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[Killroy]

Of course, now that sentiment has flipped on its head, and games journalism has universally condemned open world in what is basically a 360 of their opinion.

 

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[lucky5hot]

...

 

I know using 360 instead of 180 on opinions is a common misnomer, I phrased it wrong. I meant to use 360 in a correct context but just botched the phrasing.

 

Originally, linear story is popular (0°)

Actually, games need to be open world - screw linear (180°)

Actually, linear was better, go back to that (360°)

 

Going back to linear again IS actually a 360 because it started at linear - I just mutilated the phrasing. Was that really worth pointing out rather than responding to the points I made?

[BobZilla84]

Actually, I think one of the core issues with DA:I is that the initial design period (the ever important 6-12 months of game design, story planning, etc), and a lot of the actual development time coincided with the obsession the game industry had with 'open world'.

 

On the surface, if you look at the Dragon Age games, going 'open world' around the time it was being built seemed a logical progression. Further, the actual timeline for development coincided with many massively popular 'open world' games, where a lot of the games media was talking about how bad it was that narrative was 'linear' and at the same time praising the early open world games - basically saying "why cant every game be open world".

 

Of course, now that sentiment has flipped on its head, and games journalism has universally condemned open world in what is basically a 360 of their opinion. You could paraphrase it to something like, "Actually, open world is all good and well but go back to having good quality stories and not having an extra 20-40 hours of padding/filler content".

 

Recent really strong evidence of this marketing data is retiring the annual Assassins Creed franchise, (stated reasons being due to sales slumps and much complaint about padding). Also, regarding open world/sandbox game reception, I would generally call recent reviews 'polarized' with notable games like Mad Max and Dragon Age: Inquisition, as having mixed reviews citing reasons like too many fetch quests and MMO style padding.

 

Look at the 5 years Bioware has has, I really feel quite bad:

 

SW:TOR

1) They start developing an MMO when the MMO genre was at its peak, and by the end of the development lifecycle, SWTOR's core gameplay is outdated.

2) MMO's in general are on the decline. The core 'gameplay loop' with hotkey combat has been played out and simply doing a WOW clone wont serve.

3) The current MMO trend at the time was at least having "live action MMO", as something new.

4) The story driven MMO concept, which was the unique take from Bioware, did not seem to supercede gamers being general tired of the genre.

 

DA:I

As mentioned above, sandbox/open world was very popular during initial development, largely tired by the time DA:I releases.

 

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I mean, this is some seriously bad luck, BUT, there is a light at the end of this dark tunnel. I think the consensus is that Bioware has been a leader, if not THE leader in story driven content for over a decade. Bioware arn't idiots, surely Bioware have leaders and employees that have learned from the experience of trying to capitalize on 'industry trends', rather than focusing on their own success and doing what they know best.

 

From many public statements about ME:A, it will not be a DA:I clone in a sci-fi setting, they are keeping much of the story-focus, semi linear/semi open-world nature that we know and loved about ME:A. This isnt certain, but from reading between the lines of their PR this is what i gather.

 

If i had to guess, I would say they will add a bit of exploration and open world, but keep it fairly tight so that the overall experience feels less padded with uninteresting content and is more satisfying.

 

And this bodes well for ME:A. I think ME:A will probably have a similar marketing campaign to The Witcher 3, it will have a kickarse story, and it will captivate a large portion of the 'mum and dad' gamers, even more than ME3 did. I am betting on it being the most successful Bioware game ever - due to learning 2 extremely important lessons in the past 5 years.

You make some great points about DAI but the issue so many people had with it wasn't really that it was a openworld game it was how poorly done it was seriously what's the point of doing a open world rpg if theres nothing to do in your open world that was the case in DAI.

B-Ware please if you insist on continuing with your choice to continue making open world games like Mass Effect Andromeda"Rumoured" & Dragon Age Inquistion please take inspiration from the games that actually did it right like The Witcher 3 & Fallout 4.

[Cyonan]

You make some great points about DAI but the issue so many people had with it wasn't really that it was a openworld game it was how poorly done it was seriously what's the point of doing a open world rpg if theres nothing to do in your open world that was the case in DAI.

B-Ware please if you insist on continuing with your choice to continue making open world games like Mass Effect Andromeda"Rumoured" & Dragon Age Inquistion please take inspiration from the games that actually did it right like The Witcher 3 & Fallout 4.

 

While I agree they should look at games that actually did it right, I wouldn't agree that Fallout 4 was one of them.

 

It's a pretty decent game and will only improve once real modding can happen but at the core It's still the same Bethesda game we've been playing since Oblivion came out, complete with the same problems they've always had.

 

Witcher 3 was amazing, though.

[Killroy]

I know using 360 instead of 180 on opinions is a common misnomer, I phrased it wrong. I meant to use 360 in a correct context but just botched the phrasing.

 

Originally, linear story is popular (0°)

Actually, games need to be open world - screw linear (180°)

Actually, linear was better, go back to that (360°)

 

Going back to linear again IS actually a 360 because it started at linear - I just mutilated the phrasing. Was that really worth pointing out rather than responding to the points I made?

 

Yes, because you ignored how terribly the "open world" of DAI was implemented. A bunch of big, empty maps with little to no intrigue or interesting activities was a bigger problem than open world games supposedly falling out of favor with the gaming media.

[lucky5hot]

You make some great points about DAI but the issue so many people had with it wasn't really that it was a openworld game it was how poorly done it was seriously what's the point of doing a open world rpg if theres nothing to do in your open world that was the case in DAI.

B-Ware please if you insist on continuing with your choice to continue making open world games like Mass Effect Andromeda"Rumoured" & Dragon Age Inquistion please take inspiration from the games that actually did it right like The Witcher 3 & Fallout 4.

 

This is an excellent progression on what I was saying. What you call a different issue (the quality of the open world game), I meant to actually talk about but I entirely forgot. I essentially think our points are the same. I call the 'open world quality', a symptom of the game being open world to begin with.

 

Essentially game development has finite resources, so when you introduce open world, it sabotages the budget to being spent on arbitrary 'customisations' to your experience, that add little real value to your gaming experience.

 

Instead, of having 100 forking pieces of narrative at B+ writing quality, it would be better to just have 5-10 and it be A+ quality. This is obviously subjective I know.

 

Take for instance there have been some discussion threads on having the ability to choose non-human races in ME:A. In my opinion this is a waste of resources and should not be done. If they did it, say similar to Skyrim, you would have this seemingly cool feature which amounts to almost nothing within the game. A few times they will mention it but it doesnt really alter your experience that much. If you actually analysed the entire impact of this initial decision, I imagine it will seem entirely superfluous [EG. how there were only a few interesting points on ELF vs HUMAN was in DA:I]. In my opinion, just allocate some of these excessive customisation resources back into having a really strong main narrative experience.

 

Thats not to say to not do open world. In fact, you could argue that open world is not the same thing as sandbox, and that ME has always had many of the features we know call 'open world', in their 'hub world' system. ME has certainly always been on the scale of open world, just not a full sandbox game.

 

Also, on the point of Fallout 4, I think Witcher 3 did it a LOT better than Fallout did (just my opinion, lots of people think differently to me). I think one is on the scale of doing open world better, and the other is on the scale of doing it much more poorly. Fallout 4 has interesting exploration, but I think that comes at the expense of good writing. I think this has been a huge problem with open world throughout the entirity of Bethsoft's development history and now that the novelty of open world is wearing off a little we expect more from our games.

[lucky5hot]

Of course, now that sentiment has flipped on its head, and games journalism has universally condemned open world in what is basically a 360 of their opinion. You could paraphrase it to something like, "Actually, open world is all good and well but go back to having good quality stories and not having an extra 20-40 hours of padding/filler content".

 

...as having mixed reviews citing reasons like too many fetch quests and MMO style padding.

 

...As mentioned above, sandbox/open world was very popular during initial development, largely tired by the time DA:I releases.

 

...If i had to guess, I would say they will add a bit of exploration and open world, but keep it fairly tight so that the overall experience feels less padded with uninteresting content and is more satisfying. For instance, barren parts of the world with a focus on herb collection will be replaced with optional planets and sleek/interesting driving with occasional rich and interesting rewards.

 

Also, the setting of their exploration being 'new worlds/planets', and driving a futuristic space vehicle is fairly advantageous over herb collection in terms of being interesting... just putting that out there. One would be a 9/10, the other a 2/10 on my interest level. 

 

Yes, because you ignored how terribly the "open world" of DAI was implemented. A bunch of big, empty maps with little to no intrigue or interesting activities was a bigger problem than open world games supposedly falling out of favor with the gaming media.

 

I mentioned the tired 'open world' several times directly, and talked about the general sentiment of open world in games journalism in 2016 being negative. I'm not sure if you go around searching threads so you can click reply, not read what people are saying, and reply in a hostile way... but thats how you are coming across.

 

I know it was a big wall-of-text but you seemingly didnt read any of it then keyboard warriored a reply. Lame man.

 

> A bunch of big, empty maps with little to no intrigue or interesting activities was a bigger problem than open world games supposedly falling out of favor with the gaming media.

 

Why do you think it fell out of favor with games media in the first place.? 

[BobZilla84]

While I agree they should look at games that actually did it right, I wouldn't agree that Fallout 4 was one of them.

 

It's a pretty decent game and will only improve once real modding can happen but at the core It's still the same Bethesda game we've been playing since Oblivion came out, complete with the same problems they've always had.

 

Witcher 3 was amazing, though.

Heres the thing even though both the Elder Scrolls/Fallout games have always had alot of problems/issues a fact that as a lifelong Bethesda fan I have always acknowledged but the fact remain's and thats Fallout 4 was 100 times better than DAI as a openworld game.

 

And The Witcher was near perfect except the only 2 problems I had with it and thats the weak *** story & the small amount of actual Witcher Contracts the game needed more of them and Hearts of Stone didnt add many more but I'm hoping Blood & Wine will have alot more Contracts.

[Killroy]

I mentioned the tired 'open world' several times directly, and talked about the general sentiment of open world in games journalism in 2016 being negative. I'm not sure if you go around searching threads so you can click reply, not read what people are saying, and reply in a hostile way... but thats how you are coming across.

 

I know it was a big wall-of-text but you seemingly didnt read it any of it then keyboard warriored a reply. Lame man.

 

> A bunch of big, empty maps with little to no intrigue or interesting activities was a bigger problem than open world games supposedly falling out of favor with the gaming media.

 

Why do you think it fell out of favor with games media in the first place.? 

 

 

Your argument is nonsensical. You didn't address how poorly the open world was handled, you just wrote off the game's lukewarm reception as the gaming media being tired of open worlds in general. Now you're saying they were tired of open worlds by the time Inquisition came out because Inquisition wasn't a good open world game. Time doesn't work that way. 

[lucky5hot]

Your argument is nonsensical. You didn't address how poorly the open world was handled, you just wrote off the game's lukewarm reception as the gaming media being tired of open worlds in general. Now you're saying they were tired of open worlds by the time Inquisition came out because Inquisition wasn't a good open world game. Time doesn't work that way. 

 

Wow, you really are pursing this one arnt you. We can keep going back and forth but I think id prefer the public to decide. Firstly, I said it in about 5 different ways, you can review them easily because i added them all for you in my previous reply.

 

But since you have tunnel visioned your rage so much that you are seemingly looking through the head of a needle, let me pull out one single thing i wrote, then one single thing you wrote, and lets look at the differences.

 

General Statement

 

Me

> If i had to guess, I would say they will add a bit of exploration and open world, but keep it fairly tight so that the overall experience feels less padded with uninteresting content and is more satisfying. For instance, barren parts of the world with a focus on herb collection will be replaced with...

 

You

> A bunch of big, empty maps with little to no intrigue or interesting activities.

 

Statement claim 1

 

Me

> barren parts of the world with a focus on herb collection

 

You

> A bunch of big, empty maps

 

barren

1. without capacity to interest or attract:

2. mentally unproductive; dull; stupid.

3. not producing results; fruitless.

4. destitute; bereft; lacking.

 

Statement claim 2

 

Me

> so that the overall experience feels less padded with uninteresting content

> barren parts of the world with a focus on herb collection

 

You

> with little to no intrigue or interesting activities 

 

------------

 

I mean, its literally like you pulled quotes from what i was saying, then pretended like I never said them. We are saying the exact same thing in different ways. My god man, I dunno why you are so adamant on fighting random person on the internet for no reason but cool it?

 

> Now you're saying they were tired of open worlds by the time Inquisition came out because Inquisition wasn't a good open world game. Time doesn't work that way. 

 

Time can work that way, and it did. Its called a change of consumer/critic opinion. A "trend".

 

One of the core differences with DA:I over its predecessors is that now they have a direct sequel for a game to with one of them being more linear, and one being more open world, and this sequel can be compared side by side to the previous iteration to see how it stacks up. I could cite dozens of reasons sentiment changed on open world, (this is as somebody who has been occasionally looking over /r/games for at least 5 years and during what i would call the rise and fall of open world as a genre), here's a few key ones.

 

1) Open world was a novelty, which could wear off.

2) Perhaps deciding that branching narrative (with choices and impact), is more important than the other core gameplay components of open world.

3) Using direct sequels in games with and without open world as a comparison for which one captivated and held interest better, and lead to increased overall satisfaction.

4) Literally, doing the same thing over and over can lead to diminished interest. Open world was repeatative to begin with. Once a gamer has played 5-10 open world titles, it seems to me it was an inevitability that open world would become less favored over other gameplay loops that are more involved and attempt to stoke more gamer interest.

5) Etc.

[BobZilla84]

Your argument is nonsensical. You didn't address how poorly the open world was handled, you just wrote off the game's lukewarm reception as the gaming media being tired of open worlds in general. Now you're saying they were tired of open worlds by the time Inquisition came out because Inquisition wasn't a good open world game. Time doesn't work that way. 

I see your at it again Killroy lol I agree open world games aren't the problem its the idiots that try to make them that have never made them before and then **** the bed with it like B-Ware did with DAI.

[Killroy]

We are saying the exact same thing in different ways. 

No, you're saying the biggest problem with Inquisition's open world is the gaming media. You didn't even attach any criticism about empty maps to Inquisition. You tossed it in as an aside about Andromeda.

[BobZilla84]

No, you're saying the biggest problem with Inquisition's open world is the gaming media. You didn't even attach any criticism about empty maps to Inquisition. You tossed it in as an aside about Andromeda.

I'll tell you one thing about Andromeda I'm hoping B-Ware looks at Mass Effect 1 and uses it's Exploration design but they fine tune it and expand on it especially if MEA is going to be heavy with open world exploration.   

[lucky5hot]

No, you're saying the biggest problem with Inquisition's open world is the gaming media. You didn't even attach any criticism about empty maps to Inquisition. You tossed it in as an aside about Andromeda.

 

Mate, you are paraphrasing my meaning in a way that is wholly incorrect. You are basing it on your own perception and not what I actually said.

 

1) I outright said the exact same thing as you in different wording. If you cant see that after my reply I'm going to assume you are just trying to misrepresent my views to save face now. You arn't making any sense.

 

2) The REASON games media went luke warm on open world IS the reason from (1) that i just cited, which is, quote "barren, uninteresting worlds". If I'm wrong on this point, please, DO enlighten me, being that I am obviously across the body of media reviews of games like DA:I and Mad Max, what other reason other than the worlds being barren and uninteresting did the media have to go off open world int he first place? 

 

3) You are describing the media reception of games as this widely disparaging force, different to consumer reception. Although sometimes they can vary, they are largely the same. These are not two totally different forces, they review the same media and often come to similar outcomes. When I was describing the media, I was actually describing consumer AND media reception, and the reasons therein. For you to somehow separate these things is intellectually dishonest.

 

I even added the definition for you so that you can easily understand that barren means the same thing as "empty, desolate, uninteresting". Please, explain to me how me describing the worlds being 'barren' (as problematic), is different than you saying they are "empty, uninteresting".

[SofaJockey]

While many might not perceive this as a "big deal,"...

 

And rightly so...

[Andrew Lucas]

Tell that to the Dragon Age team.

I wish.

[BobZilla84]

Back on Topic:

I hope the loss of so many talented people over at B-Ware won't lead to inferior game's I'm still reeling from Gaider leaving and the hits just keep coming and although I am dissapointed at the delay I'm ok with it as well because more time=better games.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Well, when in a fight that can kill you to be fair, the objective is to win so you don't die.

I'm not in a fight.  My character is in a fight.  He's trying to win, sure, but that might not be my objective.

 

Also, to the original point, the claim that there;'s no tactical or strategic thinking in DAI is nonsense.  If you use Guard or Barrier to preserve health so you don't burn through your pots each battle, that's strategic thinking.  If you need to press a button to win any battle (rather than just letting the AI do it), that's tactical thinking.

[Sylvius the Mad]

It doesn't make sense because the product has drastically changed. You don't get to keep advertising a car when you're actually making a truck now, just because you originally wanted to make it a car. That's not how it works.

 

Plus, it's not like cutting a trailer and releasing a few screenshots is some huge expense. On top of that, they actually had a NDA on reviewers so that they couldn't release a review prior to the game's actual launch despite the fact that they had played the game before that. They could have tons of marketing material in those reviews for free by not doing the NDA.

 

Instead, they ensured that there was zero information on the internet for the customer to find in trying to research the product until well after launch.

 

You're actively defending that companies should be allowed to straight up lie in their marketing right now. Not simply just be deceptive like most, but actually lie about what their product is when they know it is 100% a lie.

 

That is a horrible system that is extremely anti-consumer.

Consumers need to learn not to trust marketing materials.  At all.  Ever.

[Alpha452]

With this most recent delay to sometime 2017 I have serious doubts about Bioware and whether we'll ever see an actual release of Mass Effect Andromeda. Guess Bioware will have just saved me the 60 bucks I was going to toss their way for Mass Effect Andromeda..thanks Bioware.

[Killroy]

With this most recent delay to sometime 2017 I have serious doubts about Bioware and whether we'll ever see an actual release of Mass Effect Andromeda. Guess Bioware will have just saved me the 60 bucks I was going to toss their way for Mass Effect Andromeda..thanks Bioware.

This is the ONLY delay. There might be further delays in the future, but to act like this is just the most recent in a series of delays is absurd.

[Alpha452]

Back on Topic:

I hope the loss of so many talented people over at B-Ware won't lead to inferior game's I'm still reeling from Gaider leaving and the hits just keep coming and although I am dissapointed at the delay I'm ok with it as well because more time=better games.

What you said about more time = better games is not necessarily true. More time could just as easily mean more chances for the project to be cancelled altogether and never see the light of day. Bioware may just have saved me wasting 60 bucks on their game.

[lucky5hot]

I'm not in a fight.  My character is in a fight.  He's trying to win, sure, but that might not be my objective.

 

Also, to the original point, the claim that there;'s no tactical or strategic thinking in DAI is nonsense.  If you use Guard or Barrier to preserve health so you don't burn through your pots each battle, that's strategic thinking.  If you need to press a button to win any battle (rather than just letting the AI do it), that's tactical thinking.

 

I missed some of the previous reply entries on this, and its slightly off the original topic, but I think when people complain about the skills in DA:I, its basically an argument that reduction in complexity = reduction in required tactics/strategic thinking. And the UI in DA:I was certainly less complex with less potential active skills to use in combat.

 

Now, correlation doesnt imply causation, and certainly a game COULD have less skills but require deep tactic thinking (EG, 4 skills in the average Moba, but you need strong mechanics and knowledge of opponent skills), but I think this largely holds true.

 

Further, regardless of the outcome of whether or not it WAS less tactical (which I think it was), there was the implication of corruption of the tactical complexity due to wanting to make more money by marketing the original PC friendly game for consoles. The basic argument was the reduction in active skills was directly related to being optimised for the console controller. Obviously it would be really expensive to have two versions of the game, one for PC one for Console with different balancing for active skills, thus the ultimate "dumbed down" argument and cementing a perception that they were reducing the tactical complexity in order to generate more money. 

 

Now, I dont necessarily blame them for wanting uniformity between console and PC in terms of gameplay as its more than just adding an extra active skill bar, they would need to balance the combat which would be quite expensive, but in my opinion the combat was less fun as a result. 

 

Thats not to say the original combat was excellent, AOE has always been broken in previous iterations of DA, even with friendly fire turned on, (which used to be automatic on the harder difficulty settings, now it was optional on the harder settings). Also, there used to be many exploitable skills (for instance, 2 mage party means you can barrier your tank to 100% damage resist taunting with 100% uptime, then enemies would target it rather than switch aggro, something they actually fixed in DAI:I).  However, despite these flaws, it ultimately still felt more rewarding because of overcoming a problem with more complexity. Also, IMHO, more exploration of your skills in combat = more fun as you are constantly trying new, novel skills.

 

----------

 

But ultimately, if i was to peg problems with DA:I, combat wouldnt even rank in the top #5 problems. The problem was that there was too much game, therefore too much combat and not enough of the really strong narrative/interest that made us love the original games. This was mixed in with what I had to write 5 replies to clarify above.. that there were barren worlds that were uninteresting around it too. The game realistically should have been about half as long, and stronger in the narrative department. If they made the game like this, the slightly inferior combat never would have got stale due to being carried by riveting moments of narrative between fights.

[Sylvius the Mad]

If they made the game like this...

I would have liked it less. For me, the great thing about DAI is that the world is bigger and the narrative less obtrusive.

Oh, and the 4 ability limit can't have been about parity across platforms, because neither DAO nor DA2 had such a limit on consoles. No, the 4 ability limit is caused by the devs' desire to have parity between SP and MP.

[Sylvius the Mad]

This is the ONLY delay. There might be further delays in the future, but to act like this is just the most recent in a series of delays is absurd.

It is the most recent. It's even the most recent in a series (of one).