334 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

Failure is never really been a part of any game I can recall unless failure = death. It is rare to recall, I think FO had a handful, of quests you could finish but fail as opposed to BG or DAO where there was no way to fail.

Significant setbacks can be a form of failure. Attempting to advance in one area could potentially undo progress in another area if you don't do it right. Ultima IV did this well.

[Rawgrim]

Significant setbacks can be a form of failure. Attempting to advance in one area could potentially undo progress in another area if you don't do it right. Ultima IV did this well.

 

Good example.

[blackdeath]

The WITCHER 3.........Will be out in May I think a COR Game for the COR Gamer

[samb]

Man I cannot wait for Persona 5. Learning the ropes is the best part of an RPG. BW has yet to make an RPG that can compare to Altus, now we know the reason.

[Sidney]

I worded my post poorly. What I mean is that its not a good thing when an rpg requires no tactical thought at all. And that any spell or weapon, for example, works against any enemy. Stuff like that. In DA:I it is almost impossible not to win every fight by just casting barrier and then button mashing through it.

You can't lose in DAO either, spam heal and potions and you are good. DAO is actually nearly impossible to die in whereas there is some risk in DAI because of the lack of healing between fights.

Risk is almost totally missing in Bioware games because fights are not designed to be fatal they are XP gathering opportunities.

[Sidney]

Significant setbacks can be a form of failure. Attempting to advance in one area could potentially undo progress in another area if you don't do it right. Ultima IV did this well.

OK so I should have said not a major part of anything in the last 30 years -- seriously you are going back to the mid 80s? Cmon. That said coming up with occasional examples doesn't mitigate the fact that overall, by and large, most of the time, other than few examples a decade you are not risking a lack of success in games.

There is no DAO ending where you do not get all 4 allies, get rid of Loghain and kill the AD. You succeed at every major thing you are trying to do. There is no ME1 ending where Saren isn't foiled and Sovereign isn't dead. BG2 you will always save Imoen and stop Irencius...and so forth.

[Jackal19851111]

This isn't exactly news, they have always been clueless. Their executives are pulled from all other industries except gaming, with the focus on the bottom line rather than game quality.

 

And it's not the end of RPGs, EA only has the "Bioware" brand, once it dies out they'll probably try to acquire another studio to milk dry.

[Draining Dragon]

While we're listing deep and complex games that are coming out: Pillars of Eternity.

[BackdoorPaco]

ITT: Confirmation Bias

He said nothing wrong. If a game takes longer than 2 hours just to learn the fundamentals (like moving, pew-pewing, basic combat) it's either complex for the sake of complexity or flawed.

I don't think anyone here would like to sit through a 10 hour tutorial on how to push a button.

[katokires]

They got rid of Blood Magic. There is nothing else to say.

[In Exile]

RPGs used to pride themselves on being inaccessible and requiring people to pull themselves up by the bootstrap to learn the mechanics. While oversimplification is not the answer I'm not convinced that just documenting mechanics is enough to introduce people to the genre.

The biggest reason IMO why the isometric style number crunching RPGs of the past have not translated to large audiences is their general accessibility issue.

[wolfhowwl]

Obtuse, poorly designed and explained systems are all that separate us true gamers from the casuals.

[Bioware-Critic]

Obtuse, poorly designed and explained systems are all that separate us true gamers from the casuals.

EXACTLY! How dare they to change that

[Sylvius the Mad]

OK so I should have said not a major part of anything in the last 30 years -- seriously you are going back to the mid 80s? Cmon. That said coming up with occasional examples doesn't mitigate the fact that overall, by and large, most of the time, other than few examples a decade you are not risking a lack of success in games.

There is no DAO ending where you do not get all 4 allies, get rid of Loghain and kill the AD. You succeed at every major thing you are trying to do. There is no ME1 ending where Saren isn't foiled and Sovereign isn't dead. BG2 you will always save Imoen and stop Irencius...and so forth.

I completely agree. Modern games don't do this much at all. DAI arguably does with one subplot in the Exalted Plains, but even then once you've won you've won, and you're free to do the things that would have made you fail earlier.

I would love it if, in DAO, we'd had a quest which was completed by retrieving something from an Elven ruin, but completing that quest cost your the Dalish as allies (even if you'd already completed that section).

[Terodil]

There's art in reducing complexity into beautiful simplicity.

 

 

You don't have to be a mathematician and understand this formula completely to know beauty by simply looking at it. (By the way, that's Euler's identity, which is almost unanimously considered the most beautiful mathematical discovery of all time.)

 

Sadly, the reverse isn't true. You can't turn simplicity into beauty if there is no substance behind it. The above work of beauty could not have been produced by somebody who was not intimately familiar with mathematics.

 

Starting off with accessibiltiy in mind will lead to disaster. I would have hoped that Mr. Hilleman, in his capacity as "Chief Creative (!) Officer" of EA, would be the voice of inspiration, of art on the team, and not the first to throw in the towel in the face of market forces -- that should be the job of the other big Cs. I'm not sure if I dare hope that the interview was just taken out of context or shortened so much as to become misleading.

[Bioware-Critic]

There's art in reducing complexity into beautiful simplicity.

 

 

You don't have to be a mathematician and understand this formula completely to know beauty by simply looking at it. (By the way, that's Euler's identity, I think it was voted among the first three most beautiful discoveries of all time.)

 

Sadly, the reverse isn't true. You can't turn simplicity into beauty if there is no substance behind it. The above work of beauty could not have been produced by somebody who was not intimately familiar with mathematics.

 

Starting off with accessibiltiy in mind will lead to disaster. I would have hoped that Mr. Hilleman, in his capacity as "Chief Creative Officer" of EA, would be the voice of inspiration, of art on the team, and not the first to throw in the towel in the face of market forces -- that should be the job of the other big Cs. I'm not sure if I dare hope that the interview was just taken out of context or shortened too much to become misleading.

 

Don't keep your hopes up, Terodil!

This industry and it's "inhabitants" are getting more weird by the day!

 

And the thing is: The corporate guys love to screw with us customers. They enjoy saying things that "screw us up"!

They love it ...

[aliastasia]

Amidst all the fun we're having, ranting, does anyone know if EA has any numbers to back this up?
Because Mark Darrah's comment is now in an entirely new context:

"Now the expectations of your other fans, they're changing too. People age, they typically have less time for games, so it changes their expectations in terms of gameplay segments. It also results in some nostalgia. so they may become even more firm in their attachment to previous features. Now suddenly you have 15 million people that have basically had the first RPG they've ever played as Skyrim. They have totally different expectations of what storytelling is, what exploration is, and I think exploration is really where we've seen the biggest change."

- Both Darrah and EA are citing time as an issue in an aging userbase - so - as a member of the aging userbase with a set amount of time on my hands - are there any numbers to back up what they're saying?
Because it goes against my own experience: I have a fairly busy life, I game because I like to immerse myself into another universe as a form of relaxation. I do NOT want shallow dungeons and dumbed down quests - If I was that kind of player, I'd have bought something else. Just as I don't order i.e Patrick Rothfuss' or George R.R. Martin's books if I want to read something like... dunno - Twilight?
I stopped playing Skyrim because there was nothing but fetches. Went straight back to the Witcher-series for a fantasy fix instead.

Hence asking for numbers - my experience, and my friends' experiences do not seem to back up EA and Darrah's statements.
It also raises the question whether new users will always be the prime target for a franchise, thereby excluding the initial purchasers and non-gamesite reviewers who made the series a success.

/A

[DaemionMoadrin]

Yeah... look. There are games I play when I want mindless fun and there are games I play when I want a good story and level up my character. RPGs never were and should never be mindless fun.

 

Let's take the Baldur's Gate series as example. Did I have any clue whatsoever in the beginning? Nope. Did I pick the best class, best stats or best equipment? Nope. There was a tutorial in Candlekeep that explained the basics and then you learned on the road. You improved together with your character.

 

It adds to the replayability (is that a real word?) of a game when you have reasons to start another playthrough. You do not have to be perfect the first time.

 

Yes, some games were too complex (Dark Age of Camelot required a special calculator just to get your equipment right) but I wouldn't simplify things further than KotOR or DA:O, although I quite liked the companion armor solution in DA2.

 

If you automate everything, then you don't give the player a choice anymore. Roleplaying depends on the player making decisions though, otherwise you might as well read a book or watch a movie.

 

Seriously, we can talk about everything. You want better combat with more action? Look at DC Universe Online. Weapon combos similiar to fighting games. Those would work in DA, too. It would free up the quickbar for actual abilities, it would require skill instead of button mashing and it would allow you to customize your character further. More importantly, it would feel more like combat.

 

Action gameplay and RPG can exist together. It's up to the developer to provide multiple ways to solve a quest. Remember Deus Ex? Good rolemodel for alternative solutions. You can fight your way through the game, you can use diplomacy, you can use stealth or you can combine all three.

 

I played Baldur's Gate last night. During the conversation with an unimportant NPC I was given 7 choices on how to respond. I could flirt, I could be greedy, I could be a jerk, I could be creepy, I could be noble and honorable, I could be dismissive and I could be aggressive.

Choices and decisions. That's what RPGs are about. Changing the world around you as you progress through the story and change yourself. Seeing the consequences of your actions play out.

 

If you want to make a dumbed down action game for people who don't have the time or patience for RPGs, then fine. Do it. Go ahead. But don't ruin RPGs for everyone else. You're killing an entire genre here just for another share of the market... which will dry up quickly once players realize they've been had.

[Bioware-Critic]

Amidst all the fun we're having, ranting, does anyone know if EA has any numbers to back this up?
Because Mark Darrah's comment is now in an entirely new context:

"Now the expectations of your other fans, they're changing too. People age, they typically have less time for games, so it changes their expectations in terms of gameplay segments. It also results in some nostalgia. so they may become even more firm in their attachment to previous features. Now suddenly you have 15 million people that have basically had the first RPG they've ever played as Skyrim. They have totally different expectations of what storytelling is, what exploration is, and I think exploration is really where we've seen the biggest change."

- Both Darrah and EA are citing time as an issue in an aging userbase - so - as a member of the aging userbase with a set amount of time on my hands - are there any numbers to back up what they're saying?
Because it goes against my own experience: I have a fairly busy life, I game because I like to immerse myself into another universe as a form of relaxation. I do NOT want shallow dungeons and dumbed down quests - If I was that kind of player, I'd have bought something else. Just as I don't order i.e Patrick Rothfuss' or George R.R. Martin's books if I want to read something like... dunno - Twilight?
I stopped playing Skyrim because there was nothing but fetches. Went straight back to the Witcher-series for a fantasy fix instead.

Hence asking for numbers - my experience, and my friends' experiences do not seem to back up EA and Darrah's statements.
It also raises the question whether new users will always be the prime target for a franchise, thereby excluding the initial purchasers and non-gamesite reviewers who made the series a success.

/A

 

Well first of: It is all PR controlled BS! They don't talk about what they think and believe there ...

 

They tell us what the PR department told them to tell us!

 

And ...

 

They try to sneak in some info they wish were true! Because they want to "spin" the perception of the consumer and they try control the information to achieve that!

 

They do that ALL THE TIME! Every bloody interview these days is the same old pyramid scheme ... Pathetic!

They try to get into the head of the potential buyers through the back door ...

[o Ventus]

 

 

So new players should do what every old player did , and LEARN......

 

everyone was a Noob at the beginning..geez

 

This. I love how everyone is jumping on this article like a pack of starving wild dogs.

 

The 'average', new coming gamer might have difficulty learning the game. The same average gamer probably doesn't even complete the games they own, if completion rates for most games are to be taken seriously.

 

The people on this site aren't even the subject of the article in question, yet everyone and their mother feels the odd need to attack EA for 'dumbing down' the series and complain about how Bioware apparently lost their way. I'm not exactly a fan of EA, but seriously people, criticize them for the right reasons (or for actual reasons at all).

[aliastasia]

I think I mentioned PR in another thread, thank you. However, PR is based on _something_
So the question stands - does anyone know where EA gets these numbers from, and if it's across the board?
EA sports, for example, has a whole set of different and "harder" controls than shooters and RPGs - and I'd hate to think that the dumbing down of a genre is because a manager doesn't understand, or will take the time to "get" Madden - They're already messed up by demanding games be on Frostbite, which they own, and which cannot facilitate a lot of the standard fare in an RPG, like the stats we had in UnReal based DAO and DAII

 

/A

[Wulfram]

Computer games should be easy to learn and tough to master. As long as EA remembers the distinction, it's not a problem.

Honestly, there's no reason why RPGs should be tough to learn. The basic mechanic is you select your guy, then click on the bad guy and then you watch your guy hit the bad guy. Stuff gets more complicated, but if you've done your design right, the system should be intuitive enough that even a new player can attain basic competence without excessive struggle.

[Darkly Tranquil]

EA has come to the realisation that there are a lot more non-gamers than there are gamers, and that making complex games for the small population of gamers is effectively locking them out of the much larger and more lucrative casual/non-gamer market who find things like mechanics too hard to learn. Ergo, EA is transitioning from being a company that makes games for people who like games to a company that makes games for people who don't like games. Only in corporate land could such a demented scheme make sense.

[Akrabra]

End of days!!! 

[Bioware-Critic]

EA has come to the realisation that there are a lot more non-gamers than there are gamers, and that making complex games for the small population of gamers is effectively locking them out of the much larger and more lucrative casual/non-gamer market who find things like mechanics too hard to learn. Ergo, EA is transitioning from being a company that makes games for people who like games to a company that makes games for people who don't like games. Only in corporate land could such a demented scheme make sense.

 

Yes! I bloody love you!

 

That is exactly what is going on - I mean that! Pure corporate greed and pure maniacal hubris!

 

You just described - to my understanding at least - how these guys "reason" and make "plans" ...

 

Thank you, Darkly Tranquil!