Game News Community Expansion Pack for Neverwinter Nights Announced

[Astromarine]

look, I'm not gonna flame you, but I think you're wrong. obviously you data is likely based on marketing studies and the like, but I CANNOT agree with the conclusion that gamers only want a booklike experience from their games.

My reasoning for this is the following: the direction Bioware seems to be headed is towards a joint PC/console world. Hence, your target audience, assuming you want the largest fanbase possible, will be like 60-70 percent console gamers, 30-40 PC. now I know we joke around about console gamers being ADD 12 year olds, but I know better. I have a ps2, xbox, and a gamecube, and I follow console games closely. I know that lots of console gamers are complete manic-obsessive about their chosen games. How do you expect me to take you seriously saying gamers don't replay games and hate missing out stuff on their first playthrough when IN FACT they replay more than Saint does? Silent Hill has three or more different endings, and to get them you need to replay the game three times. THE GAME HAS NO BRANCHES. You must replay the exact same game three times to see all endings. Oh, and to get a panda suit for your caracter.

Same with Resident evil

Same with Castlevania

Same with Zelda

Same with Final Fantasy

Same with Onimusha

So you get hardcore RPers wanting multiple paths, replayability, and hidden stuff that they love to track down

Then you get console players wanting replayability, hidden stuff, new endings, easter eggs, extra characters, etc.

So WHO THE HELL are those people who play games only once? Or is the entire Japanese game industry wrong about this? (them and Interplay. BGDA2 must be replayed 3 times to unlock everything. Damn, even THEY got it right)

Astro

 

[Dgaider]

I think its the gamer mentality that needs to change, not games that have to adapt.

I don't disagree with that, and I know I find it personally frustrating when we have to do things like simplify quests at the design level due to the feedback constantly telling us that most gamers don't like to be challenged, but I daresay it's far easier to say that it's the gamers who need to adapt when you're not on the side that needs to worry about making a commercially viable title (as vile a term as that is).

I don't mean to imply that gamers are simple (far from it) or that commercial viability means pandering to the lowest common denominator first across the board (cue sarcastic joke from the peanut gallery), but making a quality title also doesn't mean excluding the casual gamer as having an unworthy palette. Ideally, you're going to want to go for as much of a mix of the two as you can... encourage the gamer to replay without requiring them to replay to get the full play experience you intended... challenge the player without frustrating them... a hard mix to get right especially in the face of the Hardcore Gamer's Lament: that a game that is sufficiently hardcore to appeal to the refined palette of the jaded hardcore gamer will also appeal to the casual gamers and make the game successful enough.

I suppose the real question there is how successful is successful enough?

Or maybe that's just putting too serious a spin on it. I daresay there's room for improvement, regardless, isn't there?

 

[Dgaider]

So WHO THE HELL are those people who play games only once? Or is the entire Japanese game industry wrong about this? (them and Interplay. BGDA2 must be replayed 3 times to unlock everything. Damn, even THEY got it right)

I'm not going to go into a detail response as I think my last post touched on this, but I didn't mean to say that nobody replays games. Obviously there are people who do, and I'm not sure you can distinguish in the level of hardcore players between the PC and console market... I think, rather, that there's a certain type of gameplay that is expected in a console title that you don't necessarily find on the PC and that includes differences in expectations for game length and replayability.

 

[Astromarine]

Granted on the game length, but I still think the replayability part is not as serious as you think. Can you tell me one big story based (ie that has a definite beginning and end, not just running out of options) game on console that doesn't include some goodie on multiple completion? I'm no expert, but it seems to me as if those are rapidly becoming mandatory "checklist items" in high-profile console games.

As for "how much is enough" can you tell me that Interplay (or Origin, which is shutting down according to Slashdot) would be worse off today if they had kept on making non-blockbusters like Fallout or single player Ultimas? That argument is not the be-all because, if you draw parallels to movies, there are HUNDREDS of professionals there making a very decent living catering to the non-mainstream. Ask Harvey Weinstein. If the game industry has failed so far in creating a similar independent fringe, that's the industry's fault.

Simple answer: a game is successful enough when it pays all your bills while still being exactly the game you would make if you were filthy rich and didn't have to worry about bills. Don't take this personally, but as a professional I respect Jeff Vogel or Brad Wardell (who has an unfair advantage, admittedly) more than you. Just like I respect Lucky McKee, Eli Roth, or Sofia Coppola more than whoever directed Pearl Harbor. If you don't think you have to rule the world, you don't have to compromise

 

[MrBrown]

As for "how much is enough" can you tell me that Interplay (or Origin, which is shutting down according to Slashdot) would be worse off today if they had kept on making non-blockbusters like Fallout or single player Ultimas? That argument is not the be-all because, if you draw parallels to movies, there are HUNDREDS of professionals there making a very decent living catering to the non-mainstream. Ask Harvey Weinstein. If the game industry has failed so far in creating a similar independent fringe, that's the industry's fault.

Simple answer: a game is successful enough when it pays all your bills while still being exactly the game you would make if you were filthy rich and didn't have to worry about bills. Don't take this personally, but as a professional I respect Jeff Vogel or Brad Wardell (who has an unfair advantage, admittedly) more than you. Just like I respect Lucky McKee, Eli Roth, or Sofia Coppola more than whoever directed Pearl Harbor. If you don't think you have to rule the world, you don't have to compromise

I think this is sort of a pointless question. While for IP making a Fallout game would have clearly been an economical compromise over, say, another BG:DA, who's to say whether it would have been a compromise to the developers? I know JE said he got into developing games because he wanted to make FO3, but I don't remember seeing anything from the other guys. Maybe they would have wanted to make a BG:DA game more than an FO game. Or maybe they would have rather made neither.

Moreover, drawing a parallel between the movie industry and game industry in this manner is incorrect, IMO. In the game industry, you're more tied down with specific companies for long times, while in the movie industry the team you're working with changes all the time, especially on the actor,writer, director end.

My point being, I think it's ok to question companies on this, but questioning individual developers is mostly pointless, because the nature of the industry is to make compromises as a company.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

I don't disagree with that, and I know I find it personally frustrating when we have to do things like simplify quests at the design level due to the feedback constantly telling us that most gamers don't like to be challenged, but I daresay it's far easier to say that it's the gamers who need to adapt when you're not on the side that needs to worry about making a commercially viable title (as vile a term as that is).

I'm not denying or rejecting that you do get that kind of feedback, but i have trouble identifying where it might come from. Although i have seen people complain games nowadays are too hard (which i totally disagree), i've seen many more people claim they are dissatisfied with the challenge put in games nowadays. This goes both for length and diffculty, mind you, but mostly difficulty.

I don't mean to imply that gamers are simple (far from it) or that commercial viability means pandering to the lowest common denominator first across the board (cue sarcastic joke from the peanut gallery), but making a quality title also doesn't mean excluding the casual gamer as having an unworthy palette. Ideally, you're going to want to go for as much of a mix of the two as you can... encourage the gamer to replay without requiring them to replay to get the full play experience you intended... challenge the player without frustrating them... a hard mix to get right especially in the face of the Hardcore Gamer's Lament: that a game that is sufficiently hardcore to appeal to the refined palette of the jaded hardcore gamer will also appeal to the casual gamers and make the game successful enough.

This is a good question people in the industry should pose themselves but in the end, won't the industry be mostly geared towards its own perpetuation, by means of commercially appealing titles?

One of the things i seem to be missing from that kind of line of thought though, is, just what challenge is this that players don't want? When Bioware released Baldur's Gate 2, the amount of options, when compared to its predecessor, were many more. Weapon forging, strongholds, romances, classes, kits, two distinct guilds to join, more spells, more enemies... even the decisions in Hell. These no doubt added layers of complexity into the game: weapon forging required a (somewhat) active search on behalf of players for the items; more enemies usually meant that more strategies had to be developed; romances required a somewhat higher attention span on behalf of the player; strongholds even required replayability, and so did classes and kits, as they allowed for more complex character creation.

Didn't the title, however, sell more than its predecessor? One hundred people proabably thought the game was too hard, and there's always the ocasional village idiot who thinks it was a daunting task of epic proportions. But the game basically gave more. And people took it. I mean, the team included enemies like Liches, Dragons and Vampires, which can wipe out adventuring parties in *seconds*, yet how many copies did it sell? Now what does this tell us about players that supposedly don't like to be challenged?

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

One hundred people proabably thought the game was too hard, and there's always the ocasional village idiot who thinks it was a daunting task of epic proportions.

Okay. Why does this guy even play video games?

"I LIEK PONG! IZ EEZY!"

Yeah.... okay, pal.... whatever you say.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Add an "innit?" to the end of the "IZ EEZY!" and you've got a British chav.

Admittedly, I had a lot of fun challenging monsters like Draconis and Kangaxx for literally hours back in the day. There was just a lot of satisfaction in having defeated them. A lot of people on the Bioware and IPLY forums can attest to having similar experiences with BG2. The combat wasn't the best (preferring turn based over RT w/Pause) but it was certainly memorable. Those particular challenges really hit the spot, and weren't in any way frustrating like Lionheart's endboss was.