64 réponses à ce sujet

[Dick Delaware]

The concerns I, personally, have with a voiced protagonist have to do with the voice actor being poor. And, perhaps even more importantly, if a voiced protagonist translates into less overall dialogue options and choices on how to complete quests.

So my concerns don't have to do with the fact that there is a voice, per se, but more that financial / technical limitations might mean that multiple ways of doing quests are scrapped. There were times in Origins where you'd get several (5-6) unique dialogue options to choose from when it came to responding to a situation. I think that replicating all of the variables in a situation like Redcliffe could get really complicated with VO for the PC and might mean that options might get pared down because of the need for voicing. It's not as if you can suddenly sneak in a sidequest here and there late in development, you have to consider that you have to organize VO for that sidequest.

I could be wrong though - I'm not sure how it works.

Modifié par Dick Delaware, 20 juillet 2010 - 01:47 .

[Riona45]

frost.mage.mari wrote...

I'm not thinking you understand my concern over why i'm against the main character being voice acted(to the person i quoted).  I don't expect everyone to, of course.  Not everyone is big into role-playing.  I'm an avid role-playing fan though, if a game can make me feel like i'm guiding the story, that i'm the person on the screen, i have alot more fun.. having a voiceover for all her conversations takes a little bit of that away.

See that's why fights start around here--someone assumes that people who disagree with them "aren't into roleplaying."  Not everyone believes a silent protagonist is essential to roleplaying.  I'd go so far as to say that if you really want complete freedom to roleplay, you need to play a tabletop game.

[frost.mage.mari]

Riona45 wrote...
See that's why fights start around here--someone assumes that people who disagree with them "aren't into roleplaying."  Not everyone believes a silent protagonist is essential to roleplaying.  I'd go so far as to say that if you really want complete freedom to roleplay, you need to play a tabletop game.

Sorry! i'm not meaning to start anything, i don't want this to devovle into anything bad.  I know that not everyone is going to have the same opinion as me, and i'd never expect them to.  I just felt that the comment made was more of a brush off remark to my opinion.

(to that person i quoted earlier) If the comment wasn't made with that tone, i'm very sorry.

In all honesty, i'd love to play a tabletop game.  I just don't have other people in my circle that would like to do that.

Modifié par frost.mage.mari, 20 juillet 2010 - 01:47 .

[Riona45]

frost.mage.mari wrote...

Sorry! i'm not meaning to start anything, i don't want this to devovle into anything bad.  I know that not everyone is going to have the same opinion as me, and i'd never expect them to.  I just felt that the comment made was more of a brush off remark to my opinion.

It's OK, just remember:

1)  Some people understand your point, but simply disagree with it.

2)  Just because someone isn't inclined to roleplay your way doesn't mean they aren't into roleplaying, they most likely just define it differently than you do.

[Mecha Tengu]

what do you expect Bioware to do, just dump all their work in making a voiced protagonist now?



And even with DAO conversation options, it was still limited. you could mkae 2-3 moral desicions and ask a few questions

[Valthier]

I must say, OP, I think I agree with you. I too find having a voice put to my characters deeply immersion breaking, and though I'm sure I'll enjoy the game on its own merits I have the sneaking suspicion that I won't be quite as attached to Hawke as I was to my Wardens. Sure there have been many of them, but I felt them all to be unique individuals in a way I don't think I'd have been able to if they all had the same voice or all delivered lines in the same way. And though other people have raised this just being a figment of my imagination... it's a figment I enjoyed, thank you very much.

[Fishy]

You don't choose often in life either.But you can make thing happens by following a certain path.



For instance you don't choose your parents , your voice, your boob size , your lastname and first name , your birthplace and your ethnicity .



Video game give you that possibilities.To be someone else in somewhere place .

I don't care about voiced and actually love it.Because i can play someone else.I can be someone else for an instant.Not like i don't like my life but who would not want to experience what it like to be a bad space marine that save the galaxy?You're not risking anything.Often what make us ordinary people that we don't take risk.



When i was a kid i could play for hours with pens and create karate move.I had lot of imagination

So i don't find it difficult to roleplay a voiced character.

[Dick Delaware]

frost.mage.mari wrote...

*smiles* i'm glad that i can get people talking here. I know alot of people will disagree with me and i'd have it no other way.

Maybe in a months time, bioware will show me something that will put all my fears and apprehentions(i'm sure i spelled that wrong...) to rest. In truth, i hope they do! I just felt that as a fan of bioware, i should give my opinion to their new game and give them one more voice to take into consideration in the final crafting of the game.

And for the oblivion thing, i wouldn't say that i'd go that far, at least not in this setting.. in an MMO-roleplaying server, all bets are off.

Hehe, that's fine. It's alright to have apprehensions about having a VO, there are indeed plenty of legitimate things that could go wrong (i.e. bad voice actor, limited dialogue options due to the sheer amount of recording necessary for the PC).

However, one gripe I have with these debates here is that you have one side in favour of VO saying that it supports "immersion" with another side against VO against it "lacks immersion". I know that you did not say this, but I think it's important to point this out because at this point in time, immersion has become so oft-used that it's now just a meaningless buzzword to describe something positive about a particular game. It is completely subjective, imprecise, and really poisons any reasonable discourse here.

I know I'm going off on a tangent here, but I'd much rather this conversation be kept civil and any buzzword use be kept to a minimum!

[Morroian]

frost.mage.mari wrote...

@javierabegazo - I'm not "crying", i'm forming an opinion based on what information i have available to me. Unfortunately, the information i have access to is not pleasing to me, so i am voicing that opinion and concerns that go along with that opinion. If Bioware and others take them to be worthwhile concerns or opinions that deserve answers or other thoughts, then all the better. Staying silent gets you nothing, only by letting those that make decisions know of your concerns early on can things become better.

Fair enough but you have to consider that there is still very little information available and that it is possible for the DA2 to treat elements like the VO and the 1 protag different from ME and ME2. Based on what I've read and some of it even in this thread I'd say although we can only be male or female Hawk that there will be a lot of freedom to make Hawke into our Hawke.

[Dick Delaware]

Valthier wrote...

I must say, OP, I think I agree with you. I too find having a voice put to my characters deeply immersion breaking, and though I'm sure I'll enjoy the game on its own merits I have the sneaking suspicion that I won't be quite as attached to Hawke as I was to my Wardens. Sure there have been many of them, but I felt them all to be unique individuals in a way I don't think I'd have been able to if they all had the same voice or all delivered lines in the same way. And though other people have raised this just being a figment of my imagination... it's a figment I enjoyed, thank you very much.

Ah, as I posted my previous reply, the dreaded "i" word has arrived.

Certainly. You can enjoy yourself with imagining your character as having a particular voice, but when NPC's respond identically regardless, it's not proper role-playing, no? I'm not sure that this is a very fair criticism of the VO that will be in DAII. I can't pretend that my character sounds a certain way, so it limits my ability to role-play. Like I said, there are legitimate arguments out there against VO, but I don't think this is one of them.

Besides, as was mentioned before, regardless of your character in Origins, you still have a pre-determined background of sorts. Certainly, it's a well fleshed-out, detailed background and you have a large number of them to choose from, but you're still confining yourself to the background that the designers picked out for you. But even then, the Origin stories were still one of the best aspects of the game.

[Narreneth]

frost.mage.mari wrote...

@javierabegazo - I'm not "crying", i'm forming an opinion based on what information i have available to me. Unfortunately, the information i have access to is not pleasing to me, so i am voicing that opinion and concerns that go along with that opinion. If Bioware and others take them to be worthwhile concerns or opinions that deserve answers or other thoughts, then all the better. Staying silent gets you nothing, only by letting those that make decisions know of your concerns early on can things become better.

@Narreneth - I'm not concerened about the name, honestly.. what's in a name, right? Hawke is a last name and is there for other people to talk to me. The only reason i was referring to the character by the last name is because that is the last name that Bioware picked for us all, and it would seem stupid for me to refer to the character we'll be playing as Nancy. And i'm just concerned that i'll be the voice in the back of her head, rather than be the character. Having voice acting that always plays out the same way can be -very- limiting when playing a role-playing game.

I get what you're saying.  My main point was really part of a larger point.  Essentially the only real differences between your character in Origins and your character in DA:2 will be voice acting and the requirement to be a human.  Since all your choices from Origins will import into DA:2 the Thedas you set-up at the end of Origins will be there for you to exist in.  Sure, it probably won't drastically change the way your game plays out (they'd have to write more than one game for it to work out that way, really) but it is still the story you made.  As far as making DA2 your story, you'll have an equal amount of options for dialogue, we will probably have the same length of game, and your actions will have an equal or greater affect on the world as a whole.

I know some people have a problem with a voiced character because they can't relate to a voiced character as well, but that's personal preference.  In fact the game story will play out the same way, it's just going to be whether you are able to get into it or not.  That's where the primary difference will lie.

[DPB]

Dick Delaware wrote...

However, one gripe I have with these debates here is that you have one side in favour of VO saying that it supports "immersion" with another side against VO against it "lacks immersion". I know that you did not say this, but I think it's important to point this out because at this point in time, immersion has become so oft-used that it's now just a meaningless buzzword to describe something positive about a particular game. It is completely subjective, imprecise, and really poisons any reasonable discourse here.

I know I'm going off on a tangent here, but I'd much rather this conversation be kept civil and any buzzword use be kept to a minimum!

Heh, that reminds me of something one of the designers (Georg Zoeller) said in the old pre-release DAO forums:

Here's a friendly tip.

in 99% of the cases, we stop reading when
we hit this:

Quote: 
This immediately took me out of the
immersion...

People
claim to be taken out of the 'immersion' for everything, from scabbards,
to pre-beta shadows to the fact that you don't have to hit the bathroom
with the character every 20 minutes. But then again, there are
selection circles and UI elements all over the place

Seriously, if you want to make any convicing
argument, try avoiding the use of 'immersion', it's about as beaten as
the word 'epic'

Modifié par dbankier, 20 juillet 2010 - 02:31 .

[Valthier]

Dick Delaware wrote...

Valthier wrote...

I must say, OP, I think I agree with you. I too find having a voice put to my characters deeply immersion breaking, and though I'm sure I'll enjoy the game on its own merits I have the sneaking suspicion that I won't be quite as attached to Hawke as I was to my Wardens. Sure there have been many of them, but I felt them all to be unique individuals in a way I don't think I'd have been able to if they all had the same voice or all delivered lines in the same way. And though other people have raised this just being a figment of my imagination... it's a figment I enjoyed, thank you very much.

Ah, as I posted my previous reply, the dreaded "i" word has arrived.

Certainly. You can enjoy yourself with imagining your character as having a particular voice, but when NPC's respond identically regardless, it's not proper role-playing, no? I'm not sure that this is a very fair criticism of the VO that will be in DAII. I can't pretend that my character sounds a certain way, so it limits my ability to role-play. Like I said, there are legitimate arguments out there against VO, but I don't think this is one of them.

Besides, as was mentioned before, regardless of your character in Origins, you still have a pre-determined background of sorts. Certainly, it's a well fleshed-out, detailed background and you have a large number of them to choose from, but you're still confining yourself to the background that the designers picked out for you. But even then, the Origin stories were still one of the best aspects of the game.

I know it's not a very solid objective argument - a lot of my wariness to do with VO is due to how I personally interact with my in-game personas. Just like you don't quite feel right pretending, I can feel a bit iffy about having the voice there. It's a preference of emotion, but that doesn't make it any less my preference.

I do have other concerns about voice acting - how well we'll be able to reply to a given situation, how good the voice actors will be, whether or not the male voice actor will have the sort of gruff voice male protagonists tend to get cast with that don't quite sound right when you're trying to play a smarmy mage. But since all we know about the VO is that it's there, all I can give is my gut reaction, that being one of caution rather than anything else.

[Faust1979]

 unless you're playing a table top roleplaying game where you have full control over what your character says you're never really playing your character. You're just given the illusion that you are. You are still following what Bioware wants you to say or how they want your character to act. 

[Narreneth]

Mages can be gruff too!

[Dick Delaware]

Narreneth wrote...
I get what you're saying.  My main point was really part of a larger point.  Essentially the only real differences between your character in Origins and your character in DA:2 will be voice acting and the requirement to be a human.  Since all your choices from Origins will import into DA:2 the Thedas you set-up at the end of Origins will be there for you to exist in.  Sure, it probably won't drastically change the way your game plays out (they'd have to write more than one game for it to work out that way, really) but it is still the story you made.  As far as making DA2 your story, you'll have an equal amount of options for dialogue, we will probably have the same length of game, and your actions will have an equal or greater affect on the world as a whole.

I know some people have a problem with a voiced character because they can't relate to a voiced character as well, but that's personal preference.  In fact the game story will play out the same way, it's just going to be whether you are able to get into it or not.  That's where the primary difference will lie.

Great point. I don't think that this is a fair criticism, because it's completely subjective. I remember reading this one review of Mask of the Betrayer, which is mechanically similar to Dragon Age, and it was deriding it because it had tightly constructed quest hubs connected to a world map (similar to Dragon Age) rather than an open world like Oblivion. It was unfair because he was basically complaining the game wasn't more like Oblivion.

Likewise, I think this is a similar situation. Some folks just don't like it because they don't like a voiced PC. And hey, that's perfectly fine. But I don't think it's a valid, objective criticism. It's like playing a shooter and getting pissed at the lack of dialogue options.

[Valthier]

Narreneth wrote...

Mages can be gruff too!

I know, I know, but no matter how hard I try everything that my hand ever creates in the DA:O character creator looks a little bit like a girl. To give the poor things one of the deep manly man voice sets would have been hilarious at best.

[Dick Delaware]

dbankier wrote...
Heh, that reminds me of something one of the designers (Georg Zoeller) said in the old pre-release DAO forums:

Here's a friendly tip.

in 99% of the cases, we stop reading when
we hit this:

Quote: 
This immediately took me out of the
immersion...

People
claim to be taken out of the 'immersion' for everything, from scabbards,
to pre-beta shadows to the fact that you don't have to hit the bathroom
with the character every 20 minutes. But then again, there are
selection circles and UI elements all over the place

Seriously, if you want to make any convicing
argument, try avoiding the use of 'immersion', it's about as beaten as
the word 'epic'

Mr. Zoeller is a smart man. I would do the exact same in his position - just ignore. In fact, if I were in charge of this forum, I would have the word be filtered out the same way that swearing is so that people would stop using it.  It's really a nonsensical marketing phrase that folks have been duped into believing means anything. I blame idiotic gaming journalists and the preview (read: advertising) articles they write for putting "immersion" into the lexicon. It is almost as bad as "epic" and "next-gen" in terms of bullsh*t.

[In Exile]

frost.mage.mari wrote...

*Smile* There's been a few who are making the comment that unless i write it, it's not my story. I have to both agree and disagree. Yes it's bioware who crafted the over-arcing story, and coded the game.. but it was me(and everyone else) who made the story flow to what we wanted. I could choose to spare, kill or help the werewolves in the forest. Actively shaping which way the story plays makes it my story because my story won't nessacarily be the same as someone elses.

I have to disagree. I wanted two things out of DA:O: 1) to become King of Ferelden with a male human noble Warden; 2) to save Ferelden from the Blight and leave my involvement with the Grey Wardens at that.

With 1) the only option you have to kingship is to marry someone else. As a female you can marry Alistair (which is at least a party NPC like in JE) or become Anora's consort and be denied the title King. That I could not convince the Landsmeet to recognize the Warden as the most appropriate choice was incredibly frustrating. Yes, Anora was married to Cailain. She also was Loghain's regent and attempted to persuade the nobles to side with her father. More to the point, she is a commoner. Alistair is a bastard son, allegedly, and his resemblance to Cailain is very good proof of this... but he also does not want the crown, did not lead the Warden army and is really all but happy to be a sidekick. Convincing Alistair to put aside this King business so that the Cousland can be King and Alistair can rebuild the Wardens is perfectly reasonable.

But there is no option for any of this. So that in itself makes me say we only have as much control as the writers let us.

With 2) you are allowed to be reluctant with the Warden role until you are at Flemeth's hut. You receive good reasons for believing that it is either stop the blight or have it overrun Ferelden and become impossibly powerful, so there are good reasons to stop the Blight. But after this the game forces you to identify as a Warden; more to the point it forces you to be proud of being a Warden. At best you can avoid picking dialogue most of the time. But the worst offender is when Wynne asks you what being a Warden means to you. Your best choice is "why does it have to mean anything," but you can't say "it was forced on me against my will, I will stop the blight because it is the right thing, but I do not see myself as a Warden and I certainly will have nothing to do with the order; my only focus after defeating the archedemon is seeing if I can free myself from the taint".

[In Exile]

whoops - double post.

Modifié par In Exile, 20 juillet 2010 - 02:50 .

[Dick Delaware]

Valthier wrote...
I know it's not a very solid objective argument - a lot of my wariness to do with VO is due to how I personally interact with my in-game personas. Just like you don't quite feel right pretending, I can feel a bit iffy about having the voice there. It's a preference of emotion, but that doesn't make it any less my preference.

I do have other concerns about voice acting - how well we'll be able to reply to a given situation, how good the voice actors will be, whether or not the male voice actor will have the sort of gruff voice male protagonists tend to get cast with that don't quite sound right when you're trying to play a smarmy mage. But since all we know about the VO is that it's there, all I can give is my gut reaction, that being one of caution rather than anything else.

I don't feel right pretending not out of a personal preference (though of course, that plays a role too), but because I feel that in a good role-playing game, I shouldn't have to pretend. if I have to make up things in my head that don't exist in the game because that game doesn't respond to my choices, I am not playing a good role-playing game. I don't have to pretend my character is a ruthless, power-hungry blood mage in Origins. Why? Because I'm willing to offer up an innocent little kid for my own personal gain because I know I can get away with it scot-free. I'm willing to desecrate a holy healing artifact and aid some raving lunatics to achieve my goals.

Likewise, I don't have to pretend that I'm a dwarf, an elf, etc. because there are numerous cases in the game where NPC's respond to my background. This is the stuff that really makes you feel like you're inhabiting a character - reactivity. Hell, Dragon Age isn't even the best RPG that's done this, there are others that go further too.

A good example is Bloodlines. You are a vampire, and you pick a clan, each with their own particular strengths and weaknesses - some are seductive and charismatic, some are master sneaks, others are great fighters. One particular clan that you can play as, the Malkavians, are all insane. As a result, all of the dialogue options you have in the entire game are those of a lunatic. You can say some really far-out, weird stuff in your dialogue trees, and occasionally some very insightful, profound stuff (insanity and genius go hand in hand, after all).

My point is, I don't have to pretend my character is crazy - the design is such that the game responds to my character by actually making him talk like a crazy person and having numerous NPC's asking me what the hell I'm raving about.

My point is with these examples is that this is what good design in an RPG is, and it's what role-playing is all about.

[Narreneth]

Valthier wrote...

Narreneth wrote...

Mages can be gruff too!

I know, I know, but no matter how hard I try everything that my hand ever creates in the DA:O character creator looks a little bit like a girl. To give the poor things one of the deep manly man voice sets would have been hilarious at best.

Give Hawke the default beard!  Problem solved! 

And for some reason halfway through your post I started imagining female Hawke with a deep manly voice set and now I can't stop laughing thinking about the reactions people would have after sculpting what they thought was a beautiful, feminine heroine, only to have her opening line sound like James Earl Jones.

[Captain Jazz]

Apologies in advance for any offense taken from the percieved tone of this comment, none is intended.

I've been a bioware gamer since I was knee-high to a goose (A very tall goose. His name is Frederick.) and with every game they have released (excepting MDK 2 & the sonic game - I haven't played either of those) they have completely and catastrophically failed to disappoint me. Sure, things are changing, the new box character is a beardy weirdo with a metal arm and a creepy stare, there's only once race to choose and we're not allowed to make up our own voices for our character anymore (I still say they should let us have a mute button to keep our character silent and sullen, g'wan devs, g'waaaan!) but things have always changed. How would people react if all their games were Baldur's Gate clones?

I fully expect there to be things about Dragon Age 2 that I'm not crazy about, I'm still a little moody about how limiting the class system in Dragon Age is to be honest... but it works and I like that it works the way that it does. I desperately want to play as an Arcane Trickster or some such cross class monstrosity, but like children pulling the wings off flies, the devs won't let me, but it wouldn't fit the world they've made and would ultimately ruin the experience.



Anyway... as fun as rambling around the point is I'll make the point and go hide under a rock for a while.

Bioware: They make damned good games. They make damned good roleplay games and they know how to make you feel like it really is your story.



Bioware, when is the spiritual successor to Shattered Steel coming out? You know you want to.

[Narreneth]

In Exile wrote...

frost.mage.mari wrote...

*Smile* There's been a few who are making the comment that unless i write it, it's not my story. I have to both agree and disagree. Yes it's bioware who crafted the over-arcing story, and coded the game.. but it was me(and everyone else) who made the story flow to what we wanted. I could choose to spare, kill or help the werewolves in the forest. Actively shaping which way the story plays makes it my story because my story won't nessacarily be the same as someone elses.

I have to disagree. I wanted two things out of DA:O: 1) to become King of Ferelden with a male human noble Warden; 2) to save Ferelden from the Blight and leave my involvement with the Grey Wardens at that.

With 1) the only option you have to kingship is to marry someone else. As a female you can marry Alistair (which is at least a party NPC like in JE) or become Anora's consort and be denied the title King. That I could not convince the Landsmeet to recognize the Warden as the most appropriate choice was incredibly frustrating. Yes, Anora was married to Cailain. She also was Loghain's regent and attempted to persuade the nobles to side with her father. More to the point, she is a commoner. Alistair is a bastard son, allegedly, and his resemblance to Cailain is very good proof of this... but he also does not want the crown, did not lead the Warden army and is really all but happy to be a sidekick. Convincing Alistair to put aside this King business so that the Cousland can be King and Alistair can rebuild the Wardens is perfectly reasonable.

But there is no option for any of this. So that in itself makes me say we only have as much control as the writers let us.

With 2) you are allowed to be reluctant with the Warden role until you are at Flemeth's hut. You receive good reasons for believing that it is either stop the blight or have it overrun Ferelden and become impossibly powerful, so there are good reasons to stop the Blight. But after this the game forces you to identify as a Warden; more to the point it forces you to be proud of being a Warden. At best you can avoid picking dialogue most of the time. But the worst offender is when Wynne asks you what being a Warden means to you. Your best choice is "why does it have to mean anything," but you can't say "it was forced on me against my will, I will stop the blight because it is the right thing, but I do not see myself as a Warden and I certainly will have nothing to do with the order; my only focus after defeating the archedemon is seeing if I can free myself from the taint".

I had the reluctant Warden attempt fail miserably too.  Not that this is terribly relevant, I just wanted to bring it up!  Probably the only situation where I was actually disappointed in my ability to choose what I wanted though, so that at least is a positive.

[Dick Delaware]

In Exile wrote...
I have to disagree. I wanted two things out of DA:O: 1) to become King of Ferelden with a male human noble Warden; 2) to save Ferelden from the Blight and leave my involvement with the Grey Wardens at that.

With 1) the only option you have to kingship is to marry someone else. As a female you can marry Alistair (which is at least a party NPC like in JE) or become Anora's consort and be denied the title King. That I could not convince the Landsmeet to recognize the Warden as the most appropriate choice was incredibly frustrating. Yes, Anora was married to Cailain. She also was Loghain's regent and attempted to persuade the nobles to side with her father. More to the point, she is a commoner. Alistair is a bastard son, allegedly, and his resemblance to Cailain is very good proof of this... but he also does not want the crown, did not lead the Warden army and is really all but happy to be a sidekick. Convincing Alistair to put aside this King business so that the Cousland can be King and Alistair can rebuild the Wardens is perfectly reasonable.

But there is no option for any of this. So that in itself makes me say we only have as much control as the writers let us.

With 2) you are allowed to be reluctant with the Warden role until you are at Flemeth's hut. You receive good reasons for believing that it is either stop the blight or have it overrun Ferelden and become impossibly powerful, so there are good reasons to stop the Blight. But after this the game forces you to identify as a Warden; more to the point it forces you to be proud of being a Warden. At best you can avoid picking dialogue most of the time. But the worst offender is when Wynne asks you what being a Warden means to you. Your best choice is "why does it have to mean anything," but you can't say "it was forced on me against my will, I will stop the blight because it is the right thing, but I do not see myself as a Warden and I certainly will have nothing to do with the order; my only focus after defeating the archedemon is seeing if I can free myself from the taint".

The context of the marriage with Anora makes sense. You have no claim to the throne, indeed, neither does Anora but she has been de facto ruler of Ferelden for five years, so she has precedence. Not to mention a father who is revered as a hero. I don't see what the problem is, you become King, but she runs the country. Why would she agree to anything else? You have no leverage over her.

2) Yes, regardless of your choices you are a Warden, and must stop the Blight. It's unfortunate that you can't play as a more reluctant Grey Warden and have dialogue options that reflect, even if it means the story plays out the same. It's not ideal, but some extra dialogue here would at least spice things up a bit.

However, while that's a legitimate flaw, I don't mind that you are a Grey Warden no matter what in the game. I find it an acceptable sort of railroading, because the game itself is about Grey Wardens. You can't exactly play a game about Grey Wardens ending a Blight and not be a Grey Warden in it, you know? It's sort of like me wanting to play Bloodlines and be a human, or a werewolf.