1470 réponses à ce sujet

[JamesFaith]

GroverA125 wrote...

Hold all criticism until after we see if they have learned their lesson.

There's a list of things that should not understood by a developer:
1) Do not remove the player's control of a situation unless completely necessary.
2) Players love boss fights. A boss fight is not the same as throwing three banshees at players, a boss fight is something new that requires good tactical thinking, teamwork collaboration and/or brutal efficiency to defeat.
3) Do not make multiple choice ending as a definite unless the choices are absolutes. If the community can say "yeah, but why didn't..." then you've not done it right. We should sit there and accept that it's the only way, and our choice should reflect our decision, not some that you thought would be cool and not reflect our character's opinions (don't bias the end towards one set of decisions)
4) Players like customisation, give them it.
5) Players like multiplayer, but next time put your back into it. Minigame-esque survival isn't the best it could be.
6) Players don't like petty DLCs, if you want to make DLCs, make them all sparkly-glowy. A player should WANT to buy them, not feel that completionism makes them want to get it.
7) More characters are nice. A good story has a character, race, faction, etc. that everyone can relate to. Preferably one who returns and doesn't die within the first five minutes of gameplay (goddammit Jenkins).
8) Shiny-ass sparkly lasers make everything better.
9) Except for when they're shooting the player. Give the player a psychological superiority against base enemies, and abolish that with superior ones. (make mooks have small, quiet weapons and specialists have loud, more fear-stirring ones).
10) People like to go medieval. As such, people love swords and crossbows in sci-fi almost as much as they like to feed their megalomania with gold weapons, armor, etc.

I'm sure that there's more, but I feel that's all I can happily put out.

Let's be fair, Bioware have done a fair job patching up a mess that, while it was unnecessary, couldn't have been predicted. If they claim that they won't do it again, then until they have, we've nothing to go off.

To be honest, next time write I instead players, because by using players you spoke about me too and:

2) I have no special love or hate for boss fight.
3) This would be always partially subjective, until it would be absolute 2 choice death/live.
5) I hate it and consider it necessary evil.
6) Always depend on particular DLC.
7) Too much is too much. My ideal number is from 6 to 8. ME2 was too crowded for me.
8) I hope this was just fun.
10) Not everytime and I'm both reader and writer of science-fantasy.

[Cainhurst Crow]

SilJeff wrote...

Robosexual wrote...

This can't be accidental, this victim mentality and warping of every. single. thing.

We're releasing a free DLC to address complaints for the ending but I stand by my team of passionate people who helped create this universe? Twisted into "OMG artistic integrity" by people here.

We didn't want to turn TIM into a Reaper monster? Twisted into "OMG everything is too videogamey" by people here.

It shows how invested a player is in the story, and how much they care about the outcomes. I've learned that a bitter-sweet ending is much easier to watch in a movie, than experience in a long RPG where the player is very invested in the protagonist? Twisted into "OMG you just don't get it" by people here.

That mentality is just ridiculous.

amen

A symptom of a generation of ingrates is what I would call it, but than again apparently expressing disbelif in how demanding and bratty some people are here is equivialnt to being a corporate bootlick and "champion of mediocraty and poor quality" 

I hold off on judgeing bioware until I see them put this newfound perspective into a empirically evaluatable thing, but I will certainly not just use buzzwords and constantly try and make jabs at a company who probably won't even hear those "Witty Stingers" that fall flat on their face.

Modifié par Darth Brotarian, 08 mai 2013 - 05:39 .

[SpamBot2000]

angol fear wrote...

So I'm insane? I'm actually literature teacher, cinema critic and writer. I think I know a little what I'm talking about. So yes, the standard of writing in video game is low and yes, Mass Effect 3 (original ending) is the highest level of writing ever seen in the video game history but to understand that you need to understand literature from its origins till the experimental books in the 20th century, you need to understand what is the strucutralism to make a real analysis of Mass Effect you need to understand the theories of reception... I stop here : there's so much to explain to you and I don't have time to do this. You can dislike Mass Effect 3 but I wouldn't be proud to show my ignorance like you did and, most important, the way you did.

Yeah, speaking of "theories of reception"... Surely you are on intimate terms with the random writing experiments of the 20th century, from Tristan Tzara's words out of a hat to the cut-up, fold-in and tape recorder experiments of William Burroughs that went on to influence David Bowie's lyric writing in the 70's and so on? It appears that random juxtapositions of words are frequently perceived as texts heavy with meaning(s). <---  Check out my neato post-modernist pluralization, by the way. That show I is clever!

Of course, this phenomenon is in no way limited to the literary arts. We are pattern-seeking beings by nature. That's why people used to see the stars in vivid constellations of all kinds of wild shapes, back when people could still see the stars. If you throw enough stuff at us, we automatically begin to organize it into a semblance of coherence. So that's a theory of reception right there: they threw all this nonsense at you, and you began too see a pattern emerge. Quite why this should count as a particularly "high level" of writing is something of a mystery though. Surely the art in this case is in the reception, as you yourself appear to imply. Isn't "The Author" dead or something?

Modifié par SpamBot2000, 08 mai 2013 - 05:28 .

[AresKeith]

Darth Brotarian wrote...

How would that work? Would this character materialize on the normandy for one mission and dissapear again? Are you talking about sending a different squad composed of your own characters into a hotzone rather than shepard and his crew for the side missions?

What it sounds like you described, is a shorter version of the multiplayer we already have, but shoved into the single player campaign rather than being a seperate game feature.

The co-op campaign idea wouldn't have anything to do with Shepard or the Normandy, it would be its own separate thing like the current MP

It would show that Shepard and his/her crew isn't the only people doing this during the Reaper War

[JamesFaith]

Felya87 wrote...

if they have understand what they did wrong, and now know how to make the unhappy fan happy, why they don't fix first ME3, than think to the new ME?

Because critics and fan feedback normaly work this way?

Result of these is lesson for next work, not be forced to reform your previous work. 

[SilJeff]

RainbowDazed wrote...

Robosexual wrote...

By the looks of the article they're talking more about character closure. Though I hope this doesn't mean they, or any other game company, will not take risks and make great stories because of it. Bioshock Infinite for example wasn't perfect, but they took a risk. It makes for a fascinating story that sticks with you. The one thing I don't want to happen to Bioware especially is for them to feel threatened into making their stories bland, predictable or forgettable because of the hold the whine movement.

They're writers and they created this absolutely wonderful universe, and I hope they don't feel like their creativity should be held back just in case some people overreact.

This.

agree too

[Cainhurst Crow]

AresKeith wrote...

Darth Brotarian wrote...

How would that work? Would this character materialize on the normandy for one mission and dissapear again? Are you talking about sending a different squad composed of your own characters into a hotzone rather than shepard and his crew for the side missions?

What it sounds like you described, is a shorter version of the multiplayer we already have, but shoved into the single player campaign rather than being a seperate game feature.

The co-op campaign idea wouldn't have anything to do with Shepard or the Normandy, it would be its own separate thing like the current MP

It would show that Shepard and his/her crew isn't the only people doing this during the Reaper War

Interesting. It still sounds like the MP we have, horde mode and such and lobby, but with some goals and a semi-narrative, if that makes sense. It actually sounds a bit like what SWTOR does in it's group events, where the person in charge of the group get's to interacte with the NPC characters in cutscenes and drive the stroy forward.

That would be cool to see, but I would be interested in how they would keep it interesting outside of having a set of recycled missions. I mean, horde mode can get boring, but seeing the same cutscenes over and over, I would imagine would get equally boring.

[Bizinha]

Robosexual wrote...

eddieoctane wrote...

It sounds a bit more like a "you just don't get it" line than lipservice to me. We (the players) can't appreciate a bittersweet ending in a game, not that the ending had no sweetness at release and was thus terribly flawed.

This can't be accidental, this victim mentality and warping of every. single. thing.

We're releasing a free DLC to address complaints for the ending but I stand by my team of passionate people who helped create this universe? Twisted into "OMG artistic integrity" by people here.

We didn't want to turn TIM into a Reaper monster? Twisted into "OMG everything is too videogamey" by people here.

It shows how invested a player is in the story, and how much they care about the outcomes. I've learned that a bitter-sweet ending is much easier to watch in a movie, than experience in a long RPG where the player is very invested in the protagonist? Twisted into "OMG you just don't get it" by people here.

That mentality is just ridiculous.

I'm in the middle of this minority there. And I'm happy to be. 

[Felya87]

JamesFaith wrote...

Felya87 wrote...

if they have understand what they did wrong, and now know how to make the unhappy fan happy, why they don't fix first ME3, than think to the new ME?

Because critics and fan feedback normaly work this way?

Result of these is lesson for next work, not be forced to reform your previous work. 

maybe I'm thinking as the merchant I am, but usually, if the client complaine about something he buy from me, I try to make him happy with the actual purchase, than I try to sell him/her something else.

a satisfied client means more clients in the future.
loosing a client means possibly loosing a lot of future clients.

even if the request is strange, or hard to obtain, I'll try everithing. sometimes I can ever lose money in the process, but usually it pay me in the future. usually with the chance of a new purchase happening.

but if a client is not happy about what I sell to him/her, I can forget about having that client again in my shop. and I'll loose even more money that way. and possibly friends and aquitance of the client.

[xxskyshadowxx]

eddieoctane wrote...

aj2070 wrote...

Assuming this;

Everman says the experience has underlined what's at stake when you're working with an interactive medium. "It shows how invested a player is in the story, and how much they care about the outcomes. I've learned that a bitter-sweet ending is much easier to watch in a movie, than experience in a long RPG where the player is very invested in the protagonist."

isn't lip-service, I would say lesson learned. I am sure I have seen people say similar things here in the forums. I would even go so far as to say you don't get as invested in a character in say a first-person shooter or even dare I say a game like "BioShock".

It sounds a bit more like a "you just don't get it" line than lipservice to me. We (the players) can't appreciate a bittersweet ending in a game, not that the ending had no sweetness at release and was thus terribly flawed.

Yeah. I don't take away "lesson learned" from the interview either really.

They wanted a "bittersweet" speculation ending to the series. I get that, and like those kinds of endings. Bioshock Infinite is a good example of that kind of ending done well. What they did is rip off an ending to another, decades old game that had a similar plot concept (which wasn't the initial plot concept introduced in ME1, but I digress) mashed it into their narrative and didn't so much as bother to change the color scheme when they did it.

The lesson they need to learn is to not cobble together a series on the fly. If they want to write an actual trilogy, they need to do exactly that, before developing the first game. The other lesson they need to learn is just because Call of Duty makes all of the money all of the time, not every game shoul try to be Call of Duty-ish.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

People, it's corporate double speak. The translation of the article: "we were wrong about the ending. People get more attached to characters than we thought. Endings like this don't work in a video game setting. We will work to do better in the future.".

The ending was bad. It didn't fit with the story. It was downright horrible, especially the original ending. They introduced a brand new character in the final 10 minutes of the game to do an information dump. All the choices were virtually identical except for the color of the explosion on your screen: you died, the mass relays were destroyed, and the Normandy crashed, unless you played multiplayer then you got a chance at getting a gasp of air on the red one, or got a chance of picking the green one. You had finished killing The Illusive Man and were waiting for the epic finish to the story and that was what you got. Shepard's legacy ruined in 10 minutes. It really really sucked.

Did I need TIM to turn into a monster and fight him for an hour? No. I just needed an ending that made sense. Casey Hudson told us back in 2007 that WE were Commander Shepard. I knew it was likely that Shepard was going to do die in the end. Shepard's legacy was to be ours, and not rendered meaningless in ten minutes. I just wanted to be with Liara one more time before it was over, even if it was to die in her arms. Pick the color of the explosions on your screen. I picked red. I got a gasp of air. Liara was on a planet gods know where, and the relays were destroyed.

Literature? Bittersweet? No. This was just bitter. What was seen cannot be unseen. EC or no EC. This was never fixed. On the XBox I play the Citadel DLC as the epilogue.

Apparently they are taking the vocal minority more seriously than some of you would like to think. The fact that we are still here, the first organics ever, proves their A, B, or C ending won't work anymore. They know it. They got the message.

[TheProtheans]

I could have sworn they were still implying nothing was wrong .
Oh wait they're, they think the problem is that it was bitter sweet, no that is not the problem.
I like bitter sweet, this is not bitter sweet.

[Kel Riever]

angol fear wrote...

So we'll have only happy endings, no more logical endings? The writing in video game is not really high and we'll come back to that kind of writing. But I understand they need to sell games.

Good thing you aren't talking about the end of Mass Effect 3, which isn't logical at all!

[Undead Han]

I hope they just don't overreact to fan criticism, which is unfortunately something Bioware has done in the past. Mako, I'm looking at you.

I hope Bioware doesn't respond to fan feedback on character attachment by making games where none of the main cast dies, and where the endings are always nothing but sunshine and rainbows.

[Cainhurst Crow]

There will no longer be an ending to the games, just a smashcut to the end credits once you make it to the last level and beat the final boss.

They'll fix the problem like bioware fixes all their problems, total removal.

[Kel Riever]

I seriously doubt that anyone learned the lesson that good writing has nothing to do with making the ending happy. Fanbois haven't learned that, so why would BioWare?

Include a razor blade for wrist slitting with the next ending of Mass Effect, if someone thinks killing characters makes a good story. Since BioWare can't figure out how to have characters die and make good stories right now.

[JamesFaith]

Felya87 wrote...

JamesFaith wrote...

Because critics and fan feedback normaly work this way?

Result of these is lesson for next work, not be forced to reform your previous work. 

maybe I'm thinking as the merchant I am, but usually, if the client complaine about something he buy from me, I try to make him happy with the actual purchase, than I try to sell him/her something else.

a satisfied client means more clients in the future.
loosing a client means possibly loosing a lot of future clients.

even if the request is strange, or hard to obtain, I'll try everithing. sometimes I can ever lose money in the process, but usually it pay me in the future. usually with the chance of a new purchase happening.

but if a client is not happy about what I sell to him/her, I can forget about having that client again in my shop. and I'll loose even more money that way. and possibly friends and aquitance of the client.

Don't forget that you are speaking about product with features which are creation of artist. Thing you told can be applied on shoes, cars or food in restaurant, but not here.

If problem was in some major technical part of game like graphic or sound problems, they should fix it, because it would be objective flaw. Here your points would be valid.

But problem here was with story. And how many books you know which were changed after released? Or movies (don't speak about test audience, which is part of creative process)? Did you ever come to bookshop and demand new version of book because you ddidn't like its ending and want it fixed? Or demand change of music in some movie?

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

You've got to understand corporate double speak. Corporate people are never going to come out and say directly "We were wrong about Starbrat."

No, they're not. It's not ever going to happen. Why isn't it going to happen? Because that lead writer is working on the next ME game, and the Excutive Producer is also working on the next ME game. They know. Trust me. They know. They just have a great deal of difficulty saying the words "we were wrong about Starbrat, and the red, green, and blue."

If they said it, another controversy would start: "well, if you knew, why didn't you give us a new ending in July?" Then all of the other crap would start about the publisher rights and all that stuff.

[Astartes Marine]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

You've got to understand corporate double speak. Corporate people are never going to come out and say directly "We were wrong about Starbrat."

No, they're not. It's not ever going to happen. Why isn't it going to happen? Because that lead writer is working on the next ME game, and the Excutive Producer is also working on the next ME game. They know. Trust me. They know. They just have a great deal of difficulty saying the words "we were wrong about Starbrat, and the red, green, and blue."

If they said it, another controversy would start: "well, if you knew, why didn't you give us a new ending in July?" Then all of the other crap would start about the publisher rights and all that stuff.

I'm also wondering if there's an NDA or two involved.  I wouldn't be surprised.

[Reorte]

My concern is that it'll be yet another case of misunderstanding (somehow) the dislike and therefore reacting wrongly, the sort of thing that lead to the Mako vanishing and the lack of weapon customisation in ME2. If nothing else they really will need to ensure that things seem to happen in the next game because they're the actual consequences of what's going on and not simply because the plot demands it, so it'll happen no matter what.

Time will tell. There's never going to be an outright admission of being wrong, the only thing that will tell us what has been learned is what's in the next game.

Modifié par Reorte, 08 mai 2013 - 06:13 .

[PsyrenY]

Robosexual wrote...

By the looks of the article they're talking more about character closure. Though I hope this doesn't mean they, or any other game company, will not take risks and make great stories because of it. Bioshock Infinite for example wasn't perfect, but they took a risk. It makes for a fascinating story that sticks with you. The one thing I don't want to happen to Bioware especially is for them to feel threatened into making their stories bland, predictable or forgettable because of the hold the whine movement.

They're writers and they created this absolutely wonderful universe, and I hope they don't feel like their creativity should be held back just in case some people overreact.

Bravo. Couldn't have said it better myself.

[Ykulnu]

Holy Christ, how can they still be missing the point after an entire year?

This can't be on purpose. People liked the Citadel DLC because it was a fun sendoff for the characters, yes, but that wasn't the issue everyone had with the ending at all.

[Reorte]

Ykulnu wrote...

Holy Christ, how can they still be missing the point after an entire year?

This can't be on purpose. People liked the Citadel DLC because it was a fun sendoff for the characters, yes, but that wasn't the issue everyone had with the ending at all.

As long as they still seem to get some support from some people (who mostly aim for bashing the criticisors instead of their criticisms) it'll continue. That said, given that there's never any chance of admitting the possibility of any mistake directly it's possible that the point hasn't been missed. Only time will tell.

[Kel Riever]

Someone is surprised that BioWare might have missed a point?

Welcome, you must be new here!