Unpopular Opinion and Discussion thread

Honestly, when I see folks that say Planescape is overrated, I usually see it as they probably just think the combat sucks which it does so it's easier to dismiss. Different interpretations are one thing, but Bethesda's take on this series and its lore is the most bare-bones in name only interpretation as you can get. Respecting your source material goes a long way, but Bethesda doesn't. They bought the IP so they can recycle TES with a new coat of paint without having to do any real work. Fallout 3 plays like they watched the opening videos to the original games then found a list of Fallout buzzwords and started checking things off without any real forethought. That's why the player character wastes a GECK on a water filter despite the fact the capital wasteland would have been far better off using the thing for its intended purpose. Human Revolution respected its source material and in a lot ways improved upon it. Deus Ex's overarching theme is simply "What does it mean to be human?" It's not entirely explored as well it should have been, but its there in all of its heavy handed glory (especially in Invisible War.) They completely shat the bed with Mankind Divided, but HR is still a shining example on how to do a soft reboot. Hopefully after this deal with Marvel is done, they'll get another crack at Deus Ex.

How exactly? What exactly does New Vegas retcon? Also with this type of game, you really don't what is actually canon until the next one is released.

 

Wait, New Vegas retcons "the ending" of Fo2? First off there are a ton of endings so.... tha's kind of a weird thing to say. The constant in all endings is the Enclave being destroyed on the Oil Rig and Navarro eventually falling to the NCR with Arroyo soon turning into a properous city. All of these things get references and in the case of the Enclave remnants even their own companion and sidequest. They reference the Bishop child, the Deathclaw Omelettes and even one of the possible fates to the restaurant's Deathclaw, The NCR even quizes you on stuff from FO2 and the money has artwork from Fo1 and 2. It doesn't retcon anything, they just advance the story further.

 

@Millim @CT Phipps
It's just a bad habit. IMO, unless it's a honest early access, games should be very palpable on Day 1. That's why Nintendo gets a lot of points in my book.
I should have said fixing patches instead of expansion/DLC, my bad.
The thing is that Expansion/DLC were impossible to release along the game for diverse reasons. They should at least.

But I can't find any practicality in a directly episodic game. And devs are often not as straightforward with it, iirc the few that followed the announced releases was Capcom for Resident Evil Revelations 2, an episode a week since release.
But once all the pieces are out, what makes it different of a normal game?

 

TWD doesn't piss me off as much because they at least tried to adapt the themes of the comic. The Showrunners of GoT don't even understand the themes of ASOIAF. Both adaptations fucked up the characters but in GoT they are the opposite of who they are in the books. Brienne is a kind honorable girl in the books and in the show she's constantly killing people and treats Pod like shit. In the books Arya is a traumatised little girl who isn't like the other girls but respects womenhood and Needle is a reminder of her family and Jon's smile, in the show Arya says things like "Most girls are idiots" and Needle is a tool for Revenge. In the books Tyrion is a misogynist asshole who always sees himself as the victim, in the show he's a fucking saint and Jesus reborn. There are more examples but i don't wanna write a novel. Another reason why i think GoT is worse is because the writing sucks as much as Fallout 4's yet it gets showered with emmys.

 

It depends greatly on what exactly the format and release schedule is. In Hitman (2016), they did a lot of revisions to the gameplay in real time like adding a reconnect button for the "always on", Challenges being recorded as they happen versus at the end of the mission, and more thanks to the feedback at the beginning of the episodes.

The episodic game also incorporates the demo for those gamers strapped for cash to give them a sense of, "if I would want to play this" as a small investment in the first game can show whether or not you'd like to be involved in the whole thing. Also, for those of us who like smaller games and may not have a lot of time, episodic games are bite sized content which is perfect for our schedules.

Episodic games are also more economical for publishers and can perhaps avoid the "all or nothing" trope of many releases.

 

That's... what actual demos are for?
Beyond "it's more convenient" I'm not seeing it.

 

More convenient is pretty good all round as an excuse. The real question is what is the PROBLEM with episodic gameplay in my mind? Say if we made an Assassin's Creed game which consisted of six episodes each with a new (small) city or adventure games ala Telltale or whatnot.

Some games obviously can't do this like Fallout or Elder SCrolls because open world gameplay doesn't work well with episodic gameplay but you could do it for a more linear experience ala Mankind Divided just fine.

 

But what difference does it make once all the episodes are out? The only thing that adds to the experience is having to get "in the previous episode" every hour or so if you forgot it somehow.

Imagine your favourite game that could have been forced to split into chapters. In my case, for example, could say... Starbound? For the 1.0 update, there was a story campaign added. Split into six stages and missions. Now, would it be better to "keep players on their toes!" And release a stage at a time or just releasing it at once?
Chrono Trigger? Why not charging 20$ for each time period?
Final Fantasy 7...? Oh...

It's a gimmick as I see it. Not different with making sister media like a movie, show, book or comic or coming with a tennis racket adapter.

 

Well, you get it potentially months earlier and feedback can be added to the latter part of the game.

My favorite non open world games is Deus Ex and, well, they AREN'T finishing it despite it just needing an episodic ending or two.

I dunno, I generally enjoy buying Telltale games one bit at a time and I loved it when it was done with Hitman. With Hitman, I replayed the same levels multiple times to master them but didn't feel compelled to do so with its previous edition in Absolution so it was helped overall.

Eh, I guess I support more content spread across the entirety of the year rather than just in a single big gulp release.

Just saying.

 

Few of those points is about episodic models, a prolonged support period from devs with regular updates and attention to feedback does exactly that.

I'm curious, where have you seen a game released by parts that had more content than another released normally?

 

No idea why concept of releasing a full game that has a coherent vision and focused development now seen as a risk, also how is it more content that way? Getting 90 minutes of gameplay every month just makes the experience feel disjointed, for the developers it also results in less net gains per month of development and it has resulted in almost all episodic games eventually just running out of funds and having to scale everything back without being able to adjust earlier parts of the game. This model is just crap for everyone involved.

 

It's less about that and more about inflation and the fact that we're still paying $60 (USD) for games while development costs have scaled higher in triple A departments.

 

The funny thing is that if games were priced less, they would actually make more money. All triple A games should be 20 bucks. 20 bucks is a yuppie food stamp, nobody thinks twice about spending a 20. Lower cost with increased day one sales.

 

Costs have gone up it's true. Bt guess what doesn't help with proper workflow for development? Breaking up a single game into multiple development cycles just for a gimmicky format that offers literally Zero benefits to anything in the finished product.

 

Yes, which a lot of game developers don't do because so many gamers play the game and turn it back in. Episodic content expands the release cycle indefinitely because it encourages people to buy the game online rather than in physical format and expand the content therein.

Hitman is a big example of this as the Episodic release allowed them to do the entire "Exclusive Contracts" thing which never would have happened with post sales. The big appeal for Episodic content for game developers is the fact it allows the development cost to be covered as the game is being made and thus a much longer release cycle.

There's the extremely good development of getting a day's worth of gaming for five bucks and potentially much more given the format. I've mentioned this and no one has refuted the appeal of it.

 

That's the thing - they have been; Games are cheaper now than they were in the 90's.

It really depends on the game and the genre. People (most) that hate RTS or Horror games aren't going to buy them just because they cost 40 dollars less than they usually would.

Amnesia was able to push 2 million units in raw sales thanks to discounts on the game (and that game was already priced significantly less than the usual $60 sticker price). But their development budget for the game was only $360,000. 2 million units wouldn't help a developer break even on something with a 20-40 million budget. It doesn't even begin to factor in the cut of the sales which goes to publishers/steam/origin.

Paradox talks a lot about making 200% in profits thanks to Steam sales, but there's no indication of where those sales come from (correct me if I'm wrong). They have so much DLC for Crusader Kings 2 and EU4 that it could just be people buying the DLC (on sale) and floating the sales number up. For perspective, it costs 250 dollars to purchase every single piece of DLC for EU 4, and 260 dollars to purchase every single piece for CK2. Both are 40 dollar games.

I fucking hate what they did to Deus Ex MKD; but it's a different scenario. That was clear cut corporate shilling to squeeze more from a game they didn't envision (originally) as a Mass Effect-esque series.

 

and yet the majority of these games that are released in this format are broken as fuck.

 

...such as?

 

Telltale's entire fucking library for starters.