155 réponses à ce sujet

[Dave of Canada]

The more I hear about a framed narrative, the more I'm fearful the game will be linear in the regard of choices on how to progress through the story itself. While I've had many fears calmed by the news releases and such, I've yet to see anything that suggests differently in this regard.

When you've done Lothering in Origins, you're free to tackle your way around the world however you please and deal with each important plot aspect in whatever order you please. Yet with this ten year timeline, I'm fearful that we're going to be forced into a singular plotline and then advance into another afterwards with a timeskip.

I'll use Origins for an example.

Ostagar / Lothering [Year 1].
You're then put into year 2, stories rise up about werewolves.
Brecilian Forest / Dalish Elves [Year 2]
You've saved the elves (or werewolves), it's now year 3 and you hear rumors of the mage tower and rite of Annulment.
Mage Tower [Year 3].

Repeat this for every event in the game, you're given no choice in the regard of how it plays out itself and you only play the game in a linear fashion dealing with the plot events as they arise.

While it might be just overreacting, is anybody else seeing the ten-year timeline in a similar fashion?

[Lord_Valandil]

I'm waiting for more news before starting to panic

[Lord Gremlin]

I'm scared of it as well, but I suppose we can have several main quests for each period. Still linear in a way, but we still shape the structure.

[andar91]

I thought that at first, but to be honest, I don't care.



Consider this, however. What's to say that the different parts of the story simply HAVE to be done in the same order? I dunno, it just depends on what they decide. Honestly, I very rarely deviated from the order in which I did things in Origins. But that's just me.



The FAQ says that the game is nonlinear, so I don't know why it would lie.

[Dave of Canada]

andar91 wrote...

What's to say that the different parts of the story simply HAVE to be done in the same order?

Well, if they say a village is under attack and nine years later it's still under attack with the same survivors had I come immediately.. yeah.

[Onyx Jaguar]

This is one of the things that I am not worried about but would actually welcome. As I am not fond of the way DA and ME 1 sets up the narrative. Basically I don't like to choose where the pieces go in a line I'd rather them be predetermined in a line but choose when to do them. That way the tension and plot scale appropriately.

[hexaligned]

What's stopping them from having the little narrative scenes just tied into the specific game areas, and play after you choose where to go next? It seems to me the story telling sessions by Varic are going to be vague by necessity anyways, I doubt they are going to program a bunch of different ones for every possible choice you can make, for example.

[Kevin Lynch]

It's quite possible that they can have a ten-year story and each section, act, chapter, or whatnot contains multiple non-linear paths for you to take to accomplish that section. Then you'd move on to the next. Essentially, the entire story would then be much like the original game, where you're allowed to explore a particular set of areas (some larger than others) until you are finished and new ones open up (in DA2, through an advance in the timeline).



It's just a guess, but the strict year 1->2->3 etc framework doesn't have to be as limiting as you fear.

[Lomopingseph]

Hey, look at Alpha Protocol. That game had a framed narrative and choices out the ass.

[Mary Kirby]

Oh, another panic thread. That's disappointing. I was hoping this was a gathering of people suffering from phobias of perspective drawing. I'll keep searching...

[Onyx Jaguar]

Lomopingseph wrote...

Hey, look at Alpha Protocol. That game had a framed narrative and choices out the ass.

No it didn't

Modifié par Onyx Jaguar, 01 septembre 2010 - 11:23 .

[tishyw]

I'm concerned about this as well, I'm also concerned that the 10 year timeline and the narrative framework will make the game episodic, and I don't see how they can avoid that.



The extended timeline will mean that we'll need to finish one point in time, then jump to the next, and I fear that this will make the game feel very disjointed, a bit like the 'mission summary' screens did for ME2.



Bad thought, I hope they don't have the mission summary screens like they did in ME2!

[Dave of Canada]

Mary Kirby wrote...

Oh, another panic thread. That's disappointing. I was hoping this was a gathering of people suffering from phobias of perspective drawing. I'll keep searching...

I'm not panicking, Mary. I'm just saying I'm fearful of something in Dragon Age 2. Can't that be a phobia?

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 01 septembre 2010 - 11:26 .

[Lomopingseph]

Onyx Jaguar wrote...

Lomopingseph wrote...

Hey, look at Alpha Protocol. That game had a framed narrative and choices out the ass.

No it didn't

What do you mean?

[Tirigon]

Mary Kirby wrote...

Oh, another panic thread. That's disappointing. I was hoping this was a gathering of people suffering from phobias of perspective drawing. I'll keep searching...

No worries, I fear having to draw anything because I suck at it.

[ErichHartmann]

Mary Kirby wrote...

Oh, another panic thread. That's disappointing. I was hoping this was a gathering of people suffering from phobias of perspective drawing. I'll keep searching...

Sounds like something Morrigan would say...

[Onyx Jaguar]

Lomopingseph wrote...

Onyx Jaguar wrote...

Lomopingseph wrote...

Hey, look at Alpha Protocol. That game had a framed narrative and choices out the ass.

No it didn't

What do you mean?

It pretty much has the same structure as ME 1 and DA

Once you get out of Saudi Arabia you are free to go wherever you want.

Hell in those hubs you can often do the missions in any order you want

[lv12medic]

Hmm... the way I look at this framed narrative structure is it essentially takes you from one critical point to the next. But those critical points can come about from either something you did or didn't do previously, and there may be many things to do/deal with during each of the critical points. There is obviously some linearity inherent in the system and pretty much in any system, since you have a starting point and an ending point, otherwise the game goes to infinity boring land. I don't think we will be completely stuck on a linear line throughout the game. Plus, with these critical points, sometimes regardless of what you do to change the world, it all goes to hell anyways. Sometimes things can be out of your control.

[Dr. wonderful]

Actually, I don't.

I think it going to be like this:

7 quests:

Save the Muffinking!
What is done in the dark
Oi! Get mah dirty laundry!
Tis another blood bath?
Save the space whales!
Bromance!
Nutella Bard.

Now, I may start Bromance first, but you will do The muffinking, it order change from each player, and will only get harder as the years go by.

[L33TDAWG]

I bet it's going to have a main story line, each year or what not, you can choose to do that main story line or tackle different places like Origins, then you do the main story line in each place to advance or where ever it is.

[Dave of Canada]

Mary Kirby wrote...

Oh, another panic thread. That's disappointing. I was hoping this was a gathering of people suffering from phobias of perspective drawing. I'll keep searching...

/seriousmode

To be honest, this fear only exists due to you using an example (arm wrestling Duncan's beard ontop of the chantry, I beleive) a month or two ago that the game would go where the narrator mentions Duncan's beard and then ingame itself you start hearing rumors of Duncan's beard. It feels to me like it would create a linear plot if it followed like this.

[Hex of Hell]

I'm not really understanding why the ten year timeline would be automatically more limiting than a two year one. I always just assumed that the game allows for more things to be happening at once, since as opposed to Origins where at most a cutscene happened to the world between Redcliffe and the Mages Tower, this time you're told that as much as a year has elapsed, allowing for all sorts of new side missions to have cropped up in the meantime. The passage of time also allows for greater possibility of past missions having an effect on future ones. In Origins, if you go the nicey route and make the werewolves human again, it doesn't really impact anything more than your army. Imagine if a year had elapsed between then and your last mission. People who did that mission early on may have later in the game found former werewolves now inhabiting Redcliffe or Denerim etc. with the possibility for interesting side quests as a result.

Of course, it could well be exactly as you say (though I would doubt it as I have played many other BioWare games and that just smacks of not BioWare), but I just don't see why the first thought is to assume the worst. It could be awesome! So very awesome!

[zahra]

I will be severely disappointed if we don't get a Muffinking, even though I am not sure whether it is an animal, mineral or beard, because only something carved out in awesome would warrant the name Muffinking.



On-topic : I guess it will be divided into chapters, and within those chapters there will be freedom in terms of what order we wish to play the quests? Which doesn't sound too bad? I don't know, I am too absorbed with this Muffinking. What is it? How does it work???

[Mary Kirby]

Dave of Canada wrote...

/seriousmode

To be honest, this fear only exists due to you using an example (arm wrestling Duncan's beard ontop of the chantry, I beleive) a month or two ago that the game would go where the narrator mentions Duncan's beard and then ingame itself you start hearing rumors of Duncan's beard. It feels to me like it would create a linear plot if it followed like this.

And you think I'm going to reassure you? The collective cries of fear and outrage rising up from the forums spin the turbine that powers my coffee maker. I'm eco-friendly.