349 réponses à ce sujet

[upsettingshorts]

I agree with Sylvius broadly re: exploration in Mass Effect 1. In the sense that I viewed driving the Mako as something of a puzzle itself - albeit I do think it was much easier to do on consoles with dual analog controls, I never understood the complaints until I played ME1 on PC - and that the exploration contact was generally a good thing.

However there wasn't much to it in ME1. There was even less to it in ME2-3, with scanning and picking up artifacts in the latter two. Each planet in ME1 was basically the same exercise with a different matte painting, ground texture, and prefab dungeons. In that sense while I wouldn't call it part of either games' exploration section, I'd say ME2-3 did a better job of showing us what the galaxy we were trying to save was actually like, seeing as we went to populated worlds for various quests and got a glimpse into the cultures.

In short, ME1's exploration did make the universe seem big, but also empty. Which was valuable and underrated, because space is big. Really big. But more of that in ME2-3 would just have provided diminishing returns. Oh, and the Mako is more fun than the Hammerhead. But aside from that... I forgot what my point was.

[Ozida]

It always surprised me why we can't have both: length and replayability? How is one even tighted to another?
I cannot say for sure how long it took me to finish Fallout 2 And NWN, but it was couple month at least (I obviously have other things to do too). I have replayed both games 20+ times and never got bored of them. I mean, I literaly know every single corner of NWN by heart now, know what each character will say and which exact barrels are locked... And I still replay it on my free time. I really hope DA become another set of games I replay all the time and nothing ME3-like will happen to it.

[Perlicka]

Ozida wrote...

It always surprised me why we can't have both: length and replayability? How is one even tighted to another?
I cannot say for sure how long it took me to finish Fallout 2 And NWN, but it was couple month at least (I obviously have other things to do too). I have replayed both games 20+ times and never got bored of them. I mean, I literaly know every single corner of NWN by heart now, know what each character will say and which exact barrels are locked... And I still replay it on my free time. I really hope DA become another set of games I replay all the time and nothing ME3-like will happen to it.

Good games worth replaying, even very old (planescape torment  for example, every year I'm replaying almost all games i have)
And to be honest both DA and all ME's are replayable too, but it is missing some "spell" when doing more then 1 playthrough.
Just replayed ME's and DA2 and now i'm playing DAO, and its not a problem with lack of choices or changes or differences , in NWN (both) I love to play as rogue , I think i did almost same playthrough more then 5 times (same class, party, same npc to let live or die, same completing quests, same endings...).
And I have to say that  I enjoy far more theese old games over the newest, because of good story, nicer world, more place to explore , length, athmosphere ..
I wish someone will ressurect all the old games to change standarts of a "modern" games (like bg enhanced, can't wait

Modifié par Perlicka, 18 octobre 2012 - 07:54 .

[SpunkyMonkey]

AlanC9 wrote...

naughty99 wrote...

SpunkyMonkey wrote...
Me too - I think some of Mass Effects most atmospheric moments were found exploring planets. Suddenly I was in the job I'd alwasy dreamed of as a kid - off exploring space - and it really helped me connect with the ME universe.

Yep, that was the best part of ME1. If only they could have populated the planets a bit more with some random encounters or procedurally generated stuff

Well, that's.... kind of the problem. Shepard's job isn't to go "off exploring space." It just isn't. Now, it's nice to throw in a little space exploration, but once you throw a lot of resources at this stuff you're diverting zots from things that the game's about to things that the game is not about.

Whether this has any relevance to DA3 depends on how the PC's job works. Does he hunt up enemies on his own, or is he being directed somehow?

Regardless I enjoyed it - if anything it gave me a feeling of freedom and appriciation for a bigger universe. Shepard's a Spectre, not someone who clocks in 9-5 and has a daily routine, surely one of the purposes of the ME environments is to give the feeling that the player has a universe to save?

Sometimes I'd just sit looking at the visuals of a red planet or 2 moons and soak up the feeling of being where I dreamt I'd be as a 6 year old. ME had a very Buck Rogers:Countdown To Doomsday feel to it and I loved that, the Mako sections helped capture that for me and if the world's had been a bit more populated I think they could have brought them back in ME2.

With DA3 it's a similar thing - the world needs t o feel like a world and one worth saving (unless Bioware REALLY want to up the stakes and create one full of scum which the player can actually choose to destroy). This is what DA:2 did so badly - by the end of the game I could have gladly raised Kirkwall to the ground myself it was so damn repetative and rubbish.

Modifié par SpunkyMonkey, 18 octobre 2012 - 08:28 .

[Darth Krytie]

Ozida wrote...

It always surprised me why we can't have both: length and replayability? How is one even tighted to another?
I cannot say for sure how long it took me to finish Fallout 2 And NWN, but it was couple month at least (I obviously have other things to do too). I have replayed both games 20+ times and never got bored of them. I mean, I literaly know every single corner of NWN by heart now, know what each character will say and which exact barrels are locked... And I still replay it on my free time. I really hope DA become another set of games I replay all the time and nothing ME3-like will happen to it.

Well, I would argue it would depend on what makes a game replayable to you. I played ME3 like...six times? I played DA2 ten times. I played DA:O 5 times.  Final Fantasies are mostly finished, but never 100 percent.  And I only ever play em once.

Just like "quality", replayability is incredibly subjective.

Though, I'm more likely to replay a game that offers a lot of character customization (Revan, The Exile, The Warden, Shepard, even Hawke, to some extent) than games like The Lost Odyssey or Final Fantasy with set protags and only one single plot progression. Even though I find myself with incredibly similar playthroughs irt choices and class specs, I enjoy knowing that other options exist.

[Wozearly]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

sjpelkessjpeler wrote...

Quality is a highly subjective attribute as a lot of people have their priorities for that on different things in a game.

Which is why trying to use it systematically within a rigid framework like an Iron Trangle is folly.

Agreed, but that's not what the Iron Triangle was designed to illustrate.

What it was designed to do is highlight that there are competing factors in project management that sit in mutual opposition, and that its not possible to optimise all pieces of the triangle (ie, low cost, broad scope, quick to develop, high quality)

For example, if you want something designed quickly and to a high standard, its going to be expensive. If you want something designed quickly and cheaply, its not likely to have a broad scope and won't be high quality.

It works much better in describing a functional product than a service / entertainment one. If you're going to build an oil pipeline, its comparatively straightforward to sit down and have a rational discussion about how much the pipeline should link up (scope), what pressure tolerances it should it be built to (quality), how quickly you want it developed (schedule) and how much you're willing to spend to get it done (cost).

In this instance, scope and quality are distinctly separate and easily monitored by criteria set in advance.

Its less effective when the measures of scope and quality become subjective because different people place different amounts of value on their component features (or even disagree as to what those component features are).

The Iron Triangle's constraints are still there, but it adds a new element of needing to define what high quality / broad scope looks like to the target customer audience, and then design accordingly and judge success based on the feedback of target customers through sales, comments and/or research.

[FaWa]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Wulfram wrote...

I see no evidence of this applying in Bioware games.  BG2 is crazy long and crazy good.  DA:O is generally considered to be longer than DA2, and also generally considered superior.  Jade Empire is short and generally considered Bioware's least successful game before DA2.  ME2 is probably the longest of the mass effect games - though not by a huge amount - and also the best received.

A lot of people would consider Mass Effect or Knights of the Old Republic to be BioWare's best game (I prefer KOTOR over BG2 and DAO too) and it's a much shorter game than the original BG2 I find.


I'd say that ME1 was a longer game than ME2 as well (but it's close), especially if you did all of the planet exploration.

I don't really count ME1's exploration as actual gameplay. 

Even if I did include them though, ME2 would be longer. Its just in ME1 you feel like you accomplished something huge, while at the end of ME2 my reaction was "Thats it?". I like both games, its just ME1 has a more important storyline while ME2 is:

-Tutorial
-Get companions 
-OMG LOOK ITS THE VS
-Do nice things for companions 
-Suicide Mission 
-Boss fight against giant thing

[Massa FX]

I still have not finished Oblivion, but can get through both Dragon Age games fairly quick, especially after first playthrough. I do want to one day finish a game and not feel like playing the game is a chore.

A balance. Skyrim is an unique example. You can quickly play the main story and finish... then continue with other quests. I like this as an option.

[AlanC9]

FaWa wrote...

-Boss fight against giant thing

As opposed to "boss fight against silly hopper thing"?

[AlanC9]

SpunkyMonkey wrote...
Regardless I enjoyed it - if anything it gave me a feeling of freedom and appriciation for a bigger universe. Shepard's a Spectre, not someone who clocks in 9-5 and has a daily routine, surely one of the purposes of the ME environments is to give the feeling that the player has a universe to save?

Sometimes I'd just sit looking at the visuals of a red planet or 2 moons and soak up the feeling of being where I dreamt I'd be as a 6 year old. ME had a very Buck Rogers:Countdown To Doomsday feel to it and I loved that, the Mako sections helped capture that for me and if the world's had been a bit more populated I think they could have brought them back in ME2.

Hey, I wasn't saying you shouldn't like it. Just that it's got nothing to do with Shepard. If he wanted to be a space explorer he wouldn't have joined the space marines.

Anyway, let's say they wanted to bring back those empty planets; I'll agree that this sort of thing wouldn't have worked too badly in the ME2 plot (or lack thereof?). Either they do more of the same procedurally-generated terrain and cookie-cutter bases, or they don't. If they do it better it costs dev time. What would you cut to do this? Or would you cut nothing and just repeat ME1's design (I imagine this would use about the same zots as ME2's more individualized N7 missions).

One of the interesting things about ME1 is that Bio seems to have deliberately walked away from the design aspects that have a relatively low zot  cost per gameplay hour, like the exploration system and the inventory  (which is pretty cheap to do but can make you blow a lot of time fiddling with loadouts and selling/omnigelling stuff, even after you figure out that stores generally aren't worth visiting).

Modifié par AlanC9, 18 octobre 2012 - 04:50 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

AlanC9 wrote...

FaWa wrote...

-Boss fight against giant thing

As opposed to "boss fight against silly hopper thing"?

I don't think BioWare considered the ability to aim while paused when designing the "boss fight against silly hopper thing".  Three sniper rifle shots and it was dead, and three sniper rifle shots that can't miss isn't a particularly interesting battle.

Wozearly wrote...

Agreed, but that's not what the Iron Triangle was designed to illustrate.

What it was designed to do is highlight that there are competing factors in project management that sit in mutual opposition, and that its not possible to optimise all pieces of the triangle (ie, low cost, broad scope, quick to develop, high quality)

For example, if you want something designed quickly and to a high standard, its going to be expensive. If you want something designed quickly and cheaply, its not likely to have a broad scope and won't be high quality.

It works much better in describing a functional product than a service / entertainment one. If you're going to build an oil pipeline, its comparatively straightforward to sit down and have a rational discussion about how much the pipeline should link up (scope), what pressure tolerances it should it be built to (quality), how quickly you want it developed (schedule) and how much you're willing to spend to get it done (cost).

In this instance, scope and quality are distinctly separate and easily monitored by criteria set in advance.

Its less effective when the measures of scope and quality become subjective because different people place different amounts of value on their component features (or even disagree as to what those component features are).

The Iron Triangle's constraints are still there, but it adds a new element of needing to define what high quality / broad scope looks like to the target customer audience, and then design accordingly and judge success based on the feedback of target customers through sales, comments and/or research.

Right.  I've usually seen it used by engineers when evaluating their customers' designs.  Those designs can be built to be any two of on schedule, on budget, and to the desired specifications.  There, the explicitly described specificatons stand in for "quality", because there is now an objective standard of whether this thing does what it is supposed to do.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

I agree with Sylvius broadly re: exploration in Mass Effect 1. In the sense that I viewed driving the Mako as something of a puzzle itself - albeit I do think it was much easier to do on consoles with dual analog controls, I never understood the complaints until I played ME1 on PC - and that the exploration contact was generally a good thing.

I was under the impression that it was the console players who didn't like the Mako.  I found it very easy to drive on PC.

Though, and this might surprise some people, the one type of game I play that isn't roleplaying games is racing games.  I like driving simulations - and the Mako was one.  Since the physics were consistent (many driving games aren't - I hate that), the Mako was easy to learn.

However there wasn't much to it in ME1. There was even less to it in ME2-3, with scanning and picking up artifacts in the latter two. Each planet in ME1 was basically the same exercise with a different matte painting, ground texture, and prefab dungeons. In that sense while I wouldn't call it part of either games' exploration section, I'd say ME2-3 did a better job of showing us what the galaxy we were trying to save was actually like, seeing as we went to populated worlds for various quests and got a glimpse into the cultures.

The thing I didn't like about planet scanning is... I didn't get why Shepard was the one doing it.  How was that not automated by the ship's computer?  Or done by a technician?  It wasn't difficult - it was just tedious.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 18 octobre 2012 - 04:51 .

[AlanC9]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
The thing I didn't like about planet scanning is... I didn't get why Shepard was the one doing it.  How was that not automated by the ship's computer?  Or done by a technician?  It wasn't difficult - it was just tedious.

I thought of the scanning and driving the ship around as abstractions of a process that would actually be Shepard standing in CIC giving orders to Joker and EDI. It's what games do when you're commanding anything larger than a fighter. (Bridge Commander is a partial exception)

[Sylvius the Mad]

And that would make sense, if it were less tedious.

[ioannisdenton]

Abraham_uk wrote...

Me: Finally I beat Dragon Age Origins. It took me 50 hours.
My Brother: I beat it in just less than 25 hours.

Checked the data, turned out to be correct.

How did he do this? I'm so jealous!

My first playthrough of DAO was 120 hours. Been playing for months. I had THE blast of my life
my second and third were 80 hours each.
Me2 first playtrough 80
the next 7 playthroughwe were 40 to 60 hours.
On topic.
Anyhting less than 50 hours in my type of gametime is a fail for me.
i am ot playing  Uncharted or Halo.
i want some meat in my favorite genre

[The_11thDoctor]

I've played RPGs that gave 1000s of hours, so only 50 would be a nice minimum IF thats all they could give. But it needs to be a great 50 hrs at least. If its just long for the sake of being long, it doesnt help. need great exploration, battles and story. The music is always amazing so I dont have to worry there ever.

[R-F]

The only time I enjoy rpgs that take that long are when they are open world like FO and TES. And that is only because I get so sucked in that I don't realize I just spent 8 hours wandering in one direction or making Iron daggers.

I like that BW usually shoots for 30 hours, the story is great, character development is usually spot on, and the experience as a whole is enthralling. As much as I love open world games, they do tend to suffer a tad in these respects. On top of that in most cases with Bethesda games the main story can be finished in 5 hours. I would much rather have 30 hours of story packed action than 100 with only 5-10 devoted to the story.

[legbamel]

Upsettingshorts wrote...
I agree with Sylvius broadly re: exploration in Mass Effect 1. In the sense that I viewed driving the Mako as something of a puzzle itself - albeit I do think it was much easier to do on consoles with dual analog controls, I never understood the complaints until I played ME1 on PC - and that the exploration contact was generally a good thing.

However there wasn't much to it in ME1. There was even less to it in ME2-3, with scanning and picking up artifacts in the latter two. Each planet in ME1 was basically the same exercise with a different matte painting, ground texture, and prefab dungeons. In that sense while I wouldn't call it part of either games' exploration section, I'd say ME2-3 did a better job of showing us what the galaxy we were trying to save was actually like, seeing as we went to populated worlds for various quests and got a glimpse into the cultures.

In short, ME1's exploration did make the universe seem big, but also empty. Which was valuable and underrated, because space is big. Really big. But more of that in ME2-3 would just have provided diminishing returns. Oh, and the Mako is more fun than the Hammerhead. But aside from that... I forgot what my point was.

My take on it was that the rarity of populated planets emphasized how important the ones that weren't actually were to the galaxy.  The empty planets and their descriptions underscored just how  rare and precious life in the galaxy was and made the idea that the Reapers were going to wipe out the vast majority of it (because there has to be plenty of collateral damage if they're killing off all of the sentients on a planet) all the more powerful.

The planet descriptions are one of my favorite things about the ME games.  They were very well done and I missed the explanations of what hazards I would face on various planets (like killer algae in the air!) when all I had to do was scan them from orbit.  I wanted to see more pyjacks and six-legged deer.  

Whoops!  I forgot my point, too.  Most of my DA:O runs hit 90 hours.  I can't imagine getting through the whole thing in less than 50, even with the mod to skip the Fade.

Modifié par legbamel, 18 octobre 2012 - 10:50 .

[Il Divo]

AlanC9 wrote...

Hey, I wasn't saying you shouldn't like it. Just that it's got nothing to do with Shepard. If he wanted to be a space explorer he wouldn't have joined the space marines.

Agreed. Part of what bothers me about the presentation of side quests is how they require Shepard to go light years out of his way to perform some side mission. Other Bioware games, such as KotOR and Jade Empire, simply had the player come across (and complete) side quests over the course of the main game. Mass Effect has a few of these (Noveria was particularly good about it), but the exploration-oriented questlines failed in comparison in both quality and level design.  

Modifié par Il Divo, 18 octobre 2012 - 11:01 .

[Ahglock]

SpunkyMonkey wrote...


Regardless I enjoyed it - if anything it gave me a feeling of freedom and appriciation for a bigger universe. Shepard's a Spectre, not someone who clocks in 9-5 and has a daily routine, surely one of the purposes of the ME environments is to give the feeling that the player has a universe to save?

Sometimes I'd just sit looking at the visuals of a red planet or 2 moons and soak up the feeling of being where I dreamt I'd be as a 6 year old. ME had a very Buck Rogers:Countdown To Doomsday feel to it and I loved that, the Mako sections helped capture that for me and if the world's had been a bit more populated I think they could have brought them back in ME2.

Maybe that is what ME should have been about.  You don't need to save the universe to have a cool personal journey. First human spectre could have been the story on its own.  The impression you make on others and how you represent humanity as you perform your duties could have been the story in itself.  And all of those planet exploring missions would actually fit as part of that story.  When the story is holy crap a big bad guy is about to unleash havock on the univese, taking your time site seeing is a bit odd.  

[DadeLeviathan]

No. An RPG and any game should be as long as it needs to be. Length does not equal quality. If I give you an amazing 6 hour story, does that mean that a 12 hour version of the same story is going to be twice as good? No, that logic makes no sense whatsoever. Stories, games, films, etc should be as long as they need to be, and no longer (or shorter). A great story leaves you satisfied, but doesn't overstay its welcome.

A great story not only leaves you satisfied, but also wanting more as well as not overstaying its welcome. This is why great stories are hard to come by, because both satisfying the audience and leaving them wanting of more is a very difficulty thing to accomplish.

There are great stories that are short, and great stories that are very long. Lord of the Rings couldn't be told in 100 pages, and The Velveteen Rabbit couldn't have been told in 1000. They are both great stories, but they are as long as they need to be.

[Sinuphro]

DonSwingKing wrote...

I don't know who came up with this standard, but it worked for years. Since Bioware decided to halve it with Mass Effect, other RPGs followed. While DAO offered this amount of content even whitout DLC, Dragon Age 2 was way too short even whit the DLC. In my opinion a good RPG story needs time. The word epic actually means "long story". I want a story of epic proportions. I can see why some people might disagree with me, but i would rather abandon non linearity for more actual playtime.

What are your thoughts?

50 hrs is too short. but more importantly...i want a game where  if i want to save all my allies there are options i can choose to pick. also, i want to be a ruler for once. da2; hawke becomes champion of kirkwall but yet he's a fricking errand boy. i want to be able to rule land, hear court cases like in dragon age awakening, build and decorate a castle, build and equip an army.

if the game timeline spans for 20 years, if ur toon has an LI they should be able to have kids like in fable. oh and bring back the romance and maturedness that dragon age origins had

[seanileus]

By the time I finished my DA:O playthough I had reached the 100 hour mark, and that's with the inclusion of the expansion and all the DLC (except for Amgarrak, got bored after an hour and skipped)

DA2 was considerably shorter, ending at 54 hours, but I'm not gonna call that a problem.
Because it isn't.

Modifié par seanileus, 19 octobre 2012 - 10:29 .

[Ahglock]

DadeLeviathan wrote...

No. An RPG and any game should be as long as it needs to be. Length does not equal quality. If I give you an amazing 6 hour story, does that mean that a 12 hour version of the same story is going to be twice as good? No, that logic makes no sense whatsoever. Stories, games, films, etc should be as long as they need to be, and no longer (or shorter). A great story leaves you satisfied, but doesn't overstay its welcome.

A great story not only leaves you satisfied, but also wanting more as well as not overstaying its welcome. This is why great stories are hard to come by, because both satisfying the audience and leaving them wanting of more is a very difficulty thing to accomplish.

There are great stories that are short, and great stories that are very long. Lord of the Rings couldn't be told in 100 pages, and The Velveteen Rabbit couldn't have been told in 1000. They are both great stories, but they are as long as they need to be.

Sure.  But when people are paying the same $60 for a game you are selling, you should come up with stories that are best told over 50 hours and not 10. Unless your goal is to to screw the customer.  

[Il Divo]

Ahglock wrote...

DadeLeviathan wrote...

No. An RPG and any game should be as long as it needs to be. Length does not equal quality. If I give you an amazing 6 hour story, does that mean that a 12 hour version of the same story is going to be twice as good? No, that logic makes no sense whatsoever. Stories, games, films, etc should be as long as they need to be, and no longer (or shorter). A great story leaves you satisfied, but doesn't overstay its welcome.

A great story not only leaves you satisfied, but also wanting more as well as not overstaying its welcome. This is why great stories are hard to come by, because both satisfying the audience and leaving them wanting of more is a very difficulty thing to accomplish.

There are great stories that are short, and great stories that are very long. Lord of the Rings couldn't be told in 100 pages, and The Velveteen Rabbit couldn't have been told in 1000. They are both great stories, but they are as long as they need to be.

Sure.  But when people are paying the same $60 for a game you are selling, you should come up with stories that are best told over 50 hours and not 10. Unless your goal is to to screw the customer.  

No more than I think movie directors should endeavor to tell stories that are 4 hours long rather than 2 hours. A story's quality is not tied to its length. And if it's good enough, I'll return to it time and time again. I don't consider myself screwed simply because a game is on the shorter end.