166 réponses à ce sujet

[MorningBird]

Emzamination wrote...

Vandicus wrote...

Emzamination wrote...

Sejborg wrote...

If they do something like that again then I will not buy the game.

What should they do after the game has gone gold then? How about testing the damn game?!

And then release the needed day one PATCH, so the costumers don't have to experience a weird math bug, that make everyone explode on contact, don't have a game without the promised "auto attack" (lol we forgot derp) and don't have a game that is unbalanced.

How could they release a patch before the bugs are even reported?

With space magic! 

But more seriously, what he's suggesting is small group testing in the time period between the shipping of the game and its availability for sale. There are some issues with this suggestion, such as needing to hire on people to do the testing and the immense amount of time needed to play through a DA game. Not to mention many bugs often take a while to find the solution to.

Getting paid to game all day? Sign me up, I'll even put in over time

Don't, it's a trap.

[Sejborg]

Vandicus wrote...

Emzamination wrote...

Sejborg wrote...

If they do something like that again then I will not buy the game.

What should they do after the game has gone gold then? How about testing the damn game?!

And then release the needed day one PATCH, so the costumers don't have to experience a weird math bug, that make everyone explode on contact, don't have a game without the promised "auto attack" (lol we forgot derp) and don't have a game that is unbalanced.

How could they release a patch before the bugs are even reported?

With space magic! 

But more seriously, what he's suggesting is small group testing in the time period between the shipping of the game and its availability for sale. There are some issues with this suggestion, such as needing to hire on people to do the testing and the immense amount of time needed to play through a DA game. Not to mention many bugs often take a while to find the solution to.

What? Is Schumacher, Gaider and Laidlaw too high and mighty to pick up a controller and push the buttons? 

How hard can it be to see if the game has everyone exploding, and the "auto attack" not being implemented? And it being hard to find the solution to some problems - how can you justify just passing along the bugs to the consumer to fix?

Edit: 
I might have read your post wrong. Sorry if that didn't make sense. It is way over my bed time. 

Modifié par Sejborg, 24 septembre 2012 - 12:21 .

[Emzamination]

MorningBird wrote...


Don't, it's a trap.

What could possibly go wrong?

[PaulSX]

Sejborg wrote...

What should they do after the game has gone gold then? How about testing the damn game?!

 

I am pretty sure they have a seprated team to do the testing job. the problem is those cinematic and level designers etc. will have nothing to do during the certification period. But I agree that Javik dlc should not be released on Day one. They could spend at least 1 more month putting enough contents in order to justify the 10USD price.

[publius1000]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

You realize if we did this, this means that we would never release DLC, expansions, and in many cases even sequels.

I'm fine with this. No DLC, no expansions, just one complete game. This in no way stops you from making sequels - a game tells a complete story. Are you saying that you wanted to put all the stuff in DA2 into DA:O? Think of it this way: what other medium does this? Have you ever seen a writer publish a book, and then a month later publish a bonus chapter? And then another? Movies have deleted and bonus scenes, but these appear naturally as part of the production process - imagine if a studio released a 15 min clip showing what happened to character X, or the backstory of character Y, 3 months after the movie came out. Have you ever gone to a play where you have to pay extra to see the real ending?
It doesn't matter how good the DLC is, in fact I thought the 2 DA2 DLCs were fantastic. What matters is the principle: DLC=bull****

[MorningBird]

Emzamination wrote...

MorningBird wrote...


Don't, it's a trap.

What could possibly go wrong?

Working from 9am to 10pm for six to seven days a week on minimum wage for three months straight or more.

[Vandicus]

Sejborg wrote...

Vandicus wrote...

Emzamination wrote...

Sejborg wrote...

If they do something like that again then I will not buy the game.

What should they do after the game has gone gold then? How about testing the damn game?!

And then release the needed day one PATCH, so the costumers don't have to experience a weird math bug, that make everyone explode on contact, don't have a game without the promised "auto attack" (lol we forgot derp) and don't have a game that is unbalanced.

How could they release a patch before the bugs are even reported?

With space magic! 

But more seriously, what he's suggesting is small group testing in the time period between the shipping of the game and its availability for sale. There are some issues with this suggestion, such as needing to hire on people to do the testing and the immense amount of time needed to play through a DA game. Not to mention many bugs often take a while to find the solution to.

What? Is Schumacher, Gaider and Laidlaw too high and mighty to pick up a controller and push the buttons? 

How hard can it be to see if the game has everyone exploding, and the "auto attack" not being implemented? And it being hard to find the solution to some problems - how can you justify just passing along the bugs to the consumer to fix?

Last I checked, consumers very rarely if ever provide bug fixes. Its the developers who make the patches. No game releases bug free. Its not like those are game breaking bugs, or like we're playing in some sort've beta stage. The amount of "testing" done by consumers is vastly more than what any company could concievably do simply by hiring people to test. Say a game sells 1 million copies, half of those people play through to the finish, and a tenth of those people file a bug report of some kind. That's a staff of 10,000 there. Not really feasible to hire that many people for testing, so many bugs that aren't noticed pre-release are found post-release.

[redBadger14]

Vandicus wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

franciscoamell wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

How does one define "the complete game?"

The game with all the story and characters the developpers wanted to put in from the start.

You realize if we did this, this means that we would never release DLC, expansions, and in many cases even sequels.

You'd probably also never be able to finish the game with the development time and bankroll that would require. 

This this this.

Or if the game was finished, it would be like Too Human and take forever, and even then it would be a mess and likely really buggy.

[Emzamination]

MorningBird wrote...

Emzamination wrote...

MorningBird wrote...


Don't, it's a trap.

What could possibly go wrong?

Working from 9am to 10pm for six to seven days a week on minimum wage for three months straight or more.

Just playing games? This job is starting to sound more and more appealing 

[Vandicus]

Emzamination wrote...

MorningBird wrote...

Emzamination wrote...

MorningBird wrote...


Don't, it's a trap.

What could possibly go wrong?

Working from 9am to 10pm for six to seven days a week on minimum wage for three months straight or more.

Just playing games? This job is starting to sound more and more appealing 

Game testing is not quite just playing games. Most of that time you probably won't even be playing a coherent game. Test companion quest A here, go through boss fight B here, write down all bugs and test to see if they're recreatable. 

[Dean_the_Young]

I agree that timing, and appearance, are significant. I personally don't have an adversion to paid Day One DLC, but I can see how and why many would. All paid DLC is nickle-and-diming, albeit in my view worth the cost for the most part, but at least when you have to wait awhile for it the appearance is a bit less malign. When Day One DLC comes free, such as Shale, it feels more like a part of the intended game needing that dev cycle, but paid DLC feels more like 'let's cut out content and make them pay for it.'

It's the same product, and there isn't necessarily some malevolent price gouging going on, but the impression is there.

I think Zaeed's Price of Revenge in ME2 struck a balance: the DLC was free, but the Cerberus Network pass was not. Or rather, it was free in the package with new games, but had to be purchased otherwise. As a barrier-token, the Cerberus Network activation code could be considered the price of the DLC... but one that already came for new buyers.

Sure, the used-game market suffered a bit, but used market doesn't give the publishers as much value anyway. And day-one purchasers wouldn't feel stolen from.


Just my two cents, Alan. Feel free to pass it on or not as you like.

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 24 septembre 2012 - 12:26 .

[Jerrybnsn]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Nah, that'd be too awesome to release as DLC.

So we should just make sure that we don't make DLC that is awesome?

I wouldn't say that has been a problem before.

[Emzamination]

Vandicus wrote...

Emzamination wrote...

MorningBird wrote...

Emzamination wrote...

MorningBird wrote...


Don't, it's a trap.

What could possibly go wrong?

Working from 9am to 10pm for six to seven days a week on minimum wage for three months straight or more.

Just playing games? This job is starting to sound more and more appealing 

Game testing is not quite just playing games. Most of that time you probably won't even be playing a coherent game. Test companion quest A here, go through boss fight B here, write down all bugs and test to see if they're recreatable. 

and people actually fail at that?

[Vandicus]

Emzamination wrote...



and people actually fail at that?

Its not a matter of success or failure, its a matter of chance and amount of people. Given the testing they do is much more intense than your average gamer, but there's also very few of them, and they are probably only working for the team for part of the time(assuming that outside testers are hired for a game). Bugs also don't occur on every playthrough. A dev staff of 200 is considered fairly large. What proportion of people do you think they can have simply testing the game? The total hours of testing from consumers is much larger than the total hours that they could get with a small group of employees.

Modifié par Vandicus, 24 septembre 2012 - 12:32 .

[Allan Schumacher]

franciscoamell wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

So we should just make sure that we don't make DLC that is awesome?

I think that to make the game worthwhile to the people who don't buy DLC, you can't put something that changes too much the main story, and I'd be very disapointed if Zevran wasn't vital to the plot and as fleshed out as much as the other characters.

So you honestly don't think the games are "worthwhile" without the DLC?

[Emzamination]

Vandicus wrote...

Emzamination wrote...



and people actually fail at that?

Its not a matter of success or failure, its a matter of chance and amount of people. Given the testing they do is much more intense than your average gamer, but there's also very few of them, and they are probably only working for the team for part of the time(assuming that outside testers are hired for a game). Bugs also don't occur on every playthrough. A dev staff of 200 is considered fairly large. What proportion of people do you think they can have simply testing the game? The total hours of testing from consumers is much larger than the total hours that they could get with a small group of employees.

It's still hard to believe that bugged quest slip through when these observant and perceptive gamers are suppose to be writing them down and nailing them as they go.Take skyrim for instance, it's extremely difficult to imagine the insane number of bugs in that game slipped past release.Someone wasn't doing their job.

Modifié par Emzamination, 24 septembre 2012 - 12:38 .

[Allan Schumacher]

I'm fine with this. No DLC, no expansions, just one complete game. This in no way stops you from making sequels - a game tells a complete story.

My point was relating to the idea of a "complete game" put forth that mentioned putting in all the things that we intended to put in.

There is always stuff in sequels that was originally intended to be put in the original game.

[Allan Schumacher]

No, I think you are having problems understanding me, or just distorting what I wrote. I meant that games should be(and are, at least the ones I play) a fun experience without DLC and the story have to make sense by it's own. So, you can't release a DLC that affects too much of the story, otherwise the game isn't worth buying without the DLC.

There's plenty of people that have fun with DAO without Shale, DA2 without Sebastian, ME2 without Zaeed, and ME3 without Javik.  I'd argue that none of these characters change the story in any way.  They merely add to it.  A lot like say, Tales of the Sword Coast.

I'm just baffled. You're saying you don't want more content that helps flesh out the game world and provides interesting or even awesome game moments. I agree that the stand alone games need to be coherent and awesome in their own right.

So I guess the idea is, if Javik didn't even exist at all, would people see ME3 differently? Or is Javik just the type of thing that people do want?

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 24 septembre 2012 - 12:42 .

[RazorrX]

I personally like DLC as it allows for more game fun. I like to think of DLC as it was once said, that what is released in DLC is driven by the players.

I think PAID Day 0 DLC is kind of lame though (IE Javik). Now day 0 FREE DLC is okay, as you could say that "We wanted this in, but needed to get the game out, so while we were going through the final steps we finished this..." and everyone would be happy. It was having the DLC as a paid thing that made people mad I think. Day 0 paid DLC makes it look like you are just scamming your customers into more money. If you think the game should be 70 instead of 60 don't cut part out and sell it as a 10 dollar DLC, just jack the price up and be done with it.

Paid DLC after release (say a month or so) is fine, as you could say that player feedback drove it, etc. While I personally did not like Hawke, I DID enjoy the DLC for the most part.

[Vandicus]

franciscoamell wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

No, I think you are having problems understanding me, or just distorting what I wrote. I meant that games should be(and are, at least the ones I play) a fun experience without DLC and the story have to make sense by it's own. So, you can't release a DLC that affects too much of the story, otherwise the game isn't worth buying without the DLC.

There's plenty of people that have fun with DAO without Shale, DA2 without Sebastian, ME2 without Zaeed, and ME3 without Javik.  I'd argue that none of these characters change the story in any way.  They merely add to it.  A lot like say, Tales of the Sword Coast.

I'm just baffled. You're saying you don't want more content that helps flesh out the game world and provides interesting or even awesome game moments. I agree that the stand alone games need to be coherent and awesome in their own right.

So I guess the idea is, if Javik didn't even exist at all, would people see ME3 differently? Or is Javik just the type of thing that people do want?

I'm one of these people. I have a lot of fun without them, but I think I deserve that content for free. You meant to put that in the main game, why didn't you?

What makes you think you deserve this particular content for free, or any content for free for that matter? How they parcel their games and sell them is known before you ever make a purchase. You as the consumer make the choice to buy the game knowing what content is in it. The buying and selling of a product constitutes a very straightforward business contract. 

I think this is one of those cases where people try to mask simple greed(I want more, and I want it free) with some sort've moral high ground.

[Fast Jimmy]

franciscoamell wrote...

suntzuxi wrote...

Sejborg wrote...

What should they do after the game has gone gold then? How about testing the damn game?!

 

I am pretty sure they have a seprated team to do the testing job. the problem is those cinematic and level designers etc. will have nothing to do during the certification period. But I agree that Javik dlc should not be released on Day one. They could spend at least 1 more month putting enough contents in order to justify the 10USD price.

They could just take a break, you know.

Companies don't really succeed when they get in the mindset of giving employees month long+ breaks... I mean, if I got to show up to work for a month and do, essentially, nothing of any value? I'd imagine I wouldn't have that job very long.



DLC content on Day One is always going to be controversial. No matter how much explaining and justifying a company does of what the reasons behind it are - its going to be viewed with suspicion and incredulity.

Which is why I suggest that Bioware instead offer a Pre-Order/Collector's Edition bonus of a discount on future DLC. This doesn't give the appearance of carving out content to sell as DLC, nor does it give any players who paid a premium price access to more story. At the same time, it allows Bioware to finish any content that would have been cut (such as Shale, for instance) on a timeline they like to make sure it fits into the game as well as possible. 

I have heard people say "well, if the DLC is done on Day One, isn't that bad if a company holds onto it until a later date?" To which, I would say, of course. HOWEVER... if the company didn't have to aim at Day One (Release Day) as the time to complete said content, then they could work harder on it to make it more complete. People say Javik wasn't that detailed or interwoven into the game... but, given more time without a Release Day schedule looming as a drop-dead completion date, maybe this could have changed.

So - your pre-order/Collector's Edition costs $10 more, but gives you, say, a 50% discount on any future DLC for that game (with a run-out of a year, to prevent losses). Bioware would get that $10 pre-order, then they would get $5 for every DLC they released. Which, let's be honest, if you have a player who paid $10 for a discount, they are GOING to buy your DLC. So you now have invested fans who will be buying every DLC just so they can benefit from their sunk investment.

In the case of ME3, you could get your $10 CE discount, then you would have gotten Javik and Leviathan both for $5 a piece, $20 total worth of extra purchases. With Bioware's model, they would have sold the Javik DLC for $10 (CE bonus) and then Leviathan for $10, $20 the same. The difference is numbers - if every Collector's Edition that was sold also sold a Leviathan DLC (as it likely would have because, again, people will want a return on their investment), then you would have more Leviathan sales than you do now. 

The next Omega DLC would then cost someone $5, which is less than what they would pay (since the consumer broke even buying Leviathan) but, again, you will have more sales since people will want to cash in their discount and... hey, what's $5? Not a big deal. And, if more DLC comes out, you will get more downloads.

This model works even better (for Bioware, that is) if the discount is, say, 25%. Then it would take 4 DLC (including Javik) for the consumer to break even. Which is good - since it means either A) more profit for Bioware or more exposure, downloads and playtime of your DLC, which keeps it fresh in people's minds and keeps them talking about it, getting more word of mouth sales.

Bioware would be wise to adopt this model. It brings it way more benefit to both the company and the consumer and, at the same time, avoids all the negative press and PR with Day One DLC.

[Emzamination]

franciscoamell wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

No, I think you are having problems understanding me, or just distorting what I wrote. I meant that games should be(and are, at least the ones I play) a fun experience without DLC and the story have to make sense by it's own. So, you can't release a DLC that affects too much of the story, otherwise the game isn't worth buying without the DLC.

There's plenty of people that have fun with DAO without Shale, DA2 without Sebastian, ME2 without Zaeed, and ME3 without Javik.  I'd argue that none of these characters change the story in any way.  They merely add to it.  A lot like say, Tales of the Sword Coast.

I'm just baffled. You're saying you don't want more content that helps flesh out the game world and provides interesting or even awesome game moments. I agree that the stand alone games need to be coherent and awesome in their own right.

So I guess the idea is, if Javik didn't even exist at all, would people see ME3 differently? Or is Javik just the type of thing that people do want?

I'm one of these people. I have a lot of fun without them, but I think I deserve that content for free. You meant to put that in the main game, why didn't you?

I'd like to use the 'E' word here but at the same time don't want to invoke allan's wrath so I'll just leave it be