188 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

Wulfram wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Quests where completing them at all might have negative consequences would also be interesting. If, in some cases, the best possible outcome arises from not doing the quest, that would turn the choice of whether to accept the quest in the first place into something more than a trivial exercise.

Well, you could argue that applies to Merrill's Act 3 quest in DA2.

It's good to hear that this is already happening.

I couldn't stomach DA2 past the beginning of Act 3, so I never saw that quest.

[rapscallioness]

Melca36 wrote...

esper wrote...

Melca36 wrote...

Pasquale1234 wrote...

Melca36 wrote...

I do think some gamers have gotten lazier over the years and want everything handed to them. I think its why we got a dumbed down Deeproads (Legacy's was better) and Fade.

I think people are just busier, have more distractions, and probably shorter attention spans.

That said, I like long dungeon crawls (ala DAO) because it feels more like you really were down there for weeks and traveled many miles.  DA2 talked about "going deeper than anyone has ever gone before" and your party was supposedly gone a long time, but it sure didn't feel like it.

I can understand that but thats why theres a save function.

The Deeproads was so uninspired in DA2's main game.  I will admit that it was greatly improved with the Legacy DLC

And I hated the deep road in da:o with a passion, mostly because that's what killed 80% of my warden, I would get them to that point and no longer since i just lost interest in the warden around there.

It is hard to say what makes a perfect lenght, and honestly I don't think that it is an exact hour amount. I have played 20 hours long games that bored me and felt unending and 60 hour games which never lost my interest and when I reached the end point I was left with the feeling of 'huh all ready, but I want more', and I think the key part of the feeling is somehow not having gameplay, levels, or areas which at some point stops being fun and just being a core that goes on, and on, and on.

There needs to be a reasonable compromise for the Deep Roads in DA:3 then because I hated it in DA:2
Legacy was an improvment though.

I honestly felt ripped off.  It lacked the depth and creepiness that it had it in Origins.

And yes I know it was long but the beauty of it is there was a save function and the ability to do it in sections. And seeing the archdemon for the first time was truly epic.

I agree with Melca on this. And the thing is, I played DA2 first. Long before I ever played DAO. So, I was not comparing the Deep Roads inn DA2 to the DR in DAO.

And I, too, felt..let down. I had done all this stuff to get the money. There was a certain feeling of dread, doom about going into the DR. I took a deep breath. I was a little nervous. And....it turned out to be more of a mission than a quest. It felt like the journey had been fast forwarded.

And I think it was missing a certain "creepy" factor.

DAO DR I loved. It was long. It was grueling. Towards the end my party had all these red injury squares over the names. Lol. Man, I was happy to get outta there. As was my Warden. Warden wasn't there for a picnic.

The Fade in DAO, I hate it, but I wouldn't change it. I hate it because I get turned around anyway, so being in that place was a true nightmare for me the first time. Omg! A lil bit of panic seized me. I'm really stuck in the Fade!

I wouldn't change it, though, because in the story Warden was indeed unwillingly trapped in the Fade. I felt it did a good job of making me, the player, feel that way, too.

As far as game length. I feel a game should be a solid 50 hours, at least. With sidequests? Sure, okay. But these 10 hour games...no, thank you. If I can beat a game in one day I feel cheated. Really.

[Dragoonlordz]

I want 40 hours minimum, 60 hours preferred with the additional benefit of good replay value due to good plot branching and large choices through course of the game. As for the article writer, I do not care what he or she thinks. I do not buy games often and only buy the ones I consider to be the best for the genre I like. I need those titles to be engrossing and long with good replay value. A great game will keep your attention for 10 hours, 40 hours even 100 hours. A bad game will have you bored and looking for something else to do.

Modifié par Dragoonlordz, 05 juillet 2012 - 09:43 .

[rapscallioness]

Oh, and to what Allan was asking about what drives sequel cravings. For me at least, it's the story. I wanna know what's gonna happen next. I want to explore more of the world. Find out deeper secrets.

I imagine that with franchises like CoD, the players enjoy the experience. They want to simply take part in that world more. That experience. I've never played any CoD games, but from what I see they remind me of arcade games. Hyped up arcade games. Where the focus is shooting everything, instead of a story...

And I'm not bashing CoD. That's not my place. If people are having fun with it, people are having fun with it. Arcade games were huge. Still are.

But there's more to it. The environment. The story a player gets to take part in. This is there in CoD as well as BW games.

For me though, it is the story/stories. The potential of compelling, new adventures I get to take part in. And what happens next.

Whatever the player taste, or playstyle, I think it comes down to invent an interesting world, and people are gonna want to live in it.

[batlin]

Colin Moriarty is a joke reviewer of the highest calibur. I'm willing to bet he only wants RPGs to be short so he doesn't have to spend as much time with them in order to write his crappy reviews.

[wowpwnslol]

BobSmith101 wrote...

Just read this over on the Rainbow moon board.

The thing is though, are we really in a day and age in which video games with extreme lengths of gameplay are actually seen as flawed for that reason? I just find it kind of ridiculous that Colin seemed to point out the 100+ hours of gameplay as a possible negative. Has the speed of life really gotten to the point where people are like, "Man, I really wish this RPG was like 6 hours long

The game scored an 8 which is really good for that type of game I guess. But they marked it down for being too long.
How long should DA3 be ? 100+ or 6 hours+ ? Or somewhere in the middle.

Another classic example of an ADD afflicted adult paid to spew trash that passes for "reviews". He should go play shooters with 5 hour single player campaigns. Should be right up his alley.

Modifié par wowpwnslol, 06 juillet 2012 - 01:23 .

[lx_theo]

Length is good... for the people who are going to put in that time. Which is definitely a minority, no matter how much as the people on the internet who prefer the huge time sink games don't like it.

Modifié par lx_theo, 06 juillet 2012 - 02:38 .

[Brockololly]

Allan Schumacher wrote...
The principle thing for me is that, if Schafer had made a sequel instead of Psychonauts, we wouldn't have had Psychonauts.

True. That logic makes sense. Sometimes its nice to just see something new and not in any way constrained by something previous.

On the flip side, I think the desire for sequels probably comes more when you have a heavily story driven game that leaves people wanting more in that particular universe. Whereas some new IP instead of a sequel is probably good when you want totally new game mechanics as well as a new setting. At least it would seem easier to adopt new mechanics for a game to go along with a new setting than to try grafting new mechanics on to the expectations of an already established franchise.

Allan Schumacher wrote...
Part of my resistance to PST at first was that it only looked like Baldur's Gate. I actually stopped playing. I then revisited it and actually prefer it.

Oh, I completely understand that feeling. I remember back in the day when I loved Goldeneye for N64 and then played Perfect Dark, I loved Perfect Dark but since it was based on the Goldeneye engine, it felt almost overly familiar when I was expecting something more different. I still get that way some times with games that end up using the same engine and feel overly similar to other games in some sense.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Quests where completing them at
all might have negative consequences would also be interesting. If, in
some cases, the best possible outcome arises from not doing the quest,
that would turn the choice of whether to accept the quest in the first
place into something more than a trivial exercise.

I'm reminded of one of the early quests in The Witcher 2 that fit that pretty well- one where going out of your way to accept a "reward" wasn't really a reward and you'd have been better off leaving it alone. A lot of quests in Skyrim are like this too.

[batlin]

lx_theo wrote...

Length is good... for the people who are going to put in that time. Which is definitely a minority, no matter how much as the people on the internet who prefer the huge time sink games don't like it.

If someone doesn't want to put in the time what's stopping them from just playing the game for however long they want?

[wsandista]

batlin wrote...

lx_theo wrote...

Length is good... for the people who are going to put in that time. Which is definitely a minority, no matter how much as the people on the internet who prefer the huge time sink games don't like it.

If someone doesn't want to put in the time what's stopping them from just playing the game for however long they want?

Hot-air from the internet.

[AcidRelic]

I like at least 40+ hours. It can be shorter or longer though but needs Diverse game play and quests to keep it from getting to stale. Fallout NV, KotOR (1 and 2) and DA:O were probably the best in terms of length and not getting boring (for me anyway). Skyrim is too long in the whole though I loved all the guild lines, and the rest (ME universe, KoA, ect...) were either to short or to long without more diversity in either game play or quests

[lx_theo]

batlin wrote...

lx_theo wrote...

Length is good... for the people who are going to put in that time. Which is definitely a minority, no matter how much as the people on the internet who prefer the huge time sink games don't like it.

If someone doesn't want to put in the time what's stopping them from just playing the game for however long they want?

Difference is that if you're going to design a game that people are going to only play for so long, are you going to going to go into design with a focus on have lower quality and a much longer time, or much better quality by getting around the time people usually play for by focusing your efforts there? As a company wanting to make the best game for the most people (yes, any business strategy that doesn't do this is probably going to fail if they are not already making things for a very niche market), they will pick the latter almost every time.

[Plaintiff]

batlin wrote...

lx_theo wrote...

Length is good... for the people who are going to put in that time. Which is definitely a minority, no matter how much as the people on the internet who prefer the huge time sink games don't like it.

If someone doesn't want to put in the time what's stopping them from just playing the game for however long they want?

Nothing at all. But you're asking the wrong question.

When someone gets so bored with a game that they put it down and never pick it up again, it is the game devleopers that should be concerned. They should be asking "What can we do to keep the player engaged through the entire game?"

You can toss around all the false, biased claims you want. "Oh, today's gamers don't want a challenge! They have ADD and low attention spans! Blah blah blah!", but none of that changes the fact that when a game promises  a certain amount of hours of entertainment, the onus is on the developers to deliver on that promise by making sure the experience is engaging throughout. If someone starts playing, only to find that they'd rather read a book, go outside, or file their taxes, then the game has failed. Players who do not enjoy a game enough to even complete it are not likely to buy a sequel, or they might avoid that particular devleoper entirely.

When people say they don't like the Fade or Deep Roads sections of Origins, it's obviously not a question of attention span, because they have no issue with any of the other major quest chains or the dozens of sidequests. I have yet to hear of any mod that allows players to skip Brecilian Forest, Redcliffe or the Landsmeet. If they exist, then they aren't nearly as popular as the ones that allow you to skip the Deep Roads and the Fade. And it's a pretty amazing coincidence that the two areas that are most often cited as the ones people like the least are also the two areas that show the least variation in design, and probably the worst ratio of playtime to plot progression .

Modifié par Plaintiff, 06 juillet 2012 - 05:06 .

[batlin]

lx_theo wrote...

Difference is that if you're going to
design a game that people are going to only play for so long, are you
going to going to go into design with a focus on have lower quality and a
much longer time, or much better quality by getting around the time
people usually play for by focusing your efforts there? As a company
wanting to make the best game for the most people (yes, any business
strategy that doesn't do this is probably going to fail if they are not
already making things for a very niche market), they will pick the
latter almost every time.

I wonder how that strategy worked out for Kane & Lynch 2...

Plaintiff wrote...

Nothing at all. But you're asking the wrong question.

When someone gets so bored with a game that they put it down and never pick it up again, it is the game devleopers that should be concerned. They should be asking "What can we do to keep the player engaged through the entire game?"

You can toss around all the false, biased claims you want. "Oh, today's gamers don't want a challenge! They have ADD and low attention spans! Blah blah blah!", but none of that changes the fact that when a game promises  a certain amount of hours of entertainment, the onus is on the developers to deliver on that promise by making sure the experience is engaging throughout. If someone starts playing, only to find that they'd rather read a book, go outside, or file their taxes, then the game has failed. Players who do not enjoy a game enough to even complete it are not likely to buy a sequel, or they might avoid that particular devleoper entirely.

When people say they don't like the Fade or Deep Roads sections of Origins, it's obviously not a question of attention span, because they have no issue with any of the other major quest chains or the dozens of sidequests. I have yet to hear of any mod that allows players to skip Brecilian Forest, Redcliffe or the Landsmeet. If they exist, then they aren't nearly as popular as the ones that allow you to skip the Deep Roads and the Fade. And it's a pretty amazing coincidence that the two areas that are most often cited as the ones people like the least are also the two areas that show the least variation in design, and probably the worst ratio of playtime to plot progression .

And Colin's response to that is to simply gut content to avoid tedium rather than instead giving players more. That is a cancerous mentality.

Modifié par batlin, 06 juillet 2012 - 06:07 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Brockololly wrote...

True. That logic makes sense. Sometimes its nice to just see something new and not in any way constrained by something previous.

On the flip side, I think the desire for sequels probably comes more when you have a heavily story driven game that leaves people wanting more in that particular universe. Whereas some new IP instead of a sequel is probably good when you want totally new game mechanics as well as a new setting. At least it would seem easier to adopt new mechanics for a game to go along with a new setting than to try grafting new mechanics on to the expectations of an already established franchise.

I wouldn't be surprised if DA2 may have been better received if it was not called "Dragon Age 2."  Although I think the most legitimate complaints probably still would have been called out and they would have been justified.  By the same token, I wonder if there were any players that probably wouldn't have picked up "A different name than Dragon Age 2" but picked it up because it was "Dragon Age 2" and actually ended up enjoying the game.

Tough to separate those numbers out I think.

If someone doesn't want to put in the time what's stopping them from just playing the game for however long they want?

I think a fan comes away more satisfied with a game they play until completion after 20 hours compared to a game that they play for 20 hours but don't complete.  I have no basis aside from my own musings for feeling this way though.

If my presumption is true though, a satisfied gamer does a better job of picking up future titles and self-promoting titles than an indifferent one.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I think a fan comes away more satisfied with a game they play until completion after 20 hours compared to a game that they play for 20 hours but don't complete.  I have no basis aside from my own musings for feeling this way though.

If my presumption is true though, a satisfied gamer does a better job of picking up future titles and self-promoting titles than an indifferent one.

For me, the opposite is true.  Good games make me want to restart them again and again to see what different things can happen with different PCs, so I often never reach the end (even though I spend many more hours in the game).

I still haven't ever finished a Baldur's Gate title.

[batlin]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I wouldn't be surprised if DA2 may have been better received if it was not called "Dragon Age 2."  Although I think the most legitimate complaints probably still would have been called out and they would have been justified.  By the same token, I wonder if there were any players that probably wouldn't have picked up "A different name than Dragon Age 2" but picked it up because it was "Dragon Age 2" and actually ended up enjoying the game.

Tough to separate those numbers out I think.

I doubt that. On another flip side, DA:O was a completely new franchise while Mass Effect was in full swing, and it's the highest selling Bioware game apart from ME3.

To sum up, people care far more about quality than they do a franchise name. DA2 would probably have been received better if it weren't called Dragon Age, but of course it still wouldn't be considered great BW game.

Modifié par batlin, 06 juillet 2012 - 06:30 .

[deuce985]

Just a question Allan, do you ever see Bioware's philosophy changing where their games get much shorter and less focus on narrative/character development?

I ask that because it seems Bioware is moving more towards a actionish formula and in ME3, they tried to find way to bring new players in the narrative. It seems like Bioware is having a hard time broadening their games for newer players, so they put in auto-dialogue.

Don't get me wrong though, I think Bioware did a hell of a job when it came to all the variables in ME3. It probably had twice as much dialogue and even remembered actions from ME1 that I said in dialogue. I have a friend who picked ME3(mostly from my word) but he never played a ME game before. He came to me with a complaint about not seeing the content I saw.

He watched me play a bit and asked me why I was seeing so much more content. I tried to explain to him that Bioware probably felt they didn't need to force all the information on a new player. But he brought up a good point, why as a new player he never had the option to force that extra content on himself? My worry with that is Bioware might start cutting down their dialogue so newer players can get more involved in their games. And partly what I found so special in ME3 is how it remembered the smallest things I did dating back to ME1...all the conversations even "remembered" certain things. I found that very awesome and amazing detail on Bioware's part.

[KiwiQuiche]

LOL IGN. I just ignore that bunch.

[Allan Schumacher]

Just a question Allan, do you ever see Bioware's philosophy changing where their games get much shorter and less focus on narrative/character development?

EDIT:  I realize I misread the question... I wouldn't focus less on narrative/characterization

I personally would love for us to try something like that with a game that is shorter in scale but wider in its replayability. Maybe a smaller scale project as an experiment? I say all that naively though as I'm not really privy to how decisions on what type of game is going to get made and how to justify it and so forth. I just know it's something I would be interested in.

He watched me play a bit and asked me why I was seeing so much more content. I tried to explain to him that Bioware probably felt they didn't need to force all the information on a new player. But he brought up a good point, why as a new player he never had the option to force that extra content on himself? My worry with that is Bioware might start cutting down their dialogue so newer players can get more involved in their games. And partly what I found so special in ME3 is how it remembered the smallest things I did dating back to ME1...all the conversations even "remembered" certain things. I found that very awesome and amazing detail on Bioware's part.

It may be worthwhile to explore other alternatives to "setting the game universe" than just save game imports too.

I ask that because it seems Bioware is moving more towards a actionish formula and in ME3, they tried to find way to bring new players in the narrative. It seems like Bioware is having a hard time broadening their games for newer players, so they put in auto-dialogue.

I'll need you to elaborate on this as I'm not 100% sure what you mean.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 06 juillet 2012 - 07:00 .

[deuce985]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I ask that because it seems Bioware is moving more towards a actionish formula and in ME3, they tried to find way to bring new players in the narrative. It seems like Bioware is having a hard time broadening their games for newer players, so they put in auto-dialogue.

I'll need you to elaborate on this as I'm not 100% sure what you mean.

Well, I'm just saying it seems Bioware is trying to create more appeal in their games(nothing wrong with that).

I think that Bioware/EA feels that action games probably sell more and that's partly why Bioware games are feeling like they're more actionish now.

It was obvious Bioware tried to make ME3 where newer players had more accessibility and could jump right into the narrative easier. Players who just wanted a quick experience without the need to RP and pick choices could just use auto-dialogue.

But I'll be honest, when I heard all the marketing about this I was a little worried. When the game came out, I was actually quite surprised at how well Bioware was able to balance the comrpromise between newer players. Never did I feel those extra features to help new players was getting in the way of features I enjoyed in the entire franchise. Little things like my squad giving me conversations about past experiences we shared together. I was worried Bioware was going to cut the dialogue down severely in ME3 to broaden that appeal but it never happened like that. ME3 probably features twice as much dialogue as ME1/ME2 combined if you factor in all the variables.

Then go to my other point, my friend felt he got shafted out of some content and the game wasn't quite balanced enough for a "new" player. On my end, I felt Bioware did a great job making ME3 a personal experience for a player like me who played it since ME1.

I don't know, I guess I'm just a little worried I'll be seeing less of what I like about Bioware games in the future...

I don't really want to see you guys get away from that strong narrative/character development because it's what I expect in a Bioware game. It's what separates your games from the rest of the industry for me personally. Not many games seem to put the care in character development/story like Bioware does anymore...

Aren't you guys technically trying something new like that in Command and Conquor Generals 2? I doubt that game is going to be about narrative considering it's a strategy game.

Modifié par deuce985, 06 juillet 2012 - 06:48 .

[Allan Schumacher]

I don't really want to see you guys get away from that strong narrative/character development because it's what I expect in a Bioware game. It's what separates your games from the rest of the industry for me personally. Not many games seem to put the care in character development/story like Bioware does anymore...

I think narrative and character development are still going to be the focus. In some capacity there's been thoughts that maybe we focus too much on story that it's a detriment to other aspects of the games, but my impression is that most of us at BioWare think that story is our biggest strength in our games.


Though I think you're referring to the "Action mode" for ME3, but by the same token there's also "story mode" that makes the non story elements trivial but still allows the player to make the choices that he wants to make. I don't know how expensive it was to offer these gameplay modes, but the underlying conversation system is still there and it's just picking the options for the player.

If it's low enough cost then I see no reason why both can't coexist with minimal sacrifice of content. Though to be perfectly frank at this point I don't know of any plans to do anything like that with Dragon Age at this time.

[AngryFrozenWater]

I see IGN articles more as an extension of the publishers' marketing than intended for gamers. And thus I rarely go there anymore. An article like this doesn't surprise me.

[Fredward]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Just a question Allan, do you ever see Bioware's philosophy changing where their games get much shorter and less focus on narrative/character development?

I personally would love for us to try something like that. Maybe a smaller scale project as an experiment? I say all that naively though as I'm not really privy to how decisions on what type of game is going to get made and how to justify it and so forth. I just know it's something I would be interested in.

First time I almost cried on this forum.

Bioware wouldn't be Bioware for me if it wasn't massive character focused stories anymore.

[nightscrawl]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Quests where completing them at all might have negative consequences would also be interesting.  If, in some cases, the best possible outcome arises from not doing the quest, that would turn the choice of whether to accept the quest in the first place into something more than a trivial exercise.

I like this. Very interesting.

Wulfram wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Quests where completing them at all might have negative consequences would also be interesting. If, in some cases, the best possible outcome arises from not doing the quest, that would turn the choice of whether to accept the quest in the first place into something more than a trivial exercise.

Well, you could argue that applies to Merrill's Act 3 quest in DA2.

No, you can't argue that. Completing companion quests is required in DA2 if you want to convince the person to stay with you if you pick a side that is against their base beliefs. If you choose templar and need Merrill, you must have either max friendship OR max rivalry, and have completed all of her quests.