[Sandwich]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/print/72/14

What do you think?

[IPAndrews]

He's right. It's a business and we're not representitive.

[aldo_14]

Absobloodylutely.  It's fans that lead to Epic making games with gigantic chrome crotchguards and any game starring a 'street' personality.

[Dark Hunter]

I resent the stereotype of hardcore gamers "screaming and yelling" whenever they get to a point that they can't overcome. Yes, I know there are plenty of kids doing just that, but I wouldn't call them "hardcore", I'd call them: "whiners pretending to be hardcore".

Other than that, I think it was a legitimate claim. The people on the message boards do not represent the opinions of gamers as a whole. Therefore they shouldn't be treated as the definitive view of the entire gaming community.

[Ashrak]

i read the first 2 paragraphs and the rest was like: bla bla bla blaaaablablabla :/

[aldo_14]

I resent the very concept of 'hardcore' in gaming.

[Flipside]

I automatically ignore someone who starts 'yelling' in the first place, I don't think I could ever say something was wrong with a game without giving a specific reason why I think it's wrong.

I suppose it's sort of like all the arguments on what is 'canon' and what isn't, and not just in the case of Freespace, I've seen these arguments flare up on Star Wars, Star Trek, BSG and several other boards, and it really is a pointless argument. Canon is what the developers of the game/mod say it is.

[NGTM-1R]

While I must agree to some extent that listening to the vocal minority has lead gaming where it is today, and where it is today sucks, they make a fatal error in that article.

They advocate the elimination of using members of the public to beta test. I'm sorry, but that just can't lead anywhere good. Q&A is too important to be left in the hands of those trained for it.  Professionals are predictable; the world is full of dangerous amateurs, and those are the people you need to worry about.

[karajorma]

I resent the very concept of 'hardcore' in gaming.

You and all the other people who complained about Hot Coffee.

[SadisticSid]

You need only look at something like Neverwinter Nights to see how wrong those sentiments can be. Sure, the majority of people on gaming forums are idiots, but developers are generally smart people (although one ironically named exception comes to mind, heh heh) and they're quite capable of filtering out the genuinely good suggestions from the bad.

[karajorma]

Yep. And the ones incapable of figuring out what is a bad suggestion will still be incapable of doing it when another dev suggests it instead of a fan.

[aldo_14]

I resent the very concept of 'hardcore' in gaming.

You and all the other people who complained about Hot Coffee.

Pff.

That was softcore.

[Inquisitor]

Ultimately, game fans end up demanding so much more than they "need" and you end up getting of "wouldn't it be great if FS2 was an RTS? Can we change the engine to do that?"

Feedback is great, but you can;t please everyone and you should never try if you expect to ship a coherent, finished product in any kind of reasonable amount of time.

[karajorma]

True but some of those suggestions are good ones. And some of the complaints are legitimate and will be repeated by the majority of the public if they aren't addressed by the developer.

SadisticSid is right on the money. You shouldn't just ignore the hardcore gamer. You need to know when to ignore the hardcore gamer.

[Thor]

I don't think the onus is on the gamers to shut up totally.  Gamers, at least those who want to be taken seriously (like us here, we're a pretty decent bunch), should and usually do present their issues in clear and well thought out comments.

The bigger responsibility is on the developer to not react to your 11 year old gamer whining about his own lack of skill....or to the gamer who just dislikes that kind of game.  both are pretty simple to spot.  usually their sentences start "THIS GAME IS $&!~...."

The article is good in that the developers should have a clarity of vision and not depart from it.  the article is not good in that it paints ALL gamers as whiny, useless, unreliable, and detrimental.  That clearly is untrue.  if we were that, FS2 would likely have been forgotten many years ago in favour of something with more sparkles...  The real hardcore cares about their game, and wants the best for it.

[Polpolion]

Too often, though, perfectly good games get confused, turned around and bashed over the head by those who claim to love them most. It's tragic, really. They enter beta, with all their bright ideas and shiny new toys and then some 14-year-old screams, "This sucks!" At a company with strong leadership and vision, this is read, digested and considered, but rarely do they succumb to the mighty weight of one 14-year-old and a few of his buddies. At a not-so-steady company, a post or 10 like that can be fatal.

I have never done that...


If the beta feedback includes reasons why they thought it was bad (good reasons I mean), then it is useful.

Most of the time.

[Flipside]

Problem is, if people got everything they wanted in a game, they get a Jack of All Trades and Master of None, and then they complain about the 'average graphics', 'too much micromanagement' etc. People think they want it all, and then realise they have to do it all.

[Axem]

You mean like Universal Combattlecruiser 1500000AD?

[Flipside]

More or less, yes, I'm sure every developer would like to write a game like BC3000AD, and I don't mean that as a joke, but the problems DS has encountered is exactly the reason most gaming companies have to force limits on themselves.

[Ashrak]

did you just say DEREK SMART?