what is this i dont even

[Vault Dweller]

http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthre ... #post37225

There seemed to be a constant fear during the development of Titan Quest about upsetting this or that segment of the audience or someone's grandmother. I was literally told by one of the higher-ups that the game should be designed so that his grandmother would want to play it (even though his grandmother had never played a game before in her life). We were building a game with relatively complicated and hardcore gameplay systems but trying to make it thematically and visually appealing to as wide a casual audience as possible. The end result, is that the game was a little more bland and generic in some respects than it should have been and the game world didn't do much to convey a sense of danger.

One example of this would be the mandate that enemies not use language or build anything that would make them seem like they had more than animal intelligence. It was felt by one of the higher-ups that people might feel wrong killing enemies that displayed any obvious intelligence. I guess somehow it is wrong to fight intelligent enemies but okay to slaughter dumb animals? We also weren't originally allowed to have humans die, ever, in the game and no human corpses.

One area where this handicapped us was in the creation of environmental assets that visually demonstrated the enemy's war against humanity. We originally wanted to create enemy siege-works outside Athens but were told that would make the enemies seem too intelligent. It was a struggle just to monster camp assets. All of the ruins were also removed from Greece at one point because someone was afraid that players might not understand why, if the game took place in ancient times, that there would still be ruins... I had to fight for both of these things. Without them, Greece would have just been a featureless expanse of wilderness with occasional human towns that never really appeared to be in any serious danger.

At the same time, we were told that enemies should seem like noble adversaries, not evil or demonic creatures. It was highly controversial when the designs for the Limos and Arachnids were first presented. I had to personally fight to get those approved because they were considered too grotesque and scary looking even though they were based on actually mythology. Undead and the Spirit Mastery were also a struggle to get in the game. I was told that Spirit Mastery was too "Necromancery and evil". We managed to push a few more things like that through over the course of development but it was always frowned upon.

Basically, my belief is that Titan Quest never had as much style and character as it could have because we were afraid to do anything even remotely controversial. When I first designed the skill masteries, they were all based on Olympian gods, with skills modeled after the powers or attributes associated with different gods in mythology. This was rejected because it was potentially too religious and people might not want to feel like they were worshiping mythological gods to receive their powers.

We ended up with a game set in Greek mythology that barely contained any actual mythology other than the inspiration for some of the monsters and dialog on peripheral story-teller NPCs stuck off to the side in the towns. The first quest I put in the game, when we were prototyping it for THQ was modeled after one of the 12 labors of Heracles. The Erymanthian Board was terrorizing a town and the hunters they sent after it hadn't returned. You had to ascend mount Erymanthos, discover the wreckage of the hunter's camp, and then continue on to the snow-capped summit to battle the monstrous board. Of course, I was told we couldn't have snow on the summit because people might not realize it snowed in Greece and then later the whole quest vanished and was replaced by generic crap like retrieving a dowry ring so some chick can get married while monsters are overrunning the world.

So, this is where I'm coming from. I don't think the game needed to be all low-light environments or contain sex mini-games. When I talk about the difference between the TQ and TQ:IT box art, I'm talking about the difference between THQ hiring an outside marketing company to generate box art out of generic assets (ever look at the quality of the temples and stuff in the background?) vs. letting our artists design our own box art. The original box art we submitted for TQ was drawn up by our concept artist, featured a hydra that looked like the one in-game, had a far more interesting composition and better use of color. I think Titan Quest just needed more artistic freedom and personality so that something more unique and exciting could have been created in-game and conveyed by our marketing materials.

 

[SCO]

Butthurt dev that doesn't follow instructions is fired for not following instructions

Edit: apparently not fired ... yet

 

[Wyrmlord]

The higher ups in question here almost seem to be intent on emotionally torturing the game's developers by dictating arbitrary, impossible mandates that often contradict each other.

It's like the scene in Cool Hand Luke, where Luke was scolded and beaten into digging a ditch, and then scolded and beaten into filling the ditch back up, and then scolded and beaten into digging it again.

 

[JarlFrank]

This is fucking retarded.

Of course, I was told we couldn't have snow on the summit because people might not realize it snowed in Greece

WE CANNOT SHOW THINGS HOW THEY REALLY ARE BECAUSE PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW THEY ARE LIKE THAT SO WE HAVE TO MAKE IT LIKE THEY BELIEVE IT TO BE NOT LIKE IT ACTUALLY IS

what is this i dont even

 

[Nael]

The suits are going to ruin this world.

 

[Haba]

This is a joke, right?

Right?

...right?

 

[Raapys]

Nothing new here. Game designers don't design games anymore, marketing does.

 

[pocahaunted]

Downright revolting, no wonder I never got into TQ - the game just felt soulless to me.

 

[Azalin]

So marketing and PR people should be hunted down and killed,what else is new

 

[Clockwork Knight]

blah

I remember one of the old MoH/Call of Duty devs saying that some of the WW2 weapons had to be specifically designed as to be completely unrealistic, because when they focus-tested the retards kept complaining that the (real) weapons didn't work like they did in hollywood war movies.

Let the rage fill your veins

edit: by the way, how can you make enemies seem noble yet unable to build even the simplest of structures? You just fight majestic bears the entire game?

 

[Excidium]

This is really fuck up man.

 

[Black]

Will my grandma be able to play AoD? She's never played a video game before and I don't think she knows the difference between a PC and a TV.

 

[flabbyjack]

Yeaaahhh... about that new game you're making. You are only allowed to use the letter L.

 

[Black]

L is so much more complex than I.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

Look at the state of the world when piracy and too much innovation killed this accessible masterpiece that was carefully supervised into a sublime quality by managers who lent their vision to every step of the creative process. Clearly PC gaming is dying and consoles are the last hope for developers who want to be rewarded for bringing games into the future.

I know the thinking that brought about this. They looked at Diablo, thought 'well if this much people like this when it's all dark and scary with corpses everywhere and ugly places and horrible monsters, imagine how much money we'll make if we take those out and even more people want to play it! Haha those dumb idiots missed on so much money there we're going to be fucking rich get those nerd computer types on it', and circlejerked and gave each other shirtless backrubs all the way into bankruptcy.

 

[Data4]

Sounds to me like the game died by a thousand PC papercuts.

I think the person who first strung the words "politically" and "correct" together needs to be strung up by his balls (or her breasts) and beaten like a pinata for all to see. Anyone else who utters the phrase in a context where they believe in and actually mean it needs to die by vivisection.

 

[JarlFrank]

Really, it's horrible how marketing guys from the publisher, who have no idea about how to make games, tell the developers, whose job is it to make games and who have a vision for a good game they want to make, that they should include thing X but may not include thing Y because LOL THE AUDIENCE WOULD NOT UNDERSTAND.

Fuck you, publishers and marketing people. Once I declare myself REX GERMANIAE PRINCEPSQVE IMPERII ROMANI I will put you all into the arena.

 

[Oriebam]

Jack Thompson and other like-minded monkeys are the suits responsible for games too? Not ironic at all The decline now makes a lot more sense, but it's still too bizarre to be believed

I can't really dislike the monkeys though, they're what stops bioware from making full fledged hentai games

 

[SCO]

Modders will fix that.

 

[grdja]

But was it MBA suits or devs who came up with brilliant copy protection of : game randomly crashed when pirated, people asking questions on forums just get banned, we hide this fact for months, word of mouth spreads that game is unplayable due to bugs and instability.

And looking at their (Iron monkey Lore studio... oh whatever was Titan Quest dev team named) terrible expansion for Dawn of War... That makes me thinking, how the hell is Relic allowed to make stuff it does? Its still PC shined up bland boring shit, but compared to OP lamentations its 101% creative freedom.

In some crazy chance butthurt dev isn't seriously overplaying and exaggerating stuff... there is your decline gentleman, laid out plain and clear.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Fuck you, publishers and marketing people.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Well, the thing is, if you directly try to compete against the inventor and king of Hack'n Slay, you already lost the game.

Didn't even bother to finish Torchlight, which was pretty much the only Diablo clone coming somewhat close to the glory and sharpness of the Blizzard originals.

But Titan Quest? Gimme fucking break. That thing was doomed to fail anyway, even without Suit faggot intervention.

A Diablo (clone) that isn't at least 5 years in development is a Diablo (clone) in name only.

 

[pocahaunted]

Torchlight? Close to Diablo? Hell no, bro. Hell no.

Yet another bland, boring and soulless game.

 

[kaizoku]

The suits are going to ruin this world.

Nahh... they're doing a great work, just look at the global economy

When the suits don't bother/stand in the way/screw the ones that really do any work, this is what you end up with:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWEl0IQm670&t=3m6s (watch until 4:00, fuck watch the whole thing)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laq9ua5VjTs&t=8m59s (watch it to the end)

 

[sirfink]

Reminds me of my old boss. They give you a square peg and tell you to put it in a round hole. When you explain that's impossible they chastise you for not thinking outside the box.