338 réponses à ce sujet

[Akka le Vil]

The simple reality is for a lot of people all they want is a cloned version of DAO.

 

I've seen that stupid argument in every, and I mean every franchise which had more than one iteration, especially for games that were controversial.

It's just as stupid now as it was stupid then (and then, and then, and then, and...). It's just another lame trick to attempt to ignore/stiffle criticism.

[Ryzaki]

Because this is BSN.

 

You'd thought ME2 was the worst game ever and DAO was some spawn of satan if you came here near release then too.

[Akka le Vil]

Because this is BSN.

 

You'd thought ME2 was the worst game ever and DAO was some spawn of satan if you came here near release then too.

 

Every single game has a mix of praise and hate on its forums at release - and just the same, every fanboy always uses the same "arguments" when their pet game is criticized, this one among them. Other favourites contenders : "people who like the game are too busy to play to post here" (strangely, the people posting such message have always some kind of other excuse to not doing exactly that), "haters just wanted a clone of [name of the previous entry of the franchise]", "the people complaining are just a vocal minority" (okay, that one is used by everyone, to be fair) and "haters are stuck in the past" (somehow, in a fanboy's mind, a newer release is ALWAYS better it seems).

 

Fact is, every game has both praises and hate on the forums when it's launched. E-VE-RY game. Regardless of how good or bad, you'll always find people who would rate the game 0/10 or 10/10.

As such, the difference is HOW MUCH they get of each. For example, DA2 and ME3 had even MORE of hate than DAI. ME2 and DAO had both much less. Overall, DAO was praised, ME2 was slightly controversial but much liked, DAI and ME3 are highly controversial with a significant fanbase and hatebase and DA2 was reviled.

You can find plenty of people with strong opinions both sides of the fence for each, but claiming that it's all in the same proportion is absurd.

[Ryzaki]

*sigh* Case in point.

[Faeryia]

I can only speak for myself, but I am disappointed because I paid 699 kroners for a game that is so riddled with glitches and bugs that it feels like I'm beta-testing rather than playing the game. It is damn annoying.

 

BioWare needs to step up and sort out some of the major problems that ruins the experience of Dragon Age Inquisition.

[Eusark]

I LOVE THIS GAME

[Sidney]

I've seen that stupid argument in every, and I mean every franchise which had more than one iteration, especially for games that were controversial.
It's just as stupid now as it was stupid then (and then, and then, and then, and...). It's just another lame trick to attempt to ignore/stiffle criticism.

Not stifling anything. you are free to make complaints but the majority, maybe not you and your intelligent thoughtful criticsm, of gripes are it is different than DAO. Go look at threads that are titled things like Just Make DAO2 or any of the many griping threads about 8 slots which inevitably fall back on"not like DAO". When flaws in the logic are pointed out, issues with limited skills in Vancian casting, what is the complain, well DAO didn't gave that limit.

There are issues wi the game, I don't like seeing tactics removed but it is the heresy not not being DAO that makes this the worst game ever or some tragic betrayal for so many. I don't thnk criticism is misplaced, I think it is the over the top vehemence that is striking about this game.

[Hydwn]

Another thread I almost started.  Given the early sales figures and the massive number of GOTY awards and the high scores from critics, BSN does seem wildly out of touch with the majority about this game.  I don't know anyone in real life who dislikes this game either.

 

As someone said several pages back, people who like this game are probably still playing it.  The BSN gets a massive influx of folks before a new game who are anticipating it.  That's when I finally de-lurked and made an account, in the runup to Inquisition.  Those people melt away when the game is released (a few are trickling back to ask when the DLC comes out).

 

And for a few people there are legitimate reasons - subjective things like they happened to like Alistair better than Cassandra, for instance.  And there were a lot more bugs on the PC version.

 

Those are reasons to dock a few points from a review.  None of that explains the extreme, bloodthirsty rage and hate on the BSN - people screaming about how BioWare betrayed them and they'll never play another game of theirs again.  The constant, awful, kneejerk hatred that flooded these boards almost the second the game was released (and before anyone could install the full version).

 

I've identified four reasons:

 

• Nostaligitis: Every long-running game franchise gets it eventually.  I saw it first in the Final Fantasy fandom, where every game originally released in North America up to and including Final Fantasy 10 was decried as a betrayal of the fans, and the previous one was a classic.  The next time one was released, the betrayal was recycled as a classic.  Final Fantasy 7 is now on everybody's video-games-as-art list, and at the time it was reviled by hardcore fans.  Final Fantasy 10 was the one we were all supposed to agree was terrible, but its HD re-release sold very well recently.  Final Fantasy 13 was supposed to be the death of the series - then each of its sequels was held as the death of the series.  They sold.  But then, my generation routinely claims that 8-bit video games with no story, terrible gameplay, and impossible-to-parse graphics were the pinnacle of gameplay
•  
• Negativity is Cool: As I said in another thread, no one goes to visit video game sites called "The happy video game nerd" or "Contented Joe" - although Joe himself liked this one.   A happy review focuses attention on the game itself, but an unhappy review focuses on the reviewer, and just what creative comparisons and metaphors they'll use to bash the game.  People who are negative for the sake of being negative usually thing of themselves as nonconformist, iconoclasts, and freethinkers, but it's not really original since everyone is doing it.  Very often, uniformly negative reviews are about getting attention.
•  
• Expectations: We live in an age of hype - companies now have to release trailers and concept art and snippets of dialogue in the runup to a game.  And a lot of people built whole characters and backstories and personalities from a few works of concept art and bits of dialogue.  Hell, we didn't hear half the characters speak until the game was released.  But go back and read the pre-release fanfic and character pages.  A lot of that stuff is pretty hilarious in retrospect.  People feel betrayed by BioWare who were actually betrayed by their own imaginations run wild.
•  
• Common Trolling: And not so common trolling.  Let's be blunt - the BSN had a severe influx of true trolls the day of release, just as MetaCritic had an influx of anti-Inquisition trolls the second it was released.  Some are the common-variety form of troll as old as the internet, insecure people desperate for attention and like a difficult third-grader don't know how to get attention positively.  There are almost certainly quite a few of these on the board, but they're not the worst.  Far worse for me are the homophobes and misogynists and transphobes who see themselves as some sort of defenders of some kind of straight male preserve in gaming.  They're the ones most likely to throw around the word "political correctness" as though this were an insult.  BioWare isn't perfect, but it's way ahead of the mainstream gaming industry on presentation of women, gay folk, and trans people, and so it tends to draw the ire of people who are at war with history and the modern world. 

Sorry for the long post, but I've been fascinated by the psychology of gamers on this site.  If I were a psych or sociology major instead of an English lit geek, I could probably get a paper out of fan reactions to this game

[Zobert]

Not stifling anything. you are free to make complaints but the majority, maybe not you and your intelligent thoughtful criticsm, of gripes are it is different than DAO. Go look at threads that are titled things like Just Make DAO2 or any of the many griping threads about 8 slots which inevitably fall back on"not like DAO". When flaws in the logic are pointed out, issues with limited skills in Vancian casting, what is the complain, well DAO didn't gave that limit.

There are issues wi the game, I don't like seeing tactics removed but it is the heresy not not being DAO that makes this the worst game ever or some tragic betrayal for so many. I don't thnk criticism is misplaced, I think it is the over the top vehemence that is striking about this game.

 

Maybe by the time I got DA:O all the bugs were worked out and the workarounds put online...I don't know, but this game has a lot of bugs and glitches almost like a Microsoft product.

 

I think they rushed to get it out before Christmas shopping season and because Bethesda announced Blackmarsh may be coming.

 

I think it's a good game, but it has flaws and it's not a bad thing to bring them up because that's the only way the company will see what people like.

 

If we made a three board poll of all the fans people would rank DA:O as the better game and I think its because it applied the K.I.S.S approach.

[Akka le Vil]

Not stifling anything. you are free to make complaints but the majority, maybe not you and your intelligent thoughtful criticsm, of gripes are it is different than DAO. Go look at threads that are titled things like Just Make DAO2 or any of the many griping threads about 8 slots which inevitably fall back on"not like DAO". When flaws in the logic are pointed out, issues with limited skills in Vancian casting, what is the complain, well DAO didn't gave that limit.

There are issues wi the game, I don't like seeing tactics removed but it is the heresy not not being DAO that makes this the worst game ever or some tragic betrayal for so many. I don't thnk criticism is misplaced, I think it is the over the top vehemence that is striking about this game.

 

And I hardly see that "vehemence". The vast majority of actual critics toward the game that I see on the forums are actually relevant. In fact, I'd say that the absurd complaints are more often put in the mouths of complainers by self-styled defenders, than actually made.

 

See the post of Hydwin two places above mine : it's the perfect example of dumb fanboyism, all about trying to disreguard complaints and criticisms by trying to paint the complainers as having/being the problem, instead of even listening to the actual criticism.

[Zachriel]

Expectations: We live in an age of hype - companies now have to release trailers and concept art and snippets of dialogue in the runup to a game.  And a lot of people built whole characters and backstories and personalities from a few works of concept art and bits of dialogue.  Hell, we didn't hear half the characters speak until the game was released.  But go back and read the pre-release fanfic and character pages.  A lot of that stuff is pretty hilarious in retrospect.  People feel betrayed by BioWare who were actually betrayed by their own imaginations run wild.

 

 

Expectations are exactly the source of my disappointment, but it is definitely not a case of imagination run wild.  Bioware set expectations before releaese and then failed to deliver on them.  Here's a list of things they said would be in the game:

 

• Customizable keeps.  Capturing keeps was supposed to be a big part of the game and once we captured a keep were supposed to be able to customize it to determine what kind of presence the Inquisition had in the world:  military, mercantile, or other (there was a specific "other" but I can't remember what it was right now).  There are currently only three keeps in the game that you can capture and you can do ****-all with them afterwards.
• Pretty sure they said there would be something like 40 uniquely different endings.  There is basically just one ending - a slideshow consisting of three slides that varies slightly depending on a couple of choices you make.  Which segues nicely to the next point...
• Choice and consequences.  Your choices were supposed to have deep, long reaching, and meaningful consequences.  The world was supposed to change in response to the choices you make as you play.  This simply doesn't happen.  There are about three choices you make in the game that have any impact on anything and you don't see the outcome until the very end when you get the extremely anti-climactic slideshow.
• There was supposed to be dozens of different factions in the game.  Allying with/recruiting on faction would make enemies of others.  This mechanic is completely absent.  There are hints of it in various war table operations, but they have no impact at all on the actual game world that you experience.
• Power and influence don't work they way they were supposed to.  When Bioware described using power to gain access to certain areas, they said you'd have to be careful and use it wisely because there wouldn't be enough to go everywhere.  This has turned out be completely false.  Power is handed out like candy, and there is way more than enough to unlock every area of the game.

 

Each of those bullet items is something that Bioware themselves said in pre-release interviews and videos.  Each one was said after they told us that they had learned from previous games and were not comfortable showing us or telling us about anything in Inquisition unless it was 100% working and would for sure be in the game.  So yeah, my expectations of the game were a lot higher than the reality but only because Bioware set the expectations that high in the first place.  I work for a software company myself.  We are very careful about setting our customers' expectations when we release a new version or product.  When we aren't that careful, when we set expectations too high, we get burned.

 

 Now I know better.  Now I know that I can't trust anything Bioware says about their games pre-release because it's mostly lies or misinformation.  Hell, I should have known better than to believe their hype in the first place but I fell for it.

[Sidney]

And I hardly see that "vehemence". The vast majority of actual critics toward the game that I see on the forums are actually relevant. In fact, I'd say that the absurd complaints are more often put in the mouths of complainers by self-styled defenders, than actually made.
 
See the post of Hydwin two places above mine : it's the perfect example of dumb fanboyism, all about trying to disreguard complaints and criticisms by trying to paint the complainers as having/being the problem, instead of even listening to the actual criticism.

Don't see it, look at the page of current topics on the Feedback page alone and see the "worst Bioware game ever" and at least 3 other threads one of which mentioned DAO by name to see that. And this is just one page on one particular time and is only looking threads not comments within the other threads many of which will share these feelings. If you don't see the overblown criticsm then you aren't looking very hard or you don't see bias because, likely, you share it. The worst game, just make DAO2, dumbed down threads are legion. They reflect not a specifc concern like the fact that the crafting UI is abysmal but rather they convey a sense of betrayal that is palpable (and frankly funny if you don't feel betrayed). The only reason to respond at all is that a lot of the things that went wrong with this seem to be based off feedback, often from the same people, and it is important for the develops to see that while you didn't do perfectly you aren't 100% driving into the ditch either.

[Farangbaa]

And when DA:O was released, all the basement dwellers cried it wasn't like BG2.

The cycle cannot be stopped.

[DaemionMoadrin]

 

I've seen that stupid argument in every, and I mean every franchise which had more than one iteration, especially for games that were controversial.

It's just as stupid now as it was stupid then (and then, and then, and then, and...). It's just another lame trick to attempt to ignore/stiffle criticism.

 

Correct.

 

As much as I love DA:O, I do not want a new DA to be exactly like it. What would be the point?

 

I liked DA2 a lot, too. Yes, it was more limited and confined than DA:O but it had excellent pacing, fluid combat and very funny dialogues. It was almost as good as DA:O and didn't deserve all the hate it got.

 

DA:I tried too hard. It wanted to please all the DA:O fans, the DA2 fans and new players alike and in that it failed. You can see Skyrim influences, you can see what they wanted to create but eventually they ran out of time. It's a good game and in some areas it did really, really well. Making a copy of a previous installment rarely works out and I understand that BioWare wanted to try something new, something better... but they took it a step too far. It's an action RPG now, with the tactical and strategic parts only hinted at. That's a crowd pleaser, because many gamers just want some simple entertainment, they do not want to work for their fun.

 

To me, DA:I is too simple, too easy, too dumbed down. Even the story was utterly predictable. That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy parts of it... as I said earlier, DA:I is a good game. It just got too far away from DA:O and DA2, it was supposed to be somewhere in the middle, not way out there.

 

There are so many things I could complain about... but then, no game is perfect and I could just as easily complain about DA:O.

 

My main complaint about DA:I is this: It could have been better. We've seen the possibilities, but BioWare didn't explore them. Instead they went for a bigger world, which resulted in a diluted, frayed main story. DA:I wasted its potential. It easily could have been the best DA game so far and BioWare squandered it.

 

In my personal opinion, BioWare didn't get the balance right. The balance between old and new systems, the balance between open world and railroad plot, the balance between callbacks to the old stories and the innovations of a new one.

 

This game is like your favourite meal, made by an overworked chef. It's not bad, but it is not as good as it should have been. Something is missing, something isn't quite right.

 

My complete playthrough of DA:I was around ~123 hours and my thought upon seeing the last scene was, "Finally I'm done with it." Sad, really.

[Hydwn]

 

Each of those bullet items is something that Bioware themselves said in pre-release interviews and videos.  Each one was said after they told us that they had learned from previous games and were not comfortable showing us or telling us about anything in Inquisition unless it was 100% working and would for sure be in the game.  So yeah, my expectations of the game were a lot higher than the reality but only because Bioware set the expectations that high in the first place.  I work for a software company myself.  We are very careful about setting our customers' expectations when we release a new version or product.  When we aren't that careful, when we set expectations too high, we get burned.

 

 

I was thinking more character development and things like that.

 

You're right.  Most of those things were mentioned by BioWare during development and changed - though I suspect the 40 different endings referred to the slideshow, and it's accurate.  Honestly, I didn't expect any different, especially once I found out there would post-game play.  You can't seal the world off in a can and also allow post-game stuff.

 

I felt the choices were meaningful, and I found the world and the ending reflected them.  

 

As for the rest of things, they seem rather minor.  I mean, this is subjective to a degree, but a lack of customizable keeps is a reason to hate on a game?  Or that a game changed during development is a reason to hate them?  I find it hard to fathom that so much hate was generated by stuff like that.  I can't say I particularly missed customizable keeps - the ones you do claim feel epic.  I suspect they'd have had to strip them down and make them icons on a map if you were going to truly customize them.  

 

As for factions, I'm glad it didn't get too messy and complicated.  People had a hard enough time keeping the Orlesian civil war and the Templars/Mages and Venatori and Red Templars all straight.  Throw in the qunari and the blades of hessarian and the promisers and the carta and Fereldens and Avvar and Dalish and ancient elves and city elves and witches of the wilds (all of whom made it into the game), and things must be confusing to first-time players already.

 

Which might be part of the point.  They wanted to draw in a larger crowd.  

 

And it worked.  Already there are people popping up on the boards here who'd never played DAO and DA2.  If DAI outsells those games eventually, the implication is that there's going to be an influx of players into the fandom for whom Thedas starts with DAI.

 

What's going to be really interesting is to see the reaction of such players to DAO and DA2 when some of them inevitably go back and play them.  I'm very curious to know what those players see, without the nostalgia filtres.  If my experiences with Final Fantasy games is any indication, the latecomers will probably like the story, but will have a hard time liking or finishing DAO and DA2 because of the gameplay and graphics.  They certainly won't see them as the pinnacle of gameplay.

[Zachriel]

As for the rest of things, they seem rather minor.  I mean, this is subjective to a degree, but a lack of customizable keeps is a reason to hate on a game?  Or that a game changed during development is a reason to hate them?  I find it hard to fathom that so much hate was generated by stuff like that.  I can't say I particularly missed customizable keeps - the ones you do claim feel epic.  I suspect they'd have had to strip them down and make them icons on a map if you were going to truly customize them.  

 

 

 

I don't hate the game.  I am disappointed because Bioware set the expectations so high and then didn't deliver.  If I had not followed the game or Bioware at all during the pre-release phase then I would probably be perfectly happy with the game as it is (although I'd still be a little irritated at some bugs and stability issues I continue to experience).  I have played the game through three times now and I still enjoy playing it.  But I did follow the game's progress pre-release and I was really excited about each of the features that I listed, only to find them conspicuously absent.  It was... Well, disappointing.

 

I do want to ask about this, though:

 

I felt the choices were meaningful, and I found the world and the ending reflected them.  

 

 

Which choices, specifically, did you feel were meaningful and why?  How exactly does the world reflect those choices?  Because I can't think of a single thing I did in the game that had any impact whatsoever on:

 

- The course of the story

- The fate of my Inquistor or my compnions, with one exception (Divine)

- The state of the world in this game.

 

There are some things that are implied about the state of the world, but we never get to actually see them.  Some choices did have a much greater emotional impact than others.  For example,

Spoiler

If you end up with both Allistair and Hawke in the Fade with you, choosing who gets left behind was emotionally difficult and felt meaningful

but it does not affect the story or the outcome.  At all.  The same goes for every major decision in the game.  No matter what you choose the story unfolds in exactly the same manner every time and the world that you get to interact with remains the same.  There are no tangible consequences to any choice you make that you can actually see in the world when you go out and explore it, except perhaps a decrease/change in the type of enemy you encounter but even then it's usually just a substitution of Red Templars for whatever the previous enemies were on a particular map.

[Zobert]

Don't see it, look at the page of current topics on the Feedback page alone and see the "worst Bioware game ever" and at least 3 other threads one of which mentioned DAO by name to see that. And this is just one page on one particular time and is only looking threads not comments within the other threads many of which will share these feelings. If you don't see the overblown criticsm then you aren't looking very hard or you don't see bias because, likely, you share it. The worst game, just make DAO2, dumbed down threads are legion. They reflect not a specifc concern like the fact that the crafting UI is abysmal but rather they convey a sense of betrayal that is palpable (and frankly funny if you don't feel betrayed). The only reason to respond at all is that a lot of the things that went wrong with this seem to be based off feedback, often from the same people, and it is important for the develops to see that while you didn't do perfectly you aren't 100% driving into the ditch either.

 

Negative bias is a common human occurrence and natural and something PR firms take into consideration.  Bioware is a publicly traded company that will respond to non-ambiguity.  They will check off what people like a lot and what they hate.

 

There is a reason why Bioware and Bethesda offer feedback in their forums.  People will go back and report on it as they develop new games.  They will look at general trends.

 

There is nothing wrong with vehemence of hate when giving feedback to a for-profit company.  You don't need to go on Sarah Lee's website and say nice things about a cheesecake you don't like.

 

I'm sure that the developers know that they made a good product and will take that into consideration.

[Farangbaa]

Still a huge difference in how the three games are rated.
 
Baldur's Gate II user score              93 / 100
Dragon Age: Origins user score      86 / 100
Dragon Age: Inquisition user score  58 / 100
PC scores taken from metacritic.com

I'm not going to bother discussing things with people who use metacritic as the basis of their argument.

It's just not going to happen son, try again.

[Farangbaa]

I don't hate the game.  I am disappointed because Bioware set the expectations so high and then didn't deliver.  If I had not followed the game or Bioware at all during the pre-release phase then I would probably be perfectly happy with the game as it is (although I'd still be a little irritated at some bugs and stability issues I continue to experience).  I have played the game through three times now and I still enjoy playing it.  But I did follow the game's progress pre-release and I was really excited about each of the features that I listed, only to find them conspicuously absent.  It was... Well, disappointing.
 
I do want to ask about this, though:
 
 
Which choices, specifically, did you feel were meaningful and why?  How exactly does the world reflect those choices?  Because I can't think of a single thing I did in the game that had any impact whatsoever on:
 
- The course of the story
- The fate of my Inquistor or my compnions, with one exception (Divine)
- The state of the world in this game.
 
There are some things that are implied about the state of the world, but we never get to actually see them.  Some choices did have a much greater emotional impact than others.  For example,

Spoiler

If you end up with both Allistair and Hawke in the Fade with you, choosing who gets left behind was emotionally difficult and felt meaningful

but it does not affect the story or the outcome.  At all.  The same goes for every major decision in the game.  No matter what you choose the story unfolds in exactly the same manner every time and the world that you get to interact with remains the same.  There are no tangible consequences to any choice you make that you can actually see in the world when you go out and explore it, except perhaps a decrease/change in the type of enemy you encounter but even then it's usually just a substitution of Red Templars for whatever the previous enemies were on a particular map.

Yeah because choosing the Templars or Mages totally gives you the same mission.

[Ryzaki]

Yeah because choosing the Templars or Mages totally gives you the same mission.

 

Pretty sure it changes the looks of some maps too. Someone who sided with the templars claimed there was a red lyrium cave in Crestwood. I've never seen a one.

[DaemionMoadrin]

Pretty sure it changes the looks of some maps too. Someone who sided with the templars claimed there was a red lyrium cave in Crestwood. I've never seen a one.

 

Really? I found at least one and I sided with the mages. Kinda doubt the map got changed.