5 réponses à ce sujet

[ganp0t]

I first thought of this after posting in a different thread on these forums.  Many companies (includeing Bioware) claim to listen to their fans.  But what if a company went one step further?  I propose an experiment in the way games are made.  Basically, the idea would be for Bioware to have their fans vote in polls on their website, and build a game completely out of what the majority voted for.  Every major story and gameplay decision will be voted on.  Bioware's expertise is RPG's, so lets assume that would already be decided.  Fans would decide what era the RPG would be set in, what the main enemy type is, the ending (generalized), who the main character is, many of the side characters, how the antagonist acts, and most of the game mechanics.  Some of the results of the polls would have to be hidden to allow for surprises.  If Bioware had 1 poll every week, then this shouldn't take too long.  It would be very interesting to see how well the game did.  The polls would give Bioware the major info, and they could fill in the gaps from there.  This game could be the first game truely able to say it was made by fans. So, would you like to see Bioware (or any company) try this?  Or will this idea create an abomination so terrible that it would melt the eyes of any who dare to play it?

EDIT:  Just to be clear, the majority vote would rule, the poll options would be determined by Bioware, and choices would not be at all specific (stuff like, does a major companion ever die in the story). 

Also, I just thought of an instance when a major developer did something similar.  In gears of war 3, the devs had a sort of poll or vote, by the fans, to see if one of the side characters should live or die (Carmine, I think).  This is a perfect example of the type of thing I want, and I can't believe I didn't think of it earlier. 

Modifié par ganp0t, 04 novembre 2010 - 11:04 .

[Stanley Woo]

Remember The Homer? IT's a great example of a company taking a risk on what is essentially a "fan project," and failing miserably. Game development is not easy, and it takes a team working together with a unified vision in order to get it all together.

the OP's suggestion might be a great fantasy for some alternate-universe developer to try, but the process would be just too unwieldy to do well. Just a few of the questions I had when I read the concept included:

- who gets to submit feature ideas? how detailed do they have to be in order to make it to the vote?
- who determines which features make it to the vote? how many in the vote list?
- who gets to vote on the feature? how often? where is the vote held?
- how many features are decided before the developers start working?
- who determines the order in which features are voted on?
- can mutually exclusive features make it onto the same list?
- how many developers work on it? what do the idle developers do? do they still get paid?
- how much leeway do developers have to modify the voted-in feature while in development?
- how much autonomy does the developer have to make decisions? what has to be voted on?

And most importantly:
- who's going to pay for all of it?
- how will it be marketed?
- who'd buy it?
- how good does it have to be? how good can it possibly be?

Modifié par Stanley Woo, 04 novembre 2010 - 05:42 .

[Stanley Woo]

ganp0t wrote...
What if Infinity Ward had laughed at the idea of creating a modern shooter instead of a WW2 one?

Then they would have developed a different game, which may or may not have succeeded. it's what game developers do.

What if Bioware had never thought it possible to have a Star Wars RPG?

then we would have done something different, which may or may not have succeeded. It's what we game developers do.

Sometimes you just gotta take a chance and hope for the best.

Sure, but remember that you're talking about multi-million dollar projects that take up to 100 people a couple years to do, and that's just on their own initiative. the larger the project, or the greater the number of people making decisions, the longer it's going to take.

The polls could be designed by the dev team, and that way they wouldn't be contradictary.  Here, I can give a few examples right now:
1. what era should the game be set in?   a. ancient or early medieval / b. industrial / c. modern / d. early future / e. distant future
2. what class level should the protagonist come from? a. lowest class / b. middle class / c. upper class / d. ruler
3. to what extend should the looks of the protagonist be cutomizable? a. not at all / b. limited (presets only) / c. open
These could determine the questions to follow (enemy types, further plot developments), and already form the rough basis of a plot.  The key is to use very general questions. 

So concept art and story aren't even decided on before these polls start. Yeah, this project would take a looooooooooooong time. In fact, with questions like #2, it seems that you feel the devs should be using polls to write the story. I can't imagine how slowly dialogue writing will go.

"All right, so Jimson the Green is talking to an old man. How does he greet him?
a) Hello.
Good day, sir.
c) Pickles and Yahtzee!
d) Die, betrayer!

And how does the old man respond to this first line?
a) positively
negatively
c) neither positively nor angrily
d) unusually
e) dance!

What letter should be predominant in Jimson's dialogue?
a) a
b
c) c
d) r
e) blue"

Modifié par Stanley Woo, 04 novembre 2010 - 05:58 .

[Stanley Woo]

Challseus wrote...
I think this would be a horrible, horrible decision on the part of Bioware. The very fact that the people who come on these forums aren't even the majority of people who play their games should be reason enough to not even think of this.

I was giving the benefit of the doubt and assuming that we had complete buy-in from our playerbase for this hypothetical game.

Then again, Bioware is smarter than that, so we have nothing to worry about

Durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

[Stanley Woo]

Homer is an example of a "fan" who has a lot of ideas about what he wanted in an ideal car. In that episode, he represents the forum-goer.



It appears from your answers to my questions, ganp0t, that you're not really familiar with how game development works. On the one hand, you want the game to be determined by the fans based on polls, but on the other hand, you want the game developer to do roughly twice the amount of work for negative benefit (ie. taking more time to design features, not being able to coordinate workflow, having less autonomy while doing more work outside the game).

4. the first few polls determine the game type, after that the dev team can start brainstorming alongside the polls

This is work that should be in the pre-production stage, before anyone else hears about the project at all. Only a few people are involved at this stage of the project, because there is little development work being done and a lot of concept art, organizational meetings, and budgeting and scheduling. It is at this point that the vision of the project is created, and that is very hard to do when you've got a dozen disparate voices voting on what that vision is.

7. as many as Bioware or EA see fit to work on it / The other devs work on other projects or brainstorm new polls or do concept type stuff (you'll think of something) / if they are still working, then yes. if they aren't currently working, assign them to another game until they are needed

This is assuming there is another project for them to go to. Usually, if there's no other work for people to do, the studio lets them go. Of course, i'm assuming that this hypothetical concept is a viable project that possibly could get funded.

8. the poll questions and answers will be general in nature, but the devs must go with the winning ones. Although if a poll said the protagonist was a peasant, then the devs could establish that he was a peasant in the first cutscene or level, and then make him the emperor

This explanation essentially makes any poll useless, as it means any poll result (that the developer has to take) can be negated or changed at any time. why even have a poll, then?

9. the major story ideas should be voted one, but the results don't have to be shared with the public. stuff like major plot twists, the ending(s), and origins are major ideas. However, stuff such as individual characters and level design should be handled completely by the devs

Define "major story idea" and "major plot twist." And since you say that an origin can be changed right away, can the "major story idea" and "major plot twist" similarly be changed or negated after it is introduced?

4. How good did Mass Effect have to be? (I assume the correct answer is: good enough to sell well) / it can be as good as the team and fans can make it to be. I recently heard of an indie game called Infinity: Quest for Earth. The game has a single developer, who works on it in his free time. He accepts direct fan contributions of models, skins, and ideas. He even created a thread for as many people to pour in ideas as they could. You could say that inspired my idea.

But the fans aren't "making" anything. All they're doing is clicking on polls. the development team is still the one doing all the work, except now they're adding "design, implement, and analyze use polls" to their workflow, which significantly increases the time needed to complete this project. and in our world, time equals money, which is paying for developer salaries, technology and software licenses, facilities, and administration.

[Stanley Woo]

it's a neat idea, ganp0t, but I doubt it would ever happen, whether it's based on majority vote or not. There's just too much risk for the developer and not enough incentive, or even very many sales prospects, for such a project. At least, I don't think there would be, and you would have to come up with some pretty persuasive numbers to change people's minds.



As for the U.S. President commanding the United States army, that's a little different. the President is also the armed forces' commander-in-chief. It's part of his job description as laid out in the U.S. Constitution. It is not part of the job description of ordinary gamers to direct any video game developer, each of which is a corporate entity.