341 réponses à ce sujet

[abaris]

Deathwurm wrote...

I'll reserve any judgement on it until AFTER I have played it.

If you feel comfortable forking out a solid amount of money for an experiment.

Playing the demo gave you quite a feel for the game mechanics. Sure, you don't know the story yet, but you can get the picture by reading the reviews and by looking at screenshots and web vids (the ones with fireballs exploding around non reacting NPCs are quite telling as are the parachuting hordes).

You can get a feeling if you feel comfortable with that before opening your wallet and you can form an opinion if this game is any good measured by your personal standards.

[Bmeszaros]

ItsTheTruth wrote...

After all this time, they still haven't explained what was so bad about DA: O that they needed to change everything* for the sequel.

(* especially the great tactical combat of DA: O, for PC players)

Completely my opinion, but I believe DA:O was more Brent Knowles's vision than Mike Laidlaw's.

Modifié par Bmeszaros, 27 mai 2011 - 04:03 .

[Silverfox4]

ItsTheTruth wrote...

After all this time, they still haven't explained what was so bad about DA: O that they needed to change everything* for the sequel.

(* especially the great tactical combat of DA: O, for PC players)

One thing they did say, even in the new thank you post from Laidlaw, was that they wanted to appeal to more people.  Consoles are ruling the market in gaming and always will.  It's natural for them to seek a bigger audience.  But it just so happened it backfired on them. 

[Brockololly]

LPPrince wrote...
But just as he said, if DA2 is the result of Bioware looking at DAO and its criticisms, then this series will die quickly.

Bioware lately has had the trend of confusing refinement with rebooting.

Instead of modifying and tweaking, they remove.

As my stepbrother puts it, "For every step forward, Bioware's been taking two steps back."

It makes me sad.

Yup- thats the source of my confusion too. Origins was surely not without its flaws, but DA2 just went a different direction entirely, from narrative to gameplay to presentation. Thats fine if you want a DA spinoff, but to act like DA2 was a refined version of the foundation laid in Origins and not mostly a reboot? 

Its all a damn shame as they for whatever reason felt the need to tear up the foundation of DAO and lay a pretty shaky one to go off of in DA2, in the process alienating many longtime fans and not even achieveing their Holy Grail mass market audience. The direction DA2 seems intent on going just really disappoints and saddens me as Origins held so much promise as a good starting point, and it was mostly pissed away in a heartbeat with DA2.


And with that, I'll take a break from these forums as they're getting damn depressing.

Modifié par Brockololly, 27 mai 2011 - 04:03 .

[LyndseyCousland]

TonyTheBossDanza123 wrote...
To end this ramble, my point is this: When you start releasing info about future games, don't look down your nose at your forum goers. Don't tell them that since they haven't played the game, their critiques are unwarranted. Don't post charts and insist that people are overreacting.

I agree wholeheartedly with this.

[Euno17]

JohnEpler wrote...

v_ware wrote...

This is soooooooooo getting locked.

"No constructive topic"

"Confirmation bias bla bla blaah"

"Please post your concerns in the original thread"

"Spam"

WELL BITE ME.

Having said that, I agree with the OP.

Yes, tell the mods 'BITE ME'. That's both constructive and civil.

Not locking this thread. I see nothing wrong with giving people in this forum a place to discuss Mike's post.

Wow, I'm shocked that this isn't getting locked. I thought for sure this was going to get a 'lock-down'.

[KalDurenik]

Words words words words. He wrote alot but will it change anything? Do they care about their customers so that they will release a EE to remake the clearly broken things with the game?
Or are they just going to make DLC and make people pay if they want a good ending, not copy pasted areas, better quests / story and so much more?

And about "how do you know if its good / bad if you have not played it?"
By looking at the information that the devs release / videos / screenshots. I will give a good example and something alot of people think about the game TW2. People said that the UI is horrible before the game got released. People still think its horrible if not even worse after using it.

Im overall not impressed by Bioware or EA. The game was rushed and when it did not sell good they tried to make the game sell by giving away free copies of another game while hiding it as a "celebration".

If Bioware and EA do comeout with a EE that make the game GOOD. I will post here and eat my words. But sadly because its EA i somehow doubt that will happen.

[TheMadCat]

Saw his post, it's interesting. Kind of reminds me of this post here and of course we all remember how well BioWare followed though with that. Similar style, similar purpose, feels just like shark bait meant to avert our attention and satisfy our desire. But I have a hard time believing that the arrogance and defiance shown interview after interview was never his intention or a misunderstanding by the crowd. I feel bad for Mike, he's been unfairly criticized over the past few months (Aside from the criticism of post release interviews) and I can certainly understand why he's avoided the forums.

But this is just going to add fuel to the fire if you ultimately can't deliver, and as we saw with the BioWare community event and Ray's letter them making a forum post full of promises doesn't mean they're going to go out of their way to deliver on their promises or even fulfill them at all, then it's going to make you more the fool and harder to defend. We'll see how it plays out, but I've learned lately that BioWare's words and promises are about as meaningful and reliable as a con mans.

If all fails at BioWare though then I'm sure Mike would have an excellent career as a politician.

Modifié par TheMadCat, 27 mai 2011 - 04:08 .

[Chromie]

LyndseyCousland wrote...

TonyTheBossDanza123 wrote...
To end this ramble, my point is this: When you start releasing info about future games, don't look down your nose at your forum goers. Don't tell them that since they haven't played the game, their critiques are unwarranted. Don't post charts and insist that people are overreacting.

I agree wholeheartedly with this.

lolol that was funny.

[Elhanan]

Now why would anyone look down on fans like this?

Perhaps the answers might be found in the context of posts surrounding the Stage link?

Perhaps it might be found in the 0 scores found over at Metacritic?

Perhaps it can be found in the general tenor of their posts?

Nahhhh! Couldn't be.....

[Savber100]

Translation:

We're not some little Halo fanboys. Don't treat us like idiots.

[TheMadCat]

Elhanan wrote...

Now why would anyone look down on fans like this?

Perhaps the answers might be found in the context of posts surrounding the Stage link?

Perhaps it might be found in the 0 scores found over at Metacritic?

Perhaps it can be found in the general tenor of their posts?

Nahhhh! Couldn't be.....

Every developer deals with this and many don't lose any respect or change their behaviour or apporach towards the fans.

Modifié par TheMadCat, 27 mai 2011 - 04:11 .

[Bmeszaros]

There's a lot to be said about standing behind your product, that said, I think Mike waited too long to address Bioware's core consumer directly. Criticisms are an inherited risk with making video games, granted, its taken too far sometimes, but the same could be said for anything in life.

[adneate]

ItsTheTruth wrote...
After all this time, they still haven't explained what was so bad about DA: O that they needed to change everything* for the sequel.

Well so far the best I've been able to come up with is that Origins wasn't flashy enough and that Mike Laidlaw didn't like it. It's baffeling to read that Origins wasn't robust enough to support a franchise when the whole time through Origins very lengthy development they talked about it being the jumping off point for a very expansive franchise and that we were just seeing a sliver of Thedas and the tale they wanted to tell. Then suddenly DA2 rolls around and they had to rip the whole franchise down and start from scratch because it wasn't good enough to support an actual franchise.

Did a video game inspector come in to the BioWare offices and tell them Origins had termintes in it's frame? That's a pretty dramatic reversal to go from "This is the starting point for our new franchise, we've shown you a bit but there's so much more!" to "That last game was limited and shallow but this right here this is the proverbial new shiznit!"

So much of this just seems like doublespeak, they told us one thing and then tell us the exact opposite the next day and are confused as to why some of us don't trust anything they say anymore.

[Savber100]

adneate wrote...

ItsTheTruth wrote...
After all this time, they still haven't explained what was so bad about DA: O that they needed to change everything* for the sequel.

Well so far the best I've been able to come up with is that Origins wasn't flashy enough and that Mike Laidlaw didn't like it. It's baffeling to read that Origins wasn't robust enough to support a franchise when the whole time through Origins very lengthy development they talked about it being the jumping off point for a very expansive franchise and that we were just seeing a sliver of Thedas and the tale they wanted to tell. Then suddenly DA2 rolls around and they had to rip the whole franchise down and start from scratch because it wasn't good enough to support an actual franchise.

Did a video game inspector come in to the BioWare offices and tell them Origins had termintes in it's frame? That's a pretty dramatic reversal to go from "This is the starting point for our new franchise, we've shown you a bit but there's so much more!" to "That last game was limited and shallow but this right here this is the proverbial new shiznit!"

So much of this just seems like doublespeak, they told us one thing and then tell us the exact opposite the next day and are confused as to why some of us don't trust anything they say anymore.

Well, there was potential after DA:O... However, it would take to a more 'hero saves world" styled adventure which dev team wanted to avoid hence the more politically-charged DA2 plotline which opens up a flurry of new opportunities to have a similar Witcherish plotine.

[LPPrince]

Brockololly wrote...

LPPrince wrote...
But just as he said, if DA2 is the result of Bioware looking at DAO and its criticisms, then this series will die quickly.

Bioware lately has had the trend of confusing refinement with rebooting.

Instead of modifying and tweaking, they remove.

As my stepbrother puts it, "For every step forward, Bioware's been taking two steps back."

It makes me sad.

Yup- thats the source of my confusion too. Origins was surely not without its flaws, but DA2 just went a different direction entirely, from narrative to gameplay to presentation. Thats fine if you want a DA spinoff, but to act like DA2 was a refined version of the foundation laid in Origins and not mostly a reboot? 

Its all a damn shame as they for whatever reason felt the need to tear up the foundation of DAO and lay a pretty shaky one to go off of in DA2, in the process alienating many longtime fans and not even achieveing their Holy Grail mass market audience. The direction DA2 seems intent on going just really disappoints and saddens me as Origins held so much promise as a good starting point, and it was mostly pissed away in a heartbeat with DA2.


And with that, I'll take a break from these forums as they're getting damn depressing.

Yep. Pretty much. I wonder if Bioware will ever bring DAO's style back.

Crud, now I'm depressed.

[Scimal]

TonyTheBossDanza123 wrote...
To end this ramble, my point is this: When you start releasing info about future games, don't look down your nose at your forum goers. Don't tell them that since they haven't played the game, their critiques are unwarranted. Don't post charts and insist that people are overreacting.

BioWare does more than most studios to address the concerns and complaints of their fanbase. That said, there's no reason they should really listen to the people on these forums more than their internal employees who direct the game's direction. The niche for BW's brand of RPGs is small and generally growing smaller as consoles become more common and "innovation" is harshly reprimanded by the very community playing them.

The thing is, many of the loudest in this community on the forums would love things to stay mostly static with the way games play, the way stories are told, and the value they get for the money. Not everybody, of course, but many do. Just look at anyone crying out about a voiced protagonist, the "awesome button" (despite the actual mechanics of gameplay being almost identical to DA:O), and I even saw a thread rantinga bout the "Junk" tab (presumably because they enjoyed spending several hours sifting through their inventory).

A static genre cannot support itself. So, while gaming companies and their employees can probably phrase things better than they have (though, given the caveat that they are merely human makes it understandable most of the time), I would seriously not want to be in BioWare's position. If you do something different, even slightly different, someone is going to crucify you. If you don't do anything different, you receive "stale" reviews from the industry and you won't bring in new customers.

So while you may think BioWare is looking down their nose at forum goers, keep in mind that many forum goers are going to be upset regardless of what happens - and whether or not you consider BW's actions to be offensive may or may not depend on whether you're the part of the fanbase they changed some things for. This time, you weren't. In DA:O, you were. Not everybody thought DA:O was a great game, and I - personally speaking - don't see it as anything more than slightly above average. They simply weren't catering to me that time, and I can understand that (and accept it).

As for telling people their critiques aren't warranted until they've played the game...

Well, they're right. You haven't played the game. Your critiques are completely unwarranted, and you only feel vindicated in this particular instance because you perceive the changes made in DA2 that you "warned them about" to have caused its lesser success than DA:O. If DA2 had been an even more successful RPG than DA:O, then you wouldn't dare think about writing that sentence.

And to the last link...

People do overreact. All. The. Time. It's the internet - full of trolls and people who act tougher and louder than in reality. I can link you YouTube videos of people flipping out over raids in WoW, about very minor plot holes in games, and about dozens of other little things which have no bearing on reality.

Granted, people do overreact because they have invested some sort of time into the product or previous products, and they don't want to see that which gave them a feeling of contentment/joy/excitement change because they're afraid they won't achieve the same thing. This fear leads people to voice their opinions - often very loudly - with the medium they feel will have the most impact. This is part of being human and understandable.

The other part of being human is that when we're confronted with the stark reality of a situation which we dislike, generally the first intuition are to go through the stages of grief (which are more accurate than just about anything else in Psychology), and during the Denial, Anger, or Bargaining stages, people simply overreact before they hit Acceptance.

So, while some may think it rude that the chart was displayed or that Gaider did the whole "Stages of a BioWare Fan" thing... There's some veracity behind it.

I'm sure you disagree, though. :-)

[inkjay]

All I can say is thank you to Laidlaw for the 60 bucks he's saved me this time. Fool me once...

Elhanan wrote...

Now why would anyone look down on fans like this?

Perhaps the answers might be found in the context of posts surrounding the Stage link?

Perhaps it might be found in the 0 scores found over at Metacritic?

Perhaps it can be found in the general tenor of their posts?

Nahhhh! Couldn't be.....

Keep fighting the good fight, I salute you. When you treat you customers with utmost disrespect and contempt you deserve nothing more.

Modifié par inkjay, 27 mai 2011 - 04:24 .

[adneate]

Savber100 wrote...
Well, there was potential after DA:O... However, it would take to a more 'hero saves world" styled adventure which dev team wanted to avoid hence the more politically-charged DA2 plotline which opens up a flurry of new opportunities to have a similar Witcherish plotine.

Then why would they plaster DA2 with the phrase "THE LEGEND OF YOUR RISE TO POWER BEGINS NOW!" seems like that's another "Legendary hero saves the day" story as opposed to the reality of DA2 where you don't do anything proactive for 10 years and just get involved with things after they've already spiralled out of control thanks to the power of plot railroading.

Well actually I should say 7 years, but you know there was that little scene with Cassandra in badly compressed video capture that proved that yes their 7 year game is actually 10 years long.

Modifié par adneate, 27 mai 2011 - 04:26 .

[Corto81]

Well, reading Mike's post I was optimistic.

I am absolutely aware of the concerns voiced here. Issues like level
re-use, the implementation of wave combat, concerns about the narrative
and significance of choice and so on have all been not only noted, but
examined,
inspected and even aided me (and many, many others on the
team) in formulating future plans. Further, I'm not only aware of the
concerns, but I agree that there are aspects of DA II that not only can but must be improved in future installments. And that is precisely our intent.

But it only lasted about 23 seconds.

From my perspective, as someone looking to the future and the DA
franchise, I think that DA II moved us into a space that has more
potential.

[HK-90210]

During the leadup to DA2, the Dragon Age developers had an ongoing and (mostly)respectful dialogue with their fans. They did not have to do this. It's not like they would not have been paid, or DA2 would not have made a lot of money if they didn't. They did it because they wanted to. Because it's fun having an open relationship with your fans, where you are allowed to share your experiences making the game with people who care.

If we accept that as developers they care about the game, and about the opinions of their fans, then it behooves us to present our opinions in a respectful manner. I have not seen that in many of the posts on this forum(Not pointing to anyone in this thread. So far, it's held up pretty well. But this is page 2).

And frankly, I don't think it should be the developer's job to try to persuade to those that won't be moved by talk. Most of the people who have posted here so far don't seem like a simple talk is going to be suffice to reassure them. And that's fine. You have an opinion, albeit one that has possibly been formed by what others have said about the game, not necessarily your own experience. And you are allowed to have it. But don't expect a lot of pandering for the developers. They know they aren't going to be able to sway you with words. So why in the hell would they waste their time? And why are some people on this forum(not necesarily this thread, or the OP) expecting them to?

The developers are going to be talking to the people who may or may not have concerns, but can be swayed by promises of improvement. People that are not so against DA2, or Bioware, or EA, that having a dialogue with the developers will increase their confidence in the Dragon Age product. I'm one of those, and a lot of the people posting on the 'Thank You!' thread are as well. We have our concerns, and honestly feel like the developers are addressing them. 

That doesn't make us any more 'right' or 'correct'. But like it or not, the developers are going to talk to us because it is a far more valueable use of their time than talking to those that won't listen. If you don't like DA2, that's fine. That you're still around means you care enough about Origins to hope for better in the next installment. And I hope DA3 will rekindle your confidence of the franchise. But until then, don't criticize the developers for trying to reach out to the fans that can be swayed by their words, rather than just their actions.

Modifié par CastonFolarus, 27 mai 2011 - 04:26 .

[Deathwurm]

abaris wrote...

Deathwurm wrote...

I'll reserve any judgement on it until AFTER I have played it.

If you feel comfortable forking out a solid amount of money for an experiment.

Playing the demo gave you quite a feel for the game mechanics. Sure, you don't know the story yet, but you can get the picture by reading the reviews and by looking at screenshots and web vids (the ones with fireballs exploding around non reacting NPCs are quite telling as are the parachuting hordes).

You can get a feeling if you feel comfortable with that before opening your wallet and you can form an opinion if this game is any good measured by your personal standards.

The way you've expressed yourself in this Post is Valid and well put.
You have stated that, based on the Demo and what you've been exposed to in Reviews and other sources it just doesn't look like something that's "you're cup of tea" and that's perfectly valid.
The OP seems to take offense at the fact that they can't say "the whole Game sucks" without having played the whole Game.
People can differ...
I honestly didn't think the Film "The Wrestler" was going to appeal to me...I watched it and it turned out to be brilliant IMO. Having seen it I realize I would have missed a great film if I hadn't watched it.
As for Reviews and Posts and such, I just try to avoid those as much as possible if I think I'm going to want to play a Game...way too many people seem to delight in posting Spoilers (even in Thread Titles) and I HATE spoilers.

[Luvinn]

I think Bioware can change their direction with DA3 if they wanted to. If they were smart they would all things considered. I'm sure 79-82 metacritic wasn't what they were shooting for. (Yes i know metacritic is subjective, but you're crazy if you think they are oblivious to how the game is being received). Just think of american cars. They been making crap for the better part of 20-30 years, and just now are turning it around. Many people still support them! I think after one mediocre game, people shouldn't lose all faith.

Modifié par Luvinn, 27 mai 2011 - 04:28 .

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

Barring the unresposive combat, I would like to know why exactly so many elements needed to be changed from Origins? What exactly did Laidlaw and the team not like about Origins and/or traditional RPG gameplay?

I'm not necessarily talking about the narrative, but a lot of mechanics and design decisions surrounding it.

Considering that Origins is Bioware's best selling game, one would naturally assume to keep going in the same direction if you want to maximise the audience. Either that, or strengthen those RPG characteristics and deepen them.

If New Vegas could do it to Fallout 3 to rousing success (it sold more than F3) in a similar 18 months of development on an older and outdated engine, it certainly wasn't an impossible task.

That said, I'm appreciative that Mr. Laidlaw did decide to post and discuss things with the community. Always a good thing.

Modifié par mrcrusty, 27 mai 2011 - 04:35 .