f13.net

Didn't see a thread for this.

http://www.brinkthegame.com/

Brink unlocks on Steam for PC at 9PST.

FPS from Splash Damage, guys who did RTCW: Enemy Territory and ET: Quake Wars. Drop-in drop-out gameplay that is the same across singleplayer and gameplay (read: singleplayer is mp with bots, but with bookending story cutscenes and your friends and/or randoms can drop in to take over bot slots). There is basically a parkour button to climb around on stuff like a monkey.

Anyone else interested in this?

Super psyched for this, personally.  I had it kind of in the back of my head for the last few months, didn't really keep up with it, then realized it was coming out soon a few days ago and have since been catching up with the hype train, so now I'm basically hopping up and down.  The art style looks interesting (stylized, but not cartoony), the gameplay looks fun.  I'm not quite sold on the whole "blending single player with multiplayer" idea, but we'll see how that goes.  But yeah, set my alarm early to play it tomorrow morning.

I'm cautiously interested in this, but I don't plan on buying until I see some really rockin' reviews.  I want to like it, and I like the dev team, but it seems a little gimmicky.  The small team sizes also leaves me underwhelmed.  Basically the question for me is: Why would I play this instead of the BC2 and Black Ops, both of which I already own.

It strikes me as a game that fills a niche that is already filled for me from multiple angles, so its going to have to offer something very unique to push me over the edge to actually buying it.

I have it. Decrypting now.

I eagerly wait for reports on how infested with consolitis, and 'is it more fun than X'

It's hard to drop $50 on a game with commercials as bad as the Brink ones.

I Refuse to buy a game that treats multiplayer like anything other than the darwinistic sharkpit it is.

If you suck at twitch shooters, find another role or find a slower game. This one will hold your hand in MP and tell you it's ok that you can't one-shot the slow guys, because hey, nobody can.

Also, lol, "we decided we only wanted to dedicate the resources to making male toons because boobies are hard".

It looks kind of interesting, but I'm very wary of MP-focused games since they have to compete with the heavyweights like CoD and BF to have a decent community 3 months after the game comes out. Especially since I'm a tightarse and tend not to buy almost anything until 3-6 months after release these days, since I already have a bit enough backlog... I tried to see what the Wolfenstein MP was like on 360 last night, and found NONE games running... the PSN thing is going to fuck these guys hard.

Also, it'd need a compelling reason for me to play it as a MP game over Battlefield with any kind of regularity. And I haven't found anything that can do that since 1942's Wake Island demo came out. Except for when my friends and I were hardcore into WoW's PvP.

I have this preordered, but it doesn't unlock here because it takes 4 days for bits to cross the Atlantic. It's set to be the summer's big office lunchtime FPS; BFBC2 held that crown for 5 months last spring, we'll see how much staying power Brink has.

Definitely.  I think if Brink has anything that is unique or neat, its not the multiplayer by itself, but that your character is persistent through single player, co op missions, and multiplayer.  I think that is a neat idea, but not neat enough to warrant a release date buy.  I'm they release a demo or something.

From what I've been reading, the game has tiny maps, poorly executed objectives and the SMART system is clunky and unwieldy. Further, due to awful map design there are few chances to even take full advantage of the crappy all purpose button.

I am a little disappointed with the "campaign" so far. Its basically just a multiplayer map played with bots on your team, and vs other bots. The coop game is just you and friends vs bots, and the multiplayer is just the same missions again, with real players on both sides. So its not like its a hugh stretch for your character to exist across all 3.

I've seen some pretty harsh reviews so far.

Oh yeah, I just wanted to add that I have played the first mission of the Security and the first mission of the Revolution, and for all that the game goes out of its way to tell you there are 2 different campaigns to play through, so far it was just playing the same match from different sides.

That's disappointing, I loved me some ET: Quake Wars.

However, its Splash damage, why are you looking for story?

Reviewers do not seem to like this game

Because it's a feature they touted. If it was multiplayer centric; they should have stated that, not "Drop in and out of singleplayer/multiplayer easily!"

I like it, but it IS crashy as fuck for me (woo ATI driver crashes)

The maps are small ish, and cluttered. Whoever learns the dozens of paths around the strange layouts will have a decided advantage.

And I don't get the "takes forever to kill someone" complaints. An SMG sidearm can kill two people in a clip. Is the barrier for "normal kill speed" one round to the head with any weapon in an FPS now?

I mean sure, but its splash damage, this would be the first game that ever had any by them.

Yeah, but you can't expect everyone to know that.


ATI released a driver update that specifically mentions stabilization fixes for this game. Give that a shot.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/review-brink/713694

Thats actually *exactly* how I heard it marketed.

I read this in the comments of I think metacritic:

I have no words to describe how retarded this comment is.

Sounds like the biggest flop in a long time. All that time trying to make the game unique, and it ends up being the most generic thing ever.

I think I need more time with the game to get a accurate idea. I was having fun playing it last night. I didn't even really know I wasn't supposed to like the game until all the reviewers told me this morning. I had a few annoyances yeah, but I didn't feel like I was playing a "flop" at all.

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Most reviews read to me like they were expecting some long involved storyline single player. Then got disappointed its more multi-player focused, and downright confused at the seamless movement between modes.

Looking at videos and whatnot, I bet I would like this game with its more team based focus and RPGlite advancement. Customization seems off the hook. Looking at the map, its clear they plan on adding more "maps" to the ARK world map.

Of course I have no direct experience, I suspect the gun play is akin to Quakewars.

I think thats the only time I used it, and it was in response to the poster above me.

*edit. I know thats a quote, but still. I know exactly what the word means. I don't see how I used it incorrectly.

I meant flop as in "why would anyone be compelled to buy this".

If this is the worst game you've seen, I want to know what you've been playing.

I dunno, personally, I'm having fun with it.

I didn't say it was the worst, just lacking anything that would make one want to buy it. I for one thought it was going to be about parkour and traversing the big ass futuristic island city. That would've been hella cool. What we got is not.

Brink essentially plays like a less funny and smaller scale TF2.

What I'd like to see out of brink is some of it's concepts moved to games that need them. The objective wheel? That would be AWESOME in a battlefield series game. In brink, the maps are small and fast enough that there's very little time to use it effectively. The smart button is actually a pretty solid idea as well, it gives better freedom of movement without having to memorize jumps and what walls you can scale to get to silly places in an FPS.

But overall, the gameplay reminds me of a TF2 type game with a lot of side objectives.

Sure, but Bad Company 2 was the first DICE-made Battlefield game that had a singleplayer story after 4 core games and 7 expansion packs. If SD say there's a story and tout it as a feature, you kind of expect one. I'm not sure why you're arguing this point?

OK. SO move > shoot. In a shooter. Check.

Who actually has the PC version by the way?

All the reviews are absolutely rubbish in terms of giving any info so far.   They keep talking about the stupid crap like switching from single player to multiplayer.   Do I care if that feature is a let down when single player sucks? HELL NO.

I really only care that it's a good shooter with some parkour shit.  Good shooter = CoD4, TF2 with real guns, etc.  So far I've heard that maybe the aim is imprecise and maybe the guns take too long to kill people.   I've heard nothing from anyone reliable though.  Problem is all the people I know who are good at FPS's are waiting to hear if this is good before they buy it :oh_i_see:.

So far this thing looks like all hat, no cattle--marketing up the wazoo, but I have no sense of what it's really got on offer. Seen that before. Not a good sign.

Perhaps they should have made the smart move and released a demo before retail launch.  :oh_i_see:

Does it use real guns, or made-up ones? I always prefer real ones for whatever reason.


I always find a lack of a demo suspicious. The lack of is what stopped me buying Frontline: Fuel of War. And Homefront as well, come to think of it (unless I just missed that one?)

Actually, awesome demos are what sold me on BF1942 back in the day and also got me to pony up for a pre-order of BC2. Which was the last game I bought on release, not counting super-steam sales (I got TW: Shogun 2 on release due to the "get everything else TW included, for less than half of the AU retail price" sale, but haven't yet fired it up).

Homefront had the same issue as Brink does to me as well. You better give me a damned compelling reason to not play Battlefield instead (or CoD, or TF2, or CS, or whatever your own MP FPS of choice is). Homefront pretty much falls into the same category that MW2 and Black Ops do - for me anyway. I'll buy them when they're really cheap to play through the SP campaign, but no deep interest in the MP aspect. If you don't have a worthwhile SP experience with an ongoing community and you're just going for the MP, your game is going to be toast in 3-6 months. Which is where Brink potentially appears to be headed - gotta keep those boxes on shelves and turning over else your community will die.

Its too bad this game seems to not live up to expectations.  I was looking forward to it.  Oh well.

Brink uses real guns, with made up barely one letter off names for a lot of the brands.

I'm liking Brink, but at the same time: they released it a week early.. when it clearly needed more time in QA if all the crash and sound bugs on PC are any sign.

They didn't want to compete with one of this year's biggest releases in LA Noire.

I do.  Seems like a pretty good fit on the PC, controls are comparable to other FPSes, and the aiming is tricky enough that I'd feel awkward trying it with a gamepad.  Aiming is pretty imprecise on automatic weapons,  but you can put a scope on almost anything if you want more precision.  It doesn't take a long time to kill someone if you hit them (the AI can drop you in half a second with a rifle), in fact, I'd say that generally if you're getting hit you're likely to go down faster than you would in, say, TF2 (the game does have some of ET:Quake Wars feeling of "spawn, run, die instantly, wait for respawn").  I suspect where most of the "it takes forever to kill people" complaints are coming from is that you can get a kevlar vest buff which soaks up a ton of damage unless the enemy is using armor piercing rounds (which I think are Soldier specific) and because of the inaccuracy of the automatic weapons.

On another topic, I'm having trouble with the solo 2-star objective challenge, anyone have any advice?  1-star was no problem, but in the 2-star version, it's my team of four versus the CPU's team of six, and with the fact that I have to do all the objectives myself (and can't shoot half the time) that means my three AI teammates have to somehow cover me from six enemies on an instant respawn timer.  It's getting kind of frustrating.  I can get the bomb planted no problem, the generator takes a few deaths but I can do it, but hacking while drawing fire from six enemies respawning instantly about five seconds away is causing me problems.  I had something like six minutes left for that objective last time, never got past 30% or so.  Squadmates get cut down almost instantly, I can take a few (like, two, maybe) enemies out before dying but it doesn't seem to matter since there's still going to be two or three left and the others will be back in five seconds.  None of the other challenges have been this hard, so I suspect I'm doing something wrong, but I can't figure out what.

Kail, hit me up on steam. I am under this sane name in the f13 group. Ill run some of the challenges with you. I also am having a hard time with the 2 star.

For others, this is the best "review" or write up on Brink I have read yet.

Warning Kotaku. (Worth reading)
Is Brink Any Good? (http://kotaku.com/5800180/played-it-beat-it-still-dont-know-how-good-brink-is)

**Edit

Played some multiplayer campaign mode coop with some randoms tonight, and it was MUCH more fun than playing solo. This really is a game that having friends or others to play with seems to be pretty required.

Personally, I was hoping for a bit more Borderlands and a little less Quake Wars, but now that I know what I have got, its more enjoyable.

Here is my sort-of-mini first impressions:

I caved and bought it since I was reading some good things and heard all of my fears answered.   Apparently though I didn't have the right fears.

It's hard to imagine after all the decades of my life that developers can still throw me a zinger where I say they've reached a new plateau of stupid.   Basically this isn't a shooter at all.   It's just this objective thing with FPS elements.   I knew about that mode and I thought  "well that's fine it sounds cool".   Indeed it IS cool.    It does seem to have a bit of the "not enough face shooting" going on but that's probably because I can't even figure out where the fuck I'm going half the time.  I can easily imagine after I figure all this crap out that it will be a very interesting game mode with some fulfilling teamwork and blah blah.

What every fucking individual I know and several reviews neglected to mention though is it's the ONLY GAME MODE.

No FFA.
No CTF.
No DM.
No HQ.
No Dom.
NO FUCKING TDM?

SERIOUSLY?   :argh: :argh: :argh: :argh: :argh: 

Oh and of course I think the biggest server size is 16.   I mean that irks me but that level of stupidity is only par for the course these days.

Did they stop the stupidity there?  Oh hell no son.   Apparently to unlock a lot of the attachments and gun stuff they chose not to copy CoD's system or to come up with their own possibly interesting variation.   No they built some sort of deus ex stupidity difference engine and asked it what to do.   I imagine they had it print out several answers then picked one via darts.  The solution of course being that you start up these mini solo/co-op challenges and complete them to unlock gun attachments.  That's right you can not unlock all those fancy bazillion gun variations by you know...SHOOTING PEOPLE.  You have to stop your multi in your multiplay game and shoot some bots or jump on some crates.

:angryfist: :angryfist: :angryfist: :angryfist:

I think what makes me the most angry though is the SMART thing is clearly cool.  Hell just the fact that your guy will no longer get stuck on shit you'd normally walk over IRL is a big step up.   I actually think calling it parkour is a bit off in fact.   It makes you surprisingly more mobile in a way that makes other shooters suddenly feel a bit artificial.   Little stuff like just stepping up onto a ramp from the side instead of having to circle around to the front feels so much more natural.    Until I unlock the light body type I can't try out the crazy stuff like wall jumping but based on what I can already do I imagine it works just fine.   The rest of the combat is fine too.   At it's core the shooter mechanics seemed fine.  I did run into some medic that was taking wayyy to many bullets to kill but frankly the maps are so "shit where did you come from?" that I spazed and didn't even iron sight him.     Everyone else I shot at died in satisfyingly short order.

My pure rage comes from the fact that clearly this shit would be fun as hell if they just threw you in a map and let you shoot people.   I guess they figured that would be soo much fun that nobody would ever even LOOK at their objective stuff.  So out came the cock-blocking of course.   Never in my life have I ever felt more sympathetic of investors who feel developers can simply not be trusted with multimillion dollar products.   

So basically in summary the objective mode seems cool.   I think most people would find it fun.   At 50 bucks for that one mode though you better hope to fucking god you love it as you aren't getting anything else.

I think the problem here is you and your expectations.

It is a shooter, unless your definition of shooter is laughably narrow. Saying this isn't a shooter is like saying that Sonic isn't a platformer because it lacks Goombas.

The objective stuff is not a mode like CTF or Team Deathmatch. It's the game. Just as it was in Enemy Territory. The goal of this game was not to make a completely generic, serviceable and forgettable shooter among dozens then bolt on a single new game mode to feign freshness, the game mode is really the core concept. That doesn't mean it's not a shooter, just not quite as cookie-cutter as some others.

If it had team deathmatch and CTF would those be better than in competing products? Probably not. Within a week nobody would be playing those anyway.

Your post actually makes me very sad. Basically your complaint is that it's not a simple copy/paste of an existing game and doesn't conform to an extremely narrow genre definition that says all shooters must be exactly like COD.

Now it sucks if you were expecting something different but the game has always been billed as objective-based, and there are two previous games in it's lineage that should give you an idea of what to expect.

My only expectation is that if a shooter doesn't have any of the normal shooter bits then reviewers should at least mention that.  There is nothing wrong with that expectation. 


How did a post you didn't read make you sad?  I said very clearly that after I figure it out I'll probably enjoy the objective mode.   I said very clearly that the movement system would of given them a game nothing like a copy/paste of other games with those modes.  I said VERY CLEARLY in the first paragraph that you quoted that I think all that stuff IS cool.   It's right there four words saying it's cool.   I'm going to also be cool though and assume that you're insinuation that expecting them to not be cheapasses is "narrow" was just a knee-jerk defensive reaction based on the fact that my post was tl;dr.   

YES.   S.M.A.R.T is game changing.  It actually lives up to it's hype and then some.

One of the surest ways to tell whether a game will flop is the amount of "you don't understand, this game is not for you" that gets thrown around on the internets. That it gets thrown around on a game of such an iconic genre as FPS, well, that's got to be even worse...

 

It's frustrating, though, because it seems to be happening all over.  Brink is basically an ET: Quake Wars type game with more acrobatics and customization and minus the vehicles/outdoor sections.  You're coming at it looking for Mirror's Edge with guns, Amaron is looking for Unreal Tournament with wall running, and I've seen reviewers make similar mistakes.  The game, for what it is, is not bad.  If you come at it looking for something that's not there, you're going to be disappointed, but it's not like you couldn't say that about any game.  What's irritating is that this seems to be happening over and over with a lot of different people.  I dunno if Brink's marketing guys really fucked up or if the game concept is really that weird and alien to people who didn't play ET, but there seems to be a lot of people who thought this game was going to be something other than what it is, which is worrying me.

A lot of people (myself included) have never heard of ET: Quake Wars, or the studio who developed Brink at all before this. We're used to the shooters we've played before (COD, Gears, Halo); as a result I don't see how Amaron's off the mark hoping for TDM at the very least.

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory was pretty well known as well.

(http://www.splashdamage.com/images/content/awards_wet.jpg)(http://www.splashdamage.com/images/content/awards/mcritic_wolfet.png)

(http://www.splashdamage.com/images/side_img_wolfbrink.jpg)

Free download and main site. (http://www.splashdamage.com/wolfet#/screens_wet/008_tb.jpg)



I think I know what the issue is. Its a ET style game on consoles. Case in point, from a meta critic review:


Specifically its a team based game in a world sounded by games where Rambos are playing alone together.

Among PC gamers, maybe. That's all I'll say however as I'm tired of having this argument every time a FPS launches.

I am also sure having Zero multi-player option on the PS3 is a big issue for this titles reviews. Considering its a multi-player heavy title.

Gamespy review encapsulates it:



Linky (http://xbox360.gamespy.com/xbox-360/splash-damage-project-untitled/1167152p1.html)

My main concerns and a lot of complaints I see are often misconstrued as "LOL U LONE WOLF COD FAG GO BACK TO COD FAG FAG".

Complaining about awful map design does not make you a "cod fag".

Complaining about sluggish mechanics and a lack of variety does not mean I "need to go back to Counterstrike".

and lastly

Complaining about a shitty tacked on single player game doesn't mean "lol it's Splash damage so it's ok, Imean u expect it rite?"

TF2 has similar class based gameplay with a lot variety and pug sensibilities thrown in. Excusing awful game design when you're getting spawn camped as "It's team based" doesn't fly. At all.

You do realize that ET:QW and TF2 are not comparable games, and very different beasts, ET:QW is also very much unlike the COD or battlefield designs.

I believe the commentary that new users on consoles are unlikely to have played this type of game is completely valid. Splash damage pretty much defined class based/Team based shooters. And was known for online only, small team based play. Everything brink seems to have that people are complaining about. And its highly unlike the games on most consoles where team play is secondary, and score boards and kill counts are all that matter.

EDIT: Seems even splash damage knew this:

Console players are struggling with the concept of objective-based gameplay? That's hilarious.

Yet likely completely true. Or most reviews that go low score would not be saying that having to change classes to fit the objective is a pain.

You don't need to switch classes, IF YOU ARE PLAYING AS A TEAM.  If you are just solo playing with others online ( Like Halo, most shooters on consoles ) you are doing it wrong.  This is a defined game type with a long history on PC, that has yet to really come to consoles.

My main point with the differences is. Dependency on other players and classes are the main design difference. Simply having an "objective" on a map does not make a team focused shooter.

Right, and what about the complaints that have nothing to do with people struggling to play as a team?

Technical issues can be patched out. No head shots is intentional, grenades not being instagib is intentional, lack of a K/D ratio is intentional, Lack of standard FPS modes is intentional as they do not fit this type of game. ETC.

Lack of a story mode the length of halo is is debatable as is likely a failing of marketing, or player expectations because of not knowing the games pedagree.

In my case it was marketing fail. I watched a lot of videos where they gushed about three things: awesome floating cityscape, parkour movement, character customization.

That led me to believe it would be an atmospheric shooter.

I'm not even to the point where I'm reading about the actual gameplay issues.

All I hear about so far is what a disaster the game is technically. From 5 fps in the server browser to blue tinted screens and framerates locked at 30; FOV at sub 90.

Yet another pay to beta game that I'm going to avoid. By the time they fix the bugs it'll be in the bargain bin.

Can someone explain to me wtf ET:QW gameplay was?  All i keep reading is "It's just like ET:QW duh!" over and over again, and yet it's apparent that most of us had never played the game.  I remember hearing about it when it came out but I never played it.

I genuinely want to know what the difference between ET:QW is and most standard FPS games (Bfs and Cods) that are apparently big enough to make such a huge difference in how well you will understand Brink

Played the 360 version for a couple hours last night, so far the game is a real mixed bag. Though you're immediately given an almost overwhelming selection of guns to pick from right off the bat - to get significant upgrades to them, and unlock a few more, you have to play challenge modes, twice each, which are single player with bots. These challenges are not fun and just feel like pointless busywork. This is a multiplayer game - why do I have to play these lame single player challenges to get stuff? Outfits and abilities unlock as you level up in the standard game, dunno why they separated out these other important unlocks.

Maybe it was my mistake not getting the PC version, but the graphics look very low-res and blurry. Combat feels a bit sluggish ... the new movement system so far, I've not seen it really add anything to the game, maybe it just takes some getting used to to get the most out of it. But most importantly, something is jacked up with the netcode or hosting or who knows what, but it was extremely difficult to find a game without crippling, unplayable lag. I tried close to 15 times to get into a game online and got two games out of those that I could actually play. If that issue gets ironed out, I can see having fun with Brink, I do like the customization for appearance and abilities, and the core gameplay mode is fun.

For myself, Brink is missing one key thing from QW: large maps and vehicles. Fighting in small rooms with two dimensional layouts has to stop. It's boring as fuck.
 

Kind of like a cross between Team Fortress and Assault mode for Unreal Tournament (if you played that).  Basically, instead of scoring points by getting kills or capturing flags, it's objective based.  There are two teams: the attackers (who win the map if they complete the objectives) and the defenders (who win the map if they can preven the attackers from winning).  The maps are set up so that there are a series of challenges for the attackers to overcome, and the defenders try to stop them.  Most objectives require a specific class to complete.

For example, there's one level (Tower, I think) which has Rebels on attack and Security defending.  The scenario is that the rebels are rescuing one of their guys from the hospital where he's being interrogated.  The first challenge is for the rebels to blast open the front gate, which requires a Soldier class to plant a blasting charge on it.  Once that's done, the next objective is to access the Warden's computer to get the access codes to the hospital.  This can only be done by Operative classes hacking into the computer.  Once they've got the codes, they have to carry them to the door of the hospital and input them into the door (any class can do this).  After that, the Rebel prisoner is released from the hospital, and the Rebels have to escort him back across the map to the starting point.  Anyone can escort the prisoner (he only moves when someone is near him), but if he gets knocked out (he can't be fully killed) only a Medic can revive him.

Thanks!

That actually sounds pretty awesome, depending on the actual implementation obviously.

Shitty map design, technical issues being patched out still isn't an excuse, Grenades being useless isn't intentional IE: they don't have to instant kill to be effective at something, You don't need standard FPS modes to insert variety into your game, sluggish poorly implemented movement system which, by even generous accounts is just a glorified action button, nobody worth talking to gives a crap about KDR. 

The problem with UT's Assault mode is that everyone had boiled down the objectives to the LCD within a couple days. I remember running objectives to see who could shave a few seconds off the best time, there was no real way for the defenders to stop anyone once the 'trick' was figured out. And the maps got old pretty fast because it's linear.

I played a lot of Assault, wishing it could be more.

I was expecting Quake Wars with S.M.A.R.T.   I played Quake Wars all those years ago.   Saying they both had objectives is just not even remotely descriptive.   The game is nothing like Quake Wars.   They took the enemy territory series and decided that people were having fun by ignoring the objectives.   They decided this ruined the objectives because so many were ignoring them.   Their SOLUTION was to remove FUN that people can have by ignoring objectives.   They could of tried to add different objectives but they clearly just didn't want those people to like the game.  

It's as if the developers wanted to say to 50% of their previous audience "You don't understand, this game is not for you".

I like how a lot of you are ignoring that TDM is a simple game mode that's easy as hell to add on too.   I mean you'd think I'm asking for some crazy totally difficult thing.   I simply want them to let people go into a map and SHOOT AT EACH OTHER.  I'm still going to just go shoot people in the face anyways.   I'll ignore the objectives and just shoot people and probably ruin the game for my team.   Normally I'd just shelf the game but S.M.A.R.T is to much fun.  

The maps in Quake wars also expanded as the mission progressed.

Nah you'll still be helping out the people trying to accomplish the objectives. Even the two pub games I got in last night, plenty of people were engaging the objectives. Being purely support by killing enemies is still gonna help your team. You just won't have the satisfaction of a K/D tally at the end - if that even matters to you.

No, he will be constantly rolled, with team sizes this small, its unlikely you can just float in the masses and not be a drain. If your not a team based player, you are unlikely to enjoy this title.

This is exactly why people will tell him he may wish to go back to the other games that feature the game type he likes. No one who enjoyed Quake Wars pined for a basic official death-match, its the opposite direction of the core concept of the game.

All SD games have required teamwork, all of them a strategy beyond "Get kills", the objectives are the game-play. I even hear they are dynamically placed in brink.

Me personally, I Enjoy this type of FPS more than any other. Plantside, RTcW:ET, Global Agenda, TF2 and ET:QW are far and above better to me and my tastes than CoD, or battlefield, Quake/Unreal series. They are great for what they do, I just don't personally enjoy playing alone with others or thinking its all about "Boom head-shot". I enjoy tactics, shoot outs, strategy and teamwork. I find it lacking in those titles personally, and just see a zerg that occasionally happens to cap a control point.

I'm not so sure its valid a day after launch and with a game that allows you to climb/wall walk almost any surface we should be commenting on map layouts yet. I'm not aware of a shooter that has had to have that extra challenge of design considered.

To each his own though.



Also: Brink – An Update from Splash Damage (http://bethblog.com/index.php/2011/05/11/brink-%E2%80%93-an-update-from-splash-damage/)

It just occurred to me that the sum total of Brink's content is one game mode and eight maps. That's really not much at all, especially considering how long it was under development.

Yeah it's a little underwhelming, for sure. But it's fun when it works.

Though getting Section 8 for 15 bucks recently puts a slightly different perspective on what Brink gives you for a full price game.

If its close to Enemy Territory(Rtcw version at least, I honestly didn't playethe Quake Wars one) it sounds worth getting eventually, but at full price probably not, especially given that I am over saturated on games right now in the first place.  Steam sale ho!

Got my tax returns, was considering picking that up to. Recommend?

Absolutely, for 15 bucks. The art style is generic, but the gameplay is solid. Capture-and-hold style objectives with other random objectives that come up during a round to keep things interesting. A typical xp path to unlock stuff, in addition to earning points to spend in-round on turrets, mech suits, tanks etc. Bots that don't suck.

That's just wishful thinking on your part.  My team will lose yea but I'll still slaughter the enemy.   There's no need to win after all since you get nothing for it.

I'm not saying I don't enjoy the objectives mind you.  Just some times you want to simply shoot faces.   If I'm in that mood no way am I going to switch from soldier to medic if that's what we need.


I probably should of just said this instead of writing a review.  A game like this with cool classes and interesting objective play and crazy climb all over maps?  It's a FUCKING CRIME that there is no headquarters mode.   Anyone who ever played the original TF is just going to cry.   I just can't fathom why it's missing.   ET:Quake Wars had headquarters.   It doesn't make any sense at all for it to be missing here.  

They put in all this stuff to make it team work, objective,etc etc and they didn't include headquarters it's just  :uhrr:.

Hmm, a good (better?) review for the PC version, maybe there really is something to this console v. pc war  :grin:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/05/brink-for-pc-runs-great-plays-well-online-is-a-ton-of-fun.ars

Nod. It was well known back in the day. Of course, that was pretty much like any other TDM-objective based shooter, so...

I liked Quake wars enemy territory a lot so I keep flip flopping on whether or not to buy this.  If they didn't have that ability where you can pretend to be on the enemy team (like the spy in team fortress) I would have bought it by now.  I find it cancels out everything I like about it being team based since I have to be paranoid and constantly checking to see if my own team member is going to stab me in the back (literally).  I really don't like that.

Each day around lunchtime I decide "yeah screw it I'll give it a try when I get home" and by the time I get home I've changed my mind.

Guy streaming this right now: http://www.justin.tv/itmejp#/w/1193462112

It's pretty clear that someone here has never played a quality game of battlefield. Lumping it in with CoD reveals your ignorance on the differences even more.

Eh, you know that feeling of *trying* to like a game you just spent sixty bucks on? I finally got past that tonight after a few more hours of play. The game is one-dimensional, repetitive, and more frustrating than fun too much of the time.

Still 90 USD$ in Australia so it would need to be a god of gaming for me to even consider that.

Yeah, that's where I really take issue with all of the marketing saying one thing and then after your purchase and you finding out that it's not what you thought/were told you were buying, defenders saying "this game is not for you, you should have known!~Splash Damage!~ QW:ET!~ (which it seems that almost noone bought and only has some elements in common.)

Is it bad if despite everything I kind of want to buy this game? Mind you, it's flat out impossible for me to play at the moment because the PC version doesn't run on ATI cards.

That's an issue with the game design though, that's not an issue with the individual person.  TF2 allows team strategy and objective based gameplay, although maybe not as complex as described for brink.   However, it does it in a way that if you just want to run around shooting people and ignore the minecart that needs to be pushed, you are still helping the team by keeping people away from the people who are trying to complete objectives.  This means that both types of players can coincide together and help each other, even when they aren't intending too.

If a game can't facilitate both playstyles, and allow people to jump in even when they aren't in the mood to follow complex objectives, then it's a bad game design imo, and those people are going to play other MP games at that time that are similar and forget to return to Brink when they do have the urge for some team-objective oriented gameplay.

It's not a bad game but I maintain it's not worth $50. The sliding around and jumping over stuff is pretty freakin' awesome, and the rest is pretty standard fare.

Interested PC folk: try getting it from D2D for 25% off. Use the "sizzle" promo code. Plug the serial into Steam. Feel better.

Runs fine on my ATI card (a bit choppy in places, but it is a laptop).  The only issues I'm having are sound related.

But given all the angst over this game, I'd suggest you throw it on your wishlist and wait for a sale or a demo if you're on the fence.  I'm loving the hell out of it (probably my favorite FPS since TF2), but I can't deny that there's nothing here if you don't dig the core gameplay mode.

This is completely right - team-based FPS titles need to hook players in through the basic gameplay of shooting stuff, then extend it out to the team-based play. If shooting stuff in an FPS isn't good enough, no one is going to hang around to learn the subtleties. And then there are players who don't want to be a Medic (or whatever) no matter what the objectives are.

And that's especially critical in an FPS that appears to be 90% reliant on team-based play involving other real players and costs full price.

Another kicker for Brink is that with the PSN down, PS3 players have little reason to buy the game at launch and will probably have less reason to buy it after reading the reviews.

The ATI update fixed that for me, it's running fine for me.

What I DID learn after playing multi for a few hours: The map design is HORRIBLE. I mean, not the twists and turns and 80 ways to get places. I mean that escort and CTF type objectives often force you to run right in front of the hostile spawn point. Like, less than 15 feet from it. Won a match entirely because my spawn point was right next to the ugly choke point at the end of an escort mission. So even if my team couldn't shoot for shit, we could just zerg the objective down.

Also: other players just don't get Brink. At all. Newly spawned medic (so full on supplies) runs right past four downed teammates... to fire an SMG down a hallway at hostiles. Not what medics do, damnit!

Negative. Shooting people on "the point" is a far cry from simply running around shooting people. Two different things. One if helpful one is not.


Played this a lot last night. The comments about grenades being worthless is laughable. The knockdown is a big deal. Sadly, until some friends pick it up, Pugs is all I can do, and yeah, the very issues with player types is RAMPANT in this game. Players speaking in Team about "where is my K/D?"

No one sticks as a team, NO ONE seems to even go for the objectives ( other than one or two people ). I encountered on team last night while pugging, they rolled us into lolzvile. People going off alone, trying to rambo objectives if they even care to go there. kildorns Example is another great one. Many other players do not even wait for a medic, even when it clearly TELLS YOU how many are on the way!

Its the exact same things you see on a battlefield server. Every public battlefield server proves my point.

However the potential for tight teams, and team based play is huge here. Overall ill say "taking" and objective is a bit longer to do than say, TF2. This is a good thing IMO, as a tight team defending the objective should be a challenge to remove. Every system really is designed for team based play, its clearly mandatory. Eventually I played a few rounds with the same line up of players, this lead to us starting to get the feel for each other, and the difference showed big time when you support each other ( Just buffing up before a match seems rare with most I played with ), some of the class combos are really fun. The movement system is a BLAST if not a bit to get your head around. Both in how to use, and how to avid it being used on you. Maps have tons of "paths" that you have to train yourself to look for. "Can I get to that? * run run run * "YES!"", the map design is quite different then typical because of this. I can see issues if you are used to one or two shot kill games, if you are not accustomed to longer firefights, your going to have problems. The TTK is rather long, as compared to other games, not excessive, but not Counterstrike quick.

However my verdict is wait for a demo/sale. The lack of maps is a big issue, but one that can be minimized over time.  If the right community adopts the game, its has a great potential to be one of the more competitive shooters made. Its definitely Feels quite fresh.

This is how I feel too. I WANT to like the game, but it really feels more like a Xbox Live Arcade game, not a $50 premium.

I definitely agree the price point is high.

Right community? Does that even exist anymore in any game outside EvE?  :why_so_serious:

Again you miss the point.  For example, TF2 fixes this by designing their maps so that your even if you go around randomly shooting people, you are shooting people in areas that will help push your front line forward and help your team members that care about strategic objectives to perform them.  Thus dicktits pyro that is running around like an idiot is still helping you even when he has no intention of it.  This is a design decisions that allows anyone to get in and play, and when they decide to care about strategic objectives they can, but when they don't they can still dick around and still inadvertently be useful to the team as a whole.

Your whole post reinforces this.  Any MP game that is only fun when everyone is playing "properly" is a badly designed game.  You can't force players to change their playstyle, you have to find a way to design the game and map so that player's playstyles mesh with the overall game vision.

Meh, I think AC:B's multiplayer is awesomely designed and fun, but it requires everyone involved to "get" the gameplay. A server isn't much fun when it's 80% idiots running around in open stances running from roof to roof. But that doesn't make the game design bad, it just isn't built for mass market appeal.

Not really.   Sure, the "big" titles generally allow for people to just log in and go, but there are plenty of well designed MP games that require people to play "right."  All the best RTS games, for example.  Now, I don't know if Brink is going to pan out or not as a good title in the end, but the fact that you can't go around shooting shit randomly and be an asset to your team has little to do with that in my opinion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_Territory:_Quake_Wars#Reception   

Also Game of the year many times over. The console versions were given low scores, wonder why.

What?

What if I want to play a racing game but instead of racing I just take my time and enjoy the scenery? Oh no I lost - the game doesn't accommodate my Sunday-driver play style! What if in Mario I want to shake hands with the Goombas and invite them over for tea rather than jump on them? Oh no I died!

The fact that a game is a game and not actually a different game is not "bad design." All games are the game that they are, and all games have a play style that does not work at all in that game.



This is such depressing, narrow thinking. You can't force players to change their playstyle? Really? So if the first game I ever played was Pong every game has to be playable by moving along a single 1 dimensional line and bouncing a ball off a paddle?

EVERY SINGLE GAME should require a new play style. You play Mario differently from Contra, differently from Forza, differently from Ico. What you are asking for is for all games that kind of look like standard FPS games to play exactly the same.

I suppose to be charitable your point is that if you make something that looks like a duck people expect a duck. If you make something that looks like yet another samey FPS that's what people expect and will try to play it the same way. I suppose that is a problem, but I'm not sure that's really a design problem. That has more to do with the current context the game lives in than the game itself.

Time passes and technology is still steaming ahead really.   Sometimes you just want what you had with new paint and maybe some different fiddly bits.   The reality is there still hasn't been a good solid PC FPS since COD4.   

(http://images.icanhascheezburger.com/completestore/2008/1/30/atfirstiwuzl128461918594218750.jpg)

If you want to play COD4 play COD4. Problem solved. It's not like it's 20 years old, doesn't run on the latest hardware and looks like garbage. It's still a fine game.

It's not fair to bash a game for refusing to be COD4 with a new coat of paint, especially when that's exactly what every COD since that is. As well as Medal of Honor etc.

Honestly, this is like picking up Bonk's Adventure and complaining about the lack of Goombas. Yeah - it's Bonk, not Mario. Durr. It says so right on the box. Brink doesn't say COD anywhere on the box nor was it advertised as a COD clone. If you expected to be a COD clone just because it has guns and a first-person view that's on you.

Thats... not the point he was trying to make. At all. He was trying to say that accessibility to a multitude of playstyles is important. I don't know, I think he did a pretty decent job explaining what he meant, I'm not sure what the hell you're even trying to say, but hyperbole doesn't serve your point well.

TF2 was designed with a multitude of audiences in mind. It can be played in smaller comp groups and it can be played in public matches with some decent semblance of balance and competitiveness. The game has some failings to be sure, but it has good accessibility while having extremely helpful tricks and tactics for the guy who likes to play games well.


Also, one thing I'd like to ask in earnest. What makes this game's team based combat so different from other team/class based games? I've yet to see any actual explanation on this. In BC2, if your team is stupid is goes all recon; you're team loses and/or there's a long tedious stalemate; yet the game is still generally accepted to be at least a decent game. What makes this game so esoteric that the unwashed masses cant comprehend it?

BC2 doesn't really require to do anything besides blow people up, whereas Brink has portions where you probably need to stop shooting for a moment?

In TF2 from what I remember the objectives are fairly light and every class can accomplish them. For example on the map where you push the mine cart anybody can push the cart. Sure, maybe it's a good strategy to have a medic heal the guy pushing or a demoman try to stop them or whatever, but anybody can push the cart or try to stop it. And from what I remember most of the "objectives" are just "capture point X." In SD games there are objectives that only certain classes can fulfill.

SD games really are not "team based combat" games, they are "team based accomplish shit" games where combat helps you accomplish shit.

And again, it may be a strategic mistake to create a game that looks like a typical shooter but isn't. But I don't think it's fair to ask that the game support a "play style" of not actually playing the game and just dicking around. "I just want to shoot dudes" is saying I just want to not in any way try to actually win the game - but I still expect to win somehow.

BC2 has plenty of interact objectives. Just IIRC, there is no CLASS requirement on any of them. Whereas brink's objectives have class reqs on about half of them.

So if your mixed fireteam busts into an objective in BC2 and the engie is the only survivor, he can plant the C4. If your mixed fireteam busts into an objective in Brink and the engie is the only survivor, he cannot plant the C4, only soliders can do that.

That said: I don't think that'a s failing of the gameplay, as much as it's giving the defending team the tactical option to kill medics and the objective class over "kill everyone or you lose"

edit: To be honest, I don't get the "brink lacks the shooting people in the face" thing. Every map will have a primary objective, and maybe 2-3 optional ones that open new routes of attack, or capture command posts. If you're running to side objectives, you may not bump into anyone if you take an odd path. But if you're going for the primary objectives, 90% of the encounter will be shooting people.

...That's it? Really? I've heard complaints go far beyond the simple "MY CLASS CANT PLANT C4!"

Some sensible compromises would have helped, IE: This guy can plant C4 QUICKER. How the scout is not only better at capturing points, but his speed makes him well suited to the task as well. Sensibilities and compromises that allow everyone to enjoy the game, not just the comp players; though I'm not even sure how well this game would appeal to those dickless lunatics players. I wish I could go into more detail here, but after wasting money on homefront; I think I'm going to steam sale this one.

The only real team complaint I see is X class for Y objective. That and a stupid whine about the lack of K/D ratios being displayed, and getting more points for a rez than a kill.

The complaints I have with the game entirely revolve around shitty map design. I think the actual gameplay(SMART, the objective wheel, the class design/weapon choices) would rock in a BC2 engine/map layout.

Are FPS players really so retarded that only competitive players can learn what a whopping 4 classes are capable of?

I don't think the problem (or at least, a problem) is that the game is super complicated and unlearnable unless you are a pro gamer with 15 hours to invest in getting started, the problem is that many people simply don't WANT to do anything other than run around, shoot dudes and get a high K/D. In which case it's just the wrong game for them.

I like CoD, but just the fact that this is apparently so far from CoD that it is making CoD players lose their minds makes me want to buy it just because it sounds semi unique.  I still don't think its worth it at the 50 dollar price though.

It's not even that far from CoD. It's the same objectives we're used to, displayed in the same format we're used to. CoD is the gametype pretty much none of us ever played: Team DM. If you've played any form of an assault mode or even freaking Counterstrike, you probably "get" Brink.

It's not something vastly different, really. The smart system is neat, the objective wheel is neat in that it points you towards sub goals, but it's just another FPS when you actually sit down and look at it objectively.

I'll reword it even though you knew exactly what I meant.   There hasn't been a PC oriented FPS in that style since COD4.  


In an old FPS the reality is there aren't enough active admins to make it worthwhile anymore.   I do indeed play it on occasion though.

No, but it helps to be intuitive and easy to get into. Are these suddenly undesirable traits?


And again, I'll ask about the other mountain of complaints people seem to be ignoring in favor of "go away".

In the particular genre of racing game, years of experience has taught players the aim is to go fast (or best route) to win. That's almost the entire point to racing games.

In a similar fashion, FPS multiplayer have been heavily oriented around killing other players to win. That's what a lot of FPS players are expecting, but have received a title where killing other players isn't as helpful to winning the overall game and (from reviews / player descriptions) might not feel that satisfactory either.

Going back to the racing game example: the Brink equivalent would be a racing game that awarded more points for the player seeing certain landmarks than being the fastest on the track. It's a different way of looking at the genre, but if 90% of your market just wants to go fast, you aren't going to see a lot of players hang around.

And multiplayer games need players to hang around.

Brink sounds like an innovative game, but not a good game. The next title to pick up the SMART idea will probably do it a lot better.

This simply isn't true though.  There have been shooters for for well over a decade that have focused on objectives over raw killing.  Killing matters to varying degrees in all of them, but it isn't as if your goal in Brink is suddenly to NOT kill people.  Farming kills as an offensive player without pushing the point in TF2 is utterly useless, as having too many people sniping on offense in Battlefield: Bad Company 2, both are very popular CURRENT shooters, let alone things in the past like Tribes. 

I think we are way over playing the "not killing stuff" in Brink.  I was watching a stream of the game yesterday and there was plenty of killing going on.  But it was also clear that if you ignored your objectives you would lose the round.  How is this drastically different from other team based games in principle, especially to the degree that this would get so much bad responses.  Now, overall it seems like a different enough play on team based/objective based gameplay that it might be worth getting (not at 50 dollars in my opinion, but thats another story altogether, if it was 20 or 25 bucks, I'd have bought it by now).

I think maybe "not killing stuff" is mislabeling the problem on my part at least.    More like the guy you just killed will spawn 50 feet from you within on average 5 seconds.  Thus avoiding death has a lot less value.  The maps are just way to small.

Like what, specifically?  Just about the only other solid complaints I'm hearing are that there are only eight maps (true, and disappointing) and complaints about the map design (debatable).  Most of the rest of it all ties back in to wanting the game to be more like Halo.

The only complaint I'm objecting to is "why can't I just shoot stuff and win? I want COD!"

Complaints about tech problems, map design, etc seem perfectly fair to me.

Neogaf is still talking about some kind of a texture bug on 48xx series of cards, and I have a 4890. Could well be that it works anyway, but 50 eurobucks is a lot of money to gamble like that.

It was mislabeling.

Nooooo, Class skill interdependency is HIGH, you will need it to even get to the objective and take/hold while its being done. Rezing on the spot is extremely useful and key.

I think 1up's review http://www.1up.com/reviews/brink-review (http://www.1up.com/reviews/brink-review) gives a good idea of the gameplay problems, that go beyond "this game isn't Call of Duty"

I'm all for FPS games that go beyond "just shoot the guy" - TF2 for example really did objective-based teamplay right.

I think the thing is, a FPS has to start with the basics right - and the basics of any FPS is the base gameplay of shooting dudes in the face. Of course you can build in complexity from there, but if that foundation isn't solid, the rest will be only so much wasted potential. With the driving game analogy - sure you can do all kinds of things with a driving game, but if the basic feel of controlling your car isn't satisfying, the rest won't matter.

There is so much wrong with that article..... Its also the 360 version, its going to be biased.

But:

"Here's how a typical life went: Spawn, run unopposed to the objective point, shoot an enemy, and then die. Repeat." - Doing it wrong. No team, did you guys go in one by one?

"Almost all of these objectives require players to get to a specific point on the map and stand still or guard a specific point for a while. Problem is, these points are usually a huge bottleneck." - Whats the issue here? That you have to guard a objective? That it maybe contested? I only see an issue here if you are trying to rambo and have no one backing you up.

"Usually firefights end with one or just a couple of players standing on top of a pile of dead bodies. And then, every 20 seconds, everyone that died during that firefight spawns at their respective teams' spawn point and sprints towards the objective. " - Doing it wrong. There are medics for a reason.

"It's been a long time since bots this dumb have been allowed in such a high profile title." -  Yes bots are stupid, play with others.

"Problem is, if you're not the right class to rebuild a staircase, for example, it simply says that you should "guard" the location, or escort a player that is the right class to that spot." - This is a problem? Its even trying to get you to team up, take the hint.

"The attacking team is reduced to simply throwing as many bodies as possible at the problem and hoping for victory. Very few "strategies" are less fun. " - Oh dear god. Perhaps he is missing the key strategy, moving as a team.

"Installing to the hard drive helps a bit, but players shouldn't have to with a retail build of a game." - What?


NOTE no mention of the PC version or PS3 version as this was the Pre Release Review copy aka PRE DAY ONE PATCH for the Xbox 360.  Most of those issues have been resolved with texture loading and such as far as I hear. If I recall, ET:QW had similar issues on consoles when it was ported over, to the point that due to the hardware they had to lower the graphics to a noticeable level. Still, technical issues aside, I don't think this reviewer understood the game. That's not an "Its above you puny gamer", its a "You did not take the time to understand THIS game, and played it like was every other game, then bitched".

Reviews from PC reviewers are noticeably different than those on the consoles ( And poor PS3 players who have zero option to play with others right now are shafted ) mostly in mentality of play.

From the looks of it, the players are guilty as well, so playing with others might be a futile.  :why_so_serious:

Entirely true. If everyone on your team is playing like him, thats a problem.

I played a few PUG games, and I think some people were getting angry the medic was following them.  :oh_i_see:

Don't bots fill in for missing players? "BRB dinner, have fun being crippled by this brain dead AI". Kind of like Left 4 Dead, only slightly more manageable.

Well my experience pugging on the 360 was pretty much exactly what that reviewer described. A massive cluster where the glowy yellow thing was contested, die, spawn, run through a tunnel to get back there. Side objectives that just gave you a different way to get there.

"It's mostly two teams at extreme loggerheads" - Tom Chick's review http://www.honestgamers.com/reviews/9387/Brink.html (http://www.honestgamers.com/reviews/9387/Brink.html) describes this too, but he has a much different view on it.

I think it comes down to either liking this very focused gameplay or not. Two teams contesting a specific spot with hardly any freedom of choice for what to do at any given moment, other than picking your class. I can see enjoying this kinda play if you are on an organized team, but playing 360 pug games, these conflict points were almost always massive stalemates that would occasionally get broken through by luck or brute force. It was just frustrating and repetitive.

In Brink the Team is Everything, I guess that is just not my style, and pugging on Live just exacerbates that. I like team-oriented games, but with more wiggle room for accomplishing stuff on your own, or at least more options for where to go at any given time (like Battlefield's point capturing). Brink just felt way too claustrophobic and rigid to me.

His is more Accurate IMO than the other.

With exception: "Like Quake Wars, Brink has excellent bot support, which makes it a viable single-player game. " - Quake wars bots sucked, so does Brinks.

Found your problem.

Who the hell has a coordinated team to play this shit with?  If a game wants to have teamwork it better figure out how to be a HELL of a lot more popular than Brink is turning out to be. 

I would assume this is how most 360 owners play online, just jump on and find a game. Works just fine for most games, had no problems playing this way with Section 8, Monday Night Combat, or course Call of Duty, Halo, etc.  Brink is just much more demanding of teamwork ... in addition to the ridiculous amount of lag of course, which is a whole other retarded issue.

So this is a problem with the players then, not the game.  If the game fails because there aren't enough players that want to play it, then fine.  But that doesn't mean its worse than the other games you mentioned, just that it isn't aimed at the same audience.  Now, I haven't even played Brink, so I can't REALLY comment on how good a game it is really.  I just think all this fuss over a game because it requires teamwork seems odd to me.  Granted, I've never played online games on a console, and have generally played on community servers for the games I do play regularly, servers that have people who play the way I want to play.  So it doesn't really strike me as that odd to "require" teamwork in Brink.  If you want to log in and smash faces, maybe this just isn't the game for that, fair enough.

I plan on picking it up on Steam sale down the road a bit because it sounds promising to me as a game, it just doesn't seem like there is 50 dollars worth there at the moment.

Interesting review/discussion on RPS:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/05/13/the-rps-verdict-brink/

What I get from reading it is very similar to what I am hearing here.  Unforgiving to players who are used to being able to just log in and shoot things.  Rewards lots of team work.  Rewards intimate knowledge of the maps.   Whats you to put the team ahead of yourself including switching classes when needed etc.   

A couple quotes

Yeah, I'm clearly not the target audience for this game, but I didn't realize that when I preordered. Because, I do like teamplay, as I said, but clearly there is a whole spectrum of games that are based on team play  -  from games like Battlefield on one end, where a coordinated team will do better, but you can still lone-wolf it and have a perfectly good time and still help your team, to well, Brink, where you either get with the team program 100% or the game is an exercise in frustration. I just didn't realize it would be at the extreme end of that spectrum.

The closing comments are the most telling:

Steam just deployed a patch that fixes a whole lot of problems. Impulse control, impulse control!

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1887385

The fundamental mistake they made was trying to make a console game that requires thought and teamwork. They tried to put in all sorts of things to make teamwork easier, hints about what you should be doing, laying out the objectives and such - but console gamers are mostly 12-year-old borderline-retarded racists. And I say that as a primarily console gamer myself. As a console game it's just the wrong product for that audience.

You cannot underestimate how terrible the online 360 community is.

I'm coming at this from a PC gamers perspective.  Yes, console players are less likely to enjoy this game, that seems fair enough.  But Brink is on the PC as well, and frankly I don't know why anyone would choose to buy this for console instead of PC if they had the option.  So, I guess my point is that its too bad that community is so awful, but that isn't their fault.  I'm sure the same crowd wouldn't play Chess, but it doesn't make Chess a bad game.

But it does make buying said chess game to play on Xbox live a bit of a bad idea.

OK, I stand corrected on the PC side. I guess I just never seemed to see or hear much/anything about it after release.

It pretty clearly was no blockbuster, though, since we're not getting a direct sequel to it. BTW, critical reception and review scores don't always = sales. Just ask Bayonetta.

Found this by accident: if you equip something, the game doesn't unequip it even if you lose the prereqs for it.  Got to level 20 and took a level hit to respec, and my guy was still wearing his level 20 threads.  More interesting: if you choose a heavy body type, and choose whatever weapon you want as your default loadout (by clicking on the circle in the corner of the pic) and then change back to a light or medium body, you'll still spawn with whatever weapons you chose when you were heavy.  Hopefully this gets patched soon, along with the Refuel map muting all sound whenever you play it, and the annoying "invisible enemies" glitch.  I'm kind of surprised by the tech issues in this game, honestly, you don't often see glitches like this in a competitive FPS.

EDIT:  Also, apparently there's a DLC pack planned for June slated to have more maps, and it'll be free.
http://bethblog.com/index.php/2011/05/13/brink-updates-now-live-free-dlc/ (http://bethblog.com/index.php/2011/05/13/brink-updates-now-live-free-dlc/)

Random PUG teams manage to coordinate All The Damn Time...in TF2, especially on decent servers. You know, Medics heal people, Engineers build dispensers, guns, and teleporters in (hopefully) sensible places, etc. Pretty sure 360 players are just...dumb.  :oh_i_see:

I bought this. I have no idea why. I basically spent the money I'd earmarked for Witcher 2, because right now I'm not feeling the rpg burn.

The difference is how you do the objectives. Most are extremely hard with out support, you can't sit on a point and defend yourself, there is no point to sit on and increase a counter, you must have backup, same as in ET:QW.


Nice.

As to your issues, what version? I tried what you said on the PC version and could not reproduce.


Aslo, played more today after that patch, the AI is smarter now, and will group around you in solo modes, buff each others and toss out rezes more among other things. If you can believe that.

As someone pointed out in this thread TF2 is made in such a way that people just running around killing people in TF2 are still helping.   Brink is exactly the opposite in this regard in that they actively sought to punish teams who don't have high coordination.

I played Wolfenstein: ET on public servers just fine. Maybe some of ya'll are just not good team players.  :oh_i_see:

People who just run around and kill aimlessly are marginally helpful, at best.

I think that point is kind of wrong though.  We've all had teams in TF2 that fail because the team has players who aren't trying for the objective.  They really aren't helping at all in a lot of cases.  That isn't to say Brink and TF2 are the same insofar as this matter are concerned, just to say that this problem isn't unique to Brink.  

Edit: For example, there is a reason there are a lot of last second wins in TF2 - because when the chips are down and your team realizes they have one minute left to cap the point, they all actually try for the objective at once, and lo' and behold they take it.

Generally playing Spy or Sniper I think.

You know what, fuck it, I got my tax return in the mail, I'm buying this thing.  There hasn't been another shooter in the last year that has made me nearly as curious.

And another falls...  :why_so_serious:

Malakili is wonderfully weak-willed, it's why we love him.

For science!

If I had to go to a store, I never would have bought this.  This is why Valve is making a mint off Steam. :grin:

Also -
Yes, I am very weak willed when it comes to video games.  I don't spend much on other leisure, so there is always a little more room in my entertainment budget for another game.  :drill:

Edit: I will of course report back sometime tonight with a first impressions post.

Oh I am with ya. The only thing keeping me from picking this up is the fact I just started my new job and we only get paid monthly...as such I am at the bottle of the barrel with the cost of the move.  :awesome_for_real:

This isn't ET.   Maybe you should buy the game we're talking about in this thread and play it instead of talking about that one.


Agreed!  My point was that TF2 creates team play and attempts to bring non team players into it.    Brink creates team play and attempts to make non team players quit playing the game forever.

Giving the TF2 medics a heal gun rather than health packs was a really good design

I don't think TF2 really goes out of it's way to lure non team players into team play. It just has different game modes, which Brink dispenses with.

We all know that ***24/7 2fort EXTREME*** is probably not a server for the team play minded. However, we can filter by Payload, and probably find a mess of people who want to shoot other people as a team

Brink is essentially only 24/7 payload, and assumes everyone knew that when picking it up. This is reinforced by the marketing behind it, which makes it seem like Killzone: Waterworld Edition, when it's nothing like that.

PC. I can't get the equip bug to reproduce now, either, either there was some patch I didn't notice or there's something else involved in the glitch.  The other glitches (sound etc.) are fairly common, as far as I know.

Does someone want to start a Steam group or something for this?  It would be nice to get a semi-regular group going so I don't have to respec.  I keep meaning to hit up Morfiend to unlock some challenges, but we're rarely online at the same time as far as I can tell. 

Incidentally, if anyone else just picked this game up, my reccomendation is to do the challenges as soon as possible.  The bots level up as you do, and at higher levels they are MUCH more difficult.

I liked this review on somethingawful (http://www.somethingawful.com/d/video-game-article/brink-review.php).  It seems like some people might just love the core gameplay enough to put up with all the other lack luster shit.

guh, what the fuck is this pay-to-beta shit

The new hotness...

I would buy the game, just to prove a point, but...It's not like I paid $50 for W:ET, and I'm sure as shit not going to pay more cash for less game. Playstyle issues aside, this game appears to have other problems, such as being developed by a studio who didn't think to do a god damned demo.

This is my main problem with the game. I really thought I was getting something more like Borderlands. The core game of Brink is not that bad, its just not super fantastic. If you know what you are getting the game is decent.

For me, its now making me want to play Borderlands, Global Agenda and TF2.

...Borderlands?  :headscratch:

Ok, got a couple hours of play time in.

I'm really pleased with it so far.  Its actually really solid.  I guess I'll just do a like/dislike/neutral list real quick.

Like:
1) Pacing - its a bit slow, but it works well given that time is a useful resource.  It felt really slow the first time I booted it up, but after about 2 rounds it felt normal, and given the size of the maps, distances, etc, it all comes out to being paced pretty well.

2) Aesthetics - The game oozes style.  This might be one of those love it/hate it things, I love it.  I knew this before I bought it.

3) Buffing! I really like that there isn't just one "support" class.  The fact that all the classes buff each other really means its always worth while having a nice class balance.   I like the fact that the medic isn't relegated to "support" while the others do all the shooting.  It seems like there is a lot of room here for playing your classes well, and because there is a LOT going on most of the time, it really rewards good decision making.

4) Parkour - This is actually more than just nice to look at in demos.  It really does change very quickly how you think about moving around the levels, and its a legitimately cool and useful mechanic.  Also - the first time you come under fire and slide/duck behind a wall, you will squee like a little schoolgirl.  Plus, I booted up Bad Company 2 for a couple maps with a friend after playing this and immediately started sprinting into walls and just stopping cold much to my dismay.


Dislike:

1) 16 player limit: I dislike this sort of just on principle.  In practice it works pretty well since its designed to, but it does leave me wondering what could have been.

2) The first time you play a map, its kind of tough to see the "big" picture.  I think the game does a fairly good job at helping you figure out SOMETHING useful to do with the objective wheel, but the second time on a given map was far more enjoyable than the first for me.  In the long run this isn't a problem, but I can imagine that if I wasn't an experienced player of this type of game (from Enemy Territory example), this could've turned me off more than it did.

Neutral:

1) Character Customization.  I don't really care about this kind of mechanic in this kind of game.  The character aesthetic customization is pretty robust and lets you make a pretty neat looking guy.  I will say that I liked seeing my team mates in the cut scenes and then fighting along side them.  As for the skill points and buying upgrades, I like this less because I've prefer if everyone were more or less on even ground from the start.  It isn't a huge deal though, I was able to come out on top in points before I got any skill points as medic one round, so that indicates that its probably not game breaking.

2) Gunplay: I don't feel real strongly about this either way.  Its good enough.  It was definitely the biggest wild card for me simply because if the gunplay doesn't feel right in a shooter almost nothing else can redeem it, I'm glad it isn't holding the game back.

Is anyone else getting really tired of watching that stupid missile shooting out of whatever the hell that is?

Great summary between this:


...and this:


PSNs outage kept me from buying on pure interest for team shooters which worked out since my jank meter is full.

I am curious whether anyone plays the heavy body type? Or is the loss of ninja slides too high a price for being large?

Right now it feels like a fully upgraded engineer gives you so much damage that guns kill faster than CoD.  I'm not sure the extra health is worth it in that case.

I always wonder why they don't prioritise patches like that and get them out before they go gold and send out the release copies. Granted, the patch has come out quickly, but surely you'd want AI issues sorted out before reviewers write up their reviews bemoaning dumbass AI?

I think the reason people are willing to look past some of the problems with this game is simply because no one really makes many of these types of team games anymore.   It's not like we are back in the golden age of online shooters on the PC.  The community has changed greatly.  This game would be better if there was no console version and they focused on the PC but then the devs would lose money for sure.  Their solution to try and solve the problem of the current gen just not being down for a game like this is to make single player option that attempts to teach how to play the objective.  The problem with that is it's doomed to failure from the beginning since objective team based gameplay works well in a small community.  Unless someone figures out a way to implement clans or guilds into console shooters then it's never going to go beyond "time to have some fun and pwn noobs" for a few hours.  Without some type of investment beyond the game it's hard to get people to care about more than kills.

This video is a prime example of what the current generation of fans want in the modern shooter. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPKFjpna5Iw

Is it though?  There are tons of people on PC who aren't in clans or communities that have been playing team games for years.  Hell, Tribes came out nearly 13 years ago and a lot of people were still using dial up.  I'm not saying the console community is better than it is, but there doesn't seem to be any  *good* reason why it should be so. 

I dunno, I see a lot of heavies.  Extra health is always nice, and the heavy weapons are vicious.  Heavies can still slide, they just can't wall jump (and they're slower).  The general mood I'm seeing is kind of the reverse: that light body types don't give enough to justify the step down from medium.  There are only a few places where being a light and walljumping somewhere will put you in a really advantageous position, usually it just leaves you exposed away from the rest of your team.  Personally, I play a light because I dig the SMGs and the mobility from a fun point of view, but in terms of actual utility, I think heavies have it.

It may be that heavies look way more different than lights to me,but I think I've seen more heavies.   I've been playing on medium or normal or whatever the default is myself.

Them more i play this the more I'm digging it.   I will say I wish there were more maps (I haven't played all of them yet, but I almost have).  But it looks like the first DLC that is coming out next month will have new maps and will be free.  

EDIT: here is a positive review.   http://games.on.net/article/12494/ber_Review_Brink_PC 

SO fucking tempted, but $50.... :uhrr:

Understable, I said myself I wouldn't pick it up for fifty but I feel like its worth it if you are a big ET fan.  For most people I have to say wait for steam sale.  I don't regret it though myself.  I will livestream some tonight if people want a closer look.

Two hours in, I'm liking this game a lot. It's very pleasant to play, and I'm really digging the cutscenes too. I'm playing the campaign solo for now, because there's definitely a bit of a learning curve for every map. If I start a public campaign game, does it mean that both sides are humans or that it's just a coop versus bots?

Both.

Thanks, gonna try it now.

edit: holy shit that was awesome. Even though 50 bucks is an awful lot, it's worth it to do the campaign missions in multiplayer. I loved the cutscened mp mode in KZ3 as well, but there they played second fiddle to the ridiculous campaign. There's so much potential here.

edit2: one huge annoyance though -- alt tabbing crashes the game. I reflexively alt tab all the time.

You fuckers are making it really hard to ignore this game  :grin:

I am not opening this thread anymore for fear I may do something irrational.

TotalBiscuit has a video up on Brink, for those who wish to live vicariously: http://www.youtube.com/user/TotalHalibut#p/c/2272A4EE84269E1F/0/B9zDpaQPoEI

I had this one while working this morning just to hear what he had to say and it felt like a pretty fair appraisal, for anyone that is still on the fence about it might help add some clarity.  It is an hour long though, I didn't watch the entire thing.

Edit: He sort of summarizes his experience around the 50 minute mark if you want to skip to the end.

He was confused about a few things, but I think thats just oversight on his part. Like, he said guns are all spread, but he had the drum canister and a bunch of other crap on his gun mods that make accuracy tank out. All mods are give and take adjustments, of course.

lol.

Cute.  Too bad this game has to be in competition with COD though, doesn't seem very similar to me.

Question, is it true spread (i.e. the deviation is due to the kick of the gun) or random bullshit spread (i.e. Counter-strike where the kick and the deviation aren't directly correlated?)

One of the best things about CoD is that the guns are always pin-point accurate.

Explain a bit more. Your first shot is usually dead accurate, and burst firing is pretty accurate in Brink.

What the game DOES have is a somewhat unexplained Range statistic, and firing outside your range results in hilariously low damage. So pistol sniping will HIT, it just doesn't do more than a half a percent of damage.

Is it just me or does the MG spit out way fewer bullets than the sound effect would imply?

The heavy's MG, or the MG nests?

The nests seem to be terrible. Can't hit shit, and don't do shit for damage.

Reminds me of the turrets, which seem to do low damage and only detect targets that stand in front of them for over 10 seconds.

Right, the CoD weapon model:

ALL guns will ALWAYS hit in the dead centre of the screen when aiming down sights. What makes you miss is recoil/kick, by means of jerking your screen around. If your gun kicks right, you can theoretically compensate by pulling left. Many guns kick more in one direction (often right, as the bolt is heavier on that side due to the handle) which means you'll get a over-time kick of up and right. It adds a level of depth to guns, as you become accustomed to compensating for a certain gun's kick. Pistols and revolvers have massive kick up, for example, which makes them very different from rifles (which have less and more regular kick.)

That range statistic you mention is in CoD, too - every gun has a statistic that tells its effective range - beyond that point, it will decrease in damage. Assault rifles, for example, often do 35 points of damage up to 40m or so and then decrease to 25 per shot. SMGs do similar damage, but have shorter range, which is why they're inefficient at range.

Counter-strike does it the old-fashioned way - it simply adds a random angle to every shot fired, where the angle interval depends on the gun (maybe sustain, too, not sure.)

The trusty Den Kirson can tell you more about how it works in Brink, by the way:

http://denkirson.xanga.com/738334226/brink/


The thing is, the CoD model is pretty much superior to everything else. It's absolutely fair to everyone - you aim at people, you hit.

Enh. I don't really figure it's more fair for all guns to be dead accurate all the time. A character moving on a screen is a far shot from a person moving around. So while a realistic "gun barrel goes X" model makes sense, it makes just as much sense as "you are in a firefight sprinting and firing. You are NOT dead accurate" does to me.

Brink's guns are really freaking accurate if you burst fire, and don't take more than 5-6 rounds to drop someone in general. But that's usually missing how brink is played: staring down your sights at something just doesn't happen in this game. If you stop moving, you're dead. Most of the gunplay in my experience is from the hip burst firing. I actually saw someone trying to play a sniper and it struck me that said person was going to walk away from that match thinking this is a TERRIBLE game.

Very laggy today for some reason, couldn't really use molotovs (more like lag-otovs) because I'd end up burning half my team. Also, I'm extremely annoyed at people voting for Terminal when it's the one map where the game loses all sounds.

edit: and now it started to crash every time I enter a server. Fuck video games, I'm watching X Files.

Haven't had crashing problems.  The no sound issue is annoying though.  I've been playing this shit out of this since I bought it and only liking it MORE the more I play it.
I think any technical problems will get sorted out in due time and none of them are total show stoppers for me.  Played some with Bloodworth earlier, definitely a good game to play with people.

Yeah I hit a few lag spikes last night myself, not huge though, also, first time I experienced the "no sound" bug on the plane map, seems its a common issue. Got Malakili on my vent, was good to talk. But id love to form a strong 4 man team with others as well. We did the best when we moved together.

The gameplay sounds interesting. It needs womens.

Ho ho ho, everything works again today (except sounds in Terminal). I think I have found my calling as a soldier using a grenade launcher. It's just so much fun to spam your noobtube in the enemy's general direction and then just resupply yourself. I'm also trying to max out my supply skills, the idea being to make a build that makes it possible to spam GL nades and resupply other people's ammo too. There's not too many kills in it, and next to no exp for some reason, but it's fun.

You, by and large, get way more points for helping team mates than for the things that normally boost your score.  If you just ran around resupplying people, you'd gain tons of points.  Also, grenades don't kill especially well in this game, they do cause knockdown though, which can be really useful when assaulting a position because its a bit disorienting.  Speaking of which, this game does knockdown/knockback better than any other shooter I've seen so far.

BTW, if you guys wanna skip the startup videos, put this in your launch options:

+set com_bootLogo 0

Speaking of config options, this tool was just released, seems pretty good: http://www.reddit.com/r/brink/comments/hdv8p/official_config_tool_of_rbrink_release_brinkkit/

They couldn't spare the development cycles for making boobies. It all had to go to shitty tattoos and long chins.

I have discovered the secret of some people getting insane xp: they're just farming to get to level 20 asap. Kind of dumb, but oh well. Also, the soldier gets xp based on how much ammo he gives someone. So from an xp perspective it's no good resupplying anyone who isn't almost dry.

I'm way too tired to play any more tonight, but the weekend shall be spent learning how to use a gatling gun.

I don't know if you are being funny or not, but thats actually more or less the exact reason they gave  :why_so_serious:


Playing this game is interesting right now.  Most of the people playing seem to understand the objective based gameplay at this point, and in this case the small map pool is actually good for the game at the moment in a sense.   Every once in a while though you get on a team where no one on the team wants to be the class you actually need to complete the objective and it drives me crazy when I'm the only one who switches.   Still, over all its a minor frustration.  Very fun throw back.  It might be that its just not destined to do well on the consoles tech problems or not, but I can see this game having a dedicated PC community for quite a long time.

Livestreaming some of this now if anyone is interested

http://www.livestream.com/newslang

Gah, higher rez, please.

I'll see if I can turn it up next time.

Nope, being totally serial. I saw that, knew the missus wouldn't play for just that reason and pretty much wrote the game off. I love the concept, hate the execution.

The execution is even pretty decent.  At this point the anemic community is the worst problem as near as I can tell.  Its difficult for me to find populated servers with reasonable pings even during primetime, and a lot of servers are filled with bots.  I'm still playing regularly but I'm honestly a little disenchanted with having to search for 10 minutes to find a server that is suitable to play on.  Its a shame too, because its a good team based shooter.

Must be an US thing, there's plenty of EU servers still. Have you tried the Rock Paper Shotgun US server?

Yeah, I think it is a US thing, I see lots of full servers, but they are mostly EU and I don't like to play shooters with 150-200ms ping.  

Also, its not that there are absolutely zero, but it usually will take me a bunch of attempts to find one that pings well and isn't full of bots.  I'm not giving up quite yet though, so we'll see if they patch coming out this week that is supposed to make the server browser better solves any of my problems.
Speaking of which, the new patch is out:


I'm still having sound cut out on Refuel, but the server browser is definitely a bit more functional, was able to get into some games easier.

Good luck with that.

Just had an awesome round on Shipyard.  I was on defense and we kept frantically building the barricades and  they kept blowing them just as quickly.   Very back and forth match, could've gone either way and we BARELY held out until the timer ran out.  Both sides had good class balance and were making use of all the map's many pathways.  Really showcased the best parts of this game.  I do wish every one of them was that good though.

On a side note, really enjoying pistol wielding light body type.

So, I decided two days ago that I'd pony up the US$50 for the game when I got home after work. I've been looking for a tight class-based shooter, I like the idea of the SMART system and I liked the developer's other games.

Sadly, Steam is actually charging US$90 for the game. I was hesitant to pay $50, $90 is right out.

This game got really boring really quickly. I wish I hadn't spent $50 on it.

http://www.justin.tv/brandon505/b/285583999? (http://www.justin.tv/brandon505/b/285583999?)

I imagine he's about done now, but I found that a good stream to watch - good resolution, very good player.

It made me want the game...before I remembered that I'm not supposed to have time for it.  :oh_i_see:

Have you tried switching up your load out?  I find that the game plays significantly differently depending on how you equip yourself, might freshen it up for you.

In case anyone is interested, I figure I'll write down some thoughts after about 25 hours of play.

1) The maps are actually much more complex than they appear at first.  There are tons of side paths (and upper and lower paths) that you really only start noticing when you really start "thinking with parkour."  I noticed this after unlocking the light body type and looking for ways to take advantage of that.   However, many of that paths I've found don't actually require the extra mobility of the light body type to use, it just helped me to find them in the first place.   So, while the map pool is small, and its one of the things I think is a downside of the game, the 8 maps they do have are actually significantly replayable so far.   

2) I've been assigning points across all the classes and I try to switch as needed by my team.  I've found that even the little-played operative can really be effective in its own way.  The play styles of each of the classes are subtly different, but different none the less, and I think this is another thing that really only starts to shine after you've put time into the game and start to unlock some new abilities and learn the maps better.  Engineer is really solid at area denial, operatives can really delay the enemy well by taking their command posts, and messing with attacks from behind if they manage to get a decent disguise.  Soldiers keep people resupplied and can be soft area denial with their tons of grenades, and medics are a bit more passive because they want to keep their team alive.   In practice everyone has the same guns and similar damage output and health (more dependent on which buffs you have than anything to be honest), but where most shooters seem to define classes by guns, this one uses abilities to separate gameplay, and I think for people who are approaching the game with the mentality of death matching, a lot of that difference is going to be lost.  Which brings me to number 3...

3) I really dislike the character advancement system in principle.  In practice it isn't terrible, but I feel like the game really wants you to be switching classes frequently, but it doesn't let you spec yourself out to be optimal in more than 1 or 2.  I've managed a decent balance with my character, but it kind of feels crappy to start a new character to specialize in something and have nothing unlcoked for it at the beginning.  You aren't drastically underpowered at the beginning and you can still hold your own in a fire fight, but the subtleness I mentioned earlier isn't as available yet.  I don't know if the game would really suffer at all if it gave you all the options/abilities from the beginning and maybe limit you by assigning some at a time, but freely respecing or something (you can respec at the cost of a level as it stands).  Anyway, I feel like this is a weaker part of the game.  Levels don't make you "own newbs" but they do open up a lot of options/breadth to the game, and I feel like they likely lost a lot of players by not making that richness available to people from the beginning.


Basically, I would say that the more I play, the more I like this game.  I feel like there is really a ton of depth that really becomes apparent around the 20 hour mark (arbitrary number just from my own experience).  Making use of the maps lesser used paths, different abilities, and just sort of understanding how the game works really adds a lot to the experience that isn't really obvious right from the beginning.   It feels like the kind of game that is going to have a small but dedicated long term community that is going to be playing it for years, but it just doesn't have the immediate grabbing appeal that it takes (like say, TF2) to grab a wide audience.

I'd still recommend picking this up on Steam sale when it eventually comes up, but I figured I'd just throw some thoughts on paper and post em up here.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

I have played this a lot more (50 hours now) despite my initial reaction to it.   I still think the lack of other modes (DOM/TDM in particular) was a gross failure.  Taking the game for what it is though it's pretty fun.   It has small flaws though that really stop it from being a classic or whatever.  The game could of been worth it if they didn't confuse everyone with the marketing though.

In the end though it's not going to be worth the $50 bucks to anyone because it's just not popular enough.   Even if you love it you're not going to have many people to play it with soon.  The population is already extremely low.    Just opening the steam server browser and looking at that makes it pretty obvious.

This is something that I worry about as well.  The population is very low.  The game in its current state isn't going to be sustained by the competitive community either I suspect.  The first Brink league already started and I haven't watched any of it, but my understanding is that the game is drastically biased towards defending teams.  This could be addressed in patches I though.  I think when it first goes on a major steam sale we'll see a lot of people come in, but given that like I said in my previous post the game isn't particularly newbie friendly and combined with the fact that the people who do stick around will likely kick the hell out of the newbies due to the learning curve and its going to be hard to get a new population to stick around.  I'm glad I got in on the ground floor, and as long as the game has enough players to populate some servers during prime time I am likely to keep playing it, but it seems there isn't a ton of reasons to buy this, especially at full price.

I realized that I would rather be playing TF2 if I wanted a team based shooter. And promptly uninstalled Brink. I will chalk this up to falling prey to marketing and hype.

The real tragedy here is that SMART might be called a failed experiment by the industry.

Yea, its really a feature that could be widely applicable in the genre.  Even if the wall jumps and more dramatic parkour are a little too much for most games, the vaulting over railings, tables, etc could be applied to any number of settings, and playing shooters without it it definitely feels like i SHOULD be able to move over those things.

I was playing a little Prototype the other day and the sort of automatic parkour that goes on in that game (I assume Brink is similar) impressed me.  It doesn't really make a huge difference to gameplay (you could just as easily not have the obstacles there, or make them non-clipping, etc), but it makes the world FEEL a lot more dynamic.

The DLC sounds fairly meaty.

http://bethblog.com/index.php/2011/05/27/brink-dlc-details-and-stats-site-update/

Hmm, seems awful early to be adding all that.  The game has barely had time to flesh out in terms of the current weapon and ability balance, and now they are going to throw a bunch more into the ring.  I think they said the first one is going to be free though, so I'm not going to be too critical until they start charging me.

I think they're just trying to make good the horrible launch.

Seeing that map really makes me want this game even though I'm terrible at shooters.  I love the idea of a constant fight over territory.

Its just for show, don't buy the game for that reason, unless they are changing something drastically that I don't understand and adding some kind of meta game.  It seems like it is just showing which team has won more games on which maps - just stats.  You don't choose a side and stick with it, you get assigned one when you join the game.  That map isn't anything different than saying the Terrorists "own" de_dust because they won more games on it this week.

I kinda hope not.  Would be nice if their matchmaker could drop you into games for the appropriate faction.  Otherwise, yeah, this feature seems kind of useless.  "Shockingly, this week Security maintains control of Tower and Reactor, and the Rebellion keeps Container City and Shipyard."

Otherwise, though, this seems like it has everything I'm looking for.  If they can keep this kind of content coming at a decent pace, I'm never going to be able to put this game down.

Quite sure you choose your side in your toon screen, with possible exception of freeplay. I also believe that DLC will be free for current users.

Yeah thats true, I've only really played free play though, which is maybe why its confusing to me.  I've done the challenges to get the unlocks but otherwise I haven't touched single player or the match making system.

Got to level 20 on my first character today (max level).  The top level skills are fairly mediocre from what I can tell.  They seem to have the ability to be awesome 1% of the time, but suck 99% of the time.  I guess I see a lot of people will downed fire, but I don't think its worth it.

Anyway, I think the game would be just as good with no leveling at all.  Give me the ability list and let me just customize my character.  No need to throw experience points at it.   

I think the number one problem here is still the insane bias towards the defenders in pretty much every single map.  I'm hoping their new maps address this.  I'll definitely be sticking around with Brink for a while to see where the game goes, and the matches are still fairly fun, even when the defenders win almost all the time.  Hopefully that can be addressed in future maps though.

I actually like the levelling.  If they removed the leveling for skills, I'd be happier with it, and they could just let us grind for costumes.  The main problem I have with levelling in games, though, is when the levelling is so slow/boring that it becomes a grind, which I didn't find to be a problem in Brink, or when lower level characters can't compete with higher level ones, which I don't think is true here, especially past level five or six.

The rank five abilities, yeah, are kind of situational, but then, a lot of the abilities are situational (or just flat out useless).  Downed fire is useful more than it's harmful for me; I generally get two or three cheap kills with it per map, and it's kind of handy if you get taken down while guarding an objective.  Gatling turret is a bit better all around than a medium turret, if you use turrets much I think it's a solid upgrade, though I know engineers that just stick with the light and do fine.  Lazarus grenade I find helpful not so much because of the whole "oo, I rez the entire team at once" wet dream, but because there are a lot of times when there are two teammates dead next to each other and the Lazarus saves you a supply pip, or there's some issue with the range or targetting on your resurrect skill and it's easier to just lob a grenade over there.  Satchel charges are lethal if you're defending a chokepoint or objective, especially one where they have to be fast in and out (like pouring the fuel in Refuel) but yeah, in general they don't do a whole lot of damage.  EMP charge I agree is kind of unimpressive, but then, operatives in general are kind of useless in this game outside of hacking objectives.

I positive review of the PC version of Brink
http://tap-repeatedly.com/2011/05/31/brink/


This is more or less how I feel about it.  This game has the *good* property of making me want to play it more, the more I play it.  I think saying it easily surpasses TF2 is probably going a bit too far, at least compared to "vanilla" TF2 (the current monstrosity is a blight on the earth), but I can see myself playing as much Brink as I have any shooter since TF2 easily over the next year or two.  It has a combination of great moments (generally related to awesome parkour), and consistent solid gameplay.

Edit: I've seen more offensive teams winning lately, not 50/50 by any means, but definitely more often.  I'm wondering if this is related to people finally learning the maps properly.

What's the beef with TF2? Hats make you angry? I don't craft much - mostly trade if anything, and I'm fine with the items I have.

Its actually the new weapons I mind a lot more than the hats themselves.  The hats are at worst mildly annoying, but I played for a long time when hats were in the game. I quit the day the Mann Conomy patch was released and haven't played it since.  I think they took a fairly balanced game and good shooter and just added too much shit for no good reason.  TF2 without a single unlock but with the spy/engineer balance patches would probably be ideal.  I'm a bit bitter about it because I think they took one of the top few multiplayer FPS shooters ever and fucked it up.

Except for a few items (I'm looking at YOU, piece of garbage cheating Dead Ringer) I don't really see how the balance has been upset.

I play way too much TF2, so I would be interesting in hearing your specific grievances.

I was writing out a longer list but it basically boils down to this - I used to play TF competitively, and I liked that I could get a reasonable facsimile to that style of play in the pubs I frequented even though I no longer have the time to play competitively.  Then the huge influx of weapons basically shattered any chance of replicating the type of gameplay I think TF2 is good at, in favor of casual friendly cluster fucks.  Yeah, I'm an elitist jerk, I don't care.

Stats site is up now, if you're curious. (http://battle.brinkthegame.com/)

Separates it by platform, which is interesting.  A lot of the maps are really close percentage-wise (Resort running 49%-51% in favor of Security) but it looks like every map does favor the defense at least a little bit.  The only one where attackers are winning more than 50% is the PS3 version of Reactor, which is at 53% Rebels.

Most unbalanced: Shipyard and Container City, followed by Refuel and Security Tower.

Going on a tangent now, but I fail to see how that's the weapons' fault, unless you mean that it caused an influx of players who were not that good.

Thing is most servers let you pick your map.   So everyone just tries to pick one where there team has a gross advantage.   I see Shipyard and Container City far more often than others.   It'll be interesting to see the PC stats.   I almost wonder if they held them up because they are even worse.   The PS3 is notably more one sided than the Xbox.

As an analogy imagine if I they added 2 new rocket launchers, a modified railgun, another kind of body armor and set bonuses for carrying a particular 3 weapons to Quake 3 (now Quake Live).  It would take what is probably the most elegant, best DM game of all time, and muddle the streamlined gameplay in favor of just piling  "more" on to it.  That is what happened to TF2 in my opinion.  There is just too much going on and it lost that sleek feel it had.

Back to the topic at hand:

As for the stats site is pretty neat and I'm looking forward to the PC version.  Its not QUITE as bad as I thought it would be according to those stats (I was expecting over 70% on some of the maps), so hopefully that is a good sign.  I love a further breakdown of at which stage of the maps the attack stalled out.  There are quite a few stages in which if you make it past one key part you can make it a lot farther with less trouble.

Let's be serious though, that's clearly a review written by either someone who's been rewarded by the Brink people or just someone who has a new favorite shooter and just wuvs it to bits. The green text point to the bits that destroy his credibility. I don't particularly like CoD, but I'm willing to give it props for what it does well. This is just some random on a blog that has a half-dozen contributors. It has as much credibility as my review of CoD:WaW in that it's a review posted on the internet by some guy. So probably more than gamespot in many ways, but unless that guy and his site are known for balanced reviews. In the comments he's just going full-fanboi on the game, so he's clearly an entirely objective and reliable source.
 :awesome_for_real:

Hey good for him (and you, or whoever) if you think Brink is the best thing since sliced bread. But pulling some random review off the internets that agrees with your opinion doesn't really mean anything.

You seem to have missed a part there before your green text highlighting.


And some after:

Why are you bringing unicorns into this argument?

It also has quite a mountain to climb against BC2.

Those unicorns are real.

This game seriously needs to go on sale for just a weekend, at 50% off or something - at $25 I wouldn't even hesitate to impulse-buy this. But for $50...pfft.  :oh_i_see:

Soon enough I imagine.  Its only like 3-4 weeks old still.

The lack of demo at this point is completely inexcusable. I've watched enough stream feeds to see that I may very well like the game, and if I just had a demo I would probably have bought it, but...as it is, I have to go by indirect experience and mixed reviews. Hence, I'm not opening my wallets.

Has anyone ever heard a reason for the lack of a demo? I'd venture to guess that they'd have had more sales if a demo were available.

Dunno.  Though to be fair I think it would be a hard game to demo.  Playing only single player misses the point, and usually there aren't multiplayer demos for things so I'm not really sure how you'd do a Brink demo right.  Maybe give you full access on a timer or something.   You should wait for a sale anyway, as much as I do like the game, the population is crashing pretty hard, it peaked at only 2,000 players today according to Steam states, and its still in its first month so its probably only going down from there.

Plenty of multiplayer shooters have demo.

Yeah, I think it's more down to the lack of demos in general these days, plus the desire to save resources.  But I agree it probably hurt the game a fair bit.  For a title like this, I think you want to aim less at the general public and more at the niche audience, and demos are a good way to do that.

Mal, demos for multiplayer games are generally just content limited like single player demos.  Like if I had to design one for Brink, it would be one map (one with a fairly varied set of objectives, like Tower or Terminal), a low level cap (like level 4 or something, so you're limited to rank 1 and medium body), maybe none of the unlockable guns, and just a few of the attachments would be unlocked by default.  Separate servers for the demo game and the "real" game.  The Quake Wars demo was fairly effective, and worked along these lines, if I recall correctly.

Yeah, they definitely should have a demo, I just sort of understand why they don't.  Hopefully they'll wise up and add one sooner rather than later though, there were all of 3 servers with sub 100 ping for me and more than 10 players this afternoon, thats pretty unacceptable. 

They don't have a demo because if they had a single map to play with all classes available they'd be giving away somewhere around 20% of the content in the game.

(http://i922.photobucket.com/albums/ad70/treybr0wn/Gifs/easya.gif)

Games with "something to hide" or a lack of confdence in their product also will often lack a demo. Frontlines: Fuel of War is one that comes to mind in this regard. It's a matter of the devs/publishers weighing up the value of how many "New game, looks interesting - I'll try it" sales they would lose to a poorly-received demo versus how many "hey, this game is fun - I'll tell all my friends" sales they would gain.

There's a story about this on RPS linked on Brink's Steam news page:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/05/26/the-slow-strange-death-of-the-demo/

The thrust of the article is that a lot of games try to build themselves up as some kind of cultural "event" or something, and that demos deflate the over the top hype that marketing is trying to generate.  "Call of Duty is an easy example – the hype and sense of event around what it’s going to be, what’s going to happen would perhaps be deflated by a demo’s concrete proof that beneath the clamour it’s just another high-budget shooter very similar to the last one. Which is not actually to malign CoD, but to comment on the fact that the promotion makes it into something almost mystical, something far beyond any possible reality."  It's not necessarily that the game is bad, but if you're trying to hype it up, you want to keep that pressure building until it seems like something you have to play.  You don't want the consumer making a rational choice based on if the game is appealing to them specifically, you want them making an emotional choice because the game seems exciting.

On the subject of Brink, specifically: "Selling a different reality and avoiding exposing the reality can happen in more direct fashion too – take Brink’s splendid-looking TV adverts, for example. They suggest something very action movie, very glossy and very narrative-driven, rather than the solid, tactical and clever team shooter the game really is. As a result, we have a mixed message, but I’m convinced a demo finding its way to curious gamers would serve to strengthen their sense of, and hopefully interest in, Splash Damage’s thoughtful multiplayer game."

Perhaps we should all take turn borrowing Malakili's Steam account to demo Brink. :oh_i_see:

They need some kind of old school starcraft/diablo style "spawned copy" so you could join the same game as me or something for some kind of limited time, that'd be a unique/interesting way to do a demo.

That article seems to illustrate the whole "thing" around LA Noir very well. Duke Nukem & Bulletstorm as well - while having demos are/were also promoted as "events" in that emotive manner.

Malakili - That actually sounds like an excellent suggestion for a demo format that would/could work for a game like Brink.
 

(NECRO)

DLC dropped today.  The catch?  It's free, but only for two weeks.  If you have Brink, you'll probably want to grab it now or never.

The DLC has been something of a trainwreck so far.  Originally announced in May for release in June, it was then rescheduled for early July, and then finally definitely said it would be out on August 3 (which pissed off some euros since there was some muckiness with Steam which pulled it offline until after midnight there).  For a grand total of two maps, two outfits, and some weapon mods, it's taken them nearly a quarter year to crank it out, during which time the population of the game has really dwindled.  But oh well.

And the game is still $50. Since someone involved with deciding their pricing is clearly mentally challenged, I guess I'll never buy the game now - just on principle.

Still could've been a good game but the train has left the station.  Got a solid 45 hours before the pop became so low I could barely find games in prime time.

They waited much too long to drop the price... They'll never get the numbers back now. Sadly.

Incidentally, saw this pop up on steam and clicked install thinking, well, I'll have to reinstall the whole game, but I might as well so I can get it for free in case I ever actually want this again.  I got the following message without even having to actually install anything:   BRINK: Agents of Change is now registered to your account on Steam.

So, if you have Brink on Steam and want to get this on your account while it is free, all you have to do is go to http://store.steampowered.com/app/22364/ and click install.

FYI, the game's on sale now as part of Steam's Quakecon event.  It's 50% 0ff ($25.00) at the moment.  And it's free to play this weekend, evidently.

Its also having a free weekend starting now, so if there is anyone that wanted to try the game, nows the time.

Sadly, by the time it hits my price point threshold, there will be all of 5 people playing, total.  :oh_i_see:

Yeah really, i'm not spending 25 dollars on something that might only be popular for the free weekend.  At this point they really need to realize it was a failure and drop it to 5 bucks just to keep any sort of population going.

Downloading now. I expect to be $25 bucks poorer by the end of the weekend.

Quick note for people new to the game:  It doesn't say it on the server browser, but the population limit generally tells you the type of server for the PC game.  8 v. 8 games have a 16 player limit, and games with an 8 player limit are generally cooperative bot matches against the computer.  Map knowledge is really important in this game, so I'd suggest running a few bot matches before trying a 16 player game.

NOPE! Going to just jump right in - how hard could it be?  :grin:

 :popcorn:

Note: Up is a viable direction in this game.  The maps aren't as linear as they initial seem.

I'm not seeing a lot of game there.

Its still only like 10 maps I think, even with the new ones.  Granted, they are generally fairly long and multistaged.  But thats the beginning and end of what Brink is.  Its Enemy Territory updated for 2011, for better or worse depending on how much of an ET purist you are I guess.

I played through all of the resistance scenarios and about 1/2 or the police force ones in about 3 hours. Granted, this isn't a game that is about completing the storyline. But still... I could pay $10 for an autographed picture of Bruce Campbell and have just as much chin to look at and save myself $10.

Honestly I haven't even played single player besides the challenges to get the unlockables.  Its a multiplayer shooter, this isn't a game you would buy to  "play through" you'd buy if you like the game mechanics and want to play multiplayer regularly.  I know they made a big deal about multiplayer and single player all being tried together with the same character and all that, but thats all smoke and mirrors in my opinion.  25 bucks is still borderline for the game (says someone who bought it at full price) in my opinion just because there is no way to know if the free weekend will bring in enough population to actually keep the game alive, and without players, as you've noticed, there isn't much there.

It passed that point long ago.   If you're in the US you can often log in and there won't be a single US server with people on it.   There's usually a couple somewhere in europe with people but this game is DEAD DEAD DEAD.   It's a multiplayer FPS with one game mode.   My steam says I've played it for 87 hours so it's not like I'm saying that one game mode was horrible but still it obviously had no staying power.

The game just doesn't grab you right away.  I think I said this earlier in the thread somewhere, but I actually started enjoying the game MORE after about 25 hours of time, I knew how all the guns worked, I really understood the maps and the alternate routes you can take and where the objectives (and side objectives) where and how to actually successfully complete them.  But if you have shooters you already enjoy and then you play Brink, its just going to feel confusing and the gunplay IS a little wonky (not awful, but definitely a little odd), often times its just a cluster fuck for the first few times you play each map until you really figure out what you're doing.  By that time though, I think most of the people were already gone and heading back to their normal shooter of choice (TF2, CoD, whatever).  And thats on the developers, not the players.  I'm not making a "darn kids aren't willing to put in the time" argument.  The developers needed to come up with a better way to make the game grab people right from the start and feel like it was worth putting the time in to learn the finer points.

This is still USD$67.49 in Australia (the 50% off sale is actually 25% off down under, apparently).

I am not paying that much. I am not even going to bother downloading a game I am not going to buy.

Edit: the entire Quakecon pack is USD$69.99, and includes Fallout 3, Morrowind, Oblivion, Quake 4, Wolf 3D (and Return), etc... Now that's something I'm willing to actually pay $70 for. This may be a repeat of this incident (http://pc.mmgn.com/News/Brink-Australian-price-confusi), however, but I would hope not.

Does the demo have the new map pack?

I think so, its not really a demo so much as just the full game available for the weekend.  I actually didn't see the two new maps when I played briefly last night though.  It was good to see some populated servers, but I don't think it will last past the free weekend. 

How can it be dead if its the 9th most played game on steam ( I guess thats partly the free weekend ), and also have some rather large stats on the stats site. (http://pc.brinkthegame.com/) Of all the platforms, it seems to be the most popular on the PS3 ( With over 600k matches played ).

Thats ENTIRELY the free weekend talking.  Until this promotion brink had 400 concurrent users at most on Steam most of the time.  It literally fell off that 100 most played games list at one point.  This is compared to 7k as I'm typing this.  If it were to stay near this level of activity, I'd be happy to play it regularly.  I stopped playing literally because I couldn't find a server with decent ping during east coast US prime time regularly. 

Well, it looks like on the PS3 it has quite the base playing it. Seems it lacks on the PC and Xbox, thats a bit odd. ( also, steam only reports steam versions, so we have to take that into account too )

I wonder if it has to do with the online outage. Brink came out while PSN was down. My guess is maybe PS3 players picked it up AFTER the launch bugs were patched.  I have no evidence to back this up, pure speculation, but it sounds good on paper.

Yeah we will never know.

I reinstalled it. Got the DLC tagged to my account. Started it up, started a match. Logged off, uninstalled.

So much wasted potential and incorrect marketing.

Most of the servers I've been joining don't seem to have the new maps running, which is a darn shame because I read a few places that they are significantly improved over some of the original maps.  Oh well.

Edit: Founders Tower is pretty good.  I played labs but only got in at the last 2 minutes before the map ended so didn't see much of it.

Yeah, Founder's Tower is very vertical and has a ton of handy ledges and things to jump over and slide under.  I still don't have a real good feel for it, though, especially the post-elevator stuff, but it seems fun.

Labs is more generic, but it seems very compact compared to a lot of levels.  My first match there I had a score of something like 15k on defense, because you just hold the lobby and rebels keep pouring in constantly. 

The cutscenes seemed better done this time around, too.  The new weapon attachments seem kind of pointless (I can't even tell wtf the blast shield does), and the costumes are kind of mediocre (especially the Sad Punk, when they said "steampunk" I was picturing something more top-hat-and-bronze-gyroscopes, not so much clown makeup, tight pants and electrical tape).

I'm looking forward to unlocking the aid station for medic.  Almost level 21 now after just a few games.  It seems like the most useful of the new things from what I can tell.  The operative one sounds handy too, but its still the red headed stepchild of the classes.

I'm not sure how I feel about the aid station.

On the plus side, it heals lost pips for free, which can mean a lot of health in some situations.

On the minus side, the rate of heal is slow, and the radius is quite small, which makes it less a "build this behind a defensive emplacement" passive structure and more a "come over here to get healed" type of thing where players have to actively decide to use it, and most players I've seen so far haven't been using it much (last game I had one guy empty two magazines into my station, standing at half health outside it's radius, I guess maybe he didn't know what it was or something).

Also, the station, along with all the other class abilities in this DLC, is an extra useable ability, and the medic already had too many of those.  So now you're going to have to respec again to get rid of one of your unneeded abilities.

Too little, too late, I fear.

Also, the game feels a ton better if you hit ctrl + alt + ~ to bring up to console and change your FOV by using the ui_fov 90 command.  Replace 90 with whatever you want, I find 90 is sufficient.

Gave it an honest try...but for whatever reason, it just feels too spammy for my tastes. I'm one of those nerds that habitually uses the sights...you know, so it should only take a few shots to kill someone.

Having to empty clips into people is just not my style.

You can play that way if you use pistols.  The Richie takes people down fast.

This game performs poorly on my Core i5 2500k, ati 4890 (overclocked) and 8 gigs of ram machine.

Wut.

Not sure about the performance issues you are having.

Spent some time playing medic this morning.  The aid station or field regen unit or whatever is actually really good for giving your team extra staying power at a choke point.  I've had to be proactive about telling my team to stand in the blue particle effect though, once they realize how it works though, they use it all the time.

There definitely is still a problem with team play. Though I have found a few matches where people get it and been having a great deal of fun.

The med-station is great. Still love the art style of this game, and the maps are really fun with all the different approaches. About the worst game I had was where the entire team was medics, but they never would heal the escort target, I had to spam it over and over that medics heal him.  :oh_i_see:

I've had some luck being assertive with organizing the team, but yes, if your team tries to rambo it up, its fairly awful.

I thought the art style was a positive, along with the customisability and the persistant nature of the characters. Hopefully someone else can take these ideas and run with them better than these guys worked out. Similar to RTW and their game.

I was talking with my friend last night (he is playing the free weekend), and he really liked this as well, and he isn't usually the type of gamer who does.  We thought the game could get out of its rut if it followed TF2's example and went free to play and started selling outfits.

Played the game a bit more...it's decent fun. I seem to have more luck being methodical (hugging corners and such), though emptying clips into people is still kind of a chore at times. Heavy weapons seem to be somewhat pointless.

Also, the price point needed to be way lower to start - if it had been $30 or so, it would have been an easy sale to me.

Heavy weapons can be pretty solid, the issue is that there are so many buffs.  A buffed sub machine gunner will beat an unbuffed light machine gunner almost every time.  Unfortunately, there is a huge variation based on how much your team understands the game in terms of how well buffed the team will be.  Damage increase + kevlar + double pip health upgrade is enormous for your team, but if everyone just self buffs and saves their supply for grenades, then your team is fucked. 

Holding the command posts and upgrading them (an engineer witht he ability to upgrade needed) is also a huge thing.  I think the game has really good firefights, but often times it seems to me that the newer people are happier to just fight some semi open room with cover and have a shoot out for 5 minutes instead of actually doing things that help the team like buffing or completing objectives, and then things get ugly fast.  I just had a team that I was literally begging to help with the objectives, but no one would even talk back to me (text or voice), let along try to help.

If it wasnt for the performance issues and mouse acceleration I just might have enjoyed this a little bit. Maybe they should have ironed these issues out before throwing out a free weekend.

Try this:


Shadows seem to be the ATI issue for many.

If you did pick it up during the weekend, make sure to restart Steam and go to the Agents of Change DLC page and hit Install Game.  You won't have to downloading anything since you have it from before, you're just adding it back to your account.

Apparently BF3 (or was it MW3? Or both?) is going down this route to a degree. Not sure if they're planning on opening a cash shop to sell you a MARPAT shirt but with the perks/unlocks systems and some persistant character customisability, it'll be good to see. Of course Brink allowed/allows for a lot more with all of the tattoos etc (as with APB - finally remembered the name) and the gang-style/ragtag group of freedom fighters contexts.

It's a small thing to an extent, but Borderlands for example would also have been that touch better in MP if you could customise your guy besides a few palette swaps.

So, Apparently ATI will no longer allow you to turn off the catalyst in the new drivers. It also highly affects openGL games. So, its not just brink, and its not brink thats the issue. In fact, we are not sure what to do about this in wurm.

Learn to deal with the only other major hardware vendor?

Just wanted to say that I 100% agree with the above statement.

Totally agree.

From what was said in one of the video interviews about Borderlands 2 that was put up a week or so ago, they're adding more customization options.