498 réponses à ce sujet

[RaenImrahl]

neppakyo wrote...

Volourn get a new account?

Don't play with your food.

[RPGmom28]

neppakyo wrote...

I've always slit Zev's throat. Just because I could

*runs away from the girls*

Not cool.  This girl has tossed a sheep at you.

On topic, I have to admit that I was stunned by the fan backlash myself, and I don't work for any gaming company.  I didn't like DA2 as much as DAO by any stretch of the imagination, but I still play it.  A lot of people reacted in a way that surprised the bejeezes out of me.  When I came to the forums to comment on Kirkwall's graffiti I was blown away by the amount of anger here.  It's not fantastic like DAO.  I totally agree.  I just don't think it deserves the venom spewing that it's gathered.  It's around a 7 for me instead of a 9.5 like DAO.  Yes, Bethany's hands look like shriveled parchment, but it's not worth melting my copy of DA2 on the sidewalk on a hot day.

My biggest beef is not being able to have conversations with companions walking around. 

"Hi, Fenris."
"I remain at your side."
"What did you think of Meredith's shocking actions today?  Do you agree or disagree with her?"
"I remain at your side."
"Wanna make out?"
"I remain..."
etc, etc.  Seriously.  Slap these characters with a fish or something.  A little life in them would be nice.

On the happy side, best dialogue for me in DA2 was Aveline's recollection of her father and the story surrounding him.  Good stuff.  And I loved the cutscene art.

[Vice-Admiral von Titsling]

I agree, totally. I dont understand which kind of roleplayers they want
to attract with the new formula either. Huge Knockers, lesbians and
bucketloads of blood and enough action to keep someone with the
attention span of a cat on its toes. This and taking away from the main
element of the game, the story, is making wonder what exactly they think
about their customers.

If I had to guess, it's something like "God, these RPG fans are really demanding and want such high-quality games; moreover, there's only like six million or so of them. If we could get CoD fans instead this would be so much easier, plus we need more money to fill up our assigned gold quota for EA's Scrooge McDuck-esque swimming pool".

Throw in a healthy dose of "RPers are nerds, deal with it lol" and there you go.

[Kilshrek]

Because stats matter

Interesting discussion going on here. For all sides of the "discussion".

[Sabriana]

Mr.House wrote...

if I got a loony for every time people brought up the "everyone is bi because the game was rushed." I would be rich.

I read somewhere that a dev mentioned that "time" was indeed a factor in that matter. I've no clue where. If I come across it again, I'll post a link. I didn't care enough to mark it or investigate. Why so defensive? Personally, I don't give a damn.

A pixel toon's sexuality is the least of my worries. I could not care any less, no matter how hard I tried. They can roll a dice and asign sexuality as far as I'm concerned. The only time I would care is if they cut out the romance altogether. Imo they belong into a RPG, because they belong into a game progression.

The additional lines would have to be written in any case. To make a pixel toon react certain ways, scripts, flags, and triggers have to be added. That's what I was told by a few modders who create content for NWN 2 and Oblivion. I have no idea if that's true. I defer to those that I have reason to believe know more than I do about a given subject.

I play what I see. I don't care about semantics. Whether it's called bi or pc-sexual doesn't matter to me at all. If I see a game  happening on my machine, that's what I play it as. If you play and see things differently, more power to you. It is, after all, a single player game.

[DSGrant]

Night Prowler76 wrote...

neppakyo wrote...

*sigh* Can't believe im responding to the Volourn troll.

They did not sell 2million+. It was sold in, meaning shipped/sold to retailers. More realsitically it was around 1.3 million in sales. Not too shabby, but not close to what people think it is.

Just dont respond to anything he says, sure he is so ridiculously simple that its comical, but he is not worth a response dude.

^ This.

Anyone with a modicum of intelligence understands the important distinction between units sold to retailers ("sold in"), and units actually sold to consumers. And while Volourn is right that VGChartz isn't 100% accurate, it's close enough to indicate actual sales trends for a game and is used extensively by companies for that very reason. The simple fact, whether his belief perseverance is capable of acknowledging it or not, is that DA2 sales have plummetted to the earth like a 500lb fat guy holding a cement umbrella.

Bar graph here for those who want to check out the 8-week sales trend for DA2: http://social.biowar...index/7236826/1

[Eterna]

Volourn wrote...

I like how people make up fantasy numbers to prove about. 1.3-1.5mil copies sold? Made up numbers not found in reality. The onyl number we know for sure is DA2 has sold 2mil+. This is indisputable fact.

Crying about it and throwing out random numbers otherwise is just silly.

Actually I'm not.  The public tracking data is the best indicators we have and it corroborates what I am saying.  Sure there are issues, but I tend to trust their estimates.  We know that the EA numbers are off or else they'd claim sell-through rather than sell-in numbers.

-Polaris

I would go to some pains to avoid getting entangled with Volourn, whose sole purpose here and elsewhere on the web seems to be disruption of intelligent points/conversations through baiting people with nonsense.

 At no point in time was this thread ever intelligent.

Modifié par Eterna5, 08 mai 2011 - 07:09 .

[WilliamShatner]

I think they're more shocked that the "acceptable loses" of hardcore fans weren't made up for with the new audience they dangled their privates at.

[Kilshrek]

WilliamShatner wrote...

I think they're more shocked that the "acceptable loses" of hardcore fans weren't made up for with the new audience they dangled their privates at.

Doing that tends to drive most sensible people away, I suppose.

[Corto81]

[quote]wowpwnslol wrote...

[quote]IanPolaris wrote...


Oh please. All they care about is the bottom line. Why did they abandon Origins' winning formula instead of expanding and improving upon it? Why did they consolize and dumb down the game, despite the concerns of their fans?. Why did they try to "expand their target audience" (exact quote) even going as far as attempting to draw FPS crowds to the game? Why was the game rushed?

[/quote]

Because Bioware BW made a game with passion and love and took time with it to appeal to their existing audience and make great profit... In the long run.

And because Bioware EA is probably much like other EA-owned franchises... Lower cost to make games, but still make a (probably) fair profit.
It goes like that for about 2-3 games, slowly losing their old fans and ultimately disappearing.

Conjecture, of course, but seeing DAII and what happened to other EA-bought developers... I'm afraid BW could end up the same, if they don't stick to their roots... Which should be quality, deep, tactical RPGs.
THAT's what made their name and that's what can keep them successful and going for a long time.

DAII-like games... Won't.

[IanPolaris]

DSGrant wrote...
Bar graph here for those who want to check out the 8-week sales trend for DA2: http://social.biowar...index/7236826/1

Interestingly, the DA2 sales graph very closely resembles a radioactive decay graph with a half-life of 2 weeks or so.  If we make that approximation and go from the initial sales, we can make a pretty solid evidence of how many units will be sold over the lifetime of the game, and it's just about 2 million like I supposed.

-Polaris

[Ryllen Laerth Kriel]

neppakyo wrote...

I've always slit Zev's throat. Just because I could

*runs away from the girls*

Yeah, it makes no sense to keep him alive. By that point your warden has enough friends and enemies and Zevran is an assassin so it never made any sense to let him live and especially trust him to be around the party camp or be a traveling companion. Plus, the fact that he introduces himself as "Zevran, Zev to my friends..." just makes me want to crucify him to the nearest stump next to a hill of fire ants. "Zev" makes Haer'Dalis look cool, and I thought that character was a cheeseball. There are only a few jokes Zevran makes that are worth keeping him alive for, but it's not a realistic decision for really any of my characters. What makes Zevran any different than all the other assassins and Loghain henchmen that come after the wardens? He never proves to be useful from any story angle either. It would of been much more interesting if there were more Crow related subplots with having Zevran around.

[IanPolaris]

Ryllen Laerth Kriel wrote...

neppakyo wrote...

I've always slit Zev's throat. Just because I could

*runs away from the girls*

Yeah, it makes no sense to keep him alive. By that point your warden has enough friends and enemies and Zevran is an assassin so it never made any sense to let him live and especially trust him to be around the party camp or be a traveling companion. Plus, the fact that he introduces himself as "Zevran, Zev to my friends..." just makes me want to crucify him to the nearest stump next to a hill of fire ants. "Zev" makes Haer'Dalis look cool, and I thought that character was a cheeseball. There are only a few jokes Zevran makes that are worth keeping him alive for, but it's not a realistic decision for really any of my characters. What makes Zevran any different than all the other assassins and Loghain henchmen that come after the wardens? He never proves to be useful from any story angle either. It would of been much more interesting if there were more Crow related subplots with having Zevran around.

 I usually killed Zev not out of spite but practicality.  I tended in DAO to play good but hard-bitten Wardens (often Malificar) who didn't take non-sense from anyone.  Try to kill one of them, and you'd best have your life-insurance premium paid up.  Basically they say no reason to take a person alive who just tried to kill them without an overriding reason to reconsider.

-Polaris

[Shadowbanner]

Alistairlover94 wrote...

Persephone wrote...

Alistairlover94 wrote...
My fiancee was appalled when Anders started hitting on him.

He immediately un-installed the game off his hard-drive after that.

That's the kind of reasoning I'll never understand. (Happened with Zevran too)

No matter how hard I try.

He killed Zev. So yeah, he did not get hit on by him.

Uh!

Hey, I'm straight but Zevran was one of the best companions to have around. What a shame to kill him. His banter was great, specially with Wynne around. I always thought the voice reminded of Antonio Banderas' Shrek's bad-ass cat-with-boots. But Antiva is after all meant to be Spain in-game. Tell your fiancee to give him a second chance; try and ignore him hitting on you, that's what I do. He just hits on everything.

Anders, yes, I would have gladly killed him in DA2 from the get-go (wasn't he straight in Awakening or bi at least?). Problem is he's the best -and only- healer in DA2 so if you're playing on Nightmare he MUST be a staple companion lest you want to dilapidate all your hard-earned savings on healing potions instead. You really have to be careful with Anders, I was being polite with the guy (trying to avoid rivalry points) and the next thing I know is I get a cut scene in his clinic with Anders kissing my Hawke passionately!! I almost freaked out. I had to reload.

Modifié par Shadowbanner, 08 mai 2011 - 08:18 .

[Ryllen Laerth Kriel]

Though Zevran had a Spanish accent, he reminded me more of Pepe LePew.

[AngryFrozenWater]

This is just my opinion about it. BW may correct their course, but if EA is driving them towards action games then it is likely they'll just go the DA2 route. EA wants to integrate marketing and monetization in the dev teams. If the influence of those new "dev team members" becomes too big then that makes me wonder what's going to be left of "games are art". In combination with that and telemetry nothing will be left to chance and removing creativity will be seen as a good thing because walking an unknown path is commercially dangerous. I hope this does not lead to a grey pulp of look alike EA games with no personality. Perhaps they should have a new team member. One that has a veto to all team decisions removing "fun". Because to me that's what it is all about: Fun. I am not interested in their financial problems and ways to generate the most profit. I am a gamer. Not a stockholder.

Modifié par AngryFrozenWater, 08 mai 2011 - 08:28 .

[abaris]

AngryFrozenWater wrote...

If the influence of those new "dev team members" becomes too big then that makes me wonder what's going to be left of "games are art". In combination with that and telemetry nothing will be left to chance and removing creativity will be seen as a good thing because walking an unknown path is commercially dangerous.

Don't kid yourself. It was never primarily about art and creativity. It was always about making a profit cause otherwise a company can't survive. It only happens that creativity coincided with profit with certain product lines.

But aiming for the larger market totally excludes the art factor, especially when they're aiming for the lowest possible denominator. I've seen this with other companies, which ultimately ended up coding handheld games.

[bEVEsthda]

Ryllen Laerth Kriel wrote...

neppakyo wrote...

I've always slit Zev's throat. Just because I could

*runs away from the girls*

Yeah, it makes no sense to keep him alive. By that point your warden has enough friends and enemies and Zevran is an assassin so it never made any sense to let him live and especially trust him to be around the party camp or be a traveling companion. Plus, the fact that he introduces himself as "Zevran, Zev to my friends..." just makes me want to crucify him to the nearest stump next to a hill of fire ants. "Zev" makes Haer'Dalis look cool, and I thought that character was a cheeseball. There are only a few jokes Zevran makes that are worth keeping him alive for, but it's not a realistic decision for really any of my characters. What makes Zevran any different than all the other assassins and Loghain henchmen that come after the wardens? He never proves to be useful from any story angle either. It would of been much more interesting if there were more Crow related subplots with having Zevran around.

There are many good reasons for having Zevran around. He's an assassin, after all. And a good one. The game never exploited that, but how was I to know that? After Alistair dumped me in the court, when he was chosen to be king, I'd very much liked to send Zevran after Anora, for example. But devs/writers can't think of everything, I suppose.

[JaegerBane]

IanPolaris wrote...

Unfortunately, like I said earlier, my read is that the dev and writing team for DA2 has encased themselves in something of a bunker mentality. If so, then all the criticism in the world, no matter how reasonable and how constructive isn't going to matter. They will persue the "truth" of what makes Dragon Age successful in their eyes regardless of what the marketing "facts" say...and that sort of disconnect never ends well.

Either DA is going to crash and burn, or EA will pull the plug.

Again, I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I am.

-Polaris

Yes and no. I do agree that the DA team seem to have convinced themselves that they've made an amazing game and that anyone who disagrees is living under a rock or just 'doesn't understand' or whatever, but the fact that Laidlaw and co seem to be making such an effort to tell all the gaming media how awesome their stuff is implies that they don't feel it can stand on it's own merits, which in turn implies they're aware that they made some mis-steps along the way.

It can't have escaped their attention, for instance, that you didn't see the ME2 team putting in such effort to educate everyone about how great ME2 was. Ultimately, I don't think that such pessimism is warranted. At the end of the day DA2 didn't make the impact that DA:O did, and thanks to stuff like the same company publishing the ME series, they know full well that 'streamlining' and core gameplay changes don't necessarily result in a game getting such a mixed reaction.

If anything, it should indicate to them that what they thought was the 'core experience' of DA:O wasn't what the fans thought.

[mr_nameless]

My crystal ball tells me the Bioware "team" have lost all their balls.
Time to move on.

[DraCZeQQ]

Autolycus wrote...

@Addai's Hubby..

If you want to see the 'friendship/rivalry' system implemented much better...look to the game that (imo) they 'borrowed' the idea from....

Alpha Protocol...works really well.

They "borrowed" more then one idea from this game ... as a matter of fact I started to notice how much ideas Bioware usually "borrows" from Black Isle/Troika/Obsidian games =)

[clipped_wolf]

Forgive me if I repeat anything.
EA and Bioware decide to name the next DA project "DA2", instead of something like "Dragon Age: Ninjas and Blood Mages". The marketing was targeting DA:O fans while the combat and game mechanics were obviously toward a different audience...and they rushed a deadline so the ideas weren't even polished. And added an Awsome button.
The game is what it is, love it or hate it, but Bioware, as a company, deserves every bit of critisism it recieves for this marketing tactic. Would the raging of the fans been avoided if DA2 was not "DA2" and was instead a stand-alone game in the DA franchise?

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

It's a give and take.

Bioware's game engines have been used for pretty much all Black Isle and most of Obsidian's games. Whereas Bioware pick out nifty features they see in Black Isle/Troika/Obsidian games.

IIRC, the influence system was first in KotOR II. What they "borrowed" from Alpha Protocol was the "tones" system. Alpha Protocol was marketed on allowing the player to choose from 3 archetype spies/agents, the three "J.B's",

Jason Bourne - Professional
James Bond - Suave
Jack Bauer - Aggressive

Look familiar?

But to be fair, it actually worked very well in Alpha Protocol. Makes Dragon Age 2's look a little simple and shallow in comparison to be honest... I guess it's all in the implementation...

Modifié par mrcrusty, 08 mai 2011 - 12:48 .

[DraCZeQQ]

mrcrusty wrote...

It's a give and take.

Bioware's game engines have been used for pretty much all Black Isle and most of Obsidian's games. Whereas Bioware pick out nifty features they see in Black Isle/Troika/Obsidian games.

IIRC, the influence system was first in KotOR II. What they "borrowed" from Alpha Protocol was the "tones" system. Alpha Protocol was marketed on allowing the player to choose from 3 archetype spies/agents, the three "J.B's",

Jason Bourne - Professional
James Bond - Suave
Jack Bauer - Aggressive

Look familiar?

But to be fair, it actually worked very well in Alpha Protocol. Makes Dragon Age 2's look a little simple and shallow in comparison to be honest... I guess it's all in the implementation...

well BI/Troika/Obsidian at least used Bioware logo and acknowledged usage of their engine =)
Well yea APs dialog system (as well as the "use one tone more then others, and it becomes you universal tone" kind of thing), friend/rival system, and the "framed narrative" (when you skip ahead to the future to discuss things that are about to happen) ... except AP did all these things better, as well as the consequences thingy ...

[mopotter]

Personally, I'll be playing DA2 far longer than I played DA:O.

There are things I don't like about DA:2 regarding the story but there were things in DA:O that I hated about the story endings. If I don't like th endings I don't play the game more than a few times. I go back to games like JE, KOTOR, FO 3 and FA NV, Morrowind and Yes I'm shallow.

Yes I would have liked more character choices but as long as they let me chose things like my sex, and what the character looks like and as long as the story is interesting to me I'll buy their games. Whether I pre-order it or not will depend on what I read about it.