11 réponses à ce sujet

[David Gaider]

Riona45 wrote...
I guess disliking DA2 gives people amazing powers of prognostication.  They are able to tell us about how much of a coward Hawke is, how his/her story is FAR less interesting than that of certain Starcraft characters, etc.

Hawke is a blank slate, whereas the Warden from DAO is not. I get it. A blank slate is always going to seem like less when you don't have any positive points to compare.

Thing is, the Warden was once a blank slate, too. Nobody went into DAO knowing much of anything about the Grey Wardens (and many people on these forums expressed distaste for the idea of being "forced" into such an organization, in fact) or having any idea what to expect. Once they played the game, they got attached.

Being attached and wishing that you could continue a story which is already over, however, is not the same as there being nothing in a new story to get attached to. If that were the case we would only experience one good story ever, and then spend the rest of our lives wishing that every new story revisited that one.

And before someone goes "but this is a sequel!" I will say, yes, it is-- but it's not a continuation of the original story. It's the same world you were introduced to, with many connections to the original story, but a new hero. Lots of sequels do this. I'm not saying being attached to one's Warden is wrong-- quite the opposite, I think it's a compliment-- but confusing that attachment with the idea that a sequel must carry on with the original hero is quite something else.

Until Hawke isn't a blank slate, however, people aren't going to change their opinion and will only see the loss of the positives. Completely understandable. I would say that the connection might come in time (there's still many months left to go before you need to decide anything, after all), once you get more of a sense of what the story is and Hawke's place in it, but that's not something an angry person wants to hear I'm sure.

Modifié par David Gaider, 25 juillet 2010 - 12:46 .

[David Gaider]

Kordaris wrote...
He isn't a blank state. He is a human male/female from Hawke family. This isn't a blank state. We can't make him elvish, we can't make him dwarven,  we can't make him quanari, we can't make him coming from any other family.

He comes with pre-determined race, pre-determined family name. Both race and name are two very strong elements of self-identification. I would never call him a blank state.

Your DAO character also had a pre-determined family name, based on your origin. YES-- you had six to choose from. I'm not arguing that. What I mean by a blank slate is that you associate nothing with the character. You also associated nothing with your Warden character when you began. The fact that you could choose things about him did not mean he wasn't  a blank slate.

This is not the core of the problem. You didn't had one pre-determined hero in DAO. You could chose from several, and picked one you liked. This option has been reduced from DA2.Selecting a new hero in DA2 would be ok, playing Gray Warden again is not necessary(and in fact would be very difficult) but being forced to abandon such clever and creative process of selection of your hero is what angers people.

So choosing your race and origin (the beginning to your story) made for a whole new hero? You do realize that was still the same story, you were still the same Grey Warden who went on to defeat the Blight in the same way as those other heroes, yes? As I've said elsewhere, if the mere fact of that choice is THAT much of a difference to you, by all mean-- there's nothing we could say that could convince you-- but you talk as if it created a whole new story and the fact that DA2 has less choices to start means there is none at all.

Anathemic wrote...
Ahh but Mr. Gaider, pre-DA:O we already
knew the Warden was going to rally and army and defeat the Blight
(atleast I did, couple of week, 1 or 2, before the release) and
honestly, it surpasses in what I'm seeing of Hawke currently

As you yourself say, you didn't know this until a couple of weeks before release... whereas here we are a couple of weeks after announcement. Like I said, at this same point the Grey Warden was just as much of a blank slate. You have nothing to associate with it... well, except for your concerns and fears, I guess. The same was the case after DAO was announced.

Modifié par David Gaider, 25 juillet 2010 - 01:06 .

[David Gaider]

AlanC9 wrote...

Kordaris wrote...
The creation lost its chance when it got the unfortunate name.

Yeah, we get that you can't handle the name. Move on.

Heh. Let me say something about names.

Did you know that when we named the Grey Wardens there were people in the office who were vehemently opposed to it? They thought it sounded stupid, and suggested alternatives. Like with any name for a made up thing, the Grey Wardens (and the alternatives) were liked by some, hated by others, and only a few expressed indifference.

Why? Because people have connotations for names. There's no bar to judge it by except personal preference, so everyone's going to react on a gut level.

Thing is, once you get used to a name and associate it with the made-up thing eventually you won't be able to remember that it could ever have been called anything else. Grey Wardens? Of course they're the Grey Wardens! What else would you call them?

Same with the Qunari ("sounds like canary!"), same with Alistair ("that sounds like a british boy band name! He's a warrior!"), same with Dragon Age itself. We fight about these names all the time, and then think it's odd that later on we don't even remember why we thought they were bad in the first place. All that fuss and argument, and in the end it would have been just as easy to pick some random dude passing in the hallway and get him to name the thing and be done with it.

...no, Hawke was not named by some random dude passing in the hallway.

Thing is, it's a new name, and one that (unsurprisingly) carries connotations as any name would. If you think it's bad, you really should have heard some of the alternate suggestions.

[David Gaider]

Kordaris wrote...
One crucial difference:in DA1 we had alternate options to choose from if we didn't like a character's name. Try as you might-I realise you are defending the product which you think highly of-but limitation of player's choices will be seen as bad, since many got used to freedom in DAO.

You mean the last name that you didn't get to choose but were only referred to on the rare occasion?

Or the first name that you did get to choose but never heard again, and instead were referred to as "Warden" if you were spoken to directly at all? Exactly the same as now, with it simply being "Hawke" instead of "Warden"?

No offense, but is that a lot of freedom you're missing, exactly?

Modifié par David Gaider, 25 juillet 2010 - 01:44 .

[David Gaider]

Brockololly wrote...
Eagerly awaiting to hear alternate names for Mike Hawke....But seriously, did no one pick up on the whole Mike Hawke , Epic Hawke and so on before sticking with it?

Sure. We laughed. We got over it. We still liked the name.

[David Gaider]

Kordaris wrote...
Please take no o offense-but do you play RPGs besides computer games?

You mean like tabletop RPG's? Yes, actually. All the time.

Even If I play a computer game I roleplay the character I am playing as in normal RPG. Not only I see his actions that happen on screen but I envision details of his backstory, his goals, his feelings, his views of situations in which he acts. I treat this as normal gameplay roleplay experience.
The name might be mentioned rarely on screen-but when I roleplay a character in computer game it is constantly on my mind as are its other traits.

If my GM said my character needed to have a specific last name, I'd be fine with that so long as I still got to play my character the way I wanted. If I said "no way, I want to be a dwarf named Ermine and be from Kal-Sharok" and he said "but that's not going to fit into the story I have planned" ...well, I can either go off and keep Ermine with no place to go or I can see what he has in mind. Even a tabletop RPG is a collaborative experience between storyteller and player-- it's not one-sided.

[David Gaider]

DaerogTheDhampir wrote...
The Night Watch
The Darkspawn Slayers
The Anti-Blight Brigade
The Dread Guardians
The Griffon Riders
Thedas Freedom Fighters
The Doom Guild
The Dark Champions
The Order of Ill Fate
etc.
My guesses anyway.

Wow. It's like you were in that meeting.  

[David Gaider]

Merci357 wrote...
However, your character needs to be adressed in DA2, like s/he was adressed in Origins (Warden, most of the time) or Awakening (also Warden, or Commander, or both) - rank or status made that easy. In the sequel you are no member of such an order, quite refreshing. What do you propose, how should the PC be adressed? By race? By profession? The name is in my oppinion the easiest solution to this, as it is just that - a name.

You do indeed need to be addressed. In fact, we refer to the DA2 player far less often as Hawke than we referred to the player as Warden in DAO. Only people who know you intimately use the name, and even then we tend to avoid direct references as a rule to avoid repetition. Most people who don't know you will use an honorific (or even by race, if they're not human).

[David Gaider]

Drasanil wrote...
Yes but a good GM wouldn't force you to play a character you had no interest in, no matter how awesome he was. If he knew you found humans completely dull and uninspiring he wouldn't make you play one to accommodate his story, rather he would find a way make your dwarf or elf fit into his story.

And in tabletop I would say it's a bad player who insists on forcing the GM to accomodate his personal desire to play a tiefling shadowdancer (ahem-- no personal experience here, I assure you) because they came to the table with a predefined notion of what character they wanted to play, one that had no basis in the story they wanted to tell.

As I said, it's a collaborative process. It requires buy-in from both sides.

That said, a GM has a handful of players he needs to accomodate. That is really where the analogy ends, don't you think?

Which is what is so disappointing about being forced to play Hawke. Hawke is the epitome of mediocrity, Hawke is the safe bland choice that everyone can stomach to some degree or another. Compared the thought and creativity that went into DAO origins he is the stale gruel of role-playing, clichéd peasant destined to be hero devoid of any of the collaborative effort you mentioned above.  

Err... okay. And you know this how? I find it funny only because I could probably find posts that said this exact type of thing-- ho hum I have to save the world AGAIN? Can't you think of anything new? --about DAO , that bastion of thought and creativity, when it was announced.

Okay, sure, I'll play your game, oh ye of little faith. I guess you'll see eventually, won't you?

Modifié par David Gaider, 25 juillet 2010 - 03:03 .

[David Gaider]

Kordaris wrote...

David Gaider wrote...


Err... okay. And you know this how? I find it funny only because I could probably find posts that said this exact type of thing-- ho hum I have to save the world AGAIN? Can't you think of anything new? --about DAO , that bastion of thought and creativity, when it was announced.

Except you are avoiding the obvious-Dragon Age offered us several characters to choose from. Dragon Age 2 offers only one. You have no choice of changing that character if you don't like him.

Which changes nothing about what I said, as it's still "the Grey Warden" and nobody among the ho hum crowd thought that the fact that they could choose an origin or a first name made up for the fact that the concept of the story didn't immediately shower them with sparkles when they first heard it.

But I can see this is going to be a circular argument with you. Well, fair enough. I've said my piece.

Modifié par David Gaider, 25 juillet 2010 - 03:14 .

[Stanley Woo]

Let's try to keep this discussion related to DA 2, please. Thank you.