187 réponses à ce sujet

[ENolan]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...


QFT, though to be honest I didn't think the design on Awakening was great to begin with with the whole "target points for conversation" Oh hey theres a tree! "Anders: Trees are nice, hey I'm not locked up in the  Circle Tower"  Player clicks on Anders to further the conversation, nada.  Just a really odd way to go about it.

Yeah that was definitely the weirdest switch I saw in Origins. Not exactly my favorite change from Origins to Awakening but I am currently unsure whether I want to see that in Dragon Age II as well. Either it will work out as putting conversations in their most ideal spot or it will drag on as they force us to have conversations when then aren't relevant or necessary. That'll be a fine line to balance on, but I still think they will be triggerable like they were in Origins.

[Sir JK]

I still maintain the view that one of the reasons Bioware have not showed us any real gameplay is that hey're still in the "this is what we've changed"-phase of marketing to expand their player-base (from the numerous people who thought DA:O wasn't quite worth the price) and that actively showing gameplay will impair this by seeming very similar (I will maintain this view until proven wrong). That ultimately the changes are much less noticeable than what they seem to be.



Another reason being that it isn't finished and that they don't want to show us something we actually might like only to see it changed before release.

[In Exile]

ViSeirA wrote...
No it's not more than a year, Origins was released on november 2009, they could never have known anything past the project scope and they'd have to wait for reactions from the press and sales numbers in order to figure out to which direction they're heading and what target demographic they're going with this time, it's pretty safe to say that they had a lot of material to work with, animations, lore, models and all but that doesn't necessarily mean a quality product is gonna get out in the end, most of the time they don't actually spend making the game itself but actually ironing out bugs... making the game? that's the easy part,  you just don't design a game and release it, QA is the safest way to a successful product and Awakening was a pefect example of that.

Actually, I would bet that they expected that DA:O wouldn't be very succesful and that it should be more like ME (which would be succesful, and ME2, which was yet to be released and would murder) so they ignored the sales numbers and just went with the ME hybrid route.

[Crimson Invictus]

Merced652 wrote...
Yea, why the hell should we expect them to show us anything at all about the product they want us to buy. The nerve of us, how dare we wish to have gameplay footage. We should blindly accept that it will be amazing.

Because if you see it now or see it two days before release will affect when you buy it, should you choose to? It won't come out any sooner regardless of when you get to see a gameplay video.

But since I didn't say anything about them never releasing a video I'm not really sure why you're twisting your knickers with such vim.

Modifié par Liana Nighthawk, 18 novembre 2010 - 02:05 .

[Morroian]

Other games have done it in 2 years and more recently than BG2 as well.

[Monica83]

Mhhhh we have to see it? since we already seen how the gameplay is going to be... after all even if they slowed down the game... the gameplay is the bad crappy teleport same,,, we have not much to see

[CoS Sarah Jinstar]

Morroian wrote...

Other games have done it in 2 years and more recently than BG2 as well.

Generally deep RPG's take a tad longer than your standard 18-24 month Call of Duty cycle. Just sayin.

[upsettingshorts]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

Morroian wrote...

Other games have done it in 2 years and more recently than BG2 as well.

Generally deep RPG's take a tad longer than your standard 18-24 month Call of Duty cycle. Just sayin.

Because generally RPGs have smaller staffs and lower budgets and are made by niche developers, not huge franchises with 20m sales like Call of Duty or Madden.  Just sayin.  

We don't know how many people Bioware has working on DA:2, therefore we can't judge how many man-hours are being applied to its development, throw that in with the fact we can't even be sure when they started working on it and that means Upsettingshorts sees such arguments as totally pointless.

That's right, I dropped the third person there.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 18 novembre 2010 - 03:26 .

[ErichHartmann]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

Morroian wrote...

Other games have done it in 2 years and more recently than BG2 as well.

Generally deep RPG's take a tad longer than your standard 18-24 month Call of Duty cycle. Just sayin.

4 years between Morrowind and Oblivion ended in major disappointment for a good number of Elder Scroll fans.  Just sayin.

Modifié par ErichHartmann, 18 novembre 2010 - 03:28 .

[AlanC9]

cosgamer wrote...
1) DLCs and Awakening created, debugged, tested and released
2) Service packs created, debugged, tested and released
2) Storyline created for DA 2
3) Storyboarding
4) New character and location creation
5) Animations created
7) Actors hired for voice-overs
8) Programming
9) Dialogue
10) Debugging
11) Testing
12) Fixes applied
13) Q&A
14) Marketing
15) Release

That is an incredible amount to cover in two years, but we're actually talking fourteen/fifteen months.  To me this has the feeling of a rushed product, and the engine hasn't been entirely left alone either as there were multiple issues that needed to be addressed for consoles.

That list is a little tendentious. Points 1 and 2 don't have any relevance to DA2 unless some of the DLC/patch/expansion staff are not only on DA2 but are needed in the early stages. It's not like DA2's storyboarding has to wait until after DAA ships.

[Crimson Invictus]

Upsettingshorts wrote...
That's right, I dropped the third person there.

Illeism.

[Revan312]

cosgamer wrote...
*snip*

This ^

I don't think people realize just how little time is left in the dev cycle.. like absolutely none in the scope of things.. two and a half months basically till gold and that is, like I said, generally reserved for bug testing..

So if we assume as we should that it's essentially complete, videos of current build gameplay will be what we'd be getting in the end product, if it's not, then they have some serious issues in the coming months..

Basically DA2 is done and if not then expect delays or a crap finished product. Since Bioware as yet hasn't released a completely bug ridden mess of a game, I'm expecting either a push back or some vids showing official gameplay in the coming weeks.  Or it is like the conspiricists say and Bioware is just hiding their terrible game from us hoping we'll buy it before knowing the truth, but I doubt that one..

Upsettingshorts wrote...

We don't know how many people
Bioware has working on DA:2, therefore we can't judge how many man-hours
are being applied to its development, throw that in with the fact we
can't even be sure when they started working on it and that means
Upsettingshorts sees such arguments as totally pointless.

If your implying that they might have started on DA2 before the original even came out than I don't know what to say. I highly doubt Bioware would ever be stupid enough to start on a sequal before the first game's sales came in, that's just asking for high levels of disaster..

Modifié par Revan312, 18 novembre 2010 - 03:37 .

[AlanC9]

cosgamer wrote...
No the storyboarding didn't have to wait until DAA shipped, but it would have to wait for the storyline to be completed unless EA wanted to go back and redo the storyboards for parts of the storyline that had changed...which is highly unlikely as it would be a wasteful expense.

Huh? Sure, storyboarding can't be done before the storyline is completed, but the storyline doesn't have to wait for DAA either.

Points 1 and 2 do have relevance to DA 2.  Those same programmers would be ones who worked on DA:O and DA 2.  Why?  Because they know the game engine.  Bringing in new or programmers from other child companies or departments would mean additional expense and time are required for them to get up to speed.

I thought I was being obvious, but I guess not. By presenting the steps in that list format and adding irrelevant steps you are implying resource dependencies that do not exist. What bugs me about this is that you obviously know better.

Also note that DAA only employed about 1/3 or so of  the programmers that DAO did, and apparently none of the graphics programmers.

Modifié par AlanC9, 18 novembre 2010 - 03:56 .

[upsettingshorts]

Revan312 wrote...
If your implying that they might have started on DA2 before the original even came out than I don't know what to say. I highly doubt Bioware would ever be stupid enough to start on a sequal before the first game's sales came in, that's just asking for high levels of disaster..

Well, I think they could have and very likely did start writing and planning it.  The writing is one of the things people cite as having been compromised by the short development cycle which is why I mention the whole "we don't know when they started" thing.

But the big point is the man-hours.  We can't know how many DA:2 has had, let alone how they compare to DA:O.  It's why the arguments go nowhere.

The game will either be good and not feel rushed or it'll be bad and feel rushed.  But predicting it one way or the other is silly because it's not based on any facts, only a competition between vague guesses based on assumptions.

[slimgrin]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

Morroian wrote...

Other games have done it in 2 years and more recently than BG2 as well.

Generally deep RPG's take a tad longer than your standard 18-24 month Call of Duty cycle. Just sayin.

Because generally RPGs have smaller staffs and lower budgets and are made by niche developers, not huge franchises with 20m sales like Call of Duty or Madden.  Just sayin.  

We don't know how many people Bioware has working on DA:2, therefore we can't judge how many man-hours are being applied to its development, throw that in with the fact we can't even be sure when they started working on it and that means Upsettingshorts sees such arguments as totally pointless.

That's right, I dropped the third person there.

You third-person droppin' son of a...

[tishyw]

I'd definately like to see some game play video before January 11, when the pre-order upgrade expires.

[slimgrin]

ErichHartmann wrote...

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

Morroian wrote...

Other games have done it in 2 years and more recently than BG2 as well.

Generally deep RPG's take a tad longer than your standard 18-24 month Call of Duty cycle. Just sayin.

4 years between Morrowind and Oblivion ended in major disappointment for a good number of Elder Scroll fans.  Just sayin.

Oh, but not for many! Oblivion is somewhat popular.

The dev time still seems short for DA2, but I'd love for my cynicism to be unfounded.

[upsettingshorts]

slimgrin wrote...
The dev time still seems short for DA2, but I'd love for my cynicism to be unfounded.

You could end up having guessed totally right, but your cynicism - or even optimism had that been the case - would be unfounded. 

It's unfounded because it's not based on any sound evidence.  Only assumptions and guesses.  Doesn't mean you can't end up proven correct, though.  

A hypothetical example of a solid argument on this issue:

Dragon Age Origins had 30 people working five years.
Dragon Age 2 has 20 people working 18 months.
Therefore DA2 will be rushed and crappy.

We don't know the numbers, ergo, the arguments either supporting a quality release or a rushed one based on turnaround are by definition unfounded - eventual vindication be damned.

[Brockololly]

Revan312 wrote...

I don't think people realize just how little time is left in the dev cycle.. like absolutely none in the scope of things.. two and a half months basically till gold and that is, like I said, generally reserved for bug testing..

Which has me wondering if either since DA2 is so much shorter than Origins there is less potential for bugginess or if the QA and polish gets cut short since they seem to be working on content right up until the deadline?

Revan312 wrote...
So if we assume as we should that it's essentially complete, videos of current build gameplay will be what we'd be getting in the end product, if it's not, then they have some serious issues in the coming months..

Right- whatever version they've got right now of DA2, its likely not going to be a whole lot different than what gets released in March. Unless they dump a metric ton of man hours into it between now and March, I'd hope they have major things like the systems and things like the camera and such ironed out.

Ultimately, I don't care so long as its a good game and they show some substantial and meaningful PC gameplay walkthrough videos before January 11th.

[Brockololly]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

slimgrin wrote...
The dev time still seems short for DA2, but I'd love for my cynicism to be unfounded.

You could end up having guessed totally right, but your cynicism - or even optimism had that been the case - would be unfounded. 

It's unfounded because it's not based on any sound evidence.  Only assumptions and guesses.  Doesn't mean you can't end up proven correct, though. 

While not concrete, Gaider said at PAX they started working on DA2 shortly after Origins wrapped up. And from Brent Knowles' blog, it would seem they started discussing DA2 stuff around the time that they wrapped Origins for PC, so probably around February 2009. Then you had Patrick Weeke's posting in September 09 on how they were working on the writing of DA2 at that time.

So its a fair guess to say they've been working on DA2 in some form since probably February 09. But given how much they redid the art and technology, the question is when they started actually making content. Which we have no clue on....

[Apollo Starflare]

Bioware have yet to make a game I don't like so until they do I'm not worried. There has been enough footage of the game so far to set my mind mostly at ease anyhow.

slimgrin wrote...

ErichHartmann wrote...

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

Morroian wrote...

Other games have done it in 2 years and more recently than BG2 as well.

Generally deep RPG's take a tad longer than your standard 18-24 month Call of Duty cycle. Just sayin.

4 years between Morrowind and Oblivion ended in major disappointment for a good number of Elder Scroll fans.  Just sayin.

Oh, but not for many! Oblivion is somewhat popular.

A situation that has always reminded me of how ME2 was recieved, and I expect DA2 will have more or less the same fan divide. On a related note I do wish Bethesda would get their act together and make another Elder Scrolls, preferably a Morrowind-class one.

[Sir JK]

cosgamer wrote...
1) DLCs and Awakening created, debugged, tested and released
2) Service packs created, debugged, tested and released
2) Storyline created for DA 2
3) Storyboarding
4) New character and location creation
5) Animations created
7) Actors hired for voice-overs
8) Programming
9) Dialogue
10) Debugging
11) Testing
12) Fixes applied
13) Q&A
14) Marketing
15) Release

This is a good list I think, but it's a bit simplified and presented as more linear than it is as well. (also you forgot the artists  )

For instance, much of 1 and 2a will begin before DA2 has been started to be produced. They will finish after that, yes. But the people needed for 2b and 3 will have been freed up before that so they can work on that paralelly. Succesivelly more and more people will be brought on board. 4, 5, 7, 8 and 9 will run semi-parallely, handled by different teams and meeting small separate deadlines. 10, 11 and 12 will start as content finishes. Also handled by different people, handing it back to the programmers or animators with feedback. 14 is a different beast alltogether.
So the production will be far from linear. Once past 3) every step will be worked on semi-parallely up to 15). Working on different things as they finish (for instance, the animators might have to wait for dialogue to be planned for dialogue animations. But they can work on combat animations in the mean time).