318 réponses à ce sujet

[Zelto]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

hoorayforicecream wrote...

Zelto wrote...

That is most likely true that they wanted a voiced protaganist and for whatever reason couldn't get it. But as FastJimmy ask, once you make the decision to go a particular way in a series then you should stick to it, and if you don't stick to it then you should make sure that whatever you change it too is better and executed very well, which a large number of your fans would say you didn't do. If DA:O was voiced then no one (ok some would but thats life) would be complaining about it in DA:2. I don't think many people complain about Mass Effects voiced PC because it alway was.

I would point at Mass Effect 2 as Bioware's counterexample to this. They massively changed the gameplay between 1 and 2, and yet Mass Effect 2 is generally considered to be a success and a significant step up from the original.

Can't disagree here.

Just because something had a feature before does not mean that it HAS to have it going forward. I'm just saying I don't think they should have with the voiced protag between DA:O and DA2.

For instance, DA:A and DA2 had Save Imports carried over from previous choices, but I wish they'd not appear in DA3. However, I don't think Bioware is biting on it.

However, a game company should look at alerting and communicating changes in the core gameplay from one game in a series to the next. If fans feel they are having a bait-and-switch pulled on them from one game to the next, they can often rail against the developer pretty radically.

I didn't say that a sequal HAS to have a feature that was in the prequal, I simply said that if a game is set in a particular way then the sequals should follow that president. Look at dead space 3, it is a game that is the sequal to two good horror survival shooters that has done less than spectacularly because they changed the way the game was set out.

Mass Effect 2 made a quite large change in game play. It worked, though I personally thought Mass Effect 1 had a much more unique selling point. However they did, as I said, exicute it very well. That I personally believe is a major difference between ME and DA.

Additonally save imports are very different. That is effectivly a game mechanic. Yes I like it but it has limited effect on the overall game play. However their probably are fans who feel this is essensial, therefore removing it mid-series would be rather foolish this would have the same effect on them as the VO does to you.

[hoorayforicecream]

Zelto wrote...

hoorayforicecream wrote...

There's a couple of assumptions that are wrong with this.

First, this assumes that the majority of "customers" all want one thing and that the developers are purposely ignoring it. That's not true at all. There are a lot of players who enjoy a lot of different things, and you'd be hard pressed to prove that a majority of anyone decided that one specific feature's implementation was what made a game a success or a failure. That's not only highly improbable, but would also require evidence that you just don't have. It's fine to say "I didn't like this." But to say "a majority of fans didn't like this feature" is foolish because there's no way for you to prove it and it seems like you're only saying it to make your own opinion seem more valid than it is.

Ok you appear to have misunderstood what I said. I never said that the majority wanted or indeed didn't want a silent protaganist or indeed any other feature I was simply stating that it is a companies job to produce a product that their customers want to buy not a product that they like and think their customers Should want to buy. What Allan said was in my opinion falling within the second catagory, which mean they are not necessary attempting to meet their customers desires.

And I am telling you that having a development philosophy that isn't invested in what the team wants to make is foolish, because it results in an unremarkable product that is made to spec, but devoid of polish or passion.

Also I never said that it is easy to know what the customers want, all/majority/minority, however that is the job of a business within a capitulist system, identify the demand and produce a supply, just because this is a game company doesn't mean that no longer applies. They should have people hired to determine the wants of the customers so they can better meet them.

Game design by committee? Oh dear lord... no. Just... no. Bad idea. Awful. Horrible.

Second, I've seen what happens when developers are not as invested in completing a project firsthand. It sucks, because the devs tend to phone it in when they are not invested in the project itself. Uninvested devs don't spend the extra time to polish the game, because they don't care. They just get the work done and go home. I've been there on the front lines, and I've seen it. I would personally prefer the developers make the game they feel passionate about, because that translates to a better product in the end. Making a game the developers feel the customers want, rather than the game they want, is Zynga's business model.

Well that may well be true, however again it is the comany's responcability to
a) hire the right people who will work regardless, at the end of they day everyone will end up doing work they dislike at some point, a good employee is one who still works hard at it.
Ensure that their employees are happy through other means than just ensuring they are doing exactly what they want

It doesn't work that way in the game industry. The people I've worked with are thoroughly experienced professionals. At the end of the day, they'll all get their work done. That doesn't mean they'll make the best possible product though, because game development isn't like business software. When the end goal is to bring a fun experience to your user, you can't just make your software to the spec and call it a day. It doesn't work that way, because it isn't necessarily fun. If you tell your gameplay programmer to make the camera work according to the design doc, she'll do it. She'll make that camera work exactly the way the design doc says. It won't have the polish, the smoothing, or the extra effort spent to make it intuitive, because it isn't in the doc. The designer who writes the doc will explain, but he'll feel it's "good enough" because he isn't invested either. And so on and so forth up the chain.

You can say "Well, then they should just offer other incentive to the people who make the products", and, again, that's Zynga's business model. They hired away a lot of experienced and professional game developers from studios like Crystal Dynamics, Maxis, Sony, Ubisoft, etc. by offering them significant pay increases and perks. I know a very senior engineer who was working on one of EA's flagship titles who quit to go work for Zynga. They offered him a huge salary upgrade, tons of perks, etc. etc. But he hated what they assigned him to do, and he quit and went back to EA before EA had even processed his resignation papers. At the end of the day, despite having hired all of that talent, Zynga's games still suck.

Modifié par hoorayforicecream, 16 mai 2013 - 09:46 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

EntropicAngel wrote...

That's a good point--but these things involve the PC standing there like a lump and not interacting with the environment. They don't involve the PC. Bioware wants to involve the PC in their cinematic scenes.

If the cost of that is the removal of player control over his character's behaviour, then that is the wrong choice.

As long as their cinematic focus prevents me from playing my character the way I want to play my character, I will argue against that focus.  I'll also offer suggestions as to how to improve the cinematic approach to minimise those costs, but the fact remains that those costs are not costs I want to pay.

In every scene - at every moment within the game - I should be able to know, with certainty, how my character feels right at that instant.  And animating the character without the player's direct input prevents that from being possible, as my supposed knowledge of my character's state-of-mind can be contradicted by the game.

That's never acceptable.

[AlanC9]

MerinTB wrote...
I've played ME2 once (my third play) with sub-titles off, and it was a different experience... felt more like watching a movie than playing a game, so more passive, but still enjoyable.  And my current replay of ME3 (don't start... it took a year to come down enough to give it a second go...) I have the sub-titles off.  I'm invariably missing things people say, my hearing ain't the best for human voices unfortunately, but at least ME3 has LITTLE in the way of dialog choices (up for Paragon, down for Renegade, don't need to read the paraphrase at all)

Are you sure you're not just projecting a difference onto the subtitled/non-subtitled experience? Games used to be all text, so subtitles feel more like games.

And you're really outsourcing your choices to the Paragon/Renegade meter? What do you do if you don't want to play a straight Paragon or Renegade? Coin flip?

[Sylvius the Mad]

EntropicAngel wrote...

But the problem I see with this, is that it DOES cripple a flow, at least how I'm seeing it: that you pick an option.  The only way I can think of to not having it do that is make it like an ME interrupt, which is possible.

ME's interrupts should have paused the game to provide the player with more information (and no time pressures).  That would allow the player to intervene in a scene, or not, as he felt was appropriate (the ability to do this has been sorely lacking in BioWare's other cinematic games), but without forcing the player to trigger an action without knowing what it was.

Further, how many different emotions are they going to put up there? Just three? I don't know that would be enough--because everyone may respond to the same stimuli in a completely different way.

As long as one of the available options is to not emote, I don't care how many there are.  Even a simple yes/no choice would be a vast improvement on being forced to have a specific reaction.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 16 mai 2013 - 09:54 .

[AlanC9]

I liked having the time pressure for interrupts in ME2. I would have hated a pause.

Modifié par AlanC9, 16 mai 2013 - 09:58 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Ouch....

I wouldn't be one to consider myself clueless to why the silent PC has value. But you're welcome to think that's the case if you so desire.

I say this with Planescape: Torment being my all time favourite game.  I loved the push to make NPCs voiced when it happened, and find that games like Alpha Protocol are only further complemented by having the protagonist voiced as well.  Same goes for Mass Effect.

But you do understand the value we see in the silent protagonist with full text dialogue options, yes?  The ability to choose exactly which line we would like delivered.  The ability to deliver that line however we choose.  And we want these things to avoid our character's word and behaviours from ever contradicting our design of that character's personality.  We build each character's beliefs, values, and goals, and then we have him act based on what we've built.  But if can't control what he says or how he says it (and using the voiced protagonist design we see in DA2, we can't), then that character creation effort is rendered pointless.

[Sylvius the Mad]

AlanC9 wrote...

I liked having the time pressure for interrupts in ME2. I would have hated a pause.

I hated the uncertainty.  I hated not knowing what it was I was triggering.  I propose a pause primarily to give the player time to examine the option in more detail (detail which wasn't actually offered in ME2, but would have to be to make the mechanic work for me).

That, and I sometimes wasn't able to trigger an interrupt in time.  I didn't always see the interrupt icon right away (I may have been focused on something else in the scene, and probably being annoyed by the depth of field effects), and I usually take my hand off the mouse during dialogue and cutscenes (I trigger dialogue options using the keyboard, mostly) so having the time pressure sometimes made it impossible for me to hit the button in time.

[Zelto]

hoorayforicecream wrote...

Game design by committee? Oh dear lord... no. Just... no. Bad idea. Awful. Horrible.

Games are already designed by a committee you can call it a working group, a development team, or whatever else. All I am saying is that someone on that committee should have been part of a customers feedback programme (however you want to run it) that identifies the key requirements from the majority of customers to help develope a better game. They should not dirrect how that is implemanted, thats the designers job but they should be there. To be honest I would suggest that they already are in some form, if they aren't then the company is taking a rediculus risk.

It doesn't work that way in the game industry. The people I've worked with are thoroughly experienced professionals. At the end of the day, they'll all get their work done. That doesn't mean they'll make the best possible product though, because game development isn't like business software. When the end goal is to bring a fun experience to your user, you can't just make your software to the spec and call it a day. It doesn't work that way, because it isn't necessarily fun. If you tell your gameplay programmer to make the camera work according to the design doc, she'll do it. She'll make that camera work exactly the way the design doc says. It won't have the polish, the smoothing, or the extra effort spent to make it intuitive, because it isn't in the doc. The designer who writes the doc will explain, but he'll feel it's "good enough" because he isn't invested either. And so on and so forth up the chain.

Ok sorry but ANY professional/profession has the same circumstances. You use business software, you think inovations just appear there, no someone thought it up, that is outside their dirrect job scope. It is no different in engineering, construction, or most other jobs.

You can say "Well, then they should just offer other incentive to the people who make the products", and, again, that's Zynga's business model. They hired away a lot of experienced and professional game developers from studios like Crystal Dynamics, Maxis, Sony, Ubisoft, etc. by offering them significant pay increases and perks. I know a very senior engineer who was working on one of EA's flagship titles who quit to go work for Zynga. They offered him a huge salary upgrade, tons of perks, etc. etc. But he hated what they assigned him to do, and he quit and went back to EA before EA had even processed his resignation papers. At the end of the day, despite having hired all of that talent, Zynga's games still suck.

Well not knowing the personal situation I can't possible comment on your friend, but you are using one game company (who's games are enjoyed by many im sure otherwise they would be bankrupt) to further your point. No, money and perks may not give job fufilment but if he quit before the resignation was processed, sp either EA are very slow or he sat down, said this is crap and left. Hardly representative of the overall workings of the company.

Anyway this is off-topic and I don't want the thread locked because of it.

[Dabrikishaw]

Either be there or dump it.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

As a side note, Ultima 7 is actually an exceptionally non-linear game (as opposed to faux non-linear like Baldur's Gate). You can literally do whole chunks of the critical path in completely different orders, and even skip on some stuff if you find yourself stumbling upon where you need to be first.

Please build games like that.

I personally feel that there's room for both types of games to exist in the market, as both have their pros and cons.

I, personally, have no interesting in playing a game that doesn't let me control my character's behaviour.

[Fast Jimmy]

Zelto wrote...

hoorayforicecream wrote...

Game design by committee? Oh dear lord... no. Just... no. Bad idea. Awful. Horrible.

Games are already designed by a committee you can call it a working group, a development team, or whatever else.

You aren't going to win this argument. Hooray works in the video game industry, so any suggestions or interpretations of how the industry does or should work is probably going to be refuted.

[Sylvius the Mad]

EntropicAngel wrote...

Well, I would maintain that the game tells you very specifically what your goal is at certain times--usually through Mina. Doesn't matter all that much though, I guess.

I would argue that this isn't a case of the game telling the player what to do, but of Mina telling Mike what she thinks he should do.

Mike might disagree.

[MerinTB]

AlanC9 wrote...

MerinTB wrote...
I've played ME2 once (my third play) with sub-titles off, and it was a different experience... felt more like watching a movie than playing a game, so more passive, but still enjoyable.  And my current replay of ME3 (don't start... it took a year to come down enough to give it a second go...) I have the sub-titles off.  I'm invariably missing things people say, my hearing ain't the best for human voices unfortunately, but at least ME3 has LITTLE in the way of dialog choices (up for Paragon, down for Renegade, don't need to read the paraphrase at all)

Are you sure you're not just projecting a difference onto the subtitled/non-subtitled experience? Games used to be all text, so subtitles feel more like games.

No.  And this is why - I consider reading an active pasttime and viewing/listening a passive activity.

I know there are others who have said similar things (not others on BSN, others in academic circles.)  It is fairly commonly accepted that reading promotes brain activity, increased intelligence, etc., while watching a tv show your brain shuts down parts, I believe they are cognitive/thinking parts, even if you are watching a mystery and trying to figure out who did it level of paying attention.

So reading I am engaged.  I am not only translating the text into the imagery it is trying to make me imagine, I am also having to fill in many details that aren't in the words.

Watching.. I don't have to extrapolate what color a persons clothing is, or their hairstyle, or the sound of their voice, if the text doesn't tell me, as the images and sounds do the work for me.

See the difference?  With the sub-titles off I'm sitting further away from my monitor, laying back relaxed, eating chips, occasionally having to push the stick one way or the other and push a button.

AlanC9 wrote...
And you're really outsourcing your choices to the Paragon/Renegade meter? What do you do if you don't want to play a straight Paragon or Renegade? Coin flip?

Outsourcing?  No.  Based on what's being said/asked, I treat the upper right/lower right just like I would treat the tones in Alpha Protocol or Blade Runner.  It ain't my Shepard, after all, I'm just picking the tone, and in less control than I had with Hawke at this point (most conversation choices, unless you are asking for information (would you like to know more,) only give two options in ME3.)  And as I've played it before I'm really not asking for more information at this point.

So the conversation is flowing, and someone has said something or is doing something, and I treat the upper or lower choice almost like the interrupts - I'm picking tone.  The paraphrase doesn't matter.

Especially as I'm doing this the cinematic / passive way?  The flow is MUCH smoother if you choose quickly.

I don't know how you consider it outsourcing.  Or that much different than reading the paraphrase, which I misread the intent of half the time anyway.  I'm still choosing, and still based on the situation.

Modifié par MerinTB, 16 mai 2013 - 11:42 .

[MerinTB]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

EntropicAngel wrote...
Well, I would maintain that the game tells you very specifically what your goal is at certain times--usually through Mina. Doesn't matter all that much though, I guess.

I would argue that this isn't a case of the game telling the player what to do, but of Mina telling Mike what she thinks he should do.

Mike might disagree.

She (or other handlers, in fact) often state it as such, giving you what they think you should do and then suggesting alternatives you could try.

AP isn't as cut and dry as you are trying to make it sound, EA.  If your mission is, say, find out what the arms dealer (Nasir?  I don't feel like doing a Google search right now) knows, you can go about it so many different ways - stealth, stealth but takedown, guns blazing... and then with Nasir you can treat him so many different ways, even shutting out Parker who's your handler and going AGAINST what he wants (killing Nasir) and you STILL have succeeded in the mission.

The only time you've picked the "wrong" choice is when the GAME OVER (or the AP equivalent) pops up and you have to reload because you've lost.

[Fast Jimmy]

Sir JK wrote...

I'm not sure, I've generally seen three problems with bribing in most rpgs I've played: * 1. It's cheap. Once you get the ganf of a game, the bribes are fairly easy to gather and generally you don't lose much. I've never once seen a cripplingly high bribe.

This is made even worse by the fact that money in rpgs is a fairly cheap thing that's essentially only spent on luxury. Easy to acquire, easy to let go of.

I'd really argue against this. In fact, one of the more interesting mods I've seen for Skyrim is the persistent world economy mod, which regulates and normalizes how much currency exists in the world. Something like this would be really interesting to have in other RPGs as a standard, as it could make cash as realistically scarce as it should be. This would make giving away cash, for any reason, a much more difficult decision to struggle with... just like it is in real life.

2. It's safe. They're generally only available for the people who would accept them. So there's very little risk associated with them. I've yet to see a single instance where the bribe was not just refused but the victim was downright insulted by you offering it. Nor for that matter, have someone take the bribe and then still not do as you asked.

This would be very cool, having those who would scan you for money or who would not follow through on their promises. It would also be nice if there were serious negative consequences to a failed bribe, maybe through a reputation system or doors closing for other opportunities. And even having some nations/cultures much more accepting of the custom of bribery than others, maybe even having agents to work through government officials and who "grease the wheels," so to speak. There is lots of potential here.

3. It's boring. Usually it shows up, you pay and that's it. No mystique, no subtelty... just a quick and easy business transaction. As if I was buying groceries down by the corner. There's never any of the subtle play with words, the dance of hinting and negotiating price without outright saying it. No trial or error. No avarice and no opportunism. I'm not talking about interactivity here as much as just plain drama.

This, I think, would be the most difficult thing to do, honestly. Implementing not just a bribery option, but a whole set of possible bribery approaches would be REALLY cool... but would also be a headache to handle. Having more scenes where the characters play this game would be really intriguing... but having to know how to set the right price and how to haggle without haggling would be difficult to pull off within the existing dialogue system.

 However, should those three be dealt with, I would not be opposed to it. The notion that sometimes the very best ending should be a result of bribery is appealing as well. Especially if it's not just money that you can use for bribing. If the same tone allowed you to offer jobs, titles, land or even promising to set them up with the people of their desires or even hand someone over to slavery, I could see a lot of merit in having it.

It'd also paint the world in a slightly darker shade, when it is playing on people's greed and lust that gets results. Which could be nice.

I think it is important, as the fact that all too often the hero can just stroll up to heads of state or important people and get an audience is a little odd, though DA2 did do this with some VIPs... althought it was a little silly that you could meet with the Viscoint and the Arishok before you could meet with Meredith or Orsino... but Hawke's "killing his way to fame" always seemed pretty ham-fisted.

Money talks, bull shirt walks, as they say. I'd like to really explore a game that makes it as hard to get favors from people without some cash in your fist as it is in real life. 

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 17 mai 2013 - 01:36 .

[Allan Schumacher]

MerinTB wrote...

I dunno, I may be parsing this wrong - 

I will say that it did try to carve some new ground with the dialogue mechanics (which were done by Brian Mitsoda – currently on Dead State, check it out – and implemented by Dan Spitzley), and the idea of having a limited cast of extremely reactive characters was a plus as far as I was concerned. I also liked how the game didn’t judge you, it simply showed you other people’s prejudices and judgments on your player character. I liked the hate-mances as much as the romances, I liked the handler perk mechanics, I liked buying intel, I liked the hints of how to tackle speech puzzles (especially if intentionally angering the target would get you an advantage based on a clue in the Intel), I liked how the game rewarded you for being a dick as much as being a hero in a positive light – there wasn’t any judgment there, either.I didn’t like the cinematic conversations (even though I liked the urgency), and I didn’t like the main character, nor did I like the fact he was voiced, either, even though I thought the voice work was good.

It may be because of Mass Effect, but I more have the general feel from MCA that he dislikes cinematic dialogs (at least in games he works on.)

It's possible.  I came to my conclusion here:

I never liked the cinematic feel of the game, but that was the request and one of the pillars, so we did that. I would rather all the animation budget have been spent on combat, stealth, or other game mechanics rather than cinematic conversations, and I felt anything we did would be a negative comparison to current RPG titles from studios who already had a lot more experience and pipelines for delivering that cinematic experience - our animators and designers did a great job, but we definitely didn't have the same resources and budget as other developers.

Source

Could very well be a combination of both, however.

[MerinTB]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

MerinTB wrote...
I dunno, I may be parsing this wrong - 

I will say that it did try to carve some new ground with the dialogue mechanics (which were done by Brian Mitsoda – currently on Dead State, check it out – and implemented by Dan Spitzley), and the idea of having a limited cast of extremely reactive characters was a plus as far as I was concerned. I also liked how the game didn’t judge you, it simply showed you other people’s prejudices and judgments on your player character. I liked the hate-mances as much as the romances, I liked the handler perk mechanics, I liked buying intel, I liked the hints of how to tackle speech puzzles (especially if intentionally angering the target would get you an advantage based on a clue in the Intel), I liked how the game rewarded you for being a dick as much as being a hero in a positive light – there wasn’t any judgment there, either.I didn’t like the cinematic conversations (even though I liked the urgency), and I didn’t like the main character, nor did I like the fact he was voiced, either, even though I thought the voice work was good.

It may be because of Mass Effect, but I more have the general feel from MCA that he dislikes cinematic dialogs (at least in games he works on.)

It's possible.  I came to my conclusion here:

I never liked the cinematic feel of the game, but that was the request and one of the pillars, so we did that. I would rather all the animation budget have been spent on combat, stealth, or other game mechanics rather than cinematic conversations, and I felt anything we did would be a negative comparison to current RPG titles from studios who already had a lot more experience and pipelines for delivering that cinematic experience - our animators and designers did a great job, but we definitely didn't have the same resources and budget as other developers.

Source

Could very well be a combination of both, however.

My source, since we're sharing.

I think you are right.  I think he both prefers to not use a cinematic dialog in his games AND he knew the comparison to Mass Effect would not be in AP's favor.

[Allan Schumacher]

But here is where we stand today. Bioware has fans of the DA franchise who really enjoyed something about DA:O. They felt like they did not get it for DA2. They pointed to the way DA:O did it (the silent protagonist) and said "here is why this worked for me and here is why DA2 didn't." Will DA3 make everyone happy? No. Even if it was the greatest game ever made, there will be some who say they hate it and that's just life.

At what point is it seeing what you want to see, when examining that?  How significant is the number of people that report how silent protagonist was one of the crux issues?

For example, there's a lot of people on this forum that tell me how awful the dialogue wheel is.  I know the number one complaint of people I personally know, was the "regression" DAO had by not using it.  They preferred the dialogue wheel.

There are a lot of things people don't like about DA2, many of them I agree with.  It can be difficult to discern the specific reasons for why DA2 didn't do as well as DAO, when compared to the sum of its parts.

It's easy to say "I want to play a mean, bad-ass character." It is quite another to imagine a character that has seen abuse all of their life, or who deeply fears and resents magic, or has a view of the world that is slightly askew. This type of character might be a wholly different person under differing circumstances - polite and nice in one instance, a rage of emotion in another. They may choose to treat two groups of people in ways that are night and day different from each other.

I'd argue that BioWare's games have not allowed you to do this for some time.  Probably going back to at least KOTOR, though admittedly I didn't play Jade Empire.

You can create all the history you want in KOTOR, but none of it is actually true.  You have to come up with rationalizations ex post facto when the reveal happens to still maintain congruity with one's backstory.

A player that has seen abuse all their life only works with specific Origins in DAO.  You can maybe attempt some insane mental gymnastics, but you'll never convince me that Cousland comes from an abusive setting.  Nor will you convince me that Dwarf Commoner had a mostly happy life.

[hoorayforicecream]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Zelto wrote...

hoorayforicecream wrote...

Game design by committee? Oh dear lord... no. Just... no. Bad idea. Awful. Horrible.

Games are already designed by a committee you can call it a working group, a development team, or whatever else.

You aren't going to win this argument. Hooray works in the video game industry, so any suggestions or interpretations of how the industry does or should work is probably going to be refuted.

I was going to just leave it as off-topic stuff, but I'll just clarify. Calling game development "design by committee" is like calling all programmers gameplay programmers (instead of tools programmers, engine programmers, graphics programmers, network programmers, gameplay programmers, etc.) because they all work on the game to some extent. While it's technically true, it's basically making the term meaningless because of how unspecific it is in the context.

When I say "design by committee", I mean that you have a group of people who are making final development decisions instead of just one. This is an awful idea - practically every game development team follows a hierarchy of leadership. Design by committee means that there isn't somebody who trumps everybody else. It means that there's multiple people at the executive producer level, and that they all have to agree on a course of action. The problem then becomes too many cooks spoiling the soup... it never works, because everyone has a different vision for what the game should be, and often those visions conflict.

It just doesn't work, and almost always ends up with a bad product. I've never seen it result in a good product. Designing the game solely around collated customer feedback is a terrible idea, because it's the combination of hundreds of thousands of disparate opinions. You need a singularity of vision to make a solid game, and you can't get that with a committee. I'm not dismissing the value of collated customer feedback, but it is far from the only (or even main) thing that should be considered when making major game decisions. It's got to be based on one person's leadership, because otherwise you don't get quality or consistency.

Modifié par hoorayforicecream, 17 mai 2013 - 12:37 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Im really sorry (I normally think your posts are very well writen and can understand your point even if I don't fully agree) but making a game should be solely about what the fans want, the majority, as not everyone will agree. When you don't listen or think that you know better than your customers you end up in trouble.

This means that we can never make anything new, because (unfortunately) fans rarely ask for anything new.  They ask for sequels.  They ask for things that they can draw reference to.

You can see this in the Kickstarters and the like.  People always ask Tim Schaefer for Psychonauts 2.  Or Grim Fandango 2.  The people that ask him to surprise them and do something new and fresh gets drowned out.

Should BioWare have made some mech sequel instead of Baldur's Gate?  How many Shattered Steel fans were clamouring for an isometric RPG from BioWare?

Imagine the world had BioWare not decided to shift to RPGs.

It also requires that, ultimately, you may want me to make that I don't want to make.  FPS games historically sell much better, and are easier to make, than BioWare's games.  I don't want to make FPS games, however, even if that's what a lot of people do want to play.

In the end, I'm ultimately still going to want to make a game that I believe has a market (since I enjoy being paid to do my job), but ideally I'd prefer it to line up with what it is I want to do at that particular moment in time.  This also includes mixing it up and trying new things that have never before been done.

That is most likely true that they wanted a voiced protaganist and for whatever reason couldn't get it. But as FastJimmy ask, once you make the decision to go a particular way in a series then you should stick to it, and if you don't stick to it then you should make sure that whatever you change it too is better and executed very well, which a large number of your fans would say you didn't do. If DA:O was voiced then no one (ok some would but thats life) would be complaining about it in DA:2. I don't think many people complain about Mass Effects voiced PC because it alway was.

I agree that changes should be executed better (things you don't change should be executed better as well).  My question then is, did you not know that a voiced protagonist was coming in?  Why did you not think it'd come with the costs of sacrificing single player?  Or rather, why would you go into DA2 and not be okay with the voiced PC, because as far as I know we weren't exactly cryptic with the voiced protagonist.

[Dave of Canada]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

How many Shattered Steel fans were clamouring for an isometric RPG from BioWare?

Still waiting on a sequel for Shattered Steel.

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 17 mai 2013 - 12:47 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Well that may well be true, however again it is the comany's responcability to
a) hire the right people who will work regardless, at the end of they day everyone will end up doing work they dislike at some point, a good employee is one who still works hard at it.
Ensure that their employees are happy through other means than just ensuring they are doing exactly what they want

I do things in my job all the time that I don't want to do. Because I am stoked and excited for DA3 and the promise I feel it has is why I resolve to do as good of a job as humanly possible on it, rather than something that is merely satisfactory.

Because I'm making something that I feel will be fun and awesome, it makes the "easy days" not even feel like work, and the "hard days" as something totally worth fighting through. Put me on a Facebook social game, and you better hope that I'm motivated through some other means (learning stuff, or something, I can't think of much) because my level of care in the product itself is not particularly high. It's going to be easier to rationalize "good enough."

[Allan Schumacher]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

But you do understand the value we see in the silent protagonist with full text dialogue options, yes?  The ability to choose exactly which line we would like delivered.  The ability to deliver that line however we choose.  And we want these things to avoid our character's word and behaviours from ever contradicting our design of that character's personality.  We build each character's beliefs, values, and goals, and then we have him act based on what we've built.  But if can't control what he says or how he says it (and using the voiced protagonist design we see in DA2, we can't), then that character creation effort is rendered pointless.

Yes, I understand why it's important to you and others.

I have understood this perspective ever since Mass Effect mentioned it was going to use a dialogue wheel.  I have seen people get upset because they didn't like the way Link sounded in Ocarina of Time (and he just grunted) because they imagined something different in all the other games.

This is not a new development by any means.

I still remember the disappointment many had when the transition went from keywords to specific, full lines.  I mean, here are the developers dictating precisely what words the player would use (and yes, I did have these discussions with people).

I, personally, have no interesting in playing a game that doesn't let me control my character's behaviour.

One of the many differences between Sylvius and myself.

[Fast Jimmy]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

But here is where we stand today. Bioware has fans of the DA franchise who really enjoyed something about DA:O. They felt like they did not get it for DA2. They pointed to the way DA:O did it (the silent protagonist) and said "here is why this worked for me and here is why DA2 didn't." Will DA3 make everyone happy? No. Even if it was the greatest game ever made, there will be some who say they hate it and that's just life.

At what point is it seeing what you want to see, when examining that?  How significant is the number of people that report how silent protagonist was one of the crux issues?

I'm not trying to say it is the majority of fans clamouring for this. If anything. I'd say it is likely a minority. Not a small minority, if I had to guess... but not the majority of BSN'ers, let alone the majority of fans.

Whether that population is big enough to worry about or not is up to Bioware. As well as how to address that population is addressed if they do. Do they try and accomodate? Bargain? Or even just educate in a way that says "hey, we haev decided we aren't going to do anything to build our game around this playstyle, so it may best to readjust your expectations." All of these options are valid. The option to ignore this population is an option, of course, but I don't think you'll see this population quiet down until it is abundantly clear that the design mindset to cater to this is gone.

It's easy to say "I want to play a mean, bad-ass character." It is quite another to imagine a character that has seen abuse all of their life, or who deeply fears and resents magic, or has a view of the world that is slightly askew. This type of character might be a wholly different person under differing circumstances - polite and nice in one instance, a rage of emotion in another. They may choose to treat two groups of people in ways that are night and day different from each other.

I'd argue that BioWare's games have not allowed you to do this for some time.  Probably going back to at least KOTOR, though admittedly I didn't play Jade Empire.

You can create all the history you want in KOTOR, but none of it is actually true.  You have to come up with rationalizations ex post facto when the reveal happens to still maintain congruity with one's backstory.

A player that has seen abuse all their life only works with specific Origins in DAO.  You can maybe attempt some insane mental gymnastics, but you'll never convince me that Cousland comes from an abusive setting.  Nor will you convince me that Dwarf Commoner had a mostly happy life.

True. KOTOR had a rather static background. And while DA:O and Jade Empire gave you options in your starting backgrounds, they weren't 100% blank slate or flexible. DA:O was seen as a step back towards that character direction, though. As DA:O Producer Dan Tudge said  when DA:O was revealed "Dragon Age: Origins really represents three real key elements. One is obviously the origins stories. The other is the return to BioWare's roots." A step to classic fantasy RPG design principles. It was certainly more cinematic than, say, NWN... but it was certainly less cinematic than KOTOR. At least, to my tastes (and I did like KOTOR). 

But once you get your hands around the set background of DA:O, you could craft lots of character ideas. Sylvius loves his favorite DA:O character, who was a coward and hated being a Gray Warden, but was cowed into being submissive. Before long, he attempted to run away from his problems to Haven, as far from the Darkspawn as the game would let you, where Sten confronted him about running away, challenged him to a duel for control of the party and was killed by the Qunari. End of story.

Sylvius likely couldn't have created that character without a large amount of prior knowledge gained from other play throughs, such as different locales available, different NPC and companion events/actions and a general understanding of the lore and the world. But once he knew those things, he could make this rather non-traditional character story. 

Now... could he make this coward with the full confidence and bluster that Hawke's VA gives? It would be much less believable. Could he have planned a playthrough that ended in the death of Hawke? Not really... the framed narrative pretty much tells us that Hawke lived to see the end of events (unless Varric was lying and Hawke died much earlier... or didn't exist at all). 

But the biggest obstacle... how could Sylvius play a coward? Neither DA:O no DA2 supports it in the least. In order to succeed, he had to pick his responses carefully from the dialogue list. But that's not possible in DA2, since you don't know what your character is going to say at any given time... either in the form of the paraphrased lines, the auto-dialogue or the dominant tone.

Now, I'm not saying a coward VA line should be recorded, as likely barely anyone would use it. But it goes to illustrate a point - one could play many types of characters, some FAR outside the intentions of the writing team, in DA:O, even with the set backgrounds. It does not require a blank slate protagonist, like FO:NV or Skyrim outlines, but could still work within more clearly defined backgrounds... as long as the player has solid control of the character and know what they will do and say beforehand. 

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 17 mai 2013 - 01:32 .