291 réponses à ce sujet

[Aradace]

Tsuga C wrote...

LdyShayna wrote...

Aradace wrote...
Uh huh....*points to his signature*...Get over it

Ah!  So a 'hater' is anyone who disagrees with any decisions.  Got it.  Thanks for the clarification.   Much appreciated.

Such are the joys of dealing with Millennials on the New & Improved EaWare forums.  Woot.  

Nah...Im a Gen X'er ....Barely, but still a Gen X'er

[Sylvius the Mad]

Aradace wrote...

Nah...Im a Gen X'er ....Barely, but still a Gen X'er

Get off my lawn.

[Addai]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

New gamers get bombarded with modern games and modern gaming media telling them what features are good.  They're not given any change to disagree or form their own opinions.  Let's help them.

I personally like to promote good mods so that people buy the PC version more and we can get away from the "streamlining" and hyperactivity that seems to go along with the consoles.

[Aradace]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Aradace wrote...

Nah...Im a Gen X'er ....Barely, but still a Gen X'er

Get off my lawn.

Damn...that makes me 30 (1980 being the last year for Gen Xers)...Which means if you're going with the old man addage of "Get off my lawn" how old does that make you? I thought I was old, apparently I was mistaken

[Aradace]

Addai67 wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

New gamers get bombarded with modern games and modern gaming media telling them what features are good.  They're not given any change to disagree or form their own opinions.  Let's help them.

I personally like to promote good mods so that people buy the PC version more and we can get away from the "streamlining" and hyperactivity that seems to go along with the consoles.

Good luck with that...There will always be "home consoles" unfortunately for the PC users.

[Deviija]

Aradace wrote...
Damn...that makes me 30 (1980 being the last year for Gen Xers)...Which means if you're going with the old man addage of "Get off my lawn" how old does that make you? I thought I was old, apparently I was mistaken

Sylvius is an ancient lich.  True trivia fact.

[Aradace]

Deviija wrote...

Aradace wrote...
Damn...that makes me 30 (1980 being the last year for Gen Xers)...Which means if you're going with the old man addage of "Get off my lawn" how old does that make you? I thought I was old, apparently I was mistaken

Sylvius is an ancient lich.  True trivia fact.

*wants in on that action*

[In Exile]

LdyShayna wrote...

Yes, segments aren't cleandelineations for markets because though groups might share common interests, they are individuals.  However, complete elimination of such things means that genre classifications of games is useless.  There are trends and tendencies. 

It is not so much that I want to deny the value of genre classification so much that I want to argue that we cannot infer the specific tastes of consumers from single purchases.

So I believe that we can define a broad set of features that are typical of a particular genre, and so meaningfully speak of categories of games. The issue as I see it is that these features are not neccesary or sufficient, but rather prototypical. So we can speak of games that are more or less like RPGs, but they can share only a subset of similar features, and even within a game we call an RPG, we can actually have groups of people attracted to them by entirely different features.

Put another way: some hypothetical group might hate XP/kill in DA:O but tolerate it because of a silent PC, while another group might loathe silent PCs but love isometric combat and so tolarate the absence of VO for the combat. Both groups would conceivably buy DA:O, but neither would like it for the same reasons.

So once Bioware adds VO and retains their combat system, are they alienating their market? Part of their market? It's difficult to make these claims, is my principle point.

Do you dispute that there is a significant segment of people who share common preferences who HAVE enjoyed BioWare's games and who they are now moving away from?  Or are you mostly just disputing the size of that segment?  Or that the only people who like BioWare's games were a part of that segment?

What I dispute is what we can infer about these common preferences and about the size of the groups regarding these preferences. There is a very vocal group for NWN-like MP, but that does not mean that Bioware, in having moved away from this group to SP only, has removed themselves from their niche.

So I suppose I am disputing all of these things, but not neccesarily very strongly.

My apologies.  The digression over 'broad appeal' was meant to point out that common knowledge of 'try to appeal to everyone' or even 'try to focus appeal to the broad market' doesn't always make sense.  It has caused companies to fail, whether you believe me or not.  May not be applicable to BioWare, and thus not on topic, for which I apologize. 

Oh, I agree that in principle you can bankrupt your business by trying to appeal to a large group the wrong way. The key is to build your consumer base - find out what the majority of your consumers like, retain those features, while adding new features that might draw in a larger base than you lose by the removal of the other features. This is not quite "Let's clone Half-Life!" but it does lead to increasing market share and broader consumer appeal if done right over a series of releases. 

At least, in principle.

[Ariella]

TheMadCat wrote...

Ariella wrote...

I'm just going to shake my head at this one. It seems to me that the DA teams has decided they have a certain story they want to tell and the system they're using for DA2 is what they think will get the job done. Focusing on a single character with less variables (race for example) allows the team to develop more detailed backstory. Is it a tradeoff: yes, but consider for a second that we have yet to be told that the DA 2 model is going to be THE model for DA products period.

Not necessairly true, take a look at Shepard he had no real detailed backstory. You selected a couple of crucial events and that was that. You don't want a detailed backstory for the players character in an RPG because ultimately it's going to be meaningless as the player will go about developing their character their own way, possibly completely contradicing their given backstory. You want a characters past to be vague and generalized save for a few unclear moments that landed the character where they are in game.

Shepard's a pretty unique case as s/he has to fit into a world where there is no canon Shepard. At the same time, things like that moment on Akuze, or the rescue of Elysium do shape the character to a degree, along with the choice of family situation. In ME, one of the quests I found most compelling was "I Remember Me" all based on past histosy, all diologue, no violence what so ever, and it really made the character of Shepard in a lot of ways.

Origins had to be big. It was the introduction to the world, and (at least from the sense I get) unlike the ME series was meant to tell a vareity of different stories rahter than that of the Warden. Think ME as being more like Dragonlance, aka single story to tell, vs. Dragon Age being akin to Forgotten Realms in having multiple stories with multiple heroes and not all of the intersecting.

So Origins is our introduction point, and we were given a chance to see through the eyes of the various races and their subcultures so we could get to know Fereldan and a part of Thedas. This time, we're getting one hero (potentially male or female) and what sounds like a more concentrated story. I don't see where this limits options at all, it has the potential, however to make them more meaningful because the writers can spend more time developing all the potential ends.

[In Exile]

LdyShayna wrote...
Because for me, it is the primary appeal of western RPGs over other story centric gaming (like JRPGs, for example).  Havign a story, no matter how good, told TO me just isn't nearly as engaging.

Yes, the choice is an illusion.  The NPCs being characters instead of bundles of scripts and dialog is an illusion.   The idea of you are bringing in your own character to interact with the story, characters, and game world is an illusion.  Also, what destroys these illusions for people will vary.  For some, they never bought into some or all of these illusions.  For others, some illusions are more important than others. 

The illusion that I am essentially co-writing the story of my character with BioWare was an essential illusion to why I so enjoyed their games - certainly more than any other type of game.  Choice and ambiguity are essential to maintaing it for me.

I think the issue is that we disagree over what creates the illusion of choice, when speaking about our tastes for gamers. I appreciate that for one group, it is using the imagination to invent filler content and imagine a particular character as just so that allows for a richness in attachment and choice.

The issue is, for some of us (myself included) this is not something that creates a feeling of choice or attachment. My attachment to video-game characters depends much more strongly on the ability to effect change in the world. The Warden, so to speak, becomes my Warden when I can make my choices and motives apparent in game, and have the game react to it.

So to me, the highest possible standard of immersion is reactivity, whereas for another group (say Addai) it is ambiguity. And these things are mutually exclusive, because for a game to be reactive it needs to precisely know what it is you are doing, so it must remove ambiguity. This is where I think the conflict arises.

The precise issue is that choice and ambiguity are not linked, and there are very few games which do cater to this. The Witcher does it very poorly. Mass Effect does it better, but not great. So wanting reactivity and interactivity is something that can only be sated by new games, which is why you see a strong positive sentiment toward changes in DA.

[In Exile]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
It's not BioWare you need to convince.  It's the players.

There may be players who would prefer the game be designed as you would prefer it, but since they've not seen a game designed that way they're not aware the option has ever been available.

BioWare is always going to aim their design at the median gamer (that's just smart business).  If we can move the margins of the gamer community, then we'll be moving the median.

New gamers get bombarded with modern games and modern gaming media telling them what features are good.  They're not given any change to disagree or form their own opinions.  Let's help them.

I have to disagree with you here. I think PnP is a strong driver in what some people want in an RPG, and having been introduced to games are not PnP (even to PnP simulators, but never being told they are like that) leads to forming a very different opinion of what a game is.

This is putting aside issues like the fact that people may intrinsically what different things from games. For example, I want single character veneration arcs, and PnP party oriented gameplay is not very conductive to this at all.

[the_one_54321]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
It's not BioWare you need to convince.  It's the players.

There may be players who would prefer the game be designed as you would prefer it, but since they've not seen a game designed that way they're not aware the option has ever been available.

The thing is that I'm fine with it either way. It's all narrative. Neither is better or worse, just a different style. So I'm not about to tell you to stop asking for it. It's different and it's what you're after, and I'd be happy to see it as well. But I do think you're limitiing yourself by only enjoying one style of narrative. Especially since there's still no concrete reason to think that this game wont have just as many story choice as DA:O did, minus the deep character creation and lack of a voice.

[LdyShayna]

Yes, In Exile, agreed in general. It's hard to tell numbers involved. I can only tell for sure what group I'm in, after all.



I guess I just wanted to dispute the general axiom that shifting focus to try to capture a more general audience is always a good thing or that it will always result in an increase in sales and/or revenue. Whenever one tries to do this, they will be losing some non-0 numbers of people who have had their shift move the product out of their preferences. The question is if the numbers BioWare gains by making the changes they have will be more than the numbers they lose by the same changes, and how much brand loyalty those purchasers acquired by the changes maintain. The results of this isn't a given, I think.



I guess they'll find out, generally speaking, though even then without a control (which would be pretty difficult to set up ), it would be hard to attribute a particular change in units sold to a particular change, loss or gain features.

[In Exile]

LdyShayna wrote...

Yes, In Exile, agreed in general. It's hard to tell numbers involved. I can only tell for sure what group I'm in, after all.

Yeah, I know. I appreciate the sentiment, really. To me, interfaces like the Nintendo Wii or the more realistic driven control for sports games (like the shot stick in NBA 2K10) are horrible monsters that threaten all I enjoy about gaming. Even things like digital downloads are huge concerns because I don't like online activation of products and the need to maintain active connections to play them, this despite the fact that I am probably the most inattentive person ever and often lose or damage my game disks.

I guess I just wanted to dispute the general axiom that shifting focus to try to capture a more general audience is always a good thing or that it will always result in an increase in sales and/or revenue. Whenever one tries to do this, they will be losing some non-0 numbers of people who have had their shift move the product out of their preferences. The question is if the numbers BioWare gains by making the changes they have will be more than the numbers they lose by the same changes, and how much brand loyalty those purchasers acquired by the changes maintain. The results of this isn't a given, I think.

Agreed on all counts. The issue, I think, is that it isn't fair or possible to divide the loyal costumer base so easily. I was not a Bioware fan from BG. I actually went back to buy the game to see the hype from the old DA boards, and I could never get into it because it was just far too dated for me, and had way too many things I did not like it games. I came in with KoTOR, really, despite the fact I technically bought NWN first (that game had some amazing SP modules) but I'm loyal, despite wanting a very different game (and experience) that many on this forum.

So I take issue, I suppose, with the idea that there is only one kind of fan that Bioware can appeal to to maintain costumer loyalty or to be "true to their roots" so to speak, because it is hard to pin down who that fan is.

I'm not accusing you of this, of course, because you're blameless. But when I see things like "console gamers are wrecking the industry!" and now the whole Gen Y issue, it offends me, precisely because being just barely over 20 it looks like nothing short of elitism.

I guess they'll find out, generally speaking, though even then without a control (which would be pretty difficult to set up ), it would be hard to attribute a particular change in units sold to a particular change, loss or gain features.

I think companies today track which features are used if you let them (and sometimes force this on you via EULA). This could hypothetically let them see how many gamers play as different races and for how long, which lets them know things like whether or not to keep Origins or scrap them. All hypothetical, of course.

I also think re: VO specifically, you will absolutely not find a voice advocating what you like unless you bring in someone with your specific tastes, and at the executive level you probably have people divorced from games entirely looking at what features are critical appeal. So you can wind up making changes that are a total push.

Modifié par In Exile, 04 août 2010 - 07:49 .

[DespiertaLosNinos]

Tsuga C wrote...

LdyShayna wrote...

Hmmm...where to start? *snip*  

^QFT en toto.  Very well said.  Do you get the feeling that we're just not 'kewl' enough to be the target demographic now that we have a good number of years between us and our 21st birthdays and are still in possession of both our imaginations and our sense of patience and pacing? 

And this is the same type of argument you are fighting against.  I have a lot of respect for LadyShayna, we may not always have converging views but she presents her opinions with dignity.  What you imply is no different however than the hordes of forumites that claim anyone who dislikes something is ________ (fill in the blank).  So if I have interest in the new DA I would have somehow lost my imagination or patience?  Look I'm sorry you don't like the direction DA is heading honestly (I'm not sold on it myself), but making the odd claim that people who it appeals to lack your same mental capacity is rather counter productive.  The single most creative person I have met plays nothing but online FPSers (TF2 and the like), how does entertainment preference have any relevance on imaginations and a sense of patience and pacing?

[LdyShayna]

In Exile wrote...
I'm not accusing you of this, of course, because you're blameless. But when I see things like "console gamers are wrecking the industry!" and now the whole Gen Y issue, it offends me, precisely because being just barely over 20 it looks like nothing short of elitism.

I'm hardly blameles, but i try not to do that stuff.  I've seen too many people break those molds in real life to presume much on strangers on the Internet.

I think companies today track which features are used if you let them (and sometimes force this on you via EULA). This could hypothetically let them see how many gamers play as different races and for how long, which lets them know things like whether or not to keep Origins or scrap them. All hypothetical, of course.

Since I've never been much into Achievements or Trophies, this was one of the main reasons why I turned on uploading my DA game progress - they said they would use the information for such things, and I wanted my 'say' as it were.  Of course, since my daughter used my account, for her playthroughs, she muddled things up for everyone. 

If only they would allow a toggle for the VO/dialog wheel vs. traditional approach and see that data.  *wags eyebrows*  I know.  I kid, I kid.

More realistically, this is my only method for providing feedback and reasoning, though I must admit that I do not hold out much hope that I will accomplish anything except PERHAPS explaining to people who may not understand my position why I hold it.  Alas, I don't believe trying to convince people they should prefer chocolate cake despite their obvious preference for chocolate strawberry swirl or fudge will accomplish much.

[Aradace]

@LdyShayna: I prefer chocolate cheesecake mehself

[AlanC9]

In Exile wrote...
To me, interfaces like the Nintendo Wii or the more realistic driven control for sports games (like the shot stick in NBA 2K10) are horrible monsters that threaten all I enjoy about gaming.

Hmm.... I was just thinking that Mass Effect might be a natural for the Wii.

I was not a Bioware fan from BG. I actually went back to buy the game to see the hype from the old DA boards, and I could never get into it because it was just far too dated for me, and had way too many things I did not like it games.

What sort of things? 

I think companies today track which features are used if you let them (and sometimes force this on you via EULA). This could hypothetically let them see how many gamers play as different races and for how long, which lets them know things like whether or not to keep Origins or scrap them. All hypothetical, of course.

Not completely hypothetical in the case of DA. Bio ought to know which origins people played first, which ones they never played, which characters they romanced, and so forth, since  Achievements are posted online. I'd love to see that data, but I suppose they want to keep it proprietary.

Modifié par AlanC9, 04 août 2010 - 08:13 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

In Exile wrote...

I have to disagree with you here. I think PnP is a strong driver in what some people want in an RPG, and having been introduced to games are not PnP (even to PnP simulators, but never being told they are like that) leads to forming a very different opinion of what a game is.

This is putting aside issues like the fact that people may intrinsically what different things from games.

That's just it.  We have different preferences.

I wasn't introduced to RPGs through tabletop gaming.  I played CRPGs first, and then moved to tabletop.  I didn't play any tabletop games at all until 1988, and then I played almost exclusively tabletop games for about 10 years (my return to CRPGs was Baldur's Gate).

If my opinions were shaped by my early gaming experiences, those experiences were Wizardry and Ultima.  What's important there is that my playstyle hasn't changed appreciably in the last 30 years, and it wasn't until Mass Effect's dialogue system arrived where that playstyle no longer worked.

[AlanC9]

 I'm not sure how much early gaming experience signifies. In debates over whether Bio or Bethesda's style is better, I've seen both sides claim that their allegiance is because PnP was more like their preferred CRPGs. Maybe this derives from differing PnP campaign styles?

[Vandrayke]

AlanC9 wrote...

 I'm not sure how much early gaming experience signifies. In debates over whether Bio or Bethesda's style is better, I've seen both sides claim that their allegiance is because PnP was more like their preferred CRPGs. Maybe this derives from differing PnP campaign styles?

I agree... people change their preferences based on more than simply what games they play or used to play.  

[Vandrayke]

Oh and I agree with the guy who can't get into Baldur's Gate... I mean, I loved the game when it came out, but games have come so far that every time I wax nostalgic and want to play it, I last like an hour or so before I start yawning.

[Vandrayke]

I guess I think that you need to hit a good mix of gameplay elements in order to do it right for me, which is why I always liked RPGs. There's combat, stat management, story progression, and ideally, lots of character interaction. Having experienced fully voiced character interaction, I now consider it a prerequisite and don't want to go backwards, even if I got a bunch of extra quests in exchange. I'd rather have fewer quests that were more meaningful to me, and voices make them more meaningful.

[Anacronian Stryx]

I wonder if back in the day when the cinema went from silent movies to talkies there may have been a loud group complaining about killing "immersion" by adding sound to the protagonists of the films..

[Vandrayke]

I dunno. But I do know that it's a much more compelling experience for me if the characters are fully voiced and there's lots of dialogue.