352 réponses à ce sujet

[Gatt9]

Phaedon wrote...

marshalleck wrote...
More like the critical thinking crowd. 

Yes, I forgot about how everyone who doesn't want the same mechanics being used for 40 consecutive years in games, is just sheep who can't think for themselves.

The mechanics used for the last 10 years are so in a completely different genre are so much better?

Controls and displays are  a limiting factor in the number of types of gameplay possible.  Claiming one set of mechanics is any less overused than another is a poor arguement at best.

Of course,  the bigger problem lies in,  a cRPG is meant to emulate PnP RPGs,  which kinda requires you to use the 40 year old mechanics.  Can't emulate something without them,  when you try,  you get a different genre of game.  Either TPS(ME2),  FPS(Fallout 3),  or Adventure(Oblivion).

So essentially,  you're advocating that all games should be a shooter with a story or an adventure game.  Which is ironic,  considering those genres were developed 25 years ago.

[Dionkey]

Speaking of all this, a story I read earlier brought me great disapointment in Bioware. Its pretty short but really needs to be viewed.
http://www.reddit.co...ted_metacritic/

[Whatever42]

Dionkey wrote...

Speaking of all this, a story I read earlier brought me great disapointment in Bioware. Its pretty short but really needs to be viewed.
http://www.reddit.co...ted_metacritic/

All that suggests is some technie at Bioware posted a review on metacritic in the player review section. I'm not exactly sure where the great disappointment comes in?

[Elite Midget]

Hopefully that Techie is punished for trying to alter things while having a personal take with the DA series.

You don't see Bioware making reviews for its own games. So why should this techie feel the need to when he knows that it will be nothing but piure bias?

[Whatever42]

Elite Midget wrote...

Hopefully that Techie is punished for trying to alter things while having a personal take with the DA series.

You don't see Bioware making reviews for its own games. So why should this techie feel the need to when he knows that it will be nothing but piure bias?

What things did he alter? He posted something up in a public space. Does he have bias? Sure. So do the couple hundred trolls who spammed the site with zeros.

What exactly do you suggest Bioware do to him? How much blood would make you happy?

[Aleksandar Shepard]

Stop with this topics.Don't you know? Shepard is everyone's last hope!

Modifié par Aleksandar Shepard, 14 mars 2011 - 07:53 .

[Franzius]

From the beginning.

1) Before EA there were 4 dlcs planned for ME1 (Mars, Caleston and other 2...) Only one & half were released...

2) Orgin was a PC game that was brutally ported over consoles... As it is, the console version of Origin is quite not marketable... Greed can be a powerful ally...

3) ME2 was (to me) the biggest disapointment of this generation: LINEAR, bland plot, LINEAR and full of bad design choices (8 bit era galaxy maps, planet scanning, 12 party members, no inventory, no looting, linear corridor levels, end mission screens, loading screens, final suicide mission, no party mangement, no exploration, unreadable texts etc.. etc..)...

3Bis) As many others, I am more than sure that original plot of ME2 was sacrified due to the will to release the title over the PS3 (a console without the first amazing masterpiece);
A really bad choice... the PS3 version floped miserably and the original plot and all you have established in the first amazing game went litteraly out of the window... again greed can be a powerfull ally.

4) DA2: ME2 cure. And less then 2 years after the first one...

5) ME3... like DA2 only far worse...
ME3 is already a huge failure in my eyes. The design director is still Christina "THE CUTTER" Norman, there is no trace of Drew Karpyshyn, the production time is similar to FIFA franchise, new music composer, the trailer that look like a blockbuster summer alien invasion movie...
We will be lucky if ME3 will be ME2 minus planet scannin plus arcade space fight (and multiplayer?!?!).... COD audience will rejoice (maybe...).

ME3 is not the last hope for Bioware.
It was DA2.
To me the destiny of Bioware is signed... the phantoms of Origin, Westwood, Maxis, Bulfrog etc.. are coming

Modifié par Franzius, 14 mars 2011 - 07:59 .

[Dusty Boy T]

Whatever666343431431654324 wrote...

Elite Midget wrote...

Hopefully that Techie is punished for trying to alter things while having a personal take with the DA series.

You don't see Bioware making reviews for its own games. So why should this techie feel the need to when he knows that it will be nothing but piure bias?

What things did he alter? He posted something up in a public space. Does he have bias? Sure. So do the couple hundred trolls who spammed the site with zeros.

What exactly do you suggest Bioware do to him? How much blood would make you happy?

I don't know, man. It just seems a little... Unproffessional of them.

[Zulu_DFA]

Phaedon wrote...

marshalleck wrote...
More like the critical thinking crowd. 

Yes, I forgot about how everyone who doesn't want the same mechanics being used for 40 consecutive years in games, is just sheep who can't think for themselves.

Probably that's why with DA2 they decided to go back to the gaming roots...

You see, I tried the demo - out of curiosity, started as Rogue, tried to find my way around stuff, checked out the tactical presets for companions, read what my sister-mage's spells do... and got owned by the ogre.

"O'kay," says I, "this seems gotta be played like good ol' Diabla! Just f*cking click the creeps out of their digital existence."

I restart as Warrior, and do just that - mash the mouse button, it perfectly works, the ogre goes down in no time.

PRESS A BUTTON AND SOMETHING AWESOME HAPPENS!

Yay! I wonder, how is this great principle going to have been implemented in ME3...

Modifié par Zulu_DFA, 15 mars 2011 - 01:01 .

[Zulu_DFA]

Franzius wrote...

5) ME3... like DA2 only far worse...
ME3 is already a huge failure in my eyes. The design director is still Christina "THE CUTTER" Norman, there is no trace of Drew Karpyshyn, the production time is similar to FIFA franchise, new music composer, the trailer that look like a blockbuster summer alien invasion movie...
We will be lucky if ME3 will be ME2 minus planet scannin plus arcade space fight (and multiplayer?!?!).... COD audience will rejoice (maybe...).

Pretty much the same mood here.

Only the 4/5 of the CoD audience laughs at ME2's attempts to win them over, for one reason alone: it's 3rd person. That includes myself. ME1 was a great game, and in no small part due to not trying to be what it couldn't be - a shooter. ME2 is a shooter, and it plain sucks at it.

Modifié par Zulu_DFA, 15 mars 2011 - 01:03 .

[Thompson family]

Uszi, your sig is inspired.

[The Spamming Troll]

Phaedon wrote...

The "D&D" crowd was the one that was pissed off about ME2 to begin with.

never played D&D, but i did play quite a bit of ME1 before i dissapointed myself with ME2.

ive noticed all the ME2 crowds can do is point out that ME1 fans are in the minority, when to me it seems it couldnt be anything greater then 50/50. always so overly defensive too. interesting.

[shep82]

Franzius wrote...

From the beginning.

1) Before EA there were 4 dlcs planned for ME1 (Mars, Caleston and other 2...) Only one & half were released...

2) Orgin was a PC game that was brutally ported over consoles... As it is, the console version of Origin is quite not marketable... Greed can be a powerful ally...

3) ME2 was (to me) the biggest disapointment of this generation: LINEAR, bland plot, LINEAR and full of bad design choices (8 bit era galaxy maps, planet scanning, 12 party members, no inventory, no looting, linear corridor levels, end mission screens, loading screens, final suicide mission, no party mangement, no exploration, unreadable texts etc.. etc..)...

3Bis) As many others, I am more than sure that original plot of ME2 was sacrified due to the will to release the title over the PS3 (a console without the first amazing masterpiece);
A really bad choice... the PS3 version floped miserably and the original plot and all you have established in the first amazing game went litteraly out of the window... again greed can be a powerfull ally.

4) DA2: ME2 cure. And less then 2 years after the first one...

5) ME3... like DA2 only far worse...
ME3 is already a huge failure in my eyes. The design director is still Christina "THE CUTTER" Norman, there is no trace of Drew Karpyshyn, the production time is similar to FIFA franchise, new music composer, the trailer that look like a blockbuster summer alien invasion movie...
We will be lucky if ME3 will be ME2 minus planet scannin plus arcade space fight (and multiplayer?!?!).... COD audience will rejoice (maybe...).

ME3 is not the last hope for Bioware.
It was DA2.
To me the destiny of Bioware is signed... the phantoms of Origin, Westwood, Maxis, Bulfrog etc.. are coming

Well that is your opinion. In mine E 1 was a great game with many issues (the mako, bland planets, bad AI, troublesome combat etc) they fixed all that in me 2. The game was far supperior in plot, game mechanics, squad AI, plot, music, everything IMO and ME 3 will be the same.

[The Fan]

adneate wrote...

It's not so much as "A Last Hope" as a kind of last straw. If BioWare ignores the fans once again and doesn't address some of the issues that ME2 has I think a lot of people will lose interest in the company. Since it will prove that they are too arrogant to accept criticism of any kind.

Like Bungie

[Thompson family]

adneate wrote...

It's not so much as "A Last Hope" as a kind of last straw. If BioWare ignores the fans once again and doesn't address some of the issues that ME2 has I think a lot of people will lose interest in the company. Since it will prove that they are too arrogant to accept criticism of any kind.

Two words: Cerberus Network.

We give BioWare and EA permission to spy on us whenever we open up ME2 on the Cerberus network. They KNOW, to a fact, when any ONE of us stop playing.

If a "majority" of the fanbase wasn't signing in to the network, say, a month  after this game was released in January of LAST YEAR, BioWareand EA would have definitely gotten the message the RPG elitists keep saying they are willfully ignoring.

So, want to send them a message? Quit playing.

Mamalukes had a saying: "One arrow, aimed true at the heart of an infidel, does more than many a prayer by a righteous hermit." Want to get their attention? Leave. As long as you sign in to play -- or into their forums -- they know they still have you.

Modifié par Thompson family, 15 mars 2011 - 04:11 .

[AlanC9]

Gatt9 wrote...
Of course,  the bigger problem lies in,  a cRPG is meant to emulate PnP RPGs,  which kinda requires you to use the 40 year old mechanics. 

PnP mechanics are quite diverse. I've played PnP systems with less loot than ME2, for instance.

[AlanC9]

Thompson family wrote...

Two words: Cerberus Network.

We give BioWare and EA permission to spy on us whenever we open up ME2 on the Cerberus network. They KNOW, to a fact, when any ONE of us stop playing.

Actually, I believe they have permission to spy whether or not you use the Cerberus Network. Logging in isn't required, just running the game.  Hence the distinction between personal and non-personal info in the Privacy Policy.

If your gaming rig isn't connected to the Internet it won't ever post your information. I suppose if you want Bio to think you're not playing ME2 when you actually are that's what you'll have to do.

Edit: Note that "Update Gameplay Feedback" is a separate option from autologin  to EA Online, and IIRC it defaults to ON.

Modifié par AlanC9, 15 mars 2011 - 04:34 .

[ShamieGTX]

Ty2011 wrote...

As long as Bioware listen to their fans then they'll be fine. Hopefully in the future they'll keep focusing on what people actually care about, which are the characters and the story. It won't be easy to live up to people's expectations, but I believe in them.

listens to the fans? really the fans asked for the hammerhead and you want Bioware to listen?

[Thompson family]

AlanC9 wrote...

Thompson family wrote...

Two words: Cerberus Network.

We give BioWare and EA permission to spy on us whenever we open up ME2 on the Cerberus network. They KNOW, to a fact, when any ONE of us stop playing.

Actually, I believe they have permission to spy whether or not you use the Cerberus Network. Logging in isn't required, just running the game.  Hence the distinction between personal and non-personal info in the Privacy Policy.

If your gaming rig isn't connected to the Internet it won't ever post your information. I suppose if you want Bio to think you're not playing ME2 when you actually are that's what you'll have to do.

Ah. Thanks for the elaboration, AlanC9.

[AlanC9]

Now that I think about it, David Gaider confirmed that logins are not required for data collection, around the time he informed us that only about 10% of DAO players ever played a dwarf and not all that many more ever played an elf.

So yeah, Bio pays attention to what people actually do, not what they say they do.

[Uszi]

Thompson family wrote...

Uszi, your sig is inspired.

Thank you.

[Gatt9]

AlanC9 wrote...

Gatt9 wrote...
Of course,  the bigger problem lies in,  a cRPG is meant to emulate PnP RPGs,  which kinda requires you to use the 40 year old mechanics. 

PnP mechanics are quite diverse. I've played PnP systems with less loot than ME2, for instance.

I don't argue that at all,  there's low magic like LotR,  there's level-less,  but they all require your character to be defined,  not a generic reputation for yourself.

You'll find,  if we were to get into a deep conversation on the topic,  that I readily recognize the variants.  I just hold that for a game to be an RPG you require a defined character whose Role you take,  and Character Based Skill as much as humanly possible to represent your character's abilities.

Which is why I maintain that ME2 is not an RPG,  because the character is undefined and wholely a representation of you,  and has no intrinsic abilities of his own.

Now that I think about it, David Gaider confirmed that logins are not required for data collection, around the time he informed us that only about 10% of DAO players ever played a dwarf and not all that many more ever played an elf.

So yeah, Bio pays attention to what people actually do, not what they say they do.

Not strictly true,  I think it was Gamasutra that did an article on how this data is aquired and what it means.  I'll summarize cause I'll be danged if I could find it now.

Achievements serve two purposes,  not only do they give players small goals,  they also give Developers massive amounts of data to mine.  Through the use of achievements,  a Dev can determine how many players finished a game,  what difficulty they did it on,  and many other things.

Your commentary is one of those things.  IIRC,  each race has an associated achievement.  So all Bioware had to do was "Select count from achievements where race = "dwarf"",  and then compare it against the total number of 360 copies sold.  10 seconds,  and they know how many played a dwarf or an elf.  Same thing applies to how many finished the game. 

So his data is limited to the number of people who have achievements registered.  Achievements allow datamining to figure out what people actually did and how far they got.  That's why so many games have achievements for getting through parts of the game,  because it tells them if people were finishing it,  and if they just consistently quit during one specific section.  It tells them if they wasted time and resources developing something few people used.  They know what percentage of people use multiplayer components,  what percentage replayed a game.  There's a reason why the level cap in ME was so high that you'd need two plays to hit it,  it told them if you tried to replay the game but gave up.

People think achievements are just all fun & games,  a long time ago they became behavioral monitoring.

[Uszi]

DashRunner92 wrote...

@Uszi Remember this is a triple A games, "ok" sales are still bad for a triple A games. 
NOTE: I'm taking about US sales, DA2 did very well in the UK. 

Barely made the top 5 list on Steam, which is sad as that DA:O, ME2, DA: Ultimate (Still on the top 10) hit #1 on the list at first release. In fact the only lists I've seen DA2 within the top 10 has been in DD stores. (No source needed, just simple type in the name of a DD store like Steampowered.com) Also Steam and other digital stores do not release sales figures, so being a top seller on a DD store doesn't really say anything.


http://www.gamezone....to_amazon_3_11/
http://www.gamestop.com/  (Fails to be top selling, just an example of a second store, not going to go posting every site that shows the same sales again) 

Btw also your "Sources" up there are useless. Gamerankings.com has NOTHING to do with sales and the huliq article is a PROJECTION, nothing to do with how much it actually sold.

TY for sourcing your claims about sales data.

1.  Regarding Gamerankings and Huliq

I just went around trying to find examples of things that indicate that claims that the game is bombing might be incorrect.  I have had no idea what game rankings is or does, but whatever, please reject that link.  I fail to see why I should reject good sales projections.  If the game were selling poorly there should be poor sales projections.

Please explain why one cannot use projections made by reputable sources.

2.  Regarding Steam: 

What the hell are you talking about?

http://store.steampowered.com/

Go to "Top Sellers"

#1:  Total War:  Shogun II
#2:  DRAGON AGE II
#3:   Homefront
#4:  Portal 2
#5:  Rift
#6:  Crysis 2
#7:  Assassin's Creed Brotherhood
#8:  Warhammer 40,000:  Dawn of War II:  Retribution
#9:  Magicka
#10:  Napolean Total War:  Imperial Edition

How is the #2 Top Selling game not in the top 5 list on steam?  What top 5 list are you talking about?

3.  Regarding your link about amazon.com

 I dislike that article because it has a fairly well stated bias.

I also dislike that article because it doesn't give me a source link that verifies their paraphrasing of the data.  Where is that top 5 list for the 2nd week of march?  Couldn't really find it in google.  It would be nice to see this list first hand, instead of reading it through the filter of a website that explains rather smugly that it confirms their thoughts on the game.

Regardless, it would admittedly make it hard to claim that the game is selling well given that the article's claims are true.  However, I am not arguing that it is selling well, merely that it is  not selling poorly.

What I did find is that Amazon.com keeps track of it's current "best sellers" for things like video games or movies, and that the list for video games contains all manner of game peripherals as well as games, and the top 5 contains things like a 12-month XBL gold membership, I wouldn't say opening in the top 20 is a bad sign at all.  Currently, it is ranked 39 when you compare it will all of the garbage like XBL subscriptions and controllers and the Xth special editions of the same game. If you remove all of that garbage and only look at games, Dragon Age is the 22nd best selling game on Amazon currently. 

Which again doesn't sound too hot, but then we'd have to start splitting hairs over exactly when a game becomes poorly selling, and regardless this is exactly 1 source of data we're already splitting hairs over.

Interestingly, it is currently ranked #1 best seller for role playing games on Xbox 360 according to Amazon.

Interestingly, it is currently ranked #1 best seller for role playing games on PS3 according to Amazon.

Interestingly, it is currently ranked #2 best seller for role playing games on the PC according to Amazon.

Huh.

4.  Regarding gamestop.com

DA2 is the 3rd best selling PC game.  It is not in the top 5 for other platforms.  It's currently 15 for Xbox and 11 for PS3.

Again, I wouldn't say its selling like hot cakes on the Xbox or PS3, but it sounds like its selling well on the PC, and it doesn't sound like it's bombing on the Xbox or PS3 either.  I'm not trying to argue that it's selling well.  I'm trying to argue that it isn't bombing.

5.  Regarding not providing additional sources

As far as "not going to go posting every site that shows the same sales again," I've just demonstrated that your sales data from the two websites is hardly "the same." 

The data widely depends on how you're choosing to filter your information. 

Your argument is only as strong as the amount of data that you choose to back it up with.  If you only want to use two potential sources, then feel free---though you of course open yourself up to a confirmation bias here if you just hunt around for the one or two sources which seem to support your claims.



IN ANY EVENT

I don't think the links you provided allow you to confidently argue that the game is selling poorly.  

You might argue that the game is not selling amazingly well.  Sure, fine.

But there is hardly a dichotomy in which a game can only sell very well or very poorly.  

In reality there is a continuum of success, and based on the information you gave me, I don't feel DA2 has tanked.

You might still dislike DA2, or feel a part of a minority of fans who felt disenfranchised by BW changing up the formula of the game.  But I don't think you can be claim that no one is buying the game because they're pissed at the changes BW has made. 

Well, you can't claim it in good faith at least.


EDIT
I figured this was going to happen:

As of the ORIGINAL writing of this post, DA2 was #2 on Steam.

As of now, DA2 is now #3 on Steam.  Bah.

I figured I'd use a screen cap to prove my point since all of the data points I've indicated thus far are fluid and changing in case things get changed up any more:

Modifié par Uszi, 15 mars 2011 - 07:55 .

[Uszi]

Uszi wrote...


Interestingly, it is currently ranked #1 best seller for role playing games on Xbox 360 according to Amazon.

Interestingly, it is currently ranked #1 best seller for role playing games on PS3 according to Amazon.

Interestingly, it is currently ranked #2 best seller for role playing games on the PC according to Amazon.

Can I elaborate on a point I meant to make, but forgot to in the above post?

If DA:2 is selling poorly, which has yet to be demonstrated(!), then that still does not prove the claim that it is because of BW's development philosophy, or any changes made to the Dragon Age formula from DA:O.

I would argue that even if DA:2 sells poorly, the fact that it is the top selling game in it's genre indicates that it is a success among RPG enthusiasts. 

That DA:2 fails to outsell games like Homefront or Total War: Shogun 2 could just as easily say something about how RPGs in general sell in comparison to shooter or strategy games, then it could say something about DA:2 specifically.

If you want to claim that DA:2 would sell better if it were more like DA:O, then you need to demonstrate that it is not selling well as an RPG.

And so, I feel even more confident that those complaining about the changes to DA:2 from DA:O are indeed a part of a vocal minority, as the game seems to be selling to the RPG crowd rather nicely.

In so far as people are buying RPGs, they are buying DA:2.

Modifié par Uszi, 15 mars 2011 - 07:36 .

[AlanC9]

Gatt9 wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

Gatt9 wrote...
Of course,  the bigger problem lies in,  a cRPG is meant to emulate PnP RPGs,  which kinda requires you to use the 40 year old mechanics. 

PnP mechanics are quite diverse. I've played PnP systems with less loot than ME2, for instance.

I don't argue that at all,  there's low magic like LotR,  there's level-less,  but they all require your character to be defined,  not a generic reputation for yourself.

You'll find,  if we were to get into a deep conversation on the topic,  that I readily recognize the variants.  I just hold that for a game to be an RPG you require a defined character whose Role you take,  and Character Based Skill as much as humanly possible to represent your character's abilities.

Which is why I maintain that ME2 is not an RPG,  because the character is undefined and wholely a representation of you,  and has no intrinsic abilities of his own.

Oh, that's where you're going with this. If you like. So a PnP game with an "undefined" character is impossible?

Regardless, I don't see any necessary reason why a computer game with RPG on the box should be trying to emulate PnP RPGs. Most do, but why is it necessary? Unless that's just how you define CRPG.

So his data is limited to the number of people who have achievements registered.

Doesn't follow. They can track the install process data, so linking to a particular user's ID is unnecessary. You only lose the people who opt out on the options screen that way. (Assuming that button actually does anything.) They were pretty clear that logins are not required.

But yeah, I'm sure it's the achievement data too. No sense coming up with a second system