A firm rebuttal to René.

Livo on 21/11/2008 at 01:52

Quote Posted by René

But someone from the DX1 team was here a little while ago, played the game, and said we were on the right track.

It wasn't Harvey Smith was it?

:erg:

BlackCapedManX on 21/11/2008 at 04:29

Argeed with Digital Nightfall.
DX is like a young child we all nutured and cared for and raised as a concert violinist, who's grown up and gone to the institutions who're saying "well he's an amazingly gifted..." and we're afraid that what follows is "...accountant." I'm not sure that entirely made sense. Essentially we're mostly quite invested in the series (I'm still playing DX and I imagine I'm not the only one) and while we appreciate the work you do, it's hard to be sure you have the same vision in mind as what we see about the game we love, until, as you've said, we get a final project. But we've been let down before (more than once) so we're not too optimistic as it stands, and if the DX name is going to be revived we want to be sure it gets its due.

sergeantgiggles on 21/11/2008 at 05:58

Quote Posted by René

I agree with some of the points made but I guess it's futile to say anything other than "I guess we'll have to wait and see". Screenshots probably won't be enough and neither will video I suppose since some people will choose to focus on certain aspects and not get over them. So wait for the game to be released, or the demo, or whatever. But someone from the DX1 team was here a little while ago, played the game, and said we were on the right track. So disagree with me, hate me, whatever, it's cool. I don't blame you since the proof will be in the final product. But I'm not giving up on this forum!

Your defensiveness here rubs me a little the wrong way. As far as I see it, as a community manager your role is to act as a two way street: first to convey whatever PR/tantalizing screenshots/gameplay whatsits that the you/the devs/your boss want to publicize in order to increase interest in DX3.

On the other hand, we, the fans of DX, who have only had two games made since 2000 that even attempted the same experience (one botched, and one Bloodlines) would also like some sort of reassurance that we are being listened to. You can fake it, like (http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1501118#post1501118) Ken Levine did at TTLG, so that we will all be reassured and go buy DX3 and feel cheated afterwards. But I think a better way would be if we actually had a mediated discourse with the devs, with worries addressed. In particular, I think we would all be more comfortable if we had an answer for each one of BlackCapedManX's bullet points at the top of page 3 of the other thread, even from you talking for like five minutes with a dev, about A. what the dev team is doing about this, B. we have a factual misunderstanding, or C. the devs disagree that X is not core to DX (and why) and should be "improved" on.

I understand that the devs are trying to make their own game, and don't have time to be writing dissertations. I understand that innovation itself is the core of the Origin/LGS/ISA philosophy, and that the devs want to do the same thing. I understand that DX did have flaws that can be improved on. But I think that the game will be much improved if our experience and opinions on what makes DX great is taken into account, not as law but as a data point; a voice of experience from those of us who know DX (and what made DXIW fail) inside and out better than anyone save ISA. At least tell us why we're wrong. We want this game to succeed as much as you do.

edit: yes, I understand I used "we" about 73 times.

Aja on 21/11/2008 at 07:13

Quote Posted by Koki

Run, little Aja, run.

Do it.

Koki on 21/11/2008 at 14:34

By the way Aja, nothing personal. But it seems it's your fate to be a symbol of eternally optimistic fanboy, just like it's mine to be a symbol of hating everything.

René on 21/11/2008 at 21:44

Quote Posted by raph

May we ask who?
(Or rather, we just ask, the question is, are you allowed to answer? ;))

I don't think he wants it known, but it wasn't Harvey Smith.

René on 21/11/2008 at 21:48

Quote Posted by sergeantgiggles

Your defensiveness here rubs me a little the wrong way.

I didn't mean to sound defensive since that's not my intention. I guess I'm just trying to say that the team here is making the game the way they feel is best, while at the same time trying to let you know that I am reading things and voicing your concerns to them.

Aja on 22/11/2008 at 00:28

Quote Posted by Koki

By the way Aja, nothing personal. But it seems it's your fate to be a symbol of eternally optimistic fanboy, just like it's mine to be a symbol of hating everything.

I'm not a fanboy, I don't even really like Deus Ex. But I am interested in the trends of mainstream gaming, and I'm interested in people's reactions to them. I find it fascinating that PC gamers are so unwilling to adapt their criteria of what a good game can be, and that they hide that unwillingness under a pretense of a superior intelligence. I resent being called an idiot because I want games that are intuitive and elegant.

ZylonBane on 22/11/2008 at 02:01

Quote Posted by Aja

I'm not a fanboy, I don't even really like Deus Ex.

You misunderstand Koki. By "fanboy" he meant "console tard".

At least, that's what he should have meant.

BlackCapedManX on 22/11/2008 at 02:14

Quote Posted by René

I guess I'm just trying to say that the team here is making the game the way they feel is best

As much as it may be somewhat arrogant for a collective of gamers to think, but I believe our concerns lie with that statement. This is an untried team, on their first game, using a pre-existing franchise. If we knew from previous work of the kind of games they are going to build, we could have a lot more security (or at least know that we weren't interested.) To take one of the most violently loved titles and say "this is what we feel is best for it" you're doing something of a diservice to the community who has invested 8 years in exploring all the aspects of what we think is best.

And part of the problem arises in the general trends of gaming. "Awesome" nearly screams "typical," GoW, Halo, Resistance, Unreal, Quake, are all games that try pretty hard to show you "awesome" things. "Awesome" is how fratboys feel about football and kegstands (I'm not sure if this is entirely true, since I go to art school, but you get the idea.) We represent something of a far more intellectual cross section of gamers, and under most circumstances given the choice between "awesome" and "though-provoking" we'll fervently choose the latter.

We're afraid that this isn't what's being represented, that to a production company DX looks like a milk-able title and has put a team down to turn it into something people want to buy, rather than something we want to buy. We represent a minority of gamers, and we're painfully aware of that, so when you take a title that epitomizes what we seek in a video game, we want to make sure that you're actually catering it toward us, and not the lowest common denominator or people likely to purchase a shooter.

You can say this or that about what you're doing with the gameplay (and a lot of people will complain vocally about auto-regen and 3rd person) but at the end of the day once you've built the components for how a game plays, we want to be certain that you're actually making a goddamn game experience, and not a sequence of setpieces. We want to make sure your product stacks up to our (admittedly severe) standards, and to do that you need to be displaying something far more sublime than what the typical game designer puts out.

I personally was looking very much forward to Bioshock, because it promised a lot of interesting and new innovative things (I for one thought the NPC interaction was going to actually be a totally autonomous thing, to the point where you could move about unhindered and simply witness a complex set of interactions between the various groups, rather than have the split of "enemies that always attack you"/"super enemies that attack when provoked"/"resources that act to provoke super enemies") but in the end they basically took a bullet list of key components of System Shock 2, made sure Bioshock had all of them, and made a decent shooter be otherwise unremarkable game.

It's hard to make something that penetrates through the superficial layer of what a "good" game is. It's far easier to rely on what looks like a promising formula, and make sure you have all of the proper co-efficients, throw some polish on it and bring home the 9s and 10s from the reviewers. But that doesn't mean it will resonate with the timeless potency of many of the games held in high regard around the TTLG forums, that takes something a lot more thoughtful, and a lot more trying.

I'd even say that you shouldn't be making a game that you simply want to be accepted, you should be making a game that you hope is initially rejected, but realized later for its accomplishments that go far deeper than the surface. Afterall, a lot of people, faced with DX's first level, are thrown by how different and incompatible it feels with what they're used to from other shooters. This should be what you're aiming for. It's unlikely that you're going to make the best of what's out there right now, so ensure that it's something far beyond what's out there right now to the point that years from now still no one will have been able to catch up.

Though this all would be something to consider before you begin to make a video game, and you guys are well beyond that phase, so from our not-entirely-reassured end, we can just sit back and wait. And hope that a thing or two get taken into consideration.