Dragon Age 2

[Zoraptor]

I wouldn't be surprised if the cost/return ratio for DA2 was significantly higher even with considerably lower numbers of product sold, just due to the fact that DAO had been in production for, what 5-8 years

 

That would be true for Bioware the Independant Company, not so much for Bioware the Wholly Owned Subsidiary. Previous development time and time to shipping for DA(O) would have been factored into the purchase price. The cost to EA would only be the ~ 2 years from buy out to shipping.

 

while DA2 had a full crew on it for ~a year, year and a half depending on what they did while the console ports were underway.

18 months seems a fair estimate. They brought in a 3rd party to do the console ports so presumably the Bioware DA team did not sit around twiddling their thumbs for six months from April 09; otoh (presumably) some Bioware people were helping them out and Awakenings took time and man hours too.

 

I'm still of the opinion that they had enough time for a expandalone type game and that the problems with DA2 largely result from factors other than shortness of 'raw' time. Time would fix some of the more egregious issues (copypasta dungeons) but a number of its problems stem from production issues that suggest it was just poorly managed in some respects.

 

Overall it seems likely that Bioware simply could not cope well with being told that they had to get the game out the door in March to make financial Q4.

[Orogun01]

^ Possibly. Add to that the fact that consoles have peaked performance-wise for the next three or four years. PC gamers benefit from that and a good CRPG manifestly doesn't need to be a systems hawg to look and feel good.

 

I've posted here before that the future for good, new-old-skool CRPGs might well mirror the thriving and profitable (albeit smaller-scale) computer war games market (check out Matrix Games if you don't believe me). The first generation of elite modders are now in the position to get involved if they choose not to go mainstream.

 

Plus, as I said to Boo earlier, bigger dev houses (and indeed I include Obsidian in this) are still making interesting, different and rewarding CRPGs (I would put both AP and FO:NV in this category).

I know the war games market as being an offshoot of the PC strategy games, which is sort of related to CRPGs since both peaked at the same time. I would love to see old school RPGs follow the same model of only catering to their; albeit minor, target audience. It also seems that old school it's making it's break onto the mainstream with games like Hunted, DS3 and Kingdoms of Amalur, all these i'm cautiously optimistic.

 

I'm not so sure that the "mainstreamization" of RPGs is a good thing, they were always sort of the outcasts games. Text heavy, drew intensely from PnP games (so it had that added nerd factor) and the mechanics confused a lot of people. By their nature they used to be exclusive, making them appealing to the mainstream has taken away a lot of what these kinds of games were.

 

Edit: I forgot Diablo III.

Edited April 10, 2011 by Orogun01

[greylord]

Bah, Humbug...

 

RPG's have been mainstream since...well FF first was created. Maybe not specifically Western PC RPG's...but RPG video games have been a large chunk in many ways. In fact many credit FFVII as being THE GAME that drove the original Playstation over the brink into popularity, breaking the ice wall it had previously been pushing against but unable to break out of.

 

Action RPG's got their breakout as massively popular when Diablo came out...further exemplified by Diablo II and the slew of games that followed it's lead. I'd say Action RPG's are still highly popular.

 

Turn based RPG's still are being put out in large by JRPG makers...with Atlus being the major player there.

 

I'd also say RPG's are bigger then ever on the PC...but NOT the tradition RPGs...

 

Many FPS as well as other games have Roleplaying elements in them. Ways that I can increase my damage with shots, gain the ability to have certain weapons in game, and other items which basically increase my player's abilities and capacity as I progress in the game.

 

This isn't a new thing either. Take a look at the Jedi Knight series where it incorporated this Roleplaying type experience into a third person shooter (hmmm, now that I think about it, I loved the JK series...and ME has some similarities with JK).

 

I think the definition of RPG being used here is a little too narrow. I think RPGs have been mainstream, but gain and fade in how much mainstream they are. I'd actually say they are at a high point of popularity right now as opposed as downhill. Square Enix, Blizzard, BioWare, Bethesda, Atlus, Raven (well...not as much now, but they were) are all pretty big in the RPG scene...even Sega has a few that have come out in the past few years.

 

They just aren't all turnbased...

[Volourn]

The fact is that it's ahrd to get an agreed upon defintion of what a 'rpg' actually is. Try to, it's not easy to get people to agree to ana ctual defintion. This is why rpgs are often classified in different genres. I've seen a agme like DA listed as 'adventure', I saw FO:NV listed as action adventure-shooter... It's all irrelevant.

[pmp10]

The fact is that it's ahrd to get an agreed upon defintion of what a 'rpg' actually is. Try to, it's not easy to get people to agree to ana ctual defintion. This is why rpgs are often classified in different genres. I've seen a agme like DA listed as 'adventure', I saw FO:NV listed as action adventure-shooter... It's all irrelevant.

No it's not.

That modern games have abused the term to pretend action games have more depth doesn't mean that the essence of what is an RPG experience can be discounted completely.

RPGs were never about levels and XP points but about the way metric were used to describe world and character that shaped your experience.

If your reflexes and manual dexterity played as big a role as those metrics the game was called action-rpgs if they were far more important it was simply an action game.

Analogically tactical-rpgs and strategy games were determined by the weight of your tactical and strategic decisions.

Whatever will RPG mean when devs finally rebrand it is more difficult to ascertain but considering the current trend "there are numbers in it" will likely suffice.

[John Lemon]

You complain I'm dimissing vghchaertz out of hand but so far in this thread you've dismissed multiple people out of hand for daring to laugh at vgchartz. Please don't be a hypocrite. vgchartz is make believe. They don't have hard data. None of us know exactly how much DA2 sold but the difference between us and chartz is we're not seriously making up magical numbers and trying to pretend they're accurate.

I'd love to know where I dismissed people for laughing at VGChartz. As far as I know, I've only dismissed you for posting nonsense.

 

I'd also like to refer you to

Not that many people take VGChartz seriously, but it's a decent enough general indicator in lieu of NPD figures.

where I already said it's an estimate which I'd compared with Bioware's sales figures and found to be relatively accurate.

[Volourn]

But, BIO's given no sales figure. They posted a very nondescript '1mil+ sales in less than 2 weeks'. That could eman anything from 1,000,001 to 1,000,000,000 (of course that's unlikely just a point) so it means nothing in regards to vghchart's (lack of) accuracy.

Edited April 11, 2011 by Volourn

[John Lemon]

But, BIO's given no sales figure. They posted a very nondescript '1mil+ sales in less than 2 weeks'. That could eman anything from 1,000,001 to 1,000,000,000 (of course that's unlikely just a point) so it means nothing in regards to vghchart's (lack of) accuracy.

Use your common sense, Bioware would've said "Sold more than 2 million copies" if DA2 had sold more than 2 million copies. Assuming they'd use standard rounding methods, the greatest margin of error you'd get from that announcement is 0.5 million copies. If we take 1.5million (largest deviation) for two week sales, then VGChartz has an accuracy of ~30%.

[Orogun01]

Bah, Humbug...

 

RPG's have been mainstream since...well FF first was created. Maybe not specifically Western PC RPG's...but RPG video games have been a large chunk in many ways. In fact many credit FFVII as being THE GAME that drove the original Playstation over the brink into popularity, breaking the ice wall it had previously been pushing against but unable to break out of.

Before FFVII there were a ton of JRPGs, that while massively popular on Japan they always came short on the West (story of every JRPG) the RPG market was in fact dominated by JRPGs from 94 to 98.

Action RPG's got their breakout as massively popular when Diablo came out...further exemplified by Diablo II and the slew of games that followed it's lead. I'd say Action RPG's are still highly popular.

Continuing with the timeline of RPGs; the focus switched back to WRPGs because of the advent of 2 major MMOs during 98 (Everquest, Ultima Online) which is what we heraled as the golden age of PC wrpgs.

 

I think the definition of RPG being used here is a little too narrow. I think RPGs have been mainstream, but gain and fade in how much mainstream they are. I'd actually say they are at a high point of popularity right now as opposed as downhill. Square Enix, Blizzard, BioWare, Bethesda, Atlus, Raven (well...not as much now, but they were) are all pretty big in the RPG scene...even Sega has a few that have come out in the past few years.

 

They just aren't all turnbased...

We are taking the whole definition of the genre into account here, and the point is whether that popularity it's hurting them or not. Since now it caters to a wider crowd as opposed to previous gens which were confined to lovers of the genre.

Also the companies that you mention were at it's peak 5 years ago when both markets were at their highest. I point out that I am talking about the quality of their products not their popularity.

[Oner]

Use your common sense

Ahahahahahahahaha

[Volourn]

"has an accuracy of ~30%."

 

Very accurate, indeed!

[Gromnir]

am understanding that the 1.02 patch for da2 were released. however, there appears to be more than a little dissatisfaction with the patch as it did not address any o' the awakenings/dlc import issues.

 

as usual, be aware that any mods you gots may bork the patch.

 

http://social.bioware.com/page/da2-patches

 

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/300/index/7048410/1

 

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/300/index/7048387/1

 

maybe we hold off for 1.03 before playing... sometime in may perhaps?

 

HA! Good Fun!

[MrBrown]

It lists some other important bugs fixed, mainly Merril's quest and Isabela's Thumbs Up! Should be enough for people having problems with those.

[Nepenthe]

Apparently they had flagged the Awakening/DLC import bugs as non-issues, and only upgraded them in the priority list yesterday. Well, at least there's that fan fix for most of them.

 

Looks like I'll be waiting a bit longer for my next playthrough...

[aries101]

It seems to me that this game, DA2, should not have been released 1

[Volourn]

It's a dumb idea. It was a dumb idea for the Bg series, NWN series, KOTOR series, ME series, and now the DA series. Just dumb, dumb, dumb.

[Gfted1]

Its a dumb idea to give mods credit or to use them in the patches? I seem to remember several mods being rolled into patches the last couple of games.

[Jaesun]

Laidlaw DR II Interview

 

Many of the caves and building interiors are repeated, even though the locations are supposed to be different. What kind of limitations necessitated this decision?

 

In the balance of production, we realized that we had capacity to create and maintain more stories, content, and encounters than we could necessarily create unique levels for, so we made the call to re-use some of the caves and other levels in the interest of providing more sidequests and encounters.

 

[HoonDing]

Maybe they should just churn out DA 3 as a text-adventure.

[Orogun01]

Laidlaw DR II Interview

 

Many of the caves and building interiors are repeated, even though the locations are supposed to be different. What kind of limitations necessitated this decision?

 

In the balance of production, we realized that we had capacity to create and maintain more stories, content, and encounters than we could necessarily create unique levels for, so we made the call to re-use some of the caves and other levels in the interest of providing more sidequests and encounters.

 

I really don't like that guy.

[Nightshape]

Laidlaw DR II Interview

 

Many of the caves and building interiors are repeated, even though the locations are supposed to be different. What kind of limitations necessitated this decision?

 

In the balance of production, we realized that we had capacity to create and maintain more stories, content, and encounters than we could necessarily create unique levels for, so we made the call to re-use some of the caves and other levels in the interest of providing more sidequests and encounters.

 

I really don't like that guy.

 

Aparently I hate him...

[Gromnir]

am not certain where the hate comes from on this issue. don't get us wrong, we do Hate some o' the things mike has done to the franchise, but recycling maps to so that more player quests were possible seems like a reasonable point to debate, and is a tough choice to be making. having not played da2 we don't know the degree to which maps were recycled, but we assume it were substantial to be causing so much venom. nevertheless, bio recycling o' maps has been common in many o' their offerings. bg, bg2 and mass effect is all games that used considerable recycle. heck, look at iwd 2. the obsidian developers recycled much o' their iwd maps no doubt to be saving resources.

 

more quests at the expense o' recycled maps?

 

some other mike nonsense regarding end bosses, camera pov, and the bio reliance on, and misinterpretation of, data mining makes us a little queasy. even so, the statement you folks quote is hardly gonna inspire our hate... 'cause is sounding like a reasonable design choice with no perfect solution. yeah, after the first mass effect game one would assume that bio had recognized that their fans could only tolerate so much map recycling. biowarians can be inordinate obtuse. nevertheless, it would be interesting to hear just how much content bio estimated would needed to have been cut if all unique maps were incorporated.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[greylord]

am not certain where the hate comes from on this issue. don't get us wrong, we do Hate some o' the things mike has done to the franchise, but recycling maps to so that more player quests were possible seems like a reasonable point to debate, and is a tough choice to be making. having not played da2 we don't know the degree to which maps were recycled, but we assume it were substantial to be causing so much venom. nevertheless, bio recycling o' maps has been common in many o' their offerings. bg, bg2 and mass effect is all games that used considerable recycle. heck, look at iwd 2. the obsidian developers recycled much o' their iwd maps no doubt to be saving resources.

 

more quests at the expense o' recycled maps?

 

some other mike nonsense regarding end bosses, camera pov, and the bio reliance on, and misinterpretation of, data mining makes us a little queasy. even so, the statement you folks quote is hardly gonna inspire our hate... 'cause is sounding like a reasonable design choice with no perfect solution. yeah, after the first mass effect game one would assume that bio had recognized that their fans could only tolerate so much map recycling. biowarians can be inordinate obtuse. nevertheless, it would be interesting to hear just how much content bio estimated would needed to have been cut if all unique maps were incorporated.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

Perhaps this will give you a clue on how much they reused maps.

 

There is ONE cave map that basically is used for just about every cave. It's a nice long cave...but is probably re-used for EVERY cave in the game. One map. So this guy is saying they only had time for ONE map?

 

A similar issue is with simple buildings in Kirkwall...they basically have ONE warehouse layout used for EVERY Warehouse/Building. I lost count how many times I went to that building. Literally...I have NO idea how many times I went in that one building. Oh...it's a different quest and supposedly different building...but it looks the same. I think they reused that building more than they reused the infamous two buildings that they had for generic planet quests in Mass Effect 1! (they used the cave less though then those two buildings in ME1).

 

Overall, I can see the guy's point...but they kind of went to the extreme of reusing in DA2. REALLY to the extreme. Imagine if in BG2...every building was EXACTLY the same. When you go in the palace, or the the Dark Elf levels...they all are the same since they all use the same map. The small dwellings in BG2 were sort of like this...but nothing on the scale they did it with DA2.

 

IMO of course.

Edited April 15, 2011 by greylord

[Gromnir]

you mentioned me1. folks seemed to suffer through me1 ok. also, as noted, is a resource saving approach. so, if game had been X hours shorter, then how many additional people would be complaining 'bout shortness? me1 and iwd2 prepared us for considerable recycle. sure, mike has shown how myopic he can be regarding fan-base feedback, so we ain't surprised he didn't learn lesson from me1, but the either/or scenario being presented seems reasonable.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps keep in mind that Gromnir were at the forefront o' those complaining that so many announced da2 features appeared to be little more than resource saving features. the entire approach the developers took regarding da2 bothered us and we complained when many others remained silent or asked for understanding. am disappointed with the da2 economy approach. that being said, the fact that the aforementioned quote results in hate does not appear justified.

Edited April 15, 2011 by Gromnir

[GreasyDogMeat]

am not certain where the hate comes from on this issue. don't get us wrong, we do Hate some o' the things mike has done to the franchise, but recycling maps to so that more player quests were possible seems like a reasonable point to debate, and is a tough choice to be making. having not played da2 we don't know the degree to which maps were recycled, but we assume it were substantial to be causing so much venom.

The bad joke is that he says they recycled 'some' of the caves when in reality all of the caves use the same map. Yes, Bioware & Black Isle have done this in the past but NEVER has a game done it to this extent before.

 

It is particularly pathetic considering that A: This is 2011 and B: The game's scope is extremely small. The entire game takes place in one city and a few sorrounding locations. Kirkwall, the city, isn't even very big when you count the ground you cover. I'd say it covers about the same, maybe even less are of exploration than the original Baldur's Gate city had. Thinking about it, I'd say it covers even less ground than that. I counted up all the unique maps in the game and there are some where around 30, give or take a few. Factor in too that DA 1 was far more ambitious and reused maps far less than DA 2. Many encounter maps in DA 1 were reused, but even then there were about 4-5 random encounter maps in DA 1.

 

To add insult to injury in DA 2, revisiting the same dungeon 15+ times (these dungeons are found in different locations, it would be one thing to visit the same particular dungeon over and over like you visit the coast in the game over and over, but all of them are completely separate locations) during the game they use the exact same minimap despite every dungeon having certain paths blocked off. I would constantly follow the minimap only to run into an ugly placed barrier placed in a pathetic attempt to try and make this version of the cave look unique.

 

There is just no excuse for this. Look at how many unique areas were created in KoTOR 2 with a shorter development time, many of them having completely unique looks opposed to Kirkwall looking the same. I admit, I like the look of Kirkwall, but spending 50 hours in the same city is just tiring.

 

I rant and rave about it, but it just drove me nuts revisiting the same damn locations over and over, whether it was a return visit to an area after the game's story progressed or exploring a 'new' cave that looked like the last 10 caves I had explored.