Dragon Age Discussion

[Moatilliatta]

I thought simultaneous PC and console releases was taboo because the pirates would just pirate the PC version. Aren't we afraid of the evil pirates anymore?

 

The original plan was to release the PC version six months before the console version.

I should have mentioned that I was also expecting some kind of incentive for buying the console version, similar to the ones the PC ports had.

 

@Enoch

The obvious question is why they didn't figure that out back when they announced it as PC-exclusive.

[Purkake]

"but it is, technically & literally, dumbing it down when you have to accommodate gamepads"

 

No. It's about using the machine it is on.

 

Good news anyways. 'Cause I get to read rabid PC fanatics cry about 'betrayal', 'greed' (when such crying is about selfish personal stuff 'ie i want the game, and i want the game now, and i don't want consoles to have it crap').

 

PC gamers treat companies like crap so they deserve to have no mercy.

 

Good on BIO, and EA. They are doing what they feel is in THEIR best interest. As well they should.

 

Companies have treated PC gamers like second class citizens for a while now with DRM, crappy ports and "timed exclusives".

 

I am a PC gamer, I am not rabid and I could care less if a game is also out on the consoles. All I want is a decent game that works.

 

I judge the companies by their games, if they make crappy games then I give them ****, if they make good games I might buy their other games. Bioware is seriously lacking on the PC cred lately.

Edited February 4, 2009 by Purkake

[Moatilliatta]

Bioware isn't a country and you're not a citizen of Biolandia.

[Purkake]

Bioware isn't a country and you're not a citizen of Biolandia.

 

It's just an expression

[Moatilliatta]

It just irks me that people compare the treatment of a consumer by a company to segregation which is still a problem in certain places for people who were born into their fate. It's a horrible expression and people should stop using it.

 

Also DRM complaints are so last year.

 

Edit: Or any other kind of second class citizenry for that matter

Edited February 4, 2009 by Moatilliatta

[Purkake]

It just irks me that people compare the treatment of a consumer by a company to segregation which is still a problem in certain places for people who were born into their fate. It's a horrible expression and people should stop using it.

 

Also DRM complaints are so last year.

 

I wasn't aware of such great baggage on a simple expression. Different social and geographical background, I guess.

 

Even if the DRM situation is indeed improving, you can't seriously suggest that PC gaming is getting a fair treatment by companies like EA and Microsoft.

[Moatilliatta]

Are you one of the people who expect the solution to be completely no-DRM-at-all? If so, then yeah, treatment is completely fair.

 

I do think that DRM needs to be used in some form in order to actually curb piracy enough and that it, given enough time, is possible to use properly. EA et al. will have to do a lot of tweaking and perhaps even complete revisions before that time has come and their survival as PC publishers depend on it.

[Purkake]

Are you one of the people who expect the solution to be completely no-DRM-at-all? If so, then yeah, treatment is completely fair.

 

I do think that DRM needs to be used in some form in order to actually curb piracy enough and that it, given enough time, is possible to use properly. EA et al. will have to do a lot of tweaking and perhaps even complete revisions before that time has come and their survival as PC publishers depend on it.

 

I'm actually trying to bring out the other shortcoming that most game companies have with PC games. Some of them are bad ports, buggy and rushed games, lack of technical support. Just look how "well" Microsoft is doing with their Games For Windows initiative. Games For Windows Live is just now barely working.

 

Now coming back to DRM, yes I believe that since all the existing DRM schemes have been broken within a week of the games' release(with a couple of exceptions) for the past DECADE, DRM is a waste of money. If they haven't figured out how to make effective DRM in the past 10 years, how long is it going to take? Sorry to use the repeated argument, but why is only the legal consumer suffering?

 

How does the survival of PC publishers depend on DRM, if it doesn't work and never really has?

[Deadly_Nightshade]

I do think that DRM needs to be used in some form in order to actually curb piracy enough and that it, given enough time, is possible to use properly.

 

Lulz. :(

[Purkake]

I do think that DRM needs to be used in some form in order to actually curb piracy enough and that it, given enough time, is possible to use properly.

 

Lulz. :(

 

Remember Starforce? It worked pretty well until the unfortunate side-effect of destroying optical drives and sometimes even hard drives emerged. I still avoid anything with Starforce like fire.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

I still avoid anything with Starforce like fire.

 

Me too.

[Tigranes]

It's not just Starforce, after a couple of idiotic broken DRMs you learn that any new invasive DRM runs a risk of screwing you over.

 

If someone came up with a new 'secure' DRM I wouldn't buy that game in the first couple of months of release, until people have figured out just how invasive it is.

 

edit: whoa, how did it get to DRM? Do we know something about DA DRM?

[Moatilliatta]

@Tigranes

DRM is always relevant in todays internet.

 

@Purkake

There have been many examples of DRM that hasn't been broken in the first week, and when people report something being broken in the first week they usually forget that there can be, and often are, deliberatley built in bugs that make the game unplayable even if you can get it to start. The actual info on this is notoriously hard to get (and not allowed, something I learned after being bitten by a moderator/ agent of the man) and no discussion should be allowed to get bogged in that swamp, suffice it to say that certain devlopers have stated success in their use of DRM and that it lasted long enough that it brought them a significant amount of sales.

 

You could try and dispute that, but that would likely descend into rampant paranoia and that doesn't help anyone. We should believe that the devlopers aren't lying untill we have reason to believe that they are lying. We also shouldn't believe that they are unintelligent until they prove otherwise.

 

Your last questions is really strange as it should be obvious that the reason why piracy has become the whining-topic for developers is that it has become increasinly easy and people like to get stuff for free. They have to stomp out piracy in some manner for them to survive and I don't belive that the Valve/stardock/other-shining-knights-of-PC-centrism will work for everyone neccessarily.

 

Some compromise must be found between the consumer and the developer or the PC won't be viable for anything. This is assuming people don't stop buying console since a significant boost in potential buyers could be enough to make pc-developing viable.

 

@Starforce

The whole ruining disk-drives is highly disputed (i.e. who knows who is right and who isn't) and shouldn't be used as an argument. Starforce did seem to work really bad together with many different and not entirely stupid combinations of software and hardware (like all the other DRM) and that obviously isn't acceptable ever.

 

I must admit that I'm wondering why I haven't heard of "The great disk drive shortage" in Russia where Starforce is used all the time.

 

 

I think I've covered everything now.

[Volourn]

"PC gaming is getting a fair treatment by companies like EA and Microsoft."

 

Absolutely, it is. PC gaming gets the treatment it deserves as determined by what the companies feel is best for THEM. They owe the PC, and PC fanatics. They owe console gemers nothing.

 

They should do what is in their best interest just as customers do what is in their own best interests.

[kirottu]

Starforce worked like bunch of gangster trying to get companies to pay protection money. There is no excuse for posting torrents of games that refused to use Starforce.

 

DA: I don

[Gromnir]

sadly, this delayed release news actually comes as a bit of a relief to Gromnir. our primary desktop at home is getting a tad long in the tooth, and we were serious considering building a new gaming rig. the thing is, the only pc game we is genuine looking forward to in near future is/was dragon age. felt a bit odd to be spending $1500 for a bunch o' new hardware that would only be needed for 1 game over the course o' the next 6-8 months.

 

am much preferring pc gaming, but there is simply so few exclusive pc releases that interest Gromnir nowadays. soz were the only one we bought in last 8 months.

 

just not worth the effort and expense to build a new rig for one game that will also be release on xbox at same time.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[alanschu]

I do think that DRM needs to be used in some form in order to actually curb piracy enough and that it, given enough time, is possible to use properly.

 

Lulz. :lol:

 

Remember Starforce? It worked pretty well until the unfortunate side-effect of destroying optical drives and sometimes even hard drives emerged. I still avoid anything with Starforce like fire.

 

 

Was this ever actually proven? I never did follow it up.

[alanschu]

Starforce worked like bunch of gangster trying to get companies to pay protection money. There is no excuse for posting torrents of games that refused to use Starforce.

 

DA: I don

[Morgoth]

This sucks. But hey, whatever Bioware feels is the right thing to do... But I get the feeling this will be a very crowded Fall again.

 

Now Obsidian will get all the stars and jubilance for releasing the first major RPG before Bio does.

[Moatilliatta]

I'll post this here article as I don't think it has been posted before and there is a lot of good stuff in there. Mind you there are flaws in it, but just because you can find a few flaws doesn't mean that you can ignore the rest.

 

It also has the benefit of trying (whether it succeeds or fails is up to the reader) to be objective, something which is quite rare on the internet.

 

@Alanschu

No one could ever prove it and a court case failed (mentioned in above article) against Ubisoft. We should remember that something like that is very hard to prove as being caused by Starforce and as such while it is unlikely we shouldn't dismiss the possibility either.

[alanschu]

Yeah I linked to that article in a different thread. It was a rare article that didn't lambast Starforce.

 

 

And while yes, it is possible, I tend to be skeptical because it's very easy to see motivations for people making up **** about what Starforce may or may not do to their computer. I'm much more inclined to blame user error for **** breaking ahead of Starforce. Lets face it, people are stupid.

 

I enjoyed the part about SC:CT and the uproar about Starforce once the game became uncrackable.

 

 

I'm also skeptical about people that claim to be legit owners, but have serious complications. Posting on a forum claiming that you're legit doesn't do it for me. I remember all sorts of people complaining on Valve's forums about some game stopping bugs for the Opposing Force expansion for Half-Life, asking for help and ****. It was later discovered that this bug only existed in a pirated version of the game. People are stupid. I hate **** like this because it tarnishes the image of games (something else mentioned in that article).

[Hell Kitty]

I remember all sorts of people complaining on Valve's forums about some game stopping bugs for the Opposing Force expansion for Half-Life, asking for help and ****. It was later discovered that this bug only existed in a pirated version of the game.

 

That's like how angry people were about how buggy Titan Quest was when first released, but people were complaining about bugs that only existed when using a cracked exe.

[Moatilliatta]

Yeah I linked to that article in a different thread.

Awwww, and here I had gone and wasted my time looking through all those crappy DRM threads.

 

Also be careful about judging someone simply because they have a strange/obscure bug since it may be legitimate even if only one person gets them. I currently have an extremely obscure and strange one in Medieval: total war 2 and haven't been able to fix it, not even by reinstalling properly.

 

I can say that I've noticed EA being heavy on hidden hooks that make bad cracks unplayable, which in turn craps up their tech support forums something fierce.

[Purkake]

I'll post this here article as I don't think it has been posted before and there is a lot of good stuff in there. Mind you there are flaws in it, but just because you can find a few flaws doesn't mean that you can ignore the rest.

 

It also has the benefit of trying (whether it succeeds or fails is up to the reader) to be objective, something which is quite rare on the internet.

 

@Alanschu

No one could ever prove it and a court case failed (mentioned in above article) against Ubisoft. We should remember that something like that is very hard to prove as being caused by Starforce and as such while it is unlikely we shouldn't dismiss the possibility either.

 

Yeah I can see what you're saying and I disagree on some points, but this is a discussion for the DRM thread, sorry that this thread got all derailed.

 

So back to DA. What is known of the system that they use for stats, combat etc.? Is it DnD-esque or have they made a completely new system?

 

Does anyone here think that EA actually has the determination to push Dragon Age as hard as Mass Effect and make a similar success out of it? I hope they don't set their expectations too high or just ignore DA in their marketing.

Edited February 4, 2009 by Purkake

[deganawida]

sadly, this delayed release news actually comes as a bit of a relief to Gromnir. our primary desktop at home is getting a tad long in the tooth, and we were serious considering building a new gaming rig. the thing is, the only pc game we is genuine looking forward to in near future is/was dragon age. felt a bit odd to be spending $1500 for a bunch o' new hardware that would only be needed for 1 game over the course o' the next 6-8 months.

 

am much preferring pc gaming, but there is simply so few exclusive pc releases that interest Gromnir nowadays. soz were the only one we bought in last 8 months.

 

just not worth the effort and expense to build a new rig for one game that will also be release on xbox at same time.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

 

That's essentially my problem, as well. I spoiled myself a few months back and got an Alienware laptop (after spending all day fixing computers, building one is the LAST thing that I want to do when I get home, so I purchase my home systems). I was really looking forward to playing Dragon Age on it. Unfortunately, with a simultaneous release, I am not so sure that I'll actually get it for the PC. It's a minor pain hooking up my laptop to the widescreen, whereas my PS3 is constantly hooked up to it. My wife loves to watch me play RPGs (and RTS games, too; weird), so she prefers me playing games on the PS3 as opposed to the laptop. It's not so much that I have to get it on PS3 (or that I'm being forced to), but the opportunity cost for waiting for the PS3 cost (6 months of extra time on the PC) is much lower now.