The article’s right about the conversation turning needlessly toxic. There’s people out there that are fanatics about accuracy for no good reason, even cases where I’ve seen a “TRASH localizer!” video that convinced me the localization was good in that it avoided repeat words, when they were attempting to state the opposite.
These people seriously need to either learn Japanese to play the game how they prefer, or just be silent and stop harassing game devs.
I’ll admit, it’s probably not disingenuous to the original for it to be crammed with minigames, whether or not they changed it up with new ones. When the original was one game, leaving Midgar was very much a moment of freedom they wanted to capitalize on, so it was the perfect checkpoint to start giving the player optional activities.
That said, the “Towers” subject in particular (what I believe prompted the “Ubisoft style” comment) is something I feel like gamers need to cool down on. As much as people habitually throw shade on Ubisoft for starting them, they make sense, and can be done in an interesting way. If you have an open world environment, you want players to rely on the ugly minimap as little as possible; that often means both a focus on vertical movement that allows you chances to see the space in front of you, as well as tall buildings that encourage distant exploration. I really think towers get unfair criticism, even if a few games have done them in less fun ways (I could be biased - I think even in their initial appearances in Far Cry 3, they were actually fun to climb)
I prefer not to devote myself to any one storefront, and while Valve is very altruistic I think healthy competition is one of the things that keeps PC gaming storefronts at their best.
Even on consoles, I prefer to go digital; saves bookcase space.
While I’m very much on board with the equality quote for the white-male thing (If you’re privileged, you shouldn’t be making comments about welfare and employment), I don’t know if that has so much equivalence to being a game dev. In the end, a small team of people are the ones with the control to make and update the popular game, and that power will never be spread among its playerbase.
The thing is, as obvious as it sounds to say “never act like an ass”, conversational spontaneity is unpredictable, and the simplest and fastest way to achieve that is with the directive “Never speak”. I’ve even seen that issue with coding standards - the best way to never be blamed for a bug is to just never put up any code changes. In social settings, if people try to act in ‘honest’ ways, that can involve sometimes speaking in slightly inflammatory ways towards concepts that they think the group should agree are bad. In this very comment chain, for instance, we’ve made metaphors to oppressive patriarchy from controlling white men. (I’m a white guy with above-average income, by the way, and I’m very okay with that comparison)
So, these developers decided to be more vocal than others in the past (think of every publisher that responds with stock “We recognize your concerns and appreciate your feedback”) and, this unfortunately can be the consequence of that. I know it seems plausible to expect them to be perfect, but they’re human - not much different from all other internet commenters. I’d even question whether everyone here knows the full context of the comments that are receiving complaints. Quite often, when people are putting attention on you, they can selectively quote you to make you seem terrible. (“I KILLED EARL MILFORD.”)
If your position is simply “Devs shouldn’t speak outside of patch notes and press releases”, that’s kind of a fair stance, I just want to make sure that’s what you intend.
I imagine what makes it more of a grumble-fest for developers is that these days, a high majority of players will be coming from consoles. While cheaters do exist on consoles, they’re far less common, meaning that a majority of your playerbase is using game clients they can’t plausibly modify - meaning MOST of the clients can be trusted. So, signing on with something like EAC is really only resolving a cheating gap for a smaller percent of players.
There have even been situations with cheat-heavy games when console players will request the option to disable crossplay in order to assure they aren’t matched with cheaters, who are often on PC. Sea of Thieves may have been one such instance.
It’s unfortunately a case of developers being required to stay “on mute” because of their inherent power - much like being rich, male, and white.
I play a lot of Dead by Daylight, and many friendly content creators will offhandedly say comments like “If you can’t outrun a Hag who’s not using her traps on Garden of Joy, you should probably uninstall.” It’s an exaggerated sentiment, definitely in a mean spirit; but unfortunately that brand of sarcasm won’t work with everyone, and in the case of most people, they could react with “Well, fine, I don’t care about YOU - surely the developers agree with me.” But people feel MUCH more powerless when developers speak, even if it’s for a topic the community has consensus on. Even Dead by Daylight had its period of outcry when the developers effectively stated through changes “Camping survivors that are downed is not fun and we’d like to discourage it.”
I remember an incident in Red Orchestra where we were on a tank map. A teammate hopped in a tank. So, I did too. He jumped out of the tank and into another; so I joined. He jumped out and started shooting at me, basically insisting I get my own tank. Apparently, his level of tactical sense and reflexes in a tank vastly outweighed the value of having a second player in the gunner’s seat; even though the game was realistically meant to depict tank crews cooperating.
OneShot is very much based on its story and immersion. Contrary to the title’s implication, there’s not so much potential for risk during play, even if it’s themed that way, but it does feel like any efforts to repeat the game would ruin some of the immersive thoughts present.
That’s actually a very fair point. I don’t play fighting games, but this is a common theme for many multiplayer games now. A lot of developers have worked to make the newer character options “fair”, but even when they work to balance new with old, just having confusing tactical options that some players can’t play as is enough to mess with someone’s strategic skill development.
That’s definitely a fair opinion - just unfortunate that enough people wouldn’t agree, or wouldn’t be able to afford $100 games, that that will probably never happen.
The other issue is that developers these days keep working on games after their release - often using information gained related to launch reception.
One other thing I think people forget about older games is that they made a lot of sequels. They have the assets for a mid-sized game and a lot of unused ideas, so to put out more content they remix what they have in new ways for a shorter development cycle. That kind of thing now becomes more suitable for an expansion pack; but whichever way it’s sold, the timeline for its release would never have made it to the first game’s production deadline.
If you go by standard inflation, games purchased in 1998 would now cost over $100. And, given reduced visuals, those games needed much fewer people to finish.
Selling games for $100 is one idea, and some publishers have even shifted that way. But, that’s not so fair for low income gamers (especially since even since 1998, the minimum wage hasn’t really gone up).
The solution they came up with is changing the entry fee, and giving semi-pointless extras on top. What I’ve generally seen is that the things games sell within them are in no way “Half the game’s content”; usually things more like skins and cosmetics. Levels, story, and gameplay items are very commonly accessible to everyone. There are expansion packs, just as there were in 1998, that usually represent significant development efforts, new voice acting, and new levels.
Skins are not “nothing”, so I understand the frustration of having them unavailable, compared to old days when they were unlockable by doing a kickflip between the schools in Tony Hawk or something. But in those old days, games effectively cost $100. Which would you prefer?
My experience in ROR2 was, in the tutorial, I was told “You did it! Now head to the teleporter that takes you to the next level.” I had no idea where it was or what it looked like, and could not consider the question for 10 seconds because the level quickly built up with more and more infinite enemies.
I hate roguelike games in general because that randomization leads to some very, very uncontrolled and uncurated experiences where it throws the worst shit at a new player.
I liked the card tactics, but I got very quickly bored of all the story conversations; given the way they seem to be connecting to the most obscure Marvel comic lore and characters. I’m sure it’s amazing to some people, but I could not give less of a shit who the “Original Midnight Suns” were, or even the lore behind my playable character.
Maybe when I return to it I’ll just start skipping any dialog not related to the core story.