Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1031724-20170323070905/@comment-1669199-20170324182756

Megalodon Commando wrote: Genesjs wrote: Megalodon Commando wrote: Distant Shadow wrote: I don't think it's that big a deal for the game to be delayed. I don't mind waiting a little longer, as long as it's a good game. The longer the game takes to be developed. The Better it becomes. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

For the record, I'm not trying to rain your parade here. I just wanted to point out that not all delayed games that come out turn out good. Having plenty of time to develop a game is good and all, but if the team behind it doesn't have the skills/resources it needs to make the game they want to make a reality. or if they don't make efficient use of the time allotted to them, then the final product could very well turn out to be a shell of what it was that was initially conceived/promised and the game may turn out to be lackluster or worse in spite of the delays it may get. Like with movies and other forms of media, video game design is a form of art. In order to make good art, you need to have the time, resources and skill, along with the dedication to not rush yourself or take needless shortcuts. And like the different skill sets needed to make drawings on a piece of paper with just a pencil to the skill sets needed for sculpting, different types of games (or even games that belong to the same genres, like RPGs, but require different levels of skill and resources to make the envisioned products a reality, like one game being designed to be reminiscent of old 2D RPG games from the 8/16-Bit eras while another is designed to be a fully 3D-rendered game that from it's graphics to even the kind of gameplay elements you may wish to implement into it would require the kinds of engines and tools needed to render 3D models and animations, among other things, that have become quite common in the modern day.) inherently require different levels and sets of skills to properly make. A person who may have experience in making first person shooters isn't necessarily going to be the best choice to help design a real-time strategy game, especially if they have no experience or skills that they could easily use to make the transition between the different genres easier for them.

I could go on, but I don't want to stray too far off topic. The point I'm trying to make is don't make the assumption that a game will turn out good just because it gets delayed. If it is available, try to keep in mind any information about the development cycle of a game you are watching when any new information about it is released and try to be objective about how you view that information when trying to determine whether or not there are may be any issues occurring during development that you feel everyone should be concerned about. In this case, speaking for myself, as of this writing, I am currently unaware of the reason why Sonic Mania was delayed, assuming the information is even out in a public forum. I could make all the assumptions I want as to why the game has been delayed, but until I have information that can help confirm or disprove these assumptions then the way I see it it will do me little good to worry over the delay itself. In fact, rather than be all doom-and-gloom about it, I'd prefer to try and be as positive about the situation as I can hope to be, because for all I or anyone else knows this delay could be over something as simple as just working out some bugs before releasing the game proper and the developers just want to make sure the game is in the best condition possible before they do.

So if you've survived my rambling this long, all I have left to say (at least as of this particular post) is, if you're one of those who're panicking that the game being delayed is a possible sign that it's going to, worst-case scenario, eventually get cancelled after getting delayed over and over repeatedly, just take a deep breath for a moment and relax. We don't know for sure yet whether or not there are serious issues occurring in the game's development that would give credence to the idea that the game may be delayed repeatedly, or cancelled outright, so rather than jump to conclusions we should just wait and see what happens. I think Duke Nukem Forever was in development hell because it kept on getting taken up by other developing companies during it's production. Even so, you're right. Not all games that take a long period of time to complete don't always turn out like we expected. But it's mainly the games that are rushed through development that are the worst.

Like Sonic 06. That was rushed to the shelves and it had half of Sonic Team working on it while the other half was working on Sonic and the Secret Rings for the Wii. But then, Sonic Team wanted '06 to come out to concede with Sonics 15th anniversary and they didn't really care about production values.

I can say the same for Rise of Lyric but then it's just gonna lead me down a long ranting session so I'll just move away from that...

But anyway. I do understand what you're saying about videogame development. I wasn't meaning that the more the games delayed the better it turns out, I was meaning how long it takes for the game to be made. I just saw that as a way for the creators to have time to realise their vision and find any unnecessary faults before release.

I'm not always confident that a game will turn out good no matter how long it takes to make and when it does, either it be for better or for worse. For Sonic Mania, I hope Sega and Sonic Team have finally learnt from their mistakes.

I remember the PS1 demo of the game back when I was in elementary school. Makes me feel old. Anyway, you are also right that it's mainly games that are rushed that tend to turn out like garbage, at least from a programming perspective.

I think Rise of Lyric's main problem issue was the change in platform that occurred during the middle of development. I hear that the game was initially being developed for the PS4 and Xbox One using Crytech's Cry Engine 3, but the change in platform to the Wii U occurred because of the game exclusivity deal SEGA signed with Nintendo, which forced the developers to shift production to the Wii U. The Cry Engine 3 wasn't designed to be compatible with the Wii U however, so this caused not only a downgrade in graphical quality but it caused many of the performance issues seen in the finished product (frame rate issues, bugs, etc.). So ultimately, in Rise of Lyric's case, it wasn't so much trying to get the game out on a certain date as it was legal issues that caused arguably most of the problems seen within the game when it was released, so it's an unpolished beast of a different sort from Sonic 06. This is all I'll say about it, though, so getting back on topic...

Ah, okay. Having plenty of time to make your product how you envisioned is ideal, but like I said, it also depends on a variety of other factors as well. Now that I think about it, I'm surprised I didn't think of mentioning tech restraints among the other factors I previously mentioned. Sometimes, there are just certain things that you may not be able to do due to the current limits of our technology, and it could range from anything, like the engine you're using to develop your game may not be able to properly render certain styles of gameplay/animation to even not being able to capture enormous levels of activity on the screen without having the overall performance suffer, such as massive dips in frame rates, or otherwise be able to render properly without having to find workarounds. But I digress (I seem to be in a particularly talkative mood today.).

Like I said before, only time will tell. The best we can do is try to be optimistic, and hope for the best while preparing for the worst (not that I currently feel there's any good reason to feel any dread for the way the game will ultimately turn out, but hey, real life can and often likes to be unpredictable.).