QisTopTier
XisBannedTier
You know, what if after it's finally out after all this time and the game is barely 6 hours long...
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The Last Guardian development experiencing technical difficulties, says Sony
- Thread starter j0hnny_385
- Start date
Acquiescence
Member
There's no excuse for a game to take this long to make, no matter how small the development team. Part of me really wishes the trailer at E3 '09 never saw the light of day.
Five years into development, they finally are starting to understand that the PS3 can't handle the physics required to animate and control 10000 feathers.
Sony CEO- So, how much feathers do you want on that bird thing?
Ueda-We want it to look real, maybe 10000
Sony CEO - 10000? I don't think PS3 can't handle that
Ueda-It must handle, that's my vision
5 year later...
Sony CEO-So, are we ready for release?
Ueda-Hum...almost, we have already 1000 working feathers
Sony CEO-1000?! We have to release this in this century!!
Ueda-Well, we bumped into some technical problems, not enough ram to hold 10000 feathers, there's a different 3D model for each feather
Sony CEO-but is the game near completion?
Ueda-Once we solve the feathers problem, we are ready to start developing the game itself
Sony CEO- So, how much feathers do you want on that bird thing?
Ueda-We want it to look real, maybe 10000
Sony CEO - 10000? I don't think PS3 can't handle that
Ueda-It must handle, that's my vision
5 year later...
Sony CEO-So, are we ready for release?
Ueda-Hum...almost, we have already 1000 working feathers
Sony CEO-1000?! We have to release this in this century!!
Ueda-Well, we bumped into some technical problems, not enough ram to hold 10000 feathers, there's a different 3D model for each feather
Sony CEO-but is the game near completion?
Ueda-Once we solve the feathers problem, we are ready to start developing the game itself
Combichristoffersen
Combovers don't work when there is no hair
Guardian of War.
Follow Catbird on its epic quest to avenge the death of its family, and wage war on the king of the catbirdgods for betraying Catbird.
CEOs usually function the other way, any would think his product is capable of handling a million feathers.
Pie and Beans
Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
If we knew a lot more about how much Team Ico were paid salary wise, you'd get a pretty good idea of exactly how fucking insane a money sink this whole thing has been.
Even if they are still a small team of around 50+ people, paying the wages of those individuals for 7 years straight since SOTC, the studio space they rent and all that equipment being used to seemingly NOT MAKE A GAME, the attention its now taken from Sony's other tech minds to help out, you realise this isn't just about one game not getting made, but like three or four other game projects funds never existing either.
Remember, Team Ico, a first party studio, haven't just missed the entire PS3 generation, but also the PSP, and now a year into the Vita.
Even if they are still a small team of around 50+ people, paying the wages of those individuals for 7 years straight since SOTC, the studio space they rent and all that equipment being used to seemingly NOT MAKE A GAME, the attention its now taken from Sony's other tech minds to help out, you realise this isn't just about one game not getting made, but like three or four other game projects funds never existing either.
Remember, Team Ico, a first party studio, haven't just missed the entire PS3 generation, but also the PSP, and now a year into the Vita.
Sounds epic.
criesofthepast
Member
Must be nice for guys like Yamauchi and Ueda to have the keys to the company and take their sweet ass time with everything without ever having to answer to anyone. Sweetest gig in the world. Ueda was a fool for leaving. Can't imagine he'll find a position nearly as comfy than what he had at SCEJ.
MrDanger88
Member
Better than being lied to for 6 years
Basileus777
Member
Why do you think changing platforms would fix everything? It'd be just end up being delayed again.
JasoNsider
Member
Don't worry too much about this. it's probably feature complete and in a giant QA pass. For engineers to get big fix tasks is not so bad and is much harder to somehow creatively misinterpret...if you see what I mean
mysteriousmage09
Member
Fuck it. Just put the game on PS4 then. I don't want to see this game struggling to keep 30fps in fucking late 2013 when a year later at best would solve everything with PS4.
Opus Angelorum
Member
Switching development from the PS3 to PS4 would not be easy, based on rumoured PS4 specifications.
Backfoggen
Banned
The Last Guardian is going to be a picture. One frame per forever.
UnblessedSoul
Member
They have 3 options
1. Canned
2. Rush out a poor experience
3. Change development to ps4
1. Canned
2. Rush out a poor experience
3. Change development to ps4
When they say "technical difficulties" and don't have anything playable for years, I don't assume it's a problem with framerate or something that can be fixed by moving to new hardware; I think the core idea of putting an AI-controlled creature at the heart of its gameplay turned out to be a mistake. So they're currently in the process of lobotomizing it in order to deliver a game that's actually enjoyable to play.
"technical difficulties" sounds more like "We cannot actually make it work like we promised." I am not sure if that is a technology issue or the fact they need better developers or they need someone directing the development better.
BlazingDarkness
Member
Yeah... I no longer will follow this game.
I have little hope it will ever release.
I have little hope it will ever release.
sublimit
Banned
I think they got way overambitious (not the first time) and the project went out of their hands.Being a very small team doesn't exactly help either especially when it comes to big budget games like this.
As much as it pains me to admit they should have probably focused to make relatively "small" PSN games like Journey for example.
As much as it pains me to admit they should have probably focused to make relatively "small" PSN games like Journey for example.
systemfehler
Member
I agree with the statements that it is not just about textures popping in or framerate issues - this sounds more like a serious dealbreaker. I do reserve a small place in my gamer heart for the game but right now it seems dead.
paperheart
Banned
I wonder what the technical difficulties could be. They've been experiencing them for a while now, so the game must have been a mess before the other Sony studios got involved. I might as well just block this game and Versus out of my memory and forget them so I don't keep getting my hopes up.
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
My money has been on: AI is causing problems with level design + executing Ueda's vision for the layout of the game, how the story flows, etc, turned out to be very difficult and they don't actually have much of a real 'game' put together.
"The Lost Guardian", there, that wasn't so hard.
Wax Free Vanilla
Member
If this was a SCEE game Yoshida would have canned it years ago.
JumpingTheGun
Banned
They should just release whatever they have now, unpolished, unfinished and hell, maybe even broken, as a PS+ exclusive download for 9.99.
shit would STILL probably end up selling like hotcakes AND nab new memberships.
shit would STILL probably end up selling like hotcakes AND nab new memberships.
CadetMahoney
Member
This. Please Sony.
I still have that video sitting on my PS3
Mr. Pointy
Member
This whole game is a technical difficulty.
Realistic? I think the most realistic thing to do is just cancel it... I mean, moving a game that is more a 'gamers game' than an actual system seller to Vita, a system that doesn't really sell well at the moment isn't really a smart thing to do I think... also, the development of this game probably costed Sony already loads of money.
flabberghastly
Member
This is both incredibly disappointing and completely unsurprising.
Shadow of the Colossus came out near the end of the PS2's main lifecycle and nearly crushed the power of the system under the weight of what it was trying to achieve. I don't doubt that this is the same situation with The Last Guardian. The game was certainly one of the most ambitious of this generation, and I suspect that once again the team is trying to implement effects that have never before been seen on consoles, just as SotC did. Pair that then with the difficulty of developing sufficiently advanced programming for Trico to make it seem like a fully realized creature, rather than a simple tool for your own game advancement, and I can imagine the difficulties they are encountering.
And all of these technical difficulties must be addressed before the developers even design much of the game itselfthe puzzles, the traversals, the architecture of the in-game areas, etc. Making Trico comply to the game's designs may simply be proving too difficult when they've been attempting to always make the creature so much more than simply another of those designs.
The Last Guardian has been my most anticipated game since I played SotC in 2005, well before the game was ever announced or shown, but with so many difficulties encountered, so many new arrangements in the management, including the now freelance capacity of Ueda, and so many other teams getting involved to push this thing out the door, possibly diluting the original team's visions while perhaps also rushing the development, I don't know what to think of this game any more.
Team ICO as we knew it is in ruins. The Last Guardian seems to have now become Sony's own pet project to not only avert an enormous waste of money, time, talents, and assets, but also to prove that the gaming division as a whole is still capable of producing something like SotC. This could be either their most glorious success or their most ignominious failure.
I still have a glimmer of hope in my heart for The Last Guardian. I wish all those laboring over this beast the best of luck.
Shadow of the Colossus came out near the end of the PS2's main lifecycle and nearly crushed the power of the system under the weight of what it was trying to achieve. I don't doubt that this is the same situation with The Last Guardian. The game was certainly one of the most ambitious of this generation, and I suspect that once again the team is trying to implement effects that have never before been seen on consoles, just as SotC did. Pair that then with the difficulty of developing sufficiently advanced programming for Trico to make it seem like a fully realized creature, rather than a simple tool for your own game advancement, and I can imagine the difficulties they are encountering.
And all of these technical difficulties must be addressed before the developers even design much of the game itselfthe puzzles, the traversals, the architecture of the in-game areas, etc. Making Trico comply to the game's designs may simply be proving too difficult when they've been attempting to always make the creature so much more than simply another of those designs.
The Last Guardian has been my most anticipated game since I played SotC in 2005, well before the game was ever announced or shown, but with so many difficulties encountered, so many new arrangements in the management, including the now freelance capacity of Ueda, and so many other teams getting involved to push this thing out the door, possibly diluting the original team's visions while perhaps also rushing the development, I don't know what to think of this game any more.
Team ICO as we knew it is in ruins. The Last Guardian seems to have now become Sony's own pet project to not only avert an enormous waste of money, time, talents, and assets, but also to prove that the gaming division as a whole is still capable of producing something like SotC. This could be either their most glorious success or their most ignominious failure.
I still have a glimmer of hope in my heart for The Last Guardian. I wish all those laboring over this beast the best of luck.
RurouniZel
Asks questions so Ezalc doesn't have to
Well it makes sense. It IS technically difficult to complete a game you've quietly cancelled.
blackprophesy
Member
It's turned into one of those games (like Half Life 3/Ep3) that I just can't get enthusiastic about now. If/when they finally release anything then great but I'm not going to hold my breath for information from them. Sad really after the PS2 games.
Perhaps those are the 'efforts' they speak of.
Would be a good idea I think. Everyone has waited this long.. why not another year and a half? It certainly won't be a 2012 title at this rate.
Messypandas
Member
Silence is deafening sony