6 réponses à ce sujet

[AshenSugar]

Well the developers asked for input from their players in regard to the Dragon Age series. Here's my effort. Yes it's long. I am sorry about that, but there's a lot of stuff I need to get off my chest. Those with a “TL;DR” mindset are free to completely ignore this post.

I do hope someone among the dev team is reading this, so as to prevent me from doing what basically amounts to spitting into the wind. So many of us using these forums feel a genuine passion for the Dragon Age universe, and do not wish to see the mistakes of DA:II repeated within DA:III.

Time is the key thing here I think, take your time. Slowly, unhurried, and very cautiously; with sensitivity to the overall meta-story within the universe of Thedas, and within the local story unveiled within the game by our protagonists. Testing everything carefully, iteratively, never rushing, considering every single aspect from the standpoint of:

What do players, and fans of the game most want to experience?

rather than

What is likely to generate the most short-term profit, and appeal to the broadest-possible audience?

No more short cuts, no more compromises, or dumbing-down in the name of 'broadening the game's appeal', OK?

I strongly suspect that were I to make a straw poll which posed the question: "Would you mind a lengthy development time for Dragon Age III if you knew it would deliver a game of equivalent quality to Dragon Age Origins?" the answer would be a resounding "NO we would not mind".

I don't think it's any real secret that DA:II was badly rushed, and suffered greatly as a result. Sure it was still a 'good' game in many respects (I personally really enjoyed the Legacy, and MotA DLCs) but from the standpoint of a company like Bioware, 'good game' is not enough. Bioware are capable of delivering excellence, and has done so on many occasions. I (and I believe many of my co-forum users) are asking for that same policy of uncompromising excellence that made the earlier games classics to be adhered to once again, irrespective of the publisher's desires for an early release.

There were far too many things in DA:II that I longed to do, but could not. I was prevented from doing so by a number of restrictions, presumably added as a mechanic to 'prevent new players from getting confused'.

Most of these restrictions were not present in Origins, thus Origins was (to my mind) way more fun.

What do I NOT want to see in Dragon Age III? 

Stuff that prevents me from doing the things I want to do in the game.

What DO I want to see in Dragon Age III?

A rich, detailed, immersion role-playing game, with deep, rich meaningful characterisation, and a superbly crafted story... within which my choices make a real difference. No artificial or arbitrary restrictions that prevent me from doing the things I want to do - particularly those restrictions implemented as a mechanic to prevent the player from making 'poor gear choices' or try to artificially enforce a 'correct play style', preventing me from making mistakes.

I am aware how vague and nebulous this sounds, so I'll try and elaborate as I go along.

Modifié par AshenSugar, 12 septembre 2012 - 07:02 .

[Allan Schumacher]

They will not steal any of EA's profits if allowed to develop DA:III mods, honestly!

This isn't really a reason why we wouldn't worry about a developer toolset or something. It's not that difficult to see the advantages that user created content can bring.

[Allan Schumacher]

Reading through this full thread, if someone is posting in a civil and polite manner, I don't give 2 hoots if you think you have seen it 40 million times.

Even if it's some person that is ACTUALLY making some overtly whining post that isn't actually encouraging discussion, it's still unacceptable.

Note the terms of use of the forum:

No posting single images or animated images. Posting single images or animated .gifs/images instead of engaging in discussion is not allowed. These are discussion forums and that means engaging in dialog, not picture spam. Using images to support your discussion is fine as long as the images used conform to the standard forum rules (no adult content, no slander, no racism, etc). Posting single images instead of discussion will be considered spam and will not be tolerated. Images will be deleted without warning. Posters may be banned for repeated offenses.

I'm often lenient in this enforcement if it's used in good spirits and is a positive contribution to this forum, but not for stuff like this.

[Allan Schumacher]

AshenSugar wrote...

Unsurprised to hear it Alan, and I'm all too aware of this notion of 'teaching my grandmother to suck eggs'. I know nothing about developing a professional game, you do, so I can 'teach' you nothing, and any attempt on my part to do so would be laughable - akin to an amateur art critic trying to teach Picasso how to paint.

I agonised for some time about the 'stealing EA's profits line, (and other things I had written) and (perhaps foolishly) decided to leave it in.

The reasons I did this are that I wanted to communicate the emotive, rather then (technically) logical impact behind such pre-conceptions.

In short, there's a perception (however misguided) among some fans that the decision to not allow mods to be used in some of your other games was a result of fears over lost revenue, based upon the notion of making it easy for software pirates I'm sure the real reason was more to do with preventing cheating in multiplayer.. but there you go...

I wanted to use that particular 'fan perception' (however wrong, or inaccurate) as a means to drive home a particular message. Many elements of my post were written from the point of view of fan perception, rather than any kind of attempt at accurate analysis.

Hope this makes sense.

It does make sense.  Unfortunately I find companies (especially ones with less than stellar reputations like EA) are in a spot where many gamers are really just going to believe their own impressions of the situation.  I can say and we can know why we have or have not decided to release a toolset, but unless we're actually giving the person specifically what they want, I don't think there's really anything we can do to dissuade them, so it becomes c'est la vie.

[Allan Schumacher]

Thread cleaned.

[David Gaider]

Interesting read. Not sure trying to respond point-for-point would be useful, but it was interesting nevertheless. Thanks for speaking so eloquently.

[Allan Schumacher]

Gibb_Shepard wrote...

Okay, why didn't you release a toolset for DA2? I'm guessing the same thought process would be applied to DA3, so it'd be nice to know why you/your company don't believe a toolset is worth investing in.

Third party application integration is a huge issue, but also that it is a significant, non-trivial amount of time to properly support it (both before and after release).