Matt

This was neat to hear about as a hobby game someone was making a few years back, but why is it still getting press after so little has changed?

I like experimental games, but when you're relying on restrictive roles, simplistic graphics, and shallow gameplay, I can't imagine anyone would want to play this more than a few times. Even then, I'll bet most people who play end up taking a wild guess. That's not fun. It's a cool concept, but this is pretty dull execution.

This guy made a rant a few years ago, and for that he gets press from hipster bloggers who can't quite discern between good gameplay and this... experience that wants to be a game.

Massive exploratory changes are great for early prototyping or to find solutions to serious gameplay faults, but this feels like more oddball tinkering and an attempt to manufacture more buzz instead of good game design. Why consider such drastic changes and why now?

Did Valve replace all the designers on the Team Fortress team with Producers and Marketing guys?

Other game designers will reference TF2 as the most obvious example of the perils of unstructured game development -- not only because of how steadly and randomly the game devolved, but because of how masterfully the game's class and character design began.

I'm tired of seeing these blog posts that only apply to folks using automated systems instead of clever understanding of game mechanics and economy.

Focus more on how folks who don't let a mod play the game for them can make money.

Eight hours of raiding is barely casual, especially when supplimented by extensive theorycrafting and some pretty hilarious epeen forum follow-up about how big of an accomplishment they believe they managed.

Congratulations on beating a boss thousands have already defeated, all the while demanding attention for how significant you feel you are, reminding the world how what you did was such a challenge and how you imply have friends at Blizzard that think you are amazing.

Must be a painfully slow news day.

The reviewer must be new to shooters, because GA's combat is as bad as any I've seen in a multiplayer shooter. Too spammy and lacking an emphasis on skill.

Stick with TF2. Combat's much more fun there.

And I want to play with 256 people on console for what reason exactly? Console FPSes are already laggy clusterfucks with 7 other people, let alone 255.

I never understood the appeal of massive servers for shooters, the gameplay ends up favoring massive rushes instead of precise execution and player skill. Sure, that's more realistic, but I'm playing a game. I don't want to be a part of the faceless assault that gets torn apart to serve as a distraction. I don't want to be running around a six square mile map getting sniped by some guy proning in the bushes with his fifteen friends. I don't want to be a cog in the machine, I want to be the hero that wins the game.

The whole claim of "no lag" should be taken with a massive grain of salt. Most console gamers are used to bad connections and terrible servers, so get this game in the hands of a PC gamer and I'm sure you'll have a much different opinion of the netcode.

Give me Counter-Strike on a PC any day of the week.

This is a huge step forward for a developer to even acknowledge that their internal testing or open beta tests don't come close to covering the semi-skilled competitive community. I know a year back, Robin was pretty adamant that their internal playtests should suffice as they had a handful of good Team Fortress players working at the company, but it's good to see he's seen the truth.

There are close to zero remotely decent gamers working in the games industry, and the sooner developers realize this, the better competitive multiplayer will be. Blizzard's been aware of this for years and now here's hoping Valve is on board.

Reading that blog makes my head hurt.

Sources are never given, quotes not attributed, needlessly confusing lingo is used (lots more than you see in *real* competitive communities), and huge amounts of attention given to drama and rumors instead of the so-called "great" competition WOW PvP provides.

I'm impressed be even the most limited success the game has had as a competitive platform, as the game mechanics really don't support good competition or skilled play.

I'm not surprised that the community that formed around the so-called competitive Arena is so angry and full of people that lack any understanding of actual competition.

Ugh, that combat looks like spam.

Great, a jetpack. Let me know when a fight isn't just:

1. Grab cover.
2. Go full auto.
3. Reload.
4. Repeat 2 & 3 as needed.

Bad combat makes me sad.

I'm really surprised by the decent reviews, as this game still is as shallow as it was back in beta. Lots of spraying and praying and very little actual tactics or skill.

Sure, it was cool seeing a building collapse, but everything else was more generic than any game I have seen in years. No unique weapons, movement is just floaty jumping and a limited use jetpack, combat is all spam, and environments lack anything memorable.