559 réponses à ce sujet

[TheMadCat]

Emerald Melios wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

Emerald Melios wrote...
What does "casualized" even mean? I was hear that argument thrown around and I have no idea what context you're using the term.

My impression of the term and others like it is that they refer to any attempt to get away from the more traditional/hardcore aspects of a genre to gain the interest of a broader audience-- and often carry with them an implication that said audience is less discerning and less worthy of attention.

In other words, eliminating annoying tedium?

That depends on what you're lumping into that annoying tedium category. There are gameplay aspects that you may consider tedious that others may enjoy. There are entire games you may find tedious that others enjoy. That's where the seperation comes from, typically the more you lump into that "annoying tedium" category to more casual you are as a gamer because there's less you're willing to put up with in order to find the enjoyment a product is trying to deliever.

Modifié par TheMadCat, 05 juin 2010 - 01:56 .

[CybAnt1]

I'm all for removing needlessly tedious complexity. It's why people seem to hate planet scanning in ME, and why I don't like runecrafting in DA.



The problem, I think, arrives when simplicity/streamlining also begins to remove choices and options for gamers who like to have them.



And then there's the people who whine that inventory should have weight because it *should* be harder to manage your inventory, not easier. Unfortunately, for good or for ill, and from my POV it's good, they have a hard time winning over others and not just "casuals" to that perspective.

[Elith]

Sadly what people have missed is the fact games are constantly being made more casual, maybe for the better in some cases, but does no one remember the good old days where if you died near the end of a level in a game you were kicked back to the start? And when you finally finished the game, or level or whatever you were overcome with a sense of achievment?

And since the release of that joyous little thing known as the Wii, which instills the "its not the winning that counts, its the taking part" style of gaming where you get applauded even for failure.

Bobbins to that i say.

I pray they dont take away from dragon age is, it's so hard to find a good and lengthy game now a days.

I think Bioware still maintains some form of independance from EA so hopefully if the notion of making the game more casual is mentioned to the Bioware team they will go tell them to get stuffed.

So yeah...

[AlanC9]

Elith wrote...

Sadly what people have missed is the fact games are constantly being made more casual, maybe for the better in some cases, but does no one remember the good old days where if you died near the end of a level in a game you were kicked back to the start? And when you finally finished the game, or level or whatever you were overcome with a sense of achievment?

Yes to the first, no to the second. I can't remember any of the really hard games being very good. By the time I won I was just sick of the game.

[Leon Evelake]

David Gaider wrote...

Emerald Melios wrote...
What does "casualized" even mean? I was hear that argument thrown around and I have no idea what context you're using the term.

My impression of the term and others like it is that they refer to any attempt to get away from the more traditional/hardcore aspects of a genre to gain the interest of a broader audience-- and often carry with them an implication that said audience is less discerning and less worthy of attention.

I both agree and disagree with this, Darth Dargo defined it fairly well too I think the truth is somewhere inebriate. But do people really not know what it means? Magazines and TV shows both use the term often its common use in the video game world.  And that I often has "implication that said audience is less discerning and less worthy of attention " is true too people treat them with unreasonable disdain .But they should be angry when a game the like is casualized as it is often for the worst.  Games made with that in mind are at times quite good but pandering to casual audience at the expanse of hardcore gamers well.... Just sucks you shouldn't have to play a great game only to have the sequel "nerfed" ""casualized" or whatever you want to call it to make it more accessible.  It is very similar to how Hollywood dumbdowns adaptations of books, comics and video games to reach the broader audience it can work but all to often quality is sacrificed.  So I think the casual audience should have a wide array of games made, obviously, But it should never come at the expense of a quality game that is to say a "hardcore game" should never be "casualiszed", improved yes. casualized no.

[Hulk Hsieh]

Dragon Age is quite casualized on character development, especially for Rogue and Warrior.

Just select a weapon type you'd like to use, and there isn't real choice or thinking after the first levels. You just keep dumping points to the weapon type of choice. It almost feels like a JRPG that always auto-level-up for you.

[SymbolicGamer]

The combat in Dragon Age Origins is horrible.

Games need to be fun. Pressing the A button once and watching the character you're supposed to be controlling automatically jog over to the targeted enemy and begin slashing away is a terrible gameplay mechanic. It needs to feel like an action-adventure video game, not some boring old real time strategy computer title.

[Leon Evelake]

SymbolicGamer wrote...

The combat in Dragon Age Origins is horrible.

Games need to be fun. Pressing the A button once and watching the character you're supposed to be controlling automatically jog over to the targeted enemy and begin slashing away is a terrible gameplay mechanic. It needs to feel like an action-adventure video game, not some boring old real time strategy computer title.

Being that I played on the PS3 I would love to be able to control the basic currently automatic attack with x.  I don't mind how the ability mapped to the other three, that works well.  But the fact that the basic attack is automatic even when I am controlling the character bothered me, changing that little thing would make me feel more connected to what's happening.  I am not asking for a full blown third person action game, maybe something like the basic attack that was used in Final Fantasy Crisis Core.  I know many people wont like this idea but please don't flame me too badly
 

[soteria]

Yes to the first, no to the second. I can't remember any of the really hard games being very good. By the time I won I was just sick of the game.

I don't know. XCOM: UFO Defense was pretty hard the first time I played it, and still retains some challenge over the first half even though it's bugged so every difficulty is actually the easiest difficulty. I still rank that one as an all-time classic. But then, I'm one of those masochists who plays nightmare without potions, so take that with a grain of salt.



I'll take a controversial stance and say that casual, as it has been described in this thread, is a good attribute for a game. Another way I'd term "casual" is "easy to learn, hard to master." I think that's a pretty good description of WoW, which a few have called casual here. Anyone can jump into the game, learn the basics, and take part in pretty much every aspect without much of a learning curve, but at the top levels there's still a lot of room for skill and competition.

Another example of a casual game that I think is just brilliant is the iPod touch app "doodle jump." The game is very simple: you control a little monster that jumps from platform to platform going ever higher. You aim for platforms by tilting the ipod side to side, and can get temporary powerups to jump higher or rocket past obstacles. The gameplay itself is extremely simple and anyone can learn everything they need to know and master the basic skills in about 5 minutes or less, but especially if you start competing with friends for higher scores, it's easy to spend hours on the game. I've personally played it about 3 or 4 hours total, which is quite a lot since I don't even own an ipod touch.

Doodle Jump and WoW don't have a lot in common, but I'd like to point out a few common elements:

1. A simple interface that was a largely pleasure to use. Movement in WoW is as intutitive as it is in Dragon Age (virtually identical, actually).

2. Easy to learn, hard to master. I've already explained this, but I just mean that the basic gameplay is simple but leaves lots of room for challenge. On the surface, fights in WoW are stupidly simple: learn your rotation of 1 1 1 2 3 1 1 1... and don't stand in the green stuff. In practice, it's harder to execute than it sounds, and most honest players will admit to having directly caused or contributed to wipes. In Doodle Jump, it's the same thing: the repetition of simple tasks (jumping to the next platform) becomes more difficult with increased stress. The challenge keeps it fun.

3. Competition. No doubt the single-player fanatics will lambast me for this one, but I think the presence of competition makes even dull tasks fun and keeps gameplay interesting after the story has gotten old. Am I the only one who thought sitting in the front car seat became a lot less fun after it stopped being a competition to see who would get "shotgun"? After my brothers stopped competing with me for the best time in minesweeper on expert, I stopped caring about the game (94, if anyone is wondering).

4. Easy to stop, easy to return to. By this I mean the exact opposite of the old "finish the level or lose all your work" model. If a friend, work, an emergency, food, or just life calls, I want to be able to save and exit relatively quickly, and get back to where I was just as fast. I'll be glad when console games finally do away with the "reach the next save point" model.

[Sidney]

TheMadCat wrote...

I'm not sure if some of you people are playing dumb or what, I just don't understand how anyone can frequent any video game board and not have the faintest idea what casualized means. It's a game that is made with the casual gamer in mind. Easy access and simple, understandable game play. You're not going to typically recommended ArmA2 to someone who enjoys Modern Warfare 2 or EVE Online to someone who loves World of Warcraft. 

No, no, we all understand what it means and what you are saying isn't really it. It isn't about easier to access it is about some people not feeling special enough because they like a video game. These folks think that the more complex a game is the more special they are because they can understand the bad mechancis of a game while all "them" can't. Silly, stupid arrogance more than anything else. The sad thing is that while the "hard-core" will make bleating noises about dialog and choices their greatest concern is about wonky game mechanics. DAO2 could be a great game with amazing depth of character but if they went all Jade Empire on inventory you'd heard gripes about "casual" no matter the quality of writing.

[AlanC9]

soteria wrote...

I don't know. XCOM: UFO Defense was pretty hard the first time I played it, and still retains some challenge over the first half even though it's bugged so every difficulty is actually the easiest difficulty. I still rank that one as an all-time classic. But then, I'm one of those masochists who plays nightmare without potions, so take that with a grain of salt.

I absolutely wasn't thinking about strategy games when I posted. Or is X-COM actually an RPG? 

Still, even with a strategy game I prefer a difficulty setting where I will win if I play well. Unless it's a real historical game like Hoi3, in which case I'm more interested in seeing the game's alternate history playing out than questions of victory or defeat. Which I guess means that I'm playing those games for the same reason I play RPGs, even though they're of a different genre.

Modifié par AlanC9, 05 juin 2010 - 06:33 .

[Diablocat]

maxernst wrote...

I actually think ALL Bioware games have always been hack & slash games with dialogue tacked on...even though the dialogue part is the more satisfying piece for me. Bioware's always been a company with its eye on mass-sales, not a niche company, like say Paradox Interactive or Troika. If you look at their games historically, I don't think they've ever made a game where you can accomplish many major quest objectives without any combat. In contrast, games like the Fallout games, Planescape: Torment & Arcanum or even the "action-oriented" Ultima Underworld games often allowed you to use stealth or persuasion to avoid many combats. That's never been Bioware's style.

I'm not getting excited about a press release. As far as the Darkspawn Chronicles DLC, I suspect that making a combat-oriented DLC using environments that were (at least partially) already done was fast and cheap to do...I don't see it as an indication of longterm strategic direction. Bioware has a very successful formula and I doubt they're going to change it drastically.

Clearly you've never played the baldur's gate series.

[Rixxencaxx]

Well, haven't heard a word about awakening sales or success, and we all know that a corp tend to talk a lot about succesful produtcs during conference calls.
I suppose that sales were diappoinitng cause people didn't like the new way of intending party interaction.
Dragon age last dlc (darkspawn chronicles) was the lowest point of the franchise and reviewers rarely gave it more than 5/10.
Mass effect 2 was a good game, in my opinion, but for sure it lost a lot of it's soul.
Just one last thing...
Anyone noticed that me2 story was a lot "inspired" by the dragon age one?
hire people, build army go kill the bad guy.....

PS
i suspect that someone at Bioware is in the denial phase....sooner or later acceptance will come... sooner than bioware bankrupcty i hope <_<

Modifié par Rixxencaxx, 05 juin 2010 - 10:13 .

[Tirigon]

soteria wrote...

I do not honor bullsh!t with arguments.

What you mean is, "I can't intelligently defend my own position, but I reserve the right to dismiss any other points of view off-hand."

No what I mean is what I said, and crap like what you just posted is exactly the reason why I do not consider people like you worthy of an explanation.

Of course it should be noted that I have no idea to which of my statements the "what about arguments" referred, so it is impossible to give some even if I would wish to.

[Tirigon]

Elith wrote...

Sadly what people have missed is the fact games are constantly being made more casual, maybe for the better in some cases, but does no one remember the good old days where if you died near the end of a level in a game you were kicked back to the start? And when you finally finished the game, or level or whatever you were overcome with a sense of achievment?

That sucks. Games are for fun; if you want to achieve something, do an important job and achieve something in that.....

And since the release of that joyous little thing known as the Wii, which instills the "its not the winning that counts, its the taking part" style of gaming where you get applauded even for failure.

Bobbins to that i say.

Personally I think Wii is useless because I don´t find it funny, but if others do, what´s wrong with that? As said, games are supposed to be fun, not work.

[Tirigon]

Leon Evelake wrote...
But it should never come at the expense of a quality game that is to say a "hardcore game" should never be "casualiszed", improved yes. casualized no.

1) DAO is not a Hardcore game.
2) What you might consider casualizing is for others an improvement, or vice versa.

[Tirigon]

Rixxencaxx wrote...

Well, haven't heard a word about awakening sales or success, and we all know that a corp tend to talk a lot about succesful produtcs during conference calls.
I suppose that sales were diappoinitng cause people didn't like the new way of intending party interaction.

Funnily, the Game mechanics were exactly the same as in DAO. The problem was the lousy dialogue and the lack of character depth and the lack of romances.

Should show you that the content and dialogue is more important than the gameplay.

[soteria]

No what I mean is what I said, and crap like what you just posted is exactly the reason why I do not consider people like you worthy of an explanation.

Of course it should be noted that I have no idea to which of my statements the "what about arguments" referred, so it is impossible to give some even if I would wish to.

So you just posted a flippant dismissal without even knowing what you were responding to? classy. Strange, though, you've certainly honored "people like me" with explanations in a number of other threads, but I guess insults take less effort.

I absolutely wasn't thinking about strategy games when I posted. Or is X-COM actually an RPG?

Ah, well, X-COM is a strategy game, but I consider the RPG and strategy genres to be pretty closely linked. The combat in DA is a lot like an RTS, after all, and games like Warcraft 3 slightly blur the traditional line between the RTS and RPG, given that you have heroes and units with multiple abilities and a story. Some missions even had sidequests.

[AlanC9]

Diablocat wrote...

maxernst wrote...

I actually think ALL Bioware games have always been hack & slash games with dialogue tacked on...even though the dialogue part is the more satisfying piece for me. Bioware's always been a company with its eye on mass-sales, not a niche company, like say Paradox Interactive or Troika. If you look at their games historically, I don't think they've ever made a game where you can accomplish many major quest objectives without any combat. In contrast, games like the Fallout games, Planescape: Torment & Arcanum or even the "action-oriented" Ultima Underworld games often allowed you to use stealth or persuasion to avoid many combats. That's never been Bioware's style.

I'm not getting excited about a press release. As far as the Darkspawn Chronicles DLC, I suspect that making a combat-oriented DLC using environments that were (at least partially) already done was fast and cheap to do...I don't see it as an indication of longterm strategic direction. Bioware has a very successful formula and I doubt they're going to change it drastically.

Clearly you've never played the baldur's gate series.

An actual argument would be nice here.

Edit: I'm not really sure what "hack & slash" is supposed to mean here, so I guess this is at maxernst too.

Modifié par AlanC9, 05 juin 2010 - 04:14 .

[Leon Evelake]

Tirigon wrote...

Leon Evelake wrote...
But it should never come at the expense of a quality game that is to say a "hardcore game" should never be "casualiszed", improved yes. casualized no.

1) DAO is not a Hardcore game.
2) What you might consider casualizing is for others an improvement, or vice versa.

 You notice the captions? I was using that term because  other people on this thread think its appropriate and I don't think I ever called it "hardcore directly".  There is obviously a scale or "hardcoreness" it may not be the most but is a hell of a lot more "hardcore" than many of the lately dumbed down games, Fable 2, Final Fantasy 13 or a bunch the new intentionally casual games like what you find on the wii  it is certainly more on the "hardcore" side of things than not.   Granted opinions vary but I believe I explained what I see as improved vs. casualized.  Saying "someone else may see it differently "  can be added against anyone's argument including yours so it doesn't really make much of a point.  Also did you really need to just take a jab  at the end of my post without acknowledging the rest of my statements and what I actually meant by the end comment.t. Maybe the other posters are right and your just being flippant and not supporting  your views because its to much work?

[Tirigon]

Leon Evelake wrote...

Also did you really need to just take a jab  at the end of my post without acknowledging the rest of my statements and what I actually meant by the end comment.t. Maybe the other posters are right and your just being flippant and not supporting  your views because its to much work?

I responded to this part, and I didn´t quote your entire post because I try to limit quoting as much as possible....

I DID read your entire post, believe it or not.




BTW, I think this "hardcore" stuff is idiotic. What´s hardcore about a game? Hardcore is a music genre....

Modifié par Tirigon, 05 juin 2010 - 10:57 .

[wowpwnslol]

Tirigon wrote...

Leon Evelake wrote...

Also did you really need to just take a jab  at the end of my post without acknowledging the rest of my statements and what I actually meant by the end comment.t. Maybe the other posters are right and your just being flippant and not supporting  your views because its to much work?

I responded to this part, and I didn´t quote your entire post because I try to limit quoting as much as possible....

I DID read your entire post, believe it or not.




BTW, I think this "hardcore" stuff is idiotic. What´s hardcore about a game? Hardcore is a music genre....

Can you stop with the retarded posts already? Everything you posted so far was utter trash. Go back to your console and keep out of PC gaming. Kids like you ruined it enough.

[soteria]

And stop walking across his lawn, while you're at it.

[Leon Evelake]

wowpwnslol wrote...

Tirigon wrote...

Leon Evelake wrote...

Also did you really need to just take a jab  at the end of my post without acknowledging the rest of my statements and what I actually meant by the end comment.t. Maybe the other posters are right and your just being flippant and not supporting  your views because its to much work?

I responded to this part, and I didn´t quote your entire post because I try to limit quoting as much as possible....

I DID read your entire post, believe it or not.




BTW, I think this "hardcore" stuff is idiotic. What´s hardcore about a game? Hardcore is a music genre....

Can you stop with the retarded posts already? Everything you posted so far was utter trash. Go back to your console and keep out of PC gaming. Kids like you ruined it enough.

Seriously? What elitist garbage.
I may not agree with everything he/she has said but your dismissive self righteous attitude is the type of crap people hate about forum boards.

Ooh and if you meant me, as I pay on the PS3, screw you....ha Ha delightfully tacky

[da_showstoppa]

I absolutely trust Bioware. DA was my personal game of the year for 2009 and ME2 will probably be my game of the year for 2010. DA didn't have the greatest graphics but I am willing to admit that. But where it lacked in graphics, it certainly made up for in storytelling. As far as the casualised gameplay goes...likewise I trust Bioware to make the right balance and to introduce new gamers to the RPG genre through an inciteful tutorial and opening gameplay (that you learn how to play AS you play).



Although gameplay is important too....I think storytelling is paramount and Bioware obviously acknowledge what is truly priority. Likewise I expect Bioware to deliver on the gameplay accordingly..