277 réponses à ce sujet

[bman654]

SheffSteel wrote...

Yes, of course bool checks are cheap and fast - so fast that the cost of the instruction is trivial, especially compared with the amount of processing necessary to translate the script "if ( bLoggingEnabled ) " into an actual bool check, and the cost of not knowing what instruction will be executed after the check.

Not to mention the cost of evaluating "bLoggingEnabled" which might not be just a simple boolean value laying around and ready to be used in every script location this check is required.

[Sceptic83]

Georg Zoellar wrote:
"We had a combat log in prototypes and it not working, so it got cut."


In regards to 'the missing manual' - I would have loved to ship talent and spell descriptions with detailed
numbers, but due to the localization schedule, that was not possible."

What? Who can explain me this sentence?
 

[Magic Zarim]

Papahet31 wrote...

Magic Zarim wrote...

I didn't claim I knew what engine BioWare uses. In fact, I sincerely asked Georg about this.

As for performing a boolcheck within the script, any engine worth its salt directly performs a bool check on the underlying hardware. Parts of the script are interpreted or precompiled, others, like atomic operations like a bool check are directly translated to a set of machine instructions for the underlying architecture. You know all of this, right?

I find your statements quite amusing, so full of assumptions as it is. Reading comprehension isn't your strongest point either.

Finally, as for communications skills, I did not attack anyone or anything. I was polite, and lastly, I am in my spare time. Georg is not my boss, I do not need to be politically correct. Thank you

No...but you should be respectful. Come on man, don't hide now. Your original post was intended to throw around your computational might and try to call BS on Bioware. As Georg stated many times, the technical aspect for why it was scrapped was only one of the many reasons it made its way to the chopping block. Respect the folks at Bioware and respect the answer they give you. Assume for a moment, that they made a well informed, intelligent decision for the ultimate good. If you don't like it, play something else.

Uhm, I think I have shown respect by stating that I don't mind whether a combat log is implemented or not. It would be nice to have is all. To me, that shows towards respect for the decision. My post addressed the argument that performance was one of the reasons, which I don't agree with and I simply stated why I don't agree with that.

I'm by no means picking fights with Georg. It's all nice you want to defend him/BioWare but don't do it based on read things in my posts/statements that are not even there in the first place.

[Closet Gamer]

After playing this game for 30+ hours I'm a firm believer in not needing a combat log, however...Not having tooltips/explanations on talent effects/trees is probably the worst design implementation of any CRPG I've played.

You cannot respec/redistribute talents or skills in this game, so playing pin the tail on the talent only to find out that your investment of 3 prerequisite points went to waste on a tier 4 talent that blows is utterly heart wrenching (and will ruin this character for some people, depending on how you play).

Not being able to see the duration of your spell debuffs is also plain laziness and a fundamental flaw in the gameplay mechanics. You do nothing but waste mana/stamina/unnecessary action slots to play what has to be a guessing game with spell durations. I understand the no logs thing, but come on, there are over 30 debuff spells/abilities and we have no way of knowing the duration via description or a debuff counter. You have to have one or the other.

Modifié par Closet Gamer, 20 novembre 2009 - 07:05 .

[Mork_ba]

+1 for the OP. I agree with you.



As for the Baldur's gate having a combat log argument, well, BG was a D&D based game and the combat was based on the D20 system. It was different, it was an already familiar/known mechanic that was implemented in a game, and players already familiar with AD&D could possibly wanna check their rolls now and then (I never considered that useful though).



DAO is not based on a D&D version or something else people might be already familiar with.



Plus, when in doubt about similar items, put the one that looks the coolest on your hero! Why wear something that doesn't look as good just to gain a minimal benefit? Enjoy the non-numerical part of the game, really...





Useful info about your hero is recorded in the achievements anyway, that should be enough, I guess...

[Magic Zarim]

bman654 wrote...

SheffSteel wrote...

Yes, of course bool checks are cheap and fast - so fast that the cost of the instruction is trivial, especially compared with the amount of processing necessary to translate the script "if ( bLoggingEnabled ) " into an actual bool check, and the cost of not knowing what instruction will be executed after the check.

Not to mention the cost of evaluating "bLoggingEnabled" which might not be just a simple boolean value laying around and ready to be used in every script location this check is required.

Surely, but for this particular situation, the enabling of a log is not a complex boolean evaluation. It's just a flag in memory. If you want to 'battle' with me, fine. Keep on looking for counter arguments.

[majae]

I wouldn't mind having a combat log. I'm curious by nature and the extra information would be nice to look at every now and then to see how my character is progressing, if i'm using the best weapons for damage output, etc.



I just like to see the numbers now and then - it's not a competition thing, it's just useful in my opinion. I don't see how it could hurt the game if the player had options to view a combat log.

[Georg Zoeller]

If you guys want to discuss game scripting engine design, might I suggest you take that into a separate discussion?

[SheffSteel]

Sceptic83 wrote...

Georg Zoellar wrote:
"We had a combat log in prototypes and it not working, so it got cut."


In regards to 'the missing manual' - I would have loved to ship talent and spell descriptions with detailed
numbers, but due to the localization schedule, that was not possible."

What? Who can explain me this sentence?
 

Localisation is the process of bundling up or exporting all the in-game text and getting it (at the most trivial level) translated into all the languages for the markets the game will be published. Of course, good developers do more than just translate the text, for example making sure that jokes or subtle cultural references are replaced by something appropriate to the target market. It can be a length process and as such it pushes back the deadline for ingame text further from the eventual release date.

Modifié par SheffSteel, 20 novembre 2009 - 07:15 .

[Magic Zarim]

Georg Zoeller wrote...

If you guys want to discuss game scripting engine design, might I suggest you take that into a separate discussion?

Affirmative. Again, no harm meant to you or BioWare

Modifié par Magic Zarim, 20 novembre 2009 - 07:10 .

[Recycled Human]

Wait a minute, respect bioware? No, respect is earned and should be mutual. While I feel they put out a great game, I also feel their representative has responded to constructive criticism poorly. You can't flaunt the open communication your company indulges in then resort to playground banter when your answers have been challenged 'if your so smart why don't you do it, bet you can't because you have poor Internet skills'.



The guy said he didn't want to get into a pissing contest, and I feel he was throwing technical knowledge out to press for a better answer. You gotta admit 'technical issues was just one of the issues' sounds cheap. And he made another point 'this guy isn't my boss' and it's true, he may be important but that doesn't change the fact that georg responded poorly.



I don't normally say this but bioware, the disrespect shown here almost cost you a customer. And with the advent of interconnectivity and the overwhelming support console users show for their next gen systems I can safely say it's worth it to pay attention.

[blackwolf1981]

Dream Warden wrote...

My faith for bioware sank like a stone just now. To me its always been a company that live for their community, not off it. Im starting to change my opinion on that.

Dragon Age is a RPG that goes all in on immersion. Good voiceacting, good storyline, the "origins", interesting dark fantasy world etc. But how do they react when a vast portion of the community cant relate to their characters due to lack of information wich prohibits meaningful choices?

Some corporation-pet comes here stating a combat log is "not needed". So I guess you think this is the perfect game then? No lacking qualites to correct, no need to listen to the community?

So what was the point of this RPG then Bioware? What did you want to achieve, if not immersion, what where you going for? Surely not the strategical element of combat since its severly lacking, surely not an "artsy" aim since the graphics arent any special.

Because nothing screams "immersion" like numbers flying across the interface. As a matter of fact, as I type this I see the D20 results testing my dex chance of a typo.

Biting sacrasm aside, I'm relatively new to the console gaming forum; and I find the fact that the developers respond at all pretty impressive. When the dex bug came out, there was an unoffical patch within two days(on a weekend as well, if I'm not mistaken.)

I don't mean to be overly harsh, but I find it hard to believe you have had much exposure on how the world works. I see no reason for a company to spend resources and time to modify a design descision that very clearly does not break the game.  Bioware advertised a game, and so far as I can see the game functions as advertised. I don't remember seeing any sort of guarentee to modify the game based upon my personal preferences.  As long as patches come out in a timely manner to address bugs, I got what I paid for.

If you are truly unhappy with the game and the design decisions, then stop buying those products. To imply the company has some sort of obligation to your happiness is unrealistic and frankly, immature.  I happen to think Bioware goes well above and beyond the call of duty even just posting these responses, and I commend their honesty.

[Sceptic83]

SheffSteel wrote...

Sceptic83 wrote...

Georg Zoellar wrote:
"We had a combat log in prototypes and it not working, so it got cut."


In regards to 'the missing manual' - I would have loved to ship talent and spell descriptions with detailed
numbers, but due to the localization schedule, that was not possible."

What? Who can explain me this sentence?
 

Localisation is the process of bundling up or exporting all the in-game text and getting it (at the most trivial level) translated into all the languages appropriate for the markets the game will be published. Of course, good developers do more than just translate the text, for example making sure that jkoes or subtle cultural references are replaced by something appropriate to the target market. It can be a length process and as such it pushes back the deadline for ingame text further from the eventual release date.

I knew that (not in all its parts so thank you for the explanation)...so my question remains: what has localization to do with game mechanics?

[kelsjet]

Just a quick point of clarification (which I might add to the OP as well).

A few people are interpreting my original post from a slightly different angle. Please understand, while I used MMOs and behaviour commonly found in MMOs as a convex point of my original idea, I was in no way trying to imply that min/max behavior, powergaming, theorycrafting, sim modelling were ideas first born in MMO gaming.

Please note and realize, my conversation is actually less about where min/maxin behaviour originated from, and more to do with how DA:O does not require such a playstyle, since the combat complexity is originating from other aspects of the game's combat system. (i.e. it is not necessarily numerical).

In this way, let us please understand that my term "MMO whiplash" as well as my comparison to MMO gaming was but a conduit to explain the core point of this view, nothing more.

[SheffSteel]

I think Georg is saying that the localisation schedule prevented the tooltip text being updated after a certain point in the schedule.

[Seifz]

Sceptic83 wrote...

SheffSteel wrote...

Sceptic83 wrote...

Georg Zoellar wrote:
"We had a combat log in prototypes and it not working, so it got cut."


In regards to 'the missing manual' - I would have loved to ship talent and spell descriptions with detailed
numbers, but due to the localization schedule, that was not possible."

What? Who can explain me this sentence?
 

Localisation is the process of bundling up or exporting all the in-game text and getting it (at the most trivial level) translated into all the languages appropriate for the markets the game will be published. Of course, good developers do more than just translate the text, for example making sure that jkoes or subtle cultural references are replaced by something appropriate to the target market. It can be a length process and as such it pushes back the deadline for ingame text further from the eventual release date.

I knew that (not in all its parts so thank you for the explanation)...so my question remains: what has localization to do with game mechanics?

He was responding to the request for detailed ability tooltips.  Likely, they wrote vague tooltips and sent them out to the translaters long before they nailed down the final numbers.  Going back and adding in those numbers simply wasn't possible because of the time and monetary costs involved.

[Georg Zoeller]

I knew that (not in all its parts so thank you for the explanation)...so my question remains: what has localization to do with game mechanics?

Any game mechanic that relies on a human readable string displayed on the UI has everything to do with localization.

That said, I think your confusion is related to the fact that there are two topics discussed in this thread

a) the combat log - a log of combat interactions and their outcome (Player hits (24.1-21.0=3.1) elf for 15 (3+4-2+10) points of damage.

The vagueness of the ability descriptions in game.

One has nothing to do with the other in regards to how the decisions were made. The combat log decision (or the cutting thereof) was mae long before and for very different reasons than the decision to ship with, unfortunately, rather vague ability descriptions.

Modifié par Georg Zoeller, 20 novembre 2009 - 07:21 .

[Georg Zoeller]

yes

SheffSteel wrote...

I think Georg is saying that the localisation schedule prevented the tooltip text being updated after a certain point in the schedule.

[Statue]

I can understand how manually editing each and every single description would rack up some serious amounts of hours to do it.
Maybe possible to speed things along using a custom-made lil program or a macro tool to do some of the legwork of extracting the target numbers and pasting them in at the end of the existing descriptions in a pre-designated order (with labels like %chance: and damage:). Results would often be sloppier than ones achieved from manual placement of the numbers within the context of the existing descriptions, but would at least add the numbers and would save masses of time. A more immediate though inelegant solution compared to manual edits (and refinements could always come later). I'd be well up for trying it if I had more experience of automating text edits (unfortunately my experience of using macros only just makes it out of Word and into renaming multiple files in directories).

Georg Zoeller wrote...

It would be quite 'simple' as far as complexity goes, but time intensive as far as the work of changing all the descriptions goes for one language.

Really, all you' need it to create a talktable with the new, change the descriptions to be what you want them to be and then deploy it as part of an addin.

Statue wrote...

Since I don't have a good grasp of what power the toolset has over things in the game at the system level (and I'm currently too scared of the toolset to install it at the moment http://social.biowar.../8/index/114380), this will undoubtedly appear to be an extremely naive question (so apologies in advance): would it be feasible for a mod to change what is displayed in descriptors so they would have the detailed numbers in them, and what would the process entail (e.g. doing something fancy that pulls stuff from under the hood, or editing individual strings one by one, etc.)?

[Sceptic83]

SheffSteel wrote...

I think Georg is saying that the localisation schedule prevented the tooltip text being updated after a certain point in the schedule.

Uhm..seems quite nonsense to me, but maybe i'm dumb 

[Magic Zarim]

Sceptic83 wrote...

SheffSteel wrote...

I think Georg is saying that the localisation schedule prevented the tooltip text being updated after a certain point in the schedule.

Uhm..seems quite nonsense to me, but maybe i'm dumb 

Not sure, but they probably hired an external agency to do the translations as a package deal. Having to update all translations at a later date would have cost them them again and wouldn't be part of the original deal.

[MisterEcted]

I never got into MMOs and I would love a combat log. They are very useful during combat! I can see spell effects, buffs and all other sorts of information that helps aid me in my strategy for whatever scenario I may be in. Sure it's not absolutely needed, but neither is a speedometer in a driving game.

[Sceptic83]

Magic Zarim wrote...

Sceptic83 wrote...

SheffSteel wrote...

I think Georg is saying that the localisation schedule prevented the tooltip text being updated after a certain point in the schedule.

Uhm..seems quite nonsense to me, but maybe i'm dumb 

Not sure, but they probably hired an external agency to do the translations as a package deal. Having to update all translations at a later date would have cost them them again and wouldn't be part of the original deal.

I'm confused, are we talking about game descriptions or about the missing manual project?

[Statue]

Closet Gamer wrote...
Not being able to see the duration of your spell debuffs is also plain laziness and a fundamental flaw in the gameplay mechanics. You do nothing but waste mana/stamina/unnecessary action slots to play what has to be a guessing game with spell durations. I understand the no logs thing, but come on, there are over 30 debuff spells/abilities and we have no way of knowing the duration via description or a debuff counter. You have to have one or the other.

Or both

I've not chosen any debuffs yet but that sounds like I'm gonna be unsure whether my targets are debuffed - are there no visual indicators?

Modifié par Statue, 20 novembre 2009 - 07:34 .

[Georg Zoeller]

Maybe, but I'd prefer to think that you're just not privy to how these things work, which is fixable

Let me explain it again, in more precise words.

The game has probably more than a million words of text. To translate that text into all the different languages the game ships in (spanish, german, french, italian, polish, russian, etc.), takes time and a lot of coordination effort.

We don't do those translations in house, they're done by different providers, internally and externally, for each territory.

After that is done, each of the translations needs to be QA'd as well. For game at the scope of dragon age, you're looking a period of nearly a year from the time you have written your final word to when all the translations are done.

The problem is - game development does not happen sequential. It's not like we finish the game, it goes into translation and then, when that is done, you ship. While translation happens, the game isn't done yet, it's in the final stages of balancing, performance optimization and polish.

Balancing does not just mean 'making the number right', it has a lot more to do with the nebulous requirement of 'make it fun'. To achieve that goal, you can't just tweak numbers and at some point, suddenly, the game becomes fun. You change mechanics.  A lot:

Example:
Bug:  Fighting the ogre is not fun. If he decides to grab me, I almost always die.
Solution: Add the ability for the player to interrupt the ogre using stun effects.

Bug: We need to cut 'summon giant cat' from the ranger - the cat model won't be finished in time for ship and we're hard pressed from memory as is.
Solution: Replace 'Giant Cat' ability with something else.

From the time the text was locked down to the time we locked down content for ship, we had touched and significantly modified the numbers for all abilities and the effects or sub effects of probably 80% of them.

We knew this would happen a year before, hence the hard decision between 'ship numbers and descriptions that are completely inaccurate' or 'ship vague descriptions' and eat the cost rush-translating a number of abilities that were completely changed or replaced. 

The question never was 'ship numbers or hide them intentionally', it was always between one bad 'ship detailed but completely wrong descriptions and one less bad 'ship vague descriptions'. Not great, certainly, but imagine the joy on these forums if people found out that all the numbers and descriptions were completely off

Sceptic83 wrote...
Uhm..seems quite nonsense to me, but maybe i'm dumb 

Modifié par Georg Zoeller, 20 novembre 2009 - 07:39 .