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[JasonPogo]

 So when DA2 hit the fans flooded the forums and said the combat was horrible and boring and to easy.  Then Mike Laidlaw said we all just didn't get how great it all was and we should turn up the difficulty.  Then ME3 comes out and the fans come out in force to say how hirrible the ending was.  So Casy Hudson comes out and tells us we just don't get how great it all is but they will provide further explination for those who need it.

Bioware if people are finding what you are doing lacking maybe its not our fault but yours.  Just saying.  And everything we we are hearing about DA3 makes it sound like DA2.5.  You just don't get it...

[Allan Schumacher]

Wider audiences from formerly focused franchices possibly return quick cash but not sustainable for the franchise or its developer. From what I can tell based only on observation, franchises do best when they focus on an audience. If Dragon Age is supposed to have more than three, they need to pick a focus and stick with it.

What are your thoughts on the Elder Scrolls games, as well as the Fallout franchise?

Both are franchises that, in my opinion, move significantly away from their core roots with later installments, and have seen significant growth in sales numbers.

Skyrim, in particular, seems to be a game that for the most part is quite successful with both "core" and "new" fans and make no mistake, Bethesda aims to make the games openly accessible to appeal to new fans. It explains a lot of the simplification the series has introduced which the adamant hardcore speak out against. You see this in Fallout as well, though you could argue it's different because Bethesda inherited the franchise.

[Allan Schumacher]

I think what's coming here is that people may define the core experience as something different from someone else.  For me, the Elder Scrolls games were in large part games that I played due to their complexity.

Morrowind was a game that enamored me, while Oblivion was one that made me feel like I wasted 40 hours of my life when I later realized I really hadn't had any fun at all.  Though this isn't necessarily all about changes to the game systems.  Sometimes a game's design just isn't for me.  Oblivion is hardly the first case.

Fallout is a big one and I'd have been very surprised if it was as successful as Fallout 3 (and New Vegas) has been, had it remained "true to its core."  Fallout 1 is one of my favourite games of all time, but I sitll enjoy FO3 and I really really love FONV, even though the core gameplay is so much different.


Skyrim for all intents and purposes is a really good game.  It's tough to disassociate whether or not it's so popular because it hasn't deviated from its core, or whether or not it's just a good game and there are more gamers in general now.

For a good while now, Bioware is strongly giving the impression that they feel widening their audience is the only option. That they couldn't/shouldn't make another game like BG2, that the audience isn't there. Even when DA:O exceeds their expectations, and DA2 fails to meet them. Even when their ex-employees are getting so much support with their HC RPG kickstarter. Even when really hardcore RPGs are selling and doing succesful kickstarts. When most games fails to make a profit, these games are actually making money.

I really don't know if they want to widen the audience because they want more money or because they honestly believe this is the only way to go. Either way, it is in stark contrast with Bioware when it was first founded. The doctors made BG when everyone thought it's nuts, because they wanted to have a game like it and they believed in it. They left their coureers because they wanted to make something that they loved.

I wonder what happened to that Bioware?

Speaking purely as myself, I'm still proud of the games that I have worked on and find them to be the style of game that I would like to play personally. Though I'm perhaps a less discerning gamer than some.

I'd also prefer to not be static and make virtually the same game every cycle, since that keeps my job fresh and interesting and makes me go "I love my job" even when I have to work late instead of "Eh, I'm doing the same thing I always do" for the standard work day.

And while I don't work on Mass Effect, I do love being a part of a studio that makes games that do such a good job of bringing an emotional response out of me.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 15 août 2012 - 05:51 .

[Allan Schumacher]

I can appreciate that - but I think there are plenty of ways to avoid making the same game every cycle without changing the mechanics and interface so severely as to render some formerly supported playstyles null and void.

What are the plenty of ways? Is there any guarantee that your plenty of ways are the same as my plenty of ways?

To be perfectly frank, it seems like you basically are telling me "Well, you're only allowed to do something different as long as it's what Pasquale1234 feels is acceptably different, not what Allan thinks is acceptably different."


To make things clearer: I like what we tried to do with Dragon Age 2 and I stand behind many of the decisions that we attempted to do I find it unfortunate that it missed the mark with so many people, and there are definite shortcomings with DA2. It's on us to make sure we do better in the future. But I'm not disappointed that we didn't just do nothing aside from make a DA2 that was just a new story with DAO's engine and not try to do something different.

You're welcome to disagree with the changes we make in our games, but I do get frustrated when people presume that we all have guns to our heads to make some game that we don't want to make, and that we should only make game type X. I much prefer to be held directly accountable for DA2's shortcomings than to have other people have the opinion that I'm not actually working on stuff that I find interesting and would like to see more of as a gamer, and just looking to cash a paycheque and get more money.

Like most things, wringing heavy emotional responses out of your audience can be overdone. There is a fine line between running your audience through an emotional gauntlet versus beating them into numb indifference - and I think BioWare has been crossing that line of late.

I didn't actually state "heavy" emotional response. I'm simply referring to making me care about the characters and the setting. Any emotional response. Most games do not typically do this for me. I consider it a good thing when a game can actually make me emotionally invested. Given my original comment, I am not able to really ascertain the point you were trying to make with this part of your post. I'm assuming that it's because there was a misinterpretation somewhere.

[Allan Schumacher]

You must admit it takes some effort to make your audience feel resentful and depressed over your writing.

On this note, I no longer feel that discussions are being fairly represented.

The entire Mass Effect series has been one that has made me happy, sad, angry, and everything else in between.

Regarding ME3's ending (since that seems to be where this has gone) I've stated on the record that I do feel that, compared to the rest of the game, the endings for ME3 were not as good as moments such as Rannoch and Tuchanka. If people think that I stated I like the ME franchise for bringing out emotional response in me because I like seeing the emotional angst that many people have with respect to the ending, then I'll just say that those people are incorrect in that assumption.

Allan