475 réponses à ce sujet

[Jos Hendriks]

Well, I know that you guys iterate and iterate and iterate, I guess I'm just disheartened by the fact that you're not saying, "This is how we'll play the game at release." Then somebody else comes up with a new idea, or new banter, or something new, then you do some more work. "Okay, this is how we'll play the game." Of course, what I know about video game management timetables you can fit onto a pin head.

Which kind'a leads into my final statement of, we do have another year. I mean, what you, as a company, have produced so far is amazing. I don't care if it involves black magic, just keep on churning out the great games.

There isn't really a way to tell what comes down the road which ends up making it a better experience. The framework is there. The structure we want to go with is more or less there.
What I've played through before my vacation is the "proper" way, as in I started a new game and performed the fundamental steps that any player would when the game is done.
Don't get me wrong, it is not ready for public consumption, but it's functional and gives us a good idea of what we're making in context of all the other stuff people are making for the project. It is nice to take a step back from doing my mission work and see how all the parts everyone else is working on are coming together, and how my own work fits in.

It's a really good process, and it has many benefits, such as allowing adjustments along the way and making things better.

[Jos Hendriks]

Having a Gears guy working on Mass Effect for me is an awesome thing. Especially a guy like him. A shame but I hope he just means he finished his part of the game.

I heard a few Epic guys moved from Gears to Mass Effect years back that brought a huge smile on my face. I knew the gameplay would be even better and fun. Beating down a Batarian would be sweet

Sometimes IDK if Mass Effect would feel the same to me if I played 1 first. 2 just felt so much like Gears gameplay wise and I loved it.

There is at least one more guy who has worked on Gears on the team (and has been since the ME2 days. Heck, we started at BioWare a week apart from one another)

[Jos Hendriks]

Tweet.

[BioMasika]

Only disappointment I think is that I didn't survive all waves of Object Rho, but I was soooo not counting that as completionism and I already had the achievement from earlier.

I had fun making that one. Good to see that it can be a challenge.

[Jos Hendriks]

Please keep this thread on topic, and please remain courteous.

[Jos Hendriks]

SOMEBODY TWEET

 

 

ANYBODY

 

 

I NEED IT 

 

 

 

 

Keep calm and tweet.

[Jos Hendriks]

It is a commemorative coin, got one for the 20th anniversary of BioWare's existence. Not related to any game in particular.

[Jos Hendriks]

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Very good Jos. Nice to take a "peek" on a day's work.

The question, though, is the team getting enough "external" feedback?

*snip*

In you case Jos, peer reviews are nice but they are peer reviews and we (hint) are the customers.

Just sayin'

The key difference between your example and our work here is that we are also customers, and we use the "product" in the context of "consumption" as well as development.
My personal approach to building missions, given the things that have to happen within a mission from a narrative, technical, and gameplay standpoint, what would be a cool thing to play, see, do in a mission? I play a ton of games. I see a ton of what other games do, and in playing with friends who don't do this for a living I get a pretty good sense of what people enjoy.

That aside, our peer review process exists for others to tell us where something is not good or fun or compelling, and where it happens people really aren't afraid to speak up about it.

And even that aside, we have people who play the game who aren't working on it in a level design capacity, and we all play games here. We're not developing a system that we don't see the end user experience of ourselves.

[Jos Hendriks]

Snip

I think your post suggests your take-away from my post was that we don't get external feedback. We do.

I'll let this topic meander back to its topic now, though, which is tweets.

[Jos Hendriks]

Tweet

[Jos Hendriks]

Wait, they used to post ... here ?

I'm wondering if people from BioWare comes sometimes here now or if we're totally alone in the forum ...

 

Ah yes, "BioWare people posting here", we have dismissed that claim.

[Jos Hendriks]

He forgot to mention the #1 reason to document,  "In case I get hit by a bus on the way to work."  At least that is my #1 reason.

 

Did I? Or does that fit under the banner of someone not being able to work on it anymore? 

[Jos Hendriks]

Also Jos, if you feel the need to share anything you could just do it in Dutch and no one will ever know.


Well, except for me and a couple of others, but we can keep a secret!

Ik heb vandaag wat eieren gebakken voor een lekkere maaltijd. Oh, je bedoelde over het spel? Oeps.

[Jos Hendriks]

It concerns me Jos ever even had the option of NOT making the mission flow better given the opportunity.

Come on guys *slaps ruler on table* THERE IS NO ROOM FOR WEAKNESS. PERFECTION IS THE ONLY OPTION.

 

The flow was there, and it worked well, I just came across something that could make it better still. Stuff like that keeps happening. You build a plan for how things will work, and it will work, and it's great, and then at the last minute there's just a minor thing that could make things better. At some point there's just no time left to do small things like that, or it results in me staying late and not unwinding at home because I'm too stubborn to let it go.

[Jos Hendriks]

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Can't be the final meshes.

Hmm... this level appears to have a beginning, middle and end. Also, is anyone aware if Jos'  forte is combat level design or exploration design?  I remember him saying that level design has a whole team behind it (artists, writers, cinematics, audio) but the gist of my query is if Jos is mostly a brick and mortar guy, plugs in the spawn points and let others to the animations.

 

 

To say that I would own something by myself completely would be reductive, false, and it diminishes the skill and work everyone brings to putting things together. As for my role, I try to be the connective tissue between the different disciplines. I'm responsible for the structure of anything I help build, the technical requirements, am the primary point of contact for the stuff I work on, and try to maintain the core vision of it. I build spaces for art to make gorgeous, I create combat layouts and spaces for the gameplay designers' enemy AI to shine in, I find spots to place loot in that a system designer built, and together with a writer I usually figure out where and how much banter and conversation material should go in, covering what different topics, make sure with a cinematic designer that they have all they need for their scene work, and make sure the overall experience isn't dull for the player. (and then when all that is done, I work with technical designers and programmers to make sure it all plays nicely without trouble on the platforms it needs to run on)

 

And lastly, to answer what you're maybe wondering about here, I'm working on the main story missions of the game.

[Jos Hendriks]

In other words, when you sit around the level design, you sit around the level design?

 

You're gonna have to explain that one to me, I don't get it.

[Jos Hendriks]

He may open himself up to criticism. But I'm liking the sound of everything so, I'm prepared to heap praise on them all if I love this game. Be nice to be able day thanks for X.

By the time you get to see it, I'll be pretty happy with where it's at, and critique is fun as long as it's constructive.

[Jos Hendriks]

Your avatar gives me the heebee jeebees. Might you consider killing it with fire and replacing it with an image of Grumpy Cat?

Thank you for your time.

My avatar disagrees with you, even though he and grumpy cat are good friends.

[Jos Hendriks]

*screams*

I always wonder if the actual game devs come into this thread and see how obsessed we are

Nah, I think you're safe.

[Jos Hendriks]

Reminder that this is the Twitter thread.

[Jos Hendriks]

hmmm i hope this means they are going to be using a more "balanced" or "softer" kind of music. Don't want ME:A to become one more of those Hyper-realistic Adrenaline Shooters. ME trilogy's soundtracks were absolutely awesome and i believe everyone wants something aligned with that.

 

I meant the music I listen to while I work, not music that's in the game.

[Jos Hendriks]

Thank you Jos

(It's strange to talk directly to a dev, thanks for your work! ton of love )

I'm not sure what you're thanking me for, but you're welcome. And developers are, despite reports to the contrary, normal human beings like everyone around here. (Except Zipzap, who is krogan)

I know this is random, but thanks for making this game. Mass Effect is my favorite franchise and sometimes i feel like you guys aren't appreciated enough.

Thanks again.

It's always good for us to read posts, whether they're thankful or critical. Appreciate the gesture. We're all invested in making Andromeda something special.

[Jos Hendriks]

While you're making the game, will you sneak an image of your avatar in the game as an easter egg?

Don't tell anyone, but there actually *is*. The only thing is, it's always behind the player, roughly 3-4 meters away, looking at the back of their head. If you manage to look it in the eyes, you have a 97% chance to die and a 3% chance to become invulnerable.

[Jos Hendriks]

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Seems to me that "polishing" is adding and reviewing more level designs.

 

Reviewing existing work, yes, adding more level designs, no.

 

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@jos Hendriks

 

HI,

A thought hit me about a possible Bio combat feature.... ability to pause tough combat situation, switch to a training scenario to hone a specific skill needed in that mission then switch back and continue. This is predicated upon meaningful and in-depth game training feature. Also, you can open up additional training scenarios as you progress through the game.

 

Manual game saves at any point is an acceptable alternative.

 

I really, really, and I mean it, I hate to start over from the beginning in long missions only to arrive at the same point and die.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

Thanks for the input. Without getting into it further (I can't), a frustrating situation like having to restart long missions from the beginning wouldn't happen. 

[Jos Hendriks]

@Jos Hendricks - Can you hold a raffle to select one random fan to go to an Andromeda release party? I would like to go.

 

Sadly the raffle was already held and the erroneous c in my last name won. (there was no raffle)