Recent reviews by Spice Merchant

Let me be clear; it wasn't bad per se, but honestly this DLC was very underwhelming.

It was fun at first but once the honeymoon phase ended, I realized this DLC is incredibly repetitive in bad ways. There were some very fun parts of it but most of the time I just felt "ugh, more traveling?" or "more tedious tasks". (Seriously, why do I have to hand deliver a work axe to a random nobody as a master blacksmith?). The DLC isn't incredibly buggy or incomplete or lacking in content, it just doesn't feel very well thought out and a little rushed.

*This part is a little spoily with what you can do in the DLC, but not the main questline itself.*
My main complaint is that the forge you buy doesn't actually have any purpose. You would think that having a forge with apprentices would mean you can order raw materials, or assign tasks to your apprentices - really just manage an actual shop. Nope - they aren't actually your apprentices and you still have to buy stuff from them (what the ♥♥♥♥?). The unique weapons + armor added in this DLC are laughably bad. You have to go and manually buy raw materials from other blacksmiths...

A shame really because the main game was done so well and this DLC is a 2/10 in comparison. I'm gonna wait and see for future DLCs before I buy them, because if the next DLC is the same quality I just won't buy it.

I would recommend waiting for a sale.

Sad to see the decline of the MOW franchise and it's spiritual successors. Hopefully the quick buck was worth destroying the loyal and dedicated playerbase MOW used to have just to meet corporate deadlines.

Can be a fun game but my god it runs so bad. It already ran like booty before but ever since the last update I literally can't play the game without it freezing/crashing every 10 seconds and sometimes it hard freezes my entire PC.

Do not buy this until they fix this garbage.

Leaving negative until they fix the problems introduced with UE5 (which was rushed out to meet deadlines) and show that they can actually change.

If you buy this game you will probably have fun but once the honeymoon phase ends you will not want to play it.

Tyrion quest battle is still bugged

Now I'm not sure what the reason is, whether it is lack of funding/resources (most likely reason), incompetency or just greed, whether the publisher of developer is to blame, but I cannot recommend the game in its current state. This does pain me to say this though as I do want to see more of these games and believe is has a ton of potential, but clearly this game was not in the oven long enough and Gordon Ramsey would say "IT'S RAW!!!".

Currently the game is absolutely riddled with not just small bugs, but literally save ruining/game breaking bugs. It was clear either not enough resources were dedicated to the game or bug testing was non existent, because of how many features simply don't work at all or properly. Also many features seem not very fleshed out.

Shame. My theory on why these games come out so bad is: corporate gives little resources/time --> rushed buggy game --> bad sales --> corporate sees game failing, sees less gain and gives less resources/time --> repeat.

I'll be honest the game still has quite a few issues. But, the game has been receiving updates constantly which gives me hope is could be an amazing game and is why I am leaving a positive review (the game initially released very poorly, with tons of bugs, little content and no sense of direction). This game has a unique gameplay aspect to it which has a lot of potential. THIS IS NOT AN RTS! It instead focuses on logistics, recon, preparation, popularity with the locals, etc. There is very little you do to impact engagements once they have started.

Despite the unique gaming experience this provides, it isn't without its flaws. Firstly, there are some bugs. I will encounter them once in a while, but haven't experienced any major game-breaking ones (although other people have reported to). Secondly, some design decisions seem to make little sense; like why does a MATV have more armor AND health than a M2A3 Bradley? Unit costs seem quite unbalanced as well. Getting random "you killed civilians" messages still appear after air striking an area where no civilians are nearby is annoying too. The extreme loss of currency from unit deaths/critical wounds makes it hard to buy units - which in turn means you buy less units - which in turn means you lose more units from not having that pressure/firepower.; see a problem there? You can very quickly lose a campaign (although I'm not saying you shouldn't be penalized), with little chance of recovery if you messed up.

I would say if you have a remote interest in the game, get on sale. Probably wouldn't pay full for it in the current state but it wouldn't be a terrible buy at full price tbh. Despite its problems I still give it a positive review due to the fact that the devs seem to still be updating it. If the updates stop though, I unfortunately will have to change it to negative.

Gross greedy company. Three categories of this review:

Gameplay:
-The game is actually quite fun. There are some balance imperfections here the there, but for the most part the game is balanced. Some mechanics are wonky and need removed/reworked though. This isn't the reason for the bad review and is actually a positive note, but the other 2 categories just simply overshadow this.

Economy:
Here is where things go downhill (just like the economy and my SL account). The game is grindy. Grind is fine if it is not too bad and feels rewarding. Unfortunately, War Thunder is not this kind of grind anymore. The sheer amount of time you have to invest to progress is absolutely insane (I'm talking months on a single research tree if you play consistently the entire time). I do think Gaijin is out of touch with just how grindy their game is, as a bit back they stated that a research tree will take ~2 weeks to complete. Idk what game they're playing but with premium (paid faster progression) and literally playing the game non-stop you cannot get through a tree in 2 weeks. I have 550 hours in this game and I'm only halfway through 2 trees (keep in mind the grind gets exponentially bigger the further in the tree you are) and this is with some premium thrown in there. Research isn't the only problem. Silver lions (the currency) are scaled horribly. You simply cannot maintain vehicles, ammo and buy new vehicles when you research them with the current economy. Heck, in higher tiers you have to do exceptionally well just to break even.
-You may notice a lot of reviews regarding the economy are recent though. This is because of years of constant economy nerfs and shadow changes were just too much for people. If you play this game, you might notice that with low tier vehicles (starting vehicles) there is grind but it is bearable. But you will soon realize that the grind only gets WAY worse. (Promise me, it is NOT worth your time. If I could take back the time I have invested in this game I would in a heartbeat). This game is not free-to-play, it is pay-to-play and then pay some more.

Gaijin Themselves:
-As stated in the beginning, very greedy company. Tbh this is the worst category and the real reason I wrote this review. Overpriced content some of which is locked behind a paywall (really the entire game is a paywall). Gaijin rarely listens to their player base, constantly states that we don't know what we want and borderline calls us dumbasses.
-With the recent review bombings their reaction says everything you need to know about them. They plea for people to stop review bombing, stating is will hurt the game in the long run. The ironic this is, anytime players have plead with morals, It has been swiftly cut down. They censor any negative criticism (not even necessarily hateful) about the game in their own forums and only approve of what they want to see. Hence why they are asking people to stop review bombing on steam - so they can remove them on the forums :P. They even removed the steam link from their website. Really shows you how moral they are.

In the end, the goal of this review is to make Gaijin lose money, as that is how you speak to companies. It will either force Gaijin to adapt or die. I do not wish any ill will on anyone, and my goal is not to inflict collateral to the employees, content creators or anyone else that relies on Gaijin products. Ultimately upper management is always responsible for this kind of stuff.

I got this for $2. It isn't even worth that it's such a pile of hot garbage.

For context, this DLC was a mod. The publisher/developer (probably publisher) decided to steal it and make it a DLC. Except somehow, it is worse than the mod.

Honestly such a great game. I haven't played it in a while so I'm not sure how active the servers are but when this game was alive, man was it fun. The devs nailed the "strategy meets shooter" aspect very well. Combined with that fact that they are STILL pumping out free updates (especially in the current setting where nearly every company monetizes every update as a DLC), really shows their dedication. Not sure if NS3 will be a thing or not, but if it is I have faith that the devs will deliver.