199 réponses à ce sujet

[dreaming_raithe]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Actually, looking at their release schedule:

Warcraft II: 1995 (expansion 1996)
Diablo: 1996
Lost Vikings II: 1997
StarCraft: 1998 (Expansion 1998)
Diablo 2: 2000 (Expansion 2001)
Warcraft 3: 2002 (Expansion 2003)
World of Warcraft: 2004
Burning Crusade: 2007 (!!!)
WOTLK: 2008
StarCraft 2: 2010
Cataclysm: 2010
Diablo III: 2012

The Blizzard idea of "it's done when it's done," has been around for most of that, though, even before WoW. They've also been known to delay games multiple times, which is something almost no major development company does these days. Often, you'll see one delay, but anything more than that is pushing it. The real trick is to not set release dates until you're sure you can meet that release date.

The problem is that parent companies tend to see all games pretty similarly. Something like Madden (to take your guys' partnership with EA) has to come out every year, and it's one of the most profitable things EA has (I think FIFA is the biggest one though, isn't it?) They have an understandable desire to make as many of their products like that as possible.

But that doesn't work for all titles. The more writing that's involved, for instance, the more time a game is going to need to "bake." The more complex it is (i.e., does it have many branching paths, multiple types of gameplay, etc.), the more time it's going to need. Games like this should really be allowed as much time as they need. How do you reconcile that with reality? It's easy, if you have "additional streams of revenue." Here's the thing: Madden, FIFA...all those yearly sports titles that EA does, those are going to keep getting pumped out and making money every year. They have to and they're designed in ways that allows them to do that. Let them keep the money flowing in, so that the games that require more time get that time that they need.

Bioware games need to "bake." Trying to hasten their release schedule leads to things like Dragon Age II (I actually liked DAII, btw, but won't deny it had a lot of potential it didn't live up to), as well as frequent game freezes in excellent games like Mass Effect 2. It also gives us Mass Effect 3, which demonstrably has less time put into the dialogue, dialogue trees, and side quests. Were these concious decisions by the developers? Yeah, they were. But you always make decisions in context, and if they knew they didn't have a deadline looming, something tells me all the care that went into ME and ME2's dialogue and the like would have gone into ME3, too.

Modifié par dreaming_raithe, 23 avril 2012 - 02:08 .

[christrek1982]

I could be wrong but I'm thinking 3-5 years is the sweet spot for game like ME and DA after all look at what Bioware did between ME1-ME2 in 3 years and look at what CD project red did with the witcher 1-2 in about 4-5 years.

[Severyx]

sporeian wrote...

• That Video Games shouldn't have time constraints put on them.
  
• That Video Games are art, but its both created by the consumer and the producers.
  
• Like most things, the video game business is corrupt and needs reformation, but I don't know how we can do it.
  
• Everything is equal: characters, plot, and locations. And all efforts should be put into those things to make them the best that they can be.

This post shows just how arrogant and uninformed the general playerbase is. If you take offense to this statement, perhaps a bit of self-analyzation is in order to see exactly why.

1. Video Games made by any publicly traded company will have limits, regardless of how AAA their production is. This is reality, not some conspiracy thought up by money-grubbing publishers.

2. Video Games are art - I agree 100%. However, video games are NOT created by the consumers (99% of the time), regardless of what PR speak is used. Casey Hudson's speeches about creating ME3 'with the fans' means 'We took feedback into account when making changes for this installment'. Creating a game with the fans of a franchise would end up a terrible mess every time.

3. Again, a subjective statement based around generally uninformed conceptions. I don't even need to open this can of worms.

4. This one I can agree on. What this whole debacle has ACTUALLY proved is that you can't simply 'throw something together' and hope people will be okay with it. If the quality of an element is clearly on a subpar level compared to the rest of the game, people are going to notice and express their concern. How civil the concerned individuals appear is their choice, but that doesn't excuse absurd behavior.

[outlaw1109]

Shaoken wrote...

spychi wrote...

Dude every time you talk with the godchild about the choices you have he says that the relays will be destroyed, only the citadel will prevail if you pick the control ending

Yet i the ending scene the part where the relays break apart is clearly absent from it, as proven by all six endng scenes being compared to each other.

You're comparing cinematics to lore.  Star Child does flat out tell you that they're destroyed.  Read any of the threads on here that complain about the endings.  The crucible destroys them, not the space magic...hence, the scene after the credits roll about "someday" traveling to the stars again...


Neat that fans still exist who don't realize this nifty little detail...

Modifié par outlaw1109, 23 avril 2012 - 02:25 .

[Laurencio]

christrek1982 wrote...

I could be wrong but I'm thinking 3-5 years is the sweet spot for game like ME and DA after all look at what Bioware did between ME1-ME2 in 3 years and look at what CD project red did with the witcher 1-2 in about 4-5 years.

Witcher 2 actually is a bit of a problem for Mass Effect. They redefined how important choices could be in a video game, ME3 couldn't live up to that and I think a lot of people feel like they should have been able to pull of something similar.

[spychi]

outlaw1109 wrote...


Neat that fans still exist who don't realize this nifty little detail...

You would be surprised how zealous they can get to defend their crazy claims

[Kunari801]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

That Video Games shouldn't have time constraints put on them.

That's an ideal, but I'm curious how you would reconcile it with the demands of reality.

True, reality bites, many are assuming (not sure if OP is amung them) that there *was* a time and/or budget issue with ME3.   I don't believe that has been established as fact.  

Cearly something happened with the ending it's quality was not as good as other major arc missions (nor anywhere near as good as end missions in ME1 or ME2).  The two best things about "Priority: Earth" was the FOB to say good bye to your squad and Anderson's death scene.  Everything after Anderson's death is... well, other threads discuss that.  

[Unit-Alpha]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

sporeian wrote...

If only Bioware had some great MMO that they could work on to maintain that steady income.... oh wait....

I'm certainly hoping that TOR becomes an unmitigated runaway success for just this reason!

Valve doesn't seem to have any official plans to publish or even star
development of Half-Life ep. 3 anytime soon it seems. Aparently they
don't want to create it, or atleast give any statements until they know
what they want to do with it.

I'm not saying that you should be like Valve... not one bit, but Gabe is super awesome and you should definitely find some way to clone him.

As a huge fan of the Half-Life series, as well as Portal, Left 4 Dead, and whatever else comes out of their Midas-like hands, I'm a huge fan of Valve (I also played way too much Diablo 3 beta this weekend...).  But given Valve's release schedule, it really seems like Steam has become their primary focus.  Not that I blame them.


EDIT:  I agree that Gabe is awesome too!

On your first point, the sad truth of the matter is that now that Bioware is an EA subsidiary, the idea that the success of one game will translate into more money and development time for other Bioware titles is sadly not the case. Steam can do that for Valve because Valve is privately owned. In the case of AB, Blizzard has developmental leeway because it was more of a merger than a purchase, as it was in the case of Bioware. Plus, EA has a record of taking successful studios and wringing them for as much money as possible before closing them, not giving them additional time to work on projects.

[Lyrebon]

It also should have taught you that EA don't give a crap about any of that. All they want to know is how many digits come after $.

Bioware produced a great game when they were under Microsoft Studios, mainly because MS gave them the time they needed to carefully structure it.

Modifié par Lyrebon, 23 avril 2012 - 03:29 .

[Dr. Megaverse]

Mdoggy1214 wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

That Video Games shouldn't have time constraints put on them.

That's an ideal, but I'm curious how you would reconcile it with the demands of reality.

Tell that to Blizzard Entertainment.

THIS. 

[_Arkayne_]

"Valve doesn't seem to have any official plans to publish or even start the development of Half-Life ep. 3 anytime soon it seems. Aparently they don't want to create it, or atleast give any statements until they know what they want to do with it."

Actually they do.They were in early develpment of episode 3 before episode 2 came out ,the dev commentary says so when talking about chopper battles.And Gabe said they were no longer doing the episodic gaming thing because it was too awkward.
My guess is that by now,they're develpoing Half Life-3 and just aren't announcing it.Besides,I'd say they won't announce until they have a definite release date to ensure they wont ****** people off by delaying it.

Modifié par _Arkayne_, 23 avril 2012 - 05:25 .

[Aurica]

WeAreLegionWTF wrote...

SassyJazRzmataz wrote...

It taught me that the fan community is a lot stronger than people give it credit for.

True true, ya know, given the big business world we live in, Its shocking how often Companies underestimate the power of the internet/consumer, even more so when a company that produces products for use on the internet underestimate it.

Whats going on here with me3 is actually very encouraging, in the greater scheme of things.

Maybe... but I don't think EA is really taking us seriously...   even after all the outrage

Modifié par Aurica, 23 avril 2012 - 05:33 .

[Jorojr]

Eain wrote...

Then there's Gears of War 3, which came out three years after Gears 2. Now Epic is for the most part an independent studio that relies only a contract with Microsoft for individual titles as I understand it (as in, their relation with MS is not like Bioware being a division of EA). But again, all quality games.

Epic also creates and licenses game engines.  Unreal Egine 3 has been licensed quite a bit.  Heck, the entire Mass Effect series runs on it.  This is their steady income.

http://en.wikipedia....al_Engine_games

[numark]

"If The ME3 Controversy has taught me anything. Its This..."

You can be a triple AAA publisher or an indie-developer just starting out; video game design needs to be an iterative process with feedback and review at every step of the way.

[v TricKy v]

IMO Bioware should work like Bethesda. There are 5 Years between every Elder Scrolls game but they are top games. In every installment you see the love for their product. That is something which I actually miss in recent Bioware games. The last big hit was Dragon Age:Origins. Both DA2 and ME3 had only two years development time and you certainly can see that when you play these games.
I think everyone agrees with me when Im saying that two years is NOT enough for the type of games Bioware is creating and I would like to see that changed.
To put this in perspective every CoD game has two years development time and that is just a simple shooter based on a never changing engine. Biowares goal is(or was) to create story-heavy games with strong characters and to make that possible in two years you have to cut a lot of corners as we see in DA2 and ME3.

[Shaoken]

outlaw1109 wrote...

You're comparing cinematics to lore.  Star Child does flat out tell you that they're destroyed.  Read any of the threads on here that complain about the endings.  The crucible destroys them, not the space magic...hence, the scene after the credits roll about "someday" traveling to the stars again...


Neat that fans still exist who don't realize this nifty little detail...

Starchild doesn't specifiy what choice he's talking about, even if it sounds like he's talking about all three, we only see the relays destroyed in the Destroy and Synthesis endings. In both Control Endings the scene deliberately cuts out early at the relay scene to remove the relay destruction scene.

So despite you saying the relays are destroyed in all endings, the control one goes out of it's way to avoid showing the relay exploding, so the game is showing us something different to what you (and Starchild I guess) are telling us.

[Skull Bearer]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

That Video Games shouldn't have time constraints put on them.

That's an ideal, but I'm curious how you would reconcile it with the demands of reality.

Half-Life 3

Modifié par Skull Bearer, 24 avril 2012 - 12:12 .

[Shaoken]

Skull Bearer wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

That Video Games shouldn't have time constraints put on them.

That's an ideal, but I'm curious how you would reconcile it with the demands of reality.

Half-Life 3

The game that Vavle fans are frustrated they've heard nothing about for years? That's also skipping over a game that was promised to us (episode 3) that has also gone dark? A game that nobody has any proof is even being worked on, not a word, not a peep, for five years sine the last game was released?

[Mystiq6]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

sporeian wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I'm pretty sure Blizzard took their sweet time making games, even before WoW.

Actually, looking at their release schedule:

Warcraft II: 1995 (expansion 1996)
Diablo: 1996
Lost Vikings II: 1997
StarCraft: 1998 (Expansion 1998)
Diablo 2: 2000 (Expansion 2001)
Warcraft 3: 2002 (Expansion 2003)
World of Warcraft: 2004
Burning Crusade: 2007 (!!!)
WOTLK: 2008
StarCraft 2: 2010
Cataclysm: 2010
Diablo III: 2012

Diablo 2-3 difference: 11 years
Starcraft 1-2 difference: 12 years
About a 2 year difference for EXPANSION packs for WoW

You're making the assumption that work started on those sequels right after the originals were done, and that they weren't working on other projects in the mean time. 

Though my post was directly in response to someone that said that Blizzard always took their time delaying games, even before WoW.

Remember that Blizzard has two teams. A different set of people worked on Warcraft and Diablo, so I think it's still fair to say that Blizzard still did like to delay games before WoW. They have that reputation for good reason. Each team worked in parallel to end up with a 2-3 year cycles but each team took longer than that.

Modifié par Mystiq6, 24 avril 2012 - 01:17 .

[TheBishop_82]

It taught me to avoid preordering, and poisoned my enjoyment of gaming in general. I have little to no desire to invest much time into any IP, as bioware has conclusively proven that it *is* possible to screw up a wet dream.

[Balek-Vriege]

Mystiq6 wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

sporeian wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I'm pretty sure Blizzard took their sweet time making games, even before WoW.

Actually, looking at their release schedule:

Warcraft II: 1995 (expansion 1996)
Diablo: 1996
Lost Vikings II: 1997
StarCraft: 1998 (Expansion 1998)
Diablo 2: 2000 (Expansion 2001)
Warcraft 3: 2002 (Expansion 2003)
World of Warcraft: 2004
Burning Crusade: 2007 (!!!)
WOTLK: 2008
StarCraft 2: 2010
Cataclysm: 2010
Diablo III: 2012

Diablo 2-3 difference: 11 years
Starcraft 1-2 difference: 12 years
About a 2 year difference for EXPANSION packs for WoW

You're making the assumption that work started on those sequels right after the originals were done, and that they weren't working on other projects in the mean time. 

Though my post was directly in response to someone that said that Blizzard always took their time delaying games, even before WoW.

Remember that Blizzard has two teams. A different set of people worked on Warcraft and Diablo, so I think it's still fair to say that Blizzard still did like to delay games before WoW. They have that reputation for good reason. Each team worked in parallel to end up with a 2-3 year cycles but each team took longer than that.

The only game I remember being delayed from back then was Starcraft.  I think I still have my Warcraft 2 Battlechest box somewhere with an advert for Starcraft "Coming February 1996" (there was some cool ships too which they scrapped).  If you look at the final release date, you will see it didn't quite hit the mark.


But Allan's original point holds true.  Not everyone has a super successful MMO IP or online game client thingy like Steam to bring in neverending dollars.  Most game companies require a publisher, which need a return on there investments within a realistic timeframe in order to compete with other publishers.  Not even novelists get unlimited time to write their books.

Or take Blizzard seemed to be "worrying" investors/people a bit I think, because it looked like there wasn't going to be a game released in 2012.  Not everyone is happy with the amount of development time Blizz takes to release games.  Also imagine if most game companies did so.  There could be 2-4 year time spans where no games/RPGs being released.  Indie companies would see an opening and develop similar games in between them and benefit from huge profits.

Modifié par Balek-Vriege, 24 avril 2012 - 01:33 .

[Tony208]

chemiclord wrote...

Mdoggy1214 wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

That Video Games shouldn't have time constraints put on them.

That's an ideal, but I'm curious how you would reconcile it with the demands of reality.

Tell that to Blizzard Entertainment.

By having a unique product that has a high and steady stream of income that allows them to not have to worry quite so much about keeping income coming in from constant game production?

Who woulda thought it would be that simple? 

I know everyone loves to point out WoW but Blizzard has had this approach long before that money maker. You know how they do it? Starcraft, Diablo, and Warcraft still in stores some 10 years after release. You make a game that good and with legs as long as those.

[SirBob1613]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

That Video Games shouldn't have time constraints put on them.

That's an ideal, but I'm curious how you would reconcile it with the demands of reality.

Slape EA in the face next time for my Allan

[soulprovider]

Mdoggy1214 wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

That Video Games shouldn't have time constraints put on them.

That's an ideal, but I'm curious how you would reconcile it with the demands of reality.

Tell that to Blizzard Entertainment.

hey don't try and defend blizzard took them ten years to put startcraft 2 out and its only 1/3rd of the game story and feels rushed in its own right while also feeling like WOW, Now diablo three on the other hand lets all pray that game isn't another WOW clone, i'll die a little inside if thats the case much like SC2 and ME3.

If the ME controversy has taught me anything, start supporting indie game developers and small time studios.

[Erszebeth]

It taught me not to buy triple A games at launch, or ever.
It's better to fund indie titles and devs who make games for their public and not for the one they hope to get.