Anti-Dragon Age 2?

[HoonDing]

Well, you can't judge a game before playing it seven times.

[Hurlshort]

The quests were far and away the best thing about TOR. Also choosing the jerk dialogue options while playing with my wife was hilarious, she groaned every time I won a die roll.

 

I can't really remember many of the quests in WoW.

 

Lord of the Rings Online still has the best quests for me, but it's easy to remember the story when you've read books and watched movies that all took part in that same universe.

[alanschu]

I actually really liked the die rolls too. They became a meta game in and of themselves. I only played with friends that I knew in real life, so maybe with randoms it wouldn't be as awesome, but I remember my friend laughing at me as I rolled a 2, only for his roll to literally be a 1 right after. Karma! XD

 

 

The class story stuff was pretty reminiscent of playing BG1 as a co-op MP experience.

[anubite]

"There's nothing wrong with BioWare making a sandbox game, it's just, they have no experience with it. I mean I guess SWTOR is "sandboxy" but most of the areas after level 20 are barren wastelands and a lot of the design in that game, for as far as I got in it, was haphazard. I can't recall a single quest I did in SWTOR, but I imagine most people who've played WOW recall parts of Darrowshire, or other towns. Clearly, they didn't study WOW hard enough."

 

KOTOR MMO PLAYER ALERT! KOTOR MMO PLAYER ALERT! KOTOR MMO PLAYER ALERT!

 

For a guy who hates the 'new' BIO you sure love playing their games, tlaking about their games, and REPLAYING them JUST to prove you hate them. L0LZ

 

Because someone who's interested in game design can't play bad, or at least, unsuccessful games? There's a point to playing a game like SWTOR; it's to understand why or why it doesn't work as a product and as a game. If you aren't willing to actually experience things you dislike, you probably cannot grow.

 

Also, this is rather interesting http://dgaider.tumbl...ic-environments

 

I don't know what to say. Gaider seems to be saying, "There are intelligent people criticizing my work out there, yet I refuse to believe BioWare needs to change to be successful." Making me scratch my head here.

 

Oh and one last thing, I forgot to mention... this...? It kind of left me dumbfounded. How is this not unethical? http://n4g.com/news/...in-dragon-age-3 I heard it's a joke, but god, I hope it really is.

Edited January 9, 2013 by anubite

[NOK222]

We get it Volourn, you're being a parody of...something. We get it man, we get it.

[GhostofAnakin]

I'd imagine Alan probably shouldn't give too much in the way of an official interview here on the Obsidian forums. It might be frowned upon to do so by his management.

 

Doesn't Alan just bring the developers their morning coffee? I don't think they'd mind if he spilled the beans. (get it? ah, shut up)

[alanschu]

They do mind. 20 lashings. Oh wait, you weren't talking about coffee anymore were you?

[Volourn]

"How is this not unethical?"

 

It's not. A private buinsess/game company cna put whoever they want in their product. It's unethical for some outsider to accuse them of such evil deeds when no evil deed was done.

[alanschu]

Oh and one last thing, I forgot to mention... this...? It kind of left me dumbfounded. How is this not unethical? http://n4g.com/news/...in-dragon-age-3 I heard it's a joke, but god, I hope it really is.

 

It is a joke. I think it says as much about you, however, that you think it could have possibly been true. I know people like to think the only reason why a game like DA2 would have the review scores it does is because we went out and paid for them (though why we'd only pay for a 79-82 is a bit beyond me....), but the reality is that our team uses metacritic as one (of many) metric for how well we delivered on a quality game experience. Buying review scores would certainly undermine this, and DA2's metacritic score definitely tells us "We didn't deliver." Our goal is typically 90+, and DA2 fell well short of that.

 

But confirmation bias is a pretty common thing. It's why people will place so much stock in an internet poll that has EA being the worst company in America, even though the internet is overflowing with a history of online polls being unreliable.

 

For anyone that seriously thinks that EA is the worst corporation in the entire world, I think that those people have had it pretty good in life then. EA is a video game publisher/developer that makes a relatively inexpensive luxury good (compared to a lot of stuff), with no shortage of alternative options. If this is the worst company in America, life must be pretty good for people.

 

 

Since Volourn drew attention to your post, however:

 

I don't know what to say. Gaider seems to be saying, "There are intelligent people criticizing my work out there, yet I refuse to believe BioWare needs to change to be successful." Making me scratch my head here.

 

I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion at all. Gaider makes no commentary at all about whether or not BioWare needs to change in order to be successful. Of course, we'd probably also need to define what it means to be successful. DA2, for instance, certainly made money, but I'd agree it wasn't successful since the qualitative reception is not what we would have preferred.

 

Gaider's comments regarding critiques that are intelligent is simply that not ALL negative commentary is just angry trolling. It's pretty straight forward and I think you're just reading more into this blog post (which is about the toxic nature of online communities) than is actually there.

 

 

When I post on BSN, I have a preference to respond more to the well spoken, non-vitriolic critiques since it's useful for me to try to understand different perspectives. Although unfortunately for some, that they are coming in late and posting a similar topic means I likely will not respond to them (because it's a discussion I already had). Filtering past those that hound dev posts simply to make glib and snide comments grows tiresome. Because I'm also a moderator, I cannot outright ignore posts when people bring them to my attention, since those violating forum rules will need to be addressed.

 

I find it interesting that I was pointed to this article (perhaps appropriately, by Ray on Facebook) since I think it's important for humans to be reminded of it to try to mitigate the effects. I think it's important for consumers to also recognize it. Even on this forum, there's the fallacy that "because I like/hate something, my reasons must be the consensus principal reasons for it being liked/hated by others." There wasn't even consensus on what people disliked about the ME3 endings (leading to full threads of people saying "Thank you, just what I wanted" as well as "WTF BioWare, this isn't what we wanted at all!" in response to the extended cut). There wasn't consensus on this board about what makes an "Infinity Engine game" an "Infinity Engine game." (Cooldowns on magic!? I DEMAND A REFUND! Vancian style magic or no deal!).

 

But when a group of people are upset, they recognize the strength in numbers, and will believe that all those that are upset are upset for the same reasons they individually feel, even though they would clearly see that's not the case if they just took the time to read what ALL the complaints are.

Edited January 10, 2013 by alanschu

[Nepenthe]

^^ I really should stop posting here, other people invariably post what I've tried to take a stab at with a lot more information and eloquence.

 

We get it Volourn, you're being a parody of...something. We get it man, we get it.

He's not the only one, really.

[Cultist]

Some people try to present BSN as populated by especially vicous and angry users, but in fact it is no more "hostile" than any forum. The forums become "toxic" when developers release bad quality product. It happens all the time.

Civilization 5 failed expectations after successful Civ4 and people was outraged by Firaxis' idleness about patches and fixing numerous bugs, glitches and gamebreaking features. They redeemed themselves only with X-Com.

Tiberium Twilight forums was a hellhole after demo have been released. Moderators started banning everyone who posted even slightly negative comments.

Empire: Total War turned from respectful community into a pit of snakes after game release. And Total War series is unique because the age of average player there is 25+ if not 30+. Sad fate, similar to DA2 - rushed and unpolished product with lot of expectations and built upon great franchize.

In all of this few examples devs never tried to fix things that were broken. Which, in turn, intensified the enimity. The easiest way is to blame trolls, naysayers and negative minority.

[Malcador]

Bioware developers always seem so sensitive.

[Serrano]

Bioware fans always seem so insensitive.

[Malcador]

Nah, they're insane rather than insensitive about text on screens.

[Malekith]

BSN is horrible.But you reap what you sow.The forum is toxic because this is the kind of people their games appeal to.If you want intelligent deep discussions,make intelligent,deep games.If you deside to write romantic wish fulfillment fantasies marketed as RPGs,you can't comlain to the flamewars about Miranda's ass.More so when your first games were difirent and your original fan base expected something diffirent from you.In the end is all about your target audience.DA2 was a failoure because it didn't appeal to the intended audience,the BG2-DA:O crowd.The series changed direction in the middle to catter to a diffirent audience.That doesn't mean that is a bad "game" per se,but it is a bad "tactical RPG".Mass Effect was never a pure RPG,but it was clear from the start,so there wasn't any backlash until the ending,but that was for competelly diffirent reasons.If DA2 was marketed as a spin off ARPG DA:kirkwall from the start the recception would be very different

Edited January 10, 2013 by Malekith

[alanschu]

Some people try to present BSN as populated by especially vicous and angry users, but in fact it is no more "hostile" than any forum. The forums become "toxic" when developers release bad quality product. It happens all the time.

 

Disagree. BSN is significantly more hostile than this forum, though less so than a place like Blizzard. It's as much a function of how large a developer is. I actually started posting on this forum instead of the old BioBoards way back in 2004 because I didn't like where the BioBoards were headed.

 

Civilization 5 failed expectations after successful Civ4 and people was outraged by Firaxis' idleness about patches and fixing numerous bugs, glitches and gamebreaking features. They redeemed themselves only with X-Com.

 

Again, there's this idea of consensus of hatred. Civ5 is an immensely popular game. I actually do think Civ4 is in general a slightly superior product, but there's a reason why Civ5 is in the top 5 of my Steam total time played list (as is Civ4). There may have been people outraged by Firaxis, but people that are upset are always more vocal, and always more represented (another thing that Gaider alluded to). I have loved Firaxis since Alpha Centauri, and their studio is still one that leads me to buy games on Day One from them because I've yet to be disappointed by their products.

 

This is why going to a forum, as Gaider said (since his post was in response to someone saying "I hope you don't base all your feedback on BSN") is often not a very representative sample of a game's install base. Especially as gaming in general becomes more mainstream.

[Hurlshort]

BSN is horrible.But you reap what you sow.The forum is toxic because this is the kind of people their games appeal to.If you want intelligent deep discussions,make intelligent,deep games.If you deside to write romantic wish fulfillment fantasies marketed as RPGs,you can't comlain to the flamewars about Miranda's ass.More so when your first games were difirent and your original fan base expected something diffirent from you.In the end is all about your target audience.DA2 was a failoure because it didn't appeal to the intended audience,the BG2-DA:O crowd.The series changed direction in the middle to catter to a diffirent audience.That doesn't mean that is a bad "game" per se,but it is a bad "tactical RPG".Mass Effect was never a pure RPG,but it was clear from the start,so there wasn't any backlash until the ending,but that was for competelly diffirent reasons.If DA2 was marketed as a spin off ARPG DA:kirkwall from the start the recception would be very different

 

I don't know about that. I mean Obsidian typically uses the space bar when they write in their games, and yet you are posting on their forum without doing so.

[alanschu]

The only place I really frequented PST discussion not long after release was Planet Baldurs Gate. Although the problem I found there was that the group was insular, and because I was stuck somewhere, but later figured it out, someone felt the need use my post as an example for others "See people. Take the time to figure the stuff out for yourself for a change like this guy."

 

There was a bit of a smug elitism going on, and I stopped posting.

[Malcador]

So, like here then ?

[alanschu]

So, like here then ?

 

Here has it a little bit, but it's not like this place is the Codex or anything.

[Malcador]

Well maybe the RPG forums anyway, they seem pretty ok in the Adventure and Strategy ones. Nothing wrong with elitism, if you guys had it here, that space bar impaired guy up ahead wouldn't be here!.

Edited January 10, 2013 by Malcador

[Nepenthe]

We let you stay, too, Malcador.

 

Edited January 10, 2013 by Nepenthe

[Malcador]

Bah, only the moderators can get rid of me, the rest of you can go hang.

[Cariannis]

snip

 

Me and Bagger 288 agree.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azEvfD4C6ow&feature=player_embedded

 

Edit: I see someone else already mentioned it. But I still have the question is BioWare still claiming that Dragon Age 2 has just as much dialogue as Dragon Age: Origins?

Edited January 10, 2013 by Cariannis

[Gorth]

you can't comlain to the flamewars about Miranda's ass.

 

Why would anyone complain about that? It was a very nice butt