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Post by SoLong »

The_Mask wrote: January 24th, 2026, 01:33

Prince of Persia, why it was REALLY cancelled. Insider tells all.

"The game is so bad..."

- 90% developed by Ubisoft India.
- Project was as a disaster.
- Transferred last minute to Ubisoft Montreal to "fix" it.
- Game unfixable.
- Cancelled.

This is from my Ubisoft sources.

I would like you to take a moment to imagine how bad a game has to be for Ubisoft to consider it unsuitable for their customers.

Actually no, don't imagine it. Save yourselves!

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Post by DecadeRiptide »

why do all the characters in fable 3 look like they been dipped in vaseline
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Post by Roguey »

DecadeRiptide wrote: ↑ January 24th, 2026, 02:27
why do all the characters in fable 3 look like they been dipped in vaseline
HDR was really big around the turn of the 10s, devs made a lot of things ridiculously shiny to show it off.
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Post by DecadeRiptide »

Roguey wrote: ↑ January 24th, 2026, 03:02
DecadeRiptide wrote: ↑ January 24th, 2026, 02:27
why do all the characters in fable 3 look like they been dipped in vaseline
HDR was really big around the turn of the 10s, devs made a lot of things ridiculously shiny to show it off.
I meant the new fable but interesting ig
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Post by Roguey »

DecadeRiptide wrote: ↑ January 24th, 2026, 04:02
I meant the new fable but interesting ig
Oh in that case, that's just a feature of Forzatech.

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Post by J1M »

It takes over 800 people to put out 8 dungeons and 2 raid tiers every couple of years.

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Post by Val the Moofia Boss »

J1M wrote: ↑ January 31st, 2026, 05:41
It takes over 800 people to put out 8 dungeons and 2 raid tiers every couple of years.

We have been getting less bang for our buck each year every year for well over a decade. TBC had 11 questing zones, 3 new cities, 8 raids (3 available at launch), 2 new races (that had all brand new animations and postures). Fast forward to modern WoW expacs where you just get 5 or 6 new zones (only 4 at launch), 1 new city, 3 raids over the course of the whole expansion (1 available at launch), you are lucky if you get one new race and if it is not a reskin of a preexisting race, and so on.

The dungeons nowadays aren't really even full new maps. Ever since BFA, the new expac dungeons have increasingly reused more and more of the zones. In some cases it yields great results like the airship dungeon in TWW, but otherwise you really notice the milking.
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Post by rusty_shackleford »

WoW has made tens of billions of dollars but nobody can actually explain what that has been used for.
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Post by Val the Moofia Boss »

Getting less bang for your buck as the years go on is also not a WoW exclusive thing either. GW2 and FF14 are severely affected by it.

GW2's first expansion Heart of Thorns launched with 1 new class, a new elite spec for every class (so 9 elite specs), 4 new zones (with each zone actually being double or triple in size of a regular zone because they are multilayered now), raids, a new SPvP mode, a brand new WvW map, and so on. Fast forward to the present day where a new expansion only brings 2 new zones (which are also nowhere near as big as HoT zones, being just a single plane) + 1 more in a patch 9 months later, no new classes, no new elite specs, no new SPvP mode or maps, no new WvW map, etc.

FF14: During Heavensward in 2015-2017, you would get 3 new jobs, a new race, a new patch every 3 months that brought 3 dungeons, a new trial sidestoryline boss fight, etc. And then during Stormblood, they had Eureka where in addition to the six zones you get at launch, you also wound up getting 4 more zones in the patches. Fast forward to Endwalker, and you only get 2 new jobs, no new races, a patch only brings one new dungeon, you don't get trial sidestoryline boss fights anymore, no post-launch maps like Eureka, etc. And patches are now 5 months apart.
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Post by Oyster Sauce »

rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ January 31st, 2026, 06:30
WoW has made tens of billions of dollars but nobody can actually explain what that has been used for.
overwatch and diablo cutscenes?
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Post by Rand »

The_Mask wrote: ↑ January 24th, 2026, 01:33
Prince of Persia, why it was REALLY cancelled. Insider tells all.

"The game is so bad..."

- 90% developed by Ubisoft India.
- Project was as a disaster.
- Transferred last minute to Ubisoft Montreal to "fix" it.
- Game unfixable.
- Cancelled.

This is from my Ubisoft sources.
Ironic.
They were concerned nobody would redeem... 😞
You may as well not bother replying to my posts if it's to argue anything except concrete facts or your personal opinion. I still probably won't see it.
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Post by DecadeRiptide »

Oyster Sauce wrote: ↑ January 31st, 2026, 07:00
rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ January 31st, 2026, 06:30
WoW has made tens of billions of dollars but nobody can actually explain what that has been used for.
overwatch and diablo cutscenes?
Tbf the diablo 3 cutscenes were amazing
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Please visit a scenic bridge and plummet into its pristine waters. In fact, I'm not requesting, just do it.
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Post by Val the Moofia Boss »

Another kickstarter MMO, Ashes of Creation, has died.

[media]https://www.youtube.com/clip/Ugkx43-FDh ... R9DJ-M6IDQ[/media]

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Post by mynameismortis »

Another wow "killer" bites the dust
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Post by Finarfin »

Ah well, time to go play WOW
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Post by Rand »

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You may as well not bother replying to my posts if it's to argue anything except concrete facts or your personal opinion. I still probably won't see it.
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Post by Breathe »

Why is Marathon there? It hasn't even come out yet.

Edit: Oh I see. It's sort of a prediction of sorts. In any case, I don't think Marathon will tank as hard as these others. Though, having Arc Raiders out there won't help.
Last edited by Breathe on February 13th, 2026, 03:02, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by mercerxiv »

rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ January 31st, 2026, 06:30
WoW has made tens of billions of dollars but nobody can actually explain what that has been used for.
Well, sure as **** it wasn't reinvested into the game itself. Most of it probably went to either Bobby Kotick pay, vanity projects that got shuttered (Titan, ...), garbage projects that came out (OW), hiring more DEI people to work on "new and improved" WoW, paying off ******** workplace harassment lawsuits in California and wherever else (and "victimx foids) and firing the few guys who may have known what they are doing.
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Post by Val the Moofia Boss »

The WoW dev team actually doubled in size once the MoP patch cycle ended and development of WoD was in full swing. That in part lead to the 14 month content drought during patch 5.4, and to WoD being an unfinished content with no endgame outside of raiding and a content drought during that expansion's patch cycle, and the legendary subscription plummet. The veterans had to stop developing the game to teach the new hires how to work with WoWedit, how to integrate into the pipeline, etc. So time was lost. Though there were other issues with WoD's development, such as the soft reboot because the original expansion had "too much Orc", so they tore out and redid zone questlines. See Gorgrond's substantial transformation during the alphas and betas. The Breakers vs the Primals was added later. And from what I heard, more people now work on WoW more than ever.

The issue is almost certainly mismanagement/Western societal collapse. From 2016 through 2019, from when Living World Season 3 began to through the Path of Fire expansion and the end of season 4, Arena Net was able to deliver a brand new GW2 content patch featuring at least one new zone once every 2 to 3 months. People got 17 zones in a little under 3 years. With a development team the fraction of the size of WoW's, which struggled to get 8 zones out in the same time frame on an irregular schedule. And ofcourse, now we live in the gacha era where high production value Chinese RPGs like Genshin Impact, Wuthering Waves, etc, are able to do that on a six week schedule.
Last edited by Val the Moofia Boss on February 13th, 2026, 03:35, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by J1M »

Val the Moofia Boss wrote: ↑ February 13th, 2026, 03:32
The WoW dev team actually doubled in size once the MoP patch cycle ended and development of WoD was in full swing. That in part lead to the 14 month content drought during patch 5.4, and to WoD being an unfinished content with no endgame outside of raiding and a content drought during that expansion's patch cycle, and the legendary subscription plummet. The veterans had to stop developing the game to teach the new hires how to work with WoWedit, how to integrate into the pipeline, etc. So time was lost. Though there were other issues with WoD's development, such as the soft reboot because the original expansion had "too much Orc", so they tore out and redid zone questlines. See Gorgrond's substantial transformation during the alphas and betas. The Breakers vs the Primals was added later. And from what I heard, more people now work on WoW more than ever.

The issue is almost certainly mismanagement/Western societal collapse. From 2016 through 2019, from when Living World Season 3 began to through the Path of Fire expansion and the end of season 4, Arena Net was able to deliver a brand new GW2 content patch featuring at least one new zone once every 2 to 3 months, for three years. People got 17 zones in 3 years. With a development team the fraction of the size of WoW's, which struggled to get 8 zones out in the same time frame on an irregular schedule. And ofcourse, now we live in the gacha era where high production value Chinese RPGs like Genshin Impact, Wuthering Waves, etc, are able to do that on a six week schedule.
Yeah, they bought an entire studio to remake the same content over and over for things like .7 patches and pre-patch events. It always feels the same because that's what that factory makes. Why does it still take hundreds of people and come out in an untested state? Unclear!
Last edited by J1M on February 13th, 2026, 03:36, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Val the Moofia Boss »

J1M wrote: ↑ February 13th, 2026, 03:36
pre-patch events
Prepatch events nowadays are nothing. BFA's prepatch added the War of Thorns campaign, which featured two full length zone questlines for both factions that took a lot of time to complete. They never did something like that again. Now prepatch events are just zergs where you fly between the same three world bosses, zerg them down, and level up your alts from 10 to max level in an hour or two.
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Post by Val the Moofia Boss »

These development inefficiencies have also plagued Overwatch too. They were releasing two heroes per year. Marvel Rivals (made by a NetEase in China) releases a new hero every month. ???
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Post by J1M »

Val the Moofia Boss wrote: ↑ February 13th, 2026, 03:40
These development inefficiencies have also plagued Overwatch too. They were releasing two heroes per year. Marvel Rivals (made by a NetEase in China) releases a new hero every month. ???
I can show you exactly what happened. Might not be worth 58 minutes of your time, but here you go.

Before:
One guy decides a dungeon with evil druids would be cool. Makes the entrance a rock that looks like a skull because he likes pirate stories. Creates 4 thematic areas with different monsters. Added some jumping challenges because he wanted to. Adds some group quests to direct players to the area.

Now:
Last edited by J1M on February 13th, 2026, 03:58, edited 4 times in total.
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Post by Tangerine »

J1M wrote: ↑ February 13th, 2026, 03:53
Val the Moofia Boss wrote: ↑ February 13th, 2026, 03:40
These development inefficiencies have also plagued Overwatch too. They were releasing two heroes per year. Marvel Rivals (made by a NetEase in China) releases a new hero every month. ???
I can show you exactly what happened. Might not be worth 58 minutes of your time, but here you go.

Before:
One guy decides a dungeon with evil druids would be cool. Makes the entrance a rock that looks like a skull because he likes pirate stories. Creates 4 thematic areas with different monsters. Added some jumping challenges because he wanted to. Adds some group quests to direct players to the area.

Now:
Project management in game dev was a mistake.
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Post by J1M »

Tangerine wrote: ↑ February 13th, 2026, 06:11
J1M wrote: ↑ February 13th, 2026, 03:53
Val the Moofia Boss wrote: ↑ February 13th, 2026, 03:40
These development inefficiencies have also plagued Overwatch too. They were releasing two heroes per year. Marvel Rivals (made by a NetEase in China) releases a new hero every month. ???
I can show you exactly what happened. Might not be worth 58 minutes of your time, but here you go.

Before:
One guy decides a dungeon with evil druids would be cool. Makes the entrance a rock that looks like a skull because he likes pirate stories. Creates 4 thematic areas with different monsters. Added some jumping challenges because he wanted to. Adds some group quests to direct players to the area.

Now:
Project management in game dev was a mistake.
The problem is design by committee. There are 5 people trying to push their own ****** ideas to be accepted by the group while simultaneously seeking acceptance from the girl and trying not to point out how bad her ideas are. They don't have the skills to use the editor, and then the one guy who is going to implement this stuff ends up working on ideas that he doesn't think are as cool as what he wanted to do from the start.

The video shows them "collaborating" for an hour and they have almost nothing to show for it but back at the office this would be considered a successful meeting and they'd book another one for the same time next week to make more "progress".
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Post by Havitner »

J1M wrote: ↑ February 13th, 2026, 06:19
Tangerine wrote: ↑ February 13th, 2026, 06:11
J1M wrote: ↑ February 13th, 2026, 03:53


I can show you exactly what happened. Might not be worth 58 minutes of your time, but here you go.

Before:
One guy decides a dungeon with evil druids would be cool. Makes the entrance a rock that looks like a skull because he likes pirate stories. Creates 4 thematic areas with different monsters. Added some jumping challenges because he wanted to. Adds some group quests to direct players to the area.

Now:
Project management in game dev was a mistake.
The problem is design by committee. There are 5 people trying to push their own ****** ideas to be accepted by the group while simultaneously seeking acceptance from the girl and trying not to point out how bad her ideas are. They don't have the skills to use the editor, and then the one guy who is going to implement this stuff ends up working on ideas that he doesn't think are as cool as what he wanted to do from the start.

The video shows them "collaborating" for an hour and they have almost nothing to show for it but back at the office this would be considered a successful meeting and they'd book another one for the same time next week to make more "progress".

Screenshot from 2026-02-07 18-16-40.png
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Post by Tangerine »

Havitner wrote: ↑ February 13th, 2026, 12:37
J1M wrote: ↑ February 13th, 2026, 06:19
Tangerine wrote: ↑ February 13th, 2026, 06:11


Project management in game dev was a mistake.
The problem is design by committee. There are 5 people trying to push their own ****** ideas to be accepted by the group while simultaneously seeking acceptance from the girl and trying not to point out how bad her ideas are. They don't have the skills to use the editor, and then the one guy who is going to implement this stuff ends up working on ideas that he doesn't think are as cool as what he wanted to do from the start.

The video shows them "collaborating" for an hour and they have almost nothing to show for it but back at the office this would be considered a successful meeting and they'd book another one for the same time next week to make more "progress".


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Post by Segata »

Meanwhile, RARE's list of things not to say during the development of Donkey Kong Country:

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Post by rusty_shackleford »

Havitner wrote: ↑ February 13th, 2026, 12:37
J1M wrote: ↑ February 13th, 2026, 06:19
Tangerine wrote: ↑ February 13th, 2026, 06:11


Project management in game dev was a mistake.
The problem is design by committee. There are 5 people trying to push their own ****** ideas to be accepted by the group while simultaneously seeking acceptance from the girl and trying not to point out how bad her ideas are. They don't have the skills to use the editor, and then the one guy who is going to implement this stuff ends up working on ideas that he doesn't think are as cool as what he wanted to do from the start.

The video shows them "collaborating" for an hour and they have almost nothing to show for it but back at the office this would be considered a successful meeting and they'd book another one for the same time next week to make more "progress".


Image
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Post by mercerxiv »

Val the Moofia Boss wrote: ↑ February 13th, 2026, 03:32
The WoW dev team actually doubled in size once the MoP patch cycle ended and development of WoD was in full swing. That in part lead to the 14 month content drought during patch 5.4, and to WoD being an unfinished content with no endgame outside of raiding and a content drought during that expansion's patch cycle, and the legendary subscription plummet. The veterans had to stop developing the game to teach the new hires how to work with WoWedit, how to integrate into the pipeline, etc. So time was lost. Though there were other issues with WoD's development, such as the soft reboot because the original expansion had "too much Orc", so they tore out and redid zone questlines. See Gorgrond's substantial transformation during the alphas and betas. The Breakers vs the Primals was added later. And from what I heard, more people now work on WoW more than ever.

The issue is almost certainly mismanagement/Western societal collapse. From 2016 through 2019, from when Living World Season 3 began to through the Path of Fire expansion and the end of season 4, Arena Net was able to deliver a brand new GW2 content patch featuring at least one new zone once every 2 to 3 months. People got 17 zones in a little under 3 years. With a development team the fraction of the size of WoW's, which struggled to get 8 zones out in the same time frame on an irregular schedule. And ofcourse, now we live in the gacha era where high production value Chinese RPGs like Genshin Impact, Wuthering Waves, etc, are able to do that on a six week schedule.
Keep in mind, "doubling in size" doesn't immediately equal "doubling in productivity" or "value". It could have well been just hiring an HR manager for each member of the team, or an unnecessary managerial structure, or worse yet DEI commissars. Not saying that it's what happened there, but quantity does not always translate into quality, if anything - with video games it's often the inverse: the more people get involved on the project the worse it becomes for a number of factors I won't go into at the moment.
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