BioWare On Tracking Player Feedback

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?"

Comments

Re:BioWare Nothing But A Shell Of Their Former Sel

[RamblinLonghorn]

Baldur's Gate games were amazing, but saying they've gone downhill since is a bit of a stretch.

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.

Re:No, because games are made FOR players.

[Das Modell]

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.

Ah, of course. Playtesting is meant to make the game as bad as possible so it won't sell. Now it all makes sense.

One only has to look at modern MMO's and console RPG's to compare the basic battle mechanics in those games with a game like God of War or other RPG's whose battle systems have real-time or more interactive elements.

Console RPGs have been more or less the same for over two decades. Western RPGs tend to be stat-based games where the character's abilities are emphasized far more than the player's own skill. WoW's combat (which is real-time) requires more "interactivity" and skill than something like Baldur's Gate.

You're effectively trying to impose one genre's standards on another. You may as well demand that racing games should have more RTS elements and a better combat system.

Re:BioWare Nothing But A Shell Of Their Former Sel

[l3mr]

Actually, Bioware is working on this. It's called Dragon Age, will be based in a new, bioware-created world, and will have a full-featured editor from the start. It is not based on d20 but on a newly developed, probably more computer-friendly character+combat system.

Too bad it will take at least another year until its done.