110 réponses à ce sujet

[searanox]

Regarding voice acting, since some people don't seem to get it: do you notice how many lines of dialogue the player has in every given situation? It's usually about four or five, and while sometimes they lead to the same outcome, there is a lot more variation in the dialogue trees than most games.

At minimum, in this game, you'd need six voice actors for the player character, male and female for each race. Considering they give you about eight or so options for your character's in-game voice, imagine having all of those thousands of lines... eight times six is 48 sets of voices. You'd literally have three times as much audio and dialogue in the game, not to mention an extra layer of complexity for each conversation, as the game has to look up what race you are every time.

It also means way more headaches in actually recording the voices, since each line has to be delivered multiple times to mesh with the ones spoken by the rest of the voice-actors (don't forget, you have to pay them all, even if you reuse some for the different voices). Having all this extra voice work could also make the game too big for a single DVD. It's already a good 15 GB on the PC, and adding an extra 10 GB of audio would push it over the edge to two discs, unless you want to compress everything and have it sound like crap.

So yeah. Remember, Dragon Age's script is something like 800,000 lines long already. To put that in perspective, Deus Ex, one of the more dialogue-heavy games of the last ten years, has 80,000. That's truly an amazing amount of writing. There simply have to be sacrifices made. Would you rather have only two dialogue options in conversations, and fewer characters to speak to? I think not.

Modifié par searanox, 15 janvier 2010 - 02:12 .

[EJ42]

Spitz6860 wrote...

i know this is none of my business, but why do you hate the console people so much? i saw another thread about how we PC gamers are hated on, but from what i observed here it's really the other way around.

It's nothing particularly personal toward the console gamers themselves.  Any animosity is just a side-effect at my disgust over what consoles have done to the gaming environment as a whole.

1) Entry barrier is lowered.  Back in the day, playing a game was a privilege.  The cost of hardware was so high that only the most dedicated of gamers would bother purchasing a home gaming system.  People were thrilled over the simple bouncing ball in their simple Pong systems.  Fast-forward to Zork, which was ground-breaking.  It had no graphics at all, but people were amazed by how sophisticated and rich a gameplay experience it gave.  Now, the gaming community is filled with children who have no respect for the effort that goes into creating a game or the wonderful gameplay experience it can provide.  If it isn't 100% photo-realistic with giant, bouncing breasts, explosions, and rippling water, the game "sucks."  (This is not limited to consoles either.  The "WoW-phenomenon" has killed the soul of MUDs, now MMORPGs.)

The larger your audience, the harder it is to please any of them.  Attempting to create mass-market appeal is what makes games suck.

2) Consoles are not as sophisticated as PCs.  PCs will always have access to more powerful hardware and better interface devices.  A PS3 or Xbox controller is pathetic compared to a keyboard and mouse/trackball.  Being forced to design your UI around such a handicapped device causes a loss of quality in the final product.  Additionally, the graphical, memory, and processing constraints continue to make it an artform to balance quality of graphics, gameplay speed, and complexity with limited hardware resources.

Look at the box of a console game, and the hardware requirements will read, "Console system X."  Look at the back of a PC game box, and the hardware requirements might read, "Don't buy this if you're not a serious game enthusiast."

...

Honestly, I could rant for days about this, but that would be pointless.  I absolutely loved the Zelda series and Chrono Trigger.  They offered a very wonderful gameplay experience, but it was overly simplistic.  Don't get me wrong, though.  Simple can be wonderful too.  If it couldn't, then Pac-Man machines would not still be filling with quarters on a daily basis.

The problem is the balance, or lack thereof.  Back in the "good old days," you had two gaming segments.  You had the consoles for simple, somewhat mindless fun, but you also had PCs for a more complex, thought-provoking gaming experience.  Lately, it seems as though companies are becoming increasingly wary of taking the risk of making single-player PC games anymore.  They're worried about stockholders screaming about profit-margins, and are stuck with combating rampant piracy and the lowest-common-denominator of PC systems.

When companies start merging their PC offerings with their console offerings, everyone suffers in the end.

I'd love it if Bioware was able to create a whole series of "Dragon Age: Blah (Console Version)" that told the same story, to the best of their ability, as the PC version, but not at the expense of the PC gamers' experience.

I guess the best example of what I'm saying is handheld versus console gaming systems.  Do you really think Wii owners would like the idea of having all of their games limited by what the DS can do?

"The DS doesn't have the WiiMote, so we can't design our games around the expectation of a user having one."
"What do we do with the WiiMote, then?"
"We'll just let Wii owners use the WiiMote like it was a stylus."
"Brilliant!  Ship it!"
"Oh wait...Wiis don't have two screens...let's just leave an animated logo running on the top one of the DS."
"Genius!"

That would kind of suck for Wii owners and DS owners.

That's kind of how I and many other PC gamers feel about what is happening with console/PC game merges these days.

I guess it's like fans of different sports teams.  Why hate each other?  Because you both can't win. (most of the time)

So, to kind of be on-topic, the thing I didn't like about Dragon Age was that it was limited by an attempt to appeal to two drastically different gaming markets.

(Yes.  I do have a newsletter, but no.  Subscriptions are by invitation only.)

Modifié par EJ42, 15 janvier 2010 - 02:41 .

[Monica21]

EJ42 wrote...

Spitz6860 wrote...

i know this is none of my business, but why do you hate the console people so much? i saw another thread about how we PC gamers are hated on, but from what i observed here it's really the other way around.

It's nothing particularly personal toward the console gamers themselves.  Any animosity is just a side-effect at my disgust over what consoles have done to the gaming environment as a whole.

1) Entry barrier is lowered.  Back in the day, playing a game was a privilege.  The cost of hardware was so high that only the most dedicated of gamers would bother purchasing a home gaming system.  People were thrilled over the simple bouncing ball in their simple Pong systems.  Fast-forward to Zork, which was ground-breaking.  It had no graphics at all, but people were amazed by how sophisticated and rich a gameplay experience it gave.  Now, the gaming community is filled with children who have no respect for the effort that goes into creating a game or the wonderful gameplay experience it can provide.  If it isn't 100% photo-realistic with giant, bouncing breasts, explosions, and rippling water, the game "sucks."  (This is not limited to consoles either.  The "WoW-phenomenon" has killed the soul of MUDs, now MMORPGs.)

The larger your audience, the harder it is to please any of them.  Attempting to create mass-market appeal is what makes games suck.

2) Consoles are not as sophisticated as PCs.  PCs will always have access to more powerful hardware and better interface devices.  A PS3 or Xbox controller is pathetic compared to a keyboard and mouse/trackball.  Being forced to design your UI around such a handicapped device causes a loss of quality in the final product.  Additionally, the graphical, memory, and processing constraints continue to make it an artform to balance quality of graphics, gameplay speed, and complexity with limited hardware resources.

Look at the box of a console game, and the hardware requirements will read, "Console system X."  Look at the back of a PC game box, and the hardware requirements might read, "Don't buy this if you're not a serious game enthusiast."

...

Honestly, I could rant for days about this, but that would be pointless.  I absolutely loved the Zelda series and Chrono Trigger.  They offered a very wonderful gameplay experience, but it was overly simplistic.  Don't get me wrong, though.  Simple can be wonderful too.  If it couldn't, then Pac-Man machines would not still be filling with quarters on a daily basis.

The problem is the balance, or lack thereof.  Back in the "good old days," you had two gaming segments.  You had the consoles for simple, somewhat mindless fun, but you also had PCs for a more complex, thought-provoking gaming experience.  Lately, it seems as though companies are becoming increasingly wary of taking the risk of making single-player PC games anymore.  They're worried about stockholders screaming about profit-margins, and are stuck with combating rampant piracy and the lowest-common-denominator of PC systems.

When companies start merging their PC offerings with their console offerings, everyone suffers in the end.

I'd love it if Bioware was able to create a whole series of "Dragon Age: Blah (Console Version)" that told the same story, to the best of their ability, as the PC version, but not at the expense of the PC gamers' experience.

I guess the best example of what I'm saying is handheld versus console gaming systems.  Do you really think Wii owners would like the idea of having all of their games limited by what the DS can do?

"The DS doesn't have the WiiMote, so we can't design our games around the expectation of a user having one."
"What do we do with the WiiMote, then?"
"We'll just let Wii owners use the WiiMote like it was a stylus."
"Brilliant!  Ship it!"
"Oh wait...Wiis don't have two screens...let's just leave an animated logo running on the top one of the DS."
"Genius!"

That would kind of suck for Wii owners and DS owners.

That's kind of how I and many other PC gamers feel about what is happening with console/PC game merges these days.

I guess it's like fans of different sports teams.  Why hate each other?  Because you both can't win. (most of the time)

So, to kind of be on-topic, the thing I didn't like about Dragon Age was that it was limited by an attempt to appeal to two drastically different gaming markets.

(Yes.  I do have a newsletter, but no.  Subscriptions are by invitation only.)

Very good post.

[Scimal]

dragonageman wrote...

1) Repetitive tactics.

A lot of fights felt the same.  Band of hummanoids come and try to smack the party around.  The archers and mages stay back, the melee runs up and beats on you.  Happens over and over and over again.  It's not so bad when it's intertwined with some kind of story event.  When you're in one location and going from area to area and you keep getting attacked over and over again, and it's same melee-archer-mage combo, it just gets boring.

No offense, but archers being in the back with the Mages seems like a pretty good choice.

I'd think, if anything, you're describing a lack of varying mobs instead of repetitive tactics.

2) Too many "Trash Mobs".

Kind of related to the first point, there is just too much random killing of the same monsters over and over again.  I know everyone plays WoW and that it has to have influenced the design of this game to a certain extent, but does a single player experience really need this?  The game works the best when it's revealing secrets or story points to you.  It works the worst when you know one part of the story, you know where the next part gets revealed, but you have to fight the same monster over and over again 37 times before you get there.  The first few times builds the tension... after that you're just like "come on already I just want to know what happens next".

The only ones I found really annoying were the little runts in the Deep Roads. The rest were all right, but I support enemy variability wherever I can.

3) Reptitive Abilities.

Related to the top two.  Do I have to get pinned to the ground four times every fight?  Do I have to get stunned a dozen times every fight?  Do I have to get knocked over again and again?  The worst thing you can do to a player is make them watch your game instead of play it.  Worse than that is constantly, repetitvely, and for nothing that actually advances the story, make them watch the character they're playing lie there helpless.  I get that you can switch out to other characters when this happens, but it becomes awkward and can mess up all the finely tuned tactics the game lets you use.  Yes I get that you can do things in the game to counter these abilities, but I want to play Dragon Age, not rock paper scissors.  Using them once in a while for dramatic effect works.  Having someone unable to control their character half a dozen times every fight is just annoying.

Sort of agreed, but I think it just depends on the person and the character. On my Warrior, once I reached a certain point, I was never knocked down. On my Mage, I may have been occasionally stunned, and yes it did affect the strategy I had setup, but that was the fun of it. I have yet to try a Rogue.

4) Obvious Borrowing.

I've read George R. R. Martin too.  Bioware is good enough at telling stories and making games that they don't need to steal this many plot devices from him.  Felt a little robbed every time that popped up...

Modern fantasy is almost wholely derivative. The fault is BioWare wanting to make a "generic" fantasy game with a dark-twist, not that they saw another IP and wanted to copy.

Even Gaiman has derivative works.

5) Loot.

I hate what Blizzard has done to RPG's.  In classical mythology, if the hero finds a sword it's a super awesome event that changes the story.  Thesesus, King Arthur, Perseus, Beowulf, Roland, etc.  More modern stories also feature this, like Elric's sword and Bilbo's dagger.  Ever since Diablo, game designers think it's fun to fill up the player's bags with crap (they do this at E3 as well ) .  Bioware managed to avoid this in BG1+2 for the most part.  Why is this done in Dragon Age?  Why is it heroic to walk around with a bag of iron daggers to sell?  The constant looting of bodies is tedious... can't we do away with this in our games?

D&D started the Monty Haul long before Diablo. About 20 full years before. While I sort of agree, I also kind of like the current system (if there were more items - particularly Mage Robes - I might like it more).

They both have their merits. I think the super-awesome-item system needs a fantastic way to customize the weapon and really make it yours, which is difficult to do. The Monty Haul system doesn't need that, just a smooth power scale.

6) Crafting.

Crafting seemed like an afterthought.  I can make potions, traps (random anyone?), and poisons.  Nothing else.  What about my own armor?  Or magical wands?  Or do my own enchanting?  Train horses?  Make shoes?  There are dozens of things that would have been more interesting than the three things they present in the game.  They also seemed completely inconsequential to actually getting anything done.  After so many games have had robust crafting systems (bake your own bread from scratch in UO anyone?), DA's were really, really lame.

Honestly, for what they wanted to do, I think it's just right. Crafting isn't necessary, at all. Because it's not necessary, it's not complex. However, if you take the time to utilize it, there can be powerful effects. I much prefer a system that knows its place, as opposed to the woefully overcomplicated systems having you find 17 Iron Ore, 12 Ash Beams, 3 Bolts, 3 Nuts, 4 Coals, etc.

It fits for what it needs to do, and I think that's a plus.

7) Cutscenes.

The cutscenes were awesome.  There were some very frustrating moments though where I detect a trap, then hit a cutscene, and then my party is now standing on the traps when the cut scene ends.  There were other instances of this where my party wasn't where I wanted it to be or should have been after the cutscene.  I get sometimes I'm supposed to be ambushed, and those scenes were fine.  But often a cutscene would put my party somewhere where they just shouldn't have been.  It made a game with such robust ability to program the AI of my party very frustrating at times as all my careful strategy flies right out the window.

Marginally annoying with some placements, but it did provide a challenge here and there. I would have liked to see more pre-rendered cutscenes, but honestly, I still remember watching the Warcraft II cutscenes... So I'm easily impressed.

8) Why doesn't the main character have a voice?

Bioware did this magnificently in Mass Effect.  Why couldn't they do this in DA?  The conversations in Mass Effect were probably some of the best ever in an RPG.  Come on Bioware... don't take a step forward with one game, and a step back with the next.  That's what Blizzard does and they suck.

Simple.

DA:O - PCVO = 40-120 hours of gameplay.
DA:O + PCVO = 20-60 hours of gameplay.

Think of it mostly as a financial constraint.

However, that said, I'm very glad they didn't, and hope they continue the silent protagonist trend. I loved that about BG2. Having someone talk as "me" but without "my" voice is awkward. I'm playing my character, not the character BioWare thought up for me, as in ME and Shepard.

As I said before, I really love DA, I think it's a great game and I see myself replaying it multiple times.  But I think it shies away from true greatness because it fails to leave these tired old problems left over or borrowed from other games behind, and truly innovate into a new kind of RPG experience. 

It came so close... what a pity...

It never claimed to be innovative. In fact, it claimed quite the opposite - to retain the soul of games over a decade old.

I expected playstyles similar to BGII with updated graphics, and that's pretty much what I got. There are things that disappoint me (atmosphere in a few areas, the fact that where I really want to set the camera isn't available on the PC, lack of NPC-companion started conversations, "generic" fantasy world, etc.) but I got enough to give me some hope for the future.

Oh... there is one thing that I really, really dislike: No chatbox.

I miss it very much.

[Magicman10893]

In regards to your character not having a voice, do you realize how hard that would be to give your character a voice? Seriously, considering all three races talk differently (Dwarves had a deeper and somewhat raspy voice, like Oghren.) and then you need two voice actors per race, one male and one female, which equals to 6 voice actors recording ALL the different possibilities of dialogue.



Sure, Saints Row 2 had 6 voice actors of different ethnicity and gender, but you also couldn't choose dialogue so they just had to record the same thing each time and the dialogue didn't reference gender in cutscenes. Dragon Age had SO many choices it was unbelievable!



Mass Effect was hard to voice I imagine since you need 2 voice actors and have a lot of dialogue re-recorded to reference Shepard as a male or female. In Dragon Age they had to re-record dialogue altered to fit the race and gender of the character.

[Spitz6860]

EJ42 wrote...

Spitz6860 wrote...

i know this is none of my business, but why do you hate the console people so much? i saw another thread about how we PC gamers are hated on, but from what i observed here it's really the other way around.

It's nothing particularly personal toward the console gamers themselves.  Any animosity is just a side-effect at my disgust over what consoles have done to the gaming environment as a whole.

1) Entry barrier is lowered.  Back in the day, playing a game was a privilege.  The cost of hardware was so high that only the most dedicated of gamers would bother purchasing a home gaming system.  People were thrilled over the simple bouncing ball in their simple Pong systems.  Fast-forward to Zork, which was ground-breaking.  It had no graphics at all, but people were amazed by how sophisticated and rich a gameplay experience it gave.  Now, the gaming community is filled with children who have no respect for the effort that goes into creating a game or the wonderful gameplay experience it can provide.  If it isn't 100% photo-realistic with giant, bouncing breasts, explosions, and rippling water, the game "sucks."  (This is not limited to consoles either.  The "WoW-phenomenon" has killed the soul of MUDs, now MMORPGs.)

The larger your audience, the harder it is to please any of them.  Attempting to create mass-market appeal is what makes games suck.

2) Consoles are not as sophisticated as PCs.  PCs will always have access to more powerful hardware and better interface devices.  A PS3 or Xbox controller is pathetic compared to a keyboard and mouse/trackball.  Being forced to design your UI around such a handicapped device causes a loss of quality in the final product.  Additionally, the graphical, memory, and processing constraints continue to make it an artform to balance quality of graphics, gameplay speed, and complexity with limited hardware resources.

Look at the box of a console game, and the hardware requirements will read, "Console system X."  Look at the back of a PC game box, and the hardware requirements might read, "Don't buy this if you're not a serious game enthusiast."

...

Honestly, I could rant for days about this, but that would be pointless.  I absolutely loved the Zelda series and Chrono Trigger.  They offered a very wonderful gameplay experience, but it was overly simplistic.  Don't get me wrong, though.  Simple can be wonderful too.  If it couldn't, then Pac-Man machines would not still be filling with quarters on a daily basis.

The problem is the balance, or lack thereof.  Back in the "good old days," you had two gaming segments.  You had the consoles for simple, somewhat mindless fun, but you also had PCs for a more complex, thought-provoking gaming experience.  Lately, it seems as though companies are becoming increasingly wary of taking the risk of making single-player PC games anymore.  They're worried about stockholders screaming about profit-margins, and are stuck with combating rampant piracy and the lowest-common-denominator of PC systems.

When companies start merging their PC offerings with their console offerings, everyone suffers in the end.

I'd love it if Bioware was able to create a whole series of "Dragon Age: Blah (Console Version)" that told the same story, to the best of their ability, as the PC version, but not at the expense of the PC gamers' experience.

I guess the best example of what I'm saying is handheld versus console gaming systems.  Do you really think Wii owners would like the idea of having all of their games limited by what the DS can do?

"The DS doesn't have the WiiMote, so we can't design our games around the expectation of a user having one."
"What do we do with the WiiMote, then?"
"We'll just let Wii owners use the WiiMote like it was a stylus."
"Brilliant!  Ship it!"
"Oh wait...Wiis don't have two screens...let's just leave an animated logo running on the top one of the DS."
"Genius!"

That would kind of suck for Wii owners and DS owners.

That's kind of how I and many other PC gamers feel about what is happening with console/PC game merges these days.

I guess it's like fans of different sports teams.  Why hate each other?  Because you both can't win. (most of the time)

So, to kind of be on-topic, the thing I didn't like about Dragon Age was that it was limited by an attempt to appeal to two drastically different gaming markets.

(Yes.  I do have a newsletter, but no.  Subscriptions are by invitation only.)

oh wow, i honestly didn't expect you to write something this long, sorry about that. but to reply, yes you are absolutely right about the point that Bioware is trying to sell DA:O outside of their traditional markets, if you have watched the dragon age commercials on TV or the trailers it's obvious that DA:O is marketed as a fast-paced action RPG, not a traditional BG ish game.

[daemon1129]

Ya full voice for PC would be great, but realistically, not possible in today's standard. What I dislike most about DA is the lack of detail and depth. Combat is kinda boring after half way through the game. If your warrior, you only have 3 - 4 skills, so its more like auto attack. Rogue is a bit better, since you can try to back stab, so more tactical. Mage might have a lot spell (Not really, but compare to other class in DA), only a handful are truly useful and effective enough, they might scale depends on stats, so they don't really get obsolete later, but the mechanics of it make them nearly pointless. Like Inferno, how is it possible to unleash this awesome looking spell to hit enemies and not hit your own warrior? Yet if the warrior is not there to tank, either the enemies flee the aoe of the spell, or you'll have to tank the spell yourself. Combat animations are also bad, some are slow, some are fine, but all of them looks clumsy. 2handers are very clumsy and slow, they look like little kids swing mindlessly. Bioware tried to make combat look realistic, yet in the end, 2handers are slow and awkward, its nothing close to real. Dual looks the same no matter your using sword or daggers, and not to mention dual wield is not realistic at all anyways. Sword and Shield's animations are too weird. No trained solder would swing like they do in DA, and the swing motion itself is much too slow compare to real life. The lack of class choices are also disappointing, i don't need that much depth like D&D, but i don't mind as well. But only 3 class? And rogue and warrior pretty much share half of the talents. specialization is a joke. only 4 talents, and 2 of them are passive. For the combat animations, Bioware should really learn something from JRPGs, I know most people hate JRPGs, but seriously, their combat animations might be over the top most of the time, but at least they look cool and you won't look at them and think they are amateurs, but real warriors and the hero of the story.

[EJ42]

Spitz6860 wrote...

oh wow, i honestly didn't expect you to write something this long, sorry about that. but to reply, yes you are absolutely right about the point that Bioware is trying to sell DA:O outside of their traditional markets, if you have watched the dragon age commercials on TV or the trailers it's obvious that DA:O is marketed as a fast-paced action RPG, not a traditional BG ish game.

Yeah...commercials.  That's such a console thing to do.

Good PC games don't need commercials.  Gamers just know.

Duke Nukem Forever hasn't needed television commercials.  We all just know its release date is December 21, 2012.

[The Archdemon]

I didn't like that it made me look fat.

[LadyDrusilla]

You wouldn't happen to be in the SCA, would you? It would explain your lack of understanding in how sword and dagger combat actually works.
Florentine is pure and simply a showy duelling technique. In any real combat you are better off with a shield, line combat or skirmish makes no difference. You simply can not wield two large weapons at once, and even with a dueling dagger you are limited to trying to catch the enemy blade. With a free hand (gloved to protect against cuts as much as possible) youcan do so much more. Unless you are stupid enough to just put your hand in the way of your opponents sword. Here is a decent website with illustrations on grappling vs a dagger:
http://www.truefork....iety/Liberi.php
To grapple effectively with ones hand, you attempt to engage the opponents own sword arm with it. At best you may be able to actively grip their arm preventing all movement while you impale them (or stab them in the face) at worst you can interfere with their aim, timing and momentum, allowing you to either get out of the way, or launch a counter attack.

I can't tell you how many times I've been challenged by some believer of the Florentine school, only to land a firm thrust on their solar plexus within minutes while they flail about wildly. It does not work.

Andat wrote...

Derengard, I believe LadyDrusilla was refering to dual-wielding (sometimes called Florentine) in the real world. Of course, the duel / open skirmish scenario that Florentine works in is common in Dragon Age, and most Western Fantasy RPGs. And historically, travellers would have to deal with that kind of open skirmish as they are ambushed by bandits, and that is again a scenario that Florentine works in.

LadyDrusilla, if someone was waving a sword at me, I would not want to use my hand to "grapple". It'd be liable to get chopped off. Better to use my off-hand dagger (or maybe short sword) to parry and deflect. Either way, I'm not sure how this would be repesented in game. The current system is that you simply get two sources of damage rather than one.

Florentine itself isn't intended for line-of-battle, but then I've never seen a line-of-battle in an RPG. Besides, there's no reason why you *couldn't* use two weapons in an infantry line, and some Vikings or Saxons probably did from time to time. I remember watching a BBC documentray which demonstrated using a hand axe which was thrown as warriors charged in, then they switched to a sword as they hit the enemy lines.

In the game, my dual wield elf warrior was quite effective at DPS. Abilities like Flurry and Riposte did wonders at bringing down enemy health, even though it did give me a high threat rating.

Modifié par LadyDrusilla, 15 janvier 2010 - 07:39 .

[Sloth Of Doom]

LadyDrusilla brings up some valid points here. I think the main assumption that people have about western swords is that they tend to be razor sharp dicing machines, and this just isn't so. Sure, they have an edge to them, but that edge is narrow to focus the force of the swing, not t do dramatic paper-cutting displays. What does that have to do with anything, you ask? Well, a properly protected free hand is not as vulnerable as everyone thinks. If you can intercept a swing before it has proper momentum, you stand a good chance of not getting cut. Not that you should grasp an opponents steel, or voluntarily put a flat palm in front of a blade mind you.



I guess what i am saying is that people should not assume that a bare hand is vulnerable to being chopped off like in a bad anime movie. Never forget that an empty hand can be deadly, and is way more versatile than a 5" chunk of steel.

[DwemerWARRIOR]

dragonageman wrote...


I would much rather they made a good game that had the feel of medieval combat.  Making a medieval battle similator would be a totally different game (and probably a lot more fun than flight simulator).  I don't think it's within the scope of what most game designers intend.

THIS IS AN AD: "sick and tired of pummeling enemies with your sword that does over 778312 dmg,  just to find out that they can endure over 30 hits?
sick and tired of mages who heal themselves constantly?
 
Dont worry!! Mount & Blade is the most addictive and leisure Medieval RPG there is; pledge your alliegence to one of 5 rules and rise their ranks to be the king, or start your own kingdom, the possibilities are endless!!!" .......
and to the matter at hand , yeah the story and the interaction between characters were the best things about the game, allthought the story was a bit korny (but it worked, so why not).
The thing that I disliked was that it had to end:crying:, I could have played for another 40 hours. Of course you can start a new character but it was still quite repetitive. I mean first three playthroughs was ok and I found new things that I had missed on the first p.th.. But after the third one I should have taken a break (my fault).

Another thing what I really hated was the Last Battle, I mean the Archdemon was just... ugh. And the best way to kill it was tweaking with the f***ing conveniently placed ballistas, and with the xbox version tactically placing ur party was almost impossible , on the other hand the siege part was fun, with all the "grups".

[DwemerWARRIOR]

LadyDrusilla: a woman who likes swords,, hmm my good friend Sigmund might say that you have a serious case of "PENISENVY"

[Lovecraft22]

One thing that always struck me with loot was the game Icewind Dale, for most of the first chapter all you received was low level items (eg. a sword with +1 to attack or +1 to damage). It was fantastic, you struggled against awesome foes and were rewarded with unenchanted armor but it was unique in in appearance and felt worthwhile.

Having wrote that I do understand the complexities of the toolset for designing meshes and textures but a wider variety of "normal" weapons and armor would have been very cool.

[LadyDrusilla]

I have many sharp cutting instruments, if I envied and wanted a penis I would just take one.

DwemerWARRIOR wrote...

LadyDrusilla: a woman who likes swords,, hmm my good friend Sigmund might say that you have a serious case of "PENISENVY"

[AngryFrozenWater]

Very cool thread, dragonageman! Thanks for starting it.

I agree with you for the most part, but I have a different opinion about point #6. I don't see much use for the current 3 crafting skills, other than creating health poultices and lyrium potions. It would be nice if using them would actually make sense. Poisons should be applied to bows and/or arrows as well. Enchantments shouldn't be limited to blades and axes. It would be great if they could be applied to armor, staffs, bows and arrows too.

The graphics in this game are horrible. I can't and will not understand that a game released in 2009 isn't capable of rendering high resolution textures and optimized anti-aliasing. I can understand that the game is cross platform and that consoles have problems with them and have less memory, but as a PC gamer I don't really care about those limitations. The grass, the trees (look at the trees in Ostagar from a distance) and other vegetation are a joke. Things like books and bottles which appear in close ups are awful. Even Oblivion (released a couple of years ago) looks better.

Another point is that players have reported a number of bugs and BW does not tell us if these will be addressed or not. That policy of silence is rather annoying and needs to change. It gives the impression that they really don't care about fixing their bugs. I actually believe that they want to keep it that way. Patching is something they cannot sell, so they won't do it, unless there is a community uproar.

Modifié par AngryFrozenWater, 15 janvier 2010 - 12:53 .

[Lovecraft22]

[quote]LadyDrusilla wrote...

I have many sharp cutting instruments, if I envied and wanted a penis I would just take one.

[quote]DwemerWARRIOR wrote...

LadyDrusilla: a woman who likes swords,, hmm my good friend Sigmund might say that you have a serious case of "PENISENVY"
[/quote]

rofl  LadyDrusilla

agree with your perspective on two handed weapons (nearly always about bludgeoning rather than cutting) but two weapon techniques have been quite successful in some cultures such as Japan. (Thinking in particular of  Musashi)

Modifié par Lovecraft22, 15 janvier 2010 - 01:02 .

[Scimal]

AngryFrozenWater wrote...
Another point is that players have reported a number of bugs and BW does not tell us if these will be addressed or not. That policy of silence is rather annoying and needs to change. It gives the impression that they really don't care about fixing their bugs. I actually believe that they want to keep it that way. Patching is something they cannot sell, so they won't do it, unless there is a community uproar.

The'yre aware, they're just busy. They actively participate in the boards, which means they're reading the forums, and to be fair, most players don't "report" bugs so much as say "this bug is annoying."

To report bugs, you put in system specs (preferably a DxDiag) and see if it's reproducable.

And then, to be fair to BioWare, the game has stunning amounts of code. Your typical game these days seems to run <20 hours of playtime with lots of cutscenes. DA:O is 3-4x the scale, and may have 3-4x the code. It just takes a while to look over 100,000,000 lines of code.

[Andat]

@LadyDrusilla: no I'm not in the SCA, and please don't flame me when all I was trying to do was clarify your point. And your image doesn't convince me since there's no reason for the guy on the left to not be facing the guy he's fighting.



There is a difference between a skirmish and a line-of-battle. The difference is that a line-of-battle will operate as one unit. If I'm stood in the middle of the front rank I cannot be flanked because the men either side prevent that. The man to my right is protecting me with his shield, and the man on the left is protecting me with his sword (by parrying and killing enemy troops trying to get me). This pattern is repeated all the way down the line.



A skirmish (by which I mean a relatively disorganised scrap with no lines) removes that protection. There is no shield wall. Now, sure a shield provides some protection on my left hand side, but I can be flanked easily in open ground, and once the shield is flanked it's not providing any protection. In closed ground (such as a narrow corridor in a building) the shield can just get caught on stuff and end up getting in the way.



In that situation (which is in fact what most combat in the game is made up of), dual weapons start to make more sense - both in the real world and in the game. Now, if you're quite done flaming me, we can get back to discussing stuff that can actually be implemented in the game.

[LadyDrusilla]

I wasn't flaming you, I was correcting you ignorance of traditional fighting techniques. I apologise if I offended you, it was not intended but I jsut get very annoyed when these stereotypes about fighting styles are perpetuated.

Florentine does not begin to make sense in a skirmish. Quite the opposite. In line battles you are less likely to need a shield, often the front rank will have a shield while those behind will not. When unit cohesion breaks down or is not present, the more protection the individual solder has the better. Under those circumstances a shield is vital.
The simple fact is in a skirmish the side with shields will win. Having a relatively lightweight and easily maneuvered piece of laminated wood or wicker between you and enemy swords/arrows/etc will do far more for your chances of survival than another weapon.
You have to remember that one decent hit from either a ranged weapon or a melee weapon will kill someone. In real life we don't have hitpoints. A second weapon for dps makes little difference if you get an arrow or sword in the face.
I have actually experimented with florentine, I do speak from personal experience when I say that outside a duel it has no purpose whatsoever. It offers little protection, it is tiring, it reduces your skill with both weapons (do you have any idea how much concentration it takes to coordinate two weapons with any skill? A lot. Not to mention the level of coordination and dexterity required just to avoid stabbing yourself). Most tellingly of all, in thousands of years of human militarism, florentine has never been employed in any form on battlefields of any size*.

Shields Save Lives.

*There are some oriental two weapon fighting styles, which are not particularly applicable to the European basis of DA:O.

Modifié par LadyDrusilla, 15 janvier 2010 - 01:51 .

[Andat]

Firstly, calling someone ignorant simply because they see something differently is flaming.

Secondly, a dagger or sword hit will kill you as surely as an arrow. You have a point, so if I'm being shot at then maybe a shield is better. If I'm dealing with someone grappling me and they're inside my sword reach, maybe a dagger is better.

Thirdly, this is a game where we do have hitpoints. So again, can we start discussing things that are relevant?

Edit:dang typos

BTW:  You say "florentine has never historically been deployed on battlefield of any size".  You're right of course, and on a battlefield of any real size I would have shield walls, but for the vast majority of the game we don't have "battlefields of any real size".  We have little skirmishes.

Modifié par Andat, 15 janvier 2010 - 02:02 .

[Little Mama]

dragonageman wrote...

8) Why doesn't the main character have a voice?

I to have wondered that. You got to choose one when you create the character after all, but its only used out on the field. "Im wounded", "Darkspawn ahead" and things like that.
It would have bean great if you had sad the lines you pick out load. Like "dont be an idiot"

 

[AngryFrozenWater]

Scimal wrote...

AngryFrozenWater wrote...
Another point is that players have reported a number of bugs and BW does not tell us if these will be addressed or not. That policy of silence is rather annoying and needs to change. It gives the impression that they really don't care about fixing their bugs. I actually believe that they want to keep it that way. Patching is something they cannot sell, so they won't do it, unless there is a community uproar.

The'yre aware, they're just busy. They actively participate in the boards, which means they're reading the forums, and to be fair, most players don't "report" bugs so much as say "this bug is annoying."

To report bugs, you put in system specs (preferably a DxDiag) and see if it's reproducable.

And then, to be fair to BioWare, the game has stunning amounts of code. Your typical game these days seems to run <20 hours of playtime with lots of cutscenes. DA:O is 3-4x the scale, and may have 3-4x the code. It just takes a while to look over 100,000,000 lines of code.

I am a software engineer. Don't give me the x lines of codes argument. Bugs just need to be fixed. And yes, some are hard to fix. Some are very hard. So what? Just inform the users if it takes a long time to do so. They will understand. All you do is defend BW. For what? For creating bugs and not fixing them? For being silent about it?

If BW is a company which believes that they rely on user feedback then they should treat their customers better. Mr Wachter is a step in the right direction. We will see what he can do for us.

It really has to do in how much trust you have in your comminty. Let me give you an example...

Another game I am playing has special forums to report bugs and test betas of patches and new content. Reporting bugs has strict rules and no discussion is allowed, unless someone cannot replicate the bug or doesn't understand how to replicate the bug. Devs visit that forum and when they can replicate the bug it will be entered in their bug tracking system and they will often post a remark in which patch it will end up. They sometimes have private builds to test for someone. They also ask gamers to test specific issues. There is also another forum in which the beta testers can discuss the stuff they are testing and come up with feature request. Very cool. Of course that one has also very strict rules.

In such an invironment critique is viewed as healthy, but here critique is viewed as something negative. I don't understand that stupidity at all.

BW could never do such. It believes in hype cycles and thus needs to be silent in everything it does, unless it can create a hype. Their policy of silence is a result of their marketing strategy.

Modifié par AngryFrozenWater, 15 janvier 2010 - 02:19 .

[Little Mama]

One HUGE thing that I think is bad of BioWare is the cracks/bugs in the storyline in the pc version. This is one of the biggest parts of the game and they havent fixed it? (not that i know of any way)

I speak most of the lines refering to Alistair as king after the Landsmeet, even thou you choosed not to make him so...