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Interview The Secret of Streamlining

VentilatorOfDoom

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Tags: BioWare

<p>BioDoc Greg Zeschuk <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/7880099/Developer-interview-Greg-Zeschuk-from-BioWare.html" target="_blank">explains in this interview</a> with Telegraph.co.uk that they're <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">removing</span> streamlining the RPG elements of their games to maximize the depth.</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>A lot of the RPG elements from Mass Effect 1 were streamlined for Mass Effect 2. Was this done to attract a wider audience?</strong><br />Well I think it comes back to one of our main goals at BioWare: that we always try to improve the experience. It&rsquo;s interesting, because one of the things we knew right off the bat that we wanted to do for the sequel to Mass Effect, was keep the same level of detail, but make it a bit easier to access. It wasn&rsquo;t so much a case that we were going for a wider audience &ndash; we just wanted make a better game, which was easier to pick and play and enjoy. The potential to bring Mass Effect to a wider audience was a secondary consideration. The key thing for us was to make the whole thing better.<br /><br /><strong>Looking at the success this system has had in Mass Effect 2, will BioWare look at making the RPG elements in games such as Star Wars: The Old Republic and the forthcoming Dragon Age sequel more streamlined too?</strong><br />Yeah, to a certain degree. Like I said, we want to make each game better than the last and to a certain degree, the easier we can make the gameplay while maximising the depth of the game's detail, is something to aim for. We announced Dragon Age 2 a short while ago and of course we've been talking about Star Wars: The Old Republic for a while now &ndash; and people have had a chance to play it and probably see what some of our objectives are with the game. We try to do a lot of focus testing and usability testing with our fans. We're always trying to make our games as fun and easily usable as possible.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I'm glad to see that Greg still sticks to his principles, doing things for the greater good, to push the genre forward instead of merely aiming for more sales.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Spotted at: <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/98900-greg-zeschuk-interview.html">GB</a></p>
 

Gay-Lussac

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Bioware won't be satisfied until that kid that screams "TIMMYYYYY!" from south park is able to play it's games.
 

Luzur

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if they want simplicity and easy to pick up and play they should restart Game & Watch production.
 

AnalogKid

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Lying McFuckface said:
keep the same level of detail, but make it a bit easier to access.
FAIL!
Lying McFuckface said:
It wasn’t so much a case that we were going for a wider audience – we just wanted make a better game
BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT!

Why do they even bother outright lying!? :x
 

Rhalle

Magister
Joined
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Messages
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Lavoisier said:
Bioware won't be satisfied until that kid that screams "TIMMYYYYY!" from south park is able to play it's games.

The faster and sooner they dumnb it all down beyond any hope of redemption, the better-- because it will never be as good as it once was, and it wiil never get any better.
 

MetalCraze

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AnalogKid said:
Why do they even bother outright lying!?

Because there is a chance, about 1 or 2%, that if you tell sheeple retard that he is a sheeple retard while ripping him off - he may actually think that something is wrong for a few seconds - and out of those 1-2% 1-2% will actually understand that developers treat them as their personal piggie-banks. So Bioware will be forced to buy a smaller yacht this year.

And who'd want that?
 

Zeus

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How is making a game easier to access is a failure? Scenarios where a game is hard to access:

"Steam keeps bitching about I have to go online, and offline mode won't work."

"Ugh, this game has such a shitty interface, I have to dig through seven menus to get to what I want."

"The font in Knights of the Chalice is so pixelated I can barely read what anyone is saying."

You know what'd make games less accessible and much more hardcore? If we went back to swapping out disks during play, like in the C64 days. Stupid mainstream kiddies want their games installed on the harddrive at once, it makes me so :x

Edit: ..unless you meant that they didn't keep the same level of detail. By all accounts, ME2 is missing a lot of what made ME1 a borderline RPG. But I still don't buy into the whole, "Make it harder for me to play your game!" thing. Challenging games are fine, but making a game challenging to play is something else (see above).
 

AnalogKid

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Zeus said:
How is making a game easier to access is a failure? ..unless you meant that they didn't keep the same level of detail.
Asked and answered. He tries to pass off obvious, undeniable dumbing down (aka "streamlining") as increased accessibility, but jack shit INCREASED. All they did was remove all the stuff that was teh hard (and not terribly well implemented) in ME. I would have been very happy if they actually did anything like what he said. But clearly he's just a lying bitch of a spokeshole.
 
Joined
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Messages
285
shit i wanna see the man and throw up on him, shake him and yell don't fucking streamline my hobby!

Since normal dialogue choices become simpler, they should compensate with unique dialogue lines that pop up depending on your skills(like NwN SOZ), or your knowledge about environment, about people, about the lore, about secondary puzzles and stories discovered, all these things could create non-linearity and further choices, OR work as modifiers to basic dialogue lines.

But no, it won't be accessible, shit.
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
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"Since normal dialogue choices become simpler, they should compensate with unique dialogue lines that pop up depending on your skills(like NwN SOZ)"

You mention SOZ like it's somehow unique. NWN1 had this. FO had this. Tons of games have this

STFU with your SOZZY propping. Fuck that game sucks.
 

J1M

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Volourn said:
"Since normal dialogue choices become simpler, they should compensate with unique dialogue lines that pop up depending on your skills(like NwN SOZ)"

You mention SOZ like it's somehow unique. NWN1 had this. FO had this. Tons of games have this

STFU with your SOZZY propping. Fuck that game sucks.
Oh, so you only like games made by Bioware. Got it. How could anyone have forgotten?
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
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"Oh, so you only like games made by Bioware. Got it. How could anyone have forgotten?"

That's hilariius since I like NWN2, MOTB, and KOTOR2 - all games made by the same company that made SOZ. FFS u r dum

Do I really need to list the hundreds of games that i like that have nouthing to do with BIO and comapre that to the not even 10 games of BIO's I like?

Why are Codexians so retarted that actually think their lies are fooling anyone with a brain?
 
Joined
Mar 13, 2008
Messages
285
Volourn said:
"Since normal dialogue choices become simpler, they should compensate with unique dialogue lines that pop up depending on your skills(like NwN SOZ)"

You mention SOZ like it's somehow unique. NWN1 had this. FO had this. Tons of games have this

STFU with your SOZZY propping. Fuck that game sucks.

ihihihhi

sozzy, i won't do that again.

Also, i never played it, why is it bad?
 

Grunker

RPG Codex Ghost
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Gylfi.Fenriz.Conquests said:
Volourn said:
"Since normal dialogue choices become simpler, they should compensate with unique dialogue lines that pop up depending on your skills(like NwN SOZ)"

You mention SOZ like it's somehow unique. NWN1 had this. FO had this. Tons of games have this

STFU with your SOZZY propping. Fuck that game sucks.

ihihihhi

sozzy, i won't do that again.

Also, i never played it, why is it bad?

You've been here since '08 and you still don't know Volly? :)
 
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But, i didn't even wanna mention skills, actually, more like little puzzles and problems, bits of information to acquire, secondary NPC's to speak with,everything intended to modify those 3 dialogue choices or give better ones to have the edge.

But they don't dumb down something to make something else deeper. The 3-choice retardo-wheel can be compensated with better choices and better consequences but it will never happen.

Take fallout... as far as i remember you could help one faction, or the other faction. The choices were pretty dumb, no? Bad or nasty, no? But you could solve intricate puzzles, or use your skills to FIND more choices.

I hope i made myself clear.
 
Joined
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Messages
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Grunker said:
Gylfi.Fenriz.Conquests said:
Volourn said:
"Since normal dialogue choices become simpler, they should compensate with unique dialogue lines that pop up depending on your skills(like NwN SOZ)"

You mention SOZ like it's somehow unique. NWN1 had this. FO had this. Tons of games have this

STFU with your SOZZY propping. Fuck that game sucks.

ihihihhi

sozzy, i won't do that again.

Also, i never played it, why is it bad?

You've been here since '08 and you still don't know Volly? :)

well *scratching* i've been reading way more than posting, i never fully understood the critter, one has to make posting contact... I know he DOES mean what he says in a but also i don't(or viceversa).... uuh, microcosmos.

also, the reason why i rarely post... it's strange in here, it's a gloomy den, everywhere else im the worst troll, but the codex is... intimidating even for me, it kinda feels like facing one's own identity.
 

Begriffenfeldt

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Alexandros said:
I fucking hate that word, 'streamlining'. Hate it.
lol yeah

I was actually playing some ME2 earlier, and found this little tiny gem while looking up a quest on the fan wiki:
[url:34wanplw]http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Thane:_Sins_of_the_Father#Trivia[/url] said:
While interrogating Kelham, three renegade interrupts are available to the player, all of which encourage Shepard's fists to do the talking. This is the case regardless of who between Shepard or Thane plays the "good cop" and "bad cop". According to the Prima Official Game Guide, when Shepard is the good cop, there should be paragon interrupts available in which Shepard "offsets Thane's ruthlessness"; presumably, each interrupt occurs just in the nick of time. Since no such options are present, this may be a bug. Alternatively, the interrogation sequence may have been intentionally streamlined during development.
Intentionally streamlined... I have no idea what that means, but it sounds clever.
 

Grunker

RPG Codex Ghost
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Begriffenfeldt said:
Alexandros said:
I fucking hate that word, 'streamlining'. Hate it.
lol yeah

I was actually playing some ME2 earlier, and found this little tiny gem while looking up a quest on the fan wiki:
[url:he5yrpjs]http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Thane:_Sins_of_the_Father#Trivia[/url] said:
While interrogating Kelham, three renegade interrupts are available to the player, all of which encourage Shepard's fists to do the talking. This is the case regardless of who between Shepard or Thane plays the "good cop" and "bad cop". According to the Prima Official Game Guide, when Shepard is the good cop, there should be paragon interrupts available in which Shepard "offsets Thane's ruthlessness"; presumably, each interrupt occurs just in the nick of time. Since no such options are present, this may be a bug. Alternatively, the interrogation sequence may have been intentionally streamlined during development.
Intentionally streamlined... I have no idea what that means, but it sounds clever.

Haha what the fuck

Stealin' for ma sig bro
 
Joined
Mar 13, 2008
Messages
285
He's saying that he can make things easier and keep the same level of detail. It's a paradox, the person is clearly insane. The whole phrase is based on OLD commercial videogame slogans.

It's like astrophysics kept as deep while turning it into finding the base of the triangle or a book "for dummies".
 

Ermm

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WE WANT MORE CHALLENGE, MORE ANIMATED SEQUENCES, AND WHAT WE WANT IS MORE.

MORE PLANES, TRAINES AND AUTOMOBILES, WE WILL EAT THEM UP.
AND WE HAVE RIGHTS TO ASK FOR IT.
 

StrangeCase

Educated
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A trite metaphor near you
Intentional streamlining? Oh that's a relief, I thought it might have been a victim of unintentional streamlining.

Hey, Obsidian could use that! "Well, we wanted to make levels less linear, but other things kept taking priority, so they ended up being unintentionally streamlined."
 

Serious_Business

Best Poster on the Codex
Joined
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Frown Town
MetalCraze said:
AnalogKid said:
Why do they even bother outright lying!?

Because there is a chance, about 1 or 2%, that if you tell sheeple retard that he is a sheeple retard while ripping him off - he may actually think that something is wrong for a few seconds - and out of those 1-2% 1-2% will actually understand that developers treat them as their personal piggie-banks. So Bioware will be forced to buy a smaller yacht this year.

And who'd want that?

Man what is this shit? You still think you're smart and lucid because you play video games? Get the fuck off your stupid retarded horse, man you're retarded fuck I hate this place
 

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