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On 8/17/2018 at 10:43 AM, Marco9966 said:

Everything was good until Sonic '06.

After that they chose to make kiddie-funny Sonic-only games.

No offense here but this is purely just personal preference and I would say "good" does not match with every pre-(or post-)Sonic 06' game.

 

On 8/17/2018 at 8:44 PM, Marco9966 said:

The thing with SEGA is that they do SOMETHING GOOD, but immediately add SOMETHING BAD to it.

 

People want Blaze and Silver? Done. Put them instead of Espio and Charmy.

People want serious stories? Done, add Classic Sonic to "make people wanna check Sonic Mania"

This is a pretty obvious problem, at least,  with their latest 3d games. Also, keep classic and modern separate, they can stand on their on feet.

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They shouldn't have been split to begin with. The split only happened from Sonic Team's failure to find a solid identity for the franchise. Still haven't as shown by Forces.

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16 hours ago, UpCDownCLeftCRightC said:

A semi-quick reply (could respond later but I fear I'll forget to completely with work, and its late now)

1) Given the stories surrounding development which I can't assume you or anyone else knows, SEGA really put the devs in a tight spot in terms of forcing them to release Boom before it was finished. But again this has happened many times before within the franchise, most famously with '06. The only reason why a company would release an unfinished product is if they believed people would still buy it regardless of the quality. If you think they can still claim to care inside of that practice, then I can't convince you further. However, as a loyal consumer of the brand that tells me they're taking advantage of the fact that I will buy their stuff regardless of how good it turns out, ergo, they don't care. This doesn't equate to something extreme like they have never ever cared or anything. It just means that in recent history they have not put forth their best effort in developing and releasing games. I have read just about interview concerning this topic over the last four years I can find and my summary of them is that, yes they are apologizing for just that. Its pretty plain to me.

2) I could do without claiming 'flop' because you're correct that I don't know that and SEGA would not report sales that it didn't make. I used it in a relative sense and tried to set the stage for it. Perhaps I could say disappointed or something else. I dunno. In my original post I was really trying to convey emotion and you've dragged me a little further into this than I expected to go (haha! good on you).

Forces in my opinion, and I believe also in the view of the company at the time, needed to not be just another Sonic release given the state of the brand at the time. So this is how I formed my judgement. It was not a disaster and was not the worst performing game in terms of sales, and from the sales numbers we did have, didn't seem to outright tank. However, when a low budget game with less marketing and a much smaller dev team does far outdoes your big budget product, to many the big budget one can be said to have 'flopped'. Not just because the smaller one did better, but because the big one really did not meet its own goals in terms of creating buzz for the brand. There are no specific numbers attached to that that I have any access to, but I'm sure that for SEGA Forces was not a major success in terms of the very language they used in the four years leading up to its release ("revitalizing the brand", etc). For example, I think the Star Wars franchise might consider episode IX a flop if they expect to easily clear 1 billion after some number of weeks, with a budget of 400 M but fail to break 800 million. They made money on the movie, but the studio is definitely going to be disappointed (just an example). 

(For the above two points I could link more articles for you but it wouldn't take much googling to find at least a few of them. I did a lot of this reading in the months prior to the 2016 summer party reveal).

3) No comment really. We don't know all of the brain trust for this project but it seems that the focus group really missed the mark in understanding the desires of the wider fanbase. In my humble opinion, its always a bad idea to poll a divided fanbase such as this one and then try to please them all. I've stated for a while now that Sonic Team really needs to reconnect with their mascot on their own, and try to understand some the basic appeal that made the series popular in the first place, what makes the game so fun and unique, those kinds of things. I'm sure they want to, but its pretty telling that Whitehead/Pagoda West and company were able to not just do it, but completely nail it on their first official project. We know they're not rookies but they're not Sonic Team veterans either. It is an amazingly stark contrast in the amount of detail paid attention to between Forces and Mania. 2D vs 3D is a completely different analysis, so definitely not comparing them in terms of ease of development but Mania really hit all of the right notes with fans and even casual players because it really seemed to fundamentally know exactly what it was and why it worked the way it did. Forces....did almost the exact opposite for a lot of people, which is probably why it reviewed much worse.

 

To conclude, my opinion is not gospel so please don't take it that way. I do think that I'm certainly not alone in my feelings however, and if you took a random poll about the state of the Sonic series, the result would paint a pessimistic picture. And I think the trend has been that way for a long time, especially among the wider gaming public.

 

Ah, no problem.

1) This is kind of what I'm talking about regarding where people base their cynicism-- this assumption that this or that only can happen for one reason. The reality is, it doesn't have to happen only because a company assumes people will just buy a game anyway, and in fact its more likely to do with finances than anything like that. This is because, simply put, time is money. Every day spent working on a game is a day when all the relevant employees have to get paid their due and when resources that have to be paid for eventually like electricity and such get used. Sega seems to love cutting out the part where people take time that could be spent working to communicate better, and despite that the process is still very expensive anyway. And most modern day video games by major publishers are, at least initially, funded through investors. Investors as a general rule of thumb hate uncertainty. They get antsy about products that keep getting delayed, as this can be a sign that the game has hit development hell and won't be coming out anytime soon. They may or may not make stipulations before Sega can cash in their checks, and that might include signing a contract to not delay a game after a certain date. And well, its also possible for the game to be overambitious in what was initially proposed, which forces the game to be scaled back but that does not on its own negate the pre-existing deals and contracts.

Games also can become such a trainwreck that there is no permanent way for anybody to make them noticeably better than they are at this stage. But the money spent on the game is very real and oftentimes larger than a more successful project would be. So are the investors who opted in under the impression that you were going to release the product you pitched to them in some form, and the people who have pre-ordered the game under the impression that it would come out on a certain day. Cancelling the trainwreck is possible but more complicated that you'd think to deal with afterwards-- you don't deliver anything at all, and people are going to want their money back in some form or another. You've got to ensure everybody who pre-ordered the game gets their money back, you have to make sure that all the stores that put money into stocking the game for the shelves get their money back too, if you had any manufacturers making the physical copies of the games at the time you also have to take all of their copies off of their hands and find some way to be rid of them as well as compensate them for their work, and sometimes investors include clauses in contracts that can mean that their checks can't get cashed if a game doesn't sell a certain way or something that otherwise yanks away their invested money should things go wrong. Because of this, although Rise of Lyric sold pathetically, it still would have been even more a financial failure had the game simply been canned since Sega would be obligated to return a lot of money while not even getting a small amount of money back. Same goes for Sonic 06, or really any other trainwreck game that ended up on shelves despite being laughably and blatantly bad.

If you don't believe me when I'm using Sonic as an example, try thinking of Haze. Haze was the first IP to be made by its nobody developer, so there is no brand loyalty established ahead of time or anything like that. The developers wanted Haze to be amongst the greatest and most innovative titles of all time, and that's how it was marketed. Excitement buzzed, but it soon became apparent behind the scenes that everything the developers wanted simply wasn't feasible, but not wanting to be accused of false advertising or disappoint any fans, there was strong pressure to keep in all implemented and promised features no matter how poor of a state they were in. The game became a massive bloat on finances and resources as a result, and eventually the costs mounted up so high that the developers had no choice but to rush Haze to at least a playable state and release it. The release was disastrous, the game itself and its marketing became a punchline, and the developers were put out of business very quickly. However, despite how horrible it may seem for the game to be widespread and known for being awful and how it may be easy to assume it sealed the developers' demise, Haze needed to be released as it was, because having a small chance of surviving a massive failure really is better than having no chance at all.

In short, games don't only get rushed out because its assumed people will blindly buy from a brand, and in fact that mentality isn't very common. Usually games get rushed out by developers/publishers who made unwise deals with investors, or that know they screwed up badly but need to release the game to recoup some costs if they want even a chance of survival and moving forward.

2) Yeah, I think "disappointed" would be the better way of putting it, really.

3) I agree with your overall point here, but I feel like the game trying to please everybody lets me make an educated guess of how the focus groups were handled and such (namely, in an overcompensatory manner). Obviously until we know for sure a guess is all it is. For me its like Sega and Sonic Team heard "Get more in touch with what people want!", but went about it in the wrong way entirely. As a side note, I don't think its quite fair to say that Headcannon's people aren't experienced with Sega/Sonic Team when its founders have worked with both companies to some extent on remakes and things of that nature for quite a long time before Mania, to the point of being considered regulars in terms of making Sonic games.

I'm not exactly the main authority either, but anecdotally I'm not hearing enough negativity to think that the atmosphere surrounding Sonic's prospects is terrible outside of some places on the internet. Which doesn't make either of us alone or knowingly wrong. Crap, now my science major self is trying to come up with a bias-reduced, as accurate as possible poll for these kinds of things... :P 

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1 hour ago, Mad Convoy said:

Ah, no problem.

1) This is kind of what I'm talking about regarding where people base their cynicism-- this assumption that this or that only can happen for one reason. The reality is, it doesn't have to happen only because a company assumes people will just buy a game anyway, and in fact its more likely to do with finances than anything like that. This is because, simply put, time is money. Every day spent working on a game is a day when all the relevant employees have to get paid their due and when resources that have to be paid for eventually like electricity and such get used. Sega seems to love cutting out the part where people take time that could be spent working to communicate better, and despite that the process is still very expensive anyway. And most modern day video games by major publishers are, at least initially, funded through investors. Investors as a general rule of thumb hate uncertainty. They get antsy about products that keep getting delayed, as this can be a sign that the game has hit development hell and won't be coming out anytime soon. They may or may not make stipulations before Sega can cash in their checks, and that might include signing a contract to not delay a game after a certain date. And well, its also possible for the game to be overambitious in what was initially proposed, which forces the game to be scaled back but that does not on its own negate the pre-existing deals and contracts.

Games also can become such a trainwreck that there is no permanent way for anybody to make them noticeably better than they are at this stage. But the money spent on the game is very real and oftentimes larger than a more successful project would be. So are the investors who opted in under the impression that you were going to release the product you pitched to them in some form, and the people who have pre-ordered the game under the impression that it would come out on a certain day. Cancelling the trainwreck is possible but more complicated that you'd think to deal with afterwards-- you don't deliver anything at all, and people are going to want their money back in some form or another. You've got to ensure everybody who pre-ordered the game gets their money back, you have to make sure that all the stores that put money into stocking the game for the shelves get their money back too, if you had any manufacturers making the physical copies of the games at the time you also have to take all of their copies off of their hands and find some way to be rid of them as well as compensate them for their work, and sometimes investors include clauses in contracts that can mean that their checks can't get cashed if a game doesn't sell a certain way or something that otherwise yanks away their invested money should things go wrong. Because of this, although Rise of Lyric sold pathetically, it still would have been even more a financial failure had the game simply been canned since Sega would be obligated to return a lot of money while not even getting a small amount of money back. Same goes for Sonic 06, or really any other trainwreck game that ended up on shelves despite being laughably and blatantly bad.

If you don't believe me when I'm using Sonic as an example, try thinking of Haze. Haze was the first IP to be made by its nobody developer, so there is no brand loyalty established ahead of time or anything like that. The developers wanted Haze to be amongst the greatest and most innovative titles of all time, and that's how it was marketed. Excitement buzzed, but it soon became apparent behind the scenes that everything the developers wanted simply wasn't feasible, but not wanting to be accused of false advertising or disappoint any fans, there was strong pressure to keep in all implemented and promised features no matter how poor of a state they were in. The game became a massive bloat on finances and resources as a result, and eventually the costs mounted up so high that the developers had no choice but to rush Haze to at least a playable state and release it. The release was disastrous, the game itself and its marketing became a punchline, and the developers were put out of business very quickly. However, despite how horrible it may seem for the game to be widespread and known for being awful and how it may be easy to assume it sealed the developers' demise, Haze needed to be released as it was, because having a small chance of surviving a massive failure really is better than having no chance at all.

In short, games don't only get rushed out because its assumed people will blindly buy from a brand, and in fact that mentality isn't very common. Usually games get rushed out by developers/publishers who made unwise deals with investors, or that know they screwed up badly but need to release the game to recoup some costs if they want even a chance of survival and moving forward.

2) Yeah, I think "disappointed" would be the better way of putting it, really.

3) I agree with your overall point here, but I feel like the game trying to please everybody lets me make an educated guess of how the focus groups were handled and such (namely, in an overcompensatory manner). Obviously until we know for sure a guess is all it is. For me its like Sega and Sonic Team heard "Get more in touch with what people want!", but went about it in the wrong way entirely. As a side note, I don't think its quite fair to say that Headcannon's people aren't experienced with Sega/Sonic Team when its founders have worked with both companies to some extent on remakes and things of that nature for quite a long time before Mania, to the point of being considered regulars in terms of making Sonic games.

I'm not exactly the main authority either, but anecdotally I'm not hearing enough negativity to think that the atmosphere surrounding Sonic's prospects is terrible outside of some places on the internet. Which doesn't make either of us alone or knowingly wrong. Crap, now my science major self is trying to come up with a bias-reduced, as accurate as possible poll for these kinds of things... :P 

Good post.

1) An insightful post that I largely agree with. My only disagreement in this thread is really that this has seemed to happen with SEGA and Sonic time and time again. Even they have talked about it in interviews, how the mindset of the company for a long time more or less was to kick the games out the door in order to meet deadlines, while realizing that industry standards have changed and people have lower tolerance for low quality entries; this definitely has something to do with their recent campaign of "quality" (for example, if you were at SXSW like I was, Aaron and company wouldn't stop talking about how they were going to take their time with Mania and future games to ensure the release was of good quality). But I do take your point.

2) Agreed.

3) I only meant that Headcannon and etc. are not a long established major studio like Sonic Team, even though we know Sonic Team has in recent years been something of a revolving door of talent. Actually I read something recently that stated that Yuji Naka after the original title wanted to parlay his talent into a position at Nintendo. How fragile has the future of Sonic always been?...

In general my main gripes with the Sonic franchise is in how little respect and consistency an IP of this magnitude seems to get in comparison to other IPs of its size. I mean we're talking about one of the 3 greatest franchises in videogame history. I just couldn't imagine Nintendo ever letting Pokémon, Mario, Zelda, etc ever getting the kind of reputation Sonic currently has, even if things are not as bad as people make them out to be (we may disagree here). I really do think that SEGA has mishandled this brand in a way that to me is inarguably suspect and they have a lot of power to better control its perception in the market.

 

As a side note, What Science are you majoring in? (You can PM if you want about this). I'm a STEM guy myself.

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@UpCDownCLeftCRightC (forgot to quote you, sorry)

1) That makes sense now that you've explained it better. And well, companies from the olden days tend to forget that you can't shove out a game within a year or two anyway. Not an excuse, but it can be jarring for the out of touch executive to realize that games take longer now to make, and unfortunately their subordinates don't get listened to as often as they should in regards to deadlines.

(Admittedly I've only got anecdotal evidence for the part about not listening to subordinates, and I don't want to jeopardize anybody's livelihood, but its not exactly something that's hard for anonymous/private people in subordinate positions to verify what I'm saying here. The most they can say is something along the lines of "We're not gonna have this thing up to par until three months after today," but if all the executives hear is something along the lines of "I'm a slacker who loves wasting your money!", then they aren't getting that much needed three months. And well, guess who gets to be the scapegoat when the project inevitably goes wrong. Its the subordinates who saw disaster coming from a mile away but couldn't convince anybody with authority to take measures to prevent it to take their concerns seriously.)

3) Yuji had wanted to quit, if I recall correctly, because he felt like Sega didn't appreciate him enough. They wouldn't credit him with his proper name (which was actually to keep other companies from poaching him, but backfired as he saw it as disrespectful and avoiding crediting him directly) and apparently he wasn't getting paid a whole lot. If he'd gone over to Nintendo, he'd have probably realized that Nintendo was only marginally better in those regards-- people who weren't amongst its founders got credited with real names, yes, but weren't (and still aren't to a large extent) paid very well either and at times it seemed like its appreciation for its employees only lasted for a short period of time. Just look at how Gunpei Yokoi, the guy who invented the Game and Watch and the Game Boy (hence being directly responsible for the hold Nintendo maintains to this day on the handheld console market), invented the control pad, and acted as a producer for many well-liked franchises, got treated while he worked at Nintendo. Dude revolutionizes the console industry almost singlehandedly and establishes Nintendo's handheld dominance, and he's thanked by being forced to design the Virtual Boy despite several objections on his part, which were promptly ignored. Then he's shunted off to smaller projects as punishment for the Virtual Boy that he didn't even want to make and eventually quit out of frustration to go join Namco-Bandai (which was looking into making its own consoles at the time, and hey, it did treat Yokoi with a lot of respect, so Yokoi was planning to continue to provide inventions for it, but these consoles never were released outside of Japan for some reason and his life was tragically cut short by a car accident when he was only in his 50s). Because of the brashness and ego he had at the time, I don't think Yuji Naka would've tolerated any of the stuff Yokoi endured, at least not for as long as Yokoi did.

Fortunately SoA stepped in and helped Naka get what he wanted (first priority being better pay) so he'd stay at Sega, but even if SoA had not done this and Naka went to find another employer out of frustration, I strongly doubt Naka would've stayed at Nintendo for long. For better or for worse, the result would probably be that his own company Prope would have gotten established in the 90s instead of in the mid-2000s. Hard to tell how many people would have joined him in leaving for the new company, but it'd probably be significant enough to have an impact on the Sonic franchise.

 

And yeah, I do agree that Sega could be doing better. But well, if you think Nintendo couldn't let this happen... well, unfortunately that too isn't impossible. I'm actually not really a fan of Pokemon these days as I can't tell who Nintendo is attempting to please with the new titles or why certain changes were made, and even Mario has hit slumps (Galaxy 2, anybody?). For that matter, ask a Star Fox fan how the Star Fox franchise is doing right now and the answer is probably gonna be "dead." Not to say that its likely, but it is still well within the realm of possibility.

(Oh, and as for my major? Biology and Bioinformatics. I'm double majoring. And you?)

Edited by Mad Convoy
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31 minutes ago, Mad Convoy said:

@UpCDownCLeftCRightC (forgot to quote you, sorry)

1) That makes sense now that you've explained it better. And well, companies from the olden days tend to forget that you can't shove out a game within a year or two anyway. Not an excuse, but it can be jarring for the out of touch executive to realize that games take longer now to make, and unfortunately their subordinates don't get listened to as often as they should in regards to deadlines.

(Admittedly I've only got anecdotal evidence for the part about not listening to subordinates, and I don't want to jeopardize anybody's livelihood, but its not exactly something that's hard for anonymous/private people in subordinate positions to verify what I'm saying here. The most they can say is something along the lines of "We're not gonna have this thing up to par until three months after today," but if all the executives hear is something along the lines of "I'm a slacker who loves wasting your money!", then they aren't getting that much needed three months. And well, guess who gets to be the scapegoat when the project inevitably goes wrong. Its the subordinates who saw disaster coming from a mile away but couldn't convince anybody with authority to take measures to prevent it to take their concerns seriously.)

3) Yuji had wanted to quit, if I recall correctly, because he felt like Sega didn't appreciate him enough. They wouldn't credit him with his proper name (which was actually to keep other companies from poaching him, but backfired as he saw it as disrespectful and avoiding crediting him directly) and apparently he wasn't getting paid a whole lot. If he'd gone over to Nintendo, he'd have probably realized that Nintendo was only marginally better in those regards-- people who weren't amongst its founders got credited with real names, yes, but weren't (and still aren't to a large extent) paid very well either and at times it seemed like its appreciation for its employees only lasted for a short period of time. Just look at how Gunpei Yokoi, the guy who invented the Game and Watch and the Game Boy (hence being directly responsible for the hold Nintendo maintains to this day on the handheld console market), invented the control pad, and acted as a producer for many well-liked franchises, got treated while he worked at Nintendo. Dude revolutionizes the console industry almost singlehandedly and establishes Nintendo's handheld dominance, and he's thanked by being forced to design the Virtual Boy despite several objections on his part, which were promptly ignored. Then he's shunted off to smaller projects as punishment for the Virtual Boy that he didn't even want to make and eventually quit out of frustration to go join Namco-Bandai (which was looking into making its own consoles at the time, and hey, it did treat Yokoi with a lot of respect, so Yokoi was planning to continue to provide inventions for it, but these consoles never were released outside of Japan for some reason and his life was tragically cut short by a car accident when he was only in his 50s). Because of the brashness and ego he had at the time, I don't think Yuji Naka would've tolerated any of the stuff Yokoi endured, at least not for as long as Yokoi did.

Fortunately SoA stepped in and helped Naka get what he wanted (first priority being better pay) so he'd stay at Sega, but even if SoA had not done this and Naka went to find another employer out of frustration, I strongly doubt Naka would've stayed at Nintendo for long. For better or for worse, the result would probably be that his own company Prope would have gotten established in the 90s instead of in the mid-2000s. Hard to tell how many people would have joined him in leaving for the new company, but it'd probably be significant enough to have an impact on the Sonic franchise.

 

And yeah, I do agree that Sega could be doing better. But well, if you think Nintendo couldn't let this happen... well, unfortunately that too isn't impossible. I'm actually not really a fan of Pokemon these days as I can't tell who Nintendo is attempting to please with the new titles or why certain changes were made, and even Mario has hit slumps (Galaxy 2, anybody?). For that matter, ask a Star Fox fan how the Star Fox franchise is doing right now and the answer is probably gonna be "dead." Not to say that its likely, but it is still well within the realm of possibility.

(Oh, and as for my major? Biology and Bioinformatics. I'm double majoring. And you?)

For me its not so much that it couldn't happen for a big Nintendo series....its just that it wouldn't, you know what I mean? Every series has its up and downs and even though consumers want every game to be a GOTY contender that isn't a reasonable expectation. However, Sonic main offerings have been getting mixed to poor reviews on average for over 15 years. Some franchises are fortunate to even exist for that long. I've heard a lot of people complain about the direction of pokemon and such titles in recent years (myself included. way too oversaturated with legendaries) but you'd have to admit even with these struggles, Pokemon and Mario (the other two largest IPs along with Sonic) have never experienced anything near a decline in reputation like Sonic has. Like, not even remotely close, considering how consistent Sonic was in the 90s in his main titles. Regardless of our actual opinions of the games, each main pokemon and mario release still review quite highly and are generally liked by the majority of fans. Sonic has not seen this level of consistency since his first decade. I do cut Sonic a little more slack because I think the Sonic formula is inherently more difficult than either, but I also think that if you'd told a casual observer in 1998 that Sonic's reputation would sink as low as it has and for as long, they'd be a little more than surprised. It certainly happens, but this is the same blue blur that took on the #1 titan in Mario in both USA and Europe and actually managed to win for a brief period. That's a rather incredible fall from grace. Sometimes I really think fans who weren't old enough to have experienced those days don't understand Sonic's former position as a serious rival to Mario and a perennial GOTY contender. 

(I have a B.S. in physics. I'm now a few years in on an astrophysics PhD. So when I'm not distracted by completely meaningless Sonic chatter, I'm either doing research or helping teach undergrad entry level classes. Thankfully, there's no real hype for anything major coming around the horizon. If there was a sudden announcement for like a 3D version of Sonic 3&Knuckles made by Whitehead and Yuji Naka, I might give a public talk and accidentally reveal a slide of my new Sonic fanfic. ;) 

Just kidding on the Sonic fanfic stuff; I never got into that, even as a wee lad. If they ever announce something like that though, I probably won't be kidding. :D )

----------------------

Just to bring this post full circle, I do think that SEGA/Sonic Team already has an existing gameplay formula that, with some tweaks, can almost guarantee them a series of games with Generations level of quality or better. I've mentioned this awhile back on here (or maybe in a different community) but if they're not going to invest in a fully 3D gameplay like with the original Sonic Adventure or something new like the Sonic Utopia concept, I think that simply modifying the current "3D space molded around 2D gameplay" to better approximate the classic/Mania gameplay will do them a lot of good. Their recent games have already been 80-90% 2D, so adding the momentum physics and taking advantage of them with more complex level design would make for a more satisfying approach to platforming gameplay, while still allowing parts of the current "boost" gameplay. I think this is something that would not be a huge endeavor to accomplish and that the necessary minds are already in the fold to make this happen. I also think that, until they find a truly solid 3D concept, this would improve their gameplay to such an extent that their releases would review more consistently positive in the range of Generations or better, instead of middling to lower scores like Forces received. I think this would immediately earn them some credit to experiment with a more ambitious 3D title in the future. This to me would be a common sense move following the return to form in Mania. 

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Good. If Segay could make Sonic Unleashed within 2 years after 06, It's very possible for them to create a game just like, if not better than it within a few years or so. Truly, no one really knows who to make a 3D Sonic game. Engine? Mechanics? Those typically are fine but what about the level design? Does anyone legitimately have any solid idea on how to create one? Not even these fans who create countless engines can make an intricately or interesting level for the engine.

I think we all need to still keep critical of Sega but understand that the fans also can't even seem to do a quarter of what Sega has done. Think about it for a second. You either have some Sonic Adventure Try-Hard or; A Sonic Adventure Try-Hard. This is the fault of fans not being creative enough and failing to provide a new alternative unless it's related to Adventure in some form or fashion.

I'll keep repeating myself if I have to; Sonic World Adventure's(mostly this game here) and Sonic Generation's template for 3D Sonic is superior in almost every way. That is why these popular/new engines are using them. The potential additions and improvements are astronomical if done correctly. 

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12 hours ago, Jar Jar Analysis 1138 said:

... but what about the level design? Does anyone legitimately have any solid idea on how to create one? Not even these fans who create countless engines can make an intricately or interesting level for the engine.

You're not wrong, but...what does that have to do with Sonic Team? The fan gaming community hasn't figured out 3D Sonic level design yet because fan-made 3D Sonic games have only started to become viable relatively recently, while Sonic Team (for whatever that name means over the length of time involved) has been making 3D Sonics for about two decades now and still can't get it right. Plus you're comparing amateurs and hobbyists to professionals who are being paid to make this shit. It should never have even come to a point where fans are being looked to to figure out 3D Sonic; that Sonic Team has had so many opportunities to get things right and has squandered all of them is why people have gotten so desperate.

12 hours ago, Jar Jar Analysis 1138 said:

I think we all need to still keep critical of Sega but understand that the fans also can't even seem to do a quarter of what Sega has done. Think about it for a second. You either have some Sonic Adventure Try-Hard or; A Sonic Adventure Try-Hard. This is the fault of fans not being creative enough and failing to provide a new alternative unless it's related to Adventure in some form or fashion.

I'll keep repeating myself if I have to; Sonic World Adventure's(mostly this game here) and Sonic Generation's template for 3D Sonic is superior in almost every way. That is why these popular/new engines are using them. The potential additions and improvements are astronomical if done correctly. 

Really? Trying to make an Adventure-like engine is just being an uncreative tryhard, but all the attempts at making an Unleashed-like engine shows the superiority of that style? Damn near every fan game, 2D or 3D, classic, adventure, or modern, is iterating on something Sonic Team's done. There's no more inherent creativity or value in a fan game that expects you to boost between chains of springs and dash pads and one that expects you to spindash between chains of springs and dash pads.

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Adding to what Diogenes is saying here, we can see in these fan games (and fan-made levels for games like Generations) the foundations of great ideas for Boost/Adventure gameplay. Yes, there’s that usual fan-made jank involved, but the point is that in the past five or so years, everyone outside of Sonic Team has a more confident and inspired grasp on what Sonic can be. 

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13 hours ago, Diogenes said:

Plus you're comparing amateurs and hobbyists to professionals who are being paid to make this shit. It should never have even come to a point where fans are being looked to to figure out 3D Sonic; that Sonic Team has had so many opportunities to get things right and has squandered all of them is why people have gotten so desperate.

This feels a bit contradictory considering many fans I have encountered claim Sonic Team are the amateurs or/idiots who can't make a Sonic game. I am merely bringing up the reality that there has been so much talk about 3D level design and how to make one yet I have seen very little alternatives being made. If the fanbase claims Sonic Team can't make a good 3D game yet cannot create an alternative of their own, why must I leave out any criticism for such claims? All talk and no walk...

7 hours ago, Whatever the WhoCares said:

Adding to what Diogenes is saying here, we can see in these fan games (and fan-made levels for games like Generations) the foundations of great ideas for Boost/Adventure gameplay. Yes, there’s that usual fan-made jank involved, but the point is that in the past five or so years, everyone outside of Sonic Team has a more confident and inspired grasp on what Sonic can be. 

Well, yes. This was my point. Expanding on ideas rather than reverting to its primitive state and saying " it is done! Our physics is better than Sonic Team's!"  is rather moot when this is all you can accomplish.

13 hours ago, Diogenes said:

Trying to make an Adventure-like engine is just being an uncreative tryhard, but all the attempts at making an Unleashed-like engine shows the superiority of that style? Damn near every fan game, 2D or 3D, classic, adventure, or modern, is iterating on something Sonic Team's done. There's no more inherent creativity or value in a fan game that expects you to boost between chains of springs and dash pads and one that expects you to spindash between chains of springs and dash pads.

Let me be clearer; Sonic Adventure 1, specifically speaking(or any open world Sonic games). I find a bit of disdain, or rather a disappointment for fangames and using that as a base for a good Sonic game. Their methods are outdated, rigid and have no purpose in Sonic games today unless they improve it but they haven't yet(this is aimed at SA1). SA1 was an innocent experiment that did 3D for the first time. However, why not expand on that? This is why I have a lot of praise for the Hero Engine, Unleashed's Extraction for modding and infinity engine. They use the templates that had far better potential than the former and they rather come up with many new potential ideas. 

Furthermore, Adventure's physics aren't appealing to me. SA2 did pretty well before SU came around. Floatiness feels wrong for Sonic, even outright bad.

 

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