The_Lost_King said:
Almost everyone agrees that the story of DA2 is crap. Yes novels have been written in less time than Bioware had to make DA2, but the making of a novel and Videogame story are completely different. So yes the beginning stages of a videogame story is similar to a novel. Then you have to worry about how you are going to keep your story engaging. Then you have to worry about coding. Then you have to worry about Voice Actors. Plus keeping a story engaging in videogames is a lot different from novels. I also don't see any pros about a short development time other than I can get the game faster and they can make games faster.
Listen to the lead writer on teh pros of a shorter development time:
What were your favorite and least favorite parts of writing [Dragon Age 2]?
"The answer to both of these is the shorter time line we had to work with, versus the first game. The negative side is obvious: you have less time to do everything, less time to iterate, less opportunity to do little extras or follow up on moments of inspiration. The positive side of that probably wouldn?t be obvious to anyone outside of game development: when you have lots of time to work on a project you can often use that time in a very nonconstructive way. You stop being objective about a part of the story because you?re spending so much time with it, and start second-guessing yourself. When that happens it is literally possible to spend years developing a game and yet never make any significant progress. And that?s not good, either. Somewhere in the middle would probably be ideal"
http://digitalhippos.com/gaming/spotlight/david-gaider-speaks-about-dragon-age-2
Like I said EA was good for them at the beginning but now... I was going to be done with Bioware after the ending of ME3(which I am lying most of the blame on Bioware) but I realized how good the rest of the game was. Bioware has made good games under EA but I am afraid that their next games are going to be more like Dragon Age 2(decent games by standard of the industry but terrible by Bioware's standard) Rather than Mass Effect 3's brilliant except for a few hiccups(I am discounting the ending here I don't think they can do that again). I sincerely hope Bioware can make more me3's but I am scarred because of EA's history.
Well statistically speaking, the number of "good games under EA" compared to "bad games" is what, 3 or 4:1? I don't exactly see any sort of trend.
Regardless of whatever people will say of Activision and EA, there's something to be said for publishers that give definite release cycles. Being able to deliver a game on time is a sign of professionalism is, it's a quality many artists lack quite frankly. I work in an artistic industry, and there's a reason why all the producers and managers are non-artists. Because without them things would probably not get done.
Valve conversely is praised by many people but they demonstrated an inability to deliver on a game (HL2Episode3) and for that I basically have little respect for them.
When it comes to production, there are more factors than simply budget and production time. You also need people within the production who have a solid grasp of what they can do within that time frame and with that amount of money. And equally important you need directors and leaders who have a definitive idea of what they want.
People complained about the dungeons or somesuch in DA2 as well, saying they were all the same. To me that doesn't say the game is rushed, that says they tried to do too much. They wanted a bunch of dungeons but didn't have the resources or the time to fully flesh them out. If they'd pulled some people off some other parts of the game, those areas might not have been as good as well but the dungeons could've been better and wouldn't have stood out so glaringly.
The end product should ideally be consistent.
And sometimes good studios simply put out bad products. You want an example go and watch Cars or Cars 2, two movies that are generally regarded as not very good from an animation studio that typically gets very high reviews.
