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

Warforger

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Apr 24, 2010
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Adzma said:
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.
 

NinjaDeathSlap

Leaf on the wind
Feb 20, 2011
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His arguments appear to make sense, but the proof will be in the pudding. I don't care how long a game takes to be released and I don't care what the developers justification for it is, so long as it's a good game. You want to tell me 12 months is the perfect amount of time for a development cycle? Fine, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, so long as you don't disappoint me.
 

darthricardo

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May 7, 2010
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I'd agree with this, if it wasn't for the fact that I'm sick of Ezio.
Renaissance Italy is an awesome setting. We get this. We've had multiple games to get this.
Move along, please, even if you have to take another extra year or two redesigning settings and whatever.
 

Vrach

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Jun 17, 2010
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Well, they do have the engine already all done, the building designs are more or less the same and the physics/climbing stuff is probably mostly done too (you make a building, set the "climb spots" and then just use the building and maybe edit the texture for it), so for Assassin's Creed, you don't really need time for much other than creating a bit of new environment, some models and a story.

That said, I know for a fact they give a lot of bugs a miss just to get through the testing process. So it being ideal - no, not really, at least as far as polishing the game is concerned.
 

NinjaDeathSlap

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Feb 20, 2011
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Shamanic Rhythm said:
Whatever, I refuse to pay full price every year just to see them drag out the various plot resolutions as long as they can. Assassin's Creed is really just another paperback conspiracy thriller, only the conspiracy isn't really a conspiracy, it's just that they never bother to characterise half the people involved so you are left wondering what their motivations are. It's shamelessly milking the Dan Brown religious paranoia for everything it can get.

They should have just gone with the original idea of focusing on different time periods and kept them related in name only. Because the adventures of Ezio are far more interesting in a kind of Grand-Theft-Auto style than any of the ancillary bullshit they're tied into.
Um, you do realise that the running theme of all the villains in Assassin's Creed is that they are just about the only people in the game world who aren't religious. They hide behind the Church for influence and power but they don't actually believe what they represent. I'd hardly call that "shamelessly milking religious paranoia". The other running theme is that their motivations are all pretty much the same. The Templars, whether it be in The Crusades, The Renaissance, or The Present Day, all want more power, more influence, and more control in order to shape the world the way they see fit. The Assassin's believe in freedom, so they fight in order to free the people of the invisible hands that are manipulating them. This is relatively simple stuff that get's explained several times in each game, so I don't know how you could be confused by what peoples motivations were.
 

Ed130 The Vanguard

(Insert witty quote here)
Sep 10, 2008
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"cough" Dragon Age 2 "cough"

Having a time limit is nice and all, and it DOES help with decisions "I'm looking at YOU Valve" but a rushed final product isn't always a good idea.
 

Vault101

I'm in your mind fuzz
Sep 26, 2010
18,863
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as much as i love assasincs creed...Im a little worried, brotherhood is good but I get the nagging feeling of "assasins creed 2...2.0" I mean does thing mean things are just going to go on forever untill the series becomes crap?
 

The Wooster

King Snap
Jul 15, 2008
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It's ideal when all you do it's to recycle the same engine and mechanics over and over with little to no change...
 

The Random One

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j-e-f-f-e-r-s said:
OT: I'd argue that this 12 month cycle really is damaging to the AC series. I know, I know, everyone loves them... except me. I thought the first one had promise, but was really underwhelmed by the second one. They hadn't actually changed much at all, simply changed the labelling so that it looked like there was more stuff to do.
Wow, this viewpoint is so different from mine. I saw the first AC as a good idea, poorly executed; and the second AC as the same idea, just well executed. (It worked because they started treating parkour segments like GTA-like games treat their car chases.)

I haven't played Bro yet, will probably be picking it up this month, but my favourite thing about AC and ACII is that there's a sense of finality, like the story is actually heading to an ending as opposed to being milked for ever. I don't know if Bro ruins that.
 

Baresark

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Dec 19, 2010
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Bleh... too bad Ubisoft owns this thing. Another game the Ubisoft Launcher will make me hate. I love how the author says the game is "dangerously close to milking". There is no dangerously close when you have flown past the line. There is no forward movement or innovation in the series anymore. They are all the same game, but with different buildings. And I own them all, meaning that my lack of wanting to get into this game is founded in my experience. Keep it.
 

Buizel91

Autobot
Aug 25, 2008
5,265
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As long as the game improves on what the last one did, and is generally a good game, i care little. At least things get improved in the Assassin Creed games, most developers just improve the graphics and put in a 4 hour story *cough Activision *cough*

Non of the Assassin Creed games have disappointed me so far, if they want to release a game every year, why not? Just don't screw it up.
 

Adzma

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Sep 20, 2009
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Warforger said:
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.
 

CINN4M0N

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Jan 31, 2010
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I just feel for the dev team. I get the feeling that the whole team will be putting in endless hours to appease the management that don't really appreciate the fact that their employees have lives outside of making games. Ya know? Like they once set an impossibly short deadline, had everyone pitch in unbelievable hours, was somehow able to achieve it and thought "There's no reason this can't happen all the time". And now the poor staff at Ubi-Montreal are being worked like dogs while management horde all the money.

Just the impression I'm getting. I'd rather they take a little longer, for the staff's sake.
 

CINN4M0N

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Jan 31, 2010
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j-e-f-f-e-r-s said:
The Random One said:
j-e-f-f-e-r-s said:
OT: I'd argue that this 12 month cycle really is damaging to the AC series. I know, I know, everyone loves them... except me. I thought the first one had promise, but was really underwhelmed by the second one. They hadn't actually changed much at all, simply changed the labelling so that it looked like there was more stuff to do.
Wow, this viewpoint is so different from mine. I saw the first AC as a good idea, poorly executed; and the second AC as the same idea, just well executed. (It worked because they started treating parkour segments like GTA-like games treat their car chases.)
Here's the thing, I didn't really see the difference between the two. Here's my experience of Assassin's Creed 1, as played on the PS3:

R1+X+Forward

Now, here's the summation of playing Assassin's Creed 2 on the PS3:

R1+X+Forward

Sure, in the second game you were technically doing different sidequests like racing other roof-runners or whatever, but the majority of the gameplay still revolved around R1+X+Forward. When I hear that a sequel is expanding over the original, I want it to do more than apply the same boring mechanics to yet more inane sidequests.
I disagree. They don't need to reinvent the wheel with every iteration. Do you play shooter games? Well pretty much every shooter game can be described as: foward+R1 with an occasional reload.

Do you play 3rd person action/adventures? Again, there's gonna be a lot of left thumbstick+X.

The point is, changing the controls isn't going to make it any better. It's things like the gun, the smoke bombs, the disarming, the assassin minions, the ability to assassinate from almost any position, and the fact that free running flows from one position to another a lot more fluidly.
 

Shamanic Rhythm

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Dec 6, 2009
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NinjaDeathSlap said:
Shamanic Rhythm said:
Whatever, I refuse to pay full price every year just to see them drag out the various plot resolutions as long as they can. Assassin's Creed is really just another paperback conspiracy thriller, only the conspiracy isn't really a conspiracy, it's just that they never bother to characterise half the people involved so you are left wondering what their motivations are. It's shamelessly milking the Dan Brown religious paranoia for everything it can get.

They should have just gone with the original idea of focusing on different time periods and kept them related in name only. Because the adventures of Ezio are far more interesting in a kind of Grand-Theft-Auto style than any of the ancillary bullshit they're tied into.
Um, you do realise that the running theme of all the villains in Assassin's Creed is that they are just about the only people in the game world who aren't religious. They hide behind the Church for influence and power but they don't actually believe what they represent. I'd hardly call that "shamelessly milking religious paranoia". The other running theme is that their motivations are all pretty much the same. The Templars, whether it be in The Crusades, The Renaissance, or The Present Day, all want more power, more influence, and more control in order to shape the world the way they see fit. The Assassin's believe in freedom, so they fight in order to free the people of the invisible hands that are manipulating them. This is relatively simple stuff that get's explained several times in each game, so I don't know how you could be confused by what peoples motivations were.
"The Templars want to control the whole world" is not suitable explanation for their motives. That's the kind of cop-out propaganda the United States used to spout about the Communists, and vice versa. It just makes them very cartoonish villains who are poorly characterised. I spent the entire first game listening to that smug prick of a doctor rant on about how much of a pleb Desmond was and how little he could understand about the supposed true order of the world. He had no compelling ideals whatsoever that he cared to put on display, he was just being a massive dick because he was the one in the position of power. Every single Templar agent you kill is also like this. They just taunt your lack of being in their stupid Mason's society rather than justifying their reasons for its existence. Likewise, the Assassins don't bother to explain things properly either, they just go on about how 'all will be made known in time", to drag things out and force you to blindingly accept their next mission to kill someone just because they SAY they're bad. This is not a compelling conspiracy narrative, it's the kind of douchebag rivalry you normally see accompanying football teams.

Also, what you've described as the 'running theme' is hardly an original concept: in fact it's been extremely common in the past couple of decades to explore the idea that the people behind religion are just abusing it for the control of others. Assassin's Creed brings nothing original or compelling to this theme, just the lame idea that all religion is rendered an automatic falsehood because of the existence of some magical macguffins that do the miracles ascribed to prominent mythical figures.
 

MercurySteam

Tastes Like Chicken!
Legacy
Apr 11, 2008
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I think a decent game sequel requires an absolute minimum of two years before release (preferably two and a half years). I thought DA2 was a great game but the short dev time definitely showed. Not only will the game turn out with less content but some poor design decisions can be overlooked. *Glares at the still-shitty AI from L4D2*

A long development stretch can be rewarding in most cases. *Thinks of SCII and how awesome Bioshock Infinite will be*
 

Smooth Operator

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Oct 5, 2010
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Oh the development team must love this man right about now :D
But I'm sure the man was very well rewarded for this PR bullshit, but if it was really that ideal why did they announce this cycle will be dropped...