Bioware working on Nintendo DS title

[6 Foot Invisible Rabbit]

My eyes just rolled back so far in my head that my optic nerves snapped and now I can't spellcheck this post.

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HA!

[Daaave]

My eyes just rolled back so far in my head that my optic nerves snapped and now I can't spellcheck this post.

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[Darque]

[Dark_Raven]

It would suck. You want to play NWN on a handheld?

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Is it the fact that its a console that bothers you?

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Last time I checked we are discussing handhelds and phone games. An RPG is not going to be enjoyable on those platforms. Mediocre graphics, poor sound, bad controls....

[J.E. Sawyer]

Last time I checked we are discussing handhelds and phone games. An RPG is not going to be enjoyable on those platforms. Mediocre graphics, poor sound, bad controls....

Does Fallout become a bad game because its graphics have become outdated? Most people play handhelds with headphones, which means the sound is as good as the developer chose to make it. In the PSP and DS (and GBA) games I've seen/played, it's ranged from mediocre to great. Handhelds often have excellent controls and control schemes in general. The Advance Wars games and Animal Crossing: Wild World were very good. DS games that allow stylus use (like Metroid Prime: Hunters) effectively offer a mouse replacement. Of course, there are games that could have better controls (like Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow), but there are lots of PC and console games that could also have better controls.

 

This forum continues to amaze me with the amount of unfounded bias thrown against any given platform.

[Llyranor]

Obsidian better support the DS!

 

Or will once I become CEO.

[Musopticon?]

This forums is chockfull of blithering fanboys of top-down hack'n'slash adaptations of pnp to electronic format. Their idea of fun is to replay BG for the 21st time and they keep whining how there's no good games produced anymore, even though they play absolutely nothing else then their blatant fixation. It's damn irritating and their perv bias shows in everything they write.

[6 Foot Invisible Rabbit]

This forum continues to amaze me with the amount of unfounded bias thrown against any given platform.

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I don't have a particular bias against consoles and hand helds, just limited amount of resources. I choose PC because the majority of the game I like to play are on the PC and I wish that to continue. I don't mind Bioware or Obsidian making games on consoles and hand helds, just as long as they don't get in the way of making good games for the PC.

 

This forums is chockfull of blithering fanboys of top-down hack'n'slash adaptations of pnp to electronic format. Their idea of fun is to replay BG for the 21st time and they keep whining how there's no good games produced anymore, even though they play absolutely nothing else then their blatant fixation. It's damn irritating and their perv bias shows in everything they write.

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Wait a minute here. I thought I was the only one.

[Musopticon?]

No, sorry Hades.

[Kaftan Barlast]

I have to spend my days in a classroom full of DS-wielding, Wii-anticipating, anime-watching nerds. Id give my left arm to trade them against real people who understand modern CRPG's do not work on 2" screens.

 

 

edit: Also, their enthusiasm is also the main factor in my deep-seated loathing of all things non-PC and/or japanese

Edited September 20, 2006 by Kaftan Barlast

[Llyranor]

Modern CRPGers aren't nerds

[mkreku]

I remember a time when a single person did the music, the graphics and the coding for an entire project. Bring it on, Commodore 64. Rolling of eyes over a statement that a handheld game doesn't need the same excessive amount of funding or personnel.. amazes me.

 

Fallout would indeed be a bad game if it came out today. Games are evolving, technology is evolving, platforms are evolving. Handhelds are often on par or even below the audiovisual standard in Fallout, and yes, that is pretty bad in today's graphic whoring society. Nostalgia often lets us believe that a strong story, skillful writing or a few working gameplay elements makes an entire game, but times change. The bar has raised since then.

 

By the way, berating people's opinion in a sarcastic way without offering an explanation as to why they're sooo wrong is a sure-fire way of making oneself look like the fool.

[Dark_Raven]

Developers should learn to create good games that have high replayability compared to games that you play once and throw away. The BG games had good stories, quests (major and minor), well written dialogues, good romances (BG2), excellent sound tracks, good graphics.

 

Now to pick on something that I consider good but not great because they were sorely lacking. The Kotor games. Not many places to explore in the game. Visiting a static area gets very tedious. What was called romances were pathetic. The people (some of them) who made both games were associated with BG2, why did they not follow that good formula? Instead we get a lame romance when it's nothing more than a get to know you thing. Kotor 2 had a sorry incomplete, rushed ending. The game had cut out content, which is understandable when you are being rushed, but some content was left in that didn't make sense. I don't blame Obs for K2 being lacking, that is LucasArts fault for demanding the game to be done by Christmas.

 

LA and others should learn to take their time to make a game, make it complete without game killing bugs, make it so it keeps you wanting to play it again instead of playing it once and move on to the next "new" thing.

 

Seeing that NWN2 is being delayed is fine by me, provided it's complete, well developed and doesn't have that many bugs/issues on release.

[alanschu]

I remember a time when a single person did the music, the graphics and the coding for an entire project. Bring it on, Commodore 64. Rolling of eyes over a statement that a handheld game doesn't need the same excessive amount of funding or personnel.. amazes me.

 

So you can remember a time when teams didn't need many people? I don't think anyone disputes this. Is it the same situation for handheld games?

 

By the way, berating people's opinion in a sarcastic way without offering an explanation as to why they're sooo wrong is a sure-fire way of making oneself look like the fool.

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This sounds like it was directed at Sawyer, which is odd, because I'm not really sure how talking about dev team sizes is really a justified opinion. If you don't know what the sizes are, then it's just a guess. And based on Sawyer's response, Kaftan's guess was a poor one.

 

The only thing up for an opinion is the comment about how Bioware can keep working on "real games," which given that Kaftan's insistence on such comments is starting to reach Hades proportions, I can understand the eye roll.

 

But as for the comment about dev team sizes, I don't think it was an opinion. Just a guess.

 

 

EDIT:

What was called romances were pathetic. The people (some of them) who made both games were associated with BG2, why did they not follow that good formula? Instead we get a lame romance when it's nothing more than a get to know you thing.

 

In hindsight, the thing I liked about the romances in BG2 was because it was something different. To be honest I find them rather artificial and that they evolve way too quickly.

 

I didn't find the romances of KOTOR particularly interesting, but I actually appreciated the fact that it was relatively mild in its scope, rather than going around doing the horizontal mambo numerous times.

Edited September 20, 2006 by alanschu

[Kaftan Barlast]

Did we just get a bit side-tracked?

 

 

My bottom line is that its fine for developers to cash in on the handheld market, as long as everyone remembers they're for handheld games.

 

 

 

edit: and yes, I dont enjoy console games, handheld console games, online flash games, mobile phone games, or "play it with your remote" TV games. I dont want to make them or play them.. unless the choice is to get a job at McDonals

Edited September 20, 2006 by Kaftan Barlast

[Llyranor]

IIRC, development costs for the DS is on average 400,000, while 800,000 on the PSP. Given how a big-name PC game can go in the millions (which I guess NWN2 goes into, or any would-be CRPG with high production values), or tens of millions (what was the estimate for next-gen titles, 10-30 mill?), that's quite a difference. You can only hire so many designers and writers with all that money. I'd rather devs spend time focusing more on design/gameplay/story more than in the technical aspects of a game. In that sense, doing some handheld on the side can be quite beneficial for both parties.

[Musopticon?]

How'r handhelds not a "worthy" platform? Sure, there's a different market for their games and they also differ quite a bit on execution, but there's some real quality titles out there.

Edited September 20, 2006 by Musopticon?

[mkreku]

I remember a time when a single person did the music, the graphics and the coding for an entire project. Bring it on, Commodore 64. Rolling of eyes over a statement that a handheld game doesn't need the same excessive amount of funding or personnel.. amazes me.

So you can remember a time when teams didn't need many people? I don't think anyone disputes this. Is it the same situation for handheld games?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't know much about the DS development teams, I know that an AAA title on the PSP demands approximately the same resources as a Playstation 2 equivalent. But a game on a mobile phone can be coded by two-three people in less than two weeks (not counting the three months it takes to make it work on several hundreds of different phones). So yes, in some cases it is the same situation.

 

In the case of the DS, it seems like it's more ok to release a visually substandard game on that platform than it is to release the same type of game on any of the major consoles. It's also not very uncommon to find games on the DS that are seriously lacking in scope, just like games on the PSP are often nothing more than trimmed down versions of their Playstation 2 counterparts.

 

Anyhow, I just don't think Kaftan's statement was worth thrashing your eyeballs over.

[Llyranor]

I don't know much about the DS development teams, I know that an AAA title on the PSP demands approximately the same resources as a Playstation 2 equivalent.

Yeah, they cost about 800,000$US each. DS is about half that. Needless to say, you don't need to sell that many copies to turn a profit comparatively.

[alanschu]

Where did you dig up those numbers Llyranor?

[Llyranor]

Mind you, that was the average cost, so it balances out high production games against the cheap ones. I'll dig up my source.

 

In the meantime, here's a Bioware interview http://ds.ign.com/articles/733/733754p1.ht...00&RSSid=733754

 

IGN: Will the title be a new franchise or based on an existing series?

 

Dan Tudge: We're not quite ready to discuss that just yet, but fans can certainly expect BioWare to deliver the highest quality of game on this new project.

 

Dan Tudge: Our main goal as a company has always been to deliver the best story- and character-driven games in the world, and we've been waiting for an opportunity to do that on a handheld platform. Handheld technology is at a point now where we can create some amazing adventures in a compact form.

 

Dan Tudge: Japan does have the largest install base of Nintendo DS users in the world, and we certainly want to make sure they get the best BioWare experience possible. To that end, a familiarity with the DS technology and the Japanese market is a tremendous combination in any developer.

 

Dan Tudge: An epic console game would certainly need to be designed differently for a handheld platform, but a DS title does offer many exciting gameplay features that are not possible on other platforms. We have some very cool ideas on how we plan to utilize all the unique DS capabilities from the touch screen to the microphone, giving fans a fresh new way to experience a BioWare adventure.

 

Dan Tudge: We haven't locked down an exact timeline yet, but since handheld games typically have a shorter development cycle than other platforms, it may be a year out, at the earliest.

 

Dan Tudge: At the moment, we are focusing on the Nintendo DS platform specifically, however we are certainly open to considering other markets in the future.

 

Yeah, standard PR.

Edited September 20, 2006 by Llyranor

[Llyranor]

Okay, I think this is where I got the numbers from. I got them a bit off.

 

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6155650.html

 

The association found that the most expensive system to develop for is Sony's PlayStation 2, at 139 million yen ($1.2 million) a game. That's more than double the cost of a typical title on Sony's PSP handheld, at 63 million yen ($541,000) a game. On the other end of the spectrum, developing a Nintendo DS game costs a relatively modest 39.8 million yen ($342,000).

[Skynet]

I have to spend my days in a classroom full of DS-wielding, Wii-anticipating, anime-watching nerds. Id give my left arm to trade them against real people who understand modern CRPG's do not work on 2" screens.

I wish I could continue to ignore your posts on PCs vs. consoles like I do with everyone else who displays petty hate and arrogance in a manner similar to your own, but the fact that you intend to enter into the gaming industry disturbs me.

 

Making rpgs requires more than just weaving stories elements together and creating memorable characters; it's also about finding fresh and innovative ways to immerse the players into your games. In the past decade, Bioware has been the best about pushing this strategy. Almost every single one of their games has brought something new to the table. NWN, for example, pushed a very user-friendly toolset, and JE tried a new kind of combat system. Even though I feel aspects like story and characters were weak in both these games, those new elements I mentioned set them apart from other products and make them worthy of recognition.

 

Bioware is now furthering their strategy and finding even bigger ways to give players a different experience. Their MMO, if they are sure to not follow the dull model of others, could merge many of the elements of traditional rpgs with those of online games to produce a fresh hybrid. The DS game also has much potential. Just because it requires less cash and workers does not make it any lesser of a game.

 

Chances are, if you keep your narrowminded view on how games should be, you will never become the great developer you dream to be.

[Volourn]

"This forums is chockfull of blithering fanboys of top-down hack'n'slash adaptations of pnp to electronic format. Their idea of fun is to replay BG for the 21st time and they keep whining how there's no good games produced anymore, even though they play absolutely nothing else then their blatant fixation."

 

Interestingly enough, this doesn't describe me AT ALL.

 

YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

[J.E. Sawyer]

Fallout would indeed be a bad game if it came out today.

You missed the point. Graphics didn't make Fallout when it came out, so why would it break Fallout now? Animal Crossing: Wild World is a pretty graphically primitive game. So are the Wario Ware games. So is Zelda: Minish Cap. That has virtually nothing to do with why the games are successful.

 

Especially considering that RPGs are often behind the graphics curve, sneering at the graphic capabilities of handhelds as a reason for why RPGs on handhelds would suck --it just doesn't follow.

 

By the way, berating people's opinion in a sarcastic way without offering an explanation as to why they're sooo wrong is a sure-fire way of making oneself look like the fool.

Dismissing an entire development platform as "not real" without any given justification does not merit extensive response until some is given.