The thought process of Lucasrats.

[Fappy]

After finding out what they did to the studio that was making Battlefront 3 I honestly never want to hear from them again.

 

[MammothBlade]

Anything but investing money into a decent game. It's almost as if they were taken over by some f**kwart Jabba the Hutt who doesn't know a single thing about games. WHERE'S BOUNTY HUNTER II? That had potential to be a seriously great series if it worked on the issues with the first.

 

[Thoric485]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-05-04-free-radical-vs-the-monsters

"In many ways it was a depressing farce talking to them," says Doak. "They had an agenda motivated by purely financial considerations. Their goal was to stop doing it. And it didn't matter that we had a contract that protected us. If we wanted to fight about it they were quite happy to fight about it, but it would be on their terms, on their turf, and we would lose not because we were wrong, but because... well, we wouldn't be able to ante up."

LucasArts wanted to find an exit, and the balance of power swung firmly in its favour. "What we found out in 2008 is that your contract is only worth as much as how far you can pursue it in court," says Steve Ellis. "Say the contract is, 'If publisher wants out, they have to pay X million pounds to developer.' Well, what if they don't? What are you going to do about it?"

LucasArts presented Free Radical with a choice. "The amount of time [court] would take was more than the money we had left," says Ellis. "So in practice the publisher wants out, and what they do is offer a fraction of that amount. And you either accept a smaller payment and hope to pull through one way or another, or you don't accept the payment and go out of business quite quickly." Free Radical had no choice at all.

The pressure on David Doak was unimaginable. "My role at Free Radical meant that I was simultaneously involved in these unpleasant 'high level' discussions with psychopaths who wanted to destroy us, and then the next day sitting with our dev staff at their desks trying to boost people's morale. Helping them to pass milestones that I knew would subsequently be manipulated to cause them to fail. It was the most depressing and pointless thing that I have ever been involved in. The dream job which I once loved had become a nightmarish torture."

"I found it impossible to reconcile that situation in my head and I had a nervous breakdown. I had to stop and take time off for the sake of myself and my family - ultimately I left the company I founded feeling like I had failed it."

Nothing good can come out of a company like that.

 

[Fappy]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-05-04-free-radical-vs-the-monsters

"In many ways it was a depressing farce talking to them," says Doak. "They had an agenda motivated by purely financial considerations. Their goal was to stop doing it. And it didn't matter that we had a contract that protected us. If we wanted to fight about it they were quite happy to fight about it, but it would be on their terms, on their turf, and we would lose not because we were wrong, but because... well, we wouldn't be able to ante up."

LucasArts wanted to find an exit, and the balance of power swung firmly in its favour. "What we found out in 2008 is that your contract is only worth as much as how far you can pursue it in court," says Steve Ellis. "Say the contract is, 'If publisher wants out, they have to pay X million pounds to developer.' Well, what if they don't? What are you going to do about it?"

LucasArts presented Free Radical with a choice. "The amount of time [court] would take was more than the money we had left," says Ellis. "So in practice the publisher wants out, and what they do is offer a fraction of that amount. And you either accept a smaller payment and hope to pull through one way or another, or you don't accept the payment and go out of business quite quickly." Free Radical had no choice at all.

The pressure on David Doak was unimaginable. "My role at Free Radical meant that I was simultaneously involved in these unpleasant 'high level' discussions with psychopaths who wanted to destroy us, and then the next day sitting with our dev staff at their desks trying to boost people's morale. Helping them to pass milestones that I knew would subsequently be manipulated to cause them to fail. It was the most depressing and pointless thing that I have ever been involved in. The dream job which I once loved had become a nightmarish torture."

"I found it impossible to reconcile that situation in my head and I had a nervous breakdown. I had to stop and take time off for the sake of myself and my family - ultimately I left the company I founded feeling like I had failed it."

Nothing good can come out of a company like that.

Yeah, because of this LucasArts is at the top of my shit-list. Worse than EA, Activision and Capcom.

 

[Zipa]

TFU likely sucked so bad because Julio Torres was the project lead. This is the guy that came up with the changes that dealt the fatal blow to Star Wars Galaxies (the NGE thing was his idea)

 

[Vampire cat]

The world will never see the stupidity that goes on about the Lucas Arts doors... It IS strange, that they seem to have completely abandoned the things that made their games work in the past for all of their recent ones.

1313 does interest me though, I'm looking forward to hearing some more about it.

Take the GTA-series big and open cities. Toss in some decent characters, a good character customization system and plenty of weapon and armor upgrades. Allow the player the freedom to strike at the bounties at any time they feel it and from where they themselves chose (we all know this can be done extremely well, cause we have seen games doing it in the past!). Stick it all in a Star Wars setting, with it's huge established and extremely popular universe... Mmmmmh =3.

I so enjoy being able to follow my "victims" around, getting a feel for their patterns, checking out locations and finding the perfect time and place to strike. It adds so much more to the experience, and could potentially make the game a LOT longer. Of course people that just attack at first oportunity would be able to go trough the game really quickly, but where's the fun in that =3.

 

[RJ 17]

I'll stick with BF1, dicking about on Endor with my speederbike.

And I'll blast you to bits with my way-too-overpowered AT-ST.

I respect your opinion of liking BF1 better than 2, but that doesn't mean that BF2 was a worse game...you just didn't like it as much as the first game. The fact is, though, that there were a lot of people who didn like the 2nd game and demand for a 3rd game was high.

OT: To understand why Lucasarts is making craptastic decisions, look no further than the first part of the word: "Lucas"arts. As we should all know by now, anything even remotely associated with the name "Lucas" is going to be shit. I don't know how much Georgey has to do with Lucasarts (thought I heard somewhere that he's not really involved with it anymore), but one thing is clear: they're certainly following his developement progression. Start by making a few games (i.e. movies for George's case) that people truly enjoy and quickly become classics, then start pushing out a bunch of crap games with crap writing (just like George's movies) as though people won't remember how good things used to be.

 

[EHKOS]

Meh, they might fuck them up now. Let's just bask in remembrance and nostalgia. And there's always that new gritty bounty hunter game they're coming out with.

 

[Kyrian007]

The sad thing is, all they would have to do is admit they were wrong and invite all the old devs back into the fold. Redeemed + swimming in cash. But that won't ever happen. I'll never see another X-Wing game... or Outlaws 2.