336 réponses à ce sujet

[Antaress]

ejoslin wrote...

Do they really not think that DAO appealed to a huge audience? How many awards must a game win, how well must it sell, before they realize that it DOES? DAO did/does appeal to a very large audience. If the DLCs didn't sell as well as expected, that's because the DLCs moved away from DAO's style and depth.

DAO's dialog system honestly wasn't broken. I actually don't mind the dialog wheel, I don't mind the voiced protagonist, I DO mind not being able to talk to my companions and weird things that come from that and the time skips.

Funny think is that DAO sold more copys than ME2
BW  If it ain't broke, don't fix it !!!!

[Malja]

Antaress wrote...

BW  If it ain't broke, don't fix it !!!!

Actually a means of becoming stagnant. I promote change, mostly improvement, but I promote it be done responsibly.

[Bendok]

*post removed in case someone from the powers that be doesn't like it and wants to ban my account and prevent me from playing the games I paid for* (see here: http://social.biowar...1/index/6465725 )

Perhaps it's time to make a separate account not tied into any of my actual games for posting.

Modifié par Bendok, 11 mars 2011 - 01:03 .

[DrunkenMagicianNL]

RohanD wrote...

 Some great replies in the comments

Murton wrote:


Not a great interview, why didn't you ask him if he felt they'd dumbed down the game too much and maybe that's why it wasn't as well received as Origins was? There were a couple of lines in the interview that made me think "what the hell are you talking about Laidlow? You ****ed up, just admit it and move on" 

"Wow, this is just too different and I cannot handle it." 

I'm not sure just how patronised to feel about this one. You said yourself that you believe that the bulk of the criticism stems from people expecting a more Origins-like experience or people hanging onto the ideals carried over from Baldur's Gate 2. I find it highly unlikely that these people "cannot handle it" more like, they don't like it and didn't want it. You knew long before development began what your fans like and your game design didn't follow that formula, instead you "streamlined" and created the answer to a question nobody really asked. 

"We decided for Dragon Age II that we wanted a voice for the player fairly early on and so there was an obvious... Well, what would be the best system we have" 

And having a voice means you have to remove the choice from the dialogue system? I'm reasonably sure that you could give us at least summarised lines to choose from in the same way as DA:O rather than the retarded anti-RPG method of selecting a mood. How am I supposed to roleplay my character if I have no idea what he's about to say? You already had the best system in place, and you abandoned it in your quest for increased accessibility, you messed up. 

"Getting rid of Baldur's Gate is a terrible idea" 

Yet that's exactly what has happened. Baldurs Gate not only had more in depth mechanics for RPG fans to sink their teeth into but also had a richer and more compelling world. You seem to have forgotten how to do all of the things that made you kings of the RPG genre, you got away with it with Mass Effect because it was a new franchise and could be pitched as a new breed of game, DA:O was pitched as a spiritual successor to Baldurs Gate and it had some elements of BG in there, elements which aren't present in its direct sequel DA2 and that, that is the source of the criticism you're seeing. DA2 doesn't feel like an RPG, doesn't feel like a Bioware game, it's just doesn't have that special spark that was present through BG, NWN, KOTOR and DA:O, and that's what people are upset about. 

Yesterday Todd Howard your counterpart at Bethesda revealed that Skyrim was going to bring back the sense of discovery that made Morrowind feel special. To achieve this he says they're going to get away from the familiar feeling of Oblivion and the pointlessness of some of its locations by making lots of things actually worth discovering and exploring. Hopefully you'll come to a similar realisation when you start on DA3 and try to recapture some of the magic that you let go of while making DA2 otherwise I think you can look forward to some pretty mediocre review scores and slightly harsher criticism from fans


Ubergine wrote:

Laidlaw's assertion that Mass Effect 2 was not a big influence on DA2 is not credible at all. They've clearly come up with a playbook for the transition from ME to ME2 and attempted to apply the same principles to DA2. It's simply in the case of DA2 it's backfiring. 

ME2 removed a swathe of elements from ME and replaced them with only two things: a polished combat model and some truly great character writing. You could add in improved graphics to that but I felt the design work in ME2 became a little more vanilla in places as a consequence. So many reviews for ME2 started "You'll miss these features for ten minutes then forget about them." and was pretty much right. 

Dragon Age Origins however, was a game only looking for improvement in two areas: better graphics, and a better explanation of the combat to new players. I am not a Baldur's Gate veteran or of all these other Bioware games over the years, and it took me the first 50 hours of the game to get a grip on the combat. Mass Effect had a similar problem which is why they thankfully added a great tutorial to ME2. 

Having suffered to learn how to play Dragon Age, to learn from the demo that the combat has been nerfed into a "mash win button to win!" model... well, that's one thing which may now be fixed in a patch from what I've read, but what won't be fixed is what's been taken away. Reviews have not described great character writing. Party customisation has been nerfed, not to serve any audience desire but to make the game cheaper to produce (ie no new armour art for each character), the reuse of very limited environments again to save money. 

Reviews have said - reviews from sites like Eurogamer, heavily shrouded by Dragon Age 2 advertising I might add - that the writing overall bears reward, which is the greatest plus in my mind, but the demo you guys released showed horribly boring environment design, aggravatingly frequent and horribly acted and written cut scenes, a taste of your Win Button combat system (which reviews do say gets better as you progress... I'm not sold on it) and to add insult locked off the inventory system, rendering the compulsive loot-gathering RPG fans often love not a part of your sales pitch. Maybe you did that to lend the spotlight to the areas you thought "improved" but, well, it just shone a light on stuff I simply don't want. 

I went from being a day one cert to being very unsure I'll drop big money on DA2, based on the demo and all the things you've talked up as "improvements" without thinking of who you were improving them for. Making it cheaper to produce obviously improves it for YOU, I'm not sure what we get out of it. Applying principles which make a third-person shooter better to a party-based rpg doesn't fall into my range of features and benefits. 

I hope DA2 finds an audience, having alienated a chunk of it's original audience. I think I'll be waiting until there's at least a auto-attack patch for the 360 version before considering buying.

Yes, those are great comments.

[Ebenezer]

Rushed or not there's no excuse for stupidity, and some of the design decisions are downright stupid.

Again though, he says us players are the stupid ones. We cant handle change and we should be lucky they even left in complicated things like party members and items to tax our feeble minds.

[ashwind]

"the re-use of the levels is something we knew was a bit of a risk, but we wanted to make sure there was more content rather than less, so re-using some of the spaces and coming to them again was certainly one we were careful about and tried to re-use as artfully as we could"

This is probably the single biggest weakness in DA2 - even amongst those who like the game. I do not think that it is "a bit of a risk" - I think that is it a "huge risk".

I notice Bioware sealing certain exits and providing different entry point to the same levels when used by different quests - they honestly did made an effort to re-use them differently (not very artfully though). Unfortunately, the entire story took place in Kirkwall so after a while, players have the urge to see something new and hence this re-using of levels becomes too much of an eyesore.

While it is not viable to produce unique levels for everything - maybe adjusting lightings, background music and textures (the stone sealed doorway are far too obvious and ugly) of the same level could better create the illusion of the player visiting a new place.

[VanTesla]

17thknight wrote...

chosef wrote...

english is my third language, sorry if that wasn't an easy read.

You have clearer English than half the kids in my college.

Most foreign nations that teach english as a requirement have overall better writting and understanding. I partially blame the U.S. school system and it's state by state low acceptability. Even I am atrocious with my own language when it comes to sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, and so on. Ofcorse I never try to better my english and thus making myself look a bit foolish at times. I should try harder and practices more, since my schools did not help much in such regard, and yet I passed...

[Aspar_Hruk]

I am starting to get worried about a trend i see which might be going far beyond games, unfortunately.
What do you mean Mike, you wanted to remove all those complex features?
Are you calling us stupid?
Oh my, but we live in the age of information and knowledge and you want to remove moving an item from one slot in UI to another cause it's "complex"???
Honestly, if the things are going that way, i think we all as a civilization should seriously consider drastic measures to educate ppl so they can "manage" such "complex" features like choosing a WHOLE sentance from 4-5 as an answer, or moving one item with the mouse from one place to another, and not the other way around - making everything more and more dull and dumb so ppl can handle it. Something is going the wrong way i think.
If majority of ppl are getting so dumb that these things are "complex" for them...wow...we are in a much deeper **** as a whole, than just the reality of Bioware releasing a **** game.

Modifié par Aspar_Hruk, 11 mars 2011 - 01:00 .

[MassFrost]

Bendok wrote...

I think it's very wrong to just assume lower scores are because people were upset it wasn't Origins. The whole game just feels rushed, and it was... its only been like 15 months since Origins came out. DA2 was made lightning fast...of course shortcuts had to happen. This is one time where you can definitely say it's EA's fault...but no one from Bioware could ever publicly say such a thing. This game needed another year of development, at least.

DA2 is a good game, but as a successor to DAO and Bioware games in general, it is a disappointment. Any other studio put out a game like DA2 and I'd be like "impressive!" but I have higher standards for Bioware I guess. I am not talking about the new combat either, I don't mind it. In fact I LOVE the new Archery. I am talking about the content of the game.

I agree with you 100%. The areas in which I found Dragon Age 2 disappointing really didn't have anything to do with comparing it to Origins (which I realized was pointless to do even long before the game came out), it was that in so many aspects the game feels blatantly rushed. Despite that, I continue to try and enjoy it for what it is.. Simplified and rushed as it is (in my opinion, of course), it's still a better game than many others I've wasted $60 on.

[FedericoV]

Antaress wrote...


Funny think is that DAO sold more copys than ME2
BW  If it ain't broke, don't fix it !!!!

Not true.

ME2 sold something like 6+ milion copies.

DA:O sold something between 3 and 4 milion copies.

[VanTesla]

ashwind wrote...

"the re-use of the levels is something we knew was a bit of a risk, but we wanted to make sure there was more content rather than less, so re-using some of the spaces and coming to them again was certainly one we were careful about and tried to re-use as artfully as we could"

This is probably the single biggest weakness in DA2 - even amongst those who like the game. I do not think that it is "a bit of a risk" - I think that is it a "huge risk".

I notice Bioware sealing certain exits and providing different entry point to the same levels when used by different quests - they honestly did made an effort to re-use them differently (not very artfully though). Unfortunately, the entire story took place in Kirkwall so after a while, players have the urge to see something new and hence this re-using of levels becomes too much of an eyesore.

While it is not viable to produce unique levels for everything - maybe adjusting lightings, background music and textures (the stone sealed doorway are far too obvious and ugly) of the same level could better create the illusion of the player visiting a new place.

The fact the game is way shorter than it's predicessor does not look good on biowares part.

[Wulfram]

Of course, the re-used levels support his claim that ME didn't have too much influence on DA2 - since ME2 realised that they weren't acceptable and got rid of them.

[VanTesla]

FedericoV wrote...

Antaress wrote...


Funny think is that DAO sold more copys than ME2
BW  If it ain't broke, don't fix it !!!!

Not true.

ME2 sold something like 6+ milion copies.

DA:O sold something between 3 and 4 milion copies.

Im not saying your a lier but could you post some hard evidence to prove your claim please.

Modifié par VanTesla, 11 mars 2011 - 01:04 .

[alexmasterson123]

If you make a game that's mature and dark, why govern it by decisions catering to under 18s? (I find it hard to believe that many adults would have trouble keeping up with DA:O style mechanics, given an appropriately well made tutorial introducing each element of gameplay).

In fact, yeah, that's another source of slight disappointment: when considering 'Okay, we think people are put off by the mechanics', the response was to enforce limitations, rather than focus on introducing them in a more accessible way.

Modifié par alexmasterson123, 11 mars 2011 - 01:03 .

[Vengeful Nature]

I'm a little bit insulted by this interview, really. It's like he's not actually listening to the criticism. This whole thing smacks of a straw man argument. "This is what people want, so we'll give it to them. Everyone found Origins too complicated anyway. People are disappointed? It must be PC elitists who expected an Origins clone."

Actually, Mr. Laidlaw, I expected a Bioware game.

I don't care that it's set in a different country. I don't care that it's not about the Warden. I don't care that it's not a Blight or some world-ending catastophe. I don't care that we're limited to one city (after all, Baldur's Gate was only one city).

What I do care about is a save-import system that doesn't work. I care about missing features, oversimplification when Origins was perfectly accessible already, dull level design and reused scenery. None of that in any way is me comparing DA2 with DA:O. This is DA2 on it's own merits.

Modifié par Vengeful Nature, 11 mars 2011 - 01:08 .

[VanTesla]

Brockololly wrote...



Between this and the multiplayer comments.....*sigh*

Multiplayer in most RPGs is just wrong in my opinion.

[Mantaal]

I think he is using the Dialog Wheel for that interview and .....

"Getting rid of Baldur's Gate is a terrible idea, it created some really fundamental elements of what we've done with Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II"

....was the joke answer.

[flushfire]

Killyox the Defender wrote...

Lack of free camera is VERY annoying for me and i got no idea why did they remove it i literally HATE CURRENT CAMERA.

have you not read the interview? top-down camera requires only the latest hardware! you can't design a game thats only playable by people who have hexacores/4x SLI/20gb RAM FFS

[Manlytears_sexybeast]

1) Speak out against bioware giving constructive critisim
2) Thread gets deleted
3) I.P banned
4) Get on a proxy and ask what i actually did
5) Banned again


Pretty pathetic bioware. 

[ColaQueen]

DLCs not selling well isn't necessarily a reflection of the games popularity. I am sure there are loads and loads of people in the world, like me, who don't like to spend money on extra content and only rarely do it.

[Nonoru]

Seblun wrote...

The game is fine, they are making a lot of money.

The 1% of PC Elitist are complaining that it changed, whatevs.

This.It has been discussed to death.

[PSUHammer]

I am about 20 hours in (just after Deep Roads) and I can honestly say I am enjoying the game immensely. I am not sure why people so emotionally invested to hate it so badly and hurl insults at developers. I loved BG and DAO, but I am liking this game as well.

What do you people expect him to say in this interview? He is not overreacting to angry minority posting on the forums after release (which happens with every game in existence...just go to the Creative Assembly forums after a Total War release to see some awesome display of vitriol). He is reacting honestly to the reviews out there.

Anything over 80% on Metacritic means you have a real well received game that is enjoyable to most people. That is reality, regardless of your personal emotional response.

I dislike aspects of DA2 so far, the main one being the recycled maps and caves. I find that lazy...at least randomize them. But I like the characters and stories. I like the subtle hints to what happened in the first game via conversations and letters. The combat is fun...if a bit more frenzied.  I also have a high end PC and the game runs flawlessly and looks great with all the bells and whistles enabled.  It is also quite stable.

I would say criticize the game if you must, but people who sink into insults at the developers just look like children. They immediately lose all credibility and if I was the developer I would ignore the rants and focus on the constructive criticism.

Modifié par Hammer6767, 11 mars 2011 - 01:07 .

[FedericoV]

VanTesla wrote...

FedericoV wrote...

Antaress wrote...


Funny think is that DAO sold more copys than ME2
BW  If it ain't broke, don't fix it !!!!

Not true.

ME2 sold something like 6+ milion copies.

DA:O sold something between 3 and 4 milion copies.

Im not saying your a lier but could you post some hard evidence to prove your claim please.

http://www.vg247.com...eynote-develop/

So, I was wrong: 6.6 milion copies in April of 2010. It has mostly doubled DA:O wich was to be expected.

Modifié par FedericoV, 11 mars 2011 - 01:11 .

[Morroian]

17thknight wrote...

He's far too dismissive of criticism, especially when he says that everyone's "just reactionary" because this game "isn't Origins". 

Er no he doesn't say that, he said 1 possible cullprit is that, and he's 100% correct.

17thknight wrote...

He's also extremely dismissive of PC gamers.

Only if you're a PC elitist.

17thknight wrote...

He also flat-out says they dumbed-down the game for mass appeal.

As I see you're making the interview up in your head, so when he says "Dragon Age II was designed by just the senior, core team. Honestly I don't feel it's a game that's been designed to appeal far and wide and so on." he really means the opposite.

[StingingVelvet]

Similar to their APB interview he kind of denies all the issues, other than reusing dungeons. DA2 is nowhere near the failure that APB was though, so I guess it's not as silly to get up there and say there's nothing really wrong.

In any case I like DA2, despite some bad decisions Bioware made and the obvious need for more time. It's a good game, even if it their most disappointing in a long while. I hope this team gets back on the horse and makes a stellar DA3 or whatever else.