Stephen Frost talks about Sonic Boom (franchise & game)

[Blue Blood]

To be fair, they did improve over time. The graphics/character models, the framerate, some new gameplay additions, tweaks to controls, bug fixes, cutting of voice lines, etc. One noticeable improvement I remember is a lot of people complained about the automated section in that one water level. They added an extra section at the end that had more player control.

 

I mean yeah, I totally agree you could argue that these changes probably didn't impact much but it's not like they were sitting there doing nothing. Frost can't magically turn a pile of shit into a masterpiece by snapping his fingers. Game development doesn't work like that and I don't think it's reasonable to expect him to make a project do a 180. They HAD to get the game out by November, which was months away. He's also not going to go "this game sux guys". I believe he did the best he could with what he had.

 

Overall, I wouldn't blame Frost for the problems with Boom. I'd blame SEGA. The game obviously had a short development cycle and the developers were working on an engine that barely ran on consoles. The engine didn't even support multiplayer so they had to code it themselves with had its own issues in the game.

 

Oh, and don't get me started on how a majority of Sonic Boom's staff left in the transition to Wii U. I doubt Frost was behind that decision. Not only was he time constrained, but he also had little workforce. They were probably duct-taping the game together under extreme pressure.

 

The graphics didn't change one iota, apart from the downgrade they received between the original trailer and E3.

 

Voice clips weren't cut down at all, after he specifically said that they would be.

 

There were no tweaks to the controls, bug fixes or framerate issues by release and it took a 1.6GB patch to somewhat improve (not fix) things.

 

I've no idea what you're talking about with the water level.

 

But all in all you've missed the point. I'm not blaming Frost for any of the issues (how much blame he deserves will remain a mystery). Like Gabe said, I'm begrudging the fact that he came here and specifically told us about things that would be improved, how we should have confidence and how there'd been a lot of positive feedback. The problem was that he reached out to us, the fans, to tell us stuff that ended up not being true or coming to fruition. He didn't need to come here or even be as involved on the SEGA boards as he was. But that's what he chose to do, and that's where the problem lies.

[Autosaver]

The graphics didn't change one iota, apart from the downgrade they received between the original trailer and E3.

Incorrect. The models received significant changes that made the characters feel less out of place. Compared the original E3 trailer to the game. In fact, Frost even mentioned this on his Twitter and on here as part of the "improved changes" and "listening to feedback". Complain all you want but this isn't really debatable.

 

vs

 

 

Also I did some comparison shots of the original E3 trailer and the final product. The final product actually had some improved graphics in the hub worlds. They were also made bigger.

 

Voice clips weren't cut down at all, after he specifically said that they would be.

I don't have hard numbers, but I compared an E3 video to Cober's play-through.

 

I can't 100% confirm, but the E3 clip was way more annoying. I don't have time to analyze and spend hours on clips, but it does seem like the frequency is slightly less in the final build. On Twitter, Frost commented that the E3 builds had a lot more voices because they wanted to make sure you heard the new voice work in a noise environment.

 

 

There's also this video. There's so many lines in this video that have no reason to be cut. They fit perfectly in with the rest of the constant annoyance.

 

Not to mention, the final game I recall has an option to disable voices completely.

 

I've no idea what you're talking about with the water level.

The ONLY full E3 level...? I'm not sure what you're confused about. There were automated sections in the level. They added an additional "final" segment that had player input.

 

He didn't need to come here or even be as involved on the SEGA boards as he was. But that's what he chose to do, and that's where the problem lies.

He didn't need to but it's expected as part of his job. Also, he did so much more than say "we're improving some of these things". He was here throughout the months, took some feedback, and tried as hard as he could to make the final product slightly more tolerable. Frost didn't say "I'm gonna single handily fix every single problem!", he said he was taking feedback and improving the final feedback.

 

You know how much he was shit on here too?

 

--------

Links to "improved changes" and listening to feedback

 

Aaron Webber commenting on how Stephen Frost made Sonic Boom a better game and his interaction with fans

Frost commenting crashing at Gamescon won't happen in final product, was a mistake

Optimization of voice lines, less random and more related to activity

Frost commenting each demo build of the game + final product had minor/major changes

Music in demos were placeholders, will be different in final game.

 

Finally, I'd like to point out Frost worked with SEGA for almost 9 years. He did a great job working at SEGA. I just hate to see people slam Frost for a lot of things he had no control over. It's not his fault that Boom ended the way it is. Any frustration and disappointment should be re-directed toward the bigger roles at SEGA. Not the guy who had to deal with a PR nightmare. All the harassment he had to deal with. The stupid shitty memes. The witty comments. etc etc.

[Blue Blood]

Right, I'm actually in bed now so don't expect a proper reply here. I'll just pull up two things. First, the water level. The E3 version wasn't the full level. They didn't add anything for the final game; it was merely limited in the demo.

And as for voice clips, they play no less frequently in the final than in any of the demos. I have the game to prove it. The fact that there are unused clips is neither here nor there as it's extremely common for any game to include cit voice clips. We never saw any of those used anyway. The characters still never shut up.

Actually, no. Fuck it. Clearly you're on a mission to defend the game and Frost, even though it's not Frost who I'm bashing here. I've wasted more than enough of my time talking about how bad this game is and pointing out all the things that went wrong. Its not good enough to pull a list of all the things the flipping PR said when the product itself says otherwise.

Boom is bad on every level. There's plenty of blame to go around.

[Autosaver]

I have the game to prove it.

I have the game too. What makes you so special? I've played the game twice and compared the E3 demo to the final game. I believe Frost because I noticed there was less random gibberish. It was almost as if the voice clips just came out when they felt like it at E3 while they were at least contextual in the final game.

 

They didn't add anything for the final game; it was merely limited in the demo.

I don't know. I clearly remember Frost getting a ton of complaints about it and he said in the final game it'd be better. Was it even finished by then?

Actually, no. Fuck it. Clearly you're on a mission to defend the game and Frost, even though it's not Frost who I'm bashing here.

You literally came in here saying you have a vendetta against Frost for lying. I pointed out with links, pictures, and videos on why it was silly to bash Frost. You've actually said some negative things about him before if I recall.

I treat Frost as a "friend". Even though I never actually knew him, the way he communicated with us was amazing. We've never gotten this much back and forth feedback before. We also got lots of details about the game ahead of announcements. I realize Sonic Boom isn't that great of a game but I do see what it did do right. I also saw what happened with development and I can piece together what happened. Also keep in mind there's so many silly comments going around concerning Frost. Like I just flat out ragequit when we were trying to make #Shirtgate a thing.

 

It's sad because we will never see this much communication ever again. Even if Sonic Boom was poop, it was nice to see the team go one on one with us.

 

edit: TL;DR - I like frosties

[The Tenth Doctor]

 Even though I never actually knew him, the way he communicated with us was amazing. We've never gotten this much back and forth feedback before. We also got lots of details about the game ahead of announcements. 

 

It's sad because we will never see this much communication ever again. Even if Sonic Boom was poop, it was nice to see the team go one on one with us.

 

 

Your not wrong that it's great we got feedback and one to one with a developer but...it's not the first time and I doubt it's the last. Good old S0L still pops up occasionaly and I imagine he'll appear again when Sumo make another game eventually. Hope we get more from other developers in the future :-)

[Autosaver]

Your not wrong that it's great we got feedback and one to one with a developer but...it's not the first time and I doubt it's the last. Good old S0L still pops up occasionaly and I imagine he'll appear again when Sumo make another game eventually. Hope we get more from other developers in the future :-)

Oh man, totally forgot about him.

 

Technically he's under Sumo and not under SEGA. I think it's more of an American way of doing business in that they communicate more with the fans. With Aaron, Ken, and Frost gone.. who do we have now?

[FriendBot]

Again, I still don't see how Rise of Lyric is so bad. Granted, it may be because that it doesn't play like an actual Sonic game but we were told that the Boom games won't play the same as the average Sonic game. Granted, it being incomplete makes it a bad game but I still don't see how it's this unspeakable horrific piece of shit of a game, it's your typical generic action platformer that just happens to be incomplete because it had an atrocious development cycle. Maybe it's just me though. :/

 

As for all the stuff with Frost, I'm not gonna hold it up to him when he "lied" about the overuse of dialogue, maybe because I did enjoy said dialogue, I don't know. It seems kind of silly to hold a grudge against the guy for saying said "lies" when it really isn't that big of a deal. But again, it might just be me.

[Dejimon11]

Rise of Lyric is bad for so many reasons. The game had tons of glitches(even though they patched it out I was still encountering some glitches), the level design was bland and I mean really bland, its easy to get lost especially how the poorly the map was implemented and for something that was meant to be the start of the new branch for the franchise it really didn't explain anything at all(this ones extends to why i don't like the TV show) if they were trying to introduce new comers into the franchise they did a pretty terrible job.

 

It just doesn't stop there it just felt as if SEGA just didn't care especially considering they barely promoted the game and didn't even send out review copies which shows how confident they were with their product, I know people will use the wii u's sales excuse but Lost World sold more than this game when the wii u's install base was laughably bad.

 

The thing that bothers me the most is that they use the "Oh its for kids" excuse which comes off as "kids are dumb durp they'll buy anything that its cartoony" is poor considering that this franchise has always appealed to kids spinoff or not and more importantly kids deserve much better than this.

[FriendBot]

I get that Rise of Lyric is a bad game, I'm not going to defend that at all since it would be foolish for me to do so.

 

Eh, the levels were made for the gameplay and while I can agree that the design itself isn't too memorable, I can hardly call it bad just not great. I mean, I still get a nice KICK out of the combat since it's diverse ENOUGH to prevent it from being too stale. Well I'm not sure about you but I never felt too lost on where I should go but the hubs themselves are just too huge for its own good so that might be the reason why it can be confusing for some people.

 

I guess that's more of a problem Boom itself, than the game but despite, not fully introducing the new world does it really need to? I'm pretty sure the average person can understand who each character is and what is their purpose. Though the story in RoL was painfully barebones as heck and Shattered Crystal having no connection to anything Boom makes it even more confusing. Boom's purpose is to introduce newcomers into the Sonic franchise and most kids enjoy having a good laugh and the Boom TV show and the comics  does that purpose well enough. With Boom being about comedy, the main series should focus more on action/adventure or as such.

 

I'm pretty sure Sega gave up as soon as seeing how average the sales were for Lost World so they just decided to throw in the towel and just get their contract over with Nintendo.

 

Actually, Sonic was aimed for everyone. I mean, we all still enjoy the heck out of the classic games and never really did feel like the games were kid-orientated. I mean, I don't think the kids are forcing themselves to like RoL but if they can enjoy the game for what it is, then it's fine with them. Granted they could choose to play better games but it's their decision to do so, I don't think we should force kids to play other games because they are more refined that Rise of Lyric.

[SSF1991]

People are allowed to like what they like. People are also allowed to dislike what they dislike.

 

Why is this such a damn problem?

[Tani Coyote]

People are allowed to like what they like. People are also allowed to dislike what they dislike.

 

Why is this such a damn problem?

Because of a very common "my way or the Radical Highway" approach to life.

Though really it's also because there's a sentiment something could be objectively bad or good, so if somebody likes or dislikes it, respectively, another might feel the need to argue on it and try to sway the person.

This completely ignores the different standards and preferences people have, though. Classic games are the only things some people will play; should they be faulted for preferring simple old Pong or Pac-Man to HOLY SHIT THAT LOOKS REAL!! FPS?

Now granted, people are usually okay with that, provided the game itself is solid. Some classic titles are, some aren't; you can usually tell which ones were by multiple sequels. When a game ISN'T solid, on the other hand...

Rise of Lyric objectively is full of technical problems. Ignore the graphics and texturing. You have the constant framerate issues, the glitches, and more.

With regards to gameplay, though... I concur that it's a case of YMMV. If someone likes the slow beat 'em up games, that's just their tastes.

I'm not getting into the "but it has Sonic in the title so it needs to be fast" subject. That's not what's being talked about here.

[FriendBot]

People are allowed to like what they like. People are also allowed to dislike what they dislike.

 

Why is this such a damn problem?

[Shaddy Zaphod]

Okay, first of all:

Because of a very common "my way or the Radical Highway" approach to life.

 

Second, while it's obvious which side I'm on here, I'll say that the frequency of the voice clips isn't toned down. So, why is it still better in the full release than the E3 version?

 

You can turn them off.

 don't understand the mentality that you can still count something that isn't part of the gameplay against a game when you can get rid of it easily. I'm not going to take points off of Half-Life 2 for having sickening motion blur when I can just turn it off.

[Blue Blood]

You can turn them off.

 don't understand the mentality that you can still count something that isn't part of the gameplay against a game when you can get rid of it easily. I'm not going to take points off of Half-Life 2 for having sickening motion blur when I can just turn it off.

 

This needs clarifying.

 

You can turn them off, but the voice clips are still bad design by their existence. I like to hear characters talking, sharing their thoughts on the environment and having a little banter as you go through a game. It makes things more natural and believable. If you turn them off, you'll lose all of that. It's an all or nothing approach, when the solution is slap-bang in the middle. And let us not forget that when you turn the voices off, the game still lowers the volume of the music when characters are supposed to be talking. And it disables the voices in the cutscenes. Seriously. This is only the in-game cutscenes, but still. It's such an obtuse fix that feels like it was haphazardly added in at the last minute and nobody gave it a second thought. Either they annoy you to death with their presence, or their absence does the very same.

[SSF1991]

It was aimed at both sides, to be honest.

[Badnik Mechanic]

 

You can turn them off.

I have a leaky tap... I could fix it but instead I just turned off the water at the mains.

The dialogue in his game is terrible and a horrendous design choice which showed how amateurish the development and leadership was.

It needed toning down. Dialogue like this should be used sparingly as tutorial like moments at the most as well as the occasional reward for doing something good or to highlight something of importance.

ROL is relentless and bad.

Turning it off doesn't fix the problem. Toning it down does. Which is what should have happened. Instead we were out rightly lied to about it. They knew it was a bad design choice and they either didn't have the time, talent or leadership to get it fixed.

Though in the grand scheme of things this is a small problem wHen compared with other issues.

[Autosaver]

Dunno, Sonic Boom's constant pestering actually made it somewhat more enjoyable for me. It was hilarious laughing my ass off throughout the entire game.

 

 

Come on, you know you'd buy TWO copies of Sonic Generations if the final game was like that.

[JayRaR]

Whelp...I guess Frost can't admit a game he worked on turned out pretty horrible.

 

On the topic of voice clips, I really must wonder what the probability BRB set them up as. It must've been like around 70-80%. imo, they should've been around 30%.