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[shadow_archmagi]

It's funny that people are talking about DA:O because I was a fan of Bioware right from their start with Baldur's Gate, (which was for the PC only as far as I recall)

And, um, DAO is basically just Baldur's Gate 3, since it uses nigh identical party and item systems, and, um, I thought everyone knew that. I didn't know anyone expected nonlinearity or anything from it. It's exactly the same as mass effect and Kotor and whatnot. I mean, yeah, it's linear, but I personally found it to be a very NICE line.

Calling it "too linear" is a bit like complaining about how trains don't fly well. I wasn't aware anyone expected them to.

So, um, I guess two points

1. Dragon Age wasn't ever really expected to be nonlinear
2. Linear games predate consoles by yeaaaaaaaaaaaaars
3. Dwarf Fortress RUUUULES

[woose1]

Gah! It's impossible to please people! I'm out of this thread! I don't like pirating! There, I said it, I think DA: O was worth the $60! *Laughs maniacally while being chased out of thread by angry forumgoers*

[Hawkfrost]

D:

If you don't support gaming, gaming won't get better.

Can you expect Toady to work harder if we suddenly deny him donations? No, of course not, he'll go back to working at burger king or whatever.

If you hire a man to paint your house and he only paints one wall and then throws down the brush and asks for his money, would you pay him? No, because he did a half-assed job.
Toady is more like the man that hears this and paints your house for free and does a fabulous job, so you pay him even though he didn't ask for any money.

I can see your point though.

[shadow_archmagi]

Toady is more like the man that hears this and paints your house for free and does a fabulous job, so you pay him even though he didn't ask for any money.

and then you gather all your friends and have THEM give him money, and then he feels has to paint another house which means...

[dragnar]

Gah! It's impossible to please people! I'm out of this thread! I don't like pirating! There, I said it, I think DA: O was worth the $60! *Laughs maniacally while being chased out of thread by angry forumgoers*

If you think it was worth it, great, but what if you didn't? There is no way to return games if you don't like them, at best you will get about half your money back. It's unfair for the developers to expect you to pay them $50-60 based solely on their advertising. That's one of the nice things about freeware games- you can donate to the creator if you like the game, but you have no obligation to do so if it stinks. The only problem with this is that many people don't pay for even good games if they don't have to.

[platypus]

1. Dragon Age wasn't ever really expected to be nonlinear
2. Linear games predate consoles by yeaaaaaaaaaaaaars
3. Dwarf Fortress RUUUULES

I'm afraid you're simplifying the discourse of this thread, without contributing. Ask Footkerchief - he and I appear to be on the same page.

To address your one point: I expected linearity from Dragon Age; I found a claustrophobic degree of linearity I hadn't expected. And with a linear story comes the responsibility on the part of the game to keep that story rich and compelling, especially when the story is mostly what the game has going for it. I personally found the story hackneyed, the writing poor, and the voice acting - while better than that of many games - annoying and distracting, with customarily wooden performances and outlandish accent choices (though mostly due to the purple prose the actors were given to recite). Monkey Island 3 had effective voice acting.

I realize appreciation of the story is perhaps subjective beyond discussion, but whether a straitjacketing linear game such as DA:O works hinges largely on this point. I didn't care for the story, so for me the game would fail on this count alone. But, and this is important, that wasn't my only complaint.

[Shoe]

He was contrasting the games' approaches to linearity, interactivity and difficulty.  If you have responses to his criticisms, post them.

Perhaps you are reading your own opinion into the OP. It pretty clearly sets up DA:O as an example of how fuckin awful modern gaming is, then sets up DF as the Shining Beacon of Nostalgic Goodness in This Fallen World.

Specific criticisms are besides the point. Telling someone that their tastes are wrong is futile. Clearly people disagree about DA:O/similar games and that is a matter of subjective opinion.

My objection is to the OP.  There are many ways to show appreciation for something without slagging.

[platypus]

You know what will be great ? A game that'll constantly be under development, with releases every year or so (after an initial longer development time of course). Think of DF, or better yet, think of all these professional software like Photoshop or Microsoft Office. After releasing a new version of the program, the developers start adding more feature and bug fixes for the next version. But in the videogame industry, once the game is released, everything involved in it's development (short of the 3D and game engine) is discarded, and if they want to make a sequel, they start against from scratch.

The MUD I mentioned in a previous post could be called such a game. And companies have started experimenting with the incremental development business model in mainstream gaming.

An example is the PGA Tour series by Electronic Arts. They've realized PC and console gamers have different requirements, and have started developing a persistent, online version of their hugely successful golf series. Oliver Hughes, Senior Product Manger for the game, explains in an interview that, if profitable, PGA Tour Online will be in development indefinitely, and is aimed at a broader, more mature, more "golf fan" demographic, and that the console version will remain as a separate franchise. It's not enitrely analogous to what you're suggesting, timst, but it is a long-overdue attempt at internal market differentiation.

Of course, an RPG built on this last would be open-ended, without a set story, by definition, since arbitrary replayability would be a requirement, and I suppose MMOs work in that direction. MMOs are eventually abandoned due to the restraints of their obsolescent technological platform, which brings me back to the idea that it may be wise to let presentation be a secondary concern, or at the very least implement a modular graphics system.

[Neonivek]

outlandish accent choices

I read about this... Basically from what I could gather: Bioware just didn't care

Ok maybe I should put it another way. They wanted to put certain characters in and they didn't care how it mingled with the game.

[woose1]

A golf MMO. Are you serious or being sarcastic, because I can't tell with the lack of smileys. D:

[Neonivek]

I thought there was already a golf MMO... though it is VERY anime themed.

[platypus]

A golf MMO. Are you serious or being sarcastic, because I can't tell with the lack of smileys. D:

It's not really a golf MMO (though in some senses, I suppose it is), but rather an attempt at centralizing the core software of the game, which makes a lot of sense if you want to create a world that lets players keep and improve their characters (golfers, in this case) indefinitely, while allowing for incremental development and quick deployment of new content. It remains to be seen how much they'll actually improve the game once it's out of beta though.

EDIT: A problem with the console versions has been EA's tendency to shut down game servers a year after release, making it impossible for people to take part in PvP tournaments or even play other people online, unless you have the latest installment, since the console versions don't support peer-to-peer play. Though this is obviously a marketing strategy and not a technical issue.

[zwei]

As far as splitting content and continuous development goes ... i am cold to that.

For companies, it would be basically making game composed of DLCs, wet dream of having everyone paying for each area dearly. Which makes sense as continuous development means agile methods which is too costly or some method of iterations which too is too costly.

[Shades]

As far as splitting content and continuous development goes ... i am cold to that.

For companies, it would be basically making game composed of DLCs, wet dream of having everyone paying for each area dearly. Which makes sense as continuous development means agile methods which is too costly or some method of iterations which too is too costly.

Although I actually agree to an extent, I don't like DLC or the whole episodic content concept it does have one major advantage which is that you can very cheaply release a subset of the game.

I'd much rather pay $5 for a game and find out I don't like it than pay full price straight up before finding out that the only good area of the game happened to be the bit in the demo. Additionally there are plenty of games I would have paid more to extend the experience.

Of course as my favourite games tend towards the dungeon keeper/evil genius/sim city/df style of games this doesn't really work at all.

[Xombie]

Maybe i'm kinda late, but Dragon Age is best Bioware game so far.
I can remember how i was bored while trying to play through NWNs. It's also better than BG in many ways.
Actually my biggest complaint about it is loading times and fact that all locations divided on dozens of little maps. Its really annoying especially after Risen, which loads only once per chapter, which takes at least 3 hours.

Of course Toady has my thanks, as i generally enjoy sandbox games, but Bioware did good this time, not $60-good though.

As to DLC it either quite important part of the game and means you bought a ripoff for $60 or useless junk not worth downloading.