South Park: The Stick of Truth

[pakoito]

I remember one early trailer where you

Spoiler

learned Nagasaki from Randy, not T&P

 

[Bubbles]

The graphics were also noticeably better in that video.

 

[Xor]

It doesn't make sense to me that Ubisoft would be cutting content from the game. Ubisoft acquired the game in January of 2013, so assuming it took them a few months to get settled and negotiate some kind of production deal with Obsidian to finish it, that still means it went back into development for about a year. That's a lot of development time, and just slashing and burning content doesn't take very much effort. Also, the explanation for THQ just wanting a quick cash injection from the license sounds plausible.

 

[Bubbles]

Did I somehow miss that blowing-up-a-crack-house-with-a-bazooka scene from the trailer in the full game or did they... cut it out?

 

[Duraframe300]

It doesn't make sense to me that Ubisoft would be cutting content from the game. Ubisoft acquired the game in January of 2013, so assuming it took them a few months to get settled and negotiate some kind of production deal with Obsidian to finish it, that still means it went back into development for about a year. That's a lot of development time, and just slashing and burning content doesn't take very much effort. Also, the explanation for THQ just wanting a quick cash injection from the license sounds plausible.

Well, we actually pretty much know they changed design. Multiple Obs devs have now hinted towards it.

 

[pakoito]

The graphics were also noticeably better in that video.

They were the same for me, check your rig mate.

I think the bazooka belongs to the Police Station sidequest. That area, same as Mister Slave's, the church, the town hall and a couple other are quite barren.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

There's no crack house in the game, just a meth lab next to Kenny's house which is part of the main quest. There's only one side quest in the police station and it is to collect 5 Nazi Rings from the Nazi Zombies.

 

[Xor]

It doesn't make sense to me that Ubisoft would be cutting content from the game. Ubisoft acquired the game in January of 2013, so assuming it took them a few months to get settled and negotiate some kind of production deal with Obsidian to finish it, that still means it went back into development for about a year. That's a lot of development time, and just slashing and burning content doesn't take very much effort. Also, the explanation for THQ just wanting a quick cash injection from the license sounds plausible.

Well, we actually pretty much know they changed design. Multiple Obs devs have now hinted towards it.

I'm not saying they didn't. I mean, what else would they be doing with 12 months of development time? But since we have no idea what the original design was, we can't really make a definitive judgement one way or the other about whether Ubisoft helped or hindered the final product.

 

[Duraframe300]

It doesn't make sense to me that Ubisoft would be cutting content from the game. Ubisoft acquired the game in January of 2013, so assuming it took them a few months to get settled and negotiate some kind of production deal with Obsidian to finish it, that still means it went back into development for about a year. That's a lot of development time, and just slashing and burning content doesn't take very much effort. Also, the explanation for THQ just wanting a quick cash injection from the license sounds plausible.

Well, we actually pretty much know they changed design. Multiple Obs devs have now hinted towards it.

I'm not saying they didn't. I mean, what else would they be doing with 12 months of development time? But since we have no idea what the original design was, we can't really make a definitive judgement one way or the other about whether Ubisoft helped or hindered the final product.

Regarding difficulty we pretty much can.

The balance would have been much straightened up if that change happened before Ubisoft. Not to mention things would probably actually match up rather than make no sense at all (Summons for example all being instant death for everyone on the field, despite different damage/damage animations as well as descriptions (Mr. Slave for should only remove one enemy, yet everyone runs away anyway)

Or that you have encounters set up with obvious thought/setups put into it (that ability/guy for status effect, debuffs and so on), yet in the end it matters shit..

And, and, and, and

 

[Deleted member 7219]

I'm surprised Matt and Trey didn't do more with the Woodland Critters, knowing how much they love those characters.

 

[Xor]

It doesn't make sense to me that Ubisoft would be cutting content from the game. Ubisoft acquired the game in January of 2013, so assuming it took them a few months to get settled and negotiate some kind of production deal with Obsidian to finish it, that still means it went back into development for about a year. That's a lot of development time, and just slashing and burning content doesn't take very much effort. Also, the explanation for THQ just wanting a quick cash injection from the license sounds plausible.

Well, we actually pretty much know they changed design. Multiple Obs devs have now hinted towards it.

I'm not saying they didn't. I mean, what else would they be doing with 12 months of development time? But since we have no idea what the original design was, we can't really make a definitive judgement one way or the other about whether Ubisoft helped or hindered the final product.

Regarding difficulty we pretty much can.

The balance would have been much straightened up if that change happened before Ubisoft. Not to mention things would probably actually match up rather than make no sense at all (Summons for example all being instant death for everyone on the field, despite different damage/damage animations as well as descriptions (Mr. Slave for should only remove one enemy, yet everyone runs away anyway)

Or that you have encounters set up with obvious thought/setups put into it (that ability/guy for status effect, debuffs and so on), yet in the end it matters shit..

And, and, and, and

I don't know why you're so focused on blaming Ubisoft for the combat in Stick of Truth. Combat was not the only thing the developers could have been talking about when they mention Ubisoft changing the design. And even if Ubisoft did make them change the combat, there is no guarantee that what we got was worse than the original system. Like I said, we don't know what the THQ version of the game was like, and we probably never will.

It just seems like a bit of a leap of logic to say that Ubisoft must have screwed Obsidian over, especially since this game probably would have never been released (or been released in a shittier state) without them. And considering how well it was received by the public, something Obsidian's reputation can always use, I'd say they're probably pretty happy with how this turned out. But again, we may never know.

And as for the combat, I'm kind of hoping modders will fix it, assuming someone can figure out how to extract from the data files.

 

[imweasel]

Did I somehow miss that blowing-up-a-crack-house-with-a-bazooka scene from the trailer in the full game or did they... cut it out?

It was cut out.

I'm surprised Matt and Trey didn't do more with the Woodland Critters, knowing how much they love those characters.

I'm sure they did, but it was probably cut from the game. The cut content will probably be released as the Woodland Critters DLC.

 

[Duraframe300]

I don't know why you're so focused on blaming Ubisoft for the combat in Stick of Truth. Combat was not the only thing the developers could have been talking about when they mention Ubisoft changing the design. And even if Ubisoft did make them change the combat, there is no guarantee that what we got was worse than the original system. Like I said, we don't know what the THQ version of the game was like, and we probably never will.

I'm blaming them for the difficutly. I'm doing it based on things I've seen in the game itself, comments and some other info/observations. And it's not exactly a stretch that a publisher would turn difficulty down (In fact that IS the most popular case of publisher interference), much less in a licensed title based on a tv show.

Other question is why you are so quick to defend them?

Edit: Eh, whatever was the case, we will hear about it sometime in the future.

 

[Infinitron]

According to Metacritic, cringe, South Park: The Stick of Truth (on PS3) is one of Obsidian's best games, scoring a review average of 86 per cent (the same as KOTOR2 on Xbox).

Metacritic is relevant here because an 85-plus score was exactly what Obsidian needed Fallout: New Vegas to achieve in order to receive a bonus payment from publisher Bethesda. But it didn't; Fallout: New Vegas averaged an agonisingly close 84 per cent, and Obsidian lost out, despite the game being a big success for Bethesda. There was quite a fall out.

There's nothing like that in place for South Park: The Stick of Truth, thankfully, and Obsidian never intends taking that road again.

"We have a general policy whenever we're talking to different publishers now: we don't do anything that has to do with Metacritic. It's an unfair way of... in a lot of ways it can only be used as a way to take advantage of a developer.

"Ultimately if a game is financially successful, if a developer has back-end royalties on that, then they should make those back-end royalties if they made money for the publisher."

Heh.

 

[Havoc]

"Metacritic is relevant" pls die

 

[Xor]

Good to know they learned from that. Although it does worry me that Bethesda might not want to let them do another Fallout game, despite how well that worked out.

 

[Infinitron]

Good to know they learned from that. Although it does worry me that Bethesda might not want to let them do another Fallout game, despite how well that worked out.

What, because of the Metacritic thing? Don't be silly.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Bethesda want to do Fallout 4, they aren't done with their HILARIOUS take on Fallout just yet. Plenty more Three Dog 'OWWWWWWWWWW's on the way. What they do after that is anyone's guess. Could be that they get the Dishonored guys to make the next Fallout spinoff.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Just finished this. Got a bit too easy towards the end (team jew is OP as fuck, I was dishing out 25k+ to the entire screen at some points before they could get a turn) but it was entertaining nonetheless, right to the very end. Good stuff, albeit kinda short considering.

 

[Infinitron]

German news sites are reporting that

a) the German version is unlikely to be released before April

http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/113...-truth-gets-german-austrian-release-date.html

Through their official German forums, Ubisoft has announced the new release date for the German/Austrian version of South Park: The Stick of Truth: March 27th.

 

[Kem0sabe]

It's amazing how Dragonfall made me shelf South Park, a game with much more developer pedigree and production values, HBS really upped their game, while Obsidian mostly phoned it in. The first third of stick of truth is actually a fun experience, like playing a south park episode, but the novelty wears thin and it never goes beyond that safe zone.

 

[Duraframe300]

It doesn't make sense to me that Ubisoft would be cutting content from the game. Ubisoft acquired the game in January of 2013, so assuming it took them a few months to get settled and negotiate some kind of production deal with Obsidian to finish it, that still means it went back into development for about a year. That's a lot of development time, and just slashing and burning content doesn't take very much effort. Also, the explanation for THQ just wanting a quick cash injection from the license sounds plausible.

Well, we actually pretty much know they changed design. Multiple Obs devs have now hinted towards it.

I'm not saying they didn't. I mean, what else would they be doing with 12 months of development time? But since we have no idea what the original design was, we can't really make a definitive judgement one way or the other about whether Ubisoft helped or hindered the final product.

Regarding difficulty we pretty much can.

The balance would have been much straightened up if that change happened before Ubisoft. Not to mention things would probably actually match up rather than make no sense at all (Summons for example all being instant death for everyone on the field, despite different damage/damage animations as well as descriptions (Mr. Slave for should only remove one enemy, yet everyone runs away anyway)

Or that you have encounters set up with obvious thought/setups put into it (that ability/guy for status effect, debuffs and so on), yet in the end it matters shit..

And, and, and, and

From the Jordan Thomas interview (mr Shalebridge Cradle) it isn't obvious that all of the design changes post-Ubisoft were bad. He didn't mention combat though.

So?

Didn't even say that. Said, not everything was roses and sunshine like Ubisoft wants to spin it. And I'm arguing from the point of what was actually in the game.

Granted, the moment an Obsidian employee comes out *Oh, everything Ubisoft did was AMAZINNNNG* I'll shut up. But, they don't. In fact they don't want to talk about it rather than praising.

 

[Roguey]

Duraframe300 earlier this week Ubisoft producer said

Putting together the wishlist for the next patch so if anyone has any egregious bugs they saw let me know so I can try and include them, or any little annoyances. I've already got PC K&M stuff (tutorial/minigames), QTE difficulty and overall difficulty on my wishlist.

Of course increased difficulty is going to be "stats go up" but the enemy stats as they are are tuned too low so there you go.

 

[Duraframe300]

Duraframe300 earlier this week Ubisoft producer said

Putting together the wishlist for the next patch so if anyone has any egregious bugs they saw let me know so I can try and include them, or any little annoyances. I've already got PC K&M stuff (tutorial/minigames), QTE difficulty and overall difficulty on my wishlist.

Of course increased difficulty is going to be "stats go up" but the enemy stats as they are are tuned too low so there you go.

Hopefullly. Obsidian mentioned these themselves as well.

S'long as I someday get to enjoy the encounters as they were meant to be I'm happy.

I still don't trust that Ubi guy at all though. Too much pr sweetcaked bullshit for me to make himself/Ubi look better.

 

[Roguey]

Yeah some of the things he's said in that thread have been very That's So Producer.

Like regarding ~Metacritic bonuses~

We care because you (gamers in general) care. 85 versus 80 makes a HUGE difference when it comes to sales numbers, so a bonus based on hitting 85 versus 80 makes sense, business-wise.

And

At one point Uplay was being integrated but we ultimately decided against it.

And preemptively, I wanted to point out that internally, Uplay means about a billion things, from the Uplay store where we sell games, to Uplay Rewards which gives you unique stuff for playing other Uplay-enabled games, to Uplay UbiServices, the back-end tracking stuff that tells us how many people play which class, what side quests get completed the most, etc. And also, Uplay on PC and Uplay on console are completely different development teams, so one may be garbage that everyone hates and the other is unobtrusive and no one seems to mind it. Just keep that in mind when hating Uplay as a whole. There's elements that aren't bad.

Also just to reiterate, there's no Uplay elements in South Park at all except the ability for us to sell the game in the Uplay store.

OTOH

Sorry, I didn't mean to come across that way. It wasn't that it was garbage, sorry. It was incomplete and THQ was pushing to get it out the door incomplete. It was garbage in the sense that it wasn't balanced and many areas were devoid of content. I definitely don't want to imply that Ubisoft did all the work here, the guys at Obsidian worked tirelessly. THQ execs were pushing to get the incomplete product out ASAP in order to save themselves. That's why it was garbage at that point.
...
Yeah I definitely want to reiterate that the Obsidian guys are great and I really appreciate the hard work they put into this. I'll bet many if not most were working plenty of overtime for probably at least 3 months, if not more, so I should not steal ANY of their thunder. It was 99.999% them, 0.001% me.