Topic: Listening to the fans - pro or contra?

[mouse_clicker]

Jale: That's more for technical reasons- Nintendo didn't want you swimming to any island you wanted. It is still a linear game, you know.

[evil intentions]

If you had to swim from island to island then people would be even more sick of the game. At least with sailing you could get there pretty fast. Swimming...errr....lets just say that I'd quit playing it in a second. I like Zelda games, but not that much if I'd I have to take 20 minutes out of my day just to get somewhere. Because that is what would happen. Someone wouldn't want to wait and get the sailboat. THey would just swim from island to island. (Which is relaly stupid) But hey, there are weirdos out there.

[Bill Aurion]

Quote
Originally posted by: Jale
I found it very strange that a forest boy who has only ever had the chance of swimming in the local pond is able to swim across a big lake or round and round for days and days, but a boy raised on an island can only swin about 100m. Nice one Nintendo.

And this is where you realize that it's a game and it really doesn't matter...

[Jale]

Yeh but it bugs me. In some areas they didnt have the annoying swin counter thing. Maybe they should have made it that you could swim a maximum of 200m from any island before you drowned.

[The Omen]

Listening to me-PRO.

[oohhboy]

I have slightly changed my position on this topic. Fan input is important as it widens your idea pool greatly without too much effort from the developer, therefore allowing them to spend that time saved to develop the said ideas whether they came from fans or not. Of course there has to be a cut-off point or else the game would neve be done.

I mean, look at the mod community for any game that can take mods. If fans can take a game engine and warp it in to another game which is balanced, then there is something to be found there.

[Sooper Dood]

To me, fan input should be taken in very few ways. The main one would be game success - if a game is popular, explore options like a sequel or a similar game. If people like a soundtrack of a game, give the composer more work. If people like a battle engine in an RPG, keep it handy for another RPG (or a sequel). But you can't sit people down in focus groups and ask them what they want - as mentioned before, look what happened to the X-Box controller. If there was some magic tool that could sum up the opinions of everybody and make an average out of it to find the best way to please the most people in the greatest way, then you could listen to the people. But until it's invented, there is a reason these people have their jobs. Because they know what works.

I think the episode of the Simpsons where Homer helps Mel Gibson make the movie is a perfect example. Look at the changes Homer made. He thought they were great, and so did Mel (and so did I), but the people hated it. You can't take random opinions and use them to please everyone, so you gotta let the professionals work and hopefully please most of the people.

[KDR_11k]

Remember the car Homer designed? That's how the XBox got made .

[oohhboy]

Yeah but both are the product of neanderthals. I mean everything starts off with an idea, but as I said you still have to develop it assuming the idea in the first place is any good at all and it would work in tandem with all the other ideas that came along.