50 réponses à ce sujet

[trying_touch]

ouch... i am sorry, sylvius... but don't be too disheartened... most of the news has been optimistic, though...



just don't take people's statements out of context too often

[Ryllen Laerth Kriel]

This is all up in the air, we don't know what DA 2 will be like. Will it be like dialogue options from the ME series where different abreviated response choices will basicly say the same thing? I'm sure it (at least) will be slightly different but we just don't know yet.



I will say with 100% certainty that, to each player who hasn't experienced the game, Hawke will be a blank slate. However, depending on how the game is represented, will determine the drawing space on the slate or if the player is even the one doing the drawing.

[Jenocide]

I will only buy DA2 if there is more chickens!

[Sylvius the Mad]

David Gaider wrote...

You're a very strange man, Sylvius.

I said he was a blank slate to the fans right now because, at the moment, they know nothing about him compared to the Warden.

Since you drew a comparison to how the Warden used to be a blank slate (before we, the players, created him), I thought you were doing that on purpose.

And you seize on that phrase and misconstrue it to give you hope?

If nothing else, isn't it a refreshing change from turning everything into depair?

Not that I want to crush that hope (as fun as that is, from time to time) but I'd hate for it to be based on something I didn't even really say.

You did say it.  Whether you meant me to take it like that is unknown to me.

Because Ray went to press with his first-person/third-person dichotomy, it's a useful way to compare BioWare's different narrative styles.  If Hawke is our character to develop, then it's a first-person narrative.  If Hawke isn't our character to develop, then it's a third-person narrative (and I'll be the first one here complaining about the inability to roleplay in DA2).

Care to let that cat out of the bag?  Or, perhaps, are you trying for the first-person approach (because it's better), but you're not yet sure it's going to work with the wheel and voice, so you don't want to make any promises?

If you convince the designers to let us disable the PC voice, it will probably be possible to play in the first-person style regardless of how the game is intended (disabling the voice in ME2 would have allowed a first-person narrative playstyle - less so in ME because of the poorly written wheel options).

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 27 juillet 2010 - 05:36 .

[David Gaider]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
If nothing else, isn't it a refreshing change from turning everything into depair?

I suppose, but leaping to positive conclusions based on flimsy evidence isn't that big a step up from leaping to negative ones.

Care to let that cat out of the bag?  Or, perhaps, are you trying for the first-person approach (because it's better), but you're not yet sure it's going to work with the wheel and voice, so you don't want to make any promises?

I honestly have no idea what you're going on about. You're drawing together some philosophical argument using an interpretation of first-person/third-person that I'm not willing to step into the middle of, sorry.

If you convince the designers to let us disable the PC voice

I'm not going to do that. Convince people to put work into a legitimate setting that allows players to have a sub-optimal experience? Unlikely. And I mean the experience that we intended the player to have. The solution to every design issue is not a toggle.

Modifié par David Gaider, 27 juillet 2010 - 06:08 .

[Lem Lemoncloak]

Is there a toggle for Sylvius?



No but seriously. Has nothing changed since back in 2006? The Mad one still on an ideologic rampage?

[javierabegazo]

David Gaider wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
If nothing else, isn't it a refreshing change from turning everything into depair?

I suppose, but leaping to positive conclusions based on flimsy evidence isn't that big a step up from leaping to negative ones.

I"d Say it's even worse. Then people build up expectations based on a suppostion, and when it doesn't come true (not that it was ever meant to) they're even more disappointed and left feeling a little betrayed

[soteria]

I'm not going to do that. Convince people to put work into a legitimate setting that allows players to have a sub-optimal experience? Unlikely. And I mean the experience that we intended the player to have. The solution to every design issue is not a toggle.

But... but... a toggle to let us have the option of playing DA2 as our Warden would have solved everything!

[Lem Lemoncloak]

soteria wrote...

I'm not going to do that. Convince people to put work into a legitimate setting that allows players to have a sub-optimal experience? Unlikely. And I mean the experience that we intended the player to have. The solution to every design issue is not a toggle.

But... but... a toggle to let us have the option of playing DA2 as our Warden would have solved everything!

And a toggle to have the Warden clad in nothing but jeans, eh?

[Saibh]

Lem Lemoncloak wrote...

soteria wrote...

I'm not going to do that. Convince people to put work into a legitimate setting that allows players to have a sub-optimal experience? Unlikely. And I mean the experience that we intended the player to have. The solution to every design issue is not a toggle.

But... but... a toggle to let us have the option of playing DA2 as our Warden would have solved everything!

And a toggle to have the Warden clad in nothing but jeans, eh?

That's getting modded in whether they like it or not. And I think I'm going to prefer default Hawke over default frowny-face Warden.

Modifié par Saibh, 27 juillet 2010 - 06:10 .

[okiness]

SOME OF US SUCK AT CARVING, I DON'T WANT A BLANK SLATE. A blank sketchbook would be nice



If it's still of the nature of DA, I will play it. We have the rich story of Thedas and the world around it, don't we? So it would take me a lot to get out of the game.



I am however weary of this new gameplay, and weary of whether or not I will get the same enjoyment I did out of DA:O. However, if it's a good game despite that I will appreciate it for it's merits. A blank slate would be nice, an empty character I build up would be amazing, but we'll see.



/hesitant optimist

[Sylvius the Mad]

David Gaider wrote...

I honestly have no idea what you're going on about. You're drawing together some philosophical argument using an interpretation of first-person/third-person that I'm not willing to step into the middle of, sorry.

Is Hawke our character, like the Warden, or your character, like Shepard?

Now, to be fair, the extent to which Shepard was not our character was a result of the particular implementation of these new approaches to dialogue.

Let me approach this another way.  Remember during DAO's development, you told us that we would get to decide what our PCs' feelings were about his or her starting situation.  Based on this, I complained about the marketing for the Dwarven Noble, because it said that character was "proud" to be accepting his first command, and I objected to the game deciding for us that we were proud of something.

But you reassured me that this was just a marketing piece, and the game would not force that pride upon me.  And you were right; DAO let me control my characters' thoughts and motives with regard to pretty much everything.

This is a stark contrast with Mass Effect, where Shepard's mind was generally unknown to me.

Is DA2 aiming for that same sort of freedom on the character creation side, where whatever Hawke happens to be doing at the chronological start of the narrative, we're free to determine how he feels about it?

We were not free to do that in Mass Effect.  We were free to do that in DAO (and KotOR, and NWN, and BG, and even Jade Empire).  And it was Mass Effect's use of the dialogue wheel and PC voice that created that difference.

Maybe the wheel and voice don't have to create that difference - I don't know, you're the expert - but they certainly can.  So I'm asking on which side of that divide you expect DA2 to fall.  If I establish Hawke's motives, can I be reasonably sure that I'll be able to play the game in a way that prevents Hawke from speaking or acting contrary to those motives?  In ME (with Shepard) the answer was no.  In all prior BioWare RPGs the answer has been yes.  Are you aiming for one side or the other in DA2?  Or perhaps you don't think this divide is important.

I'm not going to do that. Convince people to put work into a legitimate setting that allows players to have a sub-optimal experience? Unlikely. And I mean the experience that we intended the player to have. The solution to every design issue is not a toggle.

We don't need an in-game toggle, or even the ability to select no voice in character creation (though that would be nifty).  As long as the conversations and cutscenes are assembled in a way that keeps the PC voiceset in its own files, thus allowing to swap it out for blanks, would do the trick.

And shouldn't the player's intent drive his experience more than yours does?  After all, the player knows better what sort of gameplay he finds fun.

Regardless, I'm still hopeful.  The improvement in the implementation of the wheel and voice combination in ME2 versus ME1 suggests that it isn't the millstone it first appeared, and now I get to see how it works when developed by writers whose work I genuinely like and respect (as opposed to the ME writers, toward whom I am entirely indifferent, as I don't know them).

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 27 juillet 2010 - 06:26 .

[Giltspur]

Hmm, third person vs. first person is kind of a tricky thing for me to think about. In a trivial sense, of course it's
third person. I see Hawke's back—not the frames of his glasses and the tip of his nose.

But in other sense, I pretty much think about it the way that Sylvius thinks about it. Am I guiding some character with a developed personality and approach (like a Solid Snake or Final Fantasy character or in a less extreme example, a Shepard) or am I driving a character that can be a wide range of things and feel totally different depending on how you imagine him and depending on the choices you select? I don't really care so much about
voices and race selection because you can role-play a human with a set voice. (After all, once a picked a human in Dragon voice and selected a voice in my head, the RP obviously wasn't over in DAO.)

But I don't want to feel like I'm steering someone else's experience. I know there's a gray area between how much is created by the writer and how much is created by the gamer. In RPG's, the line is closer to the gamer than it is to the reader when it comes to books. I wonder how Bioware sees RPG's in comparison to books and movies as means of telling stories. Do games aspire to be movies? Or is there something core to them that leaves a certain freedom to the gamer that the writer has to restrain himself from trampling on?

Obviously there's more than one way to do it. But I wonder how Bioware feels about these things with respect to Dragon Age 2.

Modifié par Giltspur, 27 juillet 2010 - 06:51 .

[Kritanakom]

I LIKE THIS THREAD'S TITLE

[CarlSpackler]

David Gaider wrote...

Care to let that cat out of the bag?  Or, perhaps, are you trying for the first-person approach (because it's better), but you're not yet sure it's going to work with the wheel and voice, so you don't want to make any promises?

I honestly have no idea what you're going on about. You're drawing together some philosophical argument using an interpretation of first-person/third-person that I'm not willing to step into the middle of, sorry.

It looks like Sylvius already addressed your post, but he didn't mention (at least in his response) that he's using this distinction based on Dr Ray's own words distinguishing the narrative types of DAO and ME.  Sylvius didn't invent this distinction in RPG narrative (nor did Dr Ray for that matter but since these are his games and his words we'll go with that.)  

Now despite my initial (and some continued) reservations about the new implementation, I have been encouraged by some of the information that has been flowing out of the devs on this forum -and you in particular- but still think it would nice if we could have a more direct answer to the question of narrative.  If you are able mind you, I know marketing folks and their information flow etc.  But in a nutshell would you liken the player character (Hawke) more to the warden as far as our input into his character or Sheppard?

Modifié par CarlSpackler, 27 juillet 2010 - 07:22 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

CarlSpackler wrote...

But in a nutshell would you liken the player character (Hawke) more to the warden as far as our input into his character or Sheppard?

I do recognise that he might not have that answer, yet.  David has certainly never run a writing team using this sort of dialogue system, so he might not know whether something they're trying is going to work.

We may have been spoiled by his openness about development plans (regardless of whether they got implemented) in DAO with the long and public development cycle.  For example, we learned a lot about the languages in Thedas that they were designing, but they didn't end up using much of the work of that linguist they hired.

[Code2010]

If I was still into programming I would so steal this quote "The solution to every design issue is not a toggle." lol Even so it is good enough to make my quote of the day

[CarlSpackler]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

CarlSpackler wrote...

But in a nutshell would you liken the player character (Hawke) more to the warden as far as our input into his character or Sheppard?

I do recognise that he might not have that answer, yet.  David has certainly never run a writing team using this sort of dialogue system, so he might not know whether something they're trying is going to work.

We may have been spoiled by his openness about development plans (regardless of whether they got implemented) in DAO with the long and public development cycle.  For example, we learned a lot about the languages in Thedas that they were designing, but they didn't end up using much of the work of that linguist they hired.

Right, I'm just really fishing for an answer here if he's willing to give one.  If not, well, I'm certainly no worse off than I was before 

[soteria]

I honestly have no idea what you're going on about. You're drawing together some philosophical argument using an interpretation of first-person/third-person that I'm not willing to step into the middle of, sorry.

Sylvius may correct me, but I think I understand him. Ditching the third vs first person terminology, this is my understanding: In ME, you got to choose what Shepard did and what he said, but the game ascribed motives. I could choose whether or not to destroy the Council or what to do about the Rachni, but not why I did it. In general, that was the case in ME: you told the game what you wanted to do, but your motives were largely fixed. Shepard is a Marine doing his duty. Though Paragon and Renegade Shepard may disagree about methods, they share motives.

In DA:O, even if we don't have a lot of choice about what we do (we have to kill the Archdemon and save Denerim), you have a lot of latitude in determining your character's motives and opinions. The dialogue choices reflect that. I see ME as allowing the player to choose methods and DA:O as allowing the player to choose motives.

[BomimoDK]

javierabegazo wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
If nothing else, isn't it a refreshing change from turning everything into depair?

I suppose, but leaping to positive conclusions based on flimsy evidence isn't that big a step up from leaping to negative ones.

I"d Say it's even worse. Then people build up expectations based on a suppostion, and when it doesn't come true (not that it was ever meant to) they're even more disappointed and left feeling a little betrayed

It's a refreshing change and i would love this to replace the current despair. epseciallt because it seems to imbue long time "fans" with the power to badmouth everyone and anyone without repercussions.

[Grommash94]

I believe Mary Kirby said that Hawke is different in regards to Shepard, in the sense that he has more freedom, and is less defined...or something along those lines.



It doesn't necessarily mean that Hawke is like the Warden not Shepard...but...still.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Grommash94 wrote...

I believe Mary Kirby said that Hawke is different in regards to Shepard, in the sense that he has more freedom, and is less defined...or something along those lines.

Yes, I do recall that.

So if the level of player control is a continuum, Mary is suggesting that Hawke is certainly closer to the Warden than Shepard is.

It could be that a Warden-level of player control simply isn't possible with the wheel and voice.  I don't know.  I'm not a game designer.  And maybe they don't know either - to my knowledge no one has ever done it, so maybe we simply can't tell if it's possible.

So I suppose the best possible answer (from my point of view) would be that the writers are trying to provide Warden-level player control, regardless of how confident they are that such a thing is possible.

[Jenocide]

David Gaider wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
If nothing else, isn't it a refreshing change from turning everything into depair?

I suppose, but leaping to positive conclusions based on flimsy evidence isn't that big a step up from leaping to negative ones.

Care to let that cat out of the bag?  Or, perhaps, are you trying for the first-person approach (because it's better), but you're not yet sure it's going to work with the wheel and voice, so you don't want to make any promises?

I honestly have no idea what you're going on about. You're drawing together some philosophical argument using an interpretation of first-person/third-person that I'm not willing to step into the middle of, sorry.

If you convince the designers to let us disable the PC voice

I'm not going to do that. Convince people to put work into a legitimate setting that allows players to have a sub-optimal experience? Unlikely. And I mean the experience that we intended the player to have. The solution to every design issue is not a toggle.

So true if you go down that road of lowering the experience for the player by allowing them to toggle everything on and off your left with nothing but a weak game with no solid backbone.

[SoulRebel_1979]

Just hope Hawke is a little more exciting and "alive" than Shepard was. Shepard was about as interesting as a baked potato.