Game News South Park: The Stick of Truth delayed AGAIN, release date is now March 4th, 2014

[Rake]

[
Yes, but in this case it's Obsidian. They already have a bad reputation amongst gamers for shipping buggy games, this delay doesn't bring much confidence that development is going very well, and only further lowers people's opinion of them as a studio.

How so? If the game is released and it's polished, no one will care or even remember how long it was in development.

 

[Infinitron]

It'd be funny if this was another Alpha Protocol-style delay where they don't get any additional funding for it and the decision to move it has everything to do with the expectation that it would bomb during the crowded holiday season so it needs to be released during a less competitive quarter.

Sega claimed they were making improvements to AP too before the truth came out.

Yes, I considered that. Ubi does seem to be a more competent publisher than Sega, though (Alpha Protocol, Colonial Marines, Rome 2, see a pattern?)

 

[Fat Dragon]

[
Yes, but in this case it's Obsidian. They already have a bad reputation amongst gamers for shipping buggy games, this delay doesn't bring much confidence that development is going very well, and only further lowers people's opinion of them as a studio.

How so? If the game is released and it's polished, no one will care or even remember how long it was in development.

The Ubisoft guy says outright the game needed to be completely overhauled to be any good, and the Southpark creators even agreed. That doesn't give a good impression of Obsidian's handling of the game. They've always had a major problem with production management.

 

[felipepepe]

That doesn't give a good impression of Obsidian's handling of the game. They've always had a major problem with production management.

No shit, every Obsidian games can be described as "eh, good for what it is, if only...".

Except for DS3, that's pure shit.

 

[Infinitron]

Except for DS3, that's pure shit.

This is another case where the gamers' interests and the developers' interests don't align. For a game developer, a smooth and easy project where everything went according to plan is the best thing, even if the final product wasn't very ambitious.

Within Obsidian, Dungeon Siege 3 is considered one of their greatest successes as a company.

 

[St. Toxic]

Finally, a true cRPG with meaningful C&C and combat system to match.

 

[hiver]

:looks suspiciously at St. Toxic:

 

[Rake]

[
Yes, but in this case it's Obsidian. They already have a bad reputation amongst gamers for shipping buggy games, this delay doesn't bring much confidence that development is going very well, and only further lowers people's opinion of them as a studio.

How so? If the game is released and it's polished, no one will care or even remember how long it was in development.

The Ubisoft guy says outright the game needed to be completely overhauled to be any good, and the Southpark creators even agreed. That doesn't give a good impression of Obsidian's handling of the game. They've always had a major problem with production management.

Gamers with their goldfish attention span don't care about these things. If the game ships without bugs, they will be happy. What you say will affect more Obsidian's reputation with Ubisoft, but if the game is a success it will be forgotten

 

[felipepepe]

Within Obsidian, Dungeon Siege 3 is considered one of their greatest successes as a company.

Maybe it all looked well on the spreadsheets, but I doubt that any of them thinks that releasing mediocre and forgettable games is a viable strategy.

 

[Lhynn]

Within Obsidian, Dungeon Siege 3 is considered one of their greatest successes as a company.

Maybe it all looked well on the spreadsheets, but I doubt that any of them thinks that releasing mediocre and forgettable games is a viable strategy.

Why not? everyone else in the industry, bar a few, seem to think so.

 

[Infinitron]

Not a viable strategy in the long term, but possibly a good strategy for staying alive in the medium term while you figure out how to create your own IP and go independent.

DS3 was really just a tech demo for Onyx + a demonstration of Obsidian's slam dunking capabilities. It was a great advertisement for publishers.

 

[Rake]

Are we sure that it's Obsidian's fault here? South Park guys seemed happy a little back, and SP:TSoT isn't the only Ubisoft game to be delayed. Watch Dogs and the Crew were also delayed.

 

[GlutenBurger]

At first I thought that as well, but look at the video bro, look at that inventory screen. This is like 3 times more complex than Mass Effect. And even this being the RPG Codex, I'm not sure if that's a good thing on such a game.

As I recall, Paper Mario, at least since Thousand Year Door, offers about as large a selection of stickers (equippable inventory), and a massive number of recipes (potions), so they're probably just following suit. The attack options do seem more extensive, however.

 

[2house2fly]

The Ubisoft guy says outright the game needed to be completely overhauled to be any good, and the Southpark creators even agreed. That doesn't give a good impression of Obsidian's handling of the game. They've always had a major problem with production management.

No game publisher Obsidian has worked with has given the slightest shit about buggy games before, I doubt they're going to start now. Frankly it sounds like they're using Obsidian's reputation as a convenient excuse to delay a game they're worried won't be high-profile enough to compete with all the other keys being dangled in front of consumers this holiday season.

 

[Severian Silk]

My guess is that the publisher is going to ruin things by "overhauling" everything instead of "fixing" the game. Too bad for Obsidian (again...).

 

[cherry blossom]

From Ubi's own blog: http://blog.ubi.com/south-park-the-stick-of-truth-delayed/

Originally scheduled to release this December, South Park: The Stick of Truth will now be available March 4, 2014.

Why the new delay? Well, when Ubisoft picked up the game, we thought: Easy. We’ll put some marketing muscle behind Stick of Truth, toss some additional development resources at it, then take it to the finish line with Matt Stone and Trey Parker. The game’s almost done, anyways – so what more could we do?

Apparently, quite a bit more. “Within three weeks after acquiring the game, we sadly realized we had to turn this thing upside down if we hoped to deliver the experience everybody wanted,” says Ubisoft North America’s president Laurent Detoc. “It’s been such a major overhaul to get to the point where we are that we couldn’t let it go, even if that meant missing December.”

South Park’s creators wholeheartedly agree. “We always wanted the game to feel like you’re actually in an episode of South Park,” say Matt Stone and Trey Parker. “Getting the game up to the crappy standards of the show has been a real challenge and we’re excited to say it’s taken way longer than we thought it would.”

Ah, the Ubisoft treatment. The town of South Park will consist of several areas that will need to be "unlocked" for the player to fully benefit from the area. Unlocking a part of the town will not be obligatory for the most part -though it may be compulsory for the mainquest once or twice- but will enable a series of activities such as rescuing or "owning" townsfolk or fellow students, little challenges like inconsequential combat matches and mini-games and also provide a gazillion new items, upgrades and valuables to have a reason for unlocking them -in South Park's case, the traditional "valuables" could be replaced by "game events" to watch just like you were watching an exclusive South Park episode ie. cutscenes-. Once you have fully completed one or two parts of the town, however, you will have seen almost everything the game has to offer and it will be rinse and repeat from there. However, a few parts of the town may require full completion to progress the story. Otherwise, you will only need to do specific quests spanning the entire town to progress and finish the story.

Or at least that's how almost every single Ubisoft game has been like for the last five or so years.

Ubisoft is spiritual fucking death.

The funny thing is that it will be the same with Might and Magic X Legacy. I pity anyone to think that that game will be free of Ubisoftening. The game is independently funded only so that it could be TB or did anyone really think that all those "Players choose the dungeon theme! Players choose the enemy!" gimmicks could possibly have a place in a game with a tight design? It will be a blast to see Ubisoftened Rape of MM in a TB RPG.

 

[uaciaut]

I'm surprised, it actually looks really fun.


I am a bit worried that Ubisoft's "turn upside down" might translate to "we think people hate RPGs, so we're going to remove as much of that as possible".

South Park fan base is probably a lot bigger than the Obisidan fan base so i will be expecting some compromise in the rpg dept, if the writing and atmosphere is cool though i'll definitely play it.

[
Yes, but in this case it's Obsidian. They already have a bad reputation amongst gamers for shipping buggy games, this delay doesn't bring much confidence that development is going very well, and only further lowers people's opinion of them as a studio.

How so? If the game is released and it's polished, no one will care or even remember how long it was in development.

The Ubisoft guy says outright the game needed to be completely overhauled to be any good, and the Southpark creators even agreed. That doesn't give a good impression of Obsidian's handling of the game. They've always had a major problem with production management.

Got any links for when ubi/south park guys said that? I'm actually curious if development was the primary problem here or not.

 

[Fat Dragon]

It's linked and even quoted in the first post in the thread.

 

[uaciaut]

It's linked and even quoted in the first post in the thread.

“It’s been such a major overhaul to get to the point where we are that we couldn’t let it go"

Where does it say it needed to be completely overhauled from this point on to be good?

 

[tuluse]

It'd be funny if this was another Alpha Protocol-style delay where they don't get any additional funding for it and the decision to move it has everything to do with the expectation that it would bomb during the crowded holiday season so it needs to be released during a less competitive quarter.

Sega claimed they were making improvements to AP too before the truth came out.

Weren't most of the delays because SEGA realized the game sucked and kept asking Obsidian to fix it?

 

[Fat Dragon]

It's linked and even quoted in the first post in the thread.

“It’s been such a major overhaul to get to the point where we are that we couldn’t let it go"

Where does it say it needed to be completely overhauled from this point on to be good?

He says quite clearly that they realized a mere 3 weeks after acquiring the game from THQ that it wasn't in a state to be released and in need of an overhaul; keep in mind he also says it was considered "almost done" by the devs while in this state. I'm sure some will accuse Ubisoft of being an Evil Publisher and pushing Obsidian around as their apologists often do, but at this point Obsidian's track record doesn't give them the benefit of the doubt imo. More likely it was in quite bad shape but because THQ was desperate for money they were willing to release it anyway.

 

[Tigranes]

I don't think the creators are endorsing Ubi's overhaul comment there, just standard stuff juxtaposed in standard JOURNLAISM manner. The ubi comment in and itself is interesting, though - you usually wouldn't go so far in a public comment.

In AP's case there was a leaked comment that some played it and had no idea what it was meant to be (guess they didn't play any hybrids before) - in this case 'what SP is' seems to be pretty hard to get wrong, and I can't imagine overambition / polish / bugs being a problem with it being an Onyx title, having had plenty of time, etc. Also hard to see it not 'feeling SP' enough. So if there is an overhaul, puzzled as to what could be the big perceived issue.

 

[Infinitron]

Weren't most of the delays because SEGA realized the game sucked and kept asking Obsidian to fix it?

I think they delayed it for some sort of dumb marketing-related reason...and ended up going head to head with Mass Effect 2.

In one of his recent interviews, MCA rued that the game wasn't released earlier.

 

[Duraframe300]

Weren't most of the delays because SEGA realized the game sucked and kept asking Obsidian to fix it?

I think they delayed it for some sort of dumb marketing-related reason...and ended up going head to head with Mass Effect 2.

In one of his recent interviews, MCA rued that the game wasn't released earlier.

Yeah, that's pretty much confirmed. What's even more funny was Obsidian sending SEGA a patch and then SEGA holding it back for several months and finally just releasing it for pc as a simple exe. And I don't mean an install exe, literary just the games exe. Felt like installing a fucking crack.

Edit: And people seem to forget that the delay may be coming from Matt and Trey still wanting to change things.

 

[oljebox]

How are you all missing the self-effacing tone of "up to the crappy standards of the show". Trey and Matt aren't assholes, and they wouldn't risk the game's success by putting that out there even if they were.

Chances are the game was mediocre or not as good as it could be, and because Ubisoft got it for next to nothing they're willing to throw in a bit more money to improve it to the point where it's actually enjoyable.

Or Ubisoft thinks it'll do better in March than it will during the holidays, so they're just delaying it and not actually putting any more work into it.

Or a combination of the two.

Edit: the game actually looks perfect for a lazy night with friends. It's light, it's mildly amusing ... What more can be asked of it? Day 1 purchase.