show of hands for potential purchase (March 2010)

[Pave Low]

Posted on behalf on NoQuarter.

Thought it would be interesting in gauging members attitudes to the direction that Ubisoft has taken the series with :FS by getting a rough show of hands -in one location- of where everyone stands regarding a potential purchase.

Those brave -or sure of themselves- can even lay their cards on the table -with a post for the record- but please stay on topic - no explanations/links on the viability of the proposed content, who has the better dope, or Western civilization discussions, thanks.

[NoQuarter]

1a.

[AlienShogun]

All in, hook line and sinker.

I'm one of the BIGGEST Ghost Recon fans I know, hell when I first joined the army GR scored me bonus points when my NCO asked me a question he thought I wouldn't know, the nomenclature for the AT4 (M136) Which I only knew because of Ghost Recon and the countless hours I put into it right before joining the army in 2003.

Games change. This is a business, I seem to be one of the few that realize that. They are trying to market to a broader audience. The market for the more hardcore [Ghost Recon] games is no where near as large as the market for games like GRAW and Rainbow six vegas. I understand that, and take the game based on it's own merits. Regardless, the Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six story line is still there, and I find it VERY enjoyable.

If people want a mil sim there are niche games made just for them, Arma and Operation flashpoint for example. Both of which I own and love.

People need to quit crying about the past, and judge these new games on their own merit. If the game is good the game is good, no matter what came before it.

Edited March 28, 2010 by AlienShogun

[Pave Low]

for me, FS isn't Ghost Recon. I, wanted Ghost Recon: NOW Soldier or Ghost Recon: THEN soldier (1980's "cold war")

But luckily for Ubi, I do like Sci-Fi and so I am judging this as a completely separate game based entirely on whether they can manage to make it great to play, then I might be able to overlook some parts of the game

For right now I am on the fence and have no intention to pre-order it..... unless RSE can somehow manage to blow my socks off with some great fun gameplay but unfortunately thanks to UBI they are already starting from last place and have an awful lot of ground to make up

oh yeah, for the record a Live Action Promo wont influence MY game-buying decisions at all, as it has absolutely nothing to do with how the actual game will look or play, so for me they just wasted $10m that would have been better spent on making the GAME better, probably will come as a surprise to Ubi but I don't care about fancy advertising or "cool" boxart, all that matters to me is what the actual game looks and plays like!

*or they should have just given the $10m straight to the UBI shareholders as "sales profit" and dropped the "always on" DRM

[AlienShogun]

Except that Ghost Recon has always been future/near future. I understand why people want a "back to the roots" game, but the market isn't there. The avid complainers (in my opinion) need to save their energy and just get the games that ARE marketed to them. I personally buy those, AND any Ghost recon Rainbow game that comes out and I will continue to until one of them is actually a bad game. Judging the new iterations off of past glories is just ignorant in my opinion since the market has changed, dramatically.

Edited March 28, 2010 by AlienShogun

[Rocky]

I'll say up front I voted All In so you can discount it if you like as everyone knows I'll buy GR till the cows come home.

[WhiteKnight77]

Except that Ghost Recon has always been future/near future. I understand why people want a "back to the roots" game, but the market isn't there. The avid complainers (in my opinion) need to save their energy and just get the games that ARE marketed to them. I personally buy those, AND any Ghost recon Rainbow game that comes out and I will continue to until one of them is actually a bad game. Judging the new iterations off of past glories is just ignorant in my opinion since the market has changed, dramatically.

R6 and GR were marketed to us to begin with, it was Ubi that threw the baby out with the bath water. They threw away an already built in customer base for a new customer base. Think about this, MS's Flight Simulator did the same thing in it's 10th version as it did in it's first version, 20 years earlier and people still bought them up. FS is a classic example of adding to the game without removing features and taking it steps backwards. Ubi screwed up not one, but 2 GOTY franchises by trying to chase those who want typical fare. GR and R6 were not typical. The real irony is that Ubi has had some of the best niche market games ever and they all won GOTY awards in their respective categories. Go figure.

I voted 1b.

[Scott Mitchell]

All in - I will pre-order it as soon as possible. In fact, I will very likely get it on Xbox 360 and PC to make everyone in the house happy.

Rocky - hopefully you don't have to buy it - hopefully you get your courtesy copy from Ubisoft...

[Malleus]

I voted 1b.

Same here. I also agree with what WhiteKnight77 said. It's perfectly okay to make a scifi tactical action game, but why make it a part of a franchise that was never scifi? So they can say "new game in the long running critically acclaimed franchise"? Yeah, but when it got that critical acclaim, it was completely different, lol.

[AlienShogun]

R6 and GR were marketed to us to begin with, it was Ubi that threw the baby out with the bath water. They threw away an already built in customer base for a new customer base. Think about this, MS's Flight Simulator did the same thing in it's 10th version as it did in it's first version, 20 years earlier and people still bought them up. FS is a classic example of adding to the game without removing features and taking it steps backwards. Ubi screwed up not one, but 2 GOTY franchises by trying to chase those who want typical fare. GR and R6 were not typical. The real irony is that Ubi has had some of the best niche market games ever and they all won GOTY awards in their respective categories. Go figure.

I voted 1b.

Except a flight sim is a flight sim. Ghost recon was NEVER a mil sim. Operation flashpoint and Arma are milsims. GR never was.

Ghost Recon is a tactical game. Always has been, and as far as I can tell always will be, no matter how it has changed it has ALWAYS relied on tactics, and "teamwork."

GR has evolved in its own way. As times have changed it has changed. I have not seen a GR yet that I thought was garbage. I take each game for what it is. I understand what GR has always been and where it is going. It would seem some do not.

[CR6]

GR has evolved in its own way. As times have changed it has changed. I have not seen a GR yet that I thought was garbage. I take each game for what it is. I understand what GR has always been and where it is going. It would seem some do not.

Just read FiringSquad's review for the new Command & Conquer 4 and what the reviewer said in his conclusion can basically be cut and pasted to Ubi's direction with the GR series (the bold text and italics are added by me ):

http://www.firingsquad.com/games/command_a...eview/page5.asp

FiringSquad says:

I’m growing tired of people drastically altering the core gameplay mechanics of a franchise because they want to try something different, yet are too afraid to introduce new IP. Calling something a sequel causes players to expect certain things based on what the series has been like before and will be disappointed when it strays too far from that. This is not Command & Conquer; it’s a console port of a spin-off that should have been called something else. Had they done so, I might have kept more of an open mind, though I doubt that alone would’ve made me think better of it.

[Rocky]

Nice find CR6, that quote is spot on.

[NightCrawler]

Sadly, I've given up.

Too many reasons to list and they've all been said before in so many posts all over this entire forum.

[KRP 56]

I thought the GRAW series signaled the end for Ghost Recon but after seeing where GRFS is headed the GRAW series is looking better and better everyday now that I've played some great mods. Bad direction and that stupid DRM will have me on the sidelines for this one. Not even sure if I'd be interested in it once it hit's the bargain bin with the DRM strings attached.

[JohnTC02]

Well I'm all in here, when Ubi releases the PC version I will be among the first to place my order.

Being a GRAW2 fan this next version looks like a natural progression from it's predecessor but I do have my concerns about the DRM system, I just hope Ubi gets their servers up to speed by the time FS hits the shelves.

[MeanMF]

Zero chance of purchase. 30% chance of rental based on what I've seen so far.

[WhiteKnight77]

Except a flight sim is a flight sim. Ghost recon was NEVER a mil sim. Operation flashpoint and Arma are milsims. GR never was.

Ghost Recon is a tactical game. Always has been, and as far as I can tell always will be, no matter how it has changed it has ALWAYS relied on tactics, and "teamwork."

GR has evolved in its own way. As times have changed it has changed. I have not seen a GR yet that I thought was garbage. I take each game for what it is. I understand what GR has always been and where it is going. It would seem some do not.

GR followed in the Tac-Sim footsteps of R6 which defined the Tactical Simulator genre of games. RSE created that particular genre subset of FPS games. While not a military sim, R6 simulated the planning and execution of a hostage rescue and information collection with the planting of bugs. GR simulated the execution of obtaining certain objectives to complete a mission based on a small squad of highly trained soldiers, Green Berets, and not regular soldiers in major direct action as you would find in OFP or ArmA.

Ubi has removed many of the original features of both games like the planning stage, hostage rescue, and planting of bugs for R6 and the completion of objectives in any order, open terrain and soul switching found in GR. Both games now feature hero characters and linear gameplay over the open ended gameplay each had. They are instead of being atypical, they are now typical shooters. What sets each apart from a game like CoD or Halo?

[Daywanderer]

2a - show me some actual gameplay, then I'll figure out if this is worth my time and money. I'm all for the theme and the tech. I don't have the time or energy to worry about franchises anymore and whether or not a developer deems it financially safe to go for a niche or follow the mainstream. Raven Shield proved to me that even if a game goes somewhat away from the franchise and lacks the atmosphere of the previous games, it can still be incredibly entertaining. I even enjoyed the R6 Vegas games. Sure, it had next to nothing in common with the original two games in the series, but the gameplay was solid and the story was good enough - though of "newer" games (as in the last couple of years), Modern Warfare 1 & 2 wins hands down as far as story/single-player campaign goes.

I prefer to keep an open mind - guess I'm having a hard time not being entirely objective. After all, I pre-ordered Bad Company 2 despite disliking the first one, and I ended up enjoying it quite a bit ^^

[OldGhost]

1A. Until UBI drops thier DRM I am not buying another UBI game. Period.

And if I should stumble across a cracked version...........

OldGhost.

[AlienShogun]

Except a flight sim is a flight sim. Ghost recon was NEVER a mil sim. Operation flashpoint and Arma are milsims. GR never was.

Ghost Recon is a tactical game. Always has been, and as far as I can tell always will be, no matter how it has changed it has ALWAYS relied on tactics, and "teamwork."

GR has evolved in its own way. As times have changed it has changed. I have not seen a GR yet that I thought was garbage. I take each game for what it is. I understand what GR has always been and where it is going. It would seem some do not.

GR followed in the Tac-Sim footsteps of R6 which defined the Tactical Simulator genre of games. RSE created that particular genre subset of FPS games. While not a military sim, R6 simulated the planning and execution of a hostage rescue and information collection with the planting of bugs. GR simulated the execution of obtaining certain objectives to complete a mission based on a small squad of highly trained soldiers, Green Berets, and not regular soldiers in major direct action as you would find in OFP or ArmA.

Ubi has removed many of the original features of both games like the planning stage, hostage rescue, and planting of bugs for R6 and the completion of objectives in any order, open terrain and soul switching found in GR. Both games now feature hero characters and linear gameplay over the open ended gameplay each had. They are instead of being atypical, they are now typical shooters. What sets each apart from a game like CoD or Halo?

Ghost recon has always felt different than games like COD or Halo. It has always had its own feel, has always (and still is) been tactical, and has always had a following that reflects its more mature game play. The best people I have ever met online were from GR and R6 (through every iteration). To say that GR has become like Halo or COD is to show your ignorance in the series (or that you are just trolling). Has it lost more of the "tactical minutia? Yes, but it's become more accessable to people who don't/won't play that way. But to completely say the game is no longer tactical and is akin to typical shooters is just asinine.

Edit: The use of "you" is not indicative of white knight. It is a more general "you" to people who keep saying Ghost Recon is like Halo or COD.

Edit2: The soldiers in Arma/Arma 2 are spec ops. You also play Specops in Operation flashpoint, as well as Marine Recon (which also do specops missions). So there is clearly a parallel. Like I said, GR was never a Milsim. Tac sim? On a minor level, but it was never a mil sim. There were also PLENTY of missions in the [Ghost Recon] with "major direct action" as you put it.

As I said. GR has always been about tactical game play. Even though the game has changed substantially the need for tactics is still present, and heavily so.

Flight sims are marketed as flight sims you wouldn't expect one to be marketed as "secret weapons over normandy"

Same with Milsims. Arma and Operation flashpoint continue to fill that roll for a niche market.

Ghost Recon was NEVER a sim. It was a game that required tactics. The use of those tactics as well as the tools has changed but the need for tactics remains.

Edited March 30, 2010 by AlienShogun

[AnthonyLunkwitz]

Except that Ghost Recon has always been future/near future. I understand why people want a "back to the roots" game, but the market isn't there. The avid complainers (in my opinion) need to save their energy and just get the games that ARE marketed to them. I personally buy those, AND any Ghost recon Rainbow game that comes out and I will continue to until one of them is actually a bad game. Judging the new iterations off of past glories is just ignorant in my opinion since the market has changed, dramatically.

R6 and GR were marketed to us to begin with, it was Ubi that threw the baby out with the bath water. They threw away an already built in customer base for a new customer base. Think about this, MS's Flight Simulator did the same thing in it's 10th version as it did in it's first version, 20 years earlier and people still bought them up. FS is a classic example of adding to the game without removing features and taking it steps backwards. Ubi screwed up not one, but 2 GOTY franchises by trying to chase those who want typical fare. GR and R6 were not typical. The real irony is that Ubi has had some of the best niche market games ever and they all won GOTY awards in their respective categories. Go figure.

I voted 1b.

Have to Agree with both AlienShogun and Whiteknight

Whiteknight is right when the games was getting GOTY, hell Ghost Recon got it for if memory recalls correctly 4 years straight. Comparing with today, GRAW has not got any that I know of or the fan base the [Ghost Recon] got, and it was really a game meant for all of us. Shogun, we were literally the fan base, I have been since I was 13 years old, got burned out since then and despise the Rainbow Six's(Lockdown to now) but Ghost Recon on the other hand is different. The original obviously but GRAW I wish I bought it on release and GRAW2. Now just last night, I counted 11 people. RAINBOW SIX 3 RAVEN SHIELD IS STILL HOLDING 300 STRONG.

At the same time Shogun is right, times change Whiteknight and we got to give it a chance rather having to complain, I bet it will be dead game after the first year, but oh well. As times change we got to go with the flow. And I do hope there will be something good about this new one. But in the wraps of everything, we still have Ground Branch and hopefully ASAP. I know I will jump to it cause Blackfoot is doing it right and listening to us.

Something UBI as ignored and I dont like RSE either, wish the old team was around though, would be different.

[NoQuarter]

Would an etc. have helped?

...but please stay on topic - no explanations/links on the viability of the proposed content, who has the better dope, or Western civilization discussions, thanks.

@AlienShogun: This means you, in general.

____

General Posting Guideline 2.2

[Daywanderer]

I remember saying something similar to this back when Raven Shield was released: I'm amazed of the amount of people who are apparently going to blow this game off because of the name xD

I don't see how a game could be better or worse based on if it's called "Ghost Recon: Future Soldier" or "Tom Clancy's Future Soldier".

On a side note, GOTY (Game of the Year) awards cannot be won by the same game over several years

[AlienShogun]

Would an etc. have helped?

...but please stay on topic - no explanations/links on the viability of the proposed content, who has the better dope, or Western civilization discussions, thanks.

@AlienShogun: This means you, in general.

____

General Posting Guideline 2.2

What are you talking about? Everything being discussed is on topic. This is a thread about people buying or not buying the game based on the direction the series is going.

Edited March 30, 2010 by AlienShogun

[krise madsen]

It's 2b for me, I suppose. Even if my computer could run the game (somewhat unlikely) my internet connection is way too wonky for me to accept the online requirement for a single player game, and largely eliminates LAN co-op from the get go (I don't play aversarial MP).

It sure as heck ain't oldschool Ghost Recon, but it could still be a good game in it's own right. I mean the console GRAW games were both popular, well recieved and sold well. Just not the game for me.