Ariella wrote...
AngryFrozenWater wrote...
You may have looked at what I wrote, but you don't really accept it. Each of those examples can be dismissed one by one. However, seeing all those together paints a picture. You can go on denying that of course. And you can of course keep on looking at Ken and Mike as visionaries based on what you view as great concepts. Those very same concepts to me point into another direction: Cost reduction and development time reduction.
Thing is, you have no viable proof. There's no physical evidene, no smoking gun proving that all the signs you claim were done for cost and time reductions were actually done for those reasons.
You need proof, and until you can point out viable evidence that contradicts what's been said, all you have is specualtion and you give me no real reason to accept it.
As for Ken and Mike's comments on design philosophy. I look at it this way. We're talking about two men in the business with two very different backggrounds.
Mike, it looks like, has been doing this since 2003, all with Bioware. He started with Hordes of the Underdark, did turns on Mass Effect and Jade Empire before coming Lead for the DA team.
Ken, prior to working on CRPGs worked on games like D&D, AD&D, Paranoia, and Warhammer Fantasy RPG. He also won an H.G Wells award for best RPG for Paranoia. He worked both on Morrowind and Oblivion as Lead Designer, and has about 25 years in the gaming industry.
These guys from from two very different starts in the market, but they came to the same basic conclusions: mechanics can be scary, and RPGs have a rep for being very mechanics heavy. But it doesn't have to be like that, especially for CRPGs.
I think Legacy says a lot about this philosophy, because it manages both good design and implementation.
When it comes down to it, it's the experience of the game, the fun, the joy the sorrow everything that you go through with the characters that matters most. That's where the fun is.
The long list of things that have been cut from the game cannot be denied. Sorry. Each one on that list can be dismissed with some kind of reasoning. That's not the point. The point is that all these things together paints a picture of cutting stuff from the game. Dumbing it down. Marketing calls that streamlining. Fine. I don't see a list of features that has been added to the game. To me the things that are supposed to be added to DA2 are rationalizations dreamed up by the marketing department to sell all the stuff that has been cut from the game.
It's fantastic that, according to you, both Ken and Mike share the same "phylosophy". That they have a lot of experience doesn't tell me much either. For an example: To some people TES is awful. So to them that experience doesn't mean anything and is worth raising an eyebrow. To me Oblivion is great and Morrowind is not. For a lot of people it's the other way around.
You state that Legacy manages good design and implementation. Interesting. I don't share that opinion and here is why...
I like the new environments. These not only looked good, but they also felt large and still had enough details.
Instead of the waves dropping from thin air the enemies came from logical positions. However, the trick to pop them up when you were looking in the other direction was still used. It also didn't make sense that enemies were still able to appear in places which you just cleared.
The clickable view points were a nice touch, because you felt something was going on and saw enemies on the move. However, the feeling that the enemies were on the move immediately disappeared when the cinematics ended. It is easy to forget that the cinematics were great, because by now we are rather spoiled by them.
I liked the new banter. However, the companions were talking about how they didn't like these Deep Roads even before they got in there.
Although I did like the voice acted parts, the story line was simply there to make you defeat a final boss. By that I mean that it didn't drew me in as a story by itself. It was more like that it was nice to know what happened to your father. The story felt like a construct. Maybe that's because the writers have to find rationalizations to make dialogue come back to the main storyline.
Like in the main game I was not connected to my family, so the scenes with your mother could have been left out. It was nice to see Bethany or Carver were available as companions.
Like the main game you saw the events unfold, rather than taking an active part in it. After playing it a second time to see how it changes with different decisions, the differences are cosmetic again and warp back to the same story events.
In loot it was nice to see a significant amount of gold, but the armor and weapons found were disappointing. The armor was not high end and there was no reason to use it. The DA2 end game armor was still better. I didn't use any of the jewelry I found. The ones I found or bought in the main game were better.
The puzzles didn't amaze me. These were just forgettable parts to get past.
The final boss fight was too gamey and felt like the high dragons you had to slay in the main game. Again I don't like that there was no place to hide and that the boss was able to damage you while he was invulnerable. That really annoys me. It feels like grinding to survive.
Compared to some of the DA:O DLCs this one is much better. The overall feeling is that the devs gave this DLC a lot of attention. The DLC tried to improve the parts that a lot of us didn't like in the main game. It feels odd to praise that, because these shouldn't have been in the main game at all. Still, if this DLC is a glimpse of what to expect in DA3 then that game might be much better. Of course a DLC is not able to change the core gameplay mechanics, so I leave that out of it.
I think it was worth the money and I will definitely play it again. 
My impressions after playing it a second time: I've chosen the opposite options of the first run. Instead of a rogue I played a mage. Everything plays out the same. In te end you have dialogue with another character, but you still fight the same boss. That means, just ike the main game, any decisions have only cosmetic impact. I hope DA3 is better than that. Because of the warping back to the main story line (i.e. defeating the end boss) the dialogues become just as rationalized as DA2. It feels constructed and does not satisfy me. Still, I stick with my overall conclusion that when compared to some of the DA:O DLCs this one is much better.Now back to you post... The reasons for Ken to remove the scary parts may be different than those for Mike. Like I said, I think Mike just figured out how to sell a cost saving operation. When we bought the game a lot of people weren't exactly happy. Marketing and the DA:O fame did their job, though, because we did buy the game. And for Ken: We don't know what he did with his new game yet, so I like to see that first. If that game is a success then it proves nothing, though, because Mike's game didn't do all that well.
About the fun in the game. If a game is not fun to play then it is't worth playing. I wonder what that has to do with my post. Care to explain?
Modifié par AngryFrozenWater, 18 août 2011 - 02:34 .
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