360 réponses à ce sujet

[Uccio]

R0vena wrote...

Ukki wrote...

R0vena wrote...

Phaedros,
not on the big scale, no. But he can control a lot of other personal things - who do be friends with, whom to save in some quests, whom to romance and how to build relationships with others.
I understand that for some it is not enough, but it is still different from statement that Hawke has no control - over anything, whatsoever. He does. Not over some key events, no, but in a lot of other aspects. They may not matter on the grand scale of history in compare to the Warden's decisions, but I don't think they are any less important in building the character of Hawke and his personal journey to become the Champion.

I try hard to think something Hawke has control over, even small one, nope. There is nothing. What things are you talking about?

Let certain comrade live or die? Let certain somniari live or die? Let certain family member reunite with her father or not? Let other comrade get her dream man or not?

So minor issues that have practically no affect on the storyline whatsoever. Kind of side quests on their own. But if you will you can say you have "control" over them. I wouldn´t.

Modifié par Ukki, 13 novembre 2011 - 08:51 .

[Savber100]

Stanley Woo wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Yes!

DAO is a terrific game.  It's not a perfect game, but it's still a wonderful RPG experience.

Man, it's so weird to see you praising a BioWare game unreservedly and without further commentary!

Not going to lie... I loled when I read this. 

[csfteeeer]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Cyberstrike nTo wrote...

xCirdanx wrote...

Well, i do think you are a bit exaggerating but i agree with you The Bhaalspawn series is done for me and it was great. However i wouldn´t mind a new RPG in the Forgotten Realms setting, as long as it is well done. I think this IP has just so much potential when it comes to story telling.

I always perfered Dragonlance over Forgotten Realms.

Noobs.  Greyhawk is still the best.

Nuh-uh

Dragonlance > All

[element eater]

10 years on and baldurs gate is still installed and played on my pc great game deserving of the top spot

although there does seem to be some silly ones on the list

[Dianjabla]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Noobs.  Greyhawk is still the best.

Indeed. Playing a 1st Ed campaign through it now.

Edit: Wait, I forgot Planescape.

Modifié par Dianjabla, 14 novembre 2011 - 06:42 .

[Robtachi]

I just played through the entire BG series including expansions (and the Icewind Dale series to be extra thorough), and I still believe that these games are fantastically immersive RPG experiences that are completely without equal.

And after 10 years, I have sort of come to accept that with the way the video game industry has evolved to more closely resemble the film industry, we will never see an RPG series like it again, no matter how hard Bioware and others may try.




...was that an inadvertent open challenge to the DA dev team?

...maybe. 

Modifié par Robtachi, 14 novembre 2011 - 07:07 .

[Sirsmirkalot]

I find it hard calling it nostalgia when I'm playing the games right now and enjoying myself right now.

[Pedrak]

Yeah, with the great classics it's not nostalgia - it's that they can stand the test of time. I played Torment about 7 years after its release and I was spellbound.

[Nighteye2]

Pedrak wrote...
Yeah, with the great classics it's not nostalgia - it's that they can stand the test of time. I played Torment about 7 years after its release and I was spellbound.

Yes, not everything needs to be changed in the name of 'progress' or 'advancement of technology'. Developers sometimes seem to forget that.

[devilspep]

Probably my favorite RPG series of all-time and what made me a fan of Bioware

[TheRealJayDee]

According to some people on here you are already nostalgic beyond measure if you wanted more of DA:O in it's sequel...

[LTD]

Recreating Baldur's Gate would be awesome! 

3rd person gets tiresome after a while. Spell system that would be right at home in any MMO gets tiresome after a while. Looking at talking heads and trying to pretend you have proper amount of control with what they say gets tiresome after a while. Bring in birds eye, awesome spell system of BG II and beautiful zones that resemble paintings rather than stale WoW clones!

Modifié par LTD, 15 novembre 2011 - 03:26 .

[Dianjabla]

LTD wrote...

Recreating Baldur's Gate would be awesome! 

3rd person gets tiresome after a while. Spell system that would be right at home in any MMO gets tiresome after a while. Looking at talking heads and trying to pretend you have proper amount of control with what they say gets tiresome after a while. Bring in birds eye, awesome spell system of BG II and beautiful zones that resemble paintings rather than stale WoW clones!

Maybe. Never going to happen, but an update with improved graphics would be interesting. The artwork for ToEE was awesome, but the 3rd Ed rule set and it's implementation kinda sucked a bit of the joy out of it. I think it would have played better with the Infinity engine.

But in the interests of actually managing to make a somewhat meaningful contribution to a thread before it's closed for going off topic...

Pedrak wrote...

Yeah, with the great classics it's not nostalgia - it's that they can stand the test of time. I played Torment about 7 years after its release and I was spellbound.

Planescape Torment & Baldur's Gate were my introduction to games on a PC. It made me get a PC to play them on.  So I bought it, then BG2 & all the expansions, the Icewind Dale series and all the Never Winter Nights series. I've played the whole saga from BG1 to ToB repeatedly over the years and have just uninstalled it just so I can actually play all the way through the back log of newer games I have.

In some ways I feel PST is a little better than BG, but I've never managed to finish it. It's something of my Eleanor - every time I've started playing, the hardware in my PC fries and forces a complete rebuild. Then I usualy have a few shiny new games to play on the all new hardware, but always end up going back to BG & PST.

Stanley Woo wrote...

Cool, people are clarifying and getting more specific on the kinds of things they want to see in a BioWare game. It seems I had misinterpreted what people were asking for.

So... people aren't asking us to recreate Baldur's Gate. They want us to create a game that will give them a similar experience of epic-ness, immersion, and sense of value as the BG series? Kind of like what we did with DAO? Is that correct?

Correct, sir.

But if it's specifics you're after of what makes the game a favourite and so replayable, well that's harder to pin down, and probably differs a little for every one. So I'll just try answer for me.

(Ok, just realised I've played BG1 in BG2 engine using the BGT mod so much, I can only speak of the BG2/ToB engine. I'll refer to it collectively as BG)

The world was detailed & immersive. I spent hours reading the books in some nobles' library rather than actually going about robbing him. Hell, I've read them all & I still stop every now & then in a play-through to read some more. DA had this as well to an extent. Almost every item in BG had some interesting (and useful) description & backstory.

The journal in BG read like a journal and you could organise it to be useful. Almost all the detail of the quest - what you were doing where you were going who sent you & why was all there.  I loved DA, but I have to admit finding out what you wanted to know could get trying. The codex divided into numbers was meaningless. DA2's solution to this complaint seemed to be remove all detail so you had no idea what you were doing or why.

Although it's aged now, the GUI in the BG series - IWD as well - had a lot to do with that sense of immersion. It fit the theme - to me, the DAII GUI felt like it would have set better in a scifi setting. Don't get me wrong - BG GUI probably has all sorts of clunkiness about it that I don't notice due to familiarity, but it's more the little details that get you.

Yes, I know GUIs have to get simplified (for want of a better term) so that consoles can play them - I don't begrudge more people getting to play the games I love. And that there was a feeling that DA didn't have it's own distinctive feel, that it was too generic fantasy so bioware had to give it one. Fair enough.

I. Don't. Care.

Kirkwall was bland - by design, apparently, and so was the GUI. It put me off. Nit picking, but straws & camels backs and I digress.

The characters have always been a Bioware strength. The NPCs you could take in the party most of all, Jaheira is always my favourite. The fact that NPCs could elect to leave or even turn on you (not just for one action but for you actions over a period of time) or each other. I'm looking at you ME2 - where's the cat fight that led to you shooting one of them? (Would have been Jack). But even random one off quest givers seemed to have some story & personality. Villains that got under your skin, even minor ones. Sarevok was a D-bag, but Irenicus... his fate is the one movie I never skip.

In BG1 I enjoyed the way I could just wander off into the wilderness and find something interesting to do. It wasn't by any means a sandbox like TES or FO3 (which I never end up finishing), but there was more to do than say, DA, which was plot specific areas or it doesn't seem to exist. Even BG2 started to cut this down.

Someone once remarked of the BG series "I loved that game, you really felt like a god by the end of it." That's a much harder thing to define about it. By the end the battles turned into a bit of a slog with forethought required. Even on normal you still had to think for many battles - you couldn't just rush in and slaughter everything. So in addition to the large amount of time spent on getting through the whole saga with one character, you ended with a sense of achievment - that you'd overcome everything before you and could take anything that came. But not just that. You felt like what you'd done made a difference. You got that a lot with DAO & the warden.

You didn't really get that all that often with Hawke. Sure, you could butcher anything that tried to kill you - but quite often even that didn't change anything much. You got situations like this in the BG series too - Saradush, the General in the Oasis. But not all the frigging time. I've read the post on why you should give DA2 a second chance and quite a lot of the articles linked in it. I get it. Think of DA2 as more of a greek tragedy, more of the story of the lives of one schmuck and the people closest to them and how bad things happened to and around them and they couldn't stop it. Bold move, Bioware. The realisation certainly dampened my distaste for the game. If the game play had been better suited to that kind of tale (or just better) I might have enjoyed it.

But, maybe you should have had your marketing guys play the game before they started to pump up the hype for it, because that's not the game I thought I'd bought. DAO was a classic nobody to unstoppable super hero saves the day tale. Kinda like BG series. You felt like, just maybe, you could make a go of being the father of a god-child by the end of it. DA2 was hyped as rise to power etc, yet you ended up feeling more like a you'd just spent the time working a really bad day in a call centre making old ladies cry so you could just go home and pay rent. Maybe if it had been marketed differently - as a tragedy and not a hero romp like it's predecessor, it might not have left as bitter a taste in my mouth.

Ok, going off topic and into tired rambling. I'll end this here and post more if I think of it while more lucid.

[maxernst]

Game companies are interested in making profit, not art. The best games as viewed by developers are not necessarily going to be the most profitable ones, any more than the films that win best picture at the Academy Awards are the most profitable ones. And it's worth mentioning that the ME series wound up 5th on the same poll, the highest of any contemporary game.

I will agree that it's a questionable strategy to follow up a highly successful game with a sequel that takes in a radically different direction, but the fact that developers think BG was the greatest game ever doesn't mean that game developers should necessarily try to emulate it, any more than film makers should emulate Citizen Kane or playwrights Hamlet.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Dianjabla wrote...

(Ok, just realised I've played BG1 in BG2 engine using the BGT mod so much, I can only speak of the BG2/ToB engine. I'll refer to it collectively as BG)

While this is true for many people who came to BG later (particularly since BG2 runs a lot better on newer operating systems), I've long held that BG's content is best experienced within BG's engine and interface.  It just works better as a game.

I also think that BG is the superior game, but that's neither here nor there.

[Bryy_Miller]

Joy Divison wrote...

The same reason the music industry continuously gives us here-today-gone-tomorrow pop stars even though there was The Beatles.

I honestly couldn't give a better example than this right here.

Sure, there were milestones; sure, people get inspiration from great games. But to confuse relevancy with the current state of things is foolish.

[Dianjabla]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Dianjabla wrote...

(Ok, just realised I've played BG1 in BG2 engine using the BGT mod so much, I can only speak of the BG2/ToB engine. I'll refer to it collectively as BG)

While this is true for many people who came to BG later (particularly since BG2 runs a lot better on newer operating systems), I've long held that BG's content is best experienced within BG's engine and interface.  It just works better as a game.

I also think that BG is the superior game, but that's neither here nor there.

Hmmn. Never though of it like that. I've played the original BG1 and I realised I can't have come to the game too late as I bought BG2 & ToB when they were released. I even had the old A4 sized boxes BG1 & TotSC came in (until they were crushed a few moves ago). I just liked the idea of getting higher screen res for the BG1 game and not having to export & import between games. Hence I stick with BGT.

So, I'm curious, what in particular do you think makes it a better experience?

[Pious_Augustus]

Stanley Woo wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Yes!

DAO is a terrific game.  It's not a perfect game, but it's still a wonderful RPG experience.

Man, it's so weird to see you praising a BioWare game unreservedly and without further commentary!

Sometimes a game is just that good that it needs no more explanation. You're trying so hard though to defend the company you work for and there is a lot of good things to defend.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Dianjabla wrote...

So, I'm curious, what in particular do you think makes it a better experience?

It has to do with the game's content being designed around the game's mechanics.  For example, the walking speed in BG2 is significantly faster than in BG, so the closing speed of enemies is higher.  This changes combat tactics a great deal.

Similarly, the weapon proficiencies in BG were broader and less specific than BG2's system.  This gave each character more flexibility in choosing a weapon.  As a consequence, it was less important that each different type of weapon be available as valuable loot throughout the game.  In BG2, you could take proficiency in Bastard Sword, and the game actually contained useful magic Bastard Swords.  But BG doesn't.  I think the best Bastard Sword in BG is a Bastard Sword +1.  If your character has specialised in Bastard Sword, then the game fails him.  But BG's mechanics don't let him specialise in Bastard Sword.  The broader category is Long Blades, which allows him to use Long Swords and Two-Handed Swords, as well, of which there is a wider variety available within the game.

The one benefit of playing BG using the BG2 ruleset is that BG contained a fairly large error in the implementation of a low level Cleric Spell.  Command isn't supposed to allow a saving throw, but in BG it does.  In BG2 it doesn't (though it's a less useful spell at high levels), so playing BG within BG2's mechanics fixes that for you.

Overall, BG's encounters and loot are simply designed to work within BG's rules.  Changing those rules can sometimes unbalance the game.

[bEVEsthda]

One thing In liked much better in BG than BG2 was the sense of journeying, which is kinda weak in BG2 (and has then gone much nonexistant in later Bioware games).  I often wish Bioware would find a way to get that feeling back into their games. There is the Deep Roads, ofc.

[Dianjabla]

bEVEsthda wrote...

One thing In liked much better in BG than BG2 was the sense of journeying, which is kinda weak in BG2 (and has then gone much nonexistant in later Bioware games).  I often wish Bioware would find a way to get that feeling back into their games. There is the Deep Roads, ofc.

Yeah. Like I said above, I enjoyed just wandering off randomly into the wilderness & finding things to do. It wasn't a huge open sandbox like TES or FO3, but it gave enough extra content to give a sense of a complete world, with it's own plots & happenings - none of which HAD to pertain directly to you and your problems. ME seemed to gain a bit of that back with lots of random worlds to go to. Sometimes with a plot reference from another of the main plot worlds, sometimes you just ended up going to them first before finding the hook.

[Sylvius the Mad]

BG's openness worked very well, I think, in combination with the main plot, which wasn't revealed to the player until quite late in the game. You don't have any reason to believe that the iron shortage has anything to do with the ambush outside Candlekeep, or whether the increased bandit activity is at all realted to the Bassilus or Brage quests. So when you do wander off into the wilderness for whatever reason (personally, I was just trying to get off the road to avoid another ambush), every quest you encounter could potentially have something to do with why you got attacked as soon as you left home. For all you know, Droth the Ogre Mage was behind it, or maybe that guy who got turned into a chicken. Maybe there are important details about the attack in the Gnoll Stronghold. You just don't know, and that's why BG's openness was so awesome.

[jussyr]

I realise this is a large number of pages back by now and a billion people have probably already addressed all this, but oh well.

Stanley Woo wrote...

2. Nostalgia is unrealiable as a gauge of what people like. You look at BG and BG2 and you "remember" how good they were. Well, those feelings and that game experience is based on your experiences up to that point, based on who you were at the time, and based on what other experiences were available. At the time, BG and BG2 were some of the most epic stories and game experiences around. Today, everyone who played, remembered and loved BG have played 10 years' worth of other games, have experienced 10 years' worth of life and gaming experiences, and the further away they get from their BG days, the more they'll remember only the good feelings and ignore the intervening time. Look at the Transformers cartoon. I loved the show as a kid, but when I watched it on DVD, I was screaming obscenities at the hackneyed stories and overly simplistic character motivations!

This would be a valid point if not for the fact that people aren't simply remembering; they're still playing BGI/II, still writing new mods, still writing the entire game as a mod for the DAO engine.  Personally, I first played the BGs round about 2004, and I still pick BGII up again every few months or so for another run.  It's *still* the best game I've ever played, and by this point I could give you a fairly detailed list of what makes it so; you look at the other games, more recent, more advanced, "prettier" games I enjoy which are coming out now, and nine times out of ten, if there's some element of it which I really enjoy, or I think should have been there... guess what, BGII had it.  And after I've played through the newer game a few times, I'm going to go back to BGII, to Planescape, to NWN:HotU, because they were simply better done, on the whole.

4. Game developers have to keep trying new things in order to succeed, keep attracting new players, and keeping up with new technologies and trends. As much as people will scream for experiences like BG or DAO even today, making games that are carbon copies of previous games isn't seen as very creative. Look at the negative perception that EA Sports games have. Even in this community, those games are seen as "cheap cash grabs," games that can't or won't innovate because they come out annually. the implication here is that people want something new, not just something rehashed from last year. So why, then, do RPG players seem to want the exact same thing that came out not last year, but ten years ago?

How in the world do you get from "experiences like BG or DAO" to "carbon copies of previous games"?

Nobody wants the exact same thing in the sense that we want a game with the same basic plot and characters, reskinned and renamed.  And I certainly have nothing against innovation; my issue is when this innovation makes the game no longer an RPG in any meaningful sense, or when innovating is *all* you're doing.  I don't think it's at all unrealistic to expect Bioware to pay attention to what people say they love and miss about their old games and include that in the new ones, rather than messing with what works in the name of keeping up with trends and technologies.  I don't think it's unrealistic to expect an RPG to allow me to make choices that feel meaningful and have actual consequences, to feel connected to my character rather than having them decide for me what they're going to do and say.  And I don't think it's unreasonable to expect to be able to fire up something labelled RPG and get an RPG rather than an action-adventure game.


I absolutely love the Dragon Age setting.  DA:O, while not without its flaws, was a good, solid RPG, with an engaging plot and interesting NPCs, that introduced a fascinating world and gave me a large variety of options for defining who my character was; also, it did not for one single second take control of that character away from me, or leave me guessing as to whether making some choice would be so out of character that I'd need to reload.  Probably most importantly, and where I feel DA2 fell down the most, as a result of all that my characters felt *real* to me, felt like they were *mine*.  I remember them, I remember their names and motivations and personal backstories, I know how they'd react to just about any situation, and I felt they, like *I*, was truly an integral part of the story.

Then we got DA2.  And don't get me wrong here... I love DA2 as well!  The framing device was awesome, the NPCs were brilliantly and subtly done, the combat was straight-up fun, if deeply flawed, and if I were reviewing it as a game in itself, I'd be giving it maybe 8.5/10 or so.  But... you're *Bioware*.  I know what you're capable of, especially when you're following on the heels of DA:O.  To go from that, from something that seemed like a strong move in the right direction (i.e., back towards what *worked* in the relevant areas) to something where I'm watching one of *your* predefined characters go through the game is not a good thing, and felt like a slap in the face.  Especially as half the time they may as well not have been there, for all the impact they had on events and for how much the NPCs around them noticed and reacted to pertinent facts about them.  I expected better from you.


You've heard all this before, I know, and have said you're taking criticisms on board for the future.  So I'll just finish up by saying that if success is what you're concerned about... maybe the way to go about it isn't to say that it doesn't make sense that we want the same sort of thing as came out ten years ago and consequently ignore us, but to actually give us what we want and will pay for, even if you think it's counterintuitive?  Stop worrying about keeping up with x, y, and z, stop worrying about being "seen as creative," and just make RPGs.  You're good at that, you *are* inherently creative, and that'll shine through without you even having to try.  Attempting to grab non-RPG players by turning your so-called RPGs into something else entirely pleases nobody.



tl;dr don't innovate so much it's not an RPG anymore

[jussyr]

Look at that, I was completely right; everyone else has already hit all my points and the discussion's moved on

Stanley Woo wrote...

Cool, people are clarifying and getting more specific on the kinds of things they want to see in a BioWare game. It seems I had misinterpreted what people were asking for.

So... people aren't asking us to recreate Baldur's Gate. They want us to create a game that will give them a similar experience of epic-ness, immersion, and sense of value as the BG series? Kind of like what we did with DAO? Is that correct?

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.



eta: but if you wanted to recreate BG while you were at it, I wouldn't complain