609 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

Wrong. Storytelling and role-playing must be equal. At least that is what Bioware's particular market demands.

Role-play in the midst of a weak story is an MMO. We don't want that.

An single-player RPG with pausable, tactical combat, but that was otherwise like an MMO, would be pretty good.

I kindly suggest those who disagree to gtfo of trying to fundamentally alter Bioware games and play Black Desert or Destiny, which are great. I love them myself, too. They will welcome you with open arms.

Those are action games. Why do people keep recommending action games?

[Sylvius the Mad]

Then why are you guys playing Bioware games to begin with? They have always been about story over exploration. DAI is the first game of theirs that is not. Were you playing all previous games reluctantly, hoping that some day a game focused on exploration would emerge? Why not just play a Bethesda game or another exploration game instead? People in this thread have been playing Bioware games because they're story and character focused.

Most BioWare games offered plenty of space for roleplaying, with the story serving as backdrop (a good backdrop - BioWare has been terrific at fleshing out their settings with narrative).

The ME games and DA2 were more story-focused, yes, but as DAI shows, they seem to have learned their lesson.

Prior to ME, BioWare only released games like this. The most linear one was Jade Empire, but there was still more space to define your character and make meaningful decisions.

I'm not an expert in game production so this is all just my personal opinion, but from what Gaider is saying, the staffing issue is more relevant once the game design has already started and HR has hired/reallocated staff members to their specialized roles. Since DA4 hasn't even been officially announced and Patrick Weekes is the only person working on it, Bioware can very easily decide how many people they need to work on level design, how many on cinematics, how many on writing. It's not like the scope of every game is identical and they just move staff from one game to the next. There are multiple games in production at one time and they're not all the same size or scope, so I don't think it's a 1:1 ratio of "we had 10 level designers in DAI so we have to use 10 level designers in DA4"

There's way more than just Patrick Weekes working on DA4.

[bEVEsthda]

This is only somewhat true for game developers. If they find a system that is "wildly popular", they're going to stick with it until it becomes cliché, as with Assassin's Creed. Different weapons, different scenery, but the same basic mechanics that they've used since the first. Ironically, they get hammered about that every bit as much as BW gets hammered for changing each of the DA games.

 

Well, I don't know much about AC... But two questions: Is not AC's method commercially more successful? And who, exactly, might it be who "hammers" AC sequels for not being different enough? Might it not be 'professional critics'?

[AlanC9]

This board's taught me to value "professionals" over "fans," actually. But it's a good point regardless. As far as I can tell the AC approach is working for AC. I prefer change, myself, but that's personal taste rather than a judgement of market realities.

[robertthebard]

Well, I don't know much about AC... But two questions: Is not AC's method commercially more successful? And who, exactly, might it be who "hammers" AC sequels for not being different enough? Might it not be 'professional critics'?

The same people that hammer BioWare here? You know, the people that play their games, or post about their games.

[AlanC9]

Did you play NWN 2? If yes, did you mess with the toolset at all? Unlike NWN, here level design was tiles that you laid out in a grid, in NWN 2, you had to paint every texture, you had to form every hill. I did a couple of areas in NWN 2. It took me 2 weeks to get the terrain right in one of them, including walk meshes, but no towns, no NPCs, no creatures. A level starts out as an X x Y grid.

Some guys found this so much of a PITA that they used a different tool altogether, which read in a heightmap and used that to build the basic area geometry. I never understood how this was more efficient, though, since the heightmap had to come from somewhere

Yeah, definitely a major time sink.

Having said that, I think vbibbi's right on the essential point. Unless DA4's a lot further along in the process than we believe it is, staffing for the project would still be highly flexible.

[robertthebard]

Some guys found this so much of a PITA that they used a different tool altogether, which read in a heightmap and used that to build the basic area geometry. I never understood how this was more efficient, though, since the heightmap had to come from somewhere

Yeah, definitely a major time sink.

Having said that, I think vbibbi's right on the essential point. Unless DA4's a lot further along in the process than we believe it is, staffing for the project would still be highly flexible.

I just don't think it's that "highly" flexible. There are, more than likely, minimum requirements for what they need to do. If, for example, they are already running at minimum requirements for level designers, they can't just replace them with writers, or animators. This is one place where everyone wants to base their opinion on guesswork, and frankly, it's not something that, w/out some posts from someone official, we can know one way or the other.

[Realmzmaster]

Then why are you guys playing Bioware games to begin with? They have always been about story over exploration. DAI is the first game of theirs that is not. Were you playing all previous games reluctantly, hoping that some day a game focused on exploration would emerge? Why not just play a Bethesda game or another exploration game instead? People in this thread have been playing Bioware games because they're story and character focused.

 

 

Because I started playing Bioware games with Shattered Steel (cira 1996). Baldur's Gate 1 (circa 1998) and Neverwinter Nights were games that had good stories but also had great exploration. Bioware has not always been story over exploration. In BG1 and NWN they were equal. IMHO Bioware has gone back to its roots with DAI. Not back to Origins but back to BG1 and to a lesser extent NWN..

[Seraphim24]

Because I started playing Bioware games with Shattered Steel (cira 1996). Baldur's Gate 1 (circa 1998) and Neverwinter Nights were games that had a good stories but also had great exploration. Bioware has not always been story over exploration. In BG1 and NWN they were equal. IMHO Bioware has gone back to its roots with DAI. Not back to Origins but back to BG1 and to a lesser extent NWN..

 

DA:I appears as similar to BG1 and NWN as Tolkien and CSI.

[Seraphim24]

Anyway, it seriously doesn't matter how Bioware structures their games, not at all, as long as it's interesting.  I've played games that are primarily designed to be played completely laterally and just questing around (Morrowind) and it's just kind of the strength of the world itself that matters most.

 

I've also played games that are primarily designed to be played straight through (Midgar in FF7) and that can also be quite fun, all that matters is the substance.

 

It's kind of like do you want your apple pie delivered to via truck or bicycle, or do yourself go get it from the pie shop, the important point is the pie is tasty.

[AlanC9]

DA:I appears as similar to BG1 and NWN as Tolkien and CSI.

Depends on what you think the essential features of the games are. I've seen enough posts to understand where Realmzmaster is coming from. What's your perspective? What are the differences?

[Nefla]

Well, then maybe BioWare should change the composition of their teams. Fewer level designers and more people who actually create story content and quests.

I agree, when allocating the budget they decide their focus before the game is even being made. They decided to focus on visuals over roleplaying/story content.

 

An single-player RPG with pausable, tactical combat, but that was otherwise like an MMO, would be pretty good.

For me that would literally be the worst thing they could do aside from having the game physically explode and injure you as soon as you started it.

[Seraphim24]

Depends on what you think the essential features of the games are. I've seen enough posts to understand where Realmzmaster is coming from. What's your perspective? What are the differences?

 

Dragon Age Inquisition appeared very watered down, it was equal blends visual novel like experience (story quests involving just carefully moving forward), and Skyrim overwhelming (find anything in this entire big space, doing small tiny meaningless quest)

 

It's 2 giant halves that don't appear to interact much at all. I think Life is Strange (an actual visual novel) had more decisive gameplay moments (stealth here, do this, dodge the spotlight) even though it was hyperlinear.

 

The open world elements looked to be unplayable from any other perspective than tracing the dots on a map which isn't actually super uncommon in Bioware games though anyway.

 

Baldur's Gate 1 just had a lot more diversity, like it had 2 clear paths like a "good" path and an "evil" path, and an accompanying set of companions who wouldn't really interact.

 

There's a lot of things, honestly, actually just in terms of pure challenge Baldur's Gate 1 was considerably, almost infinitely more difficult than recent Bioware games.

[Seraphim24]

What I was going to say though is simply that I think people are confused because they take "Skyrim" as an example of non-linearity but with some magickery it appears that is not the case.

 

When you have zero indications how to play a game you default to a map and or quest markers, as with Skyrim. You can't "explore" in Skyrim you'll just have hours and hours and hours wandering and never finishing any quest or doing anything, I've done it, the odds of you making meaningful progress while playing in an "open world" sort of approach are nill, unlike in Morrowind...

 

No, in fact, every single person playing Skyrim uses the giant map which eliminates all the "exploration" and makes it hyper linear.

 

You can't have non-meaningful big open spaces and call it exploration or side quest focused, that's not how it works.

[AlanC9]

Those are action games. Why do people keep recommending action games?

Probably because they think that some of the features you like are more likely to be found there. Regrettably, they come bundled with features you hate.

Game genres strike me as being essentially accidental; you can see how they evolved to be where they are, but it's not because there's any intellectual coherence to the current divisions. (Something like "Democrat" and "Republican" in US politics; the Trump campaign is working because he's targeting the incoherence.)

[AlanC9]

Baldur's Gate 1 just had a lot more diversity, like it had 2 clear paths like a "good" path and an "evil" path, and an accompanying set of companions who wouldn't really interact.

There was an evil path? What was it? My recollection of the game is that it had almost no choices.
 

There's a lot of things, honestly, actually just in terms of pure challenge Baldur's Gate 1 was considerably, almost infinitely more difficult than recent Bioware games.

Yeah, but that's largely for two reasons that I don't think were any good. First, AD&D is a fairly noisy system; picking out what you need to know and what's irrelevant is a bit of a challenge. (Lucky for me, I put in my time back in the 70s.) Second, AD&D is pretty random; one bad die roll can ruin your whole day.

[AlanC9]

When you have zero indications how to play a game you default to a map and or quest markers, as with Skyrim. You can't "explore" in Skyrim you'll just have hours and hours and hours wandering and never finishing any quest or doing anything, I've done it, the odds of you making meaningful progress while playing in an "open world" sort of approach are nill, unlike in Morrowind...

I don't check you on this. I was able to blunder into and finish quests all the time.

Though you can't progress the main quest lines that way, but you can't progress Morrowind's main quest lines that way either.

[The Boss]

Sidequests are mostly there for busywork, and an easy way to pad out these open world games.

[Sylvius the Mad]

For me that would literally be the worst thing they could do aside from having the game physically explode and injure you as soon as you started it.

But at least now we know where each other stands.

[Sylvius the Mad]

There was an evil path? What was it? My recollection of the game is that it had almost no choices.

The story is very linear. Luckily, the story doesn't dominate the game.

Yeah, but that's largely for two reasons that I don't think were any good. First, AD&D is a fairly noisy system; picking out what you need to know and what's irrelevant is a bit of a challenge. (Lucky for me, I put in my time back in the 70s.) Second, AD&D is pretty random; one bad die roll can ruin your whole day.

That's a feature, not a bug.

[UniformGreyColor]

Honestly I wish BioWare would switch to a more linear story for the main plot. Their current model of being able to do main quests out of order is kind of neat but the tradeoff is that the main story events don't often flow from one to the next very well and are just sort of self-contained separate mini stories. This really limits the kind of story they can tell and to me it's just not worth it, especially when the level of certain areas encourages doing them in a certain order anyway. 

 

I actually think this is where BW shines tbh. The ability for a non-linear story allows for robust RPing and keeps the people happy who want a story. Its been this way since DA:O and I sincerely hope BW doesn't change this part of the model.

[UniformGreyColor]

Most BioWare games offered plenty of space for roleplaying, with the story serving as backdrop (a good backdrop - BioWare has been terrific at fleshing out their settings with narrative).

The ME games and DA2 were more story-focused, yes, but as DAI shows, they seem to have learned their lesson.

Prior to ME, BioWare only released games like this. The most linear one was Jade Empire, but there was still more space to define your character and make meaningful decisions.
There's way more than just Patrick Weekes working on DA4.

 

Exactly.

[UniformGreyColor]

This board's taught me to value "professionals" over "fans," actually. But it's a good point regardless. As far as I can tell the AC approach is working for AC. I prefer change, myself, but that's personal taste rather than a judgement of market realities.

 

Actually, even Ubi is seeing that they need to change things up. They have now decided they are no longer going to release a AC game every year and will opt for a better game instead.

[Kabraxal]

I actually think this is where BW shines tbh. The ability for a non-linear story allows for robust RPing and keeps the people happy who want a story. Its been this way since DA:O and I sincerely hope BW doesn't change this part of the model.

And keep the character/companion content as strong as only Biowar can manage. It really seems that some want Bioware games through the filter of another studio's vision and not what is traditional Bioware.

[Seraphim24]

I don't check you on this. I was able to blunder into and finish quests all the time.

Though you can't progress the main quest lines that way, but you can't progress Morrowind's main quest lines that way either.

 

 

Well you "can" finish even Skyrim blundering around but it would take possibly thousands of hours without the map.

 

Morrowind, if the directions from quest givers weren't perfect, is much easier on the whole.

 

You can progress much more easily through all of Morrowind because investment was put into making the world feel organic and natural, and quest givers etc (including the main quest giver) would describe how to get there.

 

The point is, Skyrim boils down the RPG into a sequence of rote tasks, it's accounting. Morrowind is infinitely more organic and challenges your physical capability.