Things you want creators/publishers to stop doing.

[ToastiestZombie]

What do you really want creators of any sort of media (music, games, movies, books, etc) and the publishers to just stop doing. No matter how petty or legitimate it is, you just want them to stop doing it. Please give your reasons for anything you say, and try not to get into an argument if you disagree with what people say.

Here's mine:

Sequels to already-finished series

I really want the publishers of popular things to stop making direct sequels after the story has finished! I find that any sort of sequel after the definitive end of the story started in the first part is just milking the franchise for it's money. This only really goes for story-driven game series with one over-arching plot when it comes to games, but for every book and movie it counts.

The two biggest offenders are Star Wars and Halo, both series with endings that wrapped up pretty much every plot-point. They didn't need sequels, and each sequel that comes after the ending of Star Wars VI and Halo 3 will water down the overall story. I don't mind prequels, spin-offs and side-stories after the last game has been released, stuff like Metal Gear Rising, MGSV and Halo 3: ODST; but things that are shown as the "next" in the series that are chronologically after the last game are terrible to me. If you're going to have a new set of characters with only small references to previous entries, make it a spin-off series instead of numbering it.

Broken mirrors in video-games

This one is just a minor complaint, but I'm noticing that an increasing amount of games towards the end of this generation are terrible when it comes to mirrors. Bioshock Infinite, for example, has tens of mirrors in the game yet none of them work, and are simply a light-blue texture. It just reeks of laziness to me, if the N64 can do mirrors for some of it's most demanding games (Perfect Dark) then the PS3 and 360 should too.

 

[Tom_green_day]

Broken mirrors in video-games

I can't say having mirrors in games would improve the experience much but everyone has different tastes I guess.
This will sound really pathetic but I miss manuals. They were great fun to read on the way home from buying a new game, and especially ones like the Monster Hunter manuals that gave you tips for the gameplay. And the cover slips used to be double sided in games, but now most I see have a white double sheet. Dayum, I loved double sided slips.

 

[Terminate421]

Ignoring the damned community.

There is a good reason I fucking love Bungie, here was the topic on their forums.

"How does grenades that arent exploded go through the shield doors on snowbound"
Bungie Employee: "Magic"
"What kind?"
Bungie Employee: "The Shiny Kind"

It's when the developers actually acknowledge the fact that a community is in love with them and will RESPOND to them that I feel they should actually be doing. (The above employee was messing with that person but I don't care, it still means something)

The reason Dead Space 3 relatively poorly? Because of a number of factors, but not listening to the fucking community is one of them. Maxis looking like morons for Simcity? Not even communicating with the community.

Also Publishers need to stop LOOKING like soulless beings, it's hard being a corporate conglomerate and all but they could at least try, you know?

 

[Thaluikhain]

The sequel thing, yeah.

Oh, adaptations/remakes where they make characters white for no reason. Hollywood is already overly white as it is, but when you have (for example), the next Star Trek movie having Benedict Cumberbach as Khan Noonien Singh...no. Really, really no. If you're going to change the ethnicity of the person playing him, get a Sikh to play the Sikh.

 

[aba1]

I hate when people ignore continuity. What is the point in a story if none of what happens holds any weight at any point. This is why I get so frustrated with super hero comics I will be enjoying the story one moment and then things just stop making sense the next and it just leaves me confused and disappointed in the piss poor writing.

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

Being ignorant to want the community wants. *Glares at EA*

Just because you say something is for the better, doesn't mean it is, and it also doesn't mean the community wants it. And the fact that they ruin the game half the time emplacing what they want in it.

 

[Tiger King]

lack of confidence.
please stop going for the safe option!!

 

[shrekfan246]

Ignoring the damned community.

There is a good reason I fucking love Bungie, here was the topic on their forums.

"How does grenades that arent exploded go through the shield doors on snowbound"
Bungie Employee: "Magic"
"What kind?"
Bungie Employee: "The Shiny Kind"

It's when the developers actually acknowledge the fact that a community is in love with them and will RESPOND to them that I feel they should actually be doing. (The above employee was messing with that person but I don't care, it still means something)

The reason Dead Space 3 relatively poorly? Because of a number of factors, but not listening to the fucking community is one of them. Maxis looking like morons for Simcity? Not even communicating with the community.

Also Publishers need to stop LOOKING like soulless beings, it's hard being a corporate conglomerate and all but they could at least try, you know?

Eh, there's a certain point where I think they need to ignore the community though. The community as a whole is pretty freakin' terrible. Childish whiny brats holding megaphones, shouting about how they didn't get their way because one little element was changed from one game to the next and throwing temper tantrums because something wasn't absolutely perfect. Nobody is immune to it. I do it whenever Pokemon or Final Fantasy come up.

Sure, they could interact with us a little more, like I always enjoy seeing mods, staff members, or content contributors posting in the forums 'round these parts. But there's some subjects that, in all honesty, the community should just shut up about.

OT: I really wish more first-person games would model the character in-game. You know why mirrors suck in the Bioshock games? Because Jack/Delta/Booker aren't actually there. They're just a floating camera with a gun and a pair of arms attached. And in Booker's case a voice-box. Mirror's Edge gave Faith hair physics. The protagonist of a first-person game whose cut-scenes are rendered entirely in an animated style rather than with the in-game engine, has hair physics. And I love it. Halo does it as well, and it's one of the things I love in that too. I hate feeling like my character is just floating along five feet from the ground.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Cliffhangers. Please, just stop. No more. Final Fantasy XIII-2, Dead Space 3 (especially with the DLC ending), Half Life 2 Episode 2. And T.V. shows do it too. I'm so, so tired of cliffhangers. Yes, you can continue your story if you want. Final Fantasy XIII had a nice little wrap up ending (though looking at it from a 'real life' view, it's out of the frying pan, into the fire), but they still found a way to continue the story. Dead Space 2, same thing. Wrapped up the story, but left enough of a teaser so that they could, if they wanted, go back and make another game. There's a difference between wrapping up the story and leaving just enough breathing room for a continuation, and just cutting the thing off and saying, "Well, tune in again!"

Now though? Games and TV shows seem to want to end of a cliffhanger. Oh, how will we get people to come back for the next round? I know! Leave them hanging on the edge of their seat. Never mind the fact that there's no promise that we will ever get around to continuing the story (Valve!). I always point to Leverage at this point. Leverage, the TV, did cliffhangers right. The season finale would be split into two episodes. The first episode would end on a cliffhanger, but you knew you only had to wait a week and then it's fixed. I hate having to wait months, or sometimes ever YEARS, before finding out what happens. Because by then, there's a good chance I've lost interest.
There's also a good chance that things will change, like in Boy Meets World. Remember the end of one season was having that one teacher in a coma from a motorcycle wreck? And that was how the season ended. Had to wait until the next season. Well guess what. The next season rolled around and the guy isn't even MENTIONED. So thanks for that. It's not like fans of the show were waiting to find out if the guy would be okay or anything. Oh, wait...

 

[McMullen]

I would like to see less pandering to the least common denominator. It used to be that when you went to Discovery Channel or the Learning Channel, they had interesting things to watch (for a geek anyway). Now the channels have almost no connection to any of that. Some people my age might remember how MTV used to be about music as well, but they have YouTube now I suppose.

When you can find something interesting about science, nature, astronomy, or whatever, if there's anything at all that can be dramatized, it is so ham-handedly overdramatized that you can't even make it more ridiculous by parodying it.

You see this in other shows too. Even the food shows. Chef Ramsey features in some pretty interesting material when it's not produced in the US, but Master Chef and Hell's Kitchen spend so much time not only on the fake pointless drama, but on FAKE fake pointless drama as well. Every decision on the shows is prefaced by a series of close-zooms and scare-chords, and then there's a commercial break, and then they do it all over again after the break. They could probably get 10 minutes worth of additional real content, which they must have filmed, into each show if they simply avoided this pointless crap.

I have free cable TV at my apartment and a nice big TV to watch it on, but I've been here almost a year and have yet to plug it in, because every time I visit relatives who still watch TV, the things I see and hear make me wish to be anywhere else but in earshot of the damned thing.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

DRM and online passes, that whole chest-nut really.

But more in game, stop adding multiplayer for the sake of it. If it is a single player franchise and the sequel has multiplayer in it, fine, but it has to make sense and be just as polished as the single player without hurting the single player.

Props to CD Project Red for listening to fans and deciding to not go for multiplayer in the next Witcher game.

 

[aba1]

DRM and online passes, that whole chest-nut really.

But more in game, stop adding multiplayer for the sake of it. If it is a single player franchise and the sequel has multiplayer in it, fine, but it has to make sense and be just as polished as the single player without hurting the single player.

Props to CD Project Red for listening to fans and deciding to not go for multiplayer in the next Witcher game.

On a similar note I hate how ridiculously overpriced DLC is and can be. I can hardly believe people will pay $5 for a DLC character in fighting games which is 1/12th the whole games cost when you are getting such a tiny fraction of the content. You pay 12th the game cost when you already get what 24 - 30 characters plus a whole ton of play mores and other things for the initial purchase it is such a huge rip off.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

DRM and online passes, that whole chest-nut really.

But more in game, stop adding multiplayer for the sake of it. If it is a single player franchise and the sequel has multiplayer in it, fine, but it has to make sense and be just as polished as the single player without hurting the single player.

Props to CD Project Red for listening to fans and deciding to not go for multiplayer in the next Witcher game.

On a similar note I hate how ridiculously overpriced DLC is and can be. I can hardly believe people will pay $5 for a DLC character in fighting games which is 1/12th the whole games cost when you are getting such a tiny fraction of the content. You pay 12th the game cost when you already get what 24 - 30 characters plus a whole ton of play mores and other things for the initial purchase it is such a huge rip off.

Well this is embarrassing, I bought the injustice season pass. that's 4 for the price of 2 though, not too pricey but it hit my limit too. Capcoms $10 for a single character in MvC3 is horrendous and an absolute ripoff.

What's easy to forget is that a lot can go into the making of a fighting game character and at least Nether realm give out free costumes with them as well the a compatibility pack to those who don't want to buy but still get a little something extra in the skins.

 

[cdemares]

I second cliffhangers. Nobody can tell a good, complete story anymore. The problem with trilogies is that the ending is never any good unless it's a real three-part story that plans the ending from the beginning. Good endings are so rare now, because endings just seem like an afterthought.

Announcing things that are years away from even a playable build. How has that strategy worked out so far? Always terribly, as far as I can remember: Aliens: Colonial Marines, Versus XIII, DNF, Daikatana, and droves of cancelled projects. It's self-sabotage.

Claiming to threaten or be comparable to Call of Duty. No you don't have the Call of Duty "killer". Nobody else does either. Being "better" than COD is like being better than Coca Cola and Pepsi. It doesn't make the slightest difference how much better you are. Brand loyalty is half the product. You're scooping up crumbs from the table. Meanwhile, COD can reuse the same engine and still destroy you in sales. Get over it, your work to chase after COD is being wasted. And I'm counting games with tacked-on COD multiplayer that will die in mere weeks. Do something else. COD 4 didn't copy Halo or Quake, did it? No, it blazed it's own trail and tried to do things differently. Halo did the same thing. They didn't market themselves as the "Doom killer", did they?

Publishers need to quit blaming consumers for problems. Any problem. Ever. Your job is to figure out what incentives will make us your customers, not tell us what to expect and want. If you think we're using your product wrong, either design it so we can't do that or ask yourselves whether you can work that into a better design to make that misuse work for you. You're supposed to pretend that the customer is always right. Products speak for themselves through design and we don't control design.

 

[FalloutJack]

Here's a thing that annoys me: DLCs

I understand if you want to give a little extra to your buyers with a small fee that seems cost-effective for the amount of workk put into it. Five or six DLCs with whole new adventures is pushing it and using this as a means to fill in product that was cut out for your stupid piracy bullshit is lame and dumb.

DLCs are not actually necessary, really. Finish the game and put out your product. Let it stand or fall by its merits and learn from it. If you have so much material to add to it, then MAKE ANOTHER GAME!

 

[HoneyVision]

Naturally I'd say Pay-to-Play, but I understand that gaming is ultimately a business. Still, I'd like to think that when I BUY the game, Ive actually bought it and can play ALL of it for that price.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Stop cantering to the intial audiences! Shows like Avengers: Earth Mightiest Heroes, Young Justice and Green Lantern got cancelled because they had drawn in other audiences but kind of losing the target audiences which were the children. Despite the popularity, they cancell it in favoured of an more kid orianted shows like Ultimate Spiderman and Teen Titans GO.

They should of tried to canter both audience as in make a new shows for the kids while still carry on the other shows that the other audience liked seeing how it was popular with them.

 

[MiskWisk]

Stop cantering to the intial audiences! Shows like Avengers: Earth Mightiest Heroes, Young Justice and Green Lantern got cancelled because they had drawn in other audiences but kind of losing the target audiences which were the children. Despite the popularity, they cancell it in favoured of an more kid orianted shows like Ultimate Spiderman and Teen Titans GO.

They should of tried to canter both audience as in make a new shows for the kids while still carry on the other shows that the other audience like seeing how it was populat with them.

This. So much this.
Both Young Justice and Green Lantern end as though the writers thought they were going to get another season and as a result, the 'finales' are pretty poor. I mean, Young Justice introduced Darkseid in the finale but it won't go anywhere because it got cancelled. I'm also going to add Tron: Uprising. I really liked that and the fact that it (might, no ones really sure) be cancelled at the current stage is just downright depressing.
Also, I think Avengers: Earth's Mightiest heroes was being split into several other shows rather than being cancelled.

Also, DRM. Just no.