Jeez... I'm really concerned that Headcannon might get blacklisted by Sega because Stealth had come choice words about the DRM on the Steam page before deleting his comment. I really hope that doesn't happen but I'm scared he might get the boot. Mania 2 could still continue without him, but it would be a huge blow because the guy is a wicked smart programmer and one of the oldest and best in the community. Well... I guess at least Taxman knows when to keep his mouth shut so his relationship with Sega should remain good.
No one has questioned that because it makes sense. Or rather, there's nothing to say that any of these new levels can't take place on the previous islands. There's another new level in the game that is undoubtedly placed on Westside Island too. See spoiler tag... Spoiler Hydrocity leads to Mirage Saloon, but Hydrocity has absolutely no zone transitions at all at the start of at the end. So just looking at Mirage Saloon, it a very direct connection to Oil Ocean - train tracks with a train loaded with OOZ-labelled tanks and you can see it off on the distance of the end of act 2.
Maybe, but I think everyone involved is so annoyed at this DRM situation that Sega's going to have to backpedal at some point. The development team is mad, the PR team is mad, the consumers are mad because this caused the game to be delayed last minute for 2 weeks and it's obviously causing problems, and I'm sure someone's going to be mad when this game gets downvoted on Steam and thus hurts potential sales. Actually, hell, if anyone's going down it's probably going to be whoever insisted on implementing this nightmare in the first place. Mania did what Sega's probably been hoping to happen for years, make Sonic look good again, and the reputation is almost immediately sullied because some dickhead was like "hey, let's slap on some intrusive DRM and make a game always online that has no reason to be." Hopefully people understand though that this is Sega's fault and not the fault of the developers.
Ya I knew that'd take 2 seconds. Like Generations before it the time trials are nothing but a cesspool of cheating. I'm not even going to bother with time trialing on the PC version. 2P online vs would have made more sense for the PC version
There are screencaps of it out there, but I really don't want to post them in a public forum because then it could be used as evidence against him. I'm just going to paraphrase what he said. Basically he was sticking up for the Mania devs regarding the delays, DRM and offline play issues. That's noble of him, but in the corporate world you don't say ANYTHING without going through a PR team. And that could really piss off Sega, because when you say that the Mania devs are not responsible for all these issues, that implies that Sega is. Even though it's the God's honest truth, it's kind of an unspoken rule that you don't say or even imply anything negative about someone you work for, because that usually gets you axed. Yes, I know it really sucks and is wicked unfair, but that's corporate America for you.
Well, it is their fault. They can be scummy and get mad at Stealth for speaking out of line but it's absolutely their fault. The question is now will they own up to it and fix it or be scummy and dig their heels into the ground and stand by their poor choices. And Sega would be rather foolish to punish Stealth. He and Taxman are responsible for the highest rated Sonic game in over 15 years. They've made people excited about their mascot franchise again for the first time for some since the Genesis era. To ruin the chance of a sequel would be really really stupid of them.
The problem is and has been since the mid 2000's is that the people in charge of Sonic are simply not 'hip with it' and though Sonic's meant to be a series built on love has mostly since 2005 been about monetising simply a brand. Sonic Mania's different because it's created by separate devs, but SEGA I'd imagine are the type of company to come down hard on anything that hurts thier image of being a 'professional' company, even if they've actually caused the issue themselves. Higher ups won't like people taking the piss, despite what you see on thier Social media. I'm surprised they even allowed some in jokes in Mania, though maybe they didn't realise?
I mean, you're not wrong and Stealth certainly has the moral high ground. But... unfortunately, well... the "wonderful world" of corporate PR doesn't really run on morals. Especially in the entertainment industry. In Hollywood, you are basically expected to lie through your teeth and be positive about everything you work on and everyone you have worked for so you don't burn bridges. Actors who don't have a lot of clout who badmouth directors or producers wind up getting blackballed. Now granted, Hollywood is much, much worse than the video game industry in this regard, but the same idea still applies. I hope that Sega does the right thing and just gives Stealth a little slap on the wrist and continues to work with him. It would both be the right thing to do and the smarter thing to do. That said, more often than not, those with power prefer the stupid and petty route. So that's why this has me a little scared.
Let's be clear. Sega of Europe. Not Sega of America, not Sega of Japan. No one wanted this but Sega of Europe, they are responsible for the PC release.
True. How much clout do they have over actual development? They seem to only be responsible for porting things to the PC
Man something's wrong with your PC if you need to reboot it to reboot Steam; you can either exit through the menu or end the process and then restart it once it's killed. Restarting a user-space application should not and does not require a PC reboot.
Well, if the different divisions of Sega still hate each other today like they did in the 90s, then Stealth is probably fine lol
Just got a ~30MB update to the game on Steam. Could be something, could be nothing. I guess we'll see shortly. Edit: Game now runs offline. Denuvo is probably still present, but I don't know how to check that. I guess it's a partial victory for the time being...
I don't think any of us should repeat or spread what Stealth said. He deleted the comment for a reason. You can find a screencap on an SSMB thread, that's all I'll say. Yo, ApocalypticSalad, remove that please. If his message doesn't keep getting spread around he might get away with it, but if you help promote it he could get in big trouble.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yD1JEHscdRA Jim Sterling posted a nice video on the whole DRM debacle.
