144 réponses à ce sujet

[Monica21]

IanPolaris wrote...

Business 101. The Customer is ALWAYS right. The customer might not be able to clearly articulate what he or she wants all the time but the CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT.

If you deliberately take a dump on your customers (which IMO DA2 did), then you won't be in business long. In a contest between what the Devs want and what the Customers want, the Customers should always win if you expect to stay in business.

Bottom line.

-Polaris

If you've ever worked in the service industry you'd know that it's the customer who is often (and usually) in the wrong. The best you can do is make them feel better about being wrong and explain how you'll make up for their misunderstanding. The difference is what the previous poster stated. You didn't order ranch dressing and get italian instead. You bought a video game. Huge difference. You can't go to Hooter's and complain that it's not P.F. Chang's.

And for the record, we don't know what customers Bioware is listening to. I don't even know who their target market is, but if DA2 is anything to go by I don't think I'm in it. Forum posters have long been known to be a vocal minority. I don't know if the sales figures posted were accurate or not, but I can't disagree if they state they brought new fans in. The thing they have to worry about is whether they can keep both the new fans and do a little to restore faith in the fans who didn't like Origins.

[element eater]

JohnEpler wrote...
Telemetry data by itself can be misleading, certainly. Any data point without context is misleading, though - that's true of polls, of fan feedback, any of that sort of information. So you can't just take any of it in isolation - you have to look at all the information at your disposal. And while that includes telemetry data - it's certainly not limited to it.

quite so as with so many things its about balance.  i am just always a touch wary concerning such data.
also i feel somewhat humbled by the dev respones as much as i might seem like a whinner i do appreciate it.

[IanPolaris]

Monica21 wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

Business 101. The Customer is ALWAYS right. The customer might not be able to clearly articulate what he or she wants all the time but the CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT.

If you deliberately take a dump on your customers (which IMO DA2 did), then you won't be in business long. In a contest between what the Devs want and what the Customers want, the Customers should always win if you expect to stay in business.

Bottom line.

-Polaris

If you've ever worked in the service industry you'd know that it's the customer who is often (and usually) in the wrong. The best you can do is make them feel better about being wrong and explain how you'll make up for their misunderstanding. The difference is what the previous poster stated. You didn't order ranch dressing and get italian instead. You bought a video game. Huge difference. You can't go to Hooter's and complain that it's not P.F. Chang's.

I have.  You know what my manager told me.  "Even if the customer is wrong, the customer is still right.  We can't afford to lose even unreasonable customers."  The manager is right.

And for the record, we don't know what customers Bioware is listening to. I don't even know who their target market is, but if DA2 is anything to go by I don't think I'm in it. Forum posters have long been known to be a vocal minority. I don't know if the sales figures posted were accurate or not, but I can't disagree if they state they brought new fans in. The thing they have to worry about is whether they can keep both the new fans and do a little to restore faith in the fans who didn't like Origins.

And Hell will freeze over and pigs will fly.  Damage has been done.  Most of DA2 orders (about half) were PRE-ORDERS or those done before the game was fully digested by the market (about first 1-3 weeks).  Afterwords, sales have fallen off a cliff.  DAO has outsold DA2 for months now.

So when Bioware says they are bringing in new customers it's a LIE or at best a gross distortion of the true (certainly no new NET customers).

-Polaris

[Monica21]

IanPolaris wrote...
I have.  You know what my manager told me.  "Even if the customer is wrong, the customer is still right.  We can't afford to lose even unreasonable customers."  The manager is right.

Your manager is/was an idiot. You do what you can to keep from losing unreasonable customers, even if it means apologizing for something that is not your fault, but that doesn't mean a customer is never wrong.

And Hell will freeze over and pigs will fly.  Damage has been done.  Most of DA2 orders (about half) were PRE-ORDERS or those done before the game was fully digested by the market (about first 1-3 weeks).  Afterwords, sales have fallen off a cliff.  DAO has outsold DA2 for months now.

So when Bioware says they are bringing in new customers it's a LIE or at best a gross distortion of the true (certainly no new NET customers).

-Polaris

Do you, personally, have the sales data to support this? 

[Ariella]

IanPolaris wrote...

nitefyre410 wrote...

Ariella wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

Without fans and if you dump on old fans (which IMO you've done with DA) you turn customers into people like me: Ex-Customers.

Without your customers, you aren't in business which makes the customer right. Always.

-Polaris

If you're an ex-customer, why are you still here? And what if I don't agree with your assessment of what Bioware's done with DA, hmm? Which customer is right, you or me?

This isn't a service based industry. you can't just order a game with the options you want and expect it to be tailored to you like you'd order a meal. Bioware has to take into account tens of thousands of pieces of feedback, then see what's going to work best with what they see as the future of the franchise.

  

See the bolded Ariellia is exactly the point right there and that is the point alot of people are missing.

Right back at everyone.  I'd say that's the point Bioware is missing.  The bulk of the customers apparently (per the sales numbers) liked the way it was done in DAO more or less (not saying that improvements couldn't have been made of course).  That input seems to have been completely IGNORED until it was far too late and the damage was done.

-Polaris

You're making assumptions at what the sales numbers mean, colored by your view of the situation. Especially considering the fact that as pointed out several times, much of the changes found in DA2 reflected fan feedback (art is a very specific one from Origins for example as is the dialogue complains addressed from Awakening), so to claim they ignored fan feadback isn't true. They just didn't do what YOU wanted, and there is a difference between a single person's desire and a cross section of feedback, the latter is something none of us really have full access to until the next game comes out, and the devs discuss it, as they did in DA2.

[nitefyre410]

Assumption those sales could be down because people who brought DA:O did not like and did not even bother with DA 2. Of course the same can be said going from DA 2 to DA 3.

But really seems the whats grinding gears is that people feel like they were ignored. It was nasty reality check Just because feed back is give does not mean it will be act on and that is a bitter pill for a lot to swallow Still as I have said I have seen all before and in time this will pass and the series will continue, those who stay will stay and those who go will go.

Either why Bioware has made up their mind - We can give feedback but we can not make the game.

[IanPolaris]

Ariella wrote...

You're making assumptions at what the sales numbers mean, colored by your view of the situation. Especially considering the fact that as pointed out several times, much of the changes found in DA2 reflected fan feedback (art is a very specific one from Origins for example as is the dialogue complains addressed from Awakening), so to claim they ignored fan feadback isn't true. They just didn't do what YOU wanted, and there is a difference between a single person's desire and a cross section of feedback, the latter is something none of us really have full access to until the next game comes out, and the devs discuss it, as they did in DA2.

False.  The trajectory of the sales numbers don't lie and NEITHER does the initial feedback from the fans (or ex-fans in many cases) of the Franchise.  The biggest failing of DA2 was that it WASN'T DAO (or more appropriately a reasonable sucessor to it) and that is what we were led to believe....from the title if nothing else.

As for the rest, ML is on record as to why many of the changes were made before DA2 was published and customer feedback was near the bottom of the list.  HE didn't like much of DAO and thus it was changed based on HIS (singular) opinion.  He has said as much.

-Polaris

[Redcoat]

"The Customer Is Always Right" should be rewritten instead to say, "The Customer's Opinion Is Always Valid."* One-off or unreasonable complaints ("DA2 should have had pink fluffy rabbits! And unicorns! And banjo music!") can usually be dismissed, but issues that get raised over and again need to be given a serious look, as they indicate a problem with your product or service.

Now customers might not be able to articulate what it is, exactly, that they want, but they know very well what they like and do not like. I might not be to be explain what I want in wine, but I'll know for sure from the first sip whether I consider it good wine or not.

* note that this does not mean that the customer is allowed to be an ass. Hurling a torrent of abuse towards the company or people responsible for a product will not fix anything. My first job was as an usher at a movie theatre, and while we were instructed to do everything possible to make sure a customer left the theatre happy, any customer who became abusive or threatening towards the staff would be get thrown out by management in a hurry, often with very colourful language.

[Masako52]

IanPolaris wrote...

False.  The trajectory of the sales numbers don't lie and NEITHER does the initial feedback from the fans (or ex-fans in many cases) of the Franchise.  The biggest failing of DA2 was that it WASN'T DAO (or more appropriately a reasonable sucessor to it) and that is what we were led to believe....from the title if nothing else.

As for the rest, ML is on record as to why many of the changes were made before DA2 was published and customer feedback was near the bottom of the list.  HE didn't like much of DAO and thus it was changed based on HIS (singular) opinion.  He has said as much.

-Polaris

I disagree. If I wanted to play a game like DAO, I'd play DAO. A sequel should never be a carbon copy of the original. It's only natural to expand and test new ideas in sequels. There are a lot of elements that I love about DA2 that I wish DAO had. In some ways, I even like DA2 better than DAO. Oh, I agree, a sequel should never be a completely different game - and many fans may have perceived it that way. But I don't think it is. Sure, I would have liked to pick the race of my character, and the Origin story, etc., but that didn't really work out in the plot. Maybe Bioware could have figured something out if they spent more time, but for story purposes of the game DA2 is about a human named Hawke.

But DA2 is not all that substantially different of a gameplay in gameplay and plot. I am thoroughly satisfied with how it expanded on the world of Thedas and gave us a different kind of story.

That's not to say, again, that I don't think DA2 had flaws. It did. It should have had much more work put into it. However, as far as the story, characters and even gameplay go, I am pleased. DA2 is awesome.

In fact, I would have been DISAPPOINTED if DA2 was "just like" DAO. The world was just saved from the Blight, we don't need to save it from the Blight again. In fact, the world was just saved, it seems silly to try to top that. The idea of focusing on a smaller picture, Kirkwall, was really a good choice. Though I think the world could still have been expanded, trying to make another "save the world" game taking place only a couple years after the original would seem forced and cheap.

[IanPolaris]

DA2 was nothing like DAO. That's not just me saying that. That's BIOWARE saying that and it was intentional and very deliberate. Why? Because ML didn't like many aspects of DAO and stripped the engine to the ground and rebuilt it which meant the Dev team had even less time than one things to get everything right.

However, I didn't say that DA2 should have been a "carbon copy" of DAO. I said that the customers expected and were led to believe that DA2 would be a 'reasonbale sucessor" (i.e. much the same but improved) of DAO and that emphatically was not the case.

-Polaris

[AmstradHero]

IanPolaris wrote...
The biggest and most overreaching flaw with DA2 is that it's not DAO.

I've seen this argument a few times. As far as I'm concerned all it says is "DA2 is not exactly the same as DAO".

You know what? I'm glad DA2 doesn't have deep roads that go on for many hours of combat without a shred of plot. I'm glad DA2 doesn't have the fade section that I have to play out the same long-winded puzzles if I want to have a playthrough. I'm glad I can have disagreements with characters without them wanting to kill me. I'm glad all the areas don't have muted colours.

If I want to play DAO, I can still do that. I bought DA2 because I wanted something new. I got that. It's certainly not perfect, and I'd say it's not as "good" a game as DAO, but conversely, I think I possibly had more "fun" playing it.

I still got to explore Thedas. I got
to explore the political and social tensions within the world. I got to
travel to new places (albeit not many) and meet new (and old!)
characters within the Dragon Age world.

I could quite easily list faults of the game as well, but I'd be outright lying or simply engaging in blatant hyperbole if I said "DA2 isn't Dragon Age".

[IanPolaris]

AmstradHero wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...
The biggest and most overreaching flaw with DA2 is that it's not DAO.

I've seen this argument a few times. As far as I'm concerned all it says is "DA2 is not exactly the same as DAO".

Funny because if you actually read my posts, you'd find that it wasn't what I said at all.  However, people expected the SEQUEL of DAO to be similiar and it's not and that's a problem.

-Polaris

[IanPolaris]

AmstradHero wrote...

I could quite easily list faults of the game as well, but I'd be outright lying or simply engaging in blatant hyperbole if I said "DA2 isn't Dragon Age".

No.  It would be the simple truth.  Other than being placed in Thedas, the two are nothing alike.  Really.

-Polaris

[Gunderic]

Cutlass Jack wrote...

Stanley Woo wrote...

So let's not go crazy and get huffy whenever we do an interview or talk about the game and mention the good parts of it. We do know and freely admit there were problems, but it would be a little unreasonable to stand over us at every interview with your arms crossed until we admit the problems all the time.

I think its pretty clear that some folks won't stop doing this until Bioware employees come over their house personally, and kneel in front of them begging forgiveness. Of course this would have to include posting a video to it to YouTube.

Only then can they begin to recover from the near criminal trauma of seeing that same cave repeatedly.

No. That would require a lobotomy.

[Dave of Canada]

Maybe it's just me, though I remember people who followed the marketing knew what they were getting into with Dragon Age 2. I certainly remember some individuals never quieting down and repeating each feature they'd absolutely loathe for Dragon Age 2.

If they decided to purchase the game despite their beliefs, why are they surprised when they found out it wasn't exactly DA:O? Those who didn't follow the marketing, I understand. Those who followed the marketing and absolutely loathed everything that was advertised but still purchased the game, not so much.

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 10 août 2011 - 09:22 .

[AmstradHero]

IanPolaris wrote...

AmstradHero wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...
The biggest and most overreaching flaw with DA2 is that it's not DAO.

I've seen this argument a few times. As far as I'm concerned all it says is "DA2 is not exactly the same as DAO".

Funny because if you actually read my posts, you'd find that it wasn't what I said at all.  However, people expected the SEQUEL of DAO to be similiar and it's not and that's a problem.

-Polaris

And if you noted timestamps, you'd realise that you posted a "clarification" of your position while I was writing my post.

How? How is it not a sequel?

Is it because:
- the combat has cross-class combos that enable you to have your party members combine skills for great effect.
- there are boss set pieces that demand different and varied tactics.
- the game is set in three distinct acts with a different story focus
- you have an ability to "define" a voiced protagonist's "base" personality

Or is it not Dragon Age because:
- Enemies drop from on top of buildings.
- Hawke (and others) jump around a lot in combat
- you go through the same areas multiple times
- you can't travel with Morrigan/Leliena/Alistair (insert favourite character here)
- you can't pick and choose every bit of inventory that your companions are wearing
- Hawke is voiced
- you're not fighting the darkspawn/the blight all game

I'm curious.

[Gunderic]

IanPolaris wrote...

Ariella wrote...

You're making assumptions at what the sales numbers mean, colored by your view of the situation. Especially considering the fact that as pointed out several times, much of the changes found in DA2 reflected fan feedback (art is a very specific one from Origins for example as is the dialogue complains addressed from Awakening), so to claim they ignored fan feadback isn't true. They just didn't do what YOU wanted, and there is a difference between a single person's desire and a cross section of feedback, the latter is something none of us really have full access to until the next game comes out, and the devs discuss it, as they did in DA2.

False.  The trajectory of the sales numbers don't lie and NEITHER does the initial feedback from the fans (or ex-fans in many cases) of the Franchise.  The biggest failing of DA2 was that it WASN'T DAO (or more appropriately a reasonable sucessor to it) and that is what we were led to believe....from the title if nothing else.

As for the rest, ML is on record as to why many of the changes were made before DA2 was published and customer feedback was near the bottom of the list.  HE didn't like much of DAO and thus it was changed based on HIS (singular) opinion.  He has said as much.

-Polaris

The change was also based on EA trying to go for something else ( quick cash-in, mass appeal, streamlining etc. ) before Mike Laidlaw even got the position of LD.

Brent Knowles must have been a genius or a tarot card reader to have left so early in development. He earned my respect for leaving, for what it's worth.

Modifié par Gunderic, 10 août 2011 - 09:24 .

[asindre]

IanPolaris wrote...

AmstradHero wrote...

I could quite easily list faults of the game as well, but I'd be outright lying or simply engaging in blatant hyperbole if I said "DA2 isn't Dragon Age".

No.  It would be the simple truth.  Other than being placed in Thedas, the two are nothing alike.  Really.

-Polaris

Same world, same time, almost same combat system, some of the same characters. that's more than you can say about final fantasy games, yet they are still the same series.

[King Cousland]

Masako52 wrote...
I disagree. If I wanted to play a game like DAO, I'd play DAO. A sequel should never be a carbon copy of the original. It's only natural to expand and test new ideas in sequels. There are a lot of elements that I love about DA2 that I wish DAO had. In some ways, I even like DA2 better than DAO. Oh, I agree, a sequel should never be a completely different game - and many fans may have perceived it that way. But I don't think it is. Sure, I would have liked to pick the race of my character, and the Origin story, etc., but that didn't really work out in the plot. Maybe Bioware could have figured something out if they spent more time, but for story purposes of the game DA2 is about a human named Hawke.

But DA2 is not all that substantially different of a gameplay in gameplay and plot. I am thoroughly satisfied with how it expanded on the world of Thedas and gave us a different kind of story.

That's not to say, again, that I don't think DA2 had flaws. It did. It should have had much more work put into it. However, as far as the story, characters and even gameplay go, I am pleased. DA2 is awesome.

In fact, I would have been DISAPPOINTED if DA2 was "just like" DAO. The world was just saved from the Blight, we don't need to save it from the Blight again. In fact, the world was just saved, it seems silly to try to top that. The idea of focusing on a smaller picture, Kirkwall, was really a good choice. Though I think the world could still have been expanded, trying to make another "save the world" game taking place only a couple years after the original would seem forced and cheap.

I don't think you understand. It's not that people wanted a clone of DA:O. They wanted DA:O as a template, with the stroy, character, elements of gameplay and grpahics to be different. They marketed Hawke as the most important person Thedas has ever seen. Instead they were a refugee who stumbled into being Champion and weren't really that integral to the story at all. Hawke didn't matter. The expedition might have never happened, but that would've made things better. Meredith wouldn't have gone insane. The templars and city guard would have defeated the Qunri without Hawke. Anders might have not even blown up the chantry without Hawke's help. So, in a way, everything bad happened because of Hawke. 

Furthermore, people didn't necessarily want a "save the world" story, it still could have maintained a personal story but be on an epic scale. The Qunari invasion could have been an amazing story on its own, which details Hawke's rise. But instead, we had threee disjointed, disconnected tales which crippled the atmosphere and made for a disspaointing sequel.

[hoorayforicecream]

Saying "the customer is always right" is a little silly. Case in point:

Customer 1: I hated the over-the-top animations in combat. It made me feel like it wasn't even remotely realistic and totally shattered my sense of immersion.

Customer 2: I loved the over-the-top animations in combat. It made me feel larger-than-life, like a real fantasy action hero, rather than an ordinary person, and I really enjoy that feeling.
Designer: 

Modifié par hoorayforicecream, 10 août 2011 - 09:28 .

[Sinaxi]

Stanley Woo wrote...

element eater wrote...

well I don't think one cant exist with the other all id really say is not to develop a game based of in game data they collect that way lies trouble

Wait, so you want us to not base our development decisions on what people actually are seen to do in game?

that said these interviews always make me cringe. Not sure why it seems like such an alien concept that fans of the first game should have expected a similar experiance from its sequel. Or the fact that some people have justified reasons to dislike it beyond just that its differant.

It's not an alien concept. We understand many of the reasons some folks didn't like DA2, and we have acknowledged that. but not saying it all the time in every interview does not mean we have forgotten it. At some point, we'd also like to talk about how well we did some things in the game, you know. We happen to be proud of the work we do (and some of the community does as well) and mentioning that does not negate any of the problems we have talked about.

We have also admitted and talked about how we should have done a better job at managing players' expectation when it came to just how different DA2 was going to be from DA:O. That does not mean there weren't good things in the game.

So let's not go crazy and get huffy whenever we do an interview or talk about the game and mention the good parts of it. We do know and freely admit there were problems, but it would be a little unreasonable to stand over us at every interview with your arms crossed until we admit the problems all the time.

I'm quite sure my opinion is not shared by the "majority" on these forums, but while there were a few things about DA2 I didn't necessarily like (honestly, the only one I really took a notice to was simply the feeling of less character interaction/conversations that seemed more present in DA:O that I really wish had been there in DA2) I was overall pleased with the core story and I still really enjoyed most of the companions.

I know people are angry because they felt like their decisions didn't matter, which I think has led to a bunch of this "Hawke hate" because they felt like they weren't important... but even in DA:O there was still a core storyline that was to be followed. The thing about DA2 is that Hawke was just a normal person trying to do their best, but at the end of the day the title of Champion does not give them any real tangible power. They aren't a Grey Warden going around with treaties that legally bind people to fight for them on their quest to save the world. They get involved in political turmoil, which is probably why I liked the game so much - the Qunari culture shock is great and I've become pretty invested in the Mage/Templar struggle...much more so than I ever did with the Blight. No matter how much Hawke might try to help, things eventually explode in their face which I believe would have been inevitable regardless of Hawke. I suppose that this makes people feel like a "bystander" in the story, but it's also part of the reason I like Hawke. People can't control everything that happens around them, and they can't always expect what their friends are going to do.

The fact that you guys even come on here and respond to people on the forums says a lot especially when I've noticed how incredibly disrespectful a lot of those posts are. It's clear you are addressing fan feedback, but at the same time I don't think people need to shove it down your throats. I don't get why it's not obvious to people that Bioware would want to at least somewhat defend the game that they made. I'm sorry, but DA2 was truly not as "HORRENDOUS" as so many people would lead you to believe - were there flaws? Yes. But any game will have flaws, and Bioware is listening so give them a freaking break already. I can only imagine for how many months this "Bioware sucks" tirade has gone on and it's gotten extremely old already. It amazes me how people make such outlandish and uncivil remarks directed at the posters from Bioware who they are wanting to listen to them. Good way to go about that....

[King Cousland]

hoorayforicecream wrote...

Saying "the customer is always right" is a little silly. Case in point:

Customer 1: I hated the over-the-top animations in combat. It made me feel like it wasn't even remotely realistic and totally shattered my sense of immersion.

Customer 2: I loved the over-the-top animations in combat. It made me feel larger-than-life, like a real fantasy action hero, rather than an ordinary person, and I really enjoy that feeling.
Designer: 

Ten you go with the clearest majority or make OTT comabt optinal.

[dheer]

hoorayforicecream wrote...
Customer 1: I hated the over-the-top animations in combat. It made me feel like it wasn't even remotely realistic and totally shattered my sense of immersion.

Customer 2: I loved the over-the-top animations in combat. It made me feel larger-than-life, like a real fantasy action hero, rather than an ordinary person, and I really enjoy that feeling.
Designer: 

I think the designer should think of both of these opinions in relation to the story. DA2's story was not over the top or larger than life in any way. The look and feel of playing a game shouldn't be seperate.