162 réponses à ce sujet

[ENAKTSB]

Hello,

Recently, the head honchos at EA announced that all games made by them will now be only Multiplayer or feature required online components etc. (I'm guessing co-op play and so on).

As I'm hoping most realize - multiplayer ruins any kind of storytelling. To me - BW games have always been primarily about stories. I love multiplayer games - 5 years of WoW, all the other MMOs in the mean time,
Battlefield, Guild Wars 2 - I played/am playing them all... It's just that Bioware games, for me have always been about a personal experience, rather than a crappy co-op game. For that I have Valve games - these guys
know how to do a proper co-op (L4D, Portal 2 etc.).

Now - what am I suggesting? I think Bioware needs to dissolve asap and start from the scratch. This time, without the help of "The big guys" at EA. Now I know many have said that before - but it's becoming more and more apparent that the unique gaming experience BW offered will eventually keep turning more and more into mediocre linear co-op shooters.

I think you guys can actually pull this off. With the advent of digital distribution - you no longer need publishers and
all these other people that do not really contribute, but rather hinder the developers by making nonsensical suggestions (supposedly based on "what's in now" - BTW, how's that Dragon Age Dubstep track coming along?) and generally sucking away the fun from games.

So... Here's to a new beginning... hopefully. Or - in a couple of months we'll be hearing how The Old Republic is dead... How Bioware studios will be "reorganised"... And of course, how it's all because of those damned pirates.

Regards,
Marcin
PS: Sorry for posting in this forum, there was no other that looked "on-topic". [smilie]../../../images/forum/emoticons/uncertain.png[/smilie]
PPS: Feel free to call me a retard and what not... I really do not care.

Modifié par ENAKTSB, 06 septembre 2012 - 08:47 .

[BogdanV]

You know as well as I do that it all depends on BioWare's two founders and given their rank and status in EA (hell, BioWare is a division, much more than what poor Westwood got - EALA ) plus who knows what legal binding stuff, they're either tied up or have no reason at all to move.

Westwood's employees quit en masse and started Petroglyph. I can't say I've been fond of anything they made, other than Empire at War but at least they're free to carve their own path in life.
As for BioWare, we'll have to helplessly sit and wait, for good or ill. Sadly, EA stock holders decide, not consumers.

[Icinix]

I'm still seething from EAs comments.

...I find it particularly amusing because Ubisoft of all people said they're removing their always on DRM....which although not the same thing, its similar enough that I think its note worthy.

Anyway, game companies feel like the only way they can be successful is if you have online features.

Skyrim is laughing at them.

[Little Princess Peach]

There making an elder scrolls online and Bethesda said they were thinking about multiplayer to so people can play together in skyrim

[voteDC]

Well to be fair the story in Neverwinter Nights was pretty good and that featured a co-op campaign option.

If a game is built around the co-op experience then it can work really well. When it, or multiplayer, are forced in to justify an online pass that's when things start to go wrong.

Now I didn't mind Project $10. Where new buyers got $10 worth of new content for the single player as in Dragon Age Origins, DA2 and Mass Effect 2.

That provides me with a real incentive to buy the game new. An incentive an online pass does not provide, since I am primarily a single player type of person.

So if future Bioware titles are going to include an online pass as their incentive to buy new then I can easily wait for a cheap second hand copy and buy the single player DLC as I would have to anyway.

[Icinix]

Tali-vas-normandy wrote...

There making an elder scrolls online and Bethesda said they were thinking about multiplayer to so people can play together in skyrim

Making a seperate game and creating a patch / dlc allowing something is different to having EVERY future game connected in an online world.

Regardless - my point was more how a game with ONLY single player and not requiring any logon to anything externally was able to sell a stupid amount of copies.

[ENAKTSB]

They did clarify it a bit - saying that they meant that SP is ok, as long as there is an online component that keeps the player wanting to play the game more (ie. DLC or - the afore mentioned co-op). But still... Dragon Age 2... Mass Effect 3... I'm not seeing an improvement to the formula with these - and I feel it's because of influences from "the senior partners". Maybe I'm wrong... Maybe BW has simply ran out of ideas. Perhaps TOR simply was "too big" and took down all the other games with it as it sucked out all the available resources from BW.

However... a reboot seems an option now.

[Icinix]

ENAKTSB wrote...

They did clarify it a bit - saying that they meant that SP is ok, as long as there is an online component that keeps the player wanting to play the game more (ie. DLC or - the afore mentioned co-op). But still... Dragon Age 2... Mass Effect 3... I'm not seeing an improvement to the formula with these - and I feel it's because of influences from "the senior partners". Maybe I'm wrong... Maybe BW has simply ran out of ideas. Perhaps TOR simply was "too big" and took down all the other games with it as it sucked out all the available resources from BW.

However... a reboot seems an option now.

Personally I wish more companies would hold to the "let the games stand on their own merits" philosophy. Make good games and people will keep playing them.

..of course - the other point is 'keeping players spending money on games' is probably more what they were after...

..a game that players want to keep playing that has a one off price and can be played offline indefinitely doesn't net them further money.

[ZombieGambit]

Simply having a multiplayer component doesn't mean that developers skimp on storytelling. The real problem is that developers and publishers are businesses and they make more money by appealing to a wider audience, hence they water down stories to allow a broader audience to pick up and play.

The same goes for movies, most intelligent and original movies don't make much money compared to the summer blockbuster action flicks. Not only that, but most successful franchises get more and more popular with each successive release, meaning that more people have probably seen the 3rd or 2nd than saw the 1st, the same goes for most games.

Blame the consumers, not the game makers.

[ENAKTSB]

Here's the thing with the "blame the consumers" line. First of all - a company sacrifices it's ideals if it simply tries to make games that sell the most. If we think about it - Angry Birds, Farmville and several others are the most played/bought games on the planet right now. If making games was only about rolling in tons of cash, then this kind of stuff would have been then only games out there. I mean, why hire actors, write complex scripts and what not if you can make a game about pigs and birds and make twice as much in the end?

I really love the idea of "Games as art". And storytelling is art. Bioware used to be all about intricate stories. Something happened though... Some blame EA... others overly ambitious projects. It's hard to say really - but this is not the company we used to love.

KotOR was brilliant. Jade Empire - I can't remember how many times I completed that game. DA - again, an awesome title loads of replay value. Mass Effect - a bit hit-and-miss but still great - I call it "An experiment into a new Genre - Shooter/RPG". Mass Effect 2 - a perfect refinement, a really awesome game with tons of complexity and actual choices.
But then... Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3 - on the surface, the same cool stuff but somehow - can't really force myself to replay them. It's not nostalgia towards the earlier stuff, really - I just feel I saw everything there is to see in these so what's the point.

Oh well... Just my 3 cents on this whole EA vs. Gamers thing. I would split, even if it meant starting from scratch. I mean just imagine...

"BIOWARE dissolves, former employees start a new company and make a Kickstarter project - the RPG, Dragon Age 2 was supposed to be. How many seconds would it take to reach a goal for that one? Any goal..."

[finalcabbage]

Tali-vas-normandy wrote...

There making an elder scrolls online and Bethesda said they were thinking about multiplayer to so people can play together in skyrim

Their fans have been asking for such a feature for a long time now.  It'd be pretty rad if I could go dragon hunting with my friends.  The inclusion of multiplayer is not a bad thing.  Also the elder scrolls online is not a Bethesda product.  ZeniMax is having another company develope it.

[Slayer299]

OP, do you have the link to that story? I'd like to read/listen to it.

[ENAKTSB]

One of the links:

http://www.escapistm...le-Player-Games

Modifié par ENAKTSB, 06 septembre 2012 - 01:26 .

[Esoretal]

Multiplayer isn't the problem. For over a decade now, plenty of good SP games have had quality MP and co-op and haven't suffered from it one bit. The actual problem here is making MP a part of the required experience to complete the SP game.

Modifié par Esoretal, 06 septembre 2012 - 04:06 .

[CptBomBom00]

I really hope there won't be MP in Fallout4, but I also wonder if Beth will resurrect Fallout online project.

[Cainne Chapel]

yeah I dont really see their comments as ab ig deal because i cant remember the last game they released that didnt have SOME kind of online component, be it DLC, MP or co op.

Honestly I dont know very many games that dont have SOME kind of extra by way of DLC, etc these days.

I dont mind MP or Co Op at all, but as Esoretal said, I dont like FORCED MP or Co Op (except of course the MMOs I play where its part and parcel to the game)

[AlanC9]

This is just silly. BG1 had MP. NWN was almost ruined by Bio's excessive focus on co-op MP.

[Ace of Dawn]

Warning: Incoming game...
Warning: Incoming game...
Warning: Incoming game.

</ReBoot reference>

[FlamingBoy]

don't know about "rebooting" because that implies a drastic change they proven unwilling to undertake.

but they do need to take serious consideration about there future

[Chris Priestly]

Mass Effect 3 has multiplayer.

[Dav3VsTh3World]

Rebooting?

NO!
/thread

[Siran]

You can still play ME3 offline... Plus, what Frank Gibeau said was about integration into existing online platforms and having online features. Just by playing it through Origin you have several Online features available to you. He never said they wouldn't make any more single player games. Just not games that stand on their own. And he didn't mean DRM with it, but online integration. So honestly I don't know what the fuss is all about...

I for one really enjoy the online features of ME3, heck I've met several friends through ME3 MP. There have even been at least two people who intend to marry who have met through ME3 MP - isn't that a wonderful thing? To be able to meet people and play with them who share the same interest and even love for a game?

[xI extremist Ix]

Chris Priestly wrote...

Mass Effect 3 has multiplayer.

[AlanC9]

Ace of Dawn wrote...

Warning: Incoming game...
Warning: Incoming game...
Warning: Incoming game.

</ReBoot reference>

Damn, I miss that show.

[vonSlash]

Games that have separate multiplayer and singleplayer are capable of having good storytelling (ME3 sort of managed this, as did most of the Halo games and other high-budget games where the developers didn't half-ass either the SP or MP component).

However, I'd agree that multiplayer-only games do suffer storytelling problems (see every MMO ever), and hope that Bioware's future games continue to have well-developed SP sections.