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Originally posted by kalle90:
Worst thing would be to say DA was a dream or non canon and return to old completely ignoring it.

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Originally posted by Knot3D:
Story & Gameplay are both important to me.

But, Gameplay is what should dictate the Story, NOT the other way around.

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I agree 100%. The story is important but it should not dictate the gameplay and defiantly not at the cost of great gameplay.

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Originally posted by DixieWolf:

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I agree 100%. The story is important but it should not dictate the gameplay and defiantly not at the cost of great gameplay.

So what if, lets say hypothetically they designed this gameplay first then added a story to it? That would be Gameplay dictating Story, you still have what we have now, would that make it anymore acceptable for you? Because either way you look at it seems, the outcome is the same, due to the Developers wanting to go a different direction regardless of story, it seems the blame is misplaced and blame on the story shortsighted, when it should be on the game designers. The original game if I remember correctly, the game concepts i.e stealth based, and gadgets characters and story was designed way before the game hit design phase. Something I read, in an old interview with J.T Petty, the creator of Splinter Cell. Are you suggesting that this original concept that he chose, and in the sequence in which they did it in was wrong? Because the story didn't dictate the gameplay, it gave the game a premise, and the developers and game designers created the game mechanics from those concepts and inspirations from the Thief series, which used the Light and Shadow gameplay. I think it's easy to blame something on the story, even with the current fugitive, he still could be wearing Army BDU's and infiltrating buildings like he did in the navy SEALS, as they don't have futuristic gadgetry they have to use brains and brawn.

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For most gamers, Splinter Cell wasn't a stealth game, it was light and shadow gameplay. To us, light and shadow, though amazing at the time, was a very binary experience - you were either in the light or in the dark. That's why there were all of those athletic skills like climbing up pipes, and using a building's architecture - it was a way of complimenting the light and dark, and was means for players to move.

Now, we want to do a stealth game, but stealth is the art of going around unnoticed. It's not something else, that's how it is. So as soon as you take that into consideration, and that Splinter Cell is a stealth game, there are many ways to go unnoticed.

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If you look at Splinter Cell, everything's already been done before; we wanted to create new gameplay just like we did; that's our challenge. We want to create some new gameplay. We want gamers, when they've finished playing Conviction to look around at other games and feel something.

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Originally posted by EskimoBob32:
I agree with Knot3D.

@Dixiewolf: Yes, the devs have stated that the reason they are going in this direction was because they felt the game needed a change. That is probably the biggest reason. However, it has also been said something along the lines of "Sam is a fugitive now, shadows no longer offer him protection." Now, I'm not saying that this is not the right thing to do per se, I am saying something more along the lines of this dev is lying. Well lying might be too strong a word, more making up excuses. And the problem is now, when people who are irritated about the change in game direction say so, other people come back with "It's the only way it could have gone with the story!" or "Sam is a fugitive, how can he use the old methods?" My reasoning says that this kind of argument need not ever come up; if the devs had said something like "The fugitive premise suits the new gameplay" instead of vice versa, I don't think these kinds of debates would exist.

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Originally posted by DixieWolf:

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Originally posted by EskimoBob32:
I agree with Knot3D.

@Dixiewolf: Yes, the devs have stated that the reason they are going in this direction was because they felt the game needed a change. That is probably the biggest reason. However, it has also been said something along the lines of "Sam is a fugitive now, shadows no longer offer him protection." Now, I'm not saying that this is not the right thing to do per se, I am saying something more along the lines of this dev is lying. Well lying might be too strong a word, more making up excuses. And the problem is now, when people who are irritated about the change in game direction say so, other people come back with "It's the only way it could have gone with the story!" or "Sam is a fugitive, how can he use the old methods?" My reasoning says that this kind of argument need not ever come up; if the devs had said something like "The fugitive premise suits the new gameplay" instead of vice versa, I don't think these kinds of debates would exist.

Hi EskimoBob32, thanks for the reply. I can see what you're saying, but I look at it from development perspective. If Ubisoft change the gameplay to daylight which it seems they have, because they want change, and to rejuivinate the franchise. The gameplay is going to dictate, how gamers play the game not story at this point in development. The game design they chose, they seemed to have made a concious decision 3 years ago. It seems more plausable that they designed the gameplay first then story after, with Double Agent and then took it from there. They then designed the story around the current gameplay, with this fugitive esquete. The no Light and Shadow gameplay mechanics, as already explained that they wanted to try a different approach to stealth, what the Story seems to do is compliment that gameplay. So as you say a dev can say, well our story goes around our gameplay design or vice versa, you get the same answer, to both questions which was my point.

It's liken to say. Lets say, Light & Shadow gameplay is there and someone asks. Why isn't there any light levels? The same set of similar excuses could be given in such circumstance, it wouldn't of fit into the level design, (as they did have to create specially made paths for gamers to navigate) and wouldn't of fit into the gameplay mechanics, or to say it didn't fit in with the story. Each are valid really, it just depends on how you yourself see them as justified or not.

I don't think it's fair people telling you that it's the only way it could of been done, they could of had a different gameplay, such as Sam working for 3rd Echelon still, but doing different kinds of missions in the day. Who knows? Maybe they found the Fugitive premise more interesting then anything else, I couldn't tell you, I haven't played it yet. I'm not a developer or a game designer, more of a couch critic, so really I can only go on factual evidence they have said, as many of my assumptions I'm sure are false. Apart from the things that I've quoted from the developers themselves, which I base my opinions on. We can all have our opinions ofcourse.