Author Topic: Secret Placeholder Thread! (Read 22324 times)

WindyMan · « **on:** July 17, 2007, 04:07:00 PM »

This is the talkback thread for our massive Denis Dyack interview. Feel free to leave your comments and feedback in this thread.

Mashiro · « **Reply #1 on:** July 17, 2007, 05:12:31 PM »

Great interview Windy! Very insightful.

MarioAllStar · « **Reply #2 on:** July 17, 2007, 05:49:42 PM »

I really enjoyed this. I place less emphasis on graphics/tech than Dyack does, but he had some good things to say. It makes me want to try Eternal Darkness.

Mashiro · « **Reply #3 on:** July 17, 2007, 05:56:35 PM »

Eternal Darkness was an extremely unique and fun game. The sanity meter is such a great idea and when things go wacky on screen it really just adds to the overall fun of the game.

"This . . . isn't really happening!!!!" One of my favorite video game lines haha.

It combat elements would work extremely well with the Wii controller as well . . . maybe one day we will get a sequel.

Jonnyboy117 · « **Reply #4 on:** July 17, 2007, 05:56:46 PM »

Of course you should try ED. Great game, full of original ideas.

TheYoungerPlumber · « **Reply #5 on:** July 17, 2007, 06:23:01 PM »

Wow, what an interview. Good stuff.

denjet78 · « **Reply #6 on:** July 17, 2007, 06:32:15 PM »

The interview was blah... He basically tap danced around answering any of the questions regarding their split with Nintendo, giving mostly non answers. Then he slams Wii for being weaker than the 360 and incapable of doing the things that they want to do. Wow... wasn't the original XBox more powerful than the GC too? And isn't the PS3 more powerful than the 360? Apparently they don't want the absolute most powerful hardware, even though he basically says that over and over again as the reason for moving Too Human to the 360. I'm sure that decision wasn't based on all the money MS threw at them at all. He seems to only like the middle power hardware. Not the weakest but not the best.

Then he says that sure he'd like to make a Wii game, even though their and Nintendo's philosophies don't play well together and the Wii is far too under powered to be able to do anything that they'd ever actually want to do in regards to a game and blah, blah, blah. I'm going to jerk this interviewer off just so I can get in a sales pitch for my upcoming game that's only coming to a competing platform.

If you can't tell by now I didn't enjoy this much. I found the interview to be trite and insulting. Dennis can bite me for all I care. He's just another graphics whore now.

Lesson #1: If you're trying to reach out to a new audience it's not a very smart thing to insult them.

BwrJim! · « **Reply #7 on:** July 17, 2007, 07:48:53 PM »

did you see it? did you see him trying to take control of the conversation. he almost did it.

So how many times did you ask that one question? (adding the reiterations of course)

Alfonse · « **Reply #8 on:** July 17, 2007, 08:33:58 PM »

Quote

Lesson #1: If you're trying to reach out to a new audience it's not a very smart thing to insult them.

He's not reaching out to a new audience; if he were trying that, he'd be making a Wii game.

Personally, the fact that Dyack can't seem to make a game anywhere close to on-time (unless it's already been made. See MGS) is a scathing indictment. What do game developers do? They make games. They don't spend 8 years making one game. Even StarCraft 2 hasn't been in actual development for that long; Blizzard only started developing it a few years back. And nothing that Dyack makes can stand up to SC2 in terms of game design, so I don't see where the time is going.

I mean, Eternal Darkness was a great game. But did it really need something like 4 years? Twilight Princess didn't take that long to develop, and they had to bootstrap an entirely new control scheme onto it towards the end. And TP is a much larger and more dynamic game than ED.

Dyack is a hack. Maybe a talented one, but he's been making games for 15 years and he's only shipped like 4. And one of those was just a port. In half that time (perhaps less!), Retro Studios will have built a Metroid Prime engine, and shipped 3 games on it, each with steadily improving visual quality to it. And each of similar if not superior quality to anything Dyack has done.

What does that tell you about how much we should care what Dyack thinks?

Mashiro · « **Reply #9 on:** July 17, 2007, 08:48:25 PM »

Hmm fun fact, "A sequel to Eternal Darkness has been confirmed by Denis Dyack in Silicon Knights' official IGN blog."

Maybe that will be released on Wii? Or whatever the next Nintendo system will be called (~_^). I do have to agree with alfonse on the ridiculously long development cycles. Another fun fact: Too Human was originally shown at E3 1999! That's near Duke Nukem Forever territory lol.

Arbok · « **Reply #10 on:** July 17, 2007, 09:13:18 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: denjet78
The interview was blah... He basically tap danced around answering any of the questions regarding their split with Nintendo, giving mostly non answers. Then he slams Wii for being weaker than the 360 and incapable of doing the things that they want to do. Wow... wasn't the original XBox more powerful than the GC too? And isn't the PS3 more powerful than the 360? Apparently they don't want the absolute most powerful hardware, even though he basically says that over and over again as the reason for moving Too Human to the 360. I'm sure that decision wasn't based on all the money MS threw at them at all. He seems to only like the middle power hardware. Not the weakest but not the best.

I'm sure it was also based on the perception by many that the 360 would continue the trend of its predecessor and outsell the next Nintendo console, making developing for it more appealing... at least until the Wii was actually released and started flying off the shelves. Even though he never coped up to that fact in the interview.

Anyway, I really see Dyack as a great visionary, with solid, original ideas and grand plans for his titles... which sadly are just more than his company can handle given their track record, which could be due to a number of things like size, resources, etc.

King of Twitch · « **Reply #11 on:** July 17, 2007, 09:27:30 PM »

"And, you know, when we decided to do Twin Snakes instead of Too Human, you know, the next generation we had to look at, we really, really wanted it to be on the best hardware specs out there"

They started on TS after ED came out in 02. Why would they have known about the inferior, NON-REVOLUTIONARY Wii hardware so early (and why didn't they jump ship sooner?). Second as denjet said, if the Cube hardware was competent enough for Too Human to allow SK to be bought out by nintendo (early may or april 2000), why didn't they just work on that after ED was done (or after TS)? Why did they "decide" to do a port instead of their own baby which they KNEW would take a long time? Good work pgc you got my blood boiling by the first page.

Kairon · « **Reply #12 on:** July 17, 2007, 09:38:59 PM »

He's got a very definite image of what he wants to make... execution is the only thing in his way.

KnowsNothing · « **Reply #13 on:** July 18, 2007, 12:50:35 AM »

This interview is painful. Dennis rambles for way too long. He interrupts himself. Take out all the "you knows" and maybe I can read this.

Ceric · « **Reply #14 on:** July 18, 2007, 02:50:11 AM »

I enjoyed the interview myself. I have to agree with a lot that he is saying.

So Johnny did you actually get to play Too Human?

Nephilim · « **Reply #15 on:** July 18, 2007, 03:01:18 AM »

movie point kind of got painful
as movies are tested infront of groups of people well before release, and are editted/cut baised on reactions
much like denis said he did

its not just simply, show media then regret not making changes

but I enjoyed the interview, but I dont think I learnt anything

cubist · « **Reply #16 on:** July 18, 2007, 04:06:13 AM »

SCORE for NWR...

That was an excellent interview. I spent my first hour of work reading it...talk about making the time pass. I've always been a huge SK fan...and I have a lot of respect for Denis Dyack.

UltimatePartyBear · « **Reply #17 on:** July 18, 2007, 05:23:15 AM »

It's no wonder he can't finish Too Human. The man can't even finish a sentence. I couldn't even make it through the first page.

Pale · « **Reply #18 on:** July 18, 2007, 06:06:42 AM »

People rarely have perfect grammar in conversation, I don't know why you all are harping on that point so much. This is a transcribed interview.

Ian Sane · « **Reply #19 on:** July 18, 2007, 06:10:11 AM »

Had to skim a bit of it and skip the questions I wasn't interested in. I'd have read the whole thing but I can't afford to waste that much time at work.

Sounds like SK left Nintendo because of all the non-gamer stuff. That sucks. I don't think SK is the best developer ever or anything but it's better to have them working on a Nintendo console then having them not. They're talented and having a talented developer on board is a good thing. But then I don't like how Nintendo has lost Rare, SK and Factor 5 all in such a short period of time. I'm sure someone will point out that Rare sucks now or whatever but I liked what these devs brought to Nintendo's lineup.

I sympathize with Denis as it seems Nintendo and SK were in synch and then Nintendo changed. As a Nintendo fan that's largely how I've felt as well and as a developer that must be quite frustrating. You're content working with a company and one day they tell you this plan they have that involves games that are pretty much the opposite of the types of games you make. Oh yeah and they tell you that the types of games you make have contributed to scaring these customers away because they're too complicated. SK might as well have been laid off.

Plugabugz · « **Reply #20 on:** July 18, 2007, 06:18:36 AM »

There was a pretty large amount of ramble in his answers, alongside with his almost-Perrin Kaplan-like friend interrupting CAN I JUST STOP YOU HERE AND SAY SOMETHING USELESS the flow of what he wanted to say.

He respects Nintendo and their talents - that's clear. He wanted to make a big huge epic game in scale, but it seems like he's not sure how to keep a budget attached to that epic scale. Nintendo don't want to spend massively huge on games (several AAA's yes, one AAAAAAAA no), and then have them hanging around moving forward slowly and jumping several platforms, hence taking yet more time and moneh to re-tool. That what i think about why they split.

Bill Aurion · « **Reply #21 on:** July 18, 2007, 06:59:36 AM »

"I sympathize with Denis as it seems Nintendo and SK were in synch and then Nintendo changed. As a Nintendo fan that's largely how I've felt as well and as a developer that must be quite frustrating. You're content working with a company and one day they tell you this plan they have that involves games that are pretty much the opposite of the types of games you make."

Like Super Mario Galaxy, and Super Smash Brothers Brawl, and Metroid Prime Corruption, and Battalion Wars, and Mario Kart, and.............Oh wait, I guess Wii Fit existing on Ninty's plate sorta makes Nintendo this "evil entity" that only makes non-games, am I right?

I love your non-arguments, Ian...Sorta like that time that Ninty revealed that huge list of 20-30 new DS games, yet all you could see was Mario Basketball, ONE game while being blind to all the rest...It's quite sad, really...

Deguello · « **Reply #22 on:** July 18, 2007, 07:03:04 AM »

Yeah Ian, your statements assumes a whole lot of facts not in evidence and a bunch of baseless conjecture.

Smash_Brother · « **Reply #23 on:** July 18, 2007, 07:12:22 AM »

Good job hitting him with some of the hard questions.

As for what he said, in regards to the Wii not being "epic" enough, it's BS.

Last I checked, there were plenty of "epic" games LONG before the Wii, long before this generation or the last. Most people won't consider FF6 any less "epic" because the storyline is excellent and that's what lent the game its epic feel.

And I keep saying it: Nintendo moving into "non-games" means that 3rd parties have THAT much more room to breathe when it comes to releasing gamer games.

There was incessant whining about Nintendo's games smothering those of 3rd parties and now Nintendo has almost completely left that venue open. Why is the whining still happening?

Ian Sane · « **Reply #24 on:** July 18, 2007, 07:15:15 AM »

I'm going by what Denis said. He says Nintendo and SK used to be in sync and now they aren't. I think it's quite clear Nintendo has changed. Has Nintendo not changed? They weren't targeting non-gamers before and now they are. Independent of how they may be viewing old gamers that's still a change. That's a FACTUAL change. They're targetting a new group. That's different than before.

And did Denis not say that part of the reason they left was because the two companies don't see eye-to-eye anymore? Ever had a relationship of any sort fall apart because the other party changed? It sucks and even if you support Nintendo's current strategy I think it makes sense to assume that was frustrating for SK.

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Author Topic: Secret Placeholder Thread! (Read 22324 times)