Why the Dragon Age 2 hate is GOOD
- Thread starter FieryTrainwreck
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OP I agree with your logic except one massive point. The notion that by bitching about it it will hurt EA financially and get them to put more effort into 3. Problem with that is that people already bought it. Thus from EAs perspective, they see change = profit.
Nice touchSaelune said:
Right, I get that. Now what I'm trying to say is, what if you're wrong? What if you're the only one who likes Dynasty Warriors the way it is? Why should you be the one who decides whether something stays the way it is or changes, just because you like how it is now?Saelune said:
We actually see this a lot in politics. Conservatives like how things are now, Liberals want to change things. Both sides argue that they're right, but really it's difficult for either side to actually claim that they are the ones who are right, since it can go either way.
What right do you have to stop someone from changing something you like because they dislike it?
What right do you have to change something you dislike that someone else likes?
Really, there is no good explanation, so we just usually run with Majority rule, which is more a justification rather than an explanation.
With game companies, it's always going to be whether something is going to be perceived well by the majority of gamers. If changing something is going to make Dynasty Warriors sell better, then the makers of Dynasty Warriors are going to doing it, whether or not the fans like it. It sucks for fans yeah, but you don't have a right to keep it the same.
I think this is a good analogy
I have to chime in with an agreement here.
Dragon Age 2 isn't totally horrible (I actually feel the combat is an overall improvement, although it needs better power scaling so that the lower levels are a bit more interesting and balanced) but it's terribly rushed. The characters are thinner, the resource reuse is awful, and ... yeah, it was just flat out bad. I'm afraid for ME3 now.
Bring on the hate. Hate can be good, when it's backed up with sane, intelligent argument.
Dragon Age 2 isn't totally horrible (I actually feel the combat is an overall improvement, although it needs better power scaling so that the lower levels are a bit more interesting and balanced) but it's terribly rushed. The characters are thinner, the resource reuse is awful, and ... yeah, it was just flat out bad. I'm afraid for ME3 now.
Bring on the hate. Hate can be good, when it's backed up with sane, intelligent argument.
I get what his point was; what I was getting at was what right does he or anyone have to dictate the direction of the game. Lets say that it would actually sell more copies of Assassin's Creed if they turned it into like a Medival Venitian FPS in the line of COD. Lets say that it pisses AC1 and AC2 fans off, but a ton of COD fans buy it and Ubisoft makes tons of money. What right do the AC fans have to keep the game the way it is. A developer would stab you in the back in a heartbeat if it would net them more money.Zedar0 said:
I guess what I'm getting as is why should the established fan base have more say than a potential fan base?
You cant compair this to politics. May seem like you can, but you cant. Unlike games, different views in politics affects everyone. If I dont like a game, I just dont play it. However I am forced to deal with conservative bigots who dont want me to have all my rights.Elamdri said:Nice touchSaelune said:
Right, I get that. Now what I'm trying to say is, what if you're wrong? What if you're the only one who likes Dynasty Warriors the way it is? Why should you be the one who decides whether something stays the way it is or changes, just because you like how it is now?Saelune said:
We actually see this a lot in politics. Conservatives like how things are now, Liberals want to change things. Both sides argue that they're right, but really it's difficult for either side to actually claim that they are the ones who are right, since it can go either way.
What right do you have to stop someone from changing something you like because they dislike it?
What right do you have to change something you dislike that someone else likes?
Really, there is no good explanation, so we just usually run with Majority rule, which is more a justification rather than an explanation.
With game companies, it's always going to be whether something is going to be perceived well by the majority of gamers. If changing something is going to make Dynasty Warriors sell better, then the makers of Dynasty Warriors are going to doing it, whether or not the fans like it. It sucks for fans yeah, but you don't have a right to keep it the same.
I think this is a good analogy
As for the Dynasty Warrior thing, I know because I know other fans, which there are far greater than youd think. Plus, I buy the games. I continue to buy them because they are the way they are. Also, Dynasty Warrior 6, which changed alot, well, its also one of the most hated games of the series. I know because I am part of its fan community.
You mean she...Zedar0 said:From what I understand, he didn't mean that, to put it in terms of Dragon Age, only people who loved Dragon Age 1 should have had input on Dragon Age 2. I believe he's referring to what amounts to a Black Ops player complaining about Assassin's Creed because it's not modern and isn't an fps, or whatever--essentially someone who had no serious interest in the original because it wasn't to his tastes, but would play the next game in the series if it were homogenized to whatever extent. Expanding your audience that way sounds nice on paper, but by doing this, you also turn your back on the people who actually cared about and enjoyed the first game as it was, even if it wasn't perfect. Improvements are one thing (see AC2 versus AC1), but improving it in such a way that the game takes a different direction (DA2 compared to DA:O) is something altogether different, and I think that's what Saelune was getting at.Elamdri said:1. I could care less about your pointSaelune said:I was just being a philosophical nazi and you tripped one of my buttons. Sorry.
2. To address your point anyway: Why is it that someone who doesn't enjoy something can't criticize something or offer suggestions for improvement? It's strange, (and I'm not picking on you here, this is indicitive of society as a whole) but for some reason, people who enjoy something have this bizarre belief that people who criticize what they enjoy have no right to do so. I mean, if you look at a song for example on Youtube, if you see someone who expresses displeasure at what the song is, instantly everyone else jumps on them and starts telling them to leave if they don't enjoy it. What's strange is that it makes no logical sense to exclude people who don't enjoy something from commenting on whatever it is they don't enjoy. What if they actually have a way to improve it? What if it turns out there way of thinking is better? What if it turns out that while you think you don' like their idea, in reality you would like it, you're just unwilling to give it a try? What if the people who dislike something outnumber the people who like it? What right does the minority have to suppress the will of the majority (Honestly this goes both ways, but it's a perfectly fair argument)?
Food for thought
Bingo.FieryTrainwreck said:
Clearly EA is pushing DA to become another shoddy yearly stamp out, and DA2 really suffers for it immensely.
But if the players won't complain and just eat up all the shit then EA will keep doing it.
Story based RPG's take time to flesh out and unless people want the DA franchise to get butchered they need to step up and say something.
No, they haven't.viranimus said:
The sales for this game are not good for the type of game it is.
Mass effect 2 essentially doubled the amount of sales Mass Effect 1 did in the first couple of weeks.
DA2 is selling about on Par with what DA:O sold in the first couple of weeks.
That's pretty bad.
Well, Homefront had what what was coming to it. I mean they just could not shut up about how "fucking awesome" their plot was. While they didn't say it, they literally promised an epic campaign. Its what they were showing off, it was expected from them and they didn't deliver - that is why Homefront got called out on that. Granted it is still doing decently well from what I understand.John Marcone said:
CoD on the other hand has had no problem showing up as the "online only" type of game for the past few revisions. They promise nothing more then the best online gaming experience they they deliver on that. If you are looking for a engrossing single player game, CoD makes its clearly known that they are not the game you are looking for - that's why really nobody cares.
Understand, I'm talking in hypotheticals and abstracts here. Obviously gaming communities are pretty tight knit and if a developer changes something, they're going to be unhappy. The point I was trying to make though is what logical explanation is there for giving an established fan base more say over anyone else? Certainly there are plenty of justifications, but as for explanations, I am not so sure.Saelune said:
People have a right to complain about DA2 if they don't think it's up to scratch what really bothers me forum wise is that there seems to be about 6 new threads about it everyday. Some of the old ones aren't even off the front page. Just post in the old threads maybe? Then it would be less annoying.
Well, on a purely buisness point, as I said before, we buy the games. If you want to sell the game, then people buy it, why ignore their view in favor of people who dont want to buy it? Now, you could say, to get them to buy it, but thats a gamble. What if you change it, but still dont attract them? Now you also lose the people who liked it before too. If Koei wants me to keep buying their DW games, improve them without making them different games. So far, its working, and I actually think Koei is good at making sequals. The new one, 7, has tons of improvements, while still haveing all the stuff I love.Elamdri said:
If you really want to have the best of both though, then make different games. Im not completly hateful of change, but you dont need to stop doing one thing to do another. Another game series I love because its the same style, The Elder Scrolls, I would hate for say, Skyrim, to all of a sudden be something other than an open-world RPG. Now, if they wanted to make a different game, an Elder Scroll game thats an RTS, that could be cool, but not if I will have that INSTEAD of Skyrim. Give me that AND Skyrim. (Yes, I understand not every dev can, but usually the ones who cant dont have an established fan base for something and this argument doesnt apply anyways)
And this is the problem. Too many times developers only look at the people who didn't like the first game and basically taking their input as the sole reason for the changes that make it into the sequel, in a way, assuming that everybody who liked the first one will like the sequel regardless of the change and everybody who didn't like the first one will like the sequel due to the changes, meaning more money. But they don't realize that they are shooting themselves in the foot over the short term growth while loosing the focus of the long term fan base. This is how game developers fall - trying to please everybody soon means you are pleasing nobody. While people who didn't like the game do have a say on future changes, it strongly appears at time what they have to say has too much weight on the changes.Zedar0 said:
I understand games are expensive and a bigger market is required to support current and future budgets - but is selling the soul of a game just to garner a few extra sales worth it?
While I don't mind revisiting locations in games (perhaps months or years later in game timeline) - a bit of necessary evil in big complex RPG's, I find that its 100% inexcusable that all caves share the same map - from the The Wounded Coast to Sundermount. Generic dungeons share all the same map; except for the visible doorways that don't open between dungeons A B C & D ... *sigh* Its like the DA2 team decided the best idea they could copy from from ME1 was the universal map lay out of all the underground outposts.
I am a "real fan" who enjoyed Dragon Origins thoroughly, making over a half dozen characters and playing through all of the DLC. However, I don't have many complaints about Dragon Age 2. I was happy with most of the changes once I got used to them. The combat needed to be pumped up a bit, the companions have subtle differences depending on how you do things, your character has different actions based on how often you use certain forms of dialogue. Hell, I've had cut scenes change because of little things I did before.Saelune said:
Yes, it would be nice to put gear on your companions, however, you can instead keep the profit from selling the excess gear. The game isn't half as bad as all the bitching I keep hearing and I'm a "real fan," a pretentious term if I ever heard one...
The Map argument is one of the few points I'll actually back in this series of hate. I was very disappointed to explore the same cave over and over again.Murmillos said: