BioWare - Checking Out Skyrim for Dragon Age 3

Drithius said:

Sounds like the doctors have little idea where they want to go with their business these days and are just following market trends. <insert puke here>

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This is a typical cynical response on here that makes me roll my eyes.

I star wars, they have made it that you don't run into the same things because they are instanced, and you have no access to the storeyline parts. It works surprisingly well. It's eaqsy to dismiss something without having any actual knowledge, it's a normal human reaction.

I don't really see how instancing in an MMO has anything to do with my comment and Bioware flailing about in search of what they think will garner more sales, rather than a clear vision of what they want in a game.

rune_74 said:

This is a typical cynical response on here that makes me roll my eyes.

I star wars, they have made it that you don't run into the same things because they are instanced, and you have no access to the storeyline parts. It works surprisingly well. It's eaqsy to dismiss something without having any actual knowledge, it's a normal human reaction.

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Hey rune_74 I'm just wondering if your always in a bad mood since your posts always come off as angry or grumpy. I wonder who's being cynical here just because someone hates what you love.

Remember this saying to each there own. Everyone is different.

Couchpotato said:

Hey rune_74 I'm just wondering if your always in a bad mood since your posts always come off as angry or grumpy. I wonder who's being cynical here just because someone hates what you love.

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It's easy to pass that off huh? I'm just dissapointed this site has become so close minded over the last couple of years.

Seriously this all stemmed off the fact bioware was looking closely at Skyrim to see what worked. Automatically the majority has assumed it is to increase sales only(which I'm sure is on their mind, but name one company that doesn't think that). I think looking at any game that is good and looking to see what works is one of the most important things you can do as a dev, it allows to find things that may work and possibly improve on them. I mean seriously, would you rather they burried their heads in the sand and not look around at what is working? Pure silliness.

I don't think its becoming close minded. Bioware while still being a good company has a share of the blame also. You don't radically change a sequel as much as they do. Then when its given mixed reviews and feelings from players say its are fault.

Most of the problem was the good talent was taken and put on Star Wars: The Old Republic and they hired new talent. The new talent wasn't up to par. Hopefully with Star Wars: The Old Republic finished some of the team can help with the next DA game.

Couchpotato said:

I don't think its becoming close minded. Bioware while still being a good company has a share of the blame also. You don't radically change a sequel as much as they do. Then when its given mixed reviews and feelings from players say its are fault.

Most of the problem was the good talent was taken and put on Star Wars: The Old Republic and they hired new talent. The new talent wasn't up to par. Hopefully with Star Wars: The Old Republic finished some of the team can help with the next DA game.

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Oh I agree with that, I'm sure lessons were learned. Looking at other successful rpgs is hardly a bad thing though.

rune_74 said:

I'm not sure which beta you played in but they most certainly don't get back up again after dieing. And the creatures that do are minor ones, like filler creatures in dungeons. Some bigger bosses as well….but none of significance to the story. Any large characters meaning story characters are handled in instances for you characters and after dead….do not show up again for you at all. They are dead. You will never see them again, that area will be closed to you.

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I was on Korriban - many of the Tukata and some of the KlorSlugs exhibited this behavior.

The corpses of other types of enemies would disappear and reappear when respawning, but for some of these particular creatures I observed the exact same corpses rise up again and start fighting after "playing dead" a brief period. The effect was kind of like a haunted house, where the actors playing the monsters wait for the next customer in line to walk into their area.

Dhruin said:

No, that's not it.

Forget that even the most glowing reviews of TOR suggest this is WoW with a different theme - that's not the real issue (though it doesn't help).

Here's a comparison. I loved Diablo (1) - even though it was a hack'n'slasher, I loved the atmosphere. I eagerly bought D2, played it a bit, killed a mini-boss called Bloodraven. Shut down for dinner.

Came back the next day, fired up…and Bloodraven is there again! Everything "resets". This instantly and irrevocably killed the "immersion" for me. I hate that word but, for me, this rips down the curtain and reveals the game mechanics - it's no longer a "world", it's a click-to-farm excercise disguised as a game.

I'm not very bothered by most things but this one item kills a game for me - it destroys the idea that I am the hero and removes any idea of the world reacting to my actions. Even in the most unreactive game, a dead boss is usually a dead boss.

This is inherent in all MMOs. No matter how advanced, I can see the other players - it bothers me. They bother me. I know the bosses respawn. It bothers me. I know nothing can really change because all the other players need to access the content as well. It bothers me.

Is this just a neurosis of mine? Sure! I read comments from other people about how this or that breaks their immersion (no weather, bad animations, the lack of farms to feed the theoretical population, bugs that just don't bother me - a whole slew of things) - in general, these don't bother me. A lack of permanence and other players in my playground kills it for me. It just does.

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I'm definitely agree with you Dhruin. I really can't abide this respawning thing. Respawning within certain limits or according to some story elements makes sense and bearable (like in the Divinity 2 expansion or in M&M games). But, it seems we represent a minority within the gamers crowd. People love respawning and demanding more from the devs.

This is one of the things that why I can't enjoy MMOs at all. I observe the MMO players and (most of them) they're killing same monsters in the same area over and over. This makes no sense to me, surely it's not fun.

For ex, I really liked Sacred games with their vast worlds, beautiful graphics and addictive gameplay. But I just couldn't stand the MMO style respawning in the series. I even tried to delve to the official forums to find some kind of mod that decrease the respawning rate, but of course I couldn't find any. On the contrary, people were demanding mods that increase respawning rate in the game.
This summer I bought Torchlight. Play the game little and closed it. Next time I opened the game, I found to my surprise that the monsters I had killed stayed dead on the floor. I later learned there was some sort of time behind the respawning mechanics in the game. This may sound like absurd to some of you, but this is the main reason why I enjoyed the game to the end. I hope they preserve this approach for T2.

I'm playing Skyrim right now, the monsters that I killed in the dungeon stay dead and I haven't experienced any respawning so far. And this is one of the things I'm still playing and enjoying the game among other things.

Gokyabgu said:

I'm playing Skyrim right now, the monsters that I killed in the dungeon stay dead and I haven't experienced any respawning so far. And this is one of the things I'm still playing and enjoying the game among other things.

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Only monsters outside respawn. Ones in dungeons don't.

Plus the ones in dungeons don't need to respawn, you get an infinite amount of boring repetitive 'kill this same dude in this cave/tower/dungon' quests anyways.

I hope bioware does not make an open world sandbox game - I don't ever want to play an RPG with less story than a free korean mmorpg and spend countless hours of doing nothing and claim it to be the best rpg ever.

Bethesda killed my love for the Fallout series - I forgave them and bought Skyrim. Was hoping for some sort of climatic rush that I felt in ME1, Divinity 2, Divine Divinity, FF7, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Ultima 7 Serpent Isles...but it never came. The game had ended already.

Even on the highest difficulty the game felt like an insult to a gamer's skill. Radiant AI wasn't so radiant when I can chill in front of a skeleton and have it not attack me for the longest time.

Never again will I support them esp. when it's pretty evident that modders/fans of Bethesda make their games a flawless diamond out of the rough.

This is somewhat funny (same date as the OT article):
http://kotaku.com/5869773/skyrims-success-hasnt-changed-plans-for-the-next-dragon-age

I'm guessing that was reported earlier, caused a dip in EA's stock and so they quickly put out the "we're checking out skyrim" press bit.

I don't think Música and Zechshshluk make money off videogame sales anymore, just EA shares, they're in the business of raising investor confidence, not making and selling games.

I'd like to see a big gaming site point out their contradicting statements.

If everyone had loved DA2 like they did the original Dragon Age, it would be no big deal. As a producer of a specific product, youre not doing it right if you dont keep tabs on what the competition is doing, and seek to use their trial-and-error in the market to your advantage.

Due to the flak they got over DA2 it seems more of a quest to cleanse themselves of the scarlet letter theyve come to bear, instead of simply market research into what makes a better product. I dont blame them for looking at things that obviously work for guidance, for instance DA2 really suffered from the identical and linear direction in the world design. An open-world Dragon Age game would be the only I would even consider purchasing at this point.

That's the one big huge glaring obvious lesson they need to take from Skyrim - sandbox gameplay.

bioware sucks and bethesda really nailed skyrim

..........but bioware sucks- (press button for awesome)

how can they ever learn anything when it doesn't invole gay elven sex?

mindboggled

xSamhainx said:

If everyone had loved DA2 like they did the original Dragon Age, it would be no big deal. As a producer of a specific product, youre not doing it right if you dont keep tabs on what the competition is doing, and seek to use their trial-and-error in the market to your advantage.

Due to the flak they got over DA2 it seems more of a quest to cleanse themselves of the scarlet letter theyve come to bear, instead of simply market research into what makes a better product. I dont blame them for looking at things that obviously work for guidance, for instance DA2 really suffered from the identical and linear direction in the world design. An open-world Dragon Age game would be the only I would even consider purchasing at this point.

That's the one big huge glaring obvious lesson they need to take from Skyrim - sandbox gameplay.

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Open world games require huge amount of time and investment during and after developement and are therefore considered as 'risk' by many companies (certainly by EA). To illustrate this: compare the amount of time and money that was required to develop DA2 (about a year or slightly more) compared to Skyrim (which took about 5 years).

That is why we don't see many persistant open world game developers except Bethesda, Piranah Bytes (I hope that they will do Risen 2 well considering their limited size and resources compared to Bethesda), and RockStar.