Just some initial ramblings off the top of my head. Anyone else playing it? Thoughts?

Yeah, thanks for the write up! I actually came here tonight to make a post asking for impressions. I played the beta for all of about thirty minutes before I got so bored I turned it off and deleted it, which seemed to be the same thing that happened to you from what you said on the RUL podcast (I was beginning to wonder if we were going to get one at all anytime soon! I'm glad it's back!).

So far, I'd say the combat in the Division is passable at best. Sloppy shooting mechanics, boring weapons, bullet-sponge enemies. I played a couple missions solo and was this close to putting the game down for good.

That about sums up my entire (very limited experience) with the game. I was looking for impressions, because even with my initial disinterest from the beta, it still seems like an interesting game, and I find the Dark Zone really intriguing. But I just can't get past how boring and mediocre the moment-to-moment gameplay is. I've said it before here, so I feel like I'm beating a dead horse, but from everything I've seen, this game just isn't for me. That's okay--I'm ultimately better off not adding another huge game to the list of things I need to play, especially one that seems like it'll be following in Destiny's footsteps of trying to get me to play as much as possible. It's just disappointing, because I had high hopes for it. Maybe it's not fair of me to not give it a real shot, but I guess that's just how it is. I've missed out on plenty of great games in the past, so what's one more?

For now, I'll be in Stardew Valley building a farm.

So far, I'd say the combat in the Division is passable at best. Sloppy shooting mechanics, boring weapons, bullet-sponge enemies.

Regarding the weapons: I haven't played the game myself, but I have heard several people say the weapons get better down the line. How or to what degree, I don't know.

I caved and bought the Division yesterday. Thanks to a perfect storm of events (late evening nap + sick daughter who wouldn't sleep for more than 20 minutes at a time) I ended up playing the game from about 1am-5am, so I'm starting to get a feel for how it all works. Some initial thoughts jump out to me (mix of positive and negative):

I hope your daughter gets to feeling better!!

* No story is better than a really bad story

Destiny has taken plenty of knocks for its lack of story or character development, and rightfully so. While the Division clearly makes an effort to establish characters with motive and personality, and have you develop a relationship with them, I've already found myself wishing the game had a Destiny-like void in that department. The writing in the Division is that bad. I'm talking worst of the worst, overblown dialog that flipflops between painfully cliche and utter nonsense. Making things worse is the fact that the player character never says a word, never reacts to anything these idiots are rambling on about. I've already begun skipping cutscenes because what little info they communicate about the plot just isn't worth sitting through the horrible dialog and voice acting.

The Story does suck. "There is a virus, people die, you are secret division man going into new york" is about all the backstory you get. The intels/collectibles offer alot of insight as to what is actually going on and the Echoes are a pretty cool feature to learn about smaller events that happened. I came to a food truck in the street that had an echo. There was food and dead people all around. After playing the echo and hearing the voices and seeing the gangs come and attack, pretty cool IMO. Plus it kind of has a sandlike reaction when you walk through them =]

* This game NEEDS to be played with other people, which they make easy to do

Missions start and end seamlessly; the squad is never broken up or warped to different parts of the map. Missions end in such a way that you just leave the area and are back into the main patrol spaces.
Overall, I found it to be a smoother and more well thought out co-op experience than Destiny. You can matchmake to do any activity you like, then leave the group or keep playing with them without ever "bouncing back to orbit" or any similar breaks in gameplay.

THIS! SO MUCH. I love how you integrated New York is. You fight through relatively long ( at least on hard) missions up into buildings and down into subways, but once you are done you are free to explore. Some of your Shorter missions force you to walk out the way you came in. The longer missions usually have a shortcut back to the streets to get you back into the fight without loading screens or mission selection.

While the shooting Mechanics are sloppy, the story lacking, I cant stop playing it. I am a very big Tom Clancy fan. The last game I got was Splinter Cell Blacklist. I watching some of the Rainbox Six Siege and was not too impressed (Rainbow six was probably my least favorite of the Clancy Games).

Mechanics:

The game overall feels smooth, which was not how I remember during my short beta time. The shooting is choppy, and do not allow for landing every bullet. I found myself using Assault rifles up until late last night. I picked up a Military Scar-H, which is a 20 round semi-auto rifle. I put a rifle scope on it and took to the streets. I immediately fell in love again. Consistently landed all of my shots. I never tried one before because of the DMG rating on it was always lower than my current auto rifle. HOWEVER, if you actually look at the stats, the DPS doesnt necessarily mean stronger. My auto rifle had a damage of 438 per shot, while the Scar was 1000(don't hold me to the numbers). Try all the guns and see what you like.

The ability to Mod/craft weapons and gear is nice.

User Interface- AMAZING. At first I was annoyed by all of the indicators that tell you where you can take cover. After looking through the options, you can actually turn that off, and turn off the settings that allow the UI to move erratically. After doing that my game experience got a lot better. The world map is also great. It loads instantly, is simple yet effective, and the waypoint markers are clear and positioned so that they are easy to find but never in the way.

Gear- I feel alot less attached to my gear than Destiny. The armor relatively looks all the same, but the subtle changes are nice. The appearance gear (jacket, shirt, scarf) are all I really care about because they stand out. As far as weapons, I just look at the stats and roll with it. This can be good and bad.

TL:DR I am loving the Division. I found a couple guys I have played with every night since tuesday and we have alot of fun. I do not feel rushed when playing the game. Most games i just find myself sprinting to the objective skipping all the side stuff/collectibles. In this game, I do not feel rushed. Its like a nice walk in Central Park, with guns. and Cleaners with flamethrowers..

I just woke up. This is what I am thinking.

Why is the Division so not fun, when other demonstrably unfun games like Firewatch or Life Is Strange get a pass from us?

Why are TV antennas so expensive?

Why are duplicated keys so cheap?

How the hell did I lose my cane? I almost died yesterday walking without it.

I think socks are good.

Pretty much just okay though. Things Destiny executed poorly are done better, but the moment-to-moment movement and gunplay is arse.

Playing cooperatively with friends is funthough , the gear grind is only as bad as Destiny (albeit less interesting), character loadouts can be more varied which is nice though.

PvPvE in the Dark Zone is... Interesting. Still not sure how it's going to turn out, but PvPvE is generally bad for everyone except PvP players. Anyone in the middle or the PvE end of the spectrum is likely to have a bad time.

So yeah. It's okay. I think your enjoyment is likely to be influenced heavily by how many friends you have playing it, and how much you like the Dark Zone.

I have been looking forward to the Division, but I am currently playing through FarCry Primal (15 hrs, 36% completion). By the time I jump into the Division, i'll be like a kinderguardian.

FarCry Primal btw is pretty damn fun. I have never played a FarCry title, and the primitive weapon aspect really appealed to me. I know that they got a lot of hate for the small weapon pool, but i'm really enjoying it. The environments are gorgeous, and i could just spend hrs running around hunting down animals.

The only thing that i don't like is that they chose to create their own "primitive" language, and I am forced to read subtitles. I can read faster than they can talk, so i spend most of the cutscenes just sitting there waiting for the next subtitle to pop up. It was kinda cool at first, but is now annoying. Seems like it was a cop out to save $$ on voice acting. Every region has the same language, so they only had to change the subtitles.

I caved and bought the Division yesterday. Thanks to a perfect storm of events (late evening nap + sick daughter who wouldn't sleep for more than 20 minutes at a time) I ended up playing the game from about 1am-5am, so I'm starting to get a feel for how it all works. Some initial thoughts jump out to me (mix of positive and negative):

Hope she feels better!

* No story is better than a really bad story

Destiny has taken plenty of knocks for its lack of story or character development, and rightfully so. While the Division clearly makes an effort to establish characters with motive and personality, and have you develop a relationship with them, I've already found myself wishing the game had a Destiny-like void in that department. The writing in the Division is that bad. I'm talking worst of the worst, overblown dialog that flipflops between painfully cliche and utter nonsense. Making things worse is the fact that the player character never says a word, never reacts to anything these idiots are rambling on about. I've already begun skipping cutscenes because what little info they communicate about the plot just isn't worth sitting through the horrible dialog and voice acting.

I strongly disagree with your assessment of the Division's story. The voice acting is actually very strong (even the detective from Arrow delivers some fun lines, and he normally just chews the scenery), and as you move deeper into the plot, it becomes engrossing. Yes, the initial set-up is thin, at best. No, you don't really care about the people you're thrown in with at the start. But then it gets better and better and better. Start collecting the cell phones and data drives. Watch the videos you unlock as you play. I found one that foreshadows some of the endgame enemies (I assume) and holy shit are they some scary mo-fos. Also found some CCTV footage of the "rioters chasing down a couple of civilians" that makes me want to kill them all on sight. The game as excellent atmosphere and does a very strong job of pulling you in, bit by bit. I've come to like these characters around me as I see them more and more. They have personality and depth. I don't know where the story is going right now, so I can't say that the plot has arc or not, but I can say that I'm getting more and more into it the more I play. I'm looking for the collectibles not because I want to get all the things but because I really want to find out what happened to these people!

And then there's the main character: you. This character needs to be voiced, and it's a crying shame that they didn't case some voice actors here. The silence is deafening from the main guy. It's a major oversight and is jarring every time someone talks to you. Huge missed opportunity there.

Anyway, don't skip the cutscenes, even if they seem stupid. If you never watch them, you aren't even giving the characters a chance to grow on you and you're limiting your own enjoyment of the game.

* This game NEEDS to be played with other people, which they make easy to do

So far, I'd say the combat in the Division is passable at best. Sloppy shooting mechanics, boring weapons, bullet-sponge enemies. I played a couple missions solo and was this close to putting the game down for good. Luckily, the game features easy-to-use matchmaking that you can use to put a squad together at any time. Playing with a group makes all the difference in the world, IMO. While the shooting isn't great, the environments are designed in a way that really supports squad coordination, flanking, and setting up cross-lanes of fire. Shooting the guns still doesn't feel good, but there is fun to be had in figuring out how to position everyone in your squad to effectively deal with the floods of bullet-sponge enemies.

Again, the Division features great matchmaking that you can use to join a group at any time, for any activity. From the mission select map, I hit the "matchmake" button and was paired up with another player looking to do the same mission I had selected. As we were running through the streets together towards the mission waypoint, a 3rd player was warped into our group, then a 4th. We played the mission together as a 4-man team, and after it was over the squad leader set a new waypoint on our map (for the next available story mission) and we just kept rolling together. We'd stop and do little side events as we came across them, then continue on to the next story mission. Missions start and end seamlessly; the squad is never broken up or warped to different parts of the map. Missions end in such a way that you just leave the area and are back into the main patrol spaces.
Overall, I found it to be a smoother and more well thought out co-op experience than Destiny. You can matchmake to do any activity you like, then leave the group or keep playing with them without ever "bouncing back to orbit" or any similar breaks in gameplay.

I like playing solo, but you're absolutely right that playing with a team is way more fun. Very different experiences. In a squad, you can play more aggressively, charge the enemy, flank them, explore areas more quickly, and really gang up on the bad guys. Solo, you have to play it slow, snipe from range, and use lots and lots of cover to stay alive and in the clear. Solo play feels sort of "resident evil" -esque to me whereas squad play is left 4 dead. Except the enemies are shooting you the whole time. Oh, and the AI for enemies is GREAT. The "rioters" are terrible at tactics and just kind of stand there and shoot at you, sometimes out in the open, sometimes behind cover. The cleaners move in a group and then spread out to form a line while melee guys charge you, but damn, the military guys (I've only seen them once and they were much higher level than me so I tried to run) flanked cover to cover, laid down suppressing fire, and used angles to get better shots. They also double-tapped me once I was downed to prevent a revive, which none of the other guys had done. All three factions (okay, I'm assuming this about the military guys) improve their AI when a commander unit is on the map (they have a star next to their name and are usually yellow health bar guys). You can actually hear the commanders yelling orders like "throw a grenade" or "lay down suppressing fire!" It's awesome. Take that guy out and the enemy AI becomes disorganized again. SO. GOOD.

One nitpick: I hate that I have to fully reload the game map when I initially join my buddy's team. It's the exact same map. We're standing in basically the same place on that map. I get that I am changing servers, but come on... the whole world has to be reloaded? It's only weird because there are virtually no other loads in the entire rest of the game. Once you're in, that's it... seamless gameplay until you quit. Or join a group.

* This game is an impressive example of big-team production

While I generally find Ubisoft games a bit hit and miss, the one thing they consistently do very well is present an impressive package. Even if I don't end up enjoying the game, I love booting up a new Ubisoft title just to see hundreds of thousands of man-hours and millions of dollars up on screen all at the same time. The Division is no exception. The amount of detail in the world, weather effects, animations, sound design... it's all a bit staggering. It doesn't capture my imagination the way something like Destiny does, but there is still lots of artistry to the way New York has been realized and put together. It makes me wish that the story was better... the setting does a good job of making me feel a bit melancholy. I really do feel like I'm walking around a torn-apart New York. If the rest of the narrative weren't so ham-fisted, it would be a very powerful experience.

Yeah, it's a spectacle to be sure. And it's full of details I didn't expect. Not only are lots of the buildings accurate to actual NYC, but when it snows things frost over, the lighting is gorgeous, there are lots and lots of fun chatter lines from NPCs, and the game world is constantly generating random encounters as you roam the streets.

Just some initial ramblings off the top of my head. Anyone else playing it? Thoughts?

A final note about the guns: They feel great to me. I absolutely love the marksman guns (SCAR-H feels like a true DMR, whereas the M1 feels like a semi-auto sniper and the - I forget the name, 5 round bolt-action gun - feels like a proper sniper rifle), and the differences between ARs, LMGs, and SMGs are becoming more pronounced the higher level I get (currently level 10). initially every gun was basically the same gun, but now the guns I get have more extreme feels. I'm really excited to see how different everything feels in the endgame, but I'm also super enjoying the development process of getting there. Because you can custom mod every gun (and remove and save those mods for later), the game has none of the loot hoardiness that Destiny has. I don't need to save X gun in case of a future buff or because I'm not sure if I like the perks on it better or not. I just swap to it, swap my mods, and see if I like it. Same with active skills. It's so easy to swap and check that it's not a big deal at all. I really feel empowered to experiment, which is a pretty opposite feeling to how Destiny seems to me, where I feel like I'm punished if I'm not running the optimal thing all the time (this may change in Division endgame, so stay tuned).

Also, the enemies stop feeling bullet spongey if you play at or below your level and play solo. Almost every enemy I face who is at my level (actually the level of my gun), he dies to a single sniper shot to the head (2 shots if it's an armored purple health bar guy or maybe 3 for an armored yellow bar guy).

While I generally think the UI is glorious, there are a few oddities that I don't understand: Weapons show DPS as a primary value in list view, but in side by side comparison that value isn't shown. Also, the DPS value increases dramatically when you add improved accuracy mods to your guns, but not stability mods, which seems odd. I imagine it's not a true number but just an estimate, which further makes it odd that this is the primary metric in list view. I guess they needed to use something. It's also weird that only one person can use a resupply box at a time and creates an unnecessary bottleneck in missions where there's no reason for one. I heard they fixed that for the starting laptop people were complaining about, so maybe they fixed it for resupply crates too? I'll have to check.

Speaking of which: Players complained about a thing and Massive fixed it within 48 hours of the game's launch. I'm VERY excited to see that level of response time. They're not just listening, they're actually implementing changes to solve problems. Unlike a certain space-magic based FPS where Thorn still dominates the competitive meta... but I digress. It's honestly WAY too early to make these comparisons. Gotta wait until I see how the endgame shapes up and see what long term stuff Massive does in terms of balance and patching. Destiny had a bunch of patches in the first weeks, too, iirc. It's just so hard not to compare the experiences.

Lastly, from a purely game design standpoint, I LOVE how Massive has set up the character skill progression within the game. You really have nearly total agency when it comes to the order you unlock skills in and how you spec your guy out. It's really smartly done and is giving everyone a very different experience of leveling up. Good stuff!