13 réponses à ce sujet

[MFCell]

After all the resounding praise I always gave DA:O, in every case, I assumed you would do right by me because DA:O was ALREADY a throw-back game, which relied on tried and true gameplay mechanics, rather than flashy battles.

Imagine my surprise to find out that DA2 is in fact, Dragon Effect, and doesn't even pick up where the events of DA:O left off, it actually starts in the midst them.  What a slap in the face.  It makse no sense.  It's like you guys are trying to make my decisions unimportant, setting it up so the later decisions I made could not POSSIBLY impact the games beginning.  DA:O was such a run away hit with RPG fans, why would you guys tweak it like this?

Really, REALLY seems like this is a bad dream. I'm not even kidding. If I had a nightmare about the DA sequel, today would be it.

I beleive this can easily be considered the worst thing to happen in Dragon Age history, including the Blight.

I'm leaving the forums now, and I doubt I'll ever come back.  All I wanted was to continue my story.  All I got was Shepard with a new name and a sword.

In fact, Bioware.  I'm gonna start dissing you guys as sellouts to my friends when they ask me about DA2.  I'll tell them "Nah it wont be any good." "Why?" they will ask, and I will reply "Did you enjoy Mass Effect?" "No, not nearly as much as DA:O"... "Well, they are making it much more like ME than DA:O this time around."  At this point, my DnD game hungry friends will surely frown, a moment of sadness passing as they greive for the game that could have been, but will not be.

Yes Bioware, I'm going to talk BADLY about you for this, by drawing comparisons between ME and DA to gamers who realize ME is a Halo rehash with HP.  Consider any personal reviews of DA2 I do to be completely negative. And beleive me, I will get asked eventually, especially as release draws near.  It should be something a little new to you guys, word of mouth attempts to disparage your games release.  Your fans are always so cuddley and happy with you.  It's about time you guys got the end of the stick the rest of the industry gets from alienated fans.  The ****ty one.

[David Gaider]

MFCell wrote...

After all the resounding praise I always gave DA:O, in every case, I assumed you would do right by me because DA:O was ALREADY a throw-back game, which relied on tried and true gameplay mechanics, rather than flashy battles.

Imagine my surprise to find out that DA2 is in fact, Dragon Effect, and doesn't even pick up where the events of DA:O left off, it actually starts in the midst them.  What a slap in the face.  It makse no sense.  It's like you guys are trying to make my decisions unimportant, setting it up so the later decisions I made could not POSSIBLY impact the games beginning.  DA:O was such a run away hit with RPG fans, why would you guys tweak it like this?

Really, REALLY seems like this is a bad dream. I'm not even kidding. If I had a nightmare about the DA sequel, today would be it.

I beleive this can easily be considered the worst thing to happen in Dragon Age history, including the Blight.

I'm leaving the forums now, and I doubt I'll ever come back.  All I wanted was to continue my story.  All I got was Shepard with a new name and a sword.

In fact, Bioware.  I'm gonna start dissing you guys as sellouts to my friends when they ask me about DA2.  I'll tell them "Nah it wont be any good." "Why?" they will ask, and I will reply "Did you enjoy Mass Effect?" "No, not nearly as much as DA:O"... "Well, they are making it much more like ME than DA:O this time around."  At this point, my DnD game hungry friends will surely frown, a moment of sadness passing as they greive for the game that could have been, but will not be.

Yes Bioware, I'm going to talk BADLY about you for this, by drawing comparisons between ME and DA to gamers who realize ME is a Halo rehash with HP.  Consider any personal reviews of DA2 I do to be completely negative. And beleive me, I will get asked eventually, especially as release draws near.  It should be something a little new to you guys, word of mouth attempts to disparage your games release.  Your fans are always so cuddley and happy with you.  It's about time you guys got the end of the stick the rest of the industry gets from alienated fans.  The ****ty one.

Sorry you feel that way. We appreciate your loyalty and understanding, as well as the fact that you stuck it out long enough to get more than a cursory view of the game before rendering your decision. Hopefully you'll give the game a try when it comes out-- if not, happy trails!

[David Gaider]

hyperion02 wrote...

David,

How come you don't have that cute little Dragon Age or Mass Effect icon under your name?

I don't think we get the little icons.

Instead we get VAST COSMIC POWER MUAHHAHAHA-- *cough* *hack*

...excuse me. Got carried away, there.

[David Gaider]

Kaiser Shepard wrote...
Mr. Gaider, now that you're here, would you mind telling us if the Dark Ritual ending of Origins has indeed been canonized? 'Tis a matter a great many users would appreciate being cleared up.

That sounds like something you'd need to ask the Vatican.

[David Gaider]

MFCell wrote...

I base my greivances on the fact that Mass Effect was a boring, easy, uninspiring slog thru a tired and easily manipulatated dialogue and combat system.

If you think for a SECOND that I'm not basing my bashing of this game on real world experience, your wrong David.

I cannot stand to play ME for more than 2 hours at the time, while I could play DA:O for days on end.  All of the problems I have with DA2 are present in ME 1 and 2, and are being moved into DA2 like it is some kind of step forward.

You guys have lost touch.

Did you just come back into the room after making your dramatic exit?

You were standing right outside, waiting, weren't you?

Gosh, that is so embarassing.

[David Gaider]

Rubbish Hero wrote...

The big Shakespearean ""My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" threads are the best.

To be or not to be
Whether 'tis nobler in the RPG to suffer
The slings and arrows of developer whims
Or to take arms against a wheel of dialogue
And, by opposing, play not.

[David Gaider]

_-Greywolf-_ wrote...
What I am worried about is that Hawke will turn out to be just like Shepard, I remember reading an interview with Greg and Ray where they explained why they limit the personality options of a character like Shepard where they would give more freedom to a character the player can create

In our opinion, it might be okay for Commander Shepherd to be stoic and gruff as a rule-- he's a soldier, after all-- but that's not going to fly for Dragon Age. We don't intend to lock you into a single personality.

As to our solution for doing that-- well, we'll have to discuss that later on. But we do have one, and it's not something you see in Mass Effect. Dragon Age is a different game, despite the comparisons some people seem pretty quick to make based on a few common features.

[David Gaider]

_-Greywolf-_ wrote...
However I will ask you this, even though it seems that we shall have more freedom to define Hawke's personality than Shepard will we still have as much freedom to define our characters personality as we did in Origins or will Hawke's personality still be a little more defined? Or is this a question you are unable to give an answer to at this point in time?

Can you clarify? How much freedom did you have to define the Warden's personality, exactly? From my perspective as the writer, you're still just picking options that I give you-- it's the same thing, unless I'm missing something.

Modifié par David Gaider, 11 juillet 2010 - 06:17 .

[David Gaider]

Kalfear wrote...
Thats simple David

DA:O gave you ALOT of options in any conversation where a conversation could go off into different directions or at least get semi different responces

ME2 typically gave you 2 maybe 3 that all came out to the same ending!

Yes you wrote them all but DA:O felt mor eopen like you were creating your own character were as with ME2, you just felt like you were following a preset design to the eventual outcome thats already decided for you!

Err... okay. But functionally it's exactly the same. The dialogues in DAO also came out to the same ending, or branched as determined by the choices we implemented-- there's nothing about the system that requires us to set up these choices in the same manner as ME. That's a style difference, nothing more.

Example: I was just playing DA:O and talking to Shale in camp where we discussing how he turned on his master

That conversation can have multiple lines exchanged or 1 line and stop
You can get +s or -s for how you interact with Shale

In ME2 there were no +s or -s in the interaction
Every communication mattered little as they all going to end in same place with no repurcussions of any sort

Hope you get what im saying here?

Sure, but I have no idea why you'd assume we would arrange the dialogue in the same manner. This isn't Mass Effect, and quite frankly I could write that exact same dialogue with Shale using the DA2 system I'm using now-- the only difference being in the paraphrases and the arrangement of the interface.

I use to use this example in the ME2 boards

I could call Miranda every name in book, kill her sister and none of it would matter as all I had to do was pick that 1 time line and she was mine, all forgiven.

In DA:O it mattered how and what your companions thought of you and if you didnt play to their attributes/personalities, they wouldnt follow you (well they would but you get idea). How you treated them mattered

Right-- and once again I'll ask what it is about the interface that would make us not do that? I'm really not getting the logic leap you're making, I'm afraid.

[David Gaider]

Suron wrote...
it's called imagination..that magical thing you gusy, and sadly most of the world, seems to have lost.

which is exactly why people are up in arms about him being voiced....tone of voice and how words are stated DEFINE a personality...giving us the tripe good/neutral/bad options is NOT giving us a personality of our own..

If your definition of a personality is being able to say the lines in your head even though you don't control what you're saying, then I suppose I can't help you. Sorry, but that ship has sailed.

and how do you even think Hawke is a good name?  it doesn't even fit in your own lore...another sign of lost imagination.  We have Alistair, Duncan, Sten, Cousland (yes I'm mixing first/last names to prove my point), Amell, Howe, etc....."hawke" is the name of a goddamn JRPG or anime character.....he belongs next to Cloud....not Loghain.

It fits in our lore just fine, considering where Hawke is from. I'm not sure why it would upset you, but I suspect it's not our lore that's your issue but rather what you're projecting onto it.

[David Gaider]

AlanC9 wrote...
Some folks  (not me) have assumed that you can't get enough information across in a paraphrase for complex conversations. I think the example used was the confrontation with Bastila in KotOR (LS endgame). Are you confident that would work in the DA2 conversation system?

I think having the icon for tone helps, so we're not forced to make the intent blatantly obvious within the paraphrase.

And one thing I actually like, from a writing perspective, is the ability to use player voice to initiate an exchange based on a selection. If the player elects to furiously argue with someone, we can carry on that exchange back and forth a bit rather than forcing the player to select every single response. It can, at times, be much more natural. With player voice you also aren't forced to throw up options like "Go on"/"Tell me more"/"Hurry up" or the like just to move dialogue forward. You have the option to just have the player say "Tell me more", if you really need to, and save the choices for things that actually allow the player to establish personality or take actions.

Is it perfect? No, I don't think so... but that's not to say it doesn't come with advantages that are pretty nifty. And just because you've seen the use of a feature in one game doesn't mean that every game that uses that feature has to implement it in exactly the same manner or emulate that one game's style. That's a set of assumptions that just doesn't fly.

Yes, we will get to showing you exactly what we have in mind, in time. And yes, I absolutely could write that Bastila dialogue in DA2's system. In some respects it would even be easier to do so... and, dare I say it? Possibly more dramatic in its execution.

[David Gaider]

Dave of Canada wrote...
These are two personalities of characters created from scratch using only the lines of dialogue, this was all built in one's head but the dialogue followed directly with the character's ideas. You can be sarcastic, angry, happy, helpful and such by following the non-voiced dialogue system even if they all lead to the same path and goal - it follows what you've done with the Warden and the Warden is who you've imagined them to be.

So you like being able to read the line with the inflection in your own head, making it sarcastic or angry or happy, even if nobody in the game reacts to that? Or, in fact, reacts differently based on our intent regarding the line rather than your own? This is better?

Because I would think being able to communicate our intent more clearly and still give you options to define your personality by choosing how you say things as well as the actions you take still gives you plenty of options to take the character in the direction you choose. The only thing you lose is that your character uses a defined voice-- not necessarily a defined personality-- but if you associate that much simply with the voice then there's really not much more to say, is there?

Modifié par David Gaider, 11 juillet 2010 - 07:17 .

[David Gaider]

Dave of Canada wrote...
I don't associate it with voice, I'm just one of those people who fears that with voiced dialogue we'll be losing out on dialogue options and such in conversations that it'll limit the personalities available to Hawke. Like I won't be able to create a sarcastic Hawke that teases his friends because the options will be limited to friendly / flirty / angry / investigate.

I suppose I see what you're saying-- but in the end, I provided that option to tease Alistair and I can do exactly the same thing with the DA2 system if I choose. Our ability to provide you enough choices so that you can express the type of personality you wish lies in the execution of the writing, not the structure of the interface. Interface-wise we still have six slots available on the wheel, just the same as we had six lines to work with in DAO.

As for being limited to friendly/ flirty/ angry/ investigate-- I suppose there's an element of that, sure, but there was also in DAO. We tended to include the same "categories" of responses so that they covered a limited breadth of personalities or actions. This is no different, and as I said it comes down to the writing style.

[David Gaider]

octoberfire wrote...
Mr. Gaider, are you allowed to comment more on the dialogue system? Can you initiate a conversation with your companions at any given time or is it like Awakening? Honestly, this is all that I care about at the moment.

We're not using the exact system in Awakening, no, but I don't think this is the time to go into detail regarding what we're doing. We'll get into that eventually.