Hmmm, interesting points. I think everyone is getting hung up on a few points-I just threw out "Episodic" because I couldn't think of another term. I was thinking about how to improve the current game and not comparing to the first or second game and finally I was thinking about how everyone could win-developers and consumers.
Making AAA games is a business at the end of the day. A lot of money and time (essentially the same thing) goes into making the games and the business wants to see a good return. At the same time consumers want a GOOD GAME and the qualities that make a good game vary from person to person, genre to genre. What makes a good First Person Shooter doesn't make a good Sport game. So how do you quantify what makes a good game? Quality is the first thing that comes to mind that is common to all good games right?
Here are a few factors that could have effected the quality of the game. I think it took BioWare over 6 years (?) to make the first game and since they've been acquired by EA things have changed. Corporations run differently from smaller businesses and it's not inconceivable to assume that strict schedules and deadlines could be a part of that. I say this because there seems to have been a bunch of titles that were released with issues. DA-I had numerous small bugs that didn't affect the game play (unless you were playing on a computer) but it seemed to be missing a significant amount of content. I was excited about all the features that Mr. Laidlaw expounded upon and was disappointed to see that the game didn't live up to the earlier hype. I'm ASSUMING that these things were left out because of time constraints.
The phrase "Episodic release" seems to cause some negative reactions, maybe due to prior bad experiences. I get that but I was trying to think outside the box. Just because periodic releases have been done in an unsatisfying way doesn't mean that it ALWAYS has be that way. If the model were redefined to be more palatable than who's to say it couldn't work? It just depends on how it is done.
Concerning Dragon Age Origins-I played DA O five or six times and each time I tried doing it in a different order. Nothing prevented me from doing the Dwarves thing first except for the fact my level was to low. This suggests to me that there was a basic order the writers were aiming for. That gentle guidance gives the player more perceived "freedom" in decision making without making it feel like the story is on rails.
I apologize if I'm forgetting something (it's been a while since I played) but for the most part, I felt the game was divided into sections and I didn't have to go in between the two sections ( example-a quest in Orzammar wasn't dependent on the Elven quest line or the Mage story line) to complete a task or quest. Yes, I could stop in the middle and do something else but is this really necessary?
In DA-I I noticed that I was doing things in a very chunky manner because I wasn't getting those subtle cues that I received in the first or second game.
I thought it might work better to break up the story into these huge sections using the major plot line as a guide. The story branches and looks like a big tree, so I was imagining that the first installment would be the base of the tree. Haven and all player introduction set up to the end of the Mage or Templar choice could be the first chunk and continue on like that. Just chop the up the ‘Tree’ in story sections with side quests in each parcel while still providing the ability to backtrack. So this method would be ADDING to the ‘Trunk’ and not gating the other sections/locations/quests and whatever. That way there could be MORE content in these smaller sections because the developers would have MORE TIME to put into the game while meeting the deadlines and still getting the return of investment (initial sale of the game) to push forward. This could be accommodated in the story if the decision was made at the beginning of the game making process without sacrificing any of the freedom of choice that makes the games so fun.
On a side note, my partner and I played this game in two TOTALLY DIFFERENT STYLES and it doesn’t seem like any of the decisions made a damn bit of difference in during the story or in the final outcome. So if all people are complaining about is the PERCEPTION of choice than that is easily accommodated for. Although, I put my vote in for DA O style choices that actually seemed to change outcomes and the progression of the story. The current mode is not my favorite since it doesn’t make the game repayable for me.
In addition to the above points making AAA Games is difficult. I don’t work in the game industry but I know a lot of people who do and let me tell you it is a massive endeavor to say the least. There's writing, art, finance, marketing, distribution and I know I'm missing a lot of stuff. Just in the art and writing alone is a METRIC CRAP TON OF WORK. There is the concept design (which is massive), CG models, assets, backgrounds; there's programming, which is its own Matrix-y thing. The writing team has the Herculean task of matching up two other games worth of varying branches of choices and new choices on top of thinking up a new and interesting story and plot lines added to that engaging characters with their own back stories and how everything ties together! My mind is boggled by the amount of work that needs to be crammed into the space of 3-4 years and I'm not even familiar with the entire process.
And yet, as I say this I still want that setting up keep thing that I saw talked about earlier on, I want more romance dialogue, party dialogue, choices that affect the story line and so on and so forth . I REALLY WANTED ALL OF THAT and I thought, how does everyone get what they want and be satisfied. What is a reasonable compromise?
I don’t work at the company and if no one at BW reads this I wouldn’t be offended but I am not spending any more of my cash on this game. If corporate was curious, this is why THIS consumer stopped spending any more money on the product. However I’m sitting on the edge and really want to give EA/BW my money and I’m just trying to come up with one possible way it could work out for all of us, business and consumer.
If anyone has any other, better idea than throw it out there. 
Retour en haut
