ground zeroes is apparently set to be a current gen game. No confirmation if that video was running on current console dev kits or on computers approximating next gen console tech.
*there had better be a Shagohod in mothballs somewhere for me to commandeer.
**the vehicle stuff really opens up the possibility that the New MGO could be a mix of typica MGO and Socom 3 or something---which was kind of a blend between typical Socom and Battlefield games.
there's no way Joakim is rednered in that video. Its an actual guy with tape on his face. They probably didn't do full body shots because A. this way is weirder B. they don't have to worry about "selling" a full body shot/costume.
wow, people are dumb. The teeth are the same. Those three shots are just slightly different in tilt of head, shaping of mouth, and therefore; perspective on the teeth.
I don't recall any of the snake characters actually speaking in either of the two trailers. Just grunting and gasps and stuff.
Its entirely possible its still david hayter, just not doing the snake voice. I mean that's an actual character voice that he hams up and whatnot. His actual speaking voice is quite different.
*I wish I could high-five Hideo Kojima on getting Kiefer Sutherlund to voice a character for a MGS game.
this talk is coming from his twitter where he's pitching fit of not being hired to work on it. it sounds genuine but it could also be more marketing.
all fanboyism aside, it has to be a ruse. Metal Gear Solid is not known for changing voice actors unless the actor just flat out refuses (which I'm not sure has ever happened!). On top of that, David Hayter is really cool and really into being the Snake character. I can't imagine anyone at Kojima productions would ignore that.
and now that I'm thinking about it, the phantom pain snake character in the trailer may be a different clone, who isn't one of the main Snakes. Liquid and Solidus weren't voiced by Hayter and Big Boss isn't voice by Hayter when he's not a player character.
The trailer ends with saying that "V" has "come to". I'm guessing that's a fifth clone.
Ni Go Zero Ichi wrote:
As far as I can recall for MGS4 they had this new theme that sounded kind of like the old MGS theme, but wasn't, and basically pretended like it was the same theme they'd always used, and that's the one that gets played at the end of the (overlong, infuriating) final Ocelot oldguy fistfight.
Yeah, they basically took the root notes from the identifying hook and used it as a "jingle" to recall the old melody; which by coincidence was extremely similar to a work from a dead composer (I think he was russian or Danish or something). It wasn't clear to me that they were trying to sue for infringement, I think they just came to an agreement to respect the composer's work and no longer use that melody.
Last edited by Toptube on Thu Mar 28, 2013 1:59 am; edited 1 time in total
As far as I can recall for MGS4 they had this new theme that sounded kind of like the old MGS theme, but wasn't, and basically pretended like it was the same theme they'd always used, and that's the one that gets played at the end of the (overlong, infuriating) final Ocelot oldguy fistfight.
Yeah, they basically took the root notes from the identifying hook and used it as a "jingle" to recall the old melody; which by coincidence was extremely similar to a work from a dead composer (I think he was russian or Danish or something). It wasn't clear to me that they were trying to sue for infringement, I think they just came to an agreement to respect the composer's work and no longer use that melody.
My understanding about what happened to the original MGS theme is that it was discovered to be suspiciously similar (like, similar enough to constitute plagiarism) to a piece by a Soviet composer, and while there was never actually any legal action Konami got spooked and put the kibosh on any further use of the theme in the series.
there used to be a video on Youtube of Kojima listening to the Russian song (looking completely surprised), along with some presumably Russian people. I couldn't find the video, though. and a n old link to it says its been taken down.
Here's a pretty comprehensive comparison (done by someone else) for those who didn't know about this:
ok so there is a gameplay video and like the ishmael guy is like WE GOTS TO GO DAWG I BEEN PROTECTING YOU but then you are just crawling on the ground and he keeps running forward and then waiting for you to crawl to him
video game logic
I DON'T KNOW MAYBE THIS ISHMAEL GUY WOULD, LIKE, PICK SNAKE UP AND HELP HIM WALK? LIKE A HUMAN BEING WOULD DO?
though I am sure this will be rationalized because Ishmael is actually a psychic projection of snake whose mind is being influenced by the teenage psycho mantis to blah blah blah
or maybe because he'se covered in bandages and is clearly seen holding his right shoulder as if its weak and/or hurting.
for real though gameplay-wise every room except the one sneaking section in the last act of MGS4 is garbage and the only time the actual gameplay of MGS got better was in 2.
Uh Snake Eater is pretty much gaming on another level. Its more of a "sandbox" experience than GTAIV is and it does mostly everything right. And not just in the realm of MGS. Snake Eater is a game of games. Games have only gotten predictably prettier and more streamlined since Snake Eater.
Also, you may have forgotten, but after the initial sneaking mission, Snake Eater pretty much settles into a golden pace of set-piece after set-piece that alone, trumps the length of both the previous games. and you still have the climax segments to look forward to, after the game does take a comedic break.
internisus wrote:
thestage wrote:
of course, if most of the people here ran into people doing this about Final Fantasy, they would chortle, call them all nerd idiots, and then go back to, I dunno, listening to they might be giants
criticism is a valid mode of thought, if I think the overt and inbred canonization of metal gear is dumb beyond reproach, then I am pretty entitled to demonstrate how it makes these things ridiculous. that metal gear solid 4 happens to exist is pretty powerful evidence that I'm, you know, right. saying everything is valid and lets all bake cakes and roll around in flower beds is a good way to get dumb and stay there.
MGS4 is crappy not because of its relationship with prior canon but because it is very poorly written and full of stilted, weirdly paced melodrama.
And Final Fantasy games aren't all connected, asshole. But seriously I'm sure in your weird hypothetical situation our Metal Gear nerds would try to point out why Final Fantasy is less rewarding to nerd about. Which is perfectly legitimate.
If either you or Rudie had actually said anything that stood as criticism of the canonization of Metal Gear (or anything specific about how exactly this one thing is the root of MGS4's problems), then this would be a conversation, but you both seem to be more interested in lazy condescension.
thestage wrote:
internisus wrote:
MGS4 is crappy not because of its relationship with prior canon but because it is very poorly written and full of stilted, weirdly paced melodrama.
unlike the other metal gear games, amirite.
MGS4 is a disaster piece because it felt the need to legitimize MGS2 to fans by reconciling every second of it with a Bigger Picture that happens to include, at length, All Their Favorite Things. this happens to every nerd property once 1) it makes enough money, and 2) its fanbase becomes old enough to be broken. it's a hundred million dollar piece of fan fiction cybernetically engineered to make the people who were going to love it love it even more
I think MGS4's 2 problems are that it polarizingly recontextualizes and force fits into place, just about everything cool about the previous two games before it (I personally felt like it did a particularly bad number on MGS3, but that may just be because I love that game more than most games and so I made more connections with it. Even though I do love MGS2).
The post credits scene also alienates some earlier scenes in MGS4 that were otherwise some of most desperate, affecting, best scenes in the game. partially because they were some of the few moments where the game is not trying desperately to recall and reform previous events and partially because what seemed to actually be happening was just downright tense!
and then after it shocks the shit out of you, it further rubs it in that its changing everything you thought you liked about the series, by over explaining every last thing, right to the goddamn last second.
Gameplay-wise, I think the first portion of MGS4 is the best part of the whole game. It really stresses aspects of terrain and cover, that no other part of the game does. Its the kind of stuff i was hoping for, after Snake Eater. and the kind of stuff that I've only seen in a couple of other games, such as the original Ghost Recon, and Battlefield 2.
It also drives home some immersion by having stuff happen around you, as you move through the area. The bad guys' goals have grown to the point at which they can't hide from everyone but you, anymore. Its the kind of stuff that was talked about a lot in PR. But its only a sliver of the whole game.
thestage wrote:
Toptube wrote:
Snake Eater pretty much settles into a golden pace of set-piece after set-piece that alone, trumps the length of both the previous games.
this is the worst part about the game
unless the always-hold-up-on-your-controller-to-advance level design is
Its a lot better than run back through every place you've been so far, except for that one door, to get that one thing, that you need right here.
or suddenly there are a bunch of things to go get/take care of in areas you've already been. and is otherwise inconsequential.
I prefer Snake Eater's method of nearly constantly feeding me new playgrounds and new things to do, while slowly moving towards the enemy stronghold. There are a couple of small moments with backtracking, but its not nearly as much recovered ground and the reasoning/payoff within the story makes it nearly painless.
Last edited by Toptube on Fri Mar 29, 2013 8:37 am; edited 1 time in total
I actually think that Snake Eater is a better game for allowing that, mainly because it's what interests me more. It's a worse game as far as action-consequence goes, but I don't think that it's trying to be about action-consequence except for what's needed to make it a game and to make those various elements interact with each other.
the mgs3 comment was [mostly] a joke.
i think any claims about what mgs3 is "trying to be" mechanically are both sort of too convenient and also probably beside the point. i have a hard time with the idea that any of these games have quite that coherent a relationship between what they wish they were and what they ultimately have to be given the circumstances either way.
i think i value what you value in mgs3/mgs4's act 2 but am not satisfied with just leaving it alone as such. my issue isn't with what mgs3 "allows", it's with what it doesn't even consider. i don't want to stifle intuitive mechanical exploration; i want to introduce more elements that strengthen the context for its use.
mgs acts as an opportunity to solve a bunch of problems you don't even have. i want the games to more consistently explore those problems without necessarily taking away the solutions.
Did you play original MGS3, before the "modern" camera was added? I feel like the constrained view of the original camera at least artificially manifests some of those problems that you say aren't there.
I mean, it's still certainly possible to run and gun, but its a lot more difficult. Especially in areas where the camera doesn't let you see faar ahead.
and the game does feature a lot of extra stuff that you don't have to use. But its screaming for you to try stuff. To play. You are often rewarded by finding more elegant ways to deal with problems.
I'm confused by the whole unconfirmed Kiefer Sutherland thing as there were rumors it was him as bandage dude/Ishmael in The Phantom Pain debut trailer
As a huge fan of 24, this was no rumor. Kiefer has a distinct voice and after listening to it for 8 years, I confirmed it was him after about two words.
Quote:
and now there are rumors that he was Big Boss in the new MGS V trailer.
Initially, I didn't want to say anything about this because I'm sure many people wouldn't have believed me. But again, I am super familiar with Kiefer's vocal mannerisms, everything down to grunts and grumbles.
Hospital table Big Boss sounds a lot like Kiefer trying not to sound like Kiefer.
I think it's totally awesome and it makes sense to me. I'm sure that Hayter will return as Solid. If not in this game (because Solid isn't an adult yet?) then in a later game.
One fan wanted to know why the Japanese voice actor for Snake (Akio Otsuka) has not changed, while the English actor (David Hayter) has. The host of the podcast, Sean Eyestone, answered:
“This time, the English voice is really driving the animation, is driving the character. In past Metal Gears, everything was done by hand: the animation was done by hand, both the English and the Japanese were dubbed in.”
“This time, the facial performance that is being done by the English voice actor is what is driving the animation, what is driving the character. And actually, Otsuka-san, who is the Japanese voice, will be dubbing into that. So his facial expressions will not be in the game, so it’s just his voice. It’s like what he’s done up to this point. So that’s more or less the reason why this casting decision was made.
I know some people may have reservations, whenever things change, people are always a little nervous. But I think if you just wait and see how things turn out, I think you’ll be very happy with the performance. I think it’s really cool and we can’t wait to show you more.”
"Just announced-- Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain will be released on the Sony PlayStation®3, the Sony PlayStation®4, Xbox 360®, and the Xbox One®. What console will you be getting it on?"
on another note, holy cow there was a log floating in the surf! It's pretty crazy that Sony has delivered handhelds that deliver 85% of the visuals and 95% of the gameplay as their consoles.
The end of this is kind of troubling - where he announces being more interested in social media integration than solid multiplayer. (Note: I wouldn't care if MGO hadn't happened and proven to be so damn good.)
I think the translation here is a little off. I'm reading it as him saying that multiplayer is expected, with today's games. Like at a "minimum", there should be a MP aspect. So he is assuring us that MGO5 is alive. But due to the open world structure of the core singleplayer game, he would like to encourage non-standard multiplayer. Not just blatantly locked into a game mode. He then uses the horse travel times as an example of such a thing.
*and as far as MGS5's open world structure goes: I've said it before, but I hope it's actually not completely open. Something like Snake Eater or Bad Company 1, where you ultimately follow a linear progression, but get areas to play in along the way. Because games like GTA4 where you just have this sprawling City, games like that have rarely stayed cohesive enough to keep me interested. I have faith in Kojima, but I remain somewhat leary.
yeah, I could make a fairly short list of open-world games I think actually work:
- Red Dead (the world design is just that good)
- Red Faction Guerrilla (blowing things up is an incredible amount of fun)
- GTA (but for mostly indirect reasons; the radio is funny and there are loving simultations of American cityscapes)
for the most part this is not at all preferable to tighter narrativity. I will again plug Witcher 2's quasi-openness (you go between a few separate locales which are open in their own right over the course of the game, and there are branching paths, but it's still mostly linear). I'm also replaying Jak 2 and I think its openness is largely irrelevant except as a technical showcase of better-than-GTA mechanics, ten years ago.
I love Jak II. It wears an "open world" facade. There isn't actually much of anything to do, outside of the actual intended missions and guided gameplay (truly open world games are all about giving you tons of stuff to do, that is fairly inconsequential to the core game progression). So really, the game becomes this massive showcase of amazing scale. Because you are playing a pretty normal structure of a game (albeit an extremely well executed hybrid platformer), amongst a fairly sprawling city with draw distances galore. The city is often a hub to a wide variety of playgrounds, but you also do a lot of stuff within that city.
I recently got to talk about Jak II in another forum, I love that game!
*open world games that have worked for me:
Morrowind
Infamous 2
The Incredible Hulk: ultimate destruction (I didn't actually finish this one)
fanboy times in Spider-Man: Web of Shadows. (and really, the reason this one kept me going was the excellent combat system that felt uniquely Spider-Man. Also, your main enemy was the symbiote. See what I mean by fanboy.)
Fallout 3 I played a bit of when it first came out, and liked what I experienced. I recently tried to get into Skyrim. I modded it up and everything, but for some reason I just wasn't connecting with it. So now I've modded up Fallout 3 and am gonna give it a proper chance.
yeah, I think we actually feel the same way about Jak 2, you just said it more words and my praise sounds more qualified as a result. also, definitely put Morrowind on my list. and, uh, the original Fallout, though that predates the current understanding of "open world" (and unlike other open world games mentioned, the main quest is actually non-linear).
Yeah! after I wrote that post, I reread yours and realized you were saying the same thing.
There are a bunch of people whining at Blu-ray.com about Jak II's difficulty and why that means it's not as good as Jak 3. (Jak 3 is a good game. But it's no Jak II).
It would be pretty amazing if you could blow up the food storage. then a couple days later, terrorist attack the food supply truck with a rocket launcher. Then by the end of the week, watch everyone leave to go get some food.
Last edited by Toptube on Tue Jun 25, 2013 7:15 pm; edited 2 times in total
Or have a continuing campaign of terrorist attacks and targeted assassinations against officers. Make enemy morale plummet, until everyone's walking around in groups of 3 (and therefore not covering as much ground) and so jittery they freak out at every little noise.
Kojima has enough a sense of humor to do that sort of thing, too.
i think whatever metal gear game comes next will actually have to be an extended larp session with hideo kojima playing the role of Big Boss
especially if you consider how the shapes in the level design have actually affected the game
pardon the joke in the title of this post now, but what i'm talking about is kind of a neat thing i noticed recently
Metal Gear Solid is all about SQUARES in it's level design, there are a few open areas but almost every encounter takes place in a box shaped room, even the soliton radar generally transmits level data in the form of squares and very rudimentary geometric figures
the tanker area in Metal Gear Solid 2 continues this theme and then drops it when snake "dies" and you switch to the Big Shell
which is a series of hexagons floating in the ocean, many of the areas in the game are much more complex geometric figures
metal gear solid 3 is an "analog" game in setting and ditches the high tech in favor of nature, many of the areas while not specifically "open" are more organically shaped with various holdovers of the square/hexagon aesthetics
4 was sort of approaching a non-linear open world with very little restrictions, but you're still ultimately confined by Video Game Level design
5 is supposedly having an open world, ditching the concept of level design entirely except in what looks like small setpieces
I disagree with this summary of MGS4. it is actually more apprpriate for 3. 3 is ultimately a linear game. but the areas are all connected (except for when the story makes geographic jumps for you) so you get that greater sense of progression. the game is split into smaller areas, mostly due to hardware limits. but also the shortest dev time of any mgs game. still, each area is fairly large and very detailed; offering a lot for you to do, with the many gameplay options on hand.
MGS4 In direct contrast, feels very reigned in. it is setup more In wildly differing chapters that often play almost like different games. the game sees fit to move you around a lot and basically place you at the doorstep of the objectives. depending on the chapter, this sometimes works fine. there is one chapter that is clearly meant to be like snake eater. but despite the nextgen facelift, the environments aren't as complex and there are less gameplay options available. likely due to the "micro game"/chapters feel. That novelty quickly wore thin with me for the MGS1 chapter. there was a lot of nostalgic praise for that segment among critics. I saw a pretty environment with slimmed down gameplay which was constantly begging me to hug it.
MGS4 didn't really click for me until the latter third when the progression of snake starts coming to a head and at the same time, the game is more comfortable to just do its own thing by dropping me into several unique set pieces/encounters that are freed from the back bones of previous games In the series.
Last edited by Toptube on Tue Mar 18, 2014 9:16 pm; edited 1 time in total
this isn't a FULL game so why should I pay more than I would for a ten year old paperback" (??????) comments are a little weird.
The point is that it potentially sets a pretty dangerous precedent for the industry. MGS is one of the highest profile series in existence. This isn't just some game that came out.
The justification people bring up here is well there's a lot of stuff to do, if you make a point to do the extra stuff. and as an aside, what's here is very good
It's a complex point which I think is easier to argue against (it's easier to say the price is right) than it is to support. Sorry if my language there is confusing.
I mean, I can get 4 hours out of Snake Eater through the recovery of Sokolov, if I'm making a point to try out several things and really stretch the possibilities. 4 hours is 1/3 or 1/2 of an average MGS game playthrough that isn't making a point to get as much mileage as possible. And that bit of the game (sokolov) is certainly very good. But I don't think anyone wants to pay $30 or even $20, for just that chunk of the game.
On an average playthrough: actual gameplay through the recovery of sokolove is probably about an hour. Maybe less.
I could probably stop here and my argument would seem better. But I'm going to go on, because I typed out a bunch of stuff and then spent time trying to organize it into a coherent progression.
The beautiful thing about games like MGS with several gameplay options but a singular mission/story thread; The overall singular focus means you are ultimately pointed in a certain direction, so to speak. So the designers can engineer an experience for you, that you might actually see. Lots of options so that during natural play, many sorts of things can naturally arise and it can feel like the game world is "alive" or like you are stumbling across things to do, in the spur of a moment. and that elevates your experience. That's what makes games like this, like MGS, great. a cut or two above something much more simple or restrictive. Or something so open, that it loses notion to create those tighter experiences for you to play. There's so much that can happen, but it is all still surrounding a focal point.
Yes, it is also great to go back and deliberately try other things and maybe even try all of the things. But i would argue very much that dissecting a game is not what most people have in mind when they are thinking about buying a game. and expecting that from people as justification for the price of a game is a little backward.
Before I go on. Let me note that I do personally have some issue with telling people how games are supposed to be played. But humor me here for a moment. Because I really think there is some objective argument here, against the situation that is Ground Zeroes for $20/$30
if I just naturally play ground zeroes, the average completion time for MGS dummies seems to be about 80 minutes. and the playstyle/play experience I had in doing that, might otherwise satisfy me. Such that I don't necessarily want to go back and itemize every other possible bit. Yeah, maybe I will replay it a couple of times and try some different things. But I'm probably not going to seek out every last thing.
This isn't like Morrowind where you can go left instead of right and end up on an entirely different mission/quest thread that can probably lead you along a micro story that rivals chunks of other whole games. In MGS, when you go left instead of right, you are just tapping gameplay options. The mission doesn't change. You ultimately have to go right. Roundabout as you might end up.
You can make a point to keep going left. But you aren't doing anything other than just that. And if you are doing that to justify the price to yourself, then you are artificially padding your own experience.
What's happening with Ground Zeroes is they are essentially saying that it is possible to do a bunch of stuff here. It doesn't necessarily mean anything for game progression. but you can do it. and if you do it, you will have spent a lot of time. and we think that is worth this much money.
By that implication, the full game should cost....well, a lot. Much more than we are used to paying for games. I mean, if we are talking $30 per 80 minutes of core gameplay progression + story progression (or maybe we could say $30 per set piece), Snake Eater would be over $300.
Gamers can't support a model like that. I understand that games production costs more than ever. and making complex games is like a double dip on hard work and potential man hours. But dealing with it like this is not the way to find homeostasis.
Last edited by Toptube on Mon Mar 31, 2014 2:56 am; edited 2 times in total
That's an aspect of Metal Gear that seems to have rescinded with each passing game, as the franchise and Kojima have started taking themselves more and more seriously.
Well 4 is a mess of a game. But 3 has an entire character devoted to movies.
I wrote out a thoughtful response twice and then accidentally deleted it twice, so I'm going give Cliff's Notes:
(1) An argument about a game's value that has to ignore content in the game (other ways of reaching fixed goal, Side Ops, etc) is a bad argument.
I don't deny that my arguement has holes. But I did try to specifically price out MGS based on specifically quantifying content based on averaging total potential (about how much gameplay time could reasonably be had from any chunk/setpiece + lead up, if you were to rather dryly try to do everything) and that does not work either. I'd argue it works even less!---because the price then becomes completely unrealistic.
I think the "VR Missions" comparison is decent. But I still don't think it objectively supports the asking price. Because even VR Missions had a lot more content, relatively speaking. And that's without counting on the payer to dissect it. and there's still the fact that we have gotten similar chunks of content from MGS or even other game series, as pack-in demos, stand-alone free demos, extra content included with a full game (snake tales/snake VS. Monkey/MGO) or for much less money on XBL/PSN (see: Dead Rising: Case Zero).
And Ground Zeroes barely qualifies as a self contained experience. It just ends. Like, right in the middle of a scene. There isn't even a boss battle to cap off the gameplay!
I'm not mad that I have to pay for it. I just think it costs too much. It's like they are saying "It's MGS guys. Buy it like a sucker or fuck off".
*and P.R. interviews for MGS5 have said "The Phantom Pain is almost 200 times larger than Ground Zeroes".
So what, is that some P.R. switcheroo to get me to think that later they are just giving away tons of content???
Between this and the Dark Souls 2 thing, the ambivalence and/or apathy toward your arguments is less an assertion that you don't have a point (though I don't much agree with either issue), and more that this isn't really the place to aggressively rally to affect change in the industry and, moreover, that The Entire Rest Of The Videogame Internet has got it covered on that front.
And no, I don't mean because "heh we're so above that stuff, dude", I mean because nobody who matters is actually reading this. I'm not being flip when I recommend you take it to NeoGAF.
Analogos i'm actually trying to discuss this. Copping out with a couple of sharply worded but unsupported sentences is not what I'm looking for here.
and if you don't want to talk to the guy that took a shit on how Dark Souls 2 was grossly misrepresented for the past year, then don't talk to him. I didn't do anything wrong. Yet people here are acting pretty abrasive towards me, for essentially having a strong opinion about things they otherwise like. and for maybe saying things that are a little ignorant (although I really try to not do that). But the response is always to the sharp effect of "No you are wrong". I actually didn't want to talk about Dark Souls 2 as much as I did. But people kept calling me out about it instead of talking about it, specifically. So I had to support and re-support my stance several times, often repeating what I'd already said or shown. or having to organize it all in long, single posts. Because people apparently forgot how to read through a thread and build a total picture form successive posts.
and now I will have trouble for awhile, talking about anything, because I'm the guy who shit on Dark Souls 2.
I'm not going to go on neogaf. I don't want to be on neogaf.
and telling me that what I say doesn't matter unless someone who matters is hearing it/reading it, is a pretty damn shitty thing to say.
I appreciate that Adilegian and others like Ground Zeroes. I know that I will like it, too. I accept that some people are fine with the pricing. and I appreciate what Adiligian did have to say about it, in response to me. But I felt it didn't fully address the points I'm trying to talk about.
I also know and accept it is difficult to objectively quantify "value" in a game. Yet, the industry does it all the time. While any one specific game may be difficulty to discuss in this manner; we can look back at everything that came before or just similar things that came before, and have some useful guage with which to measure. That's what I tried to do, to get this conversation going.
and I tried to do it here, because I like it here and I like the way people feel and talk about games, here. That's why I've been with IC-->SB for a lot of years.
I dunno what you're referring to with the games industry, but, well, until you can point out that values exist in some sort of neutral state within the fabric of the universe outside of human assignment, you're just going to have to accept the value is 100% subjective.
Haha, ok man. the only things that matter are gravity, electromagnetism, the strong force, and the weak force.
Quote:
Can you explain what the difference is between a player artificially and genuinely "padding" out their gameplay experience, especially if the player whose actions you would describe as artificial finds value in their own agenda?
Basically it comes down to how people argue game value.
T. it only took me 80 minutes to complete Ground Zeroes and I'm an MGS newb
W. but if you do everything, it could be ten hours! (artificial padding)
S. Well I replayed it a couple of times to try some other stuff. I got a couple more hours from it. Especially since it is small. So it feels less daunting to replay and do other things. (naturally padded)
and telling me that what I say doesn't matter unless someone who matters is hearing it/reading it, is a pretty damn shitty thing to say.
that's not really what i meant. i was just saying that if the idea is that this is about not letting bad business practices slide, you aren't going to be holding anyone's feet to the fire while posting on selectbutton
ok, we are cool on that comment. We had a miscommunication as far as what you meant when you said that.
I made several tweets about the Dark Souls 2 P.R. issues, that included Bamco, Playstation Access, IGN, and some GAF users. I also posted on most of their respective youtube channels.
I also made a large post on the official Dark Souls FB page and on Angry Joe's FB page. He's a ways off from even reviewing Dark Souls 2, let alone making some "angry" comments which are usually included in the reviews. But he did acknowledge the issue during his first live stream of Dark Souls 2, which I later thanked him for.
I said all of that in the Dark Souls 2 thread and said "my work is done" as some mainstream sites such as Kotaku and [H]ardocp had run articles/front page posts about it only an hour or two after I volleyed all that off. Not saying because of me. But I felt like I had contributed and did what I could to make From and Bamco know I wasn't happy about their P.R.
Last edited by Toptube on Tue Apr 01, 2014 12:06 pm; edited 3 times in total
T. it only took me 80 minutes to complete Ground Zeroes and I'm an MGS newb
W. but if you do everything, it could be ten hours! (artificial padding)
S. Well I replayed it a couple of times to try some other stuff. I got a couple more hours from it. Especially since it is small. So it feels less daunting to replay and do other things. (naturally padded)
all of those examples still treat the credit roll as an agreed upon concrete declaration of achievement (presumably content "consumed") and assumes a rigid relationship with the medium defined by quantifiable progress.
uh-huh.
So, the fact that games are priced at all, means that some value is quantified there. and over time, as similar things are priced similarly/the same; a bar is set. and when that bar is fairly maintained for 15 years; well there's the gauge I talked about earlier.
and I tried to use Snake Eater as a direct example of what Ground Zeroes could mean. You could take almost any setpiece + lead up from Snake eater and have a package similar to Ground Zeroes as far as total possible gameplay.
But Snake Eater can be separated into many such chunks! Such that, 1 chunk is only a fraction of the total game. Get sokolov is an especially easy bit to use here. Yet Ground Zeroes is being sold for half the price of a full game. It actually was going to be $40. But they lowered the price a month or two ago. If Snake Eater were broken into chunks and sold for $20 or $30, it would be over $300 for the full game.
MGS2: About 2/3 of the "The Tanker" was a pack-in with Zone of The Enders; an otherwise full game that would have/could have been sold for full price on it's own. So you could say that MGS2 demo was either a "freebie" or that it was some fraction of the total cost of buying ZOE. Not 1/2 the total cost.
Even that 2/3 of the Tanker had a pretty good amount of things to do. If you tried to do it all. and it even capped off the gameplay with a boss fight. So at least the gameplay has a rounded progression. Ground Zereos just ends mid scenario. The MGS2 demo is arguably a better self contained product than Ground Zereos is. and it was free!
Ground Zeroe's direct full game counterpart (MGS5: The Phantom Pain) is said by P.R. to be "over 200 times larger". But even ignoring the fluff: we can assume it will be a 6+ hours game on a first natural playthrough. Probably more like 11+ hours, if you think about typical MGS games. So that equates to roughly 8 ground zeroes. It could be more. So why doesn't MGS5 cost $300?
and that's just looking at MGS, for examples.
Last edited by Toptube on Tue Apr 01, 2014 2:49 am; edited 2 times in total
The overarching point there is that is fundamentally why I believe there are solid grounds for someone to say "Ground Zeroes costs too much". Even if some people bought it and didn't feel like they payed too much.
I believe there are solid grounds for someone to say "Ground Zeroes costs too much". Even if some people bought it and didn't feel like they payed too much.
There have been a few posts about whether or not the price is ok. I didn't just dive into this out of nowhere.
Additionally, people then tried to come in and dismiss me by saying that "value" and "gameplay" and pricing are some philosophical matters that can't be quantified.
So I then I had to show there actually is a quantified base on which I'm standing.
and now there's Rei being nasty....because....
diplo wrote:
Toptube wrote:
Haha, ok man. the only things that matter are gravity, electromagnetism, the strong force, and the weak force.
You're being sarcastic or something here (?) but I don't know what you're trying to say.
Yes, that was sarcasm. You said that unless I could prove objective worth to the universe, I had no base for an argument. Well that's ridiculous, because nothing about Earth has any worth to the Universe.
Quote:
Also your question about why MGS5 doesn't cost a huge amount of money can be asked about most anything, including a package of pencils. I mean I can't tell if you're actually asking that question or if you're being rhetorical.
Yes I was being rhetorical on purpose. To fill out all the sides and further highlight why Ground Zero's price raises my eyebrows and raises questions.
TBH the more I look at your posts the less I know what I'm arguing against.
TBH I feel like people aren't reading every post (not just mine). Because I find it weird that I had to spell things out in the post above. It's a problem I felt in the Dark Souls 2 thread, which as I said in this thread, is why I had to retread so much in the Dark Souls 2 thread. And now in this one.
Additionally, even if you don't agree with my thoughts on Ground Zeros, people are really giving me the feeling that they aren't even trying to look at my reasoning and comparisons. Rei is even actively working to straight up dismiss me, by altering my post into something else.
I get that you're being hypothetical (or at least I think you are), but this is a weak basis even hypothetically, because 1) e.g. new SNES games used to cost the same/more than, say, new PS3 games, even though the games were often much shorter than PS3
Uh-huh.
A: I qualified the last 15 years as my guage
B: I think some of that pricing was generally a consequence of more expensive storage medium, less developed infrastructure, and less total sales. There's a reason why I left out that time period; I don't think it is comparable.
Quote:
and 2) most places in the world have extremely high prices for videogames and systems, but since Japan, North America, and select parts of Europe are kinda taken to be the only places that exist with videogames, this is ignored.
I don't actually know, but I would guess that Ground Zeroes also costs half the price of a full game, in other countries, as well. If it does; well then I'm not sure why the higher relative prices mean anything to my argument here.
The fact that other countries pay relatively higher prices, is a different discussion. and what that might mean about whether or not it is ok for me to complain about price, is also a different discussion.
and in the event that Ground Zeroes doesn't cost half the price of a full game in other countries, well that would be curious. But also a different discussion.
Last edited by Toptube on Tue Apr 01, 2014 3:39 am; edited 1 time in total
I'm confident that a lot of people's pull to buy ZOE was the Tanker demo, which can be taken to mean that people will pay full price for a game they are only moderately interested in specifically for demo content.
In hindsight, this is probably true and probably why Konami packaged them together. It being a new I.P. that didn't end up particularly strong until the sequel.
But one has to wonder if it truly was needed, since ZOE was a new game from the guy who made MGS? Anyway....
Quote:
That muddies things a bit. What's the difference between a $30 prelude with several mission scenarios for the same level design versus paying full price for a demo with less content than the prelude on the pretext that they're buying some game about Egyptian themed robogears?
Ostensibly you could point to ZOE as added value, but it took me two years to get around to playing it once, and after that never again. I sold ZOE and kept the demo.
The MGS2 demo is probably a bad example to rely upon. I think that's one situation where the tail wagged the dog.
I agree that specific bit is a little weak. But I don't necessarily agree that Ground Zeroes has more gameplay or is better (which I talked about). and ZOE is a full standalone game. It may not be a particularly good one. Anyway, the point was that the tanker demo is a somewhat similar thing to GZ, useful for discussion. Not a hard parallel. I realize it is a little convenient for me to contextualize it like that. But I had to spend X posts justifying my existence at all. So please forgive me.
Last edited by Toptube on Tue Apr 01, 2014 12:17 pm; edited 2 times in total
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
