1248 réponses à ce sujet

[Stanley Woo]

Thanks for not exploding this thread over the weekend, despite some minor flare-ups.

[LobselVith8]

PureMethodActor wrote...

I will admit, with all the problems I had with DA2, I did like the character development (what little there was) of Orsino and Meredith, Meredith especially. After reading the codex about her and seeing the final section of Act 2, she seemed very reasonable. Hardball, obviously, but still reasonable in my book. and I can empathize with her backstory, too, and see why she's so hardcore about Templar policies (which I became a fan of after seeing all Mage arguments presented essentially nullified by nearly every mage but Bethany being a crazy blood mage, or otherwise being posessed or crazy).

How is every mage argument nullified when the templar antagonists prove to be just as insane as the mage antagonists? Even the choice that Hawke is faced with towards the end of Act III is made by two people who will prove to be mentally unbalanced. Part of the problem with the narrative was that it was hard to take the dichotomy between mages and templars seriously when both groups were made out to be so repellant in the storyline. I would have preferred to see both sides lead by sane people who simply wanted different outcomes for their respective groups than two antagonists who devolved into caricatures.

[orpheus333]

Put simply. Bioware have lost a pre-order purchaser with me. If the company continues to go down a road with the DA franchise that I don't like in terms of design and overall product quality they will lose a DA purchaser all together. Plenty more developers out there making games that I do enjoy.

Isn't that where we have come too now...searching every little Bioware interview for anything that can be made inflammatory in anyway is just getting dull. I think the company already know that the onus is on them to take the criticism that has been so vocally sent their way and incorporate that into further releases.


Whether they do it or not dictates whether they or a competitor get my cash.

[Iwasdrunkbro]

I simply cannot see how recycling game environments, bringing people back from the dead with little to no explanation, restricting companion armor so that EA can sell DLC (as we've already seen), and refusing to release a toolset to further restrict the community could possibly be called "Innovation". Did DA2 do some things right? Of course it did, but the game as a whole was a step back for this series and honestly, I could go on all day about what is WRONG with this game rather than what it actually did right. Bioware calls the game a success because it brought in a few new fans? Yes, Im so glad you can cater to those that would bash their head off a controller while playing Halo. GREAT SUCCESS!

[In Exile]

Technically, the armour that EA sold was for Hawke only (right? I never bought the DLC) so the no-companion armour approach has not shown then selling any DLC.

[Annarl]

andyr1986 wrote...

Put simply. Bioware have lost a pre-order purchaser with me. If the company continues to go down a road with the DA franchise that I don't like in terms of design and overall product quality they will lose a DA purchaser all together. Plenty more developers out there making games that I do enjoy.

Isn't that where we have come too now...searching every little Bioware interview for anything that can be made inflammatory in anyway is just getting dull. I think the company already know that the onus is on them to take the criticism that has been so vocally sent their way and incorporate that into further releases.


Whether they do it or not dictates whether they or a competitor get my cash.

I too will not pre-order DA3.  And that's the first time I've ever said that about a Bioware game.  I may purchase it later depending on reviews.  I will pre-order ME3 but I am heavily vested in that series and want to complete Shepard's story.

Modifié par omearaee, 21 juin 2011 - 03:19 .

[Sutamina]

Filament wrote...

It didn't fix the import bugs as a result of improper flagging in Awakening. Those need to be fixed in Awakening, as I understand it.

Well, if it's a matter of the flags being reversed or something you'd think they would be able to account for it in DA2 by just reversing the conditions. But that may not be the case.

what import bugs? please be specific

[Jaldaric]

Sutamina wrote...

what import bugs? please be specific

Like Nathaniel being dead in awakenings, but popping up in DA2?

I wished Anders stayed dead, like in my awakening game..

[In Exile]

So here's something interesting (console only data):

DA2 sales on VGChartz are, shall we say, not good. 1.2ish million. DA:O sales on VGChartz are good - 3.3 million. But DA:A sales are very bad. 0.486 million, i.e. only 486,000. In other words (assuming no one who bought DA:A didn't buy DA:O) only 15% of the fanbase bought Awakening.

What does this say about the popularity of DA:O? Are expansions different? Could this have played a role in some of the design departures from DA:O, even as production of DA2 was ramping up?

[Jaldaric]

I know DAA wasn't that good, but those are some pretty poor numbers. And they continued onward by expanding on DAA for DA2 when most of the fanbase passed on Awakenings?

hmm

[In Exile]

Jaldaric wrote...
I know DAA wasn't that good, but those are some pretty poor numbers. And they continued onward by expanding on DAA for DA2 when most of the fanbase passed on Awakenings?

 

But how can you know that it was the fanbase passing on DA:A versus passing on DA:O?

Modifié par In Exile, 21 juin 2011 - 03:43 .

[LobselVith8]

PureMethodActor wrote...

LobselVith8 wrote...

PureMethodActor wrote...

I will admit, with all the problems I had with DA2, I did like the character development (what little there was) of Orsino and Meredith, Meredith especially. After reading the codex about her and seeing the final section of Act 2, she seemed very reasonable. Hardball, obviously, but still reasonable in my book. and I can empathize with her backstory, too, and see why she's so hardcore about Templar policies (which I became a fan of after seeing all Mage arguments presented essentially nullified by nearly every mage but Bethany being a crazy blood mage, or otherwise being posessed or crazy).

How is every mage argument nullified when the templar antagonists prove to be just as insane as the mage antagonists? Even the choice that Hawke is faced with towards the end of Act III is made by two people who will prove to be mentally unbalanced. Part of the problem with the narrative was that it was hard to take the dichotomy between mages and templars seriously when both groups were made out to be so repellant in the storyline. I would have preferred to see both sides lead by sane people who simply wanted different outcomes for their respective groups than two antagonists who devolved into caricatures.

How are are Orsino and Meredith insane before Act 3? I saw no evidence at all in Acts 1 or 2 that Orsino or Meredith. To me they're only insane during the course of Act 3 and thats why I only mentioned that timeframe for insanity on both their ends.

Do you mean in general? We have Ser Alrik and Ser Kerras on one side, and Decimus and Grace on the other. If you mean the antagonists, in the conclusion both of them are insane. We hardly see either antagonist in Acts I or II to even get a sense of their character, and I felt there was no real character development for either character.

[Jaldaric]

In Exile wrote...

Jaldaric wrote...
I know DAA wasn't that good, but those are some pretty poor numbers. And they continued onward by expanding on DAA for DA2 when most of the fanbase passed on Awakenings?

 

But how can you know that it was the fanbase passing on DA:A versus passing on DA:O?

I just figured that.

As DAO is still selling strong.

[In Exile]

Jaldaric wrote...
I just figured that.

As DAO is still selling strong.

We don't know what attracts people to DA:O, though. And even if DA:O can draw in fans (based on good word of mouth) it may not be able to keep them. DA2 had 700,000 pre-orders out of 3.7+ million sales (since we have some PC data, I'm including retail PC sales for DA:O). On the one hand, you could say that was a lot. On the other, it could be a sign that DA:O couldn't keep most of the user base. I just don't know enough about expected % pre-ordering a sequel and retention %s for sequels in games to guess.

[Nerevar-as]

It was said that expansions always sell far less than the original, so no real surprise with Awakening numbers. Same with DLC I guess (anyone knows ME2 LotSB sales?), so in order to compare we´ll have to wait for DA2 expansion/DLC.

[AAHook2]

It's like they live in an alternate reality. Sad.

[atum]

Just keep in mind executives need to keep up appearances for shareholders etc.

I dont put much value on what they say for good or ill. Neither that they are "listening to the fan base" nor "innovating" or whatever.

[Redcoat]

Sutamina wrote...

Filament wrote...

It didn't fix the import bugs as a result of improper flagging in Awakening. Those need to be fixed in Awakening, as I understand it.

Well, if it's a matter of the flags being reversed or something you'd think they would be able to account for it in DA2 by just reversing the conditions. But that may not be the case.

what import bugs? please be specific

Pre-ordering DA2 was a big "Doh!" moment for me. Then again, hindsight is 20-20, and hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I honestly thought the game was going to be great. I dismissed the opinions of those who criticised the game with all manner of strawman arguments; "they're just afraid of change," "they just want a Baldur's Gate clone," etc. So when the option for preorder came up on Steam, I did so without hesitation. It was only when I got to playing the game that I had a sinking feeling that this game wasn't going to be good.

I hear people say that they were angry at spending their $59.99 on DA2. Honestly, I don't care about the money all that much; I can get back the $59.99 without too much trouble. I'm more annoyed at the time I wasted on the game, because I'll never get that back.

That said, I've still laid down my preorder for Mass Effect 3, because I'm confident that the ME3 team will deliver a great game, judging both by what they've done before and the statements they've made regarding ME3.

[LordPaul256]

In Exile wrote...

Jaldaric wrote...
I know DAA wasn't that good, but those are some pretty poor numbers. And they continued onward by expanding on DAA for DA2 when most of the fanbase passed on Awakenings?

 

But how can you know that it was the fanbase passing on DA:A versus passing on DA:O?

DA:O sold on strong word of mouth, and continues to sell strong to this day. 

Personally, I passed on DA:A until recently because of the bad word of mouth.  It was apparently really buggy, and it was generally perceived as being not worth the price.  I finally got to it right before DA2 was released and after a number of patches, but it was still pretty dang buggy, and I'm glad I got it bundled with the UE.  If I paid full price for that, I would have been less than happy.

[csfteeeer]

In Exile wrote...

So here's something interesting (console only data):

DA2 sales on VGChartz are, shall we say, not good. 1.2ish million. DA:O sales on VGChartz are good - 3.3 million. But DA:A sales are very bad. 0.486 million, i.e. only 486,000. In other words (assuming no one who bought DA:A didn't buy DA:O) only 15% of the fanbase bought Awakening.

What does this say about the popularity of DA:O? Are expansions different? Could this have played a role in some of the design departures from DA:O, even as production of DA2 was ramping up?

Awakening has the possibility to be Downloaded, from either Steam, Xbox Live, or Psn, most people would have simply downloaded it from any of those places instead of buying a retail copy.
this always happens with expantion packs (look at TES: Shivering Isles, the game sold less than Awakening, but Oblivion sold more than DA:O), so no, those aren't reliable numbers, cause they don't have the digital sales.

[csfteeeer]

In Exile wrote...

Jaldaric wrote...
I just figured that.

As DAO is still selling strong.

We don't know what attracts people to DA:O, though. And even if DA:O can draw in fans (based on good word of mouth) it may not be able to keep them. DA2 had 700,000 pre-orders out of 3.7+ million sales (since we have some PC data, I'm including retail PC sales for DA:O). On the one hand, you could say that was a lot. On the other, it could be a sign that DA:O couldn't keep most of the user base. I just don't know enough about expected % pre-ordering a sequel and retention %s for sequels in games to guess.

that doesn't mean anything, because first, is the fact that many fans from Dao hated Da2 before even playing it, and to those who did not hated it, they played the demo, and that was it for many.
and second, people may simply don't have money at the release date , example, the COD games sell like 15 million copies, but they do it over time, not in pre orders exclusively, that always happens, even in movies (in a weekend, a movie is not going to make as much money as the one before, assusming the last was succesful, that is) because many people simple don't have trust in sequels.

[Brockololly]

In Exile wrote...

So here's something interesting (console only data):

DA2 sales on VGChartz are, shall we say, not good. 1.2ish million. DA:O sales on VGChartz are good - 3.3 million. But DA:A sales are very bad. 0.486 million, i.e. only 486,000. In other words (assuming no one who bought DA:A didn't buy DA:O) only 15% of the fanbase bought Awakening.

What does this say about the popularity of DA:O? Are expansions different? Could this have played a role in some of the design departures from DA:O, even as production of DA2 was ramping up?

I think expansions are very different. I remember Gaider saying before Awakening came out or right as it was coming out on the Awakening forum how expansion packs generally sell only a fraction of what the base game sold.  And you'd also have to consider how few people worked on Awakening too- it might be like DA2 where it had a relatively short time/manpower investment on it so it was able to be successful.

[YuniSticksitDeep]

Da2 sales were as good as they were For this very reason, gameplay videos came out so very late, pre-orders.already made.

It worked with COD (Many many sales) once played however; ...... well check out the meta-critics on both.

Buyers are (possibly due to  tighter finacial times) actually going to perhaps check and see if a game (however overly hyped) is Actually good BEFORE pre-ordering/buying.

......and this is a  GOOD thing, perhaps with the prospect of Sales requiring actual good gameplay/quality as a Prerequisite to Purchase, one can hope this will herald in a new era of "good/great" games.

One can only  hope.


Yuni :innocent:

"Be honest with each other"

[StreetlightEagle]

"so they won't have to admit that maybe, just maybe, Dragon Age II might not be for them." This is absolutely absurd. Everybody who hated DAII has come to terms with the fact it's not the game they wanted it to be. The problem is that they loved Origins and loved the direction it was going. DAII is not just one game they can decide is not for them, it represents the butchering of a franchise 'that could have been.' If they knew they were getting more Origins-esque stuff in the future, they'd happily leave DAII alone. Obviously, 'they' is 'I'.