155 réponses à ce sujet

[worksa8]

TheMadCat wrote...

Wow only 10-20? I've chatted with a few developers and it usually is somewhere around 50% when requiring an original title with them, higher if it's a stand alone. I suppose genre might make a difference, these are all small time strategy game developers, but 10-20 seems like an awful low goal.

I think it makes sense, looking at the low amount of content compared to Origins...
That explains a lot now, they were only aiming for that low sale goal- so why go all out if expansions usually don't sell so great.

[worksa8]

David Gaider wrote...

worksa8 wrote...
I appreciate your responses btw Gaider, it's been too long without even so much as a peep from any of the Bioware staff- It feels like they were ignoring the community entirely- if you lose the major fans, then you pretty much lose a great advertising system as well.

Many of us are just really busy -- I'm eyeballs-deep in my next project, which means I just don't have much time to come here, period. As for the people whose job it is to come here, many of them are collecting info rather than posting. So it doesn't mean threads aren't being looked at, if you're wondering -- though clearly we can't look at everything.

Yeah, but a general single post about a wide topic now and then can do a world of good. Like "Yes, we are working on fixing some of the major issues such as the item problems, crashing, etc..."
Good luck though, I'm sure once it's patched the expansion will be great. I have no issues really besides the shortness and bugs.

[Layn]

David Gaider wrote...

Maybe? It's hard to say. Do bugs affect sales? It's more of a philosophical question, as I suppose we'll never really know now.

well i'd think the first week of sales is mostly unaffected by bugs and general dissatisfaction about it. after all we didn't know anything about it then.

[Isavald]

TJSolo wrote...

Haters/lovers ratio ? Is everything on these forums black and white. Does that mean I can't be a lover if I have negative feedback?
If I am disappointed in some way am I a hater?
Are the people in the technical forums posting problems haters?
Bad simple-minded labeling.

If you're at all refering to anything like I had previously stated, no. Being disappointed is not wrong, finding flaws in a game is not wrong, but some of us wish people would be more constructive and sensible when they go on about these things. 

Going off into a huge rant, calling the game garbage and Bioware a sell out, almost worthless company, with a lot of hardly thought-out points gets old. Its not that anyone can't express a difference of opinion, it just becomes "I'm right you're wrong" scenario all over the boards.

Iam also not directing this specifically at this thread so I apologize, it just kind of hit the mark at the time.

[TheMadCat]

worksa8 wrote...

TheMadCat wrote...

Wow only 10-20? I've chatted with a few developers and it usually is somewhere around 50% when requiring an original title with them, higher if it's a stand alone. I suppose genre might make a difference, these are all small time strategy game developers, but 10-20 seems like an awful low goal.

I think it makes sense, looking at the low amount of content compared to Origins...
That explains a lot now, they were only aiming for that low sale goal- so why go all out if expansions usually don't sell so great.

I don't know, given the BioWare tag alone guarantees a respectable number of sales these days and the fact how shortly the original came out, the 10-20 just seems like a really small target. It is what it is but to me on the outside and given what I've discussed with others it just seems a really low goal. Not sure why you feel it explains anything further though, we've known for a long time now it was going to have a small budget and common sense says it wasn't going to sell as much as the original.

@David. As I said, it may be genre specific. These are small niche strategy developers with a small but loyal corner market, they'll buy the games simply because there isn't much else out there of that nature. Obviously you folks know what you're doing and it's obvious you pulled in a hell of a profit with Awakening so congrats on that, so pop open a bottle of bubbly and celebrate.

Modifié par TheMadCat, 27 mars 2010 - 05:26 .

[Checheche]

Well those bugs have been a big turn off for me and I will be very careful about buying another expansion for DAO or other Bioware games in the future.

I loved Origins a lot more for several reasons, one of which was the solid game play.

The bugs in Awakenings were gamebreaking for me and made me quit on my second playthrough, this expansion feels cheap and shallow to me.

[Rathalin]

I would like to know how an expansion with so many bugs made it through Sony testing so quickly when origins took longer. When I pay 5$ for some DLC I expect it to have a few bugs on it, but when I pay 45$ for an expansion I expect it to at least have less bugs then DLC does.

[AndreaDraco]

I would like to know... David Gaider's new project!



Hopefully, it's a Dragon Age product, be it a new expansion, a sequel or another novel!



But, it would be great even if it is something new.

[Realmzmaster]

Rixxencaxx wrote...

Timurlane wrote...


Blizzard does make fantastic games, yes. But Blizzard does not deviate whatsoever from the middle road biggest market projects which is why they will never release a party-based multi-character RPG. The fact is most people don't like them and just want to control their PC a la diablo style. If this genre is not for you, don't play them, BioWare will survive plenty well off their base market so long as they continue to create the same environments with the same immersive characters and "deep" (relative to the rest of the industry) plot and character development.
As to the BioWare losing "a lot of customers" (presumably not just yourself), my guess is these are the same customers they lost when RtO was repeatedly delayed and I'm doubting they felt the sting too badly with their DA:A sales.

Blizzard was mentioned as an example....cause they care a lot about customers.
Starcraft 1 after 10 years receive patches....
If a game is not perfect they don't sell it.
Blizzard is a model.
This is not a matter of genre...is a matter of quality.....i like old school rpg....don't like cheap quality...

Starcraft 1 had bugs after it shipped otherwise there would be no need for patches. Starcraft 1 was not perfect and they did sell it. There were several patches.
Blizzard is a good company with good service, but not necessarily a model.

[bluewolv1970]

David Gaider wrote...

WilliamShatner wrote...
DA:O:A sold 130,000 copies across both 360 and PS3 in its first week.

Comparatively DA:O sold 320,000 on 360 alone in its first week.

Hopefully all sales are as poor as the consoles suggest and will force BioWare not to be so half-assed when it comes to future follow-ups.

Err... not to burst your bubble or anything, but if those sales figures are true (I haven't seen any, myself) then they are excellent. The sales for expansions are traditionally much, much lower than the sales of the original game... hence why expansions have smaller teams working on them and are done in less time. If the sales bar you're holding it to is the original game, it's not the same bar we're using. Sorry.

Doesn't change the fact that the mind numbing inconsistancies and contiunuity turned off many players myself included...not caring about a players relationships with other characters did not help either(as is evidenced by not including the zev/le letters)...do some people like awakenings...sure . Was it well received by the community as a whole and critically by reviewers no...and  this crappy expansion make not affect sales for awakening but it will affect sales of the next expansion  when many fans (myself included) are wary...

[Jax Sparrow]

TheRealIncarnal wrote... {Citation Needed}

is that good enough for citation?  Or maybe 80% of all statistics are made up on the spot!... including this one.  Seriously, I find it humorous how many haters have a love affair with inaccurate, or myopic, false statistics... mostly inaccurate.  As if people believe them just because they know how to hit numbers on their keyboard.

[thegreateski]

Since bioware became another cheap developer we can look only to blizzard and to the really promising witcher 2
eastern european companies are developing really great original games nowadays...

Modifié par thegreateski, 27 mars 2010 - 09:24 .

[Rixxencaxx]

Realmzmaster wrote...

Rixxencaxx wrote...

Timurlane wrote...


Blizzard does make fantastic games, yes. But Blizzard does not deviate whatsoever from the middle road biggest market projects which is why they will never release a party-based multi-character RPG. The fact is most people don't like them and just want to control their PC a la diablo style. If this genre is not for you, don't play them, BioWare will survive plenty well off their base market so long as they continue to create the same environments with the same immersive characters and "deep" (relative to the rest of the industry) plot and character development.
As to the BioWare losing "a lot of customers" (presumably not just yourself), my guess is these are the same customers they lost when RtO was repeatedly delayed and I'm doubting they felt the sting too badly with their DA:A sales.

Blizzard was mentioned as an example....cause they care a lot about customers.
Starcraft 1 after 10 years receive patches....
If a game is not perfect they don't sell it.
Blizzard is a model.
This is not a matter of genre...is a matter of quality.....i like old school rpg....don't like cheap quality...

Starcraft 1 had bugs after it shipped otherwise there would be no need for patches. Starcraft 1 was not perfect and they did sell it. There were several patches.
Blizzard is a good company with good service, but not necessarily a model.

starcraft 1 had no bugs..patches were all about balance and new maps...
starcraft 2 is in beta and testers found rarely a bug....
however you missed my point...i loved the original dragon age.....the vanilla version i mean without patches...
the patches resolved no bugs and simply made the game easier.
I don't like the new direction taken by this game.

[David Gaider]

bluewolv1970 wrote...
Doesn't change the fact that the mind numbing inconsistancies and contiunuity turned off many players myself included...not caring about a players relationships with other characters did not help either(as is evidenced by not including the zev/le letters)...do some people like awakenings...sure . Was it well received by the community as a whole and critically by reviewers no...and  this crappy expansion make not affect sales for awakening but it will affect sales of the next expansion  when many fans (myself included) are wary...

I wasn't attempting to change that fact. My point was only addressing the perception of sales when it comes to expansions. By all means, be wary if you prefer. I don't think anyone should buy any game that they don't think will be fun for them.

Modifié par David Gaider, 27 mars 2010 - 09:29 .

[thegreateski]

Rixxencaxx wrote...
Blizzard was mentioned as an example....cause they care a lot about customers.
Starcraft 1 after 10 years receive patches....
If a game is not perfect they don't sell it.
Blizzard is a model.
This is not a matter of genre...is a matter of quality.....i like old school rpg....don't like cheap quality...

As a former Ret paladin and Enhance Shammy I am going to have to kindly ask you to gtfo.

[Nitroxit]

David Gaider wrote...

Crrash wrote...
i really didn't know expansions usually did that much worse.

On the order of 10-20% of the sales of the original game, if I'm not mistaken -- though normally they come out much later than Awakenings did, compared to the release of the original. It will be interesting to see how that affects sales, if it does. But, yes, expansions only sell a small percentage of the original sales. Most people never pick them up, no matter how much they enjoyed the original. The opinions of our most ardent fans that you find here on the forums (as much as we love you guys) don't really reflect the opinions of the average user -- but I'm sure that's self-evident.

Dear God, you're misspelling your own expansion now just like most people on this forum! (sorry i just had to say it, i couldn't resist)

On topic: Awakening is great actually, great length for an expansion, quite memorable characters (such as the Architect and Justice) and I personally only encountered one problem (of which I'm not sure if it's a bug).

Modifié par Nitroxit, 27 mars 2010 - 10:01 .

[Realmzmaster]

Rixxencaxx wrote...

Realmzmaster wrote...

Rixxencaxx wrote...

Timurlane wrote...


Blizzard does make fantastic games, yes. But Blizzard does not deviate whatsoever from the middle road biggest market projects which is why they will never release a party-based multi-character RPG. The fact is most people don't like them and just want to control their PC a la diablo style. If this genre is not for you, don't play them, BioWare will survive plenty well off their base market so long as they continue to create the same environments with the same immersive characters and "deep" (relative to the rest of the industry) plot and character development.
As to the BioWare losing "a lot of customers" (presumably not just yourself), my guess is these are the same customers they lost when RtO was repeatedly delayed and I'm doubting they felt the sting too badly with their DA:A sales.

Blizzard was mentioned as an example....cause they care a lot about customers.
Starcraft 1 after 10 years receive patches....
If a game is not perfect they don't sell it.
Blizzard is a model.
This is not a matter of genre...is a matter of quality.....i like old school rpg....don't like cheap quality...

Starcraft 1 had bugs after it shipped otherwise there would be no need for patches. Starcraft 1 was not perfect and they did sell it. There were several patches.
Blizzard is a good company with good service, but not necessarily a model.

starcraft 1 had no bugs..patches were all about balance and new maps...
starcraft 2 is in beta and testers found rarely a bug....
however you missed my point...i loved the original dragon age.....the vanilla version i mean without patches...
the patches resolved no bugs and simply made the game easier.
I don't like the new direction taken by this game.

What are you talking about? Starcraft 1 and 2 had game stopping bugs and  lots of exploits. Some bugs still exist even though the game has been patched to version 1.16.1. No the patches were not all about balance and new maps. Yes, I read the bug report fix that came with each patch.
The Dragon Age patches did fix loading time and several other bugs. It changes only the easy mode to make it easier. It did not change the other modes.  Yes, I read the bug report fix that comes with each patch to see what balance changes, gameplay fixes and bugs were squashed.

[Tekbear]

this thread is pathetic

[VanDraegon]

bluewolv1970 wrote...

 Was it well received by the community as a whole and critically by reviewers no...

You really are not in any position to make such a claim. Unless of course you have polled the opinions of all the forum members and other who bought DA:A. I doubt you did such a thing though,  The belly aching of some forum posters does not constitute the community as a whole.

[Dallo]

David Gaider wrote...


On the order of 10-20% of the sales of the original game, if I'm not mistaken -- though normally they come out much later than Awakenings did, compared to the release of the original. It will be interesting to see how that affects sales, if it does. But, yes, expansions only sell a small percentage of the original sales. Most people never pick them up, no matter how much they enjoyed the original. The opinions of our most ardent fans that you find here on the forums (as much as we love you guys) don't really reflect the opinions of the average user -- but I'm sure that's self-evident.

What about the Nwn expansions?  I feel certain they would've sold quite well.

There are more than 4000 playable, community made modules, many with DL counts > 100k.  This doesn't include the many PWs and other products made exclusively for DMed sessions.

As someone who made one of those modules I know that modders are usually keen to incorporate any new material included in expansions, thus necessitating any would-be players to also purchase them.  Seems to me, then, that SoU and HotU would've performed quite well, certainly better than the 10-20% that you quote.

[Mabari Owns High Dragon]

The only thing I didn't like about DA:O and DA:A was the huge amount of bugs and especially the dex glitch. I still think its one of the best games I've ever played; I've put just as much time into this as Oblivion and Fallout 3. It deserves a place alongside the greats and I can't wait for DA2 and to see if they fix everything! Another strong point is the story, it's incredibly interesting and in depth. Keep writing like that and you'll have me engrossing in DA forever!

Modifié par Mabari Owns High Dragon, 28 mars 2010 - 05:11 .

[Gaddmeister]

VanDraegon wrote...

bluewolv1970 wrote...

 Was it well received by the community as a whole and critically by reviewers no...

You really are not in any position to make such a claim. Unless of course you have polled the opinions of all the forum members and other who bought DA:A. I doubt you did such a thing though,  The belly aching of some forum posters does not constitute the community as a whole.

Reviews (pc) so far:

Metacritic
Origins: 91
Awakening: 82

Game Rankings
Origins: 90.53%
Awakening: 82.21%

I'd say that's critically well received. Sure, not as well as Origins, but was that really expected of an expansion? The reviews I've read have been mostly positive.

And the forumites who have taken my poll so far seems generally pretty pleased at least (only 85 votes though), though not as pleased as the reviewers. 72% have voted 7/10 or better.

Modifié par Gaddmeister, 28 mars 2010 - 05:29 .

[TJSolo]

Isavald wrote...

TJSolo wrote...

Haters/lovers ratio ? Is everything on these forums black and white. Does that mean I can't be a lover if I have negative feedback?
If I am disappointed in some way am I a hater?
Are the people in the technical forums posting problems haters?
Bad simple-minded labeling.

If you're at all refering to anything like I had previously stated, no. Being disappointed is not wrong, finding flaws in a game is not wrong, but some of us wish people would be more constructive and sensible when they go on about these things. 

Going off into a huge rant, calling the game garbage and Bioware a sell out, almost worthless company, with a lot of hardly thought-out points gets old. Its not that anyone can't express a difference of opinion, it just becomes "I'm right you're wrong" scenario all over the boards.

Iam also not directing this specifically at this thread so I apologize, it just kind of hit the mark at the time.

No I was not referring to anything you put in this thread, atl east up until that point. This was a response to the OP about the rampant use of the simple-minded labels "haters and lovers".
I for one am not capable of judging the constructive quality of a persons post. All I can do is read it and then either agree, disagree, or don't care about the points.
The "I'm right you're wrong scenario" comes about from people that have to insult or have over-simplify points(hate or love) instead of actually reading and discussing the points that were made.

[David Gaider]

Dallo wrote...
What about the Nwn expansions?  I feel certain they would've sold quite well.

They sold as well as we expected them to, which is why there was a much smaller team working on the NWN expansions than on NWN itself. The main team which worked on NWN was on another full project.

There are more than 4000 playable, community made modules, many with DL counts > 100k.  This doesn't include the many PWs and other products made exclusively for DMed sessions.

As someone who made one of those modules I know that modders are usually keen to incorporate any new material included in expansions, thus necessitating any would-be players to also purchase them.  Seems to me, then, that SoU and HotU would've performed quite well, certainly better than the 10-20% that you quote.

Modders are great for building a community and giving a game longevity, but the number of people who modded for NWN or who ever played those mods was only ever a small portion compared to the total that bought NWN (or its expansions). I know it can seem like everyone is involved when you're part of the online community, because that's all you're seeing, but the numbers just don't bear out, sorry.

[otis0310]

This thread has a weird flow to it. But as I pointed out in my own topic, I am very dissappointed. For one thing I would like to have a keep, not a building with one room in it. But my biggest gripe is with the companions that fall far short of the depth I expected from Dragon Age Origins. I never expeceted the same scope since it is an expansion, but I expected interesting characters and an interesting story. The characters are, bad, to be nice about it. I have not finished the plot yet, but so far I am unimpressed. See http://social.biowar...7/index/1941613 if you want my views on the companions.