104 réponses à ce sujet

[babyjaws]

The moderators have been pretty hard on locking these threads with firm 'NO MP in Dragon Age' replies lately, but I really wish a dev, and not just a moderator would chime in at some point on this subject.........

even if it is again...

[GreenSoda]

babyjaws wrote...

with an online security anti piracy check those figures would be substantially different.

How so ?

show me your source of that information

Old dev post right out of the archive (on why the NWN AddOns focus on sp instead of mp):

Georg Zoeller wrote...

Carl is correct on this one, the decision regarding HotU was "because
we found out that only a tiny fraction of people who play multiplayer
ever played the official campaign in multiplayer".

A very rough
figure of single player to multi player ration would be that around
15-20% percent of people try multiplayer at least once and about 5%-10
play multi player frequently. We have pretty accurate numbers thanks to
the NWN master server, but they are not for public discussion

Modifié par GreenSoda, 12 novembre 2009 - 04:18 .

[Spawn305]

I would be playing this game EVERY day once player made content and campaigns are created. I would drop my current D&D group, make a mod and have them all play this. Hell I would even buy the 5 of them this game just so we could play my D&D campaign with a 3d world. That and for the fact that I wouldn’t have to DM the hole time and I could actually be a player for once.

Is this a good game. Yes it is hands down. GREAT story. But could this game be better? Yes it could.

Would multi player make this game better? Yes it would. Why you ask.. Due to the simple fact that this game co-op would be TONES more fun. Player made content is going to be very abundant, and with no one to play with its going to get boring. After every one beats this game 5 + times it’s not going to be fun anymore. Sure more DLC is coming out. But once again that’s not going to last very long.

Allowing people to play with friends ensures a positive replay value.

[babyjaws]

Georg Zoeller wrote...

Carl is correct on this one, the decision regarding HotU was "because
we found out that only a tiny fraction of people who play multiplayer
ever played the official campaign in multiplayer".

LOL george also wrote

"DA's first and foremost goal is to deliver a AAA single and multiplayer story driven RPG."

[Eidolonn]

Spawn305 wrote...



I love how you say Multi player and every one thinks MMO. hahahaha



Multi Player DOES NOT MEAN MMO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Everyone does not think that. Please exaggerate more for effect.

That's certainly what ~I~ want. I think the NWN 1&2 modding community does as well... we can handle the balance issues and so forth on our own worlds, just as we have been doing for over 7 years now.

This. Multiplayer support is more suited towards a modding community. It offers more options for and more exposure to talented creators. Single player will still provide this, but not to the extent of multiplayer.



Just look at NWN vs. Oblivion. NWN custom content is vastly superior to Oblvions. The game engine has something to do with this, sure, but the replayability in multiplayer has allowed NWN to thrive.



I am completely happy with the single player experience, and I can only hope that we will see multiplayer support in DA:O 2.

[Spawn305]

babyjaws wrote...

Georg Zoeller wrote...

Carl is correct on this one, the decision regarding HotU was "because
we found out that only a tiny fraction of people who play multiplayer
ever played the official campaign in multiplayer".

LOL george also wrote

"DA's first and foremost goal is to deliver a AAA single and multiplayer story driven RPG."

Lol nice.. BURN!!!!

[GreenSoda]

LOL george also wrote

"DA's first and foremost goal is to deliver a AAA single and multiplayer story driven RPG."

So ? Goals change during development. Hard figures don't.

[Eidolonn]

eisberg77 wrote...

Allowing people to play with friends ensures a positive replay value...for 5-10% of the players.

Fix't.

Bioware's experience with MP may be the very reason why they won't add MP.  It cost so much money for very little return.

And where did you get those figures?  Did you have some hard facts to back that up?  Please provide us the links!

[babyjaws]

eisberg77 wrote...

Allowing people to play with friends ensures a positive replay value...for 5-10% of the players.

Fix't.

Bioware's experience with MP may be the very reason why they won't add MP.  It cost so much money for very little return.

Multiplayer, with the right business model and ethic, strong anti piracy checks and dont forget word of mouth and reputation and  DLC for multiplayer and single player use, would have, IMHO, possibly moved a few MILLION dissilusioned WOW heads not to mention the whole NWN community, AND single player fans to the next  level for a VERY long time.
this game COULD have been everything to EVERYONE, possibly bringing yet more punters into the fold wanting to see what all the fuss is about.
I really Hope DA:O is just an introduction to the franchise and that BIOWARE  consider this strongly when TOR has settled down and brings them the finances they possibly need to develop the Dragon age franchise further....
for EVERYONE.

[Scimal]

babyjaws wrote...

My idea for co-op Mp is this: (If it was ever considered in the future...DA:O2 perhaps.....

Everyone complains that it wont work
with story because everyone will be waiting while the host reads
through dialogue and makes the choices, well basically, why not make
all players involved with the choices?
there could be a vote on
which dialogue to pick, and if it ties you could roll, then everyone
feels apart of the main players choice and storyline, enabling everyone to enjoy it.
the hosting computers player (the speaker character, the one  involved with the story) is a voice for the whole party.
I think, if the gui is made well and its a speedy enough process, it could work!
something along those lines anyway....

Hey, if you want to raise the funds for it, I say do it.

Realize it'll take several hundred thousand dollars to do it (you have to pay the network programmers, artists, UI programmers, writers, playtesters, etc. etc.), but I say why not?

And no, you can't ask BioWare for the funds. They spent the last 5 years making the game, so they're tapped out.

Have fun!

[babyjaws]

Scimal wrote...

babyjaws wrote...

My idea for co-op Mp is this: (If it was ever considered in the future...DA:O2 perhaps.....

Everyone complains that it wont work
with story because everyone will be waiting while the host reads
through dialogue and makes the choices, well basically, why not make
all players involved with the choices?
there could be a vote on
which dialogue to pick, and if it ties you could roll, then everyone
feels apart of the main players choice and storyline, enabling everyone to enjoy it.
the hosting computers player (the speaker character, the one  involved with the story) is a voice for the whole party.
I think, if the gui is made well and its a speedy enough process, it could work!
something along those lines anyway....

Hey, if you want to raise the funds for it, I say do it.

Realize it'll take several hundred thousand dollars to do it (you have to pay the network programmers, artists, UI programmers, writers, playtesters, etc. etc.), but I say why not?

And no, you can't ask BioWare for the funds. They spent the last 5 years making the game, so they're tapped out.

Have fun!

tempting

if a bunch of VERY good game programmers step foreward and Bioware release a solid SDK for the purpose,
bring it on, Ill take care of all the voice acting and spend the next 1-2 years writing the dialogiue and recording it in my studio, Blimey  Ill even ask Kieth allen to swing by and contribute to the voice overs!
Plus scoring more music.
should I book Air studio's in London now?
that would certainly be a dream for me, not even for financial gain.

as for BIOWARE being tapped out.....
show me their accounts and ill believe you !

[SheffSteel]

If you want to argue against multi-player, please provide an argument that applies to, say, Baldur's Gate 2. There's no point saying that, for example, co-op sucked in Fable 2 therefore co-op is a horrible idea. It just doesn't help the discussion at all.



Would BG2 have been a better game without MP support? Sure, but it's difficult to quantify exactly how it would have been better. Some engine programmers would certainly have had more time to spend on other issues, perhaps improving the performance on lower-spec machines or ensuring compatibility with a wider range of hardware. Also, depending on how the MP implementation impacted design and scripting work, some designers might have had more time to script further cut-scenes or otherwise improve other areas of the game. But at the end of the day BG2 wasn't such a bad game, and it supported co-op multiplayer, and as yet it's too soon to say which game will be RPG of the decade.

[spool32]

It's worth reading that whole thread, actually. Other good quotes from the thread:


"For the most part, an "awesome Offical Campaign" is done by our
writers, designers and artists, with support from the programmers and
the rest of the team.
For the most part, "options and ease for
fan-developers/DM's" is done by the game programmers and the tools
programmers with support from the rest of the team.
We can try to do both and they won't collide with each other."  -Derek French, Technical Producer


"To dispell one myth: The DM client was quite cheap in the big picture since it's build on the final game client"  -Georg Zoeller, Senior Technical Designer


And there's 14 pages of discussion to go along with that. Quoting Zoeller out of context about a game add-on produced 5 years ago probably isn't useful to the discussion today.

[babyjaws]

SheffSteel wrote...

If you want to argue against multi-player, please provide an argument that applies to, say, Baldur's Gate 2. There's no point saying that, for example, co-op sucked in Fable 2 therefore co-op is a horrible idea. It just doesn't help the discussion at all.

Would BG2 have been a better game without MP support? Sure, but it's difficult to quantify exactly how it would have been better. Some engine programmers would certainly have had more time to spend on other issues, perhaps improving the performance on lower-spec machines or ensuring compatibility with a wider range of hardware. Also, depending on how the MP implementation impacted design and scripting work, some designers might have had more time to script further cut-scenes or otherwise improve other areas of the game. But at the end of the day BG2 wasn't such a bad game, and it supported co-op multiplayer, and as yet it's too soon to say which game will be RPG of the decade.

really intelligent post SheffSteel.
it really IS really  hard to quanitfy the difference the game (many games) would have had with or without multiplayer.
applies to many posts here I think.
good post. ; )

[GreenSoda]

babyjaws wrote...
really intelligent post SheffSteel.
it really IS really  hard to quanitfy the difference the game (many games) would have had with or without multiplayer.
applies to many posts here I think.
good post. ; )

It's certainly true that you can't quantify the impact implementing mp into a game has on it's sp campaign.And of course you can have a game with a good sp campaign & coop and/or mp modes, but no matter how you see it implementing such a feature sucks up resources which then can't be spent on a sp campaign.

Imo it's simply not worth cutting the sp-part short only to cater to the wishes of a minority.

Or to stay with the BG example:
BG2 was good despite the MP, not because of it.

[Ghandorian]

It is pretty clear that the Single Player experience would have been compromised with Multi player added into the main story line.



All the interaction created between the party characters and the various pathways the game could take would have been eliminated to make way for the roflcopters and teabagging of the multi-player world. You have Bioware's own input here that they expect only 5-10% of the community would use MP frequently. Would you really want to have seen so much NPC interaction rendered useless for that segment?



MP for s**t's and giggles would be just fine in a battle field setting but would kill the expansive story line we got in this game instead. If I want medieval MP I go play Darkfall. When I want quality RP I play DAO.



You know what they say, Jack of all and master of none. I am really going to miss when the big ticket single player RPG's die in favor of Supper Mario inspired Zelda ripoffs for console systems. DAO may well be the last one.

[spool32]

eisberg77 wrote...

spool32 wrote...

It's worth reading that whole thread, actually. Other good quotes from the thread:


"For the most part, an "awesome Offical Campaign" is done by our
writers, designers and artists, with support from the programmers and
the rest of the team.
For the most part, "options and ease for
fan-developers/DM's" is done by the game programmers and the tools
programmers with support from the rest of the team.
We can try to do both and they won't collide with each other."  -Derek French, Technical Producer


"To dispell one myth: The DM client was quite cheap in the big picture since it's build on the final game client"  -Georg Zoeller, Senior Technical Designer


And there's 14 pages of discussion to go along with that. Quoting Zoeller out of context about a game add-on produced 5 years ago probably isn't useful to the discussion today.

Please tell me how him stating that 5-10% of their customer played MP is taking it out of context?  A hard numbers fact like that, can't be taken out of context.

Notice how Bioware hasn't done anything MP since NWN?  And the only MP game announced is an MMO.  Since NWN release they have made:
Knight of the Old Republic
Jade Empire
Sonic Chronicles
Mass Effect
Dragon Age

all of which were Single player only.  I wouldn't doubt they decided not to do MP because of the low numbers they saw with NWN for MP.

Yet they have continued to support NWN up to v1.69, adding more multiplayer functionality and fixing bugs for us repeatedly along the way... I dunno. I hope you're take is the wrong one. 

[Eidolonn]

eisberg77 wrote...

http://forums.biowar...um=84=

If this was their experience before, this is probably the reason why Dragon Age has no MP.

First. That post is from 2003.  Very outdated data and mindset.

Second. They are basing their numbers off of official NWN servers.  This does not take into account all of the private servers, which vastly outnumber the official NWN servers. The number of private servers that submitted to NWConnections alone was 1318. http://www.neverwint...ion/Servers.htm  This also does not take into account all of the private servers that did not register with NWConn.

The number of players alone that have registered with NWConns was 36,880.  This would be only a fraction of all multiplayer users, as this does not take into account all of the players that did not register with NWConn.  The question is, what percentage of players registered with NWConns? There is no way to know.

Third. Since the post was from 2003, this does not take into account the lifespan that NWN has enjoyed.  It is still going strong, as is apparent with the amount of content still provided to NWVault.  I would surmise that the private servers that are still live today still greatly outnumber the number of official NWN servers that were live at that time. Of course, I have no way to validate this, but there are still a large number of persistent worlds that are going strong, and it has been over 7 years since NWN was relased.

Lastly, for fun, NWN sold 2,000,000 copies by late 2004.  Even if that 10% estimate was accurate, and DA:O sells 2,000,000 copies, and they offered a multiplayer expansion for, let's say $15 (a fair, affordable price):  200,000 x $15 = $3,000,000.

Those numbers will do nothing but go up.  DA:O will sell more than 2 million copies.  The 10% number is probably closer to 20%, maybe even 30%.  And if it was implemented well, they could charge $20-$25 for the expansion.
___

Is this all speculation?  Sure.  But it's also educated speculation.  Basic supply and demand.  If there are enough people that want it, it will be provided.

Personally, I am fine without it, but I would definitely love multiplayer support.

Whatever, it's fun playing numbers games.

[Aidunno]

Would BG2 have been a better game without MP support? Sure, but it's difficult to quantify exactly how it would have been better.

That's the problem.. we cannot quantify it and the impression I get is of the pro-multiplayer people trying to invalidate figures without providing hard figures themselves to justify what they are after. Even within this thread there are only about 10 people asking for multiplayer and they are the ones more likely to join in this thread discussion and none have mentioned how to finance it.

Aside from what's already been mentioned, another  trouble with multiplayer or call it "co-operative" and fantasy/roleplaying is that people automatically think of MMO's and that is a corner of the market which is very competitive and very risky. If people are making that assumption within these forums, aren't people going to do the same if a multiplayer version came out? Can you imagine the amount of disgruntled and loudly complaining people if that was the case and the hit to company reputation?

I'm not for or against multiplayer. However this was/still is sold as a single player game. In future who knows. If they are using the engine for other games maybe they don't want to release too much to the modding community.  If you wanted to customise the Dragon Age Origins engine itself rather than simply using the toolkit I am sure you could put together a proposal involving financial aspects (engines don't necessarily come cheap) and customise it to include multiplayer or wait a few years if you want a price reduction. There are plenty of alternative  free 3D engines out there. Consider though, most projects started never get completed.

[babyjaws]

Aidunno wrote...
another  trouble with multiplayer or call it "co-operative" and fantasy/roleplaying is that people automatically think of MMO's and that is a corner of the market which is very competitive and very risky. If people are making that assumption within these forums, aren't people going to do the same if a multiplayer version came out? Can you imagine the amount of disgruntled and loudly complaining people if that was the case and the hit to company reputation?

I think most people are intelligent to differentiate the difference between an MMO and a game that features a multiplayer capability.
theres also a lot of disgruntled people, and yes they should have at least researched alittle beforehand, looking for the mp part of DA only to find its a SP game,  why is that? must be on the reputaion of BG and NWN, or the fact the DA is perfect (could be : ) for a multiplayer experience.

[babyjaws]

nice update here from a dev about POSSIBLE MP in the future for DA:O



"VideoGamer.com: Would you consider co-op based multiplayer features, where players play together online in parties, for future Dragon Age and Mass Effect games?



RM: Sure. We would consider it. We haven't announced anything on that front yet, but those are interesting ideas. They could make a great gameplay experience. Whether we'll do them or not remains to be decided."



so they havent decided, or at least announced anything yet!

http://www.videogame...yka.html?page=2