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[Terror_K]

TOR is the only game they're making that comes across as being classic BioWare. At least one of the major devs there said that TOR wasn't for the casual and mainstream market and was aimed at fans of BioWare, Star Wars and RPGs as a whole. It's like everything I like about BioWare games is almost only happening with TOR and it's sucked all the good from Mass Effect and Dragon Age in the process now.



I look at updates for TOR and aside from a few things here and there (such as voiced player characters, which in an MMO is friggin stupid and a waste of resources, IMO) I like most of the stuff I hear. TOR really is the only BioWare title in the future that is making me go "do want!" at the moment. DA2 looks like a console-ified, dumbed down, overly mainstreamed mess and while there isn't much yet on ME3 BioWare's current attitude and ME2 aren't making be all that confident.

[Jebel Krong]

iakus wrote...

iakus wrote...
What you say is true. Though I find the Liara/Benezia converssation quite touching myself.

To each his own I guess "You have always made me proud, Liara" ::queue final round of boss fight::

Of course the game's not going to be deep if no choice, no emotional connection, no belief, ultimately has any meaning.

yet you cling to the worst VA in me1 as a shining example of what was good - marina sirtis is an awful actress - always has been - and she sounded like she was in a school play most of the time, there was zero emotional connection there (and liara's lines weren't much better in that conversation, either).

iakus wrote...
Of course, this was before the whole "each game is standalone" deal, reducing the consequences to the equivalent of "I Saved/Killed  The Council And All I Got was This Lousy T-Shirt"

the fact that that was obviously going to happen - as every trilogy ever is composed of self-contained stories within an overarching narrative - says everything, i'm afraid.

Pocketgb wrote...

iakus wrote...
And I figured if anyone could pull it off, it's Bioware.

Much like how I discovered that they're not good with balancing their mechanics and thus keeping them in-depth, they're also obviously not good with continuity. Essentially I feel that when Bioware are left to their own devices, be it with mechanics or with lore, things will get iffy.

It also didn't help that Drew wasn't able to work on ME2 a whole lot, what with ToR and all - although that's my only 'defense' for the lack of continuity besides "they're bad at it".

nobody has even tried continuity like this, there are going to be feasible limits....

i still don't know why you cling to drew as an example of great writing - have you read any of his books? patrick weekes is a much better writer, for example, and he worked on the sequel.

[Jebel Krong]

Terror_K wrote...

TOR is the only game they're making that comes across as being classic BioWare. At least one of the major devs there said that TOR wasn't for the casual and mainstream market and was aimed at fans of BioWare, Star Wars and RPGs as a whole. It's like everything I like about BioWare games is almost only happening with TOR and it's sucked all the good from Mass Effect and Dragon Age in the process now.

I look at updates for TOR and aside from a few things here and there (such as voiced player characters, which in an MMO is friggin stupid and a waste of resources, IMO) I like most of the stuff I hear. TOR really is the only BioWare title in the future that is making me go "do want!" at the moment. DA2 looks like a console-ified, dumbed down, overly mainstreamed mess and while there isn't much yet on ME3 BioWare's current attitude and ME2 aren't making be all that confident.

oh i'm so positively shocked SHOCKED i tell you that you don't like the look of DA2. hell i hate fantasy in general but it looks intriguing enough that i may well pick it up (and it's not like much is even known about the actual mechanics yet - as far as i know it's not even clear whether combat is even realtime, at least on console), we are what? - 2 trailers in.

[Terror_K]

Jebel Krong wrote...

oh i'm so positively shocked SHOCKED i tell you that you don't like the look of DA2. hell i hate fantasy in general but it looks intriguing enough that i may well pick it up (and it's not like much is even known about the actual mechanics yet - as far as i know it's not even clear whether combat is even realtime, at least on console), we are what? - 2 trailers in.

You can only be a human, play a named, voice protagonist, the mechanics have been dumbed down, it's basically a hack'n'slash action-based affair designed with consoles in mind, is a third the size of the original and they're changing the visual style to apparently make it stand out more, but instead it looks like the same generic overly gritty crap that every second game out there today is using a colour palette from the dirt spectrum. To me, that's enough.

The original DAO was a fantastic game that really went to the heart of classic fantasy RPGs and was BioWare's best product since KotOR, but the sequel is just another classic case of them deciding to water things down and pander to the mainstream once again, just like ME2 was. And I've been expressing my concern about BioWare heading in this direction for almost three years now... all they're doing is proving it. Sure, some may have said DAO used dated mechanics and barely innovated, but in today's period of generic and simple action games it was a breath of fresh air, even if it wasn't totally fresh itself. And good fundamentals are good, whether they're old mechanics or not.

That's not to say that DA2 might not be a decent game, but as a sequel to the original Dragon Age it seems severely lacking to me. Once again BioWare make a first game that appeals to me on many levels and then seem to purposefully make the exact opposite with the sequel by making it everything I hate in modern entertainment and current gaming trends. David Gaider and the others behind it say that they need to go down this path to survive as a company, but that's Grade A bull pies! They don't have to do it, the popularity of DAO proved that. They merely choose to because they want to go for the same market that everybody else is, rather than going for the more cult audience they once did before. Except they want both, and seem to forget that many of those who like their games do so because they're not the same as everything else out there.

BioWare are on the path to generic mainstream brown slush, even more obvious with DA2's overly brown and gritty visuals now. Why is it every time BioWare seeks to do something with a game they do the exact opposite through the means they choose (they wanted to make ME2 more immersive but made it less, they want to make Dragon Age seem less generic, yet make it more-so, etc.)? Especially ironic when other games are actually tending to add more depth into genres that are generally rather simple and straightforward that BioWare takes a genre more known for its complexity and continues to simplify it to the point of dull shallowness. Which are why games in general are becoming this samey brown mush the way they're heading: soon everything will just be a gritty brown story-based action game with RPG elements. It's already happening now, and all BioWare are doing instead of being original and actually being the cut above most developers that they once were is joining the fray... just from the other side.

Modifié par Terror_K, 28 octobre 2010 - 10:40 .

[Jebel Krong]

Terror_K wrote...

You can only be a human, play a named, voice protagonist, the mechanics have been dumbed down, it's basically a hack'n'slash action-based affair designed with consoles in mind, is a third the size of the original and they're changing the visual style to apparently make it stand out more, but instead it looks like the same generic overly gritty crap that every second game out there today is using a colour palette from the dirt spectrum. To me, that's enough.

you mean in order to increase immersion and identification with a stronger narrative they have decided to embrace a single-type of antagonist a la commander shepard, yeah they have. the visual style looks exactly like the first, just with slightly stronger-defined edges (slightly cell-shaded), to call that a departure is stretching it a bit. & proof they have dumbed the mechanics down? you don't know that at all.

still you have a wonderful rep for prejudging stuff, recanting and then doing so again, so i guess you're consistent, at least. 

Modifié par Jebel Krong, 28 octobre 2010 - 10:51 .

[Terror_K]

With DAO I feared it would suck due to the terrible advertising and was pleasantly surprised, so recanted. Though I still said that the advertising was God-awful in the very post I did, so made a point to not apologise for that. Since then I have only given DAO praise for the most part, and wish that in many ways ME2 were more like it.

With ME2 I actually only partially recanted. Some of it --like DAO-- was brought on by misconceptions due to advertising, and that aspect wasn't as bad as it looked. The rest was still largely disappointing, some of it not as bad as it seems, other aspects even worse than I feared. You seem to recall my infamous first review well, so you should recall that I didn't fully apologise and recant there. In short, ME2 wasn't as bad as I'd feared, but nor was it as good as it could or should have been.

With DA2 most of my ire doesn't come from advertising so much as direct comments from the devs in interviews. I may recant, but there's a difference between speculation based on advertising and developers outright saying "this game is shorter, you can only be human, you're stuck as one guy/girl as a voiced protagonist, it's primarily designed for consoles over PC, and the screenshots look all smudged in brown and grit, like every other second modern game."

This was supposed to be a series that took BioWare back to their roots, was supposed to be a classic PC-centric RPG series and was supposed to be the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate. And now the whole thing just seems like a bad God of War clone with a few more gameplay elements.

Modifié par Terror_K, 28 octobre 2010 - 11:06 .

[Gibb_Shepard]

Terror_K wrote...

Jebel Krong wrote...

oh i'm so positively shocked SHOCKED i tell you that you don't like the look of DA2. hell i hate fantasy in general but it looks intriguing enough that i may well pick it up (and it's not like much is even known about the actual mechanics yet - as far as i know it's not even clear whether combat is even realtime, at least on console), we are what? - 2 trailers in.

You can only be a human, play a named, voice protagonist, the mechanics have been dumbed down, it's basically a hack'n'slash action-based affair designed with consoles in mind, is a third the size of the original and they're changing the visual style to apparently make it stand out more, but instead it looks like the same generic overly gritty crap that every second game out there today is using a colour palette from the dirt spectrum. To me, that's enough.

The original DAO was a fantastic game that really went to the heart of classic fantasy RPGs and was BioWare's best product since KotOR, but the sequel is just another classic case of them deciding to water things down and pander to the mainstream once again, just like ME2 was. And I've been expressing my concern about BioWare heading in this direction for almost three years now... all they're doing is proving it. Sure, some may have said DAO used dated mechanics and barely innovated, but in today's period of generic and simple action games it was a breath of fresh air, even if it wasn't totally fresh itself. And good fundamentals are good, whether they're old mechanics or not.

That's not to say that DA2 might not be a decent game, but as a sequel to the original Dragon Age it seems severely lacking to me. Once again BioWare make a first game that appeals to me on many levels and then seem to purposefully make the exact opposite with the sequel by making it everything I hate in modern entertainment and current gaming trends. David Gaider and the others behind it say that they need to go down this path to survive as a company, but that's Grade A bull pies! They don't have to do it, the popularity of DAO proved that. They merely choose to because they want to go for the same market that everybody else is, rather than going for the more cult audience they once did before. Except they want both, and seem to forget that many of those who like their games do so because they're not the same as everything else out there.

BioWare are on the path to generic mainstream brown slush, even more obvious with DA2's overly brown and gritty visuals now. Why is it every time BioWare seeks to do something with a game they do the exact opposite through the means they choose (they wanted to make ME2 more immersive but made it less, they want to make Dragon Age seem less generic, yet make it more-so, etc.)? Especially ironic when other games are actually tending to add more depth into genres that are generally rather simple and straightforward that BioWare takes a genre more known for its complexity and continues to simplify it to the point of dull shallowness. Which are why games in general are becoming this samey brown mush the way they're heading: soon everything will just be a gritty brown story-based action game with RPG elements. It's already happening now, and all BioWare are doing instead of being original and actually being the cut above most developers that they once were is joining the fray... just from the other side.

Wow, you really seem to dislike change. How can you not like the fact that DA2 will have a voiced protagonist? I mean that alone adds so much more drama and emotion to the story itself, something Bioware are well known for. When **** was going down in DAO, i wanted to exert emotions and be a part of the story, but all i got was a stiff face and written dialogue, talk about anticlimactic. And i'm sorry, but the combat in DAO was god awful. It was seriously the most boring combat of all time. For consoles, i completely agree with the decision to make the combat more responsive, and less "Push A button and wait till my character waddles over to the enemy".

You seem to be one of those RPG-diehards, whom want everything to stay the old, generic way it has always been. I personally thought ME2 was an amazing game, but what really let it down was it's plot and extreme linearity. The only two problems i and many have with that game. If there were still significant RPG customisation and the plot wasn't about people's personal issues, it would have been an absolute masterpiece. Bioware are taking RPG's to a new level, and if they head towards a good medium between RPG and cinematic, action gameplay, they will certainly be a masterful game develeoper.

My only fear is if they take this new cinematic, action gameplay too far and abandon their RPG roots; and turn out to be another generic shooter company.

[Terror_K]

Gibb_Shepard wrote...

Wow, you really seem to dislike change. How can you not like the fact that DA2 will have a voiced protagonist? I mean that alone adds so much more drama and emotion to the story itself, something Bioware are well known for. When **** was going down in DAO, i wanted to exert emotions and be a part of the story, but all i got was a stiff face and written dialogue, talk about anticlimactic.

It depends on the game. With ME I was fine with it because of the style of the game. With Dragon Age I preferred to be silent, because I personally find it more immersive when I imagine what my own character's voice sounds like and I can imagine how they say it and what emotions they use, etc. It's like the difference between reading a book where you can use your imagination a little and watching a movie where you're shown how things are and that's that. Have you ever watched a movie based on a book and thought "that's not how I imagined that scene at all" at any time? It's a similar thing.

When a protagonist is voiced, it takes me out of a game like DAO because suddenly the character is no longer mine and I'm having this identity forced upon my that I don't want. I understand that's kind of what they want with Hawke in DA2, but as a sequel that's not what I want from the game. It it were a spin-off game akin to the likes of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood or Fallout Tactics then it wouldn't bother me so much, and about three quarters of the issues I have with DA2 would go away. But as the second game this just seems to cut back and so much of a lesser, smaller and more restrictive game to me. It doesn't even really seem like the same style any more.

And i'm sorry, but the combat in DAO was god awful. It was seriously the most boring combat of all time. For consoles, i completely agree with the decision to make the combat more responsive, and less "Push A button and wait till my character waddles over to the enemy".

Yes, but DAO was supposed to be a stat-based RPG, not a twitch-based hack'n'slasher. If that's what you want, got play God of War. Not that RPGs can't do that well... I personally liked the combat gameplay of The Witcher, for instance. But still, that's not what DAO was about.

You seem to be one of those RPG-diehards, whom want everything to stay the old, generic way it has always been. I personally thought ME2 was an amazing game, but what really let it down was it's plot and extreme linearity. The only two problems i and many have with that game. If there were still significant RPG customisation and the plot wasn't about people's personal issues, it would have been an absolute masterpiece. Bioware are taking RPG's to a new level, and if they head towards a good medium between RPG and cinematic, action gameplay, they will certainly be a masterful game develeoper.

My only fear is if they take this new cinematic, action gameplay too far and abandon their RPG roots; and turn out to be another generic shooter company.

You're missing the point of what I want: I don't want every game to, as you put it, "stay the old, generic way it has always been" at all. What I want is for not every game these days to be same stuff. As I said before, DAO might have been an old-school styled game that wasn't fresh in of itself, but in today's gaming market it was a breath of fresh air. Finally we had something that wasn't the same brown, gritty action-packed story-driven hybrid mainstream stuff as everything else... and now the sequel comes along and just becomes more of the same.

So no... I don't want every game to become the same old-school RPGs of old. I just want the ones that were designed that way to stay that way, so that I actually have something that's not the same as everything else. Is it really too much to ask to have a decent RPG in a world of generic action-based hybrids? How can DAO be generic when it's the only game that's even remotely like itself to come out since NWN2? It's everything else out there that's generic.

[Lumikki]

Terror_K wrote...

Lumikki wrote...

If someone gives good criticism as constructive feedback, no-one is agaist it here. They may disagree with it, because different taste and opions, but they aren't agaist giving criticism.

Why some call some people here haters, because some peoples criticism here isn't anymore good criticism, it's pure hate. Basicly these few people just nack, trash talk and nit pick about every aspect of one game while they praise other game, like it was some perfect creation.

Point here is, criticism is fine as long it's stays constructive and selective, but when it's become bitter whining about allmost every aspect of some game, like some people does here, that's just pure hate, not criticism.

What about people who stay constructive but also criticise almost every aspect of the game? I'd personally see myself in that particular category. The amount that's criticised shouldn't determine the validity of the issue(s), the manner in which it's done and the reasoning behind it should.

If people are not selective with they "negative" constructive feedback, but critism allmost everyting in game, then they would be consider as hater too. That's the sign of hater, they complaining about allmost everyting.  Is the complain, it sucks or constructive feedback or valid in someomes opinion, doesn't make any different when categorize is someone hater, it's the amount of critism from different aspects of the game what defines it, not quality. As amount, I don't mean as a few aspect gets alot of complain, I mean allmost every aspect gets complaining from same person. Also remember validity of issue is opinion, not fact, because it's often based persons own taste.

Sometimes people say that I don't hate everyting, I also love "something", but if they posts hardly ever show it anywhere, it's just pointless defence as person trying to reinforce they own ego that what they are doing is fine job, even if it's not.

Modifié par Lumikki, 28 octobre 2010 - 12:32 .

[Iakus]

[quote]Jebel Krong wrote...

[quote]iakus wrote...

[quote]iakus wrote...
What you say is true. Though I find the Liara/Benezia converssation quite touching myself.[/quote]

To each his own I guess "You have always made me proud, Liara" ::queue final round of boss fight::

Of course the game's not going to be deep if no choice, no emotional connection, no belief, ultimately has any meaning.[/quote]

yet you cling to the worst VA in me1 as a shining example of what was good - marina sirtis is an awful actress - always has been - and she sounded like she was in a school play most of the time, there was zero emotional connection there (and liara's lines weren't much better in that conversation, either).[/quote]

Just take it as evidence that I'm easy to please, if the story's halfway decent.

At any rate:

Not the actress, the scene.  Benezia using her last moments of freedom from indoctrination to make peace with her estranged daughter.  Before Liara and Shepard are forced to kill her in self defense.  That moment, that scene.  Was touching. 


[quote]iakus wrote...
Of course, this was before the whole "each game is standalone" deal, reducing the consequences to the equivalent of "I Saved/Killed  The Council And All I Got was This Lousy T-Shirt"[/quote]

the fact that that was obviously going to happen - as every trilogy ever is composed of self-contained stories within an overarching narrative - says everything, i'm afraid.[/quote]

Like I said, makes you wonder why they bothered to import saves at all.  The changes aren't much more than what a questionairre at the beginning would have delivered.

[Getorex]

I was cogitating on the whole ME1, ME2, ME3 thing with continuity and repercussions and mechanics this morning. I have had to conclude this (in short):



ME3 will be much like ME2 in that the decisions you made in ME1 AND in ME2 will have no real impact on how ME3 plays out. It can't happen. Now I will explain NOT in short.



Ideally, what we all want (p=0.0001 me thinks) is that we play ME1 and make all our decisions, which then carry over to ME2 and those decisions have actual impact. Some of the impacts would be minor, other quite major (virtually game-changing). Who you choose as an LI is irrelevant and will remain so throughout the game except for MAYBE some minor changes to character subjective experience here and there. That is not the case elsewhere. In ME1, if you let the Rachni Queen go you get a message from her via an intermediary in ME2 indicating that she is well, she remembers you, she is grateful, will be loyal to you, and you can count on her and the Rachni in the ultimate fight against the Reapers. This is BIG. First, you have saved an alien race thought to be extinct from actual extinction. A formerly very dangerous race that is now your ally and friend. This should have very real repercussions in ME3 but I daresay what it will bring instead is barely a footnote. The final battle, however it goes down, will maybe show a cutscene of Rachni ships entering the fray and there being exclamations to that fact from the various Turian, Asari, and Salarian ship commanders. Same deal goes with the Krogan.



In ME1, what you do with Wrex ACTUALLY is a big deal though it doesn't appear as such in ME1 at the time. Come to ME2, if you don't kill Wrex, he is now in the dominant position on Tuchanka and is working hard on uniting the Krogan together into what would essentially have the probability of becoming good galactic citizens who not only unite, but earn a cure for the genophage (because they prove themselves to be able to control their numbers and their aggression). Boom. You now have the loyalty and friendship and respect of Wrex and, by extension, have the future combined/united Krogan army/fleet ready to stand at your side against the Reapers. This is another Big Deal ™.



On the other hand, if you kill the Rachni Queen, then nothing much changes from before, same goes if you kill Wrex. The Krogan stay disjointed and wracked with infighting, and earn no genophage cure nor a position as good galactic citizens. Big deals both HOWEVER, in no way can your ME1 decisions have ANY affect whatsoever on the actual outcome of the game. With or without the Rachni, with or without the Krogan united, you will defeat the Reapers in a close call (or at least hold them off for another 50k yrs - time to become technologically immune to them). The decisions on the Rachni or Wrex CAN'T have any real effect beyond cosmetic because ME2 assumes you killed both at the beginning unless you do import different decisions from ME1. There's NO WAY Bioware makes a game that starts out, by default, to leave you defeated by the Reapers at the end. Thus, these seemingly big decisions are not big deals at all.



Even more, we have the Council. As has been repeatedly stated by others, the outcome of the battle for the Citadel in ME1 is really a VERY VERY big deal. You either save the council, earning their gratitude AND a place for humans on the Council, or your actions (the militarily smart actions, by the way) leads to the Council being wiped out and an all-human Council created. HUGE deal. But it really is no big deal at all. What would, in fact, create two almost totally different galaxies and galactic civilizations henceforth does nothing of the kind. With the saved Council plus human member, you are ignored, poo-pooed, and left to do things on your own. You may or may not be reinstated as a Spectre, but even this is of no import (Aria and everyone else totally blows off the fact that you are a Spectre - it only counts for something in a VERY minor tiff between a Quarian chick and a Volus **** and a human c-sec **** on the Citadel - IN PASSING). Basically, with the normal Council in place with a human, you get jack squat. If you have an all human Council, you are ignored, poo-pooed, and sent on your way to do things alone and end up with jack squat. No difference at all. Same goes regardless of who you put on the Council, Anderson or Udina. Thus these decisions can not have, and will NOT have, ANY real impact whatsoever on the playthrough and outcome of ME3. All it does is bring along minor side issues, like a few aliens expressing anti-human attitudes if you let the Council die. Nothing else comes of it. Also...ME2 assumes by default that you let the Council die and that Udina heads the human-only Council. Thus there is nothing there that can in any way have any real impact on the outcome of the game, or how that outcome comes about.



Other things don't matter worth dick either. In ME1 you were wiping out Cerberus operations left and right. They were clearly the bad guys. ME2 comes and all that disappears. It doesn't even matter if you play Shepard true to ME1 and have him completely distrust Cerberus and TIM from the beginning or if you go schizophrenic and are all in with Cerberus. It all turns out (apparently) that EVERY operation of Cerberus you dealt with in ME1 was a "rogue operation". All of them. So, apparently Cerberus is, at its core, a nice crew of Rotarians or something that has a chronic (seriously chronic) problem with "rogue operations" growing off it in a geometric expansion. Cerberus is a neutral to good organization with a REALLY serious management and control problem. If your love interest in ME1 was Ashley, then whether or not you are anti-Cerberus or all in with Cerberus come ME2, it ends the same. She is hurt, angry, shocked that you are with Cerberus but later sends you a message apologizing, making everything OK.



ME3 will be ALMOST a reset again (though I think Bioware will not go as far to ****** off the ME2 crowd as they did to ****** off the ME1 crowd - presumably they learned something and trust the game franchise more now). It will play out in a set way and NOTHING you do will change it in any way but cosmetically. You will garner more or less paragon or renegade points and statistically insignificant difference in XPs. Some modest and purely local interactions will change but nothing big will change. It CAN'T.



Here's why. If things had been done the way we would like them to have been done, ME1 would have been a single disc game with all the decisions, big and small, carried over to ME2. ME2, in order to accomodate all the decisions and their realistic downstream effects on the game universe would have required multiple full DVD discs. It would have to be made up of almost 2 or 3 different full games to properly accomodate the snowballing effects of ME1 decisions. It gets worse (or better) for ME3, which has to deal with the repercussions and snowball effects of all the decisions of both ME1 AND ME2. There, you are looking at probably half a dozen full DVDs, each providing a nearly completely different game. ME2 would have taken a year or so longer to produce. ME3 would take probably a doubling of the development time of ME2 UNLESS the entire thing, from day one, had been handled like the Lord of the Rings Trilogy in which the entire shebang was paid for and mapped out early and a LOT of the filming and development went on simultaneously. It would require a huge budget and nonstop work. Otherwise, to do it step by step, developing the next in the series only after the last is finished, would take years longer, with more years between 3 and 2 than there was between 2 and 1.



It would be FANTASTIC if this were the case, on one hand. You could literally play the game dozens of times, making different decisions along the way and experience a unique game in each playthrough in the series. The universe and relationships (both LI and more importantly, galactic civ and society nature) in MY playthroughs would be different and unique from yours. You could spend a year playing the game again and again and not have it get old and repetitive (ME1 would, of necessity, be fairly repetitive since it is the trunk from which all the branches (ME2) and leaves (ME3) grow from).



To do this would require a huge investment and a great deal of confidence by Bioware (or some other game company). Ain't gonna happen. Until they know if the game is going to take off in the first place, they're not going to spill blood and money on further installments and go through the expense of expanding the game geometrically at each sequel. Maybe if a George Soros or Bill Gates decided to throw big big money at a GAME (instead of at malaria or similar) you might get that kind of investment.



In short, lower your expectations. Enjoy the game the way I do: a fun game in an interesting background. Nothing more.

Modifié par Getorex, 28 octobre 2010 - 01:50 .

[Getorex]

With regards to my long previous post. I would actually LOVE to have a developer come out with a well-mapped out story that flowed and changed as you made decisions here and there. If they did all the development and production at the same time using the map then what they might release would be a box with about 8 to 10 DVDs in it. "Here you go. A big game in a big universe." You would play from the first DVD and depending on decisions made, insert a different "game 2a, then game 2b" DVD logically carrying on with your decisions. Get to "please insert game 3b, 3d, 3f" to continue the final portion of the game.



Next playthrough, a different subset of discs go in because you altered your decisions. ME done in this way would have had me playing it for a LONG time. I would be quite happy to have it as the only game on my computer for a year or so as I went through with different decisons and outcomes each time.

[multiyogibear]

I played ME after ME2 and I didn't bother with the inventory system that often.

[glacier1701]

Reading some of the posts recently posted I am surprised to see that there are references to dev interviews that do seem to suggest that BioWare may not be as healthy financially as they should be for a company with the success they have had. Their response to this does seem a bit strange though. If everyone is after the same pie why go after that if you had access to other pies that no-one else was interested in? Even if the pie was smaller surely it is more than what you could gain from the other one especially if you are not then being compared to those others. I do know that my respect for BioWare has gone downhill though not as far as it being placed in the same category as every other game developer except for one but it wont take much more for that to happen.

 

[Getorex]

glacier1701 wrote...

Reading some of the posts recently posted I am surprised to see that there are references to dev interviews that do seem to suggest that BioWare may not be as healthy financially as they should be for a company with the success they have had. Their response to this does seem a bit strange though. If everyone is after the same pie why go after that if you had access to other pies that no-one else was interested in? Even if the pie was smaller surely it is more than what you could gain from the other one especially if you are not then being compared to those others. I do know that my respect for BioWare has gone downhill though not as far as it being placed in the same category as every other game developer except for one but it wont take much more for that to happen.

 

I daresay it is something simple along the lines of "You go with the pie you know." The other pie that no one else is snatching self-reinforces. No one is snatching that pie so it must be a bad pie. Why should I be the first to try that mystery pie. I could end up heaving while everyone else enjoys the known pie.

[glacier1701]

Getorex wrote...

glacier1701 wrote...

Reading some of the posts recently posted I am surprised to see that there are references to dev interviews that do seem to suggest that BioWare may not be as healthy financially as they should be for a company with the success they have had. Their response to this does seem a bit strange though. If everyone is after the same pie why go after that if you had access to other pies that no-one else was interested in? Even if the pie was smaller surely it is more than what you could gain from the other one especially if you are not then being compared to those others. I do know that my respect for BioWare has gone downhill though not as far as it being placed in the same category as every other game developer except for one but it wont take much more for that to happen.

 

I daresay it is something simple along the lines of "You go with the pie you know." The other pie that no one else is snatching self-reinforces. No one is snatching that pie so it must be a bad pie. Why should I be the first to try that mystery pie. I could end up heaving while everyone else enjoys the known pie.

A good point if BioWare had been going after that first pie in the first place. They were known for going for the other pie. All I can see here is that they expect that with their name they can grab enough of the contested pie to make it worthwhile in giving up the other pie. Of course this assumes that they are looking at a long term picture and need to get more money with their projects. Being on the outside we really have no idea what is going on though looking at another small niche game company they (not BioWare) do seem to be doing better than BioWare in that they have 4 large offices, have a consistenly award winning MMO and have an RPG and FPS shooter coming up in 2011/2012 and did all this by catering to that cult audience over the past 7 years or so. Yes they are moving toward the console market but they are not fighting for the same pie as everyone else but going after a different one which they believe exists and will be very profitable.

 In short you can go for the same pie or be forward looking and innovative and try for something new. As Terror says and I agree with this too much of what we see is generic - something out of the ordinary will generate more interest even if not done as well as going for the same old generic stuff would allow.

Modifié par glacier1701, 28 octobre 2010 - 04:09 .

[Killjoy Cutter]

glacier1701 wrote...

Reading some of the posts recently posted I am surprised to see that there are references to dev interviews that do seem to suggest that BioWare may not be as healthy financially as they should be for a company with the success they have had. Their response to this does seem a bit strange though. If everyone is after the same pie why go after that if you had access to other pies that no-one else was interested in? Even if the pie was smaller surely it is more than what you could gain from the other one especially if you are not then being compared to those others. I do know that my respect for BioWare has gone downhill though not as far as it being placed in the same category as every other game developer except for one but it wont take much more for that to happen.

Look at what happened to the consumer/retail computer industry when everyone realized at once that the really-low-price-point consumer was the only untapped part of the consumer market.  In a matter of months, product lines were shifted and/or expanded to chase this "big opportunity"... that could only be tapped with really low profit margins.  Lowest-bidder parts and cut-rate labor ate away at quality, and reputations suffered.  Gateway merged with the craptastic eMachines, and then went out of business.  (Owned by Acer now, and used as Acer's cheapo brand.)  Dell's quality and reputation still haven't recovered.  IBM sold off their laptop devision, which became Lenovo. 

Look at Toyota.  They went from crappy cheapo import cars to having one of the best reputations for quality.  Then, their focus shifted to passing GM in worldwide market share, and in that effort they ended up with a host of quality issues (see also, sticky gas pedals and a other issues that have sparked recalls and damaged their reputation, deservedly so).

Look at what happens when a local restaurant tries to become a chain, or a micro-brewery tries to go big.  The product suffers in almost every instance.

Chasing market share, the "prime market segment", and big growth is almost never good for a company's products.

Modifié par Killjoy Cutter, 28 octobre 2010 - 04:10 .

[Getorex]

glacier1701 wrote...

Getorex wrote...

glacier1701 wrote...

Reading some of the posts recently posted I am surprised to see that there are references to dev interviews that do seem to suggest that BioWare may not be as healthy financially as they should be for a company with the success they have had. Their response to this does seem a bit strange though. If everyone is after the same pie why go after that if you had access to other pies that no-one else was interested in? Even if the pie was smaller surely it is more than what you could gain from the other one especially if you are not then being compared to those others. I do know that my respect for BioWare has gone downhill though not as far as it being placed in the same category as every other game developer except for one but it wont take much more for that to happen.

 

I daresay it is something simple along the lines of "You go with the pie you know." The other pie that no one else is snatching self-reinforces. No one is snatching that pie so it must be a bad pie. Why should I be the first to try that mystery pie. I could end up heaving while everyone else enjoys the known pie.

A good point if BioWare had been going after that first pie in the first place. They were known for going for the other pie. All I can see here is that they expect that with their name they can grab enough of the contested pie to make it worthwhile in giving up the other pie. Of course this assumes that they are looking at a long term picture and need to get more money with their projects. Being on the outside we really have no idea what is going on though looking at another small niche game company they (not BioWare) do seem to be doing better than BioWare in that they have 4 large offices, have a consistenly award winning MMO and have an RPG and FPS shooter coming up in 2011/2012 and did all this by catering to that cult audience over the past 7 years or so. Yes they are moving toward the console market but they are not fighting for the same pie as everyone else but going after a different one which they believe exists and will be very profitable.

 In short you can go for the same pie or be forward looking and innovative and try for something new. As Terror says and I agree with this too much of what we see is generic - something out of the ordinary will generate more interest even if not done as well as going for the same old generic stuff would allow.

Point taken. I would fear that they might seek to be absorbed into a behemoth (say Microsoft) in order to improve their financial backing and stability. I would HATE this because it would mean that all future games (whether ME or otherwise) would be Xbox only. No more PC, no PS3, nothing.

It is hard in this day to NOT be part of one of the big houses black holing any and all good game companies so that their future content is exclusive for one piece of hardware. But that is the direction in which much more financial stability lay.

DON'T DO IT BIOWARE!

Who is this other company you speak of (not Bioware). It isn't a cuss word.

Modifié par Getorex, 28 octobre 2010 - 04:15 .

[SimonTheFrog]

Getorex, the stuff you were cogitating about is not really big news for the forum here.

Of course "big consequences" cannot mean that BioWare has to build two or more different story lines in ME2 and four, five or more in ME3. So, they have to be smart about it and make compromises. And i think that many players who are disappointed about what we have sofar are a bit delusional about the costs of creating content.
Maybe BioWare should have made claims a bit less exagerated about how big the impact of your choices will be, visually. Maybe they put the consequences on hold for ME3 and great things are coming our way anyway.
Alpha Protocol for example is a good study on how consequences can be implemented. The whole game is about choices and seeing what happens. The end-fight is a masterpiece of smartness as you will fight in the same location every time and it will always be some sort of conclusion, but who are you enemies and who are your allies can be very different.
This is what i mean by smart: you cannot create two or three different boss-fights depending on choices, but you can mix stuff up anyway.
For example it would be possible to have three waves of enemies coming at Shepard in ME3. If he has no allies, he will have to fight all three in a row. If he has the Rachni, one wave can be diverted. So, you have 1/3rd less enemies to kill yourself. Maybe with friendly Geth you can divert yet another wave etc etc. It would only require a short cinematic clip and there you go.
No big change in gameplay but it would feel very differently.

But it has to be smart. It can't be what some people want, that the friendly Rachni will trigger an extra space battle sequence that will require a complete new set of levels, cinematics and gameplay mechanics. You can't justify spending so much money on something that many players will never experience.

Some other stuff you write, about Cerberus etc is a complete different problem i think. There was no necessity to make the player ally with Cerberus. It was just a plot decision. Also, killing them in ME1 was not a matter of choice. The sidequests were the same whether you were Paragon or Renegade. So, somehow this doesn't fit the discussion about choice and consequence.

Anyway... lets give BioWare a break for the consequence stuff. I think they did an ok job, considering the importing a save-game is a new one and that it worked was awesome already. Maybe they should have made a few choices less dramatic, knowing that such a thing would raise the expectations to a level that they wouldn't be able to meet, but all in all i think they are doing a very very good job dealing with the complexity of the matter.

P.S. being part of a big company doesn't help much in the end. They are EA but this only helps getting the funds for a project. If the project fails, than the team will be dissolved nontheless. 

Modifié par SimonTheFrog, 28 octobre 2010 - 04:21 .

[glacier1701]

Getorex,



Its CCP, the company that produces EvE.

[Getorex]

SimonTheFrog wrote...

Getorex, the stuff you were cogitating about is not really big news for the forum here.

Of course "big consequences" cannot mean that BioWare has to build two or more different story lines in ME2 and four, five or more in ME3. So, they have to be smart about it and make compromises. And i think that many players who are disappointed about what we have sofar are a bit delusional about the costs of creating content.
Maybe BioWare should have made claims a bit less exagerated about how big the impact of your choices will be, visually. Maybe they put the consequences on hold for ME3 and great things are coming our way anyway.
Alpha Protocol for example is a good study on how consequences can be implemented. The whole game is about choices and seeing what happens. The end-fight is a masterpiece of smartness as you will fight in the same location every time and it will always be some sort of conclusion, but who are you enemies and who are your allies can be very different.
This is what i mean by smart: you cannot create two or three different boss-fights depending on choices, but you can mix stuff up anyway.
For example it would be possible to have three waves of enemies coming at Shepard in ME3. If he has no allies, he will have to fight all three in a row. If he has the Rachni, one wave can be diverted. So, you have 1/3rd less enemies to kill yourself. Maybe with friendly Geth you can divert yet another wave etc etc. It would only require a short cinematic clip and there you go.
No big change in gameplay but it would feel very differently.

But it has to be smart. It can't be what some people want, that the friendly Rachni will trigger an extra space battle sequence that will require a complete new set of levels, cinematics and gameplay mechanics. You can't justify spending so much money on something that many players will never experience.

Some other stuff you write, about Cerberus etc is a complete different problem i think. There was no necessity to make the player ally with Cerberus. It was just a plot decision. Also, killing them in ME1 was not a matter of choice. The sidequests were the same whether you were Paragon or Renegade. So, somehow this doesn't fit the discussion about choice and consequence.

Anyway... lets give BioWare a break for the consequence stuff. I think they did an ok job, considering the importing a save-game is a new one and that it worked was awesome already. Maybe they should have made a few choices less dramatic, knowing that such a thing would raise the expectations to a level that they wouldn't be able to meet, but all in all i think they are doing a very very good job dealing with the complexity of the matter.

P.S. being part of a big company doesn't help much in the end. They are EA but this only helps getting the funds for a project. If the project fails, than the team will be dissolved nontheless.

I was kinda thinking as I was writing too. Just imaging that a game done that way, while virtually impossible, would be REALLY rather cool. And your points are solid and as we do not have access to inner meetings and plans we cannot but guess at the reasons for various decisions (though I think they all boil down to bean counter stuff, ie, money).

I haven't heard of Alpha Protocol. I'll have to look it up though unless it comes in a PC version...I don't even look at console games.

[macrocarl]

Getorex: Alpha Protocol is awesome in a zillion ways. From what you've written I think you might really like it! It's on PC and consoles and you should go pick it up. It's stat based shooting and the graphics are a tad behind but it's really good once you get used to it. And the decision making and the order of things is air tight! I played 4 times and had totally different plays. Not just character class changes but huge narrative shifts.



And on topic, the only thing I really didn't like was the end boss. I keep picturing giant guy riding a collector ship like a horse with his wang flapping in the cosmic breeze. Overall though, seriously, the feel of ME was more dark and meaty to me. Hope they get back to that. They handled Jacob really bad too. He was like light FM Oh Yeah guy + white guy in too many of the dialoges. And Jack came off as a low rent Angelina Jolie at points. I can't stand Angelina Jolie, so by saying Jack was 'low rent' I mean laughable.

[Getorex]

Terror_K wrote...

TOR is the only game they're making that comes across as being classic BioWare. At least one of the major devs there said that TOR wasn't for the casual and mainstream market and was aimed at fans of BioWare, Star Wars and RPGs as a whole. It's like everything I like about BioWare games is almost only happening with TOR and it's sucked all the good from Mass Effect and Dragon Age in the process now.



I look at updates for TOR and aside from a few things here and there (such as voiced player characters, which in an MMO is friggin stupid and a waste of resources, IMO) I like most of the stuff I hear. TOR really is the only BioWare title in the future that is making me go "do want!" at the moment. DA2 looks like a console-ified, dumbed down, overly mainstreamed mess and while there isn't much yet on ME3 BioWare's current attitude and ME2 aren't making be all that confident.

Quick question...what is TOR?

[pcrisipm]

TOR -- star wars the old republic (http://www.swtor.com/)

[Pocketgb]

Terror_K wrote...
*snippet* the mechanics have been dumbed down

That's too early to judge. If they do decently then it'll be a quality > quantity situation.

Terror_K wrote...
but instead it looks like the same generic overly gritty crap that every second game out there today is using a colour palette from the dirt spectrum. 

DA:O's art style was also "brown and bloom", as you'd like to put it. But much of the time the game used it to illustrate a calm, warm mood as opposed to the 'post-apocalyptic' craze that's going on right now.

What're the differences I've seen thus far in DA2? Mainly in how the armors are designed, and so far the Darkspawn. Judging anything else is way too early at this point. However, the way the trailer 'black-and-whites' things (dunno how better to phrase it) can be a bit understandably agitating.

Terror_K wrote...
That's not to say that DA2 might not be a decent game, but as a sequel to the original Dragon Age it seems severely lacking to me.

And how is that determined, by the fans? Many of which are supporting DA2? Granted there's more of a case with ME2, but DA2 isn't as 'direct' of a sequel: Same universe, different setting, different hero.

Terror_K wrote...
Yes, but DAO was supposed to be a stat-based RPG, not a twitch-based hack'n'slasher. If that's what you want, got play God of War. Not that RPGs can't do that well... I personally liked the combat gameplay of The Witcher, for instance. But still, that's not what DAO was about.

Bolded for emphasis. The Star Wars series has encompassed many genres over the years, so if I asked you what a Star Wars game should be about, what could you say besides the fact that it's about its universe?

Modifié par Pocketgb, 28 octobre 2010 - 09:34 .