Estimated date?

[VaNilla]

If you think Blacklist's SvM is for "COD players", you haven't looked into it deeply enough. There's a lot of depth to the game, especially with classic mode, and you aren't fooling anyone with your insults and divergence towards the development team. I was really looking forward to this game, back in the days of Double Agent. But since then, a lot of things have happened. Next gen is just around the corner, and Blacklist is finally bringing back the gameplay old school players wanted all along. There was a time when I came to the Project Stealth forums to see all the new progress, but that passed a long time ago. I don't mean to put you down, but you need to move on.

At this point, the game has been in the making for almost a decade. Most of the people who were anticipating this have moved on, and despite how much time has passed, there's still no "game" to show for it. I know how tough it is, but nobody will think any less of you for ending production on the game. In fact, I think they would be relieved. It can't be healthy to focus on a project for so long without any major progress. You need to join a team that respects your time and vision. Don't spend years of your life on something with such a small audience. I'd be singing a different tune back in the day, but I don't think it's good for you to still be pushing this game after seven years without major progress.

Those are the thoughts of someone who's been with you since the beginning. Every time I see you making promises of new progress, I genuinely worry about you. It's not fair for anyone to expect you to push this out after being stuck in this state for so long. I can only speak for myself, because I don't know you, but I think you'd get a lot of fulfilment from moving onto something with an active team, something that really challenges and motivates you. Good luck frvge :)

[NeoSuperior]

[...]There's a lot of depth to the game, especially with classic mode[...]

Did you get to play the Blacklist Beta or some pre-release version? If not, we must have watched different gameplay videos... I do agree that it is a step forward again after convinction, but still too much action to appease the CoD masses (which I have to say, would be "understandable" if it wasn't the "classic mode"). Maps are way too small and the game looks too fast paced.

Spies being able to taze mercs and then kill them in taze? This means a skilled spy can simply do a frontal attack if he isn't too far away... how did it come this far?

Also i said in the offtopic forum already, in blacklist terms we could say that the Mercs represent "Assault" and the Spies represent "Panther". But because of the size of the map and the pace of the game, it is almost impossible to be a "Ghost". At least that is my POV.

[VaNilla]

The things you mention all sound wrong in the context of Chaos Theory. Not so much when death is merely a small setback in Blacklist (for mercs). All they have to do is run back to the hacking stations and find the hacking spy, they have infinite lives. Also, the tazer has limited ammo. It's actually focused on objective gameplay instead of kills/deaths; it's about as far removed from the most popular COD mode as possible. However, from my experience with the game, it's perfectly possible to be a ghost as long as you make good use of distractions.

It lacks some of the tension of PT/CT, which is really down to the pacing (waiting around for minutes at a time really isn't an option), but saying it's there to appeal to COD players is totally dismissive. Try to think about the elements of the game in the context of Splinter Blacklist, instead of imagining individual facets retrofitted back into Chaos Theory.

EDIT: About tazed knife kills, it's not as easy as you think. Merc's can melee counter spies while stunned, and kill them regardless.

[NeoSuperior]

My main problem is that it is too focused on combat. I do think that it probably would be an enjoyable game, but it is not worth 60€ for me. Maybe later on when it is worth the price for me. At least I consider to buy it at all.
I only played the convinction campaign at a friend's comp to know how the story continues, but I certainly did not buy it.

[SheikTheGeek]

Just to add my 2 cents, I don't even buy games that don't have multiplayer.

Conviction while it had a good story and above average Co-Op a full 60 bucks for a game with no true multiplayer is no go for me.  You can't expect people to pay full price for half a disc of content (coughBRINKcough).  That's one of the issues Fighting Games has right now...besides DLC add-ons.

[red_scope_security]

Now that I have about 8 hours of Blacklist's multiplayer under my belt... I'm checking in here for a final time. After over 7 years, I think it's finally time to move on. Blacklist doesn't hit all the high notes, but it comes close enough for me and my friends.

I hope one day I get proven wrong, and I'll end up eating my words when this gets released on Steam and gets thousands of players. But for now, 7 years of waiting has proven too long. Especially considering Blacklist gets it 80% right, and is available to play right this moment... I guess the times have changed. I'm really starting to wonder if the remaining 20% is just nostalgia.

All the best. And make the best damn game you can.

[frvge]

It's funny that people seem to be moving on, just as we've created a company for the reasons of speeding things up... big things are happening at a pretty fast rate. I've been investing more the past few months than in the last 7 years combined. You'll see the fruits of that soon (hopefully a matter of weeks). Aw well, if SCB turns out to be good, I think that's positive for the SAM genre. It won't keep us from making an even better experience.

[darcwolf]

I look forwarding to seeing some footage, it looks like we might see some soon hopefully. After 5-6 hours of blacklist Im ready to just delete the game, Ubisoft clearly doesn't care about bringing back the old spy vs merc, they just want to appease to the CoD idiots and rake in as much money as possible.

[nubishdubishbone]

immidietly dismiss it as a "copy"

I would agree with Maister_Neo here because just look at MineCraft. There's all kinds of games in the Xbox Live Indie game marketplace that has gameplay similar to MineCraft's though the actual game itself has a variety of different features to them. Though people still call those games a rip-off of MineCraft.

So the only question is that, will this same situation apply to Project Stealth? Because the entire game is very similar to Chaos Theory's and Pandora Tomorrow's multiplayer. Yet it has a variety of different features. But due to people not taking their time to actually play something that should be worth playing instead of some piece of shit game that came from classic to mainstream, and with their very low intellect. They'll still excuse it as a "rip-off".

Now this does makes me angry like everyone else because apparently no one understands the fact that the game is in the same genre.  :P

If Minecraft went dead and they released a junk version after, those "rip-off's" would seem alot more viable then...

And Blacklist SvM is for CoD players... Just talk to vets and read the Ubisoft Forums.

Vanilla i see you on ubi and you have complaints now... i wonder if you're still here, i've been around since the beginning, even worked with Bob the Vila on some projects in CT, and had my own little mapping indiscretions (DimmyKron's Estate) LOL..

Blacklist SvM will push away core fans soon enough, and you'll be stuck with tazer spamming, Full-Aggro Spies and generally, exactly as frvge put it, a CoD clone, just with ninja's on one side.

[SheikTheGeek]

Classic mode still exists, imo.  If Blacklist does not do well, everyone will just play Classic Mode instead.  A lot less BS there.