156 réponses à ce sujet

[Vector C]

Right. Because a couple extra pixels of height to make it readable for everyone (just like DA:O was) would take up half the screen and be such an inconvenience. Question: Did you find the font in DA:O to be too large? No? Then stop making inept arguments.

[OPini]

I completely agree, and I have HDTV. I played the demo also on SDTV (PS3) and the text was unreadable. Not everyone can afford HDTV, and alienating people with hearing / vision imparison is unacceptable. Especially since the solution is so simple (make larger font option in the menu). Especially since this is not the first BioWare game that suffers criticism in this subject. The world's moving in the direction of better accessibilty for impaired or disabled people. BioWare shouldn't ignore this.

[NinjaMarion]

Fredvdp wrote...

BioWare makes their games for the current standard of TVs. The reason you can't read text in Dragon Age II on an SDTV is the same reason you can't play Team Fortress 2 on a black &  white TV.

No. First off, it's not necessarily the current standard. Yes, HDTVs are becoming it, but they aren't yet. SDTVs still exist and are still sold and MANY people still have perfectly fine SDTVs that work with no issues. HD adoption rates aren't nearly as high as you people seem to think. Mere penetration rate (the number of households with at least ONE HDTV) in the US is only around 65%, and if only 65% have at least one, you can assume that
some of those 65% only have one while the rest of their TVs are still SD. That means a minimum of 35% of the TVs in the US are still SD, with a potential number of anything higher than that. Plus, with most aging technology, things still work on it. If you still had a black and white TV (which were still around even through the 80's and
early 90's), you could still WATCH TV, just in black and white. Hell, my uncle just this afternoon was watching an old episode of Lost In Space on his HDTV... IN BLACK AND WHITE (The episode, not the TV. But the point is that black and white broadcasts still work. They don't magically become unusable because there's no color). And to say it's the same is just disingenuous, at least this early in the HD generation. Funny you bring up Team Fortress 2. The entire Orange Box works just fine on my SDTV and Xbox 360. Most 360 games do. Almost all, in fact. This game is actually in the minority. There's only about 3 or 4 360 games that aren't playable due to stupidly small text.

JesseAulsebrook wrote...

1) Don't buy the game. In all seriousness I don't think Bioware will lose sleep over a couple of people canceling their pre-order over in game text size. Face it, you aren't special just because you pre-ordered a Signature Edition, just about everyone else did too.

As of now over 800,000 people have downloaded and presumably played the demo. I count a whole 10 people in this thread. Which leaves a whopping 799,990 other people who didn't think the text size was a problem. So just putting it out there, but maybe the text size isn't the problem.

Ignoring your incredibly snarky attitude here, they obviously do care about a "couple of people" cancelling since they tried to placate those same couple of people by looking into fixing it for Mass Effect 2. This also means that it was more than a "couple of people", as there were enough people thinking it was an issue that it got BioWare's attention to look into the issue then.

And yes, because over 800k people downloaded it and only 10 people have posted in this thread about it, that's the only people that find issue with it. That may very well be the stupidest thing I've read all day. Because clearly, every single person that plays the demo posts on these forums and knows of this exact thread. For one, there's another thread in the demo discussion forums with over 200 posts and 9 pages to it. Two, to think that the number of posts on these forums about something represents anything close to the actual occurance of that issue as a whole is just stupid. Plenty of people that play BioWare games will never in their life visit these forums. Hell, even people that post at these forums and are having the issue will never post in this thread simply because of the pace of the forums and impossibility to read everything.

JesseAulsebrook wrote...

I can understand that it must be frustrating I just don't think Bioware will up and change it for a very small portion of it's fan base. It's a ****ty thing to say I know, but it's just the way it is (with most things even). Majority  > Minority.

If your visual impairment is simply trouble seeing a sharp enough image at a distance (i.e. short sighted) may I suggest glasses?

Instead of relying on the developor to fix the issue you have, maybe it is time to seek out remedies to your individual problems to maximise comfort during gaming.

I don't know the pricing of games in Britain, but I do here in Australia the cost of two-three new games would be equivelent to a new TV. So if I needed a new one I would just go without 2-3 games and buy a new TV instead. (I'm a PC Gamer so I don't have this problem).

I know what I'm saying may come accross as horrible, as not everyone has the same requirements. But sooner or later you may need to come to some compromise(s) when it comes to your own gaming experiences, if you want to maximise said experience.

No one's looking to maximize our experience. Yes, an HDTV will make everything look prettier. But many of us don't give a crap about that. The problem is that their choice to make teeny tiny text (that based on the other thread about this, is an issue even for some of those WITH HDTVs), has led to us having NO experience, due to the game being unplayable.

And you keep saying BioWare doesn't care and shouldn't and tiny minority, etc. but that's not the case. There was enough people that thought it was too small in ME 2 (It's even smaller this time, apparently) that BioWare responded and looked into the issue. There was enough people that thought it was an issue with Banjo Kazooie: Nuts And Bolts that Rare ACTUALLY ISSUED A PATCH MAKING THE TEXT LARGER. It's not like this is something that only affects 10 players of Dragon Age. It's an actual issue that affects a significant number of the player base, and that'd even be the case if it were only SDTV users this affected. But as already mentioned, there's users with HDTVs complaining that the text is too small and hard to read.

Modifié par NinjaMarion, 26 février 2011 - 11:25 .

[Stinkface27]

JesseAulsebrook wrote...

By your reasoning you are asserting that;

If Person A has a heart problem and needs surgery. According to you, since  Person B and C do not have the same problem, then all Person(s) A, B , and C should have open heart surgery...

It would be silly to subject persons B and C to surgery they don’t need... The conclusion we can draw from this is that for the sake of patients everywhere you should never entertain the thought of becoming a doctor.

Now let me put it a way that someone with such a small mind as yourself can draw parallels to the subject at hand.

If Person A can’t read the on screen text, and Person B and C can read the text fine, then all Person(s) A, B , and C should be made to read huge, centralised text that takes up half the screen...

Sorry your logic is flawed, and as for your attempt to come accross as an intelligent person, well I’m sure you are intelligent enough to realise it has failed miserably (then again maybe you aren't).

I know, I know... mind = blown.

Wow, you are ridiculous. I bet you get annoyed by wheelchair access ramps at the grocery store because you don't personally need them.

[Mustang678]

Bioware is aware of the issue

JohnEpler wrote...

Demon Velsper wrote...

JohnEpler wrote...



I dream of a world where people don't generalize the opinions of themselves and the people who share their interests to 'everyone'.

I dream of a world where devs actually answer concerns that make games more or less unplayable due to an insanely small text size because they repeated the mistake of assuming everyone has a 60" HDTV.



I wonder which dream will come true first?

A fair question! Though I can tell you that I've passed this concern along to the appropriate people. Unfortunately, my job is far enough removed from that sort of thing that all I can do is go to their offices and say 'hey, guys, psst. Remember that thing.'

http://social.biowar...ex/6228988&lf=8

[Lazy Murph]

NinjaMarion wrote...
First off, it's not necessarily the current standard. Yes, HDTVs are becoming it, but they aren't yet / HD adoption rates aren't nearly as high as you people seem to think. Mere penetration rate (the number of households with at least ONE HDTV) in the US is only around 65%, and if only 65% have at least one, you can assume that
some of those 65% only have one while the rest of their TVs are still SD. That means a minimum of 35% of the TVs in the US are still SD, with a potential number of anything higher than that.

I'd love to know where you got your percentages from. Source?

If you're correct about the percentages, 65% of the whole of America is A LOT of people. You could probably shove the whole of the UK in one of America's bigger states. To say that HD is not already the current standard is a bit naive if you ask me. Everyone I know has a HDTV of some description and IIRC HDTV's have been sold in the US for a lot longer than say, over here in the UK. 

It sucks if someone is unfortunate enough to have an actual visual impairment, but just not having an HDTV is just not moving with the times. You could compare it to still having dialup internet as opposed to broadband....sure, a certain percentage of people will still use dialup for whatever reason but broadband is cheap enough nowadays that it's pretty much available to everyone.

[NinjaMarion]

Old Fecker wrote...

NinjaMarion wrote...
First off, it's not necessarily the current standard. Yes, HDTVs are becoming it, but they aren't yet / HD adoption rates aren't nearly as high as you people seem to think. Mere penetration rate (the number of households with at least ONE HDTV) in the US is only around 65%, and if only 65% have at least one, you can assume that
some of those 65% only have one while the rest of their TVs are still SD. That means a minimum of 35% of the TVs in the US are still SD, with a potential number of anything higher than that.

I'd love to know where you got your percentages from. Source?

If you're correct about the percentages, 65% of the whole of America is A LOT of people. You could probably shove the whole of the UK in one of America's bigger states. To say that HD is not already the current standard is a bit naive if you ask me. Everyone I know has a HDTV of some description and IIRC HDTV's have been sold in the US for a lot longer than say, over here in the UK. 

It sucks if someone is unfortunate enough to have an actual visual impairment, but just not having an HDTV is just not moving with the times. You could compare it to still having dialup internet as opposed to broadband....sure, a certain percentage of people will still use dialup for whatever reason but broadband is cheap enough nowadays that it's pretty much available to everyone.

Googling HD penetration rates and looking up the various articles and going with the most recent figure. The specific article in question was this one: http://www.bizjourna...03/daily61.html

There's nothing naive about it. 65% of HOUSEHOLDS does not make it the current standard. Again, this 65% of homes with ONE or more HDTVs. This counts a house that just finally bought a single HDTV to complement their 2, 3, 4, 5, etc SDTVs. One HDTV in a house of two or more TVs in 65% of homes would not mean that HD is the standard because 65% of homes are HD. That would actually mean 35% have only SD and 50% (in the case of two TV homes) of the other 65% are SD. That 35% is a MINIMUM figure (as of the most recent penetration rate stats I can find). They aren't nearly as prolific as you think. Just because you personally know people that mostly have HDTVs, doesn't speak anything to the greater public, especially when you consider factors such as gamers being more likely to own more techy stuff than non-gamers, etc.

Just to throw out more "HD isn't as standard as you think" stuff: http://broadcastengi...oland-20110201/

ONE THIRD. Only a mere 33% of US local TV stations are broadcasting in HD. Most cables systems still have more SD channels than HD. It's not as high as you think. It's not 100% the standard yet. There are still a LOT of SDTVs out there.

[Icy Magebane]

I just want to point out that just because there's a high number of downloads and a relatively small number of complaints doesn't mean this is not a problem. These boards don't represent the gaming population as a whole. This thread doesn't represent the number of people who have a problem with ridiculously small text and no option to alter it. Then again, there are a lot of people who just enjoy being rude and making themselves look like big shots on the internet. That probably explains most of the flippancy I've seen in response to this issue. How about, instead of suggesting a $200-300 work-around (buy an HDTV), you ask yourself if there's even a purpose behind the text being so small. The VAST majority of games have legible text even though they were produced for current gen systems. HDTVs are not a requirement for most new games, and if they are for specific titles, consumers should be warned in advance.

Thankfully, Bioware released a demo first, so those who have a problem with it can avoid this game and be wary of their future releases.

Modifié par Icy Magebane, 27 février 2011 - 02:21 .

[Mustang678]

Why does it matter? Is it that big of a deal to increase the font size? Nobody complained about DA:O's font as far as I can recall

[OmegaBlue0231]

Modifié par OmegaBlue0231, 27 février 2011 - 02:45 .

[NinjaMarion]

OmegaBlue0231 wrote...

Mustang678 wrote...

Why does it matter? Is it that big of a deal to increase the font size? Nobody complained about DA:O's font as far as I can recall

Yeah because Origins had a readable font size.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was Mustang's point. That the font was readable in DA:O, yet there were no complaints from HD gamers that the font was too big and taking up too much of the screen or anything, and that because of this, wouldn't it be much easier to just make the text a little bigger so SD can read it and have no one complain, rather than make the text tiny and have SD users complain.

Modifié par NinjaMarion, 27 février 2011 - 02:28 .

[OmegaBlue0231]

NinjaMarion wrote...

OmegaBlue0231 wrote...

Mustang678 wrote...

Why does it matter? Is it that big of a deal to increase the font size? Nobody complained about DA:O's font as far as I can recall

Yeah because Origins had a readable font size.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was Mustang's point. That the font was readable in DA:O, yet there were no complaints from HD gamers that the font was too big and taking up too much of the screen or anything, and that because of this, wouldn't it be much easier to just make the text a little bigger so SD can read it and have no one complain, rather than make the text tiny and have SD users complain.

Oh ok, I completely misread his comment.

[Shadelon]

NinjaMarion wrote...

Fredvdp wrote...

BioWare makes their games for the current standard of TVs. The reason you can't read text in Dragon Age II on an SDTV is the same reason you can't play Team Fortress 2 on a black &  white TV.

No. First off, it's not necessarily the current standard. Yes, HDTVs are becoming it, but they aren't yet. SDTVs still exist and are still sold and MANY people still have perfectly fine SDTVs that work with no issues. HD adoption rates aren't nearly as high as you people seem to think. Mere penetration rate (the number of households with at least ONE HDTV) in the US is only around 65%, and if only 65% have at least one, you can assume that
some of those 65% only have one while the rest of their TVs are still SD. That means a minimum of 35% of the TVs in the US are still SD, with a potential number of anything higher than that. Plus, with most aging technology, things still work on it. If you still had a black and white TV (which were still around even through the 80's and
early 90's), you could still WATCH TV, just in black and white. Hell, my uncle just this afternoon was watching an old episode of Lost In Space on his HDTV... IN BLACK AND WHITE (The episode, not the TV. But the point is that black and white broadcasts still work. They don't magically become unusable because there's no color). And to say it's the same is just disingenuous, at least this early in the HD generation. Funny you bring up Team Fortress 2. The entire Orange Box works just fine on my SDTV and Xbox 360. Most 360 games do. Almost all, in fact. This game is actually in the minority. There's only about 3 or 4 360 games that aren't playable due to stupidly small text.

JesseAulsebrook wrote...

1) Don't buy the game. In all seriousness I don't think Bioware will lose sleep over a couple of people canceling their pre-order over in game text size. Face it, you aren't special just because you pre-ordered a Signature Edition, just about everyone else did too.

As of now over 800,000 people have downloaded and presumably played the demo. I count a whole 10 people in this thread. Which leaves a whopping 799,990 other people who didn't think the text size was a problem. So just putting it out there, but maybe the text size isn't the problem.

Ignoring your incredibly snarky attitude here, they obviously do care about a "couple of people" cancelling since they tried to placate those same couple of people by looking into fixing it for Mass Effect 2. This also means that it was more than a "couple of people", as there were enough people thinking it was an issue that it got BioWare's attention to look into the issue then.

And yes, because over 800k people downloaded it and only 10 people have posted in this thread about it, that's the only people that find issue with it. That may very well be the stupidest thing I've read all day. Because clearly, every single person that plays the demo posts on these forums and knows of this exact thread. For one, there's another thread in the demo discussion forums with over 200 posts and 9 pages to it. Two, to think that the number of posts on these forums about something represents anything close to the actual occurance of that issue as a whole is just stupid. Plenty of people that play BioWare games will never in their life visit these forums. Hell, even people that post at these forums and are having the issue will never post in this thread simply because of the pace of the forums and impossibility to read everything.

JesseAulsebrook wrote...

I can understand that it must be frustrating I just don't think Bioware will up and change it for a very small portion of it's fan base. It's a ****ty thing to say I know, but it's just the way it is (with most things even). Majority  > Minority.

If your visual impairment is simply trouble seeing a sharp enough image at a distance (i.e. short sighted) may I suggest glasses?

Instead of relying on the developor to fix the issue you have, maybe it is time to seek out remedies to your individual problems to maximise comfort during gaming.

I don't know the pricing of games in Britain, but I do here in Australia the cost of two-three new games would be equivelent to a new TV. So if I needed a new one I would just go without 2-3 games and buy a new TV instead. (I'm a PC Gamer so I don't have this problem).

I know what I'm saying may come accross as horrible, as not everyone has the same requirements. But sooner or later you may need to come to some compromise(s) when it comes to your own gaming experiences, if you want to maximise said experience.

No one's looking to maximize our experience. Yes, an HDTV will make everything look prettier. But many of us don't give a crap about that. The problem is that their choice to make teeny tiny text (that based on the other thread about this, is an issue even for some of those WITH HDTVs), has led to us having NO experience, due to the game being unplayable.

And you keep saying BioWare doesn't care and shouldn't and tiny minority, etc. but that's not the case. There was enough people that thought it was too small in ME 2 (It's even smaller this time, apparently) that BioWare responded and looked into the issue. There was enough people that thought it was an issue with Banjo Kazooie: Nuts And Bolts that Rare ACTUALLY ISSUED A PATCH MAKING THE TEXT LARGER. It's not like this is something that only affects 10 players of Dragon Age. It's an actual issue that affects a significant number of the player base, and that'd even be the case if it were only SDTV users this affected. But as already mentioned, there's users with HDTVs complaining that the text is too small and hard to read.

Sorry to say, but here, every single store I go to do NOT in fact sell SDTV's anymore, and have not in over 5 years. This includes Fred Meyer, Walmart, Best Buy, etc. List goes on. I've gone inside all of them. Fred Meyer have a very small number of tiny little 18" EDTV's, with HDTV's taking up all of the shelf space. Other stores don't even have EDTV's, only HDTV's. Maybe in your area, but not here.

[Lazy Murph]

NinjaMarion wrote...

Old Fecker wrote...

NinjaMarion wrote...
First off, it's not necessarily the current standard. Yes, HDTVs are becoming it, but they aren't yet / HD adoption rates aren't nearly as high as you people seem to think. Mere penetration rate (the number of households with at least ONE HDTV) in the US is only around 65%, and if only 65% have at least one, you can assume that
some of those 65% only have one while the rest of their TVs are still SD. That means a minimum of 35% of the TVs in the US are still SD, with a potential number of anything higher than that.

I'd love to know where you got your percentages from. Source?

If you're correct about the percentages, 65% of the whole of America is A LOT of people. You could probably shove the whole of the UK in one of America's bigger states. To say that HD is not already the current standard is a bit naive if you ask me. Everyone I know has a HDTV of some description and IIRC HDTV's have been sold in the US for a lot longer than say, over here in the UK. 

It sucks if someone is unfortunate enough to have an actual visual impairment, but just not having an HDTV is just not moving with the times. You could compare it to still having dialup internet as opposed to broadband....sure, a certain percentage of people will still use dialup for whatever reason but broadband is cheap enough nowadays that it's pretty much available to everyone.

Googling HD penetration rates and looking up the various articles and going with the most recent figure. The specific article in question was this one: http://www.bizjourna...03/daily61.html

There's nothing naive about it. 65% of HOUSEHOLDS does not make it the current standard. Again, this 65% of homes with ONE or more HDTVs. This counts a house that just finally bought a single HDTV to complement their 2, 3, 4, 5, etc SDTVs. One HDTV in a house of two or more TVs in 65% of homes would not mean that HD is the standard because 65% of homes are HD. That would actually mean 35% have only SD and 50% (in the case of two TV homes) of the other 65% are SD. That 35% is a MINIMUM figure (as of the most recent penetration rate stats I can find). They aren't nearly as prolific as you think. Just because you personally know people that mostly have HDTVs, doesn't speak anything to the greater public, especially when you consider factors such as gamers being more likely to own more techy stuff than non-gamers, etc.

Just to throw out more "HD isn't as standard as you think" stuff: http://broadcastengi...oland-20110201/

ONE THIRD. Only a mere 33% of US local TV stations are broadcasting in HD. Most cables systems still have more SD channels than HD. It's not as high as you think. It's not 100% the standard yet. There are still a LOT of SDTVs out there.

Mate, you can bang on about penetration rates and percentages for as long as you like. Every electrical retail store I've ever been in within the last say, roughly 5 years, only sells flat panel HD telly's of various sizes. If they do sell SDTV's then they're relegated to a small corner of the store with very few models available.

In terms of tech, Plasma & LCD are now old news (and cheap) with the new standard being LED TV's. One other point, the 360 & PS3 are HD consoles.

That article you linked to seems to me to be a positive article on HDTV penetration rates in the US - you take the percentages as negative, instead focusing on the remaining 35% as proof HDTV penetration isn't 'all that'.
 
The article also says that HD penetration is up 13% on last year, that consumers are buying HDTV's as secondary sets and also:

Washington Business Journal - Jeff Clabaugh wrote...
“A drop in price, widespread availability of HD content and successful completion of the digital television transition last year have all led to an increased ownership rate for HDTV’s,” said Brian Markwalter, vice president of research and standards.

One pretty big point that I think you missed though is that the article you linked to was dated MAY 6TH 2010. So the percentages you base your argument on are nearly 10 months out of date.


Visual impairment is a different thing altogether though. If there's just one person who can't read text in a game because of an impairment then something should be done about it...but it probably wouldn't be done. I've got a friend who cannot play certain games as due to an accident he only has one finger on his left hand. He can't play the new Test Drive game for example, as it doesn't feature button reconfig on the consoles, he needs to have accelerate and brake on the face buttons as opposed to the triggers.

There should always be options to change font size, control mapping, brightness/contrast/colour levels etc. in all games in my opinion. But that will probably never happen.

[Vahe]

If you're playing on a console, let alone an SDTV, you're marginalizing yourself. I was running 1280 x 1024 a decade ago. No excuse.

[NinjaMarion]

Old Fecker wrote...

NinjaMarion wrote...

Old Fecker wrote...

NinjaMarion wrote...
First off, it's not necessarily the current standard. Yes, HDTVs are becoming it, but they aren't yet / HD adoption rates aren't nearly as high as you people seem to think. Mere penetration rate (the number of households with at least ONE HDTV) in the US is only around 65%, and if only 65% have at least one, you can assume that
some of those 65% only have one while the rest of their TVs are still SD. That means a minimum of 35% of the TVs in the US are still SD, with a potential number of anything higher than that.

I'd love to know where you got your percentages from. Source?

If you're correct about the percentages, 65% of the whole of America is A LOT of people. You could probably shove the whole of the UK in one of America's bigger states. To say that HD is not already the current standard is a bit naive if you ask me. Everyone I know has a HDTV of some description and IIRC HDTV's have been sold in the US for a lot longer than say, over here in the UK. 

It sucks if someone is unfortunate enough to have an actual visual impairment, but just not having an HDTV is just not moving with the times. You could compare it to still having dialup internet as opposed to broadband....sure, a certain percentage of people will still use dialup for whatever reason but broadband is cheap enough nowadays that it's pretty much available to everyone.

Googling HD penetration rates and looking up the various articles and going with the most recent figure. The specific article in question was this one: http://www.bizjourna...03/daily61.html

There's nothing naive about it. 65% of HOUSEHOLDS does not make it the current standard. Again, this 65% of homes with ONE or more HDTVs. This counts a house that just finally bought a single HDTV to complement their 2, 3, 4, 5, etc SDTVs. One HDTV in a house of two or more TVs in 65% of homes would not mean that HD is the standard because 65% of homes are HD. That would actually mean 35% have only SD and 50% (in the case of two TV homes) of the other 65% are SD. That 35% is a MINIMUM figure (as of the most recent penetration rate stats I can find). They aren't nearly as prolific as you think. Just because you personally know people that mostly have HDTVs, doesn't speak anything to the greater public, especially when you consider factors such as gamers being more likely to own more techy stuff than non-gamers, etc.

Just to throw out more "HD isn't as standard as you think" stuff: http://broadcastengi...oland-20110201/

ONE THIRD. Only a mere 33% of US local TV stations are broadcasting in HD. Most cables systems still have more SD channels than HD. It's not as high as you think. It's not 100% the standard yet. There are still a LOT of SDTVs out there.

Mate, you can bang on about penetration rates and percentages for as long as you like. Every electrical retail store I've ever been in within the last say, roughly 5 years, only sells flat panel HD telly's of various sizes. If they do sell SDTV's then they're relegated to a small corner of the store with very few models available.

In terms of tech, Plasma & LCD are now old news (and cheap) with the new standard being LED TV's. One other point, the 360 & PS3 are HD consoles.

That article you linked to seems to me to be a positive article on HDTV penetration rates in the US - you take the percentages as negative, instead focusing on the remaining 35% as proof HDTV penetration isn't 'all that'.
 
The article also says that HD penetration is up 13% on last year, that consumers are buying HDTV's as secondary sets and also:

Washington Business Journal - Jeff Clabaugh wrote...
“A drop in price, widespread availability of HD content and successful completion of the digital television transition last year have all led to an increased ownership rate for HDTV’s,” said Brian Markwalter, vice president of research and standards.

One pretty big point that I think you missed though is that the article you linked to was dated MAY 6TH 2010. So the percentages you base your argument on are nearly 10 months out of date.


Visual impairment is a different thing altogether though. If there's just one person who can't read text in a game because of an impairment then something should be done about it...but it probably wouldn't be done. I've got a friend who cannot play certain games as due to an accident he only has one finger on his left hand. He can't play the new Test Drive game for example, as it doesn't feature button reconfig on the consoles, he needs to have accelerate and brake on the face buttons as opposed to the triggers.

There should always be options to change font size, control mapping, brightness/contrast/colour levels etc. in all games in my opinion. But that will probably never happen.

And you're missing every point I made. Yes, it was dated May 6th. I stated it was from last year outright. It's the most recent hard numbers I can find, and rather than just blindly make up numbers, I prefer to argue facts. And yes, the article paints it in a positive light. I'm not saying it negatively. I'm just saying as of that moment, a MINIMUM of 35% of the households had SDTVs. And that was only if every single house that owned an HDTV only owned HDTVs (Which isn't even close to true. My home owns two HDTVs and four SDTVs). Therefore, the number is even higher than that 35%. And yes, it's a year out of date... but if you look through that article, they state that 23% of users plan on buying an HDTV in the next year. That brings our new MAXIMUM amount of HDTVs to 88%, with that potentially being lower still because of the already mentioned fact that most houses don't have all HDTVs, as well as the fact that people don't always buy something that they plan on, so many of those 23% may not have gone through with the purchase. And considering you claim that if only one person has impairment issues, and talk about how Test Drive should have been configurable for your one-fingered friend, it's not hard to believe that a MINIMUM 12% of the possible audience should not be excluded when you had perfectly readable text size in the previous game in the series.

Past that, yes, SDTVs are pretty difficult to find new currently. However, as you said, as recently as five years ago, they weren't. And it was more recent than that, as I purchased my SDTV about 3 years. Were you aware that TVs last more than 3 years generally? Oftentimes, more than even 5 or 8 years. TVs are also not marketed as disposable. So yes, while most places haven't had SDTVs in store for awhile, most people still have perfectly working SDTVs that they aren't going to just throw away because BioWare (And yes, claim "360 is HD! All the games are doing it!" all you want, but there's only about 4 games on the 360 that had text this bad, and one of them (Banjo Kazooie) was patched to have larger text, and two of them are from BioWare) insisted on making tiny text despite complaints. I mean, the washer companies are doing those HE washers now that use less soap and water. If you just bought your washer 3 years ago, should you throw that out just because they now introduced a newer, better kind? If you said yes, you're an idiot, but I'd like to have your kind of disposable income.

And as for the "The 360 is in HD, you should know better, deal with it" part of that argument. No. Just plain no. You're wrong. Yes, the 360 is capable of outputting in HD, but it's NOT just an HD console. The original models didn't even come with an HDMI port. The component cables also function as SD composite cables. Almost every single game, and even the X-Box interfaces themselves, work perfectly on an SDTV.

Seriously. If you can read it, that's all fine and well. If you could afford to junk a perfectly good SDTV and buy an HDTV on a whim, excellent. You're clearly well off financially. With the economy being crap, most people don't have that luxury, and even if they did, it's their choice if they want an HDTV or not. BioWare shouldn't be making games that are completely unusable on SDTVs for no reason (And it IS no reason. Did you see any 10 page topics complaining that the text in DA:O was too big and readable? Or people cancelling their pre-orders? No? Then this has already done them far more harm than good.) So if this isn't a problem for you, great. But STOP trying to make it out to be our fault for not upgrading our TVs just for this game. For some of us, the choice to get an HDTV would actually mean not enough money to buy DA2, thus meaning we wouldn't get to play even if we upgraded. It's like blaming a robbery victim for getting robbed because "Alarm systems are standard. Why don't you own one?"

[Lazy Murph]

NinjaMarion wrote...

And you're missing every point I made. Yes, it was dated May 6th. I stated it was from last year outright. It's the most recent hard numbers I can find, and rather than just blindly make up numbers, I prefer to argue facts. And yes, the article paints it in a positive light. I'm not saying it negatively. I'm just saying as of that moment, a MINIMUM of 35% of the households had SDTVs. And that was only if every single house that owned an HDTV only owned HDTVs (Which isn't even close to true. My home owns two HDTVs and four SDTVs). Therefore, the number is even higher than that 35%. And yes, it's a year out of date... but if you look through that article, they state that 23% of users plan on buying an HDTV in the next year. That brings our new MAXIMUM amount of HDTVs to 88%, with that potentially being lower still because of the already mentioned fact that most houses don't have all HDTVs, as well as the fact that people don't always buy something that they plan on, so many of those 23% may not have gone through with the purchase. And considering you claim that if only one person has impairment issues, and talk about how Test Drive should have been configurable for your one-fingered friend, it's not hard to believe that a MINIMUM 12% of the possible audience should not be excluded when you had perfectly readable text size in the previous game in the series.

Past that, yes, SDTVs are pretty difficult to find new currently. However, as you said, as recently as five years ago, they weren't. And it was more recent than that, as I purchased my SDTV about 3 years. Were you aware that TVs last more than 3 years generally? Oftentimes, more than even 5 or 8 years. TVs are also not marketed as disposable. So yes, while most places haven't had SDTVs in store for awhile, most people still have perfectly working SDTVs that they aren't going to just throw away because BioWare (And yes, claim "360 is HD! All the games are doing it!" all you want, but there's only about 4 games on the 360 that had text this bad, and one of them (Banjo Kazooie) was patched to have larger text, and two of them are from BioWare) insisted on making tiny text despite complaints. I mean, the washer companies are doing those HE washers now that use less soap and water. If you just bought your washer 3 years ago, should you throw that out just because they now introduced a newer, better kind? If you said yes, you're an idiot, but I'd like to have your kind of disposable income.

And as for the "The 360 is in HD, you should know better, deal with it" part of that argument. No. Just plain no. You're wrong. Yes, the 360 is capable of outputting in HD, but it's NOT just an HD console. The original models didn't even come with an HDMI port. The component cables also function as SD composite cables. Almost every single game, and even the X-Box interfaces themselves, work perfectly on an SDTV.

Seriously. If you can read it, that's all fine and well. If you could afford to junk a perfectly good SDTV and buy an HDTV on a whim, excellent. You're clearly well off financially. With the economy being crap, most people don't have that luxury, and even if they did, it's their choice if they want an HDTV or not. BioWare shouldn't be making games that are completely unusable on SDTVs for no reason (And it IS no reason. Did you see any 10 page topics complaining that the text in DA:O was too big and readable? Or people cancelling their pre-orders? No? Then this has already done them far more harm than good.) So if this isn't a problem for you, great. But STOP trying to make it out to be our fault for not upgrading our TVs just for this game. For some of us, the choice to get an HDTV would actually mean not enough money to buy DA2, thus meaning we wouldn't get to play even if we upgraded. It's like blaming a robbery victim for getting robbed because "Alarm systems are standard. Why don't you own one?"

I think you need to chill out.

You've just said yourself that there's probably around 88% of the US that currently have a HDTV...so that's a clear majority in favour of current tech.

On your weird point about washing machines...me and the wife bought our current washer about 4 years ago, no I'm not going to throw it away because it works fine...but I'm not going to complain that it uses more water. I'll save up and get a new one if it comes to it.

NinjaMarion wrote...
"The 360 is in HD, you should know better, deal with it"

Where did I say the above? Never, that's when. I know original 360's didnt ship with HDMI as I saved up and got one at launch. Yes, the games work in SD but they're not designed to be viewed that way, simple.

NinjaMarion...
You're clearly well off financially. With the economy being crap, most people don't have that luxury,

I love the way you just generalize and blatantly guess at my finances! I suggest you wind your neck in a bit and stop playing the martyr card.

I work 60+ hours a week, usually getting up at 0430 and getting home again at around 1800-1830 - I do that five days a week. I used to be in the British Army and fought in Iraq and Afghan. I got made redundant twice in a year. I didn't get up one morning and just decide to go out and buy the most expensive TV I could find. Technically, both of my HDTVs are out of date. Neither can display 1080p (1080i being the max) but if games started only being able to be played at 1080p then I'd just do what I did when I bought my first HDTV - save up. I wouldn't whinge about it on some forum.

At the end of the day, BioWare are going to go for the majority with their products and I'm sorry to tell you that the majority have HDTVs at their disposal. Either save up like everyone has had to and buy a HDTV or don't. Your choice.

One last thing:

NinjaMarion wrote...
But STOP trying to make it out to be our fault for not upgrading our TVs just for this game.

I'd love to know when I said it was your fault for not being able to read the text because you don't own a HDTV...

[dielveio]

A decent hdtv in brazil cost 800 dollars. Should I pay that much to play a game?
I don't think so...

[aries1001]

I'm not quite sure what that problem is, but I can certainly relate to both those players who have visual impairments and are deaf. I, too, uses glasses with above -6 prescriptions. And I do also a niece who is deaf, so I can relate to this also. I'm playing the game on the pc, and have also played the demo on the pc.

If we go back to oktober 2006, I think, Oblivion was released. It had (has) really, really large font sizes. And many players were annoyed by this. I kind of liked it. My old middleaged 40+ self at that time could actually see the text.

Is the problem on consoles that the text is very tiny on consoles, because the tv-screens are too small? or too big? As for the conversations part, I noticed in my second playthrough there's icons for the general
tone of what's said. A mask is always sarcastic, a shield with wings are always friendly and the icon showing a fist is always unfriendly - or will lead up to combat at some point. I know this is not the best option, but maybe you can try this out? and see if it works for you.

As for the price of HDTV, the cheapest HDTV in Denmark cost around 2000 kr. (about 400 US dollars) and that's about the price for 5 games (each new game costs about 400 kr. or maybe sometimes 450 kr).
I think it is far better to compare how many hours you'll have to work before you're able to buy say HDTV to 2000 kr. In Denmark, the average minimum wage pr. hour, I think is about 150 kr. (30 US dollars) This means that an average Danish worker must work for about 12-14 hours before he or she can buy this 2000 kr. HDTV. This just given as information.

Also this:
Many people, including me, will still have their old 12-14 year old tvs, as many people can't afford or haven't been able to save up money for buying a HDTV. And to be fair, it was not untill 2010 (june or july) that HDTV could be bought as cheap as 2000 Kroner (400 US dollars) in Denmark.

I don't know why Bioware decided to move the party's conversations to above their heads; maybe Peter Thomas (a Bioware dev) could answer this or one of the design devs. Or Seb Hanlon or Randall Bishop?

In DA: Origins, I think, you go into your journal and actually click on a menu point called 'conversation' or something like this. This would bring up your latest conversation(s). And you would be able to read all of it; this feature I also remembered being in baldur's gate 1 and baldur's gate 2. As the inventory and maybe the journal are turned off in the DA2 demo, I haven't noticed if this is also the way it is in the DA2 demo.

[NinjaMarion]

Old Fecker wrote...

NinjaMarion wrote...

And you're missing every point I made. Yes, it was dated May 6th. I stated it was from last year outright. It's the most recent hard numbers I can find, and rather than just blindly make up numbers, I prefer to argue facts. And yes, the article paints it in a positive light. I'm not saying it negatively. I'm just saying as of that moment, a MINIMUM of 35% of the households had SDTVs. And that was only if every single house that owned an HDTV only owned HDTVs (Which isn't even close to true. My home owns two HDTVs and four SDTVs). Therefore, the number is even higher than that 35%. And yes, it's a year out of date... but if you look through that article, they state that 23% of users plan on buying an HDTV in the next year. That brings our new MAXIMUM amount of HDTVs to 88%, with that potentially being lower still because of the already mentioned fact that most houses don't have all HDTVs, as well as the fact that people don't always buy something that they plan on, so many of those 23% may not have gone through with the purchase. And considering you claim that if only one person has impairment issues, and talk about how Test Drive should have been configurable for your one-fingered friend, it's not hard to believe that a MINIMUM 12% of the possible audience should not be excluded when you had perfectly readable text size in the previous game in the series.

Past that, yes, SDTVs are pretty difficult to find new currently. However, as you said, as recently as five years ago, they weren't. And it was more recent than that, as I purchased my SDTV about 3 years. Were you aware that TVs last more than 3 years generally? Oftentimes, more than even 5 or 8 years. TVs are also not marketed as disposable. So yes, while most places haven't had SDTVs in store for awhile, most people still have perfectly working SDTVs that they aren't going to just throw away because BioWare (And yes, claim "360 is HD! All the games are doing it!" all you want, but there's only about 4 games on the 360 that had text this bad, and one of them (Banjo Kazooie) was patched to have larger text, and two of them are from BioWare) insisted on making tiny text despite complaints. I mean, the washer companies are doing those HE washers now that use less soap and water. If you just bought your washer 3 years ago, should you throw that out just because they now introduced a newer, better kind? If you said yes, you're an idiot, but I'd like to have your kind of disposable income.

And as for the "The 360 is in HD, you should know better, deal with it" part of that argument. No. Just plain no. You're wrong. Yes, the 360 is capable of outputting in HD, but it's NOT just an HD console. The original models didn't even come with an HDMI port. The component cables also function as SD composite cables. Almost every single game, and even the X-Box interfaces themselves, work perfectly on an SDTV.

Seriously. If you can read it, that's all fine and well. If you could afford to junk a perfectly good SDTV and buy an HDTV on a whim, excellent. You're clearly well off financially. With the economy being crap, most people don't have that luxury, and even if they did, it's their choice if they want an HDTV or not. BioWare shouldn't be making games that are completely unusable on SDTVs for no reason (And it IS no reason. Did you see any 10 page topics complaining that the text in DA:O was too big and readable? Or people cancelling their pre-orders? No? Then this has already done them far more harm than good.) So if this isn't a problem for you, great. But STOP trying to make it out to be our fault for not upgrading our TVs just for this game. For some of us, the choice to get an HDTV would actually mean not enough money to buy DA2, thus meaning we wouldn't get to play even if we upgraded. It's like blaming a robbery victim for getting robbed because "Alarm systems are standard. Why don't you own one?"

I think you need to chill out.

You've just said yourself that there's probably around 88% of the US that currently have a HDTV...so that's a clear majority in favour of current tech.

On your weird point about washing machines...me and the wife bought our current washer about 4 years ago, no I'm not going to throw it away because it works fine...but I'm not going to complain that it uses more water. I'll save up and get a new one if it comes to it.

NinjaMarion wrote...
"The 360 is in HD, you should know better, deal with it"

Where did I say the above? Never, that's when. I know original 360's didnt ship with HDMI as I saved up and got one at launch. Yes, the games work in SD but they're not designed to be viewed that way, simple.

NinjaMarion...
You're clearly well off financially. With the economy being crap, most people don't have that luxury,

I love the way you just generalize and blatantly guess at my finances! I suggest you wind your neck in a bit and stop playing the martyr card.

I work 60+ hours a week, usually getting up at 0430 and getting home again at around 1800-1830 - I do that five days a week. I used to be in the British Army and fought in Iraq and Afghan. I got made redundant twice in a year. I didn't get up one morning and just decide to go out and buy the most expensive TV I could find. Technically, both of my HDTVs are out of date. Neither can display 1080p (1080i being the max) but if games started only being able to be played at 1080p then I'd just do what I did when I bought my first HDTV - save up. I wouldn't whinge about it on some forum.

At the end of the day, BioWare are going to go for the majority with their products and I'm sorry to tell you that the majority have HDTVs at their disposal. Either save up like everyone has had to and buy a HDTV or don't. Your choice.

One last thing:

NinjaMarion wrote...
But STOP trying to make it out to be our fault for not upgrading our TVs just for this game.

I'd love to know when I said it was your fault for not being able to read the text because you don't own a HDTV...

You say that's not the case, but when every one of your points implies that we should expect this or deserve it for not having an HDTV, you're pretty much saying it's our fault, rather than BioWare's for designing text THAT ALSO ISN'T BIG ENOUGH ON SOME HDTVS!

And you clearly couldn't understand the slight math I worked in there, because I said nothing of the sort about 88% of the US having HDTVs. I said that's the absolute MAXIMUM, and that it was definitely less than that. Even if it was 95%, they claimed to care about the voice of those remaining 5% when they did this with Mass Effect 2 and got a ton of complaints but said it wasn't possible to patch. Thus, when they then turn right around and do it for DA2, it's a slap in the face of all the SD fans that thought when they said they gave a crap about us and would look into the issue, they clearly didn't. It's also pretty annoying to anyone that supported DA:O, which had perfectly readable text, and then plunked down money on this only to have to it be unreadable.

And how do you not get the washing machine analogy? It uses more water but otherwise works. SDTVs aren't as pretty as HDTVs, but otherwise work. . . unless you're playing a BioWare game. Otherwise though, they may be outdated tech, but the still WORK! I can watch any channel on my cable and it'll work whether HD or SD. I can play 99.9% of Xbox 360 games and they will WORK. That was my point. You don't throw out a perfectly working washer just because a new type that uses less soap and water comes out just like you don't throw out a perfectly working TV just because one with a shinier, prettier picture comes out. This game is one of FOUR instances of the thousands of Xbox 360 titles where SDTVs don't still work. Overall, SDTVs still ****ing work!

[Fr33d0m]

I play on the PC and have no problems reading the text, but my wife and I both prefer to use a larger font mod in Dragon Age. It is just easier on the eyes to make the text bigger. Hopefully DA2 will be modded in a similar fashion.

[JuanCousland]

Edit: Wrong Thread, sorry.

Modifié par JuanCousland, 01 mars 2011 - 01:05 .

[Vector C]

Old Fecker wrote...

At the end of the day, BioWare are going to go for the majority with their products and I'm sorry to tell you that the majority have HDTVs at their disposal. Either save up like everyone has had to and buy a HDTV or don't. Your choice.

The "tiny text serves the majority because HDtvs are the majority" argument makes me laugh so much. Yes, tiny text serves the majority because a percentage of people greater than 50 might be able to read it with little trouble. That majority totally beats the 100% of people that could read it if it was slighter bigger like the very non-obtrusive but readable text in DA:O was. It seems your genius knows just as few bounds as my sarcasm does.

[NinjaMarion]

Vector C wrote...

Old Fecker wrote...

At the end of the day, BioWare are going to go for the majority with their products and I'm sorry to tell you that the majority have HDTVs at their disposal. Either save up like everyone has had to and buy a HDTV or don't. Your choice.

The "tiny text serves the majority because HDtvs are the majority" argument makes me laugh so much. Yes, tiny text serves the majority because a percentage of people greater than 50 might be able to read it with little trouble. That majority totally beats the 100% of people that could read it if it was slighter bigger like the very non-obtrusive but readable text in DA:O was. It seems your genius knows just as few bounds as my sarcasm does.

This. Not to mention that it's also too small for some HD users, a point that REALLY seems lost on these people and proves it's much smaller than necessary.

[Tabak]

Well I find it too small on PC too, and it annoys me to have to change the font size just for this game. However, at least PC gamers CAN change the resolution and get larger text.

All this arguing about HDTV penetration amuses me. Hello... the world doesn't start and end with the US! The US has very high adoption of HDTV compared to the rest of the world. Manufacturers are still producing CRT TV's for some countries. I'm not suggesting DA2 should be able to be played on CRT TV's but if the minimum requirement for being able to read text is an HDTV this is likely to be problematic for a very large number of people across Europe and Asia/Pacific.