530 réponses à ce sujet

[Zkyire]

cindercatz wrote...

Zkyire wrote...

I have pointy ears, I'm exciting now.

I'm short, I'm exciting now.

..yaaay.

Only a few % actually play non-human characters. That's why.

As if that were what people are really talking about..

And even if 20% is really all that played non-humans (and I highly doubt that, more like 20% played non-humans first, and most people don't finish a game twice), 20% is a huge number when you consider just how many people played and are playing Origins. And those 20% are the core audience that actually got everything there was to get out of the game, rather than the casual buy-or-not I-don't-really-care players.

Game companies' statistics (including BioWare's I'm sure) also show that a majority of players never finish any game over a certain amount of hours. Should they therefore just forget about including an ending? Less than half the players will ever see it, so why bother there? Should they shorten the game to 15 hours? It's a poor arguement for exclusion.

Because a casual still pays the same €60 for the game.

And there are far more of them than us.

Bottom line is what it is.

[Vaeliorin]

Honestly, I don't think humans are inherently boring, nor other races inherently interesting.

That said, I'd really like to be able to play as a dwarf in DA3 because I think they'd have a unique perspective on the mage/templar conflict, since they can't be mages and (generally) don't follow the Chantry.

A Dalish would be interesting as well, given their different religion and cultural views on magic.

[Icinix]

Zkyire wrote...

cindercatz wrote...

Zkyire wrote...

I have pointy ears, I'm exciting now.

I'm short, I'm exciting now.

..yaaay.

Only a few % actually play non-human characters. That's why.

As if that were what people are really talking about..

And even if 20% is really all that played non-humans (and I highly doubt that, more like 20% played non-humans first, and most people don't finish a game twice), 20% is a huge number when you consider just how many people played and are playing Origins. And those 20% are the core audience that actually got everything there was to get out of the game, rather than the casual buy-or-not I-don't-really-care players.

Game companies' statistics (including BioWare's I'm sure) also show that a majority of players never finish any game over a certain amount of hours. Should they therefore just forget about including an ending? Less than half the players will ever see it, so why bother there? Should they shorten the game to 15 hours? It's a poor arguement for exclusion.

Because a casual still pays the same €60 for the game.

And there are far more of them than us.

Bottom line is what it is.

I posted this in a rant earlier - but analytics and telemetery data are doing more damage to games than not.

Don't even look how many people finish, don't even look how many people play a type of character, look at things like how often people save, how often people play with mods etc, but actual gameplay features - leave well alone.

You want gaming to be art and you want it to be entertaining - you can't make an artful or entertaining game based on raw analytical data. That crap belongs in predicting where job creation / loss will occur due to following information regarding pallet movement. Not the entertainment industry.

[cindercatz]

Icinix wrote...

Zkyire wrote...

cindercatz wrote...

Zkyire wrote...

I have pointy ears, I'm exciting now.

I'm short, I'm exciting now.

..yaaay.

Only a few % actually play non-human characters. That's why.

As if that were what people are really talking about..

And even if 20% is really all that played non-humans (and I highly doubt that, more like 20% played non-humans first, and most people don't finish a game twice), 20% is a huge number when you consider just how many people played and are playing Origins. And those 20% are the core audience that actually got everything there was to get out of the game, rather than the casual buy-or-not I-don't-really-care players.

Game companies' statistics (including BioWare's I'm sure) also show that a majority of players never finish any game over a certain amount of hours. Should they therefore just forget about including an ending? Less than half the players will ever see it, so why bother there? Should they shorten the game to 15 hours? It's a poor arguement for exclusion.

Because a casual still pays the same €60 for the game.

And there are far more of them than us.

Bottom line is what it is.

I posted this in a rant earlier - but analytics and telemetery data are doing more damage to games than not.

Don't even look how many people finish, don't even look how many people play a type of character, look at things like how often people save, how often people play with mods etc, but actual gameplay features - leave well alone.

You want gaming to be art and you want it to be entertaining - you can't make an artful or entertaining game based on raw analytical data. That crap belongs in predicting where job creation / loss will occur due to following information regarding pallet movement. Not the entertainment industry.

Agreed.
Bottom line would be that you need to make the best possible game out every time. BioWare's on the verge of a serious broken base problem. The way you solve that and get back on the upswing is by delivering the best possible product. You don't look for places to cut corners and shake hands with the lowest common denominator. All that will get you is a dead franchise.

[robertm2]

Vaeliorin wrote...

Honestly, I don't think humans are inherently boring, nor other races inherently interesting.

That said, I'd really like to be able to play as a dwarf in DA3 because I think they'd have a unique perspective on the mage/templar conflict, since they can't be mages and (generally) don't follow the Chantry.

A Dalish would be interesting as well, given their different religion and cultural views on magic.

solid point. that would but an interesting perspective on the game. it would be cool to play as a totally indifferent, sarcastic dwarf who only cares about getting drunk and getting rich.

[Abraham_uk]

Dwalves and Elves (even the DA2 style Elves) are far too human for my liking.

If I want to play an alien, I want them to look more like an alien and less like a human.


Mass Effect 3 gave us some awesome alien races to play as.

Okay Quarians and Asari admittedly look human.
But Krogan, Turian, Baterian, Vorcha, Salarian and Geth. So many fun times.


But it shouldn't just be the fact that they look different.
In Elderscrolls, I had little reason to play other races. I never got to know much about the different races. Despite looking very alien, they behaved like humans. Sure there are differences in stats, but I never saw the point.


Mass Effect aliens not only look different, they have different cultures and backstories.

In Dragon Age, it is the Qunari (DA 2 style) and the Golems that attract me the most. Oh and also Darkspawn. Alien races that don't look human.

[Aeowyn]

Icinix wrote...

Zkyire wrote...

cindercatz wrote...

Zkyire wrote...

I have pointy ears, I'm exciting now.

I'm short, I'm exciting now.

..yaaay.

Only a few % actually play non-human characters. That's why.

As if that were what people are really talking about..

And even if 20% is really all that played non-humans (and I highly doubt that, more like 20% played non-humans first, and most people don't finish a game twice), 20% is a huge number when you consider just how many people played and are playing Origins. And those 20% are the core audience that actually got everything there was to get out of the game, rather than the casual buy-or-not I-don't-really-care players.

Game companies' statistics (including BioWare's I'm sure) also show that a majority of players never finish any game over a certain amount of hours. Should they therefore just forget about including an ending? Less than half the players will ever see it, so why bother there? Should they shorten the game to 15 hours? It's a poor arguement for exclusion.

Because a casual still pays the same €60 for the game.

And there are far more of them than us.

Bottom line is what it is.

I posted this in a rant earlier - but analytics and telemetery data are doing more damage to games than not.

Don't even look how many people finish, don't even look how many people play a type of character, look at things like how often people save, how often people play with mods etc, but actual gameplay features - leave well alone.

You want gaming to be art and you want it to be entertaining - you can't make an artful or entertaining game based on raw analytical data. That crap belongs in predicting where job creation / loss will occur due to following information regarding pallet movement. Not the entertainment industry.

Yes, because that wouldn't be damaging for their finances at all. Believe it or not, but BioWare is a business, and they have to make money. They need to think of the casuals since they are the biggest pool of potential income. Fact is, a lot more people would buy the game if you play as a human than if you play as an elf or a dwarf.

I also don't see how not standing up to elven servants at the beginning is being racist, and I don't remember Nan ever calling them "knife-ears". 

Modifié par Aeowyn, 01 octobre 2012 - 10:32 .

[DarkKnightHolmes]

I agree Human noble is boring. City elf is the best!

[AshenSugar]

Whaaaaaaaat?
 
You are jesting mefinks! How can anyone not like the Human Noble origin?
 
... ok, you're entitled to your opinion, but for me at least the Human Noble was the most compelling of all the Origin stories. It was a tale of betrayal and revenge.
 
I'd never played a game like that before, and had never experienced such intensity of emotion. After the betrayal, I was burning up to get my hands on that [insert expletive] Howe! When my Couseland finally had the little rat cornered, and ran his blade through his black, treacherous heart.. it was one of the most rewarding moments in the game as far as I was concerned.
 
At the same time, I'd certainly not be adverse to experiencing Dragon Age 3 from the point of view of other races, if given the opportunity. It's always good to have choices.

[Gileadan]

How interesting a character is as a person and how much fun he is to play is not determined by exotic features like pointy ears, horns or tails. A good writer can come up with a good origin and starter setting for humans. Adding exotic features to a character sometimes looks like a cop-out - if you can't write something really good, just add horns and tails!

Would the city elf origin have had less impact if the oppressed elves had been oppressed humans instead?

[Plaintiff]

Icinix wrote...

I posted this in a rant earlier - but analytics and telemetery data are doing more damage to games than not.

Don't even look how many people finish, don't even look how many people play a type of character, look at things like how often people save, how often people play with mods etc, but actual gameplay features - leave well alone.

You want gaming to be art and you want it to be entertaining - you can't make an artful or entertaining game based on raw analytical data. That crap belongs in predicting where job creation / loss will occur due to following information regarding pallet movement. Not the entertainment industry.

Blizzard disagrees.

Modifié par Plaintiff, 01 octobre 2012 - 11:04 .

[eroeru]

If you cater to the casuals, you won't be alive in the near future. Like in pop music - casuals want that things stay "fresh", yet simplistic, so the most popular thing is a fleeting fad. Yet if you look into music or games overall, then the most stabile "artists" are ones who do win a niche crowd. Win a crowd who loves the quality, not some "fun button-press spending of time", and you'll be better off. Tick off the crowd who loves you, and especially in gaming, there will be a holy quest to slander the game. Rightly so.


Now why don't the usual statistics reflect quality? Well, that's because they are most always biased, oversiplifying the game to fit into the available data, and not taking into account things that would be too bothersome or "long-perspective" to account for.
Like with "99 percent played only human".

1. this was gathered only from people who let you mine the data. This wasn't the case with the usually "smarter" crowd who played on PCs and often did so offline - your past fans (I know I'll keep playing like this, no matter how much my favorite frachise takes into account this data. Giving in to stupid provocative game-sellers/marketers is just that). Sure, you'll get some data from many, eventually, but even then it's most probably incomplete data as it doesn't take into account the part where the player gamed offline.

2. It reflects the choices only for a period of time, not taking into account that many will have a smile upon their faces when seeing the vast choices and that the game has depth - they'll settle for the versatile human race first, and after they've finished they'll go on a break from the game, in which they'll be happy about it - they can and probably will try out other races in the future.



For example, my first playthrough was online only at certain moments in Awakenings, my second play-through was entirely offline and I got to it only after a year or so. Happy times. DA2 was cheap, it felt as if there was nothing the game will offer me with (depth) - it had the same feeling that I had at the second half of Awakenings, when I had done most there was to do and seen most there was to be seen, but in 2, this feeling of emptiness was there from the get-go.

And I think this kind of reasoning and the causes are quite universal in the basics, for a gamer who looks for good-quality niche stuff in his RPGs, and the players who loved the original depth of Bioware games.

Modifié par eroeru, 01 octobre 2012 - 01:06 .

[Icinix]

Aeowyn wrote...

Icinix wrote...

I posted this in a rant earlier - but analytics and telemetery data are doing more damage to games than not.

Don't even look how many people finish, don't even look how many people play a type of character, look at things like how often people save, how often people play with mods etc, but actual gameplay features - leave well alone.

You want gaming to be art and you want it to be entertaining - you can't make an artful or entertaining game based on raw analytical data. That crap belongs in predicting where job creation / loss will occur due to following information regarding pallet movement. Not the entertainment industry.

Yes, because that wouldn't be damaging for their finances at all. Believe it or not, but BioWare is a business, and they have to make money. They need to think of the casuals since they are the biggest pool of potential income. Fact is, a lot more people would buy the game if you play as a human than if you play as an elf or a dwarf.

I also don't see how not standing up to elven servants at the beginning is being racist, and I don't remember Nan ever calling them "knife-ears". 

I don't know if much of your quote was intended for what I said?

I'm talking about cutting things out because a smaller number of players utilised them - not removing the option to play as a human - nor was I talking about anything in any way related to racism and elves?

The only thing I was saying was that there is a number of ... sterile games on the market that are built using data as opposed to ideas. As far as making money goes - the gaming industry went in leaps and bounds for many years before analytical research came into play so not sure how not using it will affect their bottom line - especially since the rise in the use of that data also has seen a rise in the negativity around the releases - could be coincidence - but I don't think so.

[DarkKnightHolmes]

AshenSugar wrote...

Whaaaaaaaat?
 
You are jesting mefinks! How can anyone not like the Human Noble origin?
 
... ok, you're entitled to your opinion, but for me at least the Human Noble was the most compelling of all the Origin stories. It was a tale of betrayal and revenge.
 .

It was a tale about a rich and famous guy/gal who lost everything and in the end became more RICH and FAMOUS! Not to mention all the nobles suck up to the human noble and I really cannot stand any noble in Thedas.

[eroeru]

AshenSugar wrote...

Whaaaaaaaat?
 
You are jesting mefinks! How can anyone not like the Human Noble origin?
 
... ok, you're entitled to your opinion, but for me at least the Human Noble was the most compelling of all the Origin stories. It was a tale of betrayal and revenge.
 
I'd never played a game like that before, and had never experienced such intensity of emotion. After the betrayal, I was burning up to get my hands on that [insert expletive] Howe! When my Couseland finally had the little rat cornered, and ran his blade through his black, treacherous heart.. it was one of the most rewarding moments in the game as far as I was concerned.
 
At the same time, I'd certainly not be adverse to experiencing Dragon Age 3 from the point of view of other races, if given the opportunity. It's always good to have choices.

Playing on "murdering of kin" and "revenge" is a cheap trick. That's why it didn't work on many. 

The rising from an alienated race to the unwelcoming "culture" or coming out of your life-long corrupt home beneath the ground were much more intriguing.

[Icinix]

Plaintiff wrote...

Icinix wrote...

I posted this in a rant earlier - but analytics and telemetery data are doing more damage to games than not.

Don't even look how many people finish, don't even look how many people play a type of character, look at things like how often people save, how often people play with mods etc, but actual gameplay features - leave well alone.

You want gaming to be art and you want it to be entertaining - you can't make an artful or entertaining game based on raw analytical data. That crap belongs in predicting where job creation / loss will occur due to following information regarding pallet movement. Not the entertainment industry.

Blizzard disagrees.

Thanks for that article - its a beauty.

I actually think Blizzard is one group who has, at least in some ways, got the data collection and usage right. There are two places that I think sum up what they get right and what BioWare used to nail in my opinion.

"The company has worked out that the process of learning a game is a major part of the fun of the game for many people, so it has focused efforts on becoming incredibly good at giving them a whole new game to learn every 15 months or so, rather than using data to try and achieve some artificial "perfection" in its existing game systems." 

In particular that last line - rather that trying to achieve artificial perfection. I think thats what ended up happening with DA2 and ME3 - the games were highly polished, but they ended up being quite sinular sterile experiences... which kind of leads to this...

"They may return to WoW (and other MMOs) for each major content patch, but ultimately, they are mercenaries - they have no interest or involvement with the world and lore of the game, and their engagement with its community is often solely through their guild, which will probably move en masse to the next big thing as soon as it arrives.

Meanwhile, there's a solid community of people playing WoW who may never have participated in a 25-man raid or in Arena PvP; who have never worn a piece of Tier armour before it was long out of date; but who are still playing the game years after subscribing, paying a subscription, enjoying WoW for a few hours a week or perhaps just a few hours a month."

I think this is great - one of the things with a lot of old BioWare games is people are still playing them today - they just want to experience the world created - they might get totally into the lore - but many just love being a part of the world. Where as I would argue that games like ME3 and DA2 are more for the 'mercenary' gamer - the one that grabs the game - strip mines it once or twice - moves on. The games aren't built to be played in two or three years time.

The difference here of course is that WoW has a constant stream of incoming money allowing that mindset, where as BioWares releases are one off payments.

I mean - its all just speculation and ideas and opinions on my part - but I think there is this mentality in the industry that - you've got the data - you're set - when the data extracted can lead you to conclusions that are so, very, very wrong. 

*gets off soapbox* ..weeelll that went on for quite a bit longer than I expected.

TL;DR - mindless rant by me - I wouldn't bother with it myself to be honest.

Modifié par Icinix, 01 octobre 2012 - 11:26 .

[marshalleck]

Xilizhra wrote...

brushyourteeth wrote...

Zjarcal wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

I find HN repulsive from now on ever since it was confirmed that you're forced to be racist at the beginning. 

WTF are you talking about?

How your character stands by, watching the cook mistreat the elven servants, I would guess.

More or less. I handwaved this on my own run, but have since learned of an actual dev statement saying that it was a deliberate choice for the HN PC to be racist in that instance.

And ah, yes, Faerunner showed up. Good woman. I have been ninjad.

A little racism never hurt anyone. You'll be fine playing human in DA3, it will put hair on your chest.

[Sasie]

Personally I wouldn't mind a entire game set in the deep roads and among the dwarven kingdoms. The dwarves in Dragon Age was so much more interesting then the rest with their politics, castes and endless war against the darkspawn.

Also from what I remember from Dragon Age Origins the entire Cousland family was filled with racists. They might not have shown it openly but the elves in Denerim state that the Highever Alienage has a even worse reputation then the one in Denerim. I can't imagine the Cousland family being blind to what was going on in their own city.

[upsettingshorts]

Icinix where are you drawing your conclusions as to how precisely BioWare uses its metrics internally from?

Case in point: Sure they've mentioned the metrics that point out that elves and dwarves were unpopular origins - usually in direct refutation of posters claiming they were popular - but I don't recall them ever saying said metrics were the reason for their non-inclusion in DA2.

[Icinix]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Icinix where are you drawing your conclusions as to how precisely BioWare uses its metrics internally from?

Case in point: Sure they've mentioned the metrics that point out that elves and dwarves were unpopular origins - usually in direct refutation of posters claiming they were popular - but I don't recall them ever saying said metrics were the reason for their non-inclusion in DA2.

Not really anywhere - more just a general anti-analytics for gameplay purposes than anything else.

Although if you were using analytics to determine what to include and what not (such as race selection) - figures like http://social.biowar...21847/1#5822035 would definitely be enough to at least having it on the chop board I imagine.

..but yeah - I have no actual idea whatsoever how they use it or even if it was a factor, but only that my personal opinion in a very general sense is since data began being used in design - gaming has become less entertaining and has a more sterile feel. Wasn't just focusing on the race choice.....in which case I kind of took this thread off topic and I feel bad about that.

[upsettingshorts]

While I might agree with your broadest conclusion in principle, about where games have gone as an industry, my natural skepticism leads me to believe that my perspective has changed at least as much as the industry, probably more. I mean, I was a kid when I got into games, of course I had a more innocent feel for how everything was made.

Interactions with game developers here and elsewhere hasn't given me the impression the people making them have changed terribly much, but suits will be suits, and there are certainly more of them nowadays than there were when the industry had a smaller footprint.

Edit:  That said, Gaider more directly answered the question later in the thread you linked.  It would be a good thread for anyone interested in this one to read through in its entirety, or at least until DG stops responding.

David Gaider wrote...

Russalka wrote...
But how much will this knowledge shape any games developed in the future?

Hard to say. Just because, say, only 5% of players ever played a dwarven origin does that mean we shouldn't do one again? Does that mean we couldn't perhaps do them better, make it more appealing? It's a bit of a chicken-and-egg argument. Looking at the data, however, I would think it'd be reasonable to say our efforts would have been more rewarded had we done, say, only one dwarven origin and did another human origin instead (ignoring the hindsight aspect entirely, of course). Such figures are beneficial only in terms of not talking about what the players will do or not do based on assumptions (a lot more players played the same-sex romances than we had originally assumed, for instance), while at the same time recognizing that it shouldn't form the entirety of the basis for our decisions.

I knew I recall reading that "choices not taken still have value" comment somewhere:

David Gaider wrote...

Xayasha wrote...
Of course it doesn't show our degree of appreciation for our different playthroughs, but it does mean something when 95% of players don't even try an origin...

I said this in an interview recently, but I think there's some appreciation among RPG players for knowing that a path exists-- whether or not they actually chose to take it. You do have to couple that with the knowledge of just how many people are actually making those choices, as well, but that's just one piece of the puzzle. So long as we're not making our decisions based solely on numbers, it's not a bad thing-- and we haven't, just to be clear. As someone else pointed out above, there are numerous factors that go into any major design decision, and info like that acquired from telemetry should be used as support only.

And one more that explains just how large their sample size is:

David Gaider wrote...

Hmm. While I certainly appreciate the endorsements from people posting about the X number of times they played through the game, or the various origins, when the subject is the gross percentages of over three million players I'm not certain what that does more than seriously underline the kind of minority that exists on these forums.

Again, not that you all aren't aware of that on some level, but I think there's also an idea that because you only see people expressing the same viewpoint that this represents "the fan base" as a whole.

And not to discount that minority, either. The fact that anyone is willing to play the game more than once is certainly a plus from our end. 

Frankly I'm shocked I didn't participate in that thread.  I was certainly around at the time.  Huh.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 01 octobre 2012 - 12:05 .

[snackrat]

I liked human noble origin itself alright, but actually being a human noble was boring. Also a pain. Not only did it lack any real... I don't know, WONDER for me, everyone also assumes you're a dick because you don't deal with the pressures of being elven/dwarven/MAGICen. Which kind of backfires doesn't it, because everyone hates you anyway, because you're SOOOO privileged.

Personally, I loved the dwarves. Both how they looked - the men burly and square, the women curvaceous and full - and their culture, architecture, social structures, so on. WAY cool. Sad to see dem ladeez disappeared in DAII, and we didn't get to interact with dwarves much at all.

[Icinix]

Definitely, I often forget that just because I've grown with gaming - doesn't mean there aren't millions of young people coming through with their own direction of growth - and there own gaming experiences will shape what they like when they're old and cranky like me - I've also said a few times that I see myself as a niche market and well against the grain, but I'm still prepared to make a bit of noise about it.

With the suits, yeah, I work in a global firm - and I see the services we offer and see the people we send off on secondment to other companies and how much changes they present using that analytical data (and other data of course) and how much of it is merely utilised to create a raw dollar value at the end. Its great and all - but that is why I don't like it in a fledgling industry on its way to becoming our latest renaissance (slight over dramatisation, but hey!). Yes companies have a right to profits and make money, yes that's why they exist - but it should be at its absolute peak the EQUAL reason why they exist, not the first. But I also like to think you don't create a business to get rich, you create a business to bring something to the world.

Yeah - that thread is great - there is some great discussion in it and some hot topics of interest. More threads like that would keep me on here for days at a time.

Haha. I know - its an absoloute ripper thread.

Edit: I appear to have crazy formatting errors - and my cursour moves to random locations when typing. Nice.

Modifié par Icinix, 01 octobre 2012 - 12:10 .

[Zkyire]

Icinix wrote...

Definitely, I often forget that just because I've grown with gaming - doesn't mean there aren't millions of young people coming through with their own direction of growth - and there own gaming experiences will shape what they like when they're old and cranky like me - I've also said a few times that I see myself as a niche market and well against the grain, but I'm still prepared to make a bit of noise about it.

With the suits, yeah, I work in a global firm - and I see the services we offer and see the people we send off on secondment to other companies and how much changes they present using that analytical data (and other data of course) and how much of it is merely utilised to create a raw dollar value at the end. Its great and all - but that is why I don't like it in a fledgling industry on its way to becoming our latest renaissance (slight over dramatisation, but hey!). Yes companies have a right to profits and make money, yes that's why they exist - but it should be at its absolute peak the EQUAL reason why they exist, not the first. But I also like to think you don't create a business to get rich, you create a business to bring something to the world.

Yeah - that thread is great - there is some great discussion in it and some hot topics of interest. More threads like that would keep me on here for days at a time.

Haha. I know - its an absoloute ripper thread.

Edit: I appear to have crazy formatting errors - and my cursour moves to random locations when typing. Nice.

I agree on principle. People don't get into that industry thinking "I'm gonna make SO much money!", they get into it because they are passionate about it.

I'd personally greatly enjoy if they made a game for 100,000 hardcore gamers who absolutely love their work, than make a game with 2 or 3 million casual players in mind (not that they necessarily make their games specifically for casuals, mind you). But a business is a business and they still need to make a profit.

Modifié par Zkyire, 01 octobre 2012 - 12:15 .