43 réponses à ce sujet

[Mad Method]

Hello everyone,

Looks like RPG Codex does multiple reviews of the same games. A while ago there was a thread with Vault Dweller's review of Dragon Age 2. Now there is Konjad from RPG Codex who is doing another review for Dragon Age 2. You can find that latest review here.

Modifié par Mad Method, 11 août 2011 - 10:41 .

[Firky]

Goddammit, Codex. Without accuracy, where's the cred? (The first screenshot is the troll mound in the Druid Forest of BG2 - to be fair, the eds note does make mention of this.)

[devSin]

No, you do not have to smash a TV to be able to sell it at a discount.

Modifié par devSin, 11 août 2011 - 11:20 .

[Morroian]

Weird review, likes DA2 proper but doesn't like Legacy. And while the review may be positive if you read the comments its normal transmission resumed.

[Mad Method]

devSin, what?

[Eternal Phoenix]

Who cares?

[Krusty84]

Elton John is dead wrote...

Who cares?

Bioware Fanboys.

[Ryllen Laerth Kriel]

It's a somewhat fair review I thought.

[mykeme]

So, you think the Codex is wrong in its assessment of DA2 (I mean the "usual transmission", not this review), but none of you can actually provide any counter-evidence to any of their claims. Is that right?

Because for all their vitriol, the Codex know their RPGs. Some of the games frequently mentioned there I never thought existed, some can only be played on DOSBox now, but one things for sure - games, much like literature or cinema, aren't all about personal preference. Sometimes the artist (developer, director) just does a bad job, and everyone with half an education can see it. It's more apparent in art than cinema or games, because the latter two have marketing going for them - artificially creating trends where none could possibly exist otherwise.

And with all the negative press DA2's been getting, you can be damn sure that without millions spent on marketing (every AAA titles spends 1.5 times more on marketing that on the game itself), barely anyone would buy.

[Travie]

I have to agree with mykeme.

[errant_knight]

I had to laugh when the reviewer talked about how good looking the characters are while showing an utterly pudding-faced Hawke. I think what's odd about the review is that it doesn't really have an opinion. It's six of one, half dozen of the other. That seems strange when the game has provoked shuch strong reactions with little middle ground.

[mykeme]

If you read the thread attached to the review, it becomes apparent that the guy who wrote it was trolling.

[Nerdage]

What becomes really apparent reading the related thread is what a whiny, self-righteous, spoilt bunch of ingrates "RPG fans" really can be. I'm perfectly willing to accept they don't like it, but honestly...

mykeme wrote...

So, you think the Codex is wrong in its assessment of DA2 (I mean the "usual transmission", not this review), but none of you can actually provide any counter-evidence to any of their claims. Is that right?

Because for all their vitriol, the Codex know their RPGs. Some of the games frequently mentioned there I never thought existed, some can only be played on DOSBox now, but one things for sure - games, much like literature or cinema, aren't all about personal preference. Sometimes the artist (developer, director) just does a bad job, and everyone with half an education can see it. It's more apparent in art than cinema or games, because the latter two have marketing going for them - artificially creating trends where none could possibly exist otherwise.

And with all the negative press DA2's been getting, you can be damn sure that without millions spent on marketing (every AAA titles spends 1.5 times more on marketing that on the game itself), barely anyone would buy.

So.. "My opinions are fact, yours are just wrong"? Convenient. 

My counter would be that the game's faults aren't enough to write it off completely, though I'm certainly mindful of the problems it has. They haven't put me off yet, and I'm six characters in so far, which I suppose would be my evidence. If that somehow means I'm ill-educated.. well I'm not sure what to make of that.

(If that was a defense of the "usual transmission" in the comments, anyway)

Modifié par nerdage, 21 août 2011 - 06:23 .

[devSin]

"How can I afford prices this low? Because I'm craaaaaaaaazzzyyyy!" *smashes TV*

That's what.

Modifié par devSin, 21 août 2011 - 06:27 .

[mykeme]

nerdage wrote...

So.. "My opinions are fact, yours are just wrong"? Convenient. 

My counter would be that the game's faults aren't enough to write it off completely, though I'm certainly mindful of the problems it has. They haven't put me off yet, and I'm six characters in so far, which I suppose would be my evidence. If that somehow means I'm ill-educated.. well I'm not sure what to make of that.

(If that was a defense of the "usual transmission" in the comments, anyway)

Where did I insinuate that my opinions were fact? I didn't. Conversely, you failed to provide any kind of evidence besides personal experience, which is to say, none at all. 

What I'm saying is, any game can be judged by its artistic merits, like quality of the art, textures and animation; the writing, voice acting and plot can all be analyzed by comparing them to games where any of those things were done right. Personal preference has nothing to do with any of those things unless you haven't played a game, looked at a painting or read a book in your life. And for all the things I just listed, DA2 fails on almost all fronts: backgrounds in open areas dissolve into a mix of grey and brown on a 2-dimensional surface, characters are glassy-eyed mannequins with no capacity for conveying emotion; the writing, particularly short dialogue bits and a fondness for dry humour, is designed to appeal to specific age group; the plot is contrived, uninspired and riddled with holes and inconsistencies. The whole art direction of game I would describe as "blocky" and "grey". And don't get me started on the visual representation of Darktown, the tacky, uninspired, Twilight-grade romances, the characters who look like they were ripped from a mainstream anime coming-of-age teenager-with-superpowers TV show, the identical dungeons, the teleporting enemies (which would be fine in any other genre but RPG), and much, much more.

It's not hard to judge a piece of art for what it's worth when you have something to compare it to. If you've never seen a movie released before 1999 then all you can say about a summer blockbuster is "it was great" or "I didn't really like it". But if you've ever seen a movie by Kusturica, Kubrick or even Woody Allen, then most of the time you can pinpoint the problem and rightfully claim objectivity. Same thing with books and paintings - you can't really express anything but your personal opinion unless you've seen and read the great classics that defined their respective genres.

Innovating a genre requires filling a niche of demand that was previously unsatisfied, not expanding the genre (the definition of which is to appeal to a specific grop of people's tastes) and getting too little butter over too much bread. Anyone can see that it's a corporate tactic to draw in more sales, so why do you stand for it? Some genres are supposed to be more accessible than others, much like drama isn't for everyone, or classical music, or abstract art, which only resonates with a small amount of people.

So yes, not knowing the classics of your supposed favorite genre can be called a lack of education. The good part is that it's easily remedied by exposing yourself to those games, but be warned: like silent movies and black and white movies, older games aren't accessible to most people nowadays. But if you feel passionately about games, and want to know more about games, then the only way is to experience the genre-defining classics. By going backwards in this fashion, you might discover along the way that you are actually moving forward.

[Nerdage]

The issue wasn't "This part of the game isn't as good as it should be" as in the list you mention (incidentally though I disagree with a lot of it), it's "This game is s*it" being the only conclusion anyone with 'half an education education' could draw.

Unless something has an output that can be quantified then how 'good' it is is entirely subjective. Having played a lot of RPGs doesn't make their opinion any more valid than the next person's, nor does it make them the 'true' RPG community, with the right to dismiss a game completely because it's not to their tastes with no regard to the tastes of others.

If these niche media (classical music; etc, which I do like incidentally, though I'm hardly an expert) are good, don't you think some way of making them more accessible to a wider audience without sacrificing what makes them unique would also be an innovation? Passions and interests aren't something to be jealously guarded against the mainstream, the more people who share a passion of mine the better I'd say. I want good RPGs to play, but I also want to be able to have conversations about them with people who, at the moment, don't play them. That's why I 'put up with it', I applaud the effort. I'm not saying DA2 did this, I'm speaking generally.

If your ideal is an RPG community riddled with snobbery between the true connoisseurs and the huddled masses then it's one we don't share.

Modifié par nerdage, 21 août 2011 - 05:36 .

[mykeme]

Well, then maybe instead of just saying you disagree with, say, the art direction of DA2 being uninspired, you could also provide some kind of counter-evidence? The fact that the game is full of grey and brown tones is an observation anyone can draw, not an opinion. That romances are comparable to the ones in Twilight and the stereotypical angsty characters are designed to appeal to that same age group is another one. And I really don't see how countless identical dungeons are even acceptable in this day and age (apparently 30 years ago they weren't), and why people tolerate or even defend them. 
I will concede, however, that how much of these individual failures a person can get past to enjoy the game is entirely personal - it's a question of how high your standards are. But then the problem with DA2 is, considering its substantial amount of individual failures, your standards have to be lower than average to extract some kind of enjoyment out of it.

Judging a piece of art on its merits doesn't have anything to do with quantifying anything. You don't have to quantify human experience to know that hurting someone is bad. And you don't even have to go that far - simply looking at the game from a technical point of view, if you see that shortcuts were taken, certain elements were unpolished etc. then you can rightfully call it a flaw and once again claim objectivity, because your conclusion is based on observation. If you really like Twilight you can argue that characters in DA2 appealing to you is a good thing, but that is besides the point, since appealing to you specifically is not a problem; it's appealing at all in the first place. You see, creating a work of art, you put something of yourself into it, be it a canvas or the angle at which you shoot a scene, or a character in a video game, and you appeal to people with a certain level of experience who can relate to you and say "I understand this man and why he made this so". This is the challenge for artists, and the profound feeling a person gets when he looks at their work. Appealing to lack of experience, as is the case with Twilight fans, doesn't make any artistic sense - only monetary.

You completely missed my point about innovation, I'm sad to say. It's no secret or leftist conspiracy theory that corporate culture promotes watering down genres and creating false trends around mediocre titles (be it movies or games). It's all about creating a game in the shortest possible time span and minimal expenses and extracting the biggest possible profit from it. Is that so hard to wrap your head around? Anyone defending their favorite genre from corporations' so-called "innovation" has right on their side, and unless you want to discuss the finer aspects of RPGs like visceral combat and spectacular finishers with CoD addicts in the near future, you should share their plight. 

Modifié par mykeme, 21 août 2011 - 06:00 .

[Mad Method]

I think making games more accessible has a different meaning today than it used to. It used to mean providing better tutorials, manuals, etc. To have more intuitive descriptions of how abilities work and what they do. And to avoid game mechanics which serve no purpose other than to increase the learning curve. (For instance, in DotA and Heroes of Newerth, when your character casts a spell, there can be a silly animation they waste time doing after the spell is already cast. Good players will immediately cancel this animation so that they can move on. Since cancelling the backswing animation is always a better option than not cancelling it and this is a fast-paced game, the only function this serves is to punish new players.) This way you can get a wider audience to get into your game.

These days accessible usually means compromising any elements of complexity. I think Bioware has gotten too used to thinking of themselves as geniuses to realize that the mind-blowing complexity of their games is in fact somewhere between average to below average, and that the mechanics don't need any more dumbing down. The main problems with Dragon Age: Origins that were so off-putting were:

• Deficient tutorials which expected you to be too new to RPGs to know how to use the interface yet somehow sufficiently familiar that you needed no advice on combat.
• No advice on how to set up tactics either. Since tactics usually forms around 3/4ths of your team's combat prowess, this is a problem.
• A tooltip system that actively resists letting players understand ahead of time which abilities are better because "numbers are confusing." The manual is no help either.
• Combat encounters out of the blue that heavily punish you for not figuring out how to work combat *cough* Tower of Ishal *cough*.
• Too much repetitive filler combat.
• Poor combat balance where some abilities can trivialize the game quickly.

In other words, a lot of people didn't learn how to manage combat, had to plod through it over and over again, still didn't get it, and gave up. Bioware's solution to all this seems to be to find a magical way to make the combat too easy to fail and hope everyone likes it. And I don't see that working out.

As for the review, I think Konjad's indulging his own sense of humor here. This review strikes me as part troll, part sarcasm, and part sincere. Personally, I preferred Vault Dweller's review (Thread) for its scathing wit.

Modifié par Mad Method, 05 septembre 2011 - 05:30 .

[Barry Bathernak]

"There is less filler combat than in the first game. However, there are dozens of enemies running at you and spawning out of nowhere all over the place"

i am getting mad at these people.

[Nerdage]

mykeme wrote...

Well, then maybe instead of just saying you disagree with, say, the art direction of DA2 being uninspired, you could also provide some kind of counter-evidence? The fact that the game is full of grey and brown tones is an observation anyone can draw, not an opinion.

Fact (sort of). Whether that's good, bad, or even worth noting at all, however, is opinion. 

That romances are comparable to the ones in Twilight and the stereotypical angsty characters are designed to appeal to that same age group is another one.

No, it isn't, that's a value judgement you've made. 

And I really don't see how countless identical dungeons are even acceptable in this day and age (apparently 30 years ago they weren't), and why people tolerate or even defend them.
I will concede, however, that how much of these individual failures a person can get past to enjoy the game is entirely personal - it's a question of how high your standards are. But then the problem with DA2 is, considering its substantial amount of individual failures, your standards have to be lower than average to extract some kind of enjoyment out of it.

Disappointing, but hardly game-breaking. It's hard to play Warcraft and not notice the same caves over and over again, or to play Oblivion and not notice caves are made out of the same half dozen areas put together like lego. I don't like it, but games that are otherwise highly acclaimed have survived with them, enough so I think they're being blown out of proportion in this case for being an easy target in a game people just enjoy hating.

Judging a piece of art on its merits doesn't have anything to do with quantifying anything. You don't have to quantify human experience to know that hurting someone is bad. And you don't even have to go that far - simply looking at the game from a technical point of view, if you see that shortcuts were taken, certain elements were unpolished etc. then you can rightfully call it a flaw and once again claim objectivity, because your conclusion is based on observation.

That flaws exist was never in question, but if I wrote off every game I'd played that had flaws I'd need a new hobby. Indeed, name a game that was absolutely flawless and perfect. Judging whether the game as a whole is good, however, requires subjectively weighing the worth of the positives against the drawbacks, which cannot be done factually. I happen to think DA2 comes out ahead, while you don't, which is proof in itself that it's a subjective process.

If you really like Twilight you can argue that characters in DA2 appealing to you is a good thing, but that is besides the point, since appealing to you specifically is not a problem; it's appealing at all in the first place. You see, creating a work of art, you put something of yourself into it, be it a canvas or the angle at which you shoot a scene, or a character in a video game, and you appeal to people with a certain level of experience who can relate to you and say "I understand this man and why he made this so". This is the challenge for artists, and the profound feeling a person gets when he looks at their work. Appealing to lack of experience, as is the case with Twilight fans, doesn't make any artistic sense - only monetary.

Now, you see, that's the snobbery I was talking about. The only way it's possible to like the characters in DA2 is if I happen to be in this 'stupids' demographic? Perhaps if you left your ivory tower for a while, perhaps post in some of the character fan threads and chat with the people there, you might find their appeal is wider than you give it credit for.

You completely missed my point about innovation, I'm sad to say. It's no secret or leftist conspiracy theory that corporate culture promotes watering down genres and creating false trends around mediocre titles (be it movies or games). It's all about creating a game in the shortest possible time span and minimal expenses and extracting the biggest possible profit from it. Is that so hard to wrap your head around? Anyone defending their favorite genre from corporations' so-called "innovation" has right on their side, and unless you want to discuss the finer aspects of RPGs like visceral combat and spectacular finishers with CoD addicts in the near future, you should share their plight.

Alright then, business talk, how much do you think it costs to make a AAA game? The easy answer is "a lot more than it used to". The industry is changing, the idea that a developer as big as Bioware could function on good will and idealism is nonsensical, and grousing about how everything was better in the old days is fighting the tide. That said, I don't see how better action means less RPG, but if this is the bit where you play the "CoD crowd" card I suspect you won't agree.

Modifié par nerdage, 22 août 2011 - 03:48 .

[mykeme]

nerdage wrote...

Fact (sort of). Whether that's good, bad, or even worth noting at all, however, is opinion. 

No, it isn't, that's a value judgement you've made. 

Disappointing, but hardly game-breaking. It's hard to play Warcraft and not notice the same caves over and over again, or to play Oblivion and not notice caves are made out of the same half dozen areas put together like lego. I don't like it, but games that are otherwise highly acclaimed have survived with them, enough so I think they're being blown out of proportion in this case for being an easy target in a game people just enjoy hating.

That flaws exist was never in question, but if I wrote off every game I'd played that had flaws I'd need a new hobby. Indeed, name a game that was absolutely flawless and perfect. Judging whether the game as a whole is good, however, requires subjectively weighing the worth of the positives against the drawbacks, which cannot be done factually. I happen to think DA2 comes out ahead, while you don't, which is proof in itself that it's a subjective process.

Now, you see, that's the snobbery I was talking about. The only way it's possible to like the characters in DA2 is if I happen to be in this 'stupids' demographic? Perhaps if you left your ivory tower for a while, perhaps post in some of the character fan threads and chat with the people there, you might find their appeal is wider than you give it credit for.

I understood when I went into this argument that at some point the conversation would devolve into a series of strawman arguments. Once again you decide to argue ideas instead of actually naming examples, leaving your total amount of valid arguments in this conversation zero. I believe I don't have to force myself to respond to such drivel.

Alright then, business talk, how much do you think it costs to make a AAA game? The easy answer is "a lot more than it used to". The industry is changing, the idea that a developer as big as Bioware could function on good will and idealism is nonsensical, and grousing about how everything was better in the old days is fighting the tide. That said, I don't see how better action means less RPG, but if this is the bit where you play the "CoD crowd" card I suspect you won't agree.

I wanted to throw this in the the previous lack of arguments, but this is great example of corporate brainwashing. This is what EA wants you to believe, even though there's multiple evidence to suggest even indie developers can remain afloat and even make a profit by selling their games online for 25$. I'm talking about Knights of the Chalice, an RPG released in 2010, and now they're making a sequel.

And that's an indie. What about Larian studios, what about Piranha Bytes, who make more popular games (not trying to make them popular, just in a popular genre - big difference), and many other "middle class" developers, so to speak, who make more than just a profit, AND have much more creative freedom than Bioware?

[dragon_83]

Mad Method wrote...

Hello everyone,

Looks like RPG Codex does multiple reviews of the same games. A while ago there was a thread with Vault Dweller's review of Dragon Age 2. Now there is Konjad from RPG Codex who is doing another review for Dragon Age 2. You can find that latest review here.

Don't worry, we already sentenced Konjad to death because of that review. As for the multiple reviews, every Codexian can send in articles, and if  they are good, they might be posted. Here is another one about Legacy.

Modifié par dragon_83, 22 août 2011 - 08:26 .

[Persephone]

dragon_83 wrote...

Mad Method wrote...

Hello everyone,

Looks like RPG Codex does multiple reviews of the same games. A while ago there was a thread with Vault Dweller's review of Dragon Age 2. Now there is Konjad from RPG Codex who is doing another review for Dragon Age 2. You can find that latest review here.

Don't worry, we already sentenced Konjad to death because of that review. As for the multiple reviews, every Codexian can send in articles, and if  they are good, they might be posted. Here is another one about Legacy.

That's anything BUT a review. That's a brat throwing a tantrum. Yeesh.

[dragon_83]

Persephone wrote...

dragon_83 wrote...

Mad Method wrote...

Hello everyone,

Looks like RPG Codex does multiple reviews of the same games. A while ago there was a thread with Vault Dweller's review of Dragon Age 2. Now there is Konjad from RPG Codex who is doing another review for Dragon Age 2. You can find that latest review here.

Don't worry, we already sentenced Konjad to death because of that review. As for the multiple reviews, every Codexian can send in articles, and if  they are good, they might be posted. Here is another one about Legacy.

That's anything BUT a review. That's a brat throwing a tantrum. Yeesh.

You don't say? But it's pretty accurate, and we had fun while reading it.

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

sgc and racofer are my heroes.

Hilarious photoshops.