302 réponses à ce sujet

[Giantdeathrobot]

 

They built on their foundation whereas BW failed because they didn't do that. BW started scrapping things that no one had issues with, and added things that went against their original story to please fans (DAI).  DA 2 became a water colored cartoon because even the style was changed. Granted I hated the browns in DAO but they could have done something else other than the style they had for DA2.  DA now lacks any sort of identity and primarily appeals to its hardcore fans. Funny how that turned out.  There is nothing wrong with improving your system, I already stated that both Uncharted and Witcher improved and focused on what they did right. Yeah they followed trends, used popular mechanics et al, but in the end they did it to the point of creating a good product, they still focused on what they knew they could do right. ME2 also improved, note I never lumped it in with ME3, DA2, and DAI. The problem is that BW tries to scrap nearly everything in a vain attempt at popularity and mass market appeal and typically fails whenever they do.  Perhaps they should focus more on using trends and so on to make a coherent product. 

 

 

 

What did DA:I add that "scrapped the original story", by curiosity?

 

I'd also argue Dragon Age started having a visual idendity in DA2. DA:O was all a generic browny mess. DA2 added some much needed color and changes, albeit not all of them were good (Hurlocks, elves). DA:I finally gave the franchise its luster, albeit it still sadly doesn't have as strong a visual identity as Mass Effect.

 

And, ME2 scrapped a lot of things. It was a complete 180 gameplay wise, and it changed loads in terms of story and themes too. Then again, so did ME3 in regards to the latter. The sheer amount of thematic incoherence between games is one of Mass Effect's biggest weaknesses. Dragon age does that better, and to its credit so did The Witcher until it becomes a fairly boring save the world story in TW3's third act.

 

I think the main difference is that Bioware had a gameplay system that worked in DA:O, and indeed tried to simplify it too much, especially in Inquisition (not DA2, which if you ask me had more depth than many give it credit for). Whereas TW1's gameplay system just didn't work so it was kind of inevitable that CDPR would scrap it. It's a difference of starting point, mostly, not process as I see it. But as to the result, well, I liked the gameplay of DA2 and DAI more than TW2 and TW3's. So I disagree that CDPR honed their formula until it was right. Heck, I thought Shadow of Mordor used the same basic system much better, for a more fluid experience that has more impactful progresion. My level 1 Geralt plays almost identically to my level 39 Geralt; that's just not how a RPG should work as far as I'm concerned.

[goishen]

The main difference between the two was that one was telling a singular story and the other wasn't.  I prefer singular stories, yet occasionally I prefer my stories to be singular.  I didn't like how the DA franchise handled that, with the previous games, although it has grown on me quite a bit.  But still, it kind'a does seem like giving BioWare a free pass, to have the previous games all settled up in a few lines of dialogue.

[slimgrin]

I thought this ship had sailed with ME2. Not sure why people are alarmed by this kind of PR talk now. 

[Seraphim24]

I thought this ship had sailed with ME2. Not sure why people are alarmed by this kind of PR talk now. 

 

Someone gets it

[AlanC9]

In BG, persuasion was based on charisma. The manual even suggested that you put a high charisma character in the first party slot.

And then it gave you a high charisma character (Imoen) as a party member almost immediately.

The mechanic worked the same way in BG2, but the dialogue was written as if the Bhaalspawn was always doing the talking. Later, Dave Gaider even conceded that he hadn't known when writing BG2 that other party members could act as spokesperson (Dave didn't work on BG1).

Raises some interesting questions about internal communication at Bio. Even if Gaider doesn't notice that, doesn't anyone else at Bio notice it?

[Arcian]

Those who try to appeal to everyone will end up appealing to no one.

[Hazegurl]

What did DA:I add that "scrapped the original story", by curiosity?

 

I'd also argue Dragon Age started having a visual idendity in DA2. DA:O was all a generic browny mess. DA2 added some much needed color and changes, albeit not all of them were good (Hurlocks, elves). DA:I finally gave the franchise its luster, albeit it still sadly doesn't have as strong a visual identity as Mass Effect.

 

And, ME2 scrapped a lot of things. It was a complete 180 gameplay wise, and it changed loads in terms of story and themes too. Then again, so did ME3 in regards to the latter. The sheer amount of thematic incoherence between games is one of Mass Effect's biggest weaknesses. Dragon age does that better, and to its credit so did The Witcher until it becomes a fairly boring save the world story in TW3's third act.

 

I think the main difference is that Bioware had a gameplay system that worked in DA:O, and indeed tried to simplify it too much, especially in Inquisition (not DA2, which if you ask me had more depth than many give it credit for). Whereas TW1's gameplay system just didn't work so it was kind of inevitable that CDPR would scrap it. It's a difference of starting point, mostly, not process as I see it. But as to the result, well, I liked the gameplay of DA2 and DAI more than TW2 and TW3's. So I disagree that CDPR honed their formula until it was right. Heck, I thought Shadow of Mordor used the same basic system much better, for a more fluid experience that has more impactful progresion. My level 1 Geralt plays almost identically to my level 39 Geralt; that's just not how a RPG should work as far as I'm concerned.

DAI was supposed to have Hawke as the main character, then decided on the generic Inquisitor, only to make him even more generic by accommodating the race selection. They had a whole year to add more, such as the parts of Solas's story they scrapped. But nope, a half-assed race selection option was far more important.  

 

IMO, it's DA not ME that has the biggest issue with coherence. ME has always been the stronger game both visually and otherwise, I think they just screwed up on not having a clue what they were gonna do with the Reapers. I do agree that DA2 improved on some things from DAO. I thought the combat was good after I got used to it, and we still had tactics. I Loved the rivalry system and how independent the companions were.  I didn't have to dress them up like I was their mom.  Personally, I thought Kirkwall was a stony mess, just a different shade of brown with some beach (more brown) and an ocean. I wish they had made it close to it's concept artwork. 

 

As for TW, I hated the combat in the first game, the second improved on it but I still had problems. I think TW3 does the combat much much better, it flows better and I like Geralt's moves. I also think ME3 does combat much better than the others. ME1 was the worst. As for the Wild Hunt, meh, I didn't care too much for them and they got a lot of complaints about them, but then they came back strong with Hearts of Stone.  Gunter O'Dimm makes the Wild Hunt look like child's play.  He was well written and terrifying. However, what TW3 improved on more than anything is their story by focusing it on Geralt and Ciri.  Just as Uncharted focused on character interaction and dialogue, and their locales while pumping up the action sequences. The game play combat was more of the same with some stealth added. 

[SKAR]

The link says:

During Electronic Arts’ Investor Day, Chief Executive Officer Andrew Wilson expressed expectations for the upcoming Mass Effect Andromeda to “break beyond” what was the core gamer audience as other games in the genre have done.

“And then we have Mass Effect: a whole new Mass Effect story emerging, a fan favorite. As a category role playing games or RPGs continues to grow and break beyond what was the core gamer audience. We’ve seen other games in the category do this, and we believe that Mass Effect will do that.”

Incidentally, EA Studios Executive Vice President Patrick Söderlund also shared a little detail about the game towards the end of his own presentation, mentioning that a crowd technology developed for Rory McIlroy PGA Tour has been adopted by the Mass Effect team to have big crowds that you can walk through. The same tech was also used in Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst to have a large crowd layer on the street layer. It’s also being adopted by other game teams within EA.

bout time.

[AlanC9]

DAI was supposed to have Hawke as the main character, then decided on the generic Inquisitor, only to make him even more generic by accommodating the race selection.

Though adding race selection resulted in greater thematic coherence, not less. DAI was always about how the role of the hero has little or nothing to do with the hero himself; in its own way it's just as much a critique of the traditional CRPG hero story as DA2 is.

[Kaweebo]

DAI was supposed to have Hawke as the main character, then decided on the generic Inquisitor, only to make him even more generic by accommodating the race selection. They had a whole year to add more, such as the parts of Solas's story they scrapped. But nope, a half-assed race selection option was far more important.  

 

Generic means unoriginal, non-specific. The race selection option allowed the player to take an active role in the background of the Inquisitor even if we never got to see it on-screen. What race you picked gives you quite a bit to think about in terms of what their mindset might be, their experiences, etc. By contrast, human only and from a pre-set family or tribe would have taken much of the control from players. I love Hawke in DA2 (at least when the plot doesn't make him/her stupid) but the character wasn't really your character, at least not as much as the Inquisitor, much in the same way that ME3 Shepard wasn't your character either. (The marketing didn't help, either. Having a face set for Shepard and Hawke in the ME series & DAII helped to further remove the player from the equation just in trailers and commercials alone)

 

I really don't see how that took away from the overall narrative they were building. Instead, it gave you the ability to give the Inquisitor more character by taking an active part in choosing his/her history. The only letdown was that Bioware wasn't able to juggle all of that and still make the game playable on the older systems. I think that hurt the game more than any so-called 'half-assed' race system. A lot of the stuff that was seen in that early 2014 demo footage was scrapped purely because the PS3/Xbox couldn't handle it, just like how Ubisoft couldn't make Watch_Dogs as cool as it looked in its first appearance in 2012 because of the older systems. 

[Giantdeathrobot]

DAI was supposed to have Hawke as the main character, then decided on the generic Inquisitor, only to make him even more generic by accommodating the race selection. They had a whole year to add more, such as the parts of Solas's story they scrapped. But nope, a half-assed race selection option was far more important.  

 

IMO, it's DA not ME that has the biggest issue with coherence. ME has always been the stronger game both visually and otherwise, I think they just screwed up on not having a clue what they were gonna do with the Reapers. I do agree that DA2 improved on some things from DAO. I thought the combat was good after I got used to it, and we still had tactics. I Loved the rivalry system and how independent the companions were.  I didn't have to dress them up like I was their mom.  Personally, I thought Kirkwall was a stony mess, just a different shade of brown with some beach (more brown) and an ocean. I wish they had made it close to it's concept artwork. 

 

As for TW, I hated the combat in the first game, the second improved on it but I still had problems. I think TW3 does the combat much much better, it flows better and I like Geralt's moves. I also think ME3 does combat much better than the others. ME1 was the worst. As for the Wild Hunt, meh, I didn't care too much for them and they got a lot of complaints about them, but then they came back strong with Hearts of Stone.  Gunter O'Dimm makes the Wild Hunt look like child's play.  He was well written and terrifying. However, what TW3 improved on more than anything is their story by focusing it on Geralt and Ciri.  Just as Uncharted focused on character interaction and dialogue, and their locales while pumping up the action sequences. The game play combat was more of the same with some stealth added. 

 

We differ here. I think race selection is important, if we can have it, and I found it brought enough to the table to justify itself. Especially in regards to elves. I don't see how having Hawke as a protagonist would improve things greatly.

 

Combat in TW3 was better than TW2's... but really nothing special if you ask me. It's very repetitive. Against humans, parry and Aard. Against small monsters, dodge and Yrden. Against big targets, dodge and Quen/Igni once you upgrade it to be lolOP. For such a ridiculously long game, repetitive combat is not a good thing IMO. Doesn't help that the loot never has interesting effects like DAI's, and that skills barely change your playstyle apart from Igni taking down big bosses in seconds later in the game. So you're stuck fighting the same way all game long. Whereas my level 1 mage did not play at all like my level 27 Knight-Enchanter, and my level 1 warrior did not at all play like my level 27 Reaver.

[Addictress]

DAI only had race selection....cosmetically. There was no origin, and barely any substantially unique content related to the different races.

So in the end, having a buffet of races forced down the same script actually felt worse than less race selection with highly context-sensitive script.

[Gileadan]

DAI was supposed to have Hawke as the main character, then decided on the generic Inquisitor, only to make him even more generic by accommodating the race selection. They had a whole year to add more, such as the parts of Solas's story they scrapped. But nope, a half-assed race selection option was far more important.

I'd love to know why there was a one year delay in the first place, but I have a feeling that they didn't have a year to "add more". They had a year to actually make a product worth publishing because they didn't have much of a game at the time of the original release date is my impression. Why would EA delay a game for a year anyway? Only if they feared the customer backlash would be bigger than that from their investors at the words "one year delay".  Multiple races - more a choice of paint job than anything else - was a bone thrown to players to get back some good will. There's probably a reason why there's no "making of" in any edition.

 

Race selection could have added character depth, but BioWare sabotaged themselves with the dreadfully neutral sounding protagonist. Want to be angry and vengeful? You get neutral with a few grains of grump. Want to be heartbroken about Haven? You get neutral with a slight trace of bummer.

[Kaweebo]

DAI only had race selection....cosmetically. There was no origin, and barely any substantially unique content related to the different races.
 

There were several examples of race-specific dialogue both from you, the player and your companions. I'll admit, I could have done with a race-specific side quest or two but Bioware seemed to have forgotten what side quests are in videogames when they made DAI, so it's not that big a deal. I like what we got but I'm open to improvement, as always.

[Cyonan]

I'd love to know why there was a one year delay in the first place, but I have a feeling that they didn't have a year to "add more". They had a year to actually make a product worth publishing because they didn't have much of a game at the time of the original release date is my impression. Why would EA delay a game for a year anyway? Only if they feared the customer backlash would be bigger than that from their investors at the words "one year delay".  Multiple races - more a choice of paint job than anything else - was a bone thrown to players to get back some good will. There's probably a reason why there's no "making of" in any edition.

 

Well obviously they did it to actually finish the game because they didn't think they had a game worth releasing a full year earlier. It's pretty much a miracle if a time estimate in development is actually right on the first try, even after you've already doubled your real estimate.

 

Although you can still get a few extra things done in that time. If 3 months of that is going to be spend on testing and debugging, then that's 3 months your artists aren't doing a whole lot because it's basically all programming work.

 

So that frees them up to do stuff like allow for multiple races for the protagonist, since it's not a very code heavy feature to add in. Most of it is extra art work for the models and some voice acting for the race specific dialogue.

 

Delays aren't typically something a developer has to go out of their way to "make up" for. People will ****** and moan about it before it comes out like they did with The Witcher 3, but then after the game comes out it's pretty much instantly forgotten about like we did with The Witcher 3.

[Seraphim24]

We differ here. I think race selection is important, if we can have it, and I found it brought enough to the table to justify itself. Especially in regards to elves. I don't see how having Hawke as a protagonist would improve things greatly.

 

Combat in TW3 was better than TW2's... but really nothing special if you ask me. It's very repetitive. Against humans, parry and Aard. Against small monsters, dodge and Yrden. Against big targets, dodge and Quen/Igni once you upgrade it to be lolOP. For such a ridiculously long game, repetitive combat is not a good thing IMO. Doesn't help that the loot never has interesting effects like DAI's, and that skills barely change your playstyle apart from Igni taking down big bosses in seconds later in the game. So you're stuck fighting the same way all game long. Whereas my level 1 mage did not play at all like my level 27 Knight-Enchanter, and my level 1 warrior did not at all play like my level 27 Reaver.

 

You are overdoing it Mr. Death robot, for you can just run past most enemies in TW if you really want, quest XP is way better than mob XP anyway. 

 

The problem though is your comparison here is DA, DA2 wasn't really much of a game at all. If you passed out tired and fell onto the keyboard you can win most fights. It was still decently enjoyable though I guess, because that's a lot of games at any rate. 

 

Honestly the problem with DA is even with all the simplification it's still too complex, they probably shouldn't even have skill trees if I'm being honest. 

[Hazegurl]

We differ here. I think race selection is important, if we can have it, and I found it brought enough to the table to justify itself. Especially in regards to elves. I don't see how having Hawke as a protagonist would improve things greatly.

 

Combat in TW3 was better than TW2's... but really nothing special if you ask me. It's very repetitive. Against humans, parry and Aard. Against small monsters, dodge and Yrden. Against big targets, dodge and Quen/Igni once you upgrade it to be lolOP. For such a ridiculously long game, repetitive combat is not a good thing IMO. Doesn't help that the loot never has interesting effects like DAI's, and that skills barely change your playstyle apart from Igni taking down big bosses in seconds later in the game. So you're stuck fighting the same way all game long. Whereas my level 1 mage did not play at all like my level 27 Knight-Enchanter, and my level 1 warrior did not at all play like my level 27 Reaver.

Yeah we do differ here.  Because the race selection added nothing but one or two lines of extra dialogue and that was it. If you're an elf mage with Mythal tats you're still forced to stand there like an idiot unable to read your own language or even know anything about her because Morrigan needs to be in Elvish exposition mode.  Kill your whole clan during a war table mission?  *Shrug*  And I won't go into how ridiculous it is for everyone to be bowing to a Qunari or Dwarf, much less an elf. You were just a Human in Elf/Qunari/Dwarf skin and nothing more.

 

The Combat in DAI was hardly complex just as the combat in the TW3 was hardly as simplified as you're stressing. In DAI you were stuck with a class and three specialized selections that you were stuck with for the entire game. All the mages had the same basic skills and the same animations played out in loop with minor variation. If you went out with an all mage group you were basically a freaking dance group. I got so sick of seeing the same old thing done over and over again to the point where I wanted to join the Venatori because at least they had spell book animations. And I couldn't be a healer which sucked even more, apparently mages stopped learning how to heal for some reason.  Playing a warrior or any other class with swords in DA is a no go for me because I prefer to not use something that is supposed to be sharp as a baseball bat. In TW3 swords are actually sharp.  The Rogue seemed like a decent class, but firing regular arrows was boring and I usually prefer to fight at a distance, so yeah I like being a mage character but playing one in DAI left much to be desired.  In TW3, I never felt trapped in one particular play style.  Fire arrows or throw bombs from a distance, I could roll and parry, I could switch up my signs when needed, or simply run away if I want.  I could run away in DAI too, ridiculously slow as my PC is hell bent on fighting to the death.

 

As for the loot. DAI's loot system is known to be horrendous because it is. The long animations suck and the loot is never that good.  I was happy when they added the ability to just buy the crafting material I needed at the BE.

[Hazegurl]

I'd love to know why there was a one year delay in the first place, but I have a feeling that they didn't have a year to "add more". They had a year to actually make a product worth publishing because they didn't have much of a game at the time of the original release date is my impression. Why would EA delay a game for a year anyway? Only if they feared the customer backlash would be bigger than that from their investors at the words "one year delay".  Multiple races - more a choice of paint job than anything else - was a bone thrown to players to get back some good will. There's probably a reason why there's no "making of" in any edition.

 

Race selection could have added character depth, but BioWare sabotaged themselves with the dreadfully neutral sounding protagonist. Want to be angry and vengeful? You get neutral with a few grains of grump. Want to be heartbroken about Haven? You get neutral with a slight trace of bummer.

According to Gaider, the extra year was added because they wanted to add race selection but I agree that it was because they didn't have much of a game to put out there and the race selection was fan pandering. Gaider claims they had all of these ideas and the story was supposed to be much bigger with Solas playing a bigger role but all of that was cut, they were gonna have us walk around the Conclave and meet people but they cut that claiming it ruined their pacing. Gaider then claims IB was never going to be romanced by all races due to animation issues only for it to get fixed in time, hilarious, because the animations all suck even between human characters. I just don't think they had the time to make Inquisition the game they wanted it to be. So they just decided to add whatever would make the most people happy.  I remember reading how a modder extracted quite a few files from side quests/quests which were scrapped.  But the files are still in the game. One that was the most interesting was the recorded dialogue between Solas and the Inquisitor after Therinfall Redoubt.

 

I agree on the neutral sounding PCs, I loved my British male IQ's voice but the lack of personality in his voice for about 90% of the game was killing me.  And they all sound like that so it means BW instructed them to sound neutral. Most likely an effort to break away from DA2.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Raises some interesting questions about internal communication at Bio. Even if Gaider doesn't notice that, doesn't anyone else at Bio notice it?

The writing of BG2 suggests they didn't. And then thye built on that design - that mistaken design - in every subsequent game.

I kept waiting for them to follow the BG design again. When DA was first announced, it was to be BioWare's first party-based game since BG2, and I fully expected the BG design of allowing any party member to act as spokesperson. I was genuinely surprised when they didn't allow it.

After that, they started voicing the player-selected dialogue, which effectively prohibits this design by making it vastly more expensive. Yet another cost of the voiced protagonist, and it seems as though I'm the only one who noticed.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Race selection could have added character depth, but BioWare sabotaged themselves with the dreadfully neutral sounding protagonist. Want to be angry and vengeful? You get neutral with a few grains of grump. Want to be heartbroken about Haven? You get neutral with a slight trace of bummer.

What if you don't want to be angry and vengeful? What if you don't want to be heartbroken?

And therein lies the problem. While I personally really liked the neutral tone of the Inquisitor's lines, any voiced line is necessarily going to disappoint some of us.

The only way we can all be happy with the delivery of a line is if we each get to choose the one we get. A silent protagonist offered this. The voiced protagonist does not.

[Cyonan]

According to Gaider, the extra year was added because they wanted to add race selection but I agree that it was because they didn't have much of a game to put out there and the race selection was fan pandering. Gaider claims they had all of these ideas and the story was supposed to be much bigger with Solas playing a bigger role but all of that was cut, they were gonna have us walk around the Conclave and meet people but they cut that claiming it ruined their pacing. Gaider then claims IB was never going to be romanced by all races due to animation issues only for it to get fixed in time, hilarious, because the animations all suck even between human characters. I just don't think they had the time to make Inquisition the game they wanted it to be. So they just decided to add whatever would make the most people happy.  I remember reading how a modder extracted quite a few files from side quests/quests which were scrapped.  But the files are still in the game. One that was the most interesting was the recorded dialogue between Solas and the Inquisitor after Therinfall Redoubt.

 

They probably figured it sounded better to say "We need extra time to add in more stuff to make it even more awesome!" rather than "We underestimated how much time we needed, so we need more to finish the game".

 

and it does sound better to say that even though really, nobody should be upset that a dev needs extra time to finish a game. As I noted before, original time estimates in development are basically never accurate. I don't think any of us would be happy with the Inquisition they had a full year before it actually launched.

 

To be honest, they probably could have used even more time to finish up some of those quests. Content gets cut all the time in basically every video game ever and I don't think any dev truly feels they got everything they wanted in the game, but I feel like too many of the areas in the game lacked interesting content.

 

Of course in this case I'm willing to say it seems fairly likely that they got pushed into release so that they weren't spending even more money than they already had developing it.

[Addictress]

What if you don't want to be angry and vengeful? What if you don't want to be heartbroken?

And therein lies the problem. While I personally really liked the neutral tone of the Inquisitor's lines, any voiced line is necessarily going to disappoint some of us.

The only way we can all be happy with the delivery of a line is if we each get to choose the one we get. A silent protagonist offered this. The voiced protagonist does not.

Shepard's and Hawke's VOs were fine. The inquisitor's voice overs were awful. So, so bland. Maker.

[Iakus]

DAI was supposed to have Hawke as the main character, then decided on the generic Inquisitor, only to make him even more generic by accommodating the race selection. They had a whole year to add more, such as the parts of Solas's story they scrapped. But nope, a half-assed race selection option was far more important.  

 

  

Citation needed

[CronoDragoon]

Shepard's and Hawke's VOs were fine. The inquisitor's voice overs were awful. So, so bland. Maker.

 

Inquisitor's VA was far less bland than ME1 or ME2 Mark Meer.

[Iakus]

DAI only had race selection....cosmetically. There was no origin, and barely any substantially unique content related to the different races.

So in the end, having a buffet of races forced down the same script actually felt worse than less race selection with highly context-sensitive script.

Race selection in DAI had more in-game difference than I have ever seen in a game outside of DAO itself.  Even in the BG games it amounted to little more than minor stat adjustments.

 

Though yes, that still amounted to little more than cosmetic differences.  I generally come to expect that will be the case whenever it's offered.