192 réponses à ce sujet

[deeros]

Yeah, this is a good idea. To me, it seems that one of Bioware's greatest assets is its enormous and creative fanbase. I've noticed plenty of great ideas and fan art on these forums. It would be a shame if they didn't use all that creativity to make greater games. That doesn't mean they have no freedom anymore, but getting inspiration is always a good thing.

I've always wondered why they didn't make a "development" forum where they interact with the fans and restrict topic creation to staff only to avoid the spam. Those who don't want to see any possible spoilers, can simply ignore it. It works great for some open source games, though I admit none of them are as huge as Bioware's games.

It'd be a move that requires some balls, but I think a company as awesome as Bioware might pull this off

[Vigil_N7]

It wasn't the fans that wrote the story or narrative of Mass Effect 1, Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3.

Nor were the fans responsible creatively for the master piece that was Dragon Age Origins. I haven't played Baldur's Gate or KotoR, but from what I hear both were masterpieces as well.

Bioware's games do not need more fan involvement - fans themselves are often reactionary and can never agree on what they want. Bioware didn't not slip up on ME1, ME2 nor did they slip up on 95% of ME3. If it wasn't for the ending, we wouldn't be having this discussion, and you want to know why the ending was ruined? Because bioware strayed from the narrative style that made the trilogy a success, for some reason, in the final minutes.

Just as in Dragon Age 2 they changed direction from DA:O with a much more linear style game.

Bioware doesn't need to listen to fans for ideas for narratives, obviously you want suggestions as to why they'd like but nothing that would have any major impact on the narrative. What bioware need to do is go back to what they do best, stick to the formula in DA3 that made DA:O a success.

Mass Effect 3 was great because for the much part it remained wholly faithful to the trilogy as a whole, the music, going back to the Alliance etc etc etc. Bioware's undoing was turning their back on the standard conventions they formed by not having a boss fight, introducing a new character literally at the end who was quite possibly the "primary" antagonist, by refusing to allow shepard to investigate the matter more, by making choices meaningless - ALL THESE betrayed and contradicted the conventions that made Mass Effect as successful as it was. If its not broke, don't fix it, Bioware tried doing something different and it blew up in their face - so in future games, stick to what you do best and the fans will love you for it.

[Leafs43]

 Nothing wrong with getting fan input.


This probably would have made DA2 more acceptable by the fan base.

[mauro2222]

^ what the **** are you smoking?

[Peranor]

Bill Casey wrote...

The fans are not writing the game...
It's just giving the writers a think tank...

Yeah, this. 

[NOD-INFORMER37]

Vigil_N7 wrote...

It wasn't the fans that wrote the story or narrative of Mass Effect 1, Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3.

Nor were the fans responsible creatively for the master piece that was Dragon Age Origins. I haven't played Baldur's Gate or KotoR, but from what I hear both were masterpieces as well.

Bioware's games do not need more fan involvement - fans themselves are often reactionary and can never agree on what they want. Bioware didn't not slip up on ME1, ME2 nor did they slip up on 95% of ME3. If it wasn't for the ending, we wouldn't be having this discussion, and you want to know why the ending was ruined? Because bioware strayed from the narrative style that made the trilogy a success, for some reason, in the final minutes.

Just as in Dragon Age 2 they changed direction from DA:O with a much more linear style game.

Bioware doesn't need to listen to fans for ideas for narratives, obviously you want suggestions as to why they'd like but nothing that would have any major impact on the narrative. What bioware need to do is go back to what they do best, stick to the formula in DA3 that made DA:O a success.

Mass Effect 3 was great because for the much part it remained wholly faithful to the trilogy as a whole, the music, going back to the Alliance etc etc etc. Bioware's undoing was turning their back on the standard conventions they formed by not having a boss fight, introducing a new character literally at the end who was quite possibly the "primary" antagonist, by refusing to allow shepard to investigate the matter more, by making choices meaningless - ALL THESE betrayed and contradicted the conventions that made Mass Effect as successful as it was. If its not broke, don't fix it, Bioware tried doing something different and it blew up in their face - so in future games, stick to what you do best and the fans will love you for it.

Agreed. 

[Necrotron]

Sixth Goul wrote...

Is this a bad thing?

Seriously.  Games are created for entertainment value.  Sure, I want developers to be able to create things they enjoy, to a point.  I am hoping to buy said game and have fun.  If it is not fun, I won't buy it.

Creating a game with the fans involved is a win/win situation.

[julio77777]

This is nothing more than a PR stunt to calm angry customers than feel unheard. I don't think it's a very good strategy as it will probably cause a ****storm when DA3 actually comes out with almost no suggestions taken into account.
But as far as fans overseeing development goes, I think it's one of the worst idea ever. You should understand what would appeal to people but not let them dictate what to do.

[Verit]

Company starts to listen to the consumer to avoid making the same mistakes they made with two of their previous products that didn't live up to the consumers' expectations. The horror!

[covertdrizzt]

paying attention to what your customers want out of a product. what a strange idea. wonder why its never been attempted before now.

[Peranor]

covertdrizzt wrote...

paying attention to what your customers want out of a product. what a strange idea. wonder why its never been attempted before now.

A small wonder isn't it? Those guys at Bioware sure comes up with new crazy ideas all the time 

[Alikain]

interesting read but am still disappointed about bioware from the first time they made dragon age 2 with so many problems and now they lie to us about ME3. if anything i want to see how they pull themselves out of this mess. I mean how many times did they change the game mechanics which didn't even need changing. i wouldn't want to go into the story aspect of things. one would have to expected their writers to be able to get a sense of what is what.

[AppealToReason]

excelon wrote...

There's going to be so many conflicts between fans over where the story should go. It'll be a nightmare.

This. Fans ideas are too much of a clusterfck. It raped MW3, been killing sports games too. The fans don't know better, but they think they do.

[hoodaticus]

AppealToReason wrote...

excelon wrote...

There's going to be so many conflicts between fans over where the story should go. It'll be a nightmare.

This. Fans ideas are too much of a clusterfck. It raped MW3, been killing sports games too. The fans don't know better, but they think they do.

This.

If DA2 had epilogue and didn't use recycled maps, the lack of a story would have been partially forgiven.

[AppealToReason]

hoodaticus wrote...

AppealToReason wrote...

excelon wrote...

There's going to be so many conflicts between fans over where the story should go. It'll be a nightmare.

This. Fans ideas are too much of a clusterfck. It raped MW3, been killing sports games too. The fans don't know better, but they think they do.

This.

If DA2 had epilogue and didn't use recycled maps, the lack of a story would have been partially forgiven.

Everyone has their own cannon and their own playstyle and their own ideas for improvements and things they think would be great minor additions, but in reality most of it sucks. Your vocal minority is not the best people to take ideas from. Their usually too emotionally attached to the universe to take a step back and realize "wow, thats actually terrible"

Do fanservice in small things. Don't let fanservice direct the game.

e: You can even add fighters and Halo to the list of games that have gone too far with fan "ideas" and alienated all but their hardcores.

Modifié par AppealToReason, 27 mai 2012 - 10:17 .

[Henioo]

It's a good thing they want to please the fans.
It's a bad thing they want to please the fans.

Depends on the level of changes made upon fans' request. I don't want Sten or Arishok as a LI, for example. As long as they just take bits and piece off of fans' feedback and not tailor everything for fans, it should be more than fine.

[Festilence]

Henioo wrote...

It's a good thing they want to please the fans.
It's a bad thing they want to please the fans.

Depends on the level of changes made upon fans' request. I don't want Sten or Arishok as a LI, for example. As long as they just take bits and piece off of fans' feedback and not tailor everything for fans, it should be more than fine.

This pretty much sums up my thoughts.

[Raynulf]

A) Audience/Player Input =/= "Fans Writing The Story"
Bioware/EA sink tens (sometimes hundreds) of millions of dollars into making a game. If you're putting in that kind of investment, market research is probably a good idea, especially as reliance on brand name alone seems not to be working as well as one might hope.

The forum they're talking about is basically a think tank: "Customers, we're interested in feedback on Topic X" - Watch what is said, filter through, and see if there are any strong trends.

E.g.
- "We want to see what happened with Morrigan's god-kid"
- "MOAR DRAGONS!"
- "New Arlathan would be sooo cool!"
- "Please for the love of god make more than two underground areas for the next game!"
- "NWN2 had this great castle-building section - stuff like that is sweet!"
- "The Qunari bit in DA2 was awesome... We'd like to see more of them"
- "The Winterforge mod for DA:O was a cool crafting system - something like that in DA3 would be great"

And so on. They help give ideas about what people would love to see, buy, and recommend to their friends (free advertising). For example: I was personally expecting that DA2's "rise to power" would actually be set 20 years after DA:O and follow Morrigan's child as the protagonist as they sought to fight against the Darkspawn and redeem the other old gods... or some such.


Polarizing Issues for Internet Drama Value = Unnecessary
Let's face it, the modus operandi of the internet is to take any given issue and for the most vocal to take either extreme perspective and try to argue it from there: "ZOMG! They're giving us exactly what we want" vs "ZOMG! Fans writing games will DESTROY THE WORLD!"

No.

They're trying to formalise and structure gaining customer feedback on specific topics regarding their IP to use in development for DA3, and that is not either of the above extremes. Indeed: Those extremes almost never exist, they just make for more passionate and vocal internet drama.

It's a good idea. A better idea might be making sure the schedule and budget of DA3 is actually aligned with the scope.

[AngryFrozenWater]

I think that BW is not committed to create RPGs anymore. You can find evidence of that on the ME3 site. The game is described as an action game with an interactive story. The term RPG is nowhere to be found. Over time the IP changed into such an action game. That's fine if you want to attract a new audience. Sadly, the sales of these products do not dramatically improve. That means that more and more RPG fans stayed away from the franchise and the new action game fans do not embrace the IP like it was the new incarnation of the competition's latest and greatest MP action game.

The gameplay has drastically changed to attract that new audience. At the same time BW's writers seem to have lost their magic to write kick ass stories like they used to do. ME1 had a story in which a mystery slowly unfolded. The later titles were not able to keep that kind of quality. I don't have to mention the end, do I? DA2 was even worse. That story sucked from beginning to end. So, yes, the customers made clear that they were unhappy. No surprises there.

Asking your audience what they like is fine, but in this case it feels like fighting symptoms. BW should have the courage to get into the cause of all this. To me a solution would be to try to create an innovative RPG and do not concentrate on the action game fans. Whether you like the game or not, Skyrim proved it can sell 10 million copies. That just means that RPGs are not a niche market. But if they want to keep the RPG fans then make it an innovative game (which does not mean streamlined and iconized) and get a couple writers who didn't lose their magic.

Modifié par AngryFrozenWater, 28 mai 2012 - 12:02 .

[Jawsomebob]

STOP COMPLAINING about DA3. Their is only 1 thing we should complain about and we all know what it is.

[Gruntburner]

And as a last bit of housekeeping, the purpose of these exercises isn’t crowd sourcing or soliciting your game dev concepts (keep those close in case you want to make a game someday!). 

Quoted from the actual blog post.  Maybe people should read the actual source material.

Modifié par Gruntburner, 28 mai 2012 - 12:22 .

[xsdob]

You know why I have a feeling that fans won't be helpful in this area in giving bioware feedback? Look at this thread, we can't even agree on what level of feedback there will be, what level there should be, and if it's even a good thing to begin with.

And this is a light hearted disagreement compared to some of the arguments waged on these forums for less important news or options, and you think we'll magically pull together to give an accurate say on anything?

Better luck united the husk to fight the reapers than of that happening.

[deeros]

xsdob wrote...

You know why I have a feeling that fans won't be helpful in this area in giving bioware feedback? Look at this thread, we can't even agree on what level of feedback there will be, what level there should be, and if it's even a good thing to begin with

You don't have to agree, and they don't have to listen. Brainstorming is useful even if nothing is used directly. It's not always about big story lines either, sometimes small hints like jokes and usability improvements can be enough.

[xsdob]

deeros wrote...

xsdob wrote...

You know why I have a feeling that fans won't be helpful in this area in giving bioware feedback? Look at this thread, we can't even agree on what level of feedback there will be, what level there should be, and if it's even a good thing to begin with

You don't have to agree, and they don't have to listen. Brainstorming is useful even if nothing is used directly. It's not always about big story lines either, sometimes small hints like jokes and usability improvements can be enough.

And you think the fanbase can argee on those? I really don't know if they can.

I normally hate cynicism but with the way forum posting fans are, myself included, I really don't know if even limited consensus can be reached without the discussion turning into a flamewar.

Personally, I'm for this idea but at the same time nervous about it due to how the internet makes it easy to screw a good thing up.

Modifié par xsdob, 28 mai 2012 - 01:36 .