197 réponses à ce sujet

[Mann42]

This is a new and interesting topic that has never been discussed in the game industry before.

Game completion rates generally stand around 50% or lower. This is a standard 'big budget' trend. While companies would love to find ways to make you finish the games they make, there are plenty of people that will try it out (rentals, friend's house) and never continue, or people that buy it and dislike it. It's expected that not everyone will like your game, what with subjective opinion, free will and what not.  

There is also a large group of people that buy games, play them for a while, and never finish them due to time, family, or even a different new game that came out in the same sales cycle. Many of those people will still feel like they got their money's worth, even though they've never finished the game. Some people prioritize the rest of their life over their games, no matter how good they are.

http://edition.cnn.c...snow/index.html 
They use Raptr as a reference, but Red Dead Redemption apparently had a 10% completion rate on there.

http://www.neogaf.co...ad.php?t=417358 
An old NeoGAF thread studying game completion rates on Raptr

http://www.giantbomb...tistics/484783/ 
An interesting Giant Bomb thread where they datamine some achievements to see how many players got the 'final level' achievement.

http://www.gamasutra...g_feedback_.php 
This is an analysis of the problem, along with developer pontification on player retention through feedback and clear goal setting, over at Gamasutra... as far back as 2009.

Anyway, this has been talked to death elsewhere on the internet and by game developers, and isn't Mass Effect specific.

Modifié par nexworks, 11 février 2012 - 04:03 .

[metaloman]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

JeffZero wrote...

No.

Actually,
I disagree. In fact, I'd go as far as to say Bioware RPGs like Mass
Effect could become significantly better if they shortened the games.

Why? Because
if they shorten the linear story, they could use those resources into
creating viable alternate paths or scenarios, a great way to improve
Bioware's weakness for Consequences to their Choices. While it'd be
great to simply have more of everything, we need to remember
restrictions... and then consider the advantages of trade-offs.



Think
of it like this. One of the reasons that Bioware RPGs like Mass Effect
have only superficial differences between alignments is because creating
true divergences is, or can be, quite hard and costly. Entirely
different levels or missions cost as much as your 'base' game missions
or levels, and a full-length Bioware game is already quite long.
Extensive duplication of a long game easily adds up.

For the
purpose of a metaphor, imagine that the length of a game experience is a
string, metaphorically used to tie the product together. A long game
needs a long string to tie a big product. Big products require most of
that string. The leftover string isn't enough to tie around again.

But
imagine if cut off some of that 'product', and so had more string to
tie with? Even if not a full wrap, imagine if you could cut around a
corner and reach the original path from a new direction... ie, a
divergance? The 'package' may be smaller in sum total, but you now have
more string-path to follow. You can go path A, which is shorter than a
full game, but adding path B for a new direction?




The
metaphor is getting hard to handle, so let me make an example out of
ME2. Imagine if Jack was removed from the squad in the development
phase.

Maybe she and Miranda are combined into a single character
concept. Maybe Jack is a character in Miranda's loyalty mission. Maybe
she never exists. But the point is, you can free out all the resources
sunk into Jack: two missions, one of the more extensive character
designs, and all that voice-actor pay.

That's a pretty hefty sum
of resources and time freed up. Now imagine if we used that two-levels
worth of characterization to not only polish some other characters, but
to create an alternate Lazarus scenario, dependent on whether you did
the Cerberus missions in ME1 or not.



Lazarus Scenario A,
in which Shepard has no history with Cerberus (did not do the Cerberus
missions in ME1), begins with a friendlier first impression of Cerberus.
Shepard wakes up on Lazarus as mechs attack, and Miranda and Jacob help
Shepard through the chaos to safety. In the course of the mission,
Shepard and Jacob go through the more benevolent side of Lazarus: stuff
revealing how the human medical advancements within in cybernetics and
surgery are being filtered through Cerberus groups to raise the Human
standard of living. In the Lazarus mission, Shepard is written as
ignorant about Cerberus, and while questions remain there's none of that
'I'll NEVER work for Cerberus!' dialogue.

Cerberus is a quasi-benevolent blank slate group that just helped save you, and you learn to distrust them later.


Lazarus
Scenario B, however, plays up animosity from ME1. If you did do the
Cerberus missions in ME1, Shepard wakes up in Lazarus... to Wilson
urging him to flee, not Miranda. And rather than fight through mechs,
Commander Shepard starts fighting Cerberus scientists and security, who
are trying to sedate Shepard (shooting pistols with 'sedatives', not
bullets). Wilson 'fills in' Shepard about being a Cerberus test subject,
urges Shepard to break out and kill people, and while claiming to be
helping Shepard escape Cerberus leads Shepard into triggering the
mechs... who then also start targetting Shepard as well. The mission
gameplay seams back into Scenario A's, bar different context (Wilson
guides Shepard through sections where experiments and trials were
conducted on other test subjects, who didn't survive: the ugly side of
the medical research), while Jacob and Miranda are re-represented as
trying to get a handle on the situation and stop Wilson's attempts to
have Shepard die/fight against Cerberus. Eventually the situation is
resolved, and even though Shepard just destroyed the very Cerberus
project that saved him, Cerberus continues to want to work with him.

Cerberus
starts off as a negative group, and first impressions weren't exactly
good on either side, but Cerberus pragmatism leads to an interesting
view as they're willing to overlook the affair to save the colonies. Now
Shepard isn't the only member of the partnership with a grievance
against the other.



One mission, with many of the same
elements (same environments, characters, development/creation tools),
now cast in two very distinctive ways depending on Choices. Each choise
is illustrative in its own way: the 'bad history' route demonstrates
Cerberus pragmatism, the ugly side of failed medical experiments, but
also how the results succeded in saving Shepard. The 'blank slate' route
shows a better side of Cerberus, one that makes a positive difference
in the lives of millions, potentially billions of Humans. And to get the
full perspective, you need to play both versions... meaning a basis for
added replayability and more involved roleplaying.


Might
that not be worth trimming an already over-sized cast? This re-writing
of a mission wouldn't even require all of the resources for Jack's
character either: those other resources could go elsewhere as well,
whether touching up other characters or being invested in more
Consequences elsewhere.

Imagine if there were ME1-style origin
side quests/cameos, continuing the ME1 ones: Earthborn Shepard meets the
10th Street Reds on Omega, who reflect what you did with the Earther
quest in ME1. If you helped them, you get one hub-world mission in one
way. If you didn't, you get offered a slightly different hum-world
mission as a 'second chance.'

Or Spacers could see Lieutenant
Zabaleta again, on Omega. If you helped him overcome his PTSD, he's in
the Terminus trying to help victims of the Collector Abductions. If you
didn't, he's become a bum.

These are minor things individually,
but get crowded out by the big things like major character content. If
you removed some of the companions, you'd have more time and resources
for the little things that make RPGs a fun experience, ie the
differentiation and after-effects.




Obviously, this
isn't a perfect example. The Cerberus missions aren't the best variables
to use in a carryover consideration. Lazarus might not be the best
candidate for a reversal, even if it is easy to explain. It could just
as well be, oh, the Javeline Mission N7 mission if you completed Bring
Down the Sky: the mission could reflect BDtS, and if you let Balak go
you find yourself unable to shut down either of the missiles
attacking the colony. Or the hostile mechs factory side-quest chain: tie
in the Citadel AI if you didn't do that sidequest.


But the
point is, if we reduce what we think of as the 'core game', we can
expand the RPG into something more reflective and adaptive. You can
easily still have a complete and satisfying game on a single, somewhat
shorter route: ME2 is absolutely a complete and effective game whether
you recruit every companion or not. (IE, the DLC companions.)

While obviously more companions add more, focusing on that is the problem to be overcome. If we create a situation in which we don't
aim for maximum length of a 'base' route, be that a shorter story or
less fat, we can use those same resources to create consequences and
variations to improve what we do have.


In ME1, a few less empty worlds could have expanded the worlds we did have.
In ME2, trimming down the Dirty Dozen could have allowed more consequences.
In DA2, fewer 'optional' missions could have allowed more variations/consequences for the missions that remained.


There
is very much to be said about length, but that's also true about aiming
for variation and replayability. The longer you get, the harder it is
to invest in Consequences to all those Choices. By aiming closer, you
can at the same time become more broad.

Dean_the_Young wrote...
Different RPGs have different design philosophies. Deus Ex had plenty of
lore to be found, for example, but it's RPG focus was on character
customization (priority of upgrades) and different routes to success,
but a linear story. Bethsada, however, tends to go with a far broader,
less story-driven experience: Skyrim and Fallout don't succede on the
weight of their story missions, but the sheer expanse and dispersion of
'irrelevant' sidequests that build the world via interaction. Because
the story is minimal, it's easier to make significant variations to it.

Bioware
RPGs are heavily story and character driven, but this comes at a cost
of being hard to implement Big Consequences at anything past a
superficial or post-game level.

You, sir, raise some valid points.
ME and Fallout are indeed two very different examples of the same thing (RPG's). I love Fallout and it's giant' fascinating go-anywhere-do-anything world and tons of lore and big consequences system (especially the Karma mechanic), but I did always want more charachter development in Fallout, all the way back to the first one. I suppose that's why I love ME and don't think it's to long - I love deep, well developed characters (not only in games).
But if it would result in a more developed game world I suppose I would be willing to part with a few hours of overall gameplay and a few side-missions, especially ME1 style "drop in MAKO-drive here drive there-collect this and that-fight a few bad guys/theresher maw", maybe even a couple of main-quest missions. "Padding", as you so aptly put it. And I would still be left wanting more. For me it's never really about a minimum of hours I want a game to be - if it's a good game, or a great game, I want more of it. Or in the very least I want to reach a conclusion I am pleased with.
I would love to play a game that's at least as long as ME and has great charachters and lots of customization and has big, interesting consequences to my actions and more reactions, positive or negative, from the game's world and a non-linear plot with multiple branches going off in all directions. Kind of like real life but with quick-save.
I reallise, however, that at least for now such a game would require resources too tremendous for any one company to be willing to risk - in terms of budget, time and personnel required. So for now I'll leave that idea for day-dreaming.

Modifié par metaloman, 11 février 2012 - 04:10 .

[tetrisblock4x1]

There is a game fitting that description and it is called Fallout 2. Also, Planescape: Torment. Alpha Protocol is just as good at the choice thing, and it's a very short game which is a good thing considering APs level of replayability.

Metaloman: Useless comments like your first two deserve nothing but ad-hominem response. I had a theory as to why the completion percentage is what it is, but of course any data regarding the reasoning isn't going to help much. All anyone can do is to guess and speculate, because even the developers with all of their stat tracking tools don't know the reasoning behind each individual who didn't see the game all the way through. The real purpose of the topic was to generate discussion, and considering some of the quality posts here I'm glad I did.

Modifié par tetrisblock4x1, 11 février 2012 - 04:17 .

[LaurenShepard-N7]

ME1/2 are two out of like 7 games on my xbox that I've actually seen through to the end of the campaign. I've only had my xbox since 2009 though. To be honest, ME1 was a hard game to get started with at first, I had the game for 2 years and tried to play it a couple of times, but gave up before finishing Eden Prime, I just thought it was a Halo clone but more frustrating combat. But then one day when I finished playing Red Dead I thought "you know what I'm gonna give this Mass Effect game a shot again" and once I got involved with the characters and got fully immersed into the story I realised what a great game it was played for like 12 hours a day. It's a shame that so many people didn't finish the games because they're really missing out, I know I regret not getting into the series sooner. Hopefully the hype surrounding ME3 will encourage them to pick it up again and have another go at it.

[Adugan]

Its funny how this thread is next to the thread asking if ME3 will be longer than ME2.

[DragonRageGT]

And these would only be valid points if all 3 ME games weren't already good and done. I'm glad they are.

[Iakus]

tetrisblock4x1 wrote...

Bioware released some interesting statistics for ME2 which I read on Rock Paper Shotgun, and the data suggested that half the people who started Mass Effect hadn't completed it. The news was posted by RPS on a September, so people probably had a good 6 months to get around to finishing the game, or probably more.

I wonder why that is? Is the game too long for peoples attention spans? You think that maybe if Bioware released Mass Effect in episodes that more people would complete the series? Like suppose if Mass Effect episode 1 was Eden prime and the citadel, and then each major planet was an episode each to be released one month at a time do you think that this would work? Each of the planets were fairly self contained. They all had their own main story that had begun when you landed and concluded when you were done on that planet, so I think that it's doable from a narrative point of view.

I don't know about other people, but to me the games could stand to be longer.

[lobi]

I would take the Mako over probes and Hammerhead any day. Although probes are good for roleplay if you like stealing other species resources.
Mako gave a sense of exploration and contact with the planets Shep was on. This added to roleplay it was not padding. Hammerhead seemed like it was rushing me from point a to b like a bad taxi sim. Hovering over resource markers was like learning to reverse park all over again.

Modifié par lobi, 11 février 2012 - 04:34 .

[tetrisblock4x1]

Speaking of probes, why would you have to scan the whole planet to see where everything is if you already know how rich it is in resources? How would you know how rich if it is without the scanning data? I know, it's just this gameplay mechanic, but I thought it was funny so I felt like pointing it out.

[lobi]

tetrisblock4x1 wrote...

Speaking of probes, why would you have to scan the whole planet to see where everything is if you already know how rich it is in resources? How would you know how rich if it is without the scanning data? I know, it's just this gameplay mechanic, but I thought it was funny so I felt like pointing it out.

From orbit they may just get a general reading. Cerberus needs to know where it is exactly and how much there is. So when they come to steal it they do not have to muck around finding it. The longer Cerberus are there the more risk there is of the Species that actually owns the resources turning up with the cranky face and pointy sticks.
A lot of the time I worried that I may well be dropping these large and potentially radioactive mining probes onto populated areas.

Modifié par lobi, 11 février 2012 - 04:55 .

[Destroy Raiden_]

They're the opposite too short. I'd like my main quest to be over 4 - 5 missions. Beyond them the next shortest game I've played is Modern Warfare I'm really tired of being able to beat that game in a day.

[The_Real_Lee]

G3rman wrote...

SnakeSNMF wrote...

JeffZero wrote...

No.

[angry_peon]

I think a good game can not really be too long. However, the planet exploring and scanning of ME 1 and 2 where far too time consuming and tedious (and did little to nothing for the actual game). So for a completionist like me, especially ME 1 could prove quite the challenge for patience. As far as I heard there will be no element like this in ME 3 and I am glad it is this way.

[Luigitornado]

Their loss.

[sherban1988]

If anything, they're too short.

This is the type of game I'd like to stretch out for as long as possible.

The problem is that other that plenty of today's games have an average length of 10 hours (if that), and some people got used to that, so to them a 40+ hour game is an unbeatable behemoth. I have a friend who said he was simply overwhelmed with all the conversations in ME2, which is fine. That just means that this isn't the type of game for him. I'm thinking it's the same with other people. These games aren't for everybody, since not everyone plays games for the story or characters. Some ppl just want to unwind after a hard day by killing stuff, and that's perfectly fine.

[jcolt]

half the reason i like mass effect and other long rpgs is i feel like i'm gettin my money worth 60$ is alot for just a couple hrs.

[Gatt9]

tetrisblock4x1 wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

C9316 wrote...

I
never thought I'd see someone complain that a game was too
long...

Oh, that's an old flaw. Plenty of game designers have
confused 'padding' for content.

There's also the issue of pacing
and maintaining interest. Like in any book or piece of art, knowing when
to stop is just as important to quality as knowing what to start.

Portal,
for example, was a wonderful story because it recognized that while
there were countless additional puzzles and potential levels they could
have added, the strength of the Portal story was in its minimalism and
brevity. Portal 2 came, and it was good, but it also lost the polish and
strength that made the original game so catchy.

Well padding is just everywhere, isn't it? I have a feeling that gamers in general are so accustomed to padding, or grinding or fluff or whatever that it's absence would jarring and undesired. Take Alpha Protocol for example... it had almost nothing outside of the main quests, no lore, no side content and all of the good writing and diverging narrative in the world couldn't save it. It's not as if the game play quality or style was much different from ME1 which the critics rated so much better. So perhaps there is something to this padding, this fluff that you want games to cut back on? I totally meant what I said when I complimented your post, but padding is like this expected tradition nowadays. A game without padding would be like a year without christmas for many gamers.

I think that certain genres like Portal can get away with been linear, but games like AP and Mass Effect, and anything which attempts to be somewhat open, or anything that attempts to build a world or a setting is expected to have a good deal of padding.

"Padding" isn't a bad thing when done properly.  Since we're on Bioware's boards,  I'll use two Bioware games as examples.

Good padding:  Baldur's Gate 2 was filled with extra content between acts,  Stronghold quests,  secret doors with impossibly hard fights,  sidequests.  But all of it was unnecessary.  You could do it,  but you didn't need to do it to win the game,  you could just bypass it and move straight on to the next act.

Bad padding:  Mass Effect 2.  You didn't need that "Full team" to beat the collectors.  Most of them did absolutely nothing.  You needed a Biotic and a Tech person,  one to shield you and one to open doors.  The rest of the group just had no purpose in the mission you supposedly needed them for.  This made most of the game unnecessary padding.  It became even worse during the missions,  like Jack's for example:  Was there really a need for a mercenary group to be present in an abandoned facility?  They were just present because Bioware thought all of the Shooter fans would get bored if they had a section of "Talking parts".  Same with Miranda's Sister.  This is padding that just adds nothing to the task at hand,  just for the sake of trying to woo some group who doesn't like the design of your game.

Padding a game in a good way,  by including a large number of options,  isn't wrong.  It's forced padding,  game time spent doing things that ultimately doesn't contribute to the goals but is there for some ulterior motive,  that is wrong.

Padding a game isn't inherently bad,  badly designed padding is inherently bad.  Which is the direction Bioware's headed in to try and woo the Shooter fans.

[NK96]

Destroy Raiden wrote...

They're the opposite too short. I'd like my main quest to be over 4 - 5 missions. Beyond them the next shortest game I've played is Modern Warfare I'm really tired of being able to beat that game in a day.

I see where you are coming from however if you take the side missions into account then you have got a good 30-40 hour game.

[tetrisblock4x1]

Gatt9 wrote...

tetrisblock4x1 wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

C9316 wrote...

I
never thought I'd see someone complain that a game was too
long...

Oh, that's an old flaw. Plenty of game designers have
confused 'padding' for content.

There's also the issue of pacing
and maintaining interest. Like in any book or piece of art, knowing when
to stop is just as important to quality as knowing what to start.

Portal,
for example, was a wonderful story because it recognized that while
there were countless additional puzzles and potential levels they could
have added, the strength of the Portal story was in its minimalism and
brevity. Portal 2 came, and it was good, but it also lost the polish and
strength that made the original game so catchy.

Well padding is just everywhere, isn't it? I have a feeling that gamers in general are so accustomed to padding, or grinding or fluff or whatever that it's absence would jarring and undesired. Take Alpha Protocol for example... it had almost nothing outside of the main quests, no lore, no side content and all of the good writing and diverging narrative in the world couldn't save it. It's not as if the game play quality or style was much different from ME1 which the critics rated so much better. So perhaps there is something to this padding, this fluff that you want games to cut back on? I totally meant what I said when I complimented your post, but padding is like this expected tradition nowadays. A game without padding would be like a year without christmas for many gamers.

I think that certain genres like Portal can get away with been linear, but games like AP and Mass Effect, and anything which attempts to be somewhat open, or anything that attempts to build a world or a setting is expected to have a good deal of padding.

"Padding" isn't a bad thing when done properly.  Since we're on Bioware's boards,  I'll use two Bioware games as examples.

Good padding:  Baldur's Gate 2 was filled with extra content between acts,  Stronghold quests,  secret doors with impossibly hard fights,  sidequests.  But all of it was unnecessary.  You could do it,  but you didn't need to do it to win the game,  you could just bypass it and move straight on to the next act.

Bad padding:  Mass Effect 2.  You didn't need that "Full team" to beat the collectors.  Most of them did absolutely nothing.  You needed a Biotic and a Tech person,  one to shield you and one to open doors.  The rest of the group just had no purpose in the mission you supposedly needed them for.  This made most of the game unnecessary padding.  It became even worse during the missions,  like Jack's for example:  Was there really a need for a mercenary group to be present in an abandoned facility?  They were just present because Bioware thought all of the Shooter fans would get bored if they had a section of "Talking parts".  Same with Miranda's Sister.  This is padding that just adds nothing to the task at hand,  just for the sake of trying to woo some group who doesn't like the design of your game.

Padding a game in a good way,  by including a large number of options,  isn't wrong.  It's forced padding,  game time spent doing things that ultimately doesn't contribute to the goals but is there for some ulterior motive,  that is wrong.

Padding a game isn't inherently bad,  badly designed padding is inherently bad.  Which is the direction Bioware's headed in to try and woo the Shooter fans.

Tali was in it because she had some good ideas for ship defense because she's just amazing even by Quarians impressive standards.
Legion is the best for infiltrating the tunnels since he's literally a machine when it comes to hacking.

Miranda and Jacob had a right to be on the ship because it was actually a Cerberus ship.

Garrus happened to be an experienced and talented leader for the other fire team, and unlike Miranda nobody hated him and wanted him to die.

Mordin was the brains of the group, if not for him it would have been game over when they got to Horizon.

Samara was the best biotic so she's validated when she puts that protective shield up.

The rest of them were expendable, the DLC characters especially, and taking Jack at all was a really horrible decision considering her history and whoever wrote her character into the Normandy should feel bad.

So I agree that ME2 is a bad example. I still liked most of the characters, and the loyalty missions were fun. Useless fun.

Modifié par tetrisblock4x1, 11 février 2012 - 05:50 .

[Dean_the_Young]

tetrisblock4x1 wrote...

Tali was in it because she had some good ideas for ship defense because she's just amazing even by Quarians impressive standards.

No, Tali was in ME2 because she was popular in ME1. Everything else was retroactive justification: nothing in ME1 established her as a 'best of the best' candidate, just an exceptional ship-mechanic, while her ship upgrade could just as easily have been fobbed off on anyone else. Jacob isn't a techie, but he gets you ship armor.

Tali's relevance to the plot was only accessory: she was the device by which we got to visit the Migrant Fleet... but that could have been done by any Quarian character. Saphra once raised a scenario in which it was a Xen who was our teammate, re-cast as a Quarian exile for illegal Geth experiments.

Tali is a useful lead into the Geth-Quarian subplot, but that was never really tied into the ME2 plot despite opportunity.

From the Quarian side, the Migrant Fleet could have expanded its help in the investigation/anti-Collector effort past the Veetor data: as was raised in the Bring Down the Sky DLC, the Migrant Fleet is one of the few forces in the galaxy that could evacuate a colony quickly. A race of technically adept, Seeker-swarm immune, Terminus-passing fleet with logistics could have easily been brought in to the Collector plotline in helping evacuate Human colonies, like the Alliance is referenced in Arrival. Besides helping the Collector plotline by helping Human colonies, it would have helped tie the Quarians into ME3's 'everyone works together.'


From the Geth side, the Heretics were under-utilized as a fellow Reaper-aligned race with the Quarians. The Geth could have been the Collector muscle as needed, a false-flag threat as to the abduction culprits... or even replaced the Collectors entirely, actually. Even if you don't go that far, Collector-Heretic cooperation could have been played up, making Legion even more relevant.

Legion is the best for infiltrating the tunnels since he's literally a machine when it comes to hacking.

You're confusing an arbitrary game mechanic (that could have been as remade at any point) to a character's relevance to the plot.

Legion is actually a plot-heavy character: specifically, Legion opens up the otherwise hidden True Geth faction, and the furthers the Geth-Quarian peace subplot.

Miranda and Jacob had a right to be on the ship because it was actually a Cerberus ship.

From a plot point, only Miranda is particularly relevant: both as the Cerberus loyalist and as the means of Shepard's revival. Jacob was a beefy teammate/love interest, but could have just as easily still been an active Alliance Corsair. Jacob's greatest relevance was illustrating how Cerberus can also recruit idealists and people of virtue.

Garrus happened to be an experienced and talented leader for the other fire team, and unlike Miranda nobody hated him and wanted him to die.

Garrus was plot-irrelevant, and brought back for fan appeal.

Had his reasons for being on Omega been connected to the Collector Abductions (either an undercover C-SEC or Spectre investigation in the Terminus), he would have been able to serve as a Citadel investigator and sign of Council interest in the disappearances. Instead, his development was retrograded.

Mordin was the brains of the group, if not for him it would have been game over when they got to Horizon.

True, Mordin actually did fulfill a plot role. Besides the MacGuffin Omega Plague which could have been a real plot point in its own right, Mordin is involved with the team's research of Collector/Reaper technology.

Samara was the best biotic so she's validated when she puts that protective shield up.

Samara is plot-irrelevant. Her concerns were entirely unrelated to the Collectors or Reapers, and the primary reason she joined Shepard was as a loop-hole to avoid a Justicar Code-instigated massacre.

The rest of them were expendable, the DLC characters especially, and taking Jack at all was a really horrible decision considering her history and whoever wrote her character into the Normandy should feel bad.

Jack actually has greater relevance than most of the cast via her connection with Cerberus, a primary plot force. Of course, she could have just as well been a non-companion NPC, or been combined with another character (such as Miranda). Her role was to illustrate the worst of the worst of Cerberus.


Most of the characters were indeed pretty irrelevant.

Grunt was second-hand Collector technology, but nothing was ever made of that (while Okeer actually could have been useful).

Kasumi and Zaeed were DLC, but more relevantly their stories were separate subplots. Kasumi might be relevant in ME3, but the Batarian-Alliance subplot is already being deep-sixed. Zaeed could have been relevant if the Blue Suns had been relevant, but instead they were just that obstructive group of mooks.

Thane was an alien love interest first and foremost. While he's an interesting character in isolation, he doesn't even have an effective role in the Suicide Mission.

So I agree that ME2 is a bad example. I still liked most of the characters, and the loyalty missions were fun. Useless fun.

ME2 is quite rightly and widely lauded as a fun game. It's just not a tightly written game.

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 11 février 2012 - 07:08 .

[Redcoat]

I remember reading an interview with Shigeru Miyamoto where he said that around half of the people who played Ocarina of Time never finished it...yet look at any list of "Greatest Games of All Time" and you'll like find that game at or near the top.

The idea that someone who didn't finish a game must have hated it is simply wrong. From my own experience, there have been plenty of games that I enjoyed but never finished...maybe real life got in the way, or maybe another game came along that diverted my attention. There are many reasons why someone would fail to complete a game regardless of whether they enjoyed it or not. Unfortunately, game developers seem to be under the impression that every player must finish the game, so now we have games that A: extremely brief, and B: offer next to nothing in the way of actual challenge.

[Gatt9]

Redcoat wrote...

I remember reading an interview with Shigeru Miyamoto where he said that around half of the people who played Ocarina of Time never finished it...yet look at any list of "Greatest Games of All Time" and you'll like find that game at or near the top.

The idea that someone who didn't finish a game must have hated it is simply wrong. From my own experience, there have been plenty of games that I enjoyed but never finished...maybe real life got in the way, or maybe another game came along that diverted my attention. There are many reasons why someone would fail to complete a game regardless of whether they enjoyed it or not. Unfortunately, game developers seem to be under the impression that every player must finish the game, so now we have games that A: extremely brief, and B: offer next to nothing in the way of actual challenge.

Actually,  in many cases,  it's cost-cutting.

Let's use Dragon Age Origins for this one...So Bioware setup a number of achievements intended to be metrics,  and not Achievements.  Completing the introduction's for the Race/classes,  completing the acts.  These were intended to give Bioware data points,  not "Achievements" for doing something cool.

So Bioware/EA gets the data points back.  They discover two things...

-Few people played as Dwarves.
-Alot of people didn't complete the first act.

Now you put those two things in front of a right thinking individual,  like a Designer,  and you get...

-"We didn't make dwarves compelling,  we need to improve them"
-"We don't know why they didn't complete the first act.

But the problem is,  the data points go in front of Buisness people.  They think...

-"That says people don't like Dwarves,  we wasted money making them,  we won't make Dwarves in the future"
-"That says people didn't like the gameplay,  we wasted money,  we need to be more like some other game".

Buisness people don't see things as a creative mistake,  they see it as a black & white,  "This isn't worth doing"**.  Which is why these "Metrics" are given so much credibility,  a bunch of buisness people who don't understand gaming think it somehow translates into ways to cut costs and increase revenues.  Not understanding that those metrics they're inserting don't tell you anything at all.

Designers and Buisness people get completely different interpretations out of relatively meaningless data.

**Keep in mind,  it's this line of thinking that's resulted in gaming being just endless Shooters.  Which was pretty clearly demonstrated this past week to be wrong,  when Double-Fine raised over 1 million dollars to make an old-school point and click adventure in under 24 hours through a Kickstarter.  A type of game those very same people also insist isn't worth making.

[CannonO]

No.