46 réponses à ce sujet

[Master Shiori]

Arttis wrote...

How do you know its only the tip you could have learned most of the world of thedas in Origins....you never know right?

Let's see:

Orlais: ruled by an empress, seat of the Chantry and has a most disciplined army in form of chevaliers. 
That's it. Everything you know put in one sentence. Nothing about it's history, political conflicts, people or values.

Anderfels: land where Grey Wardens have their fortress and are basically the true rulers.
Even less than what we know of Orlais. Nothing that can really help us understand what life is like in Anderfels, what it's people are like or what they think about the Wardens. Not to mention we know nothing about what dangers and challenges the people of that land face.

Free Marches: next to nothing

Nevara: next to nothing

Antiva: has an order of assassins
At this point I know more about the Crows than the land they come from, which is very little.

Rivain: inhabited by dark skinned people descended from Qunari, followers of the Qun.
Yep, that's enough.. oh wait.

Tevinter Imperium: Plenty of info here. Ops!! Most of it is from before Andraste's time and completely outdated by today's standards. No idea what Tevinter is like today or how much it changed from the ancient times.

So, you have bits and pieces of information that might give you a rough idea of what each country is like, but nothing that would paint a clear picture of any single nation.
Sounds like a fertile ground for dozens of interesting stories and adventures.

[MindYerBeak]

The 'romances' are utterly boring and out of sync with the gameplay. You have a party of killers for gawd's sake, not a bunch of Kiss Me Kwiks. I can just imagine the SAS out on patrol kissing the daylights out of each other, can you? It's Hollywood rubbish, to tempt the girls to play. Leliana was supposed to be a remake of Imoen, hence the red hair. She was nothing like I imagined her to be and was certainly not a foreigner with a bad accent. They've botched the party, none of them have long lasting, memorable personalities. Can you honestly say Sten was as memorable as Boo? And Oghren, just because he burps makes him memorable? Old Never had it Alistair, what's memorable about him? The only character that carries the storyline is Morrigan, hence the fan club, and then she betrayed all the party members at the end.



It's no accident most players have female main characters. The male characters you can opt for look like spotty teenagers, not wardogs. And the Elves are positively ugly as characters without a Mod. As good as DAO is there's still room for lots of improvement. I'm hoping DAO2 will provide that. I want my Imoen back.



BG1 left the mind open to imagination, DAO fails to achieve that, perhaps due to the fancy, but awesome, graphics. A good book is far, far better than the film version, ask any avid reader.

[Swoo]

See, this is where we are going to just have to respectfully disagree with each other. You look at the most popular forum topics for Mass Effect and Dragon Age, it's the romances. Grey Wardens.com has been posting articles left and right on the site and is lucky to get 2 pages of responses, they drop a romance one and it's at about 25 pages.



And one, nothing holds up to Boo. He's the greatest character to never have a line in a game, so all fall short. Two, past that it's just personal opinion. I really like several of the DA characters and think they hold up well vs NPCs from other games. If you don't that doesn't instantly make either of us wrong, just means we value them differently. There are people out there that think Irenicus was a weaker main bad guy than Malak from KOTOR (the freaks!). To each their own I suppose.



And most people have female main characters? Do you have a link to some study which shows that, or some information gathered by Bioware? I know that sounds horribly confrontational, but I'd like to see where that came from. I've noticed on the forums that it seems rather balanced. Unless we are talking about those 'which pixels would you rather stare at for hours?!' crowd, which I think is just creepy.

[Arttis]

Master Shiori wrote...

Arttis wrote...

How do you know its only the tip you could have learned most of the world of thedas in Origins....you never know right?

Let's see:

Orlais: ruled by an empress, seat of the Chantry and has a most disciplined army in form of chevaliers. 
That's it. Everything you know put in one sentence. Nothing about it's history, political conflicts, people or values.

Anderfels: land where Grey Wardens have their fortress and are basically the true rulers.
Even less than what we know of Orlais. Nothing that can really help us understand what life is like in Anderfels, what it's people are like or what they think about the Wardens. Not to mention we know nothing about what dangers and challenges the people of that land face.

Free Marches: next to nothing

Nevara: next to nothing

Antiva: has an order of assassins
At this point I know more about the Crows than the land they come from, which is very little.

Rivain: inhabited by dark skinned people descended from Qunari, followers of the Qun.
Yep, that's enough.. oh wait.

Tevinter Imperium: Plenty of info here. Ops!! Most of it is from before Andraste's time and completely outdated by today's standards. No idea what Tevinter is like today or how much it changed from the ancient times.

So, you have bits and pieces of information that might give you a rough idea of what each country is like, but nothing that would paint a clear picture of any single nation.
Sounds like a fertile ground for dozens of interesting stories and adventures.

You have not been looking hard enough.
Plenty more info in origins alone.

[Master Shiori]

Trust me i have.



Also, trust me when I say that there is a huge difference between reading about a country and experiencing it first hand.

[Arttis]

Master Shiori wrote...

Trust me i have.

Also, trust me when I say that there is a huge difference between reading about a country and experiencing it first hand.

Trust me.There is plenty more info on some of those places in denerim alone.
Fine do not look assume you found it all yet do not know everything.

[Master Shiori]

*sigh*



If one book page can really help you understand all there is to know about a COUNTRY then great.



While we're following that logic why not just drop the whole Dragon Age series and move on to something else, since we clearly know everything there is to know about it and there is no place for new stories.

[Arttis]

Who says im only talking about codex?

When did i say this.

Proof you did not explore.

[Master Shiori]

Do you even know HOW you get codex entries?



By interacting with books, objects, items and people in the game.



And that is done by exploring.

[MindYerBeak]

The reason I took to Imoen in BG1 was because she was mainly responsible for saving my party's lives. She was awesome - and fun - when disabling traps. She always seemed to be around when I needed her most.



Look at the ridiculous hairstyle on my unmodded previous avatar. As beautiful as she is, does she remind you of a warrior, or someone about to tread the catwalk? I tried a male during my 1st playthrough as a Mage. He looked like a young girl with no makeup in a silly dress and a daft hat. There's a lot of things wrong with DAO which could be corrected in DAO2. We want male Heroes with scars and abrasive good looks, not spotty teenagers.



The romances appeal to the kiddie element of DAO. They can download nude Mods and Mods which make the love scenes more 'interesting'. The developers got that bit right for selling extra copies of DAO. The romances appeal mostly to frustrated kids who don't really play the game for the game's sake, hence the abundance of cheat Mods on DAO. Most gamers are in the teenage bracket, so it's them the developers have to cater for. We oldies aren't even considered. I consider the romances to be a sheer waste of time and never play them. Leliana gets on my nerves expecting me to jump in bed with her every time I hand her a flower. I certainly don't want to see my Heroes in the nude, thank you very much. It would ruin the credibility for me.



I know I'm in the minority, but I do at least recognise that DAO does have it's flaws. Alistair, a man in his mid twenties who never had a piece of the cake, and who looks and speaks like a character from that space comedy on the telly doesn't come across as a Hero to me. And when I become an Arcane Warrior his awesomeness makes him look like a wimp. There should be no need for an Arcane Warrior or Blood Mage. It makes Mages too overpowered, yet without them you struggle through most battles due to the overwhelming number of Baddies.



I don't want to see a team member back, such as Morrigan, who deserted and left the team to it's own fate after all I did for her throughout the game.



Sorry to disagree, but none of the characters in DAO are memorable as such. 20 years from now will you still be talking of Morrigan and DAO as people do of BG1 and it's counterparts with such fondness? I somehow doubt it.

[DespiertaLosNinos]

Master Shiori wrote...

DespiertaLosNinos wrote...

I'm with you on this one.

New characters, new location, new story, and different point in the time-line.

I liked DA: O a great deal, but its done and over with (excluding possible DLC and expansions).  I really am surprised by how many people actively dislike the idea of something new....mmmyep

Ok, I really don't get the bold part.

Thedas, as a setting, is a complete mystery to us at this point. What we learned in Origins and Awakening just scratched the tip of the iceberg.

There is a whole world out there that we know nothing about, characters to meet, stories to tell, etc. All of these things can be done just fine without time shifts. Hell, you could have the next game take place at exactly the same time as DA:O, but in a new country with new characters and a story unrelated to the Blight and darkspawn.
Even if you're going for direct continuation you only need to have your story take place several years after Awakening.

The whole "go forward to a different time/age" only makes sense if every details of the setting has been explored and almost every possible story told, so you need to make a time jump in order to give yourself a clean slate.
This is hardly the case with Dragon Age.

I never said go forward in the time-line, I would prefer back.....really far back.  I agree we know very little about the history of Thedas, and I'm sure this is/was intentional on the part of the writers.  To that point I would really enjoy getting some real solid understanding of the ancient tavinter empire and the invasion of the golden city ect.  Just my opinion but it is much more appealing to me than a rehash of the same characters we just learned about.

[Arttis]

Master Shiori wrote...

Do you even know HOW you get codex entries?

By interacting with books, objects, items and people in the game.

And that is done by exploring.

You obviously did a bad job at it if you did not find more.

[Wyndham711]

johanna76 wrote...

Wyndham711 wrote...

I'd like DA2 to have as little as possible to do with Origins, aside from taking place in the same world. I hope we get to enjoy something fresh and new and mysterious.

I understand this viewpoint, but throwing everything away and starting from scratch seems a bit radical. I have played a lot of RPGs in my day, and the reason I like Dragon Age in particular is the setting and the characters, the same factors that make me like a book or a movie. It wasn't really the game mechanics per se that I was drawn to. So if you take everything away, there is no telling whether I will like any future sequel.

I think the reason I feel like this, is that Dragon Age engages you the same way a good book does. For this reason, when I think "Dragon Age", I don't think about the skill system, the spell system, the combat system, the levelling system etc...I think of Alistair, Morrigan, the Grey Wardens etc. I really feel like I connected with some of the story's characters, which surprised me being such a jaded gamer and having played so many RPGs (particularly Alistair and...Alistair..but I digress).

I think people's desire for either continuity of the story line or a fresh start is often related to whether it is the detailed storyline itself that attracts them to the game in the first place, or rather technical factors that are independent of the story itself. I guess a third option is that people are simply interested in the Dragon Age world in general but without focusing on this particular timeframe/characters. Not having read any of the books, and not knowing about this world rather than from the actual games, I am not in a position to have opinions on that.

I think a middle ground would be the best option, where maybe you get many of the old companions back as playable characters, but the story takes place somewhere else in the Dragon Age world.

The characters were among the main reasons why I found Origins to be such a powerful experience. I just have faith in BioWare and the writing team to make lighting strike twice. I believe that if they give the new characters as much time and attention as they gave the Origins ones, I'll end up enjoying the new ones just as much as I did the old. But, indeed, why I'm so invested in Dragon Age is more in the setting than the individual characters.

I'm also a great fan of the origin stories, and a character import system would diminish their importance or it might even eliminate them entirely from the sequel. Origins was truly great but I think the sequel can well be even greater, though it probably wont happen if the developers' creative freedom is strongly restricted by having to constantly think about continuity and work around the same old cast of characters again. That is one of the reasons Mass Effect 2 didn't quite do it for me - the game was caught up in its blind desire to express continuity and to throw in familiar characters. I find it is an ungraceful way of telling a story.

[MindYerBeak]

Take a look at the male avatars on this thread alone. Do any of them look like Rambo to you, or like teenagers trying to look grown up? I mean, really, do they look macho to you? Dress them in a silly skirt as a Mage, and give them a daft hat and they look utterly ridiculous ingame. That's why I always go female.

The same with the female avatars, including my own. They all look as if they're ready to walk down the catwalk displaying their dresses. Hardly what I would call warrior looks. Take a look at Master Shiori's siggy. Now that's what a female warrior should look like instead of Alice in Wonderland. 

Luckily modding is here to save our dignity somewhat, but even modded most still look like boys rather than warriors.

I'm afraid the graphic designers were sub par the course for DAO, probably brought in on the cheap.

Modifié par MindYerBeak, 19 juin 2010 - 06:56 .

[Lucy Glitter]

I want a new expansion before a sequel set in a new time with new everything. Just so I can get closure.



I always say this, because I am so oigoluitfghpo about the direction it's all going.

[Wyndham711]

MindYerBeak wrote...

Luckily modding is here to save our dignity somewhat, but even modded most still look like boys rather than warriors.

Apparently, the PC is generally expected to be in his/her early twenties at most, so the somewhat boyish appearance of the male characters is completely appropriate.

[Passivehate]

I feel as if throughout the course of Origins, I have already fleshed out who my warden is. To bring my warden back for an encore doesn't sit well with me. Not to mention that I ended the game with all of my party members absolutely thrilled with me. Leliana and my warden were in love and left traveling together. I really don't see how the relationships between the warden and his companions can be expanded on without feeling like a betrayal to Origins and leaving a bad taste in my mouth. Not only that, but, with the majority of their personal quests complete, I feel that any other personal quests would seem...well, insignificant in comparison.

[MindYerBeak]

It's not the fact that they're young, but that they look too much like a Goody Two-Shoes person for my liking. They simply don't look aggressive enough for a warrior. Where's that steely stare and chiselled male macho look? They simply don't look the types who would happily go around killing stuff.

[Sarkus]

I personally don't feel like I need to see an continuation of anyone's stories. Besides, there are so many variations to consider that I don't know how they would deal with them, and that's assuming they even tagged stuff into the final save with a direct continuation of the story in mind. How much time should the devs spend fleshing out former companions who a player might not even see depending on how their game of Origins even went. And I'm not even considering the additional layer of detail needed if your character in DA2 carries over from DA1 (plus you'd need to accomodate those who's main characters aren't around and so on.)

It'd be much better to see a new story in a new time and place. A reference back to the previous hero and his companions is fine but there's no need for them to make an appearance.

[nos_astra]

Sarkus wrote...
It'd be much better to see a new story in a new time and place. A reference back to the previous hero and his companions is fine but there's no need for them to make an appearance.

That's exactly what I think. What kind of continuity can you provide if you have to cover the life of a former dwarf duster and that of a high-ranking human noble? I'd rather play a new story with some vague references that give me the impression I'm still in the same universe as my old Warden instead of seeing her blended into a role that doesn't fit her character or her station.

Modifié par klarabella, 19 juin 2010 - 08:39 .

[johanna76]

MindYerBeak wrote...

And why start with a level 20 character? That defeats the whole object of an RPG, where you start from scratch and build yourself up to something powerful. Starting at level 20 is the lazy man's option.

Oldschool "hardcore" RPGs that defined the genre (such as the SSI Goldbox series) always had you start at an incrementally higher level in each sequel, while simultaneously raising the level cap. Regardless of one's opinion about such an approach being used in the DA sequel, I disagree that it is in any way a lazy option - play Dark Queen of Krynn or Pools of Darkness for instance, and tell me that they are too easy to beat despite your characters starting at a high level .

[Carmen]

Master Shiori wrote...
For me the reason I love DA:O characters so much is exactly because of the flaws you listed. That's what makes them truly human in my mind. 
And the personalities of the companions is what people love. Just check the topics about individual characters or ask anyone who played DA:O what is the first thing that comes to mind when he/she thinks about the game. 
Gameplay mechanics, levels, specializations, combat? No.
Story and characters? Yes.

Levels, equipment and abilities don't matter. What matters is your character's history, sense of accomplishment, friendships and romances. This is what people want to see carry over. As long as that happens I'll be more than happy to relevel my Warden from scratch.

Indeed, I feel the same way. It is interesting how perspectives vary. It seems like there are two camps: some see the warden as an independent disposable anonymous individual who they control, but don't really identify with as such. Thus, whether the warden features in future stories or not does not seem important to them, as they are more distanced from the whole thing and simply like the game world as a whole and/or the gameplay factor.

Other people relate more directly to the warden, and feel like they (the player) were the ones exploring the land of Ferelden living the life that the PC was actually living - making friends and enemies, falling in love etc. I think if you immerse yourself a lot in the world from a first person perspective, and feel like the warden "becomes you", then you are much more likely to want to see a return of the same perspective, companions, romances etc, because otherwise it feels like they are cutting your perspective short. In a way, it is not the warden per se that they want to return, but the warden's perspective on the world (including all choices made by them in the first game), since they are so immersed in that perspective and that is what made the game memorable to them. At least that is what I feel is the main difference in viewpoint. I myself (and probably the poster I quoted in agreement) fall into the last camp, but it is a matter of "how" you experience the game I suppose.