8 réponses à ce sujet

[Archereon]

*Sigh...*

While all of us hoped that this wouldn't happen, and Bioware tried to reassure us it wouldn't, it looks like the dialogue wheel and the voiced protagonist is going to kill the roleplaying factor in Dragon Age, by giving us a choice between only 3 personalities: 

Parag-err, Chivalrous (did a few, seemed boring), a d*ckhead deadpan snarker ("sarcastic" Hawke, I like this one best, he has more of a personality then neutral Shepard), and renega-err, mean Hawke...(I only tried one of those, can't really say how he works.)

Now I went with the snarker mostly, but took some other options on ocassion.  Unfortunately, it seems, just like Shepard, going against your personality makes you sound incredibly out of character.  Another significant gripe is that the symbols that represent Hawke's "personality" in the chosen response don't seem to tell you what he's actually going to DO (which was the whole point of them if I recall).  Now the demo didn't have any situations where I expected Hawke to yell at someone, and instead he says "You talk to much" and slits their throat, but the potential for that to happen seems very real.




(TL;DR): In short, the "olive branch, jester mask, and fist" represent Hawke's 3 possible personalities, rather than what he's going to do.  Going against them sounds out of character.


So from here, it seems that Dragon Age II is going to be more of a "rent it first" game, then a "buy it at once game"

Modifié par Archereon, 22 août 2010 - 02:52 .

[David Gaider]

Just to steer the discussion away from homophobia for the moment, and back to the OP:

Hawke has three basic tones that you can select, yes-- they're not intended to be as wildly divergent in their delivery as the OP describes, but I suppose one's tolerance for the delivery may vary (just as one's tolerance for voice acting at all may vary, in particular here on these forums).

The thing to remember is that you get those three tones available only on the "personality choice" hubs. These are no different than in Origins when you received flavor options which were intended only to pick how you said something, but otherwise just drove the conversation forward. This is the same thing, with added investigation options if there are questions to be had.

If there are actions to be taken, it's different. That's an "action choice" hub. You're not going to find the tone icons there. You will, however, see icons that illustrate the intent behind the paraphrase... if there's an intent that can be imparted via an icon: combat (or "this option ends in violence"), romance/flirting, deception, etc. As I've mentioned elsewhere, the actual voiced line off an action choice will either be a neutral tone or will vary according to your character's dominant tone (as in the tone you've been selecting the most frequently in the personality choices). There can be up to five action choice options, again with investigation options added on top of these.

And again, that's no different than Origins (and since investigation options are on their own wheel, it actually allows us more room to maneuver than in Origins, where you had six total and that's it).

Modifié par David Gaider, 22 août 2010 - 05:06 .

[David Gaider]

metal_dawn wrote...
Yes, this evidences that Bioware is going to pigeonhole our main character in to their assumption of the personaltiy traits their SYSTEM feels our Player character should have... Cheer away monkey.

Which is based off your choices to date-- and considering that the majority of dialogue options you select are personality choices, it's not as if you don't have plenty of room to determine how you speak to people. The difference, when it comes to action choices, is that we're not forced to have those lines delivered in a single personality always-- as it would have been in Origins (for instance). Even then, you're still choosing the action and possibly the motivation behind that action (if there's more than one).

Is that going to work for everyone? Possibly not, but then neither does voice acting, period. Since that's not up for debate, this system allows you some room to determine how you wish your character's personality to be rather than forcing you to be stoic in all situations.

[David Gaider]

TriviaAeducan wrote...
Basically, if my PC is almost always sarcastic, the good option is still kinda sarcastic?

Or if my PC is almost always violent, even the good action sounds... erm... violent?

First, not all action choices result in a variance on the response's tone. Just when we think it's appropriate or it adds something. Secondly, it will depend on the situation. An aggressive tone may mean being curt/wanting to get right to the point or wary and cautious. The humorous tone can also be charming or simply amused by the situation. Regardless, the context is important... if something sad has just happened you're not going to be punching people in the face or inappropriately cracking wise. Just as in Origins, we writers will apply the tones to the situation as we feel it's appropriate-- the icons are there to help you.

[David Gaider]

slimgrin wrote...
But I have to ask Gaider one thing: if the writing itself properly denotes the tone, why should we need a symbol?

To assist in selecting the dialogue option. You're looking at a list of short paraphrases... if we needed to illustrate in a paraphrase both intent AND tone then it would have to be incredibly blatant.

Example:

Paraphrase: "Is that all it is?" (Humorous icon)

vs.

Paraphrase: "Sounds like a giant monkey!"

They both lead to the amused voiced line "So... it's a giant space monkey? Or is there something you're not telling me?" (This line does not appear in the game, obviously.)

This also helps with actions such as those intended to be flirtatious or lead into romantic situations-- rather than forcing the player to be blatant and aggressive (to avoid a vague paraphrase) we can show the intent to the player without forcing it onto the character.

Make sense?

[David Gaider]

metal_dawn wrote...
Unless your way of dealing with sadness is to react aggresively at the first outlet you can find. "I'm sad" but don't want to deal w/ it or the percieved weakness of being sad/having emotional attachments. *punches someone in the face* ... Better!

Well, sure, but again it's the situation. We're writers and we'll write whatever we think fits the scene in question. My point is that the tones don't dictate the writing any more than they did in Origins.

[David Gaider]

Mr Mxyzptlk wrote...
So when we pick a line that we think is supposed to be humourous Hawke will actually say something lame instead like that gay monkey line or "wakka wakka doo"? I remember there were a lot of those moments in Alpha Protocol, Micheal Thorton tried too hard to be funny so when you picked the humourous option he would say something lame like "I had to send the guards home to get some sleep, they were being kept awake by your shirt" and I was all like "facepalm" but then the guy goes "what the **** did you say" and then Thorton replies with "ah so you cant hear me over your shirt either, no wonder you couldnt hear me sneaking into the place" and then I was all like "hah that is funny after all".

You are correct. This system does not have the power to transform bad writing into good writing. I'm sorry.

Clearly panic must ensue. 

Modifié par David Gaider, 22 août 2010 - 05:54 .

[David Gaider]

Apollo Starflare wrote...
You know, I can't help but think of the 'oh crap, a pop up' line from Mass Effect 1. That was one of the paraphrases given, and a lot of people chose it hoping to hear that exact line (it would have been perfect given the context of the AI Mira's greeting). Unfortunately what Shepard actually says is: "How do I shut this thing up?" due to it actually just being the paraphrase for a renegade reply.

What you've written above seems to indicate DA2 will handle throwaway lines like this differently. almost the other way around if anything. With the paraphrase being somewhat basic but with a symbol while the reply itself takes whatever form your dominant personality requires. Basically the funny stuff is more likely to come out in dialogue rather than restricted to being something we see in a paraphase? So in the ME example using this system it would be:

What is this? (humerous icon) result: Oh crap, a pop up, how do I shut it up?

Or is that a terrible example and I've got the wrong end of the stick?

That sounds about right. Very often in our reviews if we think the paraphrase has the punchier line we'll move that into the actual voiced line instead. The humorous lines are the trickier ones-- as I've said, it's pretty difficult to indicate both intent and tone in such a short line. If you had to try and make every humorous paraphrase also funny that would be... awkward.

[David Gaider]

Nighteye2 wrote...
I know - I meant more that, if you get the personality hub instead of the action hub, the game is basically telling you that what you say next doesn't really matter. Because if it did, there would've been an action hub instead.

No, it's not necessarily that the personality hub "doesn't matter" -- it's just that you aren't taking actions/making choices. It's directing the conversation. Sometimes that doesn't affect the conversation other than simply moving it forward, sometimes it does. Origins was the same way.