Good series ruined by the biz

 Pages PREV 1 2 3 4 5 NEXT
 

zeit:
Diablo - Blizzard fired all of the original Diablo team, so now Diablo 3 will be a dumbed down console game for kids rather than the violent, satanic hack & slash pseudo-roguelike we all know and love.

Well, something like two thirds of the Diablo 2 team are working on Diablo 3.[1] Grain of salt and all, I've only heard it on this forum. That said, it's irrelevant how many people from the old team work on it. What matters are the leads and the direction they want to take with the game.

You're going to get flooded with quotes, too. I would've made a wall of text in advance if I were you.

To add to that, off the top of my head:
-Dungeon Siege. Yeah, 3 was a complete turd, just like I expected the moment I saw the Square Enix logo. Being outsourced to a different developer and publisher can hardly be a good sign. And they chose Square.
-Supreme Commander.
-Crysis. The thing with these 3 is that they all started sucking hard right on the entry to the console market. Funny that. I'm not saying anything, I'm just saying.

-Warcraft. Yeah, WoW did some damage there.

[1] Citation needed.

Lugbzurg:
Banjo-Kazooie. That game was incredible. To make it better, the epilogue has Mumbo-Jumbo talking about the (at the time) upcoming sequel, Banjo-Tooie! Then, at the end of that game, Banjo-Threeie was mentioned! Guess what game we still don't have after over a decade? All because Microsoft seemed to think it wouldn't be popular. The series is very popular! But, Microsoft thinks everyone out there just wants more cookie-cutter shooters.

Pretty sure Nuts and Bolts is meant to Banjo-Threeie (which, let's face it, is an incredibly stupid name. Tooie worked, Threeie doesn't). It's too bad that Nuts and Bolts deviated so much from the rest of the series. But I actually think it was decent at least. I do agree we need a new ACTUAL Banjo-Kazooie game with the old gameplay mechanics. But I don't think Nuts and Bolts was actually bad. I thought it had interesting ideas with the vehicle creation at least. Though trying to focus so much on the vehicle aspect really killed it.

Raggedstar:
Assassin's Creed is the first that comes to mind. The series has a really good foundation and a lot of potential, but now it's full of over-priced spin-offs with minimal progression (60 bucks each for two side-stories with minimal useful additions to gameplay/story and a multiplayer? No, that doesn't seem greedy at all). Ubisoft can redeem themselves if they wrap up the story neatly with AC3, but AC2.5 and 2.75 as something to chew on between that doesn't justify much.

Kingdom Hearts is another one. Again, good foundation and lots of potential (even if it does rely heavily on hitting the nostalgia bone pretty hard, it stil worked), but...oh my what happened? It has been 6 years since the last major installment in the franchise. Since then, there have been a million spin-offs and remakes of said spin-offs (additionally, all on handheld systems). Really, how much plot has been added since KH2? Very little, and HOW many games came out? A lot of them just explore stuff that already happened. And so many of them are just pure nonsense (I've read some stuff on the 3DS game. Just...wtf?) I've just competely zoned out from the franchise. Odds are I'll get the 3DS one to justify getting my 3DS and because I'm a total tool. They don't even plan to end it with KH3 x____x.

I both agree and disagree with the AC one. For me, AC's sequel, which I consider just 2, was sooooo much better then the first. It was a great example of a good sequel. Take the aspects people enjoyed and improve on them while getting rid of how incredibly repititve it was and making a new, and better, character to follow.

But, at the same time, I do think Brotherhood and Revelations are too much. I really didn't care for Brotherhood for many reasons, and haven't gotten myself invested enough to play Revelations yet. They really did milk that setting too much. Hopefully 3 will be able to bring it back. But even then, the gameplay really didn't suffer too much. It still worked pretty solidly. Even if Brotherhood kinda forgot why AC2 was fun (yes, let's make 2/3 of the map really open with little to no chance to hop from rooftop to rooftop and then set most everything else in tight corridors).

As for KH, what really killed me was opening for 2. It's been a while since I played it, but I remember spending hours following a character I knew nothing about doing stuff that I really didn't care about nor did it feel like a Kingdom Hearts game. The reason for doing so was explained at the end of the intro. And I suppose it would have helped to play the GBA game they had released. But that doesn't excuse the fact that it really seemed like a time-waster with no real point in the end that blocked me off from the actual fun part of the game.

Fr]anc[is:
It's funny how you think it's possible to dumb down Diablo.

tee hee

Maybe they reduced the clicking by 13% or something.

Crash Bandicoot - 3 great game and Naughty Dog decides wisely to quit while they're ahead, however every developer since who has tried to revive the series seems to not grasped this and it makes me sad to see my childhood dragged through the mud.

Timesplitters - Recession caused Free Radical to go under and is bought by Creek. However Crytek afraid of money and happy fans decides not to release a sequel instead to carry on releasing glorified tech demos and sequels to Homefront. Sorry still cut up about Timesplitters D:

Lilani:
Spyro, God rest his soul. They should have put him to bed long before Elijah Wood came into the picture. But now they've resurrected him again for this Skylanders business, morphed him to look like a character from "How to Train Your Dragon," and ugh...I can't bear to think about it anymore.

What are you talking about? They only made three Spyro games for the PS1. Everyone had the common sense to let Spyro fall into obscurity before any idiot got there hands on it and made it an obvious cash-grab. There were no average, yet completely unremarkable "Legend" games and Spyro retired in his prime.

OT: Crash. Wrath of Cortex and Twinsanity were fun, but when they started with the "Mojo" and hijacking mutants bullshit, I couldn't take it anymore.

GobbieGoldchain:

zeit:
Diablo - Blizzard fired all of the original Diablo team, so now Diablo 3 will be a dumbed down console game for kids rather than the violent, satanic hack & slash pseudo-roguelike we all know and love.

I'm glad he brought this up, 'cause now I can possibly have a question I've been wondering about for a while answered.

When people bring up dumbed down, I assume it meant a game was less complex, gameplay wise. But according to this, is he suggesting a "dumbed down console game for kids" means a game without violence, adult themes (i.e. satanic), and feelings/actions/items that make you feel like a bad-ass (i.e. being pseudo-roguelike)? It's strange that he mentions "hack & slash," 'cause hack & slash doesn't get any more dumbed down than that.

Help a brother out, folks. Is a dumbed down game a game that is simply not complex, gameplay wise? Or a game that does not contain any explicit content? Is it both?

I think it's aimed at the complete removal of the large, manual skill trees and manual stat leveling. While that does streamline gameplay considerably, it also removes quite a few of the really cool things you could do with that system. Enchant Sorceress, the vast array of equally viable Paladin builds, Tank druid versus Spirit druid, etc. The actual combat mechanics basically didn't change (skill use was reduced in tandem with reduced number of skills), but the RPG mechanics were more or less gutted.

zeit:

Fallout - A series of bad decisions ruined Interplay, thus ruining Black Isle. Now all we get is Oblivion with guns. Rest in peace, Van Buren.
.

image

Fallout 3 isn't liked by some people, I am cool with that kind of opinion, but to just claim it as "just Oblivion with guns" is probobly the worst thing you can do. Its far different.

Besides difference its fucking brilliant, and don't tell me its just another "FPS", if the option to free fire is there, then whats fucking wrong with that? That just means more options for the combat unlike in Fallout 1 where I'd fire my gun and there'd be a chance that it'd fall, hit my foot and shoot dogmeat where the game fucked me over. In fallout 3, if I f'd up, it was my fault.

Besides that, its one of the biggest games I know and still a great game to refresh myself with every now and then.

Terminate421:

zeit:

Fallout - A series of bad decisions ruined Interplay, thus ruining Black Isle. Now all we get is Oblivion with guns. Rest in peace, Van Buren.
.

Fallout 3 isn't liked by some people, I am cool with that kind of opinion, but to just claim it as "just Oblivion with guns" is probobly the worst thing you can do. Its far different.

Besides difference its fucking brilliant, and don't tell me its just another "FPS", if the option to free fire is there, then whats fucking wrong with that? That just means more options for the combat unlike in Fallout 1 where I'd fire my gun and there'd be a chance that it'd fall, hit my foot and shoot dogmeat where the game fucked me over. In fallout 3, if I f'd up, it was my fault.

Besides that, its one of the biggest games I know and still a great game to refresh myself with every now and then.

image

http://i.imgur.com/WGzhX.jpg

70R4N:

Terminate421:

zeit:

Fallout - A series of bad decisions ruined Interplay, thus ruining Black Isle. Now all we get is Oblivion with guns. Rest in peace, Van Buren.
.

Fallout 3 isn't liked by some people, I am cool with that kind of opinion, but to just claim it as "just Oblivion with guns" is probobly the worst thing you can do. Its far different.

Besides difference its fucking brilliant, and don't tell me its just another "FPS", if the option to free fire is there, then whats fucking wrong with that? That just means more options for the combat unlike in Fallout 1 where I'd fire my gun and there'd be a chance that it'd fall, hit my foot and shoot dogmeat where the game fucked me over. In fallout 3, if I f'd up, it was my fault.

Besides that, its one of the biggest games I know and still a great game to refresh myself with every now and then.

snip

http://i.imgur.com/WGzhX.jpg

I think you need to return to the No Mutants allowed forums cause their the only people that care about those pointless stats

Yeah I found fallout 3 to just be more fun than the older ones. I've spent well over 300 hours in fallout 3 and New Vegas, while I couldn't even get an hour into fallout 1 without falling asleep at my keyboard.

ot: I suppose I would say Call of Duty just got milked too much, I think if they slow down and take time on the next game it will could be really good but right now I'm just tired of seeing them. Also Fable I suppose, that was a game that did not need any streamlining but they still did it and now its basically a cake walk with absolutely no depth to it.

This was probably pointed out before, but Kotor 2. What Lucasarts did was unbelievably disgraceful and borders on out right "shits 'n giggles" villainy.
Of course, meddling with the title to include "The Sith Lords" was a bad idea, but not quite the worst offense. Obsidian had about a year to make the game, since it was rushed out for christmas release. And then, when they promised to release free-to-download patches to actually fix the incomplete ending and restore much of the ungodly amount of cut content, Lucasarts legally forbade them from doing so. For no fucking discernible reason whatsoever other than they want to be as bad as is possible.
And that is just bad.

Good post 70R4N.

Just the fact alone that they changed Fallout into ANOTHER FUCKING FPS is enough to turn alot of rpg fans off. Fallout 3 is a shitty game regardless though for obvious reasons that have been gone over many times. At least New Vegas rectified alot of that despite it still being ANOTHER FUCKING FPS in that shitty ass engine.

I vote for Indiana Jones.

Oh wait, we're not talking about movies, are we?

Capitalism and art/media rarely mix well...shame there isn't any way around it. I can't imagine taxpayers ever agreeing to publically funded video game development ha!

Anthraxus:
Good post 70R4N.

Just the fact alone that they changed Fallout into ANOTHER FUCKING FPS is enough to turn alot of rpg fans off. Fallout 3 is a shitty game regardless though for obvious reasons that have been gone over many times. At least New Vegas rectified alot of that despite it still being ANOTHER FUCKING FPS in that shitty ass engine.

According to you it is. But i found fallout 3 to be one of the best rpg's i have played in awhile. Admittedly new vegas was a better rpg in the stats department and how the speech choices were done. But honestly its Trivial. Your opinion is its a shitty fps. my opinion is its a fun rpg. I take the role of a blank slate. morph them through my actions. and make decisions i want to make. that defines an rpg in my book. Opinions. they are your friend. mine does not make yours invalid. yours does not make mine invalid.

OT: game franchis ruined?: kingdom hearts. RELEASE THREE ALREADY DAMMIT. ENOUGH WITH THE SHITTY ROXAS SPINOFFS. but no. they never did and as a result they lost me almost entirely in the franchise.

Ultima, in which demise EA had a major role. I'd love to see another Ultima game.

Mercenaries. Playground of Destruction still stands as one of my favorite games ever, and I wanted to scream when I witnessed what EA had done to it with World in Flames.

And PgoD doesn't even work properly with backwards compatibility on Xbox, it freezes before you get to do much. Luckily I still have my old Xbox lying around.

GobbieGoldchain:

zeit:
Diablo - Blizzard fired all of the original Diablo team, so now Diablo 3 will be a dumbed down console game for kids rather than the violent, satanic hack & slash pseudo-roguelike we all know and love.

I'm glad he brought this up, 'cause now I can possibly have a question I've been wondering about for a while answered.

When people bring up dumbed down, I assume it meant a game was less complex, gameplay wise. But according to this, is he suggesting a "dumbed down console game for kids" means a game without violence, adult themes (i.e. satanic), and feelings/actions/items that make you feel like a bad-ass (i.e. being pseudo-roguelike)? It's strange that he mentions "hack & slash," 'cause hack & slash doesn't get any more dumbed down than that.

Help a brother out, folks. Is a dumbed down game a game that is simply not complex, gameplay wise? Or a game that does not contain any explicit content? Is it both?

i've always thought 'dumbing down' was 'simplifying it', not that you can dumb down a hack and slash much ....

also, OT.
i am preemptively calling that DMC imposter

That Fallout 3 criticism pic is just great. Until now I felt like I was the only one who didn't like it.

The main thing I hated about the game though was just wandering around this huge world with nothing in it. There's so many empty buildings full of junk and random locations that don't have anything important in them. They made this huge game world but there's hardly any sidequests in it. And sometimes you find doors that don't lead anywhere, just a brick wall behind them. I opened one of these pointless doors to find that the developers had spray painted "FUCK YOU" on the wall. That little incident basically sums up the entire game for me, and it says a lot about how Bethesda views their customers and their products.

And on Diablo, I'm not really sure how to explain what I mean by "dumbing down". I don't necessarily mean that the gameplay is more simple or accessible, though that is certainly part of it. The main thing that seems dumbed down is the graphics; the game looks exactly like WoW. The atmosphere is all gone, the uniqueness is gone. I don't see any reason to choose Diablo 3 over Torchlight, Titan Quest, or any of the other knockoffs. And it doesn't look like they've added anything new; in fact it's more like they subtracted a great deal of the gameplay and just beefed up the graphics.

Blizzard is not the company it used to be. They don't care about atmosphere, story, or balanced gameplay. They want to put out a half-ass attempt at the game everyone's been waiting for and sell fucking virtual battleaxes for real life money. They did the same thing with Starcraft 2. It was all hyped up and everyone bought a copy and it was a huge financial success, but then it turned out to be a mediocre game and now it's like an elephant in the room nobody mentions due to buyer's remorse. Blizzard is too successful to fail and has its lifeline of WoW subscriptions keeping it afloat for the foreseeable future. They don't need you to enjoy their games, all they need is for you to pay for them.

Lunar Templar:

GobbieGoldchain:

zeit:
Diablo - Blizzard fired all of the original Diablo team, so now Diablo 3 will be a dumbed down console game for kids rather than the violent, satanic hack & slash pseudo-roguelike we all know and love.

I'm glad he brought this up, 'cause now I can possibly have a question I've been wondering about for a while answered.

When people bring up dumbed down, I assume it meant a game was less complex, gameplay wise. But according to this, is he suggesting a "dumbed down console game for kids" means a game without violence, adult themes (i.e. satanic), and feelings/actions/items that make you feel like a bad-ass (i.e. being pseudo-roguelike)? It's strange that he mentions "hack & slash," 'cause hack & slash doesn't get any more dumbed down than that.

Help a brother out, folks. Is a dumbed down game a game that is simply not complex, gameplay wise? Or a game that does not contain any explicit content? Is it both?

i've always thought 'dumbing down' was 'simplifying it', not that you can dumb down a hack and slash much ....

I don't say that games are dumbed down lightly, but... they actually did. Srsly. "Auto level-up" is always on, and you cannot turn it off. It is built into the structure of the level system itself.

I still like the game (what little I have played during the beta, anyway), but damn, that was a bad idea and very disappointing.

The usual ones, Timesplitters, Star Wars Republic Commando and Star Wars Battlefront 3

EDIT: Oh, almost forgot, STALKER 2

Heroes of Might & Magic. It was pure turn-based strategy gold for the better part of a decade, then the original company closed its doors. Ubisoft bought the rights to it, then outsourced the sequel to a foreign production team that couldn't understand us when we tried to explain "memory leak" to them on the forums and support chats.

BreakfastMan:
[
I don't say that games are dumbed down lightly, but... they actually did. Srsly. "Auto level-up" is always on, and you cannot turn it off. It is built into the structure of the level system itself.

I still like the game (what little I have played during the beta, anyway), but damn, that was a bad idea and very disappointing.

*shrugs*

only thing that bothered me about the beta was how short it was, well, that and a lack of options for character creation options >.> but I'm spoiled on other games for that

the leveling system they used didn't bother me, since, i've not played a Diablo game prior

zeit:
I opened one of these pointless doors to find that the developers had spray painted "FUCK YOU" on the wall. That little incident basically sums up the entire game for me, and it says a lot about how Bethesda views their customers and their products.

Hahaha, so true. I find most ppl that liked games like Fallout 3 and Oblivion are the types to just be satisfied with a big open world to wander around in and don't really care about the finer points of rpgs.

Until now I felt like I was the only one who didn't like it.

Try going to some more specialized rpg sites and you'll see ALOT of hatred towards Fallout 3, believe me.

Lunar Templar:

BreakfastMan:
[
I don't say that games are dumbed down lightly, but... they actually did. Srsly. "Auto level-up" is always on, and you cannot turn it off. It is built into the structure of the level system itself.

I still like the game (what little I have played during the beta, anyway), but damn, that was a bad idea and very disappointing.

*shrugs*

only thing that bothered me about the beta was how short it was, well, that and a lack of options for character creation options >.> but I'm spoiled on other games for that

the leveling system they used didn't bother me, since, i've not played a Diablo game prior

Well, the prior Diablo games had skill trees and allocation of attribute points. The game did not automatically allocate the attribute points for you, and did not choose which skills you got at each level. It really limits the options given to the player as to develop their character for no good reason. It is one of the most poorly thought out design choices I have ever encountered in a game. :(

DoPo:

Daystar Clarion:
Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. Troika ran out of time and money and in the last quarter of the game, it shows, not to mention how many bugs the game shipped with.

Yeah, I was thinking of Bloodlines but it's not really series. Still pretty sucky as it was Activision that led to its and Troika's downfall.

Actually it's nearly bug-free thanks to WESP5. I think the unofficial patches are up to 7.5 or something but they really work.

OT: Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, and Sly. If sanzuru puts as much effort into thieves in time as they put into making up trophies for the HD port, it's gonna suck.

endtherapture:
You forgot Mass Effect.

And Star Wars Battlefront.

And KoTOR. And how Jedi Knight was superceded by this Force Unleashed crap. I just want Jedi Knight 3.

I fail to see how "the biz" ruined Battlefront. It was an earlier game series already published by EA (Battlefield) with a Star Wars skin.

An idea like that is really only worth one game of fun.

Dragon Age 2, shamefull.

Wrath 228:
Mercenaries. Playground of Destruction still stands as one of my favorite games ever, and I wanted to scream when I witnessed what EA had done to it with World in Flames.

And PgoD doesn't even work properly with backwards compatibility on Xbox, it freezes before you get to do much. Luckily I still have my old Xbox lying around.

All the blame none of the credit.

Smeatza:

Maxtro:
I remember that I actually used to be hyped for a new FF game and couldn't wait for the next one to come out.

11, 13, 14, 13 Part 2. What were they thinking? 12 was OK.

No it was not, I would have liked to see every character in that game die.

OT: Deus Ex, probably one of the first few games to suffer from being dumbed down for consoles.

I liked it, but wanted every character to end up brutally murdered. The only redeeming factor was the bad guys, who had to die anyway. Vaan (was that his name? Haven't played in so long) had a six pack which made me think he had a serious disfiguring illness. Plus there was Square Enix delaying FFXIII to make a 360 version, only for the game to suck after such a massive wait. FFIX for life.

EHKOS:

DoPo:

Daystar Clarion:
Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. Troika ran out of time and money and in the last quarter of the game, it shows, not to mention how many bugs the game shipped with.

Yeah, I was thinking of Bloodlines but it's not really series. Still pretty sucky as it was Activision that led to its and Troika's downfall.

Actually it's nearly bug-free thanks to WESP5. I think the unofficial patches are up to 7.5 or something but they really work.

v8.0 came out a week ago. Newest edition in Plus - the new library level is included (not fully functional, AFAIK) and a fightable werewolf! But since it's just added, wesp5 would like some feedback on that. Right now the battle might be broken.

But no, while the game is way more stable than it ever was, it's still not as stable as other games.

What Blizzard does not understand (or care about) is that in 12 years since Diablo 2 I am 12 years older rather than younger, hence my need for a more mature narrative/artistic direction.
Like the first Diablo had.

Oh, and a lot of people have been complaining about the CODification of Killzone 3. It's no secret SONY wanted to rush development asking for more approachable mechanics, "run & gun" they said, and an emphasis on multiplayer.

I'm a fan of both Far Cry games, but after having seen the gameplay trailer of the third one, my bet is that it will be irremediable crap.

BreakfastMan:

Lunar Templar:

BreakfastMan:
[
I don't say that games are dumbed down lightly, but... they actually did. Srsly. "Auto level-up" is always on, and you cannot turn it off. It is built into the structure of the level system itself.

I still like the game (what little I have played during the beta, anyway), but damn, that was a bad idea and very disappointing.

*shrugs*

only thing that bothered me about the beta was how short it was, well, that and a lack of options for character creation options >.> but I'm spoiled on other games for that

the leveling system they used didn't bother me, since, i've not played a Diablo game prior

Well, the prior Diablo games had skill trees and allocation of attribute points. The game did not automatically allocate the attribute points for you, and did not choose which skills you got at each level. It really limits the options given to the player as to develop their character for no good reason. It is one of the most poorly thought out design choices I have ever encountered in a game. :(

well, i can see the loss of the skill tree as worthy of complaint, but the classes where just as set before as they are now right? never got why some games made me set stats if they made me pick a class before i even got in the game, really only makes sense to me if i start with no class and work into something

Lunar Templar:

well, i can see the loss of the skill tree as worthy of complaint, but the classes where just as set before as they are now right? never got why some games made me set stats if they made me pick a class before i even got in the game, really only makes sense to me if i start with no class and work into something

It gives more choices to the player as to how they want to play their class. For instance, do I want to be a barbarian that hits slowly, but hard, or do I want to be one that hits fast, but weak? Or do I want to be using a lot of skills, but not many melee attacks? Giving the player the ability to distribute their attributes as they see fit gives the the player the choice to make decisions such as these. Removing this ability restricts the player's ability to choose how they want to develop their character. And that is just a damn shame. :(

I'd go with Deadly Dozen... The first game was plain awesome, the second was okay, I guess, but I'll never forgive them for dumping such a nice concept... ¬¬

I know what I said was not exactly not the point of the thread, so I'll go with sonic and the "must go 3d" trend of platforming... I hate those guys!

EDIT:Also Age of Empires 3 was the hugest fluke I've ever seen a franchise I love take!

A totally obvious one I forgot about: the Myst series.

Myst was great, Riven was incredible, Myst 3 was okay; after that things just got weird. I'm not really sure what happened with that series. Maybe it's the switch to 3D that did it, I don't know what it was but it just seemed like the magic was gone after Riven.

 Pages PREV 1 2 3 4 5 NEXT

Reply to Thread

Log in or Register to Comment
Have an account? Login below:
With Facebook:Login With Facebook
or
Username:  
Password:  
  
Not registered? To sign up for an account with The Escapist:
Register With Facebook
Register With Facebook
or
Registered for a free account here