The Crew

[GMT 389]

So who's gonna get themselves The Crew now that'll be released on 360, PS4, One and PC?

 

For those who don't know, it's a slightly story driven open world mmo racing game set in the US.

Of course the map is condensed, but it's still very big, I can't find a figure now but I've seen a beta video of a drive from NYC to LA at over 40 minutes full throttle.

There's a bit over 60 cars and most of them can be adjusted to a specific need from streetracing to offroad to pursuit and a few other options.

 

game will be released by ubisoft tomorrow across above platforms, uplay account required of course.

 

I'm excited since I first heard of it and luckily it was one of 3 games to pick from as a free download that came with my new gpu so let's see if it's worth the download time...

And let's see if ubisoft keeps word that they learned from the bulked AC Unity launch and will do better with The Crew's launch phase

 

EDIT:

well, Ubisoft didn't do any better from the looks of it.

I'm thrown out of the game every 5 - 10, maybe 15 minutes. For a variety of reasons which all seem to be server related. I don't know what all the error codes mean but I feel like I've seen them all.

 

But, the minutes the game actually runs, it's quite some fun to enjoy. The map is just as giant as it was teased in beta videos, definitely delivers on that end.

Of course the huge map means drawbacks in details but, especially in polygon count, but still it looks very good for that scale.

Oh let's hope the next days make the game more stable so we can finally enjoy the game the way it was supposed to be

[Thin White Duke 4,072]

Only thing that scares is if they made the same move Forza Horizon 2 did. I.E, if they removed content from the Current-gen consoles when they transferred it to previous gen. In the case of Forza Horizon 2, there were fewer cars, less game modes, it was much more difficult to earn money and parts of the map was closed off.

 

Oh yeah, and before I forget, they removed the ability to tailor your car to your exact needs with a unique tuning setup. In other words, they took out what made the Forza series great. Apparently, a different developer was assigned to develop the 360 version. Sumo Hardware. Anyone heard of that before? Exactly. All they did was take vital parts of the game out of it and set the price tag at $40 in what a swedish website referred to as "one of the greatest middle fingers ever handed out to the gaming community".      

[GMT 389]

I don't think they screw up like this as the game is already available for X360 and afaik to the same extend as on current gen and pc.

 

what they should really take care of is server/connection stability for uplay and the crew services. got disconnected so many times again yesterday and it never was on my end...

[LexusInfernus 908]

Its literally an Ubisoft open world game. With a loooot of microtransactions. No, f that. 

 

If I want to play an Ubisoft open world game, Ill go play Assassins Creed or Far Cry 4. In fact, thats what Ive been doing, playing Far Cry 4. 

[GMT 389]

microtransactions? I think they only sell the season pass but maybe I missed some...

only thing I spent real money on in this game - now and most likely forever unless a cool dlc comes out - was the mini cooper s which I bought from mmoga cuz it happens to be my real world car and since I got the regular game for free with my new gpu, I couldn't get this car in any other way than this...

 

but yes you're sort of right, it's another ubisoft open world game. other in a sense tho as you are driving the world and the sheer amount of accessible area is at times overwhelming but the producer is very visible at each and every corner and even in between. no ubisoft open world game w/o discovering some sort of towers followed by an areal camera sweep; no matter if you climb churches or whatever in 3rd person historical places, or semi-defunct radio towers on 1st person tropic islands or drive up to hidden radiotelescope-towers in a somewhat customized car in a condensed usa.

[LexusInfernus 908]

There are two currencies in the game. Normal money which you earn by playing the game and the 'Crew Credits' which you can purchase with real money. So yeah, microtransactions  

[GMT 389]

cool I always wondered where to get those past the initial 100k gift...

but you can farm the game pretty easy for lots of bucks (yes that's what the ingame currency is called). digging through landmarks nets you 2k each and there's 242 landmarks iirc so you end up at 484k just for exploring the map a bit (which goes pretty fast with fast travelling actually)... some 15% or so into the game you unlock faction races which take between 10 minutes and one hour but also net quite some money if you win which is not really hard either...

hardly any need for the crew coins imho

[LexusInfernus 908]

cool I always wondered where to get those past the initial 100k gift...

but you can farm the game pretty easy for lots of bucks (yes that's what the ingame currency is called). digging through landmarks nets you 2k each and there's 242 landmarks iirc so you end up at 484k just for exploring the map a bit (which goes pretty fast with fast travelling actually)... some 15% or so into the game you unlock faction races which take between 10 minutes and one hour but also net quite some money if you win which is not really hard either...

hardly any need for the crew coins imho

Well technically you can play a lot of those freemium games without paying micro transactions. But, at some point it takes forever to do stuff in those games because they gate the content, in order to push you to pay to speed things up. 

 

The question is, are the micro transactions in The Crew really optional, or did they gate content behind overinflated prices in order to push you to buy those Crew Credits. 

[GMT 389]

Depends on what you want. Of course, if you want the extra content you can only buy with hard cash via season pass, you have to go down this lane.

Apart from that and the special edition stuff you can't get access to unless you bought it somehow (basically what I did getting my mini, altho a 3rd party got my money for a single item, even if it was well below $5), I can't see anything in game that is not available for normal ingame currency so all you get from buying cc is access speed to things.

 

I mean, the overall system is pretty much like in any mmo, there's a bunch of vendors that sell basic gear aka car parts and the cool stuff is earned from doing missions aka races. only big difference is you have to buy characters aka cars (altho there's mmorpgs that follow a similar strategy by forcing you to buy character slots).

You "level" your car pretty good with these items so even with a starter-level vehicle, you can race through the entire game and be competitive with endgame content.

 

I can't tell what lies ahead but it sure is possible for Ubi to do what some other mmos do and offer, next to making the game easier with real money, exclusive content available through real money (like the cartel market in swtor and similar systems)... if it's worth it is up to anyone's own decission but I don't think Ubi will go as far as to force you to do so because this backfires really fast. Same for making the game a subscriber title which only works if it's clear from the start that you have to or at least have the option to play on a subscription basis.

[Thin White Duke 4,072]

I'm back for further ranting about Forza Horizon 2. The storm island DLC was announced yesterday, featuring more cars, more events, and a map expansion. Too bad it's Xone exclusive.

 

How's The Crew, though? I know Ubisoft are famed for buggy releases with choppy online gameplay. 

[GMT 389]

Haven't played it the last few days cuz the little time I had playing I spend playing SWTOR as I'm working the night which really drains my batteries cuz I can't get a proper sleep at daytime, only some naps here and there.

But Ubi screwed up again imho. There were days with little to no problems and days with still a lot of disconnects which, at least for me, were server-based.

[Sim Trekker 41]

I have this game too, right now it's worthless. There have been no updates since launch, gameplay stats resetting every login, PvP servers never find anyone to race with, AND the devs post next to nothing about fixes except "We're working on it, be patient". It's been a month! Does Ubisoft understand customer service?! What a tremendous shame, as this was my must have this year. Oh, why didn't learn after the SimCity fiasco last year? What has happened to gaming anyway?

[GMT 389]

Gaming has become a real industry working on RoI (return on investment), that's what has happened to gaming. For many studios, maybe even for the most studios, it has become a matter of satisfying investors rather than the customers. Fair enough, producing games is a multi-million dollar process only few can handle themselves financially and thanks to the "virtual" good (aka it's not a physical item you buy like a vehicle is or a refrigerator) and high-speed internet, it's oh so easy to throw out an unfinished, buggy product and repair it afterwards to meet investment schedules rather than producing quality merchandise.

 

But you're right, Ubi should really work on this title, nothing really happened except the seemingly mandatory day one patch...

[Sim Trekker 41]

Disregard most of my previous post, it was my network. I found out that the router and modem were shot. Now that they have been replaced and set up properly, I can join PvP matches easily, and there are lots of other drivers out and about. The stats bug persists though.

[GMT 389]

but the bug only affects the stats and not the "work done", for better or for worse...

I went through all data stations and landmarks yet the game says 0. I wouldn't mind tho if I had to do the landmarks over and over again... keeping the money of course ^^

[DatGuyAsh 0]

Is it worth buying?

[GMT 389]

hm... I'd say wait for a bargain.

for me, on the bottom line, the game is worth buying but it's not worth the full amount atm. at least wait another month or two until they fixed the major flaws.

[Thin White Duke 4,072]

I decided to not do what you said, and that's why The Crew is currently installing to my computer.

 

It was quite a bargain, though. Bought it for only 299 crowns. To give you an idea of how cheap that is for a game that hasn't even been on sale for two months, one swedish crown is equal to eight US Dollars or ten british pounds. Looking forward to getting into it.  

[GMT 389]

I decided to not do what you said, and that's why The Crew is currently installing to my computer.

 

It was quite a bargain, though. Bought it for only 299 crowns. To give you an idea of how cheap that is for a game that hasn't even been on sale for two months, one swedish crown is equal to eight US Dollars or ten british pounds. Looking forward to getting into it.

 

best. bargain. ever.

$299 for that game is epic.

lol made my day

 

to set it straight, 1sek = 0.12usd 0.1eur or 0.08gpb

 

299sek is a fair price tho, have fun playing

[Thin White Duke 4,072]

Oh, I am. One of favorite games so far. Just tried a massive road trip from NYC to LA in a 2015 Ford Mustang, but at about Santa Fe I gave up.

[GMT 389]

I went from the lower left to the upper right, if you want, from the boder crossing at Tijuana to the end of Maine (Presque Isle, Caribou IRL)... almost an hour with my cooper s

[Thin White Duke 4,072]

Did it in 52 minutes with a perf tuned 2015 Mustang. Had wads of fun on the way.

 

Are you on PC or console?

[GMT 389]

pc

[Thin White Duke 4,072]

Cool. Username?

[GMT 389]

I think it's nodyme

[Duke87 1,070]

I have to say, as someone who has driven from New York City to Los Angeles in the real world, in a real car... the idea that a video game would compress that experience to under an hour seems a bit silly. It took me four days.

 

But nonetheless it is impressive that they would build a route into a game that takes that long to drive. That's a lot of content.

[GMT 389]

not just a simple route that long, it's pretty much the diagonal through an open world which makes it even more impressive... at least scale-wise

[Thin White Duke 4,072]

I think it's nodyme

 

Nice. Expect a friend request from BorgMaestro soon.

[MrMiniR56 0]

I have this game for the PS4, haven't played it in a couple of weeks since i've beat it and just doing the skills and acheiving trophies, I remember doing one race that took me just over 2 hours to do, did the perimeter of the states along the coast lines

[GMT 389]

Ubi is funny.

cutting out 2 missions cuz they were grinded for cash. nice move. duchealicious. nobody bought crew credits before this move, nobody gonna do now. just sayin.

 

on a sidenote, thank's for making me buy the cooper s street edition for 2 bucks upfront just to put it a "normal" cooper s into the game later on. I love you!

 

and now off to the westcoast beating the shiv out of shiv.

 

second sidenote: I've just added you on thingy __B