29 replies to this topic

[DeadlyNerd]

Rant thread? Nah, we're past that.

Here's what a Tripwire president John Gibson thinks about today's FPS community

Quote

Gibson:I think that’s part of it. The game is kind of spoonfeeding them, and making them feel great when they’re not. And like I said, that’s smart business, and I don’t blame Infinity Ward for wanting to do that. They’re selling millions of games and they have lots of people enjoying it, but I think there’s a depth of enjoyment there that a lot of these players are missing out on. And when you try to get them to branch out, their knee-jerk reaction is “The training wheels have come off, I’m gonna fall!” And I hate to see that.
It’s this weird dichotomy between, you know, single-player is getting much more depth, and players are just eating it up. They’re loving that. They’re buying these FPS-RPG single-player games like crazy. But multiplayer, “Ooh, don’t take my training wheels off.” I hate that. So we’re trying... we’re giving a little bit of training wheels, but we’re going to take them off occasionally in the shooters that we’re making, and hopefully we’ll get some of those people to branch out. I think for me though, I wouldn’t say I’ve completely given up on all of those players, but I’m not gonna try to make a game that tries to be Call of Duty at the expense of having fun gameplay that actually has depth.

Sorry, but Red Orchestra is good in its own way, without catering to CoD players that require training wheels to play.
Rising Storm is in development meaning that RO2 did actually succeed in creating profit for Tripwire.

What do you learn from this? Stick to the initial goals and cater to the community that you have, not the one that you might have if you dumb down the game.

[Davers]

How is having an out of game 3PV so you can look at your mech on the training grounds dumbing down the game?

Also the quote is a little bit insulting. It's basically saying players all want training wheels and get upset if they don't have them, but he wants to force them to take the training wheels off.

Somehow he is making "They’re selling millions of games and they have lots of people enjoying it" sound like a bad thing.

[Crazyeyes244]

Rising storm was initially supposed to be free DLC. Now it is a full priced. semi-stand alone expansion pack. And ALOT of the promises made to the community for RO2 were backed down on in favor of making the game accessible (lack of new vehicles for one, the addition of "Action Mode" is another). When they went around to try and appease the old schoolers it didn't work out either since the game was never built for that sort of gameplay.

Edited by Sam Donelly, 25 March 2013 - 02:52 PM.

[Josef Nader]

It is a bad thing, because it becomes a lot harder for games that don't try to appeal to the widest possible audience to get funding and support. If your target demographic isn't "everyone", it's getting harder and harder for interesting or niche ideas to get funded. Publishers are pushing for games to be accessible to the masses, and this equates to a general dumbing down of gameplay mechanics and a push towards homogenization. Developers stop taking risks because publishers refuse to fund risks. Innovation dies down, games stop being as unique, and we end up with a big grey blob of boring, samey games.

It's fine to have your summer blockbusters that everyone can enjoy, but you should also have movies that target smaller, more specific interests. It keeps things different and invites people to experience things they aren't familiar with. If everything was a summer blockbuster, movies would be boring as hell.

[Sephlock]

Do either of those games have AC-130s?

[PANZERBUNNY]

DeadlyNerd, on 25 March 2013 - 02:44 PM, said:

Rant thread? Nah, we're past that.

Here's what a Tripwire president John Gibson thinks about today's FPS community



Sorry, but Red Orchestra is good in its own way, without catering to CoD players that require training wheels to play.
Rising Storm is in development meaning that RO2 did actually succeed in creating profit for Tripwire.

What do you learn from this? Stick to the initial goals and cater to the community that you have, not the one that you might have if you dumb down the game.

Red Orchestra was a pretty damn good game.

[Davers]

Josef Nader, on 25 March 2013 - 02:54 PM, said:

It is a bad thing, because it becomes a lot harder for games that don't try to appeal to the widest possible audience to get funding and support. If your target demographic isn't "everyone", it's getting harder and harder for interesting or niche ideas to get funded. Publishers are pushing for games to be accessible to the masses, and this equates to a general dumbing down of gameplay mechanics and a push towards homogenization. Developers stop taking risks because publishers refuse to fund risks. Innovation dies down, games stop being as unique, and we end up with a big grey blob of boring, samey games.

It's fine to have your summer blockbusters that everyone can enjoy, but you should also have movies that target smaller, more specific interests. It keeps things different and invites people to experience things they aren't familiar with. If everything was a summer blockbuster, movies would be boring as hell.

Yeah, sometimes a 'niche' game hits it big like 'Minecraft', but usually they only hit it with a small audience (Like 'Crusader Kings').

[DeadlyNerd]

Sam Donelly, on 25 March 2013 - 02:51 PM, said:

Rising storm was initially supposed to be free DLC. Now it is a full priced. semi-stand alone expansion pack. And ALOT of the promises made to the community for RO2 were backed down on in favor of making the game accessible (lack of new vehicles for one, the addition of "Action Mode" is another). When they went around to try and appease the old schoolers it didn't work out either since the game was never built for that sort of gameplay.

I wont quote the whole article. He specifically explains why the action mode was actually in and what a struggle it was to get it working for CoD players, they so tried to appease in order to get greater publicity.
Here, have a read.
http://store.steampo...s/?appids=35450

[Josef Nader]

Rest in Piece, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., you were too good for this world.

I just hope Metro: Last Light survives the development hell in good shape...

[shihku7]

This game is probably too hardcore for it to do well with the masses. I wonder if the premise of the game itself, mech sim combat, even has mass appeal at all. So if PGI made a special mode for casual gamers, would it even make a difference? I dunno. If I was PGI, I'd certainly give it a shot though.

Mech combat just isn't very popular in the US or the West. Flight sims, vehicle sims, submarine sims. It was popular 20 years ago, but back then "popular" was small potatoes compared to what's popular today.

The only place where mechs are considered cool and somewhat popular is Japan. If PGI made a Gundam game, they might do well... in Japan. lol. But even there, all popular Gundam games are not simulator-like. They have arcade gameplay.

[Jetfire]

shihku7, on 25 March 2013 - 03:24 PM, said:

This game is probably too hardcore for it to do well with the masses. I wonder if the premise of the game itself, mech sim combat, even has mass appeal at all. So if PGI made a special mode for casual gamers, would it even make a difference? I dunno. If I was PGI, I'd certainly give it a shot though.

Mech combat just isn't very popular in the US or the West. Flight sims, vehicle sims, submarine sims. It was popular 20 years ago, but back then "popular" was small potatoes compared to what's popular today.

The only place where mechs are considered cool and somewhat popular is Japan. If PGI made a Gundam game, they might do well... in Japan. lol. But even there, all popular Gundam games are not simulator-like. They have arcade gameplay.

Mech games have always had a limited audience, even MW2/3, it was just that a big portion of the PC enthusiast crowd happened to like mechs and space flight sims etc. MWO can expand their appeal with 3PV, but only a bit... there is Zero chance it will ever be the next HALO or COD. Run and Gun has nothing to do with Mechs and this is Hawkens real underlying issue. Without the Mechsim aspects it cannot distinguish itself and thus has no market at all as the HALO and COD crowd already has those games which, considering their mechanics and budgets are basically perfected for what they are.

Edited by Jetfire, 25 March 2013 - 03:33 PM.

[Josef Nader]

Pretty much. Tripwire spent a lot of time and effort into making a mode for their game that would appeal to the masses. I recently re-installed RO2 and I couldn't find a single populated "Firefight" (the casual game mode) server active. The folks who like the current casual shooters just aren't interested. MWO fills a similar niche. Giant robot combat is only going to be interesting to those of us who are already heavily invested in the franchise. MWO has the chance to grow the brand a bit, but it's core audience already knows about MWO, plays it, and pays for it. It's core audience is responsible for raising them over $5,000,000 with the founders program. Mechwarrior just doesn't have mass appeal. It has a small, extremely dedicated fanbase. If PGI had any sense, they'd focus on milking us for every penny we had, and we'd pay out the arse to keep this game afloat because it's the only game out there scratching our particular itch for giant robot combat.

Trying to appeal to everyone is only going to leave your core left out and the masses unenthused.

[Crazyeyes244]

DeadlyNerd, on 25 March 2013 - 03:04 PM, said:

I wont quote the whole article. He specifically explains why the action mode was actually in and what a struggle it was to get it working for CoD players, they so tried to appease in order to get greater publicity.
Here, have a read.
http://store.steampo...s/?appids=35450

Aye, I think I have read that one before, was a good article. And for clarity I am not necessarily saying RO2 was a bad game. its a fun game that I definitely enjoyed, but the over all handling of the launch, further development, and general PR was just not good enough. Top that of with a big portion of the community (somewhat myself included) that just wanted a true successor to RO1, and it was a recipe for unpleasant times. Which brings me back to MWO, as I really don't want a similar thing to happen here (fiercely loyal fanbase that wants a "successor" to the old games but it gets diluted to appeal to more players).

[Monky]

What gets me about it is this;

THE ONLY THING YOU NEED TO DO IS PUT IN A 3D VIEW OF YOUR OWN MECH IN YOUR HUD

Go back to the basics that Mechwarrior 2 had. It gave you a 3d animated wireframe of your mech. Let that be enabled by default, and people can turn it off if they don't want it. Make a module so you can see the same for your enemy's mech, and pow bang boom, new feature and awesomeness.

I have ran this by many of my friends that I've tried to get to play MWO and they all say 'yeah that would be great!' Most of them had trouble figuring out leg to torso rotation, and if this would fix it for them, why not?

Edited by Monky, 25 March 2013 - 03:42 PM.

[Davers]

Yeah. What Mr. Nader said. The best we can hope for is that they iron out some of the problems and the game slowly grows by word of mouth.

[Homeless Bill]

Jesus, you anti-3PV people are whiny. It's happening, there's nothing you can do to stop it, you don't have to play against anyone using it, and lots of people (myself included) will enjoy being able to see our own 'mech stomp around.

Call it "dumbing down" as much as you want, but watching new players unsuccessfully try to get their bearings is an eye-opener to how much it would be helpful. Think 3PV will give you some huge advantage? I'll kick your *** anyways =P

[Josef Nader]

I'm of this bizarre notion that a tutorial will go a lot farther towards teaching new players how to handle their mechs and introduce far fewer problems than 3rd person view. 3rd person view has been one of the biggest mistakes in previous Mechwarrior games, and PGI vowed they wouldn't make the same mistake. Now, rather than introducing tutorial mechanics that would be much easier to create and implement, they're introducing a whole new gameplay and balance issue.

They're swatting the relatively minor problem of teaching new players how to orient themselves in a mech with the wrecking ball of 3rd person. 3rd person isn't dumbing down, but it does reduce the game into a snipefest. You say we don't have to play with the folks using 3rd person, but that's short sighted. This game is already of an incredibly limited audience, and dividing the playerbase even further is absolutely foolhardy especially when 3rd person is not going to sell anyone who isn't familiar with Mechwarrior on the game.

[Theron Branson]

Being a huge part of RO1/DH/CC/MN and RO2 they destroyed what was great about RO1 and tried to appeal to the masses which killed RO2. Like others have said Rising Storm was supposed to be free but I think they gave up on RO2 and never got it working right until it was too late. All us die hard RO1 players moved on and waiting for "Festung Europa" from the Darkest Hour Dev team (JackBoots). I was very disappointed in the game and it destroyed a 5 year old clan of mine. I will never agree with what Tripwire did to the game. Actually it could be saved if they developed more tanks which they promised and never came out.

[Crazyeyes244]

I think we all know that it will be implemented eventually, but the dialogue in this thread is more pertaining to the overarching theme of making a game more accessible to the masses and what that causes in terms of gameplay/mechanics/simplifications (Dumbing down). Hence, we used RO2 as an example of the effects of doing so. Third person has been done before and while yes people are overreacting about it to an extent, it is still a sign that there is pressure to appeal to wider audiences through in-game mechanics.

I agree with Nader, a tutorial would be a MUCH better use of time than figuring out a fair, and fitting way to implement a third person view (split drops, or some other way). Personally I don't see how we can do it without causing another split of playerbase or adding undue stress to the matchmaker. That said, I do think it would be cool to look at my 'mech but the sad truth is that some people will use it to their advantage.

[PANZERBUNNY]

Homeless Bill, on 25 March 2013 - 03:42 PM, said:

Jesus, you anti-3PV people are whiny. It's happening, there's nothing you can do to stop it, you don't have to play against anyone using it, and lots of people (myself included) will enjoy being able to see our own 'mech stomp around.

Call it "dumbing down" as much as you want, but watching new players unsuccessfully try to get their bearings is an eye-opener to how much it would be helpful. Think 3PV will give you some huge advantage? I'll kick your *** anyways =P

I assume you have no understanding of how awful it would be to split the community or do you purposefully enjoy thinking only one step ahead of yourself?