90 réponses à ce sujet

[TheStrand221]

Haexpane wrote...

Listen, the Witcher 1 is a decent game, but people talk about it like it's some savior of the RPG genre. I don't even remember there being a party in the Witcher, I believe it was just that One Character... that you cant even customize!

I certainly don't want every RPG to be a non party based, no customization game.

Too bad.  All fans of The Witcher wish to destroy party based RPGs, and make Geralt the only playable character in all games including the upcoming "Dragon Age 3: The Order of the Flaming Rose Dictates" and "Homefront: Temeria".

Or this thread might actually be about the relative amounts of effort and quality development put into immersive environments in The Witcher series (hopefully including the sequel) as compared to DA2, and not that every game needs to be like The Witcher, Assassin's Creed, or anything else.

One of those two.

[Stezizi]

Dariuszp wrote...

Long long time ago, there was a game called Gothic. In this game, you got plenty of NPC around player that
- go hunting
- working in day
- sleeping at night
They move around, talk with each other and stuff. When i see Gothic for the first time after they release it - i was thinking:
- great game, feel so alive. Probably one of the best cRPG i ever played.

And gues what. It's still one of the best.

I agree. The static NPCs in games BioWare is one of the main defects that I have ever seen in his games. nothing which is extremely serious, but affect a greater immersion in the game. I loved gothic, witcher, for that.

The combat system of Kotor is good but I do not feel the need.

[Skilled Seeker]

KOTOR's combat system sucked ass! DA2's is miles ahead. Infact I've never played an RPG that has combat as good as DA2 and I've played my fair share.

[Beerfish]

Things like having tons of npcs present and activley doing things often is a restriction due to engine and or more likely processor limitations rather than game companies just wanting to be meanies or being negligent by not having them present.

Right or wrong mutlti platform games have to be playable on consoles and min spec pcs. As you add more moving creatures and or fx it chews up framerate, then combat into that situation with spell effects and such and you have a major problem.

They could very easily jack up the number of people, the size of areas etc but then performance will go down.

[Skilled Seeker]

If that's the case then give us a graphic slider that controls the number of NPCs and their routines. Or get a better engine. But it's not a valid excuse, AC is multiplatform with great graphics and long line of sight and it has realistic crowds of NPCs.

[Cody211282]

Dubya75 wrote...

BioWare developed a game engine with such severe limitations that there can only be a limited number of moving elements on screen at any given time. This is why the game appears to lifeless and NPCs don't do anything.
Dragon Age would be a much better game if they used a better engine and not their own crappy engine.

So basicly if they had taken more then a year and a half to pump this out then?

Every problem with this game comes from it being rushed and the people up top not caring about it.

[Beerfish]

Skilled Seeker wrote...

If that's the case then give us a graphic slider that controls the number of NPCs and their routines. Or get a better engine. But it's not a valid excuse, AC is multiplatform with great graphics and long line of sight and it has realistic crowds of NPCs.

AC is Assaisins creed is it?  You have a party of how many in that game I've never played it.

[Dariuszp]

@Beerfish, Assasins Creed is action game. Something like Sam Fisher (Splinter Cell) and Prince (from Prince of Persia) combined as one person and put to middle ages.
But crowd in that game was nice made. But I don't want necessary crowd like that. in Witcher or Gothic you could talk to loot of people + you got loot of people that was just elements of the decoration. In AC most of people are elements of the decoration + you got some NPC to talk.

[Hathur]

(EDIT: off topic, feel free to ignore my post.)

Let's keep in mind that Bioware has never made an open-world / living world RPG (including BG1 & 2) .. ever. All their RPGs are very much narrative driven .. this is their strong suit as a game developer.

Other developers do well in other areas... Bethesda makes interesting open-world games, but their narrative suffers for it.

I personally am more than happy for Bioware to stick to their traditional method of more structured / focused RPGs like Baldur's Gate 1&2, Kotor, Mass Effect and Dragon Age... I play these games not to explore the world, but to explore characters & stories.

When I want a more "living world" feel for a game, I'll buy Bethesda's rpgs... or games like the Witcher, etc.

Not all devs should / need to do all the different types of RPGs... I'm much happier having Bioware do their own thing, because they're good at it (and because there aren't any other devs that make structured narrative RPGs even remotely as well as Bioware does).

Modifié par Hathur, 16 mai 2011 - 09:13 .

[TheStrand221]

@Hathur

Did you read this thread? Neither the OP nor the majority of people posting here are suggesting Bioware make sandbox RPGs in the future. A few have even specifically said they shouldn't, myself included. All some of us would like to see are higher production values in the environments, areas to explore that aren't boring, and NPCs that are reactive to PC actions. Some of these things are more complicated to add, others like actually creating a convincing merchant's stall take a minimum amount of freaking effort.

It's about production values for a $60, AAA title. DA2 is lacking them in some significant areas where gamers have come to expect them.

[Hathur]

@Thestrand221 .. you're right, I skimmed too quickly over the thread - made too many assumptions - I apologize for going off topic

Modifié par Hathur, 16 mai 2011 - 08:56 .

[TheStrand221]

No problem.

[abnocte]

That video about the Witcher2 sure looks gorgeous, but even if DA and the Wichter are cRPGs they are different kinds of RPGs. Bioware always focuses in story and parti-based gameplay, so they need to put more resources on that.

That said, I can uderstand that, in previous Bioware games, they didn't go for such life-like cities, since you are allowed to explore the world to a certain extent, and don't spend that much time in the same place. But....with DA2, I just don't understand.
The whole game takes place in the same city, yet you keep seeing the very same NPCs in the very same places, repeating the very same line of dialog; no weather changes, seasons or wathever, nothing.
Forcing the player to spend 10 years in the very same city with absolutely no changes at all, is just rubbing all over our face how much of a "rush job" DA2 is.... 

[Haexpane]

Lots of talk about Assassin's Creed, I have to assume that is from the many Europeans who post here?

AC is a bad game, AC2 was better, but still a terrible game. GREAT GRAPHICS, excellent looking city... but GAMEPLAY? It's Tony Hawk in HD with blood.

Enzio is the most unlikable character ever created, he belongs on mtv's Jersey Shore 3

[Dariuszp]

@abnocte I strongly disagree. I see that you never read books (yes, base for the game is a 7 great books by Andrzej Sapkowski, saga start with "Blood of Elves", that's third book) or play first part of the game.
Witcher is all about story, characters, choices, consequences, moral dilemma etc. Very often you will got choices that are not clearly good or evil like in BW games. But i must say that CD Project RED got easier job with this title because Andrzej create whole world for them and the main character (that's why you cannot create your own).
And you will encounter from time to time animation (pictures and narrator in the background) that will explain current situation that have place moment ago and what your actions bring you to that point.
I can say that Witcher 1 got one of the best game endings EVER in cRPG. If you smart enough and realize what's happened ofcourse.

In other words @abnocte, BW and CDPR games are the same but CDPR put more effort to create world around all this.

@Haexpane, please, read whole topic before you jump to conclusion. AC was just borring. 6 acts and you always do the same thing over and over again (in my opinon) but that was not the point. Read the topic.

[Corto81]

Haexpane wrote...

Lots of talk about Assassin's Creed, I have to assume that is from the many Europeans who post here?

AC is a bad game, AC2 was better, but still a terrible game. GREAT GRAPHICS, excellent looking city... but GAMEPLAY? It's Tony Hawk in HD with blood.

Enzio is the most unlikable character ever created, he belongs on mtv's Jersey Shore 3

Guess it's in the eyes of the beholder then.

To me, AC was great with some issues (repeated quests between missions), AC2 was awesome and AC:B very much the same.
The Assassin Crypt and Lair missions are a thing of beauty.
And while I liked the cartoony arrogant-assassin-turned-justified-assassin Altair, I loved Ezio who felt more realistic and more believable.
The stories, both the Altair/Ezio and the Desmond overarching ones, are relatively well done, especially if you uncover some riddles from Subject 16 by yourself.

As the poster above mentioned, the gameplay was teriffic, free-running, climbing, etc., all very nicely done, and the Multiplayer in AC:B is unique and something completely different to any other Multiplayer out there.

(also, what does that have to do with being European???? You're saying Europeans like AC, but North Americans...  don't??)

Modifié par Corto81, 17 mai 2011 - 11:22 .

[Haexpane]

Ezio is realistic, he is a cut and paste from The Situation on jersey shore. I guess if you like italian blow hards who brag about how awesome they are all the time... not mything

The free running in AC is fun and nice, but go play Tony Hawk pro skater... AC free running is just a copy and paste of that with no skateboard. Nice at first, but IMO it gets very old quickly.

Combat, I dunno it was OK, but way too easy. Parry button FTW. I thought Batman Ark had a much more satisfying and balanced combat system with parries

Story wise, hard to argue since it's very taste based. But i found the AC story to be a rehash of The MAtrix 1 + any Anime from the 1990s

[Arken]

Haexpane wrote...

Ezio is realistic, he is a cut and paste from The Situation on jersey shore. I guess if you like italian blow hards who brag about how awesome they are all the time... not mything

The free running in AC is fun and nice, but go play Tony Hawk pro skater... AC free running is just a copy and paste of that with no skateboard. Nice at first, but IMO it gets very old quickly.

Combat, I dunno it was OK, but way too easy. Parry button FTW. I thought Batman Ark had a much more satisfying and balanced combat system with parries

Story wise, hard to argue since it's very taste based. But i found the AC story to be a rehash of The MAtrix 1 + any Anime from the 1990s

You do realize this topic is about how to create a more "living world" in Dragon Age. The topic is about how the poor NPC AI gives little to no ambiance in Bioware games. This topic has nothing to do with making Dragon Age a platforming open world game like Assassin's Creed. Plus Assassin's Creed isn't even open world. It has separate levels, and loading screens. The levels are just very large.

Better AI for NPCs is something which has been brought up before, but as many have said the current engine is too weak to allow this. Bioware could scrap the engine, and make a better one, but that would require several years of development. They could use the Unreal engine, but I doubt they would consider it.

The Dragon Age engine has always felt outdated, and it needs to be replaced. Dragon Age was developed as a throwback game which led to a weak engine being made. After all the developers didn't think they would need to produce games on the same scale as other AAA titles when Dragon Age was first coming out.

The engine is limited. I doubt the Dragon Age team will really have the time to develop a new engine. In the end it is all about how the team decides to improve the series.

Personally I would love a world that felt much more alive than what we have now.

[Haexpane]

I didn't bring up Assassins Creed! Someone else did!

[In Exile]

Arken wrote...
Better AI for NPCs is something which has been brought up before, but as many have said the current engine is too weak to allow this. Bioware could scrap the engine, and make a better one, but that would require several years of development. They could use the Unreal engine, but I doubt they would consider it.

How would the unreal engine help? The kind of behaviour you're looking for in terms of NPCs needs to be scripted and created from the grown up. 

It's not about just the graphical fidelity of the engine but the number of behaviours that need to be carried out at the same time and the routines.

Personally, I've never found a game world that was alive, aside from AC , that was only because there was no interaction in AC and you observed the world from a distance as more of a platformer than anything.

[AtreiyaN7]

Ringo12 wrote...

AtreiyaN7 wrote...

If you want an open world - go play a Bethesda game or something? As far as a BW/Bethesda comparison go, the BW approach seems to me to favor a stronger narrative with stronger characters, If I want to explore at the cost of a fairly weak storyline, I'll play Fallout or some other game. Also, Oblivion didn't exactly strike me as being particularly "alive" just because of the NPCs milling around when they didn't do a single interesting thing.

Wow you didn't even bother reading. Look at the Witcher 2. That is not an open world game yet has both npcs with schedules and a weather system that affects how they act. To say Biowares wouldn't benefit from this is stupid considering Kirkwall is a city and should feel a live.

CDProjekt guess what....spent 4 years to make a sequel! Maybe DA2 should have had the same treatment. Witcher 1 and 2 are games about story and comparable to Bioware games.

Living World
Environments

I've seen The Witcher 2 now, but since it wasn't out yet when I posted. Sorry, but I'm not going to cite a game when I haven't seen actual gameplay from it because that would qualify as making things up. Ergo, I was sticking to comparing only the Bethesda-style open-world games and BWs games that I've played. Now that I've actually seen TW2, there are definitely plenty of NPCs, and I think the environments, etc. are quite well done. The environment itself is quite immersive in my opinion, and I'm sure that BW could take some useful lessons from the game about breathing life into the environment. I've seen some interesting things like the siege bit at the beginning of the game.

Kudos to CDP, but for reasons similar to those in Oblivion, I don't know that I find the NPCs particularly convincing/helpful in creating a feeling of immersion. Personally, I've found the ambient conversations thus far to have been somewhat banal and/or annoying (to be fair, I could say that about Bethesda and BW games too). That includes NPC in the game who has uttered the phrase "get plowed" (or used the word "plowing"). If I hear it one more time, I shall probably go insane and buy some oxen and a plow and run around the landscaped grounds at my condo wreaking havoc on the flora. I've found that ogling the environment has thus far trumped my interest in the NPCs. And due to their hideous fashion sense, I could really do without a few NPCs - orange, green, purple and/or yellow only belong on Mardi Gras revelers.

Also, storywise I'm not really intrigued. It's been moderately entertaining, but I'm waiting for some actual depth to come smack me over the head. It may pick up later, but since I'm reliant on a friend streaming gameplay, I may not be able to follow it too closely.

[Haexpane]

TheStrand221 wrote...

Haexpane wrote...

Listen, the Witcher 1 is a decent game, but people talk about it like it's some savior of the RPG genre. I don't even remember there being a party in the Witcher, I believe it was just that One Character... that you cant even customize!

I certainly don't want every RPG to be a non party based, no customization game.

Too bad.  All fans of The Witcher wish to destroy party based RPGs, and make Geralt the only playable character in all games including the upcoming "Dragon Age 3: The Order of the Flaming Rose Dictates" and "Homefront: Temeria".

Or this thread might actually be about the relative amounts of effort and quality development put into immersive environments in The Witcher series (hopefully including the sequel) as compared to DA2, and not that every game needs to be like The Witcher, Assassin's Creed, or anything else.

One of those two.

Actually NEITHER, the topic of the thread is "LIKE IN KOTOR"

But as per usual, Witcher 2 fan bois will write hundreds of paragraphs about a game that isn't even the same Genre as Dragon Age and wasn't even released at the time.