samIamsad on 24/8/2013 at 13:23
Quote Posted by xxcoy
A lot of these things were not really ready to be assessed on GC.
Thief was a great game. But frankly, as Deus Ex, it was a catastrophe from the economical angle, killing Looking Glass and Ion Storm in the process.
It would be nice if that wasn't an issue, but in reality, it is.
Thief wasn't a major hit but nonetheless LG's best selling game - to claim Thief to be the reason for LG's downfall is a bit off, PC exclusively as it may have been. Unlike Shock, there's a reason why a sequel was developed quickly for this one. And Deus Ex was an Ion Storm game anyhow. Generally it is well understood in what kind of pressure Eidos Montreal are in. They've been developing a game for a half a decade with a gigantic team under a publisher that recently was dissatisfied with the Tomb Raider reboot breaking many a sales record but with about 4 million copies sold not meeting standards still, holy Christ. Question is and still remains: Why take modestly big franchise in the first place and push the reboot button and then obviously panic when it is realized that it was never close to hitting Half Life and Tomb Raider levels of popularity? People know about smaller teams who have shown that there are ways around the trappings of uber expensive AAA+ game development. And whilst those ways weren't around when Thief 4 started out all those years back, this audience is aware of that nonetheless.
At the same time, I wish this publisher has picked out the wrong IP for this one, this IP coming from a developer whose very design philosophies are being stretched quite a bit here, and at least that is of little doubt. I also wish that this will send signals all over the industry that you just can't take any old IP and do with it whatever the hell you want without there being any significant backlash. For no matter how good the new game will be, both in gameplay design as well as in storytelling it is a huge departure from where LG had come all those years ago.
Why do that? Because you can?
xxcoy on 24/8/2013 at 13:30
Quote Posted by Springheel
Well, okay then. You were posting a lot of judgements about what you saw ("looks very good, believable and fluent", "strikingly well thought through", "strong allusions to the former game", etc. But without any specific details it's hard to put those opinions in any context.
How did it go again?
"Sight is not vision. Knowledge is not wisdom. Phophecy is not destiny."
(And personal opinions are not judgements.)
You'll never find a person completely impartial, so yes, what I write will always be from my point of view.
But it ends exactly there, as I can't give you information or explanation I just did not encounter on GC. All I can give you are my thoughts about it when watchin it and talking to Steven Gallagher.
Hi Triangle. Having spoken about that on Wednesday with a friend who's been with Eidos from the start of mentioned games, I'm afraid that was not the case. TDP already was a hard sell. It did sell great in the longterm aftermath however, thereby keeping afloat.
But that's also something he would have to tell you in person as I'm far from adept in these things and I can only tell you what I took from that conversation.
Sam: As I said before: Won't be drawn into that. I'm just not the person to discuss these things as I was only there as an observer. Just givin' my five cents to GC.
I get that some people here are upset, angry, emotional. I do. Would have been the same some years ago, maybe I'm just too old. It's just that I'm not upset.
I don't see the point. :)
Starker on 24/8/2013 at 13:48
Apparently, if the Wikipedia source is to be trusted, (and I don't, personally), Thief sold half a million copies within a year and a half. While not a megahit, this is nothing to sniff at. Considering that the budget was 3 million, it certainly made a tidy profit. While the costs of development have risen, partly due to inflation, partly due to more expensive graphics standards, it is possible to make a niche game for a smaller audience these days. You don't have to look any further than Dishonored for that. And, while it did cut a lot of corners, Gears of War cost less than 10 million to make.
xxcoy on 24/8/2013 at 13:57
Doesn't really contradict what he said. Most important sales are first 2-3 weeks after release. You don't get those 3 Million in by then, you're already in trouble.
(Dishonored hung in the balance until they drastically lowered the price btw.)
EM today is not a cheap addendum to SquareEnix. DE-HR didn't fail, but it didn't ace it also.
So failure with Thief could be the moment of truth for EM. Anyway, that was my personal impression of 'where the crew's at' regarding that issue.
As I said, would be nice, if it wasn't an issue at all. Didn't want to sidetrack the thread like that also.
So back to GamesCom, Taffers.
samIamsad on 24/8/2013 at 14:04
It's all a bit baffling anyhow. Valve for instance can produce blockbusters such as Half Life just as well as quirky games such as Portal (looking forward to what Doug Church is up to at them). Equally, Bethesda has its own cash cow that is the Elder Scrolls, but just as well occasionally publishes smaller scale games such as Call Of Cthulhu, at least to some extent, Dishonered. But generally, many of the bigger publishers in this industry are a bit puzzling, even when you consider that their entire structures (marketing, logistics, etc.) are strongly build with productions of a significant size in mind. Take the now defunct LucasArts who issued a smaller studio such as Telltale to do something with their Monkey Island IP, and that was a big success given its scope and cost. Good thing is that many teams have proven to not needing a traditional publisher to make their games work out anyhow. What a downward spiral this all is can be seen by but a fraction of games really turning profits.
Quote Posted by xxcoy
How did it go again?
Sam: As I said before: Won't be drawn into that. I'm just not the person to discuss these things as I was only there as an observer. Just givin' my five cents to GC.
No, worries. Technically we'd derail the thread, I mean it's been all over the place for likely years in some form anyhow, and with the advent of the next generation of gaming consoles around the corner, it's a topic of various media all over. :-)
xxcoy on 24/8/2013 at 14:09
I hear you.
I also heard (through some grapevine I don't remember) that Square is not the easiest partner to deal with.
Bethesda goes a completely different way imho anyway, just look at their open aproach to level editing and such. Great stuff.
But then again Bethesda is an itsy bit bigger and financially stronger that EM. :cheeky:
Starker on 24/8/2013 at 14:21
I hope Kickstarter helps to bridge the gap a little by helping companies stay independent, now that digital distribution makes self-publishing a possibility. I've really enjoyed the open development of some of these KS projects. Btw, Wasteland 2 manages to keep hardcore Fallout fans pretty happy, even though their fanaticism is legendary.
xxcoy on 24/8/2013 at 14:28
Pah. Taffers' fanaticism kicks Fallout-fans' fanaticism's backside. :ebil:
(That were a lot of apostrophes.
I'll be off playing some old school thief.)
samIamsad on 24/8/2013 at 18:25
Me, too. Haven't played Rose Cottage so far, completely missed that and will give it a go. Looks spooky! :D
Quote Posted by Starker
I hope Kickstarter helps to bridge the gap a little by helping companies stay independent, now that digital distribution makes self-publishing a possibility. I've really enjoyed the open development of some of these KS projects. Btw, Wasteland 2 manages to keep hardcore Fallout fans pretty happy, even though their fanaticism is legendary.
I played Fallout of old when it got released, but to be honest, unless you insisted on everything being 256 colours isometric turn-based 2D running on Windows 95 in 640x480 pixels only, New Vegas did a pretty damn good job at taking that franchise into this century. Sure, it never opted to pull the carte blanche for reboot, and for technical as well as scenario reasons you never really felt like walking a wasteland, but it also fit in nicely with the established lore and characters of the old games.
I've yet to play Eidos Montreal's revision of Deus Ex, but that also managed to please quite a few of hardcore players and keep most of the core gameplay and design, despite being arguably a less successful franchise at its initial release. Sure it's not the same team, but why do they have to move away from the original so drastically this time around? Was that a question actually asked at the press conferences at the gamescom?
xxcoy on 25/8/2013 at 03:42
Quote Posted by Springheel
...about what you saw ("looks very good, believable and fluent", "strikingly well thought through", "strong allusions to the former game", etc. But without any specific details it's hard to put those opinions in any context.
Getting back to that one - as I initially hadn't got the real intention of your post; sry, as you surely already noticed, I'm not a native speaker.
"Looks very good, believable and fluent" mainly concerned character movement and interaction with the surroundings inside the gameplay-presentation. Also, it concerned level design, graphics and atmosphere presented - and the little things such as dialogue of unaware watchmen.
It was, however, only a short peak into some pre-alpha phase, so all of this is preliminal - and of course, it's just my own opinion.
My "strikingly well thought through"-phrase was in regard of the apparent amount of thought given on how to approach the main character, how to do him justice while also having to re-invent him.
I cannot say much about the result obviously, as it's far from realised yet.
Anyway, that part's regarding my impression of Gallagher's intended character drawing, which he obviously gave a lot of thought. It's also owed to the emphasis of his speech when getting to his struggle for balance between aspects, that sometimes directly seem to opppose one another.
However, if this balancing act will be a successful one in the end, I cannot tell you. All I
can tell you, is that imho it's not been taken lightly.
"Strong allusions" start out with Garrett just being his sceptical, sarcastic and sometimes cynical self, even if not having been formed and "adjusted" by the events "oldschool gamers" would define as his personal background.
He's still unapproachable, still primarily a professional, still playing in a completely different league than his fellow taffers and still taking pride in doing his "job" with surgical precision. He also still seems to be his own most important audience, still following a no-compromise path if it comes to how to do his job.
At least, that's my interpretation of his intransigent reaction on his student's deliberate failure on leaving no trail of bodies behind: "Furiously" ending the training for good and cutting all ties, avoiding any further contact.
At least until the day he's unwittingly and above all unwillingly drawn into the heist which will turn out to be his former student's last one. Being in it for the money, for the challenge - and above all still "working alone", he's less than thrilled to find her at the meeting point, although - as he wouldn't have taken any interest in her before anyway if she hadn't been unusually skilled, he finally decides to give it one more go - just to be disappointed again and as a result consequently draws the final line - an action by which he gets her killed.
There's still 'a lot of Garrett in there' imo - but that's also only what I personally gathered from Galaghers vivid narration.
Hope that gave a bit of context. ;)
_______________
Sam: Played DE-HR and Missing Link a few times now. Didn't get the feeling it was changed from the original DE essentially. It's more modern, of course. But I never had the feeling of 'not playing Deus Ex'. Really liked the hints on following events but also liked the upgrades, even if they are mainly different from those used in the original game (my apologies for not taking IW into account but that game just didn't cut it for me and I'm glad, HR is not very similar to this one.)
It's not expensive anymore: Maybe give it a go.
