@beardalaxy Did you notice the video durations?

@coded_artist yes

@beardalaxy @coded_artist The Xenoblade games are absolutely gigantic, and none of them have credits breaking even the 10-minute mark. Xenoblade 1's was barely over 4 minutes.

Western AAA Gaming is a fucking joke.

@ChristiJunior @beardalaxy @coded_artist
Monolith Soft is also well-known for having reasonable working hours and avoiding crunch. Work smarter, not harder.

@ArdainianRight @beardalaxy @coded_artist Really makes you wonder what a lot of people in the industry are even doing, though Monolith Soft might still be small enough that they're not that well-known outside of Nintendo and JRPG communities, explaining why their practices aren't being widely emulated.

@ChristiJunior @ArdainianRight @beardalaxy @coded_artist i dont think monolith does anything special just that most modern devs have lost the ability to properly plan and manage time
Measure twice, cut once

@Vidmastereon @ArdainianRight @ChristiJunior @coded_artist yeah you gotta wonder if all this crunch is the result of people not actually doing their jobs until it's too late. I wouldn't be surprised with how focused on things other than the game itself they seem to be.

@beardalaxy @Vidmastereon @ArdainianRight @coded_artist I always find it funny how Ocarina of Time's many delays tricked me into thinking that a game suffering multiple delays meant the devs had something truly special on their hands, and wanted to polish their game until it sparkled.

@ChristiJunior @beardalaxy @Vidmastereon @coded_artist
There were never more than a few devs who were like that, and nowadays even less so.

@ArdainianRight @Vidmastereon @beardalaxy @coded_artist Yeah, it just so happened that I truly got into gaming in 1999 because of OoT, and I quickly became familiar with the history of its development. 1999 also saw Perfect Dark being delayed, which was another much-hyped game that turned out amazing. By contrast, something like the ill-fated Daikatana (a FAR more representative case of a heavily-delayed game) didn't loom nearly as large.

@ArdainianRight @ChristiJunior @Vidmastereon @coded_artist I've heard stories about it from team silent, Argonaut, sora (which is just Sakurai lol), and rare. I assume that it wasn't particularly common but certainly there were people like that throughout the industry.

I'd also assume that, with how sanitized everything is, it leads to a bit of a lack of comradery which really kills morale.

@ChristiJunior @ArdainianRight @Vidmastereon @coded_artist yeah I guess miyamoto's famous quote needs some rewording xD a rushed game will be bad forever, but a delayed game will probably also be bad until the last patch for it comes out next year. Maybe not even then.

@ChristiJunior @beardalaxy @ArdainianRight @coded_artist for games like oot am always curious what causes a game to get delayed
Did they really need more time to finish or was it an outside factor like data loss, failing quality control tests, or something critical completely broke

@Vidmastereon @ArdainianRight @beardalaxy @coded_artist Early OoT looks very different from what we ended up with, and I truly believe the Zelda team at some point became Inspired to the point where where Nintendo realized that they had pure gold on their hands and just let them cook. Remember, we're talking about the kind of Inspiration that allowed the same team to make Majora's Mask in just 18 months.

@ChristiJunior @ArdainianRight @Vidmastereon @coded_artist super smash bros melee was made in 13 months. Isn't that insane? I mean, it's a little broken, but it's still an incredibly good game by all accounts.

@beardalaxy @ArdainianRight @Vidmastereon @coded_artist I mean, yes and no, Melee was a giant upgrade over Smash 64, but I can certainly see the various corners being cut (like all the Clone characters). It's also easier to make that kind of "bigger, better, more" sequel to a bare-bones, high-potential first entry in a fighting game franchise than to make a truly unique adventure game that ends up being so different from its predecessor.

I also believe Melee was one of those games where Iwata had to step in and assist the developers in order to get the game out on time.

@ChristiJunior @beardalaxy @ArdainianRight @Vidmastereon @coded_artist Melee had as much corners as possible cut, not to mention there are things that weren't finished, balanced or even tested.

Brawl actually had considerable time put into it.

@ChristiJunior @beardalaxy @ArdainianRight @Vidmastereon @coded_artist Just for comparison the mario models from each game.

@EdBoatConnoisseur @ArdainianRight @Vidmastereon @beardalaxy @coded_artist Something people never mention about Melee is how godawful its AI is - even Level 9 CPUs literally don't understand how Mines work for example, and they desperately rush to grab even the crappiest of items at the expense of everything else.

@ChristiJunior @ArdainianRight @Vidmastereon @beardalaxy @coded_artist They had to make the AI retarded by necessity iirc

@EdBoatConnoisseur @ArdainianRight @Vidmastereon @beardalaxy @coded_artist Yeah, but that's another that was very noticeably improved in Brawl. Of course, by Smash Ultimate the CPUs were pulling off advanced techniques, and randomly pulling off death-defying spikes.

@ChristiJunior @ArdainianRight @Vidmastereon @beardalaxy @coded_artist Which fighting game was the one where the AI straight up cheats?

@EdBoatConnoisseur @ArdainianRight @Vidmastereon @beardalaxy @coded_artist I was of the impression that a lot of them do that, reading your inputs and shit.

@ChristiJunior @ArdainianRight @Vidmastereon @beardalaxy @coded_artist I know there have been quite some fighting games where the AI cheats blatantly but iirc there have been like 3 where it was egregiously bad cheap cheating, don't remember which ones off the bat tho so i hope @deVoid can chime in.

@EdBoatConnoisseur @ArdainianRight @ChristiJunior @Vidmastereon @coded_artist @deVoid smash ultimate originally had AI that cheated, you REALLY had to bring out the cheese to beat them and it made unlocking characters really rough lol. They patched it later to make them easier.

@EdBoatConnoisseur @ArdainianRight @ChristiJunior @Vidmastereon @beardalaxy @coded_artist Several KOF and Fatal Furys would just give the AI damage boosts in later arcade fights

@EdBoatConnoisseur @ChristiJunior @ArdainianRight @Vidmastereon @beardalaxy @coded_artist I know Mortal Kombat and several Capcom arcade machines had programming where the computer controlled characters were allowed to block/connect in situations where human players were not able to.

all of them read you inputs, so all of them.

@deVoid @ArdainianRight @ChristiJunior @Vidmastereon @beardalaxy @coded_artist eh fair, lowkey expected ya to mention some very abusive game where the ai does perfect block, parry and always breaks from grabs tho.

@EdBoatConnoisseur @ArdainianRight @ChristiJunior @Vidmastereon @coded_artist @deVoid they all read your inputs, the difference is how they act based on your inputs. if they're always picking the option that will give them frame advantage or something, that's a problem.

@EdBoatConnoisseur @ArdainianRight @ChristiJunior @Vidmastereon @coded_artist brawl is actually pretty broken too tbh but yeah it does have a lot more stuff in it

@beardalaxy @ArdainianRight @ChristiJunior @Vidmastereon @coded_artist Never said brawl wasn't broken in at least 10 ways, just that it actually had development time.

Then again is not like there isn't an expectation for nintendo games to be broken in the "good way", just ask mario, mario kart and metroid players what they expect...

@ChristiJunior @ArdainianRight @Vidmastereon @coded_artist true, and yeah iwata did need to clean it up. All I'm saying is that a game like melee would take like 3 years to come out these days from your typical western dev and they'd be spending way too much money on it. With how good and fun the game is it's just surprising to know that it only took about a year to make.

mup do didda mf bix nood?? we wuz??

@Vidmastereon @ArdainianRight @ChristiJunior @coded_artist I don't know the exact reason, but if you've seen any of the beta stuff from ocarina of time, it went through tons of revisions throughout its entire development. I think it may have been b the case of ambition going a little far and needing to be scaled back due to hardware limitations and keeping the game tight for a good player experience. The game runs at 20fps as it is.

@Vidmastereon @ArdainianRight @ChristiJunior @coded_artist I've said this before but devs used to take great pride in their work. They would WILLINGLY stay at the office after hours, sometimes unpaid, sleep under their desk, and then keep working the next day. Sakurai has had to get hospitalized and give himself an IV drip at work because of how much he cares about his games succeeding. Obviously that's not very healthy and there is a balance to be had, but the industry has become so large now that there are tons of people who are just there to make money and don't really care about the final product. Or, they're there for more nefarious reasons, threatening higher ups with their LGBT shit, because they see it as an avenue to promote all of it.

It's no longer "how can I make something great for the players," it's more like "what's in it for me?"

But that's why you see these indies and smaller teams succeeding so much. They truly have passion for the craft.

@beardalaxy @Vidmastereon @ArdainianRight @ChristiJunior @coded_artist There are documented examples where this happened. Denis Dyack's career post Nintendo and Singularity are examples of this. Also infamously Duke Nukem Forever too.

https://www.polygon.com/2014/3/3/5462994/singularity-two-years-to-make-a-mess-ten-months-to-clean-it-up

It's interesting reading this because it mentions the cleanup job they had to do, but not mentioning why or how they got there.

So yes, there are many documented examples of crunch happening for this very reason.

@Remi That's how many people it took to make that trash.
Half Life 2 was made by around 20 people, around 100 if you include voice actors.