128 réponses à ce sujet

[Veex]

I really wanted to talk about this topic, and I got to thinking about the consequences in AP and... couldn't remember a single significant moment. I lied, I remember Scarlet dying.

[Lord_Sloth]

I swear I'm like the 1 guy who liked Alpha Protocol.

[Crimson Invictus]

You mean aside from all the other people saying they did?

[Nerivant]

Lord_Sloth wrote...

I swear I'm like the 1 guy who liked Alpha Protocol.

Did... did you even bother to read this thread?
It's full of people that enjoyed AP.

[Lord_Sloth]

Obviously I didn't.

[In Exile]

Vaeliorin wrote...
I also was very fond of the mini-games (it was nice that they were actually challenging, as opposed to ME2's mini-games.)

I loved the PC hacking mini-game (and actually thought it was really easy) but apparently this has terrible feedback online.

That said, there's a lot from AP I'd like to see carried over into other games.  Opponents I had actual respect for and disliked not the least among them.  Actually being able to side with differing factions was really nice too (nothing like busting into a mansion in a Stryker.  That was awesome.)  The fact that choosing to kill/not kill people actually mattered for once was a very nice thing as well.

The most well done part is the sheer variation of it. AP was absolutely brilliant in terms of its variable design for the quests. It's an absolute shame it was as buggy as it was, at least on the 360.

One thing they did absolutely brilliantly was Marburg, and all of the ways you could interact with him, either as a respect enemy or well, the opportunity to tie up a loose end. It was just brilliantly done.

I really think AP is a game that absolutely captures the essence of Obsidian. Brilliant design, brilliant concept, but an absolute failure in terms of execution re: gameplay and general "smoothness".

The only thing I really disliked about AP was the dialogue system, that I feel failed entirely in allowing you to roleplay your character by giving you absolutely no clue what you were going to say.

AP took the dialogue wheel too far. But then, AP was not an RPG at all in terms of character control, since you had fixed gender/apperance/name. It really was just like the Witcher in that respect.

[TeaCokeProphet]

I suppose I missed out on this one.

[Urazz]

In Exile wrote...

I really think AP is a game that absolutely captures the essence of Obsidian. Brilliant design, brilliant concept, but an absolute failure in terms of execution re: gameplay and general "smoothness".

You pretty much hit the nail on the head on basically what Alpha Protocal is like and how in general I feel games from Obsidian are for the most part.

[Shady314]

In Exile wrote... an absolute failure in terms of execution re: gameplay and general "smoothness".

Hyperbole thy name is internet.

Modifié par Shady314, 03 décembre 2010 - 04:43 .

[JigPig]

I'd rate AP as a 60%-75%



Average at best.

[Saibh]

Shady314 wrote...

In Exile wrote... an absolute failure in terms of execution re: gameplay and general "smoothness".

Hyperbole thy name is internet.

Not too many triple-A releases are as shoddily executed as Obsidian games. As far as that criterion goes, they're at the bottom of the pile.

[Shady314]

Saibh wrote...

Shady314 wrote...

In Exile wrote... an absolute failure in terms of execution re: gameplay and general "smoothness".

Hyperbole thy name is internet.

Not too many triple-A releases are as shoddily executed as Obsidian games. As far as that criterion goes, they're at the bottom of the pile.

Obsidian releases AAA games? When did this happen? I've never really considered their games to be marketed as AAA especially not Alpha Protocol. That was clearly always going to be a niche game. Being at the bottom of AAA titles still puts you above the minor leagues. Perhaps people would be happier thinking of Obsidian as the best of the AA developers rather than expecting GoW. As for the shoddiness of their games I find their reputation to be somewhat undeserved. Do they release buggy games yes. But I've had just as much trouble with them as I have with Bio and Bethesda games. FO3 was hardly what I would consider stable when I played it and DA:O STILL has absolutely unforgiveable bugs and glitches that Bioware never fixed and apparently never intends to instead leaving it to the modding community. But somehow Bioware gets a pass on that while every Obsidian bug they seem to actually work on fixing is scrutinized and held up as an example of incompetence.

Modifié par Shady314, 03 décembre 2010 - 04:56 .

[Not...Mordin]

Liana Nighthawk wrote...

Most of Mike's email replies make him sound like he has limited social skills. The "suave" responses were simply terrible.

That's the polite version, should you be wondering.

Lol a suave email response was the most memorable thing about the game for me.

Some e-mail concerning a password ....

Mikes respnse:
Mi1fL0v3r

classic!

Modifié par Not...Mordin, 03 décembre 2010 - 04:47 .

[Onyx Jaguar]

AP does have some serious problems from a design standpoint, and even though I liked the game I could easily see why many would absolutely despise it as it almost deserves to be despised in a way

[Shady314]

Not...Mordin wrote...

Liana Nighthawk wrote...

Most of Mike's email replies make him sound like he has limited social skills. The "suave" responses were simply terrible.

That's the polite version, should you be wondering.

Lol a suave email response was the most memorable thing about the game for me.
Some e-mail concerning a password ....
Mikes respnse:
Mi1fL0v3r

classic!

Suave gets nearly all the jokes because they don't fit under professional or aggressive. Even though the jokes are not always so suave. I liked that Suave didn't mean always saying the perfect thing and sometimes being aggressive made you seem too gungho rather than a badass and professional sometimes made you seem too cold. 
Made Mike more human and less of a caricature of a spy. Also made mixing it up a good idea unlike Mass Effects punishing you for not sticking to either Paragon or Renegade.

Modifié par Shady314, 03 décembre 2010 - 05:01 .

[Alexia89]

I really liked AP, though it was an awesome game....played it as more of a stealth game. I just love going through it and trying out different choices. I dont really worry about how good the base gameplay is as much as others seem to. I also loved ME1 over 2 even though people tell me 2 improved in every way gameplay wise

[In Exile]

Shady314 wrote...
Hyperbole thy name is internet.

I speak only in hyperbole. I just appreciate that you actually got that I was being facetious instead of trying to prove why the game was less bugged than the arbitrary line I used for it.

That being said, AP was absolutely marketed as a AAA release, just like New Vegas and KoTOR 2 were. They came out bugged. The best that Obsidian put out was NWN2, and the game was very poorly optimized. DA:O at max settings runs smoother than NWN2, and that's a game that's a generation ahead.

[Shady314]

In Exile wrote...

Shady314 wrote...
Hyperbole thy name is internet.

I speak only in hyperbole. I just appreciate that you actually got that I was being facetious instead of trying to prove why the game was less bugged than the arbitrary line I used for it.

That being said, AP was absolutely marketed as a AAA release, just like New Vegas and KoTOR 2 were. They came out bugged. The best that Obsidian put out was NWN2, and the game was very poorly optimized. DA:O at max settings runs smoother than NWN2, and that's a game that's a generation ahead.

Yes and who cares if the endings were screwed up and game mechanics just flat out didn't function so long as the framerate skipped less? Way to go Bioware! Clearly are far superior to Obsidian. Personally if forced to choose I'd rather suffer optimization issues (such as annoying memory leaks that forced me to restart every few hours ahem*) than the bugs that plagued DA:O but everyone has different tolerances and I realize that's purely subjective.

I won't bother arguing what constitutes AAA. I followed AP from the beginning on the forums so I knew what I was getting. If all you had to go on was some trailers or something and a Spike TV commercial then I suppose I could understand the disappointment. 

*In case you are not aware DA:O had a little issue where load times grew progessively longer after you'd played the game for a few hours. I had to suffer that my entire first playthrough and beat the game long before it was fixed. It also crashed when I walked outside after the epilogue and I had to redo the final battle to see the ending slides. TWICE. Note that was not the only time it crashed. I wish those were the only problems I experienced. I didn't have those problem with AP. Awakenings was a flat out mess and easily as bad as any game in terms of bugs.

Does this prove AP was better optimised/polished than DA:O? Of course not. DA:O is huge compared to AP for one thing. For another I try to look past the technical limitations and enjoy the game. I don't decide if a game is good or not by comparing it to another one. I try to judge it on its own merits and so long as I don't run into anything gamebreaking I'm willing to forgive technical issues.

I just wish people could shake their obvious confirmation bias and see every game released lately has had it's share of bugs and then some. Obsidian just gets blasted for it more than most because of the KOTOR2 ending fiasco which earned them a reputation.

To try to get somewhat back on topic I have to say I agree with the original poster. This is one of the benefits of both a framed narrative and a relatively fixed protagonist along with a shorter game. 

Modifié par Shady314, 03 décembre 2010 - 05:42 .

[In Exile]

Shady314 wrote...
Yes and who cares if the endings were screwed up and game mechanics just flat out didn't function so long as the framerate skipped less? Way to go Bioware! Clearly are far superior to Obsidian. Personally if forced to choose I'd rather suffer optimization issues (such as annoying memory leaks that forced me to restart every few hours ahem*) than the bugs that plagued DA:O but everyone has different tolerances and I realize that's purely subjective.

I can't say that I experienced the bugs that you did, so maybe it's a difference in playstyle? Certainly the fact that the endings are bugged is horrid, but if you want to be specific about the AP bugs I experienced, they include gamebreaking like the helicopter in the final mission dissapearing making the game impossible to beat, or items in the inventory dissapearing after loading the game, including frequent freezes and crashes.

Dragon Age might have had problems (especially Awakening; that was as bad as anything Obsidian put out) but the game ran, and ran well, at least 95% of the time for me.

I won't bother arguing what constitutes AAA. I followed AP from the beginning on the forums so I knew what I was getting. If all you had to go on was some trailers or something and a Spike TV commercial then I suppose I could understand the disappointment. 

Putting aside the investment in the add campaign, Obsidian looked to have put a tremendous amount of resources into the game. They had their Aliens RPG cancelled and it was their first major release after NWN 2. Their previous 2 releases included KoTOR 2 and NWN 2, both of which were AAA . That they would invest so much time and resources into a game that wasn't designed to be AAA just doesn't make sense.

*In case you are not aware DA:O had a little issue where load times grew progessively longer after you'd played the game for a few hours. I had to suffer that my entire first playthrough and beat the game long before it was fixed. It also crashed when I walked outside after the epilogue and I had to redo the final battle to see the ending slides. TWICE. Note that was not the only time it crashed. I wish those were the only problems I experienced. I didn't have those problem with AP. Awakenings was a flat out mess and easily as bad as any game in terms of bugs.

Whereas I had absolutely no problems with DA:O, while AP had far more than just the bugs I mentioned before. As always, it doesn't matter whether you or I had problems with the game. What matters is whether or not the release was generally seen as stable, and in general, Bioware has not gained a reputation for releasing bugged content (beside the terror of Awakening), so in this case I am going to appeal to public perception absent any other meaningful standard we could use.

Does this prove AP was better optimised/polished than DA:O? Of course not. DA:O is huge compared to AP for one thing. For another I try to look past the technical limitations and enjoy the game. I don't decide if a game is good or not by comparing it to another one. I try to judge it on its own merits and so long as I don't run into anything gamebreaking I'm willing to forgive technical issues.

I tend to take the same attitude. AP was bugged because of the terrible number of performance issues that the game runs into, including problems with skills not working, items dissapearing, events not triggering, etc. That's putting aside issues like crashing or freezing, or corrupted saves.

I just wish people could shake their obvious confirmation bias and see every game released lately has had it's share of bugs and then some. Obsidian just gets blasted for it more than most because of the KOTOR2 ending fiasco which earned them a reputation.

It has nothing to do with any sort of confirmation bias. I have had good expereinces with Bioware games. Little bugs, smooth performance. I have had terrible experiences with Obsidian releases. The word on the street, so tos peak, is that Obsidian releases buggy games. Not only have I had problems with all their releases save NWN2, but so have many other people. That's the baseline of evidence that I use to call their compete as designers into question.

If you want to be pejorative, then I wish people would shake their liking of the game to appreciate the obvious technical failures. But subtle insults of this sort get us absolutely nowhere.

To try to get somewhat back on topic I have to say I agree with the original poster. This is one of the benefits of both a framed narrative and a relatively fixed protagonist along with a shorter game. 

All of which we will have in DA2, but I would bet very good money on not having much choice or consequence. Bioware is simply not good at producing either, in comparison to Obsidian. They make better and more stable games, but I tend to think that's a result of being far less ambitious, and more realistic, with what they can achieve.

[Shady314]

In Exile wrote...
I can't say that I experienced the bugs that you did, so maybe it's a difference in playstyle? Certainly the fact that the endings are bugged is horrid, but if you want to be specific about the AP bugs I experienced, they include gamebreaking like the helicopter in the final mission dissapearing making the game impossible to beat, or items in the inventory dissapearing after loading the game, including frequent freezes and crashes.

Dragon Age might have had problems (especially Awakening; that was as bad as anything Obsidian put out) but the game ran, and ran well, at least 95% of the time for me.

Which is why I have given up on judging games by the technical issues I encounter in them. 

Putting aside the investment in the add campaign, Obsidian looked to have put a tremendous amount of resources into the game. They had their Aliens RPG cancelled and it was their first major release after NWN 2. Their previous 2 releases included KoTOR 2 and NWN 2, both of which were AAA . That they would invest so much time and resources into a game that wasn't designed to be AAA just doesn't make sense.

? By that definition almost every game is AAA. Most developers put as much of their resources as they can into their game along with time, effort and love. A good game is not what AAA means. Any more than every good movie is a blockbuster.

Whereas I had absolutely no problems with DA:O, while AP had far more than just the bugs I mentioned before. As always, it doesn't matter whether you or I had problems with the game. What matters is whether or not the release was generally seen as stable, and in general, Bioware has not gained a reputation for releasing bugged content (beside the terror of Awakening), so in this case I am going to appeal to public perception absent any other meaningful standard we could use.

I don't say this with snark. You are validating my point. Technical issues are a stupid way to judge a game. It too often comes down to a persons hardware and their own perception. It's simple confirmation bias that when you play a game from Obsidian and expect it to be bugged every little bug you encounter is going to annoy you greater than if you aren't actively looking for them. I am glad you experienced no performance issues with DA:O and eventually I got my issues worked out but you still encountered bugs in DA:O. There were 100% repeatable bugs. Dex not appplying damage correctly. Plot flags not being set right if you talked to people in the end game etc.

Can you honestly say you would not be outraged if you played an Obsidian game and encountered similar issues? You mention Awakening so how many games does Bioware get before their bugs reach the same unacceptable level as Obsidian? I realize there is no actual number. That's my point. It's a matter of feeling and our feelings are governed by our perception.

Also public perception is no standard I will ever judge anything on. This is not an argument I am trying to win. AP had bugs. DA:O had bugs. I simply don't believe that bugs stop a game from being good overall. Of course there's an exception for game breaking bugs. I am sorry you encountered them in AP. I am glad I never got anything nearly so severe in any of my playthroughs. But other people encountered them in DA:O and I don't believe that would automatically make DA:O a bad game anymore than it does AP.

I tend to take the same attitude. AP was bugged because of the terrible number of performance issues that the game runs into, including problems with skills not working, items dissapearing, events not triggering, etc. That's putting aside issues like crashing or freezing, or corrupted saves.

? I'm happy to say I never once ran into anything like that. Out of curiosity what platform did you play on? I was PC.
DA:O was bugged because there were people that suffered the exact same sorts of issues. You may not have but that doesn't change the fact others did.

It has nothing to do with any sort of confirmation bias. I have had good expereinces with Bioware games. Little bugs, smooth performance. I have had terrible experiences with Obsidian releases. The word on the street, so tos peak, is that Obsidian releases buggy games. Not only have I had problems with all their releases save NWN2, but so have many other people. That's the baseline of evidence that I use to call their compete as designers into question.

Except anecdotal evidence is not evidence. Maybe go back in time and stop by the DA:O tech support forums when DA:O was first released and tell everyone there how great Bioware games are because you didn't experience anything major? I doubt it'd be a big help to them. It's all just perception.

If you want to be pejorative, then I wish people would shake their liking of the game to appreciate the obvious technical failures. But subtle insults of this sort get us absolutely nowhere.

You thought I was trying to subtly insult you? I assure you I was not. I do not think you are in any way wrong. PIease remember I do not disagree that Obsidian games suffer from bugs. I just disagree to the extent that it matters.

I can't imagine a more neutral tone I could have taken. We all suffer from confirmation bias to some degree. It really cannot be helped. I'm just stating the obvious that everyone has their own tolerances for this sort of thing. Just look at AP's own reviews. Everywhere from 85 to 20. Obviously some people put a premium on the technical side while others are more forgiving. This is by no means limited to AP either. Reviews often have more to do with the reviewer than the game.

All of which we will have in DA2, but I would bet very good money on not having much choice or consequence. Bioware is simply not good at producing either, in comparison to Obsidian. They make better and more stable games, but I tend to think that's a result of being far less ambitious, and more realistic, with what they can achieve.

They make better games? Highly subjective. I found KOTOR 2 superior to KOTOR in every way but performance. Even the rushed ending was better than KOTOR's A New Hope Ending. As for stability I've already stated I had more performance issues with DA;O by far than AP. It's just a matter of perception.

I respect ambition that falls short rather than playing it safe. Of course I also prefer something less grand but executed well. I really can't lose. I will take that bet. The framed narrative really lends itself well to choices and consequences as AP showed. Also I'm hoping this rivalry thing means less companion death having to be taken into account. Furthermore I think we will not play Hawke in DA3 so Bioware can hopefully go a little crazy.

To tie this back into Dragon Age 2 I love that DA2 is taking AP's idea of identifying the tone of the line and incorporating that into their dialogue wheel with the icons. I'd prefer seeing the full line along with it though. 

I also say we should bite the bullet and get stuck with a first name. In DA:O and Mass Effect your first name is used exactly zero times anyways. It's utterly superflous. If having a first name means people can refer to me by it just like people that called you Mike in AP then I say that should be copied too.

Modifié par Shady314, 03 décembre 2010 - 07:04 .

[AmstradHero]

Bugs are a bizarre thing. I never experienced a single bug with NWN1's OC, despite playing it unpatched and hearing countless issues of people having problems with Aribeth's betrayal.  I came slightly late to the party on NWN2, but again, experienced not a single bug.  Alpha Protocol also didn't pose a single bug (I played this one on 360) - though there was an annoying design mechanic in certain areas where you couldn't kill everyone through stealth, as each killed enemy would spawn a replacement, eventually resulting in an already aggro enemy spawning. That was poor design though, not a bug.

DA:O presented no problems to me apart from the increasing load times issue. That got a bit annoying, but it was the only nuisance I faced.  Fallout 3, however... well, I nearly tossed the disc out of my window in frustration.  The game would go through phases of working without issue, or alternatively crashing ever 5-10 minutes.

However, I am aware of numerous bugs that people have encountered with DA:O - I'd hope that this kind of thing doesn't happen in DA2. That said, bugs seem to be part and parcel of the modern gaming experience, so I don't expect flawless execution.

I would hope that DA2 takes AP's lead and has the ability to make major decisions and pick between factions. I'd like to some some serious consequences and big game-changers as a result of the player's choices. BioWare has typically made itself big on "world-changers", where the character's decisions have a massive effect in terms of how the overall landscape of the game-world is affected by your choices. This is part of the reason why I love their games, because I care about the reality that they've created.

However, where BioWare have not delivered in the same fashion that AP did is having real and meaningful in-game consequences to go along with those. Heck, even the order that you choose to do missions in has an effect on what happens! (Damn a commercial game for implementing my ideas before I could)

I was also a big fan of the timed-dialogues for actually forcing people to roleplaying on instinct rather than having them belabour decisions for a long time, though I know others who've complained that it reduced player agency by encouraging meta-gaming into a particular mindset.  I'd argue that the game gave you long enough to gauge the type of response you wanted rather than simply picking one style of dialogue exclusively, but I can understand the argument (to a degree) that people weren't sure exactly what a particular response would entail.  I don't know whether this will get picked up by any other RPG developer, but I have confess that I hope that it gets brought out again, because it made for some of the most intense and difficult decisions that I've ever made in an RPG.

Modifié par AmstradHero, 03 décembre 2010 - 07:14 .

[Arijharn]

I liked AP too, although I'm somewhat bemused that when people mention the game they say they liked it apart from the gameplay, which is what I'd argue would be stupidly important when it comes to... well, a game.



But AP's somewhat special in that regard, I can sometimes look past that deficiency and just enjoy it regardless. It's weird, but Obsidian is sort of like Troika Games nowadays imo.

[Xewaka]

In Exile wrote...

Vaeliorin wrote...
I also was very fond of the mini-games (it was nice that they were actually challenging, as opposed to ME2's mini-games.)

I loved the PC hacking mini-game (and actually thought it was really easy) but apparently this has terrible feedback online.

The control scheme por the hacking minigame in the PC version is a mess. At least for me, it was clunky and uncomfortable. I'd rather have both pass searchers handled with the keyboard (WASD and arrow keys) than having one moving around with the mouse and other with the keyboard.
Then again, I didn't make it past the tutorials (I didn't feel comfortable with the controls or the cameras - weird, but it happens) so my opinion might be slightly biased because of a bad first impression.

[biomag]

As I said I use the X-Box controller on the PC version (without any bugs in my case) so I ain't sure how the mini-games work without the controller, but with that thing I loved the mini games. Bioware's are horrible beyond any imagination. Boring, easy, uninspired, unchallenging,... AP had games that kept pushing me to improve and using the controller they were really funny and not just slowing down the game like anything Bioware had to offer so far.



The game length... DA:O has 70% pointless slaughter feast... dungeon crawling 4 times for allies, followed by another huge dungeon crawl to defeat the arch demon and yes, another dungeon crawl to start the story... and the choices you made? Well, you could choose what pointless army would support you in the final battle and a little text to read at the end. I liked DA:O, but replayability is really no fun after the origins. So all those great hours of gameplay are really pretty redundant. AP may be just 20 hours, but I enjoyed them each time I replayed it. Different endings, different experience in each situation and no nightmares when I though of replaying it another time, while I can't stand the thought of playing DA:O a third time through. Its a really creepy feeling when I think about all those thousands of enemies I would have to kill for the few dialogs and completely same ending...

[Mlaar]

Ahh Alpha Protocol now theirs a game I enjoyed sure it had its flaws half of which I never saw probally because I was just so immersed in the storyline, I think I ran through the game 3 or 4 times before something else but I still own the game as I want to play again (not many games I say that about) DA2 could learn a lot from the story layout it provided and if the devs run something along those lines it would be a far superior game to anything on the market, But unfortunatley they wont as its easier to take the black & white road to choices as it caters to a larger audiance base, ahh well I know what Im going to be replaying this weekend (just wish they had been able to do a sequal!! god bless the narrow minded people who want pretty gfx/animations over gameplay)