Mass Effect 2 text size,
More Mass Effect 2 impressions,
Bioshock 2 and Dante's Inferno,
Stories in video games,
Battleforge contest,
The big game,
Mail: Roll call
Mail: Windows 7 crashes,
Mail: Diablo 2.
I haven't played ME2 myself, but as a developer, I think I can make a pretty good guess as to why they don't want to change the font size..
They're likely trying to avoid having to reflow all of the text. They'd have to go through every place in the game with text, and make sure that it doesn't overlap other elements on the screen or run off the screen. If it did, they'd have to bring up an extra page/break or something, which, if it's synced to audio, would require going through and retiming the whole thing.
Now this might seem like it wouldn't be that big of a deal, but I'm going to guess that they use the same code for all the different localizations. And as anyone who's done text in video games will tell you (the Puzzle Quest guys mentioned this at GDC a few years back), you're always screwed for space for your text when it comes to German. Long words. No room.
So even if they did go through all of that, then they'd have to submit it to Microsoft for their quality certification stuff, which would cost Bioware money and take a long time. Plus if they found anything, then they'd have to go through the ordeal all over again, which would mean even more money and more time. It's a real can of worms.
So yeah, I can see why at this point they wouldn't be enthusiastic about changing things.
By the by, you don't ever want to freeze your text assets into graphics until the last possible moment. Text compresses a helluva lot better than graphics do, and the cost of converting text into graphics these days is comparatively very cheap. Especially on the Xbox360 where you've got only a DVD to work with, you want to squeeze as much stuff on there as you can.
I disagree with your little story rant. The story and characters were the best part of my favourite game...ever. Oh, and you should have made that contest the lowest unique prime number. That makes for a definite winner and a bit more...strategy?
Corrections: That was The Chronicles of Riddick (sequel to Pitch Black) you were thinking of Ivan, and Bioshock 2 has multiplayer.
Since Chad lives, literally, down the street from me, I'm assuming he's on Time Warner like I am. I think Adelphia pulled out of our area a while ago. Cleveland is mostly TimeWarner nowadays.
I understand the text size discussion, but this is something that has to be solved by all developers. How many games have been affected cause gamers start complaining about not been able to read the in-game text?
I have discussed in different web sites about game background. We have seen a lot of developers failing in that part, which is esential for a game to become a huge hit (Warcraft, StarCraft, even the old Wing Commander). Kirithem did an excellent presentation on this topic which I always recommend everyone to check it out.
Ok guys, you just killed all of your christian followers with that comment!
Music in Movies and Videogames are a narrative element the same as the the actual story. Don't believe me? Dub a sad scene of your choice with the thinking music of Jeopardy.
But I think this code is for the equivalent of a Magic The Gathering "Starter Deck". I'm guessing you get some decent uncommon / rare cards whereas if you go the totally free, you probably just get commons and have to buy the good stuff.
I just found out that Dante's Inferno is going to recieve a DLC in appx. March for a multiplayer co-op mode with a level creator. It sounds pretty cool, what do you guys think?
