94 réponses à ce sujet

[saladinbob]

Funny because Arkham Knight had almost 4 years of development. 

 

 

I assume you understood the point I was making though?

[The Night Haunter]

No doubt about that, however I haven't argued against trying new things but more the way overly large teams can effect games. They had allegedly according to leaks roughly 600 people working on it spread out across 4 studios in different time zones.

 

TL;DR: development hell.

 

Throwing more manpower at something isn't always the answer.

As a developer (albeit of software, not games), this is incredibly true. There reaches a point where adding people detracts from the overall efficiency of the process. Code is continually changing, modules don't end up working with each other because too many people don't know what other people are doing, and crap breaks, documentation is always out of date, right hand & left hand nonsense. The correlation between work getting done and people working on it is asymptotic at best, once you reach a certain point more people will not help development time.

 

If you put two programmers on a problem it won't get solved twice as fast, maybe it will improve by 80% if they work very well together. Adding a third, well, an additional 50% increase if you are lucky. 

[L. Han]

As a developer (albeit of software, not games), this is incredibly true. There reaches a point where adding people detracts from the overall efficiency of the process. Code is continually changing, modules don't end up working with each other because too many people don't know what other people are doing, and crap breaks, documentation is always out of date, right hand & left hand nonsense. The correlation between work getting done and people working on it is asymptotic at best, once you reach a certain point more people will not help development time.

 

If you put two programmers on a problem it won't get solved twice as fast, maybe it will improve by 80% if they work very well together. Adding a third, well, an additional 50% increase if you are lucky. 

 

Programmers also have different ways of solving problems (or coming up with solutions). And different methods can clash with one another and cause even more problems. Kind of like how Duke Nukem ended up today. Multiple studios worked on it over the years and it turned into a serious screw up mess that no studio was able to unscrew that mess.

[bondari reloads.]

It's not the same process. ;-)

That's my point, actually - some rules apply across all genres and media if you're going for a cinematic experience, but the execution is all the more complex in game development.
'Process' wasn't the right word.

[Tela_Vasir]

Yep. The Order: 1886, The Last of Us  are very good examples of that influence. They basically used all of the directing techniques currently in use in the motion picture industry (even if the gameplay was simple... still an interesting game though).

 

An interesting interview, btw :

 

[NextGenCowboy]

It should be pointed out that Call of Duty isn't a good gauge. They actually get 2 years of development per game, because they have whole different companies working on every other release (or did I haven't checked in a while).

 

There's a lot of factors to consider. The biggest one is working on new architecture and an engine switch. Time is, generally speaking, a good thing. That's not always the case, but I'd rather see games I'm looking forward to get an extra year in development than one less year in development, and end up like DA2 (which I enjoyed, but it can't be denied it has issues on technical level).

 

Put bluntly, I'm happy the game will be in development for a while, it will, hopefully, allow the game to feel less rushed than ME3, and allow writers the time they need iron everything out.

 

Someone brought up Blizzard, another company notable for taking a long time between releases is Valve. They have a pretty good record last time I checked.

[Mercyva]

I believe the Lead Writer for MEA is different than previous installments so fresh POV is sure to follow.

 

wait, really? who's the new writer? or shall i say writer's' ?

[Hanako Ikezawa]

wait, really? who's the new writer? or shall i say writer's' ?

Chris Schlerf is the new lead writer. He wrote the story for Halo 4. 

[Linkenski]

edit: I was rambling about something OP summed up already.

And look how that turned out...

You have to gauge the growth from DA2 to DAI not ME3 to DAI though.

As for Andromeda it's yet another different team that we've never seen build their own game from scratch, so this is super interesting. I atm have a fair amount of faith that the main Edmonton team that made the Mass Effect Trilogy is the biggest talent overall at Bioware but Montreal did show a lot of competence with their Multiplayer to ME3. The question is how well they understand the design-aspect to a story-focused single-player game with roleplaying in it IMO.

[SojournerN7]

There's something misguiding about a "4-year dev cycle" as opposed to a "1,5 year dev cycle" I think.

As for Mass Effect 3 I think the 1,5 year dev cycle was adequate because they had almost all base mechanics from ME2 in place and only had to tweak the graphical engine a bit, and adapting ME2's mechanics to the design of ME3 which was mostly similar.

 

I respectfully disagree. Short development cycles regardless of preexisting game assets still put a team under pressure to create a game in an unrealistic amount of time. The Final Hours of Mass Effect outlines the costs to the players (and to an extent the team) of a publisher (EA) trying to shove a product out the door too quickly. Knights of the Old Republic II publisher (LucasArts) is another example of this.

 

In my mind, a publisher releasing a product in less than three to four years (for a game of this type) through its development is a disservice to the development team vision and even more so, the fans who are paying upwards of $70.00 for a finished product.

 

People complain about day one DLC, but if the product isn't ready when the bosses say it is, what are you going to do?

[ArabianIGoggles]

 

 

People complain about day one DLC, but if the product isn't ready when the bosses say it is, what are you going to do?

The complaint is toward paid day one DLC.

[Nitrocuban]

MEA runs on a new engine, has a totally differnet setting and has to carry the burden of ME3's endings.

4-5 years sound like a reasonable time for developement, especially when you consider how ... unpolished ME1 was under comparable circumstances.

BW prolly knows what's at stake with MEA and its first impression.

 

And i for one would rather have a little delayed but polished game than a rushed game released for holiday season.

So, BW, take all the time you need and give us the best ME you can. The fans can wait and/or wil come back if the game is good.

[CHRrOME]

4 years is average for a development cycle in most cases. And I don't think ME:A has 4 years of development just yet, I say it has about 3. Remember that at the very beginning they didn't quite know what to do thanks to the ME3 fiasco/whatever you wanna call it. That's why they started to ask fans what they'd like to see.

At some point ages ago they've said the game was in a playable state (I'm guessing this means "you can move your character around and shoot in a textureless map"), but again they didn't want to show anything. This could mean that they don't have much to show or they just don't wanna show anything because reasons.

 

2016 seems possible enough I guess for a release date, but I wouldn't be surprised for a 2017 delay.

 

______

 

... and has to carry the burden of ME3's endings.

 

Not exactly. The endings are the reason they started in Andromeda. ME3 endings will have next to nothing to do with ME:A.

[Fiery Phoenix]

It's only slightly more than Inquisition's development time. It was mid-2011 when BioWare started hiring for Inquisition.

[N7Jamaican]

Isn't the average length of production for games like 2.5 years? (My estimation)

[kalikilic]

And look how that turned out... 

touche'

 

[katamuro]

I think we should look at Witcher franchise on how much time it takes to develop. From witcher 2 to witcher 3 it took roughly 4 years. Yup it was still buggy but hey it is a great rpg. 

[wolfhowwl]

Wouldn't it be approximately four years in "development" but much less in actual full production?

[MrStoob]

While true that more isn't always better there is a minimum investment required to be good. If a game has been in development for 2 years then either it's scope is smaller (Indie), or it will be buggy as hell, or just suck. I think 3-4 years is the min for a good AAA game, with 5 or 6 years being fairly common.

A least a mocking image, that's what I was expecting.  Thanks for the fun of anticipation though.  

[Nitrocuban]

Not exactly. The endings are the reason they started in Andromeda. ME3 endings will have next to nothing to do with ME:A.

Right, but I didn't mean that literally.

MEA is under special observation no matter if it referes to ME3'S endings or not. It most likely won't but as we have already seen the playerbase is very thin skinned now and every little weakness, every not so good sidequest and every single bug at release will cause lots of "ME IS DOOMED" threads.

And I kinda have the feeling BW knows and wants to avoide that as good as they can.