lobotomy42

Yep. Absolutely terrible gameplay, especially after giving it a try after Ages of Conan and TERA. I had a similar experience - it actually felt similar to DA2 to some extent - like I was being shuttled from cutscene to cutscene only needing to press the "attack" button in succession enough times to reach the next one. :-/ I've tried several times to get back into it, because STAR WARS, but I've yet to finish a single character.

This is a touch too sensible for my tastes. I love how on the one hand, games are art and BioWare are artists and they have heart and soul and they really know how to write characters that speak to you, and they are transformative experiences!!! But on the other hand, I guess if you do some voodoo demon-nerd-wizard algebra sorcery and divide up your life into discrete parts of time and equate them into a dollar amount then all that other stuff doesn't matter because hey, you got your money's worth didn't you? Sheesh, what more do you people want?!? Games, like most major film releases, are commercial art. They represent a view, they can have depth, a message and integrity in delivering that message, but there are also constraints on the process of creating them and on the types of art/product that can be released. They exist with one foot in the art world and one in the world of consumer products.

I've been thinking about this too. It sounds like they're targeting a holiday 2014 release, right? So possibly this is just standard AAA mega-game PR strategy: talk about the game early and often. But it's also probably the last chance they'll have to make any major changes before they're locked-in designwise. If some non-central aspect of what they're talking about met with horribly negative fan reaction now, they might still have time to course correct. (Which would be unfeasible once we're within 9 months or so of release.) Ergo, this could be an attempt to avoid another Dragon Age 2 where possible.

The engine is the same for all five platforms so there's no reason for unique save game formats for each, different 'world states' are integral to the very idea of having 'editable' save game states and there's no need to integrate with Origin (or rather, it will likely be done automatically as part of its built in cloud save system, same potentially with the consoles that offer that functionality eg potentially link it to your Live profile for MS if needed). It shouldn't be a QA sink either, or at least not any more than allowing 'normal' save game integration would be such as from ME1->2->3. When it comes right down to it the story flow algorythms of a computer game are not very complex and the whole thing can be tailored towards relevancy as Bioware knows what stuff is going to be important/ used, unlike a fan editor which has to take everything in a save into account since they are not sure what is used. It may take some effort on behalf of the web team (presumably) to get it prettied up but their job is not directly linked to producing the game anyway; in terms of the programming side it ought to be straight forward and fairly quick, since at its heart a world state of that type is a list of a few dozen variables, most of them booleans or with similar low numbers of options. They don't even need to ask things like what the previous character's names were, since they're a few hard defined options like Hawke and Cousland defined by race. My argument is not that it is rocket science. My argument is that even the work that is done by non-rocket-scientists is work that takes time and effort, and any time and effort spent on this is necessarily not spent on other things.

I'm certainly not saying it's useless or wasted effort, I applaud it in fact and it is a fundamentally good idea. I'd actually doubt it uses much in the way of resources. The fan editor for ME save games is perfectly functional without any inside knowledge, so it should be pretty easy for someone with access to how the save games are built to knock something up quickly, the difficult part would be getting it past the producer/ project director as something useful to do, not the implementation itself. I'd say it has two main functions, getting the committed fan online since the saves/ system will be cloud based- useful for getting better DLC penetration/ uptake rates, better 'biometrics', better utilisation of Origin etc- and because, as Maria says, Bioware is currently offering everyone free ice cream and this is a topping that will appeal to high value customers, exactly the type of people who may be disgruntled about things like the Conrad Venter bug instead of going "Conrad who?". But, while I suspect it will get a lot of use amongst the committed and well informed people like you or I (he says, with his customary surfeit of modesty) I do question how much usage it will get from the more casual who may not even know about it. Anyone with an offline console simply won't be using it even if they do know about it, for example, unless the cloud based system changes. Just because a fan can do it does not mean it's "easy" if by easy you mean "low-cost in terms of time and resources." Even if it were just a matter of building a "save game editor," there is still a lot of UI work to be done, to say nothing of the enforcement of internal logic (I haven't used the ME savegame editor specifically, but in my experience this is not something most savegame editors do.) And this isn't even just a savegame editor - this will also have to tie in to game imports over at least five platforms, separate out multiple "world states" per user, integrate with Origin, require its own QA, etc, etc. In my experience, any project done at the professional level - even when the goal is just to clone functionality from an existing amateur project - requires lots more time and energy from everyone involved because there are simply more chefs in the kitchen who will all need a hand in it. (Which isn't to say that their presence is bad, just that it adds complexity.) Case in point: read the credits sequence from any AAA game and notice how many names scroll by that are *not even employees of the developer or publisher*

entrerix, on 04 Sept 2013 - 7:27 PM, said:IGN is describing DA3 as "a medieval far cry 3" But were they LITERALLY blown away???? Is Dragon Age 3 THE Citizen Kane of video games???

It's not unique to BioWare no, though I can't say I ever find it good design. That said, Kai Leng just felt like it was dropped in the game because it was one writer's darling, even though it didn't fit at all and his presence hijacked the narrative. While Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2 narratives had many problems, I don't remember something like that happening, and Kai Leng received some pretty negative feedback (only partially overshadowed by the ending debacle), so I'm confident BioWare won't make that mistake again. Also, given I haven't really commented on the gameplay shown yet.. surprisingly it looks okay? I'll need to see a lot more and possibly get to play the title before judging, but at the very least it looks like they've taken the feedback to heart. On the other hand, there are also signs that they might be trying to please all crowds at once: I'm still not sure how dodge rolls and the overhead camera will mix together. Kai Leng specifically didn't bother so much as the fact that ME3 had three figures who rotated into and out of the "main villain (or avatar thereof)" slot depending on circumstances (Kai Leng, Elusive Man, Starchild.) This was only a slight improvement over ME2, which had none. ME1 was the ideal here with Saren, who was both a great proxy voice for the Reapers and also a relatable mirror of Shepard who had reasons and motivations that were at least not completely obscure or crazy.

I just finished Remember Me, a mostly-but-not-quite-entirely-terrible action-adventure game (like Uncharted, Enslaved, Tomb Raider, etc) It has some neat memory-editing scenes reminiscent of Ghost Trick, some cool Cyberpunk visuals and a great soundtrack. The writing, however, is atrocious and the gameplay is fairly tedious, although it gets a little better once you have all the abilities. I'd skip the game, and go straight to the soundtrack: http://www.amazon.com/Remember-Philharmonia-Orchestra-Original-Soundtrack/dp/B00DJROANE/ref=sr_shvl_album_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377834841&sr=301-1

Caveat: I don't work in the games industry, but I do work in software. In the broadest sense, yes, it is now possible for a one-man shop to get a tetris clone into the App Store on iOS devices for much, much less money than in the past. And if you're talking about literally re-making the same or very similar games from the past then, yes, that is technically cheaper. Making Project Eternity today is likely possible on a smaller budget than making Baldur's Gate was ten years ago. But in the much more applicable space of AAA games - which is the space Bioware operates in, for better or worse -- every technological improvement raises the stakes. The sticker price ($60) of games has not budged, games are selling at more-or-less the same rates, but the expectations among consumers for what is a "good" game are raised every time a new game is released. If you aren't making good use of those CPU cycles, your review score will suffer for it. Look at the Mass Effect games this generation: when the first came out, it was considered between average and excellent graphically. ME3 was a large improvement in absolute terms over ME - but by the time it was released it was considered between average and below-average. So the bar is always being pushed, if not by you, then by someone. And each improvement makes more demands on the people creating content - more graphical fidelity requires more artists, basically. The cost of computers, licenses, software, instruction manuals, etc are a blip compared to the costs of manpower.

DLC: The reason for doing DLC, pre-orders and "Collector's Editions" is that it serves as a form of what economists call "price discrimination." Basically, it's a way for people who are only just barely interested in the product to pay the low price necessary to grab them ($60 or less after sales) while still charging the hardcore fans $100 or more. This is EMINENTLY REASONABLE and is not deceptive or malicious, regardless of when the content was produced. For example, I'm really into Dragon Age, and my brother isn't. I will gladly pay the additional $40 over the initial prices for various story/combat DLCs, and he won't. So on net, he pays $60 for a game that I paid $100 for, and I get a slightly extended experience. This makes sense, because I'm getting more enjoyment out of the game than he is. The game is worth more to me, so it makes sense that I should pay more. This is a natural byproduct of the increasing cost of game development. If they just raised prices to $80 across the board, they'd be cannibalizing their sales. So they need to find a way to still offer people *something* at the $60 price point while also encouraging those who can and will pay more to do so. It's not nefarious - you are still free to just not buy the game or DLC at all. The Keep: Sounds cool! I really hope they get the importer component working, though, because I can barely remember some of my choices!

But you felt okay with these things in Mass Effect 2? ME2/3 are very similar in this regard: lots of one-off, linear levels, with some limited choice in what order to approach them, and lots and lots of special movies. It was a step back from ME1, IMO, but I didn't feel a significant difference between 2 and 3.

Yeah, I can say for myself that I am unlikely to play much or any user-created content. There's just not enough time in the day to sort through the rough to find the diamonds on my own. So much of it seems like "Here's my campaign, v 0.8.2, tell me what to change..." Sorry, I am not beta-testing campaigns from random people on the internet. If someone creates a really cool campaign that gets enough buzz or attention and gets, you know, finished, then perhaps I would play one or two. But the default for me, and for a lot of other people I'd guess, is just the official campaigns -- simply because I know (or hope) they will be worth my time and money.

It's all just marketing right now, and I suspect that until we're much closer to release, we still won't really have a solid grasp of what the gameplay is or isn't.

The healing lady

It's fun. Short is the right length for me these days. The linearity doesn't bother me nearly as much as the lack of choice+consequence. A lot of the dialogue options are "fake" options that don't end up mattering very much. There also isn't much exploration to speak of. Most of the areas are start at point A and end at point B without much wandering or mini-questing to do, although there are a few that try this. But the writing, atmosphere and music are excellent, which make the experience pleasant enough. I think your enjoyment comes down to how much you like or could get into a Cyberpunk story.

I played both Dragon Age games on an Xbox 360. While I'm sure I would be raving about the PC controls if I had played it on the PC, the pause-and-play worked well enough on the Xbox for it not to be a problem for me - basically similar to KotOR or Mass Effect with a much deeper set of options on the "menu" ring. Although it's certainly not advantageous, it really is possible to play tactically with the camera zoomed in.

Meaning it's not like Wasteland where every single character is killable. There will be some number of protected NPCs for plot reasons.

Since none of those are as common cultural stereotypes -- yes. So you admit that you see a "flaw" in the romance that actually applies to ALL of Bioware's romances (which is actually a problem I agree with - the sublimating of an NPC's character in order to have the Player get a 'positive' romantic outcome) but you only consider it a problem with Isabel because she's the only one who "wants" sex? It is not a flaw in the romance model, per se, it's a flaw in the argument used to justify a problematic character. It's not her wanting sex that is the problem, it is the overall effect of her visual design, personality, presentation, immediate sexual availability to the player and the romance model COMBINED that is the problem. All of those factors are designed, and each probably could have been fine in its own right, but when put together in the way that they are -- do you seriously think there is a reason for her presence other than selling games? It was an analogy.

So? None of the characters are real, and if your suggestion is that we should cater MORE to the mostly men that will not pay attention to her backstory nor even finish the game.... "None of the characters are real" is exactly my point. It's why the "this exploitative character is ok because he/she WANTS TO BE EXPLOITED" defense makes no sense. My suggestion is that pandering is pandering, no matter how you rationalize it. Let me put this another way. In fiction, especially fantasy fiction, you can rationalize anything however you want. For example, here's a story: "Once upon a time I was weak BUT NOW I'M REALLY POWERFUL AND EVERYONE LOVES ME." This story sucks - it's just the most dumbed-down form of a power fantasy. But let's say I add some backstory to my character, make him (me) work a little bit to become Superman, and then throw in a compelling villain. Now I have a well-written, fleshed out, deep, dark, gritty power fantasy! By your reasoning, this story is now awesome. By my reasoning, this story still sucks, because, fundamentally, out of all the stories in the world I could have chosen to write, I still *chose* to write a power fantasy about myself.

What is actually new? We've heard so little about the game that there aren't many promises to go back on.

Regardless of how much work was being done at any given point, that's still five years of paying people's salaries (i.e. "cost") without a release.

"[Playername]!" "[Playername], wake up!" Then you spend your first day accompanying your best friend (ideally a spunky rogue type) to the fair. By the end of the fair, some evil force attacks, and the village is on fire.

That sounds more like "quest log reactivity" than "world reactivity."

Here's the thing though: she is not a real person, so "because she wants to be" is not a real reason. I get that they gave her motivation and backstory and she's a modern (medieval) independent woman in control of her sexuality, but the reality - like, in the real world, reality - is that she is a video game character. And as a video game character, in a game played mostly by men, many of whom will never finish the game or pay much attention to her backstory, she is a scantily-clad woman who has big boobs and talks about having sex A LOT. I am not saying such a character should not exist or cannot exist, and I am not saying there was not an honest attempt to write her intelligently. But, fundamentally, you can't get around the fact that her function in the game is more sexual object for the player than sexual being. She reads to the player as "the one with the boobs who likes sex." Bioware is trying to have their cake and eat it too with this character by subverting expectations - but those expectations are never actually subverted. She basically still *is* that superficial character the player imagined. You can tell the player "Well, but it's HER wanting sex, not you" but this is meaningless in a game where you essentially control the outcome. All of the potential romantic partners in any Bioware game "want" the player to the same degree as any other - that is, to the degree the player selects the "heart" dialogue choice. This idea could work, maybe, in a game where you didn't have one single PC avatar and you were controlling (or not controlling) all of the characters equally. But in the traditional Bioware cRPG formula, Isabela still reads (to me at least) as a pretty awful presence in the game. YMMV

I hate the fact that "you can kill anyone!" is the gold standard for reactivity. Yes, I recognize that it's a symptom of having combat as your primary gameplay mechanic. But real reactivity, it seems to me, would involve interactions more sophisticated than just kill/don't any character. Like talking? Going into business with? Sharing an apartment? Playing tic-tac-toe? The problem of course is that a lot of these require specific scripting to be done well, unless you go the Fable/Sims route of fake speech.