Ara: History Untold

[KayAU]

Wonderful. Looks like we are finally getting more frequent content releases.

I also posted the video in the Game Guides thread.

 

[KayAU]

The steam forums have some good takes here and there but also is a bit of a cesspool.

The Steam forums are indeed something special. The last time I tried to give a measured opinion on something there, one user called me a troll and blocked me, another accused me of supporting "trans-indoctrination of kindergarteners". I think my error was that my post contained 1 occurrence of the word "diversity", which is apparently very offensive.

I prefer CivFanatics.

 

[Thormodr]

The Steam forums are indeed something special. The last time I tried to give a measured opinion on something there, one user called me a troll and blocked me, another accused me of supporting "trans-indoctrination of kindergarteners". I think my error was that my post contained 1 occurrence of the word "diversity", which is apparently very offensive.

I prefer CivFanatics.

Yeah, Civfanatics has been my home for nearly 20 years after frequenting previous Civ forums before that. (Apolyton, Weplayciv, etc.) Pretty well run, overall.

Looks like it'll be a good place to talk about Ara, as well. Arafanatics forums.

 

[fjaoaoaoao]

I saw a lot of people in various places complaining about lack of marketing for the game, which i don't really agree with. I wonder if a small part of that complaining comes from the lack of discord though. Would be nice to be part of a chat community for the game that the devs participate in as well

 

[zhugejingqi]

It is right to suppress publicity for this game. It has many options to draw attention to political issues outside of the game. The leaked achievements of Barbie Oppenheimer have sparked some opposition to ARA topics.

 

[zhugejingqi]

我看到很多地方的人都在抱怨游戏缺乏营销，我对此并不认同。不过，我想知道这些抱怨中是否有一小部分是因为缺乏 discord。如果能加入开发者也参与的游戏聊天社区就好了：群体拥抱：

Steam community does the same thing.

 

[KayAU]

It is right to suppress publicity for this game. It has many options to draw attention to political issues outside of the game. The leaked achievements of Barbie Oppenheimer have sparked some opposition to ARA topics.

Yeah, I saw a couple of YouTube videos complaining that Ara "has pronouns". Some people are very easily offended by things like these, but I see no reason to slow down because of it. Baldur's Gate 3 had a lot of backlash for similar reasons, but was still a massive success, by all accounts due to the game being excellent.

 

[KayAU]

The marketing ramp up is real. I wake up to another dev diary:

 

[zhugejingqi]

The marketing ramp up is real. I wake up to another dev diary:

This kind of promotion is not effective, there is no direct game content.

 

[KayAU]

Yeah, that was not what I had hoped for. For an Ara dev diary, my basic expectations would be:
1. Ara
2. The devs
They did say that there would be quite a few videos dropping soon, so that's good.

 

[ggmoyang]

Looks like they handed out review copies to youtubers too, at least we'll see some video after the embargo lifts... (Which is the day before the release)

 

[Thormodr]

Yeah, I don't see the point of that dev diary. A lot of games theory but they really didn't talk about Ara. Kind of disappointing.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

So do buildings have different cultural styles based on the civ?

 

[Tonas1997]

First review is in! 8/10

Ara: History Untold (PC) - Review

Developed by Oxide Games and brought to you by Xbox Game Studios, ‘Ara: History Untold’ is probably my first dive into controlling miniature people and towns since probably The Sims. Not being a specialist in games in the likes of ‘Age Of Empires’ or the ‘Civilisation’ franchises, I was scared,

www.mkaugaming.com

 

[CivLuvah]

The marketing ramp up is real. I wake up to another dev diary:

I don't think the point of that video was to give dev updates. I think it's more of "let's talk about grand strategy in general", at least that's what my expectation was considering the thumbnail doesn't have the word "Dev" on it.

First review is in! 8/10

Ara: History Untold (PC) - Review

Developed by Oxide Games and brought to you by Xbox Game Studios, ‘Ara: History Untold’ is probably my first dive into controlling miniature people and towns since probably The Sims. Not being a specialist in games in the likes of ‘Age Of Empires’ or the ‘Civilisation’ franchises, I was scared,

www.mkaugaming.com

There should be a master thread in this forum to collate all of the reviews so far!

 

[KayAU]

There should be a master thread in this forum to collate all of the reviews so far!

Agreed. Maybe someone else could do it, as I'm still in Mallorca, currently watching my kids play musical chairs.

 

[Thormodr]

First review is in! 8/10

Ara: History Untold (PC) - Review

Developed by Oxide Games and brought to you by Xbox Game Studios, ‘Ara: History Untold’ is probably my first dive into controlling miniature people and towns since probably The Sims. Not being a specialist in games in the likes of ‘Age Of Empires’ or the ‘Civilisation’ franchises, I was scared,

www.mkaugaming.com

If this was a AAA game, it would have got an automatic 9+/10. Such is the way of the big gaming media companies.

 

[zhugejingqi]

如果这是 AAA 游戏，它肯定会得到 9+/10 分。这就是大型游戏媒体公司的行事方式。

Which game is 3A?

 

[Tonas1997]

Review thread here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/ara-review-thread.692112/

 

[Sephi]

If this was a AAA game, it would have got an automatic 9+/10. Such is the way of the big gaming media companies.

yes, 8/10 is a great score all things considered. This was the first 4x game for the reviewer, she thought they are usually real time and being turn based was an ara innovation . Still a more accurate review than IGN .

Only the release window from ara is not so good. Tomorrow the biggest strategy game of the year releases on steam. Ara might have a slower start than normal on steam.