17 réponses à ce sujet

[AndrahilAdrian]

I am worried about how many there are. The end of Origins had Morrigan running off for vague reasons. The end of witch hunt left me with all kinds of questions about flemeth, the mirror world, the mirrors themselves, Morrigan's intentions, and the dalish book. Awakening gets in on the action to if you save the architect. Loose ends and cliff hangers are ,in my opinion, a cheapo way to hype future installments. I prefer stories that are self-contained. I am seeking assurance from Bioware that they have planned out the entire series with a cohesive narrative, and are not making it up as they go along. Then we will know that they know what they're doing. I am also seeking reassurance that Dragon Age 2 will not continue this disturbing trend, and that the many loose ends from previous games will be tied up quickly. They really are the only gripe I have with this otherwise fantastic franchise.

[David Gaider]

AndrahilAdrian wrote...
I prefer stories that are self-contained.

Tough. I prefer stories that leave the player still wanting more.

I am seeking assurance from Bioware that they have planned out the entire series with a cohesive narrative, and are not making it up as they go along.

We're not making it up as we go along. Except for the parts where we are, of course, but we have a Master Plan (if that's what you're asking). Whether that translates into "will all my questions be answered?" the answer-- very clearly-- is "maybe". But I wouldn't hold your breath or anything. That would be ill-advised.

Modifié par David Gaider, 10 septembre 2010 - 12:08 .

[David Gaider]

Blastback wrote...
When you say this, do you mean that we simply shouldn't expect awnsers in the near future?  Or are we still going to be asking the same questions twenty years from now?

I'm saying that we're not here to answer your every question. We're here to tell you a story-- and if we did for some reason just give you what you're asking for it probably wouldn't be what you wanted anyhow. So you'll have to stick around for the ride and see where we take you.

Or not. It's up to you. If someone prefers to stomp their feet and declare "DA is dying" because it didn't sing and dance quickly enough to suit their need for instant gratification-- well whatever. Do that, then.

[David Gaider]

Lord_Valandil wrote...

Viva la France wrote...

I can't wait til DA3 and everyone is like "Your breaking Hawke's Story!" lol

It will happen. Fact.

Only a true fan understands the brilliance of DAO. Better than us, even. It cannot be replicated, and no other story we create could possibly match it. From here on in I'm afraid it's all Ewoks, mages with metachlorian counts and "Alistair swung first!"

Welcome to the future.

[David Gaider]

Lord_Valandil wrote...
After seeing how all the Bioware staff have avoided the Nug Bombs question, I'm starting to wonder WHY.

Because our tolerance for silliness is restricted to silliness of our own creation.

Morroian wrote...
What was the story of DAO? Stopping the
blight. Is this done? Yes. Bioware are working on a large canvas, a
story analogous to series like A Song of Ice and Fire, Wheel of Time or
Malazan: Book of the Fallen. Such large stories use multiple characters
and locations.

I would say this is true. Not the direct comparison to those stories, of course, but more the large canvas part. Naturally someone's only going to react to the little corner of it they can see now, but that's fine. Maybe in the end some people won't be happy after all-- in fact I guarantee you there'll be some, and they'll race to the internet to quickly register their disapproval-- but we'll get there in our own time, and it will be good.

But will anyone understand our brilliance? OUR BRILLIANCE, I TELL YOU!

...ahem. Probably not.

Modifié par David Gaider, 10 septembre 2010 - 04:21 .

[David Gaider]

danitza81 wrote...
The one thing that bugs me though is the possibility that I may never find out why the Warden 'vanished' as stated in the Awakening epilogue. Will we ever know?

Yes, but do not expect full answers quickly.

And, no, I will not say more than that.

[David Gaider]

Antaress wrote...
if I know that my warden will be back in future
I will be the first one in line to buy DA2
they really should tell us if we see our warden again or not

Tough.

What you are getting is a new hero, who's just as new to you now as the Warden was before you bought DAO. If you want to decide that nothing could ever be as fantastic to you as the Warden was, well that's quite a compliment to us-- but you're free to do so. But as to whether or not you'll see the Warden again, as a playable character or not, we're not going to tell you that.

[David Gaider]

Antaress wrote...
I know that you want us to experianc something new but you have already created epic Hero Warden, whoes story hasnot ended and can be continued.

We could take the Warden onto a brand new adventure, sure. It'd have to be brand new, however, as the previous adventure is already done. And we'd have to come up with some way to "reset" the power level of the character again, which could involve all sorts of unpleasantness I'm sure you don't want to think about.

Or we could start a new adventure in a new land with a new hero, something that carries on a common thread between the games.

We've opted for the latter. Just because something can be done doesn't mean it should be.

SirShreK wrote...
Guys, that's a Yes.

Or a "we haven't decided yet". Or a "we're leaving our options open". Or a "no, but we'd rather not discuss that right now". Or a "yes, but if we told you we'd have to kill you."

If you're going to take every evasion as a confirmation, this is going to get real old, real fast.

Modifié par David Gaider, 10 septembre 2010 - 03:03 .

[David Gaider]

Nozybidaj wrote...
Great!!!  That's pretty much what I had always envisioned DA2 being anyway.  My Warden and his crew facing the next big threat.  Get on it!

No.

Meh, I don't think folks mind, and in fact easily accept the fact that power levels are reset in new installments.  Its a game mechnic, gamers understand that.  You don't have to kill the protagonist and rebuild him as a zombie cyborg for folks to accept the fact that they are level 1 again, in fact doing so would be rather insulting to my intelligence.

Whether or not "folks mind" is irrelevant-- there'd be just as much whining then as there is now, just from another set of folks.

Applies to the latter as much as the former.

And? All things being equal, we'll take the story in the direction we intended. Bioware is not your b*tch.

[Sheryl Chee]

DanteCousland wrote...
1) What happens to Finn we can infer that he was going to die from what the statue said

Finn took it to mean that he was going to die, but he was wrong. What the statue saw was that Finn would not return to the tower to speak with her. I always saw Finn and Ariane as a duo. After Witch Hunt, they go off together and have fun little adventures.

[David Gaider]

Nozybidaj wrote...
Actually BW is my b*tch, if you want to use such vulgarity.  Just as you can take the story where you want, I can spend my money where I feel it deserves to be spent.  If I so choose not to spend my money on a product I feel is inferior to the standards set before it, well, it may as well never have even existed far as it concerns me.

Great. Do that.

Where you spend your money is the extent of your say on the matter, isn't it? And if enough people agree with you, that will be the end of that. That's the "or else" in your statement, and that should go without saying.

When you start getting demanding, however, or acting like you've already bought the game we haven't put out yet and are in charge of what goes into it-- well, sorry, but that's where I draw the line.

Puts me in mind of a blog entry that Neil Gaiman wrote, actually.

With that, I think I'll withdraw from this little conversation. I have work to do (lots of it, in fact) and this is not helping.

[John Epler]

Cut out the insults and personal attacks, folks.



We welcome everyone to share their opinions on these forums. However, that doesn't extend to insulting each other.

[John Epler]

The thing is, regardless of what 'character' we put into DA:O - people would've gotten attached. There would have been people who assumed that the series (and franchise) was going to revolve around that character.



Do I think there's necessarily anything wrong with being attached to your Warden? No, not at all! That's your character, after all - and you're naturally going to want more adventures with them. I always find there's something bittersweet when you finish anything where you develop a strong attachment to the main character (or characters). I've certainly felt it before.



But in the end, Dragon Age is about Thedas, not any one character (or any one faction, for that matter). And I agree that this will likely feel more evident once more than one game comes out in the setting.

[John Epler]

Blasto the jelly wrote...

JohnEpler wrote...

The thing is, regardless of what 'character' we put into DA:O - people would've gotten attached. There would have been people who assumed that the series (and franchise) was going to revolve around that character.

Do I think there's necessarily anything wrong with being attached to your Warden? No, not at all! That's your character, after all - and you're naturally going to want more adventures with them. I always find there's something bittersweet when you finish anything where you develop a strong attachment to the main character (or characters). I've certainly felt it before.

But in the end, Dragon Age is about Thedas, not any one character (or any one faction, for that matter). And I agree that this will likely feel more evident once more than one game comes out in the setting.

Mister JohnEpler u said Dragon Age is about Thedas not any character. i created a thread why is romance important in Dragon age 2 if it dos'nt effect Thedas and i was called a REDART so could u explain on my forum

How do you develop a character? Well, at first, you start off by telling. 'He's really big' or 'he's got one eye and walks with a kind of limp.' Then, as you progress through the process, you begin to show. I can say 'he's really brave!' but a far more effective method of developing the character would be to show him doing something brave. Then you add flavour - he's really brave most of the time, but when it comes to cheese he's terrified. 

With a 'character' the size of Thedas, the second part is a little more complicated. You can't really have the entire setting 'doing' things in the most literal sense - saying 'there was a minor seismic event!' is about as far as that gets. So what do you do? Well, you define the 'character' by the events that occur within. This can be as big as world-changing, or as small as interpersonal. You create flavour and nuance by showing how the various people who inhabit the world interact with each other. The much bigger traits - well, that would be something like the Blight in DA:O.

So the long answer, really, would be that romances add nuance and flavour to the setting. Sure, they may not matter on a macro scale, but on a micro scale - well, I'd say they matter quite a lot.

I'm not a writer, though - David may be able to explain better than I can. But that would be my take on it.

[David Gaider]

UberDuber wrote...
I don't want to keep switching places and characters everytime they decide to make an easy sequel.

It is never "easy" to move on.

You think it's a simple matter for me or the other writers to move on to new characters? Like you, we've grown attached to the ones we spent so many years with. But being attached to something and being unwilling to move onto something new are two different things. In the end one shouldn't preclude the other, and while we were reluctant to part ways with those characters, it can indeed be a lot of fun to meet the new ones and work on them.

Do I begrudge those who still feel so attached to their Warden or the old characters that they're not ready to move on? Not really, no. Like I said before, it's a compliment to what we created. When someone starts using that to the point of becoming demanding as to what they think Dragon Age must be, however, that's when I draw the line.

Do you particularly care where I draw the line? Probably not. But it's there nevertheless, and if you're at all interested in convincing the creative people to listen to your arguments you should be aware where it lies. If you're just here to sound off and state what you will or won't buy, then that's your own business. I'm sure many people won't buy DA2 just as many people will, and possibly some who didn't buy DAO for whatever reasons. We're beholden to no-one in particular, though I'll admit to being interested in what those who liked DAO have to say. That's why we're here, after all, even if sometimes it all becomes so much noise you just can't take it anymore (cue head exploding).

Am I going to get drawn into a long discussion regarding the nature of building a story, the purpose of leaving some threads dangling while tying up others, the role of a protaganist versus the role of a setting and other things? Not today-- it's pretty clear that some people just don't get it and at this point and what's more don't want to get it. If someone wishes to set forth their two cents, by all means do so, but I'm not going to get drawn into a defensive argument any more than I already have. I've snapped off enough heads this week, I think.

Modifié par David Gaider, 10 septembre 2010 - 06:25 .

[Mary Kirby]

Blasto the jelly wrote...

Mister JohnEpler u said Dragon Age is about Thedas not any character. i created a thread why is romance important in Dragon age 2 if it dos'nt effect Thedas and i was called a REDART so could u explain on my forum

When we say that Dragon Age is about Thedas, we're talking about making history in Thedas. Think about real world history: A lot of it, at least a lot of what historians think is notable enough to write down and preserve for the ages, consists of stories about specific people. Marco Polo. Attilla the Hun. Jonas Salk. Ferdinand Magellan. Gregor Mendel. Joan of Arc. Human history doesn't make itself. Globes don't just get circumnavigated. Polio doesn't just disappear. Armies don't just get bored and decide to turn back. People do these things.

The entire story of our own human history isn't "The Adventures of Marco Polo." But that doesn't make him insignificant. Just the same, the entire story of the Dragon Age isn't "The Adventures of the Warden" or even "The Adventures of Hawke." They are both people who play critical roles in shaping history, and they have stories to explore.

Why do we include things like romances and friendships and pets if they don't change the fate of Thedas? Who's to say they don't? Maybe your Grey Warden was only motivated to end the Blight because he or she loved Leliana. Maybe it mattered to Hawke who stood by him at the critical moment when everything happened. That's part of the story, just like it matters why Magellan sailed around the world, and how Gregor Mendel wound up studying peas in a monastery vegetable garden. The peas didn't change history, but they played their part in his story.

[John Epler]

Nozybidaj wrote...

Anarya wrote...

You've got an interesting view of history if you think individuals don't matter and that their roles could have been performed by anyone.

Please indulge me and tell me off all the rousing tales of adventure Stalin had during WWII and how you feel personally connected to him as an indivdual or perhaps you have stories to tell of Pancho Villa and how you have come to really understand him as a human being?  Maybe you prefer tales of women in history and have interesting tidbits to share about Clara Barton and her days during the civil war and how it has effected you on an emotional level?  Need I go on?

Obviously I'm being rather obtuse here, but it seems there is no other way to get a point across in this forum.

I would argue that, in the case of narrative/creative non-fiction, you can in fact become quite attached to historical characters. If you're reading a dry, high-level account of what happened - sure, it's hard to get attached to any one character. But I don't think that's the same thing at all, nor is it what people are arguing. You can tell a tale that's 'historical' in nature and still make it interesting.

[John Epler]

What an odd necro.

Locking, as there isn't much reason to bring back this thread from the dead.