I admit I have a very hard time to understand you. No clue if its my fault or yours though. Because if I am honest I actually dont know what you're arguing about. Not to mention that I believe Gizmo did an excelent job to explain what this all is about, and I defintely can not explain it better then he did already. And I find it hard to believe that someone does not understand his point. It feels like he's trying to explain why you need to breath air to survive, yet someones arguing that its not. As said. Just how I feel.
Anyway. If I missunderstood you then I appologize. So far its been a good discussion.
Every time Gizmo's added his two cents, it's appeared to me that his hang-ups regarding change across one title to the next are trivial gripes. He's stated that he's TOTALLY okay with differences..... unless they carry the same name. Why should that make such a difference? He's stated that the name carries expectations with it. Why should those expectations be absolute? My point has always been tearing down those objections for what they are: trivial.
Using FO3 as an example, it doesn't matter what form the game came in, whether it would have been "isometric" (which is a misrepresentation, because
Fallout was NEVER technically isometric, nor would future installments be, with freely-adjustable camera angles set at a default top-down view) or whether it would have been first person perspective wouldn't have made ANY difference except for one: the trivial expectations of the established audience. It's a petty gripe to complain about change from top-down camera to third or first person, JUST because that's not what it always was. You were right when you pointed out that certain camera angles lend themselves better to certain genres and their functions, and if THAT was the cause for concern, those would be legitimate. But these were not those concerns. They were "but that's different, waaaaaaaah!" complaints. Pointless, because their ONLY gripe was that it was different. I'll say it again, just in case at this juncture I'm losing you: it would NOT have mattered what angle the camera was if FO3 was a good game. The key part was "a good game", and FO3 was not. Too many fans have ripped the notion of a FPS FO game to shreds PURELY because our introduction to FPS
Fallout was FO3, a terrible game. That fails to recognize that it COULD have been done well, attached to a GOOD game, and the entire fanbase would have celebrated the "update". Here's your proof (granted, it's subjective): what's the greater complaint over FONV, the camera angle? No, it's the bugginess, other signs of its rushed development, the outdated engine it was forcibly tied to. The overall complaints were not of change, but rather a LACK of change. Because FONV, unlike FO3, was a fantastic game, the change in perspective is overlooked.
In his video, "
A Game By Any Other Name", Jim Sterling pointed out very succinctly how gamer expectations based entirely on name recognition alone is short-sighted and in many ways childish. Like me, he places the entire emphasis of expectation on "is the game good?" Early on in the video he uses "spin off" as a pardon, but he goes on to non-spin off examples, such as FO3, to state that it's not the name that matters, it's the game you get. Watch it, it's a great video.
Again, my point has always been as such: "Game developers ALWAYS have the right to do whatever they want with the next title in a series; it's their game, not yours. You shouldn't be bothered by a sequel changing from it's prequel, you should be bothered by a sequel being a bad game. If it's a bad game, that's definitely 'a bad change', but if it's a good game, any change can be warranted."
Diablo III as an example of copying the same design of its excellent predecessors
Except, that many Diablo players would argue (me included) that the game failed because it did NOT copy its excelennt predecessors. Diablo 3 is not to Diablo 1/2 what Fallout 3 is to Fallout 1/2. Granted. But Diablo 3 is definitely VERY far away from the core concept of Diablo 2. Even with the expansion. I mean for fucks sake, RoS is Bound on Account with almost everything and it is missing a lot of what made Diablo 2 awesome. You cant get much further from the Diablo experience then that.
Yes, but what's the difference, gameplay-wise? D3 is STILL a TPS dungeon crawler where movement is mouse click based (though correct me if I'm wrong, they have WASD movement as well, right?) with two giant orbs representing health and mana and you descent into more hellish terrain as the game progresses to ultimately tackle Diablo. The design is identical. Yet that's not why the game fails. Trying to take my example of foiling your reasoning and turning it on its head only solidifies the example and reaffirms the reason I even brought it up.
Diablo III copied its prequel's designs down to the t, but it failed in far too many ways BESIDES the design, and that's why the game was a failure. Clearly, change could have seriously saved
Diablo III had fans not been so unreasonably hell-bent (no pun intended) on receiving copies of their expectations replicated without much thought as to why.
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), but let's say, you understand that your main demographic won't know, won't care, and won't tolerate the challenge... well you can make it [even more] cartoon science, and not really part of the challenge anymore; not even par with FO3's hacking minigame ~which I kind of liked on its own merit; though I thought it quite out of place in a roleplaying game. 