35 réponses à ce sujet

[David Gaider]

DarthCaine wrote...
Hell, keep your crappy paraphrasing, but give us a middle ground, like in Deus Ex: Human Revolution where there's both full text and paraphrasing.

Indeed, I'm interested to see how that looks when Deux Ex releases, as well as how it's received. I know some people like the idea of such a feature, but none of us really knows how it will play out in the actual game or if the Deus Ex team themselves will think it was worth the effort it took to implement.

[Mike Laidlaw]

Ziggeh wrote...

DarthCaine wrote...
My problem is with the paraphrasing. Full text with a voiced protagonist has worked in The Witcher, Deus Ex and most adventure games and I don't remember anyone complaining about it, so why the heck does BioWare do the stupid paraphrasing.

I think full text is problematic myself. I think it's adverse to the cinematics, to read the full sentence, and then have it read slowly back to you. It's not new information, it's redundant.

That's a big part of it. There's also no surprise on replay, since you are exposed to the complete possible range of things your character can say the first time around.

To be fair, I think you can absolutely make full text choices work well if you're prepared to go a more Dues Ex route, where you pick the first part, and your character continues speaking afterwards, or continues in a "branch" of dialog along the vein you just picked.

But reading a line of text, then hearing that line of text is an instant jump to the skip button for me, and an instant jump to the skip button for many people we tested the paraphrase system on, while paraphrases came back as positive and, more importantly, engaging. We saw a near-0 percentage of line skips with paraphrases, which suggested to us that they work, and work well. Hence the "stupid" paraphrasing.

[Mike Laidlaw]

MerinTB wrote...

Did they have sub-titles turned off?
Because if I had to listen to the line being read to me to know what was said, I wouldn't skip either.  But let me read it, I don't want to listen to it.

For those tests to mean anything you need context - did you ASK people why they skipped, or why they listened to the lines delivered?

If you don't ask "why" at a focus test then you either do not care about the results, or you are very, very bad at focus testing.

The why, overwhelmingly, was because they felt they were watching and enjoying a scene, rather than being forced to sit through rote reading of a line they had already internalized.

We have invested quite heavily in digital acting as a studio because we believe there's more to presenting story than just reading. Facial expressions, motion, staging, these are all part of developing a mood and conveying an emotion.

And, of course, if you don't care about those, there's subtitles, speed reading and the skip button. Hooray for options.

[David Gaider]

RussianSpy27 wrote...
3. The creator of the wonderful fantasy world, with the interesting Origins concepts that allowed players to experienced the deep histories and backgrounds of each of several of Theidas' races, that provided diversity and intense fun in the fantasy world says that he finds nothing intrinsically amazing about playing a non-human character. (?????????????).  With all due respect,  I guess it follows that you did not find it intrinsically amazing about playing someone like the Dwarf character that brought before us the entire realm of what it's like to be a Dwarf, what culture and politics of Orzammar? That was so freaking fun that I could replay that 100 times and not be bored!

Okay, let me address this point since you're not alone in misinterpreting what I said.

I was responding to the idea that humans are boring. I did not say that elves and dwarves are boring. They are interesting, and have great story potential (which is why I do and will continue to write them). They don't, however, have any more potential to be interesting than a human character does. Someone can really like the elven story or the dwarven story, sure-- personal preference will lead people to like one thing over another all the time-- but I simply reject the idea that humans must be "mundane" when there is an equal amount of potential among all the human cultures of Thedas to explore.

And that's all I said.

So no, we were not told that there would definitely not be future revisiting of the silent PC with all of then-alleged story benefits (and hence, per Mr. Woo's posts, I will not try to be a seer), but the comments seem to make such revisiting unlikely, as the concept is frowned upon.  Can a frowned-upon concept change tomorrow into a smiled-upon concept? Everything is possible, but just seems unlikely from what we've just been told.

Unlike what you seem to be assuming, profitibility is not the only consideration. A big part of it is what works for this project. When we look at what is an acceptable expense and what isn't, it's in comparison to how that expense makes for a return in the project we're working on. If we do a project in the future where we feel the expense of having multiple player races (along with the voiced PC) gives us enough bang for our buck, we'll do it. It's also possible we could abandon the voiced PC altogether, though like you I consider that unlikely.

Still, stranger things have happened, and a lot of it will depend on how we implement our changes as well as how they're ultimately received. "People didn't like the silent protaganist" in DAO could become "people didn't like the voiced protaganist" in DA2, who knows? Perhaps the game won't sell, in which case we'll have to go back to the drawing board. We don't have a crystal ball regarding that any more than anyone here on the forums does.

In the end we take feedback (the constructive kind) and go with our gut-- because we're the ones making the game, and it's our money on the line. Someone can demonize the fact that there are business decisions to be made, and imply that we're soulless automatons who value it above all else (which people have done) but that doesn't change the fact that we also have creative interest in our creation. One simply cannot exist without the other, and that's the simple truth.

Modifié par David Gaider, 23 décembre 2010 - 10:12 .

[David Gaider]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
That is appallingly poor reasoning, Mike.  People don't skip the voiced line with the paraphrase system because listening to the voiced line (for those without subtitles enabled) is the only way for the player to know what's going on.

That's like saying that throwing away all the apples in your store makes people like oranges more, because then 100% of people who buy fruit buy oranges (there now being only the one option).

That everyone fails to skip the dialogue with the paraphrase system demonstrates the problem with the paraphrase system.  No one knows what's going to happen, so they have to watch it.

If I could actually trust that the paraphrase option told me what it was my character was going to say or do, I'd probably skip it all the time.

I think you're missing the point that we want people to hear the lines and the VO.

Of course, you're deliberately missing the point because you disagree with the premise. That said, I don't think we're obligated to explain it in any more detail, especially when you start off with things like suggesting we use "appallingly poor reasoning". I suggest you figure it out on your own.

[David Gaider]

Collider wrote...

My perspective on the Bethany/Carver determination.

That's great. My response to that exact comment earlier.

Perhaps in the future you might want to check for these before leaping to conclusions.

[David Gaider]

Shady314 wrote...
And damn what the customers want. How dare they choose to read subtitles rather than listen to our wonderful expressive talking heads. Force them to listen to it! Maybe you should stop taking this route where games need to be movies to tell a good story. I don't believe that's the case.

You can read the subtitles if you wish, and skip the VO. That option is there, as Mike mentioned. We're not going to set it up so that nobody will do so, however, because they've already read the lines. This is a cinematic game, and that's what we're making-- despite "what the customers want". You don't speak for all our customers, and we neither wish to nor possibly even could satisfy every person's desires. Maybe you should consider if this is the sort of game you actually want rather than bitterly sniping at every opportunity.

Modifié par David Gaider, 24 décembre 2010 - 06:31 .

[David Gaider]

Shady314 wrote...
Never claimed I spoke for anyone besides myself. I merely refered to anyone who prefered to readthe line so you know what words will actually come out of "your" character's mouth.

So you pull the "I'm a customer" card, despite what I said about us not being willing to nor able to please everyone? I suggest you see how the paraphrases and icon combination work out for you-- and if they don't, by all means feel free to snipe about it at every opportunity in the future. I don't think we labor under the delusion that our games are going to appeal to every single person.

[David Gaider]

Ubasti wrote...
So, how much did DA:O sell, again? If it was so outdated, old-fashioned and all that, how come anyone bought it in the first place? And why it was so much loved? Just some questions that game to my head while reading that article.

I think it's possible to love something despite its flaws. In fact, I think that's true for most computer games I've ever played-- I'll forgive their flaws because of all the other stuff I liked. It's a logical fallacy to reach the conclusion that because I liked a game that every single feature it had is clearly good and there's no room for improvement.

Whether we agree on what needs to be improved is really the question. Chances are the answer is no, but I don't think starting from a standpoint of "it sold well so therefore change nothing and just add stuff" is really helpful... at least not from out perspective. That's not what we're interested in doing.

And the writer of the article couldn't tell the difference between an elf and a human? Maybe she needs new glasses... Or maybe I just have so outdated computer that my low graphics just made the differences to look more prominent. Although since I already spent time with DA:O just looking around at that "...bit dated..." "...remarkably brown place...", because to me it looked nice. Maybe I need new glasses?

I would suggest discarding the rose-coloured ones, but that might sound cynical.

Modifié par David Gaider, 24 décembre 2010 - 06:57 .

[David Gaider]

Wissenschaft wrote...
This threads about a preview. And we stop talking about that a long time ago.

That really does seem to be the case.

Instead, people seem to be veering off into their usual complaints about changes to the game or discussions about the nature of RPG's.

I'd suggest starting new threads (or using existing ones) to discuss those sorts of things. If you want to post in this thread, please keep it to a discussion about the Escapist preview specifically. We've already veered too much off topic as it is.

[Seb Hanlon]

Your expectations are in vain. Instead, you get a "please don't necro threads when we've had much more recent discussions on the same matter" comment.



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