You think they shouldn't be shamed? I mean, there are quite a few threads every month talking about the "maturity" of the industry, yet as a gaming community (as a whole) we still don't display the level of maturity we expect in our games / industry. It's obnoxious, and frankly, tiring.
I'm always more than happy to post up impressions, etc, but very very few people are intersted in that. They'd much rather make .gifs, or take pot shots at the development team for "the lulz". Expressing how little interest they have, yet they are in every Fuse thread.
You might say "well it's not always the same people" to which I'd reply, it absolutely is, since all of them are on my ignore list, and that tends to make them stand out *just* a bit more.
While I agree that some of the trolling gets out of hand, especially in Fuse, which does give the appearance of an easy target, (given the spreading of the focus group oriented-changes), on some level, they're expressing their opinion to Jstevenson, and Insomniac that as potential consumers, they're not happy with the changes.
While they should certainly be more literate/comprehensive in their critique, and while I'm not saying they should be allowed to have overt design input, given that they're the ones who are going to be buying, I would take their words with at least some degree of weight. (To be fair, I'm aware that the posters on Gaf are a very small minority in terms of game consumers, etc..)
Whether or not that weight is listened to is on the developer, but on a (relatively) critical video game discussion forum where they haven't been able to play the game themselves, your own experiences/impressions are not going to hold up to people who aren't already excited about the game, as you don't share the same mentality or particular tastes as any one of them.
So yes, I'm rather exhausted of coming into Fuse threads and expecting some sort of discussion, only to read pages upon pages of "bomba". I think we get it, people can move on...but they're frankly just too childish to do so (which is entertaining, considering how much they harp on the '12 year old' bit).
I guess my point is that expecting things to change, then getting annoyed and posting repeatedly in 'shaming' the detractors isn't going to resonate with people either.
At some point, it's a critique of what we have seen. When the demo comes out, I hope discussion will move from that of being purely based on the art change to how it is incorporated in the overall game experience, but until then, people will judge, comment, and critique (in cases crudely enough to be considered trolling by some) based on it.
Also, you should watch more footage. The game isn't brown and grey. Jungle areas, blue hues in the mountains, colorful skies and sunsets...it's definitely not the Gears of War color palette you're imagining. I stream pretty regularly, and I can tell you that saturation and vibrancy don't translate very well across capture devices to your screen. I've played / seen some of these environments in person, and they look considerably different on Twitch, etc.
Yeah, true. I know the game has more than just gray/brown from some of the screens that have been posted, but not everyone has, and IIRC, the first screens/trailer were just that.
Personally, I thought that Overstrike's art style would have helped combat some of the earlier points I mentioned regarding potential lack of sales, and helped set itself as being unique.
The combat / weapons weren't working. We took pretty radical measures to correct. Some might argue the visual style didnt need to change to get the combat where it is. But I don't think we ever get the combat as ood as it is without changing. If that makes sense
To an extent, it does, but Ratchet had a lot of explosions/gunplay that managed to be satisfying yet still 'exaggerated'/cartoony.
I guess I could see the TPS vs FPS view in combination with 'the human (player character) factor' play a large role among the things which led to the dissonance between the art style and destructive potential of Fuse weapon performance. Not sure If I necessarily agree, but I can understand it better.
I think it's pretty easy to understand how the tone (story, dialogue, settings) wouldn't mesh well with the previous visual stylings, coupled with weapons that may have seemed too extreme, or come across as too tame (lacking in punch) in comparison.
I know I'm going back to the prototype of which the BLUR trailer took from again, but seeing the stylized fuse weaponry didn't cause any large dissonance between Overstrike's exaggerated style and killing of human-skin-wearing robots even before I knew they were robots.
But yes, if Insomniac wanted to take the darker, more realistic route to give a different vibe, then that is certainly their prerogative.
Glorious.
