Middle-earth: Shadow of War (and Shadow of Mordor)

There is a simple response to this.

Don't buy the game until it's out and people have had a chance to review it and play it unencumbered (in order to see if the balance has been slanted to strongly promote MT).

I'm enjoying the first one, but I am glad I only paid NZD$6.50 for it. I'll no doubt wait until this one is on special as well (if I get it at all).
Unless they decide to remove it from sale (for whatever reason) you lose nothing by waiting.

Edit - none of which should be taken as an endorsement of MT in a SP game/campaign or an dismissal of how disturbing it is as a 'trend'.

This sort of shit should be vilified at every opportunity.  Just saying, vote with your wallet...they'll get the message if people only buy it on special/sale/discount.

But they breath fire and Fellbeasts can't do that.

Whether WB are rolling back or simply correcting shoddy marketing, they told Eurogamer they were taking no profit from that DLC.

Has to be said, recent marketing has been a car crash, why are large companies so bad at this?

www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2017/09/08/terror-of-the-nazgul-a-look-at-the-power-and-might-of-the-ringwraiths.aspx

What a heck? Helm Hammerhead is Nazgul? Isildur is one also??

So it seems Monolith is happily throwing all the established lore righy out of the window at this point...

Maybe it won't be as artificially grindy as some fear...

"We're working our tails off to make this massive game and as a designer - the design director - I focus on balancing it. We do a ton of playtesting and make sure it is tuned to a setting where people can enjoy it. We kept all of the loot boxes and the economy of real world money turned off in playtesting so we know we are balancing around an experience which is rewarding without any of that stuff." [Bob Roberts]

www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-09-24-shadow-of-war-developer-discusses-games-controversial-loot-boxes

Yep, the moral dilemmas are real...

Is not buying a game I would likely enjoy, frustrating me more than the minimal impact it would have on WB?
Probably, yes.

I hope there is a meaningful difference between WB and 2K in how they are approaching paid content.

Other than Dragon Age - and two one-off, not to be repeated exceptions for Pillars of Eternity and Witcher 3 - that is my benchmark for all game purchases.

OpenCritic and MetaCritic rate it almost on par with Shadow of Mordor.

MetaCritic: SoM: 87 SoW: 86
OpenCritic: SoM: 85 SoW: 84

Great game, but don't expect too much from the story.

Also cash market (microtransactions) appear to be unnecessary, so the game balance appears not to have been designed around grinding-led purchases.

I'm not convinced by this Polygon accusation.
The reviewer appears to have critical pathed the main game rather swiftly (15h) leaving an under-leveled army.
That's taken more grinding at the end to achieve the completionist ending.

It's not dissimilar to the shit show BioWare faced with the high EMS 'Breath' ending to ME3, 
might have seemed a good idea to add an Easter Egg for completionists, but usually not worth it for the trouble it causes.

The review data suggests that the game is balanced fine.
The need to indulge in loot-boxes seemly low, though doubtless some with more money than time will.

I enjoyed Shadow of Mordor, I'll be trying this out on Tuesday.

This game will be my 'free time home' for the next 2.5 weeks.
Time to walk into Mordor...

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Open for vendettas on Xbox as SofaJockey be nice to friend people up.