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Big Problems Need Huge Solutions
Our heart goes out to the people affected by the unfortunate events surrounding 38 Studios and its subsidiary in Baltimore, Big Huge Games. Through it all, the team stayed together in a way that’s been really heartwarming to see. The team kept working, hoping that there’d be a way to secure last-minute funding and save the company. People brought extra food into the office to help those unable to pay their bills. And last week, in bittersweet irony, Big Huge Games was named to Game Developer’s Top 30 studios in the world list.
You may be wondering why I’m writing all this – and it’s because Epic is going to do something to help them, and we want people to understand why we think it’s the right thing to do.
On Wednesday, the ex-BHG leadership team contacted us. They wanted to start a new company and keep together some of the key talent displaced by the layoff, and hoped that they could use an Epic IP as a starting point for a new game. We loved that they all wanted to keep working together, but it was pretty clear they’d have trouble building a demo and securing funding before their personal savings ran out.
In one of life’s coincidences, Epic’s directors had spent the morning discussing how we’d love to build even more successful projects with our growing team, but that we’d need a dramatic infusion of top talent to do so. Which, we all knew, was impossible.
So now we’re planning to start an impossible studio in Baltimore.
It’ll take a while to find space, set up desks and PCs, purchase sufficient Nerf weaponry and Dr. Pepper, etc. But some of these folks have been going too long without a paycheck to wait for that. So, as soon as we can, we’re going to try to get people working down here at Epic headquarters in Cary, NC as contractors.
There’s a million things to work out. How many of the team can we hire? What will it be called? What will they be working on? We don’t know all the answers yet. Please give us some time to figure it out; we hope to have more to share soon.
The way we see it, there’s been a big storm in Baltimore, and we’re taking in a few of the refugees — as are the awesome folks at Zynga East, Zenimax Online, and other southeastern studios. Epic’s in a situation where we can do this, and it very clearly fits with our company values, so we’re going to give it a whirl.
Dr. Michael Capps
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Ay yo B-more!
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Picked this up for free once I traded in a game and used the Best Buy $30 off coupon and I'm having a blast with it. I'm only at level 7 right now but I'm loving it, going straight rogue and I'm doling out some heavy damage already.
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i searched high and low for this thread the other day...search feature sucks!
i noticed alot of people picked this game up recently. i figured i might get back into it and finish it up. the combat is amazing!Comment
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I got through the tutorial level last night, but I think I'm going to finish The Witcher before I throw myself into another fantasy title.Comment
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yeah i have this game for the PC. played quite a bit of it. i forget what level i am on...somewhere in the 20ies i think. its a great game, but i just lost interest. this is one i could get back into though because the combat is so much funComment
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I've done over 100 quests and tasks, and I'm still nowhere near the end. You can't say there aren't enough things to do in this game.Comment
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I'm still peeved I had to settle for the Xbox version of this game. I prefer third person action games on PS3 and trophies>cheevos.
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Finally beat this. Solid game overall. There are a lot of small things that this game does well like NPCs actually running faster than you when you have to follow them and a junk section of your inventory. There are other things I found annoying like the pooled stash where you can get a few houses with their own stash but the items are shared between them, and I ran out of room quickly. Also, money was pretty sparse for first sections of the game, but I eventually ended up with more gold than I could use. It's also easy to max out your skills like blacksmithing, lockpicking, etc. since there are two ways (trainers and skill books) to get those filled up outside of simply leveling up.
The story overall is ok. The side quests add a little to the main arc, but most fall in the line of help this random person kill someone, fetch something, or go somewhere. Not to mention there are a TON of side quests and tasks. I finished the game with about 20 active side quests, and I'm sure there are more that I didn't find.
The combat has potential. My only problem is that I would have liked it if they let you access more basic attacks earlier. Early on, it's kind of stale since you're stuck with only a few different attacks, and it feels like you're just mashing the same button until the bad guys are dead. However, by the end, I had enough unlocked that I could vary my attacks to deal with most enemy encounters, and the combat felt smooth.
There were some odd things in this game that points to poor QA or design. Later in the game, I would talk to quest givers, and I would accidentally accept the quest without knowing what it was because some of the quest activated dialog options were mixed in with the basic location and personal dialog options. The camera angles during dialog often resulted in something obstructing the characters as well. I didn't like lockpicking either. You would think that your lockpicks would be harder to break as you increase your skill, but that wasn't the case. I maxed it out, and my picks still broke with little to no warning while I was working on harder locks.
Still, if you can get a cheap copy, this is definitely worth a try.Comment
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I hope your wife beats you.
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