Retro Studios acknowledges speedrunning community and preventing sequence breaks

MarioGalaxy2433g5:

registered on 2009-10-06 05:10:33 pm.

Gender: male

Location: Somewhere, nowhere, everywhere

view all posts by MarioGalaxy2433g5

MarioGalaxy2433g5

2010-08-10 12:35:53 pm

The one that is I.

As an admin of another large Metroid, I have seen a lot of Metroid interviews. This one you will find particularly interesting. MTV News interviewed Retro Studios shortly after the release of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and asked a bunch of questions, including one about speedrunning. "Your series is beloved by speed-runners (note that this was a link to these very forums), yet your studio has tweaked at least the first "Prime" game -- after its initial release -- to block off some of the speed-runner's techniques. Why? And what's your relationship with that community?"

The link to the interview is here: http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2007/09/26/retro-studios-answers-the-dreaded-metroid-dread-question-and-other-prime-exclusives/

Just felt that it would be an interesting read.

Thread title:

nate:

is in the group Administrator.

is in the group deutschsprachiger Moderator.

registered on 2003-09-15 06:16:34 pm.

Gender: male

Location: lubbock, tx, usa

view all posts by nate

nate

2010-08-10 12:44:30 pm

君だけの

光になると

wasn't this posted here before? anyway i love the answer. YES - BUT NO - BUT YES - BUT NO - BUT YES! VERY YES!

But no.

swear i remember the hypermode is a speedrunner's best friend thing.

MarioGalaxy2433g5:

registered on 2009-10-06 05:10:33 pm.

Gender: male

Location: Somewhere, nowhere, everywhere

view all posts by MarioGalaxy2433g5

MarioGalaxy2433g5

2010-08-10 12:46:18 pm

The one that is I.

Quote from nate:

wasn't this posted here before? anyway i love the answer. YES - BUT NO - BUT YES - BUT NO - BUT YES! VERY YES!

I used search.

nate:

is in the group Administrator.

is in the group deutschsprachiger Moderator.

registered on 2003-09-15 06:16:34 pm.

Gender: male

Location: lubbock, tx, usa

view all posts by nate

nate

2010-08-10 12:50:13 pm

君だけの

光になると

yeah i thought about that but didn't end up bothering because i didn't know what to search for.

arkarian:

is in the group Administrator.

registered on 2004-09-01 04:15:32 pm.

Gender: male

Location: ellicott city, md, usa

view all posts by arkarian

arkarian

2010-08-10 01:09:38 pm

mindfulness

fully erect

at least search works too.

blai:

registered on 2010-08-04 10:19:36 pm.

view all posts by blai

blai

2010-08-10 02:15:21 pm

I'm sure it was posted before, I remember the part about only needing 5 fuel cells and everyone here laughed about it since that was sequence broken about a week before.

Toozin:

is in the group Administrator.

registered on 2003-09-14 08:25:09 pm.

Location: Above

view all posts by Toozin

Toozin

2010-08-10 06:54:43 pm

Irken Elite

Why am I so amazing?

Quote:

We were looking for a way to approach this game a little differently and make it more accessible for people.

I wish game developers would hurry up and realize that people who think this shit is inaccessible aren't going to buy your games anyway.

Quote:

But some of these we'll just let go. The percentage of people who are going to find these are small, so we'll just leave it.

YEAH THANKS FOR ALL THOSE THINGS YOU LEFT IN RETRO.

tomatobob:

registered on 2004-03-27 12:44:30 am.

Gender: male

Location: O'er yon hill

view all posts by tomatobob

tomatobob

2010-08-10 06:59:04 pm

Never stressed

What Hypermode wasn't enough? It should have been your best friend!

Turtle:

registered on 2010-07-16 09:49:11 am.

Gender: male

Location: US

view all posts by Turtle

Turtle

2010-08-10 08:53:11 pm

I like turtles.

Quote:

I'll tell you the reason why the quote "fetch quests" are in there. It's not to artificially lengthen the game. That's not the intent. "Metroid" games -- "Zelda" games as well -- [are] not linear. I think that whatever is happening in our games -- especially "Metroid" games -- is you get to a point where you have pretty much all the abilities in the game, and we want to give the player the ability to use those for a little bit longer.

So fetch quests aren't in there to lengthen the game after you've already gotten all the major items. They're just in there to have you play the game for a longer period of time after getting all the major items.

Also, "We didn't go out of our way to hinder speedrunners" is BS. They blocked off the vast majority of breaks and tricks in the Trilogy re-releases. Why not just leave them in if they don't want to go out of their way to remove them? That interview was full of contradictions and semantic nonsense designed to fool you into thinking that there aren't any contradictions. So, y'know, typical interview stuff.

[quote]I'll tell you the reason why the quote "fetch quests" are in there. It's not to artificially lengthen the game. That's not the intent. "Metroid" games -- "Zelda" games as well -- [are] not linear. I think that whatever is happening in our games -- especially "Metroid" games -- is you get to a point where you have pretty much all the abilities in the game, and we want to give the player the ability to use those for a little bit longer.[/quote]
So fetch quests aren't in there to lengthen the game after you've already gotten all the major items.  They're just in there to have you play the game for a longer period of time after getting all the major items.

Also, "We didn't go out of our way to hinder speedrunners" is BS.  They blocked off the vast majority of breaks and tricks in the [i]Trilogy[/i] re-releases.  Why not just leave them in if they don't want to go out of their way to remove them?  That interview was full of contradictions and semantic nonsense designed to fool you into thinking that there aren't any contradictions.  So, y'know, typical interview stuff.

UchihaSasuke:

registered on 2005-12-11 10:47:04 pm.

Gender: male

Location: Panama

view all posts by UchihaSasuke

UchihaSasuke

2010-08-10 10:09:46 pm

my umbrella goes directly to Bankai

PR is PR. news at 11. i had to double check to be sure this wasn't a 3-year bump though.

Hypermode made the game way too easy. that would be the equivalent of granting you the phazon beam in mp1 after the frigate. the energy loss isn't even a drawback since you can regain health very easy.

also, the whole "they didn't hinder the community" is pure BS proved by the trilogy. what is that invisible block in the spider track stopping the regular early Ice Beam then? it sure isn't a lollipop.

tomatobob:

registered on 2004-03-27 12:44:30 am.

Gender: male

Location: O'er yon hill

view all posts by tomatobob

tomatobob

2010-08-10 10:22:22 pm

Never stressed

Quote from Turtle:

So fetch quests aren't in there to lengthen the game after you've already gotten all the major items. They're just in there to have you play the game for a longer period of time after getting all the major items.

Hahaha yeah, that's my favorite part of the interview. "We weren't trying to pad out the game, we were just maximizing game time. It's different!"

Tahngarthor:

registered on 2006-03-21 06:05:23 pm.

view all posts by Tahngarthor

Tahngarthor

Edit history:

Tahngarthor: 2010-10-14 10:40:46 am

2010-10-14 10:31:08 am

Bangaa Bishop

I think the idea is that if it adds to the "fun value" by letting you play with your toys, which they feel is not the same as simply "padding" it.

penguinseatsocks:

registered on 2010-06-15 02:04:23 pm.

Gender: male

Location: Salt Lake City, Utah

view all posts by penguinseatsocks

penguinseatsocks

2010-11-01 09:53:40 am

I see nothing long with lengthening game time. Why would anyone spend 50 dollars on something that will take three hours to beat?

Turtle:

registered on 2010-07-16 09:49:11 am.

Gender: male

Location: US

view all posts by Turtle

Turtle

2010-11-01 10:46:51 am

I like turtles.

For teh artz, obviously.

Also, of course there's something long with lengthening game tim--oooooooh. Well, there's not necessarily anything wrong with lengthening game time, but they weren't lengthening the game so much as padding it.

UchihaSasuke:

registered on 2005-12-11 10:47:04 pm.

Gender: male

Location: Panama

view all posts by UchihaSasuke

UchihaSasuke

Edit history:

UchihaSasuke: 2010-11-01 02:44:21 pm

2010-11-01 02:43:40 pm

my umbrella goes directly to Bankai

they lengthened it with the bad stuff.
adding a 5th planet before the final area would have been 10x better than collecting shit like energy cells just to keep going.

Prime Hunter:

registered on 2004-08-09 06:04:32 pm.

Gender: male

Location: USA

view all posts by Prime Hunter

Prime Hunter

2010-11-01 04:47:13 pm

Or making Phaaze a full planet rather than the five minute trek down to the final bosses. THAT would have been pretty awesome and so much better than the energy cells. Still would've given the player enough time to try all of Samus' gear/toys before the end of the game.

tomatobob:

registered on 2004-03-27 12:44:30 am.

Gender: male

Location: O'er yon hill

view all posts by tomatobob

tomatobob

2010-11-01 05:22:10 pm

Never stressed

Quote from penguinseatsocks:

I see nothing long with lengthening game time. Why would anyone spend 50 dollars on something that will take three hours to beat?

People payed more than that for SNES and N64 games many of which were very short by today's standards. It's not length that matters in a game, it's content. If it's good people won't be too upset by a short game, and short games have the advantage of being entirely unable to wear out their welcome before the end. A long game can very much do that, and given the way games are typically drawn out, usually will. Arbitrarily extending games is one of the worst things about the last two generations of video games.