Is the excitement and hype dying down?

[Benjamin]

Maybe it's just from the fact of not having been on the Devroom as often (due to...extenuating circumstances), but does it feel to anyone like the initial hustle and bustle of Legends 3 is slowly wearing down?

The first place I look is the news announcements. Daily Reports are essentially dead. They never really came back after the earthquake drought in reports, and now we might get one once in a week or two. Whereas we used to get little updates here and there every few days, now we tend to have five or six days between any kind of word about anything, even the inconsequential little stuff.

Then there's the forums. Due to a promise with Dashe, I won't say all I'd like to say. But the longer people have been there, the less and less tolerant we seem to get - even those veterans with a lot of resistance feel terser and terser in each new Zero or NGP or what-have-you thread (and with the newest flood of new members, it's that time of the month again). Not to mention that little actually seems to be done anymore.

All of the side projects by either members or staff have essentially died. Greg stopped doing live playing. The podcast is dead. The comic never got off the ground. I begin to worry that if the eShop is delayed past the end of May, they're going to need something else big to keep discussion going.

Not to mention that discussions seem to last less and less time, on all sites, here included. At the beginning of it all, any little scrap was pounced on and dissected. Now...well let's put it this way: when those screenshots came up, they were hot topics for about a week. The only lasting discussions seem to be the polarizing ones; systems, timeline, cameos, and general rage of some kind.

Does it feel like the hype and excitement about Legends 3 is dying down on all sides, even with staff? And does this concern anyone as we head towards a demo whose buy-rate will determine the future of the game as we know it?

[Dr. Jerk]

I think they're just spending more time to prepare for other things, like the upcoming Prototype.

Just give it time, they'll be back. But really, the safety for those in Japan is more important.

[Dashe]

Actually, the reason the Devroom hasn't had any updates from Japan this past week is because it was Golden Week over there. It's supposed to be a national celebration where everyone at CoJ (and I assume most other companies) had off. That's what Greg said, at least.

And of course I'm nervous about the demo not faring well, but I'd rather not have my hair turn gray over a video game. :01:

[Pitch]

May 8, 2011 20:20:55 GMT -5 Benjamin said:

Maybe it's just from the fact of not having been on the Devroom as often (due to...extenuating circumstances), but does it feel to anyone like the initial hustle and bustle of Legends 3 is slowly wearing down?

I'd have to say I disagree there. If anything, I'd say things have really picked up after the whole Earthquake business. As I understand it, things have been a bit quiet because of Golden Week lately, but we've got a frickin' Prototype to look forward to. It's awesome.

The first place I look is the news announcements. Daily Reports are essentially dead. They never really came back after the earthquake drought in reports, and now we might get one once in a week or two.

Were those really all that interesting anyway? Again, though — Golden Week might have something to do with the recent lull. We were having so much information coming in last week it was hard to keep up with.

Then there's the forums. Due to a promise with Dashe, I won't say all I'd like to say.

I wish you would, just because. Seems like a silly reason to hold your tongue. But I can't say anything about the Devroom forums because I haven't been there, so whatever.

Not to mention that discussions seem to last less and less time, on all sites, here included. At the beginning of it all, any little scrap was pounced on and dissected. Now...well let's put it this way: when those screenshots came up, they were hot topics for about a week. The only lasting discussions seem to be the polarizing ones; systems, timeline, cameos, and general rage of some kind.

Yeah, I'd agree with you here. We've gotten a bit spoiled with the updates really. When it used to be that any scrap of information would be enough to get topics going for a long long time, nowadays we're just jumping from one announcement to the next. I have to imagine it's as bad here as it is at the Devroom forums. I couldn't believe how far back I had to go to find some of my posts from just the past eight months here.

Does it feel like the hype and excitement about Legends 3 is dying down on all sides, even with staff?

If it's bad now, it's still better than it was before the Earthquake Hiatus. We've been getting all kinds of buzz about this Prototype — so much so that I'm worried by the time we have it, everything will have been spoiled already. xD The stories have all been a bit repetitive with regards to the Prototype, but it's all been pretty good. I think it's building enough hype — certainly more than the events we've had previously. I wouldn't worry about it.

[Raijin]

Uuugh, you guys that are used to the Unity forum. If the world goes five minutes without giving you something to talk about, you panic like you're gasping for air. Meanwhile I'm welcoming these little respites as they give me time to catch up.

[General Specific]

It's been less active on the forums ever since everyone learned that this game might not get green-lighted to begin with—now everyone likes to focus on the more controversial topics instead, fearing that speculation would set themselves yup for disappointment. It's a reasonable stance to take given what could happen to this game with Capcom—on the other hand, there's a lot of potential for this game and for its community, and keeping that community alive is slowly becoming a more and more important goal over at the Devroom. We've been having a Montague and Capulet scenario lately, with all the talk over Ian, Ben, and Hanky leaving. And guess what? "N." has finally left, after all these months of being the antimatter to this forum's matter.

Once the Prototype comes out, activity will definitely pick up. We won't just be inspecting every little detail found in the game—no, we'll be speculating like mad (as if it was the opening weeks of the Devroom, back in October!), commenting on how things went in the game, and the fan support old and new will greatly increase. It's just a matter of how long after finals this darned eShop will release!

[Loken]

I can't really say anything about the devroom forums since I'm never over there, but I say with the Prototype releasing and all this Barret business, the hype train is gaining speed. Of course time will ware hype, it always does, but we have waited a long time for this and we can wait a little longer without losing interest in Legends 3 .

[WhiteWindow]

Maybe, I don't think it extends to the staff, I think they just have been a lot more busy lately and this demo is what they want attention going towards.

As for the forums and fandom, Yeah, I agree, but that was bound to happen as the game becomes less of a dream and more of a reality.

But, all things have spikes and lulls, the official site is just in a huge lull. MMLS isn't that bad since it's a better ran community but even here as we look more towards what is, than what will be, it'll become less of that thing we've been waiting for, and more of that thing we are getting. @.@

[Dashe]

Wait, what? N's gone now? EVERY time I take a break from that place something goes down.

I'm definitely gonna make a review of the prototype, with cute little graphical gauges for different attributes like story, replayability, graphics, sound...and I'll probably even throw in a section for voice acting because I'm such a huge acting critic. Hell, if we could think up a criteria system for potential reviews, we could make a pretty spiffy looking resource.

[General Specific]

I sure hope to the Master that I can play the Prototype first thing, on a day that won't be some major event at school or the like. The Devroom's going to be bustling with activity, I hope. And yes: "N," finally got bored and left, apparently.

—If you're going to use a criteria source: just stick with the gold 'ol 5 star system. A rating is important, as it attracts the viewers and tells them in a nutshell how high and/or low you'd rank it in comparison to other games, but there definitely needs to be more focus on the actual text than on 5.5s and such.

[Dashe]

5-point systems are nice, but stars don't seem very Legendsy! Five refractors could be fun. Like the ones Chiz included in Emotikobun Plus-Plus. There are Bonne emblems, too. Like...uh...just for an example, at the top would be a quick at-a-glance ditty like this:

Graphics: :E0: :E0: :E0: :E0:
Gameplay: :E0: :E0: :E0:
Sound: :E0: :E0: :E0: :E0: :E0:
Voice Acting: :E0:
Replayability: :E0: :E0: :E0:

Overall Rating: :E0: :E0: :E0: :E0:

And then the person writes their text wall underneath and goes in-depth about what they rated which things and why? I dunno, I've never actually rated a game before.

[Loken]

Back when I made game reviews on Youtube, I would never rate the games, just review it, stars and stuff miss the point of a review.

[General Specific]

Trust me, Dashe: you're overcomplicating it with all those different grades for each section. Certain games often don't even have parts of them where certain criteria would matter, and making the rating system so rigid makes the review look like it came off of a bad gaming journlolism website, like IGN/1up. 5 refractors as a general score is fine, and also less rigid and lets you focus more on the text review than on calculating silly scores.

Another hint for making a great review: only focus on what you liked about the game, not on how you play it or anything else that Devroom/Legends 3 followers wouldn't already know. If you ever wanted to get the review translated and shipped to Japan—I mean, would the developers really want to spend their time reading one half of the review spent on describing how the game works, or would they want to just skip right ahead to what was bad and what was good about how the mechanics worked? Nearly every game reviewer these days has major trouble not talking about anything that should have been covered in a preview earlier—the people reading the review probably already know about the game from a preview. This is a review, after all.

[Dashe]

Hah, I just like using the refractor emoticons for something. Like I said, I have no experience with reviewing games at all. All I can truly offer is, 'break up your text wall into paragraphs so people actually bother to read all of it, and check your spelling.'

[Benjamin]

May 8, 2011 20:39:03 GMT -5 Pitch said:

I wish you would, just because. Seems like a silly reason to hold your tongue. But I can't say anything about the Devroom forums because I haven't been there, so whatever.

Nothing wrong with respect as a reason. Although I had an account here prior to the drama, the first message I sent after it all was to Dashe, promising not to spread that here, and so I don't intend to do so.

May 8, 2011 21:51:07 GMT -5 General Specific said:

And guess what? "N." has finally left, after all these months of being the antimatter to this forum's matter.

I'm reminded why I'm glad SIMS had his behind kicked out of here long before my time, I'm sure he'll never stop crowing now.

I'll have to talk with N.; the people I valued at the Devroom, I added to chat programs or e-mail lists. The only one who never responded was Zonic, but that's understandable, although I do miss chatting with him - we talked about plenty outside business.