Game News Dragon Age FAQ: bullshit vs reality

[Claw]

Nicely put. You are a poet.

 

[Deacdo]

Which explains why NWN was successful enough to spawn two successful expansions, premium modules, countless versions of the game, a sequel, many awards, high rtaing scores, sell millions of copies, and the list on.

Oops. Forgot about the Bioware sheep.

 

[bryce777]

"Oh, and Baby Cakes, leave attempts at humor to those who actually have that gift. Okay?"

Well, I amuse myself at least and that's probably the best I can hope for thses days. Obviously, you know I don't wish you were dead or you wouldn't have made the jab at my "attempts at humor".

Most of the other broken records around here don't bother me because I don't have people around me in real (non-internet) life talking about Oblivion or Bioware or whatever nonstop. I don't hang out with any actual gamers. Unfortunately, I have had people around me in real life talking (preaching) about God and Salvation, etc from a very early age, telling me what to think and believe or I'm going to Hell. So it's more annoying for me to endure the God broken records than the gaming broken records (usually). It's a pretty common bias among us former Catholics.

I have nothing against Volourn. It's fun to talk shit about him because he gleefully and intentionally invites it. It's like pissing on someone with a golden shower fetish, everybody's happy.

Hmm. Going door to door telling people how much oblivion sucks.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Without the DM Client, role-playing would be limited to pre scripted dialogue and actions much like any other CRPG.

At best, a non DMed NWN module could be as good as FO role-playing wise, at worst a non DMed NWN module could be as bad as Diablo role-playing wise.

With a DM, and no limits at all role-playing wise it can reach98% of pnp role-playing quality.

Game over.

Without the players, all of those options would be worthless.

 

[RGE]

Why do game companies feel they need to advertise ideas as products? Instead, wait and advertise products as products.

Because their products are basically ideas? Well, at least that's why they feel that they can advertise their ideas as products. Though the people who take them seriously are the ones who really make it happen. Game developers are people, you can't rely on people, they're not machines. Heck, sometimes you can't even rely on machines.

But I agree that it's time to remove the obsolete stuff from that FAQ if it's still there. Or will the loss of Codex cred pay for the extra people that the embellished FAQ draws to the game? I guess it will.

Without the players, all of those options would be worthless.

Without players, any game disc would be a coaster. Well, at least if you cover up the hole in the middle. I always wondered about that hole. Do people who actually use their crappy games as coasters cover that hole up, or is the placing of the beverage more of an act of derision than an actual desire to not get sticky liquids on the table? Or does all the liquid stay along the edges of the glass/mug? I suppose that could be it.

 

[Volourn]

"Without the players, all of those options would be worthless."

Without the game, there would be no options AT ALL for the players.


"Oops. Forgot about the Bioware sheep"

Oops. You also seem to forget that some of those copies - including expansions and PM - were sold to some of you moronic Codexers.

 

[Calis]

Yes, yes, IRC is the epitome of computer roleplaying.

 

[Sol Invictus]

- Wouldn't it be cool if you could, like, totally enslave nations with some cool shit like necromancy?
- I like that. It's good. Write it down. Now, back to the story, you must find 4....

Hahaha. Good one, VD.

Anyway I think that you guys are being too harsh on the company. Yes, I think they made a mistake by being so specific about 'enslaving nations with necromancy' but there's really no point in going on about it for so long. At the time of its writing, I'm sure that it applied in some way or another. They definitely succeeded, if they were just trying to give gamers an idea of the epicness of the game, but again they made a mistake of being too specific about it.

It's hard to call them liars though, given that the game is still very early in development and we won't be seeing it for a while, a lot of these details are malleable, including the overall scope of the game.

As they developed the storyline they realized more and more that 'ensalving nations with the tyranny of necromancy' or what have you just wasn't applicable to the setting and story.

As David mentioned, if they changed the FAQ without bothering to inform anyone about it, there's no doubt that most people wouldn't have noticed it, and if somebody did notice it, Bioware would look a lot worse in this little situation than they do now. It's pretty nice of them to be as communicative as they are about these issues. How often do you see big developers doing that?

As Calis always says, "developers owe you nothing", and while I might have disagreed with him in the past, the strength and truth of that statement has become more and more apparent each time I see a thread like this.

 

[Sol Invictus]

I wish we could lock Volourn and ExMonk into a basement together for a week. Volourn will talk about NWN and ExMonk will talk about God until they drive each other crazy and kill each other. Or they fall in love and make some shitty religious NWN module together where you can hire Moses and Abraham as your henchmen and slaughter unbelievers with your +5 Sword of Annoyance.

How is telling them that they should go away just because you don't agree with their opinions conducive to a good discussion? Simply put, it isn't.

They have every right to express their opinions on the subject and I find it ironic that so many who would defend their right to free speech (e.g. "you can't shut me up, I have a right to criticize Bioware!") are rallying against them for defending Bioware and speaking their minds.

Talk about tyranny of the masses.

 

[Jason]

It's nice to know my poorly worded, smartass remarks are instruments of the "tyranny of the masses." Take up my Little Red Book and begin The New Cultural Revolution of Something or Other!

 

[bryce777]

- Wouldn't it be cool if you could, like, totally enslave nations with some cool shit like necromancy?
- I like that. It's good. Write it down. Now, back to the story, you must find 4....

Hahaha. Good one, VD.

Anyway I think that you guys are being too harsh on the company. Yes, I think they made a mistake by being so specific about 'enslaving nations with necromancy' but there's really no point in going on about it for so long. At the time of its writing, I'm sure that it applied in some way or another. They definitely succeeded, if they were just trying to give gamers an idea of the epicness of the game, but again they made a mistake of being too specific about it.

It's hard to call them liars though, given that the game is still very early in development and we won't be seeing it for a while, a lot of these details are malleable, including the overall scope of the game.

As they developed the storyline they realized more and more that 'ensalving nations with the tyranny of necromancy' or what have you just wasn't applicable to the setting and story.

As David mentioned, if they changed the FAQ without bothering to inform anyone about it, there's no doubt that most people wouldn't have noticed it, and if somebody did notice it, Bioware would look a lot worse in this little situation than they do now. It's pretty nice of them to be as communicative as they are about these issues. How often do you see big developers doing that?

As Calis always says, "developers owe you nothing", and while I might have disagreed with him in the past, the strength and truth of that statement has become more and more apparent each time I see a thread like this.

I think the thread title sums it up - reality versus bullshit. That is some rather high falluting hyperbole and as it turns out, just utter bullshit. There were no serious plans for this. It is something that would mean a pretty profound basic element of the game was completely different. Not just a story element and as VD said they don't start hacking on a game before they even decide if it's realtime or turnbased, a strategy game or an RPG.

When you look at the FAQ you want those basic answers. Is it an RPG? Do the choices I make affect the game? Does it have strategy elements? It's not the place for crap like that.

I don't think this makes them a horrible company. They at least always deliver credible games even if they are not all games I am going to run out and preorder. Calling them on their mistake is not demonizing them, either; they are the ones who wrote the fucking thing, after all.

As for the developers, they are not the slightest more important than anyone here. It is nice because once in a while they can clear something up on a point but generally speaking who gives a shit what they say just because they are devs? They are the least likely to be unbiased. I have been a game programmer, and programmed on other projects that were much larger and if a project sucks you never realize it til much later. You spend all the time working on cool stuff behind the scenes, and there may be lots of cool stuff back there, but if the basic design is just stupid or doesn't address the matter at hand it's all a waste of time.

Project managers will also say shit like "You're a rockstar, kid! This is the best product on the damn market and we're all gonna be feelthy rich! Do you want the ferarri or the cash this year for your bonus?!?!" Shit like that is not just an ego booster to you, but to your work. If you think "Fuvk this is a stupid project and a stupid idea." then you will never do a good job on it so good managers do all they possibly can to get you excited about it.

 

[Rosh]

(Whine, bitch, moan.)

Yeah, so it's still how we said it would be. Typical BioWare, typical loads of bullshit hype, loads of amazing OMFGROXXOR!! that turns out to be smoke, mirrors, and excuses again. Nothing you say can remove that FACT. Only a serious clue and serious representation of yourselves, invcluding the "revolutionary" garbage, will truly sell a game to people. You get called out on garbage like "revolutionary" when it hasn't even been released. What do you truly expect when you are called out on your bullshit?

FYI: Next time you want to talk about any of your games, stick to basic fucking features, since you guys can't be trusted to keep to the hype you spew or keep flowering up things to sell the otherwise crap system (Jade Empire, KoTOR). Yeah, we know about how development changes during development, and with BioWare it usually ends up with cut corners. That still doesn't mean that BioWare is going back on their hype and is caught in more lies. Again. People here and across the internet have spent time covering a game that has now turned to questionable status now that BioWare has been caught in the lie long before the release has hit gold status.

Now is the time for BioWare to either stop with the hype, or recognize that without D&D as a crutch, they wouldn't have anything. It has been proven.

It boils down to "Frequently Asked Questions" as others have mentioned, which is obviously a lie now, because I can't recall anyone asking them after the title was announced. It's more like "a flowery list of hyped shit that was want to make it seem like people already have interest in this title." Sorry if we don't want to play your hype game again.

No, it wasn't -- I said the FAQ was done before the story was written, not before it was envisioned or planned out.

Again. The FAQ was written before anyone really asked a question about this turd. So why use a bogus FAQ to hype about things before you even have the basic story and then axe them out later...okay, I'm sure even you are capable of figuring out exactly how fucking stupid that planning sounds. Again, it comes back down to our request of you guys; less hype, more substance.

Seriously, had we just updated the FAQ as planned I doubt it would even have been noticed or commented upon. It seems I shouldn't have said anything at all. This kind of "you owe us, we're the customer" attitude is what drives developers towards being less communicative, certainly not more. And that's not a threat or anything, just a simple observation.

So the customer isn't right? Then, by business ethics, I give a big "fuck you" back. By the way, I wonder if the suits at BioWare just knew what kind of business liability you just turned yourself into, in publicly advocating smoke and mirrors development, or as it's commonly known, white elephant. Seeing as they watch the bottom line instead of good design, I don't think that looks to good for you, but that assumes that they cared about being caught in lies as well, which we've seen how non-existent their integrity truly is. Either business-wise, or by public respect, you lost. If you see no reason to keep to the promises that you make to your paying customers, or be held publicly accountable to them, then I see no reason why anyone with any integrity in the industry or anyone who has been ripped off should ever be polite to you. You simply do not deserve it.

I knew you had a shitty attitude towards your customers, thank you for saying so, finally.

Regardless, I suppose it's fair to suggest that an FAQ is not an appropriate place to put marketing hype.

Wow...we only expect industry newbies to make this mistake. Thank you for being a few years too late.

Hype is so ubiquitous in the industry, it seems that we are incapable of communicating anything to the public without feeling the need to translate it into Super Awesome, first.

No, BioWare is incapable of conveying anything, even the simplest developer interview, without a load of hype. A good portion of the industry does just fine without it.

How that might change, of if it even can, is probably a seperate discussion, though, so I'll leave it at that.

You're right. How would BioWare ever sell anything without hype? For that matter, could BioWare ever write anything public without a shitload of hype? I think we know the answer there.

I'll just say in closing that I actually think a lot of you here might like Dragon Age -- it's certainly the most hardcore game we've done since BG2. That might not mean much to some of you, I suppose, but there it is.

Considering that BG2 had jack shit in it that could be considered "hardcore", ambiguity of that term aside, you might want to explain this. Perhaps the least contrived and most playable by those not on Ritalin, but still by no means "hardcore". Or do you mean "harecoreOMFG!! threemageswithmagicshieldsattackasyouentertheroom!" kind of "hardcore"? Especially if they still want to call an RTS combat scheme RPG combat, when the action obviously takes priority over the actial ruleset of the engine. Yes, we have heard those who have been misfortunate enough to have worked on the Inbred Engine.

Really, David, one would have to wonder why you come onto these forums, when you progressively top one pile of bullshit with a higher spadeful the next post. Seriously, what the fuck? You make bullshit excuses to cover the hype, shamelessly admit that BioWare DOES use a staggering amount of hype (that you claim we are ridiculous in the past for calling bullshit on), and then try to snivel and whine in "persecuted developer" mode. Sorry, it didn't work for the sad sacks who touted the company line over at Interplay, either, and you're doing a far worse job of spin-doctoring. And you expect respect in light of all that garbage? Sorry, not happening. :D

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

"Without the players, all of those options would be worthless."

Without the game, there would be no options AT ALL for the players.

Nice jab at the chicken vs. egg paradox, one I'm sure we could keep at, but the point is that the options provided in NWN for online play may be great but its ultimately the players who use them, shape them and justify them. In other words, NWN doesn't have "(...) more ROLE-PLAYING in its pinky finger than all other CRPGs combined (...)" exclusively because of the DM client. The DM client is a tool that provides players to connect and roleplay but the roleplaying itself is all thanks to the players. The means to roleplay != roleplaying.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

This kind of "you owe us, we're the customer" attitude is what drives developers towards being less communicative, certainly not more. And that's not a threat or anything, just a simple observation.

You say that as if it's a bad thing. I'd say it's preferable. As for the "you owe us" attitude itself, I'm going to disagree with Rex quoting Calis and say that as a maker of a product, you in a sense do. If you want me to buy it, you owe it to me to implement features I want to buy because at the end of the day, that statement works both ways. Customers don't owe you anything either (in particular, their money or praise for the product). As has been said, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. It all boils down to what you'd rather be damned for. Developing a reputation of getting people's hopes up and constantly disappointing them or keeping mum and perhaps even surprising them.

... in that when it comes to publicizing games that are still in development it's a bit of a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation. Truly if we kept our info restricted to stuff we were 100% sure of, we would end up making only the vaguest, most guarded statements -- and even 6 months prior to release we would still only commit to the broadest of feature lists.

If this is true, then I'll again point to it as a major problem in the computer gaming industry. It boils down to the reality that more and more, developers are simply shipping games when they're forced to, rather then when they're finished. Sure it happens in any industry but if you don't have 90% of your features finalised before you even start development, you're doing something wrong. Given games take 2 - 5 years to make, I'd sure as hell hope the feature list is well and truly decided early on in development, rather than 6 months out.

"Why do game companies feel they need to advertise ideas as products?"

That's easy. It's ebcause their customers DEMAND it. Look at any game company board. It's full of questions about the games whether they're announced or not. And, if the answers aren't forthcoming they're accused of being bastards, selfish, and a host of other names. That's why they give out ideas even if they aren't finalized.

How to say no.

 

[bryce777]

This kind of "you owe us, we're the customer" attitude is what drives developers towards being less communicative, certainly not more. And that's not a threat or anything, just a simple observation.

You say that as if it's a bad thing. I'd say it's preferable. As for the "you owe us" attitude itself, I'm going to disagree with Rex quoting Calis and say that as a maker of a product, you in a sense do. If you want me to buy it, you owe it to me to implement features I want to buy because at the end of the day, that statement works both ways. Customers don't owe you anything either (in particular, their money or praise for the product). As has been said, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. It all boils down to what you'd rather be damned for. Developing a reputation of getting people's hopes up and constantly disappointing them or keeping mum and perhaps even surprising them.

... in that when it comes to publicizing games that are still in development it's a bit of a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation. Truly if we kept our info restricted to stuff we were 100% sure of, we would end up making only the vaguest, most guarded statements -- and even 6 months prior to release we would still only commit to the broadest of feature lists.

If this is true, then I'll again point to it as a major problem in the computer gaming industry. It boils down to the reality that more and more, developers are simply shipping games when they're forced to, rather then when they're finished. Sure it happens in any industry but if you don't have 90% of your features finalised before you even start development, you're doing something wrong. Given games take 2 - 5 years to make, I'd sure as hell hope the feature list is well and truly decided early on in development, rather than 6 months out.

"Why do game companies feel they need to advertise ideas as products?"

That's easy. It's ebcause their customers DEMAND it. Look at any game company board. It's full of questions about the games whether they're announced or not. And, if the answers aren't forthcoming they're accused of being bastards, selfish, and a host of other names. That's why they give out ideas even if they aren't finalized.

How to say no.

Moreover, the stuff being communicated is not for our benefit. they never tell us the stuff that we really want to know, just what they think we want to hear. That is ok when it's at all in line with reality, but when it's just crap why should we listen to anything they say?

Letting out simple information would be nice, but making up stuff is not.

 

[Mefi]

Meh. Sod it. I'm off to play Fallout. Someone review this game when it comes out and let us know how much it differs from what we want.

 

[MrBrown]

Well, I think Volourn has the right of it (wait wait... this isn't as ludicrous a statement as that premise might make it appear) in that when it comes to publicizing games that are still in development it's a bit of a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation. Truly if we kept our info restricted to stuff we were 100% sure of, we would end up making only the vaguest, most guarded statements -- and even 6 months prior to release we would still only commit to the broadest of feature lists.

Hey Mr. Gaider, I have a question for you.

Do you regret the decision to announce DA so early to the public?