Developer: Assassin's Creed's 12 Month Development Time is "Ideal"

[vivster]

south park is made in 6 days... is it any less innovative or funny than similar animated series with 10 times the development time?
it all comes down to the people who make it
i wouldn't even bother with a 6 month cycle(though i doubt one could build a huge historically accurate city in that time)
so far ubisoft has brought us 3 high quality games that in this form have no equal in all the gaming world
i don't think the next one will be any less enjoyable than the first 3

 

[Something Amyss]

Why is it always one year with games? Why not one and a half years? Or perhaps some cool number like 333 days or 55 weeks?

Having a game out every november=holiday sales.

Probably the best reason. 18 months means you miss out on one holiday every three years, and even if you don't release in November like AC, one game per year. Since games are abusiness, and there are yearly reports to shareholders, this is a big thing.

 

[Something Amyss]

south park is made in 6 days... is it any less innovative or funny than similar animated series with 10 times the development time?

No, but mostly because 0 times any number still equals zero, not on the merits of how "innovative" the show is.

 

[Gluzzbung]

I really can't stand Ass-Creed anyway. If it ever had value in my heart, it was lost by the fourth hour (or second boss) in Ass-Creed one. the first 2 hours of gameplay are unskipable cut-scenes, what the hell Ubisoft?

 

[Calvar Draveir]

I never got why people hated it. The single player was just ACII after all and the multiplayer was fantastic.

My problem was that it felt like an expansion pack priced as a full game. You were confined to one city, which while big still felt like a rushed effort and you lose all your gear at the start of the game. The multiplayer was OK but as Yahtzee said in his review it could have been done easily with DLC.

The final nail in the coffin for me was how badly it runs on the older fat PS3s. They "further optimised it" from ACII for the slim PS3 but it caused it to run worse than the first one did on the older models. It all just felt like a quick buck scramble.

Rome is bigger than two cities, the graphics were significantly improved even though it was the same engine, it actually runs a lot better on both PS3's than previous ACs, it introduced a lot more cinematic moments, awesome stuff like Borgia towers, parachutes, and the crossbow, and it had a host of lesser known gameplay updates, like the ability to throw smoke bombs if you locked on a target.

The War Machine missions made for some great variety in scenery and all took place in different countries, the Assassin recruits were interesting if not very nessesary.

The game was not difficult enough and the story was not that great.

All in all though, getting a good 15 hour experience PLUS multiplayer is more than you'll get each year from Call Of Duty.

Multiplayer was made by a different Ubisoft studio than single-player. It took nothing from the game.

And really, fans love AC for its singleplayer. This game was meant to stand on its own without it, and you know what? It took me about 40 hours to get full sync on it. It stands on its own. And then there's a bonus. Really, just look at the DLC that's coming out these days for single-player games. If you really don't like the price, guess what? Ubisoft discounts their games like crazy after release. You could buy an AC game for super cheap with the smallest amount of patience.

Brotherhood made a few missteps, but it was certainly a more focused effort than any previous AC, and Revelations is being made by a much bigger team, with several different Ubisoft studios doing different parts. And really, everything I've seen has pointed towards it being even better than Brotherhood.

 

[CleverCover]

As long as the game doesn't suck horribly and I can't actually immediately tell, "Hmm, there's something missing here." like I could with KotOR 2, then I'm fine.

But if they have this, day-one dlc thing going on, I'm going to be a bit miffed.

 

[MarsProbe]

ACII was great, but Brotherhood was just awful, I don't understand why it gets the praise it does. I have no intention of buying another Assassin's Creed while they continue this one year release BS. While COD may have a one year release, at least they have two seperate games so each gets a two year development cycle... my god did I just praise COD?

I never got why people hated it. The single player was just ACII after all and the multiplayer was fantastic.

People hated it? That's news to me. I guess that's what happens when you do your best to avoid the whinier corners of the internet (like The Escapist forums ) AC: Brotherhood was a fine game to me. More of the same in terms of the singleplayer is no bad thing in my book if "more of the same" means another game like AC2. And more glyphs. I could probably play an entire game consisting mostly of glyph puzzles. I wonder if AC:R will have any more glyphs. It would be cool, but I don't know if there's anything else we can get from Subject 16.

Just so long as this game continues this noble tradition, I'm fine with this coming out just a year after the next one. On the other hand, sometimes having to wait a good few years for the next instalment can make the experience of finally getting your hands on the game so much better. As it was with Assassins Creed 2, I wouldn't really mind waiting a few years for the release of AC3 proper.

 

[RyQ_TMC]

Citing only the industry's biggest pants shittings isn't really on when the long development cycle was a symptom, not a cause in every one of those games.

This is just straight-up spin. Nobody is going to convince me that a short development cycle is a good idea after Dragon Age 2.

And IIRC, Origins was in dev for a long time. So was Neverwinter Nights. Some games benefit from long cycles. Daikatana and DNF just suffered heavily from "everyone believes from the start that this game will be awesome, so we don't really have to try" syndrome.

 

[Eveonline100]

The problem I have with the shorter development period is not that the games end up being poor, it's that true innovation is stifled under constant crunch time. When you've got such a short window, you can't really think up truly new things to put in your game, test those ideas out and then fully flesh out the ones that really work well (or take a couple stabs at the really worthy great ones that just don't fit somehow). You may end up with a technically proficient series of great titles, and each may be better than the last, but each will inevitably end up feeling a lot like the last too.

Another issue is on the player side of things. It's like that old saying that goes something along the lines of "How can I miss you if you won't go away?" Releasing a title every single year, once again, may not mean you're releasing bad games but it will often lead to player apathy. It may also cause players to opt for time related price drops or used sales because it really hasn't been that long since they played your last game.

good point i would like to further add that i feel almost that this is more of a marketing thing rather than a deliberate thing on the Devs part to further add to your point compare madden 12 to madden 11 now tell their is a big differecne. I do think that 2-3 year deveoplment period is ideal Since anything past that point tends to get stuck in deveoplment hell.

 

[Eveonline100]

Didn't they say just one week ago that after Assassin's Creed 3 is done, they'll go back to a longer production and development period? I guess they changed their mind.

why do i feel as though this ubisoft's doing rather their doing.