People News David Gaider Complains about "Increasingly Toxic" Fan Feedback

[Excidium]

juvenile

That's the word of the day it seems

 

[DraQ]

It might have worked if the character was supposed to be like... a serial killer or something. Except she was supposed to be basically normal, which made it completely out of place.

Bingo. It would be ok, if it was deliberately made to feel out of place.

 

[racofer]

Fucking this. It's just unnatural. Imagine you have just sliced your way through some guys. Will you:

a) Be noticeably pumped from the adrenaline and also attempt to at least wipe your face before proceeding with human interaction?

b) Just start chit-chatting as if nothing happened with immense amount of clotting blood droplets dotting your clothes, dotting armour AND slowly drying on your face?

It might have worked if the character was supposed to be like... a serial killer or something. Except she was supposed to be basically normal, which made it completely out of place. The whole excessive blood and gore thing in DA:O just seemed kind of juvenile.

This.

This is what it should have looked like after combat, blood stains or not:

Your character is still pumped with adrenaline, ready to continue fighting and obviously fatigued by that. But, instead, what we got is this:

If you want to ditch text for cinematic presentation, at least do it accordingly. DA:O would have been a much better game if instead of the cinematic crap and piss poor character models/animations/acting we had text describing the whole "scene".

 

[DraQ]

DA:O would have been a much better game if instead of the cinematic crap and piss poor character models/animations/acting we had text describing the whole "scene".

Much cheaper too.

 

[Shannow]

video

Complaining about features you don't have to expose yourself to seems to be the Codex way.

Well, I don't temember that option, so it was probably patched or modded in. (And/or probaly turned on by default.) The fun thing is that Roguey thinks a shitty "feature" becomes less shitty if it can be turned off... Like: "This and that is shit in DAO." "Well, if you don't play it, it's not shit..."
I still remember the first cut-scene that featured blood spatter with relaxed conversation: I killed a rat. Afterwards there was a cut screne with everybody looking as if they'd just come back from a torture session in hell...

 

[DraQ]

I still remember the first cut-scene that featured blood spatter with relaxed conversation: I killed a rat. Afterwards there was a cut screne with everybody looking as if they'd just come back from a torture session in hell...

Gives the term "burst damage" a whole new meaning, doesn't it?

I never played DA:O, the retarded attention whoring with bloodsplatter in the videos is what put me off.

Same here.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Yeah, that did look a bit retarded when I first saw it.
Was it DAO or DA2 that had This is the new shit as it's cover song?

 

[Lancehead]

DAO.
I imagine after the EA takeover they felt the game they were trying to make (poor man's BG-like) was going to bomb in the market, so out of desperation they tried to appeal to the dudebro crowd with that hilarious New Shit marketing.

 

[DraQ]

Well, they've got the 'shit' part right.

 

[Roguey]

But the violence in those other games actually looks good. In DA, not so much. Just look at it. The whole body, from head to toe, is covered with tiny little splatters of blood?

It's so weird how you immediately go back to the persistent gore thing, a thing I already pointed out can be turned off.

Well, I don't temember that option, so it was probably patched or modded in.

No, it was always there. It was one of the first things I turned off.

(And/or probaly turned on by default.)

Yes.

ITT I find out a lot of Codexers are console gamers who always select "New Game" first instead of selecting Options and going through all of them, like a real PC gamer would.

Additionally I'm proven right about how Bioware needs to tone down the dudebro shit in their marketing.

The fun thing is that Roguey thinks a shitty "feature" becomes less shitty if it can be turned off... Like: "This and that is shit in DAO." "Well, if you don't play it, it's not shit..."

Who gives a damn how other people play the game?

 

[Infinitron]

DAO.
I imagine after the EA takeover they felt the game they were trying to make (poor man's BG-like) was going to bomb in the market, so out of desperation they tried to appeal to the dudebro crowd with that hilarious New Shit marketing.

Roguey does have a point here with regard to Bethesda. I wonder how it would have sold if they made something that was actually appropriate?

 

[Infinitron]

Who gives a damn how other people play the game?

Josh Sawyer does, you utter hypocrite. We have an entire thread full of posts by you extolling the virtues of game design based on how other people play.

 

[Roguey]

Who gives a damn how other people play the game?

Josh Sawyer does, you utter hypocrite. We have an entire thread full of posts by you extolling the virtues of game design based on how other people play.

This isn't hypocritical. If I were a hypocrite I'd be complaining about how Expert mode features are toggles. If someone wants to hide all the speech tags/thresholds or play a much easier game they can knock themselves out as long as I can play it the way I want.

I do wish Bioware would make persistent gore be off by default, that way they could tell from their telemetry data how many people actually want to play it that way, as opposed to leaving it on through ignorance/laziness.

 

[Broseph]

Persistent gore toggle in options is not the same as regular game mechanics i.e. rest spamming. Come on Infinitron.

 

[Infinitron]

ITT I find out a lot of Codexers are console gamers who always select "New Game" first instead of selecting Options and going through all of them, like a real PC gamer would.

This also isn't really fair. When you start the game for the first time, you don't know horrible that shit is going to look.

You get a bad first impression, and first impressions are important.

 

[Lancehead]

Roguey does have a point here with regard to Bethesda. I wonder how it would have sold if they made something that was actually appropriate?

But DAO did sell well. Over 4 million, I believe? And that was the most selling BioWare game at the time. I think the marketing worked to an extent.

 

[DraQ]

But the violence in those other games actually looks good. In DA, not so much. Just look at it. The whole body, from head to toe, is covered with tiny little splatters of blood?

It's so weird how you immediately go back to the persistent gore thing, a thing I already pointed out can be turned off.

So? It might not be a damning feature, but it's a perfect shit indicator.

In this case it said that people making this game consider casual conversation while caked in blood not only perfectly acceptable, but appealing enough to put in trailer.

 

[Roguey]

This also isn't really fair. When you start the game for the first time, you don't know horrible that shit is going to look.

"Hmm do I want my characters covered in blood until they change their clothes? Fuck no *click*." Don't need to see it to know it's stupid.

But DAO did sell well. Over 4 million, I believe? And that was the most selling BioWare game at the time. I think the marketing worked to an extent.

But Skyrim shipped 10 million without overly-obnoxious marketing, hotel mural aside so it's clearly something that isn't necessary and is very likely to discourage certain groups who might enjoy it and encourage people who won't like it because they were "tricked."

In this case it said that people making this game consider casual conversation while caked in blood not only perfectly acceptable, but appealing enough to put in trailer.

FYI there are people who work at Bioware who thought the marketing and that feature are just as embarrassing as you do. No they're not going to say this publicly.

 

[Infinitron]

"Hmm do I want my characters covered in blood until they change their clothes? Fuck no *click*." Don't need to see it to know it's stupid.

I disagree. It sounds like a "realism" option. Many people will think that's pretty cool and "hardcore" at first glance.

 

[Lancehead]

But DAO did sell well. Over 4 million, I believe? And that was the most selling BioWare game at the time. I think the marketing worked to an extent.

But Skyrim shipped 10 million without overly-obnoxious marketing, hotel mural aside so it's clearly something that isn't necessary and is very likely to discourage certain groups who might enjoy it and encourage people who won't like it because they were "tricked.".

I don't think the DA type of games have the appeal in the first place to sell ~10 million, but, yeah, the marketing was short term thinking and probably alienated many players for the second game.

 

[Hormalakh]

Roguey does have a point here with regard to Bethesda. I wonder how it would have sold if they made something that was actually appropriate?

I remember seeing that video and thinking "Man that must be a really cool game to play!" This was before I had known anything about Bethesda. I played Arena that summer. Didn't finish. Never went back. Heard Daggerfall was better. Had other games to play.

 

[St. Toxic]

Persistent gore makes perfect sense. The only reason you'd turn it off is because (in this case) it looks like it was purposefully sprayed out of an ogre's ass.

 

[Infinitron]

Lancehead
I agree, the Elder Scrolls have more inherent crossover appeal due to their first persion, action-based nature.

But...Mass Effect is a third person shooter, and it didn't sell too wildly either.

 

[Lancehead]

I agree, the Elder Scrolls have more inherent crossover appeal due to their first persion, action-based nature.

But...Mass Effect is a third person shooter, and it didn't sell too wildly either.

First person, yes, action-based, I doubt it.

I think a lot of the appeal comes from the sandbox level design where players can go mess about without story or narrative getting in the way or any type of real "direction" for how one plays and completes the game. And those aspects tie nicely with the first person perspective which gives a sort of "immersive" feel.

Mass Effect on the other hand is a very focussed and directed experience.

 

[Brayko]

It sold enough to keep Bioware in business but that's about it. Things that sell in absolute buckets is usually shit anyway, the problem is EA influencing them to make their games even more stupid to get sales and backfiring.