Thank you for clarifying that. I think I must rinse my eyes with the oil of vitriol, for nothing else would seem to be able to cleanse my sight after this.
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Redfall - open world vampire slaying co-op FPS from Arkane Austin
- Thread starter Infinitron
- Start date
Thank you for clarifying that. I think I must rinse my eyes with the oil of vitriol, for nothing else would seem to be able to cleanse my sight after this.
Average Manatee
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2012
- Messages
- 15,254
Yeah, even when people who made good games 10 years ago are there, games require 100+ people on them and 90% of those who joined the games industry in the last decade are absolute shit and the few good people are rationalizing and self-justifying that their game is actually great and exactly what they wanted to make.
onemananadhisdroid
Augur
In Redfall's case I'd argue it's a bit more delicate than this (even ignoring that a good bunch of the world/level design newbies in particular apparently were hired by early 2022...)
Arkane in general are/were a highly specialized studio from day #1. They were set up to carry that LGS design torch further, which is a very specific thing (no mistake that WolfEye consist of quite a few Arkane vets). So suddenly hiring lots of people who've prior neither showed that experience nor sharing those goals is similar to a Progressive Rock Band hiring K-Pop artists -- because that's where money is being made. (It's going to influence the output eventually too, and probably not to the benefit of the eventual "products".)
It also remains the gaming industry at its most immature, probably because it's grown so large in such a short span of time. Nobody in Hollywood would dare to encourage Sofia Coppola+associates to ever do a street racing action movie in the vein of Fast&Furious.
But here we are now. Unentertain us.
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- Joined
- Feb 23, 2021
- Messages
- 442
FTFY
That's exactly what Bethesda wanted of Raphael Colantonio and the Prey team. That's probably the straw that broke the camel's back for him.
Story time: While Raf and Ricardo was trying to get what would become Project Danielle off the ground, he asked "pretty please" for the System Shock license. Bethesda couldn't bother or didn't manage the task, so Raf wanted it to be a new IP. But Bethesda had others plans. After failing to find a new developer to keep working on the Human Head's Prey 2 game, they decided to "reboot" the series (in order to keep the Prey IP), and force Arkane to use the brand name against Raf's will (and better jugdment) for their new project.
The bulk of the Dishonored development team was in Lyon. So, in less than 4 years, Raf and the HR team increased the studio's headcount with talented folks, worked with a whole new game engine, and released a full-blown game to great acclaim. Prey 2017 was born. Victim of the terrible Pete "donuts are for closers" Hines' clownshow marketing, hurt by a retarded score from the biggest gaming website in the mainstream media, and still in the shadow of the infamous Human Head Studios/Prey 2 situation, Prey didn't sell well enough.
So it came the time for a new project. Ironically, Raf wants a follow-up to Prey; Bethesda, a new IP. A new game franchise they can milk. So it has to be an always-online, multiplayer experience. Oh, and should be easily monetized. New features: game store, microtransactions, over-priced DLCs, all that jazz. Raf got fed up and quit. Over 50 employees followed suit.
Arkane Austin as we knew was dead.
TL;DR: Fuck Bethesda.
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ind33d
Learned
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2020
- Messages
- 1,805
was dishonored even good? the entire time i just thought it was deus ex 1 with whales. and i beat that entire game without killing anyone. I actually do own Dishonored 2 but after finishing D1 and the DLC I had no desire to continue with the series
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- Joined
- Feb 23, 2021
- Messages
- 442
It depends on whom you ask.
For me, it's not very high on my list, but does a lot of cool stuff like:
- What will we do with the Drunken Whaler?
- The Wall of Light and the Arc Pylon are fun to mess with.
- Evil playthrough is a blast.
- The alternative "poetic justice" means of dealing with targets.
- Lady Boyle's Last Party is one the best non-Thief levels of the genre.
- Shooting guards in the foot never gets old.
- The two story-driven DLCs are even better than the main game.
- Plague rats!
And as the meme goes: Dishonored walked so Dishonored 2 and Prey 2017 could run.
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Assisted Living Godzilla
Prophet
- Joined
- Nov 23, 2017
- Messages
- 4,633
I’m not sure that’s the fix you think it is. I can’t really imagine a studio going to Sofia Coppola to do some kind of car action movie. But that’s more a factor of the kinds of movies she makes. I can however easily imagine some studio going to Francis Ford Coppola in the ‘80s and ‘90s and pitching him an action movie. Francis Coppola was brought in for reshoots and re-edits of Supernova, and the Dracula gig came about because Winona Ryder brought it to him. After taking a hit from Apocalypse Now and One From the Heart I can definitely imagine studios pitching him all kinds of stuff.
Tarantino has talked about how after the failure of Grindhouse, studios were pitching him scripts. He said when he started he’d get pitched stuff, but after a while studios stopped sending him scripts because it became clear he just does his own stuff. But after Grindhouse he was getting scripts again because after that blow they figured they could just get him for whatever. Two things he talked about being offered during that time was a remake of Westworld (which it sounds like it worked on for a bit) and a Sgt. Rock movie written by David Peoples.
I’m not so sure Bethesda can be blamed for this mess. It’s also equally possible someone at Arkane is just really keen on the idea of doing a multiplayer game. Someone there could just be infatuated with the idea of trying to do what they’re known for doing, but doing it in a multiplayer space instead of as a single player game again. A new frontier to conquer. Or maybe some higher up at the studio just got really into multiplayer games and wanted to try their hand at one. Them toying with multiplayer stuff to vary degrees since Prey makes me think it’s probably something they’re interested in, and Redfall was meant to be them going in on multiplayer in a bigger way than before.
Tarantino has talked about how after the failure of Grindhouse, studios were pitching him scripts. He said when he started he’d get pitched stuff, but after a while studios stopped sending him scripts because it became clear he just does his own stuff. But after Grindhouse he was getting scripts again because after that blow they figured they could just get him for whatever. Two things he talked about being offered during that time was a remake of Westworld (which it sounds like it worked on for a bit) and a Sgt. Rock movie written by David Peoples.
I’m not so sure Bethesda can be blamed for this mess. It’s also equally possible someone at Arkane is just really keen on the idea of doing a multiplayer game. Someone there could just be infatuated with the idea of trying to do what they’re known for doing, but doing it in a multiplayer space instead of as a single player game again. A new frontier to conquer. Or maybe some higher up at the studio just got really into multiplayer games and wanted to try their hand at one. Them toying with multiplayer stuff to vary degrees since Prey makes me think it’s probably something they’re interested in, and Redfall was meant to be them going in on multiplayer in a bigger way than before.
the only downside with D1, like deus ex HR (and thief 3) is because console's <1GB memory made the levels relatively tiny even compared to games like thief.
RobotSquirrel
Arcane
Yes they can, as can Microsoft, funny because normally people blame the publisher and not the studio but my mentality is everyone is at fault in these situations. The studio however is mostly at blame as they are directly responsible for the result, but management and publisher expectations can most definitely sabotage the success of a project as we're all very well aware of. In this case its fairly clear everyone dropped the ball, Bethesda has been doing this not just with Arkane, look at how bad Youngblood was for example, hell Quake Champions didn't need MTX. Its becoming a trend throughout the entire group.
"A new frontier to conquer" when most of the team have done multiplayer games previously in their careers? doesn't make sense. More if you look at Bethesda as a whole the push is on multiplayer because they know that multiplayer games have a lot more longevity through MTX, it lines up with Bethesda wanting to shove MTX into everything, they obviously aren't making enough money to pay for their acquisitions this is why they sold to Microsoft, Microsoft then got left with the bill. Its unfortunately the nature of the business now, Multiplayer is where the real money is. Won't surprise me if this is the standard for all their games. Go look at CDProjekt even, they're doing it too (and failing spectacularly I might add) Acquisitions didn't work and now they're paying the price. We also know that Starfield has in-game purchases though what that involves is unknown. Bethesda as a publisher seems extremely monetisation focused.
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I agree. I would say it's similar to eating spoiled food. It probably won't make you ill for ages, but it will surely make you sick. But you paid for a product that's supposed to be good enough to sustain you or even be tasty! Thus, compensation is in order.
If the food is spoiled, we blame the shop that didn't follow the necessary safety protocols and also the food creator for inadequate processing (it's somewhat of a gray line sometimes, but bear with me).
Of course, there's much more to games than just consuming them, and of course there is the subjective matter of what is fun or not for a particular person, but there are conditions that we can clearly set and expect. In the same analogy with the body, if one fills their minds with poor-quality or even sickening experiences stemming from products failing to meet advertised conditions (shallow approach where art was expected, frustration with bugs and inadequacies, falsely advertised content, etc.), our minds and emotions get sicker for it. It's certainly not making us angry for ages, but our minds are worse for it and in the same analogy, we can blame both the vendor and the creating team for failing to meet the advertised expectations.
1. If it's mostly a mindless FPS with quests mostly being just simple fillers without any deeper meaning you are about to create and sell, advertise it as such. Did Doom shy away from this? And what a legend it was...
2. If you are Arkane, someone known for the pinnacle of ingenuity the immersive sim genre is, you don't go about creating a mindless FPS without at least clearly stating that this game is something different.
3. If you are Arkane and Bethesda and create (1.), you don't go and advertise it as "From the great Arkane now comes..." without doing (2.).
4. Insert any of your grievances with this sad product, I believe it would fit even though I haven't read it yet
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Child of Malkav
Erudite
Careful, this kind of talk ain't permitted around these parts. There be retards around who ask for proof of this. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Child of Malkav
Erudite
Late Bloomer Go to page 13 and stop blooming so late.
Late Bloomer
Scholar
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2022
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- 3,941
Entertaining conversation regardless of burden of proof or not.
Do you think current Arkane is capable of making a good game?
Who do you think is responsible for them creating a looter shooter?
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2021
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- 442
Holy shit, I've missed this.
orcinator
Liturgist
Truly incline game design is where you get presented with a puzzle then walk into an NPC that immediately gives you the answer to the puzzle.
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- May 29, 2010
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- 36,707
That level in particular was infamous for exposing how braindead playtesters can be.
Rocket-Propelled Game
Educated
- Joined
- Sep 22, 2022
- Messages
- 187
Wow, there goes my respect for Harvey. Sheesh.Holy shit, I've missed this.
Child of Malkav
Erudite
No. But, maybe they do have some talent left, capable of making something close to their previous games in quality but we'll never know.
Bethesda and or Microsoft. But I'd bet it's Bethesda, they like to do shit like this. They like to sabotage smaller studios: the devs for the original Prey in 2006, Arkane with Deathloop and Redfall and Prey 2017 by forcing them to use the Prey name which caused all sorts of butthurt, Obsidian with FONV and who knows how many others we don't know about.
onemananadhisdroid
Augur
That was the point though. Prior Arkane games may have been first person, may have included action, quite a few of them even guns. Which is why to the casual observer, they appear like FPS games, and immature gaming journalists call games like Prey "Bioshock in space."
In either case, Redfall is the first Arkane game ever that puts gunplay (atop of looting) completely centre stage. Superficially, it may still sport some of the same trademarks if you discount the CoOp and open world (like some action and first person perspective) -- but it's still a completely different kind of game.
Like Dana Nightingale aka Digital Nightfall aka best level/map/campaign designer in the industry. No wonder she was hired off her Thief community involvement (and fan missions) back then. Sadly and kinda shockingly, even a quarter of a century after its release: Learning from Thief is learning how to win...
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So I assume we're going to talk endlessly about a dead horse of a game... again.
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