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ACIV: Black Flag @ FanExpo Canada Aug 22-25 (Toronto)

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Leo K's picture
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As many of you know, I live in Toronto, Canada.
On August 22nd - 25th (a few days, really) Ubisoft is bringing an audience-playable demo to FanExpo.
Tickets are relatively cheap (for Assassin's Creed, ANYTHING) so I plan to go and play their available build.

If I'm actually able to go, (other obligations MAY interfere) then I'll bring you guys as much journalism as I can with regards to how the game feels, differences I notice, etc. Generally, it's much easier to tell these things through playing rather than just watching. I'll be sure to use as many different tools as they give me, and in the interest of taking mental notes, line up more than once if I have to. >:)

I hope I'll be able to take advantage of this opportunity.
It's still not totally certain that this will happen for me, but if you guys have anything you want me to look out for, post all of it in this thread and I'll write it all down/keep it in mind for when the time comes.

http://www.fanexpocanada.com/2013/forms/2013-GAMING-SCHEDULE.pdf

http://puu.sh/43djN.jpg

EDIT: If it's an all-day event, which is likely, then I'll just go immediately after school (don't ask, I'm not a bad student, the TDSB just messed up badly when it came to me). There should be no problem there, which puts this happening as MORE than likely.

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That's great!

Would you mind posting your impressions of the demo in this thread if you go? You might find some super secrets, and I wanna stay on only the promotional material from not till launch : )

the posts a bit guy

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Sure thing! I'll mark anything that MAY be a Spoiler with a Spoiler Tag, and describe the nature of the spoiler before it (so if people still want to see it, they can).

Things like "Gameplay Spoiler" "Story Spoiler" "Possible Story Spoiler" etc.

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Another reason why I want to move to Canada.

PSN: JoeyFogey

Steam: JoeyFogey

Instagram: thatsketchyhero

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Urgh. This isn't the 1st time I'm ashamed of living in America...

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gerund
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If you get a chance to talk to Charles Lee, ask him: "What... is your name?" If he laughs and says: "Charles Lee, why do you ask?", then he passed the test.
Then say "So I can find you."

"...and if I had no self-awareness, I think I'd know."

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They'll be sorry they let DAZ play when during his 5 minute turn at the controls he finds an exploit to break out of the demo sandbox and delivers an Early Death to Edward's archenemy.

You won't even feel the blade.

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I hope he's good at dodging PR tackles!

the posts a bit guy

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I'll do my best!
Hopefully I'll be able to get a picture or two with Charles Lee and Aveline (and post them here, of course) as well as a few pics of myself. Don't think anyone here has actually seen me. My brother recently got me an AC shirt and a generic hoodie, but they fit pretty well together.

Because it looks like a modified version of the AC3 engine (they are still using AnvilNext) there may be certain similar exploits available ;]

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Remember, they're likely recording your gameplay as playtest data, so if you did manage to do anything significant there's a chance of it being harder to do in future AC games : P

the posts a bit guy

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DarkAlphabetZoup wrote:
Don't think anyone here has actually seen me.

So you don't remember posting a picture of yourself which led to Lisa calling you a cutie-pie?
http://www.thehiddenblade.com/rant-thread?page=4#comment-22950

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DarkAlphabetZoup wrote:
Don't think anyone here has actually seen me.

DAZ is basically Corey May, guys. DAZ wrote AC.

PSN: JoeyFogey

Steam: JoeyFogey

Instagram: thatsketchyhero

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JoeyFogey wrote:
DarkAlphabetZoup wrote:
Don't think anyone here has actually seen me.

DAZ is basically Corey May, guys. DAZ wrote AC.

I don't get it, we've seen Corey:

the posts a bit guy

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The resemblance still frightens me, to this day. I happen to love writing, and I happen to love Assassin's Creed, and this guy that happens to look like me happened to write my favorite game series of all time.

*dumb person voice*
"D'uh, Corey May is my ancestor.."

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I went to, and returned from FanExpo today. I played the ACIV: BF Demo they had running, got my free inflatable Edward sword and took pictures of a few Assassins cosplaying.

I found out no Story information beyond what was shown at the Gamescom demo, and the Gameplay Demo was the same one. However, I tried to think outside the box as much as I could. The demo wasn't on a timer, it simply finished when I completed the mission.

Ubisoft told me that the mission as it was exactly seen was not in the full game, but the Fort I conquered and the Objectives I received WOULD be (just attached to different locations etc.)

PlayStation 4 Impressions/Feelings

Spoiler: Highlight to view
First I'd like to say that I played this on a PS4 and it was not only beautiful to look at, it was incredibly fluid gameplay and animation wise. More fluidity than I've seen from any previous title on both 360 or PS3. They had no Xbox One build, else I would have tried that one too. Both versions seem to be incredibly smooth and wield framerates far surpassing the "Playbox 3/60" if you know what-ah-mean.

The triggers felt amazing with a wonderful amount of tension and resistance when pressed, very unlike the 360 and PS3. They weren't difficult to press or anything, but the tension was great. The shoulder buttons were also appropriately badass.

I didn't try the touch pad. I didn't swipe or click it.
The sticks felt much better than the PS3's, while still being in the position that I'm used to - and many PS3 fans will rejoice at our stick placement not changing.

The DPad and Buttons were largely the same.

The controller felt more comfortable than the PS3 and 360 controllers.
Overall Improvement from Previous Gen.

NOW! THE IMPORTANT PART! Laughing out loud
Gameplay Impressions Below;

Spoiler: Highlight to view

First: What I Didn't Get To Find Out/Play
- Edward Stealth
- - There was nothing about Stealth in this demo

- City Free Roam
- - It was a single, contained mission, I didn't want to risk being caught if I Out Of Bounds'ed ;]

- Jackdaw Stealth
- - The mission I played forced me into conflict with a Fort almost immediately. There was simply no chance to experiment with mechanics.

- Heavy Shot
- - Heavy Shot didn't seem to be a selectable Weapon Type for me

- The Pause Menu.
- - Pressing Option on the PS4 controller just brought me to a blue screen (I will talk more about the significance of this blue screen later) with lots of oceany graphics and sea-y, watery colors. It just said "Animus Pause Menu. Use L2 R2 L1 R1 to restart Mission."

Second: What I Did Try/Impressions

Ship Combat
Ship Combat is much faster than in Assassin's Creed III. It's a little complicated at first, but without a tutorial and with just a quick explanation from the Ubisoft representative, I was able to get the hang of it in about seven seconds.

What makes it complex is that there are at least four different attack types and you will only ever shoot in whatever direction Edward is looking in. If your camera is looking to the side of your ship, side cannons will fire. They are your primary damage dealers. If you're looking to the front of your ship, Chain Shots will fire. These slow and immobilize ships, allowing you to gain better Positioning on them. Ashraf is aware of how important Positioning is in Assassin's Creed and not only has he improved it for Combat (will get into it later) but for Ship Combat as well.

If you look out the back of the ship, you can toss out Explosive Barrels that you can then shoot using Swivels.

As for Swivels, they are much quicker to reload. You can shoot them pretty much indefinitely, as many times as you want, as quickly as you want. By holding Triangle/Y, you will fire Swivels in whatever direction you're looking at. Holding the button down moves the Swivels over a Red Target. When the Targeting Reticle and the Target line up, releasing will fire a (very satisfying) swivel shot that lands properly.

Swivels feel fun to use and there are a lot of Swivel Targets to exploit. You can open up additional Swivel Targets by using Mortars or shooting armored parts of Ships/Buildings/Forts using your Main Cannons. Interplay between Swivels and Main Cannons is huge, it seems.

Holding L2/Left Trigger will initiate the Aiming Reticle. The Chain Shot and Main Cannons will be aimed using the Right Stick. Pressing R2/Right Trigger while this happens will Fire. Yes, they switched the Triggers on the PlayStation version to fit the Xbox version. This is not a big change, it's actually very comfortable - coming from a PS3 fan and longtime PS3 player. Mind you, the PS3 version will PROBABLY STILL BE THE SAME, and only the PS4 version will likely be "Xboxified" but it's great fun and works well. Even Freerunning Triggers are switched from Shoulder to Trigger but it's great, no worries there.

Mortars work by holding L1. L1 makes Edward use his Spyglass. It's usable at any time. I'm not sure if it's usable on land, but it might be.

Spyglass allows you to Scout things in the far distance. You can see how much of something a possible Location/Target contains, the risk of attacking said Target/Location (with a sort of 'Rank' thing that tells you how strong it is) and finally, you can rain hell on your enemies by tapping R2 while in Spyglass - if you align the Mortar Reticle over it.

Mortars are absolutely devastating. They're your ship's most powerful weapon, and the only drawback is that they take a long time to land and they're a little trickier to aim. Also they take forEVER to reload. FOREVER. Like it's painfully long. Thankfully, you don't need to use them, they're just an option, like pretty much everything else. You're free to even chip away Fort walls using Swivels all day if that's what floats your Jackdaw.

I found myself Mortaring two of the gun towers, strafing the fort with a Main Cannon > Swivel > Main Cannon > Swivel. That destroyed it in about 30 seconds not including the Mortar actions before. Everyone else playing kind of fumbled about with it and were generally not spectacular haha, but this Fort was really easy. This playable demo was not designed to wreck the players trying it out. I could feel that my health was artificially pumped up - something they told me would not be the case in the real game.

Ships that are destroyed in the demo just linger. They do not sink instantly. In fact, they didn't manage to sink the entire time I was playing. Peeking at the other screens (there were three others to the left and right of me) I saw that the other players were VERY behind.

So, I decided, why not? I'll go Board a ship. I didn't NEED to do it, and no one else did (I spent a lot of time afterward watching other players play it just for the lulz and to see their gameplay/reactions) but I felt like it.

So I went over to one of the defeated ships and I held Circle. However, I didn't know that I was actually really far from it. The game didn't care how far I was. It initated the Boarding anyway. Told me to "Kill 10 Crew Members."

So I just leaped into the water and swam over to the ship. Some of my crew did the same. However, this is something I did while the Fort was still up and attacking my Jackdaw.

This made me notice something; You have Two Healthbars!
If any one of them (Edward/Jackdaw) hits zero, you will Desynchronize!

I had to quickly do the boarding, and get out without losing either my life, or the Jackdaw's. Meanwhile, the Fort was assaulting my ship, while my crew members were fighting as usual on top of it. I saw Crew - 1 and Crew + 1 appear as members were thrown into the water by explosions and rescued by me (you can 'Loot' Crew Members by getting close and tapping the Loot button, they instantly appear back on board and you don't Lose that man.)

This is when I tried out...!
Foot Combat
Oh my god, this was shocking.
They er... They changed the combat haha.
It's a LOT slower. Like NOTICEABLY slower.
Button mashing in Brotherhood, Revelations and even III was perfectly fine. You can't do this anymore.

AC4 Combat felt like AC1 Flow + AC3 Killstreaks.
That may not make sense, but it will when you play it.
Edward is a killing machine if you use Pistols and just obliterate everyone, but you only have so many of those shots. Your attacks are slower, so tapping at the right times is very beneficial. Directing your streak toward lower Ranks and doing Guard Breaks on higher Ranks will allow you to continue it - exactly the same as AC3 in that regard.

Countering works the same way as in AC3. Tap the Counter button, slight Slow Mo, tap what you'd like Edward to do to them, and there you go. Again, not all enemies are Counterable with all Counters.

I fought exclusively with his Dual Hidden Blades, which he had at this point in the game. The fighting flow was slower, but it felt more satisfying and in my gleeful description to my friend I kept saying over and over again, "It was SLOWER, it was more THINKY!"

Also getting hit really hurts. I did say I had padded health, but these shots are hilariously painful. If I'd gotten hit three or four times more I think I would have died.

I loved this.

Eagle Vision is back, but I didn't get to try out the new Mark and Track system. I ended up appreciating the "Kill" text above a Red dot, because everyone looks mostly the same, and sometimes the enemies (especially in this demo) blended in with the environment. The flames obscured the color of the red dot because everything else was burning and red. The "Kill" text allowed me the clarity to chase down and Running Assassinate (one of the Full Synch requirements) the person I was supposed to get.

I collected a single Animus Fragment during my Demo experience. Again, I didn't have to do it, I just felt like it and no one came over to stop me. Nothing special happened, but I got the DAZ thrill of getting an AC collectable (and the hunger for 99 more of them).

I also tried Free Aim. Holding L2/LT on land aims Edward's Pistol with the Right Stick in the same vein as Over-The-Shoulder games. It felt very Uncharted-like and Resident Evil/Gears of War-y. It was smooth, had great Default sensitivity and I was able to land a headshot on a running Standard Guard.

I HOPE they don't change the things I liked about this game, in the name of accessibility because anyone can get through them with enough practice and upgrades.

Edward's attack speed also gets upgraded later if you want it to be. A large part of replaying the game for me will be to get through the final sections without using any Edward upgrades. That the Jackdaw and Ed both have separate HP and can both be damaged at the same time REALLY surprised me and raised the tension to the MAX. That's gonna be epic, to see what kind of level design they can get out with that mechanic.

I ended up using the Boarded Ship's Loot to 'Repair the Jackdaw' but the Send to Fleet option was there too. The 'Recruit Crew' option was not selectable because the Jackdaw already had Maximum Crew at the time. The Jackdaw itself is very lively and has amazing 'idle' as well as 'active' animations. It teems with pirate life, people are always climbing something, climbing some kind of rope or rigging, chatting or turning, spinning and fastening stuff. They're never standing still.

Honestly, the most disappointing thing about this demo was that it was too short. I was very happy with my experience and I felt truly fortunate to receive such an opportunity.

The Demo alone felt better as an Assassin's Creed game than AC3's entire game did. Take that as you will. I didn't dislike AC3. I just love Black Flag and I will continue to love it til' the end if it turns out like this.

Thank you to The Hidden Blade for checking out my experiences as well. And here's hoping we come to some kind of agreement on what we want out of the game so Ubi can hopefully read this and say "Yes, this is what they want! Let's keep going strong!"

Oh yeah.
And I saw the Animus Ocean Floor.
Similar to the Black Room and White Room from previous games, it's the loading room where Edward can sprint around endlessly. It's an underwater, but with digital bubbles and techno-water effects environment. It looks and feels incredibly cool. You feel like even his regular sprinting animations are a little swallowed up by the water he's engulfed by. It's amazing. I'm excited.

I also ended up buying Assassin's Creed: Subject 4 (The Fall + The Chain in one book, UbiWorkShop Employee said that it wasn't sold online.)

I ALSO got the Assassin's Creed Timeline, which they gave me for 5 dollars when it's normally 30. I'm happy. I also got an AC4 button for my backpack. I will post photos and video of me playing the game soon - as well as being held hostage by a Ratonhaketon/Connor cosplayer. His gun was against my head and it was awesome.

SHOUTOUTS TO MY FRIEND DANIEL "NATTYDREDLOCKS" STERLING for getting me into FanExpo and spotting me some cash with which to buy my Assassin's Creed stuff. You're absolutely epic and the first guy that borrows this game after I 100% it in a week! Laughing out loud

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Oooooh, thanks so much DAZ! Very interesting read. Laughing out loud

"Now you shall get an earful of my beloved sword! Behold, Pillow Talk! Let's rock, baby!"

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Thanks indeed! Lots of good info!

DarkAlphabetZoup wrote:
I ended up appreciating the "Kill" text above a Red dot, because everyone looks mostly the same, and sometimes the enemies (especially in this demo) blended in with the environment. The flames obscured the color of the red dot because everything else was burning and red. The "Kill" text allowed me the clarity to chase down and Running Assassinate (one of the Full Synch requirements) the person I was supposed to get.

Okay, that kind of explains why they added that. I wasn't really into this, but I get it now.

"...and if I had no self-awareness, I think I'd know."

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Me before FanExpo. As you can tell, I went there for a very specific purpose Tongue

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DarkAlphabetZoup wrote:
As you can tell, I went there for a very specific purpose Tongue

Yes, you impersonated Corey May. Admit it!

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aurllcooljay wrote:
DarkAlphabetZoup wrote:
As you can tell, I went there for a very specific purpose Tongue

Yes, you impersonated Corey May. Admit it!

Oh my god >.< hahaha!

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Captain Darby, if you're still reading this thread, make an account to at least say hi, dammit! We have enough stalkers as it is!

PSN: JoeyFogey

Steam: JoeyFogey

Instagram: thatsketchyhero

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Who's to say that I'm not Darby?

the posts a bit guy

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Darby would have known that Connor didn't have a spyglass tool.

lololol

I kid.

“Force has no place where there is need of skill." Herodotus

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Connor did have a spyglass. But he only used it in cutscenes.


I find over the course of our human existence, One thing consists of consistence, And it's that we're all battling fear
- from "Car Radio," by twenty | one | pilots
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Well actually the devs had planned to have the spyglass in AC3. That's why they told us about it. It just got cut. So there's already precedent for people on the team telling us that a spyglass was in.

the posts a bit guy