35 réponses à ce sujet

[SunTzuz]

Start on that new engine or licience a new one.
Attention to detail!  Even the smallest detail adds up.
Manage your resources! Seems like a lot of it went into cinematics and marketing.
Don't pull a ME3 (last mission); if it is not done and the deadline is looming... well, that is your decision (hopefully a good one).
Test gameplay mechanics and world (not the story).  Then test some more.  Build more test chambers.  Keep testing, use outside test subjects if necessary.
Do not call it DA3... something like Thedas or The Magisters or The Circle Revolt and in the small corner of the box art [Dragon Age]

Show, don't tell.

[Dakota Strider]

I would like to say one thing about test subjects. Getting some from outside Bioware is a good idea. An even better idea, is to make sure you are getting people from all demographics. If you have test subjects that only have console and action game experience, you should also have players that have rpg experience going back to Baldur's Gate and beyond.

[Maria Caliban]

Dakota Strider wrote...

If you have test subjects that only have console and action game experience, you should also have players that have rpg experience going back to Baldur's Gate and beyond.

I would bet a redundant organ that BioWare has testers with RPG experience.

Probably more RPG experience than the average forumite.

[Dakota Strider]

Maria Caliban wrote...

Dakota Strider wrote...

If you have test subjects that only have console and action game experience, you should also have players that have rpg experience going back to Baldur's Gate and beyond.

I would bet a redundant organ that BioWare has testers with RPG experience.

Probably more RPG experience than the average forumite.

Based on the results of their last couple releases, one would have reason to wonder about that.

[MichaelStuart]

Also don't be afraid to lose money be delaying, You will make more in the long term.
Great games made 20 years ago are still making money.

[Rorschachinstein]

EA has the Frostbite engine, and flawless multiplayer servers. Use them

Modifié par Rorschachinstein, 25 avril 2012 - 05:36 .

[Maria Caliban]

Dakota Strider wrote...

Based on the results of their last couple releases, one would have reason to wonder about that.

I would have no reason to wonder about that. Even if I agreed with your implied suggestion that BioWare isn't making proper RPGs, that would have nothing to do with the testers.

Rorschachinstein wrote...

EA has the Frostbite engine, and flawless multiplayer servers. Use them

BioWare is using the Frostbite Engine... for Command & Conquer: Generals 2.

Why do you consider that engine a good idea for Dragon Age III?

Modifié par Maria Caliban, 25 avril 2012 - 05:51 .

[Rorschachinstein]

Maria Caliban wrote...

Rorschachinstein wrote...

EA has the Frostbite engine, and flawless multiplayer servers. Use them

BioWare is using the Frostbite Engine... for Command & Conquer: Generals 2.

Why do you consider that engine a good idea for Dragon Age III?

Because everything the Frostbite engine touches turns to gold

Modifié par Rorschachinstein, 25 avril 2012 - 06:04 .

[Dakota Strider]

Rorschachinstein wrote...

EA has the Frostbite engine, and flawless multiplayer servers. Use them

Dragon Age does not need to turn into a multiplayer game to be better.  That should be way down on their priority list.  And while I do not claim to know everything the Frostbite engine is capable of, I find it hard to believe that one designed for a shooter is what would work best for a RPG like DA.

[Realmzmaster]

The development team has very little control over the marketing. Marketing is still essential to get gamers interested in the game. Gamers want to see trailers, demos freebies etc. As far as beta testers we do not know who the development team uses, but I am assume they do get a cross section of gamers to test their games which means from PC to console gamers. I am sure some of those have cRPG experience.

The problem with getting gamers who have cRPG experience that goes back to BG or before is that the mechanics of those games were heavily influenced by D & D which can be good or bad depending on how you look at it. Those games require a heavy investment in micromanaging that may not appeal to others.
Attention to detail is good. Too much attention to detail and the game may take to long and fall victim to scope creep.

Dragon Age is the brand name why would they hide it? If you spend money on branding a product you do not hide the brand.

If the new engine has not been started before now or a license obtained and developers bought up to speed on a engine like Frostbite 2 you will not see a new engine. Learning a new engine takes time especially if you did not develop it.

Engines can be flexible depending on how the engine is made and its capabilities.  Frostbite 2 has also been used for Need for Speed: The Run and will be used for  Command & Conquer: Generals 2.  So the engine itself can be versatile. 

Modifié par Realmzmaster, 25 avril 2012 - 06:17 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Dakota Strider wrote...

I would like to say one thing about test subjects. Getting some from outside Bioware is a good idea. An even better idea, is to make sure you are getting people from all demographics. If you have test subjects that only have console and action game experience, you should also have players that have rpg experience going back to Baldur's Gate and beyond.

Our QA department has a wide range of people with a wide range of gaming backgrounds.  Sometimes it's good to have someone with limited gaming experience look at a user interface, for example, because it ensures that our prior experiences don't overtly bias our expectations as to whether or not it makes sense.  Sometimes it's good to have an RPG pro that's been playing for 20 years because he has seen how other games broke based on his prior experience.


In case anyone is interested, my preferred gaming platform is the PC, and I have played every BioWare game sans Shattered Steel and Jade Empire (because there was no PC version for a long time).  My work is more technical in nature (supporting the development process, tools development, pipelines, etc) but I have resolved to try to be more aware of what we're working on from a consumer perspective going forward, because I do feel I didn't do that as well on DA2 which meant by the time I was looking at some of the in game content, it was very late in development.

What this means is I jump into the shark tank and engage the fans (including the busier shark tank known as the ME3 boards... >.>) to try to get meaningful discussions and then critically think about common themes and see how they relate to the ideas we're currently milling about, look at them from a QA perspective (i.e. is there something I could do as QA to help improve the user experience as it relates to the discussion), and occasionally coalesce them and approach our senior leads (whom are so super approachable I'm still kind of surprised) and discuss how some ideas may or may not align with our goals and to create perspective on what we want to do.  I think most of this is just that I have settled into the company, now have a full game under my belt, and just feel more comfortable about the whole dev process and I do want to make a kickass game for people.

Also, as a gamer with a huge PC bias, I do actively provide feedback and questions about how features will behave for PC gamers though.  I can still kick some butt in some Batman Arkham City on the 360 though if need be.

[Maria Caliban]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

My work is more technical in nature (supporting the development process, tools development, pipelines, etc) but I have resolved to try to be more aware of what we're working on from a consumer perspective going forward, because I do feel I didn't do that as well on DA2 which meant by the time I was looking at some of the in game content, it was very late in development.

What do you mean?

[Allan Schumacher]

What do you mean?

I mean that I didn't spend as much time experiencing the content as I would have liked, in hindsight.  Part of this was just still being relatively new to the job, as DA2 was my first full project.

I spend a lot of time in test levels created either by myself or other people, or writing some code to help automate some of the playthrough so that content guys can get be more efficient at their jobs. I'll design and execute regression tests for the various systems to ensure that, for example, the staging system still works (do the systems the content use still work in game), does the workflow designers use still work (have we changed anything that may accidentally prevent them from adding new content on that day), and stuff like that.

I do need to have real life, in game examples that I can test on (relying only on test levels is a recipe for bad), but unfortunately I was able to get most of my coverage in that regard without going all that far into the first act of DA2. So there were large parts of the story and plot that I actually didn't have that good of an understanding of (or even know about) because they didn't directly relate back to the work that I typically dealt with.

So part of my personal goals going forward is to still keep perspective on the game we're making as a whole, which includes finding time in my work week to just playthrough content that we have and look at it not only for my specific roles, but also from a more general perspective. As someone with a CompSci background I understand the importance of iteration and if I can help detect content issues earlier in development, the cheaper and more likely those elements can continue to be iterated on.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 25 avril 2012 - 08:00 .

[byzantine horse]

Imo Frostbite 2 looks better than Red, and why EA would license Red when they own the other makes no sense. On that note, Frostbite 2 is built to have great lighting and destruction effects, would DA3 benefit from destructible environments?

[MichaelStuart]

byzantine horse wrote...

Imo Frostbite 2 looks better than Red, and why EA would license Red when they own the other makes no sense. On that note, Frostbite 2 is built to have great lighting and destruction effects, would DA3 benefit from destructible environments?

Causing a building to collapse on enemies, or just being able to throw them through windows and fences would great.

[AlexJK]

byzantine horse wrote...

... would DA3 benefit from destructible environments?

Nope. Real destructible terrain pretty much requires a game built around it, and the alternative is to have certain objects or types of object be destructible, leading to "yes you can smash this box/door/wall but not this one" - which is no more or less bizarre than saying that nothing is.

Modifié par AlexJK, 25 avril 2012 - 11:46 .

[byzantine horse]

Exactly, and even if the destructible environments are not used (as the rest of the engine looks great anyway) would not that use up processing power simply by the code being there? I'm no programmer but I think there are modern good looking engines out there (CryEngine 3? :-D ) that might be more fit for purpose.

[Dakota Strider]

@Allan Schumacher: Thanks for the feedback, and for the openness about some of what happened in the development of DA2, and at least one person's commitment within the DA dev team to do things differently for the hypothetical DA3. From the responses I have seen on the DA side of the Bioware forums, I think there is a feeling that the fans/customers are being listened to, and surprisingly, sometimes taken seriously.

Modifié par Dakota Strider, 25 avril 2012 - 03:49 .

[John Epler]

AlexJK wrote...

byzantine horse wrote...

... would DA3 benefit from destructible environments?

Nope. Real destructible terrain pretty much requires a game built around it, and the alternative is to have certain objects or types of object be destructible, leading to "yes you can smash this box/door/wall but not this one" - which is no more or less bizarre than saying that nothing is.

Pretty much.

As soon as you bring 'destructible environments' up as a bullet point, everyone starts to imagine a magical world where they can collapse a building on top of their enemies, or take out a bridge to prevent pursuit. Battlefield 3 does it well, as does Red Faction: Guerilla (or as I like to call it, 'Red Faction: Just How Many Explosives Are Too Many'), but that's because a large part of their gameplay is focused around it.

I think the new X-Com remake is also going to have destructible terrain? Which makes sense. But as for Dragon Age, if we ever moved into that arena I doubt it'd be enough to make it a major feature.

[Kail Ashton]

"Red Faction: The Micheal Bay Edition" would've been my choice, but still

As for the topic; uh i dunno...-technical jargin i'm making up bout stuff insert here- look the point is i had a micheal bay joke and damnit i'm going to use it

[SunTzuz]

Good to see discussion!

I can't imagine the next DA game with destructable environments. Movable objects? Even that migbt be too much (see buckets and cheese wheels).

There is nothing wrong with emphisizing the title more than the Dragon Age name. It is still Dragon Age. Give it a good title DA3: ______. Market it good enough, people might call it ____ instead of DA3.