Foolz said:

Yep, a gimped version will be!

It's like people saying MGS4 looked better than Crysis Warhead in the GOTY vote last year. No way.

I suppose we'll have to see how Crysis 2 turns out, though.

crysis 2 will probably be the first sequel in the history of video games which will look worse than the original game even after coming years after the first game

Dvader said:

You honestly spent three paragraphs on the companies well being. I dont care about the economics of this, I am a gamer, this is strictly about making the game. You are not a Factor 5 employee, their finacial situation has nothing to do with this argument. This is strictly an argument as to which platform benefits Rogue Squadron as a game the most.

You believe there complete utter bullshit statement about the PS3 and the Wii. The wii is not that much more powerful than a GC. If the best F5 can do on the PS3 can be done on the Wii then they suck ass as programers.

You see this is where you lose me, from the start. This is not a fantasy situation. The game was in development on a platform by Factor 5, it's not some fantasy. The engine was done, the assets were being made. At the moment you're metaphorically acting like a child with his feet planted to the ground with his fists clenched, demanding things. Which in practice pays no heed whatsover to development and economic realities. We've had this same conflict before, I've explained before that when I think about games, I think about and try to understand, the reality behind business and development. You've explained before that you dont care and just want want want.

And here we are again, Factor 5, the actual developer who have made the engine are giving you an insight into their engine and their work and you from the outside just completely disregard it as utter bullshit. How is anyone then suppossed to take anything you say seriously on the subject when you do things like that? That's a Carnageheart manouvere right there.

If you actually think about what they are saying they aren't comparing the graphics, they are saying that their engine can do everything the other engine can do, so the same draw distance, the same number of enemies, technically everything the other can do but WITH A LOWER LEVEL OF GRAPHICS. I don't see how this is bullshit unless you are completely mis-interpreting their statement.

Dvader said:

"Or how about a move where you jump from your ship in mid air with a rocket pack on and land on another mid-air vehicle? Pull out your lightsabre, hack open the cockpit, throw the other guy out and take the seat. "

Yeah that would look amazing... on the PS3.

Great argument. Asshole!

Dvader said:

This is where you lose me completely. Sure you can do stuff outside the movies, all their games have done so but while maintaining some areas from the movie. Yes there can be new ships. But the second you make it about moving a cursor around the screen to shoot rather than moving your ship around to shoot then its Panzer Dragoon and not a flight combat game. The whole point of this type of game is to have flight combat, the basis of flight combat is to get behind your opponent to get a shot at them. You can not magically fire diagonally, it makes absolutely no sense in the context of what genre this is. You want to make a different game in a different genre fine, keep that away from a flight combat game. You MUST steer your ship to shoot at enemies, that is the entire basis of the gameplay.

You're very rigid in your intepretation of game design you know? I remember we had a similar discussion about incorporating Elebits style physics into a RE4 wii type game. You said that then it wouldn't be RE4 gameplay and you wanted the high definition version of the same thing.

In ships like a B-wing which have secondary gunners and whatnot, why not have independently moving turret guns? Why not improve the X-Wings to have the same thing, a simple gun on on top that can fire in any direction independent of movement? Then you can change up the gameplay, make things even more hectic and fast paced, you could actively make the game demand more of you, in terms of flight, avoiding collisions and debris, as much as it is about sharpshooting. And as we've said before you can tether aiming and moving with the reticule.

Of if you dont want to do that they have traditional control and use the pointer for other things. Like when you bring up the HUD and it color codes your enemies, you can use IR to tell your other squadmates what to do. Be the actual Rogue LEADER and not some chump who just hits the d-pad for general commands. Or use some of the other things I suggested before.

Dvader said:

Or even use the IR tow cable to swoop in low to pick up cargo drops. There is a ton of potential if you have a creative mind. What about a more tacticle Rogue Squadron where you can use the pointer to plot out and plan attacks, or point and click your squad to do what you want them to?

Now this is good stuff.  If they can make the entire game interesting with new gameplay like this then I can see it being done on wii. But if its only going to be used a few times and the majority be the same gameplay that we have seen before, I feel its still more beneficial to the game to be on one of the HD systems to get the most out of the flight combat.

Yeah the new mechanics have to be used throughout the game otherwise its wasted potential that's just common sense. I'm trying hard to see how the HD systems would get more out of the flight combat if you take into account the (utter bullshit) statement Factor 5 made about their engine?

You have to really give examples of how you think they would be better because your GGWeekly descriptions made it sound like Battlefront.

When Rogue Squadron came out everyone already said that it looked better than the movies and it does in many cases.

Go back and watch Star Wars and the trench run looks like... well battleship parts cobbled together (which it is) whilst the game has all these shadows and reflections and light sources bouncing off the trench. The new CG bits in the special editions weren't much better either. And again you've giving the developer (and the Wii) no credit whatsoever for being able to improve things either visually or engine related. Even when Factor 5 have extensively gone into detail about how much more they can do, with the increased power of the system.

Dvader said:

As for it being on Nintendo, thats nice and cute but again irrelevant to the discussion. The reason F5 failed on the PS3 is cause they did not have the SW license. Strip that away from them and none of their games would ever be big sellers.  You know what, screw Factor 5. Give another dev a chance to make an awesome X-Wing combat game, something that is a hybrid between X-Wing and Rogue Squadron.

That's nice and cute yet irrelevant to the discussion? (Another Carnageheart move there) Why not make Final Fantasy a PC exclusive series, why not make MGS 5 and 6, 360 exclusives. Or lets make Mass Effect a PS3 exclusive series? Don't throw that crap my way man. Factor 5 had a genuine desire to work on the system in reality, a series of consoles where they have actually seen success and have a wealth of experience. A console in which they could deliver a game in a reasonable time frame and at a reasonable cost.

Lair failed because it wasn't Star Wars? It couldn't possibly have had anything to do with this?

Not only was the gameplay bad, technically the visuals and engine were poor too:

IGN-review

"Sure, the FMVs are graphically impressive and so are parts of the gameplay, but there are lots of times I found myself rolling my eyes at what I was seeing on the screen -- I'm talking about tearing, square waves, a chugging framerate and water effects that look like sand.

Even if you could turn off the goodtime neutering Sixaxis controls -- and you can't -- the actual things you would be doing in the game would be a grab bag of neat and lame mechanics."

"Graphics
It's the definition of a mixed bag. The FMVs look awesome; the in-game stuff looks great but chugs; and the custscenes using in-game assets look framey."

Given this, imagining that Factor 5 could amazingly pull one out of the bag and make Rogue Squadron soooo much better on a more powerful system is a pipe dream. It would cost 3 times as much, it would take 4 years to make and it would never release because in reality: Lucasarts would fuck them over before it got that far.

SteelAttack said:

The only reason that matters here is the economic one.

Factor 5 have a world of experience with the hardware, and are arguably the dev team that could get the most out of it, this side of Nintendo dev houses. It's all a matter of cost-effectiveness. Thanks to their experience and understanding of the platform, they can make a game on the Wii that looks very good for a fraction of what it would cost to have it developed (not half-assed) on an HD console.

A properly developed (with 4, 5 years of work behind it) PS3 (or 360, or PC) Rogue Squadron should blow a Wii one out of the water any day of the week, and not only on the visual field, but on AI, and onscreen enemies as well, but its development budget would be so bloated that they wouldn't be able to recoup costs ever, considering the franchise is largely irrelevant now, and nobody but you guys care about it anymore. If there is any chance for a hypothetic game like this to piggyback on the SW name and make some profit, is on the Wii,  and with F5 as the dev team.

I broadly agree with virtually everything you say.

Just like to pick up a few points. If both the Wii and more powerful versions had 4 years of development each it would be a fairer comparison, but you're whole point I guess is that if made on Wii they could do it quickly. Rogue Leader was done in under 12 months if memory serves correctly, in fact I think it was slightly less. It was a phenomenal effort.

The only other point is the engine. I think we have this huge confusion up in the air over F5's statements on their engine.

IF the 360/PS3 version had (exactly) the same graphics of the Wii version of course it could do a zillion more ships etc. That is not in question. When Factor 5 says that the Wii "engine" can do everything their PS3 engine could do - and then some, this is what they mean:

Their Wii engine may have X amount of polygons per vehicle, whilst their PS3 engine would have XXX amount of polygons.  Within that framework though, everything they could do in the PS3 engine they can do in their Wii engine. So the same draw distance, the same advanced AI routines, the same number of on screen enemies (remembering that the PS3 models would be far more detailed and more system intensive), the same lighting, the same effects etc.

That is what they mean. This knowledge means that all these amazing gameplay you guys have in your heads that can only be done on more powerful hardware, well Factor 5s own insight into their engines blatantly proves that wrong.

I also disagree with this idealised view of what a next gen Rogue Sqaudron could be. Based on the physical real world evidence we have of Factor 5's attempt at a flight game on more powerful technology: Lair, it shows that it won't necessarily be all wine and roses.

Based on the product they put out on GC, you can say that it's at least solid, sometimes spectacular. And that their engine was much more polished on the sytem then their Lair engine ever was.

I just remembered I need to wait like a day for a response.

This argument is pointless anyway, you win GG, I quit.

Now lets take a serious look at this, yes I do believe if Lucasarts puts forth the same effort they did on the Force Unleashed for a new RS game it would be a multiple million seller easily. Yes they would have to put forth money, and they should cause quality SW sells. Make it for the PS3/360/PC, and you can have Wii/PS2 ports as well if they want. Follow the FU strategy ( ) and it WILL sell. The majority of sales will no doubt come from the PS3/360 SKU. Say they have to make it for the HD consoles or the Wii, even then if they make a quality game, give it good marketing it will sell better on the HD consoles than the same quality game with the same marketing on the Wii. The Wii doesn't have that same audience that the PS3/360 owners have that eat any big game up. I can see it moving a good 500k units on the 360, 250k on the PS3 in the first month. On the wii it may be around the PS3's number but thats about it. Just look at the NPD of FU, Wii was a distant 3rd. RS on the GC was heavily boosted by being a launch title, so it sold over a million. RS3 sold about half of that. Its a series on the decline, on a console where third party games (that are not mini games or party games) dont sell well, not going to do well. LA will have to spend money to make money. If they are being cheap then yeah a wii version is the only option but they cant expect major sales. Spend money, make it on the HD consoles and you will have a big hyped release that will sell millions.

As for fantasy RS, for the story I would make it post movies and have it follow the books. Maybe the X-Wing series, maybe jump all the way ahead to the NJO. If it is on the PS3/360, I would have flashback missions (have something like battle archives that your character can go back and check out, its like a VR simulation of it that becomes the level) so that we get to see the classic movie moments like we never have before. Gameplay I would make it a bit more strategic, again I love the X-Wing series, I would like it to be more objective based like that, more open to having multiple ways to complete a mission. It would focus more on the squad aspect, maybe some squad controls. Like Tie-Fighter I think it would be cool if you had a home base between missions. You can see what medals you earned, walk around a captial ship, interact with squad mates, talk to the movie characters. Make if feel like you are a guy living the life of someone in Rogue Squadron, his friends will die, new members will show up, you will get promoted, etc. If you really want to go nuts, have an entire Empire campaign as well. It can be the same locations, just from the other point of view, shouldn't be hard to do. But then it cant really be called Rogue Squadron... oh whatever I like the idea, if you have not noticed yet I much rather be making the next X-Wing game, not RS.

Ultimately it will have a massive online component, entire co-op campaigns where the whole squad is made up of people. Competitive multiplayer with like 60 people, one side Rebels the other Empire, all the classic game modes will be there. The maps will be from the movies as well as some areas from comics, books, maybe even a KOTOR like level. Imagine Endor with all human players, so awesome.

gamingeek said:

Yeah but Vader, when someone wants to bring something to the table, or try and discuss the whole scope surrounding a single issue, you just sort of gloss over everything and say that's irrelevant. Utter BS. Well tha't cute.

To me, that's like closing down a conversation or telling me that we can only discuss things on your terms. Which isn't nice when someone has put together a well thought out logical post. Just something to think about man - it doesn't make the other guy feel too good and to be honest, does remind me of the C man Hobo caller. I'm only mentioning it because you've it to me before about a year ago post E3.

I was trying to argue something and then you try to counter it using points that were not part of what I was discussing.  I felt that you a were trying to change the subject on me and I dont like that. It was irrelevant to what I was saying, its not an irrelevant point general but to what I was talking about it was. As I said, if you wanted to talk about that then start a new discussion. It doesn't feel good when I am making a simple statement and then get thrown all this extra crap at me trying to prove I am wrong when I wasn't even talking about that aspect. 

phantom_leo said:

ENOUGH ! ! ! BOTH OF YOU ! ! !

TIME FOR MAKE-UP SEX ! ! ! NAO ! ! !

I present a gift to Vader

gamingeek said:

This is just one aspect of the game though. I have more ideas I will flesh out later.

Why don't you flesh out your flabby, slob like ASS towards the phone to ask for a new 360?

Fucker.