I bought it for $20. I suppose, considering I'm a pretty big Volition fan, they need to find out why I waited for it to be 66% off. Well, because I love SR 1-4, but frankly, since SR3 they never lived up to my expectations. I still liked the games in the end, but I was always expecting more. SR 4 was an obvious remix of 3. Once again...I liked it in the end, but honestly, I can only do that for so long. I have been waiting for a very particular Saints Row game now for almost 10 years, and they have only been getting further, and further away from that game. AoM is fun, but so far away from that one damn game I've wanted all these years that frankly I don't think they can make it. All I and I think others have wanted is a Saints Row game, style and all, with the scope of GTA5. SR2 not only matched GTA of it's time but exceeded it. I'm not saying they should copy GTA, but they should once and for all realize that we are not action game players. We are not fans of Call of Duty, or Overwatch. We are here because we love to explore and find crazy secrets. We are here because we love to create our own characters, customize cars and wreak havok in a violent, over sexualized world. No other game has ever given us what we want, not even GTA. All we want is a Saints Row that surprises us. That expands the world of Saints Row, and gives us new area's to explore. Give us a play ground to live in, and then leaves the rest to us.
Big Layoffs Hit Agents of Mayhem Developer Volition
- Thread starter Quantum
- Start date
You have written my exact thoughts more succinctly than I ever could have.
Amen to that.
The closest I've seen a game come to a modern SR is GTA Online, and that trash is laden with microtransactions and cheaters.
The closest I've seen a game come to a modern SR is GTA Online, and that trash is laden with microtransactions and cheaters.
The character customization is also absolutely awful in GTA Online, the character models look awful, you can't edit them, there is no body customisation, very restricted facial customisation, a really irritating system where the presets drastically change what your character looks like, and you can't stop a characters skin from looking all splotched and gross. It's a challenge to make a character that isn't ugly, and being unable to change them and having your progression tied to a single character is really stupid. Plus the open world is this stupidly sparse wasteland in multiplayer, all the detail from singleplayer is removed.
My fondest memories of Saints Row 3/4 was driving through the neon lights, with excellent music playing on the radio, with my personalised custom character, immersing myself in the world. I want ways to become attached to the world and make my character unique.
My dream sequel would have some limited roleplaying customisation to affect my characters personality. One of my biggest gripes with Saints Row (I never got to play 2, a remaster would be welcome), was how my character was funnelled into this irritating archetype that I felt removed my agency. On one hand, you have this awesome badass voiced by Laura Bailey, but then the game forces them to act like an idiot for cheap laughs, and get smugly talked down to by all their friends. If you are trying to let the characters be personal, I value intelligence, and would like some ways to control my characters personality, as limited as it may be. Romance might be interesting if they do more with that than cheap jokes, that might allow some player choice, although obviously that stuff could suck depending on writing.
I do think that the games could have good (and importantly, challenging) combat as well. I value intelligent AI, in both friendly and enemy encounters, I feel that is really important in fleshing out a game. I love that they don't use cover systems, and instead revolve around constant movement. I would like a game that isn't superpowered, but has action film sensibilities, so epic leaps, dodging, rolls, breaking through glass, badass takedowns, sliding down buildings, and most importantly, a sense of challenge and tough enemies. I have already talked about how important I think pedestrians are too, allowing the player to interact with them (or mundane open world activities) are a great way to live in and immerse yourself in a world, and roleplay your character! Gasp! It would be freaking incredible if your character was changed and had unique dialogue with others depending on activities you do. Yoga, your sexuality, hobbies of any sort, if your interactions as a player in the world subtly changed your character and how your companions react to you (and you to them), that would blow my mind.
The biggest problem open worlds have today is a checklist of repetitive tasks, instead of unique fun side content the player actively wants to seek out and play. Side activities with depth, challenge and replayability, and a focus on detail, rather than scope or size in the game or open world, are crucially important.
I would still love to try AOM, so I really hope it is being optimised (or if Denuvo is dropping performance, having that removed eventually, since the damage is already done).
My fondest memories of Saints Row 3/4 was driving through the neon lights, with excellent music playing on the radio, with my personalised custom character, immersing myself in the world. I want ways to become attached to the world and make my character unique.
My dream sequel would have some limited roleplaying customisation to affect my characters personality. One of my biggest gripes with Saints Row (I never got to play 2, a remaster would be welcome), was how my character was funnelled into this irritating archetype that I felt removed my agency. On one hand, you have this awesome badass voiced by Laura Bailey, but then the game forces them to act like an idiot for cheap laughs, and get smugly talked down to by all their friends. If you are trying to let the characters be personal, I value intelligence, and would like some ways to control my characters personality, as limited as it may be. Romance might be interesting if they do more with that than cheap jokes, that might allow some player choice, although obviously that stuff could suck depending on writing.
I do think that the games could have good (and importantly, challenging) combat as well. I value intelligent AI, in both friendly and enemy encounters, I feel that is really important in fleshing out a game. I love that they don't use cover systems, and instead revolve around constant movement. I would like a game that isn't superpowered, but has action film sensibilities, so epic leaps, dodging, rolls, breaking through glass, badass takedowns, sliding down buildings, and most importantly, a sense of challenge and tough enemies. I have already talked about how important I think pedestrians are too, allowing the player to interact with them (or mundane open world activities) are a great way to live in and immerse yourself in a world, and roleplay your character! Gasp! It would be freaking incredible if your character was changed and had unique dialogue with others depending on activities you do. Yoga, your sexuality, hobbies of any sort, if your interactions as a player in the world subtly changed your character and how your companions react to you (and you to them), that would blow my mind.
The biggest problem open worlds have today is a checklist of repetitive tasks, instead of unique fun side content the player actively wants to seek out and play. Side activities with depth, challenge and replayability, and a focus on detail, rather than scope or size in the game or open world, are crucially important.
I would still love to try AOM, so I really hope it is being optimised (or if Denuvo is dropping performance, having that removed eventually, since the damage is already done).
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After going from AoM to GooH I really feel how repetitive AoM is. In GooH I can play baseball with demons, take over the spawning zones or whatever they are called, fly through orbs, upgrade my guns and the cutscenes are amazing. Watching Satan and his daughter sing out of nowhere and then Kinzie and Gat start singing as well? I laughed so hard and it made me look forward to the next SR game.
Why they included Denuvo in the first place is beyond me, it got cracked in weeks and so the only ones affected by Denuvo now are the paying customers.
If I recall correctly, it got cracked in a couple of days or something absurdly fast. I don't really understand it. DRM never seems to improve sales, it actively makes people boycott products, it's just weird. You are earning less from a financial perspective, as well as losing goodwill.
Corrodias
Generally Awesome
Denuvo has a history of "working for a brief time", which executives see as better than none and worth whatever its price is, apparently.
As a player, it seems to be about as good as DRM can get as long as it's implemented correctly (rather than as in Rime where it reportedly had a huge performance impact), but it's still an online activation system, and it still pushes a game's purchasing decision down a rank (e.g., from "maybe" to "don't bother") in my mind.
As a player, it seems to be about as good as DRM can get as long as it's implemented correctly (rather than as in Rime where it reportedly had a huge performance impact), but it's still an online activation system, and it still pushes a game's purchasing decision down a rank (e.g., from "maybe" to "don't bother") in my mind.
According to SteamSpy AoM now has 40k sales which means that in the 5 days it was on sale at 20 bucks it sold 7k copies. That's 1400 copies per day. The game was on sale for $20 and assuming Volition got 70% of the money while Steam took 30%, that means they earned $98k from the sale.
(7000*20 multiplied with 0.7)
(7000*20 multiplied with 0.7)
There's an interesting article about it in Ars Technica today: Denuvo’s DRM now being cracked within hours of release.
It basically says the same thing you just said.
One wonders why anyone still bothers buying a Denuvo license anymore. For a good while, it had a reputation of being so complex that even the best crackers had issues understanding what's going on. Then it not only got cracked, but a toolkit holding info on how to do it for more games appeared from what I've heard. Even deviations in Denuvo's code are now being seen through. DRM only backfires in the long run (SafeDisc, anyone?) and is not a worthwhile expense anymore, and even tieing games to specific platforms like Steam, PSN and Xbox Live doesn't guarantee that you'll be playing the games you own after those platforms inevitably die. GOG got that memo, but relatively few bother to release games there (properly).