Topic: Crimson Desert

@GirlVersusGame I did delete part of what I said. But yeah, that might be what happened. But I can't honestly believe we are the only few people in the world that didn't expect this to be some cinematic masterpiece as well as an open world sandbox, as well as a hard combat challenge, as well as a technical achievement, but still be fun enough to buy and play. Games are rarely everything. And clearly this was always supposed to be a sandbox/adventure/combat game that might be buggy because it is huge (which is kind of what we wanted, obviously we don't want bugs but all massive games have them) I don't think people being excited about it meant they thought it would be the best game ever made, either? But that was seemingly the narrative. But maybe we are the outliers. I don't know. I'd hope we're not the normal ones for the sake of everyone else, haha.

Don't worry, I didn't understand the whole 'is it an RPG' argument that was online after they literally told people it wasn't one. It's their game, and I knew what they meant by it. Seemingly not many did. But from what we have seen and heard we know we don't assume the role of Kliff and change what he thinks based on what we think as the player, we just fly about fighting stuff, puzzling, helping people a bit, and being a gruff Scottish b*stard with no choice in the matter of how we communicate with people 🤷‍♂️

Batten down the hatches, we can try it for ourselves. That's all I want out of this one, to give it a try as it appeals to me. And hopefully not to be lured into any negative thoughts like thinking it has to he the best game ever for me to like it 😅 it would actually be awesome if it's a game that I can play sporadically without feeling I need to see the story out, to be honest

@Ravix I stopped reading the comments after Dennis said some positive things. The part I don't understand is that yes some people are against live-service games and I've seen them say it but they are also against offline solo experiences, so what are they for? I just don't have a lot of room for such negativity and lately I'm seeing so much of it in gaming, nor does it always make sense. Unless some people really do feel happiest when they are putting something down. Marathon is a great example, I'd never play it but I wouldn't spend my time/day putting it down and I see nothing gained in the time spent doing it, if that makes sense. I know it might just be an internet thing but I can't understand why anyone would want to spend their life doing that and I'm seeing it more and more, or it was always there and I didn't read as many articles, so maybe I should stop reading them.

I can understand people being excited for Grand Theft Auto 6 even when I'm not, there's a certain pedigree there and a genuine expectation. Tonight reminds me a lot of Death Stranding how it clicked with some people and really did some great things, then there were others who wanted nothing to do with it. Another reason I'm going to play it is like I said, to be on the same page as some other people. I noticed it again this week, or the lack of it. I read how/why people got into the gaming and thought 'well fudge I can't relate with this either' the same for what people said about horror games. Some of it is because I don't play those big titles like Ghosts or Yotei, Requiem etc while the whole world seems to. It's the more basic, human side that I'm trying to relate to.

I considered taking a break again but I usually do that for the right reasons. I'll see how Crimson Desert goes, maybe it bridges something. Being on the same page never mattered before, now for some reason it does. Maybe it's a consequence of community, I generally don't do communities, but it's not FOMO either. I'm sure I'm not making any sense, it sounds better in my mind than in words. I just know I want to experience this 'sandbox/adventure/combat game that might be buggy because it is huge'. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that for the longest time all that mattered was what I got out of the experience, there was a kind of happiness there. Crimson Desert shows me that it's easy to get wrapped up in other peoples opinions when perhaps only my own should matter and only because of my own hands on experience with the game. Do you care what other people think about a game? did you ever care? or am I thinking too deeply into this? I'm guessing you've been doing the community side long enough to notice if ups and downs come and go or if there's been an increase in more of a negative push/reaction in the last couple of years.

it would actually be awesome if it's a game that I can play sporadically without feeling I need to see the story out, to be honest

• Welcome to kat gaming, that's how almost every game I play goes. Control of course was a big exception but after talking to Sarge on here I think I might be skipping Alan Wake or I'll ask someone to sit with me while I play. I'm not saying I didn't pay attention to the story in The Witcher 3, but it did fit that requirement of wanting something to play on/off before that push for completion.

and being a gruff Scottish b with no choice in the matter of how we communicate with people

• I never listened to any of the footage with the sound on so that's news to me. I was probably listening to music when I watched the trailer, I use subtitles quite often and probably did with that trailer/footage. I can see Scottish fitting so that's a bonus.

Edit: And there's bedtime. I'll try to get on the game some part of tomorrow and drop some initial feedback. It will be interesting to see how many people do end up playing it at launch.

People really need to understand something being dissapointing doesn't mean it's bad. Both can be true at the same time.

Spider-Man 2 is dissapointing but not bad.
GoW: Ragnarok is dissapointing but not bad.
Mandalorian S03 is dissapointing but not bad.
Superman(2025) is dissapointing but not bad.

etc.

A game expected to be next big thing, GOTY contender, one of the greatest etc. getting anything below 85 is dictionary of dissapointing. You can cope all you want, it's the truth. It doesn't mean you can't enjoy it or it's the worst game ever but seeing some of the comments is hilarious. Yes, it's a MAJOR dissapointment. Jeez...

Well, I kinda knew it wasn't going to be another Baldurs Gate 3 or Breath Of The Wild, it always seemed like the developers had bitten off more than they can chew with it, a bit concerning that the only review code so far is PC only, but I dunno maybe with some patching a demo and price reduction it's a contender for a future purchase.

@Ravix I'm still interested in the game as I think it looks cool. Some of the negatives I read in the review round up I'm OK with, as they are for characters and story which is something I can happily over over look in most cases.

One thing I noticed which I found strange 'I’ve played over 110 hours of Crimson Desert and already feel like I’ve seen just about all there is to see...' which I am also OK with. Not sure why 110 hours is not seemed enough.

Saying all that, this was always something I was gonna pick up way down the lane, so I'm in no rush to get to it.

My thoughts reading the reviews is this is probably a skip for me. I sorta don't care if it turns into the greatest game of all time after hour 15 or whatever, if this opening hours are as miserable and frustrating as many reviews have suggested, then this ain't for me. There are a million games out there, why would I waste as much time as it takes to play through a masterpiece like Bioshock to see if I like Crimson Desert.

Crimson Desert currently sitting at 78 on Metacritic. Starfield is 83.
Not making a comparison between the games, as I've not played the former. But I do find the different reactions to both games very interesting, and rather different.

It was very unlikely that I would buy this at launch because of my backlog situation, but if it reviewed at a 10/10 masterpiece level then I could have been swayed. Now, as it’s turning out that’s not the case then I’m happy to wait. Still, it might fill a place in my future backlog down the road. One thing it does sound like it has going for it is its uniqueness. I have many large open world games in my library that I need to get to, like Witcher 3, several Assassin’s Creed games, Death Stranding 2, Elden Ring, KCD 1&2, Dragon’s Dogma 2, FF7 Rebirth… and many more… but none of those games have the core ‘not an RPG’ concepts of Crimson Desert. So the fact it’s not particularly focused on character and story and not really an RPG will actually give it a fighting chance to compete with the rest of my backlog for my attention.

Although my enjoyment of gaming stems from my favorite fundamental genres like RPGs and action-narrative games like Sony makes, I appreciate having a game that does things differently every now and then. And honestly, I think most gamers would do well to keep an open mind to ‘different’ and non-traditional types of games to keep things varied and stay free of burnout. MMO games are a blind spot for me since I really don’t do the online thing, so having a single player game that is built on the bones of an MMO formula is probably a good thing for me to experience. I’m just not going to drop everything right now and play it yet. I’ll be watching this thread and future user impressions with great interest though.

After watching some review videos, I pulled the trigger. I was already hyped from John Linneman's 4 hour journey video. I enjoyed Luke Stephen's take on the game. Beautiful but flawed but that's OK with me. I just want to explore that world. I'm running a 9070 XT / Ryzen 7 9800 X3D / 32gb RAM and it would seem that it has all the AMD bells and whistles so I'm really looking forward to seeing how it runs. I also recently bought an OLED monitor so I'm very excited to see how it looks on that.

What surprised me in Luke's video was the amount of wrestling moves you can do! Powerslams, elbow drops, suplexes and you can even RKO some poor guard out of nowhere! The combat overall looks very meaty. And physics! You can actually knock some structures over! I think we're going to be seeing some funny videos from the community about this game over the next weeks and months.

Here's hoping the soundtrack is good too.

@Th3solution Do you think people really allowed themselves to believe that a game that explicitly said it wasn't an RPG would be a 10/10 game of the year? I still don't know if it's a translation thing. When I hear RPG I hear heavy story elements, and that's fine if it's balanced with so much side-content and fluff to get lost in. Any time I play Skyrim or Oblivion etc, I get outside, ignore the story (except for the first dragon) and then don't see the main story again until two hundred hours later. But when I hear open-world I hear 'it's one big sandbox kat and you don't have to worry about story, just have fun out there'. I don't think one big sandbox can be game of the year material when it's already implementing that trade-off. I too don't do the online thing but an offline MMO style game really does sound appealing and I will play it later today.

@Dimey Some Folks will hate on Starfield by default, they see it as a Microsoft and not a 'game'. I did play it at launch and returned to it another couple of times. I'd started with No Man's Sky, watched that game improve over time, watched the community response shift, and ultimately appreciated the studios efforts and feedback. I never felt that level of improvement with Starfield, I felt the opposite but if you haven't noticed (not an insult) quite a few people who comment haven't played the games they are complaining about. Take Marathon for example, or South of Midnight, for some people there is a pre-existing bias and that bias steers a lot of lazier feedback. I call them drive-by insults, low effort in the delivery. If you and I discussed the game I'd find some positive points, but I wouldn't comment on something had I had no previous hands-on experience, that's not the case for everyone. Even in it's new current form there will be people who won't touch Starfield, they'll have allowed that initial bias and launch reaction to drive a wedge between expectation and experience. I was going to buy a PS5 copy as a novelty, as a collector it's weird how I can buy PS5 games that were published by their rivals. Eventually I might even unbox it and try the new content, I think you'll find that more people will be willing to try the game now but for some people that early reaction won't change. There is a saying to be stuck in one's ways, I think this applies.

Also Metacritic isn't something I pay too much attention too, it's a tool for review bombing and having PC reviews up by 'professional reviewers' instead of actual players is not something I'd invest my concerns in. The reason being that so many of these reviewers do want their hands held, they don't like or want a grind, they want an easier experience and I don't think Crimson Desert ticks those boxes. That and reviewers do it as a job, they need to balance their expectations going in and if they are in that sphere of constant publicity/hype it does affect their expectations. I saw it in the publishing side of the music industry, it was easy to find reviewers but hard to find the right reviewers. Most wanted a free concert or CD, or to meet their favorite bands for an interview. This happens in all sides of the entertainment industry, I think genuine journalism is a relic of the past and for whatever reason PushSquare seems to be one of those last bastions for fair/in-depth reviews. My theory is that it's volume. Look at how many games release now per-month on PS5 compared to previous generations, reviewers do rush workloads, I think the wrong people were handed Crimson Desert and it will be interesting to see how actual gamers respond on Metacritic and elsewhere.

@JohnnyShoulder I thought the same thing about the 110 hours. I dont think I ever played a single player game that long. Maybe that reviewers world is only filled with hard-core gamer friends. Interesting comment for sure.

@Th3solution cool comment, Sol!

The more I hear the more I think this will suit me perfectly. I fall off games, we know this, and i'm not going in expecting anything above a D or C grade story anyway. I, and a lot of other people, actually just want this game to be a game we can play and make our own fun in. It was obviously designed as a sandbox game, and sandbox games are fun to those that like to mess about. The fact that it is not tied to having to grind and play it online makes it far more managable, I cannot keep up, nor do I want to keep up with an MMO. But a big open world fantasy sandbox with no real commitment to see a story through, let's go and have some uninhibited fun for as long as it remains fun for us, I say! I'm also happy to get my a** kicked a bunch of times as I try to work out how the hell to play it competently.

I do think people were both too quick to assume this would be an RPG like the Witcher (no idea why, as nothing looked like the core mechanics and story beats of that game) and also too quick to assume that: because it isn't a traditional western RPG that people will not want to play it.

The latest article seems to suggest people think it might not be game of the year candidate, based on the comments, but if it engages millions of people, even a 7 or 8 out of 10 game can definitely still be GotY, it all depends on those who actually play it long term's perspective. I'm also definitely not saying it will be a GotY 😅 just that the reviews don't rule it out. it will be whatever it is. I might not even like it. But from what I have seen and deduced for myself with my own eyes and brain, well, it has a lot of things that I might like, which is why i'm still buying it.

Lord knows if I had a fluffing clue about what was going on in Dragon's Dogma 2 😂 I was just content running around the countryside slaying monsters along with a powerful sorcerer sodekick who just happened to be a Tim Roth doppelganger. And I miss that feeling in gaming the same as I miss the feeling of playing and discovering the uniqueness of KCD for the first time.

Also, I can't think of another game where I can ride a Dragon and calmly go fishing at the moment, either. So it will have to bloody well do 😁

I'll tag you in and kind of reply @GirlVersusGame you'll probably get a good view of how I feel about it from what I said to Sol.

I don't particularly need anyone else to like it if I do, but it will be more fun to connect with those that do (if I do) that's how I see it. Some of my favourite gaming experiences since using this site have been where a few likeminded people are playing the same games and we can share our random experiences and stories from within (Dragon's Dogma 2, Baldur's Gate 3, Elden Ring) it is the sense of community, I guess. It is also just fun recalling tales and learning of others experiences, it expands on our own experience with the game, when the game itself let's us make our own stories from it.

People like @Elodin & @ApostateMage would share their experiences of the games we were all playing, as would I, and that would kind of add to the experience. That's as best as I can describe the community aspect of it. Also, what up, Elodin and Apostate 🫡 it's been a while... so, we doing this? 👀

@Elodin The Witcher I played plus 400 hours with out touching the DLC. Elden Ring plus DLC was something like over 600 hours. Dragon Age Inquisition I didn't even like in the end and think that was 200 hours.

So I do have a bit of history there, but if I had played a game for 110 hours and I had my fill of it, I probably wouldn't complain that there wasn't enough there.

@GirlVersusGame I think... Just play games however you want to and however you get the most personal satisfaction. I wouldn't go too deep on analysing what that means for you. For example, I only jokingly say i'm not a proper gamer in terms of how few games I fully complete. It doesn't matter all that much, even though i'd like to be able to play more games and finish more games. I still enjoy the time I spend gaming, otherwise I wouldn't bother. Why would you care if you or I or anyone else consider yourself a proper gamer? All games are games, and the fact you have hundreds of hours in all kind of different open world sandbox games means you probably quite like them.

You know I personally don't understand trophy hunting, maybe sometimes I like to tease trophy hunting, too (i'm just so damn incorrigible *winkyface) but I don't think trophy hunters are wrong, I just don't play that way myself. It is still gaming, if anything it is the most hardcore of gaming. That's why I liked the term Hardcore-Casual for myself. I'll play the fluff out of lots of games but I will also move on at 70% of the way through it, and I know doing that would annoy the hell out of some people, as they like to actually finish their games.

Don't overthink it. Play what you want when you want 😄

Maaaaaaaan, I can't believe Crimson Desert is a 10pm release, I thought it was going to be like 7pm.

@Ravix hey hey! Yes I definitely be talking about my experiences. Excited for this. Great exploration games are right in my wheelhouse.

@JohnnyShoulder wow that's awesome that you got that much time out games. I might go long with this one as deep as it sounds from FightinhCowboy and ACGs reviews

@Ravix Why would you care if you or I or anyone else consider yourself a proper gamer?

• I shouldn't care about a lot of things but do, it's a natural flaw that I've not been able to delete and because offline requires absolute perfection and a certain kind of absolute expectation it bleeds into my hobbies too. Gaming is personal and no one offline cares about it, no one can comment on my form, flow or technique, which is why I think I'm doing it to myself. But obviously shouldn't.

and the fact you have hundreds of hours in all kind of different open world sandbox games means you probably quite like them.

• That's a good point too and I do.

You know I personally don't understand trophy hunting, maybe sometimes I like to tease trophy hunting, too (i'm just so damn incorrigible *winkyface) but I don't think trophy hunters are wrong

• For me it's just part of being goal orientated, other than telling you here 'I hit one hundred percent in something' no one else would know. There's only one person on my contacts, I don't see a feed of trophies, nor does anyone seen mine. Someone on here recently mentioned a Trophy site, psmr (I maybe got their name wrong) either way I didn't know what they were talking about. I remember PS4 had a built in feed to see peoples latest trophies/games they played. It's one hundred percent psychological for me, but I'm grateful that I do have the ability to decide not to one hundred a game if I'm not feeling it. Example Slime Rancher 2, it's an easy enough platinum but the game was boring and unrewarding so I quit and never thought of that platinum again. Also I didn't like how a million slimes bunch up on you, it was a bit too much contact even if they were being friendly.Trophy gaps like that don't bother me, I've seen how hardcore trophy hunters speak and they'd probably lose sleep over the many that I did leave at that 20% mark.

Maaaaaaaan, I can't believe Crimson Desert is a 10pm release, I thought it was going to be like 7pm.

• I keep having to check it as we physically move time-zones, now I think it's midnight which is when I usually game regardless of where we are. Or maybe it's eleven. I hope it doesn't push earlier into the morning. I'm happy with three hours later and I know we're going out as usual but by the time it goes online we should be done. I'll keep an eye out for actual gamer feedback later tonight.

Also this happened when I was writing this. Luckily I saved manually not too long before. The A.I. has it's own kind of nemesis system where it looks for opportune moments to either murder other lieutenants/sicarios or even the boss. I went afk and the game knew I was idle, it took the opportunity to take me out. If that happens the game doesn't end, another character takes over but they all have different attitudes/personalities etc so it's a constant effort to monitor who you do or don't promote. They traveled across six cities to do it too and caught me having breakfast. So if Crimson Desert is hard? It will be nothing compared to the high-stakes candy/plant/powder selling of the early nineties. I have a fighting chance with a monster in the wild and none if the A.I. goes rogue and suddenly takes me out while I'm not even looking at that part of the map.