Changing too much or too little?

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DaHeckIzDat
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Changing too much or too little?

Postby DaHeckIzDat » November 9th, 2017, 2:11 pm

One of the most common complaints made against Call of Duty is that every game is exactly the same as the last one, but other games like Dark Souls somehow avoid that complaint even though each game is relatively unchanged from the previous one. But then, when other games do try to change things up, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories for example, people complain that it doesn't feel like a [insert franchise] game should, and that's bad. So, in your opinion, what is worse? Never changing, or changing too much?

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Stalvern
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Re: Changing too much or too little?

Postby Stalvern » November 9th, 2017, 2:29 pm

I think the problem is more that there are three Dark Souls games and three million Call of Duty games.

DaHeckIzDat
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Re: Changing too much or too little?

Postby DaHeckIzDat » November 9th, 2017, 10:00 pm

Sure, but it's not like we have Modern Warfare 92 coming out this year. We've got a bunch of different offshoots of CoD, like Black Ops, Future Warfare, and Ghosts. Some of which are better than others sure, but they ARE changing thing even if the core gameplay stays the same. Which makes me wonder, what else do people think they can do to a military themed FPS? They tried changing the setting in FW, but people cried because it felt like Halo instead of CoD. They could try turning it into an arcade style top down shooter, but then people would whine that CoD is supposed to be a FIRST PERSON shooter.

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Stalvern
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Re: Changing too much or too little?

Postby Stalvern » November 10th, 2017, 1:33 am

They could friggin' put it to bed already.

To answer you in a few more words, though...

DaHeckIzDat wrote:Sure, but it's not like we have Modern Warfare 92 coming out this year. We've got a bunch of different offshoots of CoD, like Black Ops, Future Warfare, and Ghosts. Some of which are better than others sure, but they ARE changing thing even if the core gameplay stays the same.

By any reasonable standard, no, they are not changing anything, any more than a ROM hack that puts a Mario sprite in Sonic the Hedgehog has changed anything. Call of Duty has been flogging the same rotting pulp of a horse for years and years, regardless of how particular iterations have been dressed up.

DaHeckIzDat wrote:Which makes me wonder, what else do people think they can do to a military themed FPS?

What kind of question is this? There are so many different ways to make an FPS besides Call of Duty's tired "spunkgargleweewee" (Yahtzee's word; look it up if you aren't familiar). You've played games that aren't named Call of Duty, right?

DaHeckIzDat wrote:They tried changing the setting in FW, but people cried because it felt like Halo instead of CoD. They could try turning it into an arcade style top down shooter, but then people would whine that CoD is supposed to be a FIRST PERSON shooter.

Neither of these meaningfully addresses the question (the first because it's cosmetic, the second because it has practically no relation to the series at all), but that doesn't matter because, at this point, a game that actually changed anything of substance would not be Call of Duty. It's like how Halo 3: ODST was too different to be a "real" Halo game, except that Call of Duty has already had spinoffs that are essentially identical to the main series anyway, so there's no room even there for actual imagination.

I don't think that Call of Duty is a productive avenue of discussion for your original question though, so I'll go back to your original post.

DaHeckIzDat wrote:One of the most common complaints made against Call of Duty is that every game is exactly the same as the last one, but other games like Dark Souls somehow avoid that complaint even though each game is relatively unchanged from the previous one. But then, when other games do try to change things up, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories for example, people complain that it doesn't feel like a [insert franchise] game should, and that's bad. So, in your opinion, what is worse? Never changing, or changing too much?

People in general actually do not hate games for changing too much. A textbook example is the Resident Evil series, which went from the strange, cramped clunkiness of the PlayStation games to the action of Resident Evil 4 and was universally praised for it. People do dislike games when they are bad, like Resident Evil 6. Nobody hated Resident Evil 7 for being completely different from Resident Evil 6, because it was good. It's that simple. As long as there's some obvious connection to the substance - especially the strengths - of the original game, or even the previous one (scariness and lock-and-key scavenger hunts in Resident Evil's case), sequels can do just about anything as long as they make it work. Look at the Mario games, whose entire history has consisted of using the basic foundations of Super Mario Bros. or Super Mario 64 to explore imaginative new mechanics, like throwing enemies (in a game that wasn't even made for the series but is still beloved for its own merits) or gravity in space. Sequels don't need to be reinventions, and there's always room for refinement, but they never have to be redundant.
Last edited by Stalvern on November 10th, 2017, 8:50 am, edited 1 time in total.

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pacman000
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Re: Changing too much or too little?

Postby pacman000 » November 10th, 2017, 7:57 am

You know what they should stop running on TV? The SuperBowl. It's been on so long, over 50 years now, that there's no way it can offer anything new. And it's not like the basic game's changed that much; the core concepts are the same. ;)

Never played Call of Duty, not interested in it, wish other games would get more attention, but it's successful; other folks love it. No reason to complain about its success or sequels. Shoot, if Nintendo cranked out Mario Karts games yearly I'd be excited, even if there was little change from the last version.

As for the DeHeckIzDat's question...I'm more of a "if it's not broke, don't fix it" kinda guy. I naturally resist change. If the game's formula is still fun I say roll with it, and deliver more of the same. Changing too much is worse than changing too little.

TheBlondeGamePunk3
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Re: Changing too much or too little?

Postby TheBlondeGamePunk3 » November 10th, 2017, 9:34 am

As I have mentioned many times, Call Of Duty is one of those series that just doesn't want to die much like Battlefield, FIFA, Madden NFL, and Guitar Hero. But yet promising games that lasted for maybe three games like Banjo Kazooie are dropped and become obscure and later get reborn into something like Yooka-Laylee.

Other times the game series "died" out due to how the game changed over the years, I generally don't get why a game like Contra which was a NES classic could die out and fizzle until it was released on the DS as Contra 4, Every Contra game after Super C sucked to me as they all lacked the fun of the original. :twisted: :arrow: :evil:

Herschie
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Re: Changing too much or too little?

Postby Herschie » November 10th, 2017, 9:40 am

I wish MLB: The Show could change their glitches.

DaHeckIzDat
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Re: Changing too much or too little?

Postby DaHeckIzDat » November 10th, 2017, 10:30 am

Stalvern wrote:They could friggin' put it to bed already.

To answer you in a few more words, though...

DaHeckIzDat wrote:Sure, but it's not like we have Modern Warfare 92 coming out this year. We've got a bunch of different offshoots of CoD, like Black Ops, Future Warfare, and Ghosts. Some of which are better than others sure, but they ARE changing thing even if the core gameplay stays the same.

By any reasonable standard, no, they are not changing anything, any more than a ROM hack that puts a Mario sprite in Sonic the Hedgehog has changed anything. Call of Duty has been flogging the same rotting pulp of a horse for years and years, regardless of how particular iterations have been dressed up.

DaHeckIzDat wrote:Which makes me wonder, what else do people think they can do to a military themed FPS?

What kind of question is this? There are so many different ways to make an FPS besides Call of Duty's tired "spunkgargleweewee" (Yahtzee's word; look it up if you aren't familiar). You've played games that aren't named Call of Duty, right?

DaHeckIzDat wrote:They tried changing the setting in FW, but people cried because it felt like Halo instead of CoD. They could try turning it into an arcade style top down shooter, but then people would whine that CoD is supposed to be a FIRST PERSON shooter.

Neither of these meaningfully addresses the question (the first because it's cosmetic, the second because it has practically no relation to the series at all), but that doesn't matter because, at this point, a game that actually changed anything of substance would not be Call of Duty. It's like how Halo 3: ODST was too different to be a "real" Halo game, except that Call of Duty has already had spinoffs that are essentially identical to the main series anyway, so there's no room even there for actual imagination.

I'm hearing a lot of "You're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong," here, but for every thing you say I'm wrong about, you don't provide any suggestions to back them up. So, what kind of things would YOU put into a Call of Duty game to differentiate it from previous Call of Duty games while still keeping true to the Call of Duty name? Keep in mind that if they deviate too much, people will throw fits and say they're ripping off other games like Halo, or possibly Battlefield.

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pacman000
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Re: Changing too much or too little?

Postby pacman000 » November 10th, 2017, 11:47 am

Looked up Spunkgargleweewee.

Spunkgargleweewee (SGWW) is a sub-genre of first-person-shooter games. These games are very linear and focused on telling a story or showing spectacular (cut-) scenes, rather than gameplay (Emphasis added) or challenging the player. Hence, they often have regenerating health and plenty of guides towards the next scene. Oftentimes, these games are extremely easy. The player does not have to perform well to win, because the NPC-allies win combats on their own, while the player can hardly die at all. Mistakes of the "player" are not supposed to disturb the flow of the story.
Since Spunkgargleweewees are more focused on linear storytelling than on gameplay, they could also be defined as interactive (action) movies. (Emphasis added.)

The term was coined by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw in his zero-punctuation review of "Medal of Honor Warfighter".

Source: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define. ... rgleweewee

There's nothing wrong with an interactive action movie; if someone wants a movie they can participate in, more power to them. And I even think I prefer the that term term to spunkgargleweewee. Spunkgargleweewee sounds like a childish insult; you could come up with a similar name for any genre you didn't like. Platformers could be BouncyBouncyDumDum; arcade games could be TingBeepBoops.

The question should be, "Does this interactive movie offer something new in terms of story, or does it simply re-tread ground covered in earlier versions?" And I'm not even sure that's a legitimate question; James Bond films largely cover the same type of situations, tailored for the time period they were released in.

Trying to think of a game folks dislike cause it changed too much. The only one I can think of is Zelda 2. One camp thinks it's a fine game; the other thinks the side-scrolling segments shouldn't be there. The Super Mario Land also gets some flack for changing the enemies' names, using a super ball which bounces around the screen instead of fire flowers which bounce along the ground, but most reviews I've read don't say the game's bad, just weird.

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Stalvern
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Re: Changing too much or too little?

Postby Stalvern » November 10th, 2017, 2:25 pm

DaHeckIzDat wrote:I'm hearing a lot of "You're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong," here, but for every thing you say I'm wrong about, you don't provide any suggestions to back them up. So, what kind of things would YOU put into a Call of Duty game to differentiate it from previous Call of Duty games while still keeping true to the Call of Duty name? Keep in mind that if they deviate too much, people will throw fits and say they're ripping off other games like Halo, or possibly Battlefield.

My point, which I stated directly, is that it's not possible at this point. By the standards that the series has firmly set, "keeping true to the Call of Duty name" precludes substantive differentiation. And it seems that you're indirectly admitting this yourself.


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