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SolidSnakesBandana posted:Things aren't looking good at Volition... Lot of layoffs according to this. This is awful news. Not just because I love Volition's games, but because it's essentially because they took too weird a risk for the position they're in. Immediately I want to blame Deep Silver for not marketing it right, but as I've said before, Agents of Mayhem is just a hard thing to pitch to the gaming audience right now. It looks comparable to a couple of things popular right now, but it's really not, and what it is isn't easy to describe in a way that people can get into (The best I can do personally is 'Saints Row meets Mysical Ninja Starring Goemon', which isn't perfect but I think gets most of the appeal). I really hope that Agents of Mayhem becomes a cult classic, and I think at the very least will become one of those weird esoteric titles you got a lot of in the N64/Gamecube era, in the same vein as stuff like Space Station Silicon Valley. But that sure doesn't help Volition now...
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Sep 28, 2017 09:43
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Milky Moor posted:is this legit It's not. Boss is not alluded to at all - they just didn't exist, and Pierce stepped up.
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Sep 28, 2017 09:51
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Cleretic posted:This is awful news. Not just because I love Volition's games, but because it's essentially because they took too weird a risk for the position they're in. Immediately I want to blame Deep Silver for not marketing it right, but as I've said before, Agents of Mayhem is just a hard thing to pitch to the gaming audience right now. It looks comparable to a couple of things popular right now, but it's really not, and what it is isn't easy to describe in a way that people can get into (The best I can do personally is 'Saints Row meets Mysical Ninja Starring Goemon', which isn't perfect but I think gets most of the appeal). With the benefit of hindsight, AoM had... well, a lot of problems to overcome. For a start, it was at a halfway point between "More Saints Row!" and "Not Saints Row", which doesn't really work from either angle. If you don't like Saints Row, it feels like more of the same, and if you do, then the loss of the Boss and the change in structure is an impediment to interest. It also doesn't have the best hook. GI Joe isn't able to keep itself afloat these days, so a parody has that as an issue to deal with, and mechanically there's no obvious 30 second "Check out THIS poo poo!" appeal I've seen. After a killer season of games with that kind of advantage (like Zelda's insane fire physics, or Persona 5's slick aesthetic), that's a real handicap. Plus... gah. This feels like kicking someone when he's down, and I like Volition, so that just makes it worse, but hooboy. What I've seen of Agents of Mayhem mostly isn't loving funny. And for a comedy, that's kind of the kiss of death. Best of luck to all concerned, and I sincerely hope Volition bounces back on its feet, but... I don't think this one is all on marketing.
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Sep 28, 2017 11:09
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It was 15% of the dev team according to some sources so around 30 of the 200 folks there.
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Sep 28, 2017 11:42
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And at least one familiar video editor 
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Sep 28, 2017 12:00
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chiasaur11 posted:With the benefit of hindsight, AoM had... well, a lot of problems to overcome. For a start, it was at a halfway point between "More Saints Row!" and "Not Saints Row", which doesn't really work from either angle. If you don't like Saints Row, it feels like more of the same, and if you do, then the loss of the Boss and the change in structure is an impediment to interest. I can agree with a lot of this, but I think in general I can't blame a lot of its failure on quality level. And I say that because I can only imagine that them putting half as much effort into a new Saints Row would've been more successful than Agents of Mayhem, which speaks to a few other reasons beyond sheer quality. I'll agree with the notion that it being a better game would alleviate a ton of the issues it was struggling with market-wise, but I think it being a mediocre game that doesn't strike any sort of chord with the current market is more a problem than it just being mediocre at all. It's really a game that would've been better-suited coming out a few years away from now, in either direction. On top of it currently launching in a real hot season for games like you said, I think it really suffered from being in Overwatch's shadow. It's nothing like Overwatch beyond a superficial level, but at a glance it looked like a copycat cashing in on a current hot trend. It probably would've done better either released a few years before to avoid all comparison, or a few years after when it would hopefully just look like it shared an aesthetic. In particular, I think a few years before would've brought on comparisons with Borderlands, which would've gone down a lot better. Forgive this post being a bit slapdash, I'm tired. Cleretic fucked around with this message at 12:32 on Sep 28, 2017 |
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Sep 28, 2017 12:29
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Cleretic posted:It's really a game that would've been better-suited coming out a few years away from now, in either direction. On top of it currently launching in a real hot season for games like you said, I think it really suffered from being in Overwatch's shadow. It's nothing like Overwatch beyond a superficial level, but at a glance it looked like a copycat cashing in on a current hot trend. It probably would've done better either released a few years before to avoid all comparison, or a few years after when it would hopefully just look like it shared an aesthetic. In particular, I think a few years before would've brought on comparisons with Borderlands, which would've gone down a lot better. In Yahtzee's review, he called it a "single-player hero shooter", which I thought was an interesting angle.
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Sep 28, 2017 12:38
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My Lovely Horse posted:And at least one familiar video editor That sucks. Did Idolninja get the boot as well? I guess this means that Volition is no longer doing streams, since Chip was the stream czar?
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Sep 28, 2017 22:02
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wins.
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Agents of Mayhem really just suffered for feeling incomplete. From a basic design perspective it feels unpolished. The interface is awkward as poo poo, the levels feel half-baked, and in general the game feels like it was about 60% done and then rushed to the door. And that can work sometimes but not in SoM's case where it just needed that extra polish to shine. It has lots of strong ideas but those ideas are badly executed. Gat having to fight an army of robot cops based on his personality? Sure, that's great. It's executed by him killing completely unmemorable and forgettable robots with barely audible audio queues while a random voice talks over the radio. You can argue "oh well he's DLC" but come on. Any given mission in SR4 had more personality and style.
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Sep 28, 2017 22:23
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PassTheRemote posted:That sucks. Did Idolninja get the boot as well? IdolNinja seems to be alright, but he was pretty upset about it on Twitter, understandably.
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Sep 28, 2017 22:56
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chiasaur11 posted:With the benefit of hindsight, AoM had... well, a lot of problems to overcome. For a start, it was at a halfway point between "More Saints Row!" and "Not Saints Row", which doesn't really work from either angle. If you don't like Saints Row, it feels like more of the same, and if you do, then the loss of the Boss and the change in structure is an impediment to interest. this. i have heard very little good or great things about the game. i will eventualy pick it up around the holidays. but its just depressing. i hope jason schier does some story on it at some point. because i am curious to see the behind the scenes stuff.
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Sep 29, 2017 00:12
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Chipcheezum get in here and give us the juicy details
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Sep 29, 2017 01:00
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I thought that Agents would bomb but the staff getting Andromeda'd is surprising to me.
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Sep 29, 2017 01:14
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Everything about AoM sounds generally fun but the loss of character creation/clothing is 100% why my girlfriend and I passed. Saints Row has been something we've absolutely obsessed over together to the point of it being one of "our" things but dropping that feature soured us both. Sucks.
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Sep 29, 2017 01:23
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Well this whole mess was kicked off by the people who actually made Saints Row funny and good leaving the company, maybe more people leaving will fix it?
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Sep 29, 2017 01:47
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Kilometers Davis posted:Everything about AoM sounds generally fun but the loss of character creation/clothing is 100% why my girlfriend and I passed. Saints Row has been something we've absolutely obsessed over together to the point of it being one of "our" things but dropping that feature soured us both. Sucks. this. also, no real weapon customization/switch outs. like every character should have like 3 weapon loadouts. instead everyone has like 1 gun. Dapper_Swindler fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Sep 29, 2017 |
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Sep 29, 2017 01:53
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My thoughts on AoM. 1. It was always kind of unclear what the game was. 2. It felt derivative, whether this is true or not. 3. It didn't have co-op despite sounding like a perfect co-op game. 4. No character creation/customisation. 5. It was a weird semi-sequel. It kind of got rid of everything that Saints Row was known for and replaced it with 'the things gamers like these days'. Volition games always felt like they had a distinct flavor, whether it was Freespace's gritty cog-in-the-machine war drama, Saints Row's hyper-violent insanity, etc. AoM was just like 'It's an 80s parody game, haha!' which isn't exactly novel or interesting. TBQH, from the very first we saw of it, it would've had to do a lot to make me buy it. It felt like a big misstep and even watching the cutscenes on Youtube hasn't endeared me to it.
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Sep 29, 2017 01:58
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I'll always wonder if "Agents" would have gotten a better reception if they simply hadn't connected it to Saint's Row at all. Maybe put a secret room on the ARK with stripper poles and a picture of Johnny Gat, but that's it. People were expecting another Saint's Row, and past games in the series had character customization and multiplayer and a map that you could eventually conquer block by block. Agents didn't have any of that, and people's expectations weren't met. Would if it had made a difference if Volition had said, "This isn't a Saint's Row game. It's not going to have all the same stuff our previous games had. It's going to be different, so I hope our fans will give it a chance"?
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Sep 29, 2017 02:19
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Milky Moor posted:My thoughts on AoM. it doesnt help that other games have done the "retro" thing better. both in terms of gameplay like new doom and wolfenstein and presentation like far cry blood dragon and other stuff. plus the humor, from what i have seen on youtube sucks, and not even in bad funny way. its just boring and it doesnt take any risks. its not borderlands bad, but its just meh.
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Sep 29, 2017 02:23
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Quiet Python posted:I'll always wonder if "Agents" would have gotten a better reception if they simply hadn't connected it to Saint's Row at all. Maybe put a secret room on the ARK with stripper poles and a picture of Johnny Gat, but that's it. maybe. sure but it doesn't even have a identity game play wise. it tries to be a borderlands rpg thing mixed with hero shooter mixed with open world thing.
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Sep 29, 2017 02:25
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Dapper_Swindler posted:this. also, no real weapon customization/switch outs. like every character should have like 3 weapon loadouts. instead everyone has like 1 gun. Yeah I actually forgot to mention the awesome weapon upgrading/skinning system. That + customization is everything.
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Sep 29, 2017 02:32
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Kilometers Davis posted:Everything about AoM sounds generally fun but the loss of character creation/clothing is 100% why my girlfriend and I passed. Saints Row has been something we've absolutely obsessed over together to the point of it being one of "our" things but dropping that feature soured us both. Sucks. Pretty much the same boat, here. My wife and I went through 2, 3, 4 and GooH together, but no customization and no co-op? Even beyond the rest of the issues that was a deal-killer.
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Sep 29, 2017 02:42
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Dapper_Swindler posted:this. also, no real weapon customization/switch outs. like every character should have like 3 weapon loadouts. instead everyone has like 1 gun. They have a three-loadout system, it's just not very aesthetically-evident. Every agent has three slots that can have three different abilities, which are all based on different parts of their kit. So you could make a stealthy melee character a lot more stealth-based, more of a directly offensive powerhouse, or give them some ranged ability, just as an example. The one exception is Kingpin (Pierce), who actually does swap guns. I think it genuinely was a mistake for them to hew so close to a Saints Row without being a Saints Row, though, for exactly this reason. Everyone's judging it based on 'what it lost from Saints Row', instead of just accepting it as a different game and judging it on its own merits, because they willingly stuck it so close to the franchise everyone knows them best for in iconography and genre. I'm not sure if it means they just can't do non-Saints Row third-person sandbox games for that reason, but they drat well shouldn't have made it so purple and with such prominent fleur-de-lis imagery. Pierce should've been the extent of it, in the same way Ultor was just there in SR1, giving the game the opportunity to succeed or fail on its own merits rather than getting dinged by 'it doesn't have co-op like Saints Row' and the like. Cleretic fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Sep 29, 2017 |
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Sep 29, 2017 05:17
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Wasn't there some statistic that like 90% of players just used the default dude and never customized anything? I find that strange when a massive criticism of AoM is that you can't make your own dude. That's why I didn't get it, and that's why my long-time Saints Row fan buddy didn't get it. It just seems like a lot of the criticisms of the game (basically missing features from previous games) would not matter to Joe Average who isn't invested in the series, or even realizes the series are connected.
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Sep 29, 2017 06:45
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SolidSnakesBandana posted:Wasn't there some statistic that like 90% of players just used the default dude and never customized anything? I find that strange when a massive criticism of AoM is that you can't make your own dude. That's why I didn't get it, and that's why my long-time Saints Row fan buddy didn't get it. It just seems like a lot of the criticisms of the game (basically missing features from previous games) would not matter to Joe Average who isn't invested in the series, or even realizes the series are connected. Gamers are a weird bunch. There's a ton who never customise just as there's a ton who never get past the first achievement signpost.
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Sep 29, 2017 06:59
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Milky Moor posted:1. It was always kind of unclear what the game was.
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Sep 29, 2017 07:03
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Kilometers Davis posted:Everything about AoM sounds generally fun but the loss of character creation/clothing is 100% why my girlfriend and I passed. Saints Row has been something we've absolutely obsessed over together to the point of it being one of "our" things but dropping that feature soured us both. Sucks. I really hope Volition does well in the future because they're basically the only developer making games like this, but AoM was a lot of really dumb mistakes and bad prioritizing in its development.
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Sep 29, 2017 11:43
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Goddamn is that a harsh reaction for making one not-stellar game.
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Sep 29, 2017 13:17
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Kilometers Davis posted:Everything about AoM sounds generally fun but the loss of character creation/clothing is 100% why my girlfriend and I passed. Saints Row has been something we've absolutely obsessed over together to the point of it being one of "our" things but dropping that feature soured us both. Sucks. Yeah, same. I've never gotten into GTA games because I don't like playing scowling crime man who does serious scowling crime things. So I valued the customization in the Saint's Row games. I enjoyed them as rpg-lites where I got to make my own character, feel some ownership of them, run around playing barbie dressup, and doing my own thing in a more lighthearted world.
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Sep 29, 2017 14:52
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RareAcumen posted:Goddamn is that a harsh reaction for making one not-stellar game. yeah I'd be totally willing to give Volition a 2nd chance but I guess that's why I don't work for Deep Silver
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Sep 29, 2017 14:56
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Fintilgin posted:Yeah, same. I've never gotten into GTA games because I don't like playing scowling crime man who does serious scowling crime things. So I valued the customization in the Saint's Row games. I enjoyed them as rpg-lites where I got to make my own character, feel some ownership of them, run around playing barbie dressup, and doing my own thing in a more lighthearted world.
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Sep 29, 2017 15:01
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CharlestonJew posted:yeah I'd be totally willing to give Volition a 2nd chance but I guess that's why I don't work for Deep Silver No justice in this world. David Cage keeps being allowed to continue, Ubisoft releases a loving game where people don't have faces, Destiny gets a sequel despite the first game having - story, Sega is still trying to make Sonic cool despite everyone asking them to please stop, and Volition releases one unfinished game and they just lop off a sixth of their staff in response. So cruel.
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Sep 29, 2017 16:02
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There was no fix for not having Boss as a character, but the problem with underground lairs totally could've been patched to improve it after the fact, and maybe co-op too? I mean not now that they're all out of staff, but I feel like large parts of this were fixable.
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Sep 29, 2017 17:54
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RareAcumen posted:No justice in this world. David Cage keeps being allowed to continue, Ubisoft releases a loving game where people don't have faces, Destiny gets a sequel despite the first game having - story, Sega is still trying to make Sonic cool despite everyone asking them to please stop, and Volition releases one unfinished game and they just lop off a sixth of their staff in response. Volition releases one unfinished, poorly reviewed and abysmally selling game and basically get reduced back to one team studio is probably more accurate. Yeah it sucks and it's no doubt super unfair to everyone who got fired (not to mention it's a symptom of how dysfunctional this whole industry is, but that's another conversation), but at the same time Deep Silver isn't probably too keen on having people around if they don't really need 'em to continue providing post-launch support for the game. The same thing would probably have happened to Cage's team, whatever Ubi team was in charge and Bungie if their respective games had bombed as badly as AoM did. It's incredibly lovely but it's basically just how cutthroat the games industry is these days. One gently caress up, and you're done, go look for work elsewhere. I mean, look at what happened to Ken Levine and Irrational after Bioshock Infinite arrived years late and over budget, despite getting good reviews and selling well. The whole company was gutted and Levine only allowed a skeleton crew to develop another game with. Volition, meanwhile, will likely never work on anything other than Saints Row again, so here's hoping SRV sells well. I'm not convinced it will though, and that kinda makes me concerned for the company's future. Deep Silver is known for bad management decisions and the staff turnover at Volition has apparently been huge since SR4 came out. The market's also changed since everyone now has an open world and that's not really much of a selling point anymore.
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Sep 29, 2017 18:40
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I just hope it doesn't turn into a death spiral for them. Like they have less staff now, so Saint's Row V takes a dip in quality, then they get more layoffs, which means less manpower to work on SR6, etc. Until Volition is reduced to 5-6 people maintaining the Saint's Row Trading Card Game
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Sep 29, 2017 19:45
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CharlestonJew posted:I just hope it doesn't turn into a death spiral for them. Like they have less staff now, so Saint's Row V takes a dip in quality, then they get more layoffs, which means less manpower to work on SR6, etc. Until Volition is reduced to 5-6 people maintaining the Saint's Row Trading Card Game i hope not. i am curious why they didnt make saints row V though. open sandbox crime stuff isnt that full of late and it would have made money. just make it time traveling. like they are in the 40s or some poo poo.
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Sep 30, 2017 00:11
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Dapper_Swindler posted:i hope not. i am curious why they didnt make saints row V though. open sandbox crime stuff isnt that full of late and it would have made money. just make it time traveling. like they are in the 40s or some poo poo. Because they didn't want to? They wanted to make an entirely different game, blending a couple of genres together in a way that nobody else had really done. If they wanted to make a new Saints Row they would have. Unfortunately I think they were scared of alienating their main fanbase too much, leading to them tying it too closely to a franchise it wasn't much like, and so leaving comparisons too clear to ignore. Saints Row isn't the only game Volition has made, and I think they were hungry to be able to be seen as something other than 'the Saints Row guys'. Unfortunately, I think AoM flopping will leave them as exactly that for a while.
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Sep 30, 2017 00:51
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Cleretic posted:Because they didn't want to? They wanted to make an entirely different game, blending a couple of genres together in a way that nobody else had really done. If they wanted to make a new Saints Row they would have. Unfortunately I think they were scared of alienating their main fanbase too much, leading to them tying it too closely to a franchise it wasn't much like, and so leaving comparisons too clear to ignore. hmm. true. id love for them to remake/make another punisher game.
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Sep 30, 2017 01:35
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Bring back Red Faction. Knocking down buildings was so much fun in that game. Or summoner. I think I was the only person to really like Summoner 2 but I thought it was great.
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Spalec posted:Bring back Red Faction. Knocking down buildings was so much fun in that game. I think someone else owns Red Faction now lol 
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