37 réponses à ce sujet

[FaWa]

 I'm asking you, BioWare

[Raint]

i like trains!....yes

[Emzamination]

4chan + meta critic

Modifié par Emzamination, 17 août 2012 - 08:47 .

[thats1evildude]

I'm pretty sure that Oblivion sold better than Morrowind, actually.

[Sith Grey Warden]

To be fair, DAO was released closer to Christmas, which probably helped. But really, it's because no matter how intelligent or dumb you make a game, rushing it out with the corners cut (unless done in a brilliant way like Portal, which seems to have been a unique case) is going to create a worse product.

[Scarlet Rabbi]

A very excellent question that you will neither get a straight or honest answer to, at least from the DA team. But you can figure it out. Bioware wholly took the fans they made from DAO for granted and figured, "Yeah, they'll buy it anyway, so let's cater to a different, more casual crowd and we can have our cake and stuff our faces too!"

In a way it worked, in others it failed; that's tranparent to anybody. DA2 made OK sales, but, numbers-wise, slashed the fan base in half. They also cancelled an expansion and won't realease an UE because retailers have no interest in it. It was either very ballsy or very arrogant to do what they did to Dragon Age, maybe a little of both, but in the long run, absent a universally loved DA3, the dagger Mike Laidlaw and team stuck in the franchise's side with DA2 will ultimately bleed it out of existence within a few years.

Also, 'dumbing down' and 'innovation' are not synonyms, they should've never said the latter when the former is clearly what they did.

[Sejborg]

There is more competition amongst the "dumber" games.

DA2 had to compete against a whole pile of games, while Dragon Age: Origins in comparison had zero competition.

Modifié par Sejborg, 17 août 2012 - 11:07 .

[ShadyKat]

Well Skyrim was "dumb down" compaired to Oblivion and Morrowind, yet it stll sold 11 million copies. DA2 was simply rushed, and it showed. Being made more casual friendly wasn't the problem. Being half ass finished and low production value is why DA2 wasn't very good.





Also
In b4 the lock.

[Jerrybnsn]

At the time they decided to go with the new direction, Origins wasn't even released to the public yet. By the time they realized that Origins had become Bioware's most succesful game ever, it was too late. So from a marketing stand point it was better to just trash talk the old game while praising the new.  Besides, the marketing power points are never wrong. Are they?  It was all a conspiracy by chan. 4 to derail DA2 as everyone knows.

Modifié par Jerrybnsn, 17 août 2012 - 11:32 .

[JasonPogo]

Well look at it this way. Origins was in production for like five years. Way before they were bought out by EA. EA came in and told them they wanted a more casual focus from now on. So that is what they now do. It dose not matter one bit how well Origins did. That was a game made by pre-EA Bioware. EAware wants nothing to do with anything that is not casual and marketed to the lowest possible denominator of the gaming community. "Think like a general fight like a Spartan!! We also have an awesome button!!!"

[Ianamus]

Mass Effect 2 is widely accused of being "dumbed down" at yet it is agreed by many people and critics that it is better than Mass Effect 1, and I believe that it was the best game in the trilogy.

The argument that simplifying something or trying to make something appeal to more people makes it worse doesn't hold up. Look at other series such as the Elder scrolls: Skyrim is arguably simplified for the masses, but I believe that that is the best elder scrolls game so far, and it had a huge success.

Making something simpler is not the same as making something worse, it's just a question of simplifying the things that don't work and leaving the things that do work. Mass Effect 2 did this well, as did Skyrim, and Dragon age 2 did not.

Besides, Dragon Age 2's worst faults were with the story and re-used environments, neither of which had anything to do with the simplification at all. 

ShadyKat wrote...

Well Skyrim was "dumb down" compaired to Oblivion and Morrowind, yet it stll sold 11 million copies. DA2 was simply rushed, and it showed. Being made more casual friendly wasn't the problem. Being half ass finished and low production value is why DA2 wasn't very good.

 

Exactly.

Modifié par EJ107, 18 août 2012 - 02:07 .

[wsandista]

Actually I think the DA2 mechanics were more complicated(in a negative sense), they were just undocumented. Combine this with the strange hybrid action/character-based gameplay, and you have gameplay that is harder to understand and makes tactical planning pretty useless.

Combine the above with the fact that DA2 was a half-assed rushjob where you can actually see where corners were cut, and I think you can see why it didn't do too well.

No conspiracy involving 4chan, metacritic, or RPGCodex is needed. People simply didn't take well to a bad product.

[Fisto The Sexbot]

Emzamination wrote...

4chan + meta critic

this.

[Icesong]

thats1evildude wrote...

I'm pretty sure that Oblivion sold better than Morrowind, actually.

Happily enough, it didn't. But Skyrim did.

Modifié par Icesong, 18 août 2012 - 11:09 .

[Fisto The Sexbot]

EJ107 wrote...

Mass Effect 2 is widely accused of being "dumbed down" at yet it is agreed by many people and critics that it is better than Mass Effect 1, and I believe that it was the best game in the trilogy.

The argument that simplifying something or trying to make something appeal to more people makes it worse doesn't hold up. Look at other series such as the Elder scrolls: Skyrim is arguably simplified for the masses, but I believe that that is the best elder scrolls game so far, and it had a huge success.

Making something simpler is not the same as making something worse, it's just a question of simplifying the things that don't work and leaving the things that do work. Mass Effect 2 did this well, as did Skyrim, and Dragon age 2 did not.

Besides, Dragon Age 2's worst faults were with the story and re-used environments, neither of which had anything to do with the simplification at all. 

ShadyKat wrote...

Well Skyrim was "dumb down" compaired to Oblivion and Morrowind, yet it stll sold 11 million copies. DA2 was simply rushed, and it showed. Being made more casual friendly wasn't the problem. Being half ass finished and low production value is why DA2 wasn't very good.

 

Exactly.

That doesn't mean that Skyrim's dumbed down leveling system was a good idea. It may just not have been a big enough change to cause damage to sales, considering the main focus of TES games like in other areas like exploration, and Oblivion's leveling system was sh-t, whereas Dragon Age 2 had dumbed down 'tactical' combat, less roleplaying opportunities, no background stories -- basically what made Origins good. It's like making TES games more linear so the player doesn't get lost.

I think Skyrim is worse off because it has a super-simplified leveling system, but it's still better than Oblivion because the good things outweigh the bad stuff. It's misleading to assume that everyone was OK with the changes to the leveling system just because they don't think the game itself is sh-t. 

[Yrkoon]

Icesong wrote...

thats1evildude wrote...

I'm pretty sure that Oblivion sold better than Morrowind, actually.

Happily enough, it didn't.

It did, actually.  It sold a lot more.   Each elder scrolls title  has sold progressively more than the previous one.  But I doubt that had anything to do with "dumbing down".  It had to do with maintaining your core fan base by giving them something they recognize.  Eventually, when the gaming world gains your trust -ie. when they know what they're going to get with a title, your sales will increase with every installment  (and lets face it, for all the  fan-gripes and wrangling over details, every elder scrolls game is basically the same:   rich open world,  deeply storied lore, faction quests, elder scrolls,  a bajillion races to choose from, scenery porn everywhere you look....)


Bioware *could* have been on their way to establishing   such a progressively growing fanbase with Dragon age, but they decided to Reboot the IP after the very first title.  DA2 doesn't even Remotely resemble the first game.  It lacks ALL the  richness  and magic that made the first one so epic.  Even chalking  it up to "cut corners"  only tells half the story.  The game is   remarkably soulless.  Void of richness.  It didn't feel like a labor of love in the slightest.

Modifié par Yrkoon, 18 août 2012 - 12:14 .

[Wulfram]

I don't think the system is any simpler, and certainly not more intuitive, than Origins. Really, if that was their intent, they failed.

[Cimeas]

How hard is it to understand?

DA2 Failed because it was an unpolished, boring game with a weak story, little variety, few choices that mattered and recycled locations that were an insult to players. It also released at a worse time (after Christmas) than DA:O.

I highly doubt it failed because armor customization was removed from companions, or because they removed top-down camera from the PC, which was never on console in the first place.

[ScotGaymer]

ShadyKat wrote...

Well Skyrim was "dumb down" compaired to Oblivion and Morrowind, yet it stll sold 11 million copies. DA2 was simply rushed, and it showed. Being made more casual friendly wasn't the problem. Being half ass finished and low production value is why DA2 wasn't very good.





Also
In b4 the lock.

Actually I disagree.

I don't think Skyrim was dumbed down at all from Oblivion.

I think it was streamlined in places yes, and they did new things with it to make it better than Oblivion. To me it was smartened up from Oblivion and the fact that it hit 11 million sales supports my view point.

[Wulfram]

Skyrim removed a whole lot of really rubbish, uninteresting, unintuitive complexity. And added good, interesting complexity with the perks.

DA2 could do with some "dumbing down" in places. Like making the attack/defence/armour/resistance system more easy to parse, rather than it being virtually impossible to work out what exactly +27 attack will actually do for your character without equipping it.

[coles4971]

DA2 sold less for other reasons than it being dumbed down. I mean while it felt pointless to me that they removed it, I'm not going to b!tch about losing the armour penetration stat on my weapons (even though it removes the distinction swords, axes and maces had in Origins which I thought was great).

Then there's word of mouth which would put people off buying it, but then again I'm curious so as to how much word of mouth affects sales, I mean would it really have pushed DA2 from selling what, a million copies to two million if people on the internet were just like "hey man, this is awesome"?

[Cultist]

that was 4chan and one other site. Certqaily not poor quality product some biased uneducated immature and childish people may say.

[Androme]

 It's as simple as the fact that the game mechanics and story of DA:O appealed to more people than DA:2s game mechanics and story did.

edit:

People and game developers love to get into novel-sized discussions as to why a game sold more than the other, but in the end, and most people knows this deep down inside, it boils down to what I wrote above.

Modifié par Androme, 18 août 2012 - 06:28 .

[Mr Fixit]

Wulfram wrote...

DA2 could do with some "dumbing down" in places. Like making the attack/defence/armour/resistance system more easy to parse, rather than it being virtually impossible to work out what exactly +27 attack will actually do for your character without equipping it.

Jesus, that whole scaling stats thing is just horrendous. Attack and armor in the THOUSANDS? Spanish inquisition wouldn't have able to navigate through that.

Come to think about it, DA2 committed a great many sins against the elegance of mathematics.

[Icesong]

Yrkoon wrote...

Icesong wrote...

thats1evildude wrote...

I'm pretty sure that Oblivion sold better than Morrowind, actually.

Happily enough, it didn't.

It did, actually.  It sold a lot more.   Each elder scrolls title  has sold progressively more than the previous one.

The only figures I've seen say Morrowind sold more. We don't have Steam's numbers so maybe it edged out there.