55 réponses à ce sujet

[kt85]

 Ok guys so this is my first topic, 

I enjoy playing 'most' BioWare games due to the freedom of choice that I am allowed, so my main gripe is having a pre-determined protagonist in DA2 after the amount of choice in DA:O. 

Now don't get me wrong I like my pre-determined protagonists too, what I do not like is being told I have a choice only then to be told that my choice is restricted on certain matters due to the protaganist being pre-determined (ME2) - but that is a rant for another day.

However, I think  I can cope with having a pre-determined protaganist aslong as BioWare do not change the feel of the game too much from DA:O.


What I'm trying to say is that I hope it isn't going to turn into a fantasy version of ME because as much as I enjoy playing ME I cannot deny that no matter how it was marketed its the game BioWare were marketing to what could appear to be small minded insecure young men. (FOX Network)

Not that I believe all men are like that 

However I am pleased by its connection to the past and the whole rise from weak to powerful storyline they appear to be going with.

So, what I want to know is what do you think?

[SirOccam]

He's no more pre-determined than your Origins character, except you can't choose the race. You still specify gender, appearance, first name, personality, motivations, etc.

"DA is becoming ME" is the sound bite everyone loves throwing around, but it's just not true. Shepard was a marine, chosen BECAUSE of his background and personality to become a Spectre and all that. Hawke is...a person. Who escaped Lothering. That's ALL we know. Everything else is for us to fill in.

[MrBurgundy]

I don't care about having a preset character because he is a nobody before the game starts, but I disagree with the name Hawke, atleast give us several names to choose from. Also the graphics in DA2 bother me, I understand that it is an alpha but the style they are trying to go for looks dumb

[Wishpig]

What I don't want? Hmmmm...

What I don't want is bland and flat backgrounds like we've seen in the photos. Love the character models and the art direction and the special effects... but damn the background looks poor.

What I don't want is BUGS. DA:O and DA:A was full of bugs, some even game breaking. With such a short development time (a very short time frame... which is almost always a bad sign)

What I don't want is a short game. Better be at least 30 hours. But once agian, short time frame = worried wishpig.

Other then that, everything looks and sounds great!

MrBurgundy wrote...

I don't care about having a preset character because he is a nobody before the game starts, but I disagree with the name Hawke, atleast give us several names to choose from. Also the graphics in DA2 bother me, I understand that it is an alpha but the style they are trying to go for looks dumb

The whole point of the name Hawke is so NPC's can refer to you by name in voiced dialog.

Giving us more names will double allot of the spoken dialog... taking up space, time, and money as well as adding the tough job of balancing all these dialog responses.

[kt85]

SirOccam wrote...

He's no more pre-determined than your Origins character, except you can't choose the race. You still specify gender, appearance, first name, personality, motivations, etc.
"DA is becoming ME" is the sound bite everyone loves throwing around, but it's just not true. Shepard was a marine, chosen BECAUSE of his background and personality to become a Spectre and all that. Hawke is...a person. Who escaped Lothering. That's ALL we know. Everything else is for us to fill in.

The point I was trying to make is that although we was given a vast amount of choice in ME Shepard is very obviously pre-determined, even in the scripting if you play through as a FemShep it doesn't fit correctly.

I don't mind it being a pre-determined  protagonist as long as if that is the case then we should not have options of sex,race etc only looks. This is what they should have done with ME and they didn't which is what ruined it for me.

In DA;O I did not feel as though the protagonist was only scripted for a male ;(regardless of whether it was) wheras I did in ME.

And as posted before 'if' they are going to give us that much choice why are they restricting the name to Hawke.

Like I said before I don't mind having a pre-determined protagonist as long as they are not trying to tell me I have choice. 
It just seems a bit of a bold change after the idea of choice is a big part of what helped sell DA:O.

[Khavos]

SirOccam wrote...

"DA is becoming ME" is the sound bite everyone loves throwing around, but it's just not true. Shepard was a marine, chosen BECAUSE of his background and personality to become a Spectre and all that. Hawke is...a person. Who escaped Lothering. That's ALL we know. Everything else is for us to fill in.

Please provide a citation for your assertion that everything else is for us to fill in.  They've never said that Hawke is a blank slate.  I suspect he'll be more Shepard than not. 

[Risax]

I didn't like Vellena from Awakening, I mean Morrigan was b***hy but she brought it in a sarcastic and funny way, but Vellena well, she was worse.

She was just plain awefull, even after finding out after killing all those humans that Darkspawn tricked her she didn't seem to feel regret.

So I don't want Vellena to show up in DA 2.

[RunNeonTiger]

Well Hawke is the last name IIRC and besides, what else would characters call you in the game? They can't call you "Warden" like in DA:O. Besides, all we know so far about Hawke is that s/he escaped from Lothering, s/he is a human, s/he becomes Champion of Kirkwall, and s/he has a sister named Bethany. If anything I think the classes will more or less determine your character's background.

As for the graphics, I've read where people say they're awful and look like crap, but I just don't see it. I think the backgrounds we've seen are very bland and I do hope they improve on that and the fact that He-Hawke's hair and beard are two different colors (at least in the close-up shot of him and Bethany they're different), but yeah, I've no problem with the character models and effects.

One thing I would like to see is an equally attractive default model for Lady Hawke. The one thing that irked me about ME and ME 2 is that the default male seemed to fit more with the graphics while the custom male and female just looked to unpolished and a little weird compared to other characters. I don't care much for concept art of Lady Hawke like others have said, but I do want a good looking default female character to go along with the male character.

As for gameplay, I hope they up the party size. I mean, if they want to keep the four party member size, that's fine but I would love to have a six man party like in Baldur's Gate. I just think it would be a lot more fun.

Those are pretty minor things, but as long as the story and characters are at least as great as the first game, I'm actually really excited for DA2.

Edit: I would also like to see some flashier combat like the KotORs, but that's another very minor thing. I just get bored watching warriors making basically the same movements without any parries or blocks or anything like that.

Modifié par RunNeonTiger, 19 juillet 2010 - 10:11 .

[SirOccam]

Khavos wrote...

SirOccam wrote...

"DA is becoming ME" is the sound bite everyone loves throwing around, but it's just not true. Shepard was a marine, chosen BECAUSE of his background and personality to become a Spectre and all that. Hawke is...a person. Who escaped Lothering. That's ALL we know. Everything else is for us to fill in.

Please provide a citation for your assertion that everything else is for us to fill in.  They've never said that Hawke is a blank slate.  I suspect he'll be more Shepard than not. 

From David Gaider:

David Gaider wrote...

WoodyWoodrow wrote...
One
of the critisisms of Mass Effect is that Shepard doesn't really have a
character arc, he is too bland. Is this being aliviated at all in DA
II? As lead writer I figured you would know

I'm not sure
what you're referring to. There is a plot that determines what happens
to your character-- how you react to what happens is up to you. We
can't provide a character arc for your character beyond that,
which is really no different than Origins or any other RPG we've done.
The only difference might be that Shepherd has a set personality-- he's
a stoic, hard-ass marine no matter whether he's Paragon or Renegade,
and that makes sense for his role in the game. Your DA character will
have a personality that's a bit more mutable than that.

That's only the first one I came across after scanning each page for threads with BioWare responses (that one was on page 10). I actually had another one in mind...I think it was something by Mary Kirby, but I could be mistaken.

Regardless, when you know next to nothing about a character, do you think it's a safer bet that in an RPG, they're going to give you no choice about his personality? Never mind the fact that this is an entirely different game than ME or ME2, with an entirely different team working on it.

Having a dialogue wheel does not make a game into ME, nor does having a voiced protagonist. But the more "DA2 = ME" gets repeated, the more people start to believe it, which means more people start to repeat it.

Edit: Ah HA! I found it! Page 18!

From Mary Kirby:

Mary Kirby wrote...

Commander Shepard is a much more
specific character than Hawke is. Shepard is one very particular marine
chosen to do a particularly challenging job. Hawke is somebody who goes from being a refugee to being important to Thedas history somehow.  Defining who Hawke turns out to be and how that happens is sort of where the player comes in to the story.

Modifié par SirOccam, 19 juillet 2010 - 10:40 .

[mr_nameless]

A new publisher and some new art designers.

[Rubbish Hero]

More Of The first game, no Mass Effect, no new art direction, no more crap bribe system and better balance. Not super experiment game to see if console users dig it more.

Modifié par Rubbish Hero, 19 juillet 2010 - 11:04 .

[Games4ever]

I don't want more censor,want less

[DaringMoosejaw]

I don't want them to be pressured by corporate or hoards of bored forum-goers, I want them to make their own game. That's all.

[Cazic of LFD]

SirOccam wrote...

He's no more pre-determined than your Origins character, except you can't choose the race. You still specify gender, appearance, first name, personality, motivations, etc.
"DA is becoming ME" is the sound bite everyone loves throwing around, but it's just not true. Shepard was a marine, chosen BECAUSE of his background and personality to become a Spectre and all that. Hawke is...a person. Who escaped Lothering. That's ALL we know. Everything else is for us to fill in.

You could specify gender, appearance, sex and a backround type as well as a personality ME. So please, tell me, how is that any different from that they are instituting in Dragon Age?

The character of Shepard worked fine in Mass Effect. I don't want Mass Effect with swords, hell i dont want any of the mechanics of Mass Effect in Dragon Age. Leave Dragon Age as Dragon Age, and not some bastardized version of Mass Effect.

[SirOccam]

Cazic of LFD wrote...

SirOccam wrote...

He's no more pre-determined than your Origins character, except you can't choose the race. You still specify gender, appearance, first name, personality, motivations, etc.
"DA is becoming ME" is the sound bite everyone loves throwing around, but it's just not true. Shepard was a marine, chosen BECAUSE of his background and personality to become a Spectre and all that. Hawke is...a person. Who escaped Lothering. That's ALL we know. Everything else is for us to fill in.

You could specify gender, appearance, sex and a backround type as well as a personality ME. So please, tell me, how is that any different from that they are instituting in Dragon Age?

The character of Shepard worked fine in Mass Effect. I don't want Mass Effect with swords, hell i dont want any of the mechanics of Mass Effect in Dragon Age. Leave Dragon Age as Dragon Age, and not some bastardized version of Mass Effect.

It is different because Shepard is a very specific person. You can choose occasionally between doing things in a slightly different way, but his background and--despite what you say--most of his personality are already decided for you. Read the quotes from David and Mary...they explain it way better than I could.

Your second paragraph is what is so aggravating...you take two very minor things (dialogue in a wheel instead of a list, and having a voice) and that turns into "Dragon Age is Mass Effect," and THAT, in turn, becomes the foundation, when it's not only assumption, it's wild speculation. That's nice that you don't want Mass Effect with swords. Neither do I. I also don't want Super Mario Bros with swords. But who cares? Since there's no reason we should assume DA2 is turning into either of those two games, there's really no point in lamenting it, much less using it as the basis for futher speculation.

It's like...let's say you hate meatloaf. Does that mean you hate every single ingredient in meatloaf, and by extension, every other dish that uses, say...eggs? Or ketchup? (Or whatever else you put on your meatloaf?) Dialogue in a curved shape instead of a straight line and having a voice are but two ingredients that make up Mass Effect. And they are not even major, game-defining ingredients.

[UberDuber]

I dont want MASS EFFECT DIALOG WHEEL.

[MoSa09]

Apart from the things that i would want to have but are already ruled out.

Let's see.

1. Really tough moral decisions this time would be great. Either sacrifice the boy or his mother, and if you don't have the guts and go away, let there be a heavy price. But not just let that dangerous abomination sitting scared in his room for days waiting for your retun to slay him. That is ridiculous and contradicts the very concept of grey and tough moral decisions.

2. I would like to see more customize options as in Origins. As we play a somewhat preset hero, more opportunities to at least make him or her look very different from one another and let us make them our own would be good.

3. Inter-party romance. As Hawke has a sister, maybe a party member falls for her and asks your permission to woo her. Now that could result in some awesome funny dialogue.

4. Treat cameos and former Origins companions with respect. There are all beloved around here, and throw them in for a few lines to create some sense of continuity like Wynne in Awakening.  Just leave them out then.

5. If i steal in a house when the owner is present, it would be a nice change if that one would care if i just grab all his wealth and belongings. That would add to the realism.

6. More diversity in the main plot chapters. While the major plot chapters were all great and fun by themselves, they were all very much alike. "Sorry warden, we know we have to help you, but we can't, unfortunately. There is an issue, you know, an issue we can't deal with. But you can deal with and then we help". That very same base theme happened with the dalish, the dwarfs, the mages and Redcliffe. Maybe some different themes this time around?

Other than that, i have many more, but none of them is going to happen anyway, sadly.

Modifié par MoSa09, 20 juillet 2010 - 12:06 .

[Aggie Punbot]

DaringMoosejaw wrote...

I don't want them to be pressured by corporate or hoards of bored forum-goers, I want them to make their own game. That's all.

QFT

[Onyx Jaguar]

I don't want written epilogues, if I do something to the world show it. I also do not want canonization of plot decisions in Origins or Awakening for that matter

[Saibh]

Onyx Jaguar wrote...

I don't want written epilogues, if I do something to the world show it. I also do not want canonization of plot decisions in Origins or Awakening for that matter

I absolutely agree--these are probably the two big things I worried about, which the devs (I believe) have already allayed for me.

As I recall, however, the devs have already told us we'll see the epilogue play out--I can't remember if they were deliberately vague, said we'd play through the epilogue as we would the game, or it'd be a video.

As for the second, we know we can import a save, to about the same degree you were allowed to import ME to ME2.

Still want my romances, though.<3

Modifié par Saibh, 20 juillet 2010 - 12:51 .

[Malanek]

Onyx Jaguar wrote...

I don't want written epilogues, if I do something to the world show it.

Really? I love them, and love seeing the differences depending on what choices you made within the game. I want to know what happens to my companions and the consequences of my actions. The only time I would urge constraint is when another story is going to be written. And to try and keep them open ended.

[London]

WANT:



1. A lot of relationship options for Hawke and the party members. I'd be amused if I rejected a Companion for a Romance Option, and then he/she ran into the arms of another Companion, and both got closed off as options.



2. More Weapon/Armor appearances. My DA:O characters looked exactly the same aside from my plate-wearing companions that got chages here and there.



3. At least as much control over Hawke's decisions as I had for the Warden.



4. Return of the Approval system or something like it.



DO NOT WANT



1. Difficult Puzzles - that basement puzzle in the Stone DLC took me forever lol! Kitty threatened to get angry but she didn't mind my bumbling for 2 hours!