223 réponses à ce sujet

[Onyx Jaguar]

Probably the worst over simplification I have ever seen in a video game was Rainbow Six: Lockdown



But that is strictly game play mechanics

[DPB]

Taritu wrote...

One thing people need to remember is that DAO was Bioware's best selling game every. Yes, it sold better than ME2. Maybe ME should DAOized?

Or maybe not, since they're two different types of games.

Best selling? Yes. Profitable? Who knows? All I know is that spending 5-6 years making a game couldn't have been particularly cheap.

For all the flak they get here, I doubt this series would still be going without the sales from the console versions.

[ErichHartmann]

The only complicated PC games I played in the 80's and 90's were flight simulators and certain Indy car games. The frakking games were designed for professionals in mind.

Modifié par ErichHartmann, 15 novembre 2010 - 02:42 .

[thegreateski]

Didn't you know? Consumers are morons and will be treated as such.

As long as you can make a game shiny enough so that they buy it then it doesn't matter how "Streamlined" it is.

Hell. Most folks buy games based on what they see on TV and on the back of the box instead of going online and looking for reviews.

Yes. Your fellow man is THAT stupid. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Modifié par thegreateski, 15 novembre 2010 - 02:41 .

[Itkovian]

I'm not worried about their streamlining their games away.

Why? Because the main example that is carted out - ME2 - didn't.

I look at ME2 compared to ME1, and I don't see a simpler game. Sure, they trimmed away some bits, and added others, but I don't feel like we lost more than we gained. Both the elements removed and added are part and parcel of RPGs (itemization, greater dialogue/choice/consequences and more NPCs).

Given that the ME series was from the start an Action RPG, I never understood the feeling of outrage some players had when ME2 came out. ME2 was still clearly an action-RPG where player skill remained vital in attaining victory. The most significant change was removing stat-based accuracy, but that's standard fare for action-RPGs.

DAO however was never an action-RPG, and it certainly does NOT look like DA2 is moving in that direction. The addition of distance-closers and faster combat "rounds" does not an action-RPG make.

All that I can see in DA2, is that they're trying to make combat faster-paced and more fun to play, but all the underlying stat-based mechanics remain the same. There's no streamlining there.

So what, in all that we have heard, is actually "streamlined" in DA2?

Is it the restriction on the main character? Certainly that's not streamlining, considering that entire restriction exists to facilitate the implementation of fully-voiced and cinematic dialogue for Hawke, which obviously involves a lot more effort and introduces a lot more content to the game than what was taken away.

Is it the companion outfits? From what I understand the itemization remains the same, and the only restriction is for armour. Similarly, systems are added to compensate for this restriction (outfit upgrades and such), and this change comes hand-in-hand with greater depth and development for our companions.

About the only actual "streamlining" I can think of that is genuinely valid is the removal of player Origins, which I admit was pretty cool and I am sad to see that go. However, this goes hand in hand with other main PC restrictions, and it is entirely possible the content we gain from it (the fully VOed cinematic dialogue) makes up for it. And even so, should we now consider origin stories as a new level in RPG storytelling, and that any RPG lacking them is automatically the lesser for it?

Anyway, hopefully this rambling made sense.

Thank you.

Itkovian

[wookieeassassin]

I don't really care whether someone finishes a game or not. What I do care about is them complaining about the game in such a way as to try to get the developer to make the game 5 hours long so they can finish it. Really, anyone that doesn't spend at least 15-20 hours in an RPG doesn't deserve an opinion on what content should be in a game/not be in a game. I finished ME1 and ME2 and did everything in them because 1) I am a completionist and wanted to do everything in the game since I probably won't play through it again, and if I do I'm pretty much only going to do the least amount of things possible 2) Most of the content was interesting/entertaining and I wanted to do it. The parts that weren't all that interesting I still did because of the completionist thing, but if the proportion of mediocre to good/awesome parts had been greater I wouldn't have done them.



I was one of the people that never finished Oblivion. Why? Because once I finished the Assassin's Guild or whatever it was called, got the best weapons in the game (or pretty close to it) and bought a house I didn't care anymore. The rest of the game didn't interest me. In fact, the main quest in that game was so painfully dull that I only destroyed the first evil tower thing. The subsequent towers might have been different but I knew it was a "there are X number of these towers, you need to destroy them all). Does that mean the developers should have taken out content so that everyone went and finished the main quest? No, it doesn't. If they had done that I wouldn't have played as much as I did. Having a lot of content makes it so lots of different people can have something they enjoy. You didn't *have* to do the loyalty missions in ME2, or even recruit all the characters. You especially didn't **have** to finish the game, so doing all the loyalty quests, etc. is even less of a must. They are there for people who want to do them or people who want to finish the main game so some squad members survive. Most of the recruitment missions and the loyalty missions had interesting stories of their own, so if someone didn't want to finish the whole game then they would at least have other interesting parts to play. If all there was was a few crappy side quests and just the main quest, if someone didn't particularly care for the main quest they wouldn't have played the game at all.



Those above who were talking about ME2 story above are correct, most of the game was recruiting players and making them loyal. I would have preferred the main plot to have been longer and the main bit of the game to have been more of doing the main quest, but that didn't make the game "bad". Most of the characters were all interesting in some way and we at least got some of their history and what makes them how they are. The recruitment missions and the loyalty missions all, for the most part, had their own interesting little stories. In some cases, they even told the player substantially important information about the Mass Effect universe that wasn't previously known (you'll know what I mean if you get one of the last possible squad members and do his loyalty quest). The dialogue between you and squadmates was an experience in itself. Most everyone had something interesting to say about themselves or something else. Also, I don't know if you noticed, but each planet has at least a paragraph or two of history and/or astronomical stats on it. There is also quite a bit of lore/galactic history in the codex entries that can be quite interesting.



Anyway, what I'm saying is that even if people didn't necessarily like the main quest, there was so much else that was interesting in the game to warrant a considerable amount of playing time.

[Bullets McDeath]

I think this might be a tad bit of over-reacting, no? I mean, if they start taking out the endings because "only hardcore RPG nerds actually want to beat the game, today's gamer's just want to play", then I would see your point.

[thegreateski]

outlaworacle wrote...

I think this might be a tad bit of over-reacting, no? I mean, if they start taking out the endings because "only hardcore RPG nerds actually want to beat the game, today's gamer's just want to play", then I would see your point.

Of course we're over-reacting. This is the internet, what fun would it be if people were rational?

[Bullets McDeath]

thegreateski wrote...

outlaworacle wrote...

I think this might be a tad bit of over-reacting, no? I mean, if they start taking out the endings because "only hardcore RPG nerds actually want to beat the game, today's gamer's just want to play", then I would see your point.

Of course we're over-reacting. This is the internet, what fun would it be if people were rational?

What are you trying to say?! That I don't know how the internet works?!



(I do, by the by. It's a series of tubes.)

[Stick668]

wookieeassassin wrote...

I don't really care whether someone finishes a game or not. What I do care about is them complaining about the game in such a way as to try to get the developer to make the game 5 hours long so they can finish it. Really, anyone that doesn't spend at least 15-20 hours in an RPG doesn't deserve an opinion on what content should be in a game/not be in a game.

I'd be surprised if the hypothetical people who quit after 5 hours go off and petition for a 5-hour game. They are frustrated to the point of boredom. They do not care enough to complain.

Their "choice" only registers if the statistics are collected automatically. From what I know, Valve's been doing that for a while and Bioware started quite recently. And this is good. Because statistics do not by themselves have any kind of agenda. If x % of all players just stop at a certain point, this tells the developer something meaningful. Unlike forum-posted opinions, which - even at their most relevant and clever - tend to blend into white noise.

[RinpocheSchnozberry]

Whoa, whoa, whoa, guys and gals. Can I get a link supporting the OPs statement that there is data saying a "huge" portion of players have never finished DAO and ME2? I'm curious, not saying OP is lying or anything like that, I'd just like to see where they said "huge." Some players just aren't going to finish the game or they'll realize how they can stop reporting data before they finish. That's just how things go.

[Stick668]

"Roughly 50% of the people who started Mass Effect 2 finished the game."

IGN Article - Crazy Mass Effect 2 Stats and What They're Used For

Might be more stuff around here somewhere, I suppose.

Modifié par Stick668, 15 novembre 2010 - 03:30 .

[hexaligned]

RinpocheSchnozberry wrote...

Whoa, whoa, whoa, guys and gals. Can I get a link supporting the OPs statement that there is data saying a "huge" portion of players have never finished DAO and ME2? I'm curious, not saying OP is lying or anything like that, I'd just like to see where they said "huge." Some players just aren't going to finish the game or they'll realize how they can stop reporting data before they finish. That's just how things go.

I'm just suprised some people actually left the data gathering on, I turned it off as soon as I realized what was going on, seemed pretty damn intrusive to me.  Kind of wish I had left it on now though

[Ziggeh]

Stick668 wrote...
Their "choice" only registers if the statistics are collected automatically. From what I know, Valve's been doing that for a while and Bioware started quite recently. And this is good. Because statistics do not by themselves have any kind of agenda. If x % of all players just stop at a certain point, this tells the developer something meaningful. Unlike forum-posted opinions, which - even at their most relevant and clever - tend to blend into white noise.

Also worth noting (because I'm a huge polling nerd), the figure of "how many people didn't finish the game" is meaningless without context. Maybe that number of people never finish any game, maybe a vastly popular game, or slew of games was released the week after, mayeb the controls were untenable or the game was buggy, and as much as they were engaged in the narrative they simply couldn't continue. (Note: I'm not saying any of these are true of DA, they're just examples).

As an isolated statistic, it doesn't really tell you anything.

[crimzontearz]

For some reason a lot of people confuse streamlining with dumbing down....I wonder why

[Lord Gremlin]

Example:
ME1 to ME2 - streamlining.
Gothic 1,2,3 to Gothic 4 Arcania - dumbing down. 

Streamlining = features that add nothing to the enjoyment in this particular game are removed as well as filler content.
Dumbing down = features that work well or not are removed just to make the game simple to play.

[kartupelis]

this short **** does worry the fuk out of me. 23 hours atleast. i also yesterday realized that the combat in DA2 will be pretty good at worst and that i do really like the new art style. but if the game is going to just 12h long, then ima gonna just pirate it and say **** about it.

[crimzontearz]

I know the difference between the two Gremlin...a lot of people seem not to tho

[Lord Gremlin]

crimzontearz wrote...

I know the difference between the two Gremlin...a lot of people seem not to tho

Should not be surprising, good sir. For a lot of people on this forum English is not first language.

Some may be simply dumb though.

[crimzontearz]

English is not my mothertongue either

[bsbcaer]

filetemo wrote...

yes, DAO had the right number of companions for me too.

But I'm afraid if player's data showed bioware that many players stick with their default party through the game, we'll get 4 companions and one of them romanceable for future games.Why would you create more companions if you find out that (for example) 460.000 customers of DAO never recruited Leliana at all? that's a scary number (I'm just making it up, I know)

Besides, we complain about lack of customization, but we are (at least I am) guilty for this. I spent 40% of my first origins playthrough in blood dragon armor, because it had the best stats, and then switched to Warden commander armor for the rest of the game. I only used other sets when I didn't have the STR requirements to wear anything else. I almost never used Oghren in combat because I couldn't find a complete set of armor that suited him, and I didn't want to roam around with a dwarf rainbow with silverite armor, dragonbone boots, elven gauntlets and honnleath helm. He looked like he was on acid with all those mismatched armor parts

With respect to the lack of customization, I think part of it (from your example) is because of preorder bonuses.  Personally am not a fan of DLC (inability to download to 360 pretty much comes down to the reason why), so would rather not see DL armour or weapons (seems kind of useless to me) and would rather see expansion packs rather than smaller "episodes" of DLC.  If you do have DLC armour and weapons, I'd probably recommend doing two playthroughs: the first without the DLC armour and weapons and the second with.

As for Oghie, my advice is to put him in the Legionairre armour that you can get just prior to the broodmother.  It looks good and the stats are pretty good

[Blessed Silence]

My husband beat both games with no problem so I dunno what they are talking about.

I beat ME easily, and going to beat ME2 today.

Only reason I didn't finish DA:O was because my computer crashed and I lost everything >.>

[the_one_54321]

I'm rather stunned that someone would not want to finish these games. The only thing I can think of is too short an attention span.

[philbo1965uk]

I don't think anyone in their right mind is a fan of DLC bsbcar !



It's a scam...often some content is already on the game disk and when it isn't you either pay 3/4 the price of the full game for a short expansion pack or micropayments for short side quests.



That's in general though and not restricted to DA....personally I loved the game and would pay for a 30 min dialogue no gameplay whatsoever just to stand there and listen to Claudia Black's voice as Morrigan.



sad I know

[LOLZAO]

the_one_54321 wrote...

I'm rather stunned that someone would not want to finish these games. The only thing I can think of is too short an attention span.

a friend of mine dind`t finish the game(ME2) cause he says there was too much dialogue and too little action.