373 réponses à ce sujet

[TurretSyndrome]

 

Personally pleased that DAI continues and wraps the stories left hanging from the earlier games, all while planning a major event based on the lore for the next title.

 

I don't know if I would call killing Flemeth, one of the best characters this franchise has to offer, and another potentially interesting character like Corypheus in the lamest way possible, while replacing them with a nerdy, slightly interesting bald elf, to be "wrapping things up". And the major event you seem to suggest may not ever happen as the intentions of the person who'd be responsible are left mostly ambiguous. 

 

With how cheaply the Mage-Templar war, the civil war of Orlais and the wardens have been dealt with in Inquisition, the game leaves very little excitement in me for the franchise. Note that this is just how I feel about the game. 

[Elhanan]

I don't know if I would call killing Flemeth, one of the best characters this franchise has to offer, and another potentially interesting character like Corypheus in the lamest way possible, while replacing them with a nerdy, slightly interesting bald elf, to be "wrapping things up". And the major event you seem to suggest may not ever happen as the intentions of the person who'd be responsible are left mostly ambiguous. 
 
With how cheaply the Mage-Templar war, the civil war of Orlais and the wardens have been dealt with in Inquisition, the game leaves very little excitement in me for the franchise. Note that this is just how I feel about the game.

Was not speaking of Flemeth or Solas, as I am left uncertain of their fates. I was speaking of Cory, the Mage-Templar War, the Chantry, The Orlesian - Ferelden alliance, and other aspects from the previous titles. While you may not have been entertained, I still am, and continue to play.

[TurretSyndrome]

Was not speaking of Flemeth or Solas, as I am left uncertain of their fates. I was speaking of Cory, the Mage-Templar War, the Chantry, The Orlesian - Ferelden alliance, and other aspects from the previous titles. While you may not have been entertained, I still am, and continue to play.

 

Good for you then. As far as I'm concerned it was a pathetic attempt at wrapping things up.

[Elhanan]

Good for you then. As far as I'm concerned it was a pathetic attempt at wrapping things up.

Hence my other contribution:

"Now while neither of us speaks for the entire fan base, guess it will come down to things like sales, telemetry, reviews, awards, and other possible indicators of public acceptance."

[TurretSyndrome]

Hence my other contribution:
 

 

Don't see why it was needed or how it's relevant to user opinion.

[Elhanan]

Don't see why it was needed or how it's relevant to user opinion.

User opinions like ourselves tend to cancel each other out. Thus other data is used to determine how well the subject matter is received. In this case, Awards from peers, reviews from objective critics, telemetry from the games being played, and sales for investors. Etc.

[Jeffry]

Hence my other contribution:

"Now while neither of us speaks for the entire fan base, guess it will come down to things like sales, telemetry, reviews, awards, and other possible indicators of public acceptance."

 

You are imo right. Unfortunately it will come down to things like sales and the number of awards the game has gotten. Which not at all indicates the true quality of a product though. Also the number of sales (of Skyrim compared to previous DA games) was imo the incentive for making the way DAI is and I fear the next DA will be very similar. I also fear ME they will try to replicate some of the things DAI brought in ME4, I already read that it will feature larger open areas.

 

EDIT: I would be careful with those objective critics For example I even wouldn't call AJ's review as objective. The biggest achievement of the game is it didn't completely suck ass and I think this was projected into high scores.

Modifié par Jeffry, 09 février 2015 - 02:31 .

[Elhanan]

You are imo right. Unfortunately it will come down to things like sales and the number of awards the game has gotten. Which not at all indicates the true quality of a product though. Also the number of sales (of Skyrim compared to previous DA games) was imo the incentive for making the way DAI is and I fear the next DA will be very similar. I also fear ME they will try to replicate some of the things DAI brought in ME4, I already read that it will feature larger open areas.
 
EDIT: I would be careful with those objective critics

No matter what one thinks of critics, objective ones would be the best to gather a measure of information.

Personally hope for large areas, but with less open space to meander as was seen in ME1. I love the Mako, but also wish to avoid having to use a Player made map to find quest markers, resources, etc.

As for the DA series, I sorta expect a return to less terrain being covered; more like DAO utilizing a single country with varied environs.

[TurretSyndrome]

User opinions like ourselves tend to cancel each other out. Thus other data is used to determine how well the subject matter is received. In this case, Awards from peers, reviews from objective critics, telemetry from the games being played, and sales for investors. Etc.

 

Public approval of the game does not have to coincide with the number of awards and great reviews received by the game, as these days they are achieved by even limping dogs. They hardly make the best case of assessing a game's quality or how well it is received. Sales can be achieved through hype and promise while awards are usually given through sheer presentation and little else, mostly before the release of the game. In my opinion, individual player assessment of a game is far more accurate and reliable of the game's quality than anything else. 

 

It goes without saying that data such as what you mentioned will be used by the developers to measure the "success" of a game, whether one likes it or not. This, I am well aware of. But it doesn't in any way really dictate the quality of a game.

 

And objective critics? Nothing is objective when it comes to criticism, it is entirely subjective and based on one's own experience of the game. 

[Dubya75]

What a lovely lovely sentiment, Mr Darrah!

 

If I may add, what really resonated with me was the missing KB&M controls, the poorly optimized PC UI, the hotbar for KB&M not hiding outside of combat (even though the controller UI does), and the stunning Skyhold pyjamas! And yes, I know it was the bold-headed guy's idea because...armor would look weird when kissing. Yeah.

And let's not forget the counter-intuitive tac cam that is made absolutely useless when playing KB&M.

 

Truly a return to form! Exploration, story-telling and character development. Because who needs all these other things like proper mechanics, depth of gameplay, and general game stability. Banish the thought! 

 

Interactive movies is what we GAMERS really want!

[Jeffry]

I don't mind open world areas or one big open world. But it has to have its meaning and some purposeful activities in them, which is not collecting tens of shards or doing fetch quests (in ME1 it was boring as well after a while). There are some great locations in the game like Emprise du Lion, Hissing Wastes, Crestwood that didn't feel like a chore to play through, in fact they were quite the opposite and were very well designed, imo the game had too many locations and it could easily do without Forbidden Oasis, Fallow Mire and Exalted Plains. More resources then could be spent on the rest of them. I honestly think SWTOR managed to do this better by connecting all the locations to the main story.

[Il Divo]

I don't mind open world areas or one big open world. But it has to have its meaning and some purposeful activities in them, which is not collecting tens of shards or doing fetch quests (in ME1 it was boring as well after a while). There are some great locations in the game like Emprise du Lion, Hissing Wastes, Crestwood that didn't feel like a chore to play through, in fact they were quite the opposite and were very well designed, imo the game had too many locations and it could easily do without Forbidden Oasis, Fallow Mire and Exalted Plains. More resources then could be spent on the rest of them. I honestly think SWTOR managed to do this better by connecting all the locations to the main story.

 

This bothered me a bit too. Even given that Bioware wanted more diverse environments, some of those ended up being repeats (and pointlessly so). Forbidden Oasis and Western Approach, Fallow Mire and Crestwood being the most stand out duplicates. Even without those, we'd have had more than a few diverse environments and potentially make each one more involved/less like a fetch quest. 

[Benman1964]

http://gamerant.com/...#comment-218656

[ThreeF]

Fallow Mire has some of better mechanic/concept behind enemy spawning

Exalted Plains does captures the civil war impact, could be done better but I like it for the fact that it tried.

 

I like the ideas behind all the areas, a bit more focus and cutscenes is all that was needed for them to work.

[Jeffry]

http://gamerant.com/...#comment-218656

 

Thanks for the article, while I've read it in some other form on some other site, this one was ok.

 

Particularly this quote from Aaryn Flynn: "Each game franchise needs to innovate and improve their experience based on what’s best for it, not just what another game had success with because ‘well that was successful'." It kinda seems to me that this is however exactly what DAI did But the another game in this case was Skyrim and I can't say it was to DA's benefit.

[Elhanan]

Public approval of the game does not have to coincide with the number of awards and great reviews received by the game, as these days they are achieved by even limping dogs. They hardly make the best case of assessing a game's quality or how well it is received. Sales can be achieved through hype and promise while awards are usually given through sheer presentation and little else, mostly before the release of the game. In my opinion, individual player assessment of a game is far more accurate and reliable of the game's quality than anything else. 
 
It goes without saying that data such as what you mentioned will be used by the developers to measure the "success" of a game, whether one likes it or not. This, I am well aware of. But it doesn't in any way really dictate the quality of a game.
 
And objective critics? Nothing is objective when it comes to criticism, it is entirely subjective and based on one's own experience of the game.

Objective critics = Not your own

Besides general popularity, awards, sales, reviews, telemetry and what the Players are using, there is little else currently I would expect to become involved other than the next Skyrim type of appearance to grab everyone's attention. It certainly is not housed in the Fanboy and Hater threads of forums.

Currently, the one thing I have heard is a plea to stop making games for older consoles, if I have the info correct (I am Techless, and play on a PC, so I paid little attention). This would seem to be of some thought moving forward.

[Iakus]

I don't mind open world areas or one big open world. But it has to have its meaning and some purposeful activities in them, which is not collecting tens of shards or doing fetch quests (in ME1 it was boring as well after a while). There are some great locations in the game like Emprise du Lion, Hissing Wastes, Crestwood that didn't feel like a chore to play through, in fact they were quite the opposite and were very well designed, imo the game had too many locations and it could easily do without Forbidden Oasis, Fallow Mire and Exalted Plains. More resources then could be spent on the rest of them. I honestly think SWTOR managed to do this better by connecting all the locations to the main story.

I don't know about "too many places" but there were areas that didn't feel properly fleshed out story-wise.

 

I mean, Fallow Mire had a nice, if short, story to it.  It encourages me to keep pushing deeper into the swamp.  Exalted Plains, though it feels like it should tie more into the central story, feels lifeless.  Just going from point a to point b burning corpse pits.  I could barely tell if I was rescuing Gaspard or Celene's troops.  And the Dalish camp seemed there mainly to tell us "These are the Dales!  Elves lived here!

[Emu8207]

DAI returns to form, I agree and disagree. I think DAI is 1 step forward and 1.5 steps backwards. In terms of what Bioware has done recently, sure it's a return to form but what does that mean return to form. A return to a mediocore Bioware that's nowhere near the strength of Baldur's Gate, KOTOR, Mass Effect or DAO, that's what I see from DAI.

 

DAI  tries to be the best of both Skyrim and Origins and fails at both although that doesn't mean DAI is terrible, much like Die Hard 2 isn't terrible it just isn't as good as the 1st one. Skyrim allows you to fully explore a game with tremendous freedom and good exploration although it suffers from bad writing as well as couple other design choices like no attributes, etc. DAO has great writing and great replayability because of choices that do matter. DAO though is very linear unlike Skyrim which isn't, plus it takes like 6 hours to get to Lothering so it starts slow but like a snowball rolling down a hill, it gets bigger and better.

 

Now with DAI, you have good exploration but it's quantity, not quality exploration which DAO had and that is the main problem I have with DAI. DAI is more quantity and not quality. That phrasing goes to more then just exploration, it also goes for the writing which is probably the worst in a Bioware game to date not named Mass Effect 3.

 

Let's look at Coryphy, when let your heart shall burn or whatever the quest he appears, it's a pretty epic moment that sets the stage for an awesome 2/3rds of the rest of the game but what happens, Quantity and that's the main issue with DAI. Corphy fails to deliver and you have a less then epic ending, you have kind of a mediocre ending which is not what I expect from Bioware. I play Bioware games for quality, if I wanted Quantity, I'd play Skyrim which is stronger in the areas that DAI tries to be strong at but fails.

 

Lastly, DAI has great companions but due to the way the game is structured for quantity and not quality, the companions are kinda meh in the end, sure they have there moments but once you do the side quests then what, like Blackwall, once his stuff is done there's not much to do with him.

 

DAI is kind of a step forward, if you like a mediocre Bioware that doesn't make games up to the strength of the Mass Effects and DAO's of the world. If not it's certainly a step backward and not the return to form that Bioware believes. I'm cautiously optimistic that ME4 will be better due to current gen only but I need to see that in action 1st before I believe it.

[TurretSyndrome]

Objective critics = Not your own

Besides general popularity, awards, sales, reviews, telemetry and what the Players are using, there is little else currently I would expect to become involved other than the next Skyrim type of appearance to grab everyone's attention. It certainly is not housed in the Fanboy and Hater threads of forums.

Currently, the one thing I have heard is a plea to stop making games for older consoles, if I have the info correct (I am Techless, and play on a PC, so I paid little attention). This would seem to be of some thought moving forward.

 

Firstly, objective critic = does not exist. Every game is rated subjective to the user's experience. I don't know what I'm supposed to take from "not your own". Are you trying to imply that just because I don't work for a fancy game reviewer website, I don't qualify as a critic? Because that would be ridiculous. 

 

Secondly, you don't know what players use to gauge a game's quality. You have an idea of what the developers and publishers tend to use. Publishers determining the quality of a game based on sales and other data =/= general player consensus of the game, which also =/= quality of the game.

 

Not everybody goes out and buys a game because it won some 100 arbitrary awards. They buy games based on a lot of factors ranging from hype for the game, to user experience and word of mouth. I couldn't give a rat's as$ about how many awards DA:I won, how many reviewers gave it a 9 and I think a lot of people agree with me here when I say that none of that takes precedence over user opinion who actually played the game.

 

Again, reviews are opinions, they are subjective to the game experience of a reviewer. One Gamespot reviewer gave Alien: Isolation a 6, a lot of people disagreed with that. That's fine. But just because the reviewer works for Gamespot doesn't validate his review over the hundreds that disagreed with him. That would be stupid, and even the reviewer knows that.

 

Final point, awards and sales don't mean sh*t. Plenty of people here put 60-70 hours in DA:I and still dislike it. Going strictly by the data, it means they "love the game" but in truth they dislike it, hate every bit of it and/or are disappointed by it. That's why such data is useless to determine the proper reception of the game. Developers sadly tend to use it to determine their next course of action, but just because they use such data doesn't mean they're right. Not to mention, they use that data because they cannot ask each and every one of the millions of people buying their game to acquire the true rating given by them. It's physically impossible to do so as well as impossible to expect an honest answer from those people. 

 

I'm sorry about the long-winded reply but I just can't agree with you on your belief that games can be judged based on their sales, reviews and awards and such. 

Modifié par TurretSyndrome, 09 février 2015 - 05:12 .

[Jeffry]

@TurretSyndrome

Well, they could force upon us a simple inquiry for example in Origin about the game. Every now and then a window pops up asking me if I would recommend Origin to my friends, so it would not be hard to do. But it could show them something they don't want to see. Or they think people might find it annoying... Which for example for me it would not be any more annoying then seeing a promo for Titanfall every time I start Origin.

[Elhanan]

Of course a review is subjective. But if it comes from your own company or rival, they are not worth much.

Telemetry cannot mark exactly what is liked or disliked, but does give an indication of what is accessed.

The latest DICE GOTY was from others in the industry; peer reviews. may not mean much to some, but apparently is a top honor for those in the field.

There is little else to utilize besides such feedback. Perhaps error messages from various supporting tech can be of aid, but this would have also been active in making the game for the past four yrs.

[Draining Dragon]

It is not possible for an opinion to be right or wrong, but it IS possible for one opinion to be more valid than another.

[Elhanan]

It is not possible for an opinion to be right or wrong, but it IS possible for one opinion to be more valid than another.

And for myself, an informed opinion has more value and validity than the other.

[earymir]

It's pretty baffling that they can be a return to form when the combat has gone from intense, strategic, and incredibly varied (BG, DAO and DA2, NWN, ME, JE, KOTOR) to almost identical with all mages (DA:I) or nearly broken (DW rogues on anything other than a flat surface - DAI).

They *did* do main story quests incredibly well (but only about 5 rather short ones), and obviously the graphics are great (thanks Frostbite...), but there are some seriously disparate aspects to the game. Side quests/huge open world to me feels in direct conflict with deep characters/supposedly world-ending plot. You simply can't hold the illusion that an insanely powerful being is about to become a god while strolling around a giant open world with no time limits and no clear consequences to most of your actions in most zones. [I realize that the Skyrim plot technically did this, but I also guarantee almost nobody gave a crap about the plot - it's completely secondary to the open-world ES gameplay.]

[Rizilliant]

And for myself, an informed opinion has more value and validity than the other.

 

odd that you word it this way. As you seem to consistentl y refute others disapproval of DAI. They usually go into great detail why, yet you dismiss their claims because  YOU have no problem with it...  Actually, i find those dissappointed show more reason, and passion for why they are, than those who constantly defend these shortcomings.