91 réponses à ce sujet

[Gandalf-the-Fabulous]

Roth wrote...
no two roads to a goal like there is in Dragon Age.

Apart from origins there was not more than one path to get to your goal as far as I can remember. It was one path to your goal then make a decision that doesnt effect much.

[Roth]

Gandalf-the-Fabulous wrote...

Roth wrote...
no two roads to a goal like there is in Dragon Age.

Apart from origins there was not more than one path to get to your goal as far as I can remember. It was one path to your goal then make a decision that doesnt effect much.

The decision to kill or save the mages in the tower. Side with the werewolves or the elves. Kill Arl Eamon's kid or wife or save them both. Choose the king of Orzammar. Destroy the Anvil and lose the ability to build more golems or defeat Caridin and keep it. And so on. And so on.

But these are just ways to get different armies at the end of the game, you'll say. They have noooo effect storywise whatsoever and don't matter to Ferelden or it's future.

So I guess you're right. Origins doesn't have any important decisions you can make... 

[Gandalf-the-Fabulous]

Roth wrote...

Gandalf-the-Fabulous wrote...

Roth wrote...
no two roads to a goal like there is in Dragon Age.

Apart from origins there was not more than one path to get to your goal as far as I can remember. It was one path to your goal then make a decision that doesnt effect much.

The decision to kill or save the mages in the tower. Side with the werewolves or the elves. Kill Arl Eamon's kid or wife or save them both. Choose the king of Orzammar. Destroy the Anvil and lose the ability to build more golems or defeat Caridin and keep it. And so on. And so on.

Those are decisions you make at the end of a road not 2 totally different roads.

Roth wrote...

But these are just ways to get different armies at the end of the game, you'll say. They have noooo effect storywise whatsoever and don't matter to Ferelden or it's future.

So I guess you're right. Origins doesn't have any important decisions you can make... 

Great, I knew somebody on these forums would come to their senses. Now I dont know how the choices you made in Origins will effect DA2 but going by ME2 I think it is a fairly safe bet to assume that they wont have much effect at all.

[Roth]

Gandalf-the-Fabulous wrote...
Great, I knew somebody on these forums would come to their senses. 

I was being sarcastic. Now go away, I don't want to talk to you anymore.

[iTomes]

Roth wrote...

Gandalf-the-Fabulous wrote...
Great, I knew somebody on these forums would come to their senses. 

I was being sarcastic. Now go away, I don't want to talk to you anymore.

100% win. well done Roth. Gandalf, please do what youre told and go away.

[Bryy_Miller]

Roth wrote...

Gandalf-the-Fabulous wrote...
Great, I knew somebody on these forums would come to their senses. 

I was being sarcastic. Now go away, I don't want to talk to you anymore.

Seriously. I'm sick of all these people who genuinely care about the DA franchise, and yet, they don't understand that constantly ****ing about it doesn't work.

[Shiakazee]

 Does it really matter if you cant change your race?

In Dragon Age origins, you got to choose your race, but it didnt really matter.  The introduction was different and there was a small difference in the dialogue in the game depending on your origin, and that was about it.  

Overall, the experience didnt really differ in terms of race, imo  You do main missions, and side missions and kill the big dragon, and thats how it ended for all races.

Modifié par Shiakazee, 21 août 2010 - 06:06 .

[Niarviel]

Why are people complaining about not being able to choose their race when in 50+ other games you can't choose your race? Maybe i don't understand people anymore...

This is Hawke's story just as ME was Shepards story. Nuff said.

[AlanC9]

Gandalf-the-Fabulous wrote...

Roth wrote...
The decision to kill or save the mages in the tower. Side with the werewolves or the elves. Kill Arl Eamon's kid or wife or save them both. Choose the king of Orzammar. Destroy the Anvil and lose the ability to build more golems or defeat Caridin and keep it. And so on. And so on.

Those are decisions you make at the end of a road not 2 totally different roads.

Not true for the mages in the tower, where the choice happens at the beginning. Not completely true for Redcliffe since the choice can determine both who does the rescuing and whether you have to do the Tower before completing Redcliffe. Not true in Orzammar since you get different quest lines depending on who you're working for.

True for the werewolves/elves choice and Caridin/Branka.

Edit: Now, you could say that none of these rise to the level of totally different roads. True, but you didn't get that in, say, BG2 either -- the vamp/ST choice is about on the level of choosing Bhelen or Harrowmont, except that there's no good reason to side with the vamps.

Modifié par AlanC9, 21 août 2010 - 06:30 .

[Zvampfar]

Niarviel wrote...

Why are people complaining about not being able to choose their race when in 50+ other games you can't choose your race? Maybe i don't understand people anymore...
This is Hawke's story just as ME was Shepards story. Nuff said.

That is kinda what is complained about.. 

[In Exile]

[quote]Gandalf-the-Fabulous wrote...
I think later in the post you are replying to I state why Planescape Torment is the exception[/quote]

Why? What makes Planescape special?

[quote]and yes you can lump Kotor in with it as it follows a fairly similar storylin[/quote]

Okay, but what is special about KoTOR, and now that your rule has two exceptions, why is it a meaningful rule?

[quote]but in games like BG/BG2 where you may not get to choose where you come from you do get to choose who you are, your name, race, appearance, personality and class, also while in BG1 you do have to assume that your character is fairly young you arent told exactly how old you are so you do have a bit more control over that.[/quote]

In Dragon Age 2, you can choose your name, your personality, your class and you are fairly young but are not told exactly how you are so you have a bit more control over that.

In fact, the only distinction between the features we know are in DA2 and were in BG/BG2 is race.

So are you going to argue that race is somehow gamebreaking?

[quote]If you want to argue that then pretty much every character you play in a computer RPG will have at least one predefined aspect, even a mysterious stranger type character has a predefined aspect as for some reason he has to be in the town, village, country ect that the events he gets swept up in happen, sure you can decide why he decided to travel to that particular place but the game does require that he is actually there so you have no real say in the matter.[/quote]

It's good that you grant this. Yes, every character has to have some defined aspect. The more the story demands of the player character, the more the player character has to be defined.

For the game to allow maximum customizability, the player has to have no role in the story as a character beyond being a set piece that moves the plot forward.

Now, we can debate whether the above is good or bad, but the issue then becomes which types of stories we prefer, and it is no longer a matter of Bioware somehow restricting freedom. Freedom becomes a consequence of how they want to tell the story.

[quote]Now using the term "pre defined character" may not be the best way to describe it as every character has at least one pre defined quality however for me it is where you draw the line between the amount of freedom you are given to define the aspects of your own character and how many restrictions the game places on your character. Sure sometimes the game requires a lot of restrictions on the character to tell a good story (like Planescape Torment)
 however the amount of restrictions placed on a character like Shepard in Mass Effect are unnecessary. [/quote]

And now we are right back to it. The amount of restrictions on Shepard are neccesary.

[quote]
Human, yes I will give you that one even though technically an exceptional Turian could save the Galaxy. [/quote]

Then we would need to rewrite the story. Remove the Normandy. Make it a Citadel space mission. Take the focus of humanity.

There is no technically. You would have to change the story to change the race. Which means that Shepard's race is neccesary.

[quote]Combat skills, well dur if your character couldnt fight then odds are he would be turned into paste.[/quote]

No, not combat skills. Elite combat skills. Spectres are the best of the best. You don't just have to be competent. You have to be one of the best living fighters out of potentially hundreds of billions of people. We are talking about a person who is in the top 0.0001%.

You cannot have a background for a person that is not Spectre worthy. Kaidan and Ashley are both good soliders, but not even close to eligible for the Spectres.

[quote]Leadership skills, you could argue that every Bioware game requires this as your character is always the leader of the group.[/quote]

It does not matter what you can argue. It matters that this is a quality that is neccesary. You cannot remove it.

[quote]Now lets take a look at the elements of the character that are forced apon you dispite not being very important.[/quote]

[quote]Name[/quote]

You have [blank] Shepard. This is the travesty that DA repeats, apparently.

[quote]age[/quote]

This is also mandatory. The game gives you a specific age, but in practice you would have to be a human between 25-35 to fit the active profile for a soldier.

[quote]career, background[/quote]

No, we just went over how these are impossible to change without re-writing the story. You must be a human in the Systems Alliance miliitary. You must have performed some superior task in a war that took place within the lore.

To do anything otherwise is to change the story, which is to say it is neccesary for Shepard to be so.

[quote]voice[/quote]

This one is true.

[quote]appearance[/quote]

Did you miss the customization option or something? You know, the thing that works like in DA?

[quote] hell even certain aspects of Shepard's personality and worldview are being forced apon you.[/quote]

No, the worldview is forced via dialogue. You have as many worldviews as the dialogue allows. Just like in every game where you pick your dialogue.

[quote]Age, I find it odd you would mention this but what the heck, I believe the reason you gave me in another thread was because he had to be yound enough to potentially be a biotic? However what if your character isnt a biotic? That kinda throws your whole age argument out.[/quote]

That was an example of what the lore demanded for your age. In practice, you have to be a human fit for military service that took part in a major campaign in the lore, which means either fought in the first contact war (which would make you a geriatric) or be Shepard's age.

[quote]Career, I can sort of see where you are comming from with this and it is necessary for how the start of the story is writen however in the big scheme of things it is highly irrelevant. In my personal opinion the game could have been far more interesting if the start of the story was written to accommodate a larger group of character types. Nihlus is looking for a human candidate to join the spectres and I assume that the Systems Alliance put forward Shepard's name but what if some mercenary from the terminus systems caught Nihlus's eye? Think of it like the dwarven commoner origin where the dwarves are showing off what they consider to be their best and brightest as potential recruits for the grey wardens, however was it the candidate that the dwarves wanted that caught Duncan's eye? Also just think of the indignation of Ambassador Udina when he finds out who the human candidate is, "What? We are putting the fate of Humanity in the hands of a mercenary from the Terminus Systems?".[/quote]

Right, so you are admiting those characteristics of Shepard are neccesary, because now you are writing some kind of fan-fiction story instead of the actual story of the game.

[quote]Background, yes the Spectre candidate has to have done something exceptional but why not instead of making us choose between 3 predefined backgrounds that have very little influence on the game allow us to write our own?[/quote]

Because it needs to fit with the lore. Unless you are demanding they let you invent your own battles that took place in-lore, which again, is just you wanting to go off and write some fan fiction.

Modifié par In Exile, 21 août 2010 - 10:56 .

[Vicious]

Right, so you are admiting those characteristics of Shepard are neccesary, because now you are writing some kind of fan-fiction story instead of the actual story of the game.

That's what it usually comes down to.

[Saibh]

In Exile wrote...

Then we would need to rewrite the story. Remove the Normandy. Make it a Citadel space mission. Take the focus of humanity.

There is no technically. You would have to change the story to change the race. Which means that Shepard's race is neccesary.

Also, Cerberus. Their existence as a humans-first group is sort of important.

[AlanC9]

I had to go back to this one:

Gandalf-the-Fabulous wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

Well, sure -- any limitation imposed by a story disappears if you just rewrite the story enough to make the limitation go away.

Oh god forbid Bioware rewrite the story to make for a better experience for the player. Seriously which is the more important part, the fact that Hawk and Bethany are related by blood or the emotional connection between them? Rewrite Bethany's character so that she is a close childhood friend and you still have the emotional connection between them yet it removes the restrictions on the players race and surname.

Dude... are you an only child, maybe ? A sibling simply isn't the same thing as a childhood friend. It's different.

[SDNcN]

AlanC9 wrote...

I had to go back to this one:

Gandalf-the-Fabulous wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

Well, sure -- any limitation imposed by a story disappears if you just rewrite the story enough to make the limitation go away.

Oh god forbid Bioware rewrite the story to make for a better experience for the player. Seriously which is the more important part, the fact that Hawk and Bethany are related by blood or the emotional connection between them? Rewrite Bethany's character so that she is a close childhood friend and you still have the emotional connection between them yet it removes the restrictions on the players race and surname.

Dude... are you an only child, maybe ? A sibling simply isn't the same thing as a childhood friend. It's different.

Yeah, with Bioware going for family as a major theme I'm not sure how replacing family members with something else is going to have same impact.