19127 réponses à ce sujet

[Brogan]

I think that Allan misunderstands the issue.

 

The more i read his posts, the more it seems obvious to me that in his mind this is what he thinks "Well  i don't get it, you have all the functionnalities of the game on the keyboard and mouse. It works."

 

Now he didn't say that, but let's be real... That's kinda the message he has been trying to get accross to justify the design choices (or lack-off) when it comes to the KB/M controlls.

 

He is right, it does work.

 

Like taking the stairs to get on the top of a twenty story building works. Thing is, most of us like to use the elevator to get there so we don't have to scream our lungs out just to enjoy the view.

 

Bottom line is, there is no design choice here. You basicly copy/pasted the key binding of the controller and assigned them to W/A/S/D/Space/LM/RM/SPACE/P/R.

 

The time it took you to do this and additional tweeks in the game menu to match these options? A day? Two maybe?

 

It's just plain laziness dude. 

 

I am just glad that I got my refund. 

 

If this becomes a trend in futur bioware games, than do us all a favor and stop making games on PC to  save us the disappointment.

 

The witcher will replace you fine, you won't be missed.

 

That being said, I still hope that you won't do this **** ever again. As i did enjoy the MA/BG/DA:O games quite a bit. But trust me, i can live without them.

 

When it comes to RPG, many games do a better job than you do now (Divinity) and same goes for story (Telltale).

 

This is the kind of post that assures me that Allan, and anyone else who might be involved in working on the upcoming patches, have stopped reading or have been mandated to ignore this thread.

 

Because you respond to this.  If you have any self respect, or integrity about your work, you stand up for yourself and address these accusations, policy(ies) be damned.

[aliastasia]

I would not mind if the patch took a few more days.
I do mind not being given a heads up on what  - if at all - they're fixing, as a ""we're looking into it" does not equate a fix.
Also - I've worked in SWE a while. Please don't call - even a craptastic UI decision - for lazy.

Crunchtime is rife in software and game development, and no matter how fucked up some items are, I really disagree with calling developers lazy.
If they've been allocated too litle time to implement whatever features we're lacking in the PC UI, that is a management-defined priority, so go after them, and not the developers.

 

This is based on my own experience as a test manager in SWE, before I went up in rank.
You have buglists, the buglists have priority. Priority is based on constraints, especially before shipping  - and some companies, or managers are tone.deaf on what will fly with customers or not. When one of the applications I was working on was in crunchmode,both the testers and developers worked 12-18 hour days to ship.
A lot of us slept in the office.
We also spent a lot of time fine-combing the bugbase, and our superiors often overruled our protests.
I am assuming something similar happened here.

So - please don't call the developers for lazy. They're not.

Stuff like this IS a management decision.

/A

[MrHeartless]

This is the kind of post that assures me that Allan, and anyone else who might be involved in working on the upcoming patches, have stopped reading or have been mandated to ignore this thread.

 

Because you respond to this.  If you have any self respect, or integrity about your work, you stand up for yourself and address these accusations, policy(ies) be damned.

Yea, this echoes what I've been saying a few pages back. Even though this is just a video game, the way you act in these situations determines who you are as a person. And all this tells me is that these people have no shame or integrity and are gutless. No one expects perfection but they do expect you to admit to your mistakes like an adult and fix them. Turning a blind eye won't make this thread or its concerns go away, but it will affect your credibility and trust me, if the PC crowd abandons bioware, they will lose the lion's share of their goodwill and free marketing and no company can survive once that is lost. 

 

They claim to have listened to the feedback from DA2 with all the backlash that received for departing from the DA:O tactical style, yet their response this time around was to venture even further away from the obviously most popular style that was on display in DA:O. It boggles the mind not that they could do it but that they could do it when the alternative would have won them so much more praise for something they already knew how to do.

[aliastasia]

You mean... everytime you press a button something awesome fails to happen ? ;-)

[MrHeartless]

I would not mind if the patch took a few more days.
I do mind not being given a heads up on what  - if at all - they're fixing, as a ""we're looking into it" does not equate a fix.
Also - I've worked in SWE a while. Please don't call - even a craptastic UI decision - for lazy.

Crunchtime is rife in software and game development, and no matter how fucked up some items are, I really disagree with calling developers lazy.
If they've been allocated too litle time to implement whatever features we're lacking in the PC UI, that is a management-defined priority, so go after them, and not the developers.

 

This is based on my own experience as a test manager in SWE, before I went up in rank.
You have buglists, the buglists have priority. Priority is based on constraints, especially before shipping  - and some companies, or managers are tone.deaf on what will fly with customers or not. When one of the applications I was working on was in crunchmode,both the testers and developers worked 12-18 hour days to ship.
A lot of us slept in the office.
We also spent a lot of time fine-combing the bugbase, and our superiors often overruled our protests.
I am assuming something similar happened here.

So - please don't call the developers for lazy. They're not.

Stuff like this IS a management decision.

/A

You can't always pass the buck, sometimes it actually stops with you for the things you were responsible for creating. Laziness might not be the right word because I am sure they worked hard, but trust me when I tell you they could have done the PC port better if they wanted. Management isn't au fait with the inner workings of a tactical cam for example to say to the devs, make it work only with controllers and nothing else. That's just absurd, so again, if they wanted this done right they could have accomplished it.

[aliastasia]

I dont have a beef with that - however, it IS management's decision, especially if they're claiming to be PC gamers themselves, to be up to speed with this

Just as it's my job when doing projects to have enough general knowledge about my particular project(s) to make sure all angles are covered.
It's management's job to allocate time, and provide an adequate spec, even if the devs are heavily involved. It's management's  job to ensure we did NOT get the half... no - quarterassed port we did.

So - all I am saying is  don't use lazy. Lame may be a better word for it.
Feeble, another ;-)
Just not... lazy.
 

 

// to add - EA companies seem to follow the tue-thurs PR and release week-cycle.
Fingers crossed I am wrong.

 

// and another edit to comment on the oddness of it not being mentioned in the gaming press much. (but unsurprising)

[tpho99]

Bioware,

 

Sup?

 

So did you fire Allan for even opening his mouth in here, even tho how useless his replies were? Are you having an internal joke at the office at how long you can drive us, and this thread?

 

Are you all on vacation?! That'd just be too funny, since you just launched one of the biggest crossplatform games in a few years, and haven't given a single update - or even a word of it since. You just put the lackluster product out there, and turn off the lights for two or three weeks? Or more? Will we even get a reply or update on the situation in 2014?

[Brogan]

I dont have a beef with that - however, it IS management's decision, especially if they're claiming to be PC gamers themselves, to be up to speed with this

Just as it's my job when doing projects to have enough general knowledge about my particular project(s) to make sure all angles are covered.
It's management's job to allocate time, and provide an adequate spec, even if the devs are heavily involved. It's management's  job to ensure we did NOT get the half... no - quarterassed port we did.

So - all I am saying is  don't use lazy. Lame may be a better word for it.
Feeble, another ;-)
Just not... lazy.
 

 

// to add - EA companies seem to follow the tue-thurs PR and release week-cycle.
Fingers crossed I am wrong.

 

// and another edit to comment on the oddness of it not being mentioned in the gaming press much.

 

So what you're saying is the designers, the guys who lay out where everything's gonna go, and how everything's gonna work - they didn't do a "lazy" job when they ported the 14 controller button's functions directly over to 14 keyboard keys (not even mouse keys, except for left & right) with a few slightly less important extras?

 

It was management telling them to do it that way?  To not waste a penny creating anything new for the pc ui?  Or even a half-penny trying to simply reproduce the highly successful (and simple) DAO scheme for Frostbite?

[aliastasia]

I am saying it's not as ****** simple as calling them out for being lazy.
I am saying that there probably were other issues at hand which affected the time allocated to the PC controls causing them to be treated as a hastily implemented fix for something.
Do I hate them with a vengeance?

Yes.
Do I think they're a bad port?
Yes.

Do I think it was laziness, based on my own experience working in SWE?
No.

However - Management signs off on the design, management allocates time for implementation.
Why is this contrary to the consensus that it's a bad job?
I am not breaking with that, all I am asking is that people don't get called lazy and that it's a team, or section-leader's decision, probably in addition to the more visible ones, higher up that it ended up the way it did.

 

 

Clear enough?

/A

[aliastasia]

Wait. I can't swear in here?

tsk ;-)

 

/A

[tpho99]

So what you're saying is the designers, the guys who lay out where everything's gonna go, and how everything's gonna work - they didn't do a "lazy" job when they ported the 14 controller button's functions directly over to 14 keyboard keys (not even mouse keys, except for left & right) with a few slightly less important extras?

 

It was management telling them to do it that way?  To not waste a penny creating anything new for the pc ui?  Or even a half-penny trying to simply reproduce the highly successful (and simple) DAO scheme for Frostbite?

 

Well, it was a "lazy" decision, if anything. Can't really call the individual devs lazy personally. My guess is that - prior to launch - everyone at BW was working around the clock just for the date, under the promise that they were all going to get some sweet time off after launch.

 

I also take for granted that BW knew about the awkward PC-controls, since it is so obvious from the first 15 minutes of playing. They knew about it, but still released it. That part is just insulting, considering we are not getting any updates on the situation - or better yet, a damn patch already.

[aliastasia]

I also take for granted that BW knew about the awkward PC-controls, since it is so obvious from the first 15 minutes of playing. They knew about it, but still released it. That part is just insulting, considering we are not getting any updates on the situation - or better yet, a damn patch already.

No argument on that.
And I think thats why it's so vewwy vewwy kwiet.

 

/A

[BBRyuLvl2]

I just thought of something that made me laugh about the situation that's been going on with the thread, its a Doctor Who reference.

 

"Silence will fall when the question is asked."

 

"What's the question?"

 

"When will the patch be out?"

 

 

Made my friends laugh too.

[Tajoumaru]

Pardon the question from the peanut gallery but what/where are those numbers from?

 

Those numbers can't be correct...

 

The ~900 million PC gamers estimate is from an article in Forbes from mid-2014. Here's an article from earlier this year that quotes market research indicating that there are 1.17 billion PC gamers, 270 mllion of which are "core" gamers:

http://www.gamersnex...enre-popularity

 

The total consoles sold figure is from here:

http://www.vgchartz....latform_totals/

 

To wrap your head around the PC gamer figures, just think of the combined population of North America, Europe, and Japan alone and reason that the vast majority of those households have a PC, and that many of those PC users play games. Also, consider how many of those PC gamers neither have nor want a gamepad and prefer a mouse/keyboard.   

[Rylor Tormtor]

Still no word from the devs here? Luckily, my general disappointment for the game interface has been completely deflected since I have not had any time to play it after my two newborn twins arrived recently. 

 

Funnily enough, I find the interface on two hungry and gassy babies to be more intuitive and easy to use then the DAI PC controls.

 

In case Allan is allowed back (even though I am baffled how he didn't see this was going to be a problem) let me re-iterate what I would like: 

 

First - fix the major technical issues that other people are having, my game runs fine, but your PC QA is pathetic. How long has Bioware been making PC Games?

 

Second - An option for "Classic" controls (i.e. click to move, auto move engage with an attack, auto attack outside of tactical camera); additionally, I would like an option to disable the completely useless tactical camera and just give allow me to zoom out more. Hell, at this point I would fine with DA2's zoom distance. 

 

For me both of these are priorities. Changing the combat interface so fundamentally from previous iterations is just insane. Like people have suggested, if you can do it in SWTOR, you can at least shoe horn something into the Frostbite engine to approximate the previous installments. 

[verve77]

I wonder if they'd ever admit to who or how they came up with this whole kb/m nonsense.

[aliastasia]

The ~900 million PC gamers estimate is from an article in Forbes from mid-2014. Here's an article from earlier this year that quotes market research indicating that there are 1.17 billion PC gamers, 270 mllion of which are "core" gamers:

http://www.gamersnex...enre-popularity

 

The total consoles sold figure is from here:

http://www.vgchartz....latform_totals/

 

To wrap your head around the PC gamer figures, just think of the combined population of North America, Europe, and Japan alone and reason that the vast majority of those households have a PC, and that many of those PC users play games. Also, consider how many of those PC gamers neither have nor want a gamepad and prefer a mouse/keyboard.   

Thank you for the links - I can wrap my head around the numbers just fine, they were just so big, I got curious as to where they came from. Going to read over my morning coffee.
I stopped following Forbes a while back - used to read Kain, mostly, but then I stopped - that Dark Souls fetish and all, and some other stuff
 

[aliastasia]

I wonder if they'd ever admit to who or how they came up with this whole kb/m nonsense.

Most likely this is a fallback plan.
IF they had a few even bigger bugs to fix before shipping, and we still have big bugs, then plan B would/could be to just do the (shitty) port and face the music instead of shipping with even bigger bugs, and then tend to the UI post.release, as broken games are the shipping norm these days.
Just speculation of course, but my 2 cents.
 

[Andres Hendrix]

A little off topic, but is the Gigabyte Z97X Gaming 5 a good budget board to use with the i5-4690k?

[Razael]

I would not mind if the patch took a few more days.
I do mind not being given a heads up on what  - if at all - they're fixing, as a ""we're looking into it" does not equate a fix.
Also - I've worked in SWE a while. Please don't call - even a craptastic UI decision - for lazy.

Crunchtime is rife in software and game development, and no matter how fucked up some items are, I really disagree with calling developers lazy.
If they've been allocated too litle time to implement whatever features we're lacking in the PC UI, that is a management-defined priority, so go after them, and not the developers.

 

This is based on my own experience as a test manager in SWE, before I went up in rank.
You have buglists, the buglists have priority. Priority is based on constraints, especially before shipping  - and some companies, or managers are tone.deaf on what will fly with customers or not. When one of the applications I was working on was in crunchmode,both the testers and developers worked 12-18 hour days to ship.
A lot of us slept in the office.
We also spent a lot of time fine-combing the bugbase, and our superiors often overruled our protests.
I am assuming something similar happened here.

So - please don't call the developers for lazy. They're not.

Stuff like this IS a management decision.

/A

 

Thanks for that mate. I was going to respond with a very similar explanation.

[Razael]

The ~900 million PC gamers estimate is from an article in Forbes from mid-2014. Here's an article from earlier this year that quotes market research indicating that there are 1.17 billion PC gamers, 270 mllion of which are "core" gamers:

http://www.gamersnex...enre-popularity

 

The total consoles sold figure is from here:

http://www.vgchartz....latform_totals/

 

To wrap your head around the PC gamer figures, just think of the combined population of North America, Europe, and Japan alone and reason that the vast majority of those households have a PC, and that many of those PC users play games. Also, consider how many of those PC gamers neither have nor want a gamepad and prefer a mouse/keyboard.   

 

I still think the estimate is kind of absurd. Any other source? Maybe by "gamers" their poll was actually asking something along the lines of "Have you ever played pc games in your life?"

[Andres Hendrix]

I still think the estimate is kind of absurd. Any other source? Maybe by "gamers" their poll was actually asking something along the lines of "Have you ever played pc games in your life?"

It could be a biased sample, look and see if you can find their methodology. If it is difficult to find, then it was not a good study.

[Sombrerototo]

This is getting ridiculous, some small indie companies are doing a much better job delivering a game as complexe, communicating with their customers and fixing the problems.

 

It's obvious that they knew what the issues were, everyone thought they were playing on consolkes during twitch and stuff just to show that next gen consoles had also good graphics but in fact it was just to not show how awful PC controls are, funny. I am ready to bet that not 50% of the bug will ever be fixed, there's too many anyway that would take such a time they would rather go to work on a new project, sigh ...

 

I have the feeling that they managed to hide all the misery of this game with details and mass of content, it was enough to shows off the game and make people buy it but after playing a few hours everyone realized how a joke it was. And here I'm just talking about bugs and praticality, but even the scenario and the use of dragon age keep is incredibly poor and sad, nice story with absolutely no connexion between any of the events happening except of : we are good people killing bad people and closing rifts yay !

[Xhaiden]

This is the kind of post that assures me that Allan, and anyone else who might be involved in working on the upcoming patches, have stopped reading or have been mandated to ignore this thread.

 

Because you respond to this.  If you have any self respect, or integrity about your work, you stand up for yourself and address these accusations, policy(ies) be damned.

 

No, you don't. Its misguided noise on the internet trying to call out a member of a major corporation like this is a high school drama. Responding to this sort of silliness would be pointless and unprofessional. If developers started responding to every naive forum post on the Internet they wouldn't have enough time to actually make said games in the first place.

 

Working for any sort of major company, especially a game developer, is far more complex than sitting around yelling back at people on the Internet. These companies have layers of management, public relations, employment contracts, policies, etc in place.

 

Honestly, I highly doubt anyone yelling at a single member of its staff and expecting them to lower themselves to the same level and respond has ever held a job with a larger company. I work for one such company and I can tell you not only would it be viewed as unprofessional of me, but my ass is locked up in employee contracts and non-disclosure agreements. Which I would be violating and thus my job and/or reputation would be on the line. 

[Xhaiden]

This is getting ridiculous, some small indie companies are doing a much better job delivering a game as complexe, communicating with their customers and fixing the problems.

 

 

No, no they aren't, wow. The indie scene is littered with the smoldering corpses of failed projects, companies and teams. As well as a number of high profile cases of indie developers not being able to stay professional and opening their mouths when they really shouldn't have. The faillures in Greenlight alone should be enough to highlight that for you.