Did Your Voice Really Change the Course of the Game?
When you’re a Sonic fan, who needs things like new screenshots, revised video, a playable demo, or a firm release date for a game that’s accumulated so much hype? Sonic fans have passion–enough so to change the course of the next Sonic–and really, isn’t that enough?
For Sega of America community manager Clumsyorchid, it seems so. Responding to criticism on the Sega forums yesterday concerning the lack of any new information in Thursday’s announcements aside from a delay and proper gameplay trailer of Splash Hill, borrowed from principles of allegory to demonstrate fans’ voices are being heard loud and clear:
In our team, the community team, we’re striving every day to make your voices heard and make fan feedback something that gets to everyone in our company.
In this case, the never before seen thing for Sonic 4 is the passion of the fan community making an impact on the game. It’s not as flashy as a new level but it’s just as important and it’s something we should be celebrating.
Passion has been in earnest since Sonic 4 was announced as Project Needlemouse last year, and even more so since the official title was revealed and leaks spoiled the current state of the game. But words of both support and disdain can only go so far, and questions have arisen as to which fans, if any, Sega have been listening to. The use of the term “overwhelmingly positive” to describe general Sonic 4 reaction in yesterday’s releases has been pointed out as an example of balancing the mixed opinions, while still injecting PR rhetoric.
Do you think your voice–or any fan voice–has been recognized in light of this announcement? Tell us in our comments section.
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It’s hard to tell SOA/SOE seems like they honestly care about fan feedback but SOJ and Sonic Team have always been thickheaded about listening to criticisms. A tip of the hat if they really managed to get them to listen this time.
They’re going for common opinions more than anything.
Jeez why do you keep posting these asshatted articles? This delay marks a huge milestone in SEGA corporate history, and should be looked upon in a positive light.
SoJ sticks to strict deadlines and hate delays, in fact they hate them so much that when Sonic 1 was delayed back in 1991, despite how well received it was Yuji Naka was basically ousted out of Japan due to it.
Like I’ve said on Retro, nobody has the right to bitch anymore until we’ve seen what “improvements” they’re actually making.
The problem with yesterday’s announcement, ironically, is what part of what you said–we haven’t seen the improvements they’ll be making–we only heard words (and believe me, they’re gonna be held to those words.) Instead, they insist on showing us Splash Hill time and again to keep hype flowing–and making the disclaimer that the newest trailer won’t reflect what’s to come prolly didn’t help. I really think the tide would turn in Sega’s favor (and the incentive to leak the game would lessen considerably) if they mixed it up a bit, and showed off some of the other levels officially. I think a lot of fans would feel a lot better if the focus weren’t just on one level.
“Passion” can only go so far if it doesn’t yield action. I understand your sentiment on taking a wait and see approach, but I’d hate to see what could happen if the community calls Sega out if the comments are ultimately for naught.
-T
Yay, I’m famous.
I stand by my statement because it’s absolutely true, but I’m here to clarify a few things because it’s getting a little too over analyzed. First, a bit of background on what our team does: As part of the community team at Sega, one of our goals is to make the customer’s voice heard throughout our company. We spend a good dealof time reporting on what people think about what we are saying and doing, both positive and negative, and from a wide range of different communities (yes, even tssz). This is a powerful statement and it’s something the entire community team is passionate about.
For Sonic 4, we’re really happy, excited even, to see this come through in full force because we are seeing a result from our hard work and your collective feedback towards our game. Don’t confuse feedback with direct design decisions, I want to be clear that voices are heard and that’s the start of the conversation, from there we make decisions and design choices that shape the game further. We’re not pulling from an individual or a specific community – we try to involve everyone, as that’s our community team’s goal and ultimate vision.
Just rounding this out, I’d like to add a request – if you need me to clarify my stance or statement on anything, you can email me. I’m approachable, you can PM me on the forums and I’ll respond or mail Kellie (or lift my email from this post) and we’ll have a conversation about this, or any other statement. I think quoting me out of context of the larger discussion in our forums is a bit unfortunate and I think I (or anyone on our team) can provide you a better, more custom response, than something that’s not in perfect context.
Julian, your statement was published here minus one sentence you wrote–this one:
“Popping in to clarify this because we do feel there’s something pretty incredible here, but it’s maybe lost with all the news coming out.”
In my judgment, that sentence added no additional perspective to the point you were trying to convey. That’s why it wasn’t published. I take great offense to your accusation that what you wrote was taken out of context in my story. It wasn’t.
-T
The context is in the original thread, which I didn’t find linked in your article. Did I miss it?
Please don’t take great offense, it’s not my intention and again, if you need to clarify let’s have a conversation about it sometime.
Well, I’ll give it to SEGA, their recent announcement shows that really do give a shit. Of course, the day we see these changes will decide on that for good, but for now I’m cutting SEGA some slack and wish them Good Luck with the extra dev time.
Call THAT unpleasable? =P
Wouldn’t be the first time something was taken out of context here.
Personally, I think SEGA heard my voice. They are redoing levels. which means they will look less like things strait out of Sonic 1 and 2. The only thing I would tell them to do at this point is give us some original enemies to bash and also give us new bosses.
@ Clumsyorchid
I’m really glad to see one of SEGA’s community managers commenting on this site!
Please if your still listening, could you change up the boss fights a bit? I know that one voice may not be enough to change such a major thing about a game, but I and many others really want to fight newer bosses instead of previous bosses with new twists, I watched every leak and saw for myself that only lost labyrinth had an original boss fight. I mean, could you at least change the final boss. I didn’t really like seeing a previous final boss being reused for the final boss of such an important game! I really would hate to see SEGA, Sonic Team, and Dimps have to take on even more criticism due to a poor choice in the bosses of the game.
Also, I would like to tell you and your team how much yesterday’s announcement changed my opinion on this game. I hated this game so badly from the start, because I knew that since SEGA would be making a fourth game, it would probably just be a remake with a bunch of reused stages, and poor physics, but seriously, now that SEGA is actually listening to the community and fixing stages and physics, I’m really psyched! I haven’t been this excited for a Sonic game since Unleashed was first announced!
@edge
Don´t get your hopes so up. I don´t think they will change too much in graphics right now. When they were talking about redesigning levels, they were only talking about object placement, parts of the scenery and things like that. The only really new thing that could be there is two new levels in the places of the two gimmick levels: Mine cart and Pinball one.
You know, the game is delayed, but the timeframe isn´t as long as to redo everything. Most of the game will keep the same form.
@ Edge
Happy to comment and add clarification whenever possible! Though, this is my first comment, I know Kellie’s been here a few times over, so we are here though maybe not in the frequency you’d prefer.
Can’t comment on anything specifically at the moment, other than that I appreciate constructive feedback of this type. Thank you for your comments and ideas, I’ll make sure they go into our report along with everyone’s postings from within the thread.
Your welcome, and thank you for such a speedy reply (I didn’t even expect to get one!).
I didn`t want anything all I wanted was a real Sonic 4 to be made in any way & it`s a good thing their delaying it to work on it
LOL, Tristan’s taking things too seriously here. Anyway, the delay is great news cuz the fans are being heard, and they said they’re trying to make the physics more like the classics, so that makes me very happy, especially after being disappointed seeing every bit of the leaked footage of a product that was merely months away from its release. I didn’t expect a delay to be announced along with such an explanation. Sure, they may have gotten lazy by recycling the neo Sonic design, sure the initial boss music sucks (NOBODY likes it) because it sounds like a fucking carnival ride, sure we’ve gotta wait, but they’re focusing on what matters: the gameplay. So I will shut up with complaints about physics until we see an official trailer based off a more revised version of the game. Keep up the good work guys, these Sonic 4 episodes should be a cool way to lead us into Sonic’s 20th anniversary year.
@Clumsyorchid
Hello, many thanks for dropping by here. I feel it reflects very well what you said about listening to the fans.
I’ve been very excited about this game since the beginning, and I remained so until the first gameplay leak, which really made my heart sink. The team had done everything so well (in my opinion, obviously! Everybody wants different things); great graphics, nostalgic soundtrack, superior level design like in the old days, but then I saw Sonic MOVE. The reason everyone wants Sonic to return to his roots is for the highly refined gameplay. But we could see Sonic accelerating WAY too fast, walking up walls without a run up, and his jumping mechanic was just plain wrong!
I really hoped that as it was such an early leak that it would be fixed but nothing significant changed.
This is why I’m soooo appreciative of the delay, and I wish you and the team all the best in improving what has the potential to be an amazing game. So my request is this: please get the physics as close to the S3&K as possible. It would mean the world to many fans.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. Good luck SEGA! Make us proud!
The fan voice that has been listened to is the voice of the fans that don’t jump the gun when a new title comes out and don’t whine about asthetics. You know, the fans that are actually fans. SONIC CYCLE C-C-COMBOBREAKER. >:U
People were making a big fuss about the stuff that matters, the GAMEPLAY, and considering that it is supposed to be a direct sequel to the classic Sonic games, having gameplay that rises to that level is CRUCIAL. The fact that they’ve realized that this is a big issue and that they’re willing to set aside the game to rectify that is something that you don’t see out of developers often. It SHOULD be a really big deal. I guess some people were just willing to settle for more kindling to light rather than a sign that the game WILL end up defying their low, low expectations.
I personally think the level design is equally important as the gameplay, I mean, I really hope they do fix the real level design. It is way too much like stages we’ve already seen…