399 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

BEERFISH!

[Sylvius the Mad]

Beerfish has been MIA for like a year. It's good to see him.

[BioFan (Official)]

 THIS

[syllogi]

sjpelkessjpeler wrote...

 Have to admitt played FFXII and loved it but only guessing what LOTRO means. PLEASE fill me in here!

Lord of the Rings Online.

[John Epler]

Well, don't take anything I said as 'hey this is exactly what they're planning on doing!' That ways lies madness. But I would say that, if we were to go to a game with more exploration, I think that Lord of the Rings Online offers some good lessons, particularly regarding non-plot critical locations of interest and the ability to see something cool and eventually get there. It's kind of a bummer to see what looks like an incredible castle on a mountain, and then never actually be able to make your way there.

[KingDan97]

Breaking News: John Epler is the one person who played Lord of the Rings Online!

[Fortlowe]

Could an episodic approach work perhaps? Considering that with the Mass Relays having been destroyed (presumably), getting from one star cluster to another would become quite the achievement. So why not make exploration, colonization, and rebuilding the Relay network the onus of the series going forward?

There's already the Galaxy Map to work with. Each of the old council territories could be made into a Title game. The Title game would concern mainly that territory's home-world and it's recovery, or reconnection with the rest of the Galaxy. And each title games gets an EXPANSION that deals with exploring the other star clusters within.

Told from the perspective of a Sol system filled to brimming over with alien refugees that also happen to be the best and brightest scientists, engineers, and soldiers in the entire galaxy (or their grandchildren more interestingly), it would be thrilling to find out how the they view the inevitable changes to the now much less connected Galaxy and How that galaxy views them.

[Maria Caliban]

Fortlowe wrote...

So why not make exploration, colonization, and rebuilding the Relay network the onus of the series going forward?

Because there are no Relays in Thedas.

[Fortlowe]

Auburn yes! "Dragon Age forum" I dismissed this claim. But since I'm in the neighborhood, I'll post some of my barely coherent ramblings on this subject as well.

I really enjoyed the way DAO handled exploration in the Deep Roads. Doing some treasure hunting, then getting great quest, some interesting lore, and of course some new loot is a formula that works in terms of exploration almost universally. It wasn't used enough in that title, or in DA2.

[FieryDove]

John Epler wrote...

But I would say that, if we were to go to a game with more exploration, I think that Lord of the Rings Online offers some good lessons, particularly regarding non-plot critical locations of interest and the ability to see something cool and eventually get there. It's kind of a bummer to see what looks like an incredible castle on a mountain, and then never actually be able to make your way there.

Wow DA3 = LotR in terms of exploration, world size and who knows what else! I am excited!

[Das Tentakel]

FieryDove wrote...

John Epler wrote...

But I would say that, if we were to go to a game with more exploration, I think that Lord of the Rings Online offers some good lessons, particularly regarding non-plot critical locations of interest and the ability to see something cool and eventually get there. It's kind of a bummer to see what looks like an incredible castle on a mountain, and then never actually be able to make your way there.

Wow DA3 = LotR in terms of exploration, world size and who knows what else! I am excited!

Whoah, John did not say anything about world size. I think he refers to the way you can stumble on 'points of interest' and how you can integrate long-distance views and actual in-world content.
I don't think he meant similar in size, that would be rather a tall order^_^

[the_one_54321]

John obviously promised that we would have a DAIII that was designed entirely based off the mechanics of LOTRO.

[Sylvius the Mad]

the_one_54321 wrote...

John obviously promised that we would have a DAIII that was designed entirely based off the mechanics of LOTRO.

Don't sig that.  I got in trouble for quoting David's tongue-in-cheek "There are NO sidequests at ALL in DA" line a few years back.

[Direwolf0294]

John Epler wrote...

simfamSP wrote...

Other good examples:

Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

I greatly enjoyed Deus Ex:HR - it was one of my favourite games of the past year, and it gave me that good ol' Deus Ex feel, which was something I had reservations about.

That being said, one issue I -did- have with their level design was vents. Not that vents existed, of course, but that there were air vents that would connect two rooms together without any other apparent reason for their existence. It was a minor enough issue in an otherwise fantastic game that it didn't really bother me, but it's a good microcosm of the whole 'believable environments' thing, and particularly jarring in that it was the single example of an obviously 'gamey' level element in an otherwise believable construction.

It's something we're paying attention to going forward - making our levels feel less like linear spaces constructed solely for the purpose of being 'part of a game', and more like actual, believable spaces that just happen to work well for various game purposes. Part of this will involve more collaboration in the earlier stages of the process, but part of it is also (likely) to involve building spaces for reasons other than narrative. Why does that cave exist? Because it's a cave - that's what caves do. It can have content inside, certainly, but it doesn't need to be attached to a specific plot. Narrative is more than just conversations and cutscenes, after all - Bethesda games are excellent examples of this.

Skyrim is one of my favourite games from the past few years and I love how it's world feels alive and is open for exploration and it's definitely a direction I'd like to see DA3 heading in (not making it sandbox but including more places to explore and making the world feel more like a living, breathing place rather than a game environment) but there's one problem I had with Skyrim in that regard and in the way you describe ideas the dev team's having for DA3 (a cave with content inside that's no attached to a quest as one example) it may be a problem I end up having with DA3 as well. 

The problem is that I tend to avoid exploring areas such as caves or dungeons that don't have a quest attached to them incase it turns out they do have a quest attached to them and I just haven't picked it up yet. I don't want to run through a cave, clear it of enemies and collect all the loot from chests laying around the place only to have to go back and do it all again (minus collecting loot because I've already picked it up) just so I can grab a quest related item at the end of the cave. It's something that did happen to me with Skyrim where I'd get a quest, clear the dungeon and then get another quest that had me re-run through the dungeon so I could grab a book on the bookshelf at the very end of the dungeon.

It's a personal issue I have with that sort of open world set up and I don't imagine there's much you can do to avoid it, unless you decide to cut back on the open worldness of the game which is something I don't want you to do. Maybe once you've cleared a cave or dungeon or fortress or what ever you can unlock a short cut or something through it so if you do need to go back for a quest you're not running through stuff you've already run through.