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EA Exec: "Our Games Are Too Hard To Learn"

Discussion in 'Game Design' started by Aiursrage2k, Feb 10, 2015.

  1. DanSuperGP

    DanSuperGP

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    I don't know, I'd describe my wife and I as advanced players... we play pretty much exclusively on the hardest difficulty level... and it's getting to the point where it's too easy. We have all 6 classes at the top level of power, and have kitted out most of them with cool gear. We may not be hitting the highest levels in the greater rifts and we prefer our own interesting builds than the ones all the power munchkins flock to.

    I'm personally glad they moved away from the way things worked in D2. I think my wife would have liked it less having to make choices about her character while she was learning how to play it that could turn out to be a mistake later. The fact that you can just swap out all your choices at any time and try something new allows her to feel free to experiment instead of fretting about the permanent repercussions of her choices. That may be the greatest strength of the game in my book, even though it's the thing I've heard D2 players complain about the most.
     
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  2. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    It sounds to me (and I'm not familiar enough with the game to know if this is the case) like they got the learning curve just right, so that you can get better really quickly without feeling like you're having to put work in. I think a lot of people mistake that for "dumbing down".
     
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  3. GarBenjamin

    GarBenjamin

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    D3 is an example of an awesome game. Play tested and fine tuned to near perfection. It is my favorite AAA game. A lot of that comes from playing Diablo long ago then D2 and finally D3. The game is very easy to pick up and yet has so much to it. I just bought D3 and the expansion for my girlfriend on Valentine's Day. Last night she reached Level 70 with her Witch Doctor. She loves the game as much as I do. A lot of that comes from her playing City of Heroes a LOT many years back and then recently trying DC Universe Online. Which she says absolutely sucks compared to D3. Everything is basically the same. It simply is nowhere near as involved or fun. Big D3 fan here which probably explains my avatar of me wearing a D3 Reaper of Souls t shirt.

    Anyway I don't see D3 as dumbed down in any way. It is simply tuned to be highly accessible and is highly playable. I see it as a natural step forward from D2.

    EDIT: I should add that yes we both dislike the tutorials and tips. But D3 has an extensive options menu allowing those to easily be turned off along with numerous other customizations to tweak your experience more to your liking. I do see all tutorials and tips as dumbing down but as an option that is turned off it does not effect us. Still in the beginning the first thing she asked is how do I get rid of these stupid tips that keep popping up? Lol I guess they should have made that the first full screen while loading giant text DISABLE ANNOYING ON SCREEN TIPS IN OPTIONS -> GAMEPLAY
     
    Last edited: Feb 20, 2015
  4. Tomnnn

    Tomnnn

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    I don't think diablo 3 is a bad standalone title, I think it's a bad diablo game. Does that make more sense?

    As for the the skill slot limitation is argued to be set to 6 while diablo 2 had a limit of like 26 is that 6 skills is easily portable to console controls. You have your face buttons for your common attacks and the triggers / bumpers for 2 big attacks. And as @hippocoder mentioned, a point that is at this point inarguable, the console version is better. It has no burdensome DRM, it has better community features like trading, mailing and the nemesis system, and it has better controls. You can even dodge! They didn't implement skill aiming very well so ranged class play is a little wonky. The drop rate is also fantastic on console. It's a tad high, but it's way better than the draught the pc version is dealing with.

    It's also argued that it's not the 90s anymore so the drop from 8 players for a 90s title down to 4 for a 2012 title is unacceptable. This is also suspected to make the console port easier, since players cannot leave the same screen area if they are playing on the same console. That is also the argument made for the reason quests are so boring and linear - to make sure players stick together. If you wander far apart, the camera continually zooms out and then at a point you can't move any further. LAN across multiple consoles doesn't have this problem, but a lot of their design decisions seem backwards for PC but console implementation friendly. You can argue that games like MAG show that having lots of players isn't a big issue for console, but when you consider that consoles have 4 controller ports, the limit becomes suspicious.

    Stop making me think about these depressing things lol

    Easy access is 1 thing. Having the early game and late game not differ at all is what I would consider a dumbed down system.

    D2 early game? Hunt for big numbers! D2 experienced player early game? Hunt for a white 3 socket sword and the runes Ith, El, Eth for the OP bleeding runeword! D2 late game for both? Hunt for unique items (targetable by boss & high magic find) and look for high runes to make stronger runewords!

    D3 early game for noobs? Hunt for big numbers! D3 experienced player early game? Hunt for big numbers! D3 late game? Hunt for big numbers!

    Magic find used to be a thing in D3. But blizzard decided that it was too difficult for players to keep track of so many numbers, so all of your stats got reduced to toughness, damage and life regen. Dodge disappeared and MF died silently. And there's no way to target anything. Hunting bosses? might get garbage. Accidentally click a barrel / slay a white mob with 1hp? Might get a legendary!
     
  5. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    I can see why it's easier to put it on consoles. I can't see how it's necessarily "dumbed down". By the sounds of it, in D2 you could more or less have as much stuff in slots as you have to (i.e.: less decision making in this area), but there was more detail in the what-things-to-hunt-for area (more decision making or, at least, use of knowledge in this area). In D3, you have to pick 6 things to stick in slots (more decision making here) but when hunting for stuff the only thing that matters is "big numbers" (less here).

    Plus, the idea that you couldn't have had more stuff in slots on consoles doesn't seem right to me. With different controls you could still have far more - using bumpers as modifiers for the face buttons immediately gets you up to 12 or 16.

    In terms of what you're doing when you're playing the game, what difference does the complexity of stats on objects have? To me it made no difference, but I was a fairly casual and short term player so I wouldn't expect it to. At higher levels of play do people pick subtly different equipment to do different things? Or adjust play style based on differences in stats with equipment of similar power?
     
  6. Tomnnn

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    People who play long enough to see hell will have different gear and combinations of skills to deal with different kind of monster resistances, because in hell your resistances go very low and monster resistances reach immunity. In Diablo 3 you mindlessly stack the flavor of the month & as many crit gems as you can. In D2, you think beyond numbers and there's a huge selection of runewords and skills with specific purposes.

    Small example... a barbarian in D2 has primarily physical damage. A monster that is immune to physical will give a barbarian a hard time. If the barbarian presses tab to switch their primary and secondary / shield (also absent from D3), then that secondary equipment might have a combined +12 to Berserk (+3 from each hand, general +2 to all skills from other equips), which converts the barbarian's damage to magic.

    Another option is to have an act3 mercenary with you, since D2 mercs can be geared up and as strong as players (not like the useless 3 options you get to pick from in D3). The act 3 mercs are mages and you have choices between fire, ice and lightning for your mages primary abilities.

    Or you could have a helmet which grants +1 to leap attack, which will let you hop away and not even deal with the enemy. Gear was interesting and every piece contributed to a unique play style. RIP runes & complexity that made the game more interesting. It is an rpg after all. Or at least, the franchise used to be. What good is playing a role if the universe you're part of leaves you with no theory crafting or lore to influence your decisions?

    And don't even get me started on 1-2 minute cooldowns in an 'action' game. If the game is being so dumbed down to focus more on the A in ARPG than the RPG, then having delays >60 seconds is ridiculous.
     
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  7. DanSuperGP

    DanSuperGP

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    It sounds like you're really attached to the particular system of D2, so that D3 could not possibly be good because they didn't do it the way D2 did it.

    I like that they broke with the old way and went down a new path.

    More and more the gear choices have focused on increasing the build diversity by changing the behaviors/improving the behaviors of specific powers instead of just "buff numbers." I'd like to see more, and they have been introducing more of that with every patch.
     
  8. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    I'm sort of getting the same impression, but I'm not sure due to my lack of detailed familiarity with the game. Still, it sounds like they've changed where certain tactical choices are made. Instead of having a couple of equipment sets with different bonuses and being able to load up dozens of skills, you now have to pick 6 skills but can't swap equipment sets. So there's still choices, but instead of being derived from equipment they're derived from your selection of equipped skills.

    To me as a casual player that's definitely a positive change, because you don't have to grind and grind and grind to get random drops to get the stuff to suit a tactical situation (or grind to get money to trade for it). You just play until you unlock the appropriate skills, then equip them. People who like grinding can still do it and get rewarded by bigger numbers which generally improve most/all skills due to the homogenized system.
     
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2015
  9. DanSuperGP

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    More and more of the legendary gear is getting set up to change the way you play too. Lots of items that tweak the way specific skills work which work together to make cool combos. They didn't have these as much at launch, it mostly came about with the expansion. There weren't enough of them, but they keep adding more at each patch... and it's finally getting to the point where theres some really interesting build diversity happening.
     
  10. Tomnnn

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    It's not just this system in particular, I'm familiar with just about every d2 system since I played from early 2000 until... actually, it's still installed on one of my computers with PlugY and D2Scrabble. Almost everything is a step backwards, even the crafting. I usually disregard any arguments in favor of D3's crafting system if people can't tell me what a blood item is. I know it was tedious to have to look things up, but the crafting in D2 was fascinating.

    In an arpg about being a super powered being, D2 also takes the take with their longest cooldown being 1.2 seconds on the sorc's meteor... which can be reduced with +% casting speed on gear! lol.

    @angrypenguin I'm in favor of equipment-skill syngery, but it suffers terribly from RNG in Diablo 3. What's the difference between 50,000 damage and 150,000 damage? Reaching level 61. The gear dropping 61+ is way better on average and a weird jump in progression from all previous leveling. Then once you hit 70, it's a total crapshoot. What's the difference between 200,000 damage and 1,200,000 damage? For some players it's a few hours or days after reaching level 70. For other players, it is yet to happen. Also don't forget the brilliant idea to remove trading so some people get fantastic luck several times in a short period and are unable to assist friends who haven't found anything good.

    I would sum up my disappointments as... graphics aside, D3 is less involved than some facebook games you can play on your phone. It's about as complicated as cookie clicker. I'm just glad I'm not a huge fan of the early fallout games, their frustration is much greater than that of D2 veterans haha.
     
  11. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    You could always write your dream game. Try Unity, it's pretty good. Can cobble all sorts together in it.
     
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  12. IronDuke

    IronDuke

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    Two hours is too much!?!?
    I don't really agree with that EA guy, if he's talking about ALL games. The first game I played that I REALLY liked, ie hooked me on video games, was I-War2. It took me NINE MONTHS to get through the story, and it wasn't for lack of trying. When I died in the first combat mission I spent a week playing the instant action mode to get better, before trying the mission again. I-War2 was actually the only game I played for that whole nine month period, and since I was actually seven years old and had little better to do outside school, I probably put in about twenty-five hours a week playing that game.
    Ten years later, it's still my favorite game, even though the developers got bought out a year after it released in 2001. :(:(:(
    I still look for games that will require at least fifty hours of experience to get good at, let alone finish. Il2 is another good example.
    I do actually like short games too though, but I prefer them as a sort of supplement. I play them when I have an hour to kill and just want to blow stuff up. Then when I get tired of them, (takes about one hour, yeah) I spend a week or two playing part of a toughie, or working on my own developments.
    So, short games of two hours are OK, but if every game out there were two hours... I'd probably take up lettuce farming instead. :p
    Anyway, that's my personal take on this.

    --IronDuke
     
  13. Ryiah

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    Dwarf Fortress.
     
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  14. Tomnnn

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    I can't quite figure out why, but I've been wanting to make a text based game in unity. Seems overkill, no?

    That game was really popular with the CS kids in highschool. Never got into it myself. Too busy hanging out with the less nerdy but still outcasted minecraft & runescape crowds.
     
  15. the_motionblur

    the_motionblur

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    So? Maybe EA feel they need to make games easier than they are now. If they succeed with it and people keep buying it then they might not be completely wrong. If people keep buying the product and the company remains in business it has to resonate with an audience of some kind.

    That being said: The last EA games I've played were Alice: Madness returns und before that probably Mirror's Edge. And FIFA with a friend on PS3 but I don't own that myself. So I don't know if it counts.
    What I do love playing lately are smaller and faster paced games or indie titles. Somewhat late to the party I recently loved sinking hours into A+ runs on Super Meat Boy. Hell that game is difficult but rewarding. La Mulana .... so hard but so cool. Spelunky - probably not an easy game, either.
    I like those games because they are based around a refined and poished game mechanic. Of course I still do play "AAA" titles as well but more often than not I enjoy the smaller games. Also I know I support companies who deserve being supported by game sales, as well. And most of the time I also get a full game for a fair price.

    So why don't more people do the same? Because tastes differ and some people may actually like "dumbed down" games. I personally would not agree that EA games are too complicated to play but who am I to tell them what to think and what to produce? As long as the market is still diverse enough for indies to coexist and be successful as well I don't see a problem in this.
     
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  16. Ryiah

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    Yes, it took me quite a while till I found another gamer willing to give it a shot. He ended up loving it but eventually moved on when he ran out of things to do. This was back when Adventure mode was largely ignored.

    Every update since that point has added yet another layer of complexity. If only it had better graphics and a good user interface it might actually attract more people outside of the nerdy types.

    I sometimes wonder how difficult it'd be to create a front end for it in Unity.
     
  17. ostrich160

    ostrich160

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    While I agree with the general consensus of this thread, I wouldnt say that ultra minimalistic (at least to learn) games are bad, or worse. As long as theres a lot to be done with the simple mechanics. Look at Nidhogg
     
  18. Deon-Cadme

    Deon-Cadme

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    What is wrong with people...
    But just to be nice with them, I got a solution for them
     
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  19. CDMcGwire

    CDMcGwire

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    I'm agreeing with the EA guy on this one. While mastering a game can take however bloody long the developers want, I think (and develop according to this thinking) that both casual and hardcore games would benefit from being easier to learn. If the design is good, none of the tactical depth would have to be sacrificed, you just reveal it gradually to the player so they pick up on it when they're ready. I no longer have the time or desire to experience 2 hours of frustration just to try and play one game that I don't know that I'll enjoy when I could, instead, either be working on any of my various projects or play a game I know that I'll enjoy.

    Let me stress this point. Being easy to pickup is good design. A lot of old games we love are not really that well designed.
     
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  20. Fera_KM

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    @CDMcGwire Though I agree that being easy to pick up does not make a game simplistic. But good grief, if I am forced to sit through another forced hour of tutorial after pressing the "new campaign button" or end another final boss with a series of QT events...

    I swear the last few years I've been cursing more and more over games that does not let me play, but instead being a screen that tells me which button to press. (tomb raider, I'm looking at you..)
     
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  21. CDMcGwire

    CDMcGwire

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    I'd put that under the category of "too hard to learn" personally. Albeit in difficulty through obtuseness.
    I'm looking at YOU Assassin's Creed 3. 7 hours of game time and I still receive tutorials.
     
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  22. Tomnnn

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    I never noticed. Do games have tutorials when most of the content is interacted with via quicktime events? That's pathetic lol. If you don't know what to do during a quicktime event... well, there are no words. The entirety of the tutorial could be a 2-3 second splash screen that says, "This game uses quicktime events".
     
  23. ImAldu

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    Well, personally I feel it's both true and untrue. This is EA being partially honest and partially dishonest. Their games may indeed be harder to learn than they used to for NEW gamers to play but for those of us who have been playing their games for a while, we're used to it. But also, this is just an excuse for EA to create half-assed games that don't have as much content in them. They're speaking the truth, somewhat, so they can be dishonest and sell abysmal crap to their consumers.

    Feel free to call me wrong. Once again, these are just personal opinions.
     
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  24. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    I don't see how there's a correlation between learning curve and amount of content? And aren't "half-assed" games are the ones likely to take longer to learn? In my experience it takes more work to make them intuitive rather than less, even when they're stripped down to basics.

    "How hard is this game?" and "How hard is it to learn to play this game?" are subtly but importantly different questions.
     
  25. AndrewGrayGames

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    @angrypenguin and @CDMcGwire I feel are both right - a good game is one that 'just makes sense.' It's tactile; you don't need to read the manual to figure out how to play, you don't need a tutorial that is the length of the game to teach players how to play, you don't need boring hand-holding; play 'just happens' and flows naturally. You don't have to have a degree in English Literature to understand the subtle nuances of the game's aesthetic; you 'just get' what experiences, skills, and/or emotions the game is trying to inspire. I think the problem is less the game being "easy" or "for the casuals", rather more games not being intuitive enough.

    I feel what's wrong with EA's games isn't so much the affordances of the software, though in a few cases, that's an issue. I see most EA games having no clear aesthetic, because they're being made for the sole purpose of turning a quick buck. In my opinion, EA is making soulless games, that's why people aren't getting into them.

    If they focus on going back to the basics - something that's easy to pick up, tough to master, that is innately interesting - I don't see any reason why EA couldn't generate some nice big numbers, while gaining inroads to restoring their good name. They don't lack the talent to make this happen, but I can't help but see that the motivation and "soul" just aren't there.
     
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  26. Tomnnn

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    Sounds like the impossible quiz

    If only EA was willing to do that AND not wrap the entire thing up in the worst kind of DRM next to UPlay. Seriously they should call that stuff UMightPlay.
     
  27. angrypenguin

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    I don't like DRM either, but I've played a lot of UPlay games lately, from Australia where the internet is (comparatively) sucky, and I don't remember ever having problems with it aside from immediately after the release of Assassin's Creed 2. Are you saying it's worse elsewhere?
     
  28. Deleted User

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    Well hmmm, with Diablo 3 (long term Diablo fan) the extent of gameplay was unlock your two best skills and then click stuff until your enemies stop soaking damage. In the original Diablo the atmosphere and story was more detailed and it was all around a well balanced game, like some of the sub-plots with the arch bishop Lazarus for e.g. kept you on the edge of your seat. The butcher when he was first introduced was exciting and fresh..

    In Diablo 3, it all seemed focused on forcing you to buy loot. As I've gotten older, I don't appreciate grinding as much and there was little else to keep me coming back. I liked the game don't get me wrong, but it's predecessors were better..
     
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  29. Tomnnn

    Tomnnn

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    I was having a fond memory of AC2 when ubisoft shut down uplay so that only the pirated could play. It's funny how pathetic their implementation was that someone got around it by having a local server send 'true' to the game constantly. Beat the pirated game and told my local gamestop to stop selling the PC version until ubisoft realized they lost already.

    But I also remember launching a game from steam and then having to log into uplay from there. That's 2 different DRM systems in place for 1 game that didn't even have multiplayer lol.

    @ShadowK Complexity, fun, feeling powerful, etc. Diablo 2 does a lot of things better. Don't you think it would blow the average D3 player's mind to find out that not only can D2 weapons have up to 6 sockets... but that it's also not always desired to have 6? Some runewords need less. Also a concept probably beyond their grasp.

    The early footage of D3 is heart breaking :/
     
  30. Fera_KM

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    I am quite confident that neither EA nor Ubisoft wil ever produce a Crusader Kings 2 or Europa Universalis.
    I'm also confident in saying they are both very hard games to learn to play whilst also being very good games.
     
  31. Deleted User

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    Well the trick is, easy to play and hard to master. I was disappointed with Dragon Age Origins in this regard as well, it wasn't much past a point and click adventure game or basic MMO. If all I have to do is click one button repeatedly as games are supposedly an interactive medium, at what point does it just start to become repetitive tedium?

    I'd of probably been happier if they'd of just made it into a movie, then I wouldn't have to put my finger on ice (yes I'm exaggerating).

    I'm actually more interested in plot than gameplay, so it has to be boring for me to mention it.

    I think the terms accessible is short hand for we can't be bothered spending time to make it decent to play, so what we'll do is dazzle with super shiny graphics or live off the back of our name.
     
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  32. Tomnnn

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    Decard Cain was killed by a butterfly monster. Never forget.

    What I don't understand is that they had such great gameplay and aesthetics in the gameplay trailer from 2010 and then they wow-ified everything from the systems to the graphics :(

    They had the WD pets set up so that if you cast swarm on them, they became "swarm enchanted" and then they cast it as they attacked. That's innovative and as far as I know not been done before. It's a huge jump for the diablo series at least. But then it got scrapped entirely for wow-friendly everything.

    They pulled tons of content from their beta, reintroduced a lot of it in their first expansion... and then what? More of the cut content (runes) may be coming in the next expansion! lol. Activision is really a cancer to gaming :'(
     
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  33. Deleted User

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    Tell me about it, I had to go somewhere else to get my items identified and sometimes even open my menu to do it. How selfish of old Decard.

    Some of the WD spells were cool, if not a complete cluster **** of screen mess. It was like driving with 50 bats on your windscreen wiper :D, the market is really weird at the moment. The only two games I really want to get my hands on is Witcher 3 and the new Batman, the rest are safe tactics and I suppose in a lot of ways I don't blame them.

    But it's putting pressure on Indie's to fill the gaps and as much as I'd love to put the fiscal amount into a AAA game, I don't believe the payoff would be worth it.
     
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  34. Tomnnn

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    20,000 other people watching battlefield hardline this morning said the same thing haha. $60 for a game +$60 for a seasons pass? They said for what it is, it would be a good value as a $30 DLC for Battlefield 4 haha.

    I like the games the indie market keeps turning out. Stranded deep, the forest, tabletop simulator, 7 days to die (probably had more funding than the average, that game is really amazing!), the fifth day, rust, etc. Small, simple, inexpensive, fun. I notice that AAA games are becoming less fun.

    They streamlined the crap out of item identification lol. D3 nephalem suddenly gain the ability to identify items. But that took too long so we got cain's book. But that also was an issue because WoW fans don't have the patience of Diablo fans, so now everything is identified already, yay!

    Cain's book is still there though lol.
     
  35. angrypenguin

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    Having to dredge up examples from 5 years ago to demonstrate the lack of stability and reliability of a system actually doesn't support your point, though. Especially when those were launch issues. I'm pretty sure there've been a couple of incidents since, but honestly, I'm in Australia where the Internet is (comparatively) slow and unreliable and aside from the teething issues at launch time I don't recall a single issue with UPlay.

    But yes, logging into Steam to log into something else is silly. My pet peeve was Games for Windows Live, where you had to enter a CD key, then accept a license, then log in, and if the login failed (which it commonly did for whatever reason) or you had to reset the password you had to go back and re-enter the CD key. There's at least one game I never got to play solely because of how shaky that system was.
     
  36. Tomnnn

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    I'm sure I could find a more relevant example if I didn't avoid DRM protected games like the plague. After AC2 I abandoned the series entirely. After the D3 disaster I abandoned blizzard entirely. I might as well find a new hobby :p And D3 was also cracked before launch. You could run a local server called MOOEGE and play the beta. It wasn't fully there functionally, but the assets and code were all there. It was a playground of character models, skills and enemies. If you were comfortable running some commands, you could build a character from every available skillset and then fight a boss in town.

    My issue with DRM is that where I live, internet is super fast but also super unstable lol. And it only needs to disconnect for a few seconds for the DRM layer to kick you out of your game. Starcraft 2 had a nice system that wouldn't interrupt your solo play, but D3 has noticeable hiccups and rubberbanding if your ping spikes for more than a millisecond.

    No comment on GFWL. I don't remember which games I played used it because they were all cracks. The only thing I remember was that it said [GFWL] in the torrent title. Past me is such a jerk :D

    --edit

    'DRM' makes sense and is required in say... an MMO. BUT world of warcraft exists as in many forms as all kinds of private servers including guides to run your own. If an MMO can be played offline or over LAN with friends, then why can't singleplayer games? -end of excessive DRM rant
     
  37. 1701329761

    1701329761

    Joined:
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    dont discriminate old people. the make money in real world for you to play in fantasy world. they play better than you.
     
  38. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    15,617
    But that's what everyone says. Really, there are millions of people still playing the games. You don't lack evidence of more recent major issues because you don't play, you lack it because either you aren't looking for it or it's not there. You spend time on the internet.

    You know as well as I do that if other game launches were a tenth as bad as ACII's due to DRM instability we couldn't help but hear about it.
    Isn't this backwards? An MMO is protected by its fundamental nature - subscribers need an account. Single player is where it's needed.
     
  39. Tomnnn

    Tomnnn

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    My thoughts came out wrong :D I meant to communicate that DRM doesn't get in the way of the consumer experience for mmos. I guess it's kind of a nonsensical statement since it's primarily in practice for games that don't already connect to a master server for some purpose, my bad.

    Blizzard forums never cease to shout about server instability. There's even some pretty funny "failure to launch" memes about Diablo 3.

    It's only really an issue for me with gaming because of the frequent and random internet outages. I can browse the web just fine on 3G but I have first hand experience / nightmares of trying to play games on a 3G connection.
     
  40. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    But D3 isn't just DRM, is it? It's a fully online game. I understand that a great deal of play is just singleplayer and that the decision to make it a fully online game anyway was somewhat of a dubious one, but is it really fair to hang all of that on "DRM"?

    Even so, I'll happily concede Diablo 3 for the sake of discussion, as we're discussing a trend. How 'bout other games?

    Of course you have. 3G bandwidth is pretty nice, but its latency isn't - that kind of network simply isn't built for low-latency activities. So, like you say, it's great for browsing the web, but I'd never expect it to make an acceptable real-time gaming platform.

    I wonder how many of D3's reported issues arise from people trying to connect via such methods, or generally bad connections? The game does try to target a very broad range of systems, after all. How do its reported issues compare to those from WoW, I wonder? (I don't expect anyone to know/research these things, I'm just thinking aloud.)
     
    Last edited: Mar 23, 2015
  41. Tomnnn

    Tomnnn

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    I have tried D3 on 3G. It's playable, but every 5 seconds you're going to snap back to where you where about 3 seconds ago. Sometimes it is actually their servers though, because you'll see hundreds of people jump onto the forums to complain about it. And it's pretty noticeable too when it's their fault, because you'll have very frequent spikes of 800-2800ms lol.

    I don't know, really. Is that actually a thing? I know of games that are designed to be online only and only feature multiplayer as a mode that relies on a master server so there is effectively no offline mode, but... I dunno. They could have separated online and offline play if they wanted to (as they did on the consoles), but this conversation is making me think of this, so I can no longer continue.

    I've been sitting here lost for words for about 10 minutes now, so I give up :p What's happening to gaming is horrible. I wish there was a less burdensome way for companies to protect their product.
     
  42. evan140

    evan140

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    It doesn't matter what industry you work in. If a company leads with the words "can't" or "shouldn't" they're already setting themselves up for either failure or mediocrity. Bad things happen when someone in charge simply says "We are only going to do what the biggest population wants." That's no longer being creative or passionate. It's just creating a crop, and trying to ride it as long as possible. Understandable. They just want to stay open for business.

    The sad truth is that there will always be a large group of customers just aren't that interested, and investors willing to feed them their next fix of novelty: the latest graphics, *latest pop singer's name here*, the new Double Family Size SUV, or the Samsung 5.5+. It doesn't matter the experience is so boiled down it resembles nothing of the original passion. AAA titles have quickly become commodities and are the equivalent of buying the sequel to 1% milk every year.

    It happens everywhere. Take the grocery store industry, X company (too many examples to list) just wants to sell the stuff they can rely on to make the bottom line. Meanwhile, a company like Whole Foods is constantly trying to innovate and welcome in new customers for constantly new reasons. (Whether it's hype or not doesn't matter.) It was only after the success of stores like this did your average grocery store chain start introducing "natural sections" and claim they cared about ingredients and sustainability for their customers the whole time.

    Glam & Hair metal took the world by storm and made the metal genre incredibly mainstream. Record labels cashed in on this and often FORCED bands to include ballads. It was the difference of making exponentially more profit. This over saturated the market and the metal genre became a parody of itself.
     
  43. El Maxo

    El Maxo

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    I feel like a of of people on this post are losing site about what this post is about. Just disagreeing with EA since they are EA. Since coming from a background of playing games all my life, I myself, like many of you, find it laughable when they are trying to make there games easier. The majority of EA are, correct me if I am wrong, more casually targeted games. some have a higher end skill player base, but most are aimed to be casual and easy to pick up. I, until recently, never played one of there football games, my friends thought it would be fun to throw me on it and whoop my arse, since I had never played. And it was hard to get into, not knowing the controls, no easy tutorial. I wanted to give up after 30 minutes, so I can see that a player with less experience than me could get feed up.

    As somebody said earlier that simple game play doesn't need simple maniacs.