71 réponses à ce sujet

[Mushashi7]

- I've news, sir!
- So? Pin it on a board somewhere - and quit pestering me!

 

 

- Inquisitor! If you have a moment!?
- No, I haven't. And I suggest you sh*t up! Who hired you anyway?

[Eelectrica]

Gotta think the loss of some of these things are as a result of the game being fully voiced.

How much would a conversation cost in real terms between the Inquisitor and a random NPC?

$10k or more?

Writing the lines

Voice actor hire

recording studio hirer

Different language VA's

translators.

post production.

+ other all the costs I'm not aware of.

 

I'm playing through BG2, and when it was text, they could have fun random encounters, like the group of kids in Umar hills, My barbarian bhaalspawn bought them the grog they asked for, but not the swords. Hey I'm RPing a barbarian, not a responsible adult! Even to my Barbarian grog + swords seemed like a bad idea.

 

If a classic RPG like Planescape Torment had to be fully voiced, it never would have got off the ground with all the dialogue it has.

[SwobyJ]

- I've news, sir!
- So? Pin it on a board somewhere - and quit pestering me!

 

 

- Inquisitor! If you have a moment!?
- No, I haven't. And I suggest you sh*t up! Who hired you anyway?

 

I recently got a reply from Mike Laidlaw about this

 

https://twitter.com/...611734759444481

[SporkFu]

I've been wanting a way to abandon quests for awhile now.  There are some quests that I either have no interest in, or I can't do to various other reasons.  For example, the requisition for the Ferelden cages.  A complete thorn in my mostly-completionist side since the drop rate for the keys are so terrible.  After three PTs of attempting to do this, I would just like to abandon the quest entirely if I get it.  I know I can skip the requisition quests, but I do enjoy most of them. 

I bet you find a bazillion of them in your next game. In my second game, I got the "Hinterlands Tapestry Requisition" ...the one where you needed four decorative gems. But anyone who carried them -- it's either the mages or templars, I can't remember which -- in the Hinterlands were all dead by the time I got it, so i never found a single one. In my current game, I collected about 28 or so before ever receiving the requisition. Somehow I think these things somehow carry over across PTs

[AlexMBrennan]

I'm playing through BG2, and when it was text, they could have fun random encounters, like the group of kids in Umar hills, My barbarian bhaalspawn bought them the grog they asked for, but not the swords. Hey I'm RPing a barbarian, not a responsible adult! Even to my Barbarian grog + swords seemed like a bad idea.

That series also had the best response to inane fetch quests ever:

"OK, I've just about had my FILL of riddle-asking, quest-assigning, insult-throwing, pun-hurling, hostage-taking, iron-mongering, smart-arsed fools, freaks, and felons that continually test my will, mettle, strength, intelligence, and most of all, patience! If you've got a straight answer ANYWHERE in that bent little head of yours, I want to hear it pretty damn quick or I'm going to take a large blunt object roughly the size of Elminster AND his hat, and stuff it lengthwise into a crevice of your being so seldom seen that even the denizens of the nine hells themselves wouldn't touch it with a twenty-foot rusty halberd! Have I MADE myself perfectly CLEAR?!"

As for the question, an option to avoid inane boring fetch quests clutter up the journal would have been nice; just cut one of the irrelevant areas that only contain more inane fetch quests to pay for it (scouring the exhaled plains for letters written by soldiers seems such a good use of our time)

[Sylvius the Mad]

Gotta think the loss of some of these things are as a result of the game being fully voiced.
How much would a conversation cost in real terms between the Inquisitor and a random NPC?
$10k or more?
Writing the lines
Voice actor hire
recording studio hirer
Different language VA's
translators.
post production.
+ other all the costs I'm not aware of.

I'm playing through BG2, and when it was text, they could have fun random encounters, like the group of kids in Umar hills, My barbarian bhaalspawn bought them the grog they asked for, but not the swords. Hey I'm RPing a barbarian, not a responsible adult! Even to my Barbarian grog + swords seemed like a bad idea.

If a classic RPG like Planescape Torment had to be fully voiced, it never would have got off the ground with all the dialogue it has.

Voiceover has been a terrible idea, overall. Even for the NPCs. A partial VO for NPCs is nice because it helps establish their personalities (NWN did this well), but there's no need for the bulk of the dialogue to be voiced at all.

[Darkly Tranquil]

Voiceover has been a terrible idea, overall. Even for the NPCs. A partial VO for NPCs is nice because it helps establish their personalities (NWN did this well), but there's no need for the bulk of the dialogue to be voiced at all.

The problem is that once the genie is out of the bottle, it's impossible to get back in. People expect full voiceover in AAA games now and there's no going back.

[Eelectrica]

The problem is that once the genie is out of the bottle, it's impossible to get back in. People expect full voiceover in AAA games now and there's no going back.

Yeah. And the costs of production will continue to rise I would think, meaning player choice will likely continue to diminish.

Lately I've been enjoying games like Shadowrun: Dragonfall and BG2 because the RP options are there. More control on how I play my character.

There have just been some really cool, unexpected moments in side quests that just don't exist outside of the main path in Inquisition.

[Silcron]

There kind of is a more rude (ruder?) option. On xbox is hit B and you can just walk away. So next time just do that, don't reply and walk away. You're the Inquisitor, you don't have to even bother to reply to people asking you to find their goats or hunt for them as they sit in their chair drinking.

[DanteYoda]

I recently got a reply from Mike Laidlaw about this

 

https://twitter.com/...611734759444481

Has anyone actually run out of power, even like a tiny bit?

 

I had so much power i was

 

[Darkly Tranquil]

Yeah. And the costs of production will continue to rise I would think, meaning player choice will likely continue to diminish.
Lately I've been enjoying games like Shadowrun: Dragonfall and BG2 because the RP options are there. More control on how I play my character.
There have just been some really cool, unexpected moments in side quests that just don't exist outside of the main path in Inquisition.

Honestly, I think the never ending pursuit of greater graphical fidelity is what is swallowing up most of the development time and money. Look at The Order 1886 - visually stunning but completely lacking in gameplay. If they had pared back on the graphics and invested more in mechanics and systems design, it would have been a far better game. People need to get over this fixation with graphics > everything else, as it's one of the factors contributing to AAA games being so boring and same-ish in design, and why the indie scene is where all the genuinely creative and interesting games are being made since no-one expects them to look amazing.

Dragonfall was a fantastic RPG, and a great example of what good story writing and gameplay can achieve without fussing fancy graphics to distract the developers. It managed to be atmospheric, engaging and fun without a single line of spoken dialogue.

[Tortugueta]

We cannot refuse uninteresting quests for a good reason. If we could do that, we would, and then we would be left with the 15 hours of interesting quests. At this point, we would realise that we paid a crapton of money for 15 hours of play and we would be more frustrated than an anger management teacher in Tuchanka. And that is not good for business.

[Koneko Koji]

If cost is a problem, they should just have an order of silent sisters move onto the surface to work as messangers who deliver the letters for Inky to open and then yes or no - no additional cost for voice acting then!

[Sylvius the Mad]

The problem is that once the genie is out of the bottle, it's impossible to get back in. People expect full voiceover in AAA games now and there's no going back.

I challenge the definition of AAA. What we need is someone to disrupt the market by doing something unexpected.

At this point, AAA just seems to mean big budget, without any standard for quality. Why does anyone care if a game is AAA?

[Sidney]

I challenge the definition of AAA. What we need is someone to disrupt the market by doing something unexpected.

At this point, AAA just seems to mean big budget, without any standard for quality. Why does anyone care if a game is AAA?

 

 

There are a lot of good games created but AAA games are like summer blockbusters. We all know what that means. The problem is that we've seen a really, really well done tactical turn based game done - the reboot of XCOM - and it sold fewer copies than freakin' Duke Nukem Forever. The idea that there are a ton of people (the the measure of gaming audiences so don't tell me about some kickstarter thing) sitting around waiting to play an unvoiced, turn based, party based combat if someone just made the right one is a fantasy. It is a niche like war games, strategy games and hardcore flight sims.

[Darkly Tranquil]

I challenge the definition of AAA. What we need is someone to disrupt the market by doing something unexpected.
At this point, AAA just seems to mean big budget, without any standard for quality. Why does anyone care if a game is AAA?

There used to other games between AAA and shovelware, but most of the companies that made mid tier games have either gone broke or gotten swallowed up by one of the big players. However it seems that some of the larger and more ambitious independent games, things like InXile's Wasteland 2 and Larian's Divinity: Original Sin, are moving into that mid-tier space. They are making games that are larger and more professional than the really small scale indies, but smaller and of lower production values than the AAAs. The rise of Kcikstarter and Steam is a boon for independent developers wanting to make games outside the big publisher system.

AAA currently means "big development budget game produced by one of the big publishers (EA, Ubisoft, ActiBlizz, etc.)". People care about AAA games because they've bought into the marketing BS that bigger budgets and better graphics mean better games. There are a lot of people out there (especially on consoles) who regard AAA's as the only "real" games and that everything else is trash.

[Sylvius the Mad]

There are a lot of good games created but AAA games are like summer blockbusters. We all know what that means.

There was a widely held opinion, for a time, that Jaws ruined the film industry. It created this desire on the part of movie studios to make a mountain of money on one movie, and quality and creativity and variety fell as they pursued this singular objective.

The top of the game industry seems to be doing the same thing.

The problem is that we've seen a really, really well done tactical turn based game done - the reboot of XCOM - and it sold fewer copies than freakin' Duke Nukem Forever. The idea that there are a ton of people (the the measure of gaming audiences so don't tell me about some kickstarter thing) sitting around waiting to play an unvoiced, turn based, party based combat if someone just made the right one is a fantasy. It is a niche like war games, strategy games and hardcore flight sims.

They don't need a huge audience, because they're so much cheaper to make.

One of my all-time favourite games, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, was made by a company that employed only 17 people. Total. Including administrative staff. A game like that doesn't need to sell much in order to match to ROI of these modern games. Especially since technological advance is a deflationary force - making the same game will always be cheaper next year than it is this year.

[elrofrost]

There should be a "No" or better "No, and drop dead" option. Or even better, let me kill the guy for even asking! And my IQ should suffer for it.. like a rep hit.Or guards chasing me down. Or a companion objecting or anything. Right, it's the same thing over and over.

And that brings up another thing I dislike about this game... your IQ can't be an ass. All of our IQ's are the same (vary in appearance, and who we chose to bed, but that's all really).

 

Why can't I say "No"?

 

I mean, really! I'm the savior of the planet and you expect me to find your damn goat? Or collect hides for blankets? Or run across the map to deliver a potion (I'd love to ask that elf, "Your legs broken? Why can't you run and fetch/deliver it?"). Or prove some guys' loyalty? Like, why would I even care?

[Sidney]

One of my all-time favourite games, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, was made by a company that employed only 17 people. Total. Including administrative staff. A game like that doesn't need to sell much in order to match to ROI of these modern games. Especially since technological advance is a deflationary force - making the same game will always be cheaper next year than it is this year.

 

AC is fantastic and when Starships comes out it will be a day 1 for me.  That is a niche and the staffing for it reflects that just like Saw 19 will likely make money because the cost is so low the niche audience for that is enough. There will always be niche games - The Banner Saga is a niche RPG same with Wasteland 2 (although the former is grossly better than the latter) - but to expect a large organization like Bioware to make small market games isn't gonna happen.

[elrofrost]

One of my all-time favourite games, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, was made by a company that employed only 17 people. Total. Including administrative staff.

What a great game. Still is.

[Elhanan]

Either escape, walk away, etc before gathering the quest, or skip it. What I do not require is an undiplomatic option that should leave the Player penalized for rudeness.

[Sylvius the Mad]

AC is fantastic and when Starships comes out it will be a day 1 for me. That is a niche and the staffing for it reflects that just like Saw 19 will likely make money because the cost is so low the niche audience for that is enough. There will always be niche games - The Banner Saga is a niche RPG same with Wasteland 2 (although the former is grossly better than the latter) - but to expect a large organization like Bioware to make small market games isn't gonna happen.

I don’t expect BioWare to make a small market game.

But I want the market to know what their options are.

It's a lot easier to sell pablum to people if they don't know they have an alternative.

[TevinterSupremacist]

I hope rpgs reach a point where in order for any quest to be written, any, even optional side quests, it'll be needed for a justification as to why the character would want to accept it to exist. And "character's a nice person" or "material reward" wouldn't be enough as reasons. It gets ridiculously boring, shallow and mundane after the 500th time.

Not everyone has to agree of course, just my personal hope.