There is no point for AL to exist any longer when Genshin Impact just released

[DEAD S.n.A.k.e.]

I've been waiting for GI for like a year, when I firstly saw it's trailer, but I never really thought that I will be playing it seriously. I was interested very much, but nothing more. And when I suddenly saw that it released yesterday (or today?) I downloaded and tried it out. And you know what? I am almost crying right now.
It is an ideal anime-like game for me. It's so, SO much better than AL in EVERY possible aspect:
1. Visuals are so anime-like, that I can't complain about anything! Like, really: there are grass everywhere, trees, a very long distance of drawing, every view is picturesque. Everything is moving because of wind and when clouds block the sun it become darker. Models are so fine-made with all those details and hair not penetrate through bodies/inversed kinematics really working, and very nice smooth animations, and all those beautiful special effects... My eyes just like to look at it so much that I can't believe myself.
2. Attention to details is just godlike: grass is burning when you use fire magic, apples fall down from the trees when you use wind magic. When I firstly got access to second character with bow (Amber I think), I tried to make a powerful shot from it and...
ARROW LIT UP, THEN FLIED LIKE 50 METERS STRAIGHT AND THEN FELL DOWN ON PARABOLIC TRAJECTORY IN THE WATER AND WHEN FIRE TOUCHED WATER SMOKE APPEARED! CAN YOU BELIVE THAT?!
I still can't.
3. It is really interesting to travel through the world. It really feels like it is living on its own with all those peaceful animals running here and there (lol, I think I saw more types of not-so-important world inhabitants than I saw different enemies in AL in general). You don't know where will be next enemy/chest and what will be inside. And there are A LOT more chest that in AL and points of interest in general.
4. Optimization and everything connected is just on whole another level. With all those details and systems that works together I am truly amazed It works so fine. And controls on PC is just amazing from day one! Oh, and you can climb any wall you want/get out from water AT ANY PLACE you want easily - and that's cool!
5. And the main point - it's totally free. Yes, there will be microtransactions
BUT IT'S TEN TIMES BETTER THAN 60 DOLLARS AL THAT ALSO HAS MICROTRANSACTIONS - AND IT'S STILL TOTALLY FREE
Tthe most ironic part - this f2p game probably had more pre-registred users (3 millions) than there are AL's owners in general (there is no accurate information about it, but on PC it's sold from 250 to 500K of copies, and even with those 30% discounts and the fact that in Japan and on consoles it probably sold better, I still suspect that it sold like 1 million of copies all over the world at most).
My heart is broken. Why there is no such SAO game with the same graphics/overal quality level just like Genshin Impact? Why Bandai Namco is so greedy and stuff in AQURIA is so talentless? They've just got owned by some korean company... SAO as a title deserves a really good game so-so much - but it will never happen with those *&^%$#@! owning the rights.
Well, anyway, I am playing Genshin Impact from now on - and I recommend you do the same.

[FFXFan13]

Yeah, I can't disagree. Honestly the only bad things I can say about Genshin Impact is it's requires a constant internet connection, it'll kick you out if you lose connection, and it takes a stupidly long time to download.

[DEAD S.n.A.k.e.]

Originally posted by FFXFan13:

Yeah, I can't disagree. Honestly the only bad things I can say about Genshin Impact is it's requires a constant internet connection, it'll kick you out if you lose connection, and it takes a stupidly long time to download.

Yeah, I read that people had problems with dowloading it, but I had a nice 2mb/s speed and downloaded it in less than 2 hours. I suppose their servers were too loaded at first.

[FFXFan13]

Originally posted by DEAD S.n.A.k.e.:

Originally posted by FFXFan13:

Yeah, I can't disagree. Honestly the only bad things I can say about Genshin Impact is it's requires a constant internet connection, it'll kick you out if you lose connection, and it takes a stupidly long time to download.

Yeah, I read that people had problems with dowloading it, but I had a nice 2mb/s speed and downloaded it in less than 2 hours. I suppose their servers were too loaded at first.

I've got it on my PS4, but despite starting the PC download this morning, I'm still only at 45% on PC.

[Aisu Kurimu]

Combat animation, movement and everything is so fluid and smooth. If only Bandai Namco give the SAO to a better developer studio, it would have been better.

By the way, mihoyo is a chinese company.

[DEAD S.n.A.k.e.]

Originally posted by Aisu Kurimu:

Combat animation, movement and everything is so fluid and smooth. If only Bandai Namco give the SAO to a better developer studio, it would have been better.

By the way, mihoyo is a chinese company.

Chinese? Hm, strange, I thought it was korean, because the first trailer I saw was in korean language.
Well, does it really matter? I never heard about mihoyo before Genshin Impact (well, after announcment I read that they developed Honkai Impact, but that's all), so for me this not-so-well-know (at least for me) studio just skyrocketed to one of my favorites.

[NightmareHollow]

This game has its problems but you're trying too hard to be a negative nancy. Genshin Impact is fun and all, but about 6 months down the line, those free to play cracks will start appearing, so temper your expectations of it. Free to play games are notorious either for the need to excessively grind, or power-creeping of enemies later down the line as they expect you to milk the gacha banners to the top tier characters and weapons to finish certain content.

I'm not enjoying the latest AL patch either as it broke the balance of post-game and despite having difficulty options, we're still getting power-crept by enemies of a significantly higher level on normal difficulty and still no level cap upgrade. And Yes I've started GI myself and am really enjoying it, but I've play enough free-to-play gacha games to know that most of them starts running out of ideas after 6-12 months or starts ramping up the pay to win factor when they need more money to sustain the game.

[Gilgamesh-sama]

Originally posted by Narusaka Kazuto:

Originally posted by NightmareHollow:

This game has its problems but you're trying too hard to be a negative nancy. Genshin Impact is fun and all, but about 6 months down the line, those free to play cracks will start appearing, so temper your expectations of it. Free to play games are notorious either for the need to excessively grind, or power-creeping of enemies later down the line as they expect you to milk the gacha banners to the top tier characters and weapons to finish certain content.

I'm not enjoying the latest AL patch either as it broke the balance of post-game and despite having difficulty options, we're still getting power-crept by enemies of a significantly higher level on normal difficulty and still no level cap upgrade. And Yes I've started GI myself and am really enjoying it, but I've play enough free-to-play gacha games to know that most of them starts running out of ideas after 6-12 months or starts ramping up the pay to win factor when they need more money to sustain the game.

my main problem with f2p game is that they won't last forever. someday the dev will shut down the game, and all of our hard work is gone. gg

#ripdigimonlinks

How about another problem with shutting down servers: if AL servers ever shut down, you'll lost ALL items from CUBE\SAO shop

[DEAD S.n.A.k.e.]

Originally posted by NightmareHollow:

This game has its problems but you're trying too hard to be a negative nancy. Genshin Impact is fun and all, but about 6 months down the line, those free to play cracks will start appearing, so temper your expectations of it. Free to play games are notorious either for the need to excessively grind, or power-creeping of enemies later down the line as they expect you to milk the gacha banners to the top tier characters and weapons to finish certain content.

I'm not enjoying the latest AL patch either as it broke the balance of post-game and despite having difficulty options, we're still getting power-crept by enemies of a significantly higher level on normal difficulty and still no level cap upgrade. And Yes I've started GI myself and am really enjoying it, but I've play enough free-to-play gacha games to know that most of them starts running out of ideas after 6-12 months or starts ramping up the pay to win factor when they need more money to sustain the game.

Well, AL started "running out of ideas" even before release. Lol, they can't even add new (really new) Raid Dungeons or any other content every month, what can we talk about?... And why do you think the game already on discount, after 3 months? Sales were bad. And where will they get enough money to provide support for the game by adding at least paid content? I am not even talking about free DLCs - it will be nothing more than a placeholder, hollow updates with no real content that will let them say "Look, we added something just like we promised!". Well, I mean there will be some content, but it won't be good one (because they can't do good content even for player's money) so I prefer not to care about it.
Fun fact, AL is not f2p - and all "cracks" are already appeared and clearly visible. Some of it was visible on release or
The main point - free 2 play game is better than 60 bucks game. Both with microtransactions. That's a fact. You can say "This is for fans!" - I am fan and much more fan than 90% of people who bought AL. And this game is average. I could deal with it and had my own fun. But when they added those microtrasaction (even more - rediculuos microtransactions) and gacha - it became total crap. Oh, and fact that their "future updates" and "game support" is nothing more than an empty sound.

[DEAD S.n.A.k.e.]

Originally posted by Gilgamesh-sama:

Originally posted by Narusaka Kazuto:

my main problem with f2p game is that they won't last forever. someday the dev will shut down the game, and all of our hard work is gone. gg

#ripdigimonlinks

How about another problem with shutting down servers: if AL servers ever shut down, you'll lost ALL items from CUBE\SAO shop

Don't even try to talk about that, they won't "listen"/see your post. Because they've paid a lot just like us, but can't confess to themselves that they were ripped off and their money is gone.
Just like it was when their "if it's only cosmetics - microtransactions isn't so bad!" transformed into "holly molly, 4 dollars for a sword/costume that is already in a game?!". Quantity of likes on the SAO Shop's opening news in Steam shows exactly how bad peoples reaction to that was.
And we are not talking about "if", AL's servers will shut down sooner or later, after 2-3 years at most. Because when there won't be any profit (and with bad sales and no content for players to play), when server maintenance price will exceed monthly profit from SAO Shop (I believe, no, I want to believe that it will happen soon enough) they will shut it down at that exact moment.

[daggoth1408]

Ya the fact that if you play offline and dont have access to any of the cube items you got, or the SAO Items you bought is sketchy as ♥♥♥♥. So to be honest at this point GEnshin's free to play model is no worse than what SAO Lycoris is pulling off right now with their model. Genshin just has the advantage of not coming out a buggy and unoptimized trash heap, as well as not costing a kidney to play it.

[Gilgamesh-sama]

Originally posted by DEAD S.n.A.k.e.:

Originally posted by NightmareHollow:

This game has its problems but you're trying too hard to be a negative nancy. Genshin Impact is fun and all, but about 6 months down the line, those free to play cracks will start appearing, so temper your expectations of it. Free to play games are notorious either for the need to excessively grind, or power-creeping of enemies later down the line as they expect you to milk the gacha banners to the top tier characters and weapons to finish certain content.

I'm not enjoying the latest AL patch either as it broke the balance of post-game and despite having difficulty options, we're still getting power-crept by enemies of a significantly higher level on normal difficulty and still no level cap upgrade. And Yes I've started GI myself and am really enjoying it, but I've play enough free-to-play gacha games to know that most of them starts running out of ideas after 6-12 months or starts ramping up the pay to win factor when they need more money to sustain the game.

Well, AL started "running out of ideas" even before release. Lol, they can't even add new (really new) Raid Dungeons or any other content every month, what can we talk about?... And why do you think the game already on discount, after 3 months? Sales were bad. And where will they get enough money to provide support for the game by adding at least paid content? I am not even talking about free DLCs - it will be nothing more than a placeholder, hollow updates with no real content that will let them say "Look, we added something just like we promised!". Well, I mean there will be some content, but it won't be good one (because they can't do good content even for player's money) so I prefer not to care about it.
Fun fact, AL is not f2p - and all "cracks" are already appeared and clearly visible. Some of it was visible on release or
The main point - free 2 play game is better than 60 bucks game. Both with microtransactions. That's a fact. You can say "This is for fans!" - I am fan and much more fan than 90% of people who bought AL. And this game is average. I could deal with it and had my own fun. But when they added those microtrasaction (even more - rediculuos microtransactions) and gacha - it became total crap. Oh, and fact that their "future updates" and "game support" is nothing more than an empty sound.

Don't know about game support, but future updates will be there. How big are they gonna be though? The 4 DLCs that come first(with mini-stories) probably won't come with new zones. Most likely it will be 1 new dungeon, or even one small-mid location like some of the beach zone at best. But what about 1st big DLC "Myosotis"? I mean, it should come with: lvl cap increase, new character(s), new equipment, new locations, otherwise what's the point of calling it "Big DLC" if the locations will be the same as main story's one?
But the thing bothers me the most is the story. Just the short description of DLC with Sinon is enough to kill your brain lol. "The whole WORLD was scared of God of Death embodiement, so they hire the marksman girl to kill it. But the girl fell in love with him, so THE VILLAGERS JUST KILLED BOTH GOD AND THIS GIRL!!!", if some random villagers were able to kill the GOD OF DEATH, why the hell whole WORLD was scared of it? Not to mention the marksman girl that was hired to kill the Shinigami(which means she was very strong) was killed by the same random villagers. And it's just the beginning. If the writing quality of Myosotis will be the same, I'll pass.

Also, there still some youtubers that defending this game and saying "This game is totally worth it, you should buy and play it. MTX is not a problem, everything is good". So some people will still buy it, especially with discount, because their favourite youtuber said that it's good.
Not to mention, some of them also defended mtx before release since developers said "it will be only cosmetic, and you can obtain all CUBE items by just playing daily", for a while I even belevied this sh*t, but when they delayed release by two month while saying "the game is fully done, we will just polish it" I understand that it won't be as good as they say.
Still sad that the game won't even tested before release. IMO it should've been made by DIMPS(developers of Fatal Bullet)

[DEAD S.n.A.k.e.]

Originally posted by Gilgamesh-sama:

Originally posted by DEAD S.n.A.k.e.:

If the writing quality of Myosotis will be the same, I'll pass.

I agree with almost everything, but will comment only on this thing.
One of the writers for Myosotis is the same writer who wrote Violet Evergarden. If it for the better or for the worse is up to you. Personally, I liked VE, but this is SAO, so... I am not sure if this person will be able to write it right.

[Gilgamesh-sama]

Lycoris is, mostly, single-player game. But if you somehow(internet disconnection, or smth) get offline you lost all your CUBE\SAO shop items, because they're accessible only when you're online. It's not good.

[Gilgamesh-sama]

Originally posted by DEAD S.n.A.k.e.:

Originally posted by Gilgamesh-sama:

I agree with almost everything, but will comment only on this thing.
One of the writers for Myosotis is the same writer who wrote Violet Evergarden. If it for the better or for the worse is up to you. Personally, I liked VE, but this is SAO, so... I am not sure if this person will be able to write it right.

I liked Violet. And I liked original SAO ranobe(till the 14th volume at least). But SAO nowhere near Violet in terms of quality, though SAO is nowhere near as bad as some people claim. And the fact that Violet was good doesn't mean that SAO story by the same author will be good too. I hope for better, but ready for worse.
I mean, Eugeo became bad? He don't have any reason, since Alice is right here, and she was the reason he even started all this journey. Administrator is now Cardinal, so no problem here. And Integrity Knights are good too. But Eugeo even said "My world isn't as good\kind as yours" for some reason. Real world is many times worser, though. And also Eugeo is live in this world(Underworld) for almost 18 years, he should've known that this world is not perfect. I mean, it's fantasy world with magic, monsters, bad nobles(90% of them. Because... writers want it for some reason, I guess). IMO this Edgy Vector-style Eugeo is either not real Eugeo, or it's just writers being pepegas like in some parts of main story.

[Ekxsza]

I agree but at least I don't have to roll Gacha for new characters in AL.