832 réponses à ce sujet

[MonkeyLungs]

TwistedComplex wrote...

Does it make people feel smart when they mistake complexity for sophistication?

Cause it doesn't make you look smart... It makes you look dumb for not knowing the difference

I was trying to explain earlier that, at least for me, wanting games to be complex or more complex or less streamlined isn't about the player being smarter or dumber or whatever. I really think it's because I find things in RPG's 'fun' that others find 'tedious'. I imagine many (ok more like some lol) others feel the same.

[Meltemph]

uh... to say that people who buy bioware games are not interested in the story is presumptuous, to say the least. i don't think i've seen anyone on the internet who said he played and liked a bioware game but had no interest in the story...

I think you misread that discussion if you think I was the one saying that their story didnt matter. The story is the best thing about BW, imo. I was arguing that the reason that they don't get the sales of ES WAS NOT because of the story, but because of the graphics/combat/world design.

He was the one who was thinking it might be the story as to why the game doesnt sell as well as the competition.

[AkiKishi]

Meltemph wrote...

What, you think people are eating up Elder Scroll games for its plot? Come on now, be serious, who buys ES games for its plot? The plots are awful.

Considering the dev cycle on FFXIII that isn't that great, imo... Plus, I thought FFXIII's story was quite bad, compared to any of the others. Also, FFXIII versus is moving hardcore into the action rpg thing.

That's kind of the point isnt it ? In the ES games, plot and characters do not get in the way of the "game" like they do in a Bioware game. You can play ES no roleplaying required if you so choose.

I won't defend FFXIII I never liked it myself. Action RPGS or even action FF's are not new for SquareEnix, just less well known than the core FF/DQ series.

[JabbaDaHutt30]

Meltemph wrote...

Some "phat loot" would certainly help make the tedious combat less tedious if only for a decent reward.

Less tedious then DAO, but even still, name me a CRPG(old school) BW game that doesn't have tedious gameplay? I can think of 1 and that was KOTOR.

i enjoyed origins' and da2's combat significantly more than kotor's.

Modifié par JabbaDaHutt30, 20 mars 2011 - 11:00 .

[Moving808s]

AllThatJazz wrote...

I loved NWN2. Ranks the same as the PC version of DA2 on metacritic. 

The game shipped with a terrible amount of glitches, and the engine was, poorly optimized to say the least. But if you buy the platinum edition, and run it on a modern system, the game is quite superb.

I'm sure if it was reviewed now it would get much higher ratings. The problems with DA2 are not fixable by patches or better rigs. They are engrained in the game which is exactly what they wanted apparently, according to this interview.

This is the SECOND interview that they've had to do and come out and defend their choices by the way. If there wasn't a problem, this wouldn't be necessary. End of story.

I loved how when he talked about re-using the areas instead of admitting they shouldn't have done that he just says "oh we should have done it more artfully". 

r00fles!

[AkiKishi]

JabbaDaHutt30 wrote...
uh... to say that people who buy bioware games are not interested in the story is presumptuous, to say the least. i don't think i've seen anyone on the internet who said he played and liked a bioware game but had no interest in the story...

I said that people who buy Bioware games buy them for the story/RP. I also said this could be the very thing holding them back from being mass marketable, not the dumbing down of the combat system etc.

[Moving808s]

BobSmith101 wrote...

Meltemph wrote...

What, you think people are eating up Elder Scroll games for its plot? Come on now, be serious, who buys ES games for its plot? The plots are awful.

Considering the dev cycle on FFXIII that isn't that great, imo... Plus, I thought FFXIII's story was quite bad, compared to any of the others. Also, FFXIII versus is moving hardcore into the action rpg thing.

That's kind of the point isnt it ? In the ES games, plot and characters do not get in the way of the "game" like they do in a Bioware game. You can play ES no roleplaying required if you so choose.

I won't defend FFXIII I never liked it myself. Action RPGS or even action FF's are not new for SquareEnix, just less well known than the core FF/DQ series.

When Squenix do an action oriented sequel, they almost always dedicate it as a spin off. They will never do a new, numbered FF game as an action title. They are clear with their fans and consumers about what they are doing, and they sell a lot more games than Bioware.

[AkiKishi]

Moving808s wrote...

BobSmith101 wrote...

Meltemph wrote...

What, you think people are eating up Elder Scroll games for its plot? Come on now, be serious, who buys ES games for its plot? The plots are awful.

Considering the dev cycle on FFXIII that isn't that great, imo... Plus, I thought FFXIII's story was quite bad, compared to any of the others. Also, FFXIII versus is moving hardcore into the action rpg thing.

That's kind of the point isnt it ? In the ES games, plot and characters do not get in the way of the "game" like they do in a Bioware game. You can play ES no roleplaying required if you so choose.

I won't defend FFXIII I never liked it myself. Action RPGS or even action FF's are not new for SquareEnix, just less well known than the core FF/DQ series.

When Squenix do an action oriented sequel, they almost always dedicate it as a spin off. They will never do a new, numbered FF game as an action title. They are clear with their fans and consumers about what they are doing, and they sell a lot more games than Bioware.

My first Square game was Secret of Mana. It took a long while for me to catch the JRPG bug.

[Meltemph]

That's kind of the point isnt it ? In the ES games, plot and characters do not get in the way of the "game" like they do in a Bioware game. You can play ES no roleplaying required if you so choose.

That is what I have been saying. Story based CRPG's just can't live up to the "sandboxes" anymore, people don't want a fantasy story being told anymore it seems. They just want a single player MMO experience, essentially.

So companies are putting their money into everything not story, because it is sticking with the consumer. BW has yet to ditch story in the same way other RPG companies have and I hope that trend continues, but I can't see them getting the sales they seem to want.

Specially for the scale they like making games.

I won't defend FFXIII I never liked it myself. Action RPGS or even action FF's are not new for SquareEnix, just less well known than the core FF/DQ series.

I realize that, my point was, that even the old school JRPG is dying and moving more and more to action RPG's.

[Merilsell]

FellowerOfOdin wrote...

Mike Laidlaw: "We want to alienate our old audience and appeal to the CoD crowd."

No need to make a whole interview about this...

That pretty much sums it up. Alas.

[Meltemph]

JabbaDaHutt30 wrote...

Meltemph wrote...

Some "phat loot" would certainly help make the tedious combat less tedious if only for a decent reward.

Less tedious then DAO, but even still, name me a CRPG(old school) BW game that doesn't have tedious gameplay? I can think of 1 and that was KOTOR.

i enjoyed origins' and da2's combat significantly more than kotor's.

Well that is a subjective thing... I enjoyed DA2's combat as much as KOTOR's if I am being honest.   However, DAO, the combat was just so obvious and simple in executution that it was a chore after a play through(outside of the harder fights).  The pace was so slow that if you knew what you were doing, you were lucky if you paused 3 times in a fight on nightmare.  At least with Kotor and DA2, I have to pause a lot more on the harder difficulties to be efficiant in combat.

I imagin people who struggled with DAO probably loved the combat though, but it was jsut way to damn slow pace to give me much of a challange.

[MonkeyLungs]

BobSmith101 wrote...

JabbaDaHutt30 wrote...
uh... to say that people who buy bioware games are not interested in the story is presumptuous, to say the least. i don't think i've seen anyone on the internet who said he played and liked a bioware game but had no interest in the story...

I said that people who buy Bioware games buy them for the story/RP. I also said this could be the very thing holding them back from being mass marketable, not the dumbing down of the combat system etc.

And I think you have a very good point. The story pretty much IS the game for Bioware. There isn't much room to just simply play the game for the gameplay itself as everything is really connected to the story. Pure exploration has never been a hallmark of Bioware titles. So it seems relevant to argue that because the story pretty much IS the game then barriers to entry into Bioware games very well may be the stories and the way they are presented. Personally I think the stories are great (except NWN OC) but maybe some gamers don't really want to engae in the conversations or stories or watch cutscenes.

[Sarakinoi]

Savior Indra wrote...

I think what he was trying to say is that. In order for anything to survive (whether it be humans, games etc.,) it MUST evolve. And we all know that evolution is a trial and error process. I personally love DA2, i enjoyed it a lot more than DAO. But the thing with trial and error is that sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. This is what i think the DA2 team was trying to do. Push the boundaries in a direction that they hadn't previously been.

Oh plaaeeese. Having enemies appear out of thin air or having bland boring environments or having choices A B and C all result in the same outcome is hadly pushing boundaries. It is one thing to rush a project and fall short, but trying to make it look like it was all a big "experiment" to evolve RPGs is just... a lie, to stay polite.

Unless of course, their idea was to increase profit by reducing costs and stripping the game down to the bare minimum, which could explain DA2.

I will also just add that if they really want to experiment, they need to take more time to bring the idea to its full pottential. Because else you won't know if it failed because it was a bad idea, or if you just failed at implementing it in a sensible way.

Even the best idea in the world is crap if you just rush and implement it horribly. I'd prefer to have a game developed around average ideas but done properly than a game with great ideas implemented poorly. Many games did that mistake and died.

Modifié par Sarakinoi, 20 mars 2011 - 11:17 .

[AllThatJazz]

Vice-Admiral von Titsling wrote...

AllThatJazz wrote...
my club hasn't been closed down, it's just been made a bit friendlier to people who aren't quite as awesome at chess as I am. x

There's a game for people to play that aren't good at chess. It's called checkers.

If RPGs are too 'hard' for people to grok, they need to go play something else.

Or they could just learn chess. By starting to play and learning the basics and working up from there. Like we learn everything else. Walking, talking, reading, maths. We don't know all this stuff automatically do we? And we aren't flung into our first maths lesson by being told to solve Fermat's Last Theorem and if we can't then we're morons and shouldn't be doing maths at all!

I know that's a ridiculous exaggeration, but  'if RPGs are too hard for people, they should go and play something else' isn't really an argument, it's just an insult. And could indeed lead to the death of the genre, or at least to its being sidelined as a niche market not worth being explored by AAA developers. Which really isn't what I want. 



AFW - (like your new avatar by the way) yes, I agree that there are still many who appreciate depth and subtlety. Thankfully. My time poring through D&D manuals and character sheets counts as some of the most enjoyable (if sometimes confusing) hours I've ever spent. If there was a game that could give me all the complexity and unpredictability of PnP, with the limitlessness of a DM's imagination and the characters of a Bio game and the gorgeous looks of a Skyrim, I would probably keel over with happiness. And no, DA2 isn't that game, aside from the characters bit. Nor was Origins, or even Baldur's Gate or Planescape for that matter. That game only exists in my head. I also agree about companies producing games economically, which seems to affect all sorts of things from game length to re-using caves 3000 times which did ****** me off (grrrr).

But I do enjoy DA2 for what it is - 40-odd hours of a cracking story and some fabulously entertaining characters and some good fights and a bit of c&c and a couple of thought-provoking bits thrown in for good measure. I didn't spend much time in-game being sad about what the game wasn't.  Which must say something about how I good I thought it was overall.

In the end, I'm glad that they tried something a bit off the beaten path, even if its success was mixed.

[HTTP 404]

look at the Japanese gaming industry, they are a good example of gaming companies that don't take risks. Someone tell me they are doing better than they were in the 90s.

[Merced652]

HTTP 404 wrote...

look at the Japanese gaming industry, they are a good example of gaming companies that don't take risks. Someone tell me they are doing better than they were in the 90s.

This is a pretty horrible point when one looks at DA2, just sayin'

[HTTP 404]

Merced652 wrote...

HTTP 404 wrote...

look at the Japanese gaming industry, they are a good example of gaming companies that don't take risks. Someone tell me they are doing better than they were in the 90s.

This is a pretty horrible point when one looks at DA2, just sayin'

they don't call it "risks" for nothing, just sayin

Modifié par HTTP 404, 20 mars 2011 - 11:58 .

[LTD]

If one truly wants to sswitch focus on attempts to seduce that juicy infinitely wide audience of people who feel they are too cool to call themselves gamers but play games anyway, why stop at COD?  Just forget all this ambitious shizzle with storylines and whatnot and starts releasing Angry Birds ripoffs for ipad.

Modifié par LTD, 21 mars 2011 - 12:09 .

[HTTP 404]

LTD wrote...

If one truly wants to sswitch focus on attempts to seduce that juicy infinitely wide audience of people who feel they are too cool to call themselves gamers but play games anyway, why stop at COD?  Just forget all this ambitious shizzle with storylines and whatnot and starts releasing Angry Birds ripoffs for ipad.

A company that relys solely on same costumers is going to go through a slow death unless they get more and new customers, simple economics.  Bioware is not wrong trying to get new fans but there should be a way to introduce RPGs not change RPGs completely (not sayin they did).  Im all for innovation and whatnot, after all the risk isnt for me as a customer, its bioware's risk.  Yet we as fans feel like it is our product as well.  IF bioware takes a risk and it falls flat, we as a consumer shouldnt have to buy it especially if there are other products out there.  DA2 isnt going to make or break RPGs, I dont really get what the hub bub is all about.

[Bourne Endeavor]

MonkeyLungs wrote...

Alot of CoD players play because of the intense player vs. player competition. They enjoy the game for the shooting mechanics, the guns, the fast paced thrill of trying to survive against HUMAN opponents instead of AI. Also many FPS gamers on Xbox at least play CoD for all those reasons mentioned before and also the game has a massive community. There are always matches to be played and plenty of opponents out there for matchmaking.

Alot of these gamers are guys like my brother who just love the intensity of battling other players. He will not EVER watch a cutscene for a game because to him that stuff is just pure boredom. Thre is nothing wrong with that kind of gamer, those are his tastes and there are awesome games out there for him.. But to try and make an RPG appeal to him you would have to turn it into a a hyper competitve player vs. player instant action type game .. basically not an RPG.

My cousin is quite similar. I had been discussing Mass Effect 2 and mentioned the he may fancy the Vanguard due to Charge. When I explained it, he seemed intrigued but the moment I admitted there was a large amount of dialogue, that intrigued abruptly vanished. His interest with games is almost universally intense PvP combat, and I can certainly appreciate that, being a hybrid gamer myself. Call of Duty is an immensely entertaining game and what I look for when I feel like a competitive style of play or a quick time sink. When I desire story and depth both mechanical and character, I seek out my collection of RPGs both Western and Japanese alike.

BioWare is seemingly attempting to accomplish the impossible; divide by zero if you will. They want the FPS fanbase yet believe this will not hamper their current RPG fanbase, when that is a delusion at best. There is a reason games like CoD have a minimalist campaigh spanning eight hours and a glorious in depth online multiplayer.

[Hatchetman77]

Sandmanifest wrote...

So, there was a recent interview with Mike Laidlaw on 1up.com. I went through the whole thing, but one response in particular caught my attention. This is one of the last questions asked, and part of the response (the whole interview is in the link below). I just want to know your thoughts and feelings, especially on the bolded part.

Personally I felt pretty bad after reading it, considering I'm one of the people that "enjoy that experience". Also a little insulted after the second paragraph, but that could be completely unwarranted. I just want your opinions.

1UP: It's safe to say that there was a lot of people who expected "Origins 2," and to have more of Origins' gameplay (which in itself hearkens back to Baldur's Gate 2's gameplay). Dragon Age 2 is obviously not that; it's you taking RPGs in a different direction. In light of that, I'm curious: do you think there's still room for a more, "grognard"-driven RPG in the vein of BG2 in the modern marketplace?

ML: It presents an intriguing thought experiment: is it viable to have a game that's closer to Baldur's Gate 2 in terms of the raw mechanics and execution? I don't think there's anything preventing it. However, I do think that, as a genre, if RPGs can't evolve and can't change -- and I know people yell at me for daring to use the word "evolve" -- but if they can't change or experiment, then the genre itself is going to stagnate. Not only in terms of mechanics,
like in rehashes and stuff, which I think we mostly manage to avoid, but the bigger problem is that if we don't have RPGs that present a different type of experience, then we kind of encapsulate our potential audience to people who enjoy just that experience, and we drive others away.In of itself, that runs the risk of genre death -- it becomes too referential or too reliant on people understanding that STR means strength which feeds into accuracy which results in damage done, and so on. You end up in a case where, the genre eventually burns out, or falls flat, or becomes too risky to take any risks in development, and so on and so forth, and that's not something I want to see happen.

http://www.1up.com/f...?pager.offset=0

This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.  He is advocating change for change's sake, not to make things better.  Use the Civilization series as an example of how to properly make changes from one sequil to the next.  Many changes have been made throughout the years but the game has never lost site of what their game is and who it is for.  They never made the switch to real time strategy even when it was the fad in the late 90's and early 2000's.  They kept true to their core ideals of what the game should be and made the changes to improve on those core ideals.  I've had one incarnation of Civilization or another on my computer since 1991 and after picking up Civilization V months ago there looks to be no signs of that changing in the near future.  I can't say the same for Dragon Age. 

Dragon Age 2 is to Dragon Age what the NGE was to Star Wars Galaxies.


Here`s Angry Joe`s review of Civilization V.  Notice how his main theme of it is how the game appeals to him, someone who has never played Civilization nor wanted to, but changes made to the game (while staying true to the core of the game and main playerbase) appealed to him.  THIS is how you do it.  You just don`t make random changes of whatever is popular at the time to your game and see what sticks. 

http://angryjoeshow....ation-v-review/

Modifié par Hatchetman77, 21 mars 2011 - 12:31 .

[Akka le Vil]

ishmaeltheforsaken wrote...

He wants to turn people who don't play RPGs into people who play RPGs.

Actually, it feels more that he wants to turn RPG into something else than RPG so that people who weren't interested in them can still not be interested in them, but play the new product.

I see a lots of words used to try to dress up "we just wanted to go mainstream to grab a lot of money without trying as hard" into something more artistic and creative-looking, but which still amount to the same overall idea;

Use the Civilization series as an example of how to properly make
changes from one sequil to the next.  Many changes have been made
throughout the years but the game has never lost site of what their game
is and who it is for.  They never made the switch to real time strategy
even when it was the fad in the late 90's and early 2000's.  They kept
true to their core ideals of what the game should be and made the
changes to improve on those core ideals.  I've had one incarnation of
Civilization or another on my computer since 1991 and after picking
up Civilization V months ago there looks to be no signs of that changing
in the near future.

Seriously ? If anything, this is the WORST POSSIBLE example you could have ever used, as Civ5 is THE sister case of DA2, with the exact same problems of debasing a licence to go into a dumbed down version, and the exact same "coincidental" praise by the review sites and being spanked by the fanbase - probably even MORE spanked and hated by the fanbase, in fact, considering how strongly it was rejected.

Modifié par Akka le Vil, 21 mars 2011 - 12:32 .

[slimgrin]

@Hatchetman77

It's spin. That's all it is.

Modifié par slimgrin, 21 mars 2011 - 12:30 .

[Gatt9]

HTTP 404 wrote...

Merced652 wrote...

HTTP 404 wrote...

look at the Japanese gaming industry, they are a good example of gaming companies that don't take risks. Someone tell me they are doing better than they were in the 90s.

This is a pretty horrible point when one looks at DA2, just sayin'

they don't call it "risks" for nothing, just sayin

Color coding your dialogue so people don't have to read,  and making enemies appear out of thin air isn't taking risks,  it's bad design.  There's a huge difference. 

Strictly speaking,  I guess you could think of it as a risk,  "Trying to woo a market that doesn't like RPGs",  but it's obviously not going to work.  Bad design is bad no matter what your excuse for using it is.

A company that relys solely on same costumers is going to go through a slow death unless they get more and new customers, simple economics.  Bioware is not wrong trying to get new fans but there should be a way to introduce RPGs not change RPGs completely (not sayin they did).  Im all for innovation and whatnot, after all the risk isnt for me as a customer, its bioware's risk.  Yet we as fans feel like it is our product as well.  IF bioware takes a risk and it falls flat, we as a consumer shouldnt have to buy it especially if there are other products out there.  DA2 isnt going to make or break RPGs, I dont really get what the hub bub is all about

New customers replace the old,  Baldur's Gate was over ten years ago,  DAO outsold it,  obviously the market has grown and replacements rose. 

RPGs that introduce RPGs exist,  it's Mass Effect,  Final Fantasy,  and their kin.  The system already exists and functions fine.

The hub-bub is mainly that RPGs are dieing out and being replaced by Adventure games(Oblivion) and Shooters(ME2, Fallout),  and people want RPGs.  Not only are the Developers saying "Too bad,  we won't make RPGs anymore,  move along",  but some people just keep posting ridiculous assertions like "Games like that are old,  they can't sell!" due to a lack of any real counter arguement.

There's already a thousand versions of Doom and Gears of War out there,  some people want to play RPGs.

Modifié par Gatt9, 21 mars 2011 - 12:32 .

[Vandarr1]

im sitting here wondering if Mr Laidlaw would have been better off just saying that DA2 was meant to be more of an action game than using the evolution explanation .Afterall if an RPG evolves in that direction isnt that was it ultimately ends up being?