Pretty poor feedback from our Members.

The are a number of =SWF= Members playing 'The Division.'

You should be assisting those who are interested and have not yet made the plunge.

I played it all weekend and I am enjoying it. I want to thank scriv for posting the crafting guide. I passed that on to folks no one knew lol.

I am enjoying exploring and building up my base. I suggest doing encounters and such. I like this better than Destiny.

I like on missions you can join random players or find a group to join in the safe houses. Build up the security wing and unlock Dark Zone ops.

Make sure you do the daily mission easy way to get Phoenix credits and high end gear FYI.

I have sincerely enjoyed the quest to level 30. I'm almost there... just 2 more levels. I have some thoughts...

The game is an RPG, that you need to remember first and foremost. A headshot will not immediately kill your opponent. It does do extra damage, but just don't get into the game thinking it's like any other shooter. It's not.

I really enjoy the tactics involved in taking down some of the more difficult enemies or doing some of the harder missions. Sometimes you can get away with running and gunning, but most of the time you'll be hunkered down behind some low wall or around some corner, trying to figure out how to deal more damage than you take. You have to time your abilities, you have to think about when to move and when to back off and get a better position. You have to think about which weapon is going to be the best for the situation you're in, and you have to do it all in real-time.

Finding gear is fun. I'd say not quite as much fun as in DayZ, because really you're just trying to find better stats rather than making an outfit and playing a role. But it is still fun to roam around in the hopes that you'll find a named enemy and he'll drop that awesome new weapon you've been searching for.

The Dark Zone feels like it is actually really dangerous, especially if you're running around in there alone. You've gotta constantly watch your back, even when you're engaging enemies in front of you and you didn't see any behind you when you got there. Enemies can spawn quite often and in unpredictable locations, and the different factions of enemies can be found battling it out between each other all the time. And then there's the other players... just like in DayZ, you can't really trust anyone. For the most part, most people don't go rogue, simply because of the penalties (you'll be visible to everyone nearby for a certain amount of time, and anyone can shoot you without going rogue themselves), but you do get some. Either way, if you're alone, the tension that comes from seeing another player nearby when you're carrying multiple high-end items that you're waiting to extract can be nerve-wracking.

The only things I don't really like about the game are just small things, like if you leave a party you're immediately transported to the nearest safe-house, even if you're just roaming through the world (I don't know for sure if this happens in the Dark Zone - I doubt it). Or the fact that there doesn't appear to be an overall armor value on your inventory screen. And just a couple gameplay things that I can't think of at the moment.

I'd say the graphics look great, and it's really easy to get sucked in to the environment (especially if you've never been to New York), and get totally immersed in the game. The game itself seems to run great now that they've gotten most of the connection issues resolved. I've had very few issues with rubber-banding or glitching in any way due to connection or server issues. The load times are a bit long for me, but that could just be my CPU (I'm still using an i5).

Overall, I think I'll be playing this game fairly exclusively for quite a while. I've even bought the season pass (which came down in price I think... I could be mistaken... from $50 to $40), and I can't wait to try some of the cool new content they have planned. I'm also hoping that they make the weather change from winter to spring when the first set of new content hits. That would be awesome if the seasons changed.

Anyway, that's my long-winded and not very well thought out review. Does that suffice, Scriv? :P

Damn Good. Some content. Oh hell yes!!!

This is an excellent addition to our forum.

New DLC patch out today FYI.

Survival DLC released last week. Spartan and I have been playing it a lot. This DLC makes The Division a little harder. It's hectic and fun!!!

The Division’s new Survival mode is surprisingly good
PC Gamer
29 NOV 2016
by Andy Kelly

Survival is The Division’s second expansion, adding a new mode that dramatically changes how you play the game. As an apocalyptic blizzard batters New York, you find yourself stranded at the edge of the map with a basic pistol, green-level equipment, and an infection that’ll slowly kill you if you don’t keep it under control with medicine and painkillers. Your mission is to reach the Dark Zone, locate a potential cure for the Green Poison, and extract it (and yourself) by helicopter. Which would be easy if it wasn’t for the bitter cold, roaming gangs of powerful enemies, and other players who won’t think twice about killing you and stealing your beanie.

In the main game, clothes don’t matter. Play it for a few hours and you’ll have so many vaguely similar-looking shirts and hats that you’ll stop caring about finding new ones. But one of my favourite features in Survival is how each piece of clothing now has a warmth rating, and dressing appropriately is key to surviving the merciless cold outside. It creates a meaningful system out of playing dress-up with your character, and suddenly finding a new trapper hat is something to celebrate, because it might raise your temperature by a few precious degrees. You can craft clothes at safehouses scattered around the map or loot them from fallen enemies and containers.

But clothes only reduce the effects of the cold. To avoid freezing to death you have to keep an eye out for apartments, shops, and other buildings to escape into. Entering raises your temperature, offering some respite from the blizzard, but they can be hard to spot through the snow. You can also cower next to burning barrels to increase your temperature, but this is only a temporary solution. I love how different the weather makes the world feel. The howling wind, cars piled with snow, and distant lights shining through the white-out make for an incredibly atmospheric remix of the city. You can almost feel the cold biting at your face as you trudge through the storm.

Another thing I like about Survival is how it levels the playing field. All 24 players begin with the same meagre supplies and basic gear, which means you don’t have to worry about being repeatedly murdered by some jerk who has a better gun or a few levels over you. You don’t even get to bring your abilities into Survival either: they have to be crafted from looted materials. And there’s no mini-map, which encourages careful and thorough exploration of your surroundings. It does a much better job in general of making New York feel like a dangerous, desperate place where supplies are precious than the main game, which never really feels that hazardous. It’s a genuine struggle for survival, and you will die many, many times as you get to grips with it.

When you die you’re given a score based on how long you lasted, how many supplies you found, how many items you crafted, how many enemies you killed, and so on. And even if you didn’t make it to the Dark Zone and extract the antivirals, which can be extremely difficult, you’ll still get rewards for your troubles. I don’t normally have much patience for permadeath games, but whenever I died in Survival I felt the urge to immediately try again to see if I could get just a little further into the Dark Zone. Playing with friends is a much more effective way of completing the mission, especially when facing bullet-sponge elite enemies, but it’s perfectly enjoyable solo.

There are too many survival games on PC, and when I heard Ubisoft was adding a survival mode to The Division I felt no urge to play it. But I’m glad I gave it a shot, because it’s surprisingly excellent. The cynic in me expected a lazy attempt to cash in on a popular genre, however it’s clear a lot of work has gone into making Survival a legitimate, worthwhile game mode. And while New York in the main game is little more than an elaborate, albeit extremely pretty, movie set to have gunfights in, Survival integrates the apocalyptic setting and wintry weather into the game’s systems in an exciting, integral way. I used to enjoy running around the streets and taking in the sights, but in Survival I feel a sense of unease and dread around every snow-choked corner.

Source: The Division: Survival DLC