How dare you disrespect the Artistic Vision of The Order 1886.

[Zhukov]

In February of this year developers Ready at Dawn came unto us with a vision.

An artistic vision no less.

They envisioned a game that would take about 7 hours to complete.

They envisioned a game with many lengthly cutscenes, a wonder of cinematography.

They envisioned a game rife with QTEs.

They envisioned a final boss fight that was a QTE identical to one halfway through the game.

They envisioned an ending that left the story feeling like an incomplete prologue.

Yea, their visions were many and artistic, always, unquestionably, artistic.

But when the day of revelation came what did these digital prophets receive in return for their visions? Naught but scorn and the petulant yowls of the heathen hordes, those entitled philistines who have no respect for the labours of the artist.

"Your game should have been longer", cried the heathen, as they trampled heedless through the bountiful fields of artistry.

"Your cutscenes are too long", cried the heathen, ignorant of the merits of cinematic storytelling.

"Your game hath too many QTEs", cried the heathen, for their thumbs were slow and feeble.

"Your boss fight doth betray a lack of effort," cried the heathen, heartless and cruel.

"Thine ending sucks", cried the heathen, for they appreciated not the importance of sequels.

There followed a storm of lackluster scores and lukewarm reviews, keyboards were mashed and playthroughs were posted. And throughout it all not one soul cared to spare a thought for the artistic visions that lay trampled and broken underfoot.

There may come a day when the vision of the artist is rightly held aloft, beyond such petty reproach from lesser creatures, but it will not be this day.

For truly it is said that some people simply cannot be pleased.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

Is this just some whiny response to the criticism of Zayra?

 

[Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)]

(reads the post)
....I know what website I'm on...

Spoiler

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

I get it! It's sarcastic!

No but seriously, what's the point of this one? To defend bad games, or to piss off people who demand good games?

 

[Dizchu]

I'm surprised so many people have been ragging on the game's length, of all things.

As if a few more hours of the same dull gameplay would redeem it.

Maybe if Duke Nukem Forever took a fortnight of constant playing to complete it would be considered a classic???

 

[Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)]

I get it! It's sarcastic!

No but seriously, what's the point of this one? To defend bad games, or to piss off people who demand good games?

I think it's a satire of the whole Zayra being created as a Response to Body-Type Diversity Criticism and people throwing a shitstorm about it crying that blizzards artistic integrity was being violated.

even if a little exaggerated it has a good point, can criticism turn to bullying.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

I get it! It's sarcastic!

No but seriously, what's the point of this one? To defend bad games, or to piss off people who demand good games?

It serves about the same purpose as those people who make passive aggressive posts on Facebook, without actually identifying who they're talking about.

As for the discussion about artistic integrity, is it really so hard for people to understand that multiple behaviours can be criticised?

It is perfectly acceptable to criticise someone who makes a stupid decision because of their artistic vision.
It is perfectly acceptable to criticise blatant box ticking exercises that are brought about by targeted marketing, leading to homogeneous and generic elements.
It is perfectly acceptable to criticise blatant box ticking exercises that are brought about by political pressure, leading to token characters.

There. Was that so hard for people to understand?

 

[MerlinCross]

Question; Artistic vision in heavily armored shotgunners that are tougher to kill than the werewolves?

Maybe it's supposed to represent that the cold cruel machinations of man are far more unforgiving than even the pretend fantasy horrors and monsters that we as a species have come up with?

..., Nah I see it as people can't be bothered to balance.

 

[EternallyBored]

There. Was that so hard for people to understand?

The problem comes in when all of these "boxes" are filed under the same generic, artistic vision, or creative freedom label. It becomes confusing when you see people throw this label around for everything, one man's "artistic vision" is another ones "box ticking exercise".

It doesn't help that so much of this is up to subjective interpretation. In this particular case, how something can be both artistic vision and cynical corporate pandering depending on who is doing the viewing.

With the limits of conversations like these, it is hard to see where an individual poster draws the line.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

There. Was that so hard for people to understand?

The problem comes in when all of these "boxes" are filed under the same generic, artistic vision, or creative freedom label. It becomes confusing when you see people throw this label around for everything, one man's "artistic vision" is another ones "box ticking exercise".

It doesn't help that so much of this is up to subjective interpretation. In this particular case, how something can be both artistic vision and cynical corporate pandering depending on who is doing the viewing.

With the limits of conversations like these, it is hard to see where an individual poster draws the line.

This is defiantly true. There is a major double standard when it comes to perceptions of pandering. But even so, in the case of Zayra, they seem to have explicitly announced that she is a token character, created to shrug off the heat over the diversity of body types argument.

 

[EternallyBored]

There. Was that so hard for people to understand?

The problem comes in when all of these "boxes" are filed under the same generic, artistic vision, or creative freedom label. It becomes confusing when you see people throw this label around for everything, one man's "artistic vision" is another ones "box ticking exercise".

It doesn't help that so much of this is up to subjective interpretation. In this particular case, how something can be both artistic vision and cynical corporate pandering depending on who is doing the viewing.

With the limits of conversations like these, it is hard to see where an individual poster draws the line.

This is defiantly true. There is a major double standard when it comes to perceptions of pandering. But even so, in the case of Zayra, they seem to have explicitly announced that she is a token character, created to shrug off the heat over the diversity of body types argument.

That is your interpretation, the Blizzard rep being interviewed about her says nothing about them creating the character to "shrug off the heat", their words were that they created the character due to the criticism about the female body types, they say nothing about whether they did this for cynical or genuine reasons.

To you, the creation of Zarya counts as pandering, to the point that you are even adding extra descriptive words to the Blizzard announcement to color it in a negative light. Things like, "token character" (we have no idea if she will be the only attempt at shaking up the body types in their roster yet) and "shrugging off the heat".

To another person, her creation was a genuine attempt by either Blizzard or certain employees in Blizzard to change what they saw as a valid criticism of their work. When Overwatch was announced, Chris Metzen decided to share a specific story about talking with his daughter while watching a cutscene of the dragon aspects he was working on for WoW, where she asked her father "Why are they (the female characters) all in swimsuits?", from the very first announcement, before the criticism even started, they were already talking about trying to have diversity in their female cast. In this interpretation, Blizzard saw the criticism and genuinely wanted to create a character like Zarya, they didn't cave to pressure, they had their opinion changed, it wasn't cynical pandering, it was a genuine attempt by game makers to live up to a promise they made from the very beginning.

It also probably doesn't hurt that this game seems to be set up to be like LoL in that they want new characters to be simple and easy to add, likely with plans to update the roster fairly regularly.

Now, I painted both of these scenarios in extremes, there are plenty of interpretations that aren't so diametrically polarized, but that goes back to your first post in this thread, as much as I wish it was, it genuinely isn't easy for people to understand, as you have people looking at the same thing and coming to very different interpretations.

To steal from a recent internet event: you are looking at a character and seeing the motivations for her creation as white and gold, while someone else is looking at her and seeing blue and black, and yet other people are seeing other interpretations still.

 

[SoreWristed]

Am I missing some vital piece of information here? How and why did a post about the 'artistic' vision behind The Order : 1886 turn into people ripping a new hole into Blizzards character creation process?

To the OP about the artistic endeavours of Ready At Dawn : Wether or not a decision is made because of artistic vision does not mean the decision is inherently bad or inherently good. Noone get's a free pass from delivering a shit game or a good game because they made it in the spirit of Art...

Besides, has anyone noticed the similarity between Heavenly Sword and The Order? A game about some dudes/chicks who go against a massive Army of persians(?)/wherewolves using weaponry that shouldn't exist in their supposed time period. The game is short, yet cinematic and it does not do well at launch. The game has a small but dedicated fanbase. QTE's are a core gameplay aspect.

It's the same damn game to me. This is just the kind of game that Ready At Dawn makes. And I can't see the greater effect this has on global game development it is supposed to have by it's haterbase.

To the people on Zarya character creation : Who cares? It's good that there is now one more body type to choose from in popular gaming.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

B-b-b-but the artistic vision!

Won't somebody please think of the artistic visions being violated by all this diversity?

 

[Zhukov]

[Accidental double post. Apologies.]

 

[Zhukov]

Is this just some whiny response to the criticism of Zayra?

Not quite.

Hmm, perhaps I was too subtle.

I was making fun of the "artistic vision" argument that I keep coming across.

a) It's a cover-all shield against any kind of criticism whatsoever. "Too many cutscenes? That's just, like, their artistic vision man." "The controls are floaty and imprecise? Hey, don't be messing with the artistic vision!"

a) Despite that, it only ever seems to be made in very specific circumstances. Overwatch and Zarya merely being the most recent case.

c) It's as meaningless in the situations where it does occur as it would be in the ones where it does not. Also, discounts the role and validity of feedback.

 

[BeerTent]

LOOK GUISE! ART! [http://previews.123rf.com/images/hayatikayhan/hayatikayhan1204/hayatikayhan120400243/13270435-shopping-list-on-a-natural-paper-grocery.jpg]

What? :3

Still though, he has a point. The artistic vision thing was tired before The Order used it.

 

[Joccaren]

Obligatory link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5Oh76SiHzs

Honestly, that was hilarious to me. Artistic Integrity as an argument is just... Well... Stupid. Yes, you have the right to create whatever you want to create. Everyone else also has the right to tell you its shit.

Its a nonsense phrase akin to "Haters gonna hate" and "I do what I want". That's cool. Good for you. Don't expect me to respect that though.
Its unconvincing as an argument, and basically comes down to "I have no valid points against this criticism. Allow me to tell you that they intended it to be like this, in the hopes that you will like it more". Well, no, that's not how things work.

But seriously, rant off, that post made me laugh harder than I have in a while. Glorious and brilliant.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Not quite.

Hmm, perhaps I was too subtle.

I was making fun of the "artistic vision" argument that I keep coming across.

a) It's a cover-all shield against any kind of criticism whatsoever. "Too many cutscenes? That's just, like, their artistic vision man." "The controls are floaty and imprecise? Hey, don't be messing with the artistic vision!"

a) Despite that, it only ever seems to be made in very specific circumstances. Overwatch and Zarya merely being the most recent case.

c) It's as meaningless in the situations where it does occur as it would be in the ones where it does not. Also, discounts the role and validity of feedback.

Some of this can be subjective though. Look at The Last of Us for example; Gamers tend to be very split regarding the controls for that game (among other things), claiming they're faulty, eventhough Naughty Dog made them heavy and a bit brutish on purpose. This was their "artistic vision", yet some people would think this a poor excuse for (to them) shitty controls.

Now granted Naughty Dog didn't pull that card, since that only seems to happen when something is heavily criticized (like The Order), but that doesn't mean it's completely invalid. Sometimes something just doesn't suit your taste.

 

[Silence]

Ok now I'm seriously confused as to whether demand something be different or to let it be or to demand it to be changed back or to video games.

Actually, this is good satire. It seems EVERYONE uses this argument.

 

[Rayce Archer]

You know if we consider this in terms of The Order for real...

The reason people were let down by The Order is because they bought the hype. I've noticed in fact that prerelease hype is actually getting stronger, although not quite reaching 90s levels yet. You can see it in the great sales and immediate fan disappointment for games like Evolve and Titanfall and Destiny- games that nobody had any reason to expect the moon from, and that many players would not have any interest in, that sold like hotcakes because for whatever reason everyone jumped on the "this is gonna be awesome" bandwagon.

Now I haven't played The Order, but all the other games I just mentioned are perfectly fine games- the main reason so many people complain about them is that instead of researching the game and realizing "this isn't the kind of thing I like" they saw some glowing pre-release press and decided "hey I will love this because PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT IT." And so while I'm sure folks will call the overhype of all these games an issue of "journalistic integrity" as though that term still has any meaning, the truth is that it's kind of all of your faults. If you just buy whatever the press tells you to because NEXT BIG THING then you're going to buy games you just won't like.

So the question is how much bitching about The Order is people who just got a game they shouldn't have, and how much of it is that Order sucks? Again, I didn't buy The Order (or a PS4 to play it on) but it sort of seems to me like its just a linear cover shooter like all the others with a thin film of steampunk smeared on to make it palatable to armchair dorks. And games like that aren't particularly rare or special, so I guess with nothing to recommend it WHY DID ANYONE BUY IT TO CRY ABOUT IN THE FIRST PLACE?