If I had an infinite amount of time, I would maintain some sort of online resource for gamers looking to get back into games they used to play. A sort of tool to walk them through what’s changed and tips for easing back in.
It’s tough enough going back to a game in-progress when you’re well past the tutorial sections and you don’t remember the controls/plot. It’s even worse when a game has evolved so much through updates and new features you don’t even recognize it anymore.
I recently tried getting back into The Division 2, and not only is most of the player base firmly in endgame now, but there are so many new systems and season passes and mechanics that I don’t even have the faintest clue how to progress from where I left off to where everyone is playing. It kind of resembles the game I remember, but may as well be in a different language.
First comment!
To be fair, sometimes it’s the other way around.
Or sometimes it’s worse, like when SpongeBob got erased and had to draw himself back (Yes, I did just reference SpongeBob).
OK – were ALL of the downvotes for “First”, or do we have Spongebob-haters here?
I do it for the “first”
no medal shall be awarded this day
I can agree with this statement
I been replaying the division 2 and while i’m still enjoying it it is a much more different game to when it first came out.
I see those PATCHES on the mutant’s shirt and pants, you sneaky Tim
It gets me when the extra arms are attached in the same armpit. You’d need some distance to move them adequately, e.g. one pair at the lower ribs, one at the hips.
feels like this for destiny 2 for me. they changed so much and removed so much of the early story it honestly feels now like they should have made beyond light just 3. i never played the original since i didnt have the consoles, but now im really missing not having done that for the lore alone now that the only lore bits about the red war is just snips of mentions.
I just started playing destiny 2 again after a long break. and they got rid of the awesome story that it started with over half the game is gone.
I can agree with this sentiment. I do not know Division 2 but I take a break and try to return to WoW I keep looking around and thinking.
“This is sort of vaguely like something I remember?”
Followed by me needing to roll a new character because of the whole “How I shot web?” thing.
The division 2 is a good game
Kudos for playing good games.
Superior Man, is that you?
Ah yes, like Pokemon Tower Defence. The fun tower defence game I used to play. then I missed some updates, and then suddenly legendary pokemon were everywhere and towers had HP and everything sucked.
Any Paradox game
I thought Paradox games were the opposite?
sucky at first, made good with DLC
(it’s like they’re doing this on purpose… *gasp*)
This can be true in one sense, but what they always do is add layer upon layer of complexity.
EU for example, is a giant tottering tower of hidden systems, that you only understand if you have been playing it from teh beginning. Do not get me started on Stellaris
I’ve had this happen with Trove. A free 3rd person minecraft-like mmorpg kind of game. I was at the endgame, but lost interest after a month or two of doing the endgame stuff. So I stopped playing. After that 2~3 major updates released. The endgame I had been playing was now only the half-way point, and so much other stuff changed. I tried going back to the game but just didn’t know how stuff worked anymore, where to go or what to do after the point that used to be endgame, etc. So I left again.
A lot of games I’ve played, are released in the mutant stage; but I think, “a few updates and DLC will fix the problem”. Several years later, it’s evolved into something even more hideous that the devs have abandoned.
There’s just no reason to patch and fix bugs for users who have already bought the game. DLC is where the money is.
This is exactly how I felt about Team Fortress 2 after not playing since 2011…
There are some recognisable things, but it’s also really different.
I’ve gone back 2-3 times and have not had an issue.
Path of Exile whistling innocently.
Yeah, I ducked out of Guild Wars 2 for a while, and two (or 3?) expansions and countless “living world seasons” later I literally don’t know where things are because the player hubs have changed due to game events.
I recently had this with Warframe. I played the beta several years ago and basically got bored after we capped out on all but the most grindy parts. I came back to it for a little while a few years ago, and just picked it up again recently. Now there’s a guy in my Warframe and he can get out of it??? When did this happen??? Clearly I had some interaction with this because I’ve customised him but I don’t remember a thing about it. Who is he?? What does he do?? I’d done the first quest of his story… Read more »
The guy in your Warframe is the Tenno, i.e. you. The warframe is just a puppet. You might need to replay the quest where you gain your operator/tenno mode. To get a refresher on the lore.
Oh yeah, I was the same with Warframe. I played back in the beta as well with some friends but we didn’t play too much, then I came back a bit later back when there wasn’t much to the game (level 30 was the level cap or whatever it was, powers cost some of your frame’s power limit, etc) and played it a bit again. Left it for years until more recently and coming back is just so weird. Open world stuff? Social hubs? A billion more different mods and the difficulty scaling making my near invincible Rhino from the… Read more »
Sadly, this couldn’t be said about tf2. RIP heavy update.
This is how I felt about Elder Scrolls Online. I was playing and enjoying it, subscribed and getting deeper into it. Life happened and I had to take a break from it for about a month. In that month a new patch came out, and when I logged back in the new changes had reset all of my characters’ stats, there were hundreds of new levels, and a bunch of new stuff. It just felt like I had to start all over from scratch. I haven’t been back onto it since.
Division 2? Now there’s a name I haven’t heard for a long time…
… Am I the only one who thinks Panel 1 and Panel 2 are in reverse order?
“A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game could be generating profit six months earlier, so crank that sucka out and we’ll fund patches if it sells well enough.”
‐ Andrew Wilson, CEO, Electronic Arts
Not when the analogy is about getting familiar with a game similar to making a new friend, and then when you see that friend down the line they are completely unrecognizable. It has nothing to do with the state/quality of the game, merely about how drastically games can change these thanks to updates.
Fair point, and I’d agree – I’ve returned to some games after years and years of constant updates, and it’s almost unrecognizable. Just last week jumped on Minecraft Bedrock, when I hadn’t played Minecraft since base, un-updated Xbox 360.
The whole “at launch” thing threw me, because I’ve been burned enough that there’s only like one company I’ll consider buying a game at launch now. Used to be two, but then Fallout 76 happened.
Not intended to be a criticism of your comic, btw, which is fantastic – just a criticism of the industry.
That’s fair, I had not registered how the “At launch” verbiage might color the interpretation of the comic.
I felt the same at first, but Tim cleared it up some. I had to read it a few times to get the meaning, because at first it looked like the game went from good, to horrible mutant. Maybe if the first person had some holes in the clothes and scraggly hair (a little rough around the edges but still cool), and the second person had the patched holes, huge muscles, tattoos, and like a cybernetic augments. Would be a cooler/fancier version of the first guy, but hard to even recognize.
This Is How the Newest D&D Feels after playing AD&D in my youth
Going from 3.5 to 5 is similar. Our group ended up staying with 3.5. It’s kinda our loss though. Most everyone has moved on already.
The exact feeling I get trying to play Destiny 2
I feel this way about Guild Wars 2. I loved it, but life got complicated for a while and whenever I tried to return it took all my free time just to learn the new mechanics and figure out where to go next.
Division 2? This is about Minecraft!
And the Interface/menu are getting confusiong to navigate. Here’s a *quick* help : to speak to someone, you “hold F” To deconstruct, you “Hold Tab” To inspect a class you “space bar,” To activate a class you “tap F” before previous “spaceBar” to craft a weapon you “hold X” To change the global difficulty at every game session, you : Press M, press Z, Click to select , then space bar, then esc button, then hold F, then spacebar. You might want to add another esc button. To activate a global event you: press esc, double click on the season… Read more »
My solution is usually to delete my save/characture and start over as by that time I forgot everything. If I don’t do that, I’ll make a new characture so I can redo the tutorials for a quick refresher.
This is what jumping back into Warframe every few months after clearing the newest content feels like.
What happened to my frames. What happened to my mods. Why isn’t anyone doing <thing> anymore?
I got back into Division 2 after a six month hiatus and it took some getting used to. They changed a lot of stuff especially with gear and skills and whatnot. Because I was the first person to log back in and start doing missions all of a sudden I ended up in charge of the clan I was a part of before I left. Eventually I was able to recruit a couple of work friends to start playing again and now that they’re geared up as well we’re running missions as a three man whenever we have the free… Read more »
Path of Exile comes to mind. With expansions and patch changes like, every 3 months, it barely resembles the game I first played years ago.
I fond this with Paradox games in particular
This happened to me in Runescape. I stopped playing in 2009, then got back on in 2013 and they had reworked the combat system so much that I’ve hardly touched it since. I do like the updates to the graphics.
Without saying exactly what I’m about to, you hit my main objection to modern online games (vs. older games that were complete (as they might get), then released… and any changes were in the sequel)….. when I get into a story and patches and changes and nerfing and UI changes and removal of features you liked etc. happen, it feels like IT ISN’T THE GAME I BOUGHT. And I’ll never be able to go back to that version. Even old Win95 games that I still have I can go back and play as they were because I have all the… Read more »
Don’t try to get back in team fortress 2… Just… Don’t…
Hello if you have trouble with division 2 I am ok to help you.
Ekristoffe in the division discord …
No Man’s Sky. I’m glad they kept updating the game past its initial state at launch, but after a couple years hiatus form the game, it’s just an entirely different game now. There are some things like combat and travel that are the same, but there’s so much changed in everything else.
Third panel: “We went through so much, my dear friend, I saw you grow that third arm with my help, I also helped you shave your head. No matter what others think, I still see beauty in you”.
Yes, Destiny 2 was like that. Buddy and I started playing it when it went free-to-play. After a while I got tired of the horrible performance on my ancient computer and the constant crashes.
Built a new computer a few years later. Logged in. Completely different game that I had no idea how to play.