Honestly, if they included New York and Haven Island in the standard edition of the game, added Paris into the starter pack, and then released Woa part 1, 2 (With New York and Haven Island included), and part 3, splitting the price of the game in 3 parts, I could get behind their reasoning of having cheaper entryways for people to start playing the game, but the Sapienza edition is just plain ridiculous no matter how you look at it.
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So, it is going to satisfy someone in the larger user base?
Just because it’s complex doesn’t mean it’s bad, and just because you think something is bad doesn’t mean it objectively doesn’t deserve to continue to be in the game. You’re not the patron saint of how the game should work, Drib, anymore than I am of how the lore should be interpreted (according to some people on here, anyway).
So, it is going to satisfy someone in the larger user base?
I literally gave the description of the types of people it would satisfy, nothing I said was contradictory.
Just because it’s complex doesn’t mean it’s bad, and just because you think something is bad doesn’t mean it objectively doesn’t deserve to continue to be in the game.
I agree, something being complex isn’t bad. However, the information told to the player to understand the complexity of the situation is not done in a satisfactory or reliable way, be it via level hints, diegetic gameplay cues or via the briefing. All the players knows, is that there’s a courier meetup at the shisha den, and you have to kill Xander. You are not warned of the other marketeers, and players may not be expecting a stalking mission, and try to take out the courier while he walks about, which leads to a failure.
I am not the only person to think it is bad; there is plenty of evidence on forums and the reddit that display how much players dislike it, or at the very least, find it hard to complete.
You’re not the patron saint of how the game should work
I don’t have to be. We have actual evidence of the mission being bad, footage of people failing, people online complaining how annoying that mission is to complete; there’s even a mod to get rid of the failure conditions. Not to mention, IOI’s own internal stats saying lots of people failed, and Travis even admitting it’s not liked by fans as players find it frustrating. Is that not enough for you? Is that not a good reason to keep the mission locked away until it can be reworked?
It is a terrible contract that subverts player expectations and is outright confusing. People would not be emphasising the use of, or recommending the use of, guides if it weren’t. Shit, the level doesn’t even have a sub 7-minute speedrun time. I’d be more okay with it if an ETA was made at the same time (or even specifically just an ETA), but no such plan has been put into place.
You are being a devil’s advocate for the sakes of it, defending a contract you know is problematic for the sakes of selfishly playing it later in the month guilt free. For once, look at the bigger picture.
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I don’t know, in the case of The Fixer, the proof is in the pudding here. The Fixer having instant fail conditions was a really bad idea as is. It’s not a bad ET, but having instant fail conditions is inherently bad and ruins the fun factor for people. A lot of people complained about it back in the day and for our Speed Running community it’s arguably the most annoying target to do.
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As a matter of public record, and to get this back on-topic, I have sent Eurogamer an email with information on this whole situation.
Will be contacting Kotaku’s tip-mail soon.
Have now contacted Kotaku.
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Feels like the new trend among companies is to make stupid decisions (i.e. Disney). The major problem is that this one is affecting players who buy the wrong bundle and shows tha IO didn’t learn or improve with H3 Year 1 or H2016 episodic format.
Not exactly a new trend for Disney considering they’ve been making stupid decisions for almost a hundred years :x
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More lately, like buying everything and then ruining everything.
Anyone remember this?
With all those Part 1, Part 25, this Sapienza Pack it looks like complete mokery of [potential] players.
Or exactly this was their vision…
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(btw has the upgrade pack been fixed yet?)
@Combatglue
Can you look into why the sales are inconsistent please? Everything should be on sale at the same time so that this isn’t even more confusing for new players (part one is more expensive that the whole game at the moment).
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Also, I’m kind of sad that this chapter in the book of IOI’s mistakes ended with no communication or solutions. It’s also kind of sad that @Combatglue hasn’t said anything at all since that pr statement. So much for promising to improve and communicate more : (. (Also we need to know what happened with the dribbleondo video and if you watched it)
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I’m sorry to tell you, IOI is doing that on purpose. I don’t think @Combatglue has a choice. This is, as several others (@Dribbleondo included) have said, a money-grabbing technique based on confusing players.
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Honestly, I don’t think they did. They probably didn’t realise it was negative of them until Reddit told them.
Also, to keep people informed, I’ve been professionally ignored by Eurogamer and Kotaku.
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At least it reflects extremely poorly on them because it was extremely obvious that it wasn’t favourable based on the thumbnail and the title of the video. Someone just saw a video that had Sapienza in the thumbnail and hit share.
I miss Travis and Clemens. At least they occassionally interacted with us here, and not just to address complaints or showing up for a day when a roadmap drops and then just ghosting us until the next complaint/roadmap (and sometimes, not even then).
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Hm, why not try reaching out to more outlets? Eventually, one of them will pick up this story and turn a spotlight on this (given that it seems only bad press will persuade IO to turn back on this decision).
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It’s too late now. The window of relevancy has passed.
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Welp, I still do believe it’s worth a shot, even if it’s a bit pointless (what’s life without a little forlorn hope?)
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Even if true, you’d think someone would at least press Play and watch at least 30-60 seconds of the video before sharing it. It just shows that standards are going down the toilet across multiple aspects of IO Interactive in recent times.
But still - and as absolute clownshoes of a mistake as sharing drib’s video was - our main ire should be firmly directed at the hostile, anti-consumer business practices that are becoming increasingly commonplace at IOI. Moreso than some social media incompetence, that’s the real problem that needs addressing.
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Couldn’t have put it better myself.
I’ve had to talk myself out of making a sequel video to this in recent days, mostly because we all know about it, so there’s no need to acknowledge it right now in video form. I hope and pray that come March, they see the light and realise that making a single-location its own edition was a horrible idea that was only done as a short-term profit move.
If IOI says it wants to listen to the players, then fucking listen to the players!
“We are listening! I promise you!”. You are? Then act like it!. And if you are listening to us, then that’s only half the formula here. Actions speak louder than words, that’s how the saying goes, no?
It’s fine to cherry-pick as to what you respond to, that’s only reasonable, but this is a large issue that I don’t think anyone but the glaziest of IOI’s Glazing fans finds acceptable. Everyone else saw it for the money-grubbing motive, not to make new players have another entry point motive. It’s a large issue that should be resolved, not one to be ignored until you can no longer justify keeping the edition up.
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