I'm curious if there has been any word at all to another game, as I'm way behind on any FF news. From what I can gather, there hasn't been anything. But can anyone clarify if there's been anything at all?
I remember buying the first FF on a whim. I never heard anything about the game. I just read a couple of high scoring reviews of the game, and went with my impulse and bought it. I didn't think it was even popular, so I was surprised when they announced a sequel. So I'm hoping to be surprised again with a 3rd game, but haven't heard anything.
I may have missed something, but I think that the only news has been non-news. E.g., someone mentioned Ken Levine in an interview or two where he failed to mention the Freedom Force franchise at all. Of course, that is disappointing, but it really means just about nothing. Often, developers want to stay "on message" about current projects and, even in a free-ranging interview, he might not have wanted to stir speculation and then have to contend with pleas from fans when he is not in a position to provide any information.
BTW, I have a similar story of how I came across the game. In a 2003 conversation about hobbies at school, I mentioned that I didn't play any computer games on the PC or on any console, sort of atypical of a techie like myself. The guy who sat at the adjacent desk mentioned that I might like Freedom Force and should download the demo. I immediately forgot all about it and never downloaded anything. Then, about a year later, I saw FF in the $10 rack at Best Buy, thought "I think that's the game Emmet mentioned", and decided to give it a shot. Hundreds of hours of gaming and thousands of lines of python later, here I am. ^_^
Several months ago, Computer Gaming World, before it became Games for Windows, asked Ken straight out and he flat out said that it was unlikely to ever happen because sales for FFvTTR were too low.
Which has been true from the outset. If he (or whoever makes that sort of decision now) doesn't think there will be sales enough to make a profit on it, it won't happen. The same reality for any commercial game, pretty much.
I missed that interview, but I wonder if he was asked the more important question of why he thinks the sales for FFvT3R were so much lower than for the first game? That's what I want to know. Was it it poor marketing? Was the sequel too similar to the original? Is there just not much market for superhero games that don't feature well-known characters and/or a movie tie-in to bolster sales? Levine has also mentioned that online distribution is the only future for niche games, so I wonder if the advertising and distribution overhead overwhelm the bottom line for a franchise like FF.
The interview was about Bioshock, so only one question was directed at FF.
I saw one website that had predictions for this year in gaming. One of them was that with Bioshock, Irrational would once again make a totally awesome game that no one would know about or buy.
Quote from: stumpy on August 06, 2007, 04:19:39 PM
I missed that interview, but I wonder if he was asked the more important question of why he thinks the sales for FFvT3R were so much lower than for the first game? That's what I want to know.
I remember a brief comment in PC GAMER a while back (also in an article about Bioshock) where he seemed to think the WWII setting was the problem. There's probably some truth to that, but I suspect the real problem was that City of Heroes came along in the meantime and basically stole their audience.
Quote from: JKCarrier on August 06, 2007, 05:49:03 PMI remember a brief comment in PC GAMER a while back (also in an article about Bioshock) where he seemed to think the WWII setting was the problem. There's probably some truth to that, but I suspect the real problem was that City of Heroes came along in the meantime and basically stole their audience.
If KL really thought that this was the main reason for the lack of sales, I'd say he was in denial mode at the time.
And, I certainly hope that CoH didn't play that big a part, because it would mean the market for games like these is depressingly small.
It's interesting that Ken would think it was the WW2 setting that was the issue, because 1) he had said before the game came out that they chose that setting because it's a popular one with a built-in audience and 2) that would tend to mean that the hunt should be on for a setting with greater sales potential.
I give some credibility to FF's position outside the MMORPG market as a limitation on sales. And that seems like sort of a nasty catch twenty-two. There is a huge advantage to the online multiplayer games in that you have other humans running the other characters, so those characters are going to have AI that is smart and interesting in ways that we really can't duplicate via scripting. To wit, interacting with other people is fun.
(This is a total aside, but I have wondered if we could add a little tactic-specific dialog subsection to the AI that M25 has created. E.g., when the AI-controlled characters switch to "guard" mode on of them says, "Let's protect the boss!"; when one is trying to get in range for a power, he says, "Almost close enough..."; when using nature master, he says, "Even the trees are on my side."; etc. Seems like, with some extensibility, there could be dialog packs people could add to give the AI-controlled characters more personality.)
At the same time, it would be nearly impossible in an MMORPG to have the variety of powers and other customization that we have in FF (both built in and scripted) and maintain any kind of game balance. People are just too good at optimizing and eventually a few "killer combinations" of nearly unstoppable powers would dominate the game. (And, it might be that way already. Even with a more limited power set, people still tend toward building the ultimate beast.) In a single-player game, this is less of a problem because people are only playing against their PCs. In an MMORPG, maintaining game balance has got to be an absolute nightmare.
In reality, I guess I don't know that CoH impacted FFvT3R sales. It's just as likely that there would be a synergy between the two, with the former satisfying people who want better interaction and team play and the latter satisfying people who want more diverse and customized characters.
I would be curious what fraction of FF/FFvT3R players really get into the fan-created aftermarket for the game that we are all part of. I remember complaints on FFans (and here, too) about people saying the game sucked because they went through the campaign in fifteen hours and now they are bored. It made me think those people were clueless because I easily spent way more time playing mods and in the DR/RR than playing the built-in campaigns. But, I think DrMike2000 once mentioned the number of downloads for FFX and, though a number in the thousands, it was still a small fraction of the total sales of FF. It seems like most players were missing out on one of the game's biggest draws and I don't know if IG was ever able to change that...
Well, the game was supported with very little marketing from what I could see, aside from positive editorial coverage and a couple of one-page ads in a few comics. What they should do (if they ever decided to a third title) is some promotional tie-ins with upcoming comic films, have a presence at conventions, tons of interviews, maybe a few 'create a character' activities, in addition to print ads.
In short, I'd blame lack of marketing $$$ for poor sales, not the game itself, which is charming and unique, and got great reviews.
I'd side with Levine in citing the WWII setting as one of the reasons why FFvTTR failed.
Yes, he is also correct that there is a good market for WW II games, they appeal to people who are looking for a very grim and gritty historically accurate experience, and Im afraid a genie on a flying carpet might be a bit of a turn off for them :)
WW II Superheroics is an extremely niche market.
I hate to say it, but I think FF suffered as a whole from going the retro-Kirby vibe. Im glad that it did because I absolutely loved it, but then, Im a big geek and understood all the references.
Ive seen a lot of mention of FF on the CoH boards get greeted with "Oh, that cheesy game with the ZAP! POW! graphics? That looked crap!" Lord knows what they thought when they saw more of the same but set in the 1940's. It sure wasnt "Oh, I want to buy that!".
City of Heroes in comparison is a completely charmless beast. (I say that despite being a regular player)
Some of the enemy factions are kind of cool, but it lacks the humour and style of Freedom Force. But in doing so it appeals to as broad an audience as possible. And the humour and style are there when you look for it, in thye characters the players come up with.
To sum up, I doubt there will be a FF3.
Pity.
Oh, one more thing...
Irrational could have advertised the mod scene for FF a whole lot more if everyone and their dog didnt break the EULA and make mods featuring copyrighted characters. You know who you are.... :)
I think the retro setting of FFVTR probably hurt its sales ... but like Dr. Mike, I suspect the 60s setting and comic tone hurt the sales of the original FF, too. It pains me to admit it given how much I love the Golden and Silver ages.
Why did FFVTR do worse than the original FF, though? Here are my prime suspects:
1) Self-publishing. I think Vivendi actually put the product in boxes, but FFVTR was for the most part self-published by Irrational. They handled the advertising, the press, and so on.
Self-publishing is really, really hard. I know from personal experience that it's vastly more difficult for a little company to get attention than it is for a giant corporation with a ton of money to spend.
2) It was unclear whether FFVTR was an expansion or a sequel. People have very different expectations about the two beasts. A graphics facelift and a few new features is fine for an expansion, but a sequel is supposed to be a major upgrade, particularly when it comes to graphics.
FFVTR wasn't called an expansion, so everyone used their sequel expectations on it. Naturally they were disappointed. My guess is that Irrational didn't call it an expansion because you didn't need the first game and they wanted to attract new players ... but that strategy blew up in their face.
3) There was no new "I must get this because...." feature. If you didn't buy FF there was nothing about FFVTR that would make you reconsider, like (for example) skies or grappling or aerial melee or a full-featured vehicle system.
Even if you were a hard-core FF fanatic FFVTR wasn't a clearly must-buy. Yes, it had some cool new game features, but a lot of those were already available for free in FFX. (I feel for Irrational, who put a lot of work into their mod community only to end up with inadvertantly competing with it when creating the expansion. Of course, one solution to that would be to recruit the community to work on the expansion, as the Civilization guys have done.)
Furthermore, one of the huge advantages of FF--the vast library of user-created meshes and skins--became harder to use with the expansion instead of easier due to the whole Nif conversion thing. So even today we have people saying, "I've been playing FF since it came out, but is it really worth it to switch to FFVTR?"
(It's well worth switching, in my opinion, but there's no denying it was a huge pain converting all those meshes!)
QuoteIt was unclear whether FFVTR was an expansion or a sequel. People have very different expectations about the two beasts. A graphics facelift and a few new features is fine for an expansion, but a sequel is supposed to be a major upgrade, particularly when it comes to graphics.
All they had to do was call it a stand-alone expansion. Such things are actually quite common and are usually named in a similar fashion. Homeworld: Cataclysm, for instance.
I agree that IG should have been more clear about what FFvT3R really was in relation to the first game. I'm not sure it would have helped sales any, but still...
I am surprised at the number of people I've encountered who don't give the game a chance because they are unimpressed with the graphics, or who assume the game is "old" because other games have flashier visuals. This is especially odd to me because I could care less about the graphics, as long as it's good enough. When I played the demo for the second game, my reaction to the improved graphics engine was that it was better, but, basically, "Fine, now let's see what's actually new under the hood."
After I played MUA, a friend who has seen FFvT3R but not really played it said, "It's kind of like an upgraded Freedom Force, right?", when I was thinking that it was a downgrade from Freedom Force, just being the same basic slash-and-bash game I could have bought ten years ago, except for fancier graphics. (And, obviously, I'm not claiming my first impression is all there is to MUA, just all I experienced.)
Anyway, that sort of thing leads me to worry that any follow-on to the FF franchise (whether by IG/T2 or whoever tries next) will have to pay a lot more tribute at the alter of kewl grafix to succeed in the market, leaving people like me very little reason to buy the game.
Back to the main point, I still have the impression that misdirected or mediocre marketing was the biggest problem for FFvT3R. Other things, like more emphasis on the availability of fan-created add-ons, a present-day campaign setting (which would include art assets for people making present-day mods), technical improvements like air-to-air and ground-to-air melee, more straightforward (and cooperative) multiplayer, and so on were doubtless factors, too. But, I ran into lots of people who were comic fans, comic book-based movie fans, and general video gamers who have never even heard of FF franchise, which sounds like a marketing problem to me.
(I still think a largely unaddressed question is how the first game could have done so well and the second so poorly. Was that just the difference between EA's marketing efforts and IG/VU's?)
Quote from: DrMike2000 on August 06, 2007, 11:34:20 PM
I hate to say it, but I think FF suffered as a whole from going the retro-Kirby vibe. Im glad that it did because I absolutely loved it, but then, Im a big geek and understood all the references.
For the first game, I think it was brilliant: 3D technology was limited to lower polygon count, so as it was going to look blocky anyway, the Kyrby look was an elegant solution. Obviously, the parodic/hommage aspect is lost on the Liefield (or any other savour of the week with only superficial skills) crowd. For the second game, though, I think they should have gone for a more detailed look than they did, as, comparatively to the situation when FF1 was launched, FFvsTTR looked more dated versus other games released at the time.
QuoteIrrational could have advertised the mod scene for FF a whole lot more if everyone and their dog didnt break the EULA and make mods featuring copyrighted characters. You know who you are.... :)
OK, OK, I'll admit to that Kevin Matchstick skin. :P
But then again, I think IG had the wrong attitude toward the issue. Their attitude was basically "we can't do anything for fear of copyright infringement (they did release MAX files, though), you can't speak of copyrighted material" (driving regular fans to independent sites such as FR and letting the new fan stumble upon these other sites or go away for good). Hmmm... reminds me a lot of my main client these last few months. :huh:
Instead, they could have hosted original or FF-based content, thus
stimulating the creation of licit material. Yes there would still have been as much material they couldn't associate themselves with available "out there", but there would have been a whole lot more material they could show to attract and keep users, maybe even long enough to sell profitably an expansion pack or two, plus a sequel.
Quote from: stumpy on August 07, 2007, 08:35:22 PMBack to the main point, I still have the impression that misdirected or mediocre marketing was the biggest problem for FFvT3R.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I can only agree. From my not really informed standpoint, it looked like they didn't have the resources, they didn't have the expertise and they didn't think it was important.
Quote(I still think a largely unaddressed question is how the first game could have done so well and the second so poorly. Was that just the difference between EA's marketing efforts and IG/VU's?)
The marketing effort for FF1, had – voluntarily or not – a few solid viral components:
1. By releasing mod tools well in advance, there was already a community and user-created content from day one.
2. The *new* unique look, while maybe not too popular with the mainstream public, certainly made the game stand out for gaming publications.
3. FF1 was the first well-enough executed (in part for technological reasons) superhero game. This freshness catched interest, particularly for the aforementioned gaming publications (if only because they were expecting another "curse of the superhero game")
Also, superheroes were "in", as Hollywood was starting its super-craze.
I think what made FF1 so popular was because the overall feel of the game was new and unique. The game play really captured that nostalgic comic book feel,giving you control of a wide array of super heroes.What really made the difference was the game lets you bring to life your very own custom super heroes and even your favorite comic book characters come to life! (Thanks to the very talented and selfless efforts of its fan based community. :cool:)
FFVT3R while it had an improved,brighter graphics and a cast of new characters maybe it should have focused and improved on making its create a superhero more diverse.Like what others have mentioned,more options in terms of animation for example melee battle from the air.A wide array of new powers and attributes added perhaps.Just a little more effects and options to make your superhero more personal and unique.Maybe also add a more easier way of customizing skins and meshes. :P
The point is FFVT3R did not add that much. It just had better graphics.I think its more of like a mod of FF1. If that is the case, I think this community can very well come up with its own version of Freedom Force 3. :lol: Then again, I might be wrong. :huh:
Yeah, for me Freedom Force is now up there with Army of Darkness (the movie) and Fallout (the gaming franchise). You know, stuff with a huge cult following where they say it's not economically viable to make a sequel since the creative team has moved on to more lucrative pastures. But then again there's a fallout sequel coming out so you never know. Still I think if they put FFVT3R on steam or game tap it would see a new life like family guy did on DVD.
About freedom force just out of nowhere I decided today that Im fine with it being over, but I hope irrational makes a new superhero game in the future even if it dosent feature Minute Man and El Diablo. What they need to do (and there's a game cashing in on this called Notorious) is create a modern game to capture the fantasies of a million heroes viewers.
You know, modern day setting, make your OWN heroes (a big draw in city of heroes), and open to easier modding a la Sims 2. Personally I would love a superhero game that allows you to build your character from ingame pieces and outfit pieces made by modders.
About the community creating it's own FF3 the only downside is that making a mod is in the end a lot of work, ask any of the people on this thread. Irrational succeeded in making a game that was very flexible but at the expense of requiring lots of code and man hours to produce something.
Out of curiosity...how well did the first really do?
I mean, were sales "good for a small company" or was it a real blockbuster? I ask because I'm not sure. I also ask because, if FF1 sales were that strong, wouldn't they have invested more time and/or effort into creating a full fledged sequel? Or a series of expansions?
The first game really was innovative, but it seemed to me to be more of a niche market game anyway...particularly compared to the success of COH.
IMHO, as always.
B92
QuoteI mean, were sales "good for a small company" or was it a real blockbuster? I ask because I'm not sure. I also ask because, if FF1 sales were that strong, wouldn't they have invested more time and/or effort into creating a full fledged sequel? Or a series of expansions?
I know for a fact that it was never a major blockbuster. In fact, I know quite a few people who would absolutely love this game if they had ever heard of it.
But it did sell well enough to make a decent profit, and thus a sequal.
Another problem with FF3R that hurt it was the useless international distribution. Some people will doubtless shudder if I mention the British distributors, Digital Jesters (Thankfully resting, hopefully not peacefully, the idiots!). I believe the French and German distributions were even worse.
For those that don't recall, how well do you think a game that is advertised as moddable on the box, but isn't will do? Doubtless many will recall the 350MB (?) modding patch that was belatedly released by DJ.
And yeah, I play the game to death but I must admit the american release was kind of lackluster... a box, two black and white cd's and a cheapish manual. Seriosly I wish they would have gone digital distribution, it would of probably done them a lot of good.
Also like IPS said, they should of listened. Check out fireaxis and the new civ expansion... it's almost based around mods other people have made and they included 3 fan favorite mods. Had irrational payed more attention to the community they would have had a much more solid "sequel" too.
Great topic, btw....
While going through the mod docs, I noticed these voice IDs:
VC - vietcong
VP - vietcong pilots
Is it possible that the original conception of FFVTTR was intended, as IPS said, to cover multiple time periods? Did they run out of money, or were there other priorities (i.e. Bioshock) that sucked the meat out of FF2 (or whatever it was to be named) before it got finished?
B92
Thats weird....
I was looking for a Vietcong mesh and/or skin the other day, and on a google search I found a reference to those vietcong characters as well. Apparently Ken Levine was credited with the voicework for them.
Quote from: Boalt92 on August 08, 2007, 04:30:27 PM
Great topic, btw....
While going through the mod docs, I noticed these voice IDs:
VC - vietcong
VP - vietcong pilots
Is it possible that the original conception of FFVTTR was intended, as IPS said, to cover multiple time periods? Did they run out of money, or were there other priorities (i.e. Bioshock) that sucked the meat out of FF2 (or whatever it was to be named) before it got finished?
B92
FFVTR *did* cover multiple time periods--1962 and WWII. The Viet Cong references are probably just something that was cut from the 1962 section. Perhaps the Cuba parts originally were supposed to take place in Vietnam?
You can find traces of the same sort of cut stuff in the orginal FF. Originally the whole game was supposed to take place in New York City (remember the original Web site?) The mission where the aliens attack the museum was supposed to take place at the United Nations. At some point they changed it to the fictional Patriot City, though lots of NYC still shows through--the university is obviously Columbia, the skyscraper is obviously the Empire State Building, etc.
Lots of interesting points raised in this thread. One thing I think Irrational missed the boat on was providing an easier method with which regular players could create custom skins. I'm pretty sure most everybody who played the game wanted to have their own characters replace the in-game ones, but at the same time, not everybody could be buggered to learn how to use Photoshop or GIMP. What happened was that players became dependent on third-parties (i.e., the skinners and meshers of the community) to create custom content for them. If a player didn't have any contact with the greater FF community, they were pretty much on their own. If you look at a game like City of Heroes, part of the appeal is the deep in-game character customization aspect. No need for expertise in skinning to create a reasonably custom skin.
And I'm not even thinking of anything too complicated in terms of skinning tools... I think it was BeardedinLair who wrote a program that would allow a player to mix-and-match (to a degree) parts of pre-existing skins and get them to display on the same mesh (I remember testing it out when it was a work-in-progress, don't remember if he released it to the community though). Irrational could have made a similar tool and packaged it with a batch of generic skins that players could choose their parts from.
I think that's a great point about having more easily customizable skins. It almost seems like the most basic aspect of getting the right look for a character involved a skillset that most people don't have. Given the very real appeal of custom characters in the game, I think this became almost an immediate stumbling block for people. Moreover, since Irrational didn't provide this tool, many people took to using the skins for copyrighted characters because those were produced in such abundance and were easy to search for. (I.e., it's easy for me to Google down a Professor Zoom costume, but hard to track down a yellow body suit with red lighting around the waist and wrists.) Since, IG couldn't support those copyrighted skins, I think it failed to play up one of the best aspects of the game, seeing customization as a gateway to potential legal trouble more than as a way to grow the game's fan base.
(I'm not saying that there wouldn't have been plenty of people who wanted to play copyrighted characters anyway. I'm just saying that the lack of a basic skinning tool actually made it easier to do that than to do something original.)
I still think the marketing was off. When I bought my Euro copy it took loads of work to make it open for modding. What needed to be done was make modding more available and obvious. The real charm of FF lies in the modding factor and making it a pain in the arse to do, and not even possible at first glance really hindered the games sale.
The strange thing is, I've seen plenty of magazines with very good reviews for FFVTTR. If only they had said, "a game were you can create your own superhero team and battle supervillains to save the world" rather than "superheroes without any real powers take on the nazis" they might have had a chance.
I totally agree with Zuludelta ,Stumpy, Lunarman , and Lugaru on the fact that Irrational Games just made its customization of characters,skins,and mods a bit tough for regular players to take advantage of. Although its great to learn new stuff like using Photo shop and such,some people might find that a bit troublesome and time consuming. If it were not for some skin tutorials,and the tons of meshes and skins available on the internet,frankly i would have played the game less often.Even stop after just finishing the campaign.Maybe comeback after a few years time ;), but it just ain't the same when you have your very own custom heroes or favorite comic book characters to watch in action over and over again.
If Irrational Games was afraid of copyright infringement from the other comic book companies,it could have at least given the players more ways to custom generic original heroes.I was surprised to see how few generic heroes were added in FFVT3R.
The only reason i can think of was maybe Irrational Games was banking too much on their Freedom Force Characters, the story and a few minor adjustments to carry their sales of the game.What they probably failed to realize was, maybe much of the success of FF1 was due in part to its fan community sharing tons of new options for the game.Like for example the very first danger room Alex made.Which they fortunately added in time. Not to mention the additional effects,skins,meshes,key frames,etc.,all courtesy again of the community.Who knows probably an EZ skinning tool in the future as well.Hehehe. :lol: If only they followed suit. :( The game's replay value as well as its sales might have soared.
Still, I have to admit,the Freedom Force cast of characters are good comic book characters.The story interesting and entertaining to say the least. I still would have bought the game just to know how their story continued.Though I was really expecting more chances to create my own superhero of course.
As of now,its seems there are no news of a FF3 in the making.Even though FF was a classic and even made IGN's top 100 games.http://top100.ign.com/2005/081-090.html
Or then again there is a chance Irrational is just keeping it hush hush,and we will have to wait as long as we did for Star craft 2. :wacko:
But what if FF3 did come along. And Irrational Games made the same mistake again.There is a whole bunch of new heroes and villains added,a new interesting story and plot,and a few minor adjustments again.Probably graphics and speed of the game. Would all you guys still be interested? Hmmm. I think i still would be. :P It would be very curious to see how the Freedom Force characters would have evolved in the silver age.Any of you guys have any ideas how Minuteman,El Diablo,Manbot,and Alchemiss would look like in the silver age? My imagination is running wild! :rolleyes:
I've given up on the idea of any support for FF1, FF2 or even the possibility of FF3.
I have written an email to the Irrational address asking them to release the source code. I urge anyone interested in further Freedom Force development to do the same. And certainly, if somebody knows a better email address to use please share it so we can lobby to get the future of Patriot City put in the hands of its fans.
That source code, while it may not be used again for FF, will likely be put to use in the future. In addition, parts of the code using the .nif system, in other words, virtually the entire graphics engine, is not there, but was purchased at considerable price and cannot be given away to anyone unless that was specified in the contract agreement.
Begging for a sequal, if done by enough people, could get results, although I doubt we have enough to make much of any impact. Demanding the source code by a couple of rapid fans will make them look very, very poorly on us and will make it even more likely that they'll never do anything for the fans again.
Who said anything about demanding?
I dont necessarily think making a request about source code is too unreasonable (provided its not done in some fanatical crazy way), look at what they have done with the Freespace Source code. It came about from a core group of fans asking about it for along time, and threads similar to this one on boards asking about a third title in the series.
The Open Freespace project and Battlestar Galactica project both have made substantial improvements to the game engine and turned out some really quality product....
That said, I think it needs to be more that just a couple of people asking for the sake of asking. I think you would need to get a lot of the hard core modders and coders (Dr. Mike etc...) on board so that it showed its not just a request that someone MIGHT do something with. I think you'd need to show that there is a community interest as well as people with the ability to actually do the coding work.
Another issue, is that even though the game engine itself may be old, the technology its based on is not some outdated proprietary thing. Modern games like Oblivion are still using the basic netimmerse building blocks to make current games. As a result there is a sort of gray area as to what could actually be released. I'm sure they have some kind of legal licensing to use the Netimmerse stuff which they cant legally just give out (I would think anyway).
Like Yellow Lantern said, it never hurts to ask, but I don't realistically think there is much chance of it happening.
Wow, I didn't expect quite a large response, but that's pretty damn cool. :thumbup:
That being said, I'm disappointed that FF3 will probably not be made, however I am not surprised. I've read a lot thoughts about the sales of the two games, and I have to say that while the content of the game (WW2) and the specific source coding and mod community might have been a factor with FF2's low sales, I do not believe for a second they were large contributors. Marketing was probably the biggest factor, followed by the simple fact that FF1 was never really that popular of a game. An underground hit, yes, hence a sequel, but I'd never call the game popular.
Here's my own personal experience with both of the games. As I said in my first post, I never heard of FF, I just bought it on an impulse buy. I saw it in the store one day and it got my interest, so I researched it online. I have to be honest, I didn't like the game at first, and my friend who bought it with me hated it. But I was determined to keep playing and I fell in love with the campaign. However, I found the games multiplayer to be pretty pathetic, and I never got into the modding community. I tried downloading skins and what not, but I just didn't know what to do with the game after I finished the wonderful campaign.
I didn't think the game would ever be popular enough to get a sequel, but sure enough it did. Once again I never heard anything about it. I just happened to come across an article on IGN about it. I didn't buy it right away though. I got FF1 for full price, and about a month after I bought it it went to the bargain bins (I dont remember how long it was out before I bought it though). Sure enough, I didn't have to wait long with FF2, as one day I was shopping at Target and to my surprise I saw FF2 on clearance for about 7 dollars. Played through the campaign again and loved it all the same.
Now from my experiences with both games, the most I ever saw for advertising was a few magazine articles. That is it. Now, it isn't the quality of the games that hurt them, because both games are virtually identical. So what was it?
It's my personal belief that FF1 made enough profit to merit a sequel because it just happened to be released at the right time. MMO's hadn't taken off yet; the superhero craze was just starting at the movies; and PC games were starting to get lower in numbers. When FF2 came out, it's competition was CoH. Say what you will, but to the average gamer, CoH would naturally be the better buy. That game had much better advertising, and MMO's are super popular right now (unfortunately). Also take into consideration other PC game competition. A superhero squad game is going to have a hard time competing with a superhero MMO, and other MMO's like World of Warcraft. People also want action games for superheros, which FF isn't. It's tactical.
When all is said and done, I just don't think the marketing was there, nor was the audience. Then again, I thought the same thing about the first game, and was really surprised a sequel was made. So that is why I thought maybe the same thing would happen again, but that doesn't appear to be the case. Shame, as FF2 had a cliffhanger ending.
i don't think there might be a ff3...theres not alot of superheroes nerds out there.
i'm guessing if there were alot of buyers and fans then ken would probaly start ff3 but nah
^there's NOT a lot of superhero nerds out there? I think it goes without saying that statement isn't true at all. Quite the opposite actually.
However, most superhero nerds want to stick with superheroes they know and love, ie-Spider-Man, Batman, etc. If not, then they want to make up their own, ala City of Heroes.
I disagree with the above statement. There are a lot of super-hero nerds out there but compared with the number of people that don't like superheroes they are rather a minority.
So, the audience is there but there's just more profit to be made by making mainstream shooters that appeal to a broader market.
^I sware every other damn game announced these days, especially for xbox seems to be yet another shooter. Not that shooters are bad or anything but man.
That's a shame...
It's not only a matter of superheroes...
Freedom force is a great game aside from this subject...
Rich renewable gameplay and storytelling...
And I don't see any rivals in terms of modding...
It never hurts to ask politely. Seriously, the worst you would get is a polite, but firm, "No!"
Now i wonder if...
The best that could happen to FF and FFVTTR...would be to become 'abandonware'.
Everyone could discover it.
(Especially european countries...since € FFVTTR is incompatible with mods)
Quote from: Volsung on August 13, 2007, 02:35:30 AM
(Especially european countries...since € FFVTTR is incompatible with mods)
If I'm understanding this correctly, "Euro FFVTTR is incompatible with mods", then I'm gonna have to call "shanninigans" and say that's def not true. :P If I misunderstood, apologies in advance.
I'm incompatible with that Private joke :huh:
QuoteFFVTTR is incompatible with mods
I think he means (not that Im trying to speak for him) that the Digital Jesters distribution was a pain in the backside to get set up to mod with (350mb+ download to use the mod tools) and then I think some people still had issues with it.
The Euro version was just a bad distribution from everything I remember...
QuoteI think he means (not that Im trying to speak for him) that the Digital Jesters distribution was a pain in the backside to get set up to mod with (350mb+ download to use the mod tools) and then I think some people still had issues with it.
The Euro version was just a bad distribution from everything I remember...
Yup. My english is imperfect...I admit I didn't rack my brain for my sentence...
So...Abandonware could be a solution
So.....
When does some whacky programmers decide to build FF on the xbox using the new game development tools by Microsoft? :D
Quote from: MyndVizion on August 17, 2007, 01:57:42 PM
So.....
When does some whacky programmers decide to build FF on the xbox using the new game development tools by Microsoft? :D
In the immortal words of Gary Coleman, "what you talkin' 'bout?"
Quote from: MyndVizion on August 17, 2007, 01:57:42 PM
When does some whacky programmers decide to build FF on the xbox using the new game development tools by Microsoft? :D
What would be the point? You wouldn't be able to mod for it. It would be worse than the Digital Jesters release.
Okay, first off my comment about modding FF for the xbox was just a silly comment. But not that far off the mark really.
For those who don't know, Microsoft released XNA tools that allow joe blows to create their own games and have them hosted on Xbox Live. One only has to look at a game like Aegis Wing to see what a couple of fans can do with the tools. With the amount of talent that's out there in this community it *could* be done. With that said, it wasn't meant to be a *serious* comment.
Second, I think there are more superhero fans out there than people realize. Most people have spent some amount of time with comics in some form or fashion. I think the success of movies such as Batman Begins, X-Men 1 and 2, Spider-Man, etc shows that there's enough interest in superheroes to make anything worthwhile.
With that said, it is true that superhero video games typically struggle in this market. The reasons have to deal with horrible superhero games that have created a negative legacy. I mean seriously what *good* superheroes have been released - Freedom Force games not included....? X-Men Legends 1 and 2 did pretty good in terms of sales. Even Marvel Ultimate Alliance did pretty good as well. However those games had much better marketing compared to FF and FFvtR.
I seriously think the problems facing superhero games in general are a) horrible track record of delivering good games, and b) not that many superhero games are every created, probably due to most being horrible to begin with. So it's a never ending cycle.
With games such as City of Heroes doing well and Marvel Online in development I have good hopes in the superhero genre and videogames. With movies such as The Hulk, Watchmen, Batman: The Dark Knight, and Iron Man in production, along with Marvel and DC's upcoming animated movies, and talks about a future Avengers movie - the future looks bright for superheroes. Let's not forget the success of Heroes on NBC, Heroclix by Wizkids Games, Vs TCG (which is now online), the success of New York Comic Convention and the San Diego Comic Con (which sold out for the first time this past year) and the success of Who Wants to be a Superhero it seems pretty apparent, to me at least, that people enjoy superheroes. With so few *good* superhero games on the market, it seems, again to me at least, that there's a void waiting to be filled. Certainly a Freedom Force 3 could be viable with the right approach, or even a superhero game on the FF engine for that matter.
Also, in addition to the undermarketing, niche setting, and retro graphics, FFvTTR got painted as a Starforce game by the Boycott Starforce movement, because some of the international versions unfortunately were shipped with starforce DRM. Even though the NA version wasn't Starforced, the dreaded "list" didn't make that distinction, and a lot of people wouldnt touch the game on principle, because of the Starforce stigma.
Quote from: Cyjack on August 26, 2007, 12:24:12 PM
Also, in addition to the undermarketing, niche setting, and retro graphics, FFvTTR got painted as a Starforce game by the Boycott Starforce movement, because some of the international versions unfortunately were shipped with starforce DRM.
That would be Digital Jesters messing thing up again.
How my heart bled when I heard they were no more!
I don't mean to Necropost but I just found this thread and wanted to add a couple of thoughts.
First I completely agree with Dr Mike in terms of copyrights. I was reposnsible for my share of skins and material based on other IPs for sure.... in retrospect that was a mistake of mine.
But you want to know what Irrational's biggest "mistake" of FFvsTTR was for me?
I think it was about two weeks or so after the game was released.
I bought this game the week it came out for full price. I bought it for the Mod tools. I paid about forty bucks for the mod tools and docs that are included with every copy of the game. While I never released a mod, a few people played some of the work I was doing. Work that to this day I am pretty freakin' proud of. I was slowly getting around the python scripting and was fully reskinning terrains. I was hex editing some objects (with a ton of help), and doing all sorts of crazy stuff, and eventually that all would have turned into some release.
And then very shortly after the game was released, one of this community's members figured out a way to hack the downloadable mod tools to work with the Demo of FFvsTTR.
Boom, free mod tools.
Then instructions to these hacks were passed around the community and no one said anything. Everyone who claimed they couldn't afford to pay for FFvsTTR could mod. This included several fairly "prominent" members of this community who claimed they were too broke to pay for the game but still wanted to get a peice of the modding action, be it skinning, hexing, scripting ect.
To me this was absolutely no different than someone posting links to "cracked" copies of the game. I wasn't rich or anything, at that point 40 bucks was my entertainment budget for a month. I paid for access to the mod tools, sure I liked the game, but owning the game was integral to access to the map editor, which is where my real interest was. A fair portion turned a blind eye to this until the nail in the coffin happened...
Irrational completely sanctioned the use of the instructions. A post was made that legitimized the hack and said it was OK by Irrational if people who didn't pay for the game to download the demo and the Mod tools and use them.
*shrugs*
I know it was Irrational's game. They were free to do whatever they wanted.
I went to CoH after that. A game that was more fun to actually *play* than FFvsTTR was to me. That said I enjoyed modding and skinning for FF a great deal.
Anyways at the end of the day, Irrational can do whatever they want with thier tools. As a consumer, in turn, I will vote with my wallet in the future. That vote pretty much means I would never give that company (in whatever form it takes) my money.
But hey.... that's just me. And I'm fully aware I am in a minorty.
-rain
ok, what about paying out £29.99 for the game the day it came out (that was about $60 then) for the mod tools, and then discovering that the mod tools didnt even work with the UK version, that sound a better deal to you?
I agree with ips. Maybe IG acknowledged that the mod tools worked with the demo (though I don't think they did), but I don't recall them ever saying "don't bother buying the game if you want to mod".
But, the mod tools were always free. They were free for the first game and free for the second. You could get them from the freedomfans site (as you still can). The $40 was for the game (the new campaign, Rumble Room, etc.) not for the mod tools.
The fact that the mod tools didn't work with the DJ distro of the game was a much bigger gaffe in my mind. But, even then, we have to acknowledge that the vast majority of people never use the mod tools. The only "modding" most players do is to install some extra skins and meshes (and I doubt that a majority of players even do that) and the mod tools aren't needed for that.
QuoteIt's my personal belief that FF1 made enough profit to merit a sequel because it just happened to be released at the right time. MMO's hadn't taken off yet; the superhero craze was just starting at the movies; and PC games were starting to get lower in numbers. When FF2 came out, it's competition was CoH. Say what you will, but to the average gamer, CoH would naturally be the better buy. That game had much better advertising, and MMO's are super popular right now (unfortunately). Also take into consideration other PC game competition. A superhero squad game is going to have a hard time competing with a superhero MMO, and other MMO's like World of Warcraft. People also want action games for superheros, which FF isn't. It's tactical.
I feel much the same way. I remember when the original FF was released. There just wasn't a whole lot of competition in the so-called super hero genre; no games worth mentioning really. For comic book fans, FF looked like the 'holy grail' of computer games. A wonderful, story-driven campaign, complete with great characters and villains? A game where you can create any hero you want? With whatever powers you want? Sign me up!
I remember countless hours just amazed at how fun the game was: throwing things around, destroying buildings, experimenting with different powers, etc. It was a comic book fan's dream come true.
But then the wave of MMO's starting mounting, and we were deluged with WoW, CoH, DAoC upgrades, and the ailing (but still going) SWG franchise. FF just got burried by all the 'hype' surrounding these other games.
One thing about FF I find true: It requires a certain mindset to truly love the game. If you're not a comic book fan, or someone who at least watches Justice League (or other cartoons), you're just not going to 'get it'. Sure, the game might be kind of fun, and entertaining, but your interest in it will always be topical at best.
I recall trying to get friends interested in FF. I gave them the demo. Explained how the game worked. Talked about how fun it was. But this crowd--mainly FPS and MMO players--just couldn't wrap their heads around FF; they just didn't "get it"; and they certainly didn't understand why I thought the game was so cool. To this day, they laugh at me at work, and make fun of Freedom Force, but I know they never once really gave the game a chance. The graphics, the 'comic book style', the gameplay--it was all just 'alien' to them.
Ironically, this same crowd has seen some of the screen shots I've created from modded FF material, and have been amazed by it. "What is that? Some new X-men game?" They ask the question, never realizing it's from FF, that game they 'dogged' a few years ago.
Apart from the competition problems, I think FF might have had a better chance if the 'modding' side of things could have been marketed better. If they marketed the game as a kind of Neverwinter Nights, where you could truly create your own superhero world, I think more people would have looked into it. Of course, copyright concerns and other pressures killed that idea before it even took off. What I wouldn't give to see a FF franchise of games, complete with Mod Packs released every few months. A full-fledged modding editor, like NWN's Aurora Toolset, would have been awesome!
Alas, it just wasn't meant to be .... :(
Quote from: stumpy on September 16, 2007, 10:12:47 PM
The fact that the mod tools didn't work with the DJ distro of the game was a much bigger gaffe in my mind.
Yeah. To be fair, that was Digital Jester's fault, not Irrational's; but then again, Irrational chose DJ to do their European distribution for them.