16 réponses à ce sujet

[Perfect-Kenshin]

 I notice lots of people make "proposals" and criticisms which they hope the Devs will listen to and implement in DA2. However, based on what I can gather from the Devs, they have a "yeah, thanks, but no thanks---move along now, little one" attitude when it comes to suggestions. Which makes some sense as its not like people who aren't involved in the industry have any idea about what they are talking about, "technical-capability/finance" wise. That and there are a plethora of suggestions made on this forum and it would be impractical to even seriously consider them all. Finally, the game is nearing completion (with only a couple of months until its release).

That said, the way I see it, if the majority of the fans (or people on this website) press for some feature or game enhancing ability/tool, the Devs ought to put aside their biases and attempt to implement it into the game (provide its FEASIBLE). Thus, I propose (ironic, no?) a poll with which game registered users can vote on and that the ideas of the majority be taken into consideration (for instance, some people here have expressed interest in there being a section of DA2 where Hawke and the love interest can go on a date. A mod can link users to a poll which only accepts registered gamers votes and users can vote accordingly YES or NO). I'm not saying that DEVS being obligated to implement whatever feature voted into the game, but that it is at least heavily considered over coffee.

Modifié par Perfect-Kenshin, 14 septembre 2010 - 11:34 .

[John Epler]

We definitely read the forums, and it would be disingenuous of me to say 'no, nothing ever affects the game development process in any way'.



The problem, of course, and I'm not trying to sound like a jerk - until you're actually in the development process, it's nearly impossible to know exactly what kind of time and effort something requires. Heck, I've been with BioWare for almost three years and I still have very little idea what kind of time commitment many of the other disciplines require. There are about fifteen people on this project who probably -do- understand it fully, and there's a reason they tend to be fairly senior



Do we discourage people from posting feedback or suggestions? Of course not! Some great ideas come out of these forums, and while we don't implement all of them - that doesn't mean we don't discuss them over coffee or during meetings. But in the end, the ideas have to fit both A) into our timeline and into our design goals, and unless you're one of those fifteen people I mentioned earlier, it's really difficult to find ideas that fit both categories.

[Stanley Woo]

i don't think the OP's proposal is at all feasible. not only is game development not a collaborative effort between creators and players, by the time the players learn about a feature, developers have already invested thousands of man-hours into its creation, implementation, testing, and planning. To see any of that work suddenly shelved in favour of a complete re-do based on an arbitrary poll voted on by a bunch of random anonymous internetters is kinda crazy. Sorry.

[David Gaider]

RinpocheSchnozberry wrote...
As for Dragon Age, I don't know, but I'm sure they are impacted by the threads, even if only as a disembodied voice for brainstorming.

As I've said many time before on this forum, the role you can take in our development process is the same as with anyone who might get a chance to speak with one of us-- if you can be persuasive, then you might actually change our mind on something.

Being "persuasive", however, does not mean being demanding or rude or entitled. That's about as persuasive as it would be if you were talking to someone that way in real life.

It also has nothing to do with a majority anything. As many people here have pointed out, the majority of people on these forums... are just the majority on these forums. And quite frankly, I've yet to see the majority of people on these forums agree on almost anything. Even if that were the case, the people on these forums represent only a portion of our fanbase, the ones who are committed enough to actually come to a gaming forum and speak about the topic. While that's valuable feedback, it'd be pretty silly of us to base our development on it.

So you can persuade us or persuade each other, or simply sound off if you're not breaking the forum's rules. That's what the forum's here for. Anyone who sees it as being part of a committee to determine what Dragon Age should or should not be, however, is sorely mistaken... and when we say "yeah, thanks but no thanks" we're not doing it to be rude. We have a big enough committee to make the game here at BioWare, thank you very much. We rarely agree on everything, either.

[Stanley Woo]

Blasto the jelly wrote...
C'mon tell us What Forum idea did You put ingame? preety please

Generally, it doesn't work that way. just because some of our developers are inspired by a forum idea/suggestion, doesn't mean they're going to immediately put it into the game. the idea might take a few iterations before a version of it appears in a future product, like Alistair's personality being inspired by a Buffy the Vampire Slayer character. You wouldn't know it until it was pointed out to you, but the inspiration was there all the same. only very rarely will you see something like the name of Thedas being directly inspired by the forum's use of "THE Dragon Age Setting" to describe our world before it was named.

Most gamers think the latter is the way things work, rather than the former. at its heart, videogame development is NOT a democracy or a collaboration between players and developers.

[David Gaider]

Cigne wrote...
I believe both ME2 and DAO have the option to send gameplay feedback; so it's a good bet that Bioware knows how many times (for example) a city elf was chosen, which talents were most popular, etc.

That probably has as much impact on dev decisions as forum wishlists. So those who really want to play as other than human in DA3 better get busy with some Dalish or Dwarven playthroughs.

That's very true. We recognize that not everyone chooses to send telemetry data, but those who do make for a huge sampling base-- a much larger one than, say, we have present on these forums. Sometimes the data presented there challenge the notions commonly considered fact here on the forums, and sometimes it challenges our own notions.

Sometimes we also have to consider why the data is what it is. Did the vast majority of players play as a Human Noble simply because it's the default on character creation? Or because they actually prefer playing a human and a warrior/rogue? Did less than 5% play a dwarf simply because dwarves weren't cool? Because they aren't pretty? How many people actually took Sten into their party, or did the romances (and who were they)? How did people play differently when re-playing the game as opposed to playing it the first time?

So yeah, that's good data-- but like the forums you're still only getting part of the picture.

[David Gaider]

Brockololly wrote...
I think thats the tricky thing like you said- if I've got multiple playthroughs, I might do some choices totally different than my "canon" Warden but is the act of me making those choices going to add up to BioWare maybe cutting out a class or companion from a future game? Or if I romance Morrigan everytime and always do her quests, provided alot of other people did that, does that show that people like Morrigan?

We can actually tell the difference between telemetry from someone who is playing the game for the first time versus someone who is replaying the game. It lets us break down the data a bit further into people who never finished the game (the majority), people who played the game just once and "committed" players who go through it multiple times.

I guess, does looking at the choices people make in their playthroughs like doing the Dark RItual versus Ultimate Sacrifice or maybe how many people kill Flemeth- do those story based choices and seeing the cumulative data in any way influence how you might approach acknowledging or continuing those stories down the road?

A bit. Like someone above said, we need to judge that data according to our own instinct. At its best it simply challenges some of our assumptions-- you can't argue with hard data, after all, even if you also can't let it dictate what you do entirely. We can never be 100% certain why some data is the way it is, after all. But it can certainly tell you whether some types of content even got used at all, what different kinds of players tend to do, which classes or abilities got used, etc. This is considerably better data than the anecdotal evidence we usually get, even if it comes without context and can only tell us so much.

Modifié par David Gaider, 15 septembre 2010 - 02:10 .

[Seb Hanlon]

N+1th point about devs reading suggestions and reactions from the forums:



In the overwhelming majority of cases, by the time we're ready to talk about some feature or plot or character or what-have-you, it's been back and forth across the dev team, up and down the chain of command, around and around in meetings, and well on its way to being part of the full game, if not already implemented and working.



We don't want to end up in the position of having said one thing and end up shipping something else in the game. This is why so many of the questions in the Gameplay Q&A thread get "no answer" answers -- many of them simply aren't locked down yet. The things that we *do* talk about may well be past the point in development where it's reasonable to change them.

[David Gaider]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Then why not talk to us honestly about how something hasn't yet been decided, but discuss the decision-making process?

We'd love to know what you're considering, even if it doesn't make it into the game.

Sorry, I know that's the idealist in you talking but it's been proven time and time again that people take even the most tentative suggestions as iron-clad promises-- and even if they don't, you guys (as enthusiastic as you are) will take a little and build it up into something it isn't, and then be disappointed when it doesn't match what you're hoping for.

We know there are bound to be disappointments from time to time, but we'd rather not set you (and ourselves) up for them if we can avoid it.

Modifié par David Gaider, 15 septembre 2010 - 04:34 .

[David Gaider]

Arius23 wrote...
Sheesh, don't you people ever sleep? What time is it over there?

Sleep?

I'm the goddamned Batman.

[David Gaider]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...
IMHO, the best you can hope for with any suggestions, is that they might influence a future BIO game - since for the most part, things have already been decided.

That's often true. For smaller things, suggestions can still affect the current game-- but I notice the majority of fan suggestions are Big Things, stuff that's generally fundamental to a game's design and would tend to get decided on fairly early.

That doesn't mean you can't influence the designers, but it does mean that any influence is going to be felt down the line.

The same holds true, incidentally, for influence from other games that get released or even influence from one BioWare title to others from the company. People sometimes wonder why the next title out from a company doesn't take its cues from the one immediately preceding it... and the answer is that very likely the second title was in production at the same time as the first one, by an entirely different group of people. There is some trickle-down and sharing of thoughts/personnel, but the true influence of any title comes after everyone gets a chance to see how it's implemented and what the public reaction is to it.

Considering the length of the development process, there's always a delay. The idea that we would suddenly halt that process mid-stream and change everything just because someone had a brainstorm is a bit ridiculous-- that wouldn't happen unless the person who did it was very senior. That's their perogative, after all, but even then you could only do that so many times without completely disrupting the process. Indeed, my understanding is that this is how many modding groups fall apart, or any group where everyone wants to be a thinker but nobody wants to be a doer.

[David Gaider]

DragonRacer13 wrote...
Um, at the risk of sounding like an idiot... how does one go about sending telemetry data? Is that a beta testing thing? A PC player thing?

I think it's automatic unless you opt out, but to be honest I don't know. My initial reaction when we started getting telemetry data was, "There's telemetry data? Really?" Maybe someone like Seb could answer that question better for you. I consider it black magic.

[David Gaider]

sandslayer76 wrote...
So, basically, my question is this: How long does the average major (or minor) idea take to get implemented from the moment it is thought up to the moment it is first stuck into the game? I'll be satisfied with just a timeline that you feel fits, even if it's just "3 months" or something like that.

It's a big question. The easy answer is "it depends".

What does it depend on? How much the idea in question affects the overall game. Big stuff, the things that are fundamental to the design and which affect many other things, either are top-down directives (meaning they come from the senior leadership or higher-- many of those are just directional, but if they come from someone like the Lead Designer they can be specific design decisions as well) or they get run up the chain of command from below.

If it's a big thing that can have a direct impact on sales, it often takes a while for a change to be implemented. Or, if it's a change that's occurring mid-stream (such as when we decide something's just not working like we think it should mid-development) it can happen very quickly. Someone pulls the trigger (meaning someone with the power to make that call) and we rush to change it. You can only do that so much, however, as the entire process requires a certain amount of momentum. We're talking about a huge undertaking.

For smaller things, it really depends on what's part of your personal bailiwick. There are things I, as Lead Writer, have a certain amount of discretion over, for instance, even if ultimately everything I do is subject to the Lead Designer's approval. Part of that, of course, is the realization that my decisions can have an impact on other peoples' work. If I decide today that X follower is going to have a new conversation in a certain plot, that means I need to bring onboard the Tech Designer who needs to implement it and I'll possibly be affecting the flow of that particular plot entirely-- is there room for this dialogue? Did I just stick a conversation in the middle of what's meant to be an action sequence? The more effects a change can have the more careful one has to be. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be done, but it does mean you have to be careful. This is how bugs get introduced. One programmer or scripter's innocent change suddenly breaks three different things they weren't even involved in working on.

If it's something small and only affects the writing, and doesn't compromise the vision of the project or the budget I have to work with? Sure, a change can be made rather quickly. But as I just said in a post above, the ideas that people here on the forums tend to offer don't tend to be those sorts of things. They're more concepts or fundamental ideas, which are fine... but they're rarely simple, and thus they're the sort of things that get discussed in these parts at the very beginning of a project when we first start talking about how we want the Big Things to work.

As an aside, I noticed that you're usually regarded as the lead designer for the Dragon Age Universe. I know the lore took years to devise, but how long has the idea been bouncing around in your head? Are you the one that thought the premise up in its entirety? If so, what does it feel like the have created a genuine, popular product out of such a personal thing as an idea in your head?

Careful when you say things like "lead designer". I know you didn't use caps, but there's a big difference between my position and the Lead Designer-- who is the person that determines the design vision for a game. I had a big hand in putting together the Dragon Age world, yes, but that includes the fact I did so under a lot of direction from the DA Lead Designer (who at the time was James Ohlen). There's a lot of personal ideas of mine in there, as with anything I work on, but a given project is always going to be a collaborative effort. I cannot take personal credit even for the story (or blame, if you prefer) as that's going to involve other stakeholders such as gameplay, art and programming.

Fans like to think of game-writing as being similar to writing a novel... but it's more like writing a screenplay for a movie (although even that comparison breaks down when the idea of interactive gameplay becomes involved). There's a lot of hands involved.

But more directly related to your question, I guess there's a great deal of myself in the setting. Like any geek I have a certain amount of preference for a type of fantasy world... I like tropes that get turned on their head without being rendered unrecognizeable. I like fantasy that's grounded in reality without entirely losing the fantastical, and making fantasy characters relate to the issues we see in real life. Regardless of how much of me is in the DA setting (THE DA Setting-- damn the forumites for putting that in our heads.. we actually had a temp name for the setting that we rarely used because we knew someday we'd simply rename it. And when that day came it turned out the forum's temp name for the setting had become stuck in our brains. Serves us right. ) once you put something out there it takes on a life of its own. Same with characters we write. They stop being entirely ours, which is a very strange feeling.


And that's a much more extensive answer than I was planning on giving. I'm rambling, now. Time for coffee.

Modifié par David Gaider, 15 septembre 2010 - 03:38 .

[David Gaider]

Brockololly wrote...
At least on the PC for both DAO and ME2, there is a little checkbox in the online options menu to check if you want to upload data. Are DAO and ME2 the first BioWare games that have used this sort of telemetry?

You know, it's very possible that you might have to opt in rather than opt out. Like I said, it's not my field.

We could be the first games that use it, I don't know. Nobody's ever come up to me before and said "here's some telemetry data" before, so maybe.

[David Gaider]

Meltemph wrote...
Could you, by chance tell us how much the others were played as well? More out of curiosity as to how bad Dwarfs did comparatively to everything not Human. Human is always going to be the most played it seems though, I don't get it personally, there is always less intrigue in your own race from a fantasy perspective, to me.

My personal take on it is that there's a big gap between people who are frequent players of RPG's or already very familiar with the fantasy genre in general and those who aren't. These people associate a great deal of value with novelty, simply by virtue of their familiarity (or over-familiarity, if you will) with the subject matter. Everyone else, I suspect, is probably more interested in relatability or even ease of play. It'd be a mistake to look down on those people, as the fan was once there too a long time ago.

I don't remember the exact numbers, and I'm not sure I'm at liberty to start rattling them off even if I did. Human Noble and Human Mage were the top Origins by far, with Dwarf Noble and Dwarf Commoner at the very bottom. Maybe at some point we'll break it down more for you guys (if there's interest in such), but I'm not the person to provide that data.

[Stanley Woo]

Perfect-Kenshin wrote...

That said, I'm inclined to disagree with the earlier statement from Mr. Woo regarding there being no collaboration between gamers and developers.

why's that?  When was the last time a game developer consulted you directly about game systems or features? When did you last get a "thank you" credit in a videogame due to your contributions to that game's design or feature set? Making suggestions and posting ideas in an online discussion forum does not count as "collaboration." for the most part, ideas and suggestions from the forum stop at the concept stage and are not or can not be developed further. i don't mean to sound like a jerkface here, but throwing out a bajillion ideas doesn't help us out as much as some people think it does. we need viable, workable solutions that will work within the context of an entire project, not just a plethora of half-baked ideas used in isolation.

Although suggestions are pointless, this is still a very democratic process as we can still vote with our dollars.

That said, however, suggestions are not pointless. We do still look at the general consensus of the forum. While we're not going to go "this dude wants us to make Dragon Age multiplayer, let's do it," we might see a hojillion of multiplayer threads as being indicative of our audience's interest in a multiplayer DA product, and thnk about it for a future product, as a hypothetical example. If the general forum consensus is that no one really cares about Character X, we'd take a look at just why people might think that and change how we develop characters for future products.

And no, it is not "a very democratic process." We develop a game, and you decide whether to buy it or not. You are not "voting" on specific game features, or showing support for or against individual characters or ideas. Again, not to sound like a douchenozzle here, but "collaborator" is not the relationship we have with our customers or fanbase.

and it may sound contradictory of me, but we do always welcome feedback and ideas here in the forum. we just don't want our community to have unreasonable expectations of how that feedback is received and what happens to it once it's read.

[Stanley Woo]

Exactly.