2 réponses à ce sujet

[Narreneth]

From what I read in the GI article, the narrative style of DA 2 is going to mimic the kind of progression in the movie The Usual Suspects in that we'll have a narrator telling one person part of the story of Hawke.  Fade to Hawke, gameplay time.  A number of events unfold, back to narrator A or new narrator B, brief interlude for talking, new story, back to Hawke and gameplay time again. 

My question is fairly multi-faceted, and, if it doesn't get answered no biggie, I'm just curious.

Since we're dealing with a system that is allowing us to see our actions' consequences sooner because of time passing over the course of a decade, it's presumable that some of these breaks from Hawke to narrator will cause a year or two jump in the story before it fades back to the next section of gameplay.  Since we're talking about a world changing a bit in the course of a year or two, it would seem pretty logical to think that NPC A doesn't need those lyrium potions you promised you'd get them anymore.  My question is:  Are there plans for side quests that you must complete before time jumps in the story; and, if so, is there going to be a system in place to tell us that doing a certain action will cause the story to move forward and make certain quests in our log unfinishable?  Also, I'm a little curious of the intent for some long-term side quests that may span a few years along with the main story. 

[Mary Kirby]

Narreneth wrote...

Since we're dealing with a system that is allowing us to see our actions' consequences sooner because of time passing over the course of a decade, it's presumable that some of these breaks from Hawke to narrator will cause a year or two jump in the story before it fades back to the next section of gameplay.  Since we're talking about a world changing a bit in the course of a year or two, it would seem pretty logical to think that NPC A doesn't need those lyrium potions you promised you'd get them anymore.  My question is:  Are there plans for side quests that you must complete before time jumps in the story; and, if so, is there going to be a system in place to tell us that doing a certain action will cause the story to move forward and make certain quests in our log unfinishable?  Also, I'm a little curious of the intent for some long-term side quests that may span a few years along with the main story. 

Yes, any sidequests you want to do must be completed before a big narrative jump. And yes, there should be a few cues that doing something will cause the story to move forward in time.  And there are sidequests that span several years.

[Mary Kirby]

Brockololly wrote...

I'm wondering how the narrative structure will affect exploration, travelling and camp. In the GI article its mentioned that one of the reasons they're trying this method is that it allows them to just skip from action packed event to action packed event. So, I'm just kind of envisioning the whole game as being a series of flashbacks focused on a very specific action packed moments in a fixed location before switching back to the narrator in present day.
Just seems like this might cut back on travelling and the random encounters on the road. And if we're only keying in on very specific moments in the flashbacks, would this mean cutting out the slower, camp moments?

The focus on the events isn't super-ultra tight.

Example: You have the narrator saying, "Then, of course, the Champion arm-wrestled the disembodied Beard of Duncan on the roof of the chantry!"  And Cassandra saying, "What? How did that happen?" And the narrator declares, "It's kind of crazy, but I think it all started when..."

And then the game jumps to a playable point and the player can explore to see what's changed over the years, chats with followers, rescues kittens from trees, etc. at their leisure. All the stuff that you'd normally do. It's just that as you're doing that, you maybe get a quest now and then to investigate reports of an extremely aggressive beard skulking around at night.

And eventually, you reach a point where someone shouts, "Maker's breath! Someone come quick! There's a glorious beard up on the chantry roof threatening to destroy the town!" And you can probably guess that once you go up there, there's no coming back...