19127 réponses à ce sujet

[Cobwebmaster]

Going to throw this up. DAO was a great game but the writing leaves a lot to be desired. We have Gaiders vision of darkspawn, Cory and the arch demon. We have blood magic as the main theme. Not very imaginative. And it all went down hill from DAO.

This coming from Neverwinter Nights. 4 races vs 7, 3 classes vs 22, 9 alignments. And you could mix and match as required.

The opponents were awesome as well. Demons, dwarfs, goblins for starters. Then add Drow, beholders, evil wizards! Don't forget the traps.

So much was lost in the move to Origins, then we had EA!!! The ruins in the Brecilian Forest were reasonable as was the Mage Tower. But HotU is 20 times bigger, harder and more immersive than Origins.

Origins was a one-off. Without hundreds of mods it would have been forgotten and not very replayable.

BG2 was as complex as Neverwinter Nights,

Can you imagine BG2 or HotU in the Origins engine? So much was cut out of DAI that existed in DAO, but Origins is a pale shadow of what went before.

.

Interesting comments. When I think of NWN I remember talking about how Bioware had moved towards a smaller party group for adventuring. Your central character in NWN was (in theory) capable of completing  chunks (if not all) of the game without help from a henchman, with you only having  a maximum of two in the party. Consequently the  powers and strength of impact of combat moves were adjusted to compensate. Additionally it is worth mentioning that the henchman that you picked (and stayed with)in NWN tended to be the one that best complemented your own chosen skills. With HOTU that group by necessity increased to three. I agree there was no room for error in choosing which two companions you had if you were to survive combat, especially the big battle. In DAI the emphasis switched to strategic rather than tactical combat which I think was a mistake as it meant that all the hard work developing AI was thrown into the toilet along with players hopes for a continuation of hands on and free flowing combat around you leaving you free to k-ass as you saw fit. So we get back to the old play/pause/reposition/play/pause/drink potion/ stop go combat. Just when I thought we'd got rid of it!

The thing about mods generally as I think Sartoz pointed out earlier is that there is a difference between enhancing gameplay experience and migrating it to  a different format entirely. I used a number of mods in DAI which basically dealt with armour and weapons particularly Warden's uniforms as I felt that Grey Wardens needed a distinctiveness of their own. Other popular add ons were those that introduced armour/weapon sets from the promotional vids which were absent in the game. The absence of mods in DAI is keenly felt by pc users but in DAO I think they added a greater cosmetic scope for weapons/armour/appearances rather than change how the underlying game and it's plotline/ story played out

[Cobwebmaster]

One thing I have thought of in all this talk of lack of AI for your companions. if DAI was going to be an MMO, then your companions would have been other PCs, thus no AI needed. With the switch from MMO to single player, computer controlled companions became required. So companions were added and given the most basic AI imaginable.

 

I have no proof of this but it seems a reasonable deduction. Otherwise I am left with the idea that Bioware can't program anymore.

 Except that DAI never was an MMO just a co-operative, but the issue with regard to AI may be related to the switch to Strategic gameplay (in the pre launch blurb). But if you use that option how can you MMO or even co-op? The package is a mess in that regard for both console and pc users as no concession has been granted to either user to properly facilitate either option 

[Cobwebmaster]

Not that kind of console.

 

They meant the dev console. Pillars of Eternity is PC only, as far as I can tell. I have never looked up dev console commands for PoE, so can't answer his question.

OK thanks. Sorry! Been  playing with my mouse for too long (an increasingly tough task in certain games).Next time I'll red the post properly

[KilrB]

This is largely off topic, but anyone had some idea as to how to force talk to NPcs using console commands in POE? I am stuck in a main quest due to this glitch

 

You know you're playing Pillars of Eternity and not DA2 or DA:I right?

 

This means you can initiate conversation with your companions anywhere, any time you like.

 

You don't have to wait for them to get chatty.

 

Select their portrait and then select the far right (talk) menu, I believe.

 

 ... or this may be what you are looking for:

 

http://pillarsofeter...ials_of_Durance

[Sylveria_Relden]

Not that kind of console.

 

They meant the dev console. Pillars of Eternity is PC only, as far as I can tell. I have never looked up dev console commands for PoE, so can't answer his question.

 

Well, it could have been emotional support they were looking for, too. You know, "console".

[Cobwebmaster]

P.S. Even from the non-Official vid that some claim misled them to make the purchase, it indicates that the game is large pocketed areas; not Open World. While Skyrim influenced the design for DAI, they are differing games.

At the E3 launch the game was touted as an Open world themed game  similar in style  to Skyrim. Laidlaw later changed that to "having extremely large regions you can explore". Interestingly enough DAI was in was originally conceived as an MMO only and design began using that objective as the principle term of reference way back. I think it is now obvious that someone made  a cost based decision to leave the areas as they were for a multiplayer scenario and just push ahead with the single player adaption and marketing thing. On reflection this game might have been a good MMORPG had they stuck to their guns. Of course the Romance options would need to be dropped but in this case it would have been no great loss. I guess that Biocheapskate chickened out big time either way

Why scale and mail type themed armour for everyone in this game, including rogues? Heavier armour impacts on mobility. Traditionally rogues and assassins use dexterity as their primary attribute. Besides leaping around in mail armour (rogue combat moves) defies Newton's law of universal gravitation. Leather, studded leather, or Hide is the convention with often cloth as an assassin's preferred garb. Not that this is a priority issue when compared with more urgent things to be put right in DAI but it does contribute to contravening the  7 P principle for project managers

Proper Planning and Preparation Prevent P**s Poor Performance! 

[Sylveria_Relden]

Proper Planning and Preparation Prevent P**s Poor Performance! 

 

This should be a mandatory mantra before any management meeting. Period.

[Elhanan]

This should be a mandatory mantra before any management meeting. Period.

Prefer 'Let The Buyer Beware' for this thread....

[Sylveria_Relden]

Prefer 'Let The Buyer Beware' for this thread....

 

Well, that certainly works when a product is marketed honestly- but not so much when it's blatantly falsely advertised.

[Sylveria_Relden]

So I'm going to go out on a limb here. Or perhaps a really small branch.

 

Just out of curiosity, Elhanan, since everything is "rainbows and unicorns" for you when it comes to DA:I, what exactly are you still doing hanging around this thread?

 

I mean, it's pretty apparent by most of your posts that you disagree with the vast majority of us- and this is the PC Concerns discussion. Are you here to offer some solid "advice" on how to fix things- or just here to continue to state disagreement?

 

I'm seriously intrigued. (I think others are too)

[Cobwebmaster]

Prefer 'Let The Buyer Beware' for this thread....

 The obverse side of this is some regulatory code which prevents software particularly gaming software companies from conducting misleading or duplicitous advertising/marketing campaigns. Here in the UK we have something called The Advertising Standards Authority. While it doesn't always get it right it does occasionally come down hard on the more blatant infringements of "good conduct".

 

I think you will find that using uberrimae fidae  caveat emptor (edited for mixing up my legal Latin for contract law) as a principle only applies in cases where the buyer gets the opportunity to examine the goods in some detail before purchase. I contend that this does not apply here as like foodstuffs you only get to discover whether DAI is edible after you have paid for and  tried to digest it

[Errationatus]

This is pretty old but is still relavent, which is sad.
 
https://www.youtube....h?v=QaAH-cv2ybo

 

Hmmm...  This sounds awfully familiar...  oh, yeah - because I've said this pretty much exact thing half-a-dozen times in this thread alone.

 

Stop bending over for the grubbers. Easy to say, yet surprisingly hard for the sensation machines raised on 30 second attention spans. But it is possible.

 

Unless you're Elhanan, then everything's just utterly b@stard groovy all the time.

[Elhanan]

So I'm going to go out on a limb here. Or perhaps a really small branch.
 
Just out of curiosity, Elhanan, since everything is "rainbows and unicorns" for you when it comes to DA:I, what exactly are you still doing hanging around this thread?
 
I mean, it's pretty apparent by most of your posts that you disagree with the vast majority of us- and this is the PC Concerns discussion. Are you here to offer some solid "advice" on how to fix things- or just here to continue to state disagreement?
 
I'm seriously intrigued. (I think others are too)

I have PC concerns that I have been posting about since pre-launch status. These have been posted here, too (eg; more quickslots, increased Player control on designs like Attributes, Weapon and Armor proficiencies, targeting Portraits, etc). As I knew of some of these concerns pre-launch from posts on this forum, simply do not buy into the Marketing Trickery posts that appear here. And while I do not contend the game is perfect (DAO > DAI > DA2), it has offered me a lot of enjoyable hours thus far.

Prefer Dragons to Unicorns, and DAI has at least 10 of them....

[Sylveria_Relden]

I have PC concerns that I have been posting about since pre-launch status. These have been posted here, too (eg; more quickslots, increased Player control on designs like Attributes, Weapon and Armor proficiencies, targeting Portraits, etc). As I knew of some of these concerns pre-launch from posts on this forum, simply do not buy into the Marketing Trickery posts that appear here. And while I do not contend the game is perfect (DAO > DAI > DA2), it has offered me a lot of enjoyable hours thus far.

Prefer Dragons to Unicorns, and DAI has at least 10 of them....

 

OK, that's fair. You've stated your concerns- but it doesn't really exactly explain why you continue to address other's concerns as being "invalid" just because you disagree with them. Others have concerns, you have concerns- yet you seem to want to try and invalidate other peoples because you disagree.

 

That's more what I'm curious about- why can't other people have a voice just as you have? 

[Sartoz]

A 2015 interview with Laidlaw and eurogamer.net

 

1.  "We established fairly early on we would maintain gameplay parity..."

2.  The PS3 and Xbox 360 in comparison have "memory limitations".

 

A version of the game demoed at PAX Prime in 2013, around a year before the game's final release, showed hints of a war simulation system, where players would have to focus on building up and maintaining military strength around their captured keeps.

 

3.  "We had to do some changes," .Laidlaw admits.

 

The game used to feature more environmental destruction, too, and a greater number of options for solving missions. Boats could be burnt and bridges collapsed to affect the strength of enemy forces. These items were cut based

 

4. "a little bit [on the last-gen] platforms, a little bit about the flow of the gameplay," Laidlaw adds.

 

5. "But first we have to finish the patch cycle and put out the [previously announced] Black Emporium update. "

 

Full Article here:

http://www.eurogamer...s-of-dragon-age

[Sartoz]

snip

 

  am guessing that marketing hype is not the reason for a record launch.

 snip

Indeed?

 

How very interesting.  Here is what Hilleman said (2009).

 

"..highlights Hilleman's comment that they expect to see further interim console changes, referring to the Xbox 560 and a PlayStation 3.5 before a true next generation cycle. The part we are especially fascinated by is the description of what portion of a game's budget is devoted to marketing, saying: "EA now typically spends two or three times as much on marketing and advertising as it does on developing a game."

 

source: http://www.bluesnews...a-game_s-budget

 

About EA Budgets;

source: http://www.clickz.co...get-to-facebook

 

Of course, you can try to google you own version of  "marketing hype doesn not sell games".

Modifié par Sartoz, 23 avril 2015 - 04:13 .

[Elhanan]

OK, that's fair. You've stated your concerns- but it doesn't really exactly explain why you continue to address other's concerns as being "invalid" just because you disagree with them. Others have concerns, you have concerns- yet you seem to want to try and invalidate other peoples because you disagree.
 
That's more what I'm curious about- why can't other people have a voice just as you have?

Am guessing that this means w/o the ridicule, taunts, name-calling, and personal attacks for having a different opinion. Not everyone in this thread has acted in such a manner, but it happens so frequently on the forums that I choose to stay and remind the occasional reader that all is not as bleak as some may lead others to believe.

[Elhanan]

Indeed?
 
How very interesting.  Here is what Hilleman said (2009).
 
"..highlights Hilleman's comment that they expect to see further interim console changes, referring to the Xbox 560 and a PlayStation 3.5 before a true next generation cycle. The part we are especially fascinated by is the description of what portion of a game's budget is devoted to marketing, saying: "EA now typically spends two or three times as much on marketing and advertising as it does on developing a game."
 
source: http://www.bluesnews...a-game_s-budget
 
About EA Budgets;
source: http://www.clickz.co...get-to-facebook
 
Of course, you can try to google you own version of  "marketing hype doesn not sell games".

Of course marketing sells games; simply one that tried to remain informed on the product, and based on those threads I was hardly alone. So I knew that I would have some differing views on some issues, but was not concerned to the point of cancelling my pre-order. Then by waiting a day after launch and examining first day issues, I was able to re-map my Keys, practice the new mechanics, and have far fewer problems that many others seem to experience.

A for those that purchased the product based solely on Marketing, LTBB is a saying that has been around a long, long time.

[Morroian]

At the E3 launch the game was touted as an Open world themed game  similar in style  to Skyrim. Laidlaw later changed that to "having extremely large regions you can explore". Interestingly enough DAI was in was originally conceived as an MMO only 

 

Where did you get that idea from?

 

From what I understand they were originally going to do a MP only game but then realised they could make the next DA game with the engine. 

[Amplitudelol]

Of course marketing sells games....

 

Of course marketing does not sell anything. Do not confuse marketing with advertisement. They are not the same thing. Though EA made a console game and forced it on their PC gamer fans. That's bad marketing and their Bioware brand will suffer for it.

[Elhanan]

Of course marketing does not sell anything. Do not confuse marketing with advertisement. They are not the same thing. Though EA made a console game and forced it on their PC gamer fans. That's bad marketing and their Bioware brand will suffer for it.

If by losing some the 'loyal fans' that enjoy posting here, am guessing they will weather that storm....

[Amplitudelol]

If by losing some the 'loyal fans' that enjoy posting here, am guessing they will weather that storm....

 

Nah, 99%+ of the people who bought the game and are "not satisfied" never looked at this thread. 700 pages of toxicity is all you will find on the internet on DA3 and the countless GOTY awards. There is no storm, i was not dramatic about it. Even if bioware went down the drain those nice magazines would make a short article out of it and then everyone would forget it (pro game journalists would have a real hard time getting it). Some people would think it is well deserved, the others would not care at all, because after ME3 and this there is no such thing as bioware fans anymore. That being said the next poster will be a hardcore bioware fan who loves EA's product of milking process aka DA3 even for PC without wanting to even understand what the fuss is about. But im mistaken! That fellow is not after me, he is before me. Such is the world . As long as we know how to inflate the balloons everything is fine.

[JPR1964]

Considering the storied objective is to raise the Inquisition, it seems understandable that the dialogue may not allow one to be rude and ill spirited. As for Evil options, have only started with those, but based on the prior choices made from the past games and replicated on The Keep, I tend towards manipulative choices; not overt villainy as I am rarely the one in full power yet. Forget Politically Correct; prefer the choices that actually gain me the desired power I desire.

And as I was the one controlling the party, I had Fire Resist potions and could remove characters from the flames; had enough time by then to practice. And the AI, though not as solid as the prior games, is still up to the task presented, and is better for Followers than many other games.

 

Oh, I understand and really personally it doesn't bother me : playing a truly evil character or really harsh one, is pretty not natural for me... I actually had to force me to play a really evil Shepard in ME1, and I did it only one time on 20 play-through (yes, I know ME1 is my favourite game since a lonnnng time)... And at least in DAI, you feel in control of the situation, even if it's a bit forced on you, unlike ME3 where most of the game I feel controlled and like playing some COD maps...

 

I like DAI, but not so much compared to DAO or even DA2 will all DLC and the late patch... If I remember correctly the patch that improved significantly the DA2 tact cam and some of the gameplay was really late : so there is always some hope for DAI.

 

I played only 1 character through the story, but a dozen to level 12-16... I killed as many time the dragon in the hinterland, and believe me, even a level 10, you don't need in normal mode any fire resistance potion... The nice patch of water around the map are not here just to make pretty... But frankly, even if pausing in a dragon fight is not so painful,  sometimes just seeing Dorian suddenly beside Cassandra to take a full fire breath in the face.... /facepalm 

 

The worst is against the bruisers in crumpled situation... I hate when Sera and any of the mage goes toes to toes against them because they just loose the line of sight : line of sight that your character don't loose anyway...

 

Why? but why????.... since DAO the ranged dps have always been able to keep distance from melee... 

 

And now in DAI  you can see some stupid mage get stomped by a giant because the target is not large enough... 

 

Then perhaps the AI is worse than in Skyrim, but...

 

I hope they will be able to make it better eventually...

 

JPR out!

[Gundar3]

A 2015 interview with Laidlaw and eurogamer.net

 

1.  "We established fairly early on we would maintain gameplay parity..."

2.  The PS3 and Xbox 360 in comparison have "memory limitations".

 

A version of the game demoed at PAX Prime in 2013, around a year before the game's final release, showed hints of a war simulation system, where players would have to focus on building up and maintaining military strength around their captured keeps.

 

3.  "We had to do some changes," .Laidlaw admits.

 

The game used to feature more environmental destruction, too, and a greater number of options for solving missions. Boats could be burnt and bridges collapsed to affect the strength of enemy forces. These items were cut based

 

4. "a little bit [on the last-gen] platforms, a little bit about the flow of the gameplay," Laidlaw adds.

 

5. "But first we have to finish the patch cycle and put out the [previously announced] Black Emporium update. "

 

Full Article here:

http://www.eurogamer...s-of-dragon-age

 

I don't understand the article.  All that stuff about the war and the environmental destruction.  Are they planning to add it?  The article made it seem like they would like to, but its very "challenging" due to the old consoles.  Does he just mean that they will consider battlefields and war themes for future Dragon Age titles?  

 

If they want to add story segments and other DLC, how long did they plan for the life-cycle of this game to be?  We are nearing half a year old, and for a single player RPG, thats quite old to be patching and adding.