Good series ruined by the biz

[shrekfan246]

But, why not just make the use of auto-level up optional? It gives those who are not experienced with the game help so as not to permanently screw the themselves over, and gives people like me the options they want in character development. Best of both worlds with the downsides of neither. Hell, dozens of other games in the same genre have included such a thing, why not Diablo 3?

Well, neither do I. I just think it is a terrible idea, and makes the game worse than it could have been.

Agreed on both accounts. I may have just been lashing out a bit because I always get sick and tired of seeing people say that something is "ruined forever" because of some small change. You know what would ruin Diablo forever? Turning it into a rhythm-based dance game, where your movements control how your character does in combat. Mandatory auto-level is just a poor design decision.

 

[Guffe]

The ones I've tried Mario Party 4,5,6,7,8... The first one I enjoyed the crap out of (4 that is not the first one of them all) while 5 and 6 were utter ballsweat and 7 was pretty fun but turned of the console at 8 after 45 min.

 

[42]

I'm amazed at the presumptuous nature that a game that hasn't even been released yet has been dumbed down for the console tards. Diablo III hasn't even come out yet, can you just wait a bit before you start making criticisms?

 

[BreakfastMan]

I'm amazed at the presumptuous nature that a game that hasn't even been released yet has been dumbed down for the console tards. Diablo III hasn't even come out yet, can you just wait a bit before you start making criticisms?

Well, there was that beta last weekend that allowed people to play the first bits of the game, as any class they wanted to, up to level 13. That is where I presume most of the criticisms come from (I know it is where I got mine).

 

[lacktheknack]

EA hate is off the charts, captain!

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. Troika ran out of time and money and in the last quarter of the game, it shows, not to mention how many bugs the game shipped with.

Crap. I'm playing it right now and enjoying it thoroughly. I'm about one third in. How bad does it get? D:

 

[BreakfastMan]

EA hate is off the charts, captain!

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. Troika ran out of time and money and in the last quarter of the game, it shows, not to mention how many bugs the game shipped with.

Crap. I'm playing it right now and enjoying it thoroughly. I'm about one third in. How bad does it get? D:

Game breaking. Seriously. That game has about as many bugs as New Vegas. I do stuff I am not supposed to without breaking a sweat (like looking outside the environment).

 

[Thalios]

Well, the prior Diablo games had skill trees and allocation of attribute points. The game did not automatically allocate the attribute points for you, and did not choose which skills you got at each level. It really limits the options given to the player as to develop their character for no good reason. It is one of the most poorly thought out design choices I have ever encountered in a game.

Personally, I don't see the removal of the skill tree as a bad thing. Back in D2, you basically had to plan out exactly what kind of character you wanted to play, even before you started playing, if you wanted something that worked. It also meant that if you grew tired of throwing down Lightning Traps as an Assassin around lvl 60, the only way you could get around to doing something else was making an entirely new character.
In D3, you have all the options available to you as you level up. You don't -have- to use one specific set of abilities all the way through the game if you don't want to. This way, at least, you're less likely to get bored with your character, as you can change how you want to play it, whenever you want.
I suppose they could have made a skill tree and then just made it possible to respec it, but then again, if you could that, you may as well just make all abilities available like they currently are in D3.


Also, to all those people who keep saying that D3 has been dumbed down because you only have 2 active abilities (you actually have more, but only 2 you really spam), please think back to D2. How many abilities did you really use on your characters? You never really did use more than 1-3 abilities actively. The rest was either just boosts for your main abilities, or buffs.

 

[zeit]

@OP: Wow, you're about as stereotypical a 90's PC gamer as they come.

That said, I'm going to very, very cautiously throw Metal Gear on the stack. MGS4 was brilliant. Peace Walker is a good story, but gameplay is a mixed bag. And let's face it, Rising Reveangance is going to be removed from the canon so fast people won't even begin thinking of the implications on the saga overall.

That said, Kojima has said he is in the pre-production phase of a new game, which he has said will be the "shining moment" for teh series and his career. Honestly, I have faith in the dude, so we'll see what happens.

Metal Gear Solid 4 isn't a game, it's an interactive movie with an incomprehensible plot and a lot of horrendous dialogue.

 

[BreakfastMan]

Well, the prior Diablo games had skill trees and allocation of attribute points. The game did not automatically allocate the attribute points for you, and did not choose which skills you got at each level. It really limits the options given to the player as to develop their character for no good reason. It is one of the most poorly thought out design choices I have ever encountered in a game.

Personally, I don't see the removal of the skill tree as a bad thing. Back in D2, you basically had to plan out exactly what kind of character you wanted to play, even before you started playing, if you wanted something that worked. It also meant that if you grew tired of throwing down Lightning Traps as an Assassin around lvl 60, the only way you could get around to doing something else was making an entirely new character.

Now, I don't square with that idea. That seems to be more of a balancing issue than anything. Make all trees filled with abilities that are equally useful and fun to play, and no one will complain.

In D3, you have all the options available to you as you level up. You don't -have- to use one specific set of abilities all the way through the game if you don't want to. This way, at least, you're less likely to get bored with your character, as you can change how you want to play it, whenever you want.
I suppose they could have made a skill tree and then just made it possible to respec it, but then again, if you could that, you may as well just make all abilities available like they currently are in D3.

Or, you make it so that you can invest points in any tree. Tah-dah! Easy. You are no longer restricted to one set of abilities. Seriously, there are many ways they could have worked it out without forcing auto-level up on everyone.

 

[lacktheknack]

EA hate is off the charts, captain!

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. Troika ran out of time and money and in the last quarter of the game, it shows, not to mention how many bugs the game shipped with.

Crap. I'm playing it right now and enjoying it thoroughly. I'm about one third in. How bad does it get? D:

Game breaking. Seriously. That game has about as many bugs as New Vegas. I do stuff I am not supposed to without breaking a sweat (like looking outside the environment).

I got my mitts on a really advanced fan patch (7.4 or so), so I'm not worried about the glitches.

I'm worried about the "ran out of time and money in the last quarter" bit.

 

[dj Facchiano]

Haters gonna hate. Loved free space and the new fallout games. Also think EA has less of an impact on when video games suck then people seem to think.

 

[BreakfastMan]

EA hate is off the charts, captain!

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. Troika ran out of time and money and in the last quarter of the game, it shows, not to mention how many bugs the game shipped with.

Crap. I'm playing it right now and enjoying it thoroughly. I'm about one third in. How bad does it get? D:

Game breaking. Seriously. That game has about as many bugs as New Vegas. I do stuff I am not supposed to without breaking a sweat (like looking outside the environment).

I got my mitts on a really advanced fan patch (7.4 or so), so I'm not worried about the glitches.

I'm worried about the "ran out of time and money in the last quarter" bit.

I never really noticed it till the exact end.

Spoiler

Where the entire last level of the game is just combat with a bunch of goons and a really crappy boss fight. Good ending choice though.

So, I would not worry too much. Unless you are someone who gets angered at really crappy boss fights...

 

[TheVioletBandit]

The Prince of Persia games. Made me really sad, but I have moved on.

 

[Marsell]

prototype 2
Shit ending and shit new main character.

 

[Mr Pantomime]

Man, this is going to be one of THOSE threads

OT: Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. That was a great series, but Will Smith just became too big for it. Now all we get is I am Legend. Rest in peace, Prince.

 

[NoNameMcgee]

No one mentioning Splinter Cell? Conviction was a pretty average game on its own, which I could easily forgive, but as a game in the Splinter Cell series? It was pathetic. Completely departed from everything that made the previous games good in an effort to bring it into the mainstream. Now it's there there's little chance of it changing back. Really sad as it used to be one of my favorite game series...

Unfortunately it seems like the same is happening with Hitman, I'm trying to reserve judgment but everything we've been shown of the game looks nothing like what makes Hitman so good.

 

[endtherapture]

You forgot Mass Effect.

And Star Wars Battlefront.

And KoTOR. And how Jedi Knight was superceded by this Force Unleashed crap. I just want Jedi Knight 3.

I fail to see how "the biz" ruined Battlefront. It was an earlier game series already published by EA (Battlefield) with a Star Wars skin.

An idea like that is really only worth one game of fun.

EA shut down Pandemic who made the games.

There were so many places Battlefront could've gone too - more maps, more classes, more Jedi, different game modes, bigger Space battles, more vehicles, more eras to play in. Battlefront 1 and 2 really only scratched the surface.

 

[Imbechile]

There's a lot of great games that we all wanted a good sequel to but we never got it because the developer was mismanaged into bankruptcy, bought out by big publishers, or some other type of disastrous corporate upheaval. Here's some I thought of:

Diablo - Blizzard fired all of the original Diablo team, so now Diablo 3 will be a dumbed down console game for kids rather than the violent, satanic hack & slash pseudo-roguelike we all know and love.

Fallout - A series of bad decisions ruined Interplay, thus ruining Black Isle. Now all we get is Oblivion with guns. Rest in peace, Van Buren.

Descent/Freespace - Freespace 2 was the best space sim ever made, and that series also died with Interplay.

Command & Conquer - EA bought out Westwood and just absolutely wiped their asses with this franchise.

Sim City - EA ruined this too, releasing a single Sim City game (which sucked) and then continuing to put out one shitty Sims expansion after another.

Theme Hospital, Dungeon Keeper - Also ruined by EA when they bought out Bullfrog.

Shenmue - Amazing series ended on a cliffhanger with little-to-no chance of a sequel due to SEGA going broke.

Everything made by Rare - The quality of Rare's games dropped significantly after they were bought out by Microsoft. Now they have shifted their focus entirely on developing games for use with the Kinect peripheral. R.I.P.

Agree about everything, especially Fallout.

Some more:
Heroes of might and magic

Deus ex

Thief(although we still need to see what T4 will look like)

Gothic

Dragon age

Operation Flashpoint

Elder scrolls(not that they were great in the first place)

Prince of persia

 

[veloper]

Dungeon Siege. Yeah, 3 was a complete turd, just like I expected the moment I saw the Square Enix logo. Being outsourced to a different developer and publisher can hardly be a good sign. And they chose Square.

Wait what? People liked the original Dungeon Siege?
There's no decline here. DS was always a complete turd.

Only mages had any remotely interesting options in DS. Fighters and archers were just click-target-and-forget.
DS was strictly lineair with zero replay value. It doesn't help that the start of the game was terrible too.
All outdoor areas were almost completely empty as in you could walk and shoot through the trees (so the lowest detail setting without any trees and similar objects was actually the most accurate rendering of the game). It was just boring encounter after boring encounter in empty spaces.
Finally for the players who care about such things, no clever dialogues either. The game had no character.