BioWare On Tracking Player Feedback 41
simoniker writes "BioWare's QA director Phillip DeRosa has written a piece called 'Tracking Player Feedback To Improve Game Design' over at Gamasutra, which deals with how game developers can use statistics, even before a game is released, to improve gameplay. DeRosa "...explains how the Mass Effect creator has set up and executed code-based monitoring of key metrics to test, analyze, and refine its projects through playtesting." Is this approach sensible, or could it be more like movie producers 'pandering' to test audiences?"
No, because games are made FOR players. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Most games are not works of art. (Score:3, Insightful)
Video games are an art FORM, just as painting is an art FORM, but not every painting is a work of art, nor is every game.
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I would make the argument that actually games are NOT truly targetted FOR *players*, if we are speaking about advancing the art of game design and gameplay. Tonnes of mediocre games rake in a lot of money for many other reasons.
I'd say lots of playtesting now-a-days is geared towards dumbing down and making games easier, less interactive, more passive and more mediocre.
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Ah, of course. Playtesting is meant to make the game as bad as possible so it won't sell. Now it all makes sense.
Console RPGs have been more or less the
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You're the one who's never played Baldur's Gate. You can pause BG at any time, and you don't have to perform combos etc. in realtime, or run and jump around your target (which is what people do in PvP).
Oh, and since we're throwing around random accusation, then I may as well claim that you've never used a computer in your life. Ha ha, I win!
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Your equipment durability decreases and you have to run back to your corpse, which can often be very time-consuming and annoying. Resurrecting at a Spirit Healer will give you resurrection sickness that lasts up to 10 minutes, making you essentially unable to fight. If the entire party is wiped in a dungeon or raid it must be restarted. Preventing a wipe is one of the most important th
You're confusing "easy" with "mediocre." (Score:3, Insightful)
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You're right but the truth is when a game becomes too easy it becomes boring, so there must be some kind of push-pull with the player or gaming becomes a pointless excercise (no risk, no reward). There is such a thing as too easy and too hard. The thing that differentiates games from movies is PASSIVITY and lack of interactivity (taking part). Many modern games are becoming more passive, and hence skewing towards what a game shouldn't be: Passive. We have movies
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Forgive me for misunderstanding the nature of your complaint, but I disagree with your clarification as well. Different players want different levels of activity. The entertainment world isn't divided into passive (films, TV) and active (games). There's a continuum, and some players want "interactivity-light" games. Demanding large amounts of interactivity is threatening and off-putting to a certain class of players, and developers are starting, finally, to cater for them as well. Others are looking into am
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MMO's are not completely fucked by this sort of thing because many random variables cause the ebb and flow of the community to shift. Standard multiplayer games have a much tighter interactive experience, and screwing with the way
All new media pander (Score:1)
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Hell, commercial art sluts like Thomas Kincaid could be called pandering.
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Re:BioWare Nothing But A Shell Of Their Former Sel (Score:2, Informative)
KotOR was awarded game of the year by a ton of publications, and is generally agreed to be one of the best XBox games ever.
Jade Empire was received well and agreed to be one of the best RPG's of the year.
Neverwinter Nights was also a franchise that was well received and supported by an active community.
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OF COURSE there is going to be a "Game Of The Year". Being the top of the pile can just mean that the rest sucked worse. Like political elections.
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The community was the only thing that saved NWN from total disaster, as a game it *SUCKED* and it sucked hard. I would like to say that bioware was never been truly a consistent top tier developer. Kotor was above average, but bioware is pretty hit and miss, since different dev teams for different games do not all produce equally.
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I for one sincerely enjoyed the original campaign, it wasn't the *best* I've ever played, but it was very enjoyable for me.
I think too many people say the community is what saved NWN.
Bioware's internal surveys and statistics always indicated that the singleplayer portion of NWN was far more popular.
It's one of the reasons they launched the Premium Modules program (which was very successful until Atari killed it).
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As if this statement says ANYTHING about game quality. The Dev team even admitted the SP campaign was pure crap! That right there says quite a lot.
Yes thats right, since I actually own the piece of crap called NWN. It was totally mediocre to anyone who's played RPG's for the last 20 years, so I'd say my opinion has a bit more weight behind it then a D&D fanatic or some newbie gamer with no gaming history under their belt. How one experiences NWN is directly related to the amou
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Neverwinter's community was generally die-hard tabletop RPG fans who wanted to recreate the experience online. They used the DM and builder tools to create single-and multi-player modules as well as persistant worlds that managaed to capture the pen-and-paper experience like no other computer game before or since. You could actually have a living, breathing DM generating custom content on the fly. You coul
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NWN2 is a disappointment for me, IMHO for third party modules. Its impossible to put as
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Too bad it will take at least another year until its done.
It Depends (Score:2, Interesting)
Screw 'em (Score:1, Insightful)
Isn't it weird when something can be so far from its roots even when its so new.
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