738 réponses à ce sujet

[Bryy_Miller]

DreGregoire wrote...

I personally think that reaching a wider audience is a pipe dream, but it's their dream. So they are welcome to kill their brain cells reaching their dream. The sad thing is that they may have lost some of the audience that loved and raved about about Dragon Age Origins.

They had started expanding way before Origins. Just like any other company. Expand or die.

[ozenglish]

I have a few friend who play WoW, well did. And the reason that they no longer do is that they apparently "dumbed down" the stat system after Cataclysm or something apparently horrible... I dunno. But mind you, these are guys who play Europa Universalis or whatever that micromanaging game from hell is called.

Not all of us gamers are stat managers, and honestly, DA2 was good for me. I was not happy that I couldn't equip my party with armour that I wanted, but other than that, having the game a bit more streamlined was nice. It allowed me to play an RPG and still live my day to day existence of work, working out and going out with friends and the like. Stat heavy RPG's for me, are played primarily on long weekends off where I have no plans, or if I am sick and need something to do to keep my mind off of it.

We are all different, but as I mentioned earlier, I think the d20 system should stick with pen and paper.

[Solid N7]

I think all of you are trolls

[TheStrand221]

Lumikki wrote...

TheStrand221 wrote...

The idea that there are large numbers of gamers out there that are frightened by statistics and the complexity of character building is probably false.

Based on what?

I mean, how many people spend time pouring over statistics for fantasy football team builds?  People like stats, they like to fiddle with them and min/max.  Sorry RPG players, you're not as special as you think.

Yes, many do, but not all of them. It's like football and opera. Some like one, some other, some both, some none.

Uh, based on all that stuff I said?

You agree many people like statistics in things like WoW and fantasy football, so what's the problem?  The idea is for many people to buy and enjoy the game, right?  I don't think Mike Laidlaw, or anybody, is realistically trying to get literally everyone in the world to buy and enjoy a game.  It's probably OK with him if a few people don't buy it, and play checkers instead.

[lobi]

Solid N7 wrote...

I think all of you are trolls

Give Vodka you pass
No Vodka no pass.

[TheStrand221]

Solid N7 wrote...

I think all of you are trolls

Of course.

[ozenglish]

Solid N7 wrote...

I think all of you are trolls

That probably explains why I get grumpy when I have to put up with fools accusing people of trolling because they are using an old archaic thing called dialogue, aka, discussion, discourse, conversation, debate, windbagging (nothing to do with tea bagging.. unless you are drinking tea while windbagging)..... pay the vodka toll and move along.

[neppakyo]

lobi wrote...

Solid N7 wrote...

I think all of you are trolls

Give Vodka you pass
No Vodka no pass.

Makes head pain go away!

[Madmoe77]

Brockololly wrote...

Mike Laidlaw wrote...
My thoughts are that we need to refine what we've done in terms of the game's overall presentation and responsiveness so that people who are expecting a more action experience are not immediately turned off by it. We need to continue to refine that presentation so that it continues to hold appeal to people that don't like the thought of dice being rolled and numbers flying off people's heads, even though that is exactly what is happening. I believe that there is a way to present deep RPG mechanics that will still hold immediate appeal for people who normally would not play RPGs, and I think that if we can find that sweet spot, we will be in great shape.

So, the key to refining the presentation to bring in this mythical mainstream Action gamer is an opening level that looks like Poo Poo Mountain with enemies under such high pressure they explode when you look in their general direction?





Expanding the audience is fine and great, truly. But at what point do the people that maybe enjoy the numbers flying off people's heads and enjoy a tactical game that feels like chess, end up being left out in the strive to go for this different action gamer audience? Its like playing a Total War game or something where you get so focused on taking over one distant territory you neglect your home base, only to have your home base invaded and snatched away cause you were too busy trying to expand. 

I just feel like with DA2 the "RPG elements" weren't just under the hood, they were practically 6 feet under.

I agree with this . Does one have to be great at checkers to play connect four? The games are different even though they contain the same pieces. Having played one before the other and to even bring the checkers from the checkerboard to connect four does not mean they share in quality.

[MalcolmM]

Fortlowe wrote...

Redcoat wrote...

And it's not like the stats that DA:O presented you with on Character Creation were all that complicated to begin with. You had Strength, Dextery, Willpower, Magic, Cunning, and Constitution. All of which were explained in the manual. All of which were explained by the tooltips that appeared if you hovered your mouse over a particular statistic.

1. Console
2. Complexity wasn't the issue. I figure I was like a lot of folks and purchased Dragon Age on the strength of the marvelous experience that Mass Effect was. When all these stats come up and then I see numbers hover over my character everytime he takes a swipe at somebody (AND misses half the time!) it threw me for a loop. After that initial shock I, of course, fell in love with the game, but the starkly different gameplay was a bit of cold water to the face.

My experience exactly - but in the opposite direction! It took me several "OK, let's try that again" attempts to get as far as Eden Prime, but eventually I got the hang of it, and love the game now, played about a dozen Sheps to lvl 60.
I'm currently at the "Let's try that again" stage with DA II and ME2.

[Lumikki]

TheStrand221 wrote...

Uh, based on all that stuff I said?

You agree many people like statistics in things like WoW and fantasy football, so what's the problem?  The idea is for many people to buy and enjoy the game, right?  I don't think Mike Laidlaw, or anybody, is realistically trying to get literally everyone in the world to buy and enjoy a game.  It's probably OK with him if a few people don't buy it, and play checkers instead.

Like you sayed, I don't think Mike Laidlaw is trying to get everyone play they game, because it's impossible. They just want to have less micro-management than usually, so that people who don't like so much micro-management can also enjoy Biowares games. This may cause lost of few hard core micro-management fans, but there is allways cost when changing something.

I think as my opinion, it's more about change as when you make game more action and cinematic, a lot of stats are in the way. They break impression what the game is trying to create, as smooth cinematic game. If how ever, RPG is more strategy based and slower, then stats are more than welcome to game to give it complexity. It's about where the focus of the game is, in cinematic impression or in statical strategy  part. Is it possible to game have complexity and still have very fluid cinematic game. I think so, but not in traditional ways as it's done now in RPG's.

Let me explain the difference of statical and cinematic gameplay as I see it.

When you have created character. Player deside learn to swim. In statical gameplay player access calc sheet where player can adjust swimming skill, if player have enough point to do it. To get the point, player do what ever game requires for it. In cinematic situation when character is created and want to lear swim, player just go into water and start swimming. Stats aren't adjusted manually by player in some calc sheet, they are adjusted automaticly by action it self and are hidden from player, so that player doesn't see them. Because focus in cinematic gameplay is the action (choise) it self, not the number behind action (choise) like it's in statical gameplay.

PS: I also agree that many people don't like stats as many do.

Modifié par Lumikki, 29 mai 2011 - 08:13 .

[Chiramu]

TheStrand221 wrote...

Solid N7 wrote...

I think all of you are trolls

Of course.

Ya mon.

[JabbaDaHutt30]

The only successful thing about Laidlaw is his beard, if he still has it.

[JamesMoriarty123]

In all fairness I can see where you're coming from with this trying to reach a wider audience business, I mean Bioware is a business, it's aim is to make money, which is sadly the point.

In my most humble opinion, being a game dev should be about making an amazing game, not about making as many wide appeal cash-generators as possible. The 1.5 year dev cycle on DA2 seemed too short to put the kind of effort and polish into the game, and boy did it show.

Mike even said in one of his replys that DA2 fell down quite a bit, and indeed it did. I did notice that he vehemently defended party based play, but why then in DA2 was your party so unimportant? No customisation, weak character interactions, extremely dumbed down dialogue options (I'm speaking of the big HEART and PARTY PERSUADE icons, kinda took the fun out of figuring out the best responses, just click the icon, who cares about the reply?), etc.

I think going forward, and again this is just my opinion, that Bioware needs to take a look at it's fanbase and realise that appealing to a wider audience is great, but not at the expense of your long standing core fans. Also, the "wider audience" generally consists of people that will NEVER play a game with role-playing elements full stop, no matter how much you simplify/hide stats/dumb down.

[JabbaDaHutt30]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

adneate wrote...
What's the end result of that? Even more simplification so that everyone who doesn't play that style of game can play it without having to learn the basic skillsets of the sub-genere?

No, the end result is a product that has complexity and depth without a gigantic barrier to entry at the front so that someone who has never played an RPG before can gain those basic skillsets.

No, I do not think we did this perfectly in DAII. No, I do not think we got combats to be where we wanted them to be. So we have some work to do. And that work does not involve simplification.

Didn't you say the exact same thing before Dragon Age 2 was released: that it wont be simplified? And what came out of that?

[JabbaDaHutt30]

And I think I need a faster mouse wheel for the Cutlass Persephonies in this thread.

[JabbaDaHutt30]

Ottemis wrote...

Mike Laidlaw wrote...
There is a middle ground between Origins and II.

I think you just said something there that will make a whole lot of people happy.

No he didn't! He's just basically saying that the next sequel will still be more dumbed down than Origins, but praise-be-Jesus, it won't be re-experiencing the crappiness of Dragon Age 2. Origins wasn't even that goddamn complex from the beginning! It had a perfectly reasonable learning curve, and it definitely wasn't all fiddly-stats/ a GIGANTIC BARRIER sort of thing. The entire reason we have Dragon Age 2 is because Laidlaw was searching for a fabled 'middle ground' between action-oriented games and RPG's, and in the end we got a game that pleased neither party.
You people are all sycophants and fools for listening to Lacklaw AGAIN; it makes me sick.

Modifié par JabbaDaHutt30, 29 mai 2011 - 08:29 .

[JamesMoriarty123]

JabbaDaHutt30 wrote...

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

adneate wrote...
What's the end result of that? Even more simplification so that everyone who doesn't play that style of game can play it without having to learn the basic skillsets of the sub-genere?

No, the end result is a product that has complexity and depth without a gigantic barrier to entry at the front so that someone who has never played an RPG before can gain those basic skillsets.

No, I do not think we did this perfectly in DAII. No, I do not think we got combats to be where we wanted them to be. So we have some work to do. And that work does not involve simplification.

Didn't you say the exact same thing before Dragon Age 2 was released: that it wont be simplified? And what came out of that?

Lol, you didn't get the "combat quite right"? Bit of a moot point considering the rest of the game was so unpolished and shoddy. Forget the combat, that was fine in comparison to the recycled maps, weak story, lack of "life" in Kirkwall (for what "life" means, see - Half Life 2 : City 17, Morrowind), weightless decisions, etc, etc.

IMO, go back to the drawing board, make DA3 a proper sequel to DA:O. In DA:O all you needed to do was REFINE that gameplay, everything else was awesome, but instead, you went and changed the WHOLE DAMN GAME, didn't even feel like Dragon Age.

[JabbaDaHutt30]

JamesMoriarty123 wrote...

JabbaDaHutt30 wrote...

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

adneate wrote...
What's the end result of that? Even more simplification so that everyone who doesn't play that style of game can play it without having to learn the basic skillsets of the sub-genere?

No, the end result is a product that has complexity and depth without a gigantic barrier to entry at the front so that someone who has never played an RPG before can gain those basic skillsets.

No, I do not think we did this perfectly in DAII. No, I do not think we got combats to be where we wanted them to be. So we have some work to do. And that work does not involve simplification.

Didn't you say the exact same thing before Dragon Age 2 was released: that it wont be simplified? And what came out of that?

Lol, you didn't get the "combat quite right"? Bit of a moot point considering the rest of the game was so unpolished and shoddy. Forget the combat, that was fine in comparison to the recycled maps, weak story, lack of "life" in Kirkwall (for what "life" means, see - Half Life 2 : City 17, Morrowind), weightless decisions, etc, etc.

IMO, go back to the drawing board, make DA3 a proper sequel to DA:O. In DA:O all you needed to do was REFINE that gameplay, everything else was awesome, but instead, you went and changed the WHOLE DAMN GAME, didn't even feel like Dragon Age.

Laidlaw's Dragon Age 2 probably won't sell as well as Origins. So why the heck, Laidlaw, do you need to find a "middle ground" between Origins and your inferior product, when Origins already sold well -- better than your game probably ever will, even? I've even seen Brent Knowles write on his blog, wondering why you decided to go that route when Origins already performed well commercially!

Do you guys understand? Even the former lead designer of Origins has no idea what the reason behind the change in Laidlaw & company's design philosophy is.

[JamesMoriarty123]

JabbaDaHutt30 wrote...

JamesMoriarty123 wrote...

JabbaDaHutt30 wrote...

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

adneate wrote...
What's the end result of that? Even more simplification so that everyone who doesn't play that style of game can play it without having to learn the basic skillsets of the sub-genere?

No, the end result is a product that has complexity and depth without a gigantic barrier to entry at the front so that someone who has never played an RPG before can gain those basic skillsets.

No, I do not think we did this perfectly in DAII. No, I do not think we got combats to be where we wanted them to be. So we have some work to do. And that work does not involve simplification.

Didn't you say the exact same thing before Dragon Age 2 was released: that it wont be simplified? And what came out of that?

Lol, you didn't get the "combat quite right"? Bit of a moot point considering the rest of the game was so unpolished and shoddy. Forget the combat, that was fine in comparison to the recycled maps, weak story, lack of "life" in Kirkwall (for what "life" means, see - Half Life 2 : City 17, Morrowind), weightless decisions, etc, etc.

IMO, go back to the drawing board, make DA3 a proper sequel to DA:O. In DA:O all you needed to do was REFINE that gameplay, everything else was awesome, but instead, you went and changed the WHOLE DAMN GAME, didn't even feel like Dragon Age.

Laidlaw's Dragon Age 2 probably won't sell as well as Origins. So why the heck, Laidlaw, do you need to find a "middle ground" between Origins and your inferior product, when Origins already sold well -- better than your game probably ever will, even? I've even seen Brent Knowles write on his blog, wondering why you decided to go that route when Origins already performed well commercially!

Do you guys understand? Even the former lead designer of Origins has no idea what the reason behind the change in Laidlaw & company's design philosophy is.

It's sad that Brent Knowles left the franchise...with him at the helm, I feel Dragon Age would have made real progress and we would have actually had a worthy sequel.

Imagine playing Fallout 1 (an epic RPG) then Fallout 2 comes out and it's a ****ing racing game. An extreme example? Maybe, but it echoes what was done with the DA franchise, you kinda expect something IMPROVED from a direct sequel, i.e what actually happened with Fallout 1 and 2, not an unpolished bastardisation.

[Zanallen]

Knowles left before Origins was even out the door, stating differences between his ideals and those of the company. The changes between Origins and DA2 were going to happen to matter who was at the helm.

[Dormiglione]

Zanallen wrote...

Knowles left before Origins was even out the door, stating differences between his ideals and those of the company. The changes between Origins and DA2 were going to happen to matter who was at the helm.

Not true. He left a few month after the work on Origins ended.

Modifié par Dormiglione, 29 mai 2011 - 09:08 .

[Zanallen]

Dormiglione wrote...

Zanallen wrote...

Knowles left before Origins was even out the door, stating differences between his ideals and those of the company. The changes between Origins and DA2 were going to happen to matter who was at the helm.

Not true. He left a few month after the work on Origins ended.

I didn't say he left before it was completed. I said he left before it was out the door.

[Master Shiori]

TheStrand221 wrote...

I don't believe there are many players that are put off by games with detailed statistics. WoW is incredibly popular not a niche game and players micro tons of abilities, statistics, equipment, etc. to maximize their builds. I mean, the average age of a gamer is early thirties I believe. That would mean many of them probably played their first games on older systems that carried the first generations of hardcore RPGs, or at least the original Final Fantasy on NES which is basically a western style RPG of the classic kind.

You are correct, but only to a point.

It's true that WoW has a ton of abilities, stats and equipment, but that kind of micromanagement only becomes important at end game, when the player has reached maximum level and is ready to progress into raiding or pvp combat.
In the beginning (between levels 1 and 10) you only need to worry about your basic stats, while things like talents, hit rating, defense, dodge, block, parry, mana regeneration, etc. aren't important. And most of them don't become truly important until the end game. Therefore, the game starts very easy and gradually builds up complexity and difficulty as you progress, but the entry barrier is very low or practicaly non existent.
During my years in WoW I've met a lot of people who were never really into rpgs or gaming in general. But their family, friends and co-workers told them about this game they're all enjoying so they decided to check it out. Even if they don't get the hang of it at first, they can always ask for advice or help thorugh ingame chat system. I'd say WoW is closer to a online phenomenon like Facebook, than an rpg.

A first time player to singleplayer rpgs is left alone with that wall of stats and whatever tutorial the developers came up with. His most common method of learning is trial and error, which may work for some but leave others frustrated and puts them off the game for good. Every one of these that leave is a lost customer to Bioware and rpg market, which may not have happened had the game been a bit more newbie friendly at the beginning.

That may seem unimportant to rpg players like you or me, but it is important to developers and publishers.

[Alex Kershaw]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

Corto81 wrote...

So why, at the same time, do you guys think it has elements that are a barrier to people?
Honest question.

Yes, I do. To use one example, I know that there are people who fire up a game like Origins, see either character generation or a big wall of stats to pick and they immediately turn it off again. I also am cognizant that there are people who see that big wall of stats and get really excited.

I believe that there are more of the former than the latter. It doesn't mean either side is wrong, and it sure as hell doesn't mean we should cut stats, it just means that, perhaps, opening the game with a big wall of them is not ideal.

But Mr. Laidlaw, your argument only has foundation if a) Origins did not sell well or Origins was not a good game, but we know that Origins is Bioware's best selling title and it received an outstanding metacritic score of 91, so where is the issue? Why do things need to change so drastically when you had a formula that worked so well?

Furthermore, I'm a little confused at why your posts seem so positive and what the community wants to hear when your actions are completely different. For example, you said 'doesn't mean we should cut stats' when you removed skills entirely from the franchise. You seem to be presenting the point that you only want to change the presentation of the game so that the deep RPG system isn't immediately off-putting to new players who would actually like RPGs, but don't know that they do. That's a fair point, but it isn't backed up when you consider the streamlining of the inventory system and the customisability of party members.

You have given me back some faith, however...

Modifié par Alex Kershaw, 29 mai 2011 - 09:57 .