201 réponses à ce sujet

[Dragoonlordz]

Zanallen wrote...

Dragoonlordz wrote...

Speakeasy13 wrote...

I disagree. WRPGs are supposed to be similar to Devil May Cry in the sense that they are aimed at an advanced audience.

Isn't that racist? The alternative opposing side to wRPG is eastern RPG's (such as jRPG etc). Clearly you have never tried to pull off a gazillion hit combo in Disgaea 3!  

If you ever play against enough eastern players you will see that a vast amount of them are far more dedicated and better at games than us western counterparts, so advanced audience doesn't preclude asian style RPG's. Don't let the fuzzy, cuddley anime fool you some of their games are a nightmare difficulty and tactics wise.

I'll just leave this here: www.youtube.com/watch And you haven't seen it yet, make sure you want past the 1 minute mark.

Haven't seen it and made me laugh it's funny video. Doesn't change fact jRPG's are generally more complicated and difficult. Which was my point. They really on stats and numbers and combos and loot etc far, far more than wRPGs.

RageGT wrote...

Zanallen wrote...

I'll just leave this here: www.youtube.com/watch And you haven't seen it yet, make sure you want past the 1 minute mark.

I don't see many gamers over 30 playing that game. Heck, I don't see many gamers over 15 playing that game!

I'm 31 and I'll play it. Just because has anime or manga, doesn't make it appeal less in fact the humour in Disgaea series is hilarious especially for gamers.

Modifié par Dragoonlordz, 31 mai 2011 - 04:42 .

[Dragoonlordz]

Speakeasy13 wrote...

Dragoonlordz wrote...

Isn't that racist? The alternative opposing side to wRPG is eastern RPG's (such as jRPG etc). Clearly you have never tried to pull off a gazillion hit combo in Disgaea 3!  

If you ever play against enough eastern players you will see that a vast amount of them are far more dedicated and better at games than us western counterparts, so advanced audience doesn't preclude asian style RPG's. Don't let the fuzzy, cuddley anime fool you some of their games are a nightmare difficulty and tactics wise.

Pls read my post again. I AM an eastern gamer. The East is where I'm from and where I live. I grew up playing Final Fantasy and Fire Emblem and pretty much every other JRPG franchise that isn't Dragon Quest. In Japanese nontheless. I've spent countless hours on Pokemon and the World Tree Laybrinth so I know JRPGs can too be deep and complex; I'm just saying JRPGs are expected to be more straightforward and "accessible" than WRPGs, what with predefined protagonists and fixed story elements. I didn't say I don't like JRPGs for what they are.

Doesn't change the issue imho your mistakingly using the word advanced where advanced does not apply.

Advanced to me means harder, more difficult and more complicated. Aka need a higher level of understanding.

Western developers seem to think their players are idiots or lack attention span hence why they are always dumbing down, streamlining or applying simplification. While from what I seen and played jRPGs don't tend to do this as much. Even when eastern developers make wRPG style games they see what the western developers are doing and think they must do the same in order to grab the low attention spans or lacking complexity audience, case and point being FFXIII as one example.

Look at the reviews that gave Witcher 2 a bad score they all moan about how hard it is... "wahh wahh ~too hard, I want my mommy the big bad game makes my brain hurt".

Modifié par Dragoonlordz, 31 mai 2011 - 12:46 .

[Kidd]

Long post is long! Wow how did all these replies get here!? =D

brain_damage wrote...

A woman talking about linux gurus? Your friend doesn't exist, methinks, or the universe would spontaneously collapse.

The same girl was the one who taught me how to use linux, cause I was absolutely lost in a non-DOS or non-Windows environment. Files are owned by different "people"? Only an "admin" can perform major changes to the system? The "admin" is a separate account from my own!? This is madness!

At that point she pretty much went "This.is.Linux" and sat down and talked me through it all Similar to how I helped her out with DA2, really. I'm very sure I wouldn't be capable of running linux just like she wouldn't be able to play DA2 if we didn't have each other, cause it's very difficult to get by without help.

Marionetten wrote...

I asked you to name a single game which has successfully catered to everyone from newborn baby to grizzled neckbeard.

Mario, really. Mario games are downright amazing to play, and while I know opinions will be opinions, I quite honestly feel most people who look down on Mario in any way are nothing but elitist. I can get all the achievements in the hardest of Megaman games, meaning I'm pretty good with 2D platformers. And I love those Mario games cause they're very well built, just like I've played the games with very very casual gamers. Sure I may die less and get more coins, but we're having fun.

Now I'm not saying all games should be like Mario, but it does cater to pretty much everyone according to the example you wanted.

The best I feel BioWare can do is not dumb down the game, but make it more accessible. These things are -not- the same thing. Is changing THAC0 to the d20 attack rolls dumbing down? Of course not, there's nothing you can do with THAC0 you cannot do with d20 attack rolls. Is it more accessible? Oh heck yes. Not only can the system be simplified like that, but you can add simple options and short tutorials that help out.

The tutorial level in KotOR comes to mind as an absolutely amazing tutorial level, for instance. You got taught pretty much all the mechanics aside from light saber crafting in it, and it didn't take long at all. Most importantly, it was fun. Did that tutorial level take resources that could've been used to make, say, Manaan longer? Yes it did. Was it worth it? Perhaps not to you, but I definitely think so. And so would likely all those thousands of gamers who got into BioWare rpgs with KotOR.

As wonderful as the BG series is, it's incredibly unforgiving to a beginner who doesn't know what to do. It's actually not that difficult once you learn what is what and you realise it's not the most tactical game since chess, but before you learn that you really only have 5 choices in a situation and you see those 30 or whatever choices... you get overwhelmed. And it's really overwhelming the player for no reason, since the depth they're scared of is actually fake.

Dragoonlordz wrote...

Anyways why was your female friend playing games? Shouldn't she be in the kitchen making sandwiches or doing the dishes? 

I was doing the dishes actually, and we're both of the physically softer gender

Dragoonlordz wrote...

Tbh I don't think any of this stuff is needed, new gamers are not what an RPG should be about pulling in, it should at most if go down the route of Laidlaw be pulling in from other genres or already gamers.

I don't agree, for two reasons.

First of all, if I consider my mother or any non-gamer who enjoys books and films playing a game, they'd definitely like an rpg better than a shooter. A pen and paper rpg can pretty much be played and enjoyed without knowing any mechanics as long as the game master is willing to help out a little bit more than usual in the beginning. In a video game, the game master is a pre-programmed robot and thus can't help out in the same way. Thus you need to work on helping the player to learn the game in a different way.

I've never seen a pen and paper group tell a new player "read the player's handbook and then come back", cause it really is a pretty silly thing to ask somebody. I don't see how a game is different just because it's in digital format.

Second, I honestly think the influence of other genre gamers run a way higher risk of "ruining our games" (I used the wording, I used it, I did! =D) than any up-and-coming gamer does. Catering to a new gamer means making the game more accessible. Catering to a gamer from another genre means putting stuff into the game that by nature don't really belong there. Mass Effect turned out great, but it's still a huge gamble.

ms_sunlight wrote...

Speak for your own mother, mine's been playing computer games since the 80s.

Hmm... you wouldn't happen to have her number on you, would you? [smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/whistling.png[/smilie]

Marionetten wrote...

This perceived accessibility is what sells copies. Not actual accessibility. A tutorial isn't going to sell any copies regardless of how well made it is. In fact, most gamers prefer outright skipping tutorial segments.

Definitely true. But it also risks leaving the game mostly unplayed and having the player skip future sequels. The size of DAO's fanbase is horribly "fake" in that it sold a lot but few really played far. I know several friends myself who bought the game but never got far at all, and didn't pick up DA2. Not because they heard DA2 was crap, but because they didn't fall in love with the original game they bought. It's important to realise sales of a single game isn't the be-all end-all.

If you buy a game and never play it for more than an hour, you won't play the sequel. If you're semi-bored going through a tutorial section, you may like the rest of the game and pick up the sequel. This is better for all of us, cause more sales equals more content and more games.

Foolsfolly wrote...

Portal was great at teaching players things. In general they taught you something, then you did it again to remind you how to do it, and then the game had a puzzle that required the thing you'd just learned.

Yeah, Portal is like 75% tutorial. It's only really close to the game that the "tutorial" ends.

Perles75 wrote...

I disagree that the equipment management must be simplified, and I do not think an optimise equipment button would be useful (optimise for whom? according to which criteria? there are people who like pumping the attack, others the resistances, yet others the mana/stamina regeneration...).

Yup, and there you see the magic of learning the system yourself. Just like auto level up forces your companions to play certain ways, the auto equip would always put the highest DPS sword on your rogue along with the highest defence armour. You prefer the armour with slightly less armour and more resistance? Equip that way yourself, just like you have to put points in Vanguard for Fenris on your own if you want those points early - the auto level will put the points elsewhere.

Auto level is only there to make the game easy and accessible, nothing more. Players who want more control and to truly optimise their own parties will want to learn the game properly.

[Dragoonlordz]

I want more options, more loot and more choices in games not less. If a game is too hard for someone who never played games before then there are alternative simpler games within each genre.You said it yourself you found Kotor to be very good in that regard, well once someone trys Kotor by the end they will know maybe enough to move on to something else. Not every game should be holding the gamers hand like a child expecting that they never played a game before.

By all means increase the intro or even expand the tutorial, maybe come with a colourful document explaining what stats are or skills (Oh wait they already do it's called a manual) or even maybe tooltips or hovering descriptions explaining what they do. Else just use the difficulty setting to turn it down if it's too hard but thats about all imho.

You don't jump in the deep end of a pool if you can't swim and you don't remove the deep end of the pool either, you add a shallow (section) which is what every game already does it's called a tutorial and introduction. Nothing more is needed than that.

Modifié par Dragoonlordz, 31 mai 2011 - 01:01 .

[Realmzmaster]

Dragoonlordz wrote...

I want more options, more loot and more choices in games not less. If a game is too hard for someone who never played games before then there are alternative simpler games within each genre.You said it yourself you found Kotor to be very good in that regard, well once someone trys Kotor by the end they will know maybe enough to move on to something else. Not every game should be holding the gamers hand like a child expecting that they never played a game before.

By all means increase the intro or even expand the tutorial, maybe come with a colourful document explaining what stats are or skills (Oh wait they already do it's called a manual) or even maybe tooltips or hovering descriptions explaining what they do. Else just use the difficulty setting to turn it down if it's too hard but thats about all imho.

You don't jump in the deep end of a pool if you can't swim and you don't remove the deep end of the pool either, you add a shallow (section) which is what every game already does it's called a tutorial and introduction. Nothing more is needed than that.

Your assumption is that all games have a tutorial and/or introduction section and that is not the case. I have played many games from Wizardry to Might and Magic to Bards Tale and others that have no tutorial section. I had no problems with them because I cam from a tabletop RPG background. Other friends of mine were entirely turn off by the games until I guided them through the game.

The learning curve and difficulty on some of the early CRPGs was brutal. The amount of combat in the first Bards Tale was so frequent that even the best players were telling Interplay to tone it down. And Reviews were saying the game would not appeal to the general gameplayer, but only the diehard pixie fans.
Bards Tale was a good selling PC game, but generated nowhere near the sales of games that were on the gaming consoles of that time (circa 1985).

The manuals where tomes which I had no problem with because I read Dungeonmaster and Player manuals for many different CRPGs.

But the question I raised and which has not been answered is if you do not make the games accessible where do the next generation of CRPG gamers come from?

[augustburnt]

Screw it, clearly DA2 wasnt simple enough, DA3 will be a coloring book with magic markers that stop coloring if you color outside the lines.... this is why theres should be some of testing for people to have kids or vote

[Dragoonlordz]

Realmzmaster wrote...

But the question I raised and which has not been answered is if you do not make the games accessible where do the next generation of CRPG gamers come from?

Same place the old ones came from. Not many people here (I think) jumped into first game played being a highly complicated cRPG or even moderately complicated one. Probably simpler titles like Mario or FF or Tetris even Hello Kitty. They play other games mostly first then might play action RPGs, might play some jRPG or wRPG they start gaming and expand. Not every genre or game should be based off the lowest common denominator or level of difficulty / understanding.

Modifié par Dragoonlordz, 31 mai 2011 - 05:05 .

[Realmzmaster]

Dragoonlordz wrote...

Realmzmaster wrote...

But the question I raised and which has not been answered is if you do not make the games accessible where do the next generation of CRPG gamers come from?

Same place the old ones came from. Not many people here (I think) jumped into first game played (a highly complicated cRPG or even moderately complicated one). Probably simpler titles like Mario or FF or Tetris even Hello Kitty. They play other games, might play action RPGs, might play some jRPG or wRPG they start gaming and expand. Not every genre or game should be based off the lowest common denominator or level of difficulty / understanding.

Actually my first CRPG was Rogue and the Dunjonquest series( Temple of Apshai, Hellfire Warrior etc).
If I as a company can make my game more accessible to the non-gamer or casual gamers or non-CRPG playing gamer would that not be in the company's best interest.
I would be expanding my audience. And if that expoansion in audience is greater than the loss of hardcore fans would it not from a finanicial point be justified.

Now some may say what if you do not expand your base and lose those hardcore fans your company loses money. My take on that would be a company that is a afraid to gamble will lose eventually to the company that is willing to gamble.
Many companies biggest successes have been gambles.

[Dragoonlordz]

Realmzmaster wrote...

Now some may say what if you do not expand your base and lose those hardcore fans your company loses money. My take on that would be a company that is a afraid to gamble will lose eventually to the company that is willing to gamble.
Many companies biggest successes have been gambles.

Gamble's fail and should only gamble when signs of failing are already happening or nothing to lose. This was not the case before DA2. Else you fall into the fear of failure catagory again. Changes bring about declines and closures probably far more often than sticking to what works aka not in huge decline, tweaking their systems with baby steps approach.

Your looking at it in a very biased way the phrasing "some of biggest successes are gambles", the majority of gambles do not pay off hence the term gamble, and why should be cautious of it (only gamble when have nothing to lose or if already are making large losses) because if don't hit the sweet spot your going to do damage instead maybe even force closure in some cases. For every great success there are hundreds/thousends of failures.

DA2 for example is far closer to the latter than the former in that last sentence.

(Attempted to keep it on topic of DA2 so won't get locked)... Or will it? Dum dum dum..!

Modifié par Dragoonlordz, 31 mai 2011 - 05:22 .

[Lumikki]

KiddDaBeauty wrote...

1. Gender / class selection screen

Yeah, some games are missing this base selection, like gender. While some games get a lot of complains about companions armors. I think gender and class (or skills or job as what you are) are at least basic selection to make in any RPG. 

4. Lore and term bomb

Yeah, developers should no assume players knows the lore. Also when playing, player should know like what they purpose is as what they try to do. So that player doesn't feel like I have no clue what I suppose to do here. These maybe so easy for veteran players, but for new player it isn't so.

5. Equipment management

Yeah, this is hard part. How to get something easyer for people, while not reduse customation options, as player become what player wants. I allways use more like this example:

1. Character has a lot of stats as numbers and they are pre-defined manually by player.
2. Players actions and choises defines what character is.

This mean if you want to learn to swim, then go and swim. Why does player has to pre-define manually what the character can do? Wasn't the class selection the pre-define structure allready?

Other part is details and automations.

Example auto leveling and design so that some customation isn't neccassary for the game, but you can go in deeper in details to more define when needed. Like, new player doesn't need to have all details front of them, they can first learn the basic and then later start looking into deeper details. Like example in DA series tactical customation options.

Modifié par Lumikki, 31 mai 2011 - 05:36 .

[Dragoonlordz]

Lumikki wrote...

Yeah, some games are missing this base selection, like gender. While some games get a lot of complains about companions armors. I think gender and class (or skills or job as what you are) are at least basic selection to make in any RPG. 

I like to keep these things and expand on them races, genders, skills, items and choices etc in all RPGs imho.

Yeah, developers should no assume players knows the lore. Also when playing, player should know like what they purpose is as what they try to do. So that player doesn't feel like I have no clue what I suppose to do here. These maybe so easy for veteran players, but for new player it isn't so.

New players shouldn't know the lore before they play, they learn that as they play and by the end understand some of it then if curious about anything they don't understand they can talk to people, read about it. Story is narrative and plot or progression which again is learned as play (a bad plot progression is a bad plot progression) has nothing to do with how easy it is.

Maybe should just put a developer video on the start game menu call it. "Learn how to play" since people don't seem to be willing to use manuals in this thread except me.

Or talk to friends, a lot of my friendships also come from when I got stuck understanding something in a game I went and asked someone and some of the time we become good friends, this is a good thing so instead make them harder to understand and maybe people will make new friends!

Modifié par Dragoonlordz, 31 mai 2011 - 05:48 .

[In Exile]

Dragoonlordz wrote...

I want more options, more loot and more choices in games not less. If a game is too hard for someone who never played games before then there are alternative simpler games within each genre.You said it yourself you found Kotor to be very good in that regard, well once someone trys Kotor by the end they will know maybe enough to move on to something else. Not every game should be holding the gamers hand like a child expecting that they never played a game before.

It has nothing to do with difficulty. It's about making sense of your mechanics. It's possible for someone to be a very experienced gamer (playing intuitive games like an FPS) yet be entirely lost at the counter-intutiive system of an RPG (e.g. I'm controlling my character - why isn't the gun shooting?).

By all means increase the intro or even expand the tutorial, maybe come with a colourful document explaining what stats are or skills (Oh wait they already do it's called a manual) or even maybe tooltips or hovering descriptions explaining what they do. Else just use the difficulty setting to turn it down if it's too hard but thats about all imho.

But that's all that we're saying. I don't want a simple RPG. But I don't think a confusing RPG is at all good. Even as a veteran RPG player, a game like DA:O (that hid all of the mechanics from you and had garbage tooltips) is a pain to learn.

You don't jump in the deep end of a pool if you can't swim and you don't remove the deep end of the pool either, you add a shallow (section) which is what every game already does it's called a tutorial and introduction. Nothing more is needed than that.

But people are against that. In this thread.

[Plaintiff]

augustburnt wrote...

Screw it, clearly DA2 wasnt simple enough, DA3 will be a coloring book with magic markers that stop coloring if you color outside the lines.... this is why theres should be some of testing for people to have kids or vote

Chyeah, because being able to play a video game and then act like a snob about it is totally a measure for maturity. You've raised the bar for all of us.

Making a game more accessible and understandable has nothing to do with its difficulty level. There's no harm in opening up the RPG genre to a wider audience. Even veteran gamers have been known to complain when they are thrown into the action without being told how things work.

Modifié par Plaintiff, 31 mai 2011 - 05:59 .

[Furtled]

I had much the same thought about lore when I'd finished playing, which is a little sad as the game world is an amazing thing to explore and I still remember the fun to be had pestering NPCs with questions in Origins. I know it'd be tricky to balance repeating information for Origins players against people new to the world (especially given the human origin), but some effort beyond the codexes would have been good.

If I remember right from Mass Effect there were investigate options that said 'Protheans?' etc. but were spoken in a way that made more sense for a character supposedly already familiar with the term 'I thought they vanished 50k years ago' or similar. And again if memory serves, they could be skipped if the player was already famailiar with the game world.

On Ostagar and Lothering, well that likely could have been solved with the game starting in one or the other, I remember persuading a friend to try out Origins by pointing them to the Ostagar cut scenes on YouTube since they have such a great feel to them.

And agreed on the character creator being in an odd place game wise.

The optimise equipment option for casual players sounds like a great idea too - I hope she enjoys the rest of the game or is at least inspired to try some other games.

Modifié par Furtled, 31 mai 2011 - 06:18 .

[Marionetten]

In Exile wrote...

?

That's an ideology.

Anyway, I'm nitpicking. I don't think this is as resource intensive as you happen to think it is. Again, you're pushing too hard of a standard for what it means to make a game accesible.

If you can somehow magically make those zots appear out of thin air then by all means. The fact is that I don't care about tutorials as they don't exist in my universe. Subsequently my opposal to them here is purely based on the idea of something else suffering for it. There is no specific opposition to tutorials as they do absolutely nothing for me one way or another.

In Exile wrote...

I still don't like Baldur's Gate. It's not a good game, and it's based on a terrible mechanic (D&D, which must die in fire).

As for KoTOR, it was the introduction on Taris (and the starting starship) actually made it accesible. They explained how to play the game very well.

I should actually have used KoTOR as the tutorial example.

Yet Knights of the Old Republic was based on the very same basic mechanics. You roll and hope for the best. And I really wouldn't call the tutorial good or memorable. It was just a few basic pop ups teaching you how to use the various devices. This could all easily be accomplished in a manual.

In Exile wrote...

I wouldn't talk about TW2 as a bridge game toward RPGs yet.

Moreover, throwing out wild speculation doesn't do much to validate a position.

The Witcher 2 is held up as a shining example of the genre while Dragon Age II sulks in the shadows. This does influence consumers as the sales have already demonstrated. A good game will outsell a bad game with a great tutorial every single day of the week. I don't think that statement is very speculative.

In Exile wrote...

A flawed vision and rushed schedule. How does a minor allotment of zots to a tutorial change that? At most, it would mean a missing quest. It would fix, well, nothing.

Exactly. It would mean less content. It would mean a lesser core experience for the sake of making the game more accessible. Now we're on the same page.

In Exile wrote...

I'm only going to bring this up again because you took so much time to defend yourself from this, but this is an ideological stance.

But it doesn't relate specifically to tutorials. My ideological stance lies in not wanting the core game diminished for any reason. Don't confuse the two.

In Exile wrote...

Who cares? You're the only one that seems to think that accesibility means everyone being pleased by the system. Like I have said to you repeatedly: accesibility just means that a commited player can be eased in to playing the game without experience in the genre.

And like I have said to you repeatedly: that's still not going to work for everyone and other elements of the game will unavoidably suffer because of it.

In Exile wrote...

In terms of design? More rules mean more complexity even in an FPS. I thought you were talking about rules that players have to learn.

They are rules that the player has to learn. My elderly mother was a master at the old Mario games yet she can't get into the new ones as she finds them too confusing. When it comes to games rules are everything and the more complicated a game is the more rules it will have. This goes for every genre.

[Marionetten]

Xewaka wrote...

Tetris.

A lot of people found Tetris to be woefully simplistic. Hence Welltris which was actually desinged by Alexey Pajitnov. It was supposed to be the next level of Tetris but it never really took off. Not to mention the fact that a lot of people just hated Tetris.

KiddDaBeauty wrote...

Mario, really. Mario games are downright amazing to play, and while I know opinions will be opinions, I quite honestly feel most people who look down on Mario in any way are nothing but elitist. I can get all the achievements in the hardest of Megaman games, meaning I'm pretty good with 2D platformers. And I love those Mario games cause they're very well built, just like I've played the games with very very casual gamers. Sure I may die less and get more coins, but we're having fun.

Now I'm not saying all games should be like Mario, but it does cater to pretty much everyone according to the example you wanted.

But you said it yourself. A lot of people do look down on Mario and it is a pretty damn simplistic game in reality. I really don't think it's particularly fair to brand someone an elitist for enjoying different things than you. Different people have different preferences for different reasons. There is no helping this. You're never going to create a game capable of appealing to every single individual on this earth. You can however create different games for different people.

Some people hate Tetris. Some people hate Mario. Some people hate Call of Duty. Instead of worrying about pandering to all of these audiences why not worry about making a good RPG first and foremost?

Modifié par Marionetten, 31 mai 2011 - 06:45 .

[Xewaka]

Marionetten wrote...
The fact is that I don't care about tutorials as they don't exist in my universe. Subsequently my opposal to them here is purely based on the idea of something else suffering for it. There is no specific opposition to tutorials as they do absolutely nothing for me one way or another.

Portal was arguably the best game of 2007. It was about 80% tutorial. However, it was a well enough done tutorial that the player was having a fulfilling, enjoyable experience just by learning the game.

Marionetten wrote...

Xewaka wrote...
Tetris.

A lot of people found Tetris to be woefully simplistic. Hence Welltris which was actually desinged by Alexey Pajitnov. It was supposed to be the next level of Tetris but it never really took off.

You requested appealling for the broadest audience possible. Tetris is. It was appealling enough to have people ask for more. You proved my point.

Modifié par Xewaka, 31 mai 2011 - 06:42 .

[Realmzmaster]

Dragoonlordz wrote...

Realmzmaster wrote...

Now some may say what if you do not expand your base and lose those hardcore fans your company loses money. My take on that would be a company that is a afraid to gamble will lose eventually to the company that is willing to gamble.
Many companies biggest successes have been gambles.

Gamble's fail and should only gamble when signs of failing are already happening or nothing to lose. This was not the case before DA2. Else you fall into the fear of failure catagory again. Changes bring about declines and closures probably far more often than sticking to what works aka not in huge decline, tweaking their systems with baby steps approach.

Your looking at it in a very biased way the phrasing "some of biggest successes are gambles", the majority of gambles do not pay off hence the term gamble, and why should be cautious of it (only gamble when have nothing to lose or if already are making large losses) because if don't hit the sweet spot your going to do damage instead maybe even force closure in some cases. For every great success there are hundreds/thousends of failures.

DA2 for example is far closer to the latter than the former in that last sentence.

(Attempted to keep it on topic of DA2 so won't get locked)... Or will it? Dum dum dum..!

Companies gamble to get a competitive advantage over the competition. So it does not happen just because a company is losing money. You gamble on new technology not because you are losing money but because you want to gain a competitive advantage over the competition. So Bioware experiments with DA2 which is different from DAO. Yes a gamble can fail or succeed.
But companies who do not gamble do not obtain a competitive advantage over the competition. Doing the same thing over and over may please the established base but it does not grow it. Eventually the established base starts to shrink.

Edit for spelling

Modifié par Realmzmaster, 31 mai 2011 - 06:42 .

[ipgd]

Marionetten wrote...

Xewaka wrote...

Tetris.

A lot of people found Tetris to be woefully simplistic. Hence Welltris which was actually desinged by Alexey Pajitnov. It was supposed to be the next level of Tetris but it never really took off. Not to mention the fact that a lot of people just hated Tetris.

Pokemon?

Start getting into spreadsheeting out EVs and it's an unwashed, neckbearded autist's dream come true.

[Marionetten]

Xewaka wrote...

Portal was arguably the best game of 2007. It was about 80% tutorial. However, it was a well enough done tutorial that the player was having a fulfilling, enjoyable experience just by learning the game.

I actually hated Portal. Good point though. Portal was a very focused experience in its own right.

Xewaka wrote...

You requested appealling for the broadest audience possible. Tetris is. It was appealling enough to have people ask for more. You proved my point.

But those were just people predispositioned to like the kind of challenge provided by Tetris. We're forgetting about the people who just couldn't get into it.

And I requested a game which successfully catered to EVERYONE. Tetris didn't do that. In fact, it was an extremely focused puzzle game. What I want is an extremely focused RPG.

ipgd wrote...

Pokemon? [smilie]../../../images/forum/emoticons/whistling.png[/smilie]

Start getting into spreadsheeting out EVs and it's an unwashed, neckbearded autist's dream come true.

I think I'd be more inclined to like it if it necessitated that spreadsheeting. Unfortunately, it's just way too easy and EV training is only necessary for competitive multiplayer. More often than not it's just a matter of feeding your OCD.

But this actually kind of ties into my point. I'd like for the core gameplay to necessitate taking advantage of whatever opportunities the game provides. If you want to master Tetris you need to learn all of the nuances. Why isn't this the case with RPGs?

Modifié par Marionetten, 31 mai 2011 - 06:58 .

[Dragoonlordz]

http://www.nerfnow.c...thumb/459/large

[Sidney]

In Exile wrote...

But that's all that we're saying. I don't want a simple RPG. But I don't think a confusing RPG is at all good. Even as a veteran RPG player, a game like DA:O (that hid all of the mechanics from you and had garbage tooltips) is a pain to learn.

The best example of this remains the leveling system in Oblviion. That thing makes no sense and I've looked at charts explaining the darn thing and tried to understand how to make my skills better w/o leveling myself up.

In the end my main issue is that more mechanics <> a better game. People have somehow settled on DAO as the "perfect" level of complexity but even at the time if you search the forums people wanted more crap tossed on to the fire -- and so we got the abomination of DAA runecrafting. Let me suggest even more items to bring you closer to your character (and my sadness is that someone will read these and think, wow, great idea):

1. You like crafting? Well how about crafting dinner? You have to find the meat, harvest or buy the proper herbs and combine them to create a meal that meets nutritional needs but also maintains morale by not being bad tasting or the same thing you've made for 3 weeks in a row. An army marches on it's stomach afterall. You could even have it affect loyalty and rivalry if you made pork and Qunari won't eat pork. Think about it, how fun is that! Maybe you could have a cooking skill that would affect how good your meals taste.
2. What about sleep, wouldn't it be even deeper if I didn't just have to sleep but actually had to select a campsite based on the terrain, moisture of the ground and bug population and if I did poorly I wouldn't sleep well and would be fatigued and suffer a -10 to hit the next day?
3. We all know that personal hygene matters and that personal parasites are a major issue. How about a laundry mini-game where if you don't wash your clothes properly you get infected with body lice and failure to make magical or herbal lice remedies could result in it being spread to other party members?

Point being I can invent all sorts of reasons in my head these are part of my character - I want by character to be a slob, a bad smelling, lice ridden, hardcore dirty fighter. It says something about who he is.

[ipgd]

Marionetten wrote...

I think I'd be more inclined to like it if it necessitated that spreadsheeting. Unfortunately, it's just way too easy and EV training is only necessary for competitive multiplayer. More often than not it's just a matter of feeding your OCD.

But this actually kind of ties into my point. I'd like for the core gameplay to necessitate taking advantage of whatever opportunities the game provides. If you want to master Tetris you need to learn all of the nuances. Why isn't this the case with RPGs?

Isn't crushing the game and other players with your massive tumescent epeen the whole point of doing stuff like EV training? I think Pokemon does a great job at catering to a wide (HO HOHO HOHOHOHO HOH GET IT) audience, since the core campaign is simple enough for a five year old to beat and the advanced concepts are hidden and esoteric enough that it makes you feel delightfully accomplished and obese just for knowing how it works at all. It makes me feel good about myself when I roll through the Elite Four with my meticulously bred and EV trained Pokemon and then move on to mercilessly dominating preteens who build their teams entirely around cuteness.

Modifié par ipgd, 31 mai 2011 - 07:17 .

[Marionetten]

ipgd wrote...

Isn't crushing the game and other players with your massive tumescent epeen the whole point of doing stuff like EV training? I think Pokemon does a great job at catering to a wide (HO HOHO HOHOHOHO HOH GET IT) audience, since the core campaign is simple enough for a five year old to beat and the advanced concepts are hidden and esoteric enough that it makes you feel delightfully accomplished and obese just for knowing how it works at all. It makes me feel good about myself when I roll through the Elite Four with my meticulously bred and EV trained Pokemon and then move on to mercilessly dominating preteens who build their teams entirely around cuteness.

The advanced concepts aren't hidden as much they're completely separated from the core gameplay experience. When you fully utilize EV training you end up steamrolling everything with no challenge whatsoever. To me this is exceedingly poor game design. I want to take full advantage of all the options offered while still enjoying some challenge.