What would you do if you controlled a franchise you liked?

[TheMightyMeekling]

Well, If I owned Disney, I'd move Gravity Falls back to Disney Channel from Disney XD. Then I'd have it air at sensible timeslots. Then I would replace the damn Lab Rats previews with Gravity Falls previews. Oh, also stop the cringe-worthy humor in all the kidcoms. Also, hire better actors for all the kidcoms.

Then I would look into funding an animated 2D film made with the program that they used for The Paperman.

Yes, I have an axe to grind. Problem?

 

[Methodia Chicken]

if I controlled ASOIAF/Game of thrones I would give let George r.r Martin set a reasonable deadline to finish the series, and allow him to predictably go over time without putting too much pressure on him.
Once he had finished an amazing series lovingly created to his exact standards I would inflict the suffering experienced by one of his characters upon him for every week he went over that original deadline.

If I controlled Game freak/Pokemon I would make Pokemon snap for the Wii u (because come on!) and build an animal crossing/harvest moon style peaceful village game based around a Pokemon breeder's town where battling is about as rare as contests in the other games. I just want a nice field of Oddish some Combee and a flock of Combusken.

If I controlled Jurassic Park I would spend my profits from my latest film into the genetic research on that thawing mammoth and try to get the rights to it's commercial use.

if I controlled Mario I would stop releasing core games for an entire decade, keep going with the profits from spin offs, just give the character and formula time to reset and new innovations time to emerge.

for Zelda same as above but with five years.

With sonic same as above but with 50 years.

with starfox same as above but with -2 years.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Put it in Creative Commons.

Franchise control is evil.

That's an unusual idea. Why do you say that?

 

[Random Argument Man]

Well?

Assassin Creed: Give the franchise some more development time in order to construct a better experience. I love the franchise, but I do know that it needs a break once in a while

Star fox: Release something other than Star fox 64 again.

Jade Empire: With the Dragon Age Keep system, can't we bring older franchises back now? If that was the thing holding Bioware back, a keep system takes that away.

American Horror Story: I'd make it unsettling again. Freakshow was unsettling at first, but presented the "freaks" as sympathetic. Therefore, it took the uneasy feeling away.

Mario: Can we do a time-travel story in the mushroom kingdom ? Mario's time machine doesn't count.

Ogre battle or Tactic Ogre: Release something?Anything?

 

[Queen Michael]

The DC Universe. Get rid of the new Lobo and make it clear that the bastich we know and love was the real Main Man all along, and the one that Fauxbo killed was a clone or shapeshifter or something.

 

[Recusant]

I'd Have Mass Effect 4 be a true sequel and a total unapologetic [I/]"we dun fucked up on ME3 lets cauterize the wound and go from there"[/I] retcon/work it into something where we can "go forward" a direct continuation of the first 3 games, with Shepard and everyone

So you'd make an unapologetic apology? I didn't think the laws of causality constituted a franchise.


In my case:
- I'd make a third Master of Orion game that wasn't awful. MOO2 came out in 1996, and for all its flaws, is still the best game in the genre, which is deeply depressing
-As much as I'd like a second Alpha Centauri, I know I wouldn't be up to the challenges of making it, and have no idea who would.
-I think I'd also license out X-Com to a number of different developers; the sheer number of knock-offs and derivatives that game has seen make me wonder what could be produced if it wasn't 'one lone studio carrying on the legacy' and instead 'several teams twisting the basic formula and seeing what they could come up with'. This isn't the only game/series that I think could benefit from this treatment, but it's probably the best candidate.
-I'd make a proper ending to Freespace, no idea what it'd be, though.
-For that matter, I'd make the above game and actually illustrate that, while Newtonian physics in spaceflight are less realistic; they are, unlike Goddardian (Goddardish?) physics in spaceflight, actually fun to play.
-While I'm on spaceflight: I'd make an updated version of Star Raiders that I can play without crying.

-And perhaps most relatably, I'd hunt down whoever's been in charge of Elder Scrolls lore-building for the past two games and rip off their mask, settling a bet with myself as to whether they're actually Peter Molyneux in disguise.

 

[rorychief]

I'd remake Pokemon as a kind of heist crime caper type game. Rorychief's six. My party:
Magneton. Deprive guards of guns, cause security blackouts and run interference on police radio chatter.
Feraligatr. Intimidation, crowd control and vault door battering ram.
Hypno. Anesthetize and scour dreams for intel/reprogram hostages to be compliant.
Crobat. Clear the sky of choppers and provide rooftop pickup for getaway.
Scyther. Run the vents and intercept/eviscerate SWAT teams as they breach the upper levels.
Haunter. Uncontrollable psychotic wild card released only as last resort.

 

[Entitled]

Put it in Creative Commons.

Franchise control is evil.

That's an unusual idea. Why do you say that?

Forbidding artists to publish their respective writings, is the most blatant example of censorship, at least on this side of governments supressing political dissent to stay in power.

That such a censorship regime is being legalized exactly on the basis of copyrights, that were supposed to protect artists, and incentivize their work by larger control, yet instead it's abused so that certain artists can entirely take away others' control, and even their free speech they would have had without copyright, just because of being a "source" to their work indirectly, is one of the most self-defeating, hypocritical abuses of a legal principle.

Inherent moral hypocricy aside, it's not even practical for increasing creativity. A franchise controller is incentivized to maximize the benefit of their monopoly power over their rivals, leading to an onslaught of sequels and spinoffs and adaptations reboots, where a more free culture would have made some as long as they are demanded, then moved on to something else.

 

[drag00n3r]

So... No one's gonna say Games Workshop? Seriously? Alright then, I'll pick Games Workshop and I'll do the obvious things.

Give the Sisters a well deserved update. Honestly, this is getting ridiculous. 7th made them a bit better though.
Bring back the Squats. Seriously, Dwarves in Space? Who doesn't want that.
Give the non-imperium armies some more love... also, stop the focus on the Ultrasmurfs.
Move the plot forward. This is obvious.
Bring back the old allies matrix from 6th edition. I prefer that one over the 7th "All Imperial Armies are super best buds thing".
And last but not least, MAKE THE FUCKING THING CHEAPER. Honestly?! This shit is getting way too expensive.

 

[Jesterscup]

Babylon 5.

I'd start a new series set 50 years after the end of season 4, a society built by the younger races gradually falling apart, the lack of 'direction' from the older races ('first ones'), war among the unaligned worlds, and earth and mimbari societie(s) tearing themselves apart ( with the Centari already destroyed as a power, being held together only by an aging emperor Vir ). The rangers have lost their way, becoming little more than a martial force used by the earth mimbar alliance. Themes of redemption / oblivion being the spiritual undertones replacing the traditional "who are you"/"What do you want".

Thats it, no good guys, no bad guys, just a bunch of broken imperfect (real) characters trying to ( and failing ) hold the universe together.

 

[Armadox]

I would buy out the rights to Monster Party and make a sequel that was surreal, fun, and madness. Twisted levels that snuggled right in the uncanny valley and cute. Also have the three difficulties on it starting at Kirby's Epic Yard, and the last one as hard as the original.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

Mass Effect: Surprise! Indoctrination Theory was real! And you thought we were just terrible at narrative? Ha! We're Bioware! Kneel before Zo- I mean, Hudson.

Also? Race options for side stories and a broader narrative scope.

Starcraft: Remember when we said we were splitting the sequel into three separate expansion packs to charge you multiple times and, just recently, declared we'd be selling the final one as a "full game," which means "full price"? All lies.

Enjoy the full experience in one go.

Also, it was 2006 when II was released, which didn't take ten years to happen. We're actually about to release Starcraft 3: The Voidening - Retcon Adventures now.

Metroid: What's that? Other M? Oh, you mean that fan-servicey side story we gave to Team Ninja? Yeah, it's coming along pretty well. It'll be a digital release with a decent overarching plot and brawler type combat that focuses on TN's strengths.

Anywho, back to the Metroid Prime Trilogy's incoming sequel. We're really going to blow the doors off with this one.

Firefly: Good news, everyone! Fox burned to the ground...but, amazingly enough, the only thing to survive was the rights to Firefly! And Joss Whedon just so happened to stumble upon them while taking his sickly grandmother for a walk around the neighborhood, thereby, somehow granting him rights to the show.

FX and HBO are currently vying for his attention. 2004 is going to be great!

Dragon Age: A year and a half development cycle for the sequel? Fuck you sideways.



[small]...I cried a bit on the inside writing these.[/small]

 

[Vault101]

I'd Have Mass Effect 4 be a true sequel and a total unapologetic [I/]"we dun fucked up on ME3 lets cauterize the wound and go from there"[/I] retcon/work it into something where we can "go forward" a direct continuation of the first 3 games, with Shepard and everyone

So you'd make an unapologetic apology? I didn't think the laws of causality constituted a franchise.
.

Lol...mabye not

By unapologetic I think I meant picking up right where we left off, and essentially acknowledging and writing off the latter part of mass effect 3 which is from a developers stand point, brazen, ambitious and risky...even from a fans standpoint it's not what you'd imedietly call a "good idea"

But no matter what retcon/convoluted hand waving if have to pull I'd do it...just for the hell of it, don't get a new bike...just wrap it in duct tape careen down a hill

 

[jab136]

can I undo what's already been done?

if not I'd Have Mass Effect 4 be a true sequel and a total unapologetic [I/]"we dun fucked up on ME3 lets cauterize the wound and go from there"[/I] retcon/work it into something where we can "go forward" a direct continuation of the first 3 games, with Shepard and everyone

I'm not sure what I'd do but perhaps some sort of indoctrination/multiple universes/whatever shtick, go back to basics, better writing no more "lets keep tacking and retconning shit onto the lore so it becomes one big bloated mess"

well you could make one last dlc that released for free, and was basically MEHEM or something similar, where the ending at least made sense, but if you wanted to go more in depth, you could make previous choices actually make a difference in the ending (and not in a you got this number of points you get this ending way). Personally I feel that a kind of "command minigame" where you control all the forces on your side and deploy them to various encounters, and some of them are better suited to the tasks than others (like the Suicice mission in ME2) would work the best. because this way if certain forces are unavailable due to them being dead, then you have to deploy sub-optimal forces who will sustain heavier losses or even be killed while accomplishing the task, and make your ending dramatically different than if you had all the optimal forces. (note not all the optimal forces would be gained by paragon choices, some would only be available through renegade decisions, I play mostly paragon, but I didn't really like the fact that paragon decisions were always presented as the "right" decision through most of the games). You could also release a final patch to fix all the issues, and maybe make a re-release of the entire trilogy where the combat system, graphics, etc. was standardized to a slight mix between ME2 and ME3, but have more cooldown weapons in the trilogy and have a weapon and armor upgrade system similar to ME1.

 

[Not Lord Atkin]

Oh well since we're all doing this:

Splinter Cell: Bring Michael Ironside back on board. Put Sam in a Lambert-style mission briefing person position - I mean he's in his fifties and is the head of 4th Echelon. Might as well. Being in the field doesn't really make sense for him anymore. Make Higgs into the playable protagonist instead, since apparently that new voiceacting/mocap tech ABSOLUTELY NEEDS TO be there for some reason. Instead of doing another one of those masturbatory nationalist 'saving the free world' power fantasy stories, scale the thing back to covert ops and have Sam and Higgs exchange witticisms instead. Bring back the interrogation mechanic, locked doors and the side-mission system from Chaos Theory where you were given a bunch of secondary objectives at the start of the level and were encouraged to explore. Tie the upgrade system to secondary objectives rather than an arbitrary scoring system and consequently encourage a careful, stealthy approach through level design and mechanics rather than how many points you get at the end. Fix the PC ports. Bring back quicksaves and the precise movement speed control with the mouse wheel.

Assassin's Creed: Scale back the development to a single studio. Improve communication within the development team. Deannualise the franchise and focus on making it into a long-term thing. Take focus back onto assassinations and make planning/executing horrific murder of your target the meat of gameplay. Get rid of all the pointless distractions and collectibles, try to tie every aspect together into a coherent whole - side missions and collectibles need to have a real impact on the core of gameplay. For example, I really enjoyed the missions in the Ezio trilogy that lead to a new set of armour or collecting the shanties in black flag because going after these side-things actually had an impact on the rest of the game. Make the main character more vulnerable in combat. Remove the one-hit-kill counters, unless they are difficult to pull off. make fleeing preferable to fighting large groups not because it's tedious and takes ages to do but because you'd get your arse kicked within seconds. Fix the free-running system so it's more precise and responsive as opposed to having the exact same movement system as a racing game if you had to hold 4 buttons at once to do anything in a racing game.

 

[Thaluikhain]

So... No one's gonna say Games Workshop? Seriously? Alright then, I'll pick Games Workshop and I'll do the obvious things.

Give the Sisters a well deserved update. Honestly, this is getting ridiculous. 7th made them a bit better though.
Bring back the Squats. Seriously, Dwarves in Space? Who doesn't want that.
Give the non-imperium armies some more love... also, stop the focus on the Ultrasmurfs.
Move the plot forward. This is obvious.
Bring back the old allies matrix from 6th edition. I prefer that one over the 7th "All Imperial Armies are super best buds thing".
And last but not least, MAKE THE FUCKING THING CHEAPER. Honestly?! This shit is getting way too expensive.

I think it's too late for GW. But, in general, recognise that not everyone is an over-excited 12 year old kid their parents will buy anything for. Now, I don't have anything against over-excited 12 year old kids, but they used to make products that appealed to them, and others besides. Don't claim that everything is the most awesomest thing ever, put some actual effort in and make it interesting in its own right. Don't keep upping the stakes in meaningless incoherent ways.

On a personal note, put some thought into how the Marines work. A Chapter is tiny, and Marines aren't all that hard to kill, comparatively. It has to be used intelligently to be convincingly useful.

 

[GamemasterAnthony]

Pokémon - Let's see...for the Seventh Generation...

- Create a Poison type Legendary and a Dark type Gym
- Make sure HMs are only needed for sidequesting and exploration, and NOT required to complete the main story
- Bring back the PWT with all characters from past generations...and add the Elite Four members this time around
- Hire a moderator to make sure the GTS is free of hacked and/or naughtily named Pokémon

Anything else you think I should do?

 

[Schadrach]

The Legacy of Kain.

This one is easy, make one more game (call it "The Legacy of Kain: Redemption"?). Set it immediately after Defiance, with the plot entailing the following:

[ol]
[li]Killing off the Elder God.[/li]
[li]Using the time-streaming chamber to figure out who will be chosen after the end of the game.[/li]
[li]Jumping forward to locate them and turn them into vampires as well as train them for what's about to happen.[/li]
[li]Removal of the hylden back to their side of the gate.[/li]
[li]Then back to the Blood Omen era to put the Reaver back in Avernus Cathedral (potential quick crossover with with previous incarnation of Kain here, as Defiance Kain takes the Reaver from Avernus Cathedral not long before Blood Omen Kain takes the Reaver from Avernus Cathedral, so *somehow* some version of the Reaver has to make it back there, and end-of-plot Reaver makes the most sense as it neatly closes the infinite Raziel loop and explains how Mobius would know the results of a clash between William the Just and Kain, without requiring multiple Reavers).[/li]
[li]Finally, a return to the Pillars of Nosgoth at the earliest point that doesn't break the timeline (which puts it post-Soul Reaver) and Kain's suicide, thus putting the people located in step 2 in the position as the new guardians of the restored Pillars.[/li]
[/ol]

There, it's finished. The plot is actually resolved, finally.

 

[Nazulu]

Metroid - Focus on clever level design that works well with the weapon and movement upgrades with an amazing style and soundtrack like Super Metroid, not make it more like a bloody movie.

Then hire some people that can actually write a good story, and maybe characters, because Other M be damned.

Also attempt a 3rd person type game, maybe one like Body Harvest because there is a real lack of games like that. I prefer a 3rd person view, so go fuck yourself.

MLP:FIM - Just would have kept it with the original team who wouldn't go full fan service and bone general execution.

StarCraft - Release info that StarCraft 2 and all it's expansions was a joke and the real StarCraft 2 will be released soon with writing that isn't as corny as those forgettable childish Disney/Nickelodeon movies.

And a shit ton of others I can't bothered mentioning. They all have similar problems though with design, style, writing, lighting, and loss of focus on what made the originals so great.