337 réponses à ce sujet

[Arttis]

i see

Well if they do go with awakenings it lessens the depth of the characters but at least they can make the game a lot faster without as much need for writing.

Its watered down but personally after you figure out the personalities and the stories of your party then next playthrough it feels worthless since you know it all already.

[Riln]

[quote]Gemaphrodite wrote...

Probably not. I found awakenings to be empty and fairly lifeless without the ability to converse properly and get to know those in your party. There has to be a middle ground, because I do think the first game had too much. I don't know, it's tricky. I understand both points of view. I understand why some people prefer the Awakenings system, but I would like to have the choice in game. If I don't want to talk, I don't have to. Though I felt it was a really important element of the game and I felt lonely without it.[/quote]I agree.  Without the ability to freely speak to your own party the experience is kind of empty.  It's just a bunch of running around killing stuff, running back and talking to random npcs for a few seconds.  If they would have at least had more stuff like the ceremony or the trial type thing in awakenings you would have felt more like you were a part of the game world.  I didn't pay $40 for a hack'n'slash game, I payed for an expansion to the original DA:O.  It was a huge let-down, especially since most of the DLC has been extremely dissapointing hack'n'slash, too.[/quote]


[quote]Like Arttis has said, you don't really need ALL that information on the second playthrough, so perhaps having the ability to 'turn it off' would be better.[/quote]True, but at least you can choose when and where to discuss certain things with your party, or save some of it for your next playthrough.  Really it's just the fact that you can develop your relationships at your own pace that made the game interesting.  Really, without any character development or interaction with the game world, Awakening isn't worth it, and if the next DA title is the same way then I definitely won't be buying it, maybe not even playing it.

(As a side note, how do I go about registering my game.  I heard that you can't post in any of the spoiler forums without doing so.)

Modifié par Riln, 08 juin 2010 - 09:52 .

[DanaScu]

Riln wrote...
(As a side note, how do I go about registering my game.  I heard that you can't post in any of the spoiler forums without doing so.)

Check the "My Games" link under your portrait. There should be a link there that will let you
register your game on this site.

Modifié par DanaScu, 09 juin 2010 - 11:18 .

[Relshar]

Awakenings had a conversation system? I am yet to find it.



I click on my party members and get nothing other than a generic response. I can't even talk to Anders and see what makes him tick like I could in DA:O.

But then its an expansion, but if they do the same for DA2 then its going to be boring and dull. But hey it seems the Witcher 2 is on the horrizon.

[DanaScu]

Relshar wrote...

Awakenings had a conversation system? I am yet to find it.

I click on my party members and get nothing other than a generic response. I can't even talk to Anders and see what makes him tick like I could in DA:O.
But then its an expansion, but if they do the same for DA2 then its going to be boring and dull. But hey it seems the Witcher 2 is on the horrizon.

Take Anders out into the courtyard at the keep. Find the statue of Andraste. Click on it. Anders will chat with you. Not about anything your pc might ask him, but you get his opinion of Andraste and the Circle.

Take Anders to Amaranthine. Use tab to find the correct tree across from Colbert/Micah, click on it. Anders will chat with you. Not about anything your pc might want to know, but about the wonderful smell of freedom from the Tower. And dogs.

Awakening does have a conversation system. Not one that lets me find out background information that I want to know, when I would like to chat, but a system nonetheless. As long as you have the correct party members and find the correct trigger. If you don't have the right party member with you, you can click on that tree until the darkspawn come home and not figure out why the tab key shows it as interactive. There are a few talks you get in the throne room, but they are initiated by the npc. [yes, you can click on the ale barrel behind Oghren or the bookcase behind Sigrun, but those work just like the outdoor triggers]

No, I don't like the system. EABioware should have to replace anyone's keyboard if they were playing Dragon Age Awakening when their tab key broke/wore out.

[Leon Evelake]

Riln wrote...

I'd have to say no, probably not. Honestly, who here played DA:O for the gameplay? Anyone? I doubt it. The reason that most of us played the game was because the game world was so immersive. I liked that it actually felt like you were interacting with a real person when you were talking to some one, and the fact that you could actually CHOOSE WHEN TO TALK TO THEM. Having conversations being triggered by random things is a pain in the ass, plain and simple. I'm not saying that it shouldn't happen on occasion, but having that be the players only means of communicating with his party members and actually having your allies develope as characters? That's just silly.

Really, I think what EA/Bioware need to realise is that the new system is only more cost effective if it doesn't put off so many fans of the series that they don't stop purchasing Dragon Age games and DLC, which it has very large chance of doing. Personally, I didn't expect a whole lot of developement in awakenings, but the system was just ridiculous. The way it turned out I already plan on renting the next Dragon Age title to check it out before I decided to throw away money on it the way I did with Awakening.

As a side note, I think romance should be brought back. It did a great job of giving the world more of a feeling of reality.

Arttis wrote...

i forgot to ask this but what is the difference between the convo system of origins and awakening?
From the videos ive seen of awakening i can not spot a dif.

  In Origins, you're allowed to talk to your party members by simply targetting them and hitting the action button.  In Awakenings, you talk to them almost exclusively through events triggered by examining random things like statues or trees scattered throughout the world, with certain items only triggering events for certain characters.  Aside from these random trees and statues, from what I've seen there's at most one plot item per character that triggers a conversation and one item in the party's "camp" that triggers a conversation.  IMO, the Awakening system is ridiculous and does little to further character development, unlike the original system, which let characters develope at their own pace without forcing the player to jump through hoops to talk to his own party.

I agree with almost everything you said.  But i think Awakening was good for what it was, the conversation system is forgivable in an expansion.  but  a fullblown sequel ...heck no.

[Catcher]

     I've been meaning to post on this thread for a while, but got distracted by various items, but, since it seems to still be going based on less-than-accurate assumptions and information, I thought I'd get it together to respond. I believe that Leon bases his initial post on This thread and specifically the comments made therein by David Gaider. (If you have another source(s) Leon, please let me know.) It's valuable for anyone who wants to know more about the topic to read in it's entirety, or at least David's posts because there are several good discussions that were carried on in there. (Some noise too, but that happens.) I'll be quoting mainly from that thread and one other from the General Boards that I'll link when I get to it.

Misconception 1: David said Bioware was implementing the Awakening Dialogue System exactly as it was implemented in Awakening. Actually, he doesn't commit to anything other than a preference for the style and explicitly states it could use improvement.

The approval system itself needs some looking at, but insofar as the dialogues in Awakening go, consider it a work in progress

Feel free to offer suggestions if you have them, but keep in mind what I'm trying to avoid. Just because someone may have liked the system despite its flaws doesn't mean it didn't have them, or that it couldn't be improved on -- and that goes for the new system as well as the old.

I think it could use some refinement, and I imagine some people are going to mistake the volume of dialogue itself (in an expansion) for the system, but overall I think it's a better way to go.

There are many more quotes like that. read them for yourself. The last quote was actually David's first forray which I placed there for...

Misconception 2: The Awakening Dialogue System was instituted to cut costs. I'm just guessing that this Conclusion came from this David Gaider quuote.

Hmm. I will say that "I like the old conversation system, having long talks with the character let me get an insight into their personality and made me feel really close to them, etc etc." is very understandable. Who doesn't like having long talks with characters you like? It is, however, a lot of writing that is inefficient and, yes, expensive. No, you as fans don't have to worry about how expensive it is. I, however, do, and I do have to think about the sort of behavior a conversation system encourages in players -- even if some players (especially the really hardcore ones) enjoyed the end results despite its flaws (and every system has some).

He does mention how expensive voiced dialogue is, but he also talks about efficiency, something that comes up far more often in all his other points. Further, this Misconception ignores the way that budgets are allocated in games (and most other business projects). The writers are given a "word budget" BEFORE they do any writing and that budget rarely changes much if at all during development. From this thread, specifically this quote.

I think you may, in part, simply be mistaking the amount of writing that goes into a full game like DAO and the amount that can go into something like an expansion or a tiny piece of DLC. I realize some people had issues with the interface used in Awakening, but even if that interface was what you were used to in Origins that wouldn't change the fact that there was exponentially less dialogue. That's something the "use both systems!' camp seems to forget. The word budget for Awakening was less than a tenth of Origins.

Let that last sentence sink-in for a minute. Then consider that word budget also covers all conversations including the ones that trigger quests, give rewards, build a Villian or two, etc. Any system would seem poor if given less than 10% of the full game's dialogue. The fact Bioware got as much out of that is a credit to the writers and the System, not a detriment.

Misconception 3: Player-initiated conversations are being stripped out of DA2.

Really..

My personal thought on that is, instead of having questions that you can ask a follower, having conversations you can initiate with them in camp in the same fashion that you do out in the world. So maybe there's a keg in camp and you see that clicking on it means "have a drink with Oghren" or similar... maybe even new items appear, such as something taken from a quest and you can ask someone about it without needing to have them in your active party per se.

really..

I think some people are getting the wrong impression, that my goal is to strip out your ability to initiate dialogue. That's not the case at all. It's more a matter of when and how.

really..

Another possibility might be spacing out dialogues in-between major plot points. You don't get to ask said character twenty questions right off the bat, no, but maybe after you complete a plot you could click on them in the camp and ask them about the plot point specifically -- and it leads into something related, perhaps at your option. I'd prefer that to exposition on their background (which is to say I'd prefer to reveal character and background while you are talking to them about something else rather than allowing the player to simply say "Tell me all about your background."

wrong

Err... was someone talking about removing romance or party banter or even removing entirely the ability to talk to a follower in camp? Not me.

I can certainly see why many people are disappointed with Awakening. There are certainly elements of its conversation system that need improvement and I don't see any evidence that David was unsympathetic to this. It's a false choice, however, to say Origins System plus Origins word budget versus Awakening System plus Awakening word budget. It's also a false choice to say Camp Discussion versus "Hunt the Convo Trigger". The conditions made for a bad introduction environment for a new system to be sure. There are, however, promising elements about allowing our Companions more agency to drive conversations, using Context to maximize the impact of the word budget, and making the whole Conversation aspect more interactive with The World that beg to be explored with a full set of lessons learned. This is the real choice I gathered from what David said. Hope this helps.

[macrocarl]

Solid post Catcher, you caught everyone up there by sticking to your name sake!

Seriously, all those points I picked up myself through all the dialog related threads but it's great to see them all here clearly laid out since, personally, my memory gets fuzzy and I can't remember who said what.

[Riln]

Like macro said, VERY solid post, but there are a few things I want to comment on...

[quote]Catcher wrote...




[quote]I think it could use some refinement, and I imagine some people are going to mistake the volume of dialogue itself (in an expansion) for the system, but overall I think it's a better way to go.[/quote][/quote]
The volume if the dialogue wasn't the only problem with the system.  Regardless of how much dialogue there was, the fact of the matter is that most of it was initiated by random items sprinkled throughout the game world, with the task of finding them left to the player.  Some of the (such as the canoe in the Fade) can't even be accessed once you've seen them once, so for a player to catch those conversations they have to either play through again for missing dialogue or load up and old save to make sure they have the right party member with them at the time, both of which are a hassle

[quote] Misconception 2: The Awakening Dialogue System was instituted to cut costs. I'm just guessing that this Conclusion came from this David Gaider


[quote]Hmm. I will say that "I like the old conversation system, having long talks with the character let me get an insight into their personality and made me feel really close to them, etc etc." is very understandable. Who doesn't like having long talks with characters you like? It is, however, a lot of writing that is inefficient and, yes, expensive. No, you as fans don't have to worry about how expensive it is. I, however, do, and I do have to think about the sort of behavior a conversation system encourages in players -- even if some players (especially the really hardcore ones) enjoyed the end results despite its flaws (and every system has some).[/quote][/quote]

  Like I said before, it's only "innefficient" if it doesn't draw in enough players to make up for the production costs with profit from sales.  I have to think that Origins sold well because of sales and that Awakening and future titles will sell fewer copies because of the way dialogue was handled.

[quote]Misconception 3: Player-initiated conversations are being stripped out of DA2.

Really..
[quote]My personal thought on that is, instead of having questions that you can ask a follower, having conversations you can initiate with them in camp in the same fashion that you do out in the world. So maybe there's a keg in camp and you see that clicking on it means "have a drink with Oghren" or similar... maybe even new items appear, such as something taken from a quest and you can ask someone about it without needing to have them in your active party per se
[/quote][/quote]
There's really not a huge misconception here.  All of the conversations in Awakening were still player initiated, but they were still a pain in the ass.  There's no need for a different way to initiate a conversation with a party member, especially since it has nothing to do with what the conversation will actually entail, and thus nothing to do with the volume of the conversation and it's production cost.

[quote]really..

[quote]I think some people are getting the wrong impression, that my goal is to strip out your ability to initiate dialogue. That's not the case at all. It's more a matter of when and how[/quote][/quote] 
At first this seems to make sense, but if you when you think about it the "when and how" is exactly what was changed in Awakening.  I understand that trying new things MIGHT help cut production costs, but I really don't see why we shouldn't be able to simply talk to our party members.


[quote][quote]Another possibility might be spacing out dialogues in-between major plot points. You don't get to ask said character twenty questions right off the bat, no, but maybe after you complete a plot you could click on them in the camp and ask them about the plot point specifically -- and it leads into something related, perhaps at your option. I'd prefer that to exposition on their background (which is to say I'd prefer to reveal character and background while you are talking to them about something else rather than allowing the player to simply say "Tell me all about your background."[/quote][/quote]

This was partially done in Origins, with different dialogues being available after certain parts of the plot had been played through.  All in all i really don't see how asking them about a plot point and then having them talk about background could possibly create a better system than we had in Origins.  If I'm going to discuss a party member's background with them why would I start by asking about something that happened with the plot, transition into a conversation about their background, end partway through, and then pick up again when we get to a new part of the plot?  Especially since this would mean less background on characters that are picked up later in the game.  All in all it seems like he wants to stray from the system we know and love and change it simply for the sake of change.


[quote]I can certainly see why many people are disappointed with Awakening. There are certainly elements of its conversation system that need improvement and I don't see any evidence that David was unsympathetic to this. It's a false choice, however, to say Origins System plus Origins word budget versus Awakening System plus Awakening word budget. It's also a false choice to say Camp Discussion versus "Hunt the Convo Trigger". The conditions made for a bad introduction environment for a new system to be sure. There are, however, promising elements about allowing our Companions more agency to drive conversations, using Context to maximize the impact of the word budget, and making the whole Conversation aspect more interactive with The World that beg to be explored with a full set of lessons learned. This is the real choice I gathered from what David said. Hope this helps.[/quote]


 A good summary here, and I agree with most of it.  I just want to add that using Context to maximize word budget only works out if it makes sense.  Holding off on some question that would obviously be on your mind until a part of the plot comes along that can transition into said question doesn't make all that much sense, and neither does triggering a conversation with a random object and then transitioning into someting that is entirely unrelated to the object.  All in all I think that some changes could improve the original system from Origins, but that they're also on the wrong track for how to do it.

P.S. Thanks, DanaScu, for telling me how to register my game.

Modifié par Riln, 11 juin 2010 - 06:48 .

[Abyss Vixen]

Re-writing as i forgot this was no spoilers, but I would much rather have the original conversation options than the awakening option. A mix would be suitable however the awakening options a near to rubish. So hopefully its a mix of filtering out the rubish in origins but keeps enough of the charecter still there than awakenings did.

Modifié par Abyss Vixen, 11 juin 2010 - 12:14 .

[Tezzajh]

i would prefer origins system but wouldnt mind if they used awkenings, but what really bugs me is the decision to use this system has come from the idea to cut costs, the awkening system wasnt for our benefit it was to maxamise profit, and thats what I hate about bioware now, they wont fix problems with the game cause they wont get more money, now theyre doing exactly same with the character interaction

[Tooneyman]

I'll keep this simple so bioware knows I'm not playing. If you make any short cuts with the game. I'm not buying it. I don't give a damn what EA or your pierce do with it. I didn't like the awakening system and I will not deal with it. If they do this. I'm not buying. I don't like short cuts. Short cuts get people killed. Get your head out of your air hole and look close, because your about to loose a customer if you do that.

[Asenkah]

A mix of the two with the majority using the Origin's system/method. Awakings just didn't feel the same and while going strictly with that system wouldn't prevent me from ever purchasing it. I would definately not be making a day1 purchase like i do with generally any Bioware product. Most likely I'd wait for the price to drop.



Go big or go home.

[Catcher]

Riln wrote...

Like macro said, VERY solid post, but there are a few things I want to comment on...

      Thank you kindly. Hopefully you don't mind if I ask a few questions myself in the spirit of moving the conversation foward?

Riln wrote...
The volume if the dialogue wasn't the only problem with the system.  Regardless of how much dialogue there was, the fact of the matter is that most of it was initiated by random items sprinkled throughout the game world, with the task of finding them left to the player.  Some of the (such as the canoe in the Fade) can't even be accessed once you've seen them once, so for a player to catch those conversations they have to either play through again for missing dialogue or load up and old save to make sure they have the right party member with them at the time, both of which are a hassle

      I don't think David (or I, for that matter) would argue at all that there weren't issues with the way conversations worked in Awakening. The first thread I referenced as the main source is riddled with comments from David where he is "thinking aloud" about other options. A question I have: should a Player get every conversation element with every Companion on any playthrough? If not, why is the idea that you might "miss something" because of not having the "right" Companion in the "right" place an issue? This isn't a challenge; I'm just interested in exploring this viewpoint further.

Riln wrote...
  Like I said before, it's only "innefficient" if it doesn't draw in enough players to make up for the production costs with profit from sales.  I have to think that Origins sold well because of sales and that Awakening and future titles will sell fewer copies because of the way dialogue was handled.

     I'm still waiting for someone to point out anything that David Gaider or anyone else at Bioware has said that demonstrates that the Awakening System was instituted as a cost-cutting measure. As I provided from the other thread, the "word budget" for Awakening had already been cut, so it seems like getting the cart before the horse to say the system was to cut costs. What causes this, I guess, is David's talk about efficiency, but then, that's a question of getting more impact over a set "word budget", not actually reducing that budget. One of the posters on the original thread summarized David's problem on Page 3 of that thread.

PC "So Alistair tell me about your time in the Templars"
Allistair *gives nearly word for word what the Codex says about Templars*
PC "WOW THAT MUST HAVE BEEN HARD ON YOU"
Alistair Approves +10.

      That's a lot of words (and VA that does, indeed, cost money) that could instead be used to have Alistair talk more personally about his time in the Templars. Think of it as an extension of the little intra-Party banter Alistair has with Lelania about how "quiet" it is in the Cloister. That's dialogue with impact enabled by Context that simply isn't present with the Origins system as it stands. I'll throw out some variant ideas on convo later, but I'd like someone to give me some idea where the "cost-cutting" idea came from.

Riln wrote...
There's really not a huge misconception here.  All of the conversations in Awakening were still player initiated, but they were still a pain in the ass.  There's no need for a different way to initiate a conversation with a party member, especially since it has nothing to do with what the conversation will actually entail, and thus nothing to do with the volume of the conversation and it's production cost.
 
At first this seems to make sense, but if you when you think about it the "when and how" is exactly what was changed in Awakening.  I understand that trying new things MIGHT help cut production costs, but I really don't see why we shouldn't be able to simply talk to our party members.

      I've already commented on and asked about the Cost thing so I'll leave it alone. Here's another one of those informational questions: What is the difference between not being able to initiate conversation and initiating anytime and getting one of the generic greetings with no new conversation options? This seems to be one of the problems that David is wrestling with from the Origins System, because regardless we Players can only initiate a dialogue about some topic after a Writer makes it available, not any time we "think about it". How does the Writer cue a Player that something new is available without having the Player constatntly flick the Companion like a PEZ dispenser? (How's that for showing my age? ) There are several ways to do it and each has its own set of advantages and disadvantages.

Riln wrote...
 A good summary here, and I agree with most of it.  I just want to add that using Context to maximize word budget only works out if it makes sense.  Holding off on some question that would obviously be on your mind until a part of the plot comes along that can transition into said question doesn't make all that much sense, and neither does triggering a conversation with a random object and then transitioning into someting that is entirely unrelated to the object.  All in all I think that some changes could improve the original system from Origins, but that they're also on the wrong track for how to do it.

      Thanks again. I get the feeling that part of the confusion is that there are a group of Players who don't believe that the problems David wants to fix are problems. Thus, the idea that there is some ulterior motive thus the whole "cutting costs" thing. Maybe I'm wrong. Here's another question: how would you improve the Origins system while addressing the issues of Context, too much exposition, and wasted "check-ins"?

[AestheticLove]

yummysoap wrote...

I would buy it, but I would not like it.

Those who argue that the Awakening method is better paced and all are absolutely right, but that doesn't detract from the fact that the player is ultimately restricted from taking who they want around, and from chit-chatting when they want to. In an RPG the player should never feel like choice is being taken away from them, and that is exactly what Awakening feels like when compared to Origins. I wouldn't mind it so much if you had the opportunity to ask them about the things you missed out on them talking about. Like, say, if Velanna's Andraste discussion doesn't come up on the field for whatever reason, you can opt to ask her her thoughts on Andraste afterwards, and thus you'll still recieve the same amount of backstory and character development than you would if you metagame and ensure all your companions are in the right place at the right time.

Logically, the keep would be the best place to have a one-on-one personal chat with the Warden, but companions will actively refuse to talk to you unless you're out in the middle of a field and they see something that interests them. Then they will stop everything that's going on and spend a little while to talk about a statue while you were busy trying to hunt down some crazy murdering elf witch.

The "dialogue points" are pretty ridiculous as well. How many trees did I pass before Anders' Happy Tree, which is completely indistinguishable from the rest, popped up?

As for realism, next time I'm at a friend's place and they try to talk to me, I'm just going to reply "need something pumelled? Just say the word."
On the way to the bar, however, I'm going to request they stop the car so I can talk about an interesting fire hydrant.

I must say, this has been the funniest post I have read thus far on this forum. Beautifully done, my friend. I completely agree with you on everything that you said. If the "sequel" to Dragon Age: Origins uses the same dialogue system as Awakening, then no, they will not be receiving a profit from me. To me, after buying Awakening, for basically the same amount money as the original game, fell extremely 'short' for me, to say the very least. Even to say that -- I am sugarcoating it, putting it nicely. To say what I really feel, I was disgusted by Awakening. The NPCs you are able to talk to around the city go more in depth via conversations than your own traveling companions do. I've played through DAO at least a dozen times, still creating more, and it's still a different experience every time. Since I completed my first play-through of Awakening, I have not touched the wretched thing. I feel like I've wasted my money, completely. You pretty much payed the same price as the original game, for what? A lot more bugs, retarded companions that feel as if they're not even there, and a few more hours of gameplay? No, I don't think so. Completely and utterly not worth it. I didn't feel connected with my companions in Awakening as I did with DAO. In DAO, I felt like I really knew who I was traveling with, and they became more than just mere "acquaintances" I met along the way. They started to feel like actual beings, friends, people that I trusted. In Awakening, there was NEVER an instance like that for me. Everyone was lifeless. When I came across Nathaniel, after me slaughtering his father, I thought that at least -he-, of all people, would give me something to work with. But, alas, he didn't. A few mentions of how I killed his father, and all was forgotten shortly after he was conscripted. Even now, I hardly remember who I even had on Awakening because the characters are not memorable, at all. Anders? If you're going to make a long haired, ear ring wearing knock-off of Alistair, then why not just incorporate him into the ACTUAL game? 

[/end rant.]

Edit: I wasn't aware that Awakening had one tenth the budget of the original DAO. Which gives me much more leniency when speaking about the game. This being said, I still, as made obvious by my post, greatly, greatly dislike Awakening's dialogue system. Gameplay wise, I suppose it was decent for what it was worth. Only two moments that stand out in Awakening for me are the court that takes place, and the guy that dude in the end. I cannot remember, for the life of me, what his name was. The one whom you saved at the beginning, I believe.

Modifié par AestheticLove, 11 juin 2010 - 04:36 .

[Riln]

Catcher wrote...

     I don't think David (or I, for that matter) would argue at all that there weren't issues with the way conversations worked in Awakening. The first thread I referenced as the main source is riddled with comments from David where he is "thinking aloud" about other options. A question I have: should a Player get every conversation element with every Companion on any playthrough? If not, why is the idea that you might "miss something" because of not having the "right" Companion in the "right" place an issue? This isn't a challenge; I'm just interested in exploring this viewpoint further.

A good question at the end there.  While I don't think they should necessarily have every conversation element for everyone on every playthrough, which you didn't, even in Origins, I like the fact that in Origins it usually made sense that you missed something since you resolved a part of the plot that would actually be relevant to the conversation while you didn't have a certain party member with you.  I remember missing a discussion with Sten about mages because I didn't have him with me when I went throught the Circle Tower in Origins.  However, requiring the player to hunt down hidden objects that usually aren't all that relevant to the conversation makes the task of deciding who you should bring where to unlock dialogue makes the entire process much more difficult.

     I'm still waiting for someone to point out anything that David Gaider or anyone else at Bioware has said that demonstrates that the Awakening System was instituted as a cost-cutting measure. As I provided from the other thread, the "word budget" for Awakening had already been cut, so it seems like getting the cart before the horse to say the system was to cut costs. What causes this, I guess, is David's talk about efficiency, but then, that's a question of getting more impact over a set "word budget", not actually reducing that budget. One of the posters on the original thread summarized David's problem on Page 3 of that thread.

This bit of text that you quoted seems, to me at least, to have strong implications that the new system was introduced to cut costs.

Hmm. I will say that "I like the old conversation system, having long talks with the character let me get an insight into their personality and made me feel really close to them, etc etc." is very understandable. Who doesn't like having long talks with characters you like? It is, however, a lot of writing that is inefficient and, yes, expensive. No, you as fans don't have to worry about how expensive it is. I, however, do, and I do have to think about the sort of behavior a conversation system encourages in players -- even if some players (especially the really hardcore ones) enjoyed the end results despite its flaws (and every system has some).

    I've already commented on and asked about the Cost thing so I'll leave it alone. Here's another one of those informational questions: What is the difference between not being able to initiate conversation and initiating anytime and getting one of the generic greetings with no new conversation options? This seems to be one of the problems that David is wrestling with from the Origins System, because regardless we Players can only initiate a dialogue about some topic after a Writer makes it available, not any time we "think about it". How does the Writer cue a Player that something new is available without having the Player constatntly flick the Companion like a PEZ dispenser? (How's that for showing my age? ) There are several ways to do it and each has its own set of advantages and disadvantages.

 

Generally, in Origins at least, there were new dialogue options after the player had earned enough approval from the companion they wished to speak with.  To me, this made sense.  To me, approval represented how close the Warden was to a certain companion, and the closer they were the more said companion would reveal.  As for the problem of knowing exactly when certain dialogue options would be available, I saw the idea that the companion would say something about wanting to talk if the party was out in the field.  This sounds like a good idea, but I'd like to add that having some one approach you to enter camp when they wanted to talk about something, and giving the player the option of telling them they'd talk about it later if you were in the middle of something, would go pretty far in letting the player know when a new dialogue option was unlocked and preventing the repeated attempts at talking to a companion who refuses to discuss anything.  Or, theres the possibility of putting a tag over a party members head while in camp, similar to the quest tags, to show that they seem like they want to talk about something.

Thanks again. I get the feeling that part of the confusion is that there are a group of Players who don't believe that the problems David wants to fix are problems. Thus, the idea that there is some ulterior motive thus the whole "cutting costs" thing. Maybe I'm wrong. Here's another question: how would you improve the Origins system while addressing the issues of Context, too much exposition, and wasted "check-ins"?

No problem.  After some other forums I've frequented it's a breath of fresh air to actually encounter people with the mental capacity to carry on a conversation about a game.  I think you're onto something here, but I what I think the actual misunderstanding is is that while people know there were problems with Origins, they're upset that while Awakening solved the problems we had in Origins it was a massive step in the wrong direction and actually ended up creating more problems than it solved.

Modifié par Riln, 11 juin 2010 - 06:32 .

[TMZuk]

Leon Evelake wrote...

The title is pretty self explanatory.  Comments from the developers indicate that dragon age 2 will use the Awakening conversation system or something akin to it.  Allegedly the original is not cost effective, though considering how successful the game was it seems to me it may be to ensure they can get the sequel out quickly.

--------------

I hate to say it but I highly doubt it that I will buy the sequel if they use the awakening system, other people have said the same on these boards, so I was wondering what other peoples thought on the matter are.

Possible after a year or so after it's release, when it is cheap. But I hope they won't use it; it is vastly inferior to the system in DA:O

[NKKKK]

Uggggh, Bioware is slowly being engulfed by EA.



Bioware will turn into EA RPG Studio Edmonton.

[Relshar]

TMZuk wrote...

Leon Evelake wrote...

The title is pretty self explanatory.  Comments from the developers indicate that dragon age 2 will use the Awakening conversation system or something akin to it.  Allegedly the original is not cost effective, though considering how successful the game was it seems to me it may be to ensure they can get the sequel out quickly.

--------------

I hate to say it but I highly doubt it that I will buy the sequel if they use the awakening system, other people have said the same on these boards, so I was wondering what other peoples thought on the matter are.

Possible after a year or so after it's release, when it is cheap. But I hope they won't use it; it is vastly inferior to the system in DA:O

If they use the Awakening system might as well wait till it hits the budget shelf. It just seems to me that BioWare are being told to cater for the console market which is what this conversation system is looking like in Awakenings.

I didn't even know about this when I played through the expansion and if it wasn't for chance that I clicked on something by accident I would of gone through the whole expansion without talking to a single party member.

[CultKiller]

There will probably be romances in Dragon Age 2, so I wouldn't worry so much about the conversations being the same as Awakening. "Akin to" could mean a lot of things. For instance, it could start out like Awakening style conversations, but escalate to DAO style as you gain approval from your party members.

Knowing Bioware, the story will probably be very well written. However, saying that cutting a major part of the  original game's popularity (party conversations) leads me to wonder what other "cost effective" cuts will be made. Cutting party conversations or, Maker forbid, romances, may be cost effective in development, but they should really be considering how their game is going to pull in revenue if they start cutting out the aspects of the original game that made it so immensly popular. No doubt they pulled in enough revenue from the first game to justify the money spent on it.

I believe EA is breathing down the devs' necks on making sure DA2 gets out on time. Seeing that Awakening wasn't delayed, they must be considering what changes were made in Awakening that made it so easy to release on time.

The real problem is this: Who are the devs more concerned with pleasing, EA or their fans? If the answer is the former, I'll bet they'll witness a significant drop in sales for DA2 compared to DAO, and even Awakening. Of course, this is assuming that the problem is pressure from EA.

If they're simply getting lazy, however, not only will there be a drop in sales, but I wager there will be a significant drop in Bioware fans as well.

[Arrtis]

cutting...origins?

every race gets one origin but you get an extra race to choose from?

[WhiteRobes]

Short Answer: No.

Long Answer: The point of BioWare RPG's [one of the points] is to be able to talk to people as if they are real people, not just quest giving NPC's.

Awakening breaks that.

[Leon Evelake]

[quote]Catcher wrote...

     I've been meaning to post on this thread for a while, but got distracted by various items, but, since it seems to still be going based on less-than-accurate assumptions and information, I thought I'd get it together to respond. I believe that Leon bases his initial post on This thread and specifically the comments made therein by David Gaider. (If you have another source(s) Leon, please let me know.) It's valuable for anyone who wants to know more about the topic to read in it's entirety, or at least David's posts because there are several good discussions that were carried on in there. (Some noise too, but that happens.) I'll be quoting mainly from that thread and one other from the General Boards that I'll link when I get to it.

Misconception 1: David said Bioware was implementing the Awakening Dialogue System exactly as it was implemented in Awakening. Actually, he doesn't commit to anything other than a preference for the style and explicitly states it could use improvement.[quote]

I never said that it was a sure thing this thread was to discuss peoples thoughts on the matter if that were the case.  I also said "or something akin to it" because it will obviously be expanded on but being that awakening and origins were all that we have to go on we discussed based on that, a great deal of time was spent on how people thought it may or should turn out.  So Misconception 1 not true for many posters

[quote]

    The approval system itself needs some looking at, but insofar as the dialogues in Awakening go, consider it a work in progress



    Feel free to offer suggestions if you have them, but keep in mind what I'm trying to avoid. Just because someone may have liked the system despite its flaws doesn't mean it didn't have them, or that it couldn't be improved on -- and that goes for the new system as well as the old.



    I think it could use some refinement, and I imagine some people are going to mistake the volume of dialogue itself (in an expansion) for the system, but overall I think it's a better way to go.

[quote]
Read this and it was discussed I said as others did that our issue was not the amount but the way the system works in and of itself.  And yes many of us don't agree on what the flaws of the original system was, many people said they like being able to get to know characters they use less, still there was a good deal of discussion how to deal with this issue.

[quote]

There are many more quotes like that. Read them for yourself. The last quote was actually David's first forray which I placed there for...

Misconception 2: The Awakening Dialogue System was instituted to cut costs. I'm just guessing that this Conclusion came from this David Gaider quuote.

[quote]
I said "allegedly and that I did not really believe that was an issue but that I thought they were trying to find ways to speed up how fast the next one got  out"
[quote]

[quote]Hmm. I will say that "I like the old conversation system, having long talks with the character let me get an insight into their personality and made me feel really close to them, etc etc." is very understandable. Who doesn't like having long talks with characters you like? It is, however, a lot of writing that is inefficient and, yes, expensive. No, you as fans don't have to worry about how expensive it is. I, however, do, and I do have to think about the sort of behavior a conversation system encourages in players -- even if some players (especially the really hardcore ones) enjoyed the end results despite its flaws (and every system has some).
[/quote]
[quote]
still reading that it seems a reasonable assumption.

[quote]


He does mention how expensive voiced dialogue is, but he also talks about efficiency, something that comes up far more often in all his other points. Further, this Misconception ignores the way that budgets are allocated in games (and most other business projects). The writers are given a "word budget" BEFORE they do any writing and that budget rarely changes much if at all during development. From this thread, specifically this quote.

    I think you may, in part, simply be mistaking the amount of writing that goes into a full game like DAO and the amount that can go into something like an expansion or a tiny piece of DLC. I realize some people had issues with the interface used in Awakening, but even if that interface was what you were used to in Origins that wouldn't change the fact that there was exponentially less dialogue. That's something the "use both systems!' camp seems to forget. The word budget for Awakening was less than a tenth of Origins.

[quote]
again we were aware that awakening was an expansion and had less money, several people said so and I defended the game several times.  Several people made clear the issue was how the system works even with the amount of dialog present in origins


[quote]

Let that last sentence sink-in for a minute. Then consider that word budget also covers all conversations including the ones that trigger quests, give rewards, build a Villian or two, etc. Any system would seem poor if given less than 10% of the full game's dialogue. The fact Bioware got as much out of that is a credit to the writers and the System, not a detriment.

Misconception 3: Player-initiated conversations are being stripped out of DA2.

Really..

    My personal thought on that is, instead of having questions that you can ask a follower, having conversations you can initiate with them in camp in the same fashion that you do out in the world. So maybe there's a keg in camp and you see that clicking on it means "have a drink with Oghren" or similar... maybe even new items appear, such as something taken from a quest and you can ask someone about it without needing to have them in your active party per se.



really..

    I think some people are getting the wrong impression, that my goal is to strip out your ability to initiate dialogue. That's not the case at all. It's more a matter of when and how.


[quote]

again this was discussed and many posters here hate clicking on an object to talk.  and see the changing in "when and how"
 as a limiting of choice

[quote]
really..

    Another possibility might be spacing out dialogues in-between major plot points. You don't get to ask said character twenty questions right off the bat, no, but maybe after you complete a plot you could click on them in the camp and ask them about the plot point specifically -- and it leads into something related, perhaps at your option. I'd prefer that to exposition on their background (which is to say I'd prefer to reveal character and background while you are talking to them about something else rather than allowing the player to simply say "Tell me all about your background."

[quote]
Also discussed and met mostly positively
[quote]

wrong

    Err... was someone talking about removing romance or party banter or even removing entirely the ability to talk to a follower in camp? Not me.



[quote]

Not sure how much this came up in this thread, it was in the "can we get continuity in the romance department " thread.. personally i never thought this would happen
[quote]

I can certainly see why many people are disappointed with Awakening. There are certainly elements of its conversation system that need improvement and I don't see any evidence that David was unsympathetic to this. It's a false choice, however, to say Origins System plus Origins word budget versus Awakening System plus Awakening word budget. It's also a false choice to say Camp Discussion versus "Hunt the Convo Trigger". The conditions made for a bad introduction environment for a new system to be sure. There are, however, promising elements about allowing our Companions more agency to drive conversations, using Context to maximize the impact of the word budget, and making the whole Conversation aspect more interactive with The World that beg to be explored with a full set of lessons learned. This is the real choice I gathered from what David said. Hope this helps. [/quote]

I am glad you posted all of those i had not read several of them.  i however think you have the impression that everybody here was far less informed than many are.  the vast majority of what brought up was discussed in one form or another and most are well aware that the system will be different in the end.  but the point of this thread was to discuss whether or not the implementation of the awakening system or something similar would effect  peoples buying decision.

[Arrtis]

Can you please not make huge quotes thank you.

I personally would like to see more clickable objects to start special conversations with your character.