Jimquisition: An Industry Of Pitiful Cowards
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you didnt answer the second questionSir Shockwave said:
anyways regarding your argument, i guess then that westwood exists in some sort of quantum state, being able to exist in two places at the same time, thatd mean when both devs make competing games, i guess its westwood competing agaisnt westwood, when one employee leaves petroglyph to worh on the other developer, he/she left westwood... to work on westwood, if one of the devs closes its doors, it means westwood is dead forever... and also not
so no, sorry that logic does not work, just because one is "extreamly vocal" about something doesnt make it a reality, i could be extremely vocal about being able to fly, that doesnt mean ill grow wings
the reason why i asked these questions had nothing to do how likely this scenario was, if the logic behind your argument was actually sound, these question shouldve been able to be answered without any contradictions, as you can see, that wasnt the case
If you read closer, I answered both questions in the same paragraph.NuclearKangaroo said:
And actually, the whole thing is closer to heirs and successors, and the civil wars both bring about. If one Dev left one company to work for another, it would basically mean one Dev left one faction of Successors to go and work for the other one. Effectively, he would be turning traitor. It's not that big of a logical fallacy involving quantum physics - you couldn't actually hyperbole it any further from that.
However, this is all extremely off topic and we could be arguing all thread about it.
To go all the way back to my original argument, while (for now) Blizzard and Relic have been content to sit and mine their respective cash cow and let the genre stagnate (Starcraft and COH respectively), Focus have at least been trying to branch out and develop new IP. They have the Wargame series as their respective Cash Cow yes, but Etherium is a step in another direction for them, and it's at least in some way pushing things forwards rather than milking (or in Petro's case, trying to use Nostalgia and bank on your former reputation to get people to look the other direction while your attempts to get back on your feet go explosively wrong).
so first they were westwood, then they were their successors and now they are a faction, make up your mindSir Shockwave said:
is not off topic, you are arguing universe at war ruined petroglyph, i argue they were never good to begin with, if you want to include westwood in the petroglyph package it would be a different story, but as ive said many times now, petroglyph is not westwood, and you seem to agree now
Personally, I blame money-grubbling execs for the whole snafu. This poor approach to future proofing reeks of focus groups and obsessing over profit margins. Do that long enough, and you forget that computer games are supposed to be fun first, and the money-making aspect happens as an after-effect.
Well okay then, my apologies? which ones did you enjoy the combat in most? I liked killing monsters a-plenty in most of them, but I can't say it's why I bought the games - I'm a story person for just about everything.Demonchaser27 said:
We all know exactly what we want, and have been Screaming it a Squeenix for THIRTEEN FUCKING YEARS. Exactly WHO is complaining about Squeenix remembering who they are? For 13 years we have been waving fist fulls of money saying FFVII please, with some shiny new graphics. Or at least something of the caliber of 7,8, and 9. We have been loud, expressive and VERY very,clear as to our desires. We have also been ignored. They claim that the graphics would cost too much, despite making all 3 thirteen excrements in shiny, lovely graphics.generals3 said:
I am sorry, but your comment makes no sense.
Who spoke about square enix specifically? I don't recall jim talking only about them. It was about the general statement of his video which basically stated: "oh my god, developers/publishers decided to change stuff because they were scared not changing stuff would get bad sales". Which is all quite ironic because you see the opposite statement being made all the time. It usually goes like "Oh my god, developers/publishers are just making the same over and over again because they are scared to change".SilverStuddedSquirre said:
At the end of the day it's quite clear, no matter what they do they are pitiful cowards because you can always twist their decision into cowardice.
Not only is the target of your comparison nebulous, the comparison itself is nebulous too.generals3 said:
Today's lesson: Any argument can be made OR dismissed by making it as vague as possible.
Good to know.
What's nebulous about it? It can't get any clearer than it was. I see people, on this very forum, complain all the time about how companies always stick to the same and than i see this video where someone calls devs/pubs cowards because they didn't. I find this highly ironic and just goes to show there is no way to win for publishers/devs. They'll always be cowards in the eyes of some people. Either because they bail on things or because they stick to it. They bail on horror games? Cowards. They stick to modern warfare shooters? Lazy twats.Atmos Duality said:
On the contrary; It can only get more clear.generals3 said:
Your exact words:
People? Which people? Everyone? Just those on this forum? The people of Uganda?
You attribute complaints to nobody in particular. Just "people".
And "change"? What "change"? Just the act of "change"?
Are we even sure that the same people jockeying for "change" are the same ones complaining about the results of those "changes"?
The only way to assert that is to sweep everyone into one nebulous blob of "people", and that's a Gross Generalization.
Oops.
So this makes as much sense as yelling "You're all hypocrites!" into a crowded room.
It's asinine.
So what?
The people making the complaints about games being stagnant and demanding they change things up aren't necessarily the same as those complaining about the changes being made. Or even that those changes are one in the same!
Besides that there's other contexts you're just lumping together:
-Asking for specific changes and being given something different is still grounds for a valid complaint
-Asking for NO CHANGES to something and getting changes you don't want (I know a number of Diablo fans who would rather D3 not be always online.)
It actually seems like a fairly normal part of life, in fact.
As a wise man once said "You can't always get, what you wa-ant."
Well, they can't please everyone.
And what's actually ironic is that's the real lesson the publishers need to learn.
When they homogenized their games to appease everyone, they watered it down so much that it started driving others away.
Jim made a number of valid points in his video about that, so I won't repeat them here.
I run on scrambled logic long before I get a coherent answer (it doesn't help that I'm also exceptionally poor at wording my points and answers most of the time)...so I went and did some research this morning. And I found out this one actually isn't hypothetical, mostly because nobody's heard or seen any of Developer X's work. Are you ready for this?NuclearKangaroo said:
According to the TV Tropes page on Westwood Studios, there was a second company - Jet Set Studios [http://jetsetgames.net/about/]. However, Jet Set and Petroglyph have deviated from each other massively. While Petroglyph still continues to make projects that stall, close down and have had a string of bad luck since Universe at War, Jet Set seem to be doing well for themselves by focusing on iOS, Android and (allegedly) Steam games. They're BOTH considered to be the Spiritual Successor company by nature of Trope, but among the common masses the title of Successor is more closely attributed to Petroglyph as they are A) more well known, B) more vocal about it and C) continuing what Westwood was known for rather than - y'know - going a different direction (or at least trying to go in this direction). Oh and D) the fact that it's staffed by Westwood Era Dev's who choose to carry on the legacy of Westwood.
If we agree on anything, it's that Petroglyph is a terrible company too caught up in it's own nostalgia, and has for all intents and purposes "washed up".
yeah lets agree on thatSir Shockwave said:
also CoH 2 doesnt seem to be doing so bad financially, it beat rome 2 in that sales event the past month i think, boy it was like a battle of disappointments hehe
I enjoyed FF6 and FF7. I mean you had to avoid grinding a little bit. Well, little bit is an understatement, but you get the point. It was more of how you prepare your party and prepare your "materia (FF7)" or "Espers/magic (FF6)" in order to prep for a fight. It was just really satisfying to me to discover these insane combinations between your parties to efficiently win a battle or series of battles(arena). I loved the stories too.Mylinkay Asdara said:
I'm just saying, as much as I love games like Golden Sun, compare Golden Sun's combat to some of the Final Fantasy games and the depth just isn't there. It's like Checkers vs. Chess, same board and similar movements but there just isn't as much thinking and planning required in checkers. I mean its just my taste. I completely understand how someone could much more enjoy more active gameplay systems. I mean I absolutely love my DMC 3/4, Ninja Gaiden Black, Monster Hunter, Souls series. I just sometimes like to do the strategy thing, especially if their is planning that goes into it.
I'm just going to make a suggestion to game devs/pubs that I've been thinking about for awhile. Anyone can feel free to tell me if there is something wrong with this logic and why, I'm all ears. I just thought I'd get it out there.
To start, it always made sense to me that when devs made games to "appeal to masses"; I get it. I understand why they would want to do it. Even if they did it with kind intentions which isn't likely, but say they did. If they really just wanted to have as many people enjoy their games as possible, why do they build them for the casual/mainstream audience first?
I think that's the fundamental problem with the whole "mass appeal" thing. You can tell when you play the game. There were many words for it over the years: dumbed-down, casualized, lacking depth, etc. etc. etc.
Okay, now mainstream gamers aren't hard to please. They're usually just looking for something to breeze through, enjoy on a weekend, or just have simple fun. There is nothing wrong with this but core audiences will obviously be by-and-large displeased. Considering how easy mainstream audiences are to please and how difficult core audiences can be to please, why develop for the easy one first if your trying to please both?
To my point. All I'm saying is instead of making a simplistic game that adds "hard mode", which is really just damage and health buff, do it the other way around but with just two modes. Before anyone says "we already have difficulty modes" hear me out.
For example. Build a Hitman game and build the "in-depth" way they always have. They can add new features, bells and whistles. Whatever they want. But keep it "in-depth" for the core audience. Then just call that your "default mode".
Then go BACK and EDIT the "default game" to say: delete certain difficult aspects of the AI programming in each enemy, reduce damage taken, spawn less foes in a given section. And for games like Demon's/Dark Souls and Mario or other games that have a lot of terrain/spacial challenges, stretch the size of certain catwalks, or make certain enemies not activate certain traps. We call this the "easy or basic mode".
Its soooo much easier to delete/make minor adjustments to a tougher or deeper game than to actually have to build new assets and make new programming adjusted to an "easier or simpler" game. The mainstream audience doesn't really give a shit. The things I've listed are not hard things to do to make a game easier to breeze through. And we already know that most mainstream gamers don't really care if they can beat a game's singleplayer in 5-10 hours (excluding Skyrim of course, but that's a different crowd).
I mean maybe I'm missing something here, but I don't see how this would take away from the depth, mechanics, and difficulty for core players and not satisfy mainstream players as well. Hell, if they enjoy the "basic mode" enough they will probably even try out the "default mode". I mean personally I love dynamic difficulty (ability to grind [not requirement though], changed patterns/difficulty depending on weapons/equipment used [think Phantoon and Draygon of Super Metroid], or Godshand), but I'm just saying I really wouldn't care if this happened as long as I knew there was a way to get the more "in-depth" gameplay that I expected of a series.
To start, it always made sense to me that when devs made games to "appeal to masses"; I get it. I understand why they would want to do it. Even if they did it with kind intentions which isn't likely, but say they did. If they really just wanted to have as many people enjoy their games as possible, why do they build them for the casual/mainstream audience first?
I think that's the fundamental problem with the whole "mass appeal" thing. You can tell when you play the game. There were many words for it over the years: dumbed-down, casualized, lacking depth, etc. etc. etc.
Okay, now mainstream gamers aren't hard to please. They're usually just looking for something to breeze through, enjoy on a weekend, or just have simple fun. There is nothing wrong with this but core audiences will obviously be by-and-large displeased. Considering how easy mainstream audiences are to please and how difficult core audiences can be to please, why develop for the easy one first if your trying to please both?
To my point. All I'm saying is instead of making a simplistic game that adds "hard mode", which is really just damage and health buff, do it the other way around but with just two modes. Before anyone says "we already have difficulty modes" hear me out.
For example. Build a Hitman game and build the "in-depth" way they always have. They can add new features, bells and whistles. Whatever they want. But keep it "in-depth" for the core audience. Then just call that your "default mode".
Then go BACK and EDIT the "default game" to say: delete certain difficult aspects of the AI programming in each enemy, reduce damage taken, spawn less foes in a given section. And for games like Demon's/Dark Souls and Mario or other games that have a lot of terrain/spacial challenges, stretch the size of certain catwalks, or make certain enemies not activate certain traps. We call this the "easy or basic mode".
Its soooo much easier to delete/make minor adjustments to a tougher or deeper game than to actually have to build new assets and make new programming adjusted to an "easier or simpler" game. The mainstream audience doesn't really give a shit. The things I've listed are not hard things to do to make a game easier to breeze through. And we already know that most mainstream gamers don't really care if they can beat a game's singleplayer in 5-10 hours (excluding Skyrim of course, but that's a different crowd).
I mean maybe I'm missing something here, but I don't see how this would take away from the depth, mechanics, and difficulty for core players and not satisfy mainstream players as well. Hell, if they enjoy the "basic mode" enough they will probably even try out the "default mode". I mean personally I love dynamic difficulty (ability to grind [not requirement though], changed patterns/difficulty depending on weapons/equipment used [think Phantoon and Draygon of Super Metroid], or Godshand), but I'm just saying I really wouldn't care if this happened as long as I knew there was a way to get the more "in-depth" gameplay that I expected of a series.
I too enjoyed the materia system, and indeed most systems that allow for complex preparations and interactions. Another favorite of mine is Romancing SaGa 3(Snes, fantranslated), which is a pretty free-form JRPG, with multiple characters to pick from, with different stories, and you can customize them as you wish. Not everything is optimal, but there's several good setups for each character. You can pick what weapons they specialize in, what magic they use, wether they're more magic or more weapon tech, etc. There's also formations with different bonuses, as well as multi-character combo attacks(specific to each formation).Demonchaser27 said:
I love these systems where I can really customize my characters, and figure out what's the most powerful, experiment and optimize, and yes, the combat system is an important part.
The stories in the FF games are kinda meh, and that's common with most games really. If I wanted story I'd rather play a classic western RPG than a JRPG. That said, Romancing SaGa 3 has good story for a JRPG, just don't expect it to be too linear and railroaded(the entire Saga series has a bit of a "choose your own adventure" thing going for it).
COH 2 wasn't a UaW level disaster no, and I don't pretend it was (especially when compared to Rome 2, COH 2 is at least PLAYABLE, and has been since launch X3).NuclearKangaroo said:
And with the sales event - well, it was a case of the lesser evil. Would you be equally bad (or worse) if Rome 2 had beaten it? X3
