zahratustra
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If it's pretty much the same as their previous games than I'm out too. Felt cheated by the way they treated C&Cs in Of Orcs and Men…
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The Technomancer - First Reviews
- Thread starter Myrthos
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Previous game is just one and it's Mars: War Logs.
Of Orcs and Men was a game obviously in different direction - I've never bought it.
Another recent their different game is Bound by Flame - at start it felt good and interesting but later becomes boring.
If nothing, Technomancer is openworld - something neither of previous Spiders games were.
For c&c quality I don't think we'll know that fast as it needs a detailed runthrough and probably more than one. From what I've seen, not a single reviewer mentioned there is anything like TW3 where my Geralt in the end became lone wolf just because I forced him to have sex with anything that moves.
Oh and Ciri went to be a princess. And I wanted her to go "witchering"! Whatta bitch…
I'll have to replay it soon.
Of Orcs and Men was a game obviously in different direction - I've never bought it.
Another recent their different game is Bound by Flame - at start it felt good and interesting but later becomes boring.
If nothing, Technomancer is openworld - something neither of previous Spiders games were.
For c&c quality I don't think we'll know that fast as it needs a detailed runthrough and probably more than one. From what I've seen, not a single reviewer mentioned there is anything like TW3 where my Geralt in the end became lone wolf just because I forced him to have sex with anything that moves.
Oh and Ciri went to be a princess. And I wanted her to go "witchering"! Whatta bitch…
I'll have to replay it soon.
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Waiting for codex review… I knew there's a reason you're still not married.
Waiting instead of playing.
News for those who play PC games with controllers, Technomancer on PC sometimes doesn't detect xbox mushroompad. Probably will be fixed, but if you're buying the game now with plans to play it with xbox joystick, buy a console version till they sort it out.
Waiting instead of playing.
News for those who play PC games with controllers, Technomancer on PC sometimes doesn't detect xbox mushroompad. Probably will be fixed, but if you're buying the game now with plans to play it with xbox joystick, buy a console version till they sort it out.
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Why the heck would anyone play a pc game with a crappy xbox UI ? keyboard/mouse all the way. Btw is this game any good ?
Of Orcs and Men is still the only game of theirs I really enjoyed, because it felt so refreshing. The others were essentially just the same game in a different setting, as the systems underneath were the same. I assume that's why people are a bit worried about this one - is it yet another iteration of the same system, or is it a new one? Whether or not it's open world is irrelevant to people who are already bored of the system itself.
Still, it looks different to me, so I'll probably give it a spin.
SpoonFULL
SasqWatch
One important thing to mention is that Cyanide did all the writing and dialog for Orcs and Men, and just used Spider's game engine - hence the relatively higher scores for the Orcs game.
ChienAboyeur
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Tells enough.
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Early impressions.
This game is definetly Mars 2, I got the same vibe. Lore gets expansive and you learn a bit here, a bit there, I'm not even sure anymore which faction is which and which name is who. J/K, I wanted to say there is so much to learn about the world and it widens by talking to every new NPCs you meet. Which is IMO good.
I don't think tutorial mission is bad as some reviewers suggested. You get to practice combat plus stealth and learn about technomancers history. That mission is not openworld - it's linear, so maybe that's why reviewers didn't like it. Dunno, it's IMO good.
Soon after it you'll open a big city hub which is openworld definetly, I love the architecture. Classic Spiders' human props you can't talk to are still there, but at least are moving around instead of staying at one place. Which brings in the first problem. Sometimes these "walklings" will play Lydia role, strike a pose at some narrow passage and make you stuck. Not a big issue though, you just wait a few secs till they move again.
Loadtimes are… What loadtimes? I saw no loadtimes (SSD though) and animated dooropening and climbing a ladder is used to cover for area transition. Nice! Saving and loading is almost instant. The game makes autosave on area transitions only and city parts are huge so I'd say frequent quicksave is a necessity. Phone audience who got used being passive and let game to play them instead them playing the game will have a hard time to adapt to this. IMO this is superpositive thing after horrible checkpoints system in Dragon Dogma.
The music is… Honestly: meh. At least earlygame. Nothing caught my attention like in some other games where I stop to listen. Not saying this is a bad thing as some people don't like to be distracted by "violins", but a random great score wouldn't hurt the game.
Skillsystem is huge and is set in three parts. I didn't put up much thought in it and went only staves fighting, but after a while I think you shouldn't do this. You have to switch "stance" for effectiveness during fights with different mobs which means you won't play one class but will be jack of all trades. You can, if you want, concentrate on just one skill tree, but I don't see getting any huge benefit from it. In any case, the combat totally reminds me on Amalur videos. It's arcadey. More than this about combat I cannot say, it's too early. However…
Just like in Mars, mobs spawn at the same points you've already cleared before. Horrible, disastrous, catastrophic decision. It wasn't a problem in Mars because it was linear game where you'd see mobs on the same spot max two times, but this is openworld! First time I saw it I thought it's questrelated as I needed to find someone and these were basically faction mobs, but after dealing with the same pair of hostiles 5 times at the same spot, I got tired of that bullshit. And you know the drill. Dropped difficulty on easy. Sorry guys, I know you all like challenge, I also like challenge, but this is not challenge this is grind at it's worst. Trashmobs will remain easy, I'll be switching bosses and nonrepeatable questmobs on hard.
Some reviewer said Technomancer is Bioware wannabe, these idiotic trashmob respawns carboncopied from DA:Bears prove it at least partially is.
Speaking of Bioware, I've already found a girl with an option "compliment her". Found is not a proper word, I helped her wihin a quest before I got the butter up option. So romances are in. How many and at what scale dunno. Also dunno if it's possible to romance more than one NPC, would be nice if it's in (yes, I know, "romancing" everything left my Geralt without anyone in the end but what can I do).
The game has karma and reputation system that promises at least some c&c if not huge changes later. By killing a human your karma drops (and at least one of your sidekicks protest - which might make him leave later, not sure). It raises by solving quests though. Reputation with factions also depends on your choice how to solve a quest, but it can also raise reputation with your sidekicks! Just as an example, not a big spoiler, you'll be chasing some deserters and you need to choose if you'll kill them or not, and in the end will you let their leader escape, kill him or just arrest him. Each choice will produce different karma and rep, possibly also lategame consequences. Honestly, I love it.
About that deserters quest I used as an example… It's timed. You have a day and a half ingame to solve it. No. Just no. This is bad decision, especially because time cycle is in and you can sleep to get rid of some "tired" effect (not sure yet what exactly it does except no XP bonus while tired). I didn't see another timed quest yet and hope there isn't any more - why I didn't, because I was chasing sidequests. There are quite a few of those and each one adds something to game lore.
Performance so far so good. Didn't notice any hiccup or lock or something, everything runs smooth and I don't even have any monstrous $20K priced machine but a decent rig (i5-4670K, GTX760).
Dunno what more to say after just a few hours of game, in many things I'm still not sure, some things like inventory weight and room chest to store items are pretty much nothing of high importance.
Oh yeah. Hair is still horrible and to cover for it most NPCs are bald. This is expected from a title developed for consoles too, but sorry it's 2016. and they could put some proper hair at least on PC version.
I'll have to replay TW3 after this game.
EDIT:
Final edit is this. I don't see this game being 5/10. This is not an average game, it's definetly above average. Screw IGN.
This game is definetly Mars 2, I got the same vibe. Lore gets expansive and you learn a bit here, a bit there, I'm not even sure anymore which faction is which and which name is who. J/K, I wanted to say there is so much to learn about the world and it widens by talking to every new NPCs you meet. Which is IMO good.
I don't think tutorial mission is bad as some reviewers suggested. You get to practice combat plus stealth and learn about technomancers history. That mission is not openworld - it's linear, so maybe that's why reviewers didn't like it. Dunno, it's IMO good.
Soon after it you'll open a big city hub which is openworld definetly, I love the architecture. Classic Spiders' human props you can't talk to are still there, but at least are moving around instead of staying at one place. Which brings in the first problem. Sometimes these "walklings" will play Lydia role, strike a pose at some narrow passage and make you stuck. Not a big issue though, you just wait a few secs till they move again.
Loadtimes are… What loadtimes? I saw no loadtimes (SSD though) and animated dooropening and climbing a ladder is used to cover for area transition. Nice! Saving and loading is almost instant. The game makes autosave on area transitions only and city parts are huge so I'd say frequent quicksave is a necessity. Phone audience who got used being passive and let game to play them instead them playing the game will have a hard time to adapt to this. IMO this is superpositive thing after horrible checkpoints system in Dragon Dogma.
The music is… Honestly: meh. At least earlygame. Nothing caught my attention like in some other games where I stop to listen. Not saying this is a bad thing as some people don't like to be distracted by "violins", but a random great score wouldn't hurt the game.
Skillsystem is huge and is set in three parts. I didn't put up much thought in it and went only staves fighting, but after a while I think you shouldn't do this. You have to switch "stance" for effectiveness during fights with different mobs which means you won't play one class but will be jack of all trades. You can, if you want, concentrate on just one skill tree, but I don't see getting any huge benefit from it. In any case, the combat totally reminds me on Amalur videos. It's arcadey. More than this about combat I cannot say, it's too early. However…
Just like in Mars, mobs spawn at the same points you've already cleared before. Horrible, disastrous, catastrophic decision. It wasn't a problem in Mars because it was linear game where you'd see mobs on the same spot max two times, but this is openworld! First time I saw it I thought it's questrelated as I needed to find someone and these were basically faction mobs, but after dealing with the same pair of hostiles 5 times at the same spot, I got tired of that bullshit. And you know the drill. Dropped difficulty on easy. Sorry guys, I know you all like challenge, I also like challenge, but this is not challenge this is grind at it's worst. Trashmobs will remain easy, I'll be switching bosses and nonrepeatable questmobs on hard.
Some reviewer said Technomancer is Bioware wannabe, these idiotic trashmob respawns carboncopied from DA:Bears prove it at least partially is.
Speaking of Bioware, I've already found a girl with an option "compliment her". Found is not a proper word, I helped her wihin a quest before I got the butter up option. So romances are in. How many and at what scale dunno. Also dunno if it's possible to romance more than one NPC, would be nice if it's in (yes, I know, "romancing" everything left my Geralt without anyone in the end but what can I do).
The game has karma and reputation system that promises at least some c&c if not huge changes later. By killing a human your karma drops (and at least one of your sidekicks protest - which might make him leave later, not sure). It raises by solving quests though. Reputation with factions also depends on your choice how to solve a quest, but it can also raise reputation with your sidekicks! Just as an example, not a big spoiler, you'll be chasing some deserters and you need to choose if you'll kill them or not, and in the end will you let their leader escape, kill him or just arrest him. Each choice will produce different karma and rep, possibly also lategame consequences. Honestly, I love it.
About that deserters quest I used as an example… It's timed. You have a day and a half ingame to solve it. No. Just no. This is bad decision, especially because time cycle is in and you can sleep to get rid of some "tired" effect (not sure yet what exactly it does except no XP bonus while tired). I didn't see another timed quest yet and hope there isn't any more - why I didn't, because I was chasing sidequests. There are quite a few of those and each one adds something to game lore.
Performance so far so good. Didn't notice any hiccup or lock or something, everything runs smooth and I don't even have any monstrous $20K priced machine but a decent rig (i5-4670K, GTX760).
Dunno what more to say after just a few hours of game, in many things I'm still not sure, some things like inventory weight and room chest to store items are pretty much nothing of high importance.
Oh yeah. Hair is still horrible and to cover for it most NPCs are bald. This is expected from a title developed for consoles too, but sorry it's 2016. and they could put some proper hair at least on PC version.
I'll have to replay TW3 after this game.
EDIT:
Final edit is this. I don't see this game being 5/10. This is not an average game, it's definetly above average. Screw IGN.
Last edited:
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R
RPGFool
Guest
Joxer the helpless romantic.
Seriously, thank you for your play-by-play review. Would love to hear more as you progress further.
Some big questions for which I'd like to hear your thoughts:
(1) Does game provide motivation to continue playing over time. and does motivation increase or decrease over time?
(2) What is realistic total play time?
(3) What is replay desire/motivation/value?
(4) What is immersion quality -- does game world feel sufficiently real to keep going or are there frequent "something wrong here" experiences jarring player out of game?
Many thanks Joxer.
__
Farflame
SasqWatch
Definitely good.
Is she similar weirdo as Mary the blonde technogeek in Mars?
That timed quest makes sense. World will not wait for you all the time. There are only few quests like this. Most are NOT timed as usual. I think this is good design.
-----------
BTW one good foreign review (warning - its NOT in ENGLISH)
Rating: 7/10, pros are much bigger than cons.
PROS:
- world & lore, captivating story
- many moral choices, dealing with fractions and some NPCs
- good and rich RPG development
- dynamic combat system
- entertaining quests (not original, but good)
CONS:
- lip-sync and few faces
- backtracking
- auto-saves (another one who cant save?
but he doesnt bash the game for it so I dont criticise him)- upgrading of equipment could have bigger effect
ChienAboyeur
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The door opening animation speaks for itself.
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Just for you a spoiler, one of heroes earliest lines on his preparedness:
"Already ready!"
No, I'm not kidding.
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A few new notes…
Backtracking is killing me. Wouldn't bother me much - if damned trashmobs would stay dead. Not sure if the game needs norespawn mod though, I've discovered (after more than 10 hours, damnit!) that if you run past trashmobs, most of them won't follow you all the way but will return back. So yes, you can run past most of them and don't get into fighting.
At one point (chapter 1 end) the game warns you to finish sidequests before proceeding as some will be gone. Although you finished them all already! This is not a bug IMO, but a great feature - I hated when in jRPGs I get locked out of a sidequest without warning and is a great info for possible future replays where you might go main story to a point of no return before going for side content.
Exploration is not irrelevant! At more than one corner I found fantastic items (for example +1 exploration skill goggles and superb equipment already upgraded).
Mentioned in another thread my need for subtitles.
In Technomancer subtitles are done wrong. You need a microscope and lines are 200 letters long (instead of max 40). Forgot to put it in my early impressions post...
Repent. Shame.
Backtracking is killing me. Wouldn't bother me much - if damned trashmobs would stay dead. Not sure if the game needs norespawn mod though, I've discovered (after more than 10 hours, damnit!) that if you run past trashmobs, most of them won't follow you all the way but will return back. So yes, you can run past most of them and don't get into fighting.
At one point (chapter 1 end) the game warns you to finish sidequests before proceeding as some will be gone. Although you finished them all already! This is not a bug IMO, but a great feature - I hated when in jRPGs I get locked out of a sidequest without warning and is a great info for possible future replays where you might go main story to a point of no return before going for side content.
Exploration is not irrelevant! At more than one corner I found fantastic items (for example +1 exploration skill goggles and superb equipment already upgraded).
Mentioned in another thread my need for subtitles.
In Technomancer subtitles are done wrong. You need a microscope and lines are 200 letters long (instead of max 40). Forgot to put it in my early impressions post...
Repent. Shame.
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