6427 réponses à ce sujet

[Boomshakalakalakaboom]

I really like the fact that we still have people that have only just heard about this coming in here to leave angry posts.

No doubt closing the BSN is the right decision.

[Voxr]

Is it too late to ask for OT back tho?

[Boomshakalakalakaboom]

It's never too late!

[Iakus]

I probably shouldn't mention this in this thread, but if you drop by the Paradox boards, they're polling their forumites about replayability in RPGs today

It's stuff like this that demonstrates just how disconnected from their fans Bioware has become.

[They call me a SpaceCowboy]

Isn't that exactly how this board has worked for years?

Sure but people actually visit here.

[They call me a SpaceCowboy]

I can't help but think about the banter bug of DAI -- which I suffered from -- and how when I looked for help through Google the only/best tips available were HERE on this forum. There's was an entire thread dedicated to workarounds and theories and attempted fixes. It was insightful and helped me try to combat the issue.

What would've happened if there hadn't been a BSN?

Would I still be wandering in silence?

Back during the DAO Awakening there was a bug where if you enter the Silverite Mine your stuff can completely disappear.

Bioware decided this was due to the player circumventing the lock and entering before the script was expecting you to.

Free play testers on these forums determined for them that the problem was that some of the carry over DLC items were causing the problem and if you removed them the bug did not repeat.

Of course this was ignored by the devs who apparently couldn't be bothered to read the boards even back then.

[Spirit Vanguard]

Back during the DAO Awakening there was a bug where if you enter the Silverite Mine your stuff can completely disappear.
Bioware decided this was due to the player circumventing the lock and entering before the script was expecting you to.
Free play testers on these forums determined for them that the problem was that some of the carry over DLC items were causing the problem and if you removed them the bug did not repeat.
Of course this was ignored by the devs who apparently couldn't be bothered to read the boards even back then.

That reminds me of Velanna, whose quest I could never get to trigger. There's still no real consensus on what causes the problem and looking for answers is a nightmare -- until I found yet another helpful thread here. I found a solution that is incredibly wonky and ruins the narrative, but it works. It's in no way an "official" fix and can't be found on wiki.

BioWare, don't be prideful. Just reverse this closing.

 

Edit: my typos were atrocious. DX

Modifié par Spirit Vanguard, 11 août 2016 - 11:39 .

[Puddi III]

I didn't even know who he was until the closure of the forums was announced.

Exactly, and same for us when he (they) shut down Off-topic. We didn't even know for sure until one of the devs signed up to VSN and confirmed that Conal is indeed the 'community manager.' That shows how much of a relationship he cares to have with this segment of the community that he is supposed to manage.

[skuid]

Squashing all potential source of dissent and drowning everyone else in Twitter white noise are merely the first part of the strategy.  You have to understand that by flushing us out of the airlock they eliminate the old fan base and replace it with a new one.  It doesn't matter if their newly recruited customers (as opposed to fans) stop playing their games the week after purchase: they'll have paid the full price without bitching about it.  That's the bottom line.

 

We are a much smaller segment of the overall customer base than people realize. most businesses are concerned with new customers, not existing ones.

Yes, I understand we are just a minority, but a minority that made friends buy Bioware games. I managed to get my sister to play DAO and ME, then she bought the rest by herself and she even preordered DAI. I've also convinced several friends to buy those games. That is what a loyal customer do, spread the word and convince others to play the games. We are the cheapest marketing campaign, we do this for free. The strategy to dump the loyal customer and gain new casual players could work as long as there is hype, once the hype of the release is forgotten they won't sell ****, and the hype was generated mostly here, at least for me. I don't think those new players will buy merchandising or dlcs. At least that is what I think, maybe the mouth to mouth was good for the old Bioware but not for EA.

 

Anyway, I think I'm done with Bioware and EA, I'll still play their games but I'll wait for a good discount. 20-30€ for a relatively bug free game seems like a nice price.

[bEVEsthda]

If people wanted to slam BIoware they'd compare the company to Amy's Baking Company(Kitchen Nightmares US);by far the worst restaurant ever on Kitchen Nightmares and the only one Gordon gave up trying to help because they were so unwilling to see any problems.

 

But I think Bioware is aware that there are problems, so its a bit too far to compare them to ABC. So instead, maybe Piccolo Teatro(Kitchen Nightmares UK)?

 

That was a restaurant that was struggling, Gordon helped save it, but then a few weeks after he left the woman running the restaurant left it in disrepair and then eventually gave it up entirely just because.

 

Though I don't even know if thats an apt comparison.

 

This is a weird state of affairs we're in man. Forums exist, can be saved, won't be saved, will instead be torched. Actually forget the Kitchen Nightmares comparisons, you know what the forum needs? Petrozza from Hell's Kitchen.

 

Louross was cooking a steak(the forum) and Chef Scott(Bioware/EA) didn't like the look of it so he sent it back and told him to cook another one. Problem;there were no other steaks ready.

 

So Petrozza being a genius decidedly to sneakily cut off the top and bottom of the steak making it look like a whole new cut, presented it to Chef Scott, and lo and behold;it passed his inspection. Sneaky and evil but effective.

 

We need Based Petrozza.

 

Look up "Petrozza and Louross pull a fast one" and see if we don't need that on this forum right now. Cut off the bad bits and make it past inspection so our forum sticks around and we can keep on keepin on.

 

I'm making an attempt to sort of answer this. I didn't want to, because there's an avalanche of thousands things on my mind, enough for 40 pages. So how do I sort? I can't so I'm just gonna throw things out into the air.

 

DA:I is a very good game. If we want to be fair, we should just sigh and think: "Oh well, ...this is what we get...", be happy and play the game. The main thrust of the criticism against that game is not fair, IMO. Much is just in their heads. They don't know how to play a game like Inquisition. "Fetch quests"? There's not a single meaningless quest in DA:I. Unless you want to do meaningless quests! And why should you? Look, this is a game that supplies the environment for you to make your own character's narrative. All the things have to be there, so you can follow your character's agenda and decisions. Otherwise you wouldn't have the opportunity to focus and make decisions. And it wouldn't be a diverse experience. You're not supposed to pick up every stone. And complaining about that the plot is a hero-story is just childish and naively ignorant. Same sort of literary naivety that produced the ME3 ending disaster.

 

Now that I've got that off my chest - But: That criticism does reflect the fact that, good or bad, it isn't quite the game that many wanted to have. And from that perspective the criticism holds water. A reflection of my own, is that it's good because it's everything but the kitchen sink thrown in there. Doesn't seem economical or like a cohesive idea. More like desperation to save the franchise.

 

So why don't they make the game we want? Here's where things start to get interesting. Much (DA2 & ME3) may be entirely Bioware's fault, due to their culture and tradition, and not EA's doing. But, why don't EA ever make the game people want? One particular phrase pops up, over and over again through the decades: "With a bigger budget the game needs to target a bigger market". Except they never do. And yet they try the same formula over and over again, always failing.

 

The way you make big money on games, is to nurture the big franchises, those which hit 10-30 million sales per game. And guess what? Almost every one of those originally (first game) sold less than DA:O! You don't hit those sales by making an original new game, like Bioware always tried and made their mantra ("kicking over the sand castle"). You hit them with successive sequels, each selling better, as the game gathers more and more mind share and people learn to play them, learn the experience, what it's about.

 

And EA have never done that. They believe that is what they're trying. But it's not. I'm pretty sure the slightly increased sales of ME2 convinced Bioware and EA that the changes were successful. I don't think so. With the mind share that ME had gathered, ME2 should have sold even more. Every ME-fan I've met in RL says the same thing: "ME1 is the best game in the series. Pity they changed it." In a series, every game is mainly sold by the predecessor. That's why DA2 sold well. DA:O was selling it. That's why DA:I, even if it sells well, doesn't hit those numbers it deserves. But it was never going to. DA2's shadow hung over it from the start.

 

In a sequel, you can change most things within reason. But you can't change how the gamer relate to the gameplay. You have to retain the essence. And that isn't done in the DA:O, DA2, DA:I chain. It's three different games. I hated DA2. But why? Because it destroyed the DA franchise, which I cared for. The DA2 game itself? Well, I'll put it this way: If it was named 'Champion of Kirkwall : a game in the Dragon Age ™ universe', I would have enjoyed it and continued to wait (probably in vain) for the real DA2. I certainly wouldn't have hated it. It's a solid enough and fun game.

 

So EA buys up titles and franchises there's an enthusiasm around, and then proceeds to destroy them. This is the main reason EA is so disliked among older gamers who've seen this happen to a lot of their favorite games. But why do they do it? That's the mystery. Only explanation is that it's something, some contamination, inside their own culture. Particularly in marketing, I suspect.

 

And they also regularly pull some useless stunts to anger their customers, like closing Off Topic and now the entire Forums. It's almost like they're working on a schedule. "Come on guys. We won't win the Worst Company consumer award this year if we don't make an effort." It would be comedy if it wasn't so tragic. Some of the things they do are bafflingly stupid. Like limiting Spore to three install procedures. Just crazy.

 

The immediate reason I spun off that Gordon Ramsay line was that Twitter is so useless. It's some sort of service for shallow celebrities and wannabe celebrities to collect shallow followers. For the former to feel important and celebrated. For the followers to feel they 'know' or are in contact with the celebrity and friends. So they tweet off some nonsense now and then, what they are drinking, some ignorant shallow comment about some politician ("we all think the same here, don't we"), and mentions their kids at least every other day. Pathetic and useless.

         And then I had this flash of some restaurant owners who were convinced (and tried to convince Gordon Ramsay) that their only problem was this group of enemies, evil people writing mean things about the restaurant on internet (yeah, reviews). So that's why this idea popped up in my head. So Bioware want us to use Twitter instead? Right, so let's try a twitter line. I'm not normally that brief.

 

Back in the days of Dragon Age development, interaction with the developers was great (even if they never said much about DA). Lot's of discussion about ideas and games. But already then I felt that developers shouldn't listen too much to gamers. And these days I feel that they shouldn't be on Forums at all. (KSP's developers stay away from their forum. Wise, I think. They have better things to do, and they shouldn't be embroiled with the gamers. The Forums work brilliantly nonetheless.)

 

         I also understand why Bioware would be tempted to close down the forums. ME:A is clearly very important. Failure is not an option. And when things are important... You shouldn't go to war with journalists by your side, for instance. It's a recipe for putting yourself in a position where it will be impossible to win. The forums could definitely be something spreading a negative impression.

 

So actually, I blame them less for closing down the forums than for closing down Off Topic. I certainly (genuinely) hope the desperate tactic pays off for them. Now that they, yet again, burn so much goodwill and so many bridges. I hope it works. But I suspect it might not. Because it's yet another let's-anger-the-customers action that will join there with all the rest, festering long term ill-will.

 

 

TL, DR:   EA is a restaurant desperately needing Gordon Ramsay.

[LPPrince]

I probably shouldn't mention this in this thread, but if you drop by the Paradox boards, they're polling their forumites about replayability in RPGs today

 

 

This annoys me about Bioware. Its not that this place CAN'T be productive, its that they won't MAKE it productive.

[BadgerladDK]

Funny how the mod sweatshop started doing their jobs only after it was announced the place is closing.

 

A massive city fire isn't really the time to practice your fiddle, guys.

[robertmarilyn]

I also hope you can edit your tweets because I had to edit the one above twice to get rid of spelling mistakes. 

 

u r a bad spellir. 

 

On to other things, this is the forum where I went to for ALL my Dragon Age help. I bought Dragon Age, late in the game, and if not for reading this forum, I would never have bought DA2. Yes, yes, laugh, because so many are supposed to have hated DA2, but in this forum, I was able to read about DA2 and there were many who liked it. I bought it because of this forum and I loved it, which made me want to buy DAI. If the forums must be shut down, they still should NOT be purged. Too much will be lost by purging the forums. 

[Nefla]

We are a much smaller segment of the overall customer base than people realize. most businesses are concerned with new customers, not existing ones.

Something I learned a long time ago is that for every customer who complains, there are 10 who just silently leave unsatisfied and never come back. This may or may not hold true for video games but it's something to consider. The loyal customer WANTS to love your products even if the products keep declining in quality. The loyal fan will give tips on how to improve because they want to love your product again. The casual customer will see the lower quality and just go "meh" and leave your company behind without a thought. You can also only trick new people into buying your products with pizazz and flashy marketing for so long. Eventually you will run out of saps and you need something quality to stand behind. Something like TW3 didn't sell so well because of trickery or official marketing,  it sold well because it was an amazing product and hardcore fans sang its praises to every corner of the interwebs, other customers in line at game stores, coworkers and friends, etc...I think generating and cultivating a hardcore and passionate fanbase would be a huge plus for any company with quality products.

 

I can't help but think about the banter bug of DAI -- which I suffered from -- and how when I looked for help through Google the only/best tips available were HERE on this forum. There's was an entire thread dedicated to workarounds and theories and attempted fixes. It was insightful and helped me try to combat the issue.

What would've happened if there hadn't been a BSN?

Would I still be wandering in silence?

Without the BSN I would have assumed there was almost no banter in DA:I and that certain companions had zero things to say to each other.

[giftfish]

Hey folks --

 

I'm part of the group working on continuity of Projects, and we've been discussing the problem of how all this information is going to be lost once these forums come down in October.

 

We decided it would be worth creating a WordPress that can act as the "HQ" for all this info. The site will exist as long as WP exists, so there's decent longevity. It already contains basic info about the closure itself and all the info in the OP of this "Networking" thread (copy/paste fail) thread. To be added soon will be info about Blogs, Projects, and more.

 

If folks could start linking this site around, that would be great. Then we'll get the page views up so when players attempt to search for "BSN closure" Google will return the blog in the search results.

 

Hope we haven't ruffled any feathers by doing this; we're just trying to ensure this information stays available and as visible as possible

 

Here's the new site: https://whereisbioware.wordpress.com/

[N7M]

 
All Posts Matter
 
#triggered #checkyourprivilege

 

As a switch of light over yellow wallpaper, perhaps.

 

#sepia #journalism

[o Ventus]

Is it too late to ask for OT back tho?

 

No, my son, YOU ARE the OT.

 

And then John was a zombie.

[BronzTrooper]

How many pages has it been since a BW employee posted on this thread?

[mgagne]

... The strategy to dump the loyal customer and gain new casual players could work as long as there is hype, once the hype of the release is forgotten they won't sell ****, and the hype was generated mostly here, at least for me. I don't think those new players will buy merchandising or dlcs. At least that is what I think, maybe the mouth to mouth was good for the old Bioware but not for EA.

 

From our standpoint it isn't a good long term strategy.  But these people are all about short term profitability anyway since they can be fired at any time should the margin dips too steeply or for too long - that's how large corporations operate.  So long as the numbers are good for the next quarterly update to the shareholders all is well.  They're going for volume.  What's a few thousand 'loyal' fans compared to tens or potentially hundreds of thousands of casuals?  They'll recoup their losses with us a hundrefold.  And by transferring their presence to the new media platforms they remove a thorn in their side, save on operating costs and regain control of the narrative.  The medium is the message remember; all those other venues, thanks to their built-in oversight mechanisms, are unidirectional; that is to say from them to the masses.

 

Announcing the closure in the middle of summer, well before the release date of the next big title, while giving us enough time to salvage and relocate the bulk of the accumulated data (and they knew full well the 'real fans' would do their utmost to achieve this - for free), was a very cleverly calculated move.  Had they pulled the plug without warning - or just before MEA comes out - it would have generated a sh!tstorm.  But now?  It'll all blow itself out while the ship is still at anchor.

 

The Magister... has... outplayed us!

[Sunegami]

I doubt this will ever be seen and I'm sure it's already been suggested, but can someone explain to me why the boards can't just go permanently read-only if they want to get rid of them so badly? Why get rid of so many good things?

 

Can we crowd-source moneys to buy other servers to host the forums elsewhere? :B

[Fiery Phoenix]

Back during the DAO Awakening there was a bug where if you enter the Silverite Mine your stuff can completely disappear.

Bioware decided this was due to the player circumventing the lock and entering before the script was expecting you to.

Free play testers on these forums determined for them that the problem was that some of the carry over DLC items were causing the problem and if you removed them the bug did not repeat.

Of course this was ignored by the devs who apparently couldn't be bothered to read the boards even back then.

The novel Mass Effect: Deception was corrected by fans on the forums. I remember a HUGE Google doc that was assembled by fellow ME fans to point out errors in the book. BioWare acknowledged the issue but never bothered fixing anything in a newer edition of the book, AFAIK.

[o Ventus]

The novel Mass Effect: Deception was corrected by fans on the forums. I remember a HUGE Google doc that was assembled by fellow ME fans to point out errors in the book. BioWare acknowledged the issue but never bothered fixing anything in a newer edition of the book, AFAIK.

 

They promised the book would be rewritten.

 

Like, 4 years ago.

[Fozee]

Mod02-Senpai has given me a warning. She only has slightly noticed me. Of course due to it being against the rules I cannot talk about moderation and will not go off topic, even though posts are constantly being deleted. 

And this is why I will shed no tears for the loss of the forum. The community can't discuss the rules it's under, or the enforcement of those rules? And just deleting things without saying anything? It's disgusting, and it's never what I stood for. 

[Ryzaki]

Wait...it's confirmed that DA4's protag isn't the Inquisitor? Cause if so there were all my interest. What was the damn point of trespasser then other than to screw my PC's happy ending up again?

[En Es Ef Dubyu]

The funny thing is that, as always, Bioware is not going to try to argue their points. They are just gonna do it because it suits their needs/someone told them so.

Like others said before I am really starting to think this is preemptive damage control because Something about ME:A is known to be bound to ****** A LOT of people off. Large companies do it all the time just not with as much finality as with this avtion.

Case in point...remember what happened when fans started questioning (prior to release) whether John was really going to be the protagonist of halo 5? Same thing is happening here only in order to prevent ALL future discussion and/or accusation to anyone within bioware who might see their reputation of special little perfect snowflake tarnished they are just killing the forums

I am not 100% sure about how they could even believe the narrative sounded plausible but...eh....like for everything else this decision was made in a meeting and whoever disagreed was sent to get coffee

 

Cerberus?

 

 

I only say this because that leak that revealed a blonde squaddie (later confirmed) also revealed Cerberus's potential presence in Andromeda. That and I think turians, batarians, quarians, drell, hanar, elcor, vorcha, and maybe volus will not be present.