468 réponses à ce sujet

[Addai]

In Exile wrote...

And here we are. Back to the what you like is just an inferior version of a movie, and what up with you liking that? It is not the being baffled part that is being insult. It is the inferior to movie part.

Put another way: constant interruptions and bad aminations are both subjective value judgments that we should really avoid in a conversation. It's like my saying I can't comprehend why you want to pretend your chair is alive. Maybe I have a good point in there somewhere, but mostly I'm being demeaning about your playstyle.

Except I don't pretend my character is alive.  I pretend she's a character in a story.  So if you were to say that, it would be demeaning, sure, but mostly because it's not even close to being accurate.

I do think that games that run like movies are inferior sorts of play experiences.  I tossed Mass Effect back on the shelf and said "dumb game."  It doesn't mean I think you're an inferior person because you happened to like it.  Vive la difference.  Hence why I say there's no reason for you take this discussion so personally.

So by that standard, Shepard sucker puching the reporter is actually more active than the Warden's back being shown in coversation as you think about his motives because of the kind of processing that is going on.

Fair enough.  There are different criteria for what constitutes active versus passive.  I'm giving you my subjective experience of the different media.

The point is that different people have different player experiences, something that Bioware recognizes but obviously has decided not to accommadate.  The fact that you and I have such different approaches to gaming ought to validate the fact that there are very different player experiences.  Whether one is inferior or superior, on that we can disagree.  I think there is a general trend towards dumbing down and mass marketization in media and I put these changes in that stream and count them as negatives.  I realize you don't.

...Oy vey. You start off so well, and then something like the bolded portion comes up. You really cannot appreciate how saying things like this is rude? Seriously?

As the Warden said to the arlessa of Redcliffe, "not if it's true." 

I'm not denying there are different playing experiences. I'm simply saying I'm happy when my experience is being accomodated, and our experences are mutually exclusive.

Ok, I get it.  You're happy.  Your type of player experience is apparently the be-all end-all of gaming, according to Bioware, and they're going to accommadate you in all their game franchises now and the one franchise that did it differently is being Borged into the trend.  Rub it in, why don't you?

Modifié par Addai67, 17 juillet 2010 - 06:25 .

[AlanC9]

See, that's what I was talking about, Addai. Doesn't it feel good to really express the contempt?

[In Exile]

AlanC9 wrote...

I just knew you were going to call him (her?) on the "dumbed down" line, In Exile. Maye you should just accept that he's doing his best to be polite about not respecting your playstyle, and move on?

Yeah, I've accepted I'm not going to win. Which is a shame, because the reason I'm debating this is not to change anyone's mind but to avoid the contempt in the first place.

[In Exile]

Addai67 wrote...
What you're describing is a cutscene.  Another poster has, accurately IMO, said that being more cinematic means having more of things like cutscenes.  So what the devs are telling us is that they are going to give us more of what you say here drives you crazy.  And you're not only happy about this trend, you're passionately defending it??  *scratches head*

It goes back to not understanding my playstyle. It does not matter to me if the scene is scripted. It matters if the player is driving it. To give you an example. Shepard is very, very anchored interacting with the Council. He can't be anything other than a somewhat unhinged, frothing at the mouth loon, honestly. But he drives the scene. The issue there is poor writing (because the writers won't allow for a Shepard that isn't convinced about his vision) but not poor design (because looney or no Shepard drives the scene instead of Anderson or Udina which is what would have happened in DA:O).

I've mentioned this before, but DA:O is just as restricited with  Wardens.

[In Exile]

Addai67 wrote...
Except I don't pretend my character is alive.  I pretend she's a character in a story.  So if you were to say that, it would be demeaning, sure, but mostly because it's not even close to being accurate.

Now you're closer to getting it.

I do think that games that run like movies are inferior sorts of play experiences.  I tossed Mass Effect back on the shelf and said "dumb game."  It doesn't mean I think you're an inferior person because you happened to like it.  Vive la difference.  Hence why I say there's no reason for you take this discussion so personally.

And now you're back to not getting it.

Okay, seriously, combined with the "dumbed down" quote what you're saying is: this is a simple game that caters to the superficial. But just because you're superficial and/or simple, doesn't mean I think you're an inferior person. You're just superficial and simple.

...Yay?

Fair enough.  There are different criteria for what constitutes active versus passive.  I'm giving you my subjective experience of the different media.

I was just calling you out on trying to use science that I'm familiar with. I get that you think reading is not as passive as watching movies. Just appreciate that it is subjective, and maybe try saying things like I feel instead of it is.

As the Warden said to the arlessa of Redcliffe, "not if it's true." 

No, something can be true and still be insulting. Racial slurs, for example. If someone points out I'm Jewish in a derogatory way, it's technically true but also insulting.

Ok, I get it.  You're happy.  Your type of player experience is apparently the be-all end-all of gaming, according to Bioware, and they're going to accommadate you in all their game franchises now and the one franchise that did it differently is being Borged into the trend.  Rub it in, why don't you?

My player experience is important to me. Just like yours is to you. Which is why I'm assuming you're on this board advocating to get the games you want. I'm just letting you know why it's silly to say I should be happy there's one game out there I like. It's like me telling you to be happy because you have BGI & BGII & DA:O, plus all those old text-based RPGs and all I get is ME (which isn't even the game I want; it just happens to have an active protagonist). It's a silly and inappropriate generalization and it has nothing to do with the discussion.

...Man, I have a bad habit where I always want the last word. I'm not commenting on this anymore, last word or not.

[Addai]

AlanC9 wrote...

I just knew you were going to call him (her?) on the "dumbed down" line, In Exile. Maye you should just accept that he's doing his best to be polite about not respecting your playstyle, and move on?

I'm not sure why it's even important to you that I "respect your playstyle."  It's obvious that In Exile doesn't respect mine, either, but that doesn't mean we can't discuss trends in media without personalizing it so much.  If he, and you, can't not take the discussion personally, then probably it is best to move on.

[AlanC9]

In Exile wrote...
My player experience is important to me. Just like yours is to you. Which is why I'm assuming you're on this board advocating to get the games you want. I'm just letting you know why it's silly to say I should be happy there's one game out there I like. It's like me telling you to be happy because you have BGI & BGII & DA:O, plus all those old text-based RPGs and all I get is ME (which isn't even the game I want; it just happens to have an active protagonist). It's a silly and inappropriate generalization and it has nothing to do with the discussion.

In fairness to Addai, these are somewhat different. If text is going away in A-list games, then someone who feels like Addai has lost the future. It's not much compensation to have plenty of games you liked in the past, especially when you've probably played most of them already.

[Addai]

In Exile wrote...

It goes back to not understanding my playstyle. It does not matter to me if the scene is scripted. It matters if the player is driving it. To give you an example. Shepard is very, very anchored interacting with the Council. He can't be anything other than a somewhat unhinged, frothing at the mouth loon, honestly. But he drives the scene. The issue there is poor writing (because the writers won't allow for a Shepard that isn't convinced about his vision) but not poor design (because looney or no Shepard drives the scene instead of Anderson or Udina which is what would have happened in DA:O).

I've mentioned this before, but DA:O is just as restricited with  Wardens.

This seems to me a case of a hero-focused story versus a story that is more open.  I never felt like the larger DAO story was about the Warden.  It was about the Blight.  The writers only imposed things on me insofar as it related to that larger story of the Blight.  That left a lot of open area where my Warden could be my character as I wanted her to be.

Since DA2 is being promoted as a hero-focused story, it's no wonder you're psyched.  Let me just say I'm happy for you and move on, since this isn't shaping up to be a very productive discussion.

[Grommash94]

Addai67 wrote...

In Exile wrote...

It goes back to not understanding my playstyle. It does not matter to me if the scene is scripted. It matters if the player is driving it. To give you an example. Shepard is very, very anchored interacting with the Council. He can't be anything other than a somewhat unhinged, frothing at the mouth loon, honestly. But he drives the scene. The issue there is poor writing (because the writers won't allow for a Shepard that isn't convinced about his vision) but not poor design (because looney or no Shepard drives the scene instead of Anderson or Udina which is what would have happened in DA:O).

I've mentioned this before, but DA:O is just as restricited with  Wardens.

This seems to me a case of a hero-focused story versus a story that is more open.  I never felt like the larger DAO story was about the Warden.  It was about the Blight.  The writers only imposed things on me insofar as it related to that larger story of the Blight.  That left a lot of open area where my Warden could be my character as I wanted her to be.

Since DA2 is being promoted as a hero-focused story, it's no wonder you're psyched.  Let me just say I'm happy for you and move on, since this isn't shaping up to be a very productive discussion.

I dunno...DA:O, to me, really felt like it was about my Warden's journey. You could do this and this, shape your character, but in the end, it was about you stopping the Blight. You are the good guy, the hero, no matter what.

BioWare seems to be promising this won't be the case with Hawke. 

[orpheus333]

Text based dialogue selection and a mute actor to me ultimately take a player out of the experiance. With reading text we have an extra level of disconnection between the dialogue and world that is presented to us. (a fully voiced, visual experience) and the character we are trying to 'role-play'.

DA:Os story wasn't really focused on your Warden, the Origins stories or any of that i think it was less personal and more descriptive. A good thing for the first game in a series where the world needs to be explained and fleshed out. I think overall DA:O was worse for it though.

Modifié par andyr1986, 17 juillet 2010 - 07:14 .

[Addai]

AlanC9 wrote...

In Exile wrote...
My player experience is important to me. Just like yours is to you. Which is why I'm assuming you're on this board advocating to get the games you want. I'm just letting you know why it's silly to say I should be happy there's one game out there I like. It's like me telling you to be happy because you have BGI & BGII & DA:O, plus all those old text-based RPGs and all I get is ME (which isn't even the game I want; it just happens to have an active protagonist). It's a silly and inappropriate generalization and it has nothing to do with the discussion.

In fairness to Addai, these are somewhat different. If text is going away in A-list games, then someone who feels like Addai has lost the future. It's not much compensation to have plenty of games you liked in the past, especially when you've probably played most of them already.

Aye, true, although "go back to your text RPGs" is viable advice as far as I'm concerned.  The calculation seems to be that most old-school gamers will adapt and buy the games anyway.  It might work out.  Not everyone is as picky or as stingy with their money as I am.

[KalDurenik]

Why use words and expressions? Why not take it to the next level?

*Remove the words... They are of no importance to what the character do / act...
*Remove the expressions

The wheel should only be based on the following...
"1 (blue) 2(Grey) 3(red) 4(white) 5(yellow) (6purple)

Blue= Good
Grey= Neutral
Red=Evil
White= More / next
Yellow= "information related"
Purple=Extra depending on need

Wait... This is what the system is right now... It just simply use less colors and words instead of numbers...

Honestly the text is better in about every way:
*You will know for sure what you select (yes even if you are color blind)
*You wont be disconnected as your character yells out in pure anger
*It look and feel better with more text. It also force people to pay attention to what is said / what they will said instead of just pressing "top right" or "lower right"

Modifié par KalDurenik, 17 juillet 2010 - 09:27 .

[Sidney]

KalDurenik wrote...
Honestly the text is better in about every way:
1. *You will know for sure what you select (yes even if you are color blind)
2. *You wont be disconnected as your character yells out in pure anger
3. *It look and feel better with more text. It also force people to pay attention to what is said / what they will said instead of just pressing "top right" or "lower right"

1. So what? Your concern is that your PC will say something you don't want them to say but the menu let's you see what they'll say but you almost certainly didn't want them to say any of those thing. You act like you have control of a situation where you don't have any control. No matter how the menu selection is shaped or the character is voiced you never say anything, you merely pick from someone else's words. Why it frists your muffin that you hear them say things you didn't say as opposed to just reading what you didn't say I'll never know.

BTW, other than the "flirty" with Jacob the "wow, that's not what I meant" happens no more or less with a VA than it does with Chaiman Mute in DAO where you are misunderstand the words that are before you.

2. Yeah, happens all the time. You get the same jarring in DAO when the menu comes up and none of those options happen to be what you want them to say. Again, as long as you don't make responses and merely select responses you aren't driving dialog so there will inevitably be gaps in your selections.

3. Most conversations aren't so complex that you can't sort them out pretty quickly - merchant convos for example. Then beyond that most convos are simple "Yes", "No", "Tell me more" selections so while you are reading a lot of stuff you aren't sorting between variations of why you are or are not doing something that requires thought.. If the menu worked like "Yes", "No" and if you selected "Yes" you had a host of options as to why yes
"I like to help people"
"You people are too stupid to save your self"
"I think there's a lot of money here"
"I am required by my code to help people"
Then you'd be dealing with something that rerquired thought and sorting though your emotions and your character but it really doesn't work that way.

[CybAnt1]

 
Is it really correct to think of them as an old school and a new school, though? I get the feeling that Bio's always wanted to be cinematic. They would have done cutscenes and VO in BG1 if the technology and the budget had been there.

No one's disputing that voice acting is good for NPCs and other characters you interact with. It's not a new technology development; the ability to record a person speaking and play it back on a computer has existed since the 1970s. 

I don't think voice acting is bad, the question is does it belong for the protagonist. You recognize that budgetary limitations being what they are -- as people were pointing out before, it makes it impossible to have a protagonist of different races. The reason Hawke can only be human is the same reason Shepard is not an alien; they can't afford to have a VO for a dwarf or elf Hawke.

It's odd people were raising this point against this "feature" up until the point that it was announced for DA2. Now I'll grant there are people who are against any form of change in games. I'm not. I was not against moving from isometric to 3D graphics, for example, and have said so. On the other hand, there are people who seem to welcome any form of change, most especially if it results in ... streamlining. Which seems to be the new buzzword. 

Human motivation is complex, and you may notice one thing that often happens when you translate a book to a movie. Movies are good at portraying action, they are poorer at portraying "the interior monologue" of the human personality. Can you imagine a RPG based on Shakespeare's Hamlet (why not, we've already done Dante's Inferno) where his words were reduced to a bunch of short phrases & icons? I'm just arguing that it is easier to portray complex thoughts and motivations with text than with images. I'm all in favor of voice acting for everybody else, just not for the protagonist, esp. with the simpla-wheel. 

Last point: I am not an elitist in the sense that most people seem to think. I don't think RPGs are better games than other kinds of games nor are RPGers a "better" kind of gamer. I do play action games, and I like them. It's just that RPGs have had a certain kind of quality I don't find in other games, which I will say is a kind of literary quality. There is a certain kind of different experience to an RPG that I enjoy. I don't see why I have to like seeing it removed. Why can't there be one genre of game with this quality to it? Can't there be one genre with some difference to it? Once it's gone, all kinds of games will be the same. 

If Bioware is going to stop making these kinds of games, that's fine. I just wish there would be someone else. 

[TheTrooper1138]

17thknight wrote...

Before you make a comment about how "the words are just in a circle" wait and hear me out.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the aesthetics of how the words are oriented on the screen. While it is mildly annoying to see a mechanic that looks exactly like part of Mass Effect in  a Dragon Age game, that isn't what is fundamentally flawed about the wheel

The problems with the wheel are this:
1. It limits how many words can be displayed
2. This causes the responses to be shortened, significantly, when they are placed next to the wheel
3. The shortened responses result in extreme paraphrasing that often does not reflect what the character says or how they will react.

This is the ultimate problem with the conversation wheel. It has nothing to do with how it looks and everything to do with how it functions. To solve this, the ME team simply shoved "Paragon" responses in the upper right, "neutral in the middle, and "Renegade" in the lower left. This is because, without this orientation it would have been completely impossible for us to determine whether many responses were "good bad or neutral".

There are instances in the game where the Paragon and Renegade responses were the exact same wording on screen, but one resulted in you comforting someone and the other had you beating them mercilessly.

This is detracts from character interaction and immersion because:
- You don't really know what your character is going to say or do. This rip the characterization away from the player and further distances them from the Role-PLaying aspect of an RPG
- You don't know how your character will react and this can result in you needing to restart saves in order to "fix" an action that you didn't actually intend to do.


Yes, I realize they want to put a "mood" indicator next to the words, but that doesn't fix what is flawed with the conversation wheel. The Mass Effect team's solution made it just as easy for you to know what response was "good" or "bad" and it does not help. One of the more startling parts of ME2 was when you flat-out murder someone when you thought you were simply going to incapacitate him. It's very jarring when your righteous and good character suddenly just butchers a character because you didn't know what their REAL response would be in comparison with the 2-word paraphrase.

Worst of all, it severely limits the number of responses that can even be displayed on-screen at a time, thus limiting the possible ways that you even can respond. How many Dragon Age conversations had half a dozen to a dozen responses? Quite a few, especially the more important conversations. You never felt like you were just flipping a coin between 1-3 responses that were "good bad and neutral" you were actually steering your character's personality via many responses that, while similar, were subtlely (or blatantly) different.

To summarize, the conversation wheel
-limits the number of possible responses
-detracts from character immersion
-limits on-screen words and results in paraphrasing that never fully reflects what your character will say or do, resulting in you throwing the dice whenever you pick a response.
-limits the emotional range of the main character

When you can only be good bad or in-between you will never have anything more than a character who behaves in extremes.

Agree 100%!
If DA2 is gonna turn out to be as it looks it will, I'm not gonna buy it, I want an RPG, no ME2 like dumbed down mainstream hybrid abomination... 

[KalDurenik]

Im shocked over the nr of people that think that the wheel is a good idea... But then again we are on a Bioware forum so maybe its not that much of a shock.

People on this forum: Wheel is the new messiah

Everyone else: Umh its pointless and horrible.



O.o

[Hollingdale]

With a VO it's kind of necessary and I think it works good although I confess I slightly prefer a silent PC. In any case It would interesting to see a wheel that's not based on the old good and evil scale but would rather let you pick philosophically different answers like pragmatism or idealism.



I also think that people seem to forget that the fact that the good, neutral and evil options are allways in the same place on the wheel is really good because it means that you can put those short texts into a context and get a lot more info about what they mean than you would if you didn't quite know what allignment they entail.

[KalDurenik]

Well tbh they could have added a blue "dot" there instead of a word. All the wheel do is force people not read / care what is said and simply button mash "blue" because hey its allways on the same location. You cant go wrong. Its a horrible system and it should go back to the depths of hell where it came from...

[Hollingdale]

No they couldn't add a blue dot there because that would suck. Please come up with a better system for a game with a VO'd PC.

[KalDurenik]

Why not? Its the same thing overall... Most people simply just listen on what they say and then press "blue / red"... The word is pointless. And yes even if they add it like this



"(blue) Hug!! :-)" (the smile) its still a worthless system.



Adding a text is alot better and give more information and no it dont put you out of the "rpg" while you read it.



Text >>>>>>> Wheel...

[Hollingdale]

Why on earth if you want a completely text based system would the removal of the text element of the wheel system be a good thing?

[KalDurenik]

Sight... It was just a idea and a example. The words in the wheel are meaning less. They could remove them and NO ONE would notice if they simply just added a blue and a red dot.



Text based all the way is best.

[Sidney]

KalDurenik wrote...

Why not? Its the same thing overall... Most people simply just listen on what they say and then press "blue / red"... The word is pointless. And yes even if they add it like thi.

...except that most covos don't have a red/blue option -- only if there's a paragon renegade angle.

That's like saying people just select the {Intimididate} {Persuade} option on the menu without thinking which somehow people don't have a problem with. Either people never played ME or they are just terminally full of it when it comes to the game mechanics.

[Hollingdale]

Kal: No.

[joriandrake]

Hollingdale wrote...

Kal: No.

EXPLAAAAIIN!