Can a Fanbase Ever Be "Owed" Something?

[jademunky]

Well, in once sense I feel "owed" a quality entertainment product EVERY time I sit down to watch something.

If I don't get it though, the creator isn't obligated to try again until he meets my criteria.

 

[Trunkage]

I cringe when the marketing of the new Ghostbusters movie says its giving the movie 'back to the fans.'

Also, being a Star Trek fan (and sort of Wars) somehow means I dont want anything to change. There are good parts of Discovery and bad with the average being good. There are good parts of Orville and bad, with the average being good. Both drastically change the Star Trek formula but in totally different ways.

The Force Awakens killed my interest in Star Wars. But Rogue One and parts of Last Jedi have given me some hope for Star Wars. Rogue One is how I see Star Wars, especially reading the Thawn books and Rogue Squadron series. Force Awakens is not.

But, clearly I'm not a real fan anyway. All these fandoms are pretended to be monoliths that dont have any variation in interpretation. I clearly dont think like 'real fans.'

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

I cringe when the marketing of the new Ghostbusters movie says its giving the movie 'back to the fans.

I most certainly don't, and not for the gender of any of the lead actors. Amy Pascal pulled some seriously unforgivable ish to shoehorn that movie into production, and pre-production was an even bigger shitshow than the two decades' worth of development hell for Ghostbusters 3. More attention needs to be put on what came to light thanks to the SMP e-mail hack.

I'm sorry, but when you weaponize the death of a brilliant and well-regarded creative who was probably the greatest comedy writer of his time who was by all accounts a genuinely good person, and one of the two men responsible for the entire franchise, to throw a grieving friend under the bus and muscle him out of the production before the body is even cold, you can fuck yourself with a Bad Dragon made of molten tungsten all the way straight to Hell.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Legally, no. Morally, of course.


If a fanbase made a thing out of something that without them would never have been made successful, for example, how the tournament scene kept the super smash brothers series culturally relevant for a good decade or so until nintendo woke up to the goldmine in their backyard, you owe a debt of gratitude to the fans who facilitated your profitability, comfort and success.

Now, a balance has to be struck where continued profitability is balanced out with fandom preferences, and sometimes changes need to occur that make some fans less than pleased. There is, however, a common sense line where reasonable fans can agree that a franchise has "stopped being itself" in a fundamental way for reasons not related to its continued existence, changed because of some new vision or new ideology or new talent brought in. That is a form of betrayal of trust and of loyalty.

What ought happen there is that those critically-differing visions for a franchise should be made into an original work, one of a separate identity to that of the original. There is never a reason to change something so much. You can always just make more new things instead.


I think this is a very american thing, since for example you have the american comic books where you have the same character written by a dozen (or even a hundred in some cases) different people throughout their existence, and at one point the character loses any semblance of identity and becomes a chunk of playdough for whoever is forming him at the present time. I think the world would have been much more interesting if each of those people came up with their own original character and had them go through the events they had in mind instead. Manga is a lot like that which is a big reason for why I prefer (and actually purchase) it.

 

[Hawki]

Yes.

1. If you promise something, you well, promised something. Say, a certain number of books, or features that end up not being in the game.

Both of those are debatable - in my mind, it depends on the circumstances.

Since we've brought up books, we'll use A Song of Ice and Fire. Got five books, and there's meant to be at least two more. It's been years since book 5, and there's no hard date on book 6, let alone book 7, and in the intervening period, Martin's found time to work on various other projects. So if one poses the question as to whether George "owes" the world books 6 and 7...I'd still have to say no. Unless there was a person that paid upfront for seven books, then there isn't an obligation for him to provide it. I wouldn't fault anyone being angry with it, but as Martin owns the product, he's under no obligation to continue providing it.

If we shift to TV, if a show ends on a cliffhanger, are we owed a resolution? I'd argue that the answer is still no.

2. If you're adapting something, you owe the fans to ya know, adapt it. Too many adaptations don't care about the source material, and usually are garbage.

That's more of a different argument. It's easily possible to have a product that's a solid film but a poor adaptation (e.g. Starship Troopers), or a solid adaptation but a mediocre film (e.g. Chamber of Secrets). If we're talking about what's being "owed," I'd rather be owed the former more than the latter, even though it's not a choice of either/or. But even in principle, I don't think people are "owed" anything.

Also the further away from the creators you go, the more the new people owe it to the fan base I think. George Lucas 'owed' the Star Wars fandom less than Disney does.

Okay, but what does Disney actually "owe" fans? It spent over a billion dollars obtaining the rights to the IP. It might be correct to say that Disney "owes" people like George, or various other people that worked on Star Wars before then, but I don't see a convincing argument that Disney owes fans anything. Even if you argue that fans kept the IP alive or something, that still says more about the worth of the IP than the people consuming it - consumption isn't creation. Even if we're talking about fan works, unless Disney adapts them into its own portfolio, it still doesn't owe them stuff for that.

Bethesda admitted the ending had its faults, and while standing behind the original product gave it a conclusion and epilogue in the form of Broken Steel, a paid DLC. Still not even a fraction of the controversy surrounding ME3. What was missing in FO3's case that was present in ME3's, what was that key X-factor that caused the controversy over ME3's ending to erupt into an industry-defining moment but not FO3's?

My guess?

1) Mass Effect 3 was the culmination of a trilogy. Fallout 3 wasn't. By extension, if you were a fan of ME1/2, chances are you'd be of 3. In contrast, there's a notable divide between those who were introduced to Fallout via 1/2, and those who were introduced in 3 (see No Mutants Allowed)

2) BioWare explicitly promised that ME3 wouldn't have the type of ending it did.

3) I can't comment too much, but from where I'm sitting, ME3's ending is really discordant with the setting, and themes of said setting. We have to accept that organics and synthetics are doomed to conflict (if you had the geth and quarians make peace, too bad). So, either you can say "nah, screw the geth" and kill them with the Reapers, or force synthesis on everyone. If I was to sum up the themes of Mass Effect, it would be "choice" and "unity, not uniformity." The ending, like Terminator 3 for instance, is thematically discordant with everything that's led up to this point.

In contrast, I can't comment much on Fallout 3, but I wasn't aware of any such thematic discordance with its ending. People have argued that FO3 (and indeed, every post F2 game bar New Vegas) is discordant with the themes of the first two games, but I've already explained that there was a swathe of individuals for whom Fallout 3 was their first Fallout game (I'm one of them, though granted, it's my only, and I wasn't fond of it). ME3? Same fanbase overall.

Also, being a Star Trek fan (and sort of Wars) somehow means I dont want anything to change. There are good parts of Discovery and bad with the average being good. There are good parts of Orville and bad, with the average being good. Both drastically change the Star Trek formula but in totally different ways.

Um, is the Orville really a "drastic change?" Like, if I was to sum up the Orville (least the first season), it would be "TNG, but with far more (attempts at) comedy."

Discovery is certainly a drastic departure though.

Legally, no. Morally, of course.

If a fanbase made a thing out of something that without them would never have been made successful, for example, how the tournament scene kept the super smash brothers series culturally relevant for a good decade or so until nintendo woke up to the goldmine in their backyard, you owe a debt of gratitude to the fans who facilitated your profitability, comfort and success.

Really?

Smash is using characters from well known IPs. Nintendo could have put out a third Smash at any times and it would have still sold like hotcakes. I doubt the Melee tournament scene made much of a difference. If anything, from what I can tell, Brawl tried to distance itself from the e-sports crowd.

There is, however, a common sense line where reasonable fans can agree that a franchise has "stopped being itself" in a fundamental way for reasons not related to its continued existence, changed because of some new vision or new ideology or new talent brought in. That is a form of betrayal of trust and of loyalty.

Except the whole "X is not X anymore" thing is going to differ from person to person.

I think this is a very american thing, since for example you have the american comic books where you have the same character written by a dozen (or even a hundred in some cases) different people throughout their existence, and at one point the character loses any semblance of identity and becomes a chunk of playdough for whoever is forming him at the present time. I think the world would have been much more interesting if each of those people came up with their own original character and had them go through the events they had in mind instead. Manga is a lot like that which is a big reason for why I prefer (and actually purchase) it.

I'm kind of on the same page here. I don't bother with superhero comics because, among other things, the continuity is either too dense, or too flexible - if what I'm reading is going to be rebooted a few years down the line, why even bother? Manga isn't without its own barriers for me, but at the very least, the installments are numbered clearly, and it's usually coming from the same creator. It's far less intimidating to purchase "Manga Vol. 5" rather than "Superman #999, post-Crisis, pre-New 52."

 

[Saelune]

Yes.

1. If you promise something, you well, promised something. Say, a certain number of books, or features that end up not being in the game.

Both of those are debatable - in my mind, it depends on the circumstances.

I mean, everything is circumstantial, but the question was a yes/no one. And the black and white answer is yes. That said, I think what one 'owes' is also circumstantial. Promising something means you should try to keep the promise, but the least you can do is be honest and upfront when you find out you cant. Transparency can do a lot to alleviate such entitlements. Too many promises are broken and the response from them is pure silence.

 

[Trunkage]

I cringe when the marketing of the new Ghostbusters movie says its giving the movie 'back to the fans.

I most certainly don't, and not for the gender of any of the lead actors. Amy Pascal pulled some seriously unforgivable ish to shoehorn that movie into production, and pre-production was an even bigger shitshow than the two decades' worth of development hell for Ghostbusters 3. More attention needs to be put on what came to light thanks to the SMP e-mail hack.

I'm sorry, but when you weaponize the death of a brilliant and well-regarded creative who was probably the greatest comedy writer of his time who was by all accounts a genuinely good person, and one of the two men responsible for the entire franchise, to throw a grieving friend under the bus and muscle him out of the production before the body is even cold, you can fuck yourself with a Bad Dragon made of molten tungsten all the way straight to Hell.

Are you talking about Reitman? Who Fieg asked Pascal to cut out of being a producer? Otherwise they'd have to find another director?

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

Are you talking about Reitman? Who Fieg asked Pascal to cut out of being a producer? Otherwise they'd have to find another director?

Yeah. The SMP hacked e-mails show Pascal and Doug Belgrad were scheming to boot Reitman from the director's seat at least as early as January, 2014. Before Ramis' death. Then, there was the e-mail from 17 March -- the day before Reitman's announcement -- listing the talking points Reitman was to use, from Charles Sipkins to Pascal and Belgrad (but not Reitman).

The whole "dinner party" fiasco was in October of that year, but again the SMP e-mail hack shows Feig and Pascal were negotiating to get Reitman removed from the film altogether as early as August.

There are plenty of resources online to read up on it, not limited to Wikileaks, but Midnight's Edge did a video about the SMP hack relevant to Ghostbusters, outlining the timeline on Reitman's ouster and how it came to be.

https://youtu.be/RPAklIlov-A

EDIT: Actually found this blog post that has the complete timeline, with direct links to Wikileaks' database of the emails.

http://www.gbfans.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=39324

Bonus points for the e-mails from February days before Ramis' death, where Pascal was openly talking about forcing Reitman out and seeking advice for how to do it.

But honestly, the ELI5 on it is Pascal is a massive piece of shit. Don't get me wrong, Feig was acting like a giant, braying donkey, but the situation would never have devolved to what it became had Pascal not set the stage by screwing over Reitman, and proceeding to defend Feig well past the point of reason.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

If there is no contract, then only in their feels minds.

If only there were some word to describe the exchange of currency or trade for goods or services rendered, at an agreed-upon rate of exchange...

Still nothing certain about liking it.

 

[Agema]

But, clearly I'm not a real fan anyway. All these fandoms are pretended to be monoliths that dont have any variation in interpretation. I clearly dont think like 'real fans.'

Most "real fans", left to themselves, would suffocate what they love to death and pickle it in formaldehyde.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Legally, no. Morally, of course.

If a fanbase made a thing out of something that without them would never have been made successful, for example, how the tournament scene kept the super smash brothers series culturally relevant for a good decade or so until nintendo woke up to the goldmine in their backyard, you owe a debt of gratitude to the fans who facilitated your profitability, comfort and success.

Really?

Smash is using characters from well known IPs. Nintendo could have put out a third Smash at any times and it would have still sold like hotcakes. I doubt the Melee tournament scene made much of a difference. If anything, from what I can tell, Brawl tried to distance itself from the e-sports crowd.

There is, however, a common sense line where reasonable fans can agree that a franchise has "stopped being itself" in a fundamental way for reasons not related to its continued existence, changed because of some new vision or new ideology or new talent brought in. That is a form of betrayal of trust and of loyalty.

Except the whole "X is not X anymore" thing is going to differ from person to person.

I think this is a very american thing, since for example you have the american comic books where you have the same character written by a dozen (or even a hundred in some cases) different people throughout their existence, and at one point the character loses any semblance of identity and becomes a chunk of playdough for whoever is forming him at the present time. I think the world would have been much more interesting if each of those people came up with their own original character and had them go through the events they had in mind instead. Manga is a lot like that which is a big reason for why I prefer (and actually purchase) it.

I'm kind of on the same page here. I don't bother with superhero comics because, among other things, the continuity is either too dense, or too flexible - if what I'm reading is going to be rebooted a few years down the line, why even bother? Manga isn't without its own barriers for me, but at the very least, the installments are numbered clearly, and it's usually coming from the same creator. It's far less intimidating to purchase "Manga Vol. 5" rather than "Superman #999, post-Crisis, pre-New 52."

The era regarding Smash I reference continued for well after Brawl's release, which is consistent with your accurate description of it. Back in like 2012 or whenever it was the first year that smash was accepted into the EVO tournament's main stage, Nintendo initially tried to prevent it from happening. They had no idea the amount of publicity and the fanbase they were spurning, which is indicative of their attitude. They thought of smash as "just another crossover" and gauged its popularity as an amalgamation of the various IPs, ignorant to the fact that it was the combination of them in itself that was truly what made the series successful.


And I agree that there will be some basic difference of opinion here and there about if a change makes a game stop being itself but there also is a line where if you go past it the vast majority of the fandom WILL be upset at what you did. Kinda like with ME3's ending where a game was all about consequences based on choices so the ending making it into something it is not caused an uproar. Or how about the rebooted DMC. It wasn't a bad game by all means but it had no need to be in any way related to that franchise and all the hate it deservedly got would have likely been replaced by modest praise if it had been its own original IP.

 

[Cicada 5]

My answer is no. People should consume entertainment the fans have no ownership of the content.

 

[CyanCat47_v1legacy]

If you start a series, you kind of promise that it will have some kind of ending. The first ASOIAF book actually recieved some bad reviews when it came out because of its length compared to how much was actually resolved. I'm fine with an author taking a long time to finish something, but i feel like the "If I can't end the story, no one can!" mentality is very petty. An author who isn't able to finish an ongoing series should at the very least not ban the use of their notes so that the readership can at the very least a conclusion. Beyond this, no i would not say a fanbase is 'owed' anything. Interpereting a story in a certain way does not give you ownership over it or the right to dictate how it should play out. Just because people feel subjectively that Luke Skywalker shouldn't have become a bitter hermit doesn't mean they are right in demanding that he shouldn't be. Allow that kind of audience control and authorship will cease to have any meaning. I don't think anyone wants outraged soccer moms or corrupt evangelicals to be allowed to edit the content of video games, and so i think it can also be agreed that the "Hardcore fans" shouldn't either. Complaining is their right, and critique can be a force for making creators improve their work, but demanding redactions and rewrites is just plain stupid

 

[Trunkage]

snippers

Just wanted to check before... well, you beautifully illustrated my point.

Pascal clearly did not see Reitman's version as being very good. Ramis had been peddling his Ghostbusters 3 since 2 and no one took him up on his offer. So perhaps Pascal had reason to think that script was bad. I don't know, we'll probably never see it.

But anyway, my point is, you didnt like GB2016. Therefore, you (and a whole bunch of other people) think Pascal cannot be a fanboy. That she couldnt possibly be trying to continue the legacy that GB 1 & 2 had. Just becuase it didnt meet what you thought it should. She was out to ruin Ghostbusters... Which is utter trash. When she saw Ghostbuster, clearly it had an impact on. But clearly it was a different version from you. It's like how people are now coming out of the woodwork saying the Star Wars prequels were good. They got something out of those prequels that I didnt. That doesnt stop them from being fanboys. Rian Johnson clearly adores Star Wars, otherwise he wouldnt have ripped of Empire Strikes back so much. It's just that when he saw Empire, his interpretation was very differnt from those yelling on the internet.

I do fault Pascal for picking Fieg over Reitman. Feig seems like a bad choice. I dont fault her for getting rid of Reitman, that script with those guys had been in development hell for a while. Just as I dont blame her with timing with Ramis' death. Using his death to market your product... that's so Hollywood. Reminds me of Paul Walker and Heath Ledger. 'We'll keep him in the movie. We'll do it respectfully.' That makes me cringe. Just like 'giving it back to the fans'. No, what you actually mean is, give it back to the fans that agree with you. Fuck everyone else who might have got a different interpretation out of Ghostbusters. They're not real fans anyway, because they don't think like real fans

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

Ramis had been peddling his Ghostbusters 3 since 2 and no one took him up on his offer. So perhaps Pascal had reason to think that script was bad.

The movie spending twenty years in development hell does not necessarily mean the script was bad, especially when it comes to producers and studio execs' fickleness and near-absolute control over the production process by being the person who signs the checks. The entire reason 2016 Ghostbusters was so critical to SPE, was because Pascal's stewardship to that point led to a series of financial and critical flops, and Amazing Spider-Man's failure left the company without a tentpole franchise or negotiating power against Marvel.

Now, the movie spent twenty years in development hell because the original movie pushed Akroyd and Murray to A-list status (Ramis and Reitman were, honestly, already at the peak of their careers). None of them actually wanted to do the second movie, it took some cajoling from Columbia to make it happen, and the production didn't go very smoothly which turned them off from a third movie initially. By the time some initial support for a third movie started, Murray and Ramis had their falling out, and Murray would go on to be the holdout for fifteen years; by the time Murray started coming around, Ramis fell ill and that was that.

Now, that was for Akroyd's script, by the way. The one that was later revised by Akroyd and Ramis together, and adapted into Ghostbusters: the Video Game. So we already know pretty well where a prospective Ghostbusters 3 might have gone, had Murray changed his mind. Pretty sure Reitman's project never got past the treatment phase, before he was muscled out.

That she couldnt possibly be trying to continue the legacy that GB 1 & 2 had.

Again, refer to the SMP hack. We know exactly where Pascal wanted to go, and what her intent was. She wanted a Ghostbusters cinematic universe to cover for SPE's lack of a tentpole franchise, and to follow the "cinematic universe" fad of the 2010's. Case in point, see the accompanying Russo brothers project with Channing Tatum, that was also a pre-production clusterfuck but ultimately killed to mollify Feig. The key point being, as evidenced in the e-mails, Pascal wanted a break from the original films in order to build a foundation for that.

Here's the difference between the original Ghostbusters' production and release, and Pascal's intended direction. The original movie was lightning in a bottle, in every conceivable way, and everyone involved with the project knew it. Writers who cut their teeth on National Lampoon got together with actors from SNL, whose talents were actually complimentary to each others' and whose egos didn't interfere with the creative process, managed to get a studio to give them a great big pile of money and stay out of the creative process, and everything that could have gone miraculously right during the production did.

In other words, everything you don't do if you want to establish a cinematic universe. Which is what Pascal did do, to protect and mollify Feig even past the point he was clearly in over his head and had lost creative control. Feig demanded auteur status for a project that had to be studio-driven to succeed in its intended goal...when Feig was a poor fit to begin with, and so was the IP for a "cinematic universe".

That's on Pascal's head, not Feig's.

...what you thought it should...out to ruin Ghostbusters...saying the Star Wars prequels were good...give it back to the fans that agree with you. Fuck everyone else...like real fans

Are you done putting words in my mouth and building straw men?

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

No. The problem with fans is that they invest themselves in a franchise, and this makes them believe that they have ownership of it, and thus control. It's "theirs", in their minds, meant ONLY for them, and must follow their whims and desires, or they have been "robbed".

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

As usual, I'm going to take the equilibrium as my answer.

Fanbases are owed as much as the Creators, depending on circumstance.

What do I mean by this? Well, let's look at Video games. We have many developers who buy IPs and sit on them. And they simply hold them hostage. Take Dawn of War 3 for example. Dawn of War is a much beloved IP that is the face of Warhammer 40k RTS games. The first iteration was almost universally praised, the second had a little more of a divisive split but was the top selling RTS of its time, and the third...

... The third [https://www.pcgamesn.com/warhammer-40000-dawn-of-war-iii/dawn-of-war-3-abandoned]...

This was a train wreck indicative of our current industry. Let's find something that triggers nostalgia, strip off most of the bells and whistles that made people love it, and promise it back as potential dlc.

Upgrades to units in the past games were made into separate units just to pad the unit roster out more. Lascannon Devastators used to just be an upgrade. Same as Sniper Scouts.

Instead of the normal four races, we got 3 with a promise of DLC maybe. The animation and art style was not well received. The game was originally designed to be an grindy slog that nickeled and dimed you for every skull to unlock new stuff.

In the end, they didn't make a good product for the fans of the series. They made a good product in the eyes of the investors who want every game to have recurrent monetization strategies. And when the game didn't live up to the wants of the people who would actually buy the game, they abandoned it citing:

While Dawn of War 3 has a dedicated player base, it didn?t hit the targets we were expecting at launch, and it hasn?t performed the way we had hoped since. It?s been tough for us as professionals who want to make great games for our players, and for us as people who care a lot about what we do.

When a game underperforms, plans need to change. With Dawn of War 3, we simply don?t have the foundation we need to produce major content. We?re working in close partnership with Sega and Games Workshop to determine the best course of action, while shifting focus to other projects within our portfolio.

.

They didn't have the targets they needed because they didn't create the Dawn of War Experience most gamers want. Sure, it scratched a few itches, but in their own words, not enough to warrant

In short, I'm owed enough to warrant my purchase. And yes, that can be anything. Borderlands 3 won't get my money because I really don't like Randy Pitchford and I abhor Epic games. It sucks that an IP that I like has to be tainted with things I do not want to support, and that my lack of purchase will prevent me from supporting the dozens of employees who worked night and day on this title. I hate that. but not as much as I hate Randy Pitchford and Epic games.

Likewise, A creator doesn't have to be beholden to the whims of their fans. They should create what they want to create. Nothing should hold them back. But... if they want to have sales, yes, they have to think about the public that has supported them in the past. If I created a game that rivaled Overwatch and followed it up with a 60 dollar dress up simulator where the only combat is blasting down doors to get to the next microtransaction... No, I can not ask the fans to give it a shot.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

Upgrades to units in the past games were made into separate units just to pad the unit roster out more. Lascannon Devastators used to just be an upgrade. Same as Sniper Scouts.

It didn't hurt DoW was a practically picture-perfect replication of the tabletop game with added progression mechanics to fit the RTS genre. It was so accurate you could snapshot your army at almost any point during a game, translate that to an exact tabletop point value, and it would almost certainly be tabletop-legal. Didn't hurt DoW units were actually better-balanced and not subject to power creep compared to the tabletop game (seriously, fuck 3rd edition Wraithlords in particular).

Which is where later games in the series fell dramatically short.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Upgrades to units in the past games were made into separate units just to pad the unit roster out more. Lascannon Devastators used to just be an upgrade. Same as Sniper Scouts.

It didn't hurt DoW was a practically picture-perfect replication of the tabletop game with added progression mechanics to fit the RTS genre. It was so accurate you could snapshot your army at almost any point during a game, translate that to an exact tabletop point value, and it would almost certainly be tabletop-legal. Didn't hurt DoW units were actually better-balanced and not subject to power creep compared to the tabletop game (seriously, fuck 3rd edition Wraithlords in particular).

Which is where later games in the series fell dramatically short.

I'd argue that DoW 2, especially in late game, mostly consisted of tabletop legal compositions at around the 2k points mark, unless you took serious losses or cheesed out. But I'm also partial to DoW 2 for being closer to 40k Company of Heroes and being much better at delivering the flavor of the tabletop in a way that DoW never really did. But no matter which of the 2 DoWs you preferred, they both emulated the tabletop to some degree and tried to stay within the same scope as the tabletop, that being 4-5 squads and 2-3 vehicles and a commander per side.

DoW 3 tried to emulate the scale of Armageddon and it is nowhere near as appealing as a result. That it also took major design cues from MOBAs with hero units that easily wipes out half the opponents army in one go certainly didn't help. Where previous DoWs had been about best using your basic units to get the upper hand, DoW 3 is about using your heroes with the basic units as little more then fodder. This change of scale, combined with an art and UI style that made it nigh impossible to make out what was happening on screen during larger fights (and they were all larger fights), basically drove away whatever core audience remained for the DoW games.

I won't claim to ever be owed a proper DoW 3, but if Relic makes a game that doesn't appeal to me they ain't getting my money. That applies to every publisher or developer out there. We all do well to remember that our relation to any given game developer is transactional in nature, they make a product that we purchase and beyond delivering a product we want they are not beholden to us in any way. Similarly, we should never feel beholden to a developer just because they are cool on Twitter, made our favorite game or whatever, because ultimately we are just a payday to them.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

I'd argue that DoW 2, especially in late game, mostly consisted of tabletop legal compositions at around the 2k points mark, unless you took serious losses or cheesed out. But I'm also partial to DoW 2 for being closer to 40k Company of Heroes and being much better at delivering the flavor of the tabletop in a way that DoW never really did. But no matter which of the 2 DoWs you preferred, they both emulated the tabletop to some degree and tried to stay within the same scope as the tabletop, that being 4-5 squads and 2-3 vehicles and a commander per side.

I can see the argument, but DoW's comparability was pretty uniform throughout, except for the late-game and then largely thanks to GW's whacky-ass valuation on new and unique units, and armies introduced in late 2E/3E. Not to mention dumpster fire unit balance. It really shined in the 1.0-1.5K army range, though.

At the end of the day, I suppose it depends on how much you minded DoW1's base building. Personally, I didn't.

...with hero units that easily wipes out half the opponents army in one go...

Not gonna lie, especially in 3E, depending on army that was pretty much how it was depending on army comp. Back in my day, I once took a single Wraithlord against literally every other miniature my best friend and I owned put together, rules be damned, just to prove a point about how OP Wraithlords were. That was one 170-point (IIRC) unit against an army of probably 12,000. I won.

That included an attempt to dogpile it with Bjorn Fell-Handed, Abaddon, Azrael, and a goddamn Bloodthirster, in a 4v1 melee. The Wraithlord killed them all and only took a single wound.