174 réponses à ce sujet

[Elsariel]

Very much this.

Also, it's worth keeping in mind that (a) community management is not part of the developers' jobs, and any communicating they did here would have to be on their own time or instead of working on actually patching the game, and (2) they get way more useable data about the bugs from in-game telemetry than from forum posts.

Community managers have got to be seeing these complaint posts. My guess is they haven't received the go-ahead internally to communicate anything to us in regards to what is being worked on. You're right in that Developers themselves don't typically do the communication, but they're the ones that need to tell the community management team what's going on so it can be shared with all of us. If I were to guess, that's where the disconnect is.

[Keitaro57]

Re: "Unplayable".

"Unplayable" does not mean it has to be completely broken. That definition is one among many, linguistically possibly the most frequent, but by no means the only or correct one.

Most quality management methods recognise that single, massive defects are not the only situations that invalidate a product's usefulness. They realise that defects fall into different "buckets" of severity, and that individual defects can sum up to a severity grade often beyond the individual grades.

A car without an engine is quite obviously broken.
A car with no window panes and missing seats is also broken, even if you can still drive it.

Neither would be released to the customer.

Excuse me, but I'll continue the explenation. Perhaps some trolls have not fully understand : 

If a game has no sound at all, no color (all black and white), crash every ten minutes, freeze totally if you try to advance the main plot and has so small font you must use a magnifying glass... This game is not unplayable. Technically, you can play at this game if you play only 9 min and 59 sec, don't try to advance in the game by running in circle and are not bothered by all the grafical problems. Does the customer have any right to complain?

 

HELL YEAH!!!!

[Terodil]

Excuse me, but I'll continue the explenation. Perhaps some trolls have not fully understand :
If a game has no sound at all, no color (all black and white), crash every ten minutes, freeze totally if you try to advance the main plot and has so small font you must use a magnifying glass... This game is not unplayable. Technically, you can play at this game if you play only 9 min and 59 sec, don't try to advance in the game by running in circle and are not bothered by all the grafical problems.

Your definition is valid. However, it does not match cross-industry best practices. I'll stick with a well-established concept rather than an off-the-cuff idea based on colloquial wording.

[Keitaro57]

Your definition is valid. However, it does not match cross-industry best practices. I'll stick with a well-established concept rather than an off-the-cuff idea based on colloquial wording.

Aaaanndd... you just broke my dictionary. He is burning now. Seriously. Poor thing.

 

Well, more seriously I made an other exemple just a moment ago : If you buy new tires on your old car, the tires must work fine. But the mentality of the "It is wrong that DAI was released on PS360" find it totally A-OK if new tires explodes after 500 miles on an older car. The mentality "He must buy a new car if he want to have tires" is just absolute and misplaced hate. 

[Octarin]

Re: "Unplayable".

"Unplayable" does not mean it has to be completely broken. That definition is one among many, linguistically possibly the most frequent, but by no means the only or correct one.

Most quality management methods recognise that single, massive defects are not the only situations that invalidate a product's usefulness. They realise that defects fall into different "buckets" of severity, and that individual defects can sum up to a severity grade often beyond the individual grades.

A car without an engine is quite obviously broken.
A car with no window panes and missing seats is also broken, even if you can still drive it.

Neither would be released to the customer.

 

Epic comment. Would like it but have gone over my daily quota. Consider it liked thoroughly.

[Faeryia]

Dear BioWare,

 

By the time you'll read this, I'll be long gone. I'm sorry for doing this but you left me no choice. I know this might come as a bit of a surprise to you - especially because you praise yourself for caring so much about your fans. But I'm sorry - I just need a game developer who isn't too busy polishing its GOTY trophies to listen to me.

 

I've been loyal to you for so many years and we've had some good times together, but enough is enough. You can't just keep ignoring me like this and think that I will stay by your side. It is time for me to move on. I've met this swell game developer who actually communicates. It's called Blizzard. I'm sure you've heard about it. But you know what, I still want to be friends so please don't be too broken hearted. And look – I won't even make an issue out of the 699 SEKR you screwed me out of, or the fact that your latest release was quite frankly a disappointing experience.

 

So, take care and try to move on. I know it won't be easy, but you have to. And, baby, we will always have Denerim.

 

Sincerely,

 

Your (but no longer your) fan.  

[Dubya75]

Dear BioWare,

 

By the time you'll read this, I'll be long gone. I'm sorry for doing this but you left me no choice. I know this might come as a bit of a surprise to you - especially because you praise yourself for caring so much about your fans. But I'm sorry - I just need a game developer who isn't too busy polishing its GOTY trophies to listen to me.

 

I've been loyal to you for so many years and we've had some good times together, but enough is enough. You can't just keep ignoring me like this and think that I will stay by your side. It is time for me to move on. I've met this swell game developer who actually communicates. It's called Blizzard. I'm sure you've heard about it. But you know what, I still want to be friends so please don't be too broken hearted. And look – I won't even make an issue out of the 699 SEKR you screwed me out of, or the fact that your latest release was quite frankly a disappointing experience.

 

So, take care and try to move on. I know it won't be easy, but you have to. And, baby, we will always have Denerim.

 

Sincerely,

 

Your (but no longer your) fan.  

 

 

(looks around solemnly....)

 

Her name....was...Lilian Persson.....

 

Her name was Lilian Persson

 

Her name was Lilian Persson

 

Her name was Lilian Persson!!!   

[Octarin]

Dear BioWare,

 

By the time you'll read this, I'll be long gone. I'm sorry for doing this but you left me no choice. I know this might come as a bit of a surprise to you - especially because you praise yourself for caring so much about your fans. But I'm sorry - I just need a game developer who isn't too busy polishing its GOTY trophies to listen to me.

 

I've been loyal to you for so many years and we've had some good times together, but enough is enough. You can't just keep ignoring me like this and think that I will stay by your side. It is time for me to move on. I've met this swell game developer who actually communicates. It's called Blizzard. I'm sure you've heard about it. But you know what, I still want to be friends so please don't be too broken hearted. And look – I won't even make an issue out of the 699 SEKR you screwed me out of, or the fact that your latest release was quite frankly a disappointing experience.

 

So, take care and try to move on. I know it won't be easy, but you have to. And, baby, we will always have Denerim.

 

Sincerely,

 

Your (but no longer your) fan.  

 

Don't be so upset, Lil, all those things we talked about they are speculations, they might still be working on things. Please reconsider.

 

Yours, Lilly. [yes, same name]

[Dubya75]

Don't be so upset, Lil, all those things we talked about they are speculations, they might still be working on things. Please reconsider.

 

Yours, Lilly. [yes, same name]

 

I know this is weird, right.....but my name is Lilly too!

[SofaJockey]

Dear BioWare,

 

By the time you'll read this, I'll be long gone. I'm sorry for doing this but you left me no choice. I know this might come as a bit of a surprise to you - especially because you praise yourself for caring so much about your fans. But I'm sorry - I just need a game developer who isn't too busy polishing its GOTY trophies to listen to me.

 

etc.

 

Well this is disappointing.

 

36 hours after the well written and constructive open letter that forms the OP,

here is a petulant 'I'm out of here' post of whining hyperbole, which undermines your case.

 

'Too busy, polishing your GOTY's', oh dear, what sort of emotional clap-trap is that?

 

You expected an answer & solution in two days?

BioWare 'left you no choice' did they?

 

You know BioWare is working on a patch, and if the patch doesn't address all the issues, that's sadly as good as it's going to get on last gen.

 

It remains to be seen whether your dramatic exit is indeed an exit, or whether you will be posting here or somewhere else on BSN in a few minutes.

 

I sincerely hope you were just in a bad mood / upset when you wrote that

because it was not consistent with the high quality of most of your posts.

[Rizilliant]

I still dont understand the reasoning behind the release for last gen consoles anyway?! How could this game be epic, if it had to remain behind the limitations of the 360, and ps3? Everyone knows that your develop a game, tuning it down to the specs of the weakest machine. Obviously this llimits potential for a much mroepowerful PC, or ps4/Xb1. 

 

Its clear to me, and now im sure everyong else, that DA:I was clearly "developed" with little more in mind than GREED! The game is clearly unfinished. Its barely working for many platforms, and for some, not at all. The PC version seems to have gotten the least amount of testing, and last gen consoles apparently were just packaged and sol for the extra revenue, for teh simple fact that little software has been created to warrant many of us even considering buying next gen consoles.. Its appalling! I have lost ALL faith in Bioware, the one and only exception i had, in my Boycott of anything/everything EA! Well, no more.. They are all officially dead to me!

[Rizilliant]

Well this is disappointing.

 

36 hours after the well written and constructive open letter that forms the OP,

here is a petulant 'I'm out of here' post of whining hyperbole, which undermines your case.

 

'Too busy, polishing your GOTY's', oh dear, what sort of emotional clap-trap is that?

 

You expected an answer & solution in two days?

BioWare 'left you no choice' did they?

 

You know BioWare is working on a patch, and if the patch doesn't address all the issues, that's sadly as good as it's going to get on last gen.

 

It remains to be seen whether your dramatic exit is indeed an exit, or whether you will be posting here or somewhere else on BSN in a few minutes.

 

I sincerely hope you were just in a bad mood / upset when you wrote that

because it was not consistent with the high quality of most of your posts.

You do realize that every single post from development/moderators reads exactly in that way, yes? In many circumstances, those patches you so blindly defend Bioware as working on, never actually come around! Ill never understand the blind faith people like you so fruitlessly place in companies that have clearly violated consumer trust! The fact that the game was released in such a state, should be proof enough of where Bioware loyalties lie. 

 

In this day in age, developers release faulty advertisements, shoehorn in multiplayer for no other reason that it doubles as a micro-transaction revenue generator. Accept pre-orders before development is complete, reguardless of promises already made, or changes that may take place. Neglect, or blatantly lie to the consumer about anything and everything they can legally get away with, and cower behind the faulty laws that protect public relations reps! I could go on, but i have a feeling you would continue to defend your favorite developers, if they handed you a steaming pile of dung, and told you it was a pre-order bonus! What these unethical businessmen have done to so, undeservedly gain your trust, completely baffles me!

[FKA_Servo]

I still dont understand the reasoning behind the release for last gen consoles anyway?! How could this game be epic, if it had to remain behind the limitations of the 360, and ps3? Everyone knows that your develop a game, tuning it down to the specs of the weakest machine. Obviously this llimits potential for a much mroepowerful PC, or ps4/Xb1. 

 

Its clear to me, and now im sure everyong else, that DA:I was clearly "developed" with little more in mind than GREED! The game is clearly unfinished. Its barely working for many platforms, and for some, not at all. The PC version seems to have gotten the least amount of testing, and last gen consoles apparently were just packaged and sol for the extra revenue, for teh simple fact that little software has been created to warrant many of us even considering buying next gen consoles.. Its appalling! I have lost ALL faith in Bioware, the one and only exception i had, in my Boycott of anything/everything EA! Well, no more.. They are all officially dead to me!

 

Thankfully, it didn't limit the potential of the game. That's why it sucks so hard on old gen. The game was developed for systems that can handle it, and was hobbled when they tried porting it to systems that cannot. So that's obviously a cash in, granted.

 

All in all though, this is a dumb comment. The game isn't clearly unfinished. If it was developed with "little more in mind than greed" then EA would have half-assed another game and released it more than a year ago, assuming (probably correctly) that the Bioware name still commanded enough goodwill to get decent first day sales either way. Instead, the game was delayed for more than a year to add content that many fans sincerely wanted. If the whole game was meant to be a cash in, they're doing it wrong.

 

By all accounts the game runs a treat on the current gen consoles. And I've logged two playthroughs on PC. 170ish hours, mostly ultra settings, not a single crash in that entire time. It's not really Bioware's fault that a lot of people with PCs can't be bothered with troubleshooting their issues or keeping their drivers and software updated (which is a pre-requisite to PC gaming in the first place, and would fix pretty much all the performance problems). The PC is probably the single best platform to play this game.

[fcedric]

Where is the Bioware participation in this topic ? not even an answer ? 

They could come and participate at least... 

[Teddie Sage]

Where is the Bioware participation in this topic ? not even an answer ? 

They could come and participate at least... 

The BSN is giving them a burnout.

[glosoli]

I completely agree with every single word you've written, Faeryia. Everytime I check the EHQ, I see the same issues for all platforms popping up. No responses to any of them, no acknowledgements as well. Like Cerberus taken over the BW HQ. 

 

And do not be so optimistic about getting any sort of attention as an Xbox360 user. We PC users have PC Community Concerns thread created by the devs. However, even that is not getting any response or status updates at all.

[Faeryia]

Well this is disappointing.

 

36 hours after the well written and constructive open letter that forms the OP,

here is a petulant 'I'm out of here' post of whining hyperbole, which undermines your case.

 

'Too busy, polishing your GOTY's', oh dear, what sort of emotional clap-trap is that?

 

You expected an answer & solution in two days?

BioWare 'left you no choice' did they?

 

You know BioWare is working on a patch, and if the patch doesn't address all the issues, that's sadly as good as it's going to get on last gen.

 

It remains to be seen whether your dramatic exit is indeed an exit, or whether you will be posting here or somewhere else on BSN in a few minutes.

 

I sincerely hope you were just in a bad mood / upset when you wrote that

because it was not consistent with the high quality of most of your posts.

 

I was trying to write a humours Dear John letter to lighten the mood a bit. Clearly I am not as funny as I thought I was.

 

(Also, I'm not actually here, writing this since I broke up with BioWare and left to go and live in gaming bliss with Blizzard.)

[Dubya75]

I was trying to write a humours Dear John letter to lighten the mood a bit. Clearly I am not as funny as I thought I was.

 

(Also, I'm not actually here, writing this since I broke up with BioWare and left to go and live in gaming bliss with Blizzard.)

 

Don't worry about it, we all come to that realization (that we're not THAT funny) sooner or later

[Waukeen25]

By all accounts the game runs a treat on the current gen consoles. And I've logged two playthroughs on PC. 170ish hours, mostly ultra settings, not a single crash in that entire time. It's not really Bioware's fault that a lot of people with PCs can't be bothered with troubleshooting their issues or keeping their drivers and software updated (which is a pre-requisite to PC gaming in the first place, and would fix pretty much all the performance problems). The PC is probably the single best platform to play this game.

 

I am a PC gamer and I know how to trouble shoot.  Also I have tried but let me ask you this, as a PC gamer how can you trouble shoot stuff when all your drivers are up to date, you have no virus and this is the only game which has issues like the CTDs randomly when the bloody game isn't writing its error logs when it does so?  How do I know this you ask?  BECAUSE I LOOKED.  Now I am not a console gamer and personally do not like consoles but I am not going to say that the issue is because they are on whatever gen system or PC or their drivers aren't up to date etc etc, without knowing some details first.

 

In this particular case EAWare is failing as there is no reason not to have a community manager (FYI They don't, while I did not like the guy Chris Priestly was the last one they had that I know of) or to ADMIT they follow Reddit more than their own forums (They admitted this in a twitch stream about the Destruction "DLC").  EAWare is treating this forum as a black hole and they are not acting as a company should in that, they give ANY updates besides "Patch # is being worked on (close thread)".  They refuse to interact and those that do issue veiled threats or remove posts where someone calls them out on their BS.

 

That having been said Bioware is dead and gone, and we will no longer see any glimmer of the old Bioware unless the founders start a new company.  I offered a certain EAWare employee the ability to run some multiplayer with me and a group that do play just so they can get outside of the internal network to see what we deal with on a regular basis.  While I will admit I called said person out on their BS "They had been playing multiplayer fine for over 2 years without any issues" any guesses what happened to that post?  Deleted.

 

I offer again to said person, (you know who you are) You are welcome to hit me up on Origin and me and the people I play with would be more than willing to show you what we in paying customer land have to deal with on a regular basis.  That is all.

[SofaJockey]

I was trying to write a humours Dear John letter to lighten the mood a bit. Clearly I am not as funny as I thought I was.

 

(Also, I'm not actually here, writing this since I broke up with BioWare and left to go and live in gaming bliss with Blizzard.)

 

Whoops !

My apologies !

I'm the total idiot then   

 

I'm really pleased that my faith in the quality of your sense has been upheld !

 

I am aware of Poe's Law but I am sometimes caught out by it.

 

"Without a blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of extremism or fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing."

 

I'm sorry again, it's really good to have you back / not gone.

[SofaJockey]

You do realize that every single post from development/moderators reads exactly in that way, yes? In many circumstances, those patches you so blindly defend Bioware as working on, never actually come around! Ill never understand the blind faith people like you so fruitlessly place in companies that have clearly violated consumer trust! The fact that the game was released in such a state, should be proof enough of where Bioware loyalties lie. 

 

In this day in age, developers release faulty advertisements, shoehorn in multiplayer for no other reason that it doubles as a micro-transaction revenue generator. Accept pre-orders before development is complete, reguardless of promises already made, or changes that may take place. Neglect, or blatantly lie to the consumer about anything and everything they can legally get away with, and cower behind the faulty laws that protect public relations reps! I could go on, but i have a feeling you would continue to defend your favorite developers, if they handed you a steaming pile of dung, and told you it was a pre-order bonus! What these unethical businessmen have done to so, undeservedly gain your trust, completely baffles me!

 

Blind faith? no.

 

Game quality: I did experience the dialogue delay bug on XB1 which was fixed in Patch 2.

Outside of that (and key glitch) the game has been pretty much bug free.

 

I have some empathy for those on PC and last gen who have reported more issues,

but there is some ambiguity between what is a bug and what is a disliked feature. I suspect it is a mixture of the two.

 

You say patches don't come around? Of course they do.

DAO released 5 patches

DA2 released 4 patches

DAI will release Patch 3 'soon' and I imagine a couple more will follow alongside DLC.

 

Those who experience bugs are of course frustrated.

I have no way of knowing what the actual extent of the issue is aside of the noise on BSN and neither do you.

Comments about 'violating consumer trust' and assessments about 'loyalty' are simply rhetoric.

 

You then give a generic list of bad things about game development to imply they apply here, they largely do not.

 

Faulty advertisements:

BioWare have done excellently with their marketing campaign with two exceptions.

From the off they showed gameplay demos and the trailers were of gameplay not cinematics.

They let youtubers have a play and released review copies well in advance of game release.

Compare that to Ubisoft for ACU.

The two expections, PC UI coverage was limited and we know how much exposure 360/PS3 got. Nada.

Misleading by omission? Maybe.

 

Multiplayer

The DA multiplayer is good (excluding the key glitch).

The microstransactions are not a 'pay to win' tool.

In this case with 2.5 years development, the multiplayer was not shoehorned in.

 

Stance on defending BioWare

Then you get shirty with me about my own critical faculties.

Do BioWare do things I don't like? Sure:

In DAI, some of the 'fetch quests' are indeed unnecessary.

I think there is insufficient emotional or cinematic pay-off for some quests that would add an emotional connection.

DAI is not a masterpiece, but it is very good - I think Frostbite 3 was more work to convert that BW let on.

 

BioWare make good games I like to play.

I do not want to adopt their babies or name my children after them (do you remember someone calling their kid Dovahkiin?)

I don't see unethical behaviour.

There is nothing here that says to me their intent was anything other than to release a good game that also makes them some money.

 

There are clearly some bugs, but folk are all too quick to ascribe that to some evil conspiracy (e.g. evil EA).

 

I am a firm believer in Hanlon's Razor:

 

'Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.'

 

BioWare have messed up some stuff mostly on PC / last gen on an otherwise very good game.

That was because someone was dumb.

They are fixing it (or trying to, if they can).

 

Perspective

I think several of us probably need to calm down and gain some perspective, myself included.

My grumpy post about Faeryia recent comments was misdirected and I've apologised for that.

I think the 'evil EA/BioWare' hate is also misdirected for the reasons I've given.

Sure it's a pity there isn't more communication but with a forum like this, do you blame them?

[Faeryia]

Whoops !

My apologies !

I'm the total idiot then   

 

I'm really pleased that my faith in the quality of your sense has been upheld !

 

I am aware of Poe's Law but I am sometimes caught out by it.

 

"Without a blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of extremism or fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing."

 

I'm sorry again, it's really good to have you back / not gone.

 

That's okay.

 

Irony and humour is tricky when all you can rely on are written words.

 

 

And I'm still not here... Eh, who am I kidding... I'll be one of those horrible yo-yo girlfriends... err, I mean fans... who keeps coming back.

[Faeryia]

Don't worry about it, we all come to that realization (that we're not THAT funny) sooner or later

 

Thanks.lol

[fcedric]

Dear BioWare,

 

By the time you'll read this, I'll be long gone. I'm sorry for doing this but you left me no choice. I know this might come as a bit of a surprise to you - especially because you praise yourself for caring so much about your fans. But I'm sorry - I just need a game developer who isn't too busy polishing its GOTY trophies to listen to me.

 

I've been loyal to you for so many years and we've had some good times together, but enough is enough. You can't just keep ignoring me like this and think that I will stay by your side. It is time for me to move on. I've met this swell game developer who actually communicates. It's called Blizzard. I'm sure you've heard about it. But you know what, I still want to be friends so please don't be too broken hearted. And look – I won't even make an issue out of the 699 SEKR you screwed me out of, or the fact that your latest release was quite frankly a disappointing experience.

 

So, take care and try to move on. I know it won't be easy, but you have to. And, baby, we will always have Denerim.

 

Sincerely,

 

Your (but no longer your) fan.  

I'm going with you, i'm on Far Cry and FF14 now ...

Good bye Bioware... Stay alone with your game... 

Correct it if you want me back and buy  your next game...

[Faeryia]

I'm going with you, i'm on Far Cry and FF14 now ...

Good bye Bioware... Stay alone with your game... 

Correct it if you want me back and buy  your next game...

 

*Loops arms with fcedric, and starts to sing* "We're off to see the Blizzard, the wonderful Blizzard of Oz! Because, because, because of all the wonderful games he does!"