Are we getting too picky?

[turbojet]

Shifting the blame from the true cause (Iizuka's) into one that very likely has very, very little to do with the actual game development (fans) is super crazy. You're like battered wives! "Oh SEGA never did anything wrong! it was just me again with my big mouth, my fault, all my fault..."

I am not defending Sonic Team's execution of the games by any means, but listening to the fans who know very little about game development period is a bad idea. I rather have gameplay specific complaints(which is very rare from this fanbase BTW) instead of "Not enough characters/We just want Sonic", "We want Shadow the Hedgehog to come back", "MOAR SPEED(without little thought on how it was playable)", or, my favorite, "Eggman? No! Robotnik, please." Honestly, this is the shit that pisses me off. Everybody has what they percieve as the ideal Sonic game that it becomes a cluster fuck of ideas that become a mess. Its not like Sega hasn't been listening to the fans. They just been listening to them more than they should.

I am all for criticizing the gameplay, but dammit, I draw the line for any game developer listening to their fanbase on trivial shit that may affect gameplay especially considering that most fanbases will always complain until they get their way. Example, "Not enough characters" made Heroes brought on the damn team sytem which wasn't that bad, but it brought on more complaints. "We want just Sonic" and "Moar Speed" made Unleashed which, in process of trying to make the game longer, brought on the Werehog. Yes, it was poor execution on Sonic Team's part, but it was in response to the fans' desires so its not like the fanbase isn't partially to blame.

A bad game is a bad game, but continuing the bad idea that made these bad games is just being masochistic. Just ask Valve. To be fair, in regards to Sonic 4, I have seen mostly criticisms about the gameplay which is a good thing. But as Bill Cosby once said,"The key to failure is trying to please everybody." The point is that fanbases ,in general, suck.

[Remy]

Valve is a bad example considering they've frequently hired fan mod groups as staff in the past- for recent examples left 4 dead was afaik originally a HL2 mod which low and behold led to them getting hired and the game becoming a title. The classic example is Counterstrike. Another simple mod that's become one of the most popular multiplayer games around.

Provided your fans aren't retarded, fan input is invaluble. You may have been usuing that joke changelog as an arguement against this kind of thing, but it's not like the actual changes to tf2 come out of nowhere. Withour people playing they would'nt know what's broke and we'd not have balance patches

[Aquaslash]

@Remz, Hell No! All of these "half baked and terrible" ideas come from the fans! Every single one of them!

Who the fuck asked for guns and princesses (other than Sally, she's cool), and kisses, and werehogs? And where do they live so I can donkey punch them.

[Phos]

If Sega can't tell the difference between bad feedback and good feedback, it's their own fault.

Remz: I imagine your new signature making the "Changed a part" sound effect from the PSX Armored Core games. Left 4 Dead, though, was made by one of the teams that either made one of the ports of Half-Life, or the team behind one of the Half-Life expansions.

Screw the fans because, at this point, we are unpleasable!

This sentiment, I hate this sentiment. So, what, just because Sega can't please 100% of people they should just not even try to please anyone discerning and just market to eight year olds? They could certainly please a lot more people than they currently are. Mario seems able to please virtually everyone right now. How did they do that? It wasn't magic, they simply made an extremely good game. They didn't bother to go out of their way to tell some epic plot explaining why Mario is doing whatver (though they did hide an epic plot in there when no one was looking), they didn't spend 23682396429846 dollars on a bunch of CGI and hours of voice acting, they rolled up their sleeves (Well, they were Japanese, so the metaphor to use would be putting on a sweat band) and made a game with many distinct challenges and things happening, with a consistent endearing art style that doesn't seek to jump out at you, but to let you grow fond of it, and made one of the best looking games ever on what is essentially obsolete hardware.

Edited May 27, 2010 by Phos

[Tornado]

They just been listening to them more than they should.

Like hell they have. There's a rather large gap between "listening to whatever the fanbase is bitching about and responding to those criticisms" and "listening to the fanbase's criticisms, going all literal-wish-granting on them and then acting surprised when the fanbase isn't completely pleased about the results." If Sonic Team is truly listening to the fan criticism as it comes out, Tite Kubo doesn't even troll his fanbase as much as Sonic Team does.

Let's take Unleashed: The fanbase wanted Sonic-only, both to get away from the shitty gimmick ripoff crap and so there would be Sonic only in the game. So Sonic Team decides to be a smartass and twist that into "Sonic is the only character in this game, but half of the game is a shitty God of War clone. Only now you play them as Sonic instead of Big or some other character. Sonic only!"

How about STH'06? "I heard you wanted another Sonic Adventure-type game, so we put in some hardcore animal porn a cheesy-ass Disney ripoff plot to tie together the shitty gimmicks so you can vomit while you vomit."

Or maybe ShtH? Shadow was apparently Iizuka's illegitimate son, but he was also pretty popular in the fanbase at the time. So, the perfect solution to write a love-letter to the fans who liked Shadow was a hybrid of guns, motorbikes and "Where's That Damn Fourth Chaos Emerald?;" all wrapped up in a plot that retconned two different origin stories into one about aliens and Sonic dies but no he didn't and etc.

I'm not saying that the fanbase is the most brilliant of them all, nor am I saying that most of the criticisms of the games are constructive, but they sure as hell aren't the reason that the games suck so badly. If Sonic Team are not doing this on purpose and are truly that stupid (which, based on how they inserted the werehog while ignoring the advice of 2/3rds of the company they work for, I'm gonna suppose that it is the latter), then the blame rests pretty much just on them. You'll note that other, more competent developers typically manage to successfully both weed out stupid fan criticism and implement the good criticism somewhat well. Sonic Team can't do either for the most part.

Edited May 27, 2010 by Tornado

[turbojet]

Mario Galaxy 2 is a great game, but believe me, if the Mario fanbase is anything like any fanbase in general, they will eventually complain. Mario Galaxy 2 didn't listen to the gripes of story telling or no story telling. They just made a great game! The point that I'm trying to make that "NO, Sonic Team should not just listen to the fanbase" as Remz was trying to champion when the fanbase, in question, is completely divided on what they want. You guys criticize me, but each and every one of you come from differing sections of the fanbase. Aquaslash, you want a retro game with retro artstyle and absolutely no damn speed boosters/boost/homing attack etc. Phos, you emphasize physics(which is a good thing not criticizing you) and expect it to be exactly like the old games. Are you as extreme as and polarizing as Aquaslash? Then we have people who genuinely liked Sonic 3-D. What about these assholes? Better yet, the fans that want the boost and prefer, for whatever the hell reason, a Sonic Rush styled game. Oh we should take them seriously too, huh? As far as I'm concerned all of these points of views worked and failed at one time so its not like we can play pros and cons either. The fanbase is way too divided to take every criticism since they all come from different points of view and I am not even getting to the detail specific bitching.

Since we want to bring up Sonic Unleashed, lets just exclude the werehog. They combined 2-D and 3-D, made Sonic insanely fast, and didn't have that many glitches until you get into Empire City. Wait, not everyone liked the combination, right Phos and Aquaslash? You guys ask who in the fanbase wanted Sonic 06's abysmal antics but I am pretty sure that we did ask for SA3(which I say there was never a SA3 unless it has chao raising). Point is that they are responding albeit in poorly executed games. Yeah, it is Sonic Team's fault and I never said that it wasn't, but I rather not deal with a game dictated by fan input because that would not be any better.

And before you guys get in my affiliation, I'll state that I would love a 2-D game just as much as a 3-D game.I grew up playing Sonic 2,3,SA1 and 2. Don't really care as long as I have fun which I sure as hell didn't have with Sonic 06 and the werehog.

Edited May 27, 2010 by turbojet

[psikeout]

About shooting elements being the result of fan input, BTW:

Sonic games have always been about running, and running fast. But many fans voiced the opinion that they wanted to see shooting elements in a Sonic game. The problem is, that Sonic would never use a gun; it's just not in his character. So, in order to live up to those requests, we knew as a team that we needed to do something drastic. The question is, how do you add shooting elements to a Sonic game? We decided to add a whole new character: a robot who specialized in shooting. And that's how Gamma was born.

From the translated Sonic Adventure: Director's Cut commentary with Takashi Iizuka.

Watch the video yourself here:

http://soahcity.com/movies/sonic_adventure_dx_commentary/index.php

It's under "Download part 2."

[Phos]

Mario Galaxy 2 is a great game, but believe me, if the Mario fanbase is anything like any fanbase in general, they will eventually complain. Mario Galaxy 2 didn't listen to the gripes of story telling or no story telling. They just made a great game! The point that I'm trying to make that "NO, Sonic Team should not just listen to the fanbase" as Remz was trying to champion when the fanbase, in question, is completely divided on what they want. You guys criticize me, but each and every one of you come from differing sections of the fanbase. Aquaslash, you want a retro game with retro artstyle and absolutely no damn speed boosters/boost/homing attack etc. Phos, you emphasize physics(which is a good thing not criticizing you) and expect it to be exactly like the old games. Are you as extreme as and polarizing as Aquaslash? Then we have people who genuinely liked Sonic 3-D. What about these assholes? Better yet, the fans that want the boost and prefer, for whatever the hell reason, a Sonic Rush styled game. Oh we should take them seriously too, huh? As far as I'm concerned all of these points of views worked and failed at one time so its not like we can play pros and cons either. The fanbase is way too divided to take every criticism since they all come from different points of view and I am not even getting to the detail specific bitching.

Since we want to bring up Sonic Unleashed, lets just exclude the werehog. They combined 2-D and 3-D, made Sonic insanely fast, and didn't have that many glitches until you get into Empire City. Wait, not everyone liked the combination, right Phos and Aquaslash? You guys ask who in the fanbase wanted Sonic 06's abysmal antics but I am pretty sure that we did ask for SA3(which I say there was never a SA3 unless it has chao raising). Point is that they are responding albeit in poorly executed games. Yeah, it is Sonic Team's fault and I never said that it wasn't, but I rather not deal with a game dictated by fan input because that would not be any better.

And before you guys get in my affiliation, I'll state that I would love a 2-D game just as much as a 3-D game.I grew up playing Sonic 2,3,SA1 and 2. Don't really care as long as I have fun which I sure as hell didn't have with Sonic 06 and the werehog.

How are my views and those of Aquaslash conflicting? Yes, there are a bunch of people who like the faster Rushes and such, but I doubt that they like it specifically for the boost so much as they like it because it's fast, which still doesn't conflict with my desires.

And I found a bunch of repeatable glitches and broken environmental pieces early on in Sonic Unleashed. in Windmill island, for example:

There's an ever better one in Adabat, but it can only be seen from the water and is thus too hard to get a picture of.

Oh, and if you do the rail switch move immediately before hitting a speed booster, you'll fall through the rail. It's pretty repeatable. Then there's the matter of all the oddities with the controls, how it's often hard to get Sonic to do what you want, and the strange places where the controls are relative to the level instead of to the camera. Lots of funny business with Unleashed.