Poll of the Day > We're really in a period where decades between sequels is standard...

(+) Yeah! (+)

Twelve years and counting since GTA 5, Fourteen since Skyrim and still no gameplay footage of ES6, Ten since Fallout 4 and not even a breath that they're even thinking about working on Fallout 5. It's probably likely we're headed into an age of quarter-century periods between releases. Why even get excited anymore? Why bother paying attention? So our ancestors can enjoy a new game?

The real problem is that we're living in a period where almost no sequel is worth the wait. It doesn't matter if you wait a year, 10 years, or 30 years if the next game is just going to be shit anyway.







(Assuming Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 comes out this year like it's supposed to, instead of getting delayed yet again, that'll be a 21 year gap between releases. Unfortunately it's almost guaranteed to be utter dogshit because of how troubled its dev cycle has been, and the fact that it'll probably lean more into the current iteration of the game setting versus the original one. )

Not to mention that dev teams are going to be completely different than they were previously. Unless they have a quality director still leading the project, it's probably not even going to be anything like what you came to love. I could probably trust Sakurai with anything, but I really can't think of anyone else.

Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next product.

Salrite posted...

Not to mention that dev teams are going to be completely different than they were previously. Unless they have a quality director still leading the project, it's probably not even going to be anything like what you came to love. I could probably trust Sakurai with anything, but I really can't think of anyone else.

Weeeeelllll, it depends on what you loved.

Like, Baldur's Gate 3 (a sequel that came out 23 years after BG2) was made by an entirely different dev team, and had way more in common with Divinity: Original Sin 2 than it did BG2. But it was based on an existing setting (that exists outside of the video games), and attempted to mimic the general feel of the story/setting rather than the specifics of the original games, and it did a fairly good job of it. Conversely, if it was the gameplay that you fell in love with in BG2 you'll probably be sorely disappointed (and much happier with a game like Pillars of Eternity, which doesn't have the rights to the IP but which is clearly trying to duplicate the BG2 experience).

Meanwhile, a game like Fallout 3 was made by a completely different dev team, and kind of failed to get anything right from the original IP (which is why New Vegas feels so much more like a Black Isle Fallout game than either 3 or 4 do... for obvious reasons).

But yeah, studio names as a whole have basically become brand names at this point, where the quality of any given game isn't guaranteed because it's entirely possible that none of the people who made [insert game you loved here] are still working with the company years later. It's why studios like Bungie and Bioware that used to be beloved are basically just jokes now. The brand is the same, but the (important) people are long gone.



Salrite posted...

Unless they have a quality director still leading the project, it's probably not even going to be anything like what you came to love.

Even that doesn't necessarily help, as plenty of directors (or writers, or project leads, etc) have gotten worse over time. The George Lucas who created the original Star Wars trilogy and Indiana Jones is the same person who crapped out the Prequels and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Plenty of writers have written terrible sequels to much-loved works because they weren't the same people they were originally, and their talent and passion seemingly withered over time. Past success isn't always a guarantee of future quality.

It's not just games, I'm still waiting for Doors of Stone

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Even that doesn't necessarily help, as plenty of directors (or writers, or project leads, etc) have gotten worse over time. The George Lucas who created the original Star Wars trilogy and Indiana Jones is the same person who crapped out the Prequels and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Plenty of writers have written terrible sequels to much-loved works because they weren't the same people they were originally, and their talent and passion seemingly withered over time. Past success isn't always a guarantee of future quality.

Why I should emphasize "Quality" Director. Yes, you're exactly right. Even outside of directors and writers, any creative person can decline in quality, sell out, or like you say, just become very different people with time.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

The real problem is that we're living in a period where almost no sequel is worth the wait. It doesn't matter if you wait a year, 10 years, or 30 years if the next game is just going to be shit anyway.

(Assuming Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 comes out this year like it's supposed to, instead of getting delayed yet again, that'll be a 21 year gap between releases. Unfortunately it's almost guaranteed to be utter dogshit because of how troubled its dev cycle has been, and the fact that it'll probably lean more into the current iteration of the game setting versus the original one. )

Yeah I read just reading that article about it. How you can't choose your main character, DLC to play the other clans, but not Malkavian. What!?
The 2 facts seem to contradict each other, so we wait to find out.

there's still a sports game every year for some reason... and for SOME reason they still make a ton of money

It's less of a problem in games because they're often trying to push the technology further.

Why is it 3 years between seasons of television now?

Muscles posted...

It's not just games, I'm still waiting for Doors of Stone

Rothfuss is just following in the footsteps of his inspiration. We're never going to see The Winds of Winter either.



Salrite posted...

Why I should emphasize "Quality" Director.

Yea, but I was mostly pointing out that even if you see a project has a director who has produced work you enjoyed in the past, it's still not necessarily a good idea to get hyped about it because you can't be sure they haven't gone completely insane in the meantime.

Like, the few Doctor Who fans remaining after Chibnall's run were really excited when it came out that the show was going to bring back Russell T Davies. After all, he was the one who brought the new version of the show back in the first place, and "saved" it. So the hope was that he could come in and "save" it again, fixing all the stuff that had been broken since he left. Instead, he doubled down on mostly not giving a shit, ruining even more things, driving what little quality was left off the edge of a cliff, and drove off most of the fans who were still left.

It's easy to think of a project lead as being "quality" because you love the games they made in the past. But it's harder to see from the outside looking in whether or not they're still "quality", or whether or not they've gone insane, burned out, or stopped caring in the meantime.

(Another good example - Casey Hudson was the project director for all of the Mass Effect games that people love. He was also the main reason why the ending of Mass Effect 3 sucked so badly. Meanwhile, Drew Karpyshyn - a writer on Baldur's Gate 1&2, KotOR, and Mass Effect 1&2 - also wrote for Anthem. It's hard to ever predict if a future game is going to be worthwhile until you see it. Especially in cases where most of the dev team has changed over time and you can't really judge the work of the new hires.)



Lokarin posted...

there's still a sports game every year for some reason... and for SOME reason they still make a ton of money

There's a lot of sports fans in the world, and rosters change often enough in the real world that many people are willing to pay for incremental improvements and roster updates.



SinisterSlay posted...

Yeah I read just reading that article about it. How you can't choose your main character, DLC to play the other clans, but not Malkavian. What!?
The 2 facts seem to contradict each other, so we wait to find out.

From what I've heard, it's not so much that you can't "choose" your main character, as much as it is that they have part of an established backstory at creation, and you can technically fill in details as you go (sort of like how, in New Vegas, the Courier can make comments in conversation about how they don't know what a "fish" is, or they can explain in detail what a fish is).

So like, assume while you're playing, an NPC will ask something like "So, how'd you get along with your Sire?", and you can be like "He was a monster that took me by force", "I loved her and still mourn her death", "I never knew my sire, they Embraced me and abandoned me", or something else. Whatever answer you choose is allowing you to control part of your own backstory. Though it's hard to say whether or not those sorts of decisions will "stick" (ie, create a narrative flag the game will use to affect things later, or add to some sort of in-game profile), or if they'll just be meaningless details that get mentioned and then never brought up again, and the game won't even bother remembering what you said.

As for Malk, it feels like they didn't want you to be one because your main supporting character is going to be one, and you interact with them a lot. So they feel like they've already covered that base, and having the main character also be a Malk would be repetitive. Though I also feel like they probably felt like a Malk main character would probably be way too hard to work with narratively, because of the whole batshit crazy thing. They were having enough trouble making the game without adding a Malk option as deep as the original was. Plus, there's always the potential for Malk DLC later if the game sells well enough and demand is there (though it might be more work than they're willing to put in for what is ultimately niche appeal).

Probably the same reason they dropped the Nosferatu as well - having to hide your true nature made for a very different sort of game in the original. That might have been a level of extra complexity they didn't want to add into the new game, especially if Masquerade breaches are still a mechanic. And even if they aren't, they might not have wanted to include it for immersion-breaking reasons (though if you're an Elder vampire, you should theoretically be able to Mask of a Thousand Faces all the time anyway to just look normal).

The impression I get is that they just started with Ventrue/Brujah/Tremere/Assamite (I'm not calling them by their new shit name), because those Clans can break down very well into a traditional video game Fighter/Mage/Assassin trio, with the Ventrue filling the role of the charisma-based character who tries to talk their way through everything. It makes it easier to build a game around, without having to try and optimize for seven (or eleven, or thirteen) different Clans.

I feel like they're doing the Toreador/Lasombra DLC because they probably started out planning to include them in the base game, but ultimately cut them for time/ease of development, because the dev cycle was already completely fucked. And they probably overlapped with existing core Clans (ie, the Toreador are even more charisma-based than the Ventrue, the Lasombra would probably fall into the category of another stealth class, albeit with exotic shadow attacks), so they seemed like a bit of a waste anyway.

In a hypothetical world where the game turns out to be fantastic, tons of people play it, and it makes a ton of money, I could see them deciding to make more DLC for it to include other Clans. Like a "Broken Mirrors" DLC that adds in Nosferatu/Malkavian with new unique mechanics and insanity-flavored conversation options. Though I can't see them ever being willing to touch the Ravnos or Setites (again, fuck their stupid new name), because real world political correctness made those problematic long ago. Gangrel could also work (though an Elder Gangrel would have similar problems as a Nosferatu, as they'd probably be loaded with animal features that would make them a walking Masquerade breach), though it feels like they'd never want to do Tzimisce (both for lore and for mechanics reasons), and the Giovanni are just an utter mess now lorewise, because Fifth Edition sucks.

The biggest reason is every game has to be bigger and better then the last, which means it is going to take more time and money to make it. And you can only throw so many people at a project before you see diminishing returns as far as how much it will reduce the time, and it sure as hell will increase the budget. So as a result, games take longer.

I don't care that much though, it's not like games have improved that much in the last 20 years, and there are enough games released in the last 20 years that I could probably not see another game released again and still have enough entertainment value to last me the rest of my life. I care more when an old game gets a modern port than when a completely new game gets released.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Rothfuss is just following in the footsteps of his inspiration. We're never going to see The Winds of Winter either.

Yea, but I was mostly pointing out that even if you see a project has a director who has produced work you enjoyed in the past, it's still not necessarily a good idea to get hyped about it because you can't be sure they haven't gone completely insane in the meantime.

Like, the few Doctor Who fans remaining after Chibnall's run were really excited when it came out that the show was going to bring back Russell T Davies. After all, he was the one who brought the new version of the show back in the first place, and "saved" it. So the hope was that he could come in and "save" it again, fixing all the stuff that had been broken since he left. Instead, he doubled down on mostly not giving a shit, ruining even more things, driving what little quality was left off the edge of a cliff, and drove off most of the fans who were still left.

It's easy to think of a project lead as being "quality" because you love the games they made in the past. But it's harder to see from the outside looking in whether or not they're still "quality", or whether or not they've gone insane, burned out, or stopped caring in the meantime.

(Another good example - Casey Hudson was the project director for all of the Mass Effect games that people love. He was also the main reason why the ending of Mass Effect 3 sucked so badly. Meanwhile, Drew Karpyshyn - a writer on Baldur's Gate 1&2, KotOR, and Mass Effect 1&2 - also wrote for Anthem. It's hard to ever predict if a future game is going to be worthwhile until you see it. Especially in cases where most of the dev team has changed over time and you can't really judge the work of the new hires.)

There's a lot of sports fans in the world, and rosters change often enough in the real world that many people are willing to pay for incremental improvements and roster updates.

From what I've heard, it's not so much that you can't "choose" your main character, as much as it is that they have part of an established backstory at creation, and you can technically fill in details as you go (sort of like how, in New Vegas, the Courier can make comments in conversation about how they don't know what a "fish" is, or they can explain in detail what a fish is).

So like, assume while you're playing, an NPC will ask something like "So, how'd you get along with your Sire?", and you can be like "He was a monster that took me by force", "I loved her and still mourn her death", "I never knew my sire, they Embraced me and abandoned me", or something else. Whatever answer you choose is allowing you to control part of your own backstory. Though it's hard to say whether or not those sorts of decisions will "stick" (ie, create a narrative flag the game will use to affect things later, or add to some sort of in-game profile), or if they'll just be meaningless details that get mentioned and then never brought up again, and the game won't even bother remembering what you said.

As for Malk, it feels like they didn't want you to be one because your main supporting character is going to be one, and you interact with them a lot. So they feel like they've already covered that base, and having the main character also be a Malk would be repetitive. Though I also feel like they probably felt like a Malk main character would probably be way too hard to work with narratively, because of the whole batshit crazy thing. They were having enough trouble making the game without adding a Malk option as deep as the original was. Plus, there's always the potential for Malk DLC later if the game sells well enough and demand is there (though it might be more work than they're willing to put in for what is ultimately niche appeal).

Probably the same reason they dropped the Nosferatu as well - having to hide your true nature made for a very different sort of game in the original. That might have been a level of extra complexity they didn't want to add into the new game, especially if Masquerade breaches are still a mechanic. And even if they aren't, they might not have wanted to include it for immersion-breaking reasons (though if you're an Elder vampire, you should theoretically be able to Mask of a Thousand Faces all the time anyway to just look normal).

The impression I get is that they just started with Ventrue/Brujah/Tremere/Assamite (I'm not calling them by their new shit name), because those Clans can break down very well into a traditional video game Fighter/Mage/Assassin trio, with the Ventrue filling the role of the charisma-based character who tries to talk their way through everything. It makes it easier to build a game around, without having to try and optimize for seven (or eleven, or thirteen) different Clans.

I feel like they're doing the Toreador/Lasombra DLC because they probably started out planning to include them in the base game, but ultimately cut them for time/ease of development, because the dev cycle was already completely fucked. And they probably overlapped with existing core Clans (ie, the Toreador are even more charisma-based than the Ventrue, the Lasombra would probably fall into the category of another stealth class, albeit with exotic shadow attacks), so they seemed like a bit of a waste anyway.

In a hypothetical world where the game turns out to be fantastic, tons of people play it, and it makes a ton of money, I could see them deciding to make more DLC for it to include other Clans. Like a "Broken Mirrors" DLC that adds in Nosferatu/Malkavian with new unique mechanics and insanity-flavored conversation options. Though I can't see them ever being willing to touch the Ravnos or Setites (again, fuck their stupid new name), because real world political correctness made those problematic long ago. Gangrel could also work (though an Elder Gangrel would have similar problems as a Nosferatu, as they'd probably be loaded with animal features that would make them a walking Masquerade breach), though it feels like they'd never want to do Tzimisce (both for lore and for mechanics reasons), and the Giovanni are just an utter mess now lorewise, because Fifth Edition sucks.

I agree with your reasoning. A Malk MC with a Malk partner would have been amazing though. Could just have the entire plot of the game dumped in the first 5 minutes between completely random musings of the two characters.
"Don't open it"

SinisterSlay posted...

I agree with your reasoning. A Malk MC with a Malk partner would have been amazing though. Could just have the entire plot of the game dumped in the first 5 minutes between completely random musings of the two characters.

Do the Far Cry thing. Give Malks an option to solve the entire game in the opening scene by picking a dialogue option no one else gets. You get in a car, drive to a random house, shoot a random NPC you've never met before and have no idea who they are, and it somehow sets off a chain of events that resolves every single major story point without you having to do anything else.

(Though to avoid spoiling the entire game, you'd have to make it so that Malks are exclusively a New Game+ sort of option. Which, to be honest, probably should have been the case for the first Bloodlines as well.)



SinisterSlay posted...

"Don't open it"

It's funny just how literally everything Rosa says makes perfect sense, but none of it will mean anything to you the first time you play.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqQ3Gp_AHdA

Meanwhile, the Malk player character is going around having random chats with stop signs and his own TV, while simultaneously pulling VV's real name out of her head by accident or instantly understanding Jeanette and Therese's entire relationship the first time he talks to them. And straight up shitting himself when they realize who the cab driver is.

Wednesday was worth the wait.

Games have started sucking big time. .
I think I dislike 80% of popular new games but their probably just not to my taste

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Yea, but I was mostly pointing out that even if you see a project has a director who has produced work you enjoyed in the past, it's still not necessarily a good idea to get hyped about it because you can't be sure they haven't gone completely insane in the meantime.

No, I get what you mean and I agree with it to an extent. But it's worth gauging a director or a team by a number of factors, track record, time since previous project, recent changes within the company, etc. I'm just as jaded as you and more often than not, previous success doesn't mean a thing anymore. But my example of Sakurai, I have no reason to doubt him, at least not yet. I've followed his stint on Youtube, I've seen his ideologies on production, more recently, I've seen his Nintendo Direct for Air Riders. He still appears to be the person I respect in all ways. It's entirely possible he disappoints me one day, but he is a very rare exception. I've learned it's important to be cautious of all things but I don't necessarily need to expect the worst when I've been given no evidence to.

It is disappointing, but at the same time I'm glad we have moved past the "everything must be an annual franchise" thing as well.

Dikitain posted...

The biggest reason is every game has to be bigger and better then the last, which means it is going to take more time and money to make it.

At least when it comes to games like GTA or TES where "look how much there is to do!" is one of the main things people look for from the series. For games that are more explicitly finite, there's less need for that kind of scope creep.

I feel like a lot of people would appreciate a much smaller game if it meant giving purpose to features and content rather than the same copy/paste dungeon 300 times.

Stop waiting for the next thing and just enjoy the stuff you already have.

I'm not personally sitting around waiting for sequels of popular games, I don't need to play those games, there are others I can play that don't happen to be on that popularity scale.

That said GTA6 has been delayed intentionally, because GTA Online is a multibillion dollar money printing machine for relatively little risk, cost, or effort, so Take Two ordered GTA6 not be made for the longest time and funneled all of Rockstar's resources into that.

With Bethesda's track record with their new games I'm certainly not expecting anything out of ES6.

SunWuKung420 posted...

Stop waiting for the next thing and just enjoy the stuff you already have.

I agree. I have so many older games to play that by the time I finish maybe a third of them it will have been so long since I've played a game like OoT that it will be almost a new experience. And that's just one game that I've played multiple times already.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/0/0cc95ac3.png

We had the entire Mass Effect trilogy all within a span of five years

captpackrat posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/0/0cc95ac3.png

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/0/0835bc59.png

MomSpringfield posted...

We had the entire Mass Effect trilogy all within a span of five years

Jesus, critical damage inflicted

3 FnaF games a year again!

i'd rather have a decade wait between sequels than have something new and empty being pumped out every year or so.

doesn't really matter at this point though, everything seems kind of terrible regardless.

Nade_Duck posted...

i'd rather have a decade wait between sequels than have something new and empty being pumped out every year or so.

Instead, we'll have something new and empty being pumped out every 20 years. Dev time doesn't guarantee quality. Often, it's the opposite.

Every time I have to wait 20 years for something disappointing it's like losing my virginity all over again.

angeleyes94 posted...

Wednesday was worth the wait.

Gotta agree with this, even though I didn't catch a lot of the original 'Addams Family'. If you had to pick one family member to carry the mythos along, yep, Wednesday would be the one (or Uncle Fester).

Salrite posted...

I feel like a lot of people would appreciate a much smaller game.

This is mostly how I felt about Starfield. I know Bethesda was going to be Bethesda, but one very detailed star system would have fine for me (keep Mars and Cydonia though).

judaspete posted...

I'm glad we have moved past the "everything must be an annual franchise" thing as well.

We have? I'm still disappointed that AEW hasn't tried to do a 2k yearly entry like WwE does. I'm sure Mercedes Mone should be on somebody's Aew cover before she really decides to put the boots away. It should be...Timeless...