266 réponses à ce sujet

[David7204]

Let me get this straight.

You think that the real or perceived shortcomings of ME 3 were caused by a lack of disk space?

[PMC65]

David7204 wrote...

Game design does not work that way, writing does not work that way, and budgets do not work that way.

In any case, given the revenue multiplayer generates, it's likely that multiplayer subsidizes single player, not the other way around.

Based on what Allan Schumacher posted on the Dragon Age board, I would have to agree with you David.

Allan Schumacher wrote...

That's where things become even muddier. Something like multiplayer opens up additional potential revenue streams, so for some features it's possible to receive more funding than had that feature not been one put forth. The budget for any project is going to be determined based upon the the amount of costs it will take to deliver the project by a time, based on the potential revenues we can expect to make.


So while coming up with our plan, we could have game X and lets say it has a budget of $10 million for some easy math. We expect to make $20 million with this game. Now, if we also want to do Feature Y in our project and (based on whatever data we have to make our case) we can show that it'll get us an extra $100 million in revenue, and we expect it to cost $20 million to implement, then the idea of allocating $30 million instead of $10 million (200% more budget) is almost a trivial one.

Now these numbers are pulled out of my rear end just to illustrate the situation, but I am hoping it shows that determining how time and money is allocated, and where it should go, is not a particularly simple thing to do.

[Ticonderoga117]

However, the worst case scenario for multiplayer is that it'll actually cost them money.

Last time I checked (which has been ages so I could be wrong) the MP packs have been free and everything can be bought using credits earned in game. You do not need to spend a single hard earned cent at all. So the extreme worse case is that no one will spend a dime, and you make $0 from this new feature that took X amount of money to do. Now, server costs are Y. You are now eating into the initial profits from selling the game. Granted, this hinges on how many people spend money on MP and how much they do spend.

Is it really worth it to add MP, to a game series that would've already made a killer profit on just a single player campaign?

[TheProtheans]

David7204 wrote...

Let me get this straight.

You think that the real or perceived shortcomings of ME 3 were caused by a lack of disk space?

No, I never said or implied that.
You seem to be assuming that is what I am thinking.

I'm thinking if you're to make a rewrite then you may as well not include multiplayer as it will only limit the content you can put in the game and it is an unnecessary distraction.
It's clear to me ME3 would have been badly written either way, extra space would not help them write better.
So for it to be good it would have to be rewritten as it was destined to be the way it currently is.

[PMC65]

Ticonderoga117 wrote...

However, the worst case scenario for multiplayer is that it'll actually cost them money.

Last time I checked (which has been ages so I could be wrong) the MP packs have been free and everything can be bought using credits earned in game. You do not need to spend a single hard earned cent at all. So the extreme worse case is that no one will spend a dime, and you make $0 from this new feature that took X amount of money to do. Now, server costs are Y. You are now eating into the initial profits from selling the game. Granted, this hinges on how many people spend money on MP and how much they do spend.

Is it really worth it to add MP, to a game series that would've already made a killer profit on just a single player campaign?

Anything that loses money is never a good thing. Basic accounting.

Have they made money on ME3 MP? You would need to ask Bioware/EA.
 
But what his post suggests (though should not be taken as truth to ME3) is that the single players may have seen additional content due to the increase of budget, as a result of MP.  

[Fixers0]

AlanC9 wrote...
Why are the raw numbers of collection quests a sensible way to look at this in the first place? By gameplay hour ME3 has less time-wasting crap than ME1 does, even if you tick off more things on the quest list while doing it.

Unfortunatly, once again Time is way too subjective to each player for it to be used as anccurate indicator as to how big of a part fetch quest or collection quest in the first place. I look at the objective numbers the games provides and and compare them to eachother.

Besides "Time wasting crap" is totally subjective statment anyway. I consider Curing the genophage to be a huge waste of time, but hey who am I?

[Kataphrut94]

They'd have to have been money off multiplayer, or they wouldn't have released all the DLC packs for free. I have to admit I've been guilty of dropping a few MS points on those Premium Spectre packs myself; a few drops in the ocean, but it all adds up.

Getting back to the game, if you are proposing a re-write, it is important to clarify the suggestions you're making. "More character interaction" and "more focus on Reapers" are not valid suggestions, especially considering Mass Effect 3 already had more of those things compared to the other games to begin with.

If you wanted to re-write it to incorporate the Crucible better, the original setup on Mars is about as good as you're going to get; too late and it becomes a convenience, too early and you'd be re-writing Mass Effect 2 as well. I like the idea someone suggested of getting to decide how to upgrade it as a weapon versus a controlling device. Perhaps you could work it into the factions you recruit; the turians want to make it a weapon, the salarians propose the control idea, asari defer to the one you pick, quarians add the anti-synthetic measures, geth cancel that out to create an overall stronger beam, etc. The other war assets you get would simply improve the quality, like how EMS already works.

Modifié par Kataphrut94, 07 juin 2013 - 10:44 .

[Fixers0]

We could just cut the Crucible out as well, because pretty much everything about it was broken.

[Eryri]

Fixers0 wrote...

We could just cut the Crucible out as well, because pretty much everything about it was broken.

That would be a good start.

I sometimes think it was a mistake having the Reapers actually make it to the Galaxy. Certainly at the start of the game. It makes Sovereign's desperate attempt to reactive the darkspace relay in ME1 seem rather pointless, if the other reapers could cover the distance themselves so quickly. 

Perhaps the game should have begun with reports of a small group of weakened Reapers limping in towards the edge of the galaxy? They would have been exhausted and damaged by burning through all their energy reserves to cover the vast distance from their hiding place in darkpace. They might then have been believably defeated by the Council species, but a few of them, including Harbinger, could have escaped into the galaxy. Shepard would then have to uncover whatever plot they had to open a portal to bring in the bulk of the Reaper forces still trapped out there.

Modifié par Eryri, 07 juin 2013 - 11:32 .

[dorktainian]

I would show at the very beginning of the game Shepard lying in the rubble and taking the breath, before going back in time towards his trial on earth - and then following the gameflow from there. I would actually introduce to one of the characters (say for example Ashley) a deep distrust of the Crudible and maybe a deep distrust of Liara as well. I would build into the game information that will suggest that we aint going to win this - thus placing our characters at a low ebb. I would bring the game round to flow once again to the moment shepard takes 'the breath' allowing some context of the opening and then having Shepard organise the fleets and take on the reapers and win.

[fainmaca]

All this talk about ME2 being the root of ME3's problems... it has me thinking.

Would it have been better received if, rather than 'Human colonies are being abducted', we faced the overarching threat of 'the Protheans have returned, and they're working for the Reapers!', with sites of particular achaeological significance being destroyed before useful tools and research can be reclaimed from them. The Collectors are introduced to the setting, but not immediately revealed as the Protheans in Husk form. Maybe they even serve as allies, although eventually ulterior motives are revealed. Rather, whenever we are on the trail of these Reaper minions, we only encounter Husks of contemporary species. Cerberus still serve as our backers for the mission, as no one else wants to admit Reapers exist, but obviously there's the slant of them wanting the technologies the Reapers want destroyed/ reclaimed, purely to use for Humanity's benefit.

The same basic storyline of gathering a team of specialists (possibly making Mordin a little more of a Prothean expert in the process for story reasons) can be told, eventually getting to the twist of 'The Collectors are the Protheans!' and a betrayal sequence (Collector Ship, maybe? It always bothers me that Shep keeps working with TIM after being sent knowingly into a trap like that). Then it becomes figuring out their base location, Reaper IFF, so on and so forth. Suicide Mission plays out pretty much as before.

Take out the 'Reapers are made from people' scenes that lead to the Terminator, but still establish the 'destructive analysis' and mental uploading that was bandied about a while back. instead of a Reaper larvae, we face the Collector General, aka Harbinger. After that, the choice between saving and destroying the base plays out like before, and we have the epic 'reapers on our doorstep' scene to finish off.

Granted, it doesn't leave us in a much better position to fight Reapers in ME3, but it certainly feels like we didn't waste time, and the various ruins the Collectors were raiding can be put to use giving us vital technologies. Most importantly, its not too different to what we already have, and that's important because many players (myself included) love ME2 as it is, and wouldn't want to mess with the formula too much.

This is just a few minutes juggling with the ideas on my lunch break. I'm sure a bit more thought could further refine it.

Modifié par fainmaca, 07 juin 2013 - 01:11 .

[chemiclord]

fainmaca wrote...

All this talk about ME2 being the root of ME3's problems... it has me thinking.

Would it have been better received if, rather than 'Human colonies are being abducted', we faced the overarching threat of 'the Protheans have returned, and they're working for the Reapers!', with sites of particular achaeological significance being destroyed before useful tools and research can be reclaimed from them. The Collectors are introduced to the setting, but not immediately revealed as the Protheans in Husk form. Maybe they even serve as allies, although eventually ulterior motives are revealed. Rather, whenever we are on the trail of these Reaper minions, we only encounter Husks of contemporary species. Cerberus still serve as our backers for the mission, as no one else wants to admit Reapers exist, but obviously there's the slant of them wanting the technologies the Reapers want destroyed/ reclaimed, purely to use for Humanity's benefit.

The same basic storyline of gathering a team of specialists (possibly making Mordin a little more of a Prothean expert in the process for story reasons) can be told, eventually getting to the twist of 'The Collectors are the Protheans!' and a betrayal sequence (Collector Ship, maybe? It always bothers me that Shep keeps working with TIM after being sent knowingly into a trap like that). Then it becomes figuring out their base location, Reaper IFF, so on and so forth. Suicide Mission plays out pretty much as before.

Take out the 'Reapers are made from people' scenes that lead to the Terminator, but still establish the 'destructive analysis' and mental uploading that was bandied about a while back. instead of a Reaper larvae, we face the Collector General, aka Harbinger. After that, the choice between saving and destroying the base plays out like before, and we have the epic 'reapers on our doorstep' scene to finish off.

Granted, it doesn't leave us in a much better position to fight Reapers in ME3, but it certainly feels like we didn't waste time, and the various ruins the Collectors were raiding can be put to use giving us vital technologies. Most importantly, its not too different to what we already have, and that's important because many players (myself included) love ME2 as it is, and wouldn't want to mess with the formula too much.

This is just a few minutes juggling with the ideas on my lunch break. I'm sure a bit more thought could further refine it.

I like the actual story concept here, it actually connects ME2 to the primary storyline this way.

The only thing I would suggest is that the Suicide Mission is at the heart of the logistic problems of ME3.  A lot of the walls Bioware hit had to do with the number of permutations the "anyone can die" mechanic the Suicide Mission created, especially since two of them were potential members of your ME3 squad, and two others potentially played significant story roles in ME3 (Mordin and Legion).  

Every scene had to be written assuming the possibility one of those characters weren't present, and dialogue had to be recorded the same way multiple times for multiple characters, decimating the word budget and logistics of the game itself.

I personally would have saved that mechanic for ME3, and had a much more structured Suicide Mission of ME2.

[Iakus]

TheProtheans wrote...

The problem with ME3 is that it is a plot hole ridden game, EC both fixes and makes it worse.
Well mainly just some of the problems near the of the game.
Literally you're telling us to make ME2 better, we're going to have foreshadow a terrible device that has no realistic background even in the MEU, apart from turtles ofcourse.
To make something that is terribly written to make sense we have to also make something else that is terribly written to explain it.
I for one don't wish to waste time rewriting ME2 just to give it a worse plot line taken from another game.



The only reason I would even consider rewriting ME2, is to make it foreshadow/build towards something in a newly constructed plot for ME3 that is completely different from the crap we got.

That's not precisely what I'm saying.  Though there are elements of that.  

I'm sticking with the Crucible mainly because it's if we dumped that, we're pretty much creating a whole new game.  For the purpose of this exercise I wanted to keep the same elements, but rework them to function better.

Part of that would be making is less than a complete, umm "rectum extraction" by at least making the previous game about searching for a means to fight the Reapers.  Rather than an assault on a base that ends up playing no role at all in the next game.

 I  mean, sure we could come up with a better way to defeat the reapers than "ancient superweapon" but I'm assuming this is the only tool in the chest.

[SpamBot2000]

Eryri wrote...

Fixers0 wrote...

We could just cut the Crucible out as well, because pretty much everything about it was broken.

That would be a good start.

I sometimes think it was a mistake having the Reapers actually make it to the Galaxy. Certainly at the start of the game. It makes Sovereign's desperate attempt to reactive the darkspace relay in ME1 seem rather pointless, if the other reapers could cover the distance themselves so quickly. 

Perhaps the game should have begun with reports of a small group of weakened Reapers limping in towards the edge of the galaxy? They would have been exhausted and damaged by burning through all their energy reserves to cover the vast distance from their hiding place in darkpace. They might then have been believably defeated by the Council species, but a few of them, including Harbinger, could have escaped into the galaxy. Shepard would then have to uncover whatever plot they had to open a portal to bring in the bulk of the Reaper forces still trapped out there.

I certainly would have preferred this. But apparently BW had to have their "Earth swarmed by Reaper horde" cinematic moment.

[Eryri]

SpamBot2000 wrote...

I certainly would have preferred this. But apparently BW had to have their "Earth swarmed by Reaper horde" cinematic moment.

Yeah, I'll admit it looked cool in the trailers, but to have that invasion of Earth right at the beginning of the game threw the pacing right off, in my opinion. You had this constant tension between wanting to take your time completing all the side quests, and the sense that you had to rush because the Reapers were mulching people by the thousand every minute. 

Of course in reality you had no need to rush, because that sense of urgency was an illusion. You could take as long as you wanted in most cases and it didn't affect anything. But the effect was jarring to me nonetheless.

I think they raised the stakes too much and too fast. There would have been a good opportunity for slowly building paranoia, knowing that the Reapers were on their way, out in the darkness. Instead the story's dramatic curve peaked too early with the attack on Earth. That could have waited until the middle or even the end of the game.

Modifié par Eryri, 07 juin 2013 - 08:43 .

[AlanC9]

TheProtheans wrote...

David7204 wrote...

Let me get this straight.

You think that the real or perceived shortcomings of ME 3 were caused by a lack of disk space?

No, I never said or implied that.
You seem to be assuming that is what I am thinking.

I imagine he assumed that because you posted this:

If they can't make something better with extra disc space..

Saying "extra disc space" sure sounded like you were talking about disc space.

As for the actual argument:

I'm thinking if you're to make a rewrite then you may as well not include multiplayer as it will only limit the content you can put in the game and it is an unnecessary distraction.
It's clear to me ME3 would have been badly written either way, extra space would not help them write better.
So for it to be good it would have to be rewritten as it was destined to be the way it currently is.

.. it still doesn't make sense. Is the MP a limit, or not?

[AlanC9]

Fixers0 wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...
Why are the raw numbers of collection quests a sensible way to look at this in the first place? By gameplay hour ME3 has less time-wasting crap than ME1 does, even if you tick off more things on the quest list while doing it.

Unfortunatly, once again Time is way too subjective to each player for it to be used as anccurate indicator as to how big of a part fetch quest or collection quest in the first place. I look at the objective numbers the games provides and and compare them to eachother.

So you prefer to talk about objective numbers even if they're not meaningful numbers?

Modifié par AlanC9, 07 juin 2013 - 08:53 .

[Fixers0]

AlanC9 wrote...

So you prefer to talk about objective numbers even if they're not meaningful numbers?

Whether you consider meaningfull or not is irrelevant at this point, they are the ingame controllable cold facts. so yes I prefer to use facts rather then opinions as arguments.

[AlanC9]

chemiclord wrote...

I personally would have saved that mechanic for ME3, and had a much more structured Suicide Mission of ME2.

It certainly would free up ME3 resources. Thing is, how is the ME2 loyalty mechanic going to play out without the SM consequences? I'm not quite sure what you're thinking of as an SM replacement.

[AlanC9]

Fixers0 wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

So you prefer to talk about objective numbers even if they're not meaningful numbers?

Whether you consider meaningfull or not is irrelevant at this point, they are the ingame controllable cold facts. so yes I prefer to use facts rather then opinions as arguments.

The problem with your arguments is that your facts aren't proving what you're trying to use them to prove. The only thing your numbers prove is the ME3 had more things on the quest list that could be checked off by scanning and picking up objects during missions.

That's true. But it's meaningless. All you've done is displace the meaning question to the conclusion rather than handle it earlier.

We can still talk about why your numbers are meaningful, but you'll have to make a case for it.

Modifié par AlanC9, 07 juin 2013 - 09:09 .

[Fixers0]

AlanC9 wrote...

The problem with your arguments is that your facts aren't proving what you're trying to use them to prove. The only thing your numbers prove is the ME3 had more things on the quest list that could be checked off by scanning and picking up objects during missions.

That's true. But it's meaningless.

My numbers prove my point that In ME1 only 5 out 73 mission can be catgorized as fetch quest where as in ME3 this number 31 out of 68. if you consider that to be meaningless then I have to ask question which kind of logic you're following here.

[TheProtheans]

AlanC9 wrote...

TheProtheans wrote...

David7204 wrote...

Let me get this straight.

You think that the real or perceived shortcomings of ME 3 were caused by a lack of disk space?

No, I never said or implied that.
You seem to be assuming that is what I am thinking.

I imagine he assumed that because you posted this:

If they can't make something better with extra disc space..

Saying "extra disc space" sure sounded like you were talking about disc space.

As for the actual argument:

I'm thinking if you're to make a rewrite then you may as well not include multiplayer as it will only limit the content you can put in the game and it is an unnecessary distraction.
It's clear to me ME3 would have been badly written either way, extra space would not help them write better.
So for it to be good it would have to be rewritten as it was destined to be the way it currently is.

.. it still doesn't make sense. Is the MP a limit, or not?

I was talking about disc space and as such later referenced in the latter part of the post.
The question is not really what I meant but more how you precieve the word "better" to mean in game development.
If I was to guess I would say you assume it to mean storytelling and writing quality, however better is more broad than that.
A rewrite would improve the writing quality.
It doesn't make sense because you think better refers to the storytelling, when in fact the explorative nature of gaming that was cut from ME3 after been in two previous installments could have benefited from MP not taking up disc space.
There are also things mentioned by the crew that were cut or not improved because of the space limit.

[AlanC9]

Fixers0 wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

The problem with your arguments is that your facts aren't proving what you're trying to use them to prove. The only thing your numbers prove is the ME3 had more things on the quest list that could be checked off by scanning and picking up objects during missions.

That's true. But it's meaningless.

My numbers prove my point that In ME1 only 5 out 73 mission can be catgorized as fetch quest where as in ME3 this number 31 out of 68. if you consider that to be meaningless then I have to ask question which kind of logic you're following here.

Sure. The raw number of missions says nothing about  the development time used to produce those missions nor the amount of time taken to play those missions, nor the experience of playing the game. I don't anything useful the number tells us, in fact.

Your turn. What do those numbers tell us?

[Fixers0]

AlanC9 wrote...

Sure. The raw number of missions says nothing about  the development time used to produce those missions nor the amount of time taken to play those missions, nor the experience of playing the game. I don't anything useful the number tells us, in fact.

I'm starting to repeat myself here, but being the generous person I am, i will repeat myself once again. The Numbers I've brought forward show that in ME1 only 5 out of 73 assigments can be classified as fetch quests where as in ME3 this number 31 out of 68, as substantially larger amount then in the earlier installments.

[AlanC9]

TheProtheans wrote...

I was talking about disc space and as such later referenced in the latter part of the post.
The question is not really what I meant but more how you precieve the word "better" to mean in game development.
If I was to guess I would say you assume it to mean storytelling and writing quality, however better is more broad than that.
A rewrite would improve the writing quality.
It doesn't make sense because you think better refers to the storytelling, when in fact the explorative nature of gaming that was cut from ME3 after been in two previous installments could have benefited from MP not taking up disc space.
There are also things mentioned by the crew that were cut or not improved because of the space limit.

Wait a minute... now you were talking about disc space? So what did David get wrong? (I took out the nested quotes since this is getting a bit silly)

I don't know why you think that the limiting factor on ME3's size was disk space rather than funding, or that Bio would have put more exploration in if they had had more disk space. There's no reason to think either is true.

 And in any event, cutting MP would very likely have resulted in less funding for the SP. I guess you could still add more exploration if you cut other stuff from the SP to make up the funding, though. You wouldn't get much disk space freed up since all the MP maps were in SP anyway.

Modifié par AlanC9, 07 juin 2013 - 09:25 .