from the game and are working on asset management the best we can given consoles have that great unified memory. Naturally we will also be using online servers and have to produce a synchronization that higher graphics add to the latency so it had to be turned down. To me it still looks good, but not as good as the original reveal. I am sure as we get closer to launch and the actual console versions of the game featuring SD (Snowdrop) that it will start to seem all too obvious to people especially those on PCs. I just wanted to write and let you know that it definitely is not just stability but marketing politics plays into this a lot as well."

So they false advertised better graphics to ramp up hype and preorders, but in the end we are going to get a buggy game with downgraded graphics like Far Cry 3 and WD? Yup, about what many already knew.

---

"UPDATED 2nd Response from The Division Developer: Truth be told in regards to your question that while ‘Yes’ the lead platform is the PC, we simply cannot have such a big gap."


No problem, I'll just buy all of their games when they hit the bargain bin and support companies such as CDPR instead. For a multi-billion dollar firm to forcefully downgrade the leading platform's game just to make PS4/XB1 seem more powerful vs. a high end PC is pretty disappointing to read. An open admittal of it in public is even worse.

Why then that developers had no problems making some PS3 games look better than 360 or vice versa or certain games look and run better on PS4 vs. XB1? Their reasoning is not logical. They probably just don't want to spend the extra resources to take advantage of PC hardware since financially the ROI for them doing so for the PC is not worth it. First they have to make high quality art assets and effects only to later go in and butcher them to make it work on Ps4/XB1. Not surprised that FC4 on consoles is supposed to now look similar as Ultra on the PC since all they are doing is capping the graphics at HD7870 level (PS4). Of course it will probably run poorly even on a $360 R9 290

The idea of advertising a superior looking game to only release a downgraded version is just dishonest to the consumer.

 

[you2]

Both UBI and EA are a PIA; and I especially hate the drm in Dragon Age (it is EA drm but not origin); but I am willing to use Origin which I dislike but doesn't actually break the game; but Uplay I will no longer use as it causes all sort of crap (and is frequently down). To be hoenst there are enough 'good' games comming out these days from small developers I see no real reason to buy UBI or EA games. When those companies 'get' real maybe I will consider them agian. What are some great drm free games to be available this year: D:OS (maybe); Witcher 3 (not this year but only 7 months), Wasteland 2 (verdict still out some say it will be trash), banner saga (mega fun), Van hess (ok not drm free but steamworks), grim dawn (another 9 or 11 months), ...
-
Ok most (all?) of these games are rpg but still why buy UBI/EA games these days? If they want to be full of shit jsut buy consumer friendly games.

 

[imaheadcase]

The reason indie games rose to fame is because of these type of companies. I never thought I would see the day most $20 or less games I enjoy more than AAA games in steam or whatever.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

Then there's controversy surrounding Far Cry 4 wherein Ubisoft apparently seems quite content to not take advantage of the much greater processing power found in the PC platform, and is instead seeking artificially imposed parity with the current gen consoles..

snip

I guess we'll see when Dragon Age Inquisition launches in October of this year..

Here's a key thing to note - apparently the Division is going to be just Xbox One and PS4 alongside PC, and DA Inquisition is also coming for PS3 and 360. You would therefore think that DAI is the game that would be more likely to not want such a gap....

But yes, the new consoles are pretty powerful for the next year or two even if not upgradeable...the other issue with consoles is the more or less gamepad limitation. Consoles can support M/KB, they simply don't; and so even if they don't downgrade graphics on PC, there's always something that creeps into the PC version - UI decisions if nothing else.

 

[BSim500]

"And if this wasn't enough, whatifgaming is reporting that The Division is already being downgraded from what was seen in the impressive E3 demo due to the consoles' lack of power.."

That The Division's GFX would be downgraded is the very first thing I predicted would happen after Watch Dogs. Developers may tweak 10-20% more out of it over the next 7 years with more coding experience, but ultimately, you still can't pump a fire-hose worth of water through a drinking straw...

"It remains to be seen whether other major developers like Bioware ascribe to the artificial parity nonsense like Ubisoft, or do the right thing"

I thought Bioware pretty much became EA sometime in 2007-2008? (which explains why Dragon Age: Origins was epic as it was too late in the cycle for EA to screw up anything major whilst DA2 was the usual lowest-common-denominator slap in the face...)

"We PC gamers just can't catch a break it seems. I thought that the greater power and architectural compatibility of the PS4 and Xbox One would usher in a new era of high quality games, but it's the same old shit being replayed over again with developers being pressured to impose artificial parity across all platforms rather than taking true advantage of the power of the PC."

What's sad is that a low-mid range budget gaming PC with a "same horsepower" 7790 / 7850 GFX card + i3-4130 still runs faster than capped at 30fps consoles at same "Medium" texture / shadow quality GFX & resolution settings. So there appears to be literally no "direct to metal" advantage of x86 consoles in actual practice anymore. Likewise, XBone is virtually running Windows 8 in all but name.

"I guess we'll see when Dragon Age Inquisition launches in October of this year.. "

I so badly want to believe this will be 99% DAO / 1% DA2, but my head says otherwise regarding "optimized for joypad, action-oriented casual audience consumption" past precedence...

The reason indie games rose to fame is because of these type of companies. I never thought I would see the day most $20 or less games I enjoy more than AAA games in steam or whatever.

^ This +1000. Last three AAA games I enjoyed were Skyrim (2011), Dishonored (2012) & Bioshock Infinite (2013). I'm literally down to 1x AAA game per year. For 2014, I've had more fun playing Banished, QUBE, CLARC, Don't Starve, Blackwell Quintology, Transistor, Endless Space, Distant Worlds Universe, Pandora First Contact, etc, plus replaying older stuff (Age of Mythology, Rise of Nations, Mass Effect trilogy, even Doom), than any new AAA games. Thief flopped (as expected), Titanfall & Watch Dogs were waaay overhyped, whilst The Division, Far Cry 4, etc = I'm really struggling to muster the interest given I know the underlying very clear attitude behind all of them in advance...

Dragon Age: Inquisition aside (which I'm on the fence about), literally the only other 2014 game on the horizon for me is Elite: Dangerous (if they stay true to form). AAA:Indie gaming has gone from about 5:1 to 1:8 for me, which is just plain sad given how much money is thrown at the former just for marketing budgets alone, and how many of the 300-odd games I own over 25 years have predominately been big name top-10 AAA... :\

 

[BrightCandle]

...What's sad is that a low-mid range budget gaming PC with a "same horsepower" 7790 / 7850 GFX card + i3-4130 still runs faster than capped at 30fps consoles at same "Medium" texture / shadow quality GFX & resolution settings. So there appears to be literally no "direct to metal" advantage of x86 consoles in actual practice anymore. Likewise, XBone is virtually running Windows 8 in all but name.
...

It makes me smile that I was so right about this before the consoles came out. Do you all remember the rapid fanboys claiming they would be 10x faster because of the direct to the metal advantage and that the new consoles would embarrass the PC. I laughed then and I am still laughing. Now the main argument seems to be that there is no difference between 720p and 1080p because the human eye can't tell the difference, nor can it tell the difference between 30 and 60 fps. Cognitive dissonance all the way to the end. Sad just sad. In the PC world we are debating 144hz or 4k and no body says "hey well 1080p60 is enough for anybody". I don't know what it is about the guys that defended the console specs but any catchup they did was always going to be temporary, a year or two max before they were left at 50% of the performance or less. Starting out at 50% performance of the high end was somewhat unexpected and just meant they started behind and saddled it with a dreadful CPU. I bought both the previous consoles, I haven't any of the new ones, and its because the hardware and exclusives are unimpressive.

When I first saw The Division reveal I thought "wow that looks interesting" and then I realised all of the dialog was completely scripted. What I did was mentally imagine what happens when I play the game online and am joined with 3 other people who never say a thing (despite having a mic). Or worse you get someone who keeps saying he is 'sleeping' with your mom. This is practically what will happen in the game and not a lot in between. BF4 potentially has the same team work need and yet its rare you get anything but abuse over chat and no one using a mic at all despite like 90% of the players having them. If you talk first its jarring to everyone around you, they reach for the mute button instinctively, they don't want to talk about tactics or work together. Team games in reality just don't look like the E3 reveals, whether it be Seal team six or the division. They have created this reality distortion showing how online gaming ought to be, but its nothing like that at all.

When you combine that experience with Ubisoft's usual problems like its server issues, always on DRM etc it becomes a little less appealing. You start to realise its pretty much the same game as Defiance, a third person MMOish like team shooter. It will only have as many controls as a console can support, its interface will all be left and right instead of nice simple mouse clicks on lists of things and generally be really badly designed for KB+M as its optimised for console. They will add a load of inaccuracy into the guns to partly hide the inaccuracy in the controller aim and partly to tone down how deadly the mouse is at such short ranges. Does it really sound that appealing as a game when you also combine it with the fact its maximum graphics will be designed for a mid range card? AAA titles suck, some of them look OK but they are rarely actually fan to play in practice.

 

[futurefields]

When I first saw The Division reveal I thought "wow that looks interesting" and then I realised all of the dialog was completely scripted. What I did was mentally imagine what happens when I play the game online and am joined with 3 other people who never say a thing (despite having a mic). Or worse you get someone who keeps saying he is 'sleeping' with your mom. This is practically what will happen in the game and not a lot in between. BF4 potentially has the same team work need and yet its rare you get anything but abuse over chat and no one using a mic at all despite like 90% of the players having them. If you talk first its jarring to everyone around you, they reach for the mute button instinctively, they don't want to talk about tactics or work together. Team games in reality just don't look like the E3 reveals, whether it be Seal team six or the division. They have created this reality distortion showing how online gaming ought to be, but its nothing like that at all.

Yeah team-based multiplayer sucks with randoms. You really need a core group of gamer friends to get the most enjoyment out of the new multiplayer games. Of course somebody comes along and will say "But I have tons of fun playing with randoms!" but really it pales in comparison to having a core group of 3 or 4 other people who you have played loads of games with. It's a lot easier to have fun that way because it's more about your social interaction in combination with the game mechanics.

Unfortunately for people like me who never really made a core group of gamer friends because I was never really *that* into gaming when I was younger and had more of a social life. I was doing things like going to parties and stuff, I did almost no gaming in high school and college years. But now that I am in my early 30's, I find I can't really enjoy the bulk of the new multiplayer games because playing them with randoms is not at all the right way to play them. Even games like Left 4 Dead 2, if you are trying to just play with randoms, you are having approximately 10% of the fun of people who play with actual friends.

Just my 2 cents - stick to single player gaming if you are older, or multiplayer games that are more random like COD. Team-based multiplayer is bound to dissapoint if you are a lone wolf gamer.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

Now the main argument seems to be that there is no difference between 720p and 1080p because the human eye can't tell the difference, nor can it tell the difference between 30 and 60 fps. Cognitive dissonance all the way to the end. Sad just sad. In the PC world we are debating 144hz or 4k and no body says "hey well 1080p60 is enough for anybody".

You guys would know more about this than me, but isn't 4k about to explode in the next 2-3 years, maybe sooner? If so, with console generations lasting 7 or more years, well...what kind of things might result from that? Could console gamers, in a desire to join in on the 4k fun, abandon consoles?

When I first saw The Division reveal I thought "wow that looks interesting" and then I realised all of the dialog was completely scripted. What I did was mentally imagine what happens when I play the game online and am joined with 3 other people who never say a thing (despite having a mic). Or worse you get someone who keeps saying he is 'sleeping' with your mom. This is practically what will happen in the game and not a lot in between. BF4 potentially has the same team work need and yet its rare you get anything but abuse over chat and no one using a mic at all despite like 90% of the players having them. If you talk first its jarring to everyone around you, they reach for the mute button instinctively, they don't want to talk about tactics or work together. Team games in reality just don't look like the E3 reveals, whether it be Seal team six or the division. They have created this reality distortion showing how online gaming ought to be, but its nothing like that at all.

Back in Battlefield 2, I was a regular player on a server and constantly used the chat to talk to squadmates. Key thing is, I was a regular player on a server, so you end up playing with the same people. Now, I'm sure the same thing happens in BF4 now, but I didn't get BF4, I play Planetside 2. I don't really have the time to commit to joining outfits or finding friends, so I lonewolf it all the time. I generally don't try to communicate via VOIP because that would end up getting people to want to squad me up and stuff. But I do like it that other people can prox VOIP and ask me for ammo and stuff.

 

[futurefields]

You guys would know more about this than me, but isn't 4k about to explode in the next 2-3 years, maybe sooner? If so, with console generations lasting 7 or more years, well...what kind of things might result from that? Could console gamers, in a desire to join in on the 4k fun, abandon consoles?

4K means nothing for console gamers. Consoles will always have to render at a lower resolution to even hope to keep up with gaming PC's. So while PC resolutions go up, console resolution will stay the same and likely even go down further as the actual rendering of games becomes more complex. I would be surprised to see a majority of PS4 AND XB1 games running 720p by generations end.

Either that, or PC's will be extremely handicapped and be running crappy graphics at UHD resolutions, much like they have already been doing.

All I can say is hopefully this console gen doesn't last as long as last one because there is literally no room for growth here...



Edit: Also, 4K is going to be too expensive to run for most PC gamers for some time. Unless you are happy running 4k at lowest possible settings. But then why upgrade to that resolution just to have to drop settings to achieve acceptable performance? Games running at 1080p with max settings look much better than a game running at 4k with low settings.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

4K means nothing for console gamers. Consoles will always have to render at a lower resolution to even hope to keep up with gaming PC's. So while PC resolutions go up, console resolution will stay the same and likely even go down further as the actual rendering of games becomes more complex. I would be surprised to see a majority of PS4 AND XB1 games running 720p by generations end.

Either that, or PC's will be extremely handicapped and be running crappy graphics at UHD resolutions, much like they have already been doing.

All I can say is hopefully this console gen doesn't last as long as last one because there is literally no room for growth here...



Edit: Also, 4K is going to be too expensive to run for most PC gamers for some time. Unless you are happy running 4k at lowest possible settings. But then why upgrade to that resolution just to have to drop settings to achieve acceptable performance? Games running at 1080p with max settings look much better than a game running at 4k with low settings.

I know 4k isn't possible for consoles, I meant, when it starts taking off for PC, couldn't that lead to an exodus of some kind from console to PC?

I have no tech knowledge to lean on to say whether this is actually possible, but it would be interesting if the AMD/Nvidia have been taking carefully measured forward steps in development all along, such that when 4k comes, they can somehow take a giant leap and support it with reasonable framerates...

 

[BrightCandle]

Even the new consoles haven't turned up to the HD gaming world let alone 4k. They are already struggling around 720p-900p resolutions and it'll only get worse. The console players don't care, they give the excuses of resolution doesn't matter, frame rate doesn't matter, its all about the gameplay not the graphics etc etc. They aren't going to want 4k gaming, they don't care as its just not important to them. They don't see the issues with controllers and the limited input options it provided and why all games end up all the same (if you you only have 4 buttons its very hard to come up with new gameplay mechanics!). I didn't play consoles like that, I played on them because the graphics were good for their day, the exclusive games on there were also decent enough and I could 4 way play with some friends.

4k is going to be big in PCs, it'll completely wash past consoles, it will have to because they just don't have the GPU horse power to play games at that resolution. In 8 years time a console day is going to be really low fidelity, 480p@30hz (one of the halos came out at this) compared to 2160p@120hz and quite likely that resolution and refresh in a virtual reality helmet. The difference in the gameplay experience between the two will be far bigger than it got with the 360/ps3, they literally lost 2 years already on the day of launch compared to their predecessors compared to the the PCs of the day. That is an entire silicon doubling extra and that is a lot.

In BF2 and COD and CS days we used to speak more to each other online. I still play on a server regularly its just the crowd has for some reason changed. What was normal (chatting with each other, tactical talk etc) has vanished almost everywhere. You need a clan now to get anything out of your team mates at all. Just one of the things I noticed has changed over time.

 

[shadow9d9]

Welcome to 5 years ago.

 

[Artorias]

The days of Ubisoft publishing titles like Far Cry 1(2004) are long gone.

 

[Artorias]

Yeah team-based multiplayer sucks with randoms. You really need a core group of gamer friends to get the most enjoyment out of the new multiplayer games. Of course somebody comes along and will say "But I have tons of fun playing with randoms!" but really it pales in comparison to having a core group of 3 or 4 other people who you have played loads of games with. It's a lot easier to have fun that way because it's more about your social interaction in combination with the game mechanics.

Unfortunately for people like me who never really made a core group of gamer friends because I was never really *that* into gaming when I was younger and had more of a social life. I was doing things like going to parties and stuff, I did almost no gaming in high school and college years. But now that I am in my early 30's, I find I can't really enjoy the bulk of the new multiplayer games because playing them with randoms is not at all the right way to play them. Even games like Left 4 Dead 2, if you are trying to just play with randoms, you are having approximately 10% of the fun of people who play with actual friends.

Just my 2 cents - stick to single player gaming if you are older, or multiplayer games that are more random like COD. Team-based multiplayer is bound to dissapoint if you are a lone wolf gamer.

I haven't played the Arma series but I hear its dedicated community groups are mature, and its frequent to encounter either real of ex soldiers playing the simulation modes like they were meant too. Note that I'm not talking about the popular Day Z mod which is like every other terrible multiplayer community.

 

[Subyman]

After playing Watchdogs, I wouldn't mind not playing another Ubisoft game. I played it through on PS4 with a friend. I was pumped up for a "Hackers" romp through the city, but was given a terribly written shooter. We did have fun laughing at the terrible dialog and story, which they tried to make sound authentic and serious but was filled with cliches and stereotypes. Awful.

 

[mikeymikec]

I liked Pro Tennis Tour 2 for the Amiga...

 

[Carfax83]

Ubisoft has been a very controversial company for a long time, they nearly abandoned PC altogether a few years ago because their PC sales were so low.

That's because of their draconic always on DRM. They ended up changing that in favor of the Steam model, which is account based and much more reasonable as it doesn't limit the amount of installs on however many machines..

Anyway, I think the PC gaming market is still too profitable for them to abandon completely. Especially with digital distribution platforms, the ROI can be potentially much higher than with consoles..

But the thing is, if you're going to make PC games, you have to cater to PC gamers specifically by not downgrading their games, and optimizing them properly for PC architecture.

Watch Dogs is a big blow to Ubisoft's credibility with PC gamers. I wouldn't be surprised if their future titles suffer in sales because of that.. I mean, the sheer LIES they've told thinking that people would swallow that garbage.

For example, the PC having a lack of unified memory as being responsible for the stuttering. What B.S! D:

 

[Carfax83]

I thought Bioware pretty much became EA sometime in 2007-2008? (which explains why Dragon Age: Origins was epic as it was too late in the cycle for EA to screw up anything major whilst DA2 was the usual lowest-common-denominator slap in the face...)

It's a bit more complicated than that I think. While EA does own Bioware, Bioware aren't entirely blameless in the Dragon Age 2 fiasco..

The thing that's always crippled Bioware and limited their creativity, are their internal engines which tend to perform very poorly and are inefficient. The Dragon Age 2 engine (Lycium) simply wasn't robust and scalable enough to deliver the goods in a meaningful way across multiple platforms and so the game suffered from major presentation issues, ie excessive reuse of assets, tiny levels and environments, simplistic detail etcetera..

Even Dragon Age Origins suffered from that. Denerim, the major "City" in Dragon Age Origins was a proverbial ghost town.. The City of Amn in Baldurs Gate 2 showed more life than Denerim for God's sake!

But with Frostbite 3, the shackles have been lifted off of Bioware's creativity as they now have access to an engine that is powerful enough, and scalable enough to deliver a great experience across multiple platforms.. Just look at the sheer size, scope and detail of what has been shown so far with Dragon Age Inquisition, compared to previous games..

The difference is staggering to say the least, and just goes to show that what I've said has merit..

 

[mikegg]

That's because of their draconic always on DRM. They ended up changing that in favor of the Steam model, which is account based and much more reasonable as it doesn't limit the amount of installs on however many machines..

Anyway, I think the PC gaming market is still too profitable for them to abandon completely. Especially with digital distribution platforms, the ROI can be potentially much higher than with consoles..

But the thing is, if you're going to make PC games, you have to cater to PC gamers specifically by not downgrading their games, and optimizing them properly for PC architecture.

Watch Dogs is a big blow to Ubisoft's credibility with PC gamers. I wouldn't be surprised if their future titles suffer in sales because of that.. I mean, the sheer LIES they've told thinking that people would swallow that garbage.

For example, the PC having a lack of unified memory as being responsible for the stuttering. What B.S! D:

I call BS on the DRM causing low sales. I've never thought to myself that I wouldn't buy a game because I have to install some DRM. If I want to play it, I will buy it.

The problem with PC gaming was piracy. It's still a problem but not as big anymore. I know of friends who never purchased a single game and pirated over 100 games. I'm sure people on this forum pirate as well.

The other problem with PC gaming is that it's a platform dominated by a few games. LoL, Dota, Starcraft, Diablo, Counter-Strike, etc. These people play the same games for many years. They're not looking to buy Assassin's Creed 2013, 2014, and then 2015. They are playing the same damn game over and over.

 

[sxr7171]

I don't have a problem with EA anymore. Origin works fine. At least they patched BF4 until it works.

Ubisoft is a joke. They haven't fixed AC4 tearing and 30fps Vsync issues to this day.

I have no hope that Watch Dogs will be playable without stuttering. I have no expectations. I won't be buying anything from Ubisoft until they change their stance like EA did.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

I'll be honest, I really like the Dragon Age story world, so I'm hooked on it no matter what. But, there are two main things that annoy me:

1. Declaring the story of the Warden from DA:O over, and, I'm afraid they won't give the old god baby plot device from DA:O enough attention, or perhaps even use it at all. Honestly, I think that part of the DA universe deserves a game dedicated to it alone
2. The combat pacing and reused scenery and similar in DA2

 

[ImpulsE69]

I almost would have never bought another Ubi product after the very annoying motorcycle game (which name escapes me right now) and its uplay crap, but I do really like the Rocksmith franchise and it is done right as they've made uplay practically invisible.

Pretty much anything else I question and wait on..like Watchdogs. There was wayyy too much hype around that game, kind of like there was around From Dust..which turned out to be meh as well.