After having followed a number of forums very closely, I have come to realize that it is completely pointless to participate in any of Ubi's forums.

They do not listen to their main fan base on this game, or on Vegas2.

Unless you are 10 years old, your opinion is not valid.

That said, I think I will start pretending to be a ten year old so that maybe the real fans will be heard... But I doubt it.

We have had no news, no info, and what info we have gotten has been bad info in my opinion.

I personally think that this franchise is going to pot, it is becoming a GTA game, and not a Splintercell game. I have never been a fan of GTA, but if this game is going that way, I think I will probably switch franchises, at least they stick to what makes their franchise successful.

I hope you at Ubisoft grasp the massive amount of fan frustration, I doubt if I will reserve this game... if it ever comes out, as I have done with all the others. I will wait, I won't even rent it, because I won't waste my money on it. After I see how bad it is, or if we are lucky, how mediocre it is, then I might consider it.

But again, I'm not ten years old, so this doesn't matter, they are the only fans that Ubi appeals to now.


P.S. Saying that Ubi listens doesn't make it so anymore than saying pigs fly makes them fly.I watched the vegas2 forums for a long time, and Ubi ignored every want the fans had except for more guns. Where they get their info from, I have yet to learn, but I think they have about 100 10 year olds on staff that they feed tons of sugar, and then see what they want in a game.

jediwithasniper, how closely and for how long did you follow the creation of RSV2?

i didn't follow it at all, but i have followed GRAW 1 and 2 very closely and it was the same deal with lack of info. nothing for like 4,5,6 or more months and then a week before loads of info, but thats only because the reviewers got it an posted pics/vids ie gamespot, ign ect ect

how was the media flow for r6v2?

i dont see why its so hard to throw a media pack together once a month??

I think you're looking from the outside perspective, look at it from theirs. First of all they have big budgets to adhere to, due to the nextgen era. It used to cost less then 10 million to make a Xbox, PS2 and PC game, now we're talking 40-50 million dollar budgets. You have to broaden your audience to cover the cost first and foremost. If you have no idea about Game devlopment I would do some looking it up it's not cheap, as a Business, it's common survival that they have to adapt to this new market and change their games slightly to appeal more. Does that mean dumbing down? Not necessarily, it can mean marketting a game in a way that it appeals to that specific market, likewise a film will show all the good parts, but not always part of the big picture when you go and see it. Or you can make a game more intuitive and hands on, controller-wise. These complaints on the forum, saying that Ubisoft are only marketting to children of 10 is silly lol. They're appealing to more casual end of the scale gamers, who are usually 18+. Many companies have done research to judge how well their game will do, Bioshock is a good example created for intuitive use, marketted to casual gamers, for mass sales, and it worked.

Secondly your point about they don't listen to feedback all depends on your perspective really, what you give is suggestions, or things you would like to see. It doesn't always mean they 'should' be there as if what everything we say must be in the game, it would be a crooked looking game if that where true. If they aren't there, you shouldn't throw your toys out the pram expecting it to be there from a... suggestion. If I request an RPG to be put in the game but it doesn't make it, or a driving section with Sam escaping CIA? etc... have I been ignored? What if those things don't fit into what the game designers have in mind to become a complete game? Your suggestions aren't the exception to the rule. The same goes for any business. Take my local council for example. Many residence have complained about trash, but they don't do anything about it why? am I being ignored? From a stand point it looks that way dioesn't it? Until you see behind the curtain that, there isn't a budget to run a scheme to clean up the trash, then it looks so different then. There are two sides to it, you're only seeing the one, and because you cannot understand why things are the way they are, the obvious assumption is, we're being ignored, when feedback is taken used and analysed. If that feedback can influence development depends on the type of feedbakc they get. For example, many want to see Sam with his gadgets back, it's plausable they could come back later in the game, feedback could be used. Now for the RPG and driving sections, they probably don't fit in with the overall gameplay so leave it out, but take the feedback anyways. I can't wait to hear what they have to say about that when info starts coming out. Reasons why for this and that, and then see if your suggestion would of 'conflicted' with that vision.

What I can complain to Ubisoft about, is lack of support when games are badly done, and lack of information for the PC platform, who usually gets the table scrap end of it all. Bar that, they're not as bad as EA, or Midway and other game publishers out there, especially when you're looking at innovation.

There have been rumors that the shadow/stealth gameplay is back and that they changed the direction of the game BECAUSE of the community.


Everyone really needs to chill out instead of whining every single day. There are plenty of other games to play. Come back when theres actually some recent info as to what the game is going to be.

IMO, this entire section of the forum (not just this thread) should be locked until we actually have some info.

quote:

Originally posted by SilentAce07:
There have been rumors that the shadow/stealth gameplay is back and that they changed the direction of the game BECAUSE of the community.


Everyone really needs to chill out instead of whining every single day. There are plenty of other games to play. Come back when theres actually some recent info as to what the game is going to be.

IMO, this entire section of the forum (not just this thread) should be locked until we actually have some info.

quote:

IMO, this entire section of the forum (not just this thread) should be locked until we actually have some info.

quote:

Originally posted by SilentAce07:
There have been rumors that the shadow/stealth gameplay is back and that they changed the direction of the game BECAUSE of the community.

The keyword there is rumors. Our forum manager has already addressed the rumors that the game has been started/retstarted to be changed as untrue. If you guys want to believe the game is being changed, there is nothing that can be done about it on Ubi's end. But I hate to think of people being so dissapointed.

People are only saying the game is being changed because they want it to be. So of course they would say something like that.

quote:

If you guys want to believe the game is being changed, there is nothing that can be done about it on Ubi's end.

Are you actually serious? A simple, "it is" or "it isn't" from an official UBI member, not just a community manager, surely would suffice.

quote:

Originally posted by Tidenburg:

quote:

If you guys want to believe the game is being changed, there is nothing that can be done about it on Ubi's end.

Are you actually serious? A simple, "it is" or "it isn't" from an official UBI member, not just a community manager, surely would suffice.

The Community Manager is the person who's job it is to make that kind of announcement. It would be them or the forum manager. She has said several times these rumors are not true, so what else exactly is it that you are wanting them to say?

I think part of the problem is that the "info" we do have been kind of...vague. The stuff we did see was early in development, and while it may have been confirmed that the game wasn't restarted, that doesn't mean it's not being reworked. In fact, I would assume that it would be, regardless - isn't that a normal part of development? And, in this case, they're dealing with new ground; that's trial and error city.


At this point, though, we know we're not going to get any real info until they want to give it. So...we wait.

quote:

Originally posted by SilentAce07:
Everyone really needs to chill out instead of whining every single day.

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jediwithasniper, how closely and for how long did you follow the creation of RSV2?

i didn't follow it at all, but i have followed GRAW 1 and 2 very closely and it was the same deal with lack of info. nothing for like 4,5,6 or more months and then a week before loads of info, but thats only because the reviewers got it an posted pics/vids ie gamespot, ign ect ect

how was the media flow for r6v2?

i dont see why its so hard to throw a media pack together once a month??

-Phil

Well, I won't say that I was there from it's beginning, because I wasn't, but for about the last 8 or 9 months, I have poured over the forums, read suggestions, and debated topics. For about 6 months, I was on the forum almost every day looking for new information, looking for Ubisoft to confirm or deny any of the wanted items or features.

When it was all said and done, the only good information given was in the last month before the game is now being released. Most of the info given even in the last month has all been stuff you can find on game magazine sites. They did manage to post a couple of dev diaries about 2 months ago, but those did not give us hardly any information, just a few gun names.

Altogether, the media flow was reasonable, but never very helpful in my opinion, there was one time where a dev actually created a topic and we got to ask questions, but after he answered about 10 or 12 questions, he was gone. Lucky for me, I was one of the questions answered.

The frustrating thing to me is that Ubisoft is now consistently taking games in the opposite direction of what us 21 year olds like to see. With vegas, almost every issue raised by the fans on the forum was completely ignored, minus the no glitches, and more guns.

So I was somewhat frustrated by what vegas 2 has turned into, and if it plays anything like COD4, then forget that, I'll leave that franchise right away.

Now, I am looking at my absolute favorite franchise of all time, Splinter Cell, and they are doing exactly the same thing with this game as with vegas.

If you took a poll right now of 1,000 people that are approximately my age, and asked them what they would prefer for the next SC game, I guarantee you that they would be against, by a majority, the direction of this franchise.

Flip it, and poll 1,000 10 year olds, then you get what we have here, "SC Conviction, the GTA chronicles."

I've been watching this forum for around 6 months, but it is so boring here without any information, that I almost quit coming entirely.

Phil must be talking about the PC version of GRAW 1+2, because GRAW 1+2 on the console, specifically the xbox360 had plenty of information, because it was the lead platform. The same happened with Double Agent aswell, the xbox360 which was the 'lead' platform, had more information then the PC and xbox counterparts. Again with this ignoring, do you have any proof or is it just more of your hear say? Secondly Focus Groups would have to target 18+ as the games that Ubisoft put out are for that age range not 10 year old that you keep spewing, it would be illegal for a company to get play testers from outside the company to test it. It seems on this you're very ignorant, I would suggest more research on what marketing does.

Let me give you an example of what a Focus Group is like, so you have a bit of understanding. There is a video here about Monolith and how they do their focus testing for their new game origins, video is HERE have a watch. Note: they can't use 10 year olds due to game content. Nor would they use 10 year olds with parental permission as that isn't their target audience. You have some misconception that if you change a direction of a game it must be for kiddies. They usually change it to hit another demographic, if you have a game for hardcore gamers which is niche, to open it up you would appeal to more casual gamers to broaden your audience, age isn't a factor especially if the target audience is 18+. By the way, majority of Xbox360 users are 18+ which can be backed up with Microsofts own statsistics, likewise for the nintendo wii which as it stands now is average age of 29+, so this notion that they're targeting this young generation couldn't be futher from the truth, then the earth is from pluto.

I understand they removed the planning stage and multiple teams out of Rainbow Six, ironically though, if there was such a situation such as the crisis portrayed in Las Vegas, it would be near impossible to plan an assault due to the scale of it. Realistically, (which Rainbow Six is known for) the Army and Special forces domestic and internationally would be called called to clean up the place, and they would assault as many buildings as fast as they could to make sure they would be clear of threat "without" planning, the special forces would be told to assault specific targets where their training would be more useful, hostage rescue, explovsive entries something which isn't usually taught in the Army. It's what is called "Immediate Action", if you would like to know more about Immediate Action view this video Here. You can also do some reseach on SOP's standing operating procedure, on how it would be done realistically.

quote:

If you took a poll right now of 1,000 people that are approximately my age, and asked them what they would prefer for the next SC game, I guarantee you that they would be against, by a majority, the direction of this franchise.

More nonsence again, if you took 1000 people and 800 of them my age which is 24 said they like the new direction, what will be your next excuse? They don't like the Franchise? They aren't Splinter Cell fans? etc... There is a large number of people who don't post on here who are looking forward to the game, a bigger number then the same people who rehash the samething on here, "without no L/S I don't buy", which is less then 100 posters.

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The frustrating thing to me is that Ubisoft is now consistently taking games in the opposite direction of what us 21 year olds like to see. With vegas, almost every issue raised by the fans on the forum was completely ignored, minus the no glitches, and more guns.

So you speak for all 21 year olds do you? I'm 24 and I can tell you now I like the new direction for many reason, one it has variatey and it's something that breaks the repetitious trend. I do however would like to see many of the old concepts in the new game, so simply come on and generalise that, because I;'m upset everyone else must be is just naive, especially on all the assumptions you show in your post. They ignore you, how so? Got proof? They target 10 year olds, could be an exaggeration by you, but still, do you have any experience with focus groups? I doubt you have, yet you already seem to know the protocols they use for reseach and analystic data.

The complain about lack information while valid, isn't as bad as other games, look at Resident Evil 5, it was announced in 2005! We got to see one trailer, two years later we get to see an extended version of that trailer and no news what so ever, it's 2008 now and still no info since 2005. So while you complain about no information for 10 months it's nothing compared to some of the other game sin the past, even the likes of Dark Sector, which had no information for an entire year or GTA 4 for two years. I;m not saying that should be the norm, but in comparison 10 months is nothing in the gaming industry, and seems to be the trend which seems to be sliding into the realm of the norm.

I am by no means any kind of expert on focus groups, or how they work. You seem to be much more informed on them than I am, so I won't debate the issues with you, as I would probably come out looking stupid.

I do realize that focus groups are actually our age range, and that they don't do their studies with ten year olds.

I am not apart of focus groups, and I most definitely do not have the kind of statistical proof to show any of my opinions to be correct.

But I do understand a few things about marketing, and that is this, if you own a restaurant, and one customer is not satisfied, they can put you out of business just by voicing their dissatisfaction. So you do whatever you can to make that customer happy.

If you sell a customer a product, and they voice a problem, why do company owners immediately hand out coupons, and free stuff to those consumers, because those consumers control whether or not they succeed at what they do.

A common known law is that if one person speaks up about something, such as calling a company to complain, it is view as many more than just one person, basically, for every 1 that speaks up, there are another 99 who didn't speak up, but wanted to. I realize my numbers are not perfectly accurate, but I do own my own business, my father owns his own business, so I know what I am talking about here a little bit.

My point is that if there are this many people who care enough about the product to voice their concern, how many people out there feel exactly the same way, but just aren't saying anything. Our voices on the forums should mean much more than they do.

My whole point in all of this was not that Ubisoft uses ten year olds, it is that Ubisoft does not listen to anything on their forums, they have independent research, and while they say they listen, the evidence shows otherwise.

P.S. No, I don't speak for all 21 year olds, I was speaking demographically, and I don't speak for all of them, but I am on xbox live between 4 and 10 hours a day, so I have plenty of conversations with a lot of gamers, and the majority of them that I come into contact with agree with me.

I would challenge you to get on xbl and start some conversations with people about this topic, bring up the different views, and see where people stand on the issue. You might be surprised.

Generally speaking, more people are more vocal about something that's wrong then right, it doesn't matter what product/service it is, this is human nature something socialiogy can show. We have a show in England dedicated to complaints called Watchdog who look out for consumers, and while many complain about products/services it's a small minority compared to the larger base. I can give you a great example it seems everyone complains about my local council, not once do I hear praise for it why is that? This isn't just here it seems to apply to most councils in different counties with England Scotland and Wales, you just don't hear praise, but oooh if something goes wrong...

While you make a good point that one customer could take you out of business, you can't please every customer it's impossible, and sometimes the customer isn't always right works. Imagine a customer just comes in and complains, what you gonna do? Give out token and gifts? It seems best thing to do is give the money back and say our services aren't up to your standards and appologise, thats it. But if that customer comes back again and again moaning, then you can't keep doing the same, it's not only a detriment to your financials but your patrons and resturant. I see this with software all the time, "I'm not buying this game because of X reason nor will I buy any more games from this company" only to buy more products later on and moan about them, contradicting what they said previously.

I've worked at B&Q a hardware complex, and had a colleague who was from america working with me had a customer walk up to her and tell her to go back home, simply because we didn't have what she wanted in stock... The customer isn't always right.

Game development is a touchy one, while the consensus seems to be industry wide that developers are targetingg a mass audience rather then a specific base compared to pre-2005, it is due to the change in the growth of the industry with these new consoles. R&D is being spent more, budgets sizes are bigger, development cycles are longer which means you can't target a small niche group of people. The Crytek developers know that, and are porting Crysis over to console, it's stupid not to when they know that there is a huge market. So they're going to have to act like a business and adapt to the market to make money, thats what they do.

quote:

My whole point in all of this was not that Ubisoft uses ten year olds, it is that Ubisoft does not listen to anything on their forums, they have independent research, and while they say they listen, the evidence shows otherwise

As for suggestions and being ignored let me give you a good example, you say you run a bussiness. If I put down my suggestion in your suggestion box, and you read it, and it sounds like a great idea, but you don't have the funding or the means to do it because such thing could mean re-development lets say disabled facilities and you would lose money in the down time. When I come back and ask why hasn't work started, can I come to the conclusion I was being ignored? Even if you where to say, we like your idea but it's not possible many might come to the conclusion you're just fobbbing them off with excuses, and many do, even when told their suggestion was good I've seen it in retail. Some of the ideas can be great but just unrealistically possible to do with time, budgets and means, it doesn't mean anyone is being ignored at all. Secondly If I suggest something that doesn't fit into your resturant's overall theme, or characteristsics that maybe taboo, and many request it, you appreciate their feedback but you and your staff don't like the idea, when those people come back and say you're just ignoring us, would it be true? There is always two sides to things on the outside looking in, I understand where you come from but seeing both sides I can get an understanding.

Thirdly, Focus Groups, they take feedback from people like yourself form the forum and from play testers. So lets say they had 1000 people in to play SvM, and many found it difficult, they simply note down user has difficulty understanding x section of the game, user requested X and Y as a better alternative, and this is repeated throught he game feelings about the game are bought up to. They note down why they found it hard why this section was more difficult, if it was frustrating, why people where getting stuck on a puzzle, which part was fun to play etc.. it goes into great detail why and reasons for them. All this gets taken into consideration and will be passed on as feedback, it depends on the developers if changing what they have already created will dramatically change the game and make it "inconsistent" and unbalanced with the end vision in mind. There is a fine line, so tweaking the game and then bringing the same person back to retry it again and see if it's better, and so on for other play testers. Also you must take into account they take a broad selection of gamers, female and male, diffferent ages from 18+ from hardcore gamers to your casual bunch of people, and if lets say they're targetting a broad range of gamers it needs to appeal it must be intuitive fun and much more things involved with an entertainment medium.

It is why when Vegas was created the Community Managers said well the many people who played the game liked it, some of them where clans in Montreal. Yet many where suprised that people would like such a game when it is slightly downgraded, but the focus group did more then enough research to give the project a nod to go to full production. This is another thing, if a developer simply said we want to change Splinter Cell dramatically, first they have to create a working demo, 3D or CGI, proof of concept basically, from that marketing will see if it is viable, such things aren't just given the nod, and if the idea sucks it will be thrown out. They will wait till there is an alpha build it will be played internally either by staff or play testers, then focus groups will try the game, take all kinds of feedback. Which if you read many interviews with Mathieu Ferland they have already done that at Montreal with Conviction, to which he said they complained about Light and Shadows at first, but when they saw the concept overall they came around to the new idea to using the enviroment.

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I would challenge you to get on xbl and start some conversations with people about this topic, bring up the different views, and see where people stand on the issue. You might be surprised.

I'm not suprised I talk to people at work their opinion is the same many games are mass made now, but is a good thing to them because more people are playing the games even their parents who wouldn't touch gaming. I've been playing games since the early 90's, when I played Alien Versus Predator, when they created a second game, many where upset about the changes to the game, new weapons etc... That was 1999, since 2001 this trend has grown, in increasing numbers. Today the majority of complains which even jouralists are bringing up is the fact that developers now are targetting mass audiences compared to before. But the thing is back in the late 90's just before Playstation 2 came out, it was the same, games where produced for mass audience (check Metal Gear Solid 2 and the "Raiden Controversy" as an example. Kojima had received many pieces of fan mail and one letter stuck out at him from a female which stated she did not want to play a story with an old man. He later took this into consideration, along with his team to design a character that would be more appealing to women. The end result was Raiden.), when the storm clamed down and people where moving with the momentum, once again, they could focus on a specific audience and creeate a niche market designed to cater around those gamers, right now it would be hard to do that with so little hardcore gamers developers would make a loss, this is what you need to understand the industry has changed.

yes i was talking about the pc versions of graw, and yes the x360 version had loads of content and in most cases the 360 content would be fine, but as you all know the 360 and pc versions of graw differ widely. so pc gamers were left high and dry. atleast they were smart enough to know that die hard pc GR players would have disowned them if they gave us the 360 version of that game. This is another prime example of trying to appeal to a wider fan base by making graw 360 more arcadey than the pc counter part. imo it sucks and has alot less to offer compared to the pc version


secondly, dixiewolf, i understand that ubi wants to cover costs, and is trying to appeal to a wider range of gamers but the kind of people who like SC are a very small fanbase. bioshock appeals to more people because its not tactical and requires ZERO skill to play. you run through corridor after corridor with no consequences if (and i do mean IF) you die.

Maybe SCDA didn't make enough money and thats why they're changing the SC formula, but i cant help but think that its not because there isn't a big enough fan base, but instead that SCDA sucked and nobody bought it.

(if anyone knows anyplace you can find the number of copies sold for all existing sc games post it)

actually scda probably sold more copies but thats only because it was released on xbox, xbox360, PS2,PC, gamecube, and wii

its probably also the communities fault, in that people pirate the games, ubi looses money and future games become diluted to appeal to a larger fan base to make more money. i cant really blame them though, because who wants to spend 60 dollars on something that plays (i use "plays" lightly) like SCDA. this effect is really noticable in games that have multiple installments and stone carved fan base that likes what they like

It was such a trainwreck, personally i think it was a slap in the face to pc gamers and i feel cheated and robbed of my money, the game never should have gone for printing in that form. it was a complete embarrassment and im surprised there was never a formal apology and even with the current patches the game imo is still unplayable. some people at shanghai should have been fired for that mess. i think they are the reason behind the decline of the series and they should never be allowed to make another sc game, than fan base is too small and any loss of fans will have noticeable repercussions income wise. its such a specialized fan base i think ubi should release sc games slower and just leave it up to Montreal to make them.

ubisoft if you want to net more money on your games than release a higher quality product that people actually want to buy.

i have absolute faith in montreal, the product they release is usually top notch and i have no doubt this newest installment will be fun to play provided it doesn't stray too far from the original formula.

i just hope ubi realizes that its not the new gameplay that breaths new life into the series, its a bug free SC game that has proper controller support and you can actually run it for more than an hour without a ctd.

i intend to start a poll when the game is released to find out why people bought the game, was it the new gameplay, quality, ect ect?

im really looking forward to seeing whos making sc6 and what direction they are taking it

Dixie, you make a lot of good points, and I agree with most of them.

I would just like to see this fan base thing stop, yeah I understand how they think, business first, so appealing to the largest audience possible is in their best interest, and that will ultimately rule their decisions.

This is what disappoints me, in the name of expanding their empire, core qualities are most often left behind to profit. Lose customer A so that you can pick up customers B & C.

I'm just very frustrated, when pandora came out, it was a letdown in my opinion, then chaos theory was released, and I thought, "the franchise isn't going downhill". Then double agent came out, and now I feel let down again. Not to mention, they aren't saying anything about this game.

I won't argue with you, because you obviously know well what you are talking about, and I agree with you mostly.

I just think that if they want to come up with new styles of gameplay that do not link to anything in the original 5 games, then they should come up with a new franchise to do it rather than using a well known franchise, and risking it;s fan base.

Phil the are a couple of things though, I would like to say about GRAW. Firstly the console version got greater care and attention, the singleplayer is pretty good, and is close not 100% carbon copy of the Pc version but good enough. Take into consideration here the PC version of OGR didn't have all non-linear maps some where linear, the same plays true in the console version, some sections linear others non-linear, majority being the latter. I think the PC versions where poorly executed, singleplayer was really bad, the AI wouldn't go where you wanted, the tac-map was cumbersome, simply due to the fact even if you told where you wanted your man to go it would be some variation of it. Compare that to the console, Go there! and they go there, no variation.

Secondly Multiplayer up to 16 players, wasn't bad, even co-op had a seperate capmaign, a plethora of weapons,, but the insult to injury was all the game types for online play where kept from OGR in GRAW xbox360. Where as Pc only had domination at launch, it took them a very long time to bring out a patch to finish the game off. I personally wanted the console version on the PC. It was more of the old OGR you could put FPV and have the same classic crosshair, the PC lacked on so many things.

I wouldn't say Splinter Cell fan base is small, the four games sold over 2 million copies. To buy accurate numbers you would need to pay for that data, unless it's public knowledge already. I think when people generally say SCDA failed they talk about the Pc version, in that case I would agree, the console as bad I disliked it, but appreciated the attempt to try soemthing new was a mixed response from old fans. I hear this from