134 réponses à ce sujet

[Pleasureslave]

First - That is absolutely irrelevant. Second - we all can base our judgements in the present if we already know the outcome and how someone acted in the past.

Modifié par Pleasureslave, 04 janvier 2012 - 08:43 .

[Zanallen]

Pleasureslave wrote...

First - That is absolutely irrelevant. Second - we all can base our judgements in the present if we already know the outcome and how someone acted in the past.

Except we don't need hindsight. What would the tactical advantage be of moving your armies to the south western most castle if your enemies have already reached the center of the country? Defending from a castle is great of course, but why that castle? The darkspawn were coming from the south and shooting straight up the middle of Ferelden. Why would you have your armies circle around the darkspawn to position themselves at Redcliffe?

But whatever, this is getting off topic.

On topic: There were things about DAO that were broken. DA2 attempted to fix those things and, as often with Bioware, continued to make changes that weren't necessary.

Modifié par Zanallen, 04 janvier 2012 - 08:55 .

[Pleasureslave]

even the company(EA)'s own CEO, John Riccitiello, acknowledged the lack of innovation seen in the industry generally, saying, "We're boring people to death and making games that are harder and harder to play. For the most part, the industry has been rinse-and-repeat. There's been lots of product that looked like last year's product, that looked a lot like the year before." EA has announced that it is turning its attention to creating new game IPs in order to stem this trend, with recently acquired and critically acclaimed studios BioWare and Pandemic would be contributing to this process.

I guess we know who to thank...

Modifié par Pleasureslave, 04 janvier 2012 - 05:28 .

[maxernst]

I basically agree with the OP. There's nothing wrong with making radically different games (as in Mass Effect being a significant departure for Bioware), but established franchises should try and preserve their core gameplay. Sure, the changes in DA2 may please some gamers, but by and large, the core audience of DA:O responded very positively to the original game, so it was a risky strategy to change it very much. And in fact, DA2 didn't sell as well as DA:O, and I suspect that was in large part due to poor word of mouth from its core fanbase. For those who say that DA2's problems are all due to the short time cycle, I don't agree. The development time for BG2 wasn't any longer. However, BG2 stuck much closer to the formula of the original game.

[Realmzmaster]

Pleasureslave wrote...

Speaking of urgency - After first Fallout, all fans pleaded Black Isle for one thing - to remove time limit.
Dead Rising my friend is a huge fan of zombies but he said that time limit killed that game with great potential.
Time limit could be thrilling for players but for others it could be a huge turnoff. When choosing between good thrill and turnoff - it is better to avoid turnoff, because it means leaving players. And thrills could be implemented in more "safe" ways.
Overall we are not in position to assume what darkspawn should or shouldn't do, how they should of shouldn't act - that like ridiculous agrues from starwars fanatics about how some characters from films should act "correctly".
DA:Origins was improvement because it dealt with many of BG's flaws. Permadeath? That was a relic of old hardcore gaming. But harmed gameplay with frequent saves and loads, as permadeath was way too random. Gameplay>>>>>>realism or devotion to the "roots" of RPG genre. Origins implemented injuries.
No reinforcements for enemies? Well enemies were tougher in Origins and not like zergling waves in DA2.

Also the sheer idiocy that the armies were to meet at Redcliffe when a central location or capital city was a better staging area.

That is your opinion. Based on...what? I suggest you reading Vegetius - upon whose writings medieval warfare was waged and especially part about castles. But that again this is specualations that have no relation no game, but to show how subjective your ideas are.
Origins did not followed rules of D&D or others - it created its own rules.

Really? The horde defeated the army at Ostagar and sacked Lothering which is in the center of the map. Why would the Arch Demon swing west to get a two bit village like Redcliffe when the capital city was there with only Loghain's army that is involved in a civil war. The perfect time to launch an attack. Giving that many times Loghain's army was out putting down the Bannorns. The darkspawn are not unintelligent. Also I have read Vegetius, which historians have disputed because Vegetius was neither a historian nor a soldier. The book was a compilation of other peoples materials over a vast time period.

Permadeath simply meant you met an enemy you could not defeat with your current setup and that you may have to change your tactics. Baldur's Gate (Bioware game) had permadeath. It only happened if the PC got caught in a situation the party could not defeat. Bioware did  create it's own rules for the IP but  it borrowed them from WOW, D & D (those others I mentioned)  and those jRPGs that some gamers look down on.

As I said before without innovation we would all still be playing Pong.

Modifié par Realmzmaster, 05 janvier 2012 - 12:47 .

[Plaguemaster]

I don't think hockey will be better if we'll add new rules to it.

[spagbolkid]

 For me DA2 was shocking form of 'innovation'. 
It completly changed everything that DA:O was before it, not just the combat, but also the story. DA:O had the prospect of making a great long running series, the Darkspawn and also the remainding of the Archdemons. 
They through all this out of the window for political intrigue. 
Also, in a game series a race of creatures, should stay the same, im pretty sure that the qunari in DA:O did not have horns.
I agree that CERTAIN aspects of DA2 should be kept such as the skill tree, the speech wheels, voice acting and the graphics/effect. 
But they need to take it back to its roots, the tactical gameplay was brilliant, it made you think, was difficult, but not punishingly so. The story was so deep and filled with history at times it was quite remarkable. 
Surely the idea of an innovation is to change something but still make it feel as though its the same series, DA2 felt at times like it wasnt even set in the same world. If it wasnt for the deep roads and the occasional Darkspawn battle it could have been called anything. 
And now i hear the BioWare want to merge the two aspects together so that it pleases old fans as well as new. 
Well im pretty sure BioWare that part of the sales of DA2 was long term fans hoping for a great sequal, and they were, on the whole sourly dissapointed, evident with the metascores from users. 
I for one, will NOT play DA3 unless they carry on with the Warden and Darkspawn story, AND unless they put back the old combat. 

Modifié par spagbolkid, 05 janvier 2012 - 03:19 .

[Meris]

spagbolkid wrote...

They through all this out of the window for political intrigue. 

Which was 80%* of DA:O.

*Random number equal or superior to 50%

Modifié par Meris, 05 janvier 2012 - 03:35 .

[Marionetten]

I'd love to see BioWare focus on adding more features to the vehicle rather than trying to reinvent the perfectly functional wheels.

[Murphy Nox]

spagbolkid wrote...

I agree that CERTAIN aspects of DA2 should be kept such as the skill tree, the speech wheels, voice acting and the graphics/effect.

The graphics? No way.

Dragon Age 2 had terrible graphics compared to the first, I don't even know why the game had DirectX 11. Witcher 2 was DX9 and it looked MILES, MILES better.

[Boiny Bunny]

If you bother to read any interviews with Mike Laidlaw, mostly prior to DA2 releasing, you'll find that he personally thought that many things in DA:O were broken - thus the 'fixing'...

[OdanUrr]

Okay, let's make this short. The "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" argument. For every example anyone can quote in support of this argument, someone will find a counter-example of how innovation benefited the game. As long as the core of the game remains, changes can be a welcome addition, but one should know two things beforehand: what needs to be changed and when it needs to be changed. To my mind, DA2 went too far on both counts.

One should always be careful when making absolute statements. If we were to take the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" argument as a rule, we wouldn't have a lot of things we now take for granted.

[maxernst]

Boiny Bunny wrote...

If you bother to read any interviews with Mike Laidlaw, mostly prior to DA2 releasing, you'll find that he personally thought that many things in DA:O were broken - thus the 'fixing'...

Which should have been my first clue that I was going to be unhappy. 

[Plaguemaster]

Why people think that if someone don't like reckless innovations that means they are against any innovation and against the very concept of innovation? Don't portrait some luddite-like ignorant man who wish to bash anything new because a guy who disregards previous experience and time-proven aspects are ignorant as well.

[Plaguemaster]

Here's some sad additions to the list:
Syndicate - Tactical classic gameplay discarded in favor of mainstream EA-style FPS to attract CoD crowd. Overhaul of story in favor of template stories - instead of playing AS syndicate you play against it. Result - total failure.
Civilization V - vastly simplified mechanics and gameplay and complete overhaul of combat system alienated majority of fans. The game is in decline and all staff transfered to work on new X-COM - that is, promoted to be exactly as original Ufo defence was with gerneral upgrades and tweaks without changing the core.

[Morroian]

Plaguemaster wrote...

Civilization V - vastly simplified mechanics and gameplay and complete overhaul of combat system alienated majority of fans. The game is in decline and all staff transfered to work on new X-COM - that is, promoted to be exactly as original Ufo defence was with gerneral upgrades and tweaks without changing the core.

Except it isn't, they're keeping the SPIRIT of Xcom but a lot of the mechanics are different apart from being turn based.

[Plaintiff]

Yeah, all I see is "old school" gaming elitists demanding that the industry stagnate itself in order to conform to their personal tastes, and at the expense of attracting new audiences.

"The point of this is not to forbid or prevent innovation, I'm just not going to list any examples I consider positive or acknowledge the portion of the audience that likes these changes, or acknowledge the fact that Deus Ex and Skyrim made significant changes to their gameplay".

Just because it's not broken doesn't mean you can't fix it.

[batlin]

Didn't you guys know? Rags-to-riches stories with a framed narrative and episodic acts are innovative, even though they've all been done before in practically every medium!

[Plaintiff]

batlin wrote...

Didn't you guys know? Rags-to-riches stories with a framed narrative and episodic acts are innovative, even though they've all been done before in practically every medium!

Examples?

[Plaguemaster]

Sure. Deus Ex, BioShock, Skyrim, Starcraft II, Dead Space 2, Portal 2 and Diablo 3 are a products of backward stagnated industry that can't, clearlly can't attract millions of customers. Foolish developers. They should learn from successful examples of Tiberian Twilight, Master of Orion 3, DA2 etc.

Modifié par Plaguemaster, 20 mars 2012 - 12:43 .

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

Plaintiff wrote...

batlin wrote...

Didn't you guys know? Rags-to-riches stories with a framed narrative and episodic acts are innovative, even though they've all been done before in practically every medium!

Examples?

Rosebud...

But I still am confused, stumped even at the notion that Dragon Age 2 was somehow innovative in the sense of presenting to a genre a new outlook on games. It uses BioWare's time and tested RTwP mechanics. It's levels are linear, repeated corridors. The combat presentation wasn't exactly unique (over the top or stylized action? wow never seen that before). The story and gameplay elements are a mish mash of techniques and elements used in other games that often do it better.

Dialog wheel -> Mass Effect
Personalized story? Well, barring BG 2, BioWare is probably the only RPG developer (aside from Bethesda) that does the whole "save the world from ancient evil" schtick. There are a stack of games that don't adhere to such a story. The Twitchers are an example.
Framed narrative -> Alpha Protocol sticks out as a good example.

And so on.

Now, that's not to say that Dragon Age 2 is unlikeable or any such nonsense. There are plenty of reasons why someone would enjoy the game. Whether one likes Dragon Age 2 or not is kind of irrelevant. But the accepted notion that it's somehow "innovative" for the genre or for games is probably the biggest fallacy in the entirety of the pro and anti Dragon Age 2 debate.

FWIW, I think that the "Origins" in DA:O is the most innovative aspect in the franchise. How many RPGs make a big deal out of choosing and playing your characters own backstory?

Modifié par CrustyBot, 20 mars 2012 - 12:58 .

[Plaintiff]

Plaguemaster wrote...

Sure. Deus Ex, BioShock, Skyrim, Starcraft II, Dead Space 2, Portal 2 and Diablo 3 are a products of backward stagnated industry that can't, clearlly can't attract millions of customers. Foolish developers.

No, those are games that could not exist in a stagnated industry. They would never have been made if OP got his way. Skyrim in particular made significant changes to the core gameplay from previous Elder Scrolls installments, and the justification given was that they wanted to "streamline" the experience for the sake of making it more accessible to new players. So thanks for making my point for me

Change is always good. If you don't want mistakes, then you can't have progress. You can't have your stale cake and eat a fresh one too.

[Plaintiff]

CrustyBot wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

batlin wrote...

Didn't you guys know? Rags-to-riches stories with a framed narrative and episodic acts are innovative, even though they've all been done before in practically every medium!

Examples?

Rosebud...

One example (albeit a very famous one) doesn't exactly justify batlin's outrageous hyperbole. Nevermind the fact that Citizen Kane is an extremely different story from DA2, which just proves that the same basic ingredients can have literally infinite variations.

I, personally, have never seen a story that combines all the elements of Dragon Age 2. There may well be one, but I doubt it has an equal in the videogame medium. I don't think anyone can reasonably deny that DA2 departs significantly from the commonly accepted formula for high fantasy videogames, if not high fantasy stories in general.

Whether or not you like those changes is, of course, a completely different issue.

[Plaguemaster]

Yet those game exist and thrive, while made without tremendous reckless "innovation drives".
Skyrim improved and tweaked what Bethesda and Elder Scrolls franchise already had. No radical innovations were made. No combat system, dialogue, travel, magic or other aspects overhaul. Player advancement was improved and perks added.
Well, unless you coincider new graphics as a tremendous and significant innovation.
Also, changes for the sake of changes lead to Dragon Ages 2. And good luck adding cabbage and salt to chocolate cakes. That's a huuuuge innovation!

Modifié par Plaguemaster, 20 mars 2012 - 01:05 .

[Plaintiff]

Plaguemaster wrote...
Skyrim improved and tweaked what Bethesda and Elder Scrolls franchise already had. No radical innovations were made.

Except the entire levelling mechanic and the addition of Dragon Shouts, just off the top of my head. And oh yes, the entire UI. Most notably the the hot key system which is now totally ****.

No combat system, dialogue, travel, magic or other aspects overhaul.

None of these aspects were overhauled in DA2 either. The changes made were paltry at best.

Player advancement was improved and perks added.

I love how you try to downplay just how different the levelling experience is in Oblivion. It's okay to love the changes Skyrim made, dude, but you don't get to warp the evidence to suit your stance.

Well, unless you coincider new graphics as a tremendous and significant innovation.

Skyrim's aesthetic changes go well beyond a mere graphics update. The races underwent significant re-design. Just like DA2's elves and Qunari.

Modifié par Plaintiff, 20 mars 2012 - 01:14 .