83 réponses à ce sujet

[addiction21]

addiction21 wrote...

Sable Rhapsody wrote...

Baldur's Gate was rooted in fixed origin, and it was a game made of the stuff of awesome.

Which makes for great entertainment when it is the same people that praise BG in all its glory then cry about the origins being taken out.
I liked the origins. THey were neat but other then the first hour or so they added little to nothing to the game.
I said it over a year ago that if DA2 did not have the origins tag then it would be back to the norm and thats not a bad thing.
As I see it the (and this is just wild speculation) the idea of the different origins was a gimmick that made it into the game and then those developers went "awwwwwwwwwwww **** now we need 6 stories with unique interactions thruout the entire game... **** that"
Removing the 6 choices takes away some of the roleplaying but thats it.

Since the new buzz argument is "ITS BEING DUMBED DOWN" I dare any person to elaborate on how that is so for the origin stories and their removal.

Ummmmm..... Ya not sure what I was doing that night but after reading the thread I clearly slammed my foot in the mouth with this one. Maybe I spent too much time at the pool hall. maybe I have spent too much time in the general forums, either why I apologize and will scheduale an hour in the corner tommorow after work.

[eucatastrophe]

OP: Good post; you're absolutely right.

VittoriaLandis wrote...

Faust1979 wrote...

It doesn't bother me really because I have found that the origins didn't have much to do at all with the main game they all pretty much merge into the same character after the origins section is over.

Exactly. The only thing that it affected throughout the game was how certain people would treat you. Other than that, as you said, they merge into the same character.

Well the Origins provided great flavour to the game and flavour should not be dismissed so flippantly in an RPG IMO.

Modifié par eucatastrophe, 30 août 2010 - 06:21 .

[Sable Rhapsody]

eucatastrophe wrote...

Well the Origins provided great flavour to the game and flavour should not be dismissed so flippantly in an RPG IMO.

Flavor is great--no arguing there.  Flavor is one of the best ways to introduce roleplaying room without letting the player stray from the plot rails.  However, I did feel that the Origins should have offered a bit more than just roleplaying flavor.  For example, perhaps Wardens of each Origin could provide a unique solution to the challenges faced in one of the game's major quests.  The mage Warden could have a unique solution to the Circle Tower problems, the dwarven Wardens to Orzammar, the Dalish Warden to the Brecilian Forest, etc.  The problem with flavor is that it's just that--flavor.  It can only be stretched so far before one notices a decided lack of substance.

I can work with that--origins for RP flavor and little else, but I also have an intensely overactive imagination.  And I certainly will cheer if Hawke's fixed origin offers more substantive ways to interact with the backstory a la PS:T.

[Bryy_Miller]

I don't think that we can really say that DA2 is "dismissing flippantly" anything. All we've heard are talking points. That's kind of like saying Obama hates America because he didn't go to the Boy Scouts Party.

[Rive Caedo]

I'll actually agree that losing the Origins isn't a *huge* deal. Though it did add a large amount of flavor.

For instance, it was pretty awesome when my Elf Mage talked to Wynne and she pointed out I was basically a "double outcast".

[eucatastrophe]

Sable Rhapsody wrote...

eucatastrophe wrote...

Well the Origins provided great flavour to the game and flavour should not be dismissed so flippantly in an RPG IMO.

Flavor is great--no arguing there.  Flavor is one of the best ways to introduce roleplaying room without letting the player stray from the plot rails.  However, I did feel that the Origins should have offered a bit more than just roleplaying flavor.  For example, perhaps Wardens of each Origin could provide a unique solution to the challenges faced in one of the game's major quests.  The mage Warden could have a unique solution to the Circle Tower problems, the dwarven Wardens to Orzammar, the Dalish Warden to the Brecilian Forest, etc.  The problem with flavor is that it's just that--flavor.  It can only be stretched so far before one notices a decided lack of substance.

I can work with that--origins for RP flavor and little else, but I also have an intensely overactive imagination.  And I certainly will cheer if Hawke's fixed origin offers more substantive ways to interact with the backstory a la PS:T.

I think this is a case of limitations on time+budget. Sure, they could have made a thousand different scenarios on the whole. I think they wanted to. But it's just something that's too expensive at this point.

For DA2, it'll be welcome for sure, but I'll understand if it's just one Origin. 
Would DA:O lack anything if you axed the Origins? Not really. You'd just be throwing away a huge chunk of charm. And it's the little things that make a game imo. 

[Semyaza82]

Sable Rhapsody wrote...


I can work with that--origins for RP flavor and little else, but I also have an intensely overactive imagination.  And I certainly will cheer if Hawke's fixed origin offers more substantive ways to interact with the backstory a la PS:T.

I'm with you on this. I managed to happily play DA:O through several times more than i do most games because i could imagine that my evilish/noble elf rogue (or whatever) really was different than my evilish/noble human mage. It was largely in my head, but I think a sign of good RPG is that it can make you actually imagine this sense of individuality in the characters.

I'm hoping that having just the one origin means it'll be more in depth as well. I really hope that we have more options than just a general nice responce to a problem vs evil responce - though i guess i'm hoping we'll get that in the game as a whole as well

EDIT: Forgot to say - this thread finally allowed me to see what everyone was saying about the troll posting the pic. Yuck but also yawn <_<

Modifié par Semyaza82, 30 août 2010 - 11:04 .

[MerinTB]

Sable Rhapsody wrote...
Baldur's Gate series:

• Customize: race, gender, appearance, class
• Customization's bearing on roleplaying: none except romance
• Background: Set.  You're the Bhaalspawn

Being "the Bhaalspawn" is less constricting on your background than the fact that you were raised by Gorion at Candlekeep.   But both combined mean you do have a very preset origin and background as far as "where you came from."

That said,  the "bearing on roleplaying" depends on what you mean.  You could make your whole party (if you played single-player in multi-player, which I did - and then you only have 1 of six with a preset background.)  The customization might have no bearing on dialog or plot, but that doesn't mean the player role-playing his or her character finds that it's not important.

There is a difference between the game having programmed responses and the PLAYER having responses based on the character.

NWN OC: 

• Customize: race, gender, appearance, class
• Customization's bearing on roleplaying: none except romance
• Background: Open, except that you randomly turned up in Neverwinter one day

Define "no bearing" - people will call address you based on your gender.  Certain characters react differently based on class or race.
And you didn't "randomly turn up" in Neverwinter - you joined a training academy answering Neverwinter's call for heroes.  Yes, the start of the campaign is "set" as to where you and and kind of why (though why you chose to join, and where you were before, are up to you.)

Fallout 1 and 2:

• Customize: gender, appearance (to a minor degree), skills
• Customization's bearing on roleplaying: none
• Background: Set.  You're the Vault Dweller.

Have you PLAYED the games you are quoting?  You are NOT a Vault Dweller in 2.
Yes, you are A vault dweller in 1, and people call you such throughout the game, but that's as much as  set background as people in the town you are visiting calling you "stranger" or the Empire referring to you as "Rebel scum."  It's not a set background - it's just where you are from at the start of the game.  Who you are, why you are doing what you do, is up to you.

In 2 you play a descendant of the original vault dweller, and the old woman in your tribe gives you a quest saying it's your "destiny" but that's just a fancy way of saying "we need someone to do this, and we arbitrarily pick you due to your heritage."

Your background, who you are and what your are doing, is not set.  There is a difference between "you start here" in a game and "you are Hawke, fleeing Lothering with your family, and you will become the most important person this century by becoming the Champion of Kirkwall."  Now if Fallout 1 had, say, said "You are Stirling, and you chose to leave the Vault to save your people and will come to be revered as the Savior of Vault 13."  It may seem like splitting hairs to you, the lacking of name and end story being thrust upon you at the start may even seem unimportant to you - but the whole framed narrative thing and "push a button and something happens" are unimportant gimmicks to me.

Planescape: Torment:

• Customize: None upon character creation, class later on
• Customization's bearing on roleplaying: None
• Background: Set.  You're the Nameless One

You got me here.  Your character is really preset.  And I've never finished this game as I'd rather read a novel than click slowly through a novel with travel time.

KOTOR:

• Customize: gender, appearance, class
• Customization's bearing on roleplaying: none except romance
• Background: Set.  You're Revan.  (Please, no whining about spoilers.  This is like freaking Rosebud around here.)

KOTOR2:

• Customize: gender, appearance, class
• Customization's bearing on roleplaying: none except romance
• Background: Set.  You're the Jedi Exile.

Here you are dead on again - you choices have zero effect outside of combat.  BioWare is very good at turning "characer creation" into nothing more than a more complicated "choose your starting weapons and hairstyle."

DA2:

• Customize: gender, appearance, class
• Customization's bearing on the game: Unknown
• Background: Set.  You're Hawke

See any similarities?

Yep - the BioWare formula is strong in the BioWare games listed above.  Fallout 1 & 2 do not really fit this pattern you are trying to establish.  NWN falls outside of this because your character really has no destiny nor anything predetermined - it is very different.

DA:O

• Customize: race, gender, appearance, class
• Customization's bearing on the game: Romance, dialogue options, flavor text, and roleplaying "feel" of certain quests.  Still very little impact on overall plot.
• Background: Semi set.  You come from one of six origins, but at the end of the day, you're still the gorram Warden.

You are A Warden, not THE Warden.  Depending on how you play the game any number of people could be THE Warden, in so far as who slays the Archdemon.  I get what you are saying, and you are kinda stuck having to follow the story BioWare is establishing - but that's not a preset background at character creation - that the plot railroading you to go where the game needs you to.  Different issue entirely from character creation.

Customization of your character bears out more in this game, in so far as story and plot are concerned, than pretty much any other game I can think of off the top of my head save perhaps Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines.

You have 6 Origins - 6 different beginnings with mutliple ways you can play through those beginnings.  For the first several hours of the game your experience is absolutely different than the first several hours playing a different Origin.  This may not be a big deal to some people, but it is a big deal to others (me included) as creating a new character and in the process of creating that character getting to start somewhere else in the game with some different starting story is pretty damn cool as far as I am concerned.  It may have bored some who wanted to get to the main story the second or third time, but I find that thinking hard to follow as it is easier for me to understand the people who played the whole game once and then just played the other 5 Origin stories and stopped.

If you don't think your character design and your choices affect the story at all, I think you've not played the game through more than once... or you played the same character more than once.
What is unimportant fluff to you might be key for the game being so enjoyable to someone else.

I'm not saying one system is better than the other.  My point is simply that we are spoilt for choice after the six origins of DA:O that did have some roleplaying value.  It is not incorrect to prefer one system to the other.  I loved both PST and DA:O, and they're pretty different in terms of customization.  But saying that going back to a relatively set origins and taking away race choice is a betrayal or somesuch of well-loved older RPGs is downright wrong.  Most older RPGs did just that.

No, you were fairly selective of mostly BioWare games.  Let me add to your list -
All the Gold Box SSI games. (over a dozen)
Other SSI games (Wizard's Crown, Phantasie series, etc.)
Almost all the Ultima games. (over 10)
The Wizardry series. (I think there were like 8, didn't play them all)
The Might & Magic series.
The Bard's Tale series.
The Icewind Dale series
All the "Elder Scrolls" games (save maybe stuff like Redguard.)

By the numbers, statistically, most cRPGs did not give you a pre-established background or character.  By the numbers most older classic cRPGs let you make a party of 4 or more characters, for that matter.
Things have changed, yes.  Games have become more and more about telling than experiencing, I get it - the whole "cinematic" thing.
But, whether you prefer it or not, by the numbers, the vast majority of cRPGs let you make your character down to name, gender, race, skills and either had no established background at all or a blank box you could type your own into.

Many of us who like choices and control in creating our characters were "spoiled" long before BioWare was a company.

Modifié par MerinTB, 30 août 2010 - 05:30 .

[Reaverwind]

Faust1979 wrote...

It doesn't bother me really because I have found that the origins didn't have much to do at all with the main game they all pretty much merge into the same character after the origins section is over.

Same. I was really disappointed with how little impact my character's Origin had on the rest of the game in DA:O.