9 réponses à ce sujet

[upsettingshorts]

 Before everyone rolls their eyes and dismisses this as yet another parody thread, let's put aside the obvious criticism of certain topics implied by this post's existence and take the topic seriously for a while.

There exists a clear - to me, anyway - issue with regards to the way fans frame their criticisms and requests and that is their our lack of knowledge or experience with how games are actually made.  What does this mean?

It means, often, that such issues are discussed almost entirely reliant on a set of assumptions that are by definition baseless.  It's not impossible to overcome this, of course, sometimes someone with real knowledge  will shed some light on the whole debate, but more often than not people are left to fight over things they really do not understand.  In this manner, fans give themselves permission to believe that playing games for years gives them insight into how they are made, which is the same kind of delusion sports fans yelling at their favorite team's quarterback engage in on a regular basis.

What can be done about this?  Short of educating the entire BSN - which is not possible even if the BSN was willing to admit that they need to be educated at all - there's really only one option:  We need to stop pretending we have a right to have a "conversation" with BioWare.  Or at least, that such a conversation would be useful at all.  This is not an equal partnership.  That is not to say our preferences and opinions are not valuable, on the contrary.  Only that pretending our preferences give us something to teach the developers is not only presumptuous, it introduces a lot of noise into the discussions as half the topic is flooded with arguments over whether or not development even works the way people are assuming (and the answer is almost always "no.").  

Practically this means that when we talk about what we want to see in future installments, or what we didn't like about previous ones, we shouldn't frame a single aspect of our argument on exactly how we think the developers could do something differently.  We should frame it, instead, around what we prefer to experience and why as gamers we prefer to experience it that way. 

In short, telling developers that... for example... a toggle would be an "easy" answer, or that they should "simply" include something, etc, is not productive and just causes bickering among fans, it isn't actually useful to anyone.  Unless providing fodder for internet arguments is a kind of use.  For my part, I've gotten into so many pointless arguments with this board over whether or not something can be implemented or not, and what it might cost to do so, usually with barely any more knowledge of how things actually work than the person I'm arguing with.  It's thoroughly pointless.  

TL/DR:  Could we please just stick to describing what we liked and didn't like and why, and cut back on pretending we actually know how game production works?

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 21 janvier 2013 - 11:34 .

[Fiddzz]

I'm fairly new to the industry and was blow away by by the difference between what I thought and what it actually takes to make a game.

[Fiddzz]

Danny Boy 7 wrote...

Blair Brown wrote...

I'm fairly new to the industry and was blow away by by the difference between what I thought and what it actually takes to make a game.

Not to say this confrontationally or in a rude manner, but are you saying I'm wrong, which I have no issue with as you actually work for the company I'd be requesting things from. 

it was just a general comment

[John Epler]

Easy rule to make sure devs read your post? Don't be an ass.

Read your post. Ask yourself 'if this were directed at me, how would I feel?' You can be as critical as you like but as soon as you drag in insults, attacks and attempts to tell us how much better you'd be able to do our job and why we're terrible people for X reason, we're going to be skimming past that post pretty quickly.

If someone tells me 'I really didn't like DA2, and here are the reasons' without vitriol or taking little potshots at us, I'm going to read that post. If someone says 'I liked most of DA2, but I hated X, and X was just an example of you guys being lazy - I could've done it better' then I'm probably going to glance at that post, sigh, and keep reading.

So, common courtesy. And if a dev tells you 'actually, it's because of X reason', I might avoid countering with 'stop lying you lying liar'. I mean, that's your prerogative, but as I assume that most people post on these forums because they want to be heard, avoiding that would aid in that goal.

[Allan Schumacher]

hoorayforicecream wrote...

We're not talking about finding the flaws. Finding the flaws is what the experts find useful from the forums - they know they can't catch everything. What we're talking about is when the novice tells the expert how to fix it. That isn't really helpful, and actually obscures the actual useful information.

This is sometimes an issue with some people that come through QA.

On the odd occasion I can dig a bit deeper and leverage my technical background to actually determine what the problem is and how to fix it, but 99% of the time I just stop at the what since the programmer/designer that actually investigates is going to take a better look at it than me.


It can be a tricky balancing act, however.  I find this happens most frequently with newer staff, and is mostly a reflection of their enthusiasm and desire to impress.  At the same time, for qualitative gameplay stuff, I think some people should be a bit more willing to make a suggestion, because at that point they are making the suggestion as a game player and less so as purely QA, and we all have experience to draw upon as game players.

[Allan Schumacher]

AmstradHero wrote...

If you haven't done something and don't understand the in-and-outs of the practical application of the knowledge, it is very difficult to make an accurate comment on how things work. To quote: "In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not."

There's a similar effect called the Dunning-Krueger effect, which puts forth that the less experienced and knowledgeable someone is about a topic, the greater the likelihood they overestimate their own abilities and understate their own deficiencies. From this, I think it can extend to those that that make assumptions as to the complexity and opportunity cost for a particular feature.

Something may seem easy, but may have certain challenges (especially given the uniqueness of a particular game), or come with certain costs. In many ways feature development is just a large amount of small tasks, and it can be tricky to realize that asking for one simple and easy feature would also come at the cost of NOT spending time on some other simple and easy feature.

[Allan Schumacher]

Orian Tabris wrote...

Something may seem easy, but may have certain challenges (especially
given the uniqueness of a particular game), or come with certain costs.
In many ways feature development is just a large amount of small tasks,
and it can be tricky to realize that asking for one simple and easy
feature would also come at the cost of NOT spending time on some other
simple and easy feature.

And yet... we're getting multiplayer! Hooraaaaaay...

There's an implicit assumption with this post, and I think it's what Shorts is thinking of when starting this thread.

Multiplayer isn't a small, easy to do task, and as such probably shouldn't be considered the same way as the small, easy tasks I was alluding to in the block of text you quoted.

[Allan Schumacher]

While it is true that setting up a multiplayer game is no small task, the fact is, unless a large difficult task is handled by a completely separate group of people, it's gonna have the same effect on the rest, as a small task would. I have yet to see/read any evidence that multiplayer is going to be handled mostly by a separate group.

You have to define separate group. You have to also know how the financing and production schedule are modified to make it. This is the problem and it's exactly what Shorts is talking about in his first post.

An assumption has been made ("Nothing would change about any of the production aspects. We'd still have the same amount of time and money to work with"), but it's filled with imperfect information and a system is being chided because you're using your assumptions to substantiate your ire towards a system like multiplayer, because your assumptions are telling you that it comes at the cost of your single player experience.

It also overlooks potential benefits a system that you dislike may have on a system that you do like.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 23 janvier 2013 - 07:00 .

[Allan Schumacher]

I frequently play multiplayer games in my leisure time. All of my video gaming time is leisurely, though I will concede that I did struggle at that with my time in World of Warcraft, where I (foolishly) let myself feel there was some sort of obligation to play it, lest I let my virtual friends down.

You do speak on behalf of BioWare, in terms of the vision, however. I find that rather interesting. I can understand you feeling it doesn't match how you would like it to go, but isn't there another assumption in speaking on behalf of us and what our vision is?

[John Epler]

For my part, I have no real problem with people making assumptions regarding development as long as they're then open to new information. That's not to say they need to immediately change their opinion, but being willing to admit that they don't have all the necessary information makes it a lot easier to have a discussion, as opposed to crossing one's arms and saying 'no, you're a liar, I refuse to believe anything you say'.

One of the best examples of this - anytime budgets are brought up and the response is 'EA is a multi-billion dollar corporation, budgets shouldn't matter!' Once someone becomes entrenched in that position, I don't really see much point in discussing anything with them.