Redfall - Arkane, Summer 2022

[jonny_rat]

 

10 minutes ago, therearerules said:

 

He's got much lower expectations of immersive Sims than I do

 

 

There's a complete lack of immersive simness in Redfall. It feels like a parody at the start, when it says "there are multiple ways to complete missions- either go through the front door or through a skylight".

 

There's one way to complete missions-shoot the baddies.

That's slightly beside the point of that section in the article: we haven't really had any attempts at fast paced co-op immersive sims, so it just barely scrapes the low bar of what it means to be one.

 

I do want to hear more of people's experiences playing this in co-op: having different team members coming in from different approaches sounds like it could either be interesting or a cluster fuck.

[jonny_rat]

3 minutes ago, Majora said:

I don't understand all this mocking of the, ahem, mock reviews. Why wouldn't you take notice of what the mock reviews are telling you? Mock reviews aren't some crazy thing Microsoft have just invented out of nowhere.

 

I don't quite get this quote though

 

 

It got 'double digits'. What does that mean exactly? I would assume that means they are marked out of 15 for a double digit score to sound even vaguely impressive?!

 

It does raise the question of where the bar is for a mock review internally though. I mean, an 11 out of 15 wouldn't exactly be a barnstormer but at what point do you cut your losses and just say, eh you know what this a 70s kind of game and if we delay it a year it's probably still going to be a high 70s kind of game. Maybe we just accept it is what it is, it'll never be a 90+ or even an 85+ because it's fundamentally kind of flawed and just move on?

Isn't the quote a bit mangled there? This is from EG:

 

Quote

We do mock reviews for every game we launch, and this is double digits lower than we thought we would be with this game. That's one of the disappointing things. We would never strive to launch a game that we thought was going to review in the low-60s. It's not part of our goals.

 

So it's more than 10 points lower than what they were expecting? 

[Uncle Mike]

8 minutes ago, Majora said:

I don't understand all this mocking of the, ahem, mock reviews. Why wouldn't you take notice of what the mock reviews are telling you? Mock reviews aren't some crazy thing Microsoft have just invented out of nowhere.

 

I don't quite get this quote though

 

 

It got 'double digits'. What does that mean exactly? I would assume that means they are marked out of 15 for a double digit score to sound even vaguely impressive?!

 

I don't think he quite said that (or maybe you snipped it early or something.) What I heard him say was that the review scores they're getting were "double digits" away from the scores they were expecting. Which is presumably to say that they were expecting 70% or more, and are getting 60% and less.

[Harsin]

13 minutes ago, Majora said:

I don't understand all this mocking of the, ahem, mock reviews. Why wouldn't you take notice of what the mock reviews are telling you? Mock reviews aren't some crazy thing Microsoft have just invented out of nowhere.

 

I don't quite get this quote though

 

 

It got 'double digits'. What does that mean exactly? I would assume that means they are marked out of 15 for a double digit score to sound even vaguely impressive?!

 

It does raise the question of where the bar is for a mock review internally though. I mean, an 11 out of 15 wouldn't exactly be a barnstormer but at what point do you cut your losses and just say, eh you know what this a 70s kind of game and if we delay it a year it's probably still going to be a high 70s kind of game. Maybe we just accept it is what it is, it'll never be a 90+ or even an 85+ because it's fundamentally kind of flawed and just move on?

People aren’t criticising the concept of mock reviews the criticism is that however they’re they’re implementing pre-release quality guaging systems at MS is clearly flawed if it’s telling them they had a relatively high scoring game on their hands with this and the reaction to the game has come as an complete shock to them. I found that post earlier in the thread from someone who works in this area and explained how mock reviews aren’t always the best metric of quality quite interesting though.

[LaveDisco]

The Wonderful Back Page Lads, have spoken on their podcast of getting paid gigs to review games pre-release to aid their devlopment, and how they found them challenging because you are saying it to the devs faces, but on the flip side you can inact real change. Sounds very sensible to me.

[SozzlyJoe]

42 minutes ago, therearerules said:

 

He's got much lower expectations of immersive Sims than I do

 

 

There's a complete lack of immersive simness in Redfall. It feels like a parody at the start, when it says "there are multiple ways to complete missions- either go through the front door or through a skylight".

 

There's one way to complete missions-shoot the baddies.

 

Plus that Skillup video points out that there are many doors for which there is only a single way to pass, so it fails on that metric too.

[TehStu]

On 04/05/2023 at 01:08, NecroMorrius said:

https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/xbox-wasnt-involved-with-redfall-but-its-still-blamed-for-its-quality

 

I’d wondered about this. To me it seems like management insisted on Deathloop and Redfall after the disappointing sales of Dishonored 2 and Prey. Once the Microsoft purchase went through they probably thought “great, we don’t have to make this boring ass looter shooter any more” and pinched it off as quickly as possible?

 

This is interesting. I've read Windows Central on and off for years. Not for a while because they're usually annoyingly uncritical of Redmond's output, and I find their Bing ChatGPT puff pieces solid gold bullshit. So, within that context, I could see some deflection but if they're genuinely trying to be hands off with these studios then that's quite a different proposition to the Good Old Micromanaging Microsoft suggested on this forum.

 

Sounds like a disconnect between what is being made and what is being promoted, and I see that at the small place where I work, much less a company of this size with kinda independent subsidiaries. I mean, it's like Google's messaging output, except we're not a messaging app forum so don't care about that.

 

Quote

Microsoft commissioned an entire musical to advertise the Minecraft Super Duper Graphics Pack, which was supposed to add some PC-like graphical flair to the Xbox console version of the game. However, the Minecraft Super Duper Graphics Pack never actually materialized, with Mojang later claiming it wasn't workable.

 

Either way though, buck stops at Spencer.

[jonny_rat]

One thing about this though: if you go through noting down everywhere you feel uncertain/unsure about stuff in this for the first hour's play, it's a lovely meaty games user research/UX project. I didn't write them down as I went, but a few were:

 

Spoiler

• Weapons are a bit confusing initially: like most people probably will, I initially picked up 3 identical looking pistols. I had no idea that Y was swapping between 3 different slots. 
• How does picking a hero work? Can I swap later on?
• The settings don't seem to 'stick' from the main menu into the game. I had to change them again (mainly invert look).
• LOADS of text in the tutorial screens, and not always very clear.
• Dismissing the tutorial screens by holding B takes longer than I'd like.
• There's a mix of holding buttons to dismiss menu screens and presses, and different buttons, etc. I never felt like I knew what button I needed to press.
• Tutorial screens sometimes have conflicting prompts in menus (you have to press B to dismiss it, but there's also a bigger prompt to press A in the background)
• The routes into the fire station: I wanted to sneak in round the back. Where's the back? Which of these buildings is the fire station?
• The intro to the vampire is slightly ruined by the subtitle that says [VAMPIRE] as you approach it. I'm all for having subs on by default but maybe some other approach would be better here.
• Same goes for speaker identification in the subtitles. Who is the HOLLOW MAN? Confusing.
• I couldn't find how to turn the power back on in the fire station. This is probably due to..
• The mission objective indicator isn't clear about when your objective is above/below. It's a weird way to show that.
• Stealth melee kills are tricky: I'd like to see an indicator when it's safe to press the melee button.
• When the fire station becomes a hub: the characters don't interact with you unless you go and talk to them in the right order. It's very odd.
• In that same bit, the objective/goals indicator does a terrible job of telling you what to do to progress. I bet loads of people hammered the X button in front of that guy blocking the door like I did.
• I'm not sure why I'm picking up bleach and hammers and things: are they just giving me currency or will I craft with them later? I think it's just currency.
• The snap-to cursor in the menu is hard to get used to, especially for fine control.
• The map screen isn't good, but mainly because when you open it to have a look where to go next, your vision cone and player indicator box are completely obscuring the immediate area around you. So you have to move it around to remove the box before you can just quickly get your bearings.
• Not always clear when objectives are going to be shown on the compass indicator at the top of the screen. 

 

 

Obv none of these are game breakers on their own but they made it hard for me to 'get' where the actual fun was in the game (and there is some eventually!)

[Uzi]

1 hour ago, rgraves said:

 

But this is why they can't win - if he dropped out of that interview, and started taking a back seat, people would just complain about that - "oh he was everywhere when things were going OK and now he's gone silent he doesn't care or listen and just wants our money like the big corp exec he really is".

 

The idea that interview was 'typical' of anything you'd see from either a Nintendo or Sony person blows my mind - we've never seen anything as candid from them (and they've been through some stinkers of their own before) and we should be applauding Spencer for doing it (he certainly didn't have to) and wanting more people to do the same.

 

It's not worked out, but I don't think anyone beleives that was what they wanted to happen - this was certainly not the plan, nobody is sat there right now saying 'job well done folks'. Devs spent years of their lives on this and it's collapsed around them in days - with an uneasy sense of glee from some quarters.

I agree that going after Phil whatever is does is kinda dumb, he's an exec so whatever approach he takes is a considered one which is deemed appropriate for whatever message they want to give. Its a strategy like any other will be and they choose a customer friendly one. Bethesda did the same thing with Fallout 76, didn't stop it being a dumpster fire that never lived up to its promise even though they came out on stage and said "we made some mistakes, we hear ya!". Also the guy has had some practice, he's been apologising the same way since Halo MCC was a total disaster at launch. It's probably 40 percent of his day job now!!!

 

But who gives a shit? What matters is the games at the end of the day. Apologising and being humble afterwards is all good and well, but I'd rather an exec literally give the fanbois the finger in a 10 hour repeat video if their big releases are coming out being knocked out the park. We shouldn't really care what people in logo t shirt "suits" say, the product does all the talking.

 

Now if Starfield is an excellent release, that will be what makes people take notice. Not "applauding" exec interviews my lawd, I'm a gamer I applaud good games!!!

[Lorfarius]

Turning into a bit of failure after failure and Xbox is a mess for games. Maybe its about time he moved on?

[TehStu]

Gaming revenue up 3%, time to fire Phil.

[Uzi]

This is an interesting anecdote six months before God of War was released:

Quote

"He [Yoshida] comes in once in a while, but we don't let him play," Barlog said. "We don't let anybody play. If the game is ready to be played by somebody we give them the controller, but very rarely do we do that.

"I mean, the framerate was terrible, everything just felt bad... He's playing, he's got scrunched up shoulders, head shaking a little bit. I definitely get the feeling while he's playing that he's not having the greatest of times - which is great. I mean, it bums me out a little bit, but that's what I brought him in here for."

Barlog left the room to instruct the combat team that there was work to be done. Shortly after, Yoshida left had to leave the studio to catch a flight.

"He kinda just shook his head and walked out the door," Barlog said. "He never told me how he felt. In fact, he only told one of my friends, who he saw at a party. He [Yoshida] said, 'Oh, you're working on God of War? I just gotta say, I played the game the other day. I was horrified.'

Barlog paused at the recollection, and said in mock disbelief: "Horrified? Shuhei said he was horrified while he was playing the game."

This was, it should be noted, only six months before the game was eventually released to universal acclaim, and that disappointment was what Barlog needed to galvanise the team to finish the job; to "nail that core loop down, and get the framerate back up" in time for another visit from Yoshida.

"Everyone had to rally together; not just the combat team, but the engine team, the rendering team," Barlog said, showing a slide that compared photos of Yoshida on his first and second times playing the game. "In the end it worked. He played it again, and you can see the two different poses of Shu. Horrified is much more rigid. The second time, he was not horrified. It was super good. Very exciting.

"The lesson I had to keep learning was to put the difficult thing in front of us, and not get comfortable. We need to force ourselves sometimes to be very uncomfortable."

 

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/shuhei-yoshidas-first-play-of-god-of-war-he-was-horrified

[Clipper]

im not sure where failure after failure comes in, they haven't had that many stinkers this generation. I understand if that is not the output you are looking for but it has been obvious for a long time that Xbox does not regularly produce the type of AAA blockbusters that Sony does.

 

That is the beauty of the consoles for me right now - each one offers something different, something for everyone.

 

Buying an Xbox hoping for games like Last of Us and Spiderman seems a little silly when you can buy a PS5.

[jonny_rat]

Another fun set of litmus tests for developers: watching footage of regular/target audience players get their hands in their game for the first time. And more specifically: them watching execs seeing that footage. I love the God of War anecdote, but you're not always making games that are to the CEO's tastes.

[Uzi]

4 minutes ago, jonny_rat said:

Another fun set of litmus tests for developers: watching footage of regular/target audience players get their hands in their game for the first time. And more specifically: them watching execs seeing that footage. I love the God of War anecdote, but you're not always making games that are to the CEO's tastes.

To be fair the story doesn't appear to be about it was to subjective tastes but about the performance/frame rate and feel of the game. Stuff that should be obvious through play whether you are a playtester or an exec. It's hard to see how MS got blindsided by such an incredibly lacklustre product.

[TehStu]

6 minutes ago, Uzi said:

To be fair the story doesn't appear to be about it was to subjective tastes but about the performance/frame rate and feel of the game. Stuff that should be obvious through play whether you are a playtester or an exec. It's hard to see how MS got blindsided by such an incredibly lacklustre product.

Perhaps they need to be more hands on? I mean, someone believed this was going to be good, at least all the way back to last year when it was being shown at the not-E3 thing. How long had they owned Arkane at that point?

 

I read that GI quote and couldn't help but think of the crunch it probably took.

[dvdx2]

3 hours ago, Clipper said:

I have played the first mission and I quite liked it. The vibe and atmosphere felt bizarrely a bit "alan wake" which I loved - that sort of bizarro it is almost like the real world but not quite - like a section of the world cut off and has different weird rules. So a bit Alan Wake in atmosphere and a bit Left4Dead in gameplay feel - compact missions.

 

Graphically it is not a stunner and it plays to me like a mid tier game not a £70 blockbuster (which suits me fine). I'll be carrying on with it as it is fun so far.

Nail on head - I think there has been one big pile on by people on the internet, (most who probably haven’t even played it, or are looking for chance to go all console wars regarding the Xbox). I had a great 3 hr session last night, exploring loads of different locations, upgrading weapons / skins, doing main missions and side quests and levelling up the abilities. I’m about 6 hrs in and now starting to come across more powerful vampires (haven’t hit a nest yet). Despite the technical issues, most of which will probably be fixed, it’s a decent game. Fair enough it’s not a ground breaking AAA game, but was it supposed to be?) Hopefully the bugs -(I’ve only came a few so far), lower FPS on the series x, pop in and some AI balancing, will be patched quickly. I think people have short memories regarding the way cyberpunk launched lol.

[Clipper]

the performance stuff is patchable (popin framerate 60fps mode) - the AI I am not sure of cos that can be just plain bad and fundamentally broken but here is hoping it gets patched up quick!

 

But not in a crunchy break the back of devs way - give them a month off first.

 

 

EDIT - note all of the above is layman's opinion based on observation of other games - performance stuff like texture pop and framerate SEEMS easier to fix than fundamental game stuff like AI.

[Exit Chamber]

Just played another hour and a half and had a great time with all three powers unlocked on the stealthy guy. Clearly my low standards are in my favour for once!

[dvdx2]

7 minutes ago, Clipper said:

the performance stuff is patchable (popin framerate 60fps mode) - the AI I am not sure of cos that can be just plain bad and fundamentally broken but here is hoping it gets patched up quick!

 

But not in a crunchy break the back of devs way - give them a month off first.

I heard the 60 Fps is coming - hopefully not too much expense of the current nice high resolution.  The AI is a mixed bag sometimes it works great; for example I had 3 vampires chasing me through the streets and it was very challenging and fun and then you can have wonky human soldiers who don’t recognise you are beside them.  I’m playing on the highest difficult and it can definitely be challenging.

[Uzi]

45 minutes ago, TehStu said:

Perhaps they need to be more hands on? I mean, someone believed this was going to be good, at least all the way back to last year when it was being shown at the not-E3 thing. How long had they owned Arkane at that point?

 

I read that GI quote and couldn't help but think of the crunch it probably took.

No clue, without a behind the scenes look we will never know. There is obviously a right balance. Nintendo and Sony appear to have a certain level of hands on work with their most important IP and potential new ones and MS has to find their balance. Buying studios who makes games is one thing, ensuring the delivery and quality control of them is another aspect entirely. I'm not a giant corporation or studio delivery manager so I have no clue, but MS has bet big on gamepass and their delivery of content and their representators of the "big" games of that delivery needs to be something people point to and not point to and laugh at. Halo Infinite was not what it should have been and other potential huge feathers in their cap such as Fable have just vanished.

 

Thing is, Redfall will be completely forgotten about if Starfield comes out and does a Skyrim rather than a Fallout 4/76. A bad game is forgotten about the moment they have a hit so they really REALLY need to make sure that delivers.

[NecroMorrius]

2 hours ago, TehStu said:

 

This is interesting. I've read Windows Central on and off for years. Not for a while because they're usually annoyingly uncritical of Redmond's output, and I find their Bing ChatGPT puff pieces solid gold bullshit. So, within that context, I could see some deflection but if they're genuinely trying to be hands off with these studios then that's quite a different proposition to the Good Old Micromanaging Microsoft suggested on this forum.

 

Sounds like a disconnect between what is being made and what is being promoted, and I see that at the small place where I work, much less a company of this size with kinda independent subsidiaries. I mean, it's like Google's messaging output, except we're not a messaging app forum so don't care about that.

 

 

Either way though, buck stops at Spencer.

 

In that interview he talks about not engaging enough with Arkane to teach them what being part of the Xbox brand means. And that Starfield is better because they had longer to plug in Microsoft's various technology experts to help.  Mind you, Sony bought Nixxes and they're still putting out garbage like TLOU1 port.

[Uzi]

1 minute ago, NecroMorrius said:

 

In that interview he talks about not engaging enough with Arkane to teach them what being part of the Xbox brand means. And that Starfield is better because they had longer to plug in Microsoft's various technology experts to help.  Mind you, Sony bought Nixxes and they're still putting out garbage like TLOU1 port.

I thought Iron Galaxy did TLOU1 PC?

[Benny]

I thought it was Naughty Dog themselves.

[Uzi]

Just now, Benny said:

I thought it was Naughty Dog themselves.

Nope.

 

 

Same with the Uncharted PC port

 

Nixxes did Spiderman and Miles Moralis which are good ports

[deerokus]

I don't think it's possible to make a co-op immersive sim. The co-op part immediately ruins the immersion.

[NecroMorrius]

12 minutes ago, Uzi said:

I thought Iron Galaxy did TLOU1 PC?

 

Yeah, they should have put Nixxes on it!

[Uzi]

Ah misread!

[Harsin]

5 minutes ago, deerokus said:

I don't think it's possible to make a co-op immersive sim. The co-op part immediately ruins the immersion.

That’s my thought as well. All the stuff I like about games like Prey and Dishonoured - methodically making my way around, checking every drawer, piecing together what happened through environmental details, poring over text and audio messages - are really not a fit for co-op.

[therearerules]

You can definitely make a co-op game with different approaches though - one of you can hack your way in, another stealth, another shapeshift, another blink etc etc. But here it's all just pull a switch or find a key. It's really important to understand this has none of the Arkane multiple approaches mechanics.