230 réponses à ce sujet

[Erani]

About area re-use, I wonder....had waves been done correctly (as in Legacy), had there been more opportunity for choice&consequence (even if something is set to happen, having different paths of getting there), had act 3 writing been better (Grace and Co. reaction after you've sided with mages all along ), had there been more exploration of the lore (seriously we all want to know stuff about Flemeth and the darkspawn!) and had there been no cameo bugs and weird character re-design (Zevran and King Alistair!)...it wouldn't have bothered me at all. 

Strong and consistent writing, a sense of continuity, fun combat, and choices are the most important things to me (and many others). If I have that then area re-use becomes a very very small problem. (no need to go overboard or anything in DA3 though heh.)

[RinpocheSchnozberry]

Village Idiot wrote...

Yrkoon wrote...

Sense... You make none...

Yrkoon, it's not a real experiement.  That's the sentiment.  It's false. It's a marketing trick.

EDIT:  The 20th Century Fox in the left corner is a dead giveaway.  It's a promo for this film.

HIGH FIVE!  :lol:

[Blastback]

TeenZombie wrote...

RinpocheSchnozberry wrote...

TeenZombie wrote...

Are people who enjoyed DA:O and didn't like DA2 supposed to keep their mouths shut, for some reason?  I know a co-worker who bought DA:O about a year after it came out, and seemed to enjoy it.  When we were talking about DA2, he had already heard bad things about it, and while I didn't completely bash it, I had to honestly tell him that it was not going to be a lot like DA:O, and he should wait till it's on sale or comes with all DLC, like he did with the first game, if he gets it.  I don't think there's a conspiracy to keep DA2 down...people just talk about things they do or don't like.

My point... you proves it...

I still don't get your point.  Again, was I not supposed to share my opinion, because I didn't enjoy it as much as the first game?  

Yeah, you might want to clarify your original point man, it's a bit muddled.

[RinpocheSchnozberry]

Blastback wrote...
Yeah, you might want to clarify your original point man, it's a bit muddled.

A lot of people on the DAO side of the argument will say word of mouth helped DAO's sales enormously, then when it comes to why DA2 didn't do so well, they'll say "word of mouth isn't that powerrful!"  There is a double standard.  DA2 is not perfect, but the hate campaign didn't help either.

Modifié par RinpocheSchnozberry, 08 août 2011 - 05:48 .

[Yrkoon]

Fix1o0 wrote...

1. Area Re-use.

An obvious problem, and one we are keenly aware of. Not an intentional issue, and certainly not “by design” but something that happened and needs to be addressed

Not an intentional issue. What did you do, create the game with your eyes closed?

No, eyes weren't closed.  Eyes were  looking intently at the clock, instead of where they should have been.

Damn shame about that. 

RinpocheSchnozberry wrote...


A lot of people on the DAO side of the argument will say word of mouth helped DAO's sales enormously, then when it comes to why DA2 didn't do so well, they'll say "word of mouth isn't that powerrful!"

Really?  show me ONE person who's ever said that.

Modifié par Yrkoon, 08 août 2011 - 05:50 .

[Stanley Woo]

Night Prowler76 wrote...

The thing is Stanley, when you guys made all the changes to DA2, there was alot of of people on this forum giving you opinions on how watered down they would make the game, did you guys listen then? No, in fact we got brushed aside so you guys could make the game more appealing to a wider audience (which judging by sales, this didnt happen).

You're right... this time. But the community isn't always right, and there are so many people making so many contradictory "predictions," suggestions and demands that, no matter how the game turns out, there will be a portion of the audience who say "see? I told you so." A thousand people making a thousand predictions isn't "making good predictions," it's "guessing." And that's fine. Pre-release, it's all you can do is guess about how the game is going to turn out.

You might be surprised that, no matter how awesome we are, we're ultimately just guessing too. We certainly have opinions on wht might work in the game, what should work in the game, and believe in what will work in the game. All that doesn't mean a whit to players once it's released. Look at what Mike's said about the reused maps. He made a choice that he thought was best at the time. And the rest of the team, well, they believe in Mike and they believe in what the game was going to be. The backlash from the community doesn't necessarily mean that "they told us so," it means that, this time, this particular guess didn't work out.

The community often feels that they are "brushed aside" when they make a whole bunch of suggestions and comments that go unheeded. This is nothing new, though, folks. but the reason is quite simple: no matter how great you think your ideas are, no matter how good they might be in fact, no matter how many suggestions you make, BioWare is the one that has to do all the work and we have loads of ideas too. I got slagged for saying this before but, ultimately, game development is not a democracy with the community. Game development is a collaboration between dozens of developers across multiple disciplines, who have to adhere to a specific vision and make the best game they can with the zots they have. Fewer people, fewer zots. More time, more zots. And so on.

No one sets out to make a bad game. But there's very little you can do about the community and fan reaction once people start playing the game. No matter how much marketing you do, the player is going to feel as the player feels about the game. no matter how much you try to convince them otherwise, if they don't like something, they don't like something. And they're going to let you know about it.

So if you you did not bother listening to the forums then, why would anyone believe you would listen for the next installment? Im asking you to answer honestly, because nothing I have seen would lead me to think that DA3 will be much different than DA2 other than less re use of environments and better enemy spawning.

We listened to the community. We took their feedback into consideration when developing the game. We not (and can not) listen to everything that everyone in every community says. We did not take all the feedback from every individual into account when developing each system and feature in the game. We are professional game developers, we have some ideas too about the way we want the game to work and where we want the franchise to go in the future. Some of that has to make it in too, after all.

Not that I'm necessarily "blaming" anyone. Some folks liked the way we went with DA2, some didn't. the same will happen with any future projects we do--some will like them, some will not. And that's fine. only by engaging with our audience and soliciting feedback can we get an idea of what we can work on for the next project and the next project and so on.

I wish you good luck with DA, but I have to agree with the previous poster, Origins made this series, not DA2, if you continue to make the games like DA2, there will be no series, going from 4.5 millon in sales to 2 million in sales would be the first indicator that you made a huge mistake, I know if I was selling a product that sold twice as much as another, I would continue to sell that product, not change to the other one and tell your customers they are insignificant and afraid of change.

Hopefully, you'll find yourself interested in checking out some of our future products, and then you can decide for yourself whether we've made the right choices.

thank you for your comments.

[Night Prowler76]

Stanley Woo wrote...

Night Prowler76 wrote...

The thing is Stanley, when you guys made all the changes to DA2, there was alot of of people on this forum giving you opinions on how watered down they would make the game, did you guys listen then? No, in fact we got brushed aside so you guys could make the game more appealing to a wider audience (which judging by sales, this didnt happen).

You're right... this time. But the community isn't always right, and there are so many people making so many contradictory "predictions," suggestions and demands that, no matter how the game turns out, there will be a portion of the audience who say "see? I told you so." A thousand people making a thousand predictions isn't "making good predictions," it's "guessing." And that's fine. Pre-release, it's all you can do is guess about how the game is going to turn out.

You might be surprised that, no matter how awesome we are, we're ultimately just guessing too. We certainly have opinions on wht might work in the game, what should work in the game, and believe in what will work in the game. All that doesn't mean a whit to players once it's released. Look at what Mike's said about the reused maps. He made a choice that he thought was best at the time. And the rest of the team, well, they believe in Mike and they believe in what the game was going to be. The backlash from the community doesn't necessarily mean that "they told us so," it means that, this time, this particular guess didn't work out.

The community often feels that they are "brushed aside" when they make a whole bunch of suggestions and comments that go unheeded. This is nothing new, though, folks. but the reason is quite simple: no matter how great you think your ideas are, no matter how good they might be in fact, no matter how many suggestions you make, BioWare is the one that has to do all the work and we have loads of ideas too. I got slagged for saying this before but, ultimately, game development is not a democracy with the community. Game development is a collaboration between dozens of developers across multiple disciplines, who have to adhere to a specific vision and make the best game they can with the zots they have. Fewer people, fewer zots. More time, more zots. And so on.

No one sets out to make a bad game. But there's very little you can do about the community and fan reaction once people start playing the game. No matter how much marketing you do, the player is going to feel as the player feels about the game. no matter how much you try to convince them otherwise, if they don't like something, they don't like something. And they're going to let you know about it.

So if you you did not bother listening to the forums then, why would anyone believe you would listen for the next installment? Im asking you to answer honestly, because nothing I have seen would lead me to think that DA3 will be much different than DA2 other than less re use of environments and better enemy spawning.

We listened to the community. We took their feedback into consideration when developing the game. We not (and can not) listen to everything that everyone in every community says. We did not take all the feedback from every individual into account when developing each system and feature in the game. We are professional game developers, we have some ideas too about the way we want the game to work and where we want the franchise to go in the future. Some of that has to make it in too, after all.

Not that I'm necessarily "blaming" anyone. Some folks liked the way we went with DA2, some didn't. the same will happen with any future projects we do--some will like them, some will not. And that's fine. only by engaging with our audience and soliciting feedback can we get an idea of what we can work on for the next project and the next project and so on.

I wish you good luck with DA, but I have to agree with the previous poster, Origins made this series, not DA2, if you continue to make the games like DA2, there will be no series, going from 4.5 millon in sales to 2 million in sales would be the first indicator that you made a huge mistake, I know if I was selling a product that sold twice as much as another, I would continue to sell that product, not change to the other one and tell your customers they are insignificant and afraid of change.

Hopefully, you'll find yourself interested in checking out some of our future products, and then you can decide for yourself whether we've made the right choices.

thank you for your comments.

Thank you for the honest response Stanley, very much appreciated, Im definately picking up ME3 and am looking forward to see where the story for DA3 goes, cheers and have a good afternoon:)

[Blastback]

RinpocheSchnozberry wrote...

Blastback wrote...
Yeah, you might want to clarify your original point man, it's a bit muddled.

A lot of people on the DAO side of the argument will say word of mouth helped DAO's sales enormously, then when it comes to why DA2 didn't do so well, they'll say "word of mouth isn't that powerrful!"  There is a double standard.  DA2 is not perfect, but the hate campaign didn't help either.

When has anyone ever said that the bad buzz around DA2 didn't hurt sales? I'd seen just the opposite.

[fchopin]

Stanley Woo wrote...

We listened to the community. We took their feedback into consideration when developing the game. We not (and can not) listen to everything that everyone in every community says. We did not take all the feedback from every individual into account when developing each system and feature in the game. We are professional game developers, we have some ideas too about the way we want the game to work and where we want the franchise to go in the future. Some of that has to make it in too, after all.

Sorry but i can not agree with this.
 
Saying that you listened to all feedback means nothing if you already had fixed ideas on how you was going to make the game.
 
It's easy to say that you are listening and taking notes but how can we believe that when the results have no baring on the final product.

[Yrkoon]

Stanley Woo wrote...

The community often feels that they are "brushed aside" when they make a whole bunch of suggestions and comments that go unheeded. This is nothing new, though, folks. but the reason is quite simple: no matter how great you think your ideas are, no matter how good they might be in fact, no matter how many suggestions you make, BioWare is the one that has to do all the work and we have loads of ideas too. I got slagged for saying this before but, ultimately, game development is not a democracy with the community. Game development is a collaboration between dozens of developers across multiple disciplines, who have to adhere to a specific vision and make the best game they can with the zots they have. Fewer people, fewer zots. More time, more zots. And so on.

No one sets out to make a bad game. But there's very little you can do about the community and fan reaction once people start playing the game. No matter how much marketing you do, the player is going to feel as the player feels about the game. no matter how much you try to convince them otherwise, if they don't like something, they don't like something. And they're going to let you know about it.

You're acting as if every game you've ever made has received the same level  of polarized reception that DA2 has received,     That this is somehow  "nothing new".  Dishonest.

Even your Boss disagrees with you.  Even HE has  publically noted the  extreme uniqueness of what went down with the community since DA2 came out.

[Edhriano]

fchopin wrote...

Stanley Woo wrote...

We listened to the community. We took their feedback into consideration when developing the game. We not (and can not) listen to everything that everyone in every community says. We did not take all the feedback from every individual into account when developing each system and feature in the game. We are professional game developers, we have some ideas too about the way we want the game to work and where we want the franchise to go in the future. Some of that has to make it in too, after all.

Sorry but i can not agree with this.
 
Saying that you listened to all feedback means nothing if you already had fixed ideas on how you was going to make the game.
 
It's easy to say that you are listening and taking notes but how can we believe that when the results have no baring on the final product.

fchopin  have a point there ...

[craigdolphin]

Posted By Stanley Woo...
Game development is a collaboration between dozens of developers across
multiple disciplines, who have to adhere to a specific vision and make
the best game they can with the zots they have.

I guess my only response to that is that the vision for DA2 is clearly different from that which resulted in DAO.

When the vision changed, the lead designer for DAO declined the project because he didn't want to make that game, and ultimately left Bioware. When the vision changed, the result was a number of changes that led to huge dissappontment amongst the established fans of DAO.

The team is being open and honest communicating with the fan base on the forums these days which is awesome But I think my concern is they're focussed on the details of how they can implement that same vision from DA2 in a more palatable way. I think that the 'vision' itself is the underlying problem, and trying to treat the symptoms without recognizing the cause is, ultimately, going to lead to continued dissappointment.

No disrespect intended to the devs. I just think that the vision for DA needs to return to the same as it was for DAO. The specific implementation, of course, can and should evolve.

[Serenade]

I just want equippable party members back. *Sadface*

[Phaelducan]

Fandango9641 wrote...

Phaelducan wrote...

Did you read? I said partially. I don't defend DA2 as an overly maligned superior product. I do think Origins was better. However, DA2 was totally crucified before it launched. It didn't have a chance, and the fanbase from Origins is largely why.

Sorry Phaelducan, but you're exactly wrong (go take a look at our weekly sales threads).

How am I wrong? I didn't say anything about DA2 sales in my comment. All I said was that the fanbase had already stabbed the game in the heart before it came out. I also said I didn't think 2 was better than Origins. 

Stop picking fights. Nothing I said was inflammatory or in any way related to your sales threads.

[Yrkoon]

^Well, the horrible  pre-release Demo didn't help matters, did it?

Modifié par Yrkoon, 08 août 2011 - 06:14 .

[syllogi]

RinpocheSchnozberry wrote...

Blastback wrote...
Yeah, you might want to clarify your original point man, it's a bit muddled.

A lot of people on the DAO side of the argument will say word of mouth helped DAO's sales enormously, then when it comes to why DA2 didn't do so well, they'll say "word of mouth isn't that powerrful!"  There is a double standard.  DA2 is not perfect, but the hate campaign didn't help either.

Yeah, that's exactly what you said above...but how did I prove your point?  I'm saying it's not a "campaign" or conspiracy...it's natural that people are going to talk about games they play with other gamers.  I shared an anecdote about knowing one person who had played the first game, and when he mentioned DA2, the first thing he said was "I heard it sucked."  Maybe he got that from reviews, forums, or someone else who had played it and not liked it.  But I don't think that people maliciously bad mouthed DA2, because they like DA:O more.

Personally speaking, I was very dubious about the marketing of DA2 beforehand, and I didn't like the changes I had heard about.  But I WANTED to like the game.  Believe me.  I love Bioware's RPGs, in general.  I preordered, despite my misgivings, and I played it hoping that I would enjoy it despite knowing that it wasn't *just* like DA:O.  Word of mouth wasn't going to work on me...I was buying it no matter what.  In the end, I was not thrilled by the game, but it doesn't matter.  I purchased the product, and that's what counts to the developers.  Whether or not I liked the game ceased to matter the moment I bought it...and I couldn't judge it till I played it.  So maybe I would have been a smarter consumer if I had waited to hear word of mouth, instead of being a "good fan."

If anything, the "hate campaign" against DA2 would have hurt DA:O also, since many sites were not impressed by the marketing before it came out.  I saw a bunch of gaming sites bashing the E3 presentation, and the Marilyn Manson trailer.  So what happened?  

[Ryllen Laerth Kriel]

Mr. Woo is a stand up guy! Thanks for the response sir.

[Phaelducan]

Yrkoon wrote...

^Well, the horrible  pre-release Demo didn't help matters, did it?

The Demo confirmed the direction the game had been going in for months of pre-release gameplay videos, pre-release media testing, and dev diaries. No one should have been surprised by what they picked up and played by the time the game released. The Demo wasn't bad, it was indicative of the larger game.

If you want to say the game was bad, that's your gig, but to say that Bioware pulled a fast one with the demo? Not even remotely fair.

Besides, even before the demo came out there were numerous threads saying how bad the game was going to be, mostly from Origins fans who didn't like the new direction.

I won't argue thematic preference or taste, but the foot was to the throat well before launch day.

[Yrkoon]

Phaelducan wrote...

Yrkoon wrote...

^Well, the horrible  pre-release Demo didn't help matters, did it?

The Demo confirmed the direction the game had been going in for months of pre-release gameplay videos, pre-release media testing, and dev diaries. No one should have been surprised by what they picked up and played by the time the game released. The Demo wasn't bad, it was indicative of the larger game.

If you want to say the game was bad, that's your gig, but to say that Bioware pulled a fast one with the demo? Not even remotely fair.

Besides, even before the demo came out there were numerous threads saying how bad the game was going to be, mostly from Origins fans who didn't like the new direction.

I won't argue thematic preference or taste, but the foot was to the throat well before launch day.

Well, to be fair, I don't think too many people who played the demo were surprized once they got the game.    (well, aside from later discovering the obnoxiously reused maps). 


But that's all  peripheral.   I only cited the demo as a possible explanation why the game was, as you say, "getting stabbed in the heart" before its release.

Modifié par Yrkoon, 08 août 2011 - 06:31 .

[Phaelducan]

Fandango, a lot of people bought the game and still didn't like it. My comment has absolutely nothing to do with sales. It has to do with the game's overall reception and acceptance by Bioware fans.

For every "I'm cancelling my pre-order!!!!!1111!!" comment after the demo came out there was another "I'll give it a shot, but I didn't like what I saw" one.

A tremendous amount of the pre-release buzz from these forums was intensely negative, and all I was saying is that there was no way the game could have recovered from that. Once the diehards had bought it, sales tanked.

[LeBurns]

My best response to this whole thread is "Please Read My Sig".

Thank you.

[Willybot]

Stanley Woo wrote...

*Snip*

Let me start out by thanking you for the indepth and honest post. It came across as heartfelt without percieved hostility.

I can understand the difficult position you folks are in. You released a home run of a product in DAO and attempted to expand upon the success wrought by making changes designed to bring in a broader audience. It seems that this effort was not as successful as originally intended. We forumites have an advantage in that changes in our opinion can be given and recieved very quickly. By contrast, the nature of a game's development cycle means that any intended change (or lack thereof) is a slow process and once taken are tough to reverse. As negative as the feedback to vague responses are, it's understood that it would be even *worse* if promises were made and then not kept. Although neither are ideal, if having to choose between the two, I'd rather be dodged than lied to.

All that being said, I can only hope that the constructive feedback is seperated from the chaff and actually being *listened* to and not merely *heard*. I can understand the desire true to your creative vision, but if a significant portion of your clientele are citing X as the reason they will/have not purchase your product...perhaps continuing X may not be the most prudent choice. It's still very early in the process and we can only see how this turns out.

What I believe will go a long way on Bioware's part would be a response in this vein: "After listening to your feedback we believe A, B, and C are good ideas and X, Y, and Z are not and here is why..." Also helpful would be: "We believe our method of X was successful and the right way to go, while Y was not as successful and we may look into a different path going forward." As long as the disclamer is given that such a response guarantees nothing, it would reassure the community that our feedback is actually being merited.

The development process is not a democratic one I grant you, but thanks to the internet purchasing a product is. Positive reinforcement as stated above can help quite a bit, just as negative reinforcement can/has can hinder.

Just some thoughts. I enjoy the product line as a whole and would love to see it swing back in the direction I enjoy.