BioWare - Greg Zeschuk Interview @ CVG

Dhruin

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Greg Zeschuk has been busy with a second interview popping up at CVG. Part 1 focuses on Dragon Age, discussing the game, DLC, sex and a demo:
What about a demo?

Zeschuk:
We've not really talked about a demo. There's a few different ways we could do it. The way the game's set up actually makes it hard for a demo because there are six origin stories and we don't know whether to just pick one or a couple.

And then the really cool thing with the game is seeing what happens when you pick an origin story later in the game - like the way that characters get to know you.

It's not likely that we'll have a demo ready for release, but very shortly after we'll probably figure out some parameters where we chop the game into pieces and make them available for people to experience.
More information.
 
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"This is the new shit!" no demos until after you've purchased the game.
 
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No, there won't be a demo before the game is released. For some strange reason, they've decidied to focus on getting the game into as close to perfect state as they can before release, rather than spending that time working on a demo.
 
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I swear, could I never read again "This is the new shit!" Come on, that horse is dead already. Stop kicking it.
 
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"This is the new shit!" no demos until after you've purchased the game.

"This is the new shit!" stupid comments with no connection to reality.

Seriously you could just wait a couple of weeks until the demo is released, play it and then purchase the game. You know, the game will be actually available after the release date. Unbelievable shit I tell you.
 
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"The way the game's set up actually makes it hard for a demo because there are six origin stories and we don't know whether to just pick one or a couple."

...

Bioware with a finished game 1 year ago: "What do we pick for the demo.. what do we pick.. we have just 1 year to go (waiting for the console version to be done) <intense cogitation> uh, we won't pick anything because it's too complicated to decide whether to make 1 or several different demos for each origin story." :S

Why does Bioware come up with such ridiculous excuses? Can't they simply say: "No, we don't want you to play our cute precious game, even just a little, unless you pay!!"
 
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*Sarcasm alert*Demo/polish .....demo/polish.....demo/polish.....hmmm such a hard decision. Do they improve the game or make a demo? Well they have all this extra time and you know game designers are always done well ahead of schedule, So their just being lazy and greedy by wanting to improve upon an already finished game.

How many games come out nowadays that don't need one single patch? Not only that how about just quality control. Just go over a few minor things that could be tweaked to give the best results. Sorta like writing. You have your rough draft (Beta and quality control) 1st draft and proof read (Games released with bugs of course) 2nd draft and proof read again (Patched up and played again) normally it goes on for two patches then comes the Final Copy (Last patch released)

In a perfect world the 1st and 2nd draft would be done in house, but we don't live in a perfect world. We live in a world where there are deadlines to meet and promises to keep and so we get the 1st draft and 2nd draft to help them with their proof reading and then we get the Final Copy (sometimes) with the last and most uptodate patch. It would be nice since they have all this time is if they did the first two drafts themselves and then released the Final Copy. That's just my opinion of course.

Ok, I had my say, now go back to whining about how it's ridiculous that there is no demo and all this time on their hands, LMAO. There is never enough time when making a game. Especially a branching CRPG. Have you even considered the amount of time it takes to do a CRPG? I wouldn't touch that with a ten foot pole and I love RPGs. They are a beast to make.
 
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There is never enough time when making a game.

And never enough money to spend on stupid games that they won't let you test beforehand; so the only thing that remains are paid reviews and bioware's marketing bullshit... and bioware fanboys circlewanks, angry codexing (far less brain damaging than the former though) etc. Oh, quite a few useful things. :)

Polishing my ass. They are tweaking Morrigan's nose and the lighting for the sex scenes as we speak.
 
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I'll just pirate it, test it and make dark&gritty decision that will have some consequences in future:
1) If I'll like it I'll buy it
2) If I won't like it I won't buy it

I won't pre-order DA like I did with Risen or buy it without testing because I don't trust BioWare.
 
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Uhh dude, I wouldn't just spout out that you're going to pirate ANYTHING. It's against the rules and pisses a lot of people off, me for one.
 
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I can piss you even more. I often pirate games to test them if there is not available demo (long time ago I didn't but then I bought Oblivion Collector Edition and regret I didn't give that money I wasted on this shit to homeless dude for vodka or something).

Few examples:
I pirated Empire Total War (but bought it because it was okay, although I got bored very soon)
I pirated STALKER Clear Sky (and didn't buy it because it's boring)
I pirated Fallout 3 and didn't buy it (horrible game btw)
I pirated Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines (and after completing the game hunted it to buy it because it's very rare, at least not virtual copy like on Steam)
etc
etc
etc

Really, I don't get it what's so wrong about pirating it like that. If I like something I always buy it, so what's the deal? Sure, it's not morally okay but actually no one is loosing anything - more often I buy game because I tested it than I don't. There are games that I buy without checking them before but if I am not sure about the quality I just download them from torrent and make opinion.
 
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can we keep the swearing down to a dull curse? I'm not sure where you usually post we don't go for that around here..and we certainly don't condone piracy on these boards especially as we get some devs posting.

--

on the topic at hand, yeah its a poor excuse. I doubt its difficult to slap together a short demo so not a lot of resources would be spent on making one especially in this games time frame. EA has eaten the costs of marketing by delaying the game 6 months and we know its a good bet its already finished.

The real question then, is does it make sense to put one out. We might want to take a look before we buy but note the number of games out there that have been killed by their demos - namely Pool of Radiance and Arcanum. Dungeon Lords shows that if you create a good enough box you can about sell anything.

A demo after makes more sense to try to reel in players that didn't make the purchase the first tday out?

I've noticed this kind of marketing in movies lately too. If the movie's a big budget bomb we will get littered with advertising (death to poochie) - but if its a hit before its already out we typically don't see tv ads until its made its initial run (star trek).
 
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can we keep the swearing down to a dull curse? I'm not sure where you usually post we don't go for that around here..and we certainly don't condone piracy on these boards especially as we get some devs posting.

Okay, sorry if I offended anyone, that wasn't my intention. Maybe I little overreacted ;)
 
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I'll remind everyone again. Advocating piracy for ANY reason, will NOT be tolerated on these forums!! Repeated offences, WILL lead to being permanently BANNED!!
 
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and we certainly don't condone piracy on these boards especially as we get some devs posting.

Devs don't really seem to be put off by people openly discussing piracy (and apparently even less by excessive swearing) if the Codex is any indication. They got a lot of high profile peeps from BioWare and Obsidian posting quite regulalry as far as I know.
That doesn't mean that I am pro-piracy (I am in fact NOT at all) but it's a fact that the Codex for some kind of reason attracts devs a lot more than the Watch.
 
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Codex attracts people?:O The world is indeed a strange place to live.
 
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You are actually wrong if you think it is easy to slap together a demo to throw out there. Problem being is which textures do you include to go? How about how much of the engine etc have to be included...now sound effects....movies....it can get very complicated.

It is not like it is a spiderweb game or similar type reelase where all these files are quite small and a character does not comprfise of different textures and animations.
 
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Okay, sorry if I offended anyone, that wasn't my intention. Maybe I little overreacted ;)

What cursing? I didn't see no cursing ;) The P word is hardly a curse word. I don't even think it made it on George Carlin's 7 banned words bit. You weren't cursing me out so it's ok by me :)

Anyways, I'm not going into the ethics of pirating for demo reasons (or for attracting devs, lol, that's a new one for me. I haven't ever heard that excuse before). But for me the one reason I hate all pirating in any form is for the simple reason that I have to put up with DRM or some form of copyprotection nonsense because of it. First it was codewheels, but now it's those friggen limited installs or other programs like starforce. Recently GFWL is now forcing you to log in at least once in order to activate your saves. I can't tell you how annoying it was to learn that I HAD to log in to GFWL at least once in order to save my game for GTA4.

Ok that's done, now back to bitching about there not being a demo :)
 
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I pirated Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines (and after completing the game hunted it to buy it because it's very rare, at least not virtual copy like on Steam)

So, did you actually buy it? Or was it conveniently difficult to buy (and you won't accept virtual copies, despite actually playing a virtual copy)?

The thing I hate the most about these discussions is the disingenuous bullshit.
 
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So, did you actually buy it? Or was it conveniently difficult to buy (and you won't accept virtual copies, despite actually playing a virtual copy)?

Yes, I did found it but I've been VERY lucky this time. One of the polish online shops had a few copies and was selling it for 20zł (it's like $7).

And, as I said, I prefer to have game in a box and CDs/DVD than uploaded on some server available for me to download, though if there is no box version then I buy online version and I'd do it with Bloodlines as well.
And virtual copy I've played was illegal, so I don't consider it as an option. As I said - I pirate but I always buy what I like.


Codex attracts people?:O The world is indeed a strange place to live.
Yeah, there are quite a few devs on Codex. What's funny in every topic they say something - codexers actually try to not act stupid and discuss :D Although I don't read Codex for some time now, all that bitching and spamming was fun for one/two weeks and get boring later. Though sometimes I still visit Codex.
 
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