GameSpot's The Lobby - The Division Beta: Are we more or less excited now?

[MUSIC] Gentlemen, we finally got to play The Division. They have their sort of Ubisoft had their closed beta for The Division over the past weekend, allowed players to finally get their hands on this sort of big apple shooter. So now that we've had some time with it What do we think The Division? Sort of we've had previews and we've had Aaron coming in and talking about it. This weekend was fun cuz everyone got to have a go. Yeah. And we've had bunches of people in the case of our community having a go and sort of talking about what they feel about it. We're all having, first of all, I think you probably played the most out of the three of us here. This weekend? Possibly, I think Eric may be a just a little over myself. You reached the level cap. Yeah, so level cap would be eight in the dark zone, and then is it 12? No, 12 in the dark zone and then eight In the normal, the regular spot. [CROSSTALK]. So for people who maybe don't know, who didn't get access to the beta, what did the beta consist of, first of all. It consisted of just one main story mission. You got, for the most part, just a sliver of the map that they have So I concluded kind of like random events like an encounter, only of like, you know there's like three branches your tech, your metabay, but you got just a little fraction of kind of the single player experience in my opinion. Like they set it up like it was kind of the first mission you'd play and you kind of go in and like here's your Here's your base. I don't know. I got to know for Willy, but for- Yeah. Like here's your base and here are the different areas which you have to sort of essentially upgrade. And by upgrading them, you get new abilities for your character and all that stuff. Exactly. Yep. Get upgrades. Yeah, exactly. Just so everyone knows, we did start off at level 4 and you do get a cutscene. So we probably didn't see the intro of game. Right. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So it's hard to say. I was wondering why because it said you reached level 5 and I was like, already? Yeah. [LAUGH] Wow, I'm so good Right, yeah. So we'll have to see what that is but continue. And I'd say the main concern of this closed beta was this dark zone. And what the PBP, PVE elements of it Entail and trying to perfect or just in general balance what that- What's going on out there. What's going on out there. And it's weird. Let's talk about that in a second. So the Dark Zone is sort of like this instant PvP arena you opt to go into. But the general I guess moment to moment game play of the division. Eric, what is that people don't know and what did you feel about it? So basically we trekked our way to the HQ where you pretty much set up shop, as Rob said. And then once you do that, you do get missions there from different NPCs. And then you can venture out into the world. And then in the world, there are little side missions, side quests that you do. Either, I don't want to say liberating an area, but you clear out an area or in my case, I think I did one where you had to activate a bunch of scanners. Within like a certain time limit and then that would then give you experience for a specific wing. So it's like, okay you just got like 400 experience points for the medical wing and that will like you said allow you to upgrade stuff. So there Couple of those I didn't. Most of those for me, other than the turning on the scanners, was mainly clear these guys out. They're bad dudes, get rid of them. And then all right, good job, way to get rid of them. And you're sort of just wandering between alleyways, block after block of Downtown Manhattan, I'm guessing, where this is being played, yeah. And surprisingly for the amount that they blocked off, what was it, a third I'd say of maybe the total map? Who knows. Regardless, I did a little more of the side mission stuff and a couple of them actually surprised me. So right off the bat, you have the alleys so you have your city But there are sewers. There are. Right. There was one that was actually really surprisingly cool that I kind of stumbled onto. I think it was for the tech. Whatever tree it was to help out. It was, go down to a water main, and fix the water main. Yeah. Essentially. And it was-. Get all the lead pipes out of there. Yeah, it was something like that. And it was pretty cool, I mean, as far as,. It just kinda opened up another area where you basically realize, there's a lot going on with this map. It was enjoyable. I guess they could do it is right. Because the Madison Square Garden Mission, which is the main, the one that you sort of are forced to do. The environmental detail in that area was actually kinda good. But, in saying that, and maybe that's getting to the first point I have here, which is about how the game looks. I was playing the game on my PC, my PC's a pretty good machine. I went into the options, I was basically running it like, if not super high, then ultra. Game does not look that great! Really? Yeah. That's not good that you say that. Yeah, I put up a gameplay of that. And it was like I'd say passable. But, again, this is beta. What are they holding back? What are they gonna do graphics-wise? I don't know, maybe there are pulling the reins a little bit, like someone's gonna come in with an EMB and it's gonna look way crazier. But just in comparison to the anticipation that I had for this game based off what they showed at E3, I like some of the game play. I always think okay they're showing the XBox version that's why it looks muddy and the lighting super flat. Even on PC I was going like, a really al right.>>For me it was just passable.>>I think we witnessed it at the same time. I'm like that game looks better and that's a game where nothing is happening.>>Taking a look at that E3 video it. I think a lot of the elements are there, it's just really toned back. You look at the E3 video, there's smoke coming out of the sewers and [UNKNOWN] up. And you catch that- Here it is here, yeah look at all that gorgeous lighting and- This is the E3, right? Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's present. It's again toned back, and I'd say quantity maybe even. I don't know. It could be that thing as well. Whenever they show videos like this at E3, they always shoot it at the magic hour. Like it's sunset, you're getting this really nice effect for me. Yeah, right. A lot of what's happening in the Manhattan area was very claustrophobic and snow stormy. Yeah in any case it definitely didn't allow. Let's get on to the next section I wanna talk a bit briefly. A lot of people last week when we talked to the division asked could you play this game solo. I play this basically all the time which actually I was away this week and I played four hours last night. Essentially on my own. The story seems super just blase and generic in a way that [CROSSTALK] I'm just so disinterested. Yes and no. So- Did you like it? There were a couple of cool elements that took me away. Where, again, some of the side mission stuff, there was one that was, you went about kind of searching for, I don't know, hologram tapes of the events leading up to this The event, whatever it was. Black Friday. Black Friday. Too many people went to Walmart and it all went to ****. I think that's a pretty good premise. They put the virus in the currency, so everyone's using cash. Which is ****. Money is dirty, dude. Apple Pay, baby. That's the future. Anyway, there's one woman It was like these people getting stuck in a car. You're just kind of like hearing it and not really, it's just like freeze frame 3D hologram. And it was like these people in a car and I guess they were infected. And there's different factions, right? And one of the factions, I guess they're all about just wiping the slate clean. Yeah, the cleaner dudes, right? Yeah. Guys with the flamethrowers. The flamethrowers. Yeah. And it was this crazy graphic like audio log of these people being burned alive in a car. Wow. And it was pretty heavy duty. Like I was kind of taken away. But it was kind of funny, like how long it went on for. Like, I get it. Like I would say it was a good three fourths of it were people just screaming. Maybe you can help me with something then. Who the **** am I shooting in this game? Because I seem to be shooting just a lot of gangs Yeah. Poor people. Yeah. Like how long is [UNKNOWN] the event, like month? I'd say months. Like months right? I'd say months. Like a lot of it, like I'm shooting guys who look like they're just like New York guys with Yankees caps on. Yeah. I'm blowing them away with my federally purchased gun. Yeah. Nothing of that seems particularly like [NOISE] Sure. Saving the day. Yeah and from the single player perspective like I'd like to see more of, like yeah again, there are supposedly three factions. But I haven't really found a way to distinguish them. I don't know. Well, cleaners They got the flame thrower, so you know they got the canisters on them and then I forget what the main faction that we keep seeing, another gang. One of the Rikers, Rikers or something. Yeah so Aaron, unfortunately he's not here, but he said the Rikers actually they have pretty good story kind of moments or little bits of audio logs and stuff like that. And they're a little bit crazy and whatnot. Right. And we didn't get to see them. But yeah, if you wanna talk dark zone. You wanna talk dark zone? Yeah, let's get into it. Okay, so The dark zone is like the PvP area, right? You go in and you can pal up with people and join teams, or you can go solo. And essentially, what are you **** in there, Rob? You're looking for loot. So there are kind of hot zones for PvE stuff, but essentially you like, or you should, We'll get to that later. Is you should be in a group and you go these PB moments, rec shop, get the loot. You can get up to six items of loot before you max out. Dark zone loot. Then you have to go to extraction zone and extract it. Now that is where the main rogue element comes in. Where it's like I could kill you. I go rogue. I try to steal your stuff and then extract it. Right. And that's the only way to get the loot is to extract it and then you basically Be decontaminated or whatever. So it's like a helicopter comes to one point like all right, you got this, it'll be here in like 50 seconds. Yeah. It's like a minute and a half or something like that. I had a situation where I was running around on my own and a bunch of guys were like Who there they on like their voice comms to me and I was like must be like Steam friends. Or like my name is wired on Steam. And then they followed me and then I was like doing a bunch of stuff and then I walked into a room and they were like put your **** hands up. [LAUGH] And I was like what? It was like surrender now or I'll murder you. I was frantically searching for the emos to surrender. Mm-hm. And I didn't know it so they just shot me. So what was it like for you guys? Did you just pile up in groups and do that sort of stuff though? For me, at least, I did both. Mm-hm. When we first played, we played in a group. So it was me, Rob, Aaron and Jake and that was a lot of fun. It was, yeah. You go around. You clear out these AI Camps. You get your loot and then we all go to the evac spot, and then we all post up the different spots. Like, hey guys, make sure if you see anyone, call it out so we can be ready in case these guys want to turn on us. Or maybe we light them up and then we get the helicopters. All right. I'm gonna shoot the flare off Okay cool, the helicopter's here in like ten seconds. It's like, somebody ping so we can see if there's threats. And there's like, no threats. All right, everyone put their stuff on the helicopter. And then like, later on, it's like, all right, let just fricking go rogue. Let's go. Let's just go rogue. And we were just running in the streets together and that was a lot of fun I think. And that's, so that's like the key point. Is like, it is fun to go rogue. On a very innocent single player dude, and rip him apart. And you yell, and it's **** aggressive, it's fun. Yeah. However it went up and down, I feel like I played last Sunday which is where I had my most sour experience. But when I was playing the lone ones, this is the big discussion. It's like can you play this game alone without getting completely manhandled by groups of four people or more. And you can. And it happens a lot. And it would be fine in my opinion if it happened typically around these extraction points? Right. Yeah, yeah. But like When I had my back turned Sunday, it was anywhere I freaking went. So you're saying you can't. You're saying like, the drop zone on your own is like not cool. It's not. I mean, cause I think by Monday, people were teaming up and figuring out how to go rogue, how to basically And that's the thing also, you can top level up. Rogue, is man hunt, where you're like a yellow icon and everyone can see you. And the idea is a longer cool down once you get that cool down out of the way you level up a lot and you get a lot of money. And it's a good way basically, get experience and money. And people were kind of exploiting that. And that's a different story. But what I'm getting at is it's just, I wasn't having fun. I kept dying, I kept dying, I couldn't do anything. I didn't even have loot on me and I'm dying. And that's probably okay when you, I guess at a certain stage they can't cater to everyone, right? Yeah. Are we just saying that this is a game that You probably are going to want to be playing with a bunch of other people. The single-player stuff didn't really feel that way. The single player stuff felt like, I can do this. Yeah, there is matchmaking, so it's not impossible to play with other people. And like you said, you had that proximity chat experience where, unfortunately it was the wrong end of it. It was pretty funny though. I enjoyed it. Funny enough, just a quick story, I had the same experience where some guy said, there's a dude here, me. He's got loot. Should we kill him? And I'm thinking the whole time, I can hear you, dude. [LAUGH] why would you even say that, he's like, hey he's running away.>>Let's talk about the main thing, the main crux of what this game is. I feel like we've talked about the last couple of weeks about what this game is. Hey, this isn't a shooter This is an RPG, as if that's some sort of catch all for hey guess what? You can have shooting that maybe doesn't have the same feedback as a regular first person or third person shooter. There are RPGs which have good shooting, and there are RPGs that have bad shooting. What was the experience like For you guys. I guess, first of all, you, Eric, as somebody who plays Destiny a lot, which is essentially the same sort of situation, it's just, as Aram was saying a couple weeks ago, it's a little bit weird when you're doing head shots on humans and a number pops off. Usually when you're doing it against weird, crazy Alien, was not that same sort of drawing effect. How did you feel about the shooting in The Division, and could you see yourself enjoying this hours and hours into the future? Sure. The shooting and the feedback actually wasn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be. I will say Destiny on its own has better feedback, better feeling to it than the [UNKNOWN]. I guess I've been suckered in to that, it's an RPG, so I don't really think about- the shooting is passable and it's fine. It's good enough. I want to see Kind of what it's like to use all the skills and talents and all that stuff. Maybe that changes the game, who knows, but again you are shooting a lot in that game primarily so it is kind of weird to, you know, hose down some of these guys for 800, 800, 800, 800 and they don't die right away. Yeah. Like that Kind of weird unless you have like a super high powered sniper rifle. Then it's kind of a little bit more realistic where it's like I hit in him the head and then I hit him one more time and then he dies, which is still kind of not realistic. But at least that's closer. That's how I feel. How about you, Rob? Yeah I'd like to think where I felt frustrated was we had the other day found a glitch where essentially I was invisible to every player Yeah Yeah it was really funny and bizarre as hell. And you did kind of feel wrong for doing it. But anyway I was killing people who could not see me. Yeah. However, I mean, maybe I'm just pretty bad at video games. [LAUGH] I don't know, but it wasn't the case. I was shotgunning these guys in the face. [LAUGH] Point blank. Yeah. Like four times. Granted, maybe the shotgun was a little underpowered. Yeah. But I'd say, for me it was a little too spongy. Yeah. [CROSSTALK]. Then again, that's very much Destiny, right? I don't know. And that seems to be what a lot of people are saying, is [CROSSTALK]. It's so weird, I can't think of a game In a big triple A game in the past couple years, where so many people didn't really know what it was until they got to play it. Like it just seemed like it was kind of all things to all people. And then we eventually played it and it was like that's what it is. And it comes, through a lot of what people are saying in the comments here as well. Bigbrother7 just said, my honest My issue, honestly was lack of open buildings. It is a game that you could say, it's a game that's set in Manhattan. There's gonna be loads of places to go and explore. And that's kind of not the case. And so, I guess are you satisfied by what you saw of the vision. Those are the tech boxes for what you had, for what you wanted that game to be, Rob? Yeah, initially I was very satisfied. I had a drive Just for this open beta to explore some more. Again, I found this water main area. There's a sewer area. There aren't enough, but there are open houses and rooms you can go into. There needs to be more of that, I totally agree But then again, that's kind of, hopefully that's what most of the map that they've blocked off will have. I don't know. Yeah, maybe that interest does. Cuz I'm somebody who enjoyed exploring quite a lot. Totally. And it was kind of like taking a Boxes and a little bit, but maybe just not quiet enough. What about you Eric, as somebody, I'm kind of very interested in what you have to say because basically everybody in the chat is wondering if this will take over you Destiny? It will a little bit, at least in the mean time, because there's not much going on in Destiny, however I'm really interested to see The rest of the single player. The rest of the Dark Zone is a fun place. I'm kind of curious, is that the end game? Is that their end game? Is there some higher level story stuff that we haven't seen yet, or is it just you play to a certain point with these story missions and side missions and then Dark Zone is your end game? Cuz if Dark Zone is your end game, hypothetically, I'm kind of worried because, there are going to be people that love, maybe love is a strong word, like or love this single player for what it is and enjoy that part of the game, but then after that what's left for them, the dark zone? It's gonna be hard for people to play single player in that regard. But I'm interested, cautiously I guess. Yeah, you know. Okay, there you go. I think in a way, I'm not super hot on this, but I think this was a game that the public was willing to let it fail. And I think that it's kind of survived this beta with a grander sense of what this game is in the sort of public gaming community. I'm interested to hear what you guys think though who are watching, watching live or are watching this On demand on Gamespot on YouTube. Let us know in the comment box below what you think of The Division beta. Did you get in first of all, how long did you play, what'd you think of what you played? Let us know in the comment box below. [BLANK_AUDIO]