[Anthem] Early Access is live. Please mark spoilers. God speed, Freelancers.

Fairchild

In the future, where humanity is barely hanging on against both aliens and giant planetside monsters without the benefit of Nathan Fillion's light-hearted advice (no, it's not DESTINY 2) players take on their Javelin exosuits (no, it's not WARFRAME) to venture forth on missions of exploration and combat. You're right, it's not the most original of game concepts, but EA has spent a ton of money and it's got the Bioware people behind it, so it does look promising. Scheduled to release in February, 2019.

Google doc for PA team sign-up, from Simpsonia:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lgqvpArn98dN_IFWXUnhxVl-F1X_pfVeyZ_M8E6C4rs/edit?usp=sharing

Here's the cinematic trailer:

Full E3 Gameplay Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=p-nKttWT7JM

More details on the EA website: https://www.ea.com/games/anthem

ANTHEM Producer Mark Darrah answers a variety of questions about the game: https://www.ea.com/games/anthem/news/best-of-mark-darrah-ask-me-anything

Fairchild

Fairchild

Full E3 Gameplay Demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=p-nKttWT7JM

tastydonuts

So I actually just wrote a thread up too, came up shortly after yours... do you want to be the one that maintains a thread for the game? If so I'll ask for mine to be closed and such. LMK

Fairchild

Sure, I'll maintain it. Thanks.

Fairchild

I was about to make a list of gameplay details for ANTHEM when I saw this video:

Preacher

I'm leaning storm, as much as I want to go hulk buster, I imagine it will be a popular option.

Aegis

Please be good, Anthem.

metaghost

Aegis wrote: »

Please be good, Anthem.

Pretty much all of the post-E3 content has greatly assuaged any concerns I had. That they didn't just go on stage and show that full gameplay demo is bewildering, and Mark Darrah has been doing great work in his various promotional efforts.

LostNinja

Fairchild wrote: »

I was about to make a list of gameplay details for ANTHEM when I saw this video:

I haven’t been following really any of the news regarding the specifics of this game, so this was the first time I’ve heard about it having a campaign that you can solo.

The ability to solo missions is really what will decide if I give this game a go or not. I seem to remember one of the E3 interviews basically having someone say “well you can, but this was designed to be a co-op game.” Which, fair enough, but they seemed to be implying that you really shouldn’t play solo. I just want the minimum Destiny level freedom in that regard.

Blackbird SR-71C

The combo abilities - zap enemies with lightening from a storm, then detonate them with the rocket of a colossus - really remind me of Mass Effect 3 multiplayer. I'm cautiously optimistic; The gameplay looks neat, but I need a story or good lore to pull me into this sort of thing. Mass Effect had already wooed me with 3 full games of world building, this game better have some good introduction to get me interested in the world. I don't really care about fighting random creatures, robots or scavengers just for the sake of it.

Fencingsax

Blackbird SR-71C wrote: »

The combo abilities - zap enemies with lightening from a storm, then detonate them with the rocket of a colossus - really remind me of Mass Effect 3 multiplayer. I'm cautiously optimistic; The gameplay looks neat, but I need a story or good lore to pull me into this sort of thing. Mass Effect had already wooed me with 3 full games of world building, this game better have some good introduction to get me interested in the world. I don't really care about fighting random creatures, robots or scavengers just for the sake of it.

The combo stuff has definitely been in Bioware for awhile

Eat it You Nasty Pig.

Honestly I don’t care that much about story or lore; if it’s there then great but I really just want a more fleshed out co-op shooter (with better mechanics than destiny)

If they can kinda fuse the andromeda and ME3 multi together then sign me up

(hopefully the pricing model isn’t obnoxious)

Sorce

Preacher wrote: »

I'm leaning storm, as much as I want to go hulk buster, I imagine it will be a popular option.

Give me all the Colossii upgrades.

Fencingsax

I am interested in what the interceptor is.

-Loki-

I want to see some Ranger gameplay. Storm looks interesting but the Ranger looks like the ‘standard’ suit

Mostlyjoe13

I must not think of this as Destiny-like. Set my expectations to nill and just experience what it actually is. - Mantra I keep repeating to myself. You know what the game so-far reminds me of? Very early Warframe with only 4 classes. If they emulate Warframe style cosmetic options. Yes please.

Preacher

-Loki- wrote: »

I want to see some Ranger gameplay. Storm looks interesting but the Ranger looks like the ‘standard’ suit

I think it is, like there was an all arounder and that might have been the ranger.

Forar

*watches 10 things video*

... I simultaneously love this and think "toooo soooooon".

Preacher

They tend to put looks of all their games in things. Like ME 2 had a dragon age armor suit.

Sorce

Forar wrote: »

*watches 10 things video*

... I simultaneously love this and think "toooo soooooon".

There needs to be that suit though, because Anthem is totally a backdoor ME sequel on Habitat-7.

Eat it You Nasty Pig.

that helmet kinda looks like an HK too, though that might be a coincidence

Forar

Preacher wrote: »

They tend to put looks of all their games in things. Like ME 2 had a dragon age armor suit.

I'm aware, and rocked that armour with style.

Still, it stings, even as something awesome.

Rainfall

Sorce wrote: »

Forar wrote: »

*watches 10 things video*

... I simultaneously love this and think "toooo soooooon".

There needs to be that suit though, because Anthem is totally a backdoor ME sequel on Habitat-7.

Andromeda

You mean Ryder-1?

Preacher

Some newish gameplay combined with the talking about how again out in the world its you and the bros but back in your city its just you and your decisions.

Moridin889

Was at the Anthem panel today, if you didn't see it or watch it and have questions I may be able to help.

Confirmed
No romances
No loot boxes (Can pay for cosmetics or earn them in game)
No paying for story dlc
Matchmaking for missions
Flamethrowers

Preacher

Awesome!



My name is byf of destiny fame had an interview with one of the developers, it goes over story and lore but I did like the initial feeling of the dev team and how they want to remain true to their vision but are not unaware of what happened with other games. Probably why no loot boxes or paying for story dlc.

Wraith260

yeah Byf has been diversifying a bit this past year and has expanded to covering Warframe and Anthem as well as Destiny. think we're getting to the point where we should start to see more Anthem content, both official and from the community.

Preacher

I think its positive how communicative they've been with the gaming community. We'll see with the release, but so far the anthem devs have been doing good in my book.

GMaster7

Just watched that "Our World, My Story" trailer. The movement/flying/floating in this just looks so damn fun. But there's something I still do not understand about how the story stuff will work. (I understand that this will probably be made clearer in time, but I'm just caught up on it right now.)

Let's say I log on and group up with three friends. To start the session, we are each tooling around in Ft. Tarsis, doing our individual story stuff. Fine. Maybe you get someone talking on voice chat over the NPC dialogue, which sounds like it could be problematic, but alright.

The four of us head out into the world and do a mission. Maybe we're all on the same mission in our story, or more likely, maybe we aren't and we decide to help the lowest-level person handle an earlier mission. Fine. We do that and have fun doing it. Then we head back to Ft. Tarsis.

Now the four of us are back in our individual Ft. Tarses. NPCs are talking to each of us. Maybe these story segments run different lengths. Maybe some of us end up waiting for others. And the entire time, each of us have to be concerned about our story segment being interrupted by party-chat voice comms.

In Destiny, this worked because there wasn't ever any important story in the Tower to hear/experience. Other party members just chatting with unrelated banter is never really a problem. In Destiny missions, it's not a problem because everyone is hearing the same story content at the same time.

I'm just concerned that unless I only want to play with a very small subset of my friends, and have an agreement ahead of time that nobody is going to talk while we're in town, it's going to be difficult to experience this grand storytelling that Bioware is putting together.

Preacher

When I played destiny 1/2 I always did story missions not in a group just because I didn't want to hear random wharbl. So I can imagine not grouping at first while I do one play through, or just matchmaking for the mission and then dropping group back in town. There is also scaling with your bros who can join later missions even if they aren't higher level, or vice versa so you aren't going to lose much by waiting for grouping I wouldn't think. I do know some bioware fans were upset at the idea of there always being other players in their story missions for this, so it sounds like they listened to that complaint.

There also seems to be two types of mission content, like story and exploration, which reminds me of destiny 1 where you had specific mission launches, and then like gathering zone, something I did like.

GMaster7

Preacher wrote: »

When I played destiny 1/2 I always did story missions not in a group just because I didn't want to hear random wharbl. So I can imagine not grouping at first while I do one play through, or just matchmaking for the mission and then dropping group back in town. There is also scaling with your bros who can join later missions even if they aren't higher level, or vice versa so you aren't going to lose much by waiting for grouping I wouldn't think. I do know some bioware fans were upset at the idea of there always being other players in their story missions for this, so it sounds like they listened to that complaint.

There also seems to be two types of mission content, like story and exploration, which reminds me of destiny 1 where you had specific mission launches, and then like gathering zone, something I did like.

When I played the D1 campaign, I was always in a PS party, because as I said, it didn't really affect the way I was experiencing the story and I could always say, "Hey, hold on a sec so we can hear this." When D2 launched and all of the D1 players were playing at different speeds, I played through the campaign solo, which was... fine, but did feel empty and unfulfilling. Post-campaign, I've played way more solo D2 than I did D1, and part of it is that - as you suggest - it's sometimes easier to just matchmake into a group when I know I'm only going to do one activity.

It just feels like that's missing the point. I guess I want it both ways. I want to be able to experience as much of this multiplayer game as possible with friends, but I also fear having to listen to wharble-gharble. I guess my solution is probably to try to play the story-specific stuff with a group that I trust will allow us to be respectful of each other's experiences.

Edit: And maybe if the campaign is on the reasonably-short side, I can do the random matchmake for a lot of that and focus on grouping with friends for the open world and sidequest and post-campaign stuff, which tends to be a huge part of these games. I think this is what you're suggesting.

Preacher

GMaster7 wrote: »

Preacher wrote: »

When I played destiny 1/2 I always did story missions not in a group just because I didn't want to hear random wharbl. So I can imagine not grouping at first while I do one play through, or just matchmaking for the mission and then dropping group back in town. There is also scaling with your bros who can join later missions even if they aren't higher level, or vice versa so you aren't going to lose much by waiting for grouping I wouldn't think. I do know some bioware fans were upset at the idea of there always being other players in their story missions for this, so it sounds like they listened to that complaint.

There also seems to be two types of mission content, like story and exploration, which reminds me of destiny 1 where you had specific mission launches, and then like gathering zone, something I did like.

When I played the D1 campaign, I was always in a PS party, because as I said, it didn't really affect the way I was experiencing the story and I could always say, "Hey, hold on a sec so we can hear this." When D2 launched and all of the D1 players were playing at different speeds, I played through the campaign solo, which was... fine, but did feel empty and unfulfilling. Post-campaign, I've played way more solo D2 than I did D1, and part of it is that - as you suggest - it's sometimes easier to just matchmake into a group when I know I'm only going to do one activity.

It just feels like that's missing the point. I guess I want it both ways. I want to be able to experience as much of this multiplayer game as possible with friends, but I also fear having to listen to wharble-gharble. I guess my solution is probably to try to play the story-specific stuff with a group that I trust will allow us to be respectful of each other's experiences.

Edit: And maybe if the campaign is on the reasonably-short side, I can do the random matchmake for a lot of that and focus on grouping with friends for the open world and sidequest and post-campaign stuff, which tends to be a huge part of these games. I think this is what you're suggesting.

I hear you I totally do, because with d2 it felt like mostly I played solo and the game was empty because of it, but thats because destiny has very poor story telling/non existant. Where as Bioware has better story telling usually, so you'll probably want to hear the story stuff.

But ultimately we won't know until the beta coming up, but I'm hopeful since everyone who has gone hands on with the game has come away saying it plays as fun as it looks.

Moridin889

Was at the Anthem panel today, if you didn't see it or watch it and have questions I may be able to help.

Confirmed

GMaster7 wrote: »

Just watched that "Our World, My Story" trailer. The movement/flying/floating in this just looks so damn fun. But there's something I still do not understand about how the story stuff will work. (I understand that this will probably be made clearer in time, but I'm just caught up on it right now.)

Let's say I log on and group up with three friends. To start the session, we are each tooling around in Ft. Tarsis, doing our individual story stuff. Fine. Maybe you get someone talking on voice chat over the NPC dialogue, which sounds like it could be problematic, but alright.

The four of us head out into the world and do a mission. Maybe we're all on the same mission in our story, or more likely, maybe we aren't and we decide to help the lowest-level person handle an earlier mission. Fine. We do that and have fun doing it. Then we head back to Ft. Tarsis.

Now the four of us are back in our individual Ft. Tarses. NPCs are talking to each of us. Maybe these story segments run different lengths. Maybe some of us end up waiting for others. And the entire time, each of us have to be concerned about our story segment being interrupted by party-chat voice comms.

In Destiny, this worked because there wasn't ever any important story in the Tower to hear/experience. Other party members just chatting with unrelated banter is never really a problem. In Destiny missions, it's not a problem because everyone is hearing the same story content at the same time.

I'm just concerned that unless I only want to play with a very small subset of my friends, and have an agreement ahead of time that nobody is going to talk while we're in town, it's going to be difficult to experience this grand storytelling that Bioware is putting together.

You don't have to go back to the fort for more missions and can progress through the conversations at your own leisure whenever.

Oh and they said a full fledged demo in February. There may be opportunities to play it before then.

GMaster7

Thank you, Moridin! That's helpful to know. So maybe you can string together 5 missions or something with friends and then part ways, go back to town and experience a bunch of story in your own time?

Orca

Inevitably there will be some jerk yelling SPACEBAR if there is any opportunity at all to skip dialog. So I’m guessing it will be temporary groups for missions, then drop group for story.

Fencingsax

Orca wrote: »

Inevitably there will be some jerk yelling SPACEBAR if there is any opportunity at all to skip dialog. So I’m guessing it will be temporary groups for missions, then drop group for story.

There is no fucking way I'm playing this with pubs. It's either single player or friends list.

Preacher

Apparently the demo is coming out on feb 1.

cloudeagle

Kotaku has more details on story stuff. The big takeaways:

Conversational stuff generally only has two choices (not yes/no, but generally opposite) that affect how your relationships form
No decisions that affect story during missions
Decisions you make with NPCs won't create or lock off content
"Limited character creation options" with some backstory
Vendors will give you their story ("I have a very tragic reason I'm selling you guns")
“A reinvention of personal narrative in a multiplayer game,” whatever the hell that means

So if you were annoyed by the lack of narrative agency at the end of Mass Effect 3, prepare to hate this game.

Xeddicus

I am all prepared and ready to see BioWare tossed into Oblivion.

Surprise me, EA!

Ninja Snarl P

cloudeagle wrote: »

So if you were annoyed by the lack of narrative agency at the end of Mass Effect 3, prepare to hate this game.

Well, they aren't pitching this game as a piece of a multi-part franchise alongside promises of player choices having major effects in the overall story, then throwing away all of those choices for some incredibly terribad options with virtually no subtlety or player influence outside some very broad, very bad choices.

As long as they're just up-front with what they're actually putting in the game instead of blowing mountains of smoke, there shouldn't be any issues. It's obviously not meant to be like Mass Effect originally claimed to be, so who cares if it doesn't have much in the way of character choices? Clearly just isn't a priority of the game design, and it's not like they're trying to trick anyone into buying the game.