299 réponses à ce sujet

[ElitePinecone]

Il Divo wrote...

Ariella wrote...

I've read them, both before and after, and I saw no attempt to pander to the masses. I saw a game designer excited about doing something new. I read every scrap of news I could get my hands on for DA2, because I wanted to know everything, including spoilers. So no, I wasn't blind to anything, it wasn't there in the first place.

I'm still reeling from the "pander to the masses" arguments. Do some people here honestly see themselves as being something special because they managed to play through a 50+ hour video game? There is nothing so difficult contained in Origins that the majority of gamers couldn't comprehend.

Not to mention that with four million or so lifetime Origins sales and half a million for Awakening, clearly there was already a huge established audience for a game of its calibre. 

Also, @Ariella: I think it's reasonable to accuse people of having unrealistic expectations about DA2, but these expectations were never refuted or downplayed by the game's marketing. Nothing I saw in anything prior to release - and I followed it reasonably closely - hinted at the reuse of environments or the paucity of locations, for example. It was only after the demo that I noticed questions emerging about the direction the game had taken. 

[Morroian]

ElitePinecone wrote...

Also, @Ariella: I think it's reasonable to accuse people of having unrealistic expectations about DA2, but these expectations were never refuted or downplayed by the game's marketing. Nothing I saw in anything prior to release - and I followed it reasonably closely - hinted at the reuse of environments or the paucity of locations, for example.

What you expect them to say oh BTW the game was rushed so we re-use the same cave 50 times?

Apart from those issues the other issues people have with the game (art style, combat, lack of racial choice, voiced Hawke) were all heavily advertised. 

[Everwarden]

Morroian wrote...
Apart from those issues the other issues people have with the game (art style, combat, lack of racial choice, voiced Hawke) were all heavily advertised. 

Eh.. those aren't really the issues I had with the game, at least. The art 'style' isn't the problem, it's the lack of polish. When you're developing a game with a very tight deadline it isn't a good idea to reinvent the graphical engine.

My problem with the game was the way they didn't even go through the motions of -pretending- your choices mattered. That's ridiculous, considering the impact you can have on the world and the story was a key selling point for the game. 

[ElitePinecone]

Morroian wrote...
What you expect them to say oh BTW the game was rushed so we re-use the same cave 50 times?

Not really - but to then say that they're surprised at the player responses? 

Or to say that there was a 'misalignent of expectations'? 

Do you really think the pre-orders and first week sales would've been as high as they were, had fans known about the extent of unpolishedness? I don't really have a problem with DA2's art style, characters, lack of racial choice or combat per se (though wave combat is abysmal). I knew about those things before I purchased it; I had no idea about repeating environments or the way the story's gaps were handled. 

All I'm saying is: it's probably disingenuous to hype the game to within an inch of its life, promise excellence and then be surprised or confused at the general reaction when what is offered doesn't match up with what was advertised. 

I don't defend or agree with people who say Bioware duped them into buying DA2 on false pretexts, but it's fair to say preorders will be well down for any future titles. I certainly think more transparency and less hyperbole in marketing couldn't be a bad thing.  

[Paeyne]

I always find these arguments amusing.

While I will be the first to say the DA2 seems lacking in many areas, the idea that it was rushed is kind of misleading.

If the game had been designed by a thousand designers working around the clock, 18 months would be more than enough time.

If the game was designed by two programers, a writer, an artist and a hamster, 18 months would probably not be nearly enough time.

In the end, the core of the issue is that many believe DA2 was not up to the quality we normally expect from Bioware.  Whether the reason for that lack is due to budgetary constraints, development time, manpower constraints, or creative decisions is irrelevant. 

As a consumer, It doesn't really matter to me why the product I purchased was not the quality I expected.  The only thing that matters is if I am satified with the quality I ended up receiving and whether I will purchase the product again.

[Gotholhorakh]

Ariella wrote...

Gotholhorakh wrote...

Ariella wrote...

Gotholhorakh wrote...

Firky wrote...
Sure, it's hack and slash if that's how you want to play it.

It's hack and slash if that's not how you want to play it, too.

Not really. The story isn't combat dependant. As was pointed out elsewhere if you stripped the story and character interactions out of DA2, you wouldn't have very much at all, where as strip out the story of Diablo there's minimal change. The combat may be tactically simple by your lights, but ithat doesn't make the game hack and slash.

My immediate response to that is that the story doesn't affect whether the combat is hack and slash.

You could add a twelve-part biopic of Irenicus in click-through dialogue, it's not relevant to what type of combat gameplay a game uses.

Whether you liked the combat or not, I think there weren't really any fights in the base game that might require involved planning or tactical play beyond what you might do to win at one of the Street Fighter games, were there?

So yes, the story isn't combat dependent, but neither is the combat gameplay style dependent on the story.

We've had this conversation before... Hack and slash is a very specific term in RPGs. it means the RPG is combat focused, not story focused.

I pointed out then that there are games that specifically designate themselves hack and slash. D&D Daggerdale was advertised that way, including on Xbox Live.

Just for an FYI: http://en.wikipedia..../Hack_and_Slash

Interestingly they list Demon's Soul as Hack and Slash....

...and in a pejorative sense (the sense in which it's being used) it describes a game with boring, repetitive, idiotic combat gameplay.

That article (for what wikipedia pages are worth) actually mentions the use of the term the way I/we just used it in the first paragraph. 

Paeyne wrote...
While I will be the first to say the DA2 seems lacking in many areas, the idea that it was rushed is kind of misleading.

...

In the end, the core of the issue is that many believe DA2 was not up to the quality we normally expect from Bioware.  Whether the reason for that lack is due to budgetary constraints, development time, manpower constraints, or creative decisions is irrelevant.  

As a consumer, It doesn't really matter to me why the product I purchased was not the quality I expected.

...

In a sense, I think speculation about underlying causes  is a sign of investment and interest for a lot of people - it's armchair football fans for RPG games.

It's probably annoying for BioWare, but not necessarily all that annoying. As a software developer myself, I think that people who give feedback, and sometimes even those who rant and remonstrate and whine are/can be some of my best friends in making software.

It doesn't mean I'll do everything they say, but it's feedback that helps software to get better, to get how people want it, so armchair PHBs, annoying as heck they might be, are to be welcomed more than laughed at. OK, maybe laughed at a little bit, but they can't hear that.

Modifié par Gotholhorakh, 07 octobre 2011 - 07:43 .

[Paeyne]

Gotholhorakh wrote...

Paeyne wrote...
While I will be the first to say the DA2 seems lacking in many areas, the idea that it was rushed is kind of misleading.

...

In the end, the core of the issue is that many believe DA2 was not up to the quality we normally expect from Bioware.  Whether the reason for that lack is due to budgetary constraints, development time, manpower constraints, or creative decisions is irrelevant.  

As a consumer, It doesn't really matter to me why the product I purchased was not the quality I expected.

...

In a sense, I think speculation about underlying causes  is a sign of investment and interest for a lot of people - it's armchair football fans for RPG games.

It's probably annoying for BioWare, but not necessarily all that annoying. As a software developer myself, I think that people who give feedback, and sometimes even those who rant and remonstrate and whine are/can be some of my best friends in making software.

It doesn't mean I'll do everything they say, but it's feedback that helps software to get better, to get how people want it, so armchair PHBs, annoying as heck they might be, are to be welcomed more than laughed at. OK, maybe laughed at a little bit, but they can't hear that.

While feedback is excellent for any company, I find that speculating on the 'why' often distracts from the 'what'.

As an example, I personally believe there are a large number of plot holes in the overall story line of DA2.

There could be a number of reasons for this.  Perhaps this was an oversight of the writers.  Perhaps scenes that were written were cut due to time constraints.  Perhaps scenes were cut due to technical issues or manpower was diverted to things considered a higher priority.

In the end, does it really matter to us as a player why the plot holes are there, or should we be discussing what we feel the plot holes are and offering feedback on that issue.

If I just bought a new car and it has a terrible grinding noise whenever I drive it, I don't really care what is causing it.  Generally, I'm more interested in what the dealership is going to do to fix it and want assurances that it's not going to happen again.

Modifié par Paeyne, 07 octobre 2011 - 08:24 .

[Ariella]

Gotholhorakh wrote...

Ariella wrote...

Gotholhorakh wrote...

Ariella wrote...

Gotholhorakh wrote...

Firky wrote...
Sure, it's hack and slash if that's how you want to play it.

It's hack and slash if that's not how you want to play it, too.

Not really. The story isn't combat dependant. As was pointed out elsewhere if you stripped the story and character interactions out of DA2, you wouldn't have very much at all, where as strip out the story of Diablo there's minimal change. The combat may be tactically simple by your lights, but ithat doesn't make the game hack and slash.

My immediate response to that is that the story doesn't affect whether the combat is hack and slash.

You could add a twelve-part biopic of Irenicus in click-through dialogue, it's not relevant to what type of combat gameplay a game uses.

Whether you liked the combat or not, I think there weren't really any fights in the base game that might require involved planning or tactical play beyond what you might do to win at one of the Street Fighter games, were there?

So yes, the story isn't combat dependent, but neither is the combat gameplay style dependent on the story.

We've had this conversation before... Hack and slash is a very specific term in RPGs. it means the RPG is combat focused, not story focused.

I pointed out then that there are games that specifically designate themselves hack and slash. D&D Daggerdale was advertised that way, including on Xbox Live.

Just for an FYI: http://en.wikipedia..../Hack_and_Slash

Interestingly they list Demon's Soul as Hack and Slash....

...and in a pejorative sense (the sense in which it's being used) it describes a game with boring, repetitive, idiotic combat gameplay.

That article (for what wikipedia pages are worth) actually mentions the use of the term the way I/we just used it in the first paragraph. 

Thing is you're using it to describe the entire game as if combat is the end all be all, which it isn't.

Second, it'd a YMMV, and considering the fact that Bioware has TRIED to make it tactical with cross class combos etc, and not just hitting the A button repeatedly, I think your use of the perjoritive is tacky.

Modifié par Ariella, 07 octobre 2011 - 01:44 .

[Ariella]

ElitePinecone wrote...

Il Divo wrote...

Ariella wrote...

I've read them, both before and after, and I saw no attempt to pander to the masses. I saw a game designer excited about doing something new. I read every scrap of news I could get my hands on for DA2, because I wanted to know everything, including spoilers. So no, I wasn't blind to anything, it wasn't there in the first place.

I'm still reeling from the "pander to the masses" arguments. Do some people here honestly see themselves as being something special because they managed to play through a 50+ hour video game? There is nothing so difficult contained in Origins that the majority of gamers couldn't comprehend.

Not to mention that with four million or so lifetime Origins sales and half a million for Awakening, clearly there was already a huge established audience for a game of its calibre. 

Also, @Ariella: I think it's reasonable to accuse people of having unrealistic expectations about DA2, but these expectations were never refuted or downplayed by the game's marketing. Nothing I saw in anything prior to release - and I followed it reasonably closely - hinted at the reuse of environments or the paucity of locations, for example. It was only after the demo that I noticed questions emerging about the direction the game had taken. 

Actually a LOT of what Terror_K was complaining about: art style being a big example, the time jumps (which are part of any framed narrative), the voiced character, the fact it was Hawke the human, were made clear in every piece they put out. We were told that this wasn't going to be Origins, several times.

[Veex]

Il Divo wrote...

I'm still reeling from the "pander to the masses" arguments. Do some people here honestly see themselves as being something special because they managed to play through a 50+ hour video game? There is nothing so difficult contained in Origins that the majority of gamers couldn't comprehend.

They absolutely do. There is undoubtedly a segment of RPG gamers that believe that the genre is more complex than the general gaming audience can comprehend. It doesn't take much perusing of the BSN to see that mentality on display.

[TheRealJayDee]

ElitePinecone wrote...

If it had been done well, Hawke's story could've been magnificent - an intensely personal tale about one person changing the world of Thedas. Except that it wasn't done well. Inexplicable time jumps, narrative railroading, the absence of anything to motivate the protagonist beyond money or circumstance, and the game constantly telling us we're powerful when we have no influence - within Kirkwall or on the broader plot. Whatever Bioware were trying to do with the main plot of DA2 just didn't work. The characterisation and minor quests were excellent, though - as they've been in practically every Bioware game I can think of.  

I don't blame the team for wanting to do something different and exciting - two Archdemons stapled together and another mystical order of heroes probably wouldn't have been very innovative - but frankly I would've preferred a game with Bioware's traditional narrative any day. 

At least we'd get more environments (those four 'places to visit in a Bioware game' are all, at least, not Kirkwall), an antagonist and a reason for the hero to actually do anything. Trying to innovate shouldn't be discouraged, and it's certainly not malevolent, but I have to wonder what on earth the developers were thinking. 

This! So. Much. This.

[JakePT]

This is actually disappointing. I could've had much more sympathy if the terribly anti-consumer DLC practices* and DA2 rushing were edicts from up top, but BioWare making these decisions themselves is incredibly demoralising.

*No problem with paying for DLC down the road, but charging more for DLC on day 1 is utter BS. I don't care if it was started later, or not ready to get on disk. If it was ready on day 1, it's part of the game. ME2 was FAR better in this respect, but DA2 and ME3 are doing it the wrong way, big time.

Modifié par JakePT, 07 octobre 2011 - 04:16 .

[TRfore]

Bryy_Miller wrote...

TRfore wrote...

EA doesnt tell Bioware what to do?
Explain this then:
http://nexus404.com/...d-2012-bioware/
or this
http://www.joystiq.c...d-half-of-2009/

Games get delayed. How does this make EA the bad guy? I thought we hated them because they rushed their games. 

I thought the topic was:

"Apparently EA doesn't tell Bioware what to do"  Nothing about EA being the bad guy.  Learn to read.

[astreqwerty]

for some reason this the article makes things even worse...
it is actually a confession from the heads of bioware themselves that their skills are not what they used to be

Modifié par astreqwerty, 07 octobre 2011 - 05:11 .

[dheer]

Veex wrote...
There is undoubtedly a segment of RPG gamers that believe that the genre is more complex than the general gaming audience can comprehend. It doesn't take much perusing of the BSN to see that mentality on display.

I'll make it easy to find. I believe it. (Well I'd say the general gaming audience can / wants to comprehend.)

My dad loves to play submarine sim games. They're complex, have their own lingo, playstyles and more. They have a unique audience, they're not for the masses and many, many people find them really fun to play. The same is true of role playing games.

Modifié par dheer, 07 octobre 2011 - 06:14 .

[Yrkoon]

^same thing with the professional flight sims. They're way WAY too complicated to be considered entertainment for most gamers.

But I don't know if we can draw a similar conclusion to traditional RPGs. Did anyone here really think DA:O was 'too complex'?

[Heimdall]

dheer wrote...

Veex wrote...
There is undoubtedly a segment of RPG gamers that believe that the genre is more complex than the general gaming audience can comprehend. It doesn't take much perusing of the BSN to see that mentality on display.

I'll make it easy to find. I believe it. (Well I'd say the general gaming audience can / wants to comprehend.)

My dad loves to play submarine sim games. They're complex, have their own lingo, playstyles and more. They have a unique audience, they're not for the masses and many, many people find them really fun to play. The same is true of role playing games.

I think there's a matter of degree here though.  And frankly the term RPG is vague enough that a lot of things fit with varying levels of complexity in different features.  I think it's relatively safe to say the RPG audience is significantly larger than the submarine sim audience.  RPGs have a very wide audience, however, that audience is divided into sub-audiences that appreciate different facets of an RPG and tend to have their own definition of what makes a good RPG.  This is part of the difficulty in making one.

[dheer]

Yrkoon wrote...
^same thing with the professional flight sims. They're way WAY too complicated to be considered entertainment for most gamers.

But I don't know if we can draw a similar conclusion to traditional RPGs. Did anyone here really think DA:O was 'too complex'?

Well, sure, it's not that rpgs are overly difficult but the mass market or general gaming public have little interest in them, and that's ok. Trying to dilute rpg aspects of a game can help sell it to a wider audience but only to a point. When you go too far, many of your rpg fans are dissapointed or won't buy, so the added audience you get doesn't help the bottom line you as much as you wanted.

Lord Aesir wrote...
I think it's relatively safe to say the RPG audience is significantly larger than the submarine sim audience.  RPGs have a very wide audience, however, that audience is divided into sub-audiences that appreciate different facets of an RPG and tend to have their own definition of what makes a good RPG.

I'm not really trying to compare the size of each fanbase, just that they each have their own devotees and most of them aren't  mass market gamers. I agree that rpg fans are greater in number but some of them differing on what makes something good is not unique.

Modifié par dheer, 07 octobre 2011 - 09:32 .

[The Executioner]

RPG gamers make up a huge segment of the gaming community most of the AAA titles are RPG's of one kind or another. I don't buy into this myth that RPG's aren't mainstream. Skyrim will outsell most if not all the games of the last few years. If BioWare really did think the dumbing down of the RPG elements in favour of a more Mass Effect type game in DA2 would generate more sales they made a huge mistake,  and someone should have been fired for a such a poor decision. At the very least they should just admit there mistake and not repeat it in DA3.

Modifié par The Executioner, 07 octobre 2011 - 11:22 .

[Bryy_Miller]

astreqwerty wrote...
it is actually a confession from the heads of bioware themselves that their skills are not what they used to be 

How so?

[Terror_K]

Re: the CVG article where Laidlaw basically says how the series has gone from a PC-driven proper RPG into a console-oriented action game: www.computerandvideogames.com/259160/dragon-age-2-designed-for-console-players/

On top of that, the good doctors just keep illustrating that BioWare simply isn't learning at all:-

From www.psxextreme.com/ps3-news/9947.html

"The vision for us is a broadening of the genre. We see a lot of other genres incorporating features of RPGs and in turn RPGs are incorporating features of other genres. There are more action elements, there’s different ways to tell a story, there’s different ways to have characters interact for adventure games, action games, shooters, and that’s exciting to us.

It’s actually making a lot of other games more engaging in the same way we could make RPGs more engaging and successful … by incorporating features that are popular in different genres. But we want to bring our core fans along with us on that journey too, so it’s not always easy to get a balance that does both, but we’re striving to do that."

The very first comment on the article sums it up fairly well...

The Highlander wrote...

Super. So a genre that's already dying thanks to the dilution of it's genre specific elements is to be diluted further by these supposed RPG guardians? No thanks, count me out of that. Bioware wants to make action games with RPG elements. To me an RPG is like a really great, long book. One that you read, and re-read because there is so much depth that you need the second or third reading to capture everything in the writing. What Bioware is describing - IMHO - is the equivalent of taking on of those great, absorbing works of literature and adding elements from the pulp novels to 'liven' them up.

Given their last Dragon Age effort, and the partial RPG nature of their other games I just don't believe that they have the RPG at heart. If they think that they can continue to develop the genre by submerging the RPG elements under more layers of action or whatever from other genre, all they are doing is fooling themselves and anyone that goes along with them.

Not interested.

Modifié par Terror_K, 08 octobre 2011 - 02:59 .

[Bryy_Miller]

Terror_K wrote...

Re: the CVG article where Laidlaw basically says how the series has gone from a PC-driven proper RPG into a console-oriented action game: www.computerandvideogames.com/259160/dragon-age-2-designed-for-console-players/

On top of that, the good doctors just keep illustrating that BioWare simply isn't learning at all:-

From www.psxextreme.com/ps3-news/9947.html

"The vision for us is a broadening of the genre. We see a lot of other genres incorporating features of RPGs and in turn RPGs are incorporating features of other genres. There are more action elements, there’s different ways to tell a story, there’s different ways to have characters interact for adventure games, action games, shooters, and that’s exciting to us.

It’s actually making a lot of other games more engaging in the same way we could make RPGs more engaging and successful … by incorporating features that are popular in different genres. But we want to bring our core fans along with us on that journey too, so it’s not always easy to get a balance that does both, but we’re striving to do that."

I think you're confusing your Ideal BioWare with the Real BioWare.

It's a common thing that people often do.

BioWare has never hidden what they think of themselves as a company.

[Heimdall]

dheer@ That wasn't really my point.

Lots of RPG fans can't even come to an agreement on what constitutes an RPG. I know people that call Fable an RPG and others who call it an action/adventire game. It's a bit hard to appease all the fans of a genre when they don't agree on what that genre is.

[Terror_K]

Bryy_Miller wrote...

I think you're confusing your Ideal BioWare with the Real BioWare.

It's a common thing that people often do.

BioWare has never hidden what they think of themselves as a company.

No. I'm merely stating how BioWare has changed lately and I dislike the new direction they're taking. It's largely responsible for the way DA2 turned out, and despite claims from the devs that they've learned it's comments like this and saying that "DA3 will marry DAO and DA2 together" that just prove that they aren't learning and are still trying to have their cake and eat it too.

They admit that their changing their direction, one that myself and others I've seen were concerned about them going in more than two years ago now and they're basically just confirming our fears. They claim that they want to take their old, existing fans on the ride with them, but they just don't seem to realise at all that they're going down a path that many of their old fans don't want to go down. It's a path that's just too filled with factors many hardcore RPG fans won't like, and not enough that they do. For years now I've said, "BioWare are heading towards making the same story-driven, cinematic, generic brown action titles with light RPG elements that everybody else does, but are merely coming at it from the other side of things," and comments like that pretty much cement those concerns in stone.

Modifié par Terror_K, 08 octobre 2011 - 04:51 .

[Heimdall]

Terror_K@

Consider, moving from DA2 to something fusing DA2 and Origins would seem to be a movement towards the direction you want. Bioware does not view RPG features and features of other genres as incompatible.