forameus

The big issue nowadays with demos being super-rare. Remember when you could just download a version of the game for free to form an opinion yourself? Now you either buy the game - a significant price too now - or you trust reviews, which is a minefield in itself.

Archie fucking hates the cups, doesn't he?

I've just ordered it, and it'll arrive tomorrow via Amazon Prime's loveliness. If it's pish, I'm coming for you Fide.

Sounds incredibly on the edge of me loving it or hating it. Even the Witcher 3, which I ended up thinking was the best game ever made, I almost gave up on early on because it didn't engage me. One of my favourite parts of Skyrim, Fallout, games like that was always the exploration of new areas, so could well be my sort of game. At the moment my home internet's been dead since Friday night (fucking Openreach) so wouldn't be much point ordering it now. Think I'll get it Thursday or Friday though, have it for the weekend. Unless I see something horrendous coming out in the reviews, which seems unlikely at the moment.

I don't think there is either, I was more meaning generally with day 1 patches. Given the possibility that said patch can still have issues, why not just start the whole process earlier so you can have that day 1 patch in place in the weeks before release? Especially with this one, as the update appears to be adding a sizeable amount to the game rather than just bug fixes. The game will probably be pretty well reviewed - probably not exemplary, but pretty solid. Most will be pretty happy with it, and some will absolutely bomb it. As is the way with games and the hype train they travel on. I'll see what the early reviews are like on Wednesday/Thursday, then maybe pick it up in the days after if it's all positive.

It's more like an exception to the rule. Have there been any other examples where it has? There's been some pretty high-profile games where they've been desperate to embargo the shit out of everyone so their game doesn't get seen for the turd it is. Not saying that's the case here, at least not entirely. I imagine it'll come into every developers mind in some way - why would you let reviews out early if you can get away with it? One thing that annoyed me about it, they said they wanted the review to be of day 1 code, because there was going to be a day 1 patch. Why not just make sure beta testing happens early enough so that there doesn't need to be a day 1 patch? They're by no means alone in this, in fact every game now has that.

That's down to the procedural generation. No need for loads of textures to model a huge world when most of it is just done with formulae. It's certainly sounding more positive than I expected, although I'm sure the hype train will crash for some of the less balanced in their community soon. Tempted to order this now...

I usually think a lot of the stuff in this thread is stretching, and that some just like to pick up on little things and blow them out of proportion. Then I saw that. That is truly awful.

Absolutely. I find watching it incredibly dull, and last season in particular there was a lot more excitement in watching the cooncil telly Scottish Cup games.

Watching CWC now, and have to say I agree with ZSJ being a bit meh. He seems very talented obviously but the match just seems so slow, like duxe has been told to let him get his spots in with little going the other way. Plus he also sounds incredibly dull in the promo segments.

He did genuinely look like he had no idea what was going on. Like he'd been told the finish, and that he'd be heading up the ramp as normal. Then this screaming mess of a man comes down. Anyone would've been visibly upset by that.

Come on Giles, didn't you see him screaming at Rusev? Guy backed down. He's a stone cold killer.

Technically, it could never be a flop or a disappointment, that's for sure. But then that's part of the problem. Is it just going to play like an extended tech demo with the developers always pointing to the technical marvel that it is? That's only going to go so far, especially these days when a good bit of imagination in development with indie games is often trumping those that have spent millions and millions on the superfluous. I realise I'm coming across really negative on the game, and not meaning to be. I really hope it is a big success for the developers' sake, because by all accounts they've had a brilliant idea and have spent a hell of a long time realising their dream. It's something completely different to what has gone before, and while it wouldn't really change anything industry-wide, it's always good to see things that are different being successful.

Looking very likely. Steph will do a heel promo saying something like they don't need the WWE title, because...wait for it...we've got our own title! Cue tiny pop, because it's pretty predictable. Still, decent way to raise intrigue ahead of Summerslam. Make it a bigger tournament too, let every singles star go in and have a proper long tournament. Obviously Rollins and Reigns can be the finish, and maybe that's where we finally get the heel turn,

Really? I suppose it depends how you define failing. Unless it's absolutely perfect, which is unlikely given the hype it's received, said hype is going to mean people will be disappointed. And it seems these days when people get disappointed with games, they turn into absolute VLs. When a delay was announced for this game, they threatened the developers' families, what do you think they'll do if they find the game itself disappointing? I'd take back the first line I said though, change it to "I can't see this game living up the hype it has generated, and it'll be disappointing"

We never really looked like it, but Germany were less than impressive for the most part. Had we gone and done something mental like beating them at Hampden - which could have happened given how out of sorts they looked defensively in that game, and how they let Ireland take them - then dropped more points to Poland, the group could have really backed up. Had we beaten Georgia, Germany and then Poland, we'd have probably gone into the Gibraltar game with a chance of that. It's massively stretching, but there was a point where it looked like Germany's troubles were opening things up for the rest of the teams in the group And, I can't believe I feel like I still need to say it, that points total was enough to mean had we beaten Georgia we would have been in the playoffs. Take out Gibraltar from Ireland's results and they got three points more than us. That's not exactly great either. Our group had no side going all out, so the points total were relatively close. If you ranked the 4th placed sides, we were comfortably ahead of every other side, because our group ended up all taking points off of each other. If you're wanting to take away results against the bottom sides, Netherlands got 7 points from 8 games, as did Israel, Bulgaria and Macedonia. Estonia had 6. Finland got 8, Montenegro got 5. Serbia got fucking 4. Of course we need to do better, but then I never argued about that. We could have easily qualified automatically the way this group panned out. But that doesn't change what I originally said. If we had bea...nah, I'm honestly sick of saying it, because you're clearly not getting it.

And yet none of that changes what I actually said, which was, again, if we did beat Georgia, we would've been in a playoff spot. How is that so hard to understand? I never said anything about the rest of the campaign. Although for the record, it's nowhere near as bad as people make out with hindsight. You talk about Poland like they were no-marks - a draw in Warsaw was a good result, and I completely agree we should have closed it out in at least one of the games - probably Hampden. But Poland have proved this summer that they are a good side. And we didn't "choke" against Ireland, we got it back to 1-1 after they scored first. The only reason I go on about the Georgia game in this context is because had we won it, and got through the playoff, then no-one would be saying a peep about the rest of the campaign. But we lose that one, end up not qualifying, and suddenly the retcon is that we were absolutely shite. We weren't. We were fair-to-middling for most of the campaign, and shite in one game. Ireland were pretty average for most of the campaign, and amazing for one game. That's the way it goes sometimes.

Yeah, realise that now. The season ticket holders behind me told him to GTF while Abzy was being club captain getting his photies taken.

No, I've very much not. What is incorrect about what i said? We beat Georgia, we would have been in a play-off spot. That's saying nothing about any other "failures", real or imagined. And funnily enough, saying nothing about those failures is exactly what people would be doing had we beaten Georgia, gotten through the playoffs and gone to the Euros. And as I keep saying, because it's true, the Northern Irish and Wales squads were chock full of "failures" prior to this summer. And now they're not.

Might well have been actually now you say it. I heard him mention something about twin brother, never got a look at the guy, but think they moved to the Weir Stand after, and Pogba was paying a lot of attention to there. Some pretty good stuff today I thought, but looks like we haven't really changed much from the usual going behind and then shiting it. At least we got back in front - had we scored earlier I think we'd have gone on to score a lot more. Azeez looks pretty promising too.

Pitch looking wonderful. I also had osman sitting in the row behind me with his brother. He was then told to piss off by some season ticket holders who I don't think recognised him.

I get your point about those teams, but we absolutely should be worrying about seeding. It can make a massive difference to who you get in a group. The higher you are, the more chance you have, simple as that. Of course a poorer team could beat us, and of course we could beat a better team. But I'd still rather face the weaker ones

I imagine most sides thought of Northern Ireland and Wales the same way before the last campaign. Like it or not, we are in the group of sides who can qualify. But that pool is much, much larger than the number of available spaces. One terrible match blew our playoff chances. We had a chance to qualify, we failed. But by all means, keep the wailing and the gnashing of teeth going about how everything is just awful. And I'm the negative one... MT said it best. Call you a moron, you post like a moron...aye, it's probably a moron. I'll take that back if you can actually come back to any of the post of mine with any coherent point, rather than...well, whatever you usually do.

Aye poor dears. So much quality in there that they just don't know what to do without a cuddle from the manager. Strachan is very far from blameless, but to absolve the players of anything doesn't really work.

All of that post, and that's all you can say? Suppose I shouldn't have expected much better from you. Actually, if you could point out where I actually mentioned him at any point during my post - in a thread about Jack Harper - then that'd be great. Seek help you absolute moron.