253 réponses à ce sujet

[Mathias]

The comments are more insufferable than the video.

[DMaster2]

People seriously expect the third game of a rpg series will waste 20 minutes introducing things already present in previous games? If you decide to start with a third chapter, you either do your homework or expect to get a little confused at the beginning.

[Allan Schumacher]

While I think it comes down to masking, or creativity, the "Fetch" quest is never leaving RPGs.

 

- Save princess

- Infiltrate castle

- Get 10 meats

- Stop the Blight

 

They're all derivative of "Fetch" quests... you were "Fetching" the Urn of Sacred Ashes so you could "fetch" Eamon for the Landsmeet... then off to "fetch" elves, mages and dwarves for the war against the archdaemon.

 

Hawke "Fetched" 50 gold to go on an expedition - then "Fetched" the Tome of Koslun or the Arishoks hide to make the Qunari leave - then Fetched... then you fetch bomb materials to allow Anders to become the main protagonist.

 

Yes - I understand that "get 10 meats" can be boring... it's also always totally optional.  That you "have" to complete it is not a failure of game design. 

 

This is so not a Con for me... or I'd hate RPGs.

 

 

When I was an intern at the University of Alberta, one of the grad students I worked with did some research on quest patterns (the idea being exploring automated/assisted quest generation).  One of the fundamental types he identified was "Retrieve an item" (another being kill a creature).  Fundamentally you'll likely be able to turn a great many quests into fetch quests, it's just about how they are dressed up within the narrative structure.  I mean, Origins' main plot is a large fetch quest, because it's about retrieving the treaties.

 

 

Granted, that one is involved and there's a lot of steps along the way.  There will indeed be smaller scale "fetch" quests in the game.  Fetch quests also serve a bread crumbing type of purpose for points of interest in the game, and supplement an explorers mentality.  An explorer may enjoy exploring in and of itself, but providing an addition narrative reason for heading into a region can be a benefit for people, even if it's not a super in depth reason.

 

For some they'll go "eh, I want something more interesting."  I do think that we have enough to do in the game that this is valid (they can skip that particular quest) and you won't be left wanting more.

 

As the video pointed out, we do have a quest to go hunting (in an area where other quests are also done, for an animal that is found throughout the region), and the narrative reason for doing so is because there's an area with refugees and people need food, and it narratively fits in to the Inquisition growing its influence because it's helping the local population and building its respect and influence.  People will speak more positively of the Inquisition as a result, so to speak.

[delijoe]

I'll of course make up my own mind when I play it, but it's obvious PC gamers problems boil down to "It's different therefore it sucks".

[Alodar]

When I was an intern at the University of Alberta, one of the grad students I worked with did some research on quest patterns (the idea being exploring automated/assisted quest generation).  One of the fundamental types he identified was "Retrieve an item" (another being kill a creature).  Fundamentally you'll likely be able to turn a great many quests into fetch quests, it's just about how they are dressed up within the narrative structure.  I mean, Origins' main plot is a large fetch quest, because it's about retrieving the treaties.

 

 

Granted, that one is involved and there's a lot of steps along the way.  There will indeed be smaller scale "fetch" quests in the game.  Fetch quests also serve a bread crumbing type of purpose for points of interest in the game, and supplement an explorers mentality.  An explorer may enjoy exploring in and of itself, but providing an addition narrative reason for heading into a region can be a benefit for people, even if it's not a super in depth reason.

 

For some they'll go "eh, I want something more interesting."  I do think that we have enough to do in the game that this is valid (they can skip that particular quest) and you won't be left wanting more.

 

As the video pointed out, we do have a quest to go hunting (in an area where other quests are also done, for an animal that is found throughout the region), and the narrative reason for doing so is because there's an area with refugees and people need food, and it narratively fits in to the Inquisition growing its influence because it's helping the local population and building its respect and influence.  People will speak more positively of the Inquisition as a result, so to speak.

 

And let's not forget that the Lord of the Rings trilogy is just one long Fed Ex Quest: Deliver this ring to this mountain.

 

Even intricate and expansive stories can be trivialized if you try hard enough.

[robotnist]

And creating a stand-alone topic for the impressions of one of the absolute worst gaming magazines out there, was necessary... why exactly?

 

But really, did anyone expect the game not to have inconsequential quests like these? They're a constant companion of RPGs, no matter the size of the game or its origin.

yeah i feel like any time i hear "DA2 ruined my life" or "so sick of killing 10 rats and gathering 5 herbs", its just like a gamers version of a politician's lip service. people just get stuck on things and apply them whenever they get the chance... i get sick of hearing this ****. its all that internet negativity bullshit swirl. if you have an issue, just play the main game and skip side quests. you will still get a 30+ hour quest!!

[Varus Praetor]

No one is denying that quests can be trivialized down to a basic element, usually either "fetch me something, kill me something, and good old kill this then bring something from its corpse."  However, how much you have to work to trivialize a quest is important.  As a previous poster said, you can reduce the LotR saga to a delivery quest if you try hard enough to remove the detail that managed to fill 3 rather thick books.  But how hard is it really to trivialize the DA:I "fetch me 10 ram meat" quest?  I don't know, doesn't sound very hard and it sounds like the initial 5 hours is chock full of similar quests.  That's an issue.  Quests of that level of simplicity where the basic "formula" hasn't been hidden behind a well crafted story are disappointing, especially in volume.

 

It's disturbing to find such content in a BW game, but what's more disturbing is the reaction from so many of the posters.  "Just skip those quests."  "Those are optional, bonus." Etc. Why am I paying for an open world game capable of 120+ hours if everything but the 50 main story hours is content of such drudgery that the expectation is that we'll skip it unless we desperately need the levels (or love that kind of material)?  Additionally, if BW was incapable of generating sufficient high quality quest content to fill such a large open world, why the HELL did you make it so big?

 

In essence, when I purchase a game from a AAA developer, my expectation is to NOT have to skip significant portions of the content.  I hope that the reviews have no been reflective of the actual game and that the majority of the DA:I side quests are high quality with an engaging story.  Otherwise completionists like me are likely to be in for a rough time come 11/18.

[seraphymon]

No one is denying that quests can be trivialized down to a basic element, usually either "fetch me something, kill me something, and good old kill this then bring something from its corpse."  However, how much you have to work to trivialize a quest is important.  As a previous poster said, you can reduce the LotR saga to a delivery quest if you try hard enough to remove the detail that managed to fill 3 rather thick books.  But how hard is it really to trivialize the DA:I "fetch me 10 ram meat" quest?  I don't know, doesn't sound very hard and it sounds like the initial 5 hours is chock full of similar quests.  That's an issue.  Quests of that level of simplicity where the basic "formula" hasn't been hidden behind a well crafted story are disappointing, especially in volume.

 

It's disturbing to find such content in a BW game, but what's more disturbing is the reaction from so many of the posters.  "Just skip those quests."  "Those are optional, bonus." Etc. Why am I paying for an open world game capable of 120+ hours if everything but the 50 main story hours is content of such drudgery that the expectation is that we'll skip it unless we desperately need the levels (or love that kind of material)?  Additionally, if BW was incapable of generating sufficient high quality quest content to fill such a large open world, why the HELL did you make it so big?

 

In essence, when I purchase a game from a AAA developer, my expectation is to NOT have to skip significant portions of the content.  I hope that the reviews have no been reflective of the actual game and that the majority of the DA:I side quests are high quality with an engaging story.  Otherwise completionists like me are likely to be in for a rough time come 11/18.

100x this!    Bottom line. If your gonna make something make it good, dont half ass it. and if this world is 60% fetch, 30% interesting or story related. There is little point to a more open world other than to just look at.

[Mukora]

Is there ever much point to an open world than to just look at it?

 

Personally, I'm fine with the fetch quests. Their only real purpose is to make exploring the open feel more involved, and that's cool with me.

 

I mean, has anyone here played the original Baldur's Gate? That game was filled with huge areas that basically had no narrative reason for existing. And that was great. It was really fun to just go exploring and discover a wasteland full of basilisks that had no connection to the plot.

[Lebanese Dude]

Is there ever much point to an open world than to just look at it?

Personally, I'm fine with the fetch quests. Their only real purpose is to make exploring the open feel more involved, and that's cool with me.

I mean, has anyone here played the original Baldur's Gate? That game was filled with huge areas that basically had no narrative reason for existing. And that was great. It was really fun to just go exploring and discover a wasteland full of basilisks that had no connection to the plot.

Discovering random events and locations in Fallout 3

[Who Knows]

Am I the only one who liked the "stalker" method of delivering quests? It just made so much more sense to me than people unburdening themselves on a random stranger. "Hey, you've got a face! I trust you to handle a sensitive matter for me! I need you to go tickle my archrival."

A mix of both is good, imo.

[Bronson]

Why am I paying for an open world game capable of 120+ hours if everything but the 50 main story hours is content of such drudgery that the expectation is that we'll skip it unless we desperately need the levels (or love that kind of material)?

Additionally, if BW was incapable of generating sufficient high quality quest content to fill such a large open world, why the HELL did you make it so big?

 
That's a good question that you should really ask yourself.
 
You now have a pretty good understanding of the game. From the sounds of things it isn't what you want it to be, so then why would you buy it?
 
As to why they made it so big maybe they feel there are many more people that would prefer to play a large open world and will enjoy the exploration side of things as opposed to those that won't.
 
You know, cater to the majority and all that business stuff...

[Allan Schumacher]

Hawke was obviously just doing his/her best Sherlock impression:

Hawke: "Hmm, a pair of trousers. Judging from the shortness of the legs, I'd say they belong to a dwarf. A man, going by their size. The waist is unusually stretched, so I'd say we're looking for a podgy fellow, though the excrement stains on the backside suggest that whilst he eats a lot, he has a poor diet. There's a strong smell of urine coming from them too, so quite likely he resides somewhere unsanitary - I'd say Darktown but the dirt marks are drier and lighter, more akin to those commonly seen in Lowtown. There's alchohol too, which suggest an addiction to drink - possibly he spends his nights drinking himself into a stupor in Lowtown's taverns. And the odour is an exact match for Corf's special brew, so I deduce that we can find the owner of these trousers near The Hanged Man tonight and return them to him."

Varric: "That's great Hawke. We killed the dragon, by the way. Though Aveline could have used your healing *before* she passed out. It's fine, I doubt she'll be angry at you when she comes to."


...At least, that's how I'm headcanoning it.
Shepard is just a stalker, I guess.

 

This did make me laugh
 

[Varus Praetor]

 
That's a good question that you should really ask yourself.
 
You now have a pretty good understanding of the game. From the sounds of things it isn't what you want it to be, so then why would you buy it?
 
As to why they made it so big maybe they feel there are many more people that would prefer to play a large open world and will enjoy the exploration side of things as opposed to those that won't.
 
You know, cater to the majority and all that business stuff...

 

And that's my point.  Either it needs to ALL be content that a majority of consumers would find engaging or BW should have skipped the "vast open world" full of meaningless trash quests if most of us are going to end up skipping them to get to "the good stuff."  Otherwise, why buy it?

 

It remains to be seen how DA:I will turn out and I very much challenge your assertion that there is a majority of gamers that want a BW game where 70+ hours of content is "find some blankets, get 10 ram meat."  That might work for WoW or other MMOs that have a content grind and subscriptions, but expectations are different for AAA single player RPGs. Especially ones from developers who made their name on the basis of their storytelling.

[Bronson]

And that's my point.  Either it needs to ALL be content that a majority of consumers would find engaging or BW should have skipped the "vast open world" full of meaningless trash quests if most of us are going to end up skipping them to get to "the good stuff."  Otherwise, why buy it?
 
It remains to be seen how DA:I will turn out and I very much challenge your assertion that there is a majority of gamers that want a BW game where 70+ hours of content is "find some blankets, get 10 ram meat."  That might work for WoW or other MMOs that have a content grind and subscriptions, but expectations are different for AAA single player RPGs. Especially ones from developers who made their name on the basis of their storytelling.

 
 
I have to admit i find it pretty frustrating at the amount of people on this forum that feel that they have a right for the game to be made to their specifications.
 
I'm not talking about the people that discuss things they like and don't ect but the people that make statements like yours that stipulate the way the game should be made and what's "trash" and what isn't.

You do realize that exploration is not just fetch quests right...
 
Do you think they made the game the way the majority of buyers don't want it?
 
Do you think they didn't do extensive research before pouring Millions into it?

[Aurok]

It's pretty disingenuous to suddenly pretend we can't tell the difference between an MMO style 'Collect / Kill 10 X' quest and 'Find the Urn of Sacred Ashes' etc. Nice try though.

The MMO style 'Collect X' missions are just straight up padding, and it'll be a real shame if DAI is littered with them and balanced around them. The Ubisoft open world games in particular have gone heavily in this direction in recent years and they aren't better for it.

[DuckTheSecond]

I really fail to see the problem with the fetch quests. Why would it compromise the main story? Why would they not be able to both have a good story and have simple fetch quests? How such quests would ruin a game to the point of a person not buying it is beyond me.

 

Sure, the game will have flaws and stuff you don't like, but why would that make it a bad game?

[The Elder King]

I really fail to see the problem with the fetch quests. Why would it compromise the main story? Why would they not be able to both have a good story and have simple fetch quests? How such quests would ruin a game to the point of a person not buying it is beyond me.
 
Sure, the game will have flaws and stuff you don't like, but why would that make it a bad game?

I don't have a problem with fetch quests. I'll have a problem in the case there aren't side quests (or are too few) like The one in The past.
Which We don't know yet. I hope some reviews will clarify this next week.

[Nohvarr]

Here's an idea. Let's list all the Quests we currently know about from various sources and at different point in the games narrative..

[dub]

There's some thoughts from Chris Thursten of PC Gamer on the Crate and Crowbar podcast:

 

 

Starts at (1:19:45), discusses dropping the character into the world/infodumping at (1:37:00) 

His impression was far more positive than Tom and Tim's comments, and he contrasts his opinions with theirs. Worth a listen if you have the time.

 

-Points out the busywork is totally optional and you can gain power (to advance the main story) in other ways.

-Does acknowledge the abrupt "just go with it" introduction and then all the minor objectives that instantly pop up afterward might annoy.

-Minor spoiler about how the world reacts to you as a elf.

[berrieh]

No one is denying that quests can be trivialized down to a basic element, usually either "fetch me something, kill me something, and good old kill this then bring something from its corpse."  However, how much you have to work to trivialize a quest is important.  As a previous poster said, you can reduce the LotR saga to a delivery quest if you try hard enough to remove the detail that managed to fill 3 rather thick books.  But how hard is it really to trivialize the DA:I "fetch me 10 ram meat" quest?  I don't know, doesn't sound very hard and it sounds like the initial 5 hours is chock full of similar quests.  That's an issue.  Quests of that level of simplicity where the basic "formula" hasn't been hidden behind a well crafted story are disappointing, especially in volume.

 

It's disturbing to find such content in a BW game, but what's more disturbing is the reaction from so many of the posters.  "Just skip those quests."  "Those are optional, bonus." Etc. Why am I paying for an open world game capable of 120+ hours if everything but the 50 main story hours is content of such drudgery that the expectation is that we'll skip it unless we desperately need the levels (or love that kind of material)?  Additionally, if BW was incapable of generating sufficient high quality quest content to fill such a large open world, why the HELL did you make it so big?

 

In essence, when I purchase a game from a AAA developer, my expectation is to NOT have to skip significant portions of the content.  I hope that the reviews have no been reflective of the actual game and that the majority of the DA:I side quests are high quality with an engaging story.  Otherwise completionists like me are likely to be in for a rough time come 11/18.

 

I want to address 2 issues: 1) "the first 6 hours" and 2) completionists

 

FIRST SIX HOURS 

I believe that these demos/previews are story-locked. So, naturally, after you finish the small bit of main story you're allowed to access, the quests that pop up in the Hinterlands (the only area they can go to, so far as I know) is several hours of fussing about in the woods, in the very beginning of an RPG story. I imagine that many story-important side-quests won't all be available at the get-go, that you will need to build power and influence for them or that they will unlock timed with events, because that is what makes logical sense to me (I could be wrong). I also imagine that if the Hinterlands is a starting area, a lot of the things to do - at least in the first part of that area - will be easy tasks to serve as tutorial for you to get used to the game. I think looking at their 6 hour preview as YOUR first 6 hours is incorrect. However, it's worth noting, plenty of reviewers did feel there was story and purpose to their 6 hours. 

 

COMPLETIONISTS

I am often a completionist too. However, RPG completionists need to understand how rare they are and that a game is rarely built to their specifications. Most people don't finish games. Most people certainly don't fully complete an open-world RPG. 

 

Adding in a large array of "fetch quests" related to the events of the world (the wars, the breaches, etc) with thematic ties but not thorough writing allows the average player to see a large and teeming world. The average player doesn't feel the need to complete EVERY SINGLE ONE. The average player appreciates a pool of these to build power, feel immersed, drive exploration, etc, and ignores the ones they don't want to do without worrying about it. 

 

First of all, DA:O had a fair amount of fetch quests and story-lite quests; people seem to idealize it, but I skipped all that stuff in a recent playthrough, and it doesn't stop at Lothering. It's almost everywhere - find this vial, fetch me ironbark, collect love letters, do this ritual, etc. They were tinged in lore, so fun for a first playthrough but not fun again and again. An open-world game doesn't work without a wider-array of quests. So there will be more of those - they still look tinged in lore and purpose, which is important. But the good news about more is that it gives you an array to do or not do in different playthroughs, drives exploration, and allows options for how to build power/influence in each region. 

 

Bioware didn't previously fill ANY game with all high-quality story content, not even in a NOT open world. No one currently making games is capable of generating enough story to fill an open world with ALL high-quality, story-heavy content. No one has ever done that. Tying the small quests, like fetch 10 bear meat, into the context of the world is to be expected - THAT I expect of Bioware, and it seems they delivered. This game has MORE dialogue than DA:O and DA2 put together; this game has a long, involved main story if the 30-40 hour estimate is to be believed; this game has a lot of optional content to varying degrees of story intenseness. But it is going to have some stuff that is mainly to drive exploration and make the world feel not empty. 

[Medhia_Nox]

@Aurok:  What IS the difference between 10 Meat and Urn of Ashes? 

In a survival RPG - find 10 meat is a very important quest couched in an environment.  It suddenly wouldn't seem like a menial quest beneath your "big god-damn hero" to do.  It would be an essential part of the storyline.

 

What I think they should do with fetch quests in the future - is force a consequence.  You don't WANT to get them 10 meat?  Then they starve.... there's your deeper narrative.  I also think there could be something behind not giving a number:  "Hunt the dark forest for venison." might go over better than "Get 10 deer meats." and then you keep hunting until the quest tells you you're done.  OR - you just hunt and come back to it as you wish.

 

And don't start with the "force" part - cause it's not like you can just ignore Eamon - the mages - the dwarves or elves... yes, you can swap them for golems, templars and werewolves... but you're still collecting pokemon for the big tournament.  And DA:2 is a million times worse with forcing things on to you.

 

NOTE: I love DA:O - my "criticisms" are to point out that in games people love they tend to ignore these kinds of things - but that doesn't change the fact that they're still there.

[seraphymon]

 
 Do you think they didn't do extensive research before pouring Millions into it?

The same developers who apparently researched and found  that pouring enemies through ceilings, wave combat, recycled environments and 2 end bosses instead of having your choice mean anything  were all good things?.. 

[LordParbr]

So, a review by idiots who seem to only have a passing familiarity with what a "video game" even is, and don't know what spoilers are?

[LordParbr]

The same developers who apparently researched and found  that pouring enemies through ceilings, wave combat, recycled environments and 2 end bosses instead of having your choice mean anything  were all good things?.. 

Well, we'll give you a 1-year development cycle and see how good your enemy placements are