Sega apologises to fans (hints at a old styled Sonic game?)

[Kuzu]

I'm sorry, but no. Gonna have to disagree with that being the reason.

There's no excuse for people to be fractured and butthurt man-children who vent at other fans and such - we're adults (at least those of us who are :lol:), and we should act like it. Period. This immaturity among fans just says a lot about who we really are beneath our masks, and to blame an entertainment company's fuck-ups for our behavior just highlights how rabidly immature we as a community are.

I won't disagree that some problems really are on Sega for not knowing how to handle this franchise, and in some cases, us showing how extremely upset and disappointed makes perfect sense (such as the Sonic 06 release). But even then how we project our attitudes towards it is solely our own doing. I don't expect that to change and for us to grow up anytime soon, if at all given the damage already done, but that is something that really needs to be said.

It's one thing to harshly criticize a company for their screw ups, but it's a whole other thing entirely to go full 5 year old about it.

I mean I'm not gonna lie and say people aren't total fuckwads when it comes to this series, but at the same time people wouldn't be fuckwads if they didn't have any feelings of bitterness towards this series from being younger.

 

Overall, its just a shitty situation for everyone tbh; The Sonic fanbase has devolved mostly into a rave of screaming manchildren on how the series should be handled and the developers just continue to feed into it with their design decisions.

[ZDozer]

I think I could say something about this, but Nepenthe on her first post had just said it all. They had their chance, we put our faith.

Want to apologise? Just shut the fuck up and learn to make a fucking Sonic game right, SEGA.

Well, I was sure missing a reason to post here.

Edited October 29, 2015 by ZDozer

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

i dunno if this is the appropriate thread for this, but:

Some people (not here) have been suggesting Sega/Sonic Team stop trying to listen to the fans and just focus on making a good game. Do you agree?

Somewhat. But seeing as how arbitrarily that is applied (i.e. stop listening to Classic/Adventure/Modern/Whatever fans, and make a good game - one that my group likes more), I'd propose an amendment to that suggest.

Focus on making a good game, and if you do listen to fans: don't play favorites with specific groups. (EDIT - and avoid fracturing them further if at all possible)

That way they can deliver a good game without feeding one faction of fans' egos. Because that's another issue in the fandom in regards to each others different tastes, as each one gives this elitist attitude that they think they're of higher quality than another (group of) fans.

I mean I'm not gonna lie and say people aren't total fuckwads when it comes to this series, but at the same time people wouldn't be fuckwads if they didn't have any feelings of bitterness towards this series from being younger.

 

Overall, its just a shitty situation for everyone tbh; The Sonic fanbase has devolved mostly into a rave of screaming manchildren on how the series should be handled and the developers just continue to feed into it with their design decisions.

That's still an attitude problem of the community's own doing, not Sega. They may have delivered us something we enjoyed from childhood, and they may have messed it up, but they're not the ones who decide for us to be immature about it when they screw up. I'm not trying to be patronizing, but I'm sure our parents taught us to control ourselves better than this, did they not? But that, among many other lessons, are often disregarded when we escape to the realm that is the internet.

Getting angered at Sega for screwing up is perfectly understandable, but (for the sake of example) taking it out on other fans just because they liked or saw something worthwhile in what another fan didn't like or something that didn't go well isn't any excuse. And I've seen we've been doing a lot of the latter when it's uncalled for.

Edited October 29, 2015 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

I would always lay the blame at individuals for their own bad attitudes and actions, but on the other hand, Sega does deserve some blame for creating the situation that instigated this conflict and helped unleash people's brattiness. I mean, everyone has the potential to be a jerk at times, but it only comes out if there's some incentive. There's nothing about Sonic fans that's inherently worse than anyone else, after all. We're certainly responsible for how we behave in the midst of conflict, but the conflict wouldn't even exist in the first place if it wasn't for Sega's mishandling and constant inconsistency.

[Wraith]

I mean I'm not gonna lie and say people aren't total fuckwads when it comes to this series, but at the same time people wouldn't be fuckwads if they didn't have any feelings of bitterness towards this series from being younger.

 

Overall, its just a shitty situation for everyone tbh; The Sonic fanbase has devolved mostly into a rave of screaming manchildren on how the series should be handled and the developers just continue to feed into it with their design decisions.

I think that's more the fandom needing to learn to not take a game that seriously tbh. If Sonic is pissing you off that much just duck out of the series and play something you actually like playing instead. 

Sonic has become more of a side thing to me now as I got into other stuff. Got less invested in the story and characters and stuff as I got older and now they're just more there so I can get my fast paced platforming fix than anything, so I can't get as angry anymore.  

 

[Blacklightning]

Some people (not here) have been suggesting Sega/Sonic Team stop trying to listen to the fans and just focus on making a good game. Do you agree?

My angle is less that they shouldn't be listening to the fans and more that they shouldn't be treating their demands as gospel. The issue is that even among the suggestions that aren't garbage spewed by 12 year olds and people who watch Game Grumps (generalizing here, of course - no offense intended), much of the remainder is, as stated, largely either based on opinion or personal taste, which are things that simply don't gel well with game design when you're trying to make it appeal to a broad audience and make bank off it. You can't say "well just appeal to everyone" because many of those tastes are mutually exclusive, some literally as black and white as "Too slow!" or "Too Fast!".

It shouldn't be a question of what they can do to appeal to the fans - it should be a question of how their suggestions benefit anything they're doing currently. Assume for sake of example that Sega is making another Parkour game: the general consensus is that LW's parkour system is very rigid and mechanical, so taking that consensus into account (especially when it has some objective backing behind it and not just "I want it to be this and this because I fucking said so, who cares what anyone else says to the contrary") makes a whole lot of sense. But if you're making an honest-to-god, no bullshit "back to roots" kind of game, a rational designer has to instead ask: where would the parkour fit in? The answer to that is either going to be "it doesn't" or "in nowhere near the same state LW presented it". Then they have to ask themselves "does this benefit the game in ways we couldn't already accomplish", and if the answer to that is "we can already make do with slopes, springs and at the worst a level gimmick", well then it has to be said - in the context of the core game mechanics, it's more or less needless baggage that the game can function without.

tl;dr, Sega should rationalize what people expect of them, not just take their suggestions without a second thought. The main objective is simply to make a game people as a whole want to play - taking suggestions on board should ultimately just be a little bonus when all is said and done.

Edited October 29, 2015 by Blacklightning

[Regen]

I don't really think Sonic Team is going to be getting pointers from the SSMB so I think we all know we are wasting our time here

[Hedgehugs]

I don't really think Sonic Team is going to be getting pointers from the SSMB so I think we all know we are wasting our time here

This thread is to just get our opinions and thoughts out, though it would be cool if someone at SEGA did check this thread to hear them.

[Salamander]

I'm reasonably confident that part of the purpose of community managers and other similar staff roles is to monitor the public perception and reaction to the franchise and its games and report back to the developers on what's popular and unpopular; taking their feedback from a broader base than just reviewers, in other words.  To provide an example of this in action, I doubt it's mere coincidence that the fandom had been discussing the possibility of implementing parkour in a Sonic game for years before Lost World appeared.

[Regen]

Sorry guys, but I'm very skeptical that Sonic Team is even aware of our opinions. We've been asking for many things for years that Sonic Team have never implemented, including:

More Playable Characters

More Serious Story

A Sonic Adventure Spiritual Successor

Classic Physics Back

Chao Gardens

E.T.C.

The fact they introduced parkour and a few fans discussed it is almost surely a coincidence. I'm also not saying the above list are good ideas, only that they have been heavy fan-wishes.

 

[NoirSuede]

This thread is to just get our opinions and thoughts out, though it would be cool if someone at SEGA did check this thread to hear them.

Aaron Webber has an account here, but the problem here is that him and Sonic Team gets so many conflicting fan inputs that they just get really confused.

[Roger_van_der_weide]

I don't think the problem is Sega listening/ not listening to fans, it's their complete unability to understand WHY people want something and what it implies.
Sonic 4 and Shadow's inclusion in Rise of Lyric are perfect examples of this, it's them giving fans what they want in the most shallow surface level possible without truly understanding how the gears of the engine work.
This is why so many of us are so tired and angry at the nostalgia pandering. It's not that we necesairely hate Nostalgia and we are all perfectly okay with Green hill zone or whatever, it's that we worry Sega's just hiding their incompotence and lack of understanding behind this artificial nostalgia barrier.

I'm a firm believer that there's a surprising strong connection and overlap in what all the fractions of Sonic fans want, that it all boils down to the same core and that all fractions of the fanbase just prefer a diffrent flavor of this core.
We all want icecream, just one prefers strawberry flavor and the other chocolate flavor.
And right now, we only get a bowl of strawberries or a bar of chocolate. If we're lucky that is and Sonic Team isn't in the kitchen making yet another monstrous concoction. Sega forgot how to make icecream.

So no, I don't want sega to listen to fans, I want them to put effort in understanding them. And don't just dangle Green hill/ Shadow/ Boost/ Self depricating humor in our faces like dangling keys in front of a toddler.

But there's also responsibility with us fans, we spend too much time demonizing and strawmanning our opponents instead of looking for overlaps.
"You want the classics, what, you want a simplistic Mario platformer?
You want Sonic adventure? What, you want another glitchy unfinished mess?
You like comedy? What, you want all the cast to be detached soulcrushed stand up comedians all the time?"

Of course the Classic fans want the spirit, the Concept of the classic games updated to modern standards.
Of course Sonic adventure fans want a solid and smooth gameplay engine to compliment the game.
Of course comedy fans still like energy and action to fuel the humor.
But we have so little faith in Sega's ability to find the sweetspot that we project our distrust in Sega toward each other, creating an eternal toxic loop of bitterness.

Edited October 29, 2015 by Roger_van_der_weide

[Salamander]

More Playable Characters

More Serious Story

A Sonic Adventure Spiritual Successor

Classic Physics Back

Chao Gardens

E.T.C.

We did get most of these, though.  The Sonic Boom games and the mobile games all have more playable characters.  "Classic physics" were implemented (with debateable accuracy) in Sonic 4 and both versions of Sonic Generations.  There were some indications that Rise Of Lyric was meant to answer desires for a more Adventuresque game, and as for a serious story, I bet if you asked them they would point to RoL and things like Eggman's apparent death and the near-destruction of the world towards the end of Lost World.  And if we were to add to the list the much earlier demands to "play as Sonic more" and have more cartoony level themes in the wake of the Adventure-'06 period, well, we got that in spades.

I think the issue is less them responding to fan demand and more a case of how seriously they've taken those demands.

[Kuzu]

I think that's more the fandom needing to learn to not take a game that seriously tbh. If Sonic is pissing you off that much just duck out of the series and play something you actually like playing instead. 

Sonic has become more of a side thing to me now as I got into other stuff. Got less invested in the story and characters and stuff as I got older and now they're just more there so I can get my fast paced platforming fix than anything, so I can't get as angry anymore.  

 

I wish it were that easy, but Sonic has been around for a while so there are people out there that literally only focus on this franchise; especially if they say things like "Sonic helped me get past my teenage years" Sonic isn't just a franchise to them, but something very close and deep to their hearts. 

 

So yea, you can imagine its hard for some people to actually branch out to other game franchises because to those people, there's literally nothing but Sonic for them.

[Jango]

May I just add that the icecream metaphor was perfect? It's exactly this. There's even people who prefer vanilla flavor, and Sega give 'em a vanilla flower, which you can't eat.

[shdowhunt60]

I don't think the problem is Sega listening/ not listening to fans, it's their complete unability to understand WHY people want something and what it implies.
Sonic 4 and Shadow's inclusion in Rise of Lyric are perfect examples of this, it's them giving fans what they want in the most shallow surface level possible without truly understanding how the gears of the engine work.
This is why so many of us are so tired and angry at the nostalgia pandering. It's not that we necesairely hate Nostalgia and we are all perfectly okay with Green hill zone or whatever, it's that we worry Sega's just hiding their incompotence and lack of understanding behind this artificial nostalgia barrier.

I'm a firm believer that there's a surprising strong connection and overlap in what all the fractions of Sonic fans want, that it all boils down to the same core and that all fractions of the fanbase just prefer a diffrent flavor of this core.
We all want icecream, just one prefers strawberry flavor and the other chocolate flavor.
And right now, we only get a bowl of strawberries or a bar of chocolate. If we're lucky that is and Sonic Team isn't in the kitchen making yet another monstrous concoction. Sega forgot how to make icecream.

So no, I don't want sega to listen to fans, I want them to put effort in understanding them. And don't just dangle Green hill/ Shadow/ Boost/ Self depricating humor in our faces like dangling keys in front of a toddler.

But there's also responsibility with us fans, we spend too much time demonizing and strawmanning our opponents instead of looking for overlaps.
"You want the classics, what, you want a simplistic Mario platformer?
You want Sonic adventure? What, you want another glitchy unfinished mess?
You like comedy? What, you want all the cast to be detached soulcrushed stand up comedians all the time?"

Of course the Classic fans want the spirit, the Concept of the classic games updated to modern standards.
Of course Sonic adventure fans want a solid and smooth gameplay engine to compliment the game.
Of course comedy fans still like energy and action to fuel the humor.
But we have so little faith in Sega's ability to find the sweetspot that we project our distrust in Sega toward each other, creating an eternal toxic loop of bitterness.

Holy shit Roger, that's beautiful.

[FantasticMrRobb]

Some people (not here) have been suggesting Sega/Sonic Team stop trying to listen to the fans and just focus on making a good game. Do you agree?

I don't think it would hurt. Then again, I think that's what they were/are trying to do with Sonic Boom.

[Badnik Mechanic]

We do know what we want. But the vast majority do an amazingly poor job of expressing it.

[Draw4Life]

I have grown up with the Sonic games, from the very first one to the most current Sonic boom games. Honestly I like both styles. They're both good for different reasons. But If I had to choose, I'd say I like the newer games more. 

[Blitz 'n Burst]

I'm all for a "classic-style" game if "like the classics" means "rivals the creativity and charm of the classic games" and not "here's a bunch of recycled tropes and designs, it's just like those other games you liked!"

But at this point I don't trust SEGA to do anything but the latter

[Indigo Rush]

At the risk of preaching to the choir, I'd like to chime in on what I want and hope to see in lieu of the "going back to roots" comment, though to be frank I'd have the same preference whether they used this term or not...

Aside from general polish and attention to detail, which I feel should be granted (but isn't always the case), I hope to see better attention placed towards overall feel and momentum over Sonic's (and whomever else may be playable) controls. Less binary "walk -> run" through a button press, and more build up to speed. Though I'd be alright with another 'Boost' game, I'm hoping to see another attempt at momentum build-up. That was one of the things I really liked about the original games and the Adventures, too. Sonic Advance 2 did this exceptionally well with the boost mechanic requiring consistent speed build-up to maintain that insane speed. Something like that would be awesome, though I suppose it's a bit specific to ask for. 

Though rolling has been absent from good Sonic games, I still want to see it return in a meaningful way. That and some sort of bounce mechanic. It's just so fun to do, roll downhill and launch up ramps, bounce on robots and item boxes and fly through the level at high speeds. While in 3D some of the precision bouncing would be hard to do, at the very least I'd like to see a bouncier homing attack and a more effective rolling mechanic that gives a great sense of downhill flow similar to certain skating games.

 

Stuff like this, man.

 

Another thing I'd love to see is a sense of parkour through freerunning up slopes and onto walls. Sonic Adventure did this a lot, notable example being the first huge slope leading to a Power Sneaker in Emerald Coast part 2. I'd also like to give props to Jet Set Radio's wall kick/shred maneuver where you grind against a wall for a few seconds. Putting that in a Sonic game with a better jump ability along with some "sticker feet" for wall-running could make for some awesome moves. And grinding that's less like recent games and more like SA2.

 

 

Crazy stuff like that

 

I'm not saying it's easy to stitch these mechanics together, but taking inspiration from them and making a cohesive gameplay style that encourages the player to gain forward momentum and use it either to shred through the level or to scale everything to explore and find secrets if so inclined. (hah, incline. like a slope. gettit?)

But yeah... I think of this kind of conglomeration of ideas as a way to translate those classic "roots" into 3D while adding new cool things to make it work to the advantage of a z-axis. It's certainly not the only way out there, but it's what I'd like to see.

I'm imagining something like this. You take control of Sonic and run downhill a long slope like that skating video I posted, with an occasional jump and rail to grind on. After gaining lots of speed, you feel confident to jump right onto the vertical mountainside to the right and run alongside the wall. But you're running out of speed, so you jump and hit a rail, jump again and reach the mountain on the other side, then once you reach a really high point running sideways, you jump downwards and as you approach the ground (which is still going downwards), you hold the roll button and all of that falling velocity is transferred to downhill rolling speed, and it's enough to give you a huge enough burst of speed to curve towards a small uphill slope and launch yourself 3x as high as you normally would've by running downhill alone, and you find some enemies to boop on with a bouncy homing attack.

From there, you bounce towards a higher platform that's otherwise un-accessible by just taking the normal path, finding a shortcut that's totally optional before dropping down to the main road again. Just cool stuff like that which keeps the flow going. There's a mixture of speed (just going fast by timing your jumps and rolls), platforming (again, timing your jumps and wall runs and aiming in the right direction) and exploration (finding secret routes via high speeds and well time jumps) all in 3D in a cool flowing manner. 

I'm just spitballin,' guys. I think this would be awesome, and it's just the kind of stuff I wanna see and take control of.

Edited October 30, 2015 by Indigo Rush

[Bowbowis]

Oops. Wrong thread.

Edited October 30, 2015 by Bowbowis

[expansivelovestories]

Hm!!  It has to be said they as a whole must be realizing, if they get everything correct in the first game in this style, they can make one or two more that may in fact both improve on the prior one, while also maintaining this new wing of the series as having games each that stand on their own.

Think of if Sonic 4 and parts of Generations as being a very loose blueprint for something that would be done with much deeper and taller zones.  That is where the core gameplay and replay exists, in the zones themselves.  I much like the idea of being able to reach different zones and subzones by finding them via exploration.

There could be many sizes of zones, some vast and some uniquely small.  Just as with the original few games, zone ideas that don't fit can make their way to the next one! 

I don't know!  I think there is breathing room and creative willpower left such that there could be very surprising results from this.

 

 

 

 

 

[davethesodaguy]

Here's hoping the new game has 2d hand drawn, cartoony graphics. It's gonna be like the ultimate apology for each and every one of those horrible games from the early 2000's

[davethesodaguy]

I never really understood what was stopping them from having a 2D series and a 3D series running in parallel to each other, as I think they must have been doing during the Adventure/Advance days.  Merging the two lines was definitely a key part of their modern strategy of giving nobody what they wanted, but it's very true that it doesn't matter what decisions they make or where they take inspiration from if they aren't capable of making a good game anymore.

I always say in my cobwebbed journal entries that Sonic needs to follow Mario, the gameplay was inspired by it to begin with.

And what do you say, Mario has many lines parallel to each other, it can be the 3d (mario 64 inspired) games, it can be the 2d (super mario bros) ones, the Mario Kart ones, the RPG ones and the list goes on.,

Why not do the same with Sonic?

I mean, Nintendo isn't what it is out of nowhere... Even if THEY'RE the ones making poor decisions on the industry, SEGA still has a lot to learn with Nintendo. 

You don't see nintendo fans complaining about the new games. There's a specific series for each sort of fan. 

And the question is: Why is it that SEGA just doesn't do the same as nintendo? Really makes me wonder