391 réponses à ce sujet

[CronoDragoon]

I'm not a Call of Duty player, though if I were, I'd be playing the campaigns (and I have in the distant past, though not since MW1 - which was really good!). It's still a decent chunk just cut right out - worth more than $10, I would say.

 

And obviously I could be wrong, but I foresee even just the MP being a buggy, unworkable mess on old gen consoles - which will still likely sell in record numbers, considering the huge install base and the fact that CoD fans might be more casual than others and less likely to have upgraded or to keep informed about this stuff - and they're only lowering it $10?

 

I think it's pretty shameless. But I'm also of the opinion that as awful as EA can seem, they're not as bad as Activision.

 

Yes, but they can't price to the individual, so they have to price to the entire market. And the market at large overwhelmingly plays CoD for the multiplayer. So I actually think cutting the SP and charging $10 less isn't unreasonable. If Battlefield 5 offered an option to buy an MP only version for $10 less on release, I'd buy that instead of the full version.

 

Expecting publishers to price according to how good or bad they think the game is also opens a tricky can of worms, and I'm not even sure what the legal implications for companies with shareholders would be there. But if we're okay with variable pricing when it gives us games for less, I think we should be okay with variable pricing when it charges us more. I don't think it's a stretch to say AAA RPGs should be sold for more than $60. And what if the developer thinks they squashed all the big bugs after working months of crunch and overtime? Should they sell it for $70? You could say that no major bugs is the baseline expectation for a $60 game, but empirically this does not appear to be the reality for complex WRPGs.

[FKA_Servo]

Yes, but they can't price to the individual, so they have to price to the entire market. And the market at large overwhelmingly plays CoD for the multiplayer. So I actually think cutting the SP and charging $10 less isn't unreasonable. If Battlefield 5 offered an option to buy an MP only version for $10 less on release, I'd buy that instead of the full version.

 

Expecting publishers to price according to how good or bad they think the game is also opens a tricky can of worms, and I'm not even sure what the legal implications for companies with shareholders would be there. But if we're okay with variable pricing when it gives us games for less, I think we should be okay with variable pricing when it charges us more. I don't think it's a stretch to say AAA RPGs should be sold for more than $60. And what if the developer thinks they squashed all the big bugs after working months of crunch and overtime? Should they sell it for $70? You could say that no major bugs is the baseline expectation for a $60 game, but empirically this does not appear to be the reality for complex WRPGs.

 

I'd probably pay more, true (in fact I do, I'm one of those turds who always shells out for the CEs, at least where Bioware is concerned). But I don't buy games frequently - Inquisition and TW3 are the only new games I've bought in the past year.

 

Even if the MP is considerably scaled back from its current gen counterpart - I think it's likely asking a lot of that ancient hardware, and I can't believe that it wouldn't make itself known during QA. I think subpar performance issues are inevitable, as is a similar drop in support after they've cashed in.

 

Like I said, I could be wrong, but to me it reads as an exceptionally cynical move on Activision's part.

[LinksOcarina]

                                                                                                  <<<<<<<<<<()>>>>>>>>>>

Oh?

DLC's then are what? a new mini-game ... a fresh development?

 

Let's take DA:I - Trespasser... the most recent and supposedly last DLC. From what I've seen (haven't played it yet, though I bought it), this "DLC" is clearly part of the main game.  The characters, the voices, the sonar pings, the resource gathering animations ... all are hallmarks of DA:I.  And, from what I understand, you need to finish the original game first.... before you can play the DLC.... semi spoiler =  seems like the party gets attacked by spirits because of what Morrigan did/did not do in the main game.

 

Also, it's another reason why the DA:I ending boss fight was meh.... the real ending is Trespasser (IMO).

 

So, tell me again why this is not corporate greed?

 

 

PS:

GamerMD83 has a you tube channel where she shows her play through of Trespasser.

link: https://www.youtube.com/user/gamermd83

 

Um....no.

 

It was being developed since Jaws of Harkon from what I understand, so that argument is a moot point.

[AlanC9]

They did try a little too hard with the "race against time" bit. I had to ignore some things in order to explore the game's content at my own pace - but I find that vastly preferable to actively fighting dev enforced pacing every step of the way.

Well, if the pacing's done properly -- that is, the pacing accurately reflects the situation in the game-world -- then it shouldn't be fought in the first place.

ME2 gets this pretty much right; the only thing I'd change about the pacing is that I'd force the Reaper IFF mission the same way Horizon was forced. ME3's a bit worse because the way the game-clock advances isn't very rational -- time passes faster or slower depending on the order you do missions in. Though I can't think of a substantially better approach short of going to a real clock and making the player manage his map travel for time efficiency. While I would have loved that, I've been playing CRPGs long enough to know that the time for that approach has passed.

[AlanC9]

Didn't ME3 have around the same number of cutscene conversations with a party member as the other games? It seems BioWare tried to make the companions seem more involved with the story by recording some low cost audio clips about events in the game instead of just throwing you back into another canned sequence where you're told that some calibrations have to be done.
 
Interestingly this seemed to have backfired with some players who reacted very poorly to the contrast in production values.

Yeah, there was a whole thing in the first six months after release with players storming off saying that they were going to analyze the dialogues and prove, prove, that ME3 had massively cut squadmate dialogues from ME2's level. They never came back with the goods, of course.

There's a weird psychological thing where some people see a bit of small content as replacing a bit of large content if a bit of large content theoretically could have gone in the same place that you found the small content. We see this with some sidequests too. I don't have any grasp on what causes it, though.

[Pasquale1234]

Well, if the pacing's done properly -- that is, the pacing accurately reflects the situation in the game-world -- then it shouldn't be fought in the first place.

ME2 gets this pretty much right; the only thing I'd change about the pacing is that I'd force the Reaper IFF mission the same way Horizon was forced. ME3's a bit worse because the way the game-clock advances isn't very rational -- time passes faster or slower depending on the order you do missions in. Though I can't think of a substantially better approach short of going to a real clock and making the player manage his map travel for time efficiency. While I would have loved that, I've been playing CRPGs long enough to know that the time for that approach has passed.

I still find myself sometimes thinking about game clocks, before I remember the game in question doesn't have one. I often thought about having Shepard ask EDI how long it will take to get to planet X, and then how long until sunrise / dusk on planet X to add a strategic component of approaching a mission during daylight versus night-time. Of course, we were typically dropped in hot zones in full daylight.

I really liked the way quests were acquired in ME1 - some were mentioned in various terminals you could hack, sometimes you could simply enter the system or land on a planet to acquire them. It gave me a lot of freedom to create reasons why my character would be visiting those locations in the first place (looking for Saren being among them.)

ME2 was so stingy in the way it meted out content, that we needed an admin posted by the map to inform us when a new message or conversation with a squadmate was available. Those frequent elevator rides got pretty old pretty quickly. Even though I enjoy the companions and quests in ME2, I dislike some aspects of the gameplay to the point where it is dead last in my ranking of the 3 games.

[rashie]

Why do some many people need so much time for games to finish? I'm not rushing anything, and the longest I ever took for a game was TW3 with roughly 50 hours.

What are you doing so long in a game? Doing all the sidequest even if they don't interest you?

Some of us have a slight OCD with exploring and looking about in every nook and cranny if we are enjoying the gameplay offered in rpg's, playing on death march from start to finish I clocked in at roughly 150 hours, still not having done everything in Skellige, I will likely go back for a 100% clean sweep and actually bother with Gwent once the two planned expansions are out.

[Shechinah]

What are you doing so long in a game?

 

Everything
 

[Il Divo]

It isn't corporate greed because vanilla DA: I is what they could make with the time and resources they had. Trespasser is what they could make as DLC after release. Trespasser wasn't developed during vanilla DA: I.

 

Your post simply sounds like a consumer wanting free stuff regardless of the realities of development.

 

That's the amusing part. The people quick to moan about how greedy companies are more often than not are just looking to benefit themselves.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Yes, but they can't price to the individual

I think they should. Modular game development, and we buy only the parts we want.

[Dutch's Ghost]

Remember guys, quality over quantity. If you're going to stuff the game with filler then provide some cutscenes alongside it like Witcher 3. We don't want another DAI.

[AlanC9]

I really liked the way quests were acquired in ME1 - some were mentioned in various terminals you could hack, sometimes you could simply enter the system or land on a planet to acquire them. It gave me a lot of freedom to create reasons why my character would be visiting those locations in the first place (looking for Saren being among them.)

This didn't work for me. Hearing about the missions worked well, but I couldn't come up with reasons to go to those systems that I actually believed in. Eventually I gave up pretending. ME2 worked better on a first playthrough since Shepard really does need the minerals. The bonus minerals for a second playthrough wreck this, the same way that ME3MP EMS bonuses wreck some decisions there. It's funny how so many RPG bonuses make the games worse rather than than better.

ME2 was so stingy in the way it meted out content, that we needed an admin posted by the map to inform us when a new message or conversation with a squadmate was available. Those frequent elevator rides got pretty old pretty quickly. Even though I enjoy the companions and quests in ME2, I dislike some aspects of the gameplay to the point where it is dead last in my ranking of the 3 games.

But without gating the content, you've got to pace it out yourself, or just burn through it early and then stop talking to people. Or just repeat the same conversations the way ME1 did it.

[Pasquale1234]

But without gating the content, you've got to pace it out yourself, or just burn through it early and then stop talking to people. Or just repeat the same conversations the way ME1 did it.

I've never had a problem with burning through content too soon. I remember seeing a lot of complaints about that aspect of DA:O, but I guess I just naturally limited myself to one conversation topic per companion per camp visit, and it worked out well for me.

In ME2, I liked to wait until every companion on a floor had a conversation to save some time (and load screens) - but that didn't always work, and even then I had to put up with constant nagging about it.

Also - I like repeatable conversations.

[AlanC9]

If you're limiting yourself to one topic per camp visit anyway, why shouldn't the devs just implement that as the pace? If they did, would you know they had?

[LinksOcarina]

I think they should. Modular game development, and we buy only the parts we want.

 

Considering how people are taking a fit over Deus Ex for doing a "choose your own pre-order", I doubt this will happen.

[AngryFrozenWater]

What one calls a time sink in an RPG is great content for someone else.

 

If you want to know more about that then I have another time sink: "I will now talk about negative Mad Max reviews for just over 40 minutes" by TotalBiscuit.

 

There one of the points he makes is that it is perfectly OK for gamers to do things like the OP (or reviewers) don't like. Here he talks about Mad Max, but any other open world game would illustrate that point.

[AlanC9]

Considering how people are taking a fit over Deus Ex for doing a "choose your own pre-order", I doubt this will happen.

When you type "Deus Ex pre-order" into Google, the first suggestion is "Deus Ex pre-order disaster."

But wasn't the problem with Deus Ex that you couldn't choose freely? You could choose one or the other in a tier, but not both. Presumably with modular content they'd sell you everything a la carte, barring path-dependency issues.

[RoboticWater]

What one calls a time sink in an RPG is great content for someone else.

 

If you want to know more about that then I have another time sink: "I will now talk about negative Mad Max reviews for just over 40 minutes" by TotalBiscuit.

 

There one of the points he makes is that it is perfectly OK for gamers to do things like the OP (or reviewers) don't like. Here he talks about Mad Max, but any other open world game would illustrate that point.

It helps that Mad Max doesn't have a narrative that requires much attention and has relatively refreshing car combat. I could be wrong but I'd think that more people would want something different from a narrative focused RPG.

 

of course, it is unfortunate that the average consumer doesn't have very strict standards for their games. As someone who prefers to see more artistic effort in his games, I always hope that developers can find the proper middle ground between depth, breadth, and variety. Enough content to satisfy someone's dollar per hour ratio and enough craft to still feel like something special (and not just churned out CONTENT^TM)

 

This is the reason I like the prospect of separate multiplayer. It's unlimited and (reasonably) repetitive content that works much like any average filler sidequest ()go here; do this; kill some guys along the way). That way the main game can be tightly paced and uncluttered, but people can still get their endless hours of content.

[AngryFrozenWater]

It helps that Mad Max doesn't have a narrative that requires much attention and has relatively refreshing car combat. I could be wrong but I'd think that more people would want something different from a narrative focused RPG.

 

of course, it is unfortunate that the average consumer doesn't have very strict standards for their games. As someone who prefers to see more artistic effort in his games, I always hope that developers can find the proper middle ground between depth, breadth, and variety. Enough content to satisfy someone's dollar per hour ratio and enough craft to still feel like something special (and not just churned out CONTENT^TM)

 

This is the reason I like the prospect of separate multiplayer. It's unlimited and (reasonably) repetitive content that works much like any average filler sidequest ()go here; do this; kill some guys along the way). That way the main game can be tightly paced and uncluttered, but people can still get their endless hours of content.

Maybe I am an average consumer then. The last thing I want is that reviewers or other gamers, who think they are enlightened, dictate how I should play my games. ME didn't have MP before and I hoped it would never be included. Now that it is included, people expect it to be part of the next title. That's fine with me. I still won't play it, but I won't object having it in ME:A, as long as those fans don't bother to try to get SP removed.

 

I enjoyed DA:I. The side quests didn't bother me. Of course there are limits. Chasing a cow to bring it back to its owner, is something I don't enjoy, so I simply don't do it. It's optional content, after all. You can make DA:I or ME as short as you want. If you complain about filler content then don't be a completionist.

[RoboticWater]

Maybe I am an average consumer then. The last thing I want is that reviewers or other gamers, who think they are enlightened, dictate how I should play my games. ME didn't have MP before and I hoped it would never be included. Now that it is included, people expect it to be part of the next title. That's fine with me. I still won't play it, but I won't object having it in ME:A, as long as those fans don't bother to try to get SP removed.

 

I enjoyed DA:I. The side quests didn't bother me. Of course there are limits. Chasing a cow to bring it back to its owner, is something I don't enjoy, so I simply don't do it. It's optional content, after all. You can make DA:I or ME as short as you want. If you complain about filler content then don't be a completionist.

I'm not telling you what you can and can't enjoy, but it shouldn't be hard to see that these sidequests are empty calories. It's fine to like them or like games in spite of them, but why have them at all if there is a happy middle that satisfies both parties?

 

As I said, filler content annoys me regardless of whether or not I have to do it. Simply looking at maps like these makes me tired. It's harder for me to get immersed within a title that constantly tosses repetitive activities to me and in my journal, in the most artificial, gamey fashion. And as I said earlier in the thread, I might be able to skip over these missions or tune them out (mind you, it's generally something that requires opting out rather than in), but I don't even want to deal with that kind of meta. I don't want to have to think Oh, this is a filler quest, I should avoid it, because that takes me right out of the experience. It also ruins any potential for surprise. Maybe that cow chase quest leads me on an larger, more interesting bovine adventure than the quest prompt might suggest, and I've missed out on it because the rest of the game has trained me to avoid all kinds of filler sounding quests. Now I've lost interest in exploration because it seems the only thing under rocks and behind secret nooks are shard collections or more goat hunts. Sure, there's more stuff for everyone to do, but I think the magic is lost for those looking for a bit more.

 

I also like to think that games can and should actively transcend mere novelty. If that makes me a snob, then I'll wear the title with pride. I want to think that games are made not to simply occupy one's time, but to truly engage the player at every opportunity it can. To give quests that are at the very least fun and for those willing to invest themselves, at least slightly scintillating. I study Computational Media, videogames are essentially the pinnacle of my field, and I don't want to see it become anything other than the form of artistic expression that it is, even at big corporations. Is that too much to ask for in a consumer industry? Yes, but I like being idealistic anyway.

 

There has to be a middle ground here, and I think multiplayer is a step in the right direction. It's essentially side content that can't interfere with pacing. Filler without the downsides. Why can't ME:A have a focused open world singleplayer while still providing the longevity of a content filled game? That's what MP can do.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Considering how people are taking a fit over Deus Ex for doing a "choose your own pre-order", I doubt this will happen.

Because those choices are exclusive, and tiered.  So you can't have everything, and what you can have is contingent on what else you have.

 

That's nothing like what I described.

 

I'd also be willing to pay extra to have some features removed.

[Sylvius the Mad]

There has to be a middle ground here, and I think multiplayer is a step in the right direction. It's essentially side content that can't interfere with pacing. Filler without the downsides. Why can't ME:A have a focused open world singleplayer while still providing the longevity of a content filled game? That's what MP can do.

Multiplayer will never satisfy me.  I will not play it.

[Pasquale1234]

If you're limiting yourself to one topic per camp visit anyway, why shouldn't the devs just implement that as the pace? If they did, would you know they had?

They would have also needed to force the warden back to camp at regular intervals. IIRC, you could pretty much play the entire game without ever going to camp. Also, DA:O allowed you to have those conversations pretty much anywhere, not just in camp.

In DA2 and all of the MEs, you needed to visit companions at their locations to have those conversations with them. It was fairly easy to make the rounds in ME1, only one short elevator ride to catch everybody. DA2, ME2, ME3 you did a lot of traveling and sat through load screens to access them, though you were usually advised when new conversations were available. Really organic.

Being able to have all (or most) of the conversations in one visit would have saved me a lot of wasted time.

[Erstus]

Yeah, I have no interest in Multiplayer. If I want Multiplayer I play split-screen coop Borderlands with a friend.

 

I still don't understand why Multiplayer was implemented into the DA and ME series to begin with.

[Pasquale1234]

I'd also be willing to pay extra to have some features removed.

Like MP, protag VO, and any cutscene that isn't absolutely essential to the main plot?

Sign me up.