Rather interesting material the mods at the main forum are locking up repeatedly...

[AntiDamascus]

What are they locking repeatedly? An article from over a year ago?

[easytarget]

What are they locking repeatedly? An article from over a year ago?

I guess Daelin is bowed up over the video, just a guess, I'm not going to PM him and engage in a discussion about it.

It just looks like the standard business of burying stuff in rants and raves which they tend to do there.

Not that I care, I mean it's their forum after all, they can run it as they see fit. That said, I can't say that I much mind the amount of heat they are catching because I believe it's well deserved.

[AntiDamascus]

I dunno I guess I was just confused when it was "interesting material" when as you said it's pretty standard stuff. I guess I also don't get the problem, they cut stuff that wouldn't rate well. So?

[easytarget]

Agreed. Reacting to it is where mods often ironically sort of fail at what they are trying to do, which is moderate the forum. In this case calling it out repeatedly by closing down the thread just resulted in it repeatedly popping up.

The easier way to bury anything at an active forum is to do nothing and just let it naturally slide off the first page.

As for the point, suggesting they dial the game to critics instead of the purchasing audience and dial game design same is not exactly what I'd call a long term viable vision, and honestly if that's what they did here, it failed anyway.

[AntiDamascus]

Not all forums are moderated by people good at dealing with people.

As for dealing with critics, I wouldn't even go that far. I would say making a game that sells well is the end result. I know it sounds greedy or uncaring or whatever but if you make a game long term players or critics hate but sells really well (see: Sim City) then you just shrug your shoulders and fall asleep on your giant pile of money. Does that suck for people like me and you? Sure but I don't fault them for it.

[Bramborough]

My chief takeaway from the 4 pages of this guy's ambiguous, even occasionally evasive, language is that he really doesn't understand very much about the game his team is trying to make. From his description of the working atmosphere and philosophy, I rather got the idea that there's too much "creative freedom"...without an overarching vision. Which can sometimes lead one to re-invent wheels which don't really need tinkering. I suppose this kind of environment can sometimes produce an extraordinary gem (as many seem to regard S2...I gotta check this game out sometime soon), but is probably going to somewhat fall short of the mark more often. Because after all...where really IS the mark? Muddling one's way to "90% Metacritic" seems a dangerously tunnel-visioned method.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I rather got the idea that there's too much "creative freedom"...without an overarching vision.

So did I. And I rather believe that all the effort encouraging "creative freedom" at the start of a project is precisely because there is no clear vision of what's to be done, so management is fishing for ideas. It would seem to me that if you have a real good idea of what you want for the final product, you would only have your design people working on projects that are part of the over-arching design. Seems rather wasteful of time/energy/money to allow a team working on a particular idea to get it 90% done only to have it go to the trash bin. I know I'd be seriously pissed if I was a member of that team...and if it happened with regularity, I'd be looking to go elsewhere for employment.