250 réponses à ce sujet

[Malanek]

BrotherWarth wrote...

I remember that. Every preview that came out said how great the shooting was, how fluid the combat felt compared to the first, and how the powers were more useful. But they never said anything about the RPG elements being improved. People starting getting nervous about ME2 being described as a shooter. Bioware kept saying that nothing was being changed or removed, the combat was just being made better. Then previews started getting more in-depth. People found out about the dumbed-down leveling system and lack of customizable weapons and armor. Bioware still insisted that it was going to be just like ME1 with better combat. Then people found out that was no inventory system and that the game was shorter than ME1. But Bioware stil insisted it was the same as ME1 but with better combat. Well, that was obviously untrue. Completely untrue. Now all we see and hear of DA2 is telling the same story, but Bioware keeps saying its the same as DAO but with better combat. I'm not making this topic to call Bioware liars and whine. I'm making it because some people are so vehemently opposed to any criticism of the game and consider anything but praise and adoration for Bioware blasphemy.
It should be pretty obvious at this point that we're not actually going to get DAO with better combat. It really is 'Dragon Effect'. The Lead Designer for Origins turned down the job for DA2 because he didn't like the direction they decided to take it and even left Bioware after 10 years because he didn't like what Bioware has become. So can't people be on the fence or even against DA2 without being called whiners, fanboys, misinformed, or any other insults?

Honestly I get people have different opinions but this is one thing I just can't understand. They didn't remove RPG elements from ME1. They removed all the clunky, tedious, repetitive crap (although they did add scanning) that made the first game a pretty poor game system that was propped up by a very good setting and story. ME1 was not longer than ME2 unless you wasted time hunting for all the elements. ME1 took me between 6 and 12 hours for each opf my playthroughs. ME2 takes around 15-20, and the quality is so much better.

I do have some concerns about DA2. There is quite a bit of stuff I wouldn't have done. I don't like a fully voiced protagonist because of the other changes it enforces (dialogue wheel, less dialogue, lack of choice in character creation etc). I don't like a lot of the graphics we have seen nor what we have heard about the camera. I am nervous about the combat system (some things I have heard about it I like, quite a few things I don't, very difficult to judge until you see how it plays).

Other things I have heard about DA2 I like. I can see some really neat story telling techniques used with framed narrative. I like the hints we have heard about the story. I like the fact it is set over a longer period of time with a new character but importing consequences from the previous game.

I am pretty convinced I will still enjoy DA2 for the characters, dialogue and story (which are the key RPG elements) even if there are quite few I don't like. I also strongly believe they are focusing on removing tedium from the game, which is another good thing.

Modifié par Malanek999, 06 octobre 2010 - 08:42 .

[David Gaider]

AlanC9 wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

Right-- I didn't mean to spark a "what is an RPG?" discussion. Maybe it wasn't me, but either way if that's the kind of discussion you want to have please go do it in Off Topic. If you can't discuss this topic without getting into a throwdown over semantics, then I'll shut it down.

It's kind of implicit in the topic, isn't it? The OP's issue was that he feels Bio marketing has been misleading in the case of ME, and might be misleading again with DA. But that puts what you expect from DA2 in play.

We can avoid talking about RPGs in general by talking specifically about what DAO is and what DA2 will be, I guess. And even about what ME1 and ME2 were, since the question of whether Bio's communications about those games were accurate is relevant.

Yes, but people don't keep on the topic of DA2. They go off on tangents and start debating the nature of RPG's-- and, no, that's NOT relevant to DA2. If the subject of DA2's RPG elements can't be discussed without going into it, than it doesn't belong here and was probably too general a subject to begin with.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Meltemph wrote...

As it stands though, the market has decided the definitions and until otherwise halted or changed, you can't expect the expectations to not vary from person to person.

But if the features I care about aren't described using these new genre labels (they might be in an RPG, but they might not), then I've lost a useful tool.

The Masked Rog wrote...

But an RPG goes beyond the mechanics. It has nothing to do with whether a game has inventory, party combat, isometric view, etc... A Roleplaying game puts the PC on a role and lets him have a degree of control over that role. How that is interpreted is pretty much a personal thing, and can't really be judged objectively. 

Now you're trying to define "RPG", and that's not going to get us anywhere.

WilliamShatner wrote...

Er no.  The more you fight the more experience you get the better you become.  This is part of real ife.  Not progressing as a fighter after killing 100 enemies is not logical AT ALL.

No XP for kills in ME2 made combat shallow and hollow.  Why am I doing this if I'm not progressing?  Just get me back to the story then.

That's the problem.  Most RPGs contain a perverse incentive to kill everything even if there's no story-based reason for it.

If there are two paths through the enemy base, ME2 was the first game in a long time not to give you a reason to go back down the second path to kill everyone after you'd already finished the first one (which is all you needed).

XP for kills just promotes farming.

JrayM16 wrote...

To the first point, really?  I think you've been pretty constructive in you speech overall, and then you go and stick a paradoxical statement as a critique for my post.

You used "I know it when I see it", a famous judicial justification that is universally ridiculed.

But on to the other part, I beleive that my point is completely valid.  I kinda like my RPGs with a little bit more action and cinematic story.  Others don't.  Is one version not an RPG? 

Whether one is an RPG is irrelevant to whether you or someone else enjoys the game.

But it's still a useful label.

Back to whatever time you are referring to, (I'm assuming the late 90s) all PC RPGs did have all the features you wanted.  But even these were an evolution off of an older kind of RPG, ones that often had no story or little story to speak of.  Are these not RPGs? 

My point is that the definition isn't useful if it doesn't identify the characteristics that matter to a given player.

And I was probabaly referring to late-80s games rather than late-90s games.

[Pauravi]

WilliamShatner wrote...

No XP for kills in ME2 made combat shallow and hollow.  Why am I doing this if I'm not progressing?

But you are progressing.  You're just progressing for completing missions rather than eliminating bad guys.  You still get experience, you still gain more proficiency in your various skills.

But the idea that you get some quantity of skill from every bad guy you put a hole in is silly, even in abstract terms.  Sure, maybe at first, when you had never dealt with Geth before maybe that is true.  Shepard has shot more than enough Geth and Mercs that one more isn't going to teach to be better at anything.  Real experience comes from finding solutions to -- and dealing with -- new problems or situations, which is exactly what you get experience for in ME2.

[Icinix]

The OP sparked two things that stand out in my mind.



1) The fan base is indeed sometimes a bit...passionate in their beliefs. But thats what the internet has done. You worry less about feelings when it's just text on a screen.



2) BioWare is sometimes a bit too....eager with their early marketing. But there is nothing wrong with that, they love what they do and want to share. Most games early marketing shows a bit that ends up on the cutting room floor. I'm fine with that, it's like all those bits in movie trailers that you never see in the movie.



Sometimes I'm rabid with joy in games, sometimes I'm disappointed with the direction. But am always throughly entertained with BioWare games. That later one is the most important.

[Sable Rhapsody]

AlanC9 wrote...

Sable Rhapsody wrote...
My point is that using "older games" to try and define newer games is an ultimately futile task given how freely newer games draw increasingly from mechanics that were previously considered part of distinct families.  Look at games like Valkyria Chronicles, Puzzle Quest, Heavy Rain.  A veritable hodgepodge of different mechanics that, in older games, belong to different genres.  A more precise way to define a game would be to simply dispense with genre and just list the core mechanics.  ME2 is a story and dialogue driven game with shooter-based pause-and-play combat, moderately customizable PC, a parsed-down inventory system, party-building, mission-based XP, etc.  Obviously it's not a good marketing catchphrase, but you sacrifice ease for precision.

Which actually seems to be in agreement with the_one.

So relating this to the actual topic, DAO's mechanics are much more traditional RPG than ME's are. DA2s will be slightly less traditional because of the voiced protagonist. But Bio's been perfectly clear about this; a voiced protagonists is a selling point for them.

What should Bio have said differently about ME2?

I am mostly in agreement.  I simply think that dispensing with genre titles like RPG, puzzle-platformer, etc. altogether might be a more precise (if not more practical) way to categorize games, especially since so many gameplay elements turn up in so many different types of games.

Anyway, back on topic.  

As for DA2, what we've seen so far points to the core mechanics of DA2 being XP-based and stat-based level-up, voiced protagonist, story-driven framed narrative, party-based combat...apart from the PC voicing, the other stuff sounds kinda like DA:O to me.  DA:O implemented differently perhaps (linear vs. framed narrative, increasing combat responsiveness and speed), but it doesn't seem like a huge qualitative difference.

[AtreiyaN7]

Ah, hello, they had a weapons locker and an armor/clothing locker in ME2. You just don't carry them around with you - or did your weapons and gear just magically appear out of nowhere? This is a matter of semantics. You just don't want to call it an "inventory system" because you're not carrying all that crap around with you all the time AND because you don't get those trillion useless weapons/armor mods and the assorted useless iterations of weapons from I-XIII. (EDIT: so tired of even seeing this after the endless arguments on the ME2 forums over it).

As for the other stuff about people making you angry, yeah, that's like a personal issue. If you have actual points to make about the game(s), then make them. You bring up the issue of the Mako, knowing full-well that oftentimes promised features don't always make it into games. That's probably why BioWare is trying to avoid this kind of thing on TOR with only releasing info on features that are locked down (although they may have eased up on that recently) - to avoid being accused of being liars and breaking promises.

It's probably because you see people on other forums doing it all the time in with other MMOs and games. A dev tries to be nice or is excited about their concept, and they tell people about the amazing things they want to implement. Fast-forward months/years and bam: people say the company was intentionally lying/breaking promises because feature x didn't make it into the game. I think that the devs of that horrible game APB knew that they were producing a piece of junk and basically lied about things, but that's only one case (which appears to be backed up after some articles). However, I think that in the majority of cases when promises aren't kept/features don't make it into a game, it's just a matter of the devs meaning well and just not being able to pull something off.

As for DA2 - do tell where the changes are in terms of the mechanics that make it somehow LESS of an RPG. Since we retain stats/attributes and actually get detailed skill trees that allow greater customization than in DA:O, I don't see a problem overall. We have the ability to pause & play just like before on the PC. If you want to argue over the switch to a voiced protagonist, eh, been done to death in another thread as far as I'm concerned.

Modifié par AtreiyaN7, 06 octobre 2010 - 11:21 .

[_____o_O___]

Love catagories. Many people don't agree on the specifics and general definitions are pointless. If the game doesn't have what you want don't play it. For some DA is an rpg and for others it isn't. Don't know about the second game since I haven't played it though so far for me it seems to be a type of rpg.

[Sylvius the Mad]

AtreiyaN7 wrote...

Ah, hello, they had a weapons locker and an armor/clothing locker in ME2. You just don't carry them around with you - or did your weapons and gear just magically appear out of nowhere?

Actually, they did just magically appear out of nowhere.  Given that you could access any weapon you had - even unique weapons - from any weapon locker in the galaxy meant that ME2 had the same inventory system as any other game.  It was just harder to use because you couldn't access it all the time.  The weapon lockers served exactly the same gameplay purpose as save points.

Which is to say, none.  They were just annoying.

[Sylvius the Mad]

_____o_O___ wrote...

If the game doesn't have what you want don't play it.

Don't know about the second game since I haven't played it

How do you reconcile those two statements.  If you don't like it, don't play it.  But you can't tell if you like it without playing it.

You've created an unsolvable problem.

[JrayM16]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

_____o_O___ wrote...

If the game doesn't have what you want don't play it.

Don't know about the second game since I haven't played it

How do you reconcile those two statements.  If you don't like it, don't play it.  But you can't tell if you like it without playing it.

You've created an unsolvable problem.

I think that was the point he was trying to make, that this is an unsolvable problem.

[_____o_O___]

Either what others have said who have played the game that you trust or don't keep playing if you found you didn't like it. Could borrow it from a friend or play at thier place etc to decide or listen to those you trust. Watch game vids, etc.

So nope no unsolvable problem for me.

As for rpgness yep seems to be that way. No easy way to solve it.

Modifié par _____o_O___, 06 octobre 2010 - 09:33 .

[JamieCOTC]

For me, ME2 did a lot of great things w/ combat and to a lesser degree, inventory, armor and weapons. All of that was streamlined and for a space opera I don't mind that. They also improved the side quests, but w/ improvements in variety, they sacrificed immersion.  With only a couple of exceptions the side quests, while fun, really meant nothing. Where ME2 really failed to deliver was in the overall story.  The biggest offense being that I felt Shepard was no longer the star of the show.  S/he just seemed to be there to bounce around with all these other characters and we never got a sense of who s/he is.  That's not to mention all the wasted potential with Shep coming back from the dead, being part cyborg, etc, etc, etc.  Hell, if you're going to do that, save the money and just give me a silent character and a dialogue tree.  As for Hawke (God, I hate that name) I have a better feeling.  The game is about how s/he defines both the world and (hopefully) himself or herself. Just like Shepard in ME1, Hawke (God, I hate that name) will not be the same character at the end of the game as s/he was in the beginning.  In ME2, I did not feel Shepard progressed as a character.  S/he may have been a little more jaded at the end, but it was nothing like ME1.

As for DA2, I'm still on the fence.  There is simply not enough info out there to make a decision and a large part of my hesitation is the voice acting.  For me, that's going to make or break the game. BW marketing team, if you are listening, I HAVE to hear both Mike and Marion before making a decision.  Get to it.

[AlanC9]

Sable Rhapsody wrote...
As for DA2, what we've seen so far points to the core mechanics of DA2 being XP-based and stat-based level-up, voiced protagonist, story-driven framed narrative, party-based combat...apart from the PC voicing, the other stuff sounds kinda like DA:O to me.  DA:O implemented differently perhaps (linear vs. framed narrative, increasing combat responsiveness and speed), but it doesn't seem like a huge qualitative difference.

That's pretty much the impression I've got, too. One more difference is that the classes have somewhat more defined roles this time around, but that's fairly subtle.

[Sable Rhapsody]

JamieCOTC wrote...
  As for Hawke (God, I hate that name) I have a better feeling.  The game is about how s/he defines both the world and (hopefully) himself or herself. Just like Shepard in ME1, Hawke (God, I hate that name) will not be the same character at the end of the game as s/he was in the beginning.  In ME2, I did not feel Shepard progressed as a character.  S/he may have been a little more jaded at the end, but it was nothing like ME1.

As for DA2, I'm still on the fence.  There is simply not enough info out there to make a decision and a large part of my hesitation is the voice acting.  For me, that's going to make or break the game. BW marketing team, if you are listening, I HAVE to hear both Mike and Marion before making a decision.  Get to it.

Really?  I felt like my Shepard changed a lot over the course of ME2.  Of course, part of that is in-game and part of that is in my head.  Paragade, fiercely anti-Cerberus Sole Survivor Shep being forced to work with some of her worst enemies for a common cause?  That changes a person, or at least forces them to confront some issues head-on.  

But I agree with you on Hawke.  I want Hawke to morph, change, and evolve over a decade.  Also, that's a lot longer timespan than the two years for ME1 and ME2, most of which you spent dead as a doornail.

[AtreiyaN7]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

AtreiyaN7 wrote...

Ah, hello, they had a weapons locker and an armor/clothing locker in ME2. You just don't carry them around with you - or did your weapons and gear just magically appear out of nowhere?

Actually, they did just magically appear out of nowhere.  Given that you could access any weapon you had - even unique weapons - from any weapon locker in the galaxy meant that ME2 had the same inventory system as any other game.  It was just harder to use because you couldn't access it all the time.  The weapon lockers served exactly the same gameplay purpose as save points.

Which is to say, none.  They were just annoying.

Yes, I know that there were lockers that appeared out in the middle of nowhere - when I said "out of nowhere" I was referring to the OP's apparent insistence that ME2 had NO inventory system whatsoever. I did find the weapons lockers in the middle of nowhere sort of questionable, but in some places I can see that being acceptable - like Omega where you might expect mercs to have stations like that. *sigh* 

Please don't try to twist around what I said, as I specifically mentioned the lockers. The fact that they were stationed in odd places is a different subject entirely.

[Khayness]

Remember when a Gamepro quote on the DA:O website said "this will be the game to set the RPG bar for years to come."?

Those years lasted like what, 'till RtO or Awakening?

[The Masked Rog]

Khayness wrote...

Remember when a Gamepro quote on the DA:O website said "this will be the game to set the RPG bar for years to come."?

Those years lasted like what, 'till RtO or Awakening?

I wouldn't say that Awakening surpassed Origins, but it was indeed a worthy successor. 

[Addai]

BrotherWarth wrote...

That's pure conjecture on your part. I don't see that in what he wrote at all. He specifically mentions the tactical gameplay and customization of Origins but says nothing of cinematic story telling.

He did talk about "becoming the hero," mentioning customization, but choice is part of roleplay.

An interesting post, regardless.  Lead designer changing late in DAO production, hmm.  That could explain some things, like why the DLCs have been so comparatively poor and why DA2 sounds like a different game.

Re the OP, it's simply too soon to tell for sure.  Have to wait for some reviews.  I sure haven't liked a lot of what I've heard about the changes, though we'll probably get it because Alistair's in it and because I'm so effin weak.

[TMZuk]

AtreiyaN7 wrote...

.....

As for DA2 - do tell where the changes are in terms of the mechanics that make it somehow LESS of an RPG. SInce we retain stats/attributes and actually get detailed skill trees that allow greater customization than in DA:O, I don't see a problem overall. We have the ability to pause & play just like before on the PC. If you want to argue over the switch to a voiced protagonist, eh, been done to death in another thread as far as I'm concerned.

That is easily replied to.

Less character customization. A major thing about playing an RPG for me, is the ability to really create a character the way I envision him/her. Choose race, wonder about strong points and weak points, and personality. Here, I am offered human, male or female, mage, rogue or warrior. Exciting. Well, then, I'll make a... warrior, with a bit of rogue-skills, dual-wielding, perhaps with a spell or two.... Uh... no. I'll make a warrior using sword/shield, or twohanded sword. I am..... overwhelmed.

Now, DA:O was already very limited in character-creation, but it at least had the different origins and races, which made for some varity. This is going to be just like ME2. I played it, it was fun, but it was an interactive movie, not an RPG. No replay-value whatsoever.... because, hey..... should I play Sheperd, Sheperd... or perhaps Shepard?

Then there's the voice-acting you refuse to debate. Well, sorry, but that is a major grievance. As I've said more times than I remember, I can't stand how Mark Meer plays Sheperd. Like a piece of wood. Jennifer Hale did a far better job, but still, she too made me cringe my toes several times. Because, I have no control over what she says. I'm presented with a silly wheel, and have to hope that it comes out as I would like it... but to often it does not. So if I was to buy DA2 I would have to hope, cross my fingers and pray that at least one of the actors can present a character I can at least somewhat relate to?

Bioware seemed briefly to be reaching back to their roots with DA:O. but everything they have made since shows clearly that they indeed are not the company they once were, more's the shame. Reading Brent Knowles' blog was very enlightening, thanks for posting it. It explained a lot of things I couldn't make sense of before. He apparantly left feeling that him and the company had drifted to far from each other. So I guess it all comes down to that I'll stop buying Bioware games, since they no longer produce the sort of games I like. Shame, but well... Thanks for the games you did make. I'll probably buy ME3 just to see how Sheperd ends, but DA2? I doubt it.

[_____o_O___]

Other than bg/nwn I don't remember being able to choose a lot of different types of humanoids. Mostly could choose some looks and male/female human. Never have I come across a bioware game that let me choose to mix skills to a large extent other than predefined classes.

TES games did that kind of stuff though.

As far as VA and rpgness of games. That can be argued till the end days.

Modifié par _____o_O___, 06 octobre 2010 - 10:22 .

[Merced256]

David Gaider wrote...

Right-- I didn't mean to spark a "what is an RPG?" discussion. Maybe it wasn't me, but either way if that's the kind of discussion you want to have please go do it in Off Topic. If you can't discuss this topic without getting into a throwdown over semantics, then I'll shut it down.

It was you, completely, and not without you taking your shots at the crowd who doesn't exactly feel like ME2 was really a RPG. Its been debated more times than can be counted, no one is right, no one is wrong. A RPG is what people want it to be, not what you think it is, not what i think it is. So why bait them like that Dave?

[durasteel]

My opinion is that there were no RPG elements lost between the two games. The character progression became more streamlined, but you retained a couple of choices as to how your Shepard would progress in each of the classes, and most of what was removed was clutter - things which remained the same for the vast majority of characters and players. The ability to hack terminals, for example, was removed from the skill list and upgrades were accomplished instead through the purchase of upgrades.

Armor and weapon customization was not removed, only the inventory was. The truth is that the Mass Effect 1 inventory was a nightmare, and it needed to go. Their solution was elegant.  I really like the mix-and-match N7 armor that you upgrade through buying boosts.  It made me happy.

That said, the Dragon Age inventory was not nearly so great a problem. It was not perfect, and it sometimes got in the way, and managing it could be tedious, but I did not at the time really consider that it was a significant issue after the camp storage chest was implemented (except that it wasn't big enough, considering the amount of drops.)

Now that I am thinking of it, however, it does seem that it would be more elegant to give characters continued access to Wade and Herren, and unlock types of armor and materials as you bring them to Wade. It seems like perhaps that was where the development team was headed with Awakening, actually. This would also solve some of the drop issues in Origins, specifically that the drops were very heavy for the light and massive armors, heavy for the heavy armors, and too light for medium armor. Scale, in particular, was annoyingly rare.

I suppose that some people really like to mess around with inventories, but I do not. It is not a role playing feature to me, at all... it is just a nuisance. In fact, it is really non-heroic to go poking around in piles of rags and old crates looking for loose change and poor quality gear to sell for a few coins. I wouldn't miss it if it were gone.

As far as leveling up, I thought it was ok for warriors, pretty good for mages, and poor for rogues. Warriors chose a development path, and then it was pretty straightforward how you should assign points after that. Mages had too many choices, and it became frustrating when you realised that you could never have the mix of spells that you really wanted. Rogues had to choose between completing their rogue stuff and completing a combat style, there simply were not enough points to do both. After my second play-through, I began to dump extra points on the rogues in my party with the editor to correct that problem.

Modifié par durasteel, 06 octobre 2010 - 10:22 .

[David Gaider]

TMZuk wrote...
So I guess it all comes down to that I'll stop buying Bioware games, since they no longer produce the sort of games I like. Shame, but well... Thanks for the games you did make. I'll probably buy ME3 just to see how Sheperd ends, but DA2? I doubt it.

That'd be too bad. See you around.

As for everyone else, of course one's personal definition of an RPG has relevance whether you consider DA2 enough of an RPG for you personally. There were people that felt DAO wasn't enough of an RPG, never mind DA2, so taking our statement to indicate we feel everyone (and especially you) will agree it's exactly the RPG you want is a bit unfair-- we consider it to have what is important about an RPG. We've been pretty up-front about the things we're changing, and while people can say whatever they like we don't feel that our game stops being an RPG any more than we feel it's become exactly like Mass Effect.

We're not apologetic about these changes, as we think there are things about Origins that needed improvement. Maybe not the same things some of you thought, but there you are. There are also things about Origins we kept and loved, and some of the things we changed we might even return to in the future-- this is one project, not a Manifesto of RPG Intent for all the world to bow down before.

And why am I defending it, anyhow? I suppose it sounds like apologizing when you repeat yourself often enough. So I guess I'll just shrug and leave you to it. Please keep the shouting to a dull roar.

Modifié par David Gaider, 06 octobre 2010 - 10:22 .

[AlanC9]

That isn't precisely responsive to AtreiyaN7's question, but OTOH the whole topic is out-of-bounds according to Gaider.