When fans complained about the aiming in Uncharted 3, Naughty Dog listened – in person.
If you’re like me, you’ve already blasted through the Uncharted 3 single player, stopping only for reasons of continued employment, hygiene, or consciousness. Most fans and critics agree: the game is great, but not perfect. One group of fans in the NeoGAF forums took great pains to point out a handful of very specific problems with the aiming mechanics in single-player. Not only did Naughty Dog hear them out, but actually invited fans for a sit-down in its Santa Monica offices. The results look promising: a patch to improve Uncharted 3‘s flawed shooting mechanics could be on its way.
Two forumites, CartridgeBlower and AwesomeSauce, heeded a call from Naughty Dog community manager Arne Meyer. After reading a laundry list of concerns about the aiming in Uncharted 3‘s single player campaign, Meyer asked for fans in the area with some free time on November 4, 2011 to meet in person. CartridgeBlower and AwesomeSauce laid out a number of issues, including imprecise aiming, unhelpful auto-aim, and the lack of a “motion blur” effect. These concerns may sound pedantic, but neither Uncharted 2 nor the Uncharted 3 multiplayer shared these issues.
Following the meeting, both parties had positive news. “The guys at [Naughty Dog] were totally awesome and seemed to be fully genuine in wanting to get a fix together as soon as possible,” wrote CartridgeBlower. “I sat down and played with a couple tweaked versions of the new controls, and they were definitely more in line with the [multiplayer and Uncharted 2].” Meyer described the meeting as “really fruitful,” and Naughty Dog staff has promised future patches that will likely address the aiming problems.
While the aiming in Uncharted 3 is an integral part of the game, the real victory here is for gamers and developers who are willing to speak and listen to one another in a calm, collected, and intelligent manner. A group of fans had cogent complaints about an otherwise-excellent game, and the studio responded with civility and an earnest desire to make its product even better. Kudos to both NeoGAF and Naughty Dog. Hopefully, this is only the first in a long line of open dialogues between gamers and developers.
