17 réponses à ce sujet

[David Gaider]

Tesclo wrote...

http://www.shacknews...r-opportunities

This is a complete joke. No we obviously do not want a Dragon Age 2 expansion. To be honest, I don't even think many would buy DLC. We do NOT want more of the same. Bioware, we wan't the "spiritual successor" to Baulder's Gate. It's that simple. We want what was promised to us in Dragon Age: Origins. This is so simple to grasp, yet you refuse to give the paying customers what they want. Give us back Origins. You have your FPS in Mass Effect. This series was supposed to be for us. And there IS a market for it. People still play RPGs.

I can't believe I actually have to even write this. Go back to your roots Bioware.

To be clear:

1) DA2 DLC sold quite well, thank you. I'm not at liberty to give out specifics, but it sold well enough that discontinuing work on it was a difficult choice-- and one made so that we could spend the kind of effort on the next big project that we thought it deserved. If someone wishes to spin it to suit their own agenda, so be it. I can't convince you otherwise, after all.

2) Be careful when you say "what we want". There are clearly a large number of people who want the same as what you want, but you do not speak for all fans-- in general or even here on these forums. Dragon Age fans cover a wide spectrum of opinions on almost every topic, as is pretty obvious in almost any discussion on a given issue. There's nothing wrong with holding those different opinions, and they're plenty valid without needing to be further validated by trying to represent them as universal.

3) I'm a big fan of Baldur's Gate, as I am of Origins (obviously, having worked on them both). While I can't say what we're specifically doing with the future of Dragon Age, and wouldn't want to until we can actually show it, I think it'll please many fans-- and also ****** off many others. That's inevitable at this point, and no matter what we do there will no doubt be many people clamoring as to how obvious it should be that their direction is the one we should take.

Regardless, we'll move forward... and, once you get a chance to see what we're working on, you can decide for yourself whether the next project sticks close enough to our "roots" to interest you. Hopefully it will... and, if not, thanks for being such a passionate fan.

Modifié par David Gaider, 26 mars 2012 - 02:51 .

[David Gaider]

Tesclo wrote...
And while I do understand that the genre at some point does need to evolve past what was done in the past, games such as Skyrim find a way to do this without pissing off a large portion of the player base.

I appreciate everything you said, and it makes sense, but this sentence made me smile.

[David Gaider]

kinna wrote...
Actually, there are more dialogue choises in DA2 than just three. There is investigate also. Been replaying DA:O and in that there isn't more options in conversations. Just questions you can ask (investigate in DA2) and it ends up with couple of options to move the conversation onward. Just like in DA2. Just because they are not arranged like they were in DA:O does not mean that the choises are not there.

This is very true. It's worth noting, however, that some players feel their choices are more limited-- even if that isn't really so from an interface standpoint. While the source of their frustration may not necessarily be what they've concluded it to be, that doesn't mean the frustration isn't there.

[David Gaider]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
We got to discuss specifics in Dragon Age long before you had anything to show us.  That was openness.

No, you didn't. The DAO forums were complaining about how, for years, they didn't have anything concrete to discuss-- not until that last six months of development or so. I remember that quite well. It was actually quite frustrating for many people, as anything we said automatically demanded ten detailed questions in response which we couldn't answer... and failing to answer them meant the fan would just assume the answer and demand to be proven false instead.

Very productive.

We've no interest in that, and thus will discuss things in detail when we're able to provide the context that people will demand anyhow. Otherwise there will just be endless speculation and assumptions-- which, considering the environment, is not that healthy.

Doesn't mean it'll be a long wait, necessarily. It does mean that we're not going to throw a bunch of random scraps of meat into the lion's den and hope the lions will play nice as they divvy up the chunks though. Maybe you think the lions will naturally do that, or don't see a problem with it, but we're not as eager.

[John Epler]

Lord Gremlin wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

While I can't say what we're specifically doing with the future of Dragon Age, and wouldn't want to until we can actually show it

This is a mistake, I think.

I asked Mike about this in another thread, and he made reassuring noises, but now you're all back on the same "we won't talk about details until we can show them to you" mantra.

We got to discuss specifics in Dragon Age long before you had anything to show us.  That was openness.

Here's what worries me... Surly there's some stuff that everyone, everyone will consider good. I don't know - no loading times, unique dungeons for each side quest, armor customization... I am biased, sure. But it just sounds like Bioware have nothing universally good to tell you right now.
So, Mr. Gaider, there is really nothing universally good about DA3 so far?

You can read what you want into our statements - no one's going to stop you. But what it boils down to is that we'll show you when we have something to show. Things can change, for one - what we're doing now may turn out to be something vastly different from what we're doing in three months. And if that happens, we get 'well, why didn't you do Y, like you were doing before?' People develop expectations and beliefs that may or may not be representative of how things will, eventually, look.

So, when we have something to show, we'll show it. I couldn't tell you when that'll be - it's really not my wheelhouse. But 'we don't want to show anything quite yet' is markedly different from 'BioWare has nothing universally good to show'.

[David Gaider]

AgenTBC wrote...
Oh god, please don't use Skyrim as inspiration for future Bioware games. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO.

The problem is exactly what we refer to by suggesting we don't want to talk specifics until we have something to show.

What do we mean when we say Skyrim is a source of inspiration? Well, clearly we mean that DA3 would be like Syrim in every respect... a copy of the game, its action-oriented gamplay, its single protaganist and story-delivery method and so forth.

Or not.

Far better for us to show what we mean, as opposed to having people jump to conclusions and react in horror (as Dragon Age and the TES series are fundamentally different in their design goals) and demand explanations we can't really give yet-- and, even if we could, it'd be in words only... and, even though I'm a writer, there's really only so much that words can convey.

So I'll just say that's not the entire story and I'd suggest caution before reading too much into that.

[John Epler]

Let's cut out the bickering and the sniping. One and only warning.

[John Epler]

We have gone markedly off-topic at this point. Let's bring it back to DA and take the side-discussion elsewhere.

[John Epler]

the_one_54321 wrote...

John Epler wrote...
We have gone markedly off-topic at this point. Let's bring it back to DA and take the side-discussion elsewhere.

Role playing a character in a DA game counts as on topic, yes? 

I'm not being sarcastic. I want to know which post to refernce back to to keep on discussing.

That'd be a good place to return to, yep.

[John Epler]

We were proud of the work we'd done thus far on Exalted March, much as we were proud of the work we'd done on the DA2 DLCs. In an ideal world, we would have liked to release it - however, we decided that the allotment of resources was, at the end of the day, not the allocation of resources we felt made the most sense for the Dragon Age franchise as a whole.

Though everyone working on the Exalted March was passionate and excited about what we had in store, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who, in retrospect, feels that it was the wrong decision to suspend work on it. We all had a lot invested in it, but we feel that the choice was, at the end of the day, the right one. Time will tell whether you all agree - I think you will, but the proof is in the pudding, as they say.

There were a number of reasons, as there is in any major decision, but at the end of the day, the most important one was that it made the most sense for the franchise as a whole. Hopefully we can convince those of you who don't agree over the coming months, but never think that it was an easy decision.

[John Epler]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

John Epler wrote...

We were proud of the work we'd done thus far on Exalted March, much as we were proud of the work we'd done on the DA2 DLCs. In an ideal world, we would have liked to release it - however, we decided that the allotment of resources was, at the end of the day, not the allocation of resources we felt made the most sense for the Dragon Age franchise as a whole.

I don't know, I must be missing something here. Most likely I am, as I won't profess to know what goes on in a game studio when it's developing something -- be it a game, DLC, expansion, cunning traps, or potato salad.

But I have to wonder just what this means. Why halt production on something that was well liked amongst yourselves, where you thought the work done so far was grand? Why begin working on the next big thing so soon?

And so on and so forth with the related questions.

You can say "It wasn't the best way to handle things for the series" -- and I realize vagueness is part and parcel to Bioware -- but I just don't understand why something that was going great -- for a game that despite how bad it was (IMO) had DLC that sold well -- would be shut down.

I also realize you -- a Bioware "you" here -- said that parts of Exalted March would be incorporated into "The Next Big Thing", but I don't know how well that would work.

I guess it all depends on what parts, which in the end leads me right back to what I said earlier: I'll wait and see what's in store and decide then if what they're doing is right for me.

So.... wasted post I guess?

Well, there's really not a whole lot I can add to this - my vagueness is intentional, unfortunately, and there's a very fine line we have to walk when we're interacting in public in a non-planned environment (outside of interviews and the like, I mean). At the end of the day, there are only so many resources available in any one studio, and when you have a studio that handles multiple projects at once, that number becomes even lower. Particularly when you're talking about the 'core' team - a lot of staff is shared between all projects, with the notable exception of writing and some of the art teams. I think I just made it even vaguer, so let me retrace. The stuff we'd done on Exalted March was, at the end of the day, something we were proud of. But there are all sorts of considerations when working on a game, and when it's DLC there are even more things to keep in mind.

And I highly encourage waiting and seeing. I believe most people will enjoy what we're doing. Some will not. That's life, and while it would be wonderful if we could make everyone happy, there are enough incompatible ideas and beliefs even within seeming homogenous groups that it'll never happen. But I -can- say that I've never been quite so excited to be a part of this franchise.

[John Epler]

Sylvius can be frustrating to have discussions with, but he's not a troll. Let's avoid throwing that word around where it doesn't apply.

[John Epler]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

BobSmith101 wrote...

Can't speak for Skyrim but in New Vegas you barely notice. It's not a cinematic game. Pulling off a cinematic game with a silent protagonist,don't think that's going to happen.

That makes the cinematics the problem.

Sorry John Epler, but if the cinematics break the game, the cinematics need to go.

They break the game for you. Do I think we can take steps to bring back a lot of interactivity? Sure. I'm proud of what we did on DA2, but I do think that, at times, we went too far in the 'cinematics' direction. There are reasons for it, of course, but the end user doesn't really care about those reasons. What they care about is an experience they can enjoy, and I can certainly get behind putting more into in-world interactions and activities.

Are we going to get rid of the cinematics entirely? No. And if that's a deal breaker for you, so be it.

[John Epler]

Upsettingshorts, Sarah, if you start bickering in this thread I will ban you both.

Seriously.

[John Epler]

eyesofastorm wrote...

John Epler wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

BobSmith101 wrote...

Can't speak for Skyrim but in New Vegas you barely notice. It's not a cinematic game. Pulling off a cinematic game with a silent protagonist,don't think that's going to happen.

That makes the cinematics the problem.

Sorry John Epler, but if the cinematics break the game, the cinematics need to go.

They break the game for you. Do I think we can take steps to bring back a lot of interactivity? Sure. I'm proud of what we did on DA2, but I do think that, at times, we went too far in the 'cinematics' direction. There are reasons for it, of course, but the end user doesn't really care about those reasons. What they care about is an experience they can enjoy, and I can certainly get behind putting more into in-world interactions and activities.

Are we going to get rid of the cinematics entirely? No. And if that's a deal breaker for you, so be it.

I like this.  Cinematics are just fine with me... but interactivity is more important.  You need a couple of layers of software on top of your current software before you can get where you want to go.  I'm excited for that day.  I think we all are.  The obvious solution is for you to learn to program John... and give up the whole marriage thing... that won't leave you with enough time to add those layers of software.  

And interactivity is important. I don't disagree with that in the slightest. Nor do I think that you'll find anyone on the team who disagrees. That being said, cinematics serve a purpose - and as much as we'd like to make them more interactive, there are technical limitations, as you've said. In the interim, while they're not interactive, I think there's value in looking to other non-interactive visual media in terms of techniques and how to evoke certain emotions. That's not to say that we're trying to make choose-your-own-adventure films, not by any stretch, but the fact remains that cinematics are chunks of exposition or storytelling that have limited interactivity - a style of presentation that has been done by film and television for a very long time. There's a reason why things like the rule of thirds or left-to-right progression exist, after all, and it'd be silly of us to not recognize and respect the reasoning behind these rules.

[John Epler]

eyesofastorm wrote...

John Epler wrote...
And interactivity is important. I don't disagree with that in the slightest. Nor do I think that you'll find anyone on the team who disagrees. That being said, cinematics serve a purpose - and as much as we'd like to make them more interactive, there are technical limitations, as you've said. In the interim, while they're not interactive, I think there's value in looking to other non-interactive visual media in terms of techniques and how to evoke certain emotions. That's not to say that we're trying to make choose-your-own-adventure films, not by any stretch, but the fact remains that cinematics are chunks of exposition or storytelling that have limited interactivity - a style of presentation that has been done by film and television for a very long time. There's a reason why things like the rule of thirds or left-to-right progression exist, after all, and it'd be silly of us to not recognize and respect the reasoning behind these rules.

Yup.  You... you don't think I'm trying to do away with you?  The industry needs guys doing what you do all along the path to that bright shiny future I'm talking about where we essentially are playing interactive movies.  I'm just saying focus on what games can do that the other forms of media can't using cinematics to prop that up rather than the other way around.  

And I think that's a great way of putting it. Cinematics should work in subservience to the gameplay, not vice-versa.

[John Epler]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

hoorayforicecream wrote...

The 'interactivity' argument can be applied to having anything that stops gameplay, including dialogue.

Sums up Bioware's current target audience in a nut shell.

This would be an example of an unnecessary post. There is not a single person who is unaware of your contempt for our theoretical 'target audience'. Let's try to keep from posting about it for a while.