Is CIC the only place where Arena gets positive feedback?

DaBrain said:
I'd rather say the person with an opinion like that is stupid.
Ah... hen and egg thing I guess.
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Well, I sure hope you don't ever become a lawyer - "Your honour, my client is clearly not guilty, because all the witnesses for the prosecution are stupid!" :)

A person can have a stupid opinion without actually being stupid - and more to the point, he can have a wrong opinion without being stupid, simply by being misinformed. How you react to this usually determines on whether you can persuade him or not. As a general rule, when you call somebody stupid, you lose any chance of actually changing his mind on anything, because people don't listen well when they're being insulted.
 
Well, use this as an opportunity! One of the unique advantages this community has over a random gaming news site is that you can interact with a few people who have actually played Arena.

Also, you have the opportunity to make your opinions -- your informed and well thought opinions -- known to Electronic Arts. We have their attention here, which is a fantastic position to be in... but we need to treat it with some respect.

I am sorry for insulting you earlier in the thread. This is all a lot to deal with -- there are some pretty big highs and lows that come with all this news.
 
Saying the game sucks is kinda unfair, because it isent even finished yet. Just do what i'm doing; give it the benifit of the doubt, and see how well it turns out. (yes, I still am kinda dubious about, but when it comes out, i'll defnatly buy it.) The whole point is: give the game a chance.:)
 
I have nothing against the FF talk, but maybe it could be split off into a different thread? I think this discussion resolved rather nicely already, and I wouldn't want to see it flare up again over Final Fantasy (of all things).

Still, everybody loves FF -- open something about it in the Off Topic zone.
 
DaBrain: The reason I think that WC: Arena is getting so much positive attention here is because we all know that if this game is a success EA will most likely consider continuing the series with a full-blown sequel - possibly with FMV. I've noticed the backlash on other boards but they just fail to see the bigger picture - this game will now allow Wing Commander to reach a whole new market, and familiarisation of the brand will ensure sales in the future. This type of game is perfect for that, the cost is cheap so it’ll reach a large audience, with 18 different ships and various play-modes that audience will definitely get a feel for the series AND it’s going to be nothing less that FUN - what any good game should be.
 
So... you say "it's good", to convince EA to work on part six of the series.

Sounds more like you don't really care about Arena and just 'use' it to get something you want.
I don't think EA will base a decision like this on the comments on a community board, but on how well it sold.

So only buying wil do anything. Pretending to like it won't.


Also... EA was successfull due to their 'safe-side' politic. (I call it that way.)
If something works, create a second part.
Fifa
NFS

Budget depends on the success of the previous title.

Always staying on the safe side, by not chaning too much.


If Arena is a success, we'll probably see Arena 2 soon. And maybe some other acrade titles with one of the classic IPs. Like Ultima.


If you want Wing Commander 6, you'll have to buy another space shooter. EA also looks at the successrate of other companies.

Like Blizzard.
They saw the success of WoW and decided to work on a LotR MMORPG.

Some people complain that it's too much like WoW. But actually, that's EA's secret of success. ;)
 
The problem here, though, is that this is a corporate strategy that you made up.

You're basing it off of things made up at message boards, while everyone else is speaking from their experience actually working with EA.
 
I don't think it's much of a secret how EA acts. You look at the games EA has publishes so far and it's really obvious.

They really stick to their big games and create more titles with the game franchise.
I mean... it's not like anybody could deny that.

I can't remember any title they really took a risk with. It's all very well calculated.
And they've been very successful so far... so I don't see why they should take the risk and create WC6?

If there was another new space sim with a lot of (financial) success, the question would be "why don't they work on WCS?".

But there isn't.


Everyone else on this board worked with EA?
What do you mean?
 
DaBrain said:
I can't remember any title they really took a risk with. It's all very well calculated.
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This is just hindsight speaking, though. You say EA doesn't take risks, they just produce sequels. Well, it's true, they do produce a lot of sequels and addons. But guess what - in order to produce any addons for The Sims or Ultima Online, they had to actually make The Sims and UO first. In order to produce any sequels for Madden or FIFA, they had to make both of those games. Today, all of these seem like perfectly safe decisions, but they certainly weren't during production. The Sims went on for years before it got anywhere (and the same appears to be the case with Spore, another completely unique EA product currently in development). Madden ran into a lot of trouble because Madden himself wasn't too interested in having his name on a game. FIFA was a huge risk - spend tens or hundreds of thousands on buying a license just to do another sports game? And Ultima Online... the fact that they didn't expect to need more than a single server for this game speaks for itself. Beyond that, even sequels frequently take huge risks. Wing Commander III, for example - the previous game in the series had been shipped on half a dozen floppy disks, and suddenly we're talking about four CDs and a multi-million dollar budget? That's as far from safe as you can get.

What's more, EA hasn't always succeeded - it's just that people don't remember their failures (precisely because they are failures). Remember Majestic? That was one of the most original games I'd ever heard of... only, most people never heard of it at all (perhaps because, while undoubtedly very original, it was a pretty stupid concept). And how about Earth & Beyond? For every successful Ultima Online, EA's had half a dozen failed online games, each completely different than the others. Of course, even so, it's hard to come up with too many EA failures, but that's not because they don't take risks - it's because they take smart risks. It's because by the time a product actually gets even as far as being announced to the public, EA's gone through a lot of effort to make sure it succeeds.

It's not surprising that people look at EA's successes and assume it must be because they're playing it safe - but if you look a little closer, you'll find that there's a lot more to it than that. Heck, consider for a moment that even buying another developer like Origin or Westwood is in itself a risk.
 
DaBrain said:
So... you say "it's good", to convince EA to work on part six of the series.

Sounds more like you don't really care about Arena and just 'use' it to get something you want.
I don't think EA will base a decision like this on the comments on a community board, but on how well it sold.

So only buying wil do anything. Pretending to like it won't.

Also... EA was successfull due to their 'safe-side' politic. (I call it that way.)
If something works, create a second part.
Fifa
NFS

Budget depends on the success of the previous title.

Always staying on the safe side, by not chaning too much.


If Arena is a success, we'll probably see Arena 2 soon. And maybe some other acrade titles with one of the classic IPs. Like Ultima.


If you want Wing Commander 6, you'll have to buy another space shooter. EA also looks at the successrate of other companies.

Like Blizzard.
They saw the success of WoW and decided to work on a LotR MMORPG.

Some people complain that it's too much like WoW. But actually, that's EA's secret of success. :)
Click to expand...


Well I don't own a 360 yet due to financial reasons, but I'm now willing to put away a few bucks every now and then to save up for one - purely due to Arena.

Your remark about "using Arena to get something you want" doesn’t make much sense to me. Most Wing Commander Fans wanted another Wing Commander game, and Arena certainly falls into that category. Sure, technically it's not the same genre, but it's part of the WC universe nonetheless. Arena will get the kids and casual gamers playing, as well as the long-term fans - who knows were it's going to go from there.

I understand your point that if Arena becomes successful then they'll make Arena 2 not WC6.......possibly. But again the possibilities are endless. I think multiplayer is a necessity in future WC releases (imo), so maybe Arena will "evolve" its multiplayer AND its single player experience into something more familiar with subsequent releases.

WC: Arena will expand the Wing Commander universe - which is a good thing, and unless it plays like an absolute dog, which it apparantly doesn't, then there is nothing to be upset about.
 
Heck, the game most of us were demanding back when things fell apart was *Privateer Online*. That wouldn't have had FMV or a story or... anything but multiplayer action, really.
 
Manboy said:
I understand your point that if Arena becomes successful then they'll make Arena 2 not WC6.......possibly. But again the possibilities are endless.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it looks like people who make that claim don't really grasp what Arena or XBox Live Arcade is. An XBLA game that sells 100,000 units is a huge success, and Arena games are typically priced $5-15. If Arena generates one million dollars, EA will be very happy and won't stop there. So they could go and make another Arcade game or release some addons for Arena, or they could take this resurgence in Wing Commander popularity and spin it into a retail game that might be expected to sell a million copies at $60 each. The more successful Arena is, the more likely it is that an Arena sequel will be pushed aside for a potentially more lucrative big budget game.

Either way, we don't need to decide whether or not we like Arena based on these hypothetical future scenarios. Just look at Arena on its own and I think all of you would be very impressed at the great lengths EA has gone to in order to make this as accurate as possible. If it eventually turns out it's not your type of game, that's fine, but then you should speak up and actually tell us what specific gameplay mechanics or stylistic choices are not appealing to you. Hating Arena based on some corporate conspiracy you heard on the internet isn't fair.
 
I personally think there's more chance of them making a prequel to WC1 than a sequel to prophecy. It's been so long between games that I can't see them following the Midway, or at least not following Casey and his posse.
 
I used to think that, too -- but the current move seems to be more towards stuff involving the Nephilim...
 
If the new game had more Nephilim content (outside of a few small backstory mentions) I would say there'd be more chance... although I can definitely see a Nephilim story continuing, just not from the view of the same characters that we saw in WCP. I'd rather a continuation of the story instead of a "filling in the gaps" kind of scenario. Although with WCA coming out it seems as if we win the war with the bugs and there are still kilrathi around so both races survive in some capacity. Just what that capacity is remains a bit unclear...
 
I think the big thing is that in setting up the backstory for Arena, they were insistent that the exact details of the Nephilim stuff *not* be revealed -- that suggest, to me, that it's a potential playground for a future story (I certainly wouldn't count on seeing Casey again, soon... and definately not Steven Petraca).

That said, I know Chris Roberts has a 'prequel' concept that he'd like to develop given the right conditions...
 
Of course, they can always end up with a game that spans over years starting as a WC "Prequel" and going through to Post-Secret Ops. Any type of story can work as long as it's delivered well.
 
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