Wildlands Closed Beta - Press Release

[Jeffreyd716]

So is there a way to swap shoulders on your own?

 If not, I feel like it should definitely be added. Other than that, a few tweaks with the smoothness and I think it's got great potential!

Edited February 4, 2017 by Jeffreyd716

[NightCrawler]

I just got done playing Coop with my buds for 4 hrs. It was a blast.

After reading the last two page I can only say, get your friends and get in there and play the game, enjoy for what it is. None of you are game critics and none of us care about your opinions, so keep 'em to yourselves and grow up.

[101459]

10 hours ago, Zeealex said:

So, GTA: Bolivia is good... except for it's not...

I genuinely played it with an open mind, there's going to be no references to the old GR here, just opinions/Semi-rants based off of my experience. 

I spent the first 15 minutes of the game watching cutscenes and waiting for it to load...

It 'loaded' the character customization screen, just so I could wait for the models to actually render which apparently takes 10 minutes to do... 

the appearance options had me laughing my ###### off at how honestly STUPID they were, namely the scars, no option for "oh just a small scar from a busted lip, or maybe some small shrapnel scars" no, we're going all BS with this one you guys, we're talking full Tarantino...

If it wasn't 5.11 product placement, it was Crye, or little at all else. 

The opening cutscene with all the screens frankly was so nauseating I wanted to gouge my own eyes out. 

"hurr durr my friend died now watch as we make BAD SHAKY CAM MOVIES LOOK TAME AS WE UNNECESSARILY CHANGE THE CAMERA ANGLE ON A SCREEN EVERY 2 SECONDS ECAUSE APPARENTLY YOU CAN'T BE TRUSTED TO MAINTAIN FOCUS FOR THAT LONG SO HERE HAVE PRETTY MOVING COLOURS!!"

then I did more cutscenes, the VO genuinely had me howling with laughter at how utterly terrible it was "we weren't there" 2 edgy 5 me, then some exposition then some shadowy dude doing the whole "I don't trust you, earn my trust or i'll kill you" cliche

Then I actually got to playing it, and I thought my framerate was bad, it was, which I'll get to later, but also the animations were contributing to this illusion. 

Veteran difficulty is FAR... TOO... EASY

I had a llama spit in my face and I couldn't kill them, oh what Ubi, you scare PETA will bite you or something? if you're going to have a "vast and living open world" let us kill the ###### you put in, yeah? except for the kids maybe, that will stir up controversy. 

And as for performance, my PC isn't exactly top of the range, but it's half decent I'd say, but as usual any game running Nvidia Gameworks tanks AMD based machines, GG ubi, GG... i'd have expected this to run nicely on medium settings considering that while it's not the most powerful AMD based machine, it's up there in their semi-top tier, it kinda has to be for what I do with it. 

and that's when I thought... I have better things to do, like make models for Ground Branch... so I quit the game and opened max, something that actually requires a brain cell to use...

Not impressed, not impressed at all. 

 

10 hours ago, SCAgent said:

So GRW, where do i begin...

The missions were pretty much all the same, go into a camp, kill/interrogate/find info about something and thats about it
The story/dialogue/voice acting is cringy/cheesy, its so bad i wanted to skip them, it even tries to be funny/cool but fails miserably
On the hardest diff, you do die easily during combat, which is good, but being stealthy is soo easy it didn't matter at all, it was a cakewalk..
AI is abysmal, especially your teamates, they are useless, they couldnt kill anything, and the command interface is so limited it might as well not be there, and for some reason i could only mark 1 person for synch shot (probably some stupid skill to unlock more)
The map is huge.... so i passed most of my time driving&flying to my objectives.... how i love open-world games *sarcasm*
Animations are horrid, i have no idea if this is acceptable over at ubi but i have seen games from 2005 with better combat animations.
Performance was pretty terrible, 40fps on medium, playable but not smooth
You cant pick up carry bodies, in a game with so much emphasis on stealth all i can say is ######, that said bodies disappear in 5secs, cause magic and next-gen and all that jazz.
3rd person combat in this game is...awkward, especially in Close Quarters, cant really explain it.

That said the game is a looker environmentally, the weapons,handling, and sounds are fantastic, and thats about it
I didnt try any coop, im sure the game is fun with friends, like any game, i have no interest in online gaming however, and from what i experienced here GRW is not a good SP game.

What wasted potential.

Edit: On the other hand, i just finished the Ghost Warrior 3 beta, i am surprised how much better it plays/feels, they also offer the season pass for free if you pre-order, so that's nice, i am thinking of saving my money i planned on spending on GR and buy GhostWarrior instead, or SniperElite which also looks nice.

It's probably no surprise; I agree with everything Alex and SCAgent are saying. The premise and approach Alex took is erudite, generous and an approach I like to read in good game journalism with carefully qualified expectations and remarks; she, like me seems to truly care about this game.

I went in with a similar approach and a lot of hopeful skepticism that while this wasn't going to be Tom Clancy or Ghost Recon anything, even in spirit, at least like Siege it might have some really original hook that compelled me to like it irregardless of shortcomings. BigFryTV  -- while a very annoying vlogger to listen to nonetheless made a lot of valid criticism of the game early on and as he anticipated most of what he was pointing out has not changed...

Good things first: the helicopter physics have improved from the videos, and for an LSS render engine it has a decent feel to the shooting mechanics; though the speed of sound is very different in Wildlands then the real world and that's very disorienting. As everyone points out it's a pretty nice looking world -- but that is about it, the rest is very unimaginative, uninspiring game design that clearly borrows way too much from GTA, from idiotic grind, 2d tactics, and magic unicorn skill and prize upgrades for your stupid murder sprees.

Most lacking for me from get go was atmosphere: this game has NONE. From the scattered nervous Ubi employee reading a teleprompter telling us what was so great about the game and what we should think about it, to the sophomoric narrative that 's so bad I literally have to skip it and turn the sound off, to the complete absence of sound deco and foley in the game world -- this game has as much atmosphere as a bad sit-com without a soundtrack, it's literally worse then many dollar bin games from ten years ago -- it's that terrible.

I could go on, but summarily this is another derivative game where Ubisoft is trying to capitalize on other successful franchises and game designs; in this case GTA, and Wildlands has none of what makes GTA compelling from the amazing LSS Advance Engine which Wildlands doesn't even come close to, to depth of play and features -- in fact there are better realism mods for GTA V then Wildlands. 

Wildlands does have some nice weapon mechanics that are better then GTA V, some nice (though no where near as good looking) realism content, and who knows if Ubisoft takes an iterative approach this could be an amazing game circa Wildlands V... But why do they bother? Ubisoft owns IP more original then all the franchises it has  tried to emulate, languishing and apparently forgotten while it's name-sake gets used for selling people on GTA V, the better game -- that Ubisoft doesn't make, that people will go play when they're bored with this...

14 hours ago, Lightspeed said:

What I'm seeing in closed beta at the moment leaves me very underwhelmed.

Doesn't look like there are any white knuckle moments, nothing OGR in this.

Oh well, back to A3.

Ironically, I just watched BlueDrake playing Sniper Ghost Warrior without the knowledge of the level and it was v enjoyable to watch.

How a vid can change one's perspective in a heart beat....

There's no suspense, no atmosphere, and there are no white knuckle moments. The closest you 'll get to that is screaming kids, and drunk burnouts grunting and farting over VOIP in what sounds like Hunny BewBew plays shewters tew. With ten minutes of idle players making insane racket, then (are your knuckles white yet?), a loud "BELCH" and "I done flipped my car and fell down the dang heeyel..." -- these are the white knuckle high points of atmosphere and suspense in Wildlands; get excited...

Edited February 4, 2017 by 101459

[Lightspeed]

Just did about 30-40 min with Evil Ducky and we had some fun - it is a GTA but we did get tagged a number of times where we used poor or no tactics.

Very dynamic AI I thought, lots of QRFs moving in from different locations to mess up our plans.

Tracking us down if we stayed still for too long.

I liked the soft cover system.

Graphics are nice and felt immersive moving through the villages and the general ambient life to add life to the game.

All in all, not a GR but a good game which does require some planning or you can be ended quickly. Maybe with 4 player coop would be too easy but in that case I would say don't mark targets with the drone and infiltrate without diamonds.

[Lowlandernam]

No code here yet...........

Does anyone have problems with logging in to their Ubiplay account.  I do, the log in page behaves very irregular, sometimes it accepts my PW but cant get past the captcha, sometimes it does'nt. I changed my PW - same result.

 

[Zeealex]

It might be a server overload, low

 

I'm gonna play some co-op with my Blackfoot homies today to see if my opinion changes

 

One thing I will note is that I do agree the weapon handling is pretty decent, and the sounds for said weapons are pretty cool too.

 

But that doesn't make up for the game's many flaws that REALLY need solving, as a lot of peoples points are the same, or points that I can agree with and the single player experience should be good in itself, I know a lot of games where single player is great but co-op is FANTASTIC. 

 

Hate to drag it in but I've been finding myself playing a lot of GR1 co-op recently with Blackfoot, and I've been blown away with how much greater it is than a single player experience, you can organize sync shots without a silly system for you and it encourages good team communication...

 

...You hear that Jeza? Communication, AKA not charging off and getting yourself killed

 

But the single player experience is great in itself, and I really think perhaps a little too much focus has been put on the coop aspect of Wildlands and the single player was thrown in as an afterthought. 

 

I would like ubi to not drop the ball with this one, as I said before, its got potential to be amazing... As a game outside of the Clancy franchise, and I will think of it that way for as long as this direction is taken, its not a bad thing, I can enjoy a game that isn't a tom Clancy game, ###### I play BFBC and that's as cheesy as wildlands. But it doesn't matter how many times they reference it, its a different breed entirely. 

 

 

I dont agree with the 'tailoring for the masses' argument, the reason why R6 was so successful in the first place is it was the a tactical shooter among a bunch of run and gun games, it broke the mould, ubi forgets they are a triple A studio, anything they pump out and hype will receive exposure, if they make a great tactical shooter i, as a gamer, believe many players would revel in the refreshing nature of some mature thought required. 

 

I appreciate wildlands' more grounded direction and setting, its nice, but I can picture it as a true tactical shooter and it would be so much more.

One of the main qualms I have with the open world mechanic ubi is trying to push, while the 'no limits' approach is appreciated, there is a lot of copy-paste gameplay in the game itself, as people have mentioned 'go here kill/interrogate/release/capture that' there is nothing wrong with having a more linear and deliberate campaign on a set of small non-world maps, but unrestricted as to where you can go on those maps. The problem people have with 'linearity' isn't from that aspect, its the corridor style gameplay they mean, I think a more deliberate and linear story, would have worked better and made the game less repetitive, it doesn't feel like as much of a grind as an open world with the same four mission types. 

Another problem I have is yeah, people will have mixed opinions about this and its across the board, my friend who has never played the original games thinks the same as I do, this is not a case of us 'not playing the game properly' and needing to 'grow up' if it is then A)that's a lot of people not playing the game properly and ubi haven't encouraged that direction and B.) We are grown up and that really isn't a case to made, we've played the game, we've put our money where our mouth is and we have discovered that it has many many problems even from an unbiased perspective. That is not us 'needing to grow up' that is us providing our first hand thoughts, no matter how negative, and we are entitled to do that. I personally attempted to reserve judgment until I played it. I might get a little annoyed at the ridiculous marketing ###### that ubi is pulling on this one and now that is more so because I believe the money they spent sucking 5.11's phallus and making silly TV shows they could've invested more into making the game a bit more polished. 

Lastly, let's not turn on rocky, he's the manager of this little family and we'd be nowhere without him, its not his fault he is keeping a generally upbeat perspective on this. Glass half full, amirite?

 

I still dont think my system 'isn't powerful enough' it is, its powerful enough to handle very intense and precise graphic operations it should be able to handle a game. 

 

Let's not resort to offhand comments about others here guys, we're family, I dont like it when mommy and daddy fight...

 

 

Edited February 4, 2017 by Zeealex

[=SEALZ=MATRIX]

Played for a little bit and wasn't thrilled initially but will play some more this weekend before coming to an overall opinion.  Biggest issue was the language and immediately uninstalled it from my 11 yr olds gaming rig.  Come on Ubisoft, be better than that!

However, I still wish they would take all the eye candy from this game an apply it to the Original Ghost Recon and then re-release it.  That would be worth more than $60.

[101459]

A very good rant that reflects very favorably on Ubisoft as a good player in the game industry; very informative too if you don't follow this sort of thing and what's going on...

 

[Lightspeed]

3 hours ago, Zeealex said:

I'm gonna play some co-op with my Blackfoot homies today to see if my opinion changes

Hate to drag it in but I've been finding myself playing a lot of GR1 co-op recently with Blackfoot, and I've been blown away with how much greater it is than a single player experience, you can organize sync shots without a silly system for you and it encourages good team communication...

...You hear that Jeza? Communication, AKA not charging off and getting yourself killed

Lastly, let's not turn on rocky, he's the manager of this little family and we'd be nowhere without him, its not his fault he is keeping a generally upbeat perspective on this. Glass half full, amirite?

Let's not resort to offhand comments about others here guys, we're family, I dont like it when mommy and daddy fight...

 

 

I think co-op would be a great idea and may change your mind.

I played OGR and expansions for about 2 years in SP then PvP before discovering co-op. Blew my mind and that's what got me into mission editing - to get more co-op.

Having watched Jeza playing my GR missions, he looks like the charging type.

I love Rocky and this community, (yes even you 101459) even though it doesn't always seem like it - I am a at times. Grumpy ######.

We OGR diehards are few, we must stand together.

 

[nyleken]

I don't agree with the tailoring for the masses argument, either.

Red Storm's tactical shooters were pretty much milsims made for casual people anyways. It's not like Operation Flashpoint where you had to fiddle with an unintuitive action menu, OGR was perfectly playable on a gamepad.

[101459]

1 hour ago, Lightspeed said:

I think co-op would be a great idea and may change your mind.

I played OGR and expansions for about 2 years in SP then PvP before discovering co-op. Blew my mind and that's what got me into mission editing - to get more co-op.

Having watched Jeza playing my GR missions, he looks like the charging type.

I love Rocky and this community, (yes even you 101459) even though it doesn't always seem like it - I am a at times. Grumpy ######.

We OGR diehards are few, we must stand together.

Sorry, I disagree -- I don't think the co-op improves this game; if anything it just makes the game's warts and limitations more apparent with skilled players. Neither am I remotely impressed by simple zerg bot mechanics, this is not AI, it's path-node bot code -- and there's nothing sophisticated or 'tactical ' about spawning more angry stupid rambo bots because you tripped an alarm; it's a game mechanic over twenty years old...

At its best Wildlands is comparable to 17 year old games like IGI or fourteen year old games like IGI2, with a little extra render candy and a lot less realism. The shoot mechanics are decent, the renderer is ok -- but not very efficient and not that pretty for how inefficient it is, the vehicle code plays like it was lifted from GTA 2 (eighteen year old mechanics there), and ther's is nothing original in this game except the commercial grind 'content ' which for two decades mod developers have been churning out by the metric ton for free for thousands of realism games to a much higher standard then seen here...

The bigger issue is not that the game lacks originality or innovation; that's very hard and expensive to achieve -- it's that it lacks even a single, strongly compelling core competence; something Wildlands does better then other games of the genre it's borrowing from; there's nothing here that really raises the bar, there's only novelty, and that is all grind, brown star on your forehead 'special rewards' for being 'special ' -- please this is so sophomoric it goes below the basement...

I want to like this game, and there are things I do like; it wants to be tactical and it's wearing the right moniker for that -- but that's about it. I hope Uibsoft pulls Wildlands, delays it a couple years, and rehashes their revenue and grind model. If they took the serialized approach to Hitman, and chopped this up, removed the totally retarded grind skill and weapon prize system, and put some actual AI and tactical depth in the game it could set a new standard -- they have the raw material here for something great...

Edited February 4, 2017 by 101459

[5timechamp]

Putting more time in playing game for what it is and with open mind..

mission redundancy continues.. 

i continue to find minute details i enjoy like being able to shoot out light sources even if it really has no bearing on the ai or gameplay

[Zeealex]

I really wouldn't hate them right now if they pushed it back a year or two, if it means we get a decent polished game at the end that exercises the mind and plays well, then i'm all for it. 

[Rocky]

There is a lot of polish and nice small details - I mean who doesn't shoot out lights when they first load up a new shooter?

I noticed exhaust fumes coming out of tail pipes, and if you shoot the water cans that are lying around, water spouts out of the hole.

I'm currently trying to complete the beta levels without firing a single shot, struggling a bit at the farmhouse though.

 

[101459]

3 minutes ago, Zeealex said:

I really wouldn't hate them right now if they pushed it back a year or two, if it means we get a decent polished game at the end that exercises the mind and plays well, then i'm all for it. 

Exactly, if it were a game I was actually excited about and looking forward to -- I could enjoy two years of suspense, and I'd be willing to pay even MORE for it. In this market I think Ubisoft could also make hay with a delay and capitalize with on it with good marketing.

But I expect their model is churn oriented, they're a business with bills to pay and mouths to feed so this is what we get. As things are now, I'll probably wait till this goes on sale as there are games that are a lot more fun to play already in the wild, and more on the way.

I'll just have to wait and look forward to Wildlands 2, or perhaps the day when Ms. Alex gets hired by Ubisoft and put in charge of Red Storm making Ghost Recon Redux.

[5timechamp]

So i killed the love birds and keep activating the info icons and talking to rebel LTs..

as always it glitches and nothing happens, now suddenly more side missions populated..is there a way to track what info  (side mission) is activated and which isnt or is it a crap shoot?

[Burner]

Totally not a realistic tactical shooter but...........its fun strangely. Its immersive and addicting at least for now. Theres lots of freedom and maybe thats its appeal. According to the GRW Lead & Tech director Laurent Fischer, "We chose to put aside some realism (but not everything), and focus on the tactical aspects of being a Ghost. We’re not doing a simulation."

 

 

Edited February 4, 2017 by Burner

[101459]

37 minutes ago, Burner said:

Totally not a realistic tactical shooter but...........it fun strangely. Its immersive and addicting at least for now. Theres lots of freedom and maybe thats its appeal. According to the GRW Lead & Tech director Laurent Fischer, "We chose to put aside some realism (but not everything), and focus on the tactical aspects of being a Ghost. We’re not doing a simulation."

Well different strokes... But what exactly are the 'tactical aspects of being a Ghost' that Laurent Fisher and company 'focused on '? All I see here is replication of GTA open world action realism with grind reward leveling for action/arcade/fantasy shooting sprees. There doesn't appear to be even a token nod to anything remotely 'tactical ' unless Ubisoft is redefining the word along with the franchise...

Edited February 4, 2017 by 101459

[Burner]

20 minutes ago, 101459 said:

Well different strokes... But what exactly are the 'tactical aspects of being a Ghost' that Laurent Fisher and company 'focused on '? All I see here is replication of GTA open world action realism with grind reward leveling for action/arcade/fantasy shooting sprees. There doesn't appear to be even a token nod to anything remotely 'tactical ' unless Ubisoft is redefining the word along with the franchise...

They already have redefined it. Ubisoft owns the tactical shooter genre by owning the Tom Clancys Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six IP. They have defined what a tactical shooter is with Vegas, Future Solider, Siege, Splinter Cell series, etc....

If a modern player has never played the classics, then they dont really know what a tactical shooter is. People ask me on my channel why I still play OGR and I tell them because its one of the only real tactical shooters available. I am now using the term Realistic Tactical Shooter for games like GR classic, Delta Force, and ARMA 3.

One thing they did make clear.....is that they are NOT making a simulation. I guess "tactical" to them is recon and having glowing red markers over enemies heads.

Edited February 4, 2017 by Burner

[101459]

35 minutes ago, Burner said:

They already have redefined it. Ubisoft owns the tactical shooter genre by owning the Tom Clancys Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six IP. They have defined what a tactical shooter is with Vegas, Future Solider, Siege, Splinter Cell series, etc....

If a modern player has never played the classics, then they dont really know what a tactical shooter is. People ask me on my channel why I still play OGR and I tell them because its one of the only real tactical shooters available. I am now using the term Realistic Tactical Shooter for games like GR classic, Delta Force, and ARMA 3.

One thing they did make clear.....is that they are NOT making a simulation. I guess "tactical" to them is recon and having glowing red markers over enemies heads.

You missed my point entirely:  Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon defined tactical realism, was designed and developed by Red Storm, which was bought by Ubisoft. Wildlands doesn't even give a token nod to any of the features that these games offered that defined the genera.

Edited February 4, 2017 by 101459

[Zeealex]

Played Co-Op with EasyCo and Zoombapup today, and i'll admit the experience was better, I owe that a lot to the non scripted camaraderie and good communication between the three of us than the mechanics of the game being substantially better. 

It does seem to me that the game is definitely built with co-op in mind and singleplayer was an afterthought to prevent all round outrage. 

That said, it was fun, I can put my hands up and admit that, we lost 3 hours easily, I got my performance sorted as well and it actually runs pretty stable now, so I can retract that part of my earlier statements.

There are a LOT of bugs, randomly spawning enemies, civilians not spawning at all, enemies not dying and just kinda standing there, voice overs kept playing in a constant loop and glass on the final part couldn't be broken, which was damn weird, things felt random and at times disconnected as well and it was quite repetitive at times. 

and i still think it could do with a few months to a year's delay to solve these issues.

if EasyCo, Miss Verstanden and Zoombapup pick it up I probably will inevitably, because they're so much fun to play with, and they need someone who doesn't suck at driving (so much for women drivers, huh?)

I spent a good couple of minutes busting my sides with laughter at a fat woman running down a hill...


I believe Easy was recording, I'll post the youtube link here if he doesn't later. 


 

[nyleken]

Don't really think that Ubisoft is going to delay it. At this point it's probably going to be patched extensively post-launch and so the best time to pick it up is probably going to be a year after launch. That's also assuming the game is still alive at that point.

Apparently the game has been in development for four years. I'm not exactly keen on the development process but I genuinely do wonder what they've been doing for the past four years.

[101459]

18 minutes ago, nyleken said:

Don't really think that Ubisoft is going to delay it. At this point it's probably going to be patched extensively post-launch and so the best time to pick it up is probably going to be a year after launch. That's also assuming the game is still alive at that point.

Apparently the game has been in development for four years. I'm not exactly keen on the development process but I genuinely do wonder what they've been doing for the past four years.

I think you are right. I also find it amazing that with Ubisoft owning rights to no less then four LSS game engines capable of this kind of scale; thousands of petabytes of repurposable content they can decorate maps in a game like this with, development and production teams the size they have to put to task, and the budgets they roll -- that this took four years, looks and plays the way it does.

It is what it is, I just wish Ubsift would disabuse themselves of using the Tom Clancy, Ghost Recon and R6 monikers and calling it a 'franchise' (it's not) and similarly learn the meaning of the word 'tactical' and how it has been applied to gaming and got started with ip they bought. Maybe this is all just an English literacy issue and a huge misunderstanding at Ubisoft or they don't even remember Red Storm and what they did...

I also agree with Alex, friends make all the difference:

Edited February 5, 2017 by 101459

[nyleken]

2 minutes ago, 101459 said:

It is what it is, I just wish Ubsift would disabuse themselves of using the Tom Clancy, Ghost Recon and R6 monikers and calling it a 'franchise' (it's not) and similarly learn the meaning of the word tactical and how it has been applied to gaming, and all got started with ip they bought. Maybe this is all just an English literacy issue and a huge misunderstanding at Ubisoft...

Well, they are French after all. 

All kidding aside, I think Ubisoft stopped caring around 2002 when Splinter Cell was released. 

[Rocky]

Downloading SNiper Ghost Warrior now... not holding out much hope after seeing all the neg on steam , including this one ... lol. ...

Quote

tbh just get ghost recon wildlands and forget this clunky mess