IGN's 25 PC Games to Play in 2014 - No ED?
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This is exactly the problem with hype. SC has become all things to all people. I've even read threads on various forums that state in fairly strong terms that SC is better than ED's alphas, despite the fact that SC has shown nothing of it's gameplay bar a bit of shaky multiplayer footage that is less advanced than ED's Kickstarter video from over a year ago.
I don't know, I can't see it going well, not with all that hype and all those millions in donated funds. If it doesn't deliver what is promised (and it has promised so very much), it'll be one of those morbid fascination, car-crash rubber necking things to watch, but I think it'll be a hugely damaging to gaming and Kickstarter projects as a whole.
I might be wrong and it might turn out to be the most amazing game ever made, but I just don't have that much faith. The alarm bells were ringing the moment they announced that they had chosen CryEngine 3 for it.
I know this probably sounds like I'm hating on SC but it's just an objective opinion from having seen so many other massively hyped, massively funded games turn out to be nothing more than average. I really hope it's a solid game when it comes out, but even if it is a lot of people are going to be disappointed that it's not even more. Hell hath no fury like a disappointed gamer.
I still think Frontier are being pretty shrewd with ED. Even if it doesn't sell millions of copies on release day, it should build up well as the gaming media and word of mouth picks up on it. Too much hype is worse than none at all.
Actiontrip's poll did the same...
Chris Roberts is an American (or at least a naturalised one), and the attitude is simply different. For Americans, relentless marketing and hype are everything.
However, a recent example of a game which had vast sums of money pumped into it & hyped beyond belief was GTA V - and that delivered pretty much everything that was promised. It's an astounding achievement in gaming, and has raised the bar in terms of what people now expect from an open world game. Another example is Skyrim... again, a superb game that had a huge hype engine behind it. These two games are probably the gaming highlights of the last 5 years for me.
Read Frontier's annual financial report. They are playing the long game with E: D, and do expect to sell millions of copies - but over the course of several years rather than all at once.
To me, that suggests minimal marketing, and largely word of mouth exposure. In fact, David Braben even recently said that he doesn't have an issue with people pirating a game (not specifically E: D) to begin with, because it often leads to them actually buying the thing. So, in the case of E: D I expect MP and the evolving galaxy (the two main killer features of E: D compared to previous games) to be blocked for all but legitimate account holders - and that will be the carrot that is dangled in front of gamers who downloaded a torrent copy or took a copy from their mates.
He's a smart man, that Braben.
Yeah who cares? We don't want other people to play the game anyhow
Meh
Well, it is not that we don't care. Problem is there's not that much we can do - besides stuff people already do, making nice videos, streams, etc. No way FD will spend any marketing money at this point in development, when there's still lot of stuff to fix and game essentially is still coming together.
I would start to worry when beta comes. FD should start to boost their marketing efforts by then, because game will start to show itself fully. FD has confirmed multiple times that they plan to do that as game closes to release. I would like to remind that release for retail is set to at the Q3 of 2014.
Also I want to point out that hyping has it's downside, and even Angry Joe was nervous about quality of DFM. I think he will be disappointed, because it will take time to balance it to get it to playable levels.
Overall, if you care, find a way to spread the word. FD will find their foot with stable beta and they will feel confident enough to talk more loudly about game.
And produced not 10 miles from my home in Scotland. and coming soon™ to the PC.
Hmmm, you must be remembering different things about this game from me.
Read Frontier's annual financial report. They are playing the long game with E: D, and do expect to sell millions of copies - but over the course of several years rather than all at once.
To me, that suggests minimal marketing, and largely word of mouth exposure. In fact, David Braben even recently said that he doesn't have an issue with people pirating a game (not specifically E: D) to begin with, because it often leads to them actually buying the thing. So, in the case of E: D I expect MP and the evolving galaxy (the two main killer features of E: D compared to previous games) to be blocked for all but legitimate account holders - and that will be the carrot that is dangled in front of gamers who downloaded a torrent copy or took a copy from their mates.
He's a smart man, that Braben.
yes, people have become so accustomed to the hype machine that they feel bereft when it is not happening. Those calling for hype need to put the game that IS ahead of the game they WISH for. Nothing sums up how hype goes wrong better for me than this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWvAznIRVLA
'Mon the 'Burgh!
The GTAV comparison is a little false in comparison to SC of course. RockStar is a well-established company with a strong track record in their chosen area of development. It was practically money in the bank and therefore justified such a mammoth marketing budget.
It seems next EDGE magazine has nice exclusive with David. And what a nice Cobra on cover. FD, I hope you will sell huge prints of that in your upcoming franchise
http://www.edge-online.com/news/its...ol-david-braben-on-the-elite-dangerous-alpha/
http://www.edge-online.com/news/its...ol-david-braben-on-the-elite-dangerous-alpha/
Nice find! - This deserves its own thread, as it's not really anything to do with this topic?It seems next EDGE magazine has nice exclusive with David. And what a nice Cobra on cover. FD, I hope you will sell huge prints of that in your upcoming franchise
http://www.edge-online.com/news/its...ol-david-braben-on-the-elite-dangerous-alpha/
'Mon the 'Burgh!
The GTAV comparison is a little false in comparison to SC of course. RockStar is a well-established company with a strong track record in their chosen area of development. It was practically money in the bank and therefore justified such a mammoth marketing budget.
Yes, the GTA games will always sell shed loads and pretty much everyone knows what it is.
I just sold my copy of GTA V, I didn't think it was much different from the previous games.
After all the hype I found it to be a bit of an Anticlimax.
It seems next EDGE magazine has nice exclusive with David. And what a nice Cobra on cover. FD, I hope you will sell huge prints of that in your upcoming franchise
http://www.edge-online.com/news/its...ol-david-braben-on-the-elite-dangerous-alpha/
Nice! I don't often buy print or give money to Google Play but I might just have to grab this as a souvenir. ;-)
There are many other failures too. Tabula Rasa, Star Wars:The Old Republic, Diablo III, Guild Wars 2, Age of Conan, even Pirates of the Burning Sea (anyone even remember that one now?) all hyped to hell and back, all subject to huge backlashes at release which none will (or did) recover from. The sad thing is that all of them are pretty decent games in their own right, but everything good about them was eclipsed by the disparity between hype and reality, and word of mouth did the rest.
SC's biggest weaknesses are that Chris Roberts has been out of the industry for over a decade, it uses CryEngine 3 (I cannot get my head around that choice for a massively multiplayer space game) and the hype has already turned it into a fantasy for too many people. Even the 2014 release date in these lists is made up by the fans and media, despite RSI consistently saying it will be 2015.
I dunno, we can go backward and forward on this indefinitely (it's what the internet is for
) but I've just got a bad feeling about it. Could be wrong of course, wouldn't be the first time, wouldn't be the last.
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From what I have gathered, the MP element will use limited instancing in a similar manner to E : D. If fans think they are going to be able to have 100s vs 100s massive PvP battles, then they are in for a dissapointment. Not sure what the instance size limit will be, but I think they are aiming for 32 - which CryEngine3 can just about handle.
I have pledged to SC, and await the DFM with some anticipation. We'll just have to wait and see if it's any good, and any indication on the quality of the final game. It's a very ambitious project, and I think I agree with you that perhaps CryEngine3 was not the best choice, so they are doing it the hard way. I hope it succeeds. One of the features I am looking forward to (which does differentiate it from E : D) is the Squadron 42 single player campaign.
I'm sure SC will be a good game - possibly even great.
However, it's just not possible to live up to a lot of the hype generated about it (often by the fans, so not entirely GIG's fault).
It's pretty inevitable that a sizeable chunk of the fanbase will completely wig out when they don't get the final product they envisage.
However, it's just not possible to live up to a lot of the hype generated about it (often by the fans, so not entirely GIG's fault).
It's pretty inevitable that a sizeable chunk of the fanbase will completely wig out when they don't get the final product they envisage.
....and even more realistic thinking SC fans know that 2015 is very long stretch. Realistically, it is Q1 2016 for 1.0 version.
Usage of CryEngine 3 has made me wonder about "high qualification of SC team". Really, Chris Roberts has not been bad game *producer*, but he's not been that good. WC had it's own share of fundamental gameplay issues and glitches. However, I can be proven completely wrong. Their damage model looked better than ED at this point for example. So SC can be good, they just have to start to manage expectations first.
Maybe they just lost the email announcing that the game was in development or perhaps Frontier just forgot to send it
Well I'm just grumpy to see the good ideas fall behind in public perception than the same old ideas.
Basically Chris Roberts probably spend his first million on bling and thus managed to get another 20 million out of it. I don't mean advertising, things like renderings, website, youtube video's etc.
Some things couldn't have been changed, for example name name Star Citizen is self explanatory and for Elite Dangerous you have to know Elite in the first place to make anything of it.
Or the timing, lots more gamers still know Chris Roberts games, and the graphic advancement in that time still make screenshots of his games much pretty. Screenshots of Elite / FE2 look crappy by now if you don't have nostalgia.
And the concepts of Elite are much harder to sell (procedural generation vs. mocapped cut scenes). But still a lot could be done to attract a larger crowd, exactly by word of mouth like SC does (Website, Ship info, story info). SC doesn't advertise, they use word of mouth and PR just like you suggest. They are just doing better.
And you have to remember you only get ONE launch. An update that turns an already launched game into the best game ever is just boring old news to the media. Unfortunately it works that way, game magazines live off hype, of expectation and more from the "idea" of a game than from the actual quality of the game itself. You gotta play the game.
And if you don't, FD won't get the resources to realize their vision. It's not as if it looks desperate or anything. But ED is a game that only has a rather short time of development. David Braben and FD have a better technical expertise, so that will balance things out. But more of those 27 millions should be in FD coffers to develop Elite.
Ok, enough ranting
Actually I'm trying, I'm dabbling a little in WebGL to create a fansite experience
Why so much hate on guilds?
Almost every online game has some form of guild/clan, the main reason being its social. And im pretty sure that FD want their new game to have a significant social aspect to it.
The other reason guilds/clans are included in games is that parts of the game require some form of teaming up with other players in order to participate. Im guessing that ED will have some events where teaming up with other players is beneficial... although there is a chance they wont and theyll make the entire game a solo experience.
I will make one point, games like ED will depend on its community for its success and guild formation is a major plus point towards building a robust and passionate playerbase/community.
Pillars of Eternity is also crowd funded and that made the list too... they raised $4mill
EDIT: Starbound is also crowdfunded
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