349 réponses à ce sujet

[Dragoonlordz]

plnero wrote...

Ahglock wrote...
Shouldn't we request, hell expect both from a big game company who you are throwing a base $60 at?
 

 
My point is that quantity shouldn't be a problem if the quality is there. If the game can fulfill your expectations within 20 hours what's the point of dragging it on for 30 more hours? I’m sick of people expecting EVERYTHING from these companies. I can see why people would expect things such as a well written story and ending to that story, but sometimes fans expect too much.

These companies have budgets and time restraints they have to keep in mind while making these games. It’s normal to expect a well written story with good gameplay but you’re expecting this game to meet every expectation you have for it and frankly that isn’t possible.

Forgive me if I sound rude, I just don’t feel it’s realistic to expect complete perfection from these big game companies.

If they can produce 60 hours of amazing content then I'm all for it. However if they give us a 20 hour game that manages to get the job done then why complain? All I'm saying is that more content is always nice but you don't need it to make a good game.

A fan or customer says what he or she would like to see, whether thats a 20 hour good game or 60 hour good game. If you say you only want a 20 hour good game then maybe they will stop at 20 and give you that since thats what you wanted and expected. You say would like a 60 hour great game they will more likely to try atleast to make a 60 hour great game. They may not be able to get 60 hours of great content but the role of the customer/fan is to ask or say what it is they like and what it is they want to buy; listing what it is they enjoy or would increase their enjoyment.

It is upto the development team to do the best they can within their budget but we the fans can be allowed to ask for the whole nine yards, raise expectations and hope they can reach those heights. It is not our job or responsability to ask for less to make things easy on them. I might say I want origins given that I enjoy origins as that would increase my enjoyment of the game, I would not refrain from saying I would like origins just because I want to make life easy for the team.

As harsh as that sounds thats the reality of this relationship. I say what I want, what I might like and they either try or say if they can or cannot do it. During development is the right time to voice concerns and ask for such by giving feedback on what the next game could be or do to raise your enjoyment of it. So when I say I think a 60-100 hour great game is what I would like to buy or play then that is what I would like to buy or play. It is then on them to see if possible or not.

I would not ever say I would like a short great game because thats just making excuses for them to do less work and put in less effort. We raise the bar via feedback and hope they can reach it or atleast try. If they cannot then fair enough but you should not be asking for less... Should not be making excuses... We should ask them to reach for the stars and see if they can create it. If they cannot then so be it but always ask for bigger, better things. I will always ask for a bigger great game and I might not get what I ask for but I it won't stop me from asking for bigger and better each time.

Modifié par Dragoonlordz, 11 octobre 2012 - 03:54 .

[AlanC9]

And that's the thing. We ask Bio for 50 hours of gameplay, but don't say what's an acceptable tradeoff to get there. And they do...... what?

[Dragoonlordz]

AlanC9 wrote...

And that's the thing. We ask Bio for 50 hours of gameplay, but don't say what's an acceptable tradeoff to get there. And they do...... what?

It is not asking for a 50 hours of bad gameplay, it is asking for 50 hours of great gameplay compared to 20 hours of great gameplay. It is not your job to decide what is or is not possible, that is their job to see if it is possible. If it is not then so be it, produce a great game with as much great content as they can and if they only can produce a 20 hour great game then such is life but you don't tell them not to bother trying to make a bigger and better game. Thats just silly.

Modifié par Dragoonlordz, 11 octobre 2012 - 04:13 .

[wsandista]

A good game doesn't need an arbitrary amount of gameplay. A good RPG can have only 20 hours of content.

That being said, there is no reason not to attempt to include more gameplay when possible.

[naughty99]

AlanC9 wrote...

And that's the thing. We ask Bio for 50 hours of gameplay, but don't say what's an acceptable tradeoff to get there. And they do...... what?

Anyone who thinks this thread might have any kind of influence on the total length of DA3 would be mistaken. The production budget was allocated for this project quite some time ago and I'm sure they already have an idea how long they expect the game to last for the average player.

In my case, since I don't use tactics and will probably play the game the way I did DA:O and DA2 (hardest difficulty setting, constantly pausing and micromanaging all the party member actions, exploring everything etc.), I'd be pretty surprised if each DA3 playthrough doesn't last at least around 80-100 hours.

Each playthrough for the first game lasted at least that long (including DLC), and DA2 was much longer, around 150+ hours without DLC, because I died a lot more frequently during combat.

Modifié par naughty99, 11 octobre 2012 - 04:09 .

[Cylan Cooper]

I don't know what kind of factors can lengthen or shorten gameplay on a game, but my first runthrough of Origins took me roughly...50 hours?

My first playthrough of DA2 took me 20 hours in comparison, but it felt a lot longer.

ME2 is a game I consider to be well-paced and all that, and it takes me anywhere from 25 to 30 hours.

So honestly, if DA3 can provide me 30 to 50 hours of good entertainment for a single playthrough, I'd be happy.

[Scott Sion]

Dragoonlordz wrote...

It is upto the development team to do the best they can within their budget but we the fans can be allowed to ask for the whole nine yards, raise expectations and hope they can reach those heights. It is not our job or responsability to ask for less to make things easy on them. I might say I want origins given that I enjoy origins as that would increase my enjoyment of the game, I would not refrain from saying I would like origins just because I want to make life easy for the team.

I didn't say you can't ask for anything, but you shouldn't expect something that you aren't going to get because you'd be just getting hope up. If you want origins then go ahead and ask for them. I made a thread asking for a return of origins in DA3. Should I expect it from them? No, not everyone wants origins back. They need to take into consideration both sides of the story before they make their final desicion.

They need to do the same thing when it comes to game length/quality. If they're limited by restraints and feel obligated to make it 60 hours long they're going to give you a 60 hour game that was rushed and as a result has a poor quality. Same situation but this time they don't feel obligated to give you a rushed 60 hour game; this time they make a 20 hour game with amazing quality. In this situation you can honestly say that you would prefer the rush job? I'm not trying to make their job easy, I'm trying to let them know I'd prefer a good 20 hour experience compared to a crap 60 hour experience.

Don't get me wrong, I'd prefer an amazing experience to an amazing 20 hour experience any day, but it won't be the end of the world if I don't get that 60 hour experience. I don't see anything wrong with getting a good 20 hour experience. If I enjoy those 20 hours then I say money well spent.  If they go beyond my hopes and give me a great 60 hour experience then they'll get more praise then they would have for the 20 hour experience. Just because they can get away with 20 hours that doesn't mean they won't try to go beyond our expectations and give us 60.

[Loaderini]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Portal was THE game that taught me "I shouldn't use length of time to determine my level of enjoyment." I'd rather pay $50 for it than what I paid for Oblivion which is 40 hours of my life I'm not getting back!

Did you just-
Did you just say-

Do you even know-
Are you some kind of-


No, forget it.

[AmstradHero]

Dragoonlordz wrote...

plnero wrote...

Quality over quantity, please. Would you rather have an amazing 20 hour story or a half assed 50 hour story? RPG's have a lot of replay value, if you play an RPG a few times to get everything you can out of it then you'll get more then enough play time out of it.

Again this stance is no better than the 60 hours better than 20 hours one.

I would rather have an amazing 60 hour game than half assed 20 hour. See how it works?

Where do people get this assumption just because it's longer is must be worse than the shorter versions? Thats just plain silly and pointless argument to make for one over other. A 60 hour amazing game is better than a 20 hour amazing game. Thats 40 more hours worth of amazing you can experience compared to the 20 hour version. Who is to say a 60 hour amazing game does not have great replay value as much (if not more so due to the nature of having more content within that can lead to more differences) than a 20 hour amazing game?

I want a 60-100 hour amazing game with great replay value. I would take an amazing 60-100 hour game over an amazing 20 hour game any day of the week. If your going to argue against one vs another then treat them as equal quality in comparrison. No one asks for bad quality long game, they ask for an amazing quality long game.

Sorry it doesn't work that way, because of two things: Money and Maths.

It costs $X to produce 1 hour of amazing content. It costs $Y to produce 1 hour of half assed content. Note that Y<X. Yes, this is a given. You might argue about great games being produced on small budgets and so forth, but honestly, within the scope of a single project, this is going to be an immutable truth.

A game has a limited budget of $Z. (Where Z is significantly greater than Y or X).

You can either have a game with Z/X hours of amazing content, or a game with Z/Y hours of half assed content.

For any given budget, the game with amazing gameplay will be shorter than the game with half-assed content simply because the latter costs less per hour of gameplay to make. It's that simple.

Modifié par AmstradHero, 11 octobre 2012 - 07:48 .

[Il Divo]

Dragoonlordz wrote...

It is upto the development team to do the best they can within their budget but we the fans can be allowed to ask for the whole nine yards, raise expectations and hope they can reach those heights. It is not our job or responsability to ask for less to make things easy on them. I might say I want origins given that I enjoy origins as that would increase my enjoyment of the game, I would not refrain from saying I would like origins just because I want to make life easy for the team.

Yeah, except when we fans request certain features, only to have it implemented in the weakest possible fashion. Case in point? Imports for both Mass Effect and Dragon Age. Making reasonable, realistic requests is more productive than just throwing out crazy ideas.

[Allan Schumacher]

Did you just-
Did you just say-

Do you even know-
Are you some kind of-


No, forget it.

Yes, I was silly and effectively playing a game and only much after the fact did I realize I didn't really enjoy any of the time I haev spent in game! Don't judge!

[Maria Caliban]

I loved Morrowind. I managed about 8 hours of Oblivion. I have no idea how that game can be so similar and yet so deeply unsatisfying.

Modifié par Maria Caliban, 11 octobre 2012 - 10:33 .

[Wulfram]

AmstradHero wrote...

For any given budget, the game with amazing gameplay will be shorter than the game with half-assed content simply because the latter costs less per hour of gameplay to make. It's that simple.

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.

[AmstradHero]

Wulfram wrote...

AmstradHero wrote...

For any given budget, the game with amazing gameplay will be shorter than the game with half-assed content simply because the latter costs less per hour of gameplay to make. It's that simple.

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.

Right, now take each of those games, and imagine that half way through development the executive producers said: "Okay team! We have to make these games 20% longer in hours, but taking no extra money, hence no extra time to create the game."

What would we have gotten?

A reduction in the amount of amazing content, and a significant increase in the amount of filler content.

It's easier, quicker and cheaper to plonk down a chunk of content that's a pure grind than to create a complex story with choices and dialogue and depth.

Modifié par AmstradHero, 11 octobre 2012 - 12:21 .

[FaWa]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Portal was THE game that taught me "I shouldn't use length of time to determine my level of enjoyment." I'd rather pay $50 for it than what I paid for Oblivion which is 40 hours of my life I'm not getting back!

OMG I feel the same way about DA2

[Blessed Silence]

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?

I can understand that "standard" you mean ... I remember back in the day when you'd pretty much be told in an advert how long the game "should" take.  Heck 72 hours for me on Blue Dragon!  (Not ... straight mind you)

But I think alot has to do witht he player themselves.  If one rushes through the main quest in one sitting is a certain time.  Another does side quests .. a different time.  And, like me, finds everything one can is even longer.

But if you are speaking from the creation standpoint, then yes, the longer the better with RPGs.  And I don't mean padding it with crap.  More story etc.  I really don't mind waiting for it to come out.  I say it all the time.  I'm sure everyone can think of a game that was rushed that you wanted to play and it came out half-arsed done.

[hoorayforicecream]

Wulfram wrote...

AmstradHero wrote...

For any given budget, the game with amazing gameplay will be shorter than the game with half-assed content simply because the latter costs less per hour of gameplay to make. It's that simple.

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.

It applies everywhere. The thing that separates mediocre content from good content, and good content from great content is iteration. You can call it polish, you can call it feedback, but it is iteration. The developers make the content, somebody tries it out, then the developers go back and make it better. That's the long and the short of development.

Very rarely, it's awesome on the first attempt and you can call it a day. But 99.9% of the time, there's something wrong with the initial implementation. It has bugs. It isn't paced well. It isn't clear or intuitive enough. It isn't responsive enough. Something comes up that the developers didn't think of while originally creating it. So they go back and make it better. Then they try it again, and find something else. So they go back and work on it again. This takes time. The best content is almost invariably the stuff that's been iterated on extensively and polished to a mirror sheen.

Talent and experience help this process. Talented developers take fewer iterations. Experienced developers make iterations go faster. But there are very few developers that can simply create something whole cloth and have it work perfectly on the first go 'round. There's always the need for iteration. You've only got a finite amount of working hours to complete the game. And even worse, if developers spend time on something and realize that it will require more working hours than they have available, then the content is cut and the working hours already spent are wasted.

Making things good takes time. Making them great takes more time than making them good. This is a near-universal truism.

[Wulfram]

The theory makes sense on the surface, I don't dispute that.

But it does not fit with the actual results in my experience. Shorter games do not show higher quality. If anything, I'd argue the opposite with Bioware games - longer games tend to have better quality.

Why? I don't know. Maybe short games tend to be indicative of the developers not investing enough resources in the game generally. Maybe the extra time that is, of necessity, spent on longer games allows more time to be spent refining their approach to the underlying gameplay.

[rolson00]

Yes rpgs should be longer

[hoorayforicecream]

Wulfram wrote...

The theory makes sense on the surface, I don't dispute that.

But it does not fit with the actual results in my experience. Shorter games do not show higher quality. If anything, I'd argue the opposite with Bioware games - longer games tend to have better quality.

Why? I don't know. Maybe short games tend to be indicative of the developers not investing enough resources in the game generally. Maybe the extra time that is, of necessity, spent on longer games allows more time to be spent refining their approach to the underlying gameplay.

It's generally the result of a small sample size combined with a lot of other variables that aren't accounted for (overall allocated development time, number of people on the team, project scoping, late cycle changes in core features, etc.).

[Knight of Dane]

Flow of time, simply.

X-Men: Destiny was very, VERY short. I can complete the game three times in a day where I try out all characters and powers. While the graphics suck and the combat is repeatable, the story did have interesting visions.
But no more than five or six hours of story.
Anything can be fleshed out. A short game will always leave the feeling "How da fuq did I get here so quickly," no matter the quality of the story or the gameplay.

[Giga Drill BREAKER]

It can't be 50hrs long there would be no room on the disc for a crappy tacked on MP.

Modifié par DinoSteve, 11 octobre 2012 - 04:18 .

[Dragoonlordz]

Il Divo wrote...

Dragoonlordz wrote...

It is upto the development team to do the best they can within their budget but we the fans can be allowed to ask for the whole nine yards, raise expectations and hope they can reach those heights. It is not our job or responsability to ask for less to make things easy on them. I might say I want origins given that I enjoy origins as that would increase my enjoyment of the game, I would not refrain from saying I would like origins just because I want to make life easy for the team.

Yeah, except when we fans request certain features, only to have it implemented in the weakest possible fashion. Case in point? Imports for both Mass Effect and Dragon Age. Making reasonable, realistic requests is more productive than just throwing out crazy ideas.

I want or would like to buy a 40-60 hour amazing game with great replay value. I am not going to ask for less, it is their job to try to make the best game they can within their budget but noone here except them knows their budget or how far along they are in the development. I am not going to say please give me a 20 hour great game instead of a 40 or 60 hour great one... I will always say give me a bigger, better, longer amazing game and hope they can create such of which I believe they can.

Also feel free to define what is an "amazing" game exactly for those asking for meager 20 hour game, what features what story or amount of places in number or figures that such an "amazing" game should have for you? Bioware (imho) should produce the longest and best game they can.

There is absolutely nothing unreasonable asking for a game that last 40-60 hours and is still a great game. There is however something wrong when you set your bar so low at 20 hours when they have shown as have many other developers that it is very possible to produce games in excess of 40-60 even 100 that are amazing or great games.

Are those asking for 20 hours worth so damaged with their expectations and hopes that they set the bar so low even an indie dev could reach it? I know the fanbase has taken a few knocks in the past here but wow... To have such low expectations and hopes here is shocking, sorry but I will hope for a lot more than those because I know Bioware are capable of doing a lot better.

I have more faith in their ability as developers than apparently some of the people in here have. I ask for a 40-60 hour great game because I believe they are very much capable of creating a great 40-60 hour game with good replay value. Raise your expectations because Bioware are a lot better than some people here give them credit. Ask for bigger and better as Bioware have not hit their peak and they have enough talent despite few set backs in recent years, they have the ability to go a lot further than some people here assume. Setting the bar so low as some people in here have done is detrimental.

I find those peoples lack of faith in the studio disturbing.

Modifié par Dragoonlordz, 11 octobre 2012 - 05:11 .

[Todd23]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Did you just-
Did you just say-

Do you even know-
Are you some kind of-


No, forget it.

Yes, I was silly and effectively playing a game and only much after the fact did I realize I didn't really enjoy any of the time I haev spent in game! Don't judge!

That was me3 for alot of people.