E3 2018 Schedule/Discussion/Hype Thread

[Interdimensional Observer]

One thing I don't want, the slightest talk of the next big Zelda game, although inevitably somebody will ask about it. Unless it's a "lesser" title the way PH, ST, TH and ALBW are then I'm fine, even though ALBW certainly holds its weight against the "great" titles if you ask me. Same for Mario.

For FE16, well besides being actually shown off, just no buildup that will be backstabbed over a cliff like Fates, less of the controversial excess please, and good gameplay, since that is all the series needs to keep me.

Otherwise, I just go into everything with no expectations.

 

14 hours ago, Slumber said:

Wild Card: FFXVI gets announced

The big question: FFVIII Remake gets delayed further because of it, or XVI for 2025? Shall we take bets on aspects of the development circles of hell it may pass through?

 

15 hours ago, SoulWeaver said:

Honestly, I'm just hoping we get Prime 4 intel, because the Metroid fans will lose it if we don't. Also Fusion remake when?

With decreased linearity when possible, and also, no references to OM there to avoid riot. 

Although I'd prefer a new 2D Metroid instead of having to remake the only unremade one, not that you can even call me a real fan of the series (only M1 (not to finish), M2, SM, MF, MZM, and like 1/4 at most of MP1, I'll get MSR when price declines since I'm not speedrunner so that cuts into its value for me).

 

[Slumber]

41 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

One thing I don't want, the slightest talk of the next big Zelda game, although inevitably somebody will ask about it. Unless it's a "lesser" title the way PH, ST, TH and ALBW are then I'm fine, even though ALBW certainly holds its weight against the "great" titles if you ask me. Same for Mario.

I'd be 200% okay with a risky BotW rework, ala Majora's Mask. 

I think even the most ardent fans of BotW would agree it was a bit too vanilla, with too little solid structure behind it. 

Something that took the concept and the assets, and made something truly unique would be absolutely fine with me. MM might be my favorite Zelda, and it used OoT's assets and tech to make a much more compelling game, IMO. And that game came out really soon after OoT. 

[Interdimensional Observer]

5 minutes ago, Slumber said:

I'd be 200% okay with a risky BotW rework, ala Majora's Mask. 

I think even the most ardent fans of BotW would agree it was a bit too vanilla, with too little solid structure behind it. 

Something that took the concept and the assets, and made something truly unique would be absolutely fine with me. MM might be my favorite Zelda, and it used OoT's assets and tech to make a much more compelling game, IMO. And that game came out really soon after OoT. 

Given the costs of development nowadays (although Zelda should have zero issues taking significantly from Nintendo's budget), I could see this happening.

Something tighter for a "Wild Gaiden" (to repurpose MM's old nickname), which scaled back a bit with the size of the world whilst still retaining a great deal of freedom would be appreciable. As would more liveliness and vibrance in the human element of the world, particularly Hylians who didn't have a DB questline to make them stand at all. And of course, fixing the litany of other Wild criticisms would be good. MM by the way did a splendid job making Clock Town come to life, and did a fair to great job by Zelda standards with NPCs and sidequests.

And the OoT comparison is not out of place. Since pre-Wild, OoT invented 3D Zelda and was the formula copied by TP and adapted by WW, SS, and of course, MM. Now Wild has established what might be a new paradigm for 3D Zelda, although we won't know how long it will last. The Super Mario 64 paradigm lasted into Sunshine, but then Galaxy and Galaxy 2 moved away from it, and Odyssey has arguably recently created its own paradigm (it depends on how close to 64 and Sun you think it is or not).

But what could possibly make a good risk? MM's time cycles (you can't really call it a "limit") in an open world setting wouldn't work so well I think, although Wild already cycles with Blood Moons in a way. Hmm... I think that would be left for Nintendo's fine minds to conceive of.

[Dandy Druid]

Nintendo is the last day. They can win this year if the rumored games lists are true.

[Tryhard]

18 minutes ago, Dandy Druid said:

Nintendo is the last day. They can win this year if the rumored games lists are true.

i hate to go off on a tangent because it's one of my pet peeves, but:

'win' by what metric? 

it's not like these shows aren't wildly based off your perspective to begin with. if you're not interested in any of the games or console shown, or have no desire to own a console for which that game is present on, you're not going to rate it highly to begin with. very rarely will people rate a conference based on what they believe to have put on the best presentation while not necessarily being interested in any of those games.

that goes for any confirmation bias either way. i saw people saying sony had a bad show on the e3 they announced ff7 remake, shenmue 3 and the last guardian because they just weren't interested in those.

Edited June 1, 2018 by Tryhard

[Slumber]

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Given the costs of development nowadays (although Zelda should have zero issues taking significantly from Nintendo's budget), I could see this happening.

Something tighter for a "Wild Gaiden" (to repurpose MM's old nickname), which scaled back a bit with the size of the world whilst still retaining a great deal of freedom would be appreciable. As would more liveliness and vibrance in the human element of the world, particularly Hylians who didn't have a DB questline to make them stand at all. And of course, fixing the litany of other Wild criticisms would be good. MM by the way did a splendid job making Clock Town come to life, and did a fair to great job by Zelda standards with NPCs and sidequests.

And the OoT comparison is not out of place. Since pre-Wild, OoT invented 3D Zelda and was the formula copied by TP and adapted by WW, SS, and of course, MM. Now Wild has established what might be a new paradigm for 3D Zelda, although we won't know how long it will last. The Super Mario 64 paradigm lasted into Sunshine, but then Galaxy and Galaxy 2 moved away from it, and Odyssey has arguably recently created its own paradigm (it depends on how close to 64 and Sun you think it is or not).

But what could possibly make a good risk? MM's time cycles (you can't really call it a "limit") in an open world setting wouldn't work so well I think, although Wild already cycles with Blood Moons in a way. Hmm... I think that would be left for Nintendo's fine minds to conceive of.

Obviously I'm not saying it should be a 1:1 with MM, but something a bit tighter, more focused, and with its own identity would be cool to see. 

Preferably also with a darker/more dreadful atmosphere, but BotW was already kind of heavy for a Zelda game, despite the light art style and tone of the game. 

Edited June 2, 2018 by Slumber

[Ertrick36]

1 hour ago, Tryhard said:

'win' by what metric? 

"Win" by hype generation metric, I guess.  Number of people talking about the subjects in a positive way, if we're to be specific.  Though "winning" E3 is more a meme than an actual thing that can happen.  But I'm sure many devs might see it as a competition of sorts.

Doesn't mean a damn thing if the devs don't deliver on the hype.

5 hours ago, Tryhard said:

Though I can't help but think that E3 really is more for shareholders.

Kinda seems that way, yeah.

Well, shareholders and game journalists.  Basically, whoever will give them cash and whoever can help generate a buzz.  Everyone else is just a bunch of information scalpers; the type of people who will bring a camera into a private conference.  I can't imagine people being there for any other reason; it's certainly not like Comic Con or other conventions that revolve around celebrating media and bringing in big names.

[Slumber]

3 hours ago, Tryhard said:

that goes for any confirmation bias either way. i saw people saying sony had a bad show on the e3 they announced ff7 remake, shenmue 3 and the last guardian because they just weren't interested in those.

I am in that camp. 

Aside from TLG, which was shown many times at different E3s over the last 10 years(The only reason them showing TLG that year was because people assumed the project was fucking dead), neither of these games would be coming out any time soon. 

We're... 2? 3? Years away from that announcement, and we are still unsure if those games are even coming out, let alone knowing when they're coming out. Showing a game potentially 5 years at least before it comes out seems like an obvious "We need to show something move". Square put together a cinematic before development on FF7R even started, and Shenmue had nothing to even show, since they were announcing that they were crowd funding the game. 

It was a bad showing. Once the initial shock of "OOOOOH SHIT, FF7 REMAKE/SHENMUE 3" ran out, people were left with nothing. We still have nothing on these two games. 

[Tryhard]

Let's be real, people know Square Enix takes forever with their games. Still doesn't mean people don't get excited for Kingdom Hearts 3, or Final Fantasy. They know they'll see something of it eventually (and there has been gameplay of FF7R since), and it is mostly just to assuage them that it isn't forgotten about and it is coming barring any horrific cancellations. That's appreciated by people even if it is a teaser, especially since it was something as anticipated as FF7R or Kingdom Hearts 3. I'm not really a fan of Shenmue but to give a different example, I'm intrigued to see what From Software's "Shadow die twice" project is that they teased previously.

I mean, I could pretty much say that about any conference there. It's there for the initial hype and then it's over. You know how much E3 hype dies down immediately after it, even for things that show gameplay.

Edited June 2, 2018 by Tryhard

[SoulWeaver]

3 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

With decreased linearity when possible, and also, no references to OM there to avoid riot. 

Although I'd prefer a new 2D Metroid instead of having to remake the only unremade one, not that you can even call me a real fan of the series (only M1 (not to finish), M2, SM, MF, MZM, and like 1/4 at most of MP1, I'll get MSR when price declines since I'm not speedrunner so that cuts into its value for me).

Too late, Nightmare has to stay since he drops the Gravity Suit, and Samus mentions Adam's sacrifice in one of her elevator musings. At best, we can hope they don't add any more references than those. Decreased linearity I'd be down for, as long as they don't alter the requirements for and the existence of the secret conversation that plays if you manage to use the one sequence break the basic game has.

Honestly, I'll take Prime Hunters 2 over almost any 2D Metroid, as it's the only game I've never had issues playing, plus multiplayer Metroid - I wanna see more Noxus out there. If we don't get Prime Hunters 2, though, I'd be fine with a new 2D Metroid, as long as we get more Metroid, preferably with a new rep for 5mash(that isn't Dark Samus).

[Slumber]

Oh, I'm willing to bet Halo 6 gets announced.

It's been almost 3 years since Halo 5 came out(Halo games usually take 2 years to develop and release), and there hasn't been a peep about it. Seeing as it's, despite losing popularity, Microsoft's biggest franchise, I'm sure they'll announce it for a fall release as their big game this year.

[Chconroy]

Nintendo is the one conference I'm investmented in, but I love watching all of the conferences just for the fun of it (especially with Tweets from people I follow). As for my hopes/expectations:

EA-I'll probably be bored within minutes and look at Twitter more than anything else.

Microsoft-Could go either way. Their conference last year had a boring first half, but a good second half and that made it worth watching, even if I don't have an Xbox One.

Bethesda-I'd like see Doom 2, but I'm expecting Skyrim to be announced for my toaster with the amount of ports the game has. So long as they learn from last year it'll be fun to watch.

Square Enix-No specific hopes, but I am looking forward to it. I'm curious to see if they bring any of the hard hitters (you know the ones).

Ubisoft-Can be fun for the wrong reasons, but it'll probably be another EA conference.

Sony-Much like Bethesda, they need to avoid the pitfalls of last year. Regardless, I don't expect to hate it no matter what happens.

Nintendo-Last conference is the one I care about the most. The first thing will always be FIre Emblem, either a new game or a remake of a Japan-only game. Beyond that, Smash Bros. Octo Expansion, Octopath Traveler, and Metroid Prime are things I want to see. Beyond that, I'm happy with whatever other games or surprises they throw in.

Edited June 2, 2018 by Chconroy

[Tsunami922]

I'm looking forward to any and all Soul Calibur 6 news. Hopefully they'll finally announce a release date.

[NinjaMonkey]

12 hours ago, Chconroy said:

Nintendo is the one conference I'm investmented in

Conference? What conference? Nintendo haven't done a conference in years, instead going with a video presentation followed by Treehouse Live.

[TheGoodHoms]

1 hour ago, Tsunami922 said:

I'm looking forward to any and all Soul Calibur 6 news. Hopefully they'll finally announce a release date.

Amen to that!

Usually I'd be looking forward to the Nintendo news the most, but without a Switch I can't really say that(Unless there's something good for the 3DS lined up somewhere in there). I'll just be looking out for any third party games that might come to the PC since it's really the only thing I have that supports the new games coming out these days.

[Chconroy]

28 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Conference? What conference? Nintendo haven't done a conference in years, instead going with a video presentation followed by Treehouse Live.

Sorry, video presentation.

[Modamy]

The only things I'm looking forward to at E3 is the Square Enix conference and the Nintendo Treehouse Presentation, although SOny usually has something else I'm excited like the Spider-man game coming out this year. My most anticipated is without a doubt Kingdom Hearts 3 news and I've got a day off on that day of E3; it's almost like it was destiny.

[Slumber]

On 6/1/2018 at 10:20 PM, Tryhard said:

I mean, I could pretty much say that about any conference there. It's there for the initial hype and then it's over. You know how much E3 hype dies down immediately after it, even for things that show gameplay.

That's not true.

Microsoft and Nintendo tend to show games that are actually coming out in the foreseeable future. There's generally enough shown to get people talking about whether they think they'll enjoy the game in the run-up to its release, or they're showcasing the tech behind the games. The most comparable case in recent years is Crackdown 3, and even they have talked(Probably too much, now that it's a meme and people are confused to how they're implementing it) about the tech showing it and the people involved. It's taking forever to come out, but there's very little possibility that it isn't a game. I am pretty sure it will be a bad game, but I think there's something tangible all of these years after the announcement, and that there's been something tangible to some degree even back when it was announced.

What Sony did with that E3 was basically just one step above flashing "FINAL FANTASY 7" and "SHENMUE 3" across the screen. THEY'RE STILL PUTTING THE TEAM TOGETHER TO DEVELOP THE FINAL FANTASY 7 REMAKE. IT'S BEEN 3 YEARS. NOTHING ABOUT THIS GAME ACTUALLY EXISTS YET. And what was the last we heard of Shenmue 3 after the director realized that tech has changed over the last 15 years?

As much we joke say "Haha E3 is just for investors", the announcements of FF7R and Shenmue 3 were 100% investor reveals. Literally for Shenmue 3, because, again, the announcement was there so that people would fund the game because the director has been failing for years to get big name publishers on board. Sony utterly failed at the 2015 E3 purely because of how much it felt like a conference for investors

I'll admit. I'm a dumb consumer, and I enjoy the spectacle. When the spectacle wears off, I want to be excited for something that may be in my hands some time soon. If that spectacle is all there is and nothing follows, then the big name publishers have failed me as a consumer. As somebody who is a huge fan of FF7, the announcement of the FF7 remake did nothing but arouse suspicion and concern, because they showed me nothing besides "Hurr durr, Cloud's in HD".

It's even worse that I'm sure Sony was super proud of themselves. "We got FF7R and Shenmue 3, we won E3."

Edited June 3, 2018 by Slumber

[Dandy Druid]

On ‎6‎/‎1‎/‎2018 at 4:41 PM, Tryhard said:

i hate to go off on a tangent because it's one of my pet peeves, but:

'win' by what metric? 

it's not like these shows aren't wildly based off your perspective to begin with. if you're not interested in any of the games or console shown, or have no desire to own a console for which that game is present on, you're not going to rate it highly to begin with. very rarely will people rate a conference based on what they believe to have put on the best presentation while not necessarily being interested in any of those games.

that goes for any confirmation bias either way. i saw people saying sony had a bad show on the e3 they announced ff7 remake, shenmue 3 and the last guardian because they just weren't interested in those.

Usually people 'win' if people are happy with the conference.

When I say 'win', I'm personally using it in the sense that most reactions I come across are relatively excited about what was presented and how it was presented. I personally don't use it in comparison to how other companies presented. It's a personal win, sort to speak. If you win, you did a great job of marketing and it'll eventually pay off. Theoretically, every company can "win", if they did a good job. Because a win to me is a high probability of sales, and E3 is one of the best marketing opportunities in the videogame industry.

Although, my definition of win in this context can differ greatly from others though.

[Tryhard]

9 hours ago, Slumber said:

That's not true.

Microsoft and Nintendo tend to show games that are actually coming out in the foreseeable future. There's generally enough shown to get people talking about whether they think they'll enjoy the game in the run-up to its release, or they're showcasing the tech behind the games. The most comparable case in recent years is Crackdown 3, and even they have talked(Probably too much, now that it's a meme and people are confused to how they're implementing it) about the tech showing it and the people involved. It's taking forever to come out, but there's very little possibility that it isn't a game. I am pretty sure it will be a bad game, but I think there's something tangible all of these years after the announcement, and that there's been something tangible to some degree even back when it was announced.

What Sony did with that E3 was basically just one step above flashing "FINAL FANTASY 7" and "SHENMUE 3" across the screen. THEY'RE STILL PUTTING THE TEAM TOGETHER TO DEVELOP THE FINAL FANTASY 7 REMAKE. IT'S BEEN 3 YEARS. NOTHING ABOUT THIS GAME ACTUALLY EXISTS YET. And what was the last we heard of Shenmue 3 after the director realized that tech has changed over the last 15 years?

As much we joke say "Haha E3 is just for investors", the announcements of FF7R and Shenmue 3 were 100% investor reveals. Literally for Shenmue 3, because, again, the announcement was there so that people would fund the game because the director has been failing for years to get big name publishers on board. Sony utterly failed at the 2015 E3 purely because of how much it felt like a conference for investors

I'll admit. I'm a dumb consumer, and I enjoy the spectacle. When the spectacle wears off, I want to be excited for something that may be in my hands some time soon. If that spectacle is all there is and nothing follows, then the big name publishers have failed me as a consumer. As somebody who is a huge fan of FF7, the announcement of the FF7 remake did nothing but arouse suspicion and concern, because they showed me nothing besides "Hurr durr, Cloud's in HD".

It's even worse that I'm sure Sony was super proud of themselves. "We got FF7R and Shenmue 3, we won E3."

Depends. Microsoft showed off Phantom Dust in 2014 and that game has since been cancelled. Once again, it was a CGI trailer in early stages of production - the kicker being that Phantom Dust is a niche game that just showing that doesn't grant much anticipation. (though the original was a good game). And Crackdown 3 as you've mentioned. And Scalebound, has been cancelled as well. Fable Legends, where gameplay was shown in 2014, was also cancelled. There has probably been other examples but I can't think of them off the top of my head. Honestly, I think Microsoft have more of a problem with this than Sony. You're right that I don't think that teaster trailers are the most exciting or a good idea when they are either for new IPs or sequels to more obscure games. A FF7R and Shenmue 3 (despite being a cult classic in its own right in this case), have been pretty anticipated for 10-15 years, though.

But let's go beyond the whole FF7R and Shenmue thing if you have a problem with them. Horizon and Uncharted 4 definitely deserve to be mentioned as they were both great showings. Hitman, Assassin's Creed (not sure if it was shown at Ubisoft), various Devolver exclusives and Firewatch were shown. Games that had people excited at the time but turned out to be disappointing (not really a fault against showing them at the time, I believe - considering Microsoft had the same with games like Sea of Thieves and Forza/racing games) to be No Man's Sky and Battlefront.

The one thing is that Sony generally has a problem with pacing - on the account of that their press conferences overstay their welcome to a degree. They've had this problem for a while. They could generally cut out 20 minutes or so from their conferences and would benefit from doing so.

I think you're being pretty unfair in general. You can go around and find many FF7 fans that were happy to hear something not just at the time but since rather than just wondering if they were ever going to be told anything was being worked on. Tumultuous development is just a thing that happens, especially for big budget games.

For one, I think it was generally accepted that Nintendo had not a great showing that year, with Iwata saying they will try to improve and I believe he apologised for it personally. Microsoft I thought did well. It wasn't Sony's best showing by a long shot and both Ubisoft and Bethesda also did well, but I was always confused to hear that Sony did poor that E3 when Nintendo literally had to apologise because their fans were upset. I don't think Sony should have been saying anything about winning E3 if they did but it's not like Microsoft or Nintendo haven't gloated after what they consider to be good showings either.

9 hours ago, Dandy Druid said:

Usually people 'win' if people are happy with the conference.

When I say 'win', I'm personally using it in the sense that most reactions I come across are relatively excited about what was presented and how it was presented. I personally don't use it in comparison to how other companies presented. It's a personal win, sort to speak. If you win, you did a great job of marketing and it'll eventually pay off. Theoretically, every company can "win", if they did a good job. Because a win to me is a high probability of sales, and E3 is one of the best marketing opportunities in the videogame industry.

Although, my definition of win in this context can differ greatly from others though.

That's what I mean though, it's rather vague. People seem to like comparing showings to each other, though. That's generally why E3 is seen as a competition and what most people refer to when they speak of "winning".

Which strikes me as a redundant concept, but there you go.

Edited June 3, 2018 by Tryhard

[Slumber]

3 hours ago, Tryhard said:

I think you're being pretty unfair in general. You can go around and find many FF7 fans that were happy to hear something not just at the time but since rather than just wondering if they were ever going to be told anything was being worked on. Tumultuous development is just a thing that happens, especially for big budget games.

I think you'll be pretty hard-pressed to find any FF7 fans right now who are happy with how the remake is turning out. Even back then, I recall far more skepticism than optimism. Most FF7 fans seem to agree that the Square of 1997 is not the Square from 2015, and their faith that they'd handle one of their favorite games correctly nowadays is pretty low.

And yes, tumultuous development is a thing in gaming, but if you think I'm being unfair about this, I think you're vastly underselling how tumultuous Square's development process is. And, once again, there was no development when the game was announced.

Which brings me back to why Sony lost that E3. E3 is largely a spectacle for consumers. You sell products to consumers, you sell ideas to investors. Sony was selling ideas and trying to pass them off as products, and it was blatant as all hell that year. Yes, they did show games, some which ended up good, some which ended up bad. But they tried to pass off their big reveals as things that were actually happening.

Edited June 3, 2018 by Slumber

[Tryhard]

44 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Which brings me back to why Sony lost that E3. E3 is largely a spectacle for consumers. You sell products to consumers, you sell ideas to investors. Sony was selling ideas and trying to pass them off as products, and it was blatant as all hell that year. Yes, they did show games, some which ended up good, some which ended up bad. But they tried to pass off their big reveals as things that were actually happening.

I'd actually argue that E3 has been more towards investors and market interests than any other gaming showing since its conception in 1995. I mean, E3 originally required a licensed connection to the gaming industry to attend the actual events, essentially making it an industry-only event until they opened it to the public in 2017. Hence why I said about shareholders before.

There's a lot of other game shows, PAX, TGS, etc that really cater more to consumers than E3 does, and always have.

Edited June 3, 2018 by Tryhard

[henrymidfields]

All I'll probably care at this stage would be FE 16. Though even FE gas become "meh" to me in recent months with the subpar story of Fates and Awakening. I guess I'll have to see if there's something from Atlus or the FF7 remake.

[smgrinus]

Square Enix seems pretty out of touch with their fanbase. Their remakes/remasters have been very disappointing so far, at least on the PC side of things. 

Thankfully, FF VII has already been serviced by fans http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=13212.0 and it is a satisfying overhaul of the much older game. 

The FF VI on PC was fairly insulting but very much looking forward to Atlus to pick up the RPG slack. Their 3DS and PC ports have been outstanding so far. 

[Dandy Druid]

6 hours ago, Tryhard said:

That's what I mean though, it's rather vague. People seem to like comparing showings to each other, though. That's generally why E3 is seen as a competition and what most people refer to when they speak of "winning".

Which strikes me as a redundant concept, but there you go.

I tend to not like it when people treat E3 as a competition, mainly because I don't expect everyone to watch every conference.