Re: Warning Signs From Game Reveals

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> looked up from reading the
entrails of the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs
say:

>
Not my idea (I stole it from a video*) but I thought it a neat topic.
>
What are the warning signs in a video-game reveal (whether it's a
video trailer or an announcement or presentation) that a game might
not actually be as good as the marketing hype suggests.
>
The video offers the following suggestions:
>
1) The developers go on and on about how incredibly big the world is
  (red flag because big does not necessarily equate to quality)

And most of them usually are not actually all that big.
Not compared to Daggerfall.

2) They play up the involvement of a major Hollywood actor
  (red flag because now we know where the budget is REALLY going)

Why I never played WOW, all those B-list "celebrities" in their ads.

3) They are boastful about post-launch "road-maps"
  (red flag because it means the game is going to be launched in
   a stripped down state with no guarantee we'll ever get to
   the stuff on the road map)
>
4) They admit the game has micro transactions, but theirs will be
'different' and 'better'
  (red flag because they never are better)

You misunderstand;  Better in this context means they will painlessly
extract your money and you will suffer no angst about the money you
wasted.

5) They don't actually show any gameplay or the gameplay that is shown
is heavily scripted
  (red flag because they know the gameplay sucks)

Or like Diablo3 they show gameplay footage, that turns out not to
actually be in the game at all.

6) They only offer vague release dates.
  (red flag because why get hyped for a game that might not
   be released for years?)

Hello Star Citizen, Spalls is talking about you again.

Other suggestions include
>
- multiple editions being offered (e.g., get the Ultra
 Platinum version with three plastic statues and a t-shirt
 and a in-game cosmetic and -if you're really lucky- the actual
 game too!)
>
- boasting about some connection with a past studio or old IP
(especially if it is then followed up by, "taking it in a
 new direction"

The first part isn't too bad.   IE Guild Wars did that, telling us it
was by some of the original Diablo/DIablo2 crew formerly of Blizzard
(when they didn't suck.)

- day one DLC (which, you know, could have just been added to
 the game being released)

I find DLC at all to be a bit of a red flag since this stuff often used
to be part of the main game, and is now split off to garner more
revenue.
Often a foot-shoot though, since without it in the base game people get
bored so much faster.
Since only the best bits will sell as a DLC, without it in the base game
it's far less interesting and people move on to something new without
ever considering buying the DLC.

- "hundreds of hours of gameplay" (because pacing is a lost art)

Generally means it's a console port with save points and lots of
unskippable video that happens after the save point but before the
jumping puzzle of certain death or the Boss fight you will repeat 27
times before you figure out the trick to defeat it.

Personally, at this point I don't even pay attention to reveal
trailers or announcements, beyond maybe acknowledging that the game is
in development. They're such pointless deceitful things whose purpose
isn't to inform you but instead to induce you into an emotional state
so you'll blindly buy the product when its released. But even so, its
hard to ignore them completely because -even months after the game is
released- these trailers are often the primary advertisement for the
games and they make it almost impossible to tell what the game is
actually like.

Mostly I just wait until someone in here mentions and upcoming game that
might be interesting (or it's free.)

Advertising/marketing always makes stuff sound much much better than it
actually is.

Still, I admit that the ones that annoy me most are the boasts about
the size of the open world, and any mention of MTX and road-maps. The
former because I am /so/ burnt out on open-world games, and the latter
because I just want games that come complete unto themselves. I see
any of those three and my eyes just start glazing over. The other
mentions /may/ be an issue, but don't immediately turn me off.
>
What other red flags can you think of? Which ones piss you off the
most?

I don't mind open world, but advertising mtx is pretty much an interest
killer for me - they've basically given up on gameplay beyond making you
pay for progress.

Not sure what you mean by road maps.

Xocyll
--
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr

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