1279 réponses à ce sujet

[CoS Sarah Jinstar]

Defend it all you want Occam, Mass effect's dialog system was terrible.

[SirOccam]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

Defend it all you want Occam, Mass effect's dialog system was terrible.

No argument here. That it was amazing was never something I was attempting to argue.

[cowsaysoink]

So, if I've read this correctly, DA2 will be pretty much the same on the PC, but with some modifications to help the game be a bit smoother, and the console versions will be a hack 'n slash game with a great story. I'm fine with that, though I don't like the dialogue wheel, I always say the wrong things in the Mass Effect games because it's so vague.

[CoS Sarah Jinstar]

SirOccam wrote...

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

Defend it all you want Occam, Mass effect's dialog system was terrible.

No argument here. That it was amazing was never something I was attempting to argue.

Which makes me wonder why they're adopting what is prolly the worse part of the ME games for DA2. Makes absolutely no sense.

[SirOccam]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

SirOccam wrote...

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

Defend it all you want Occam, Mass effect's dialog system was terrible.

No argument here. That it was amazing was never something I was attempting to argue.

Which makes me wonder why they're adopting what is prolly the worse part of the ME games for DA2. Makes absolutely no sense.

Because as I've argued before, the flaw was in the implementation, not in the concept itself. The DA2 team can see how badly it was used in ME, and they can specifically try to avoid making those same mistakes.

[CoS Sarah Jinstar]

SirOccam wrote...

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

SirOccam wrote...

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

Defend it all you want Occam, Mass effect's dialog system was terrible.

No argument here. That it was amazing was never something I was attempting to argue.

Which makes me wonder why they're adopting what is prolly the worse part of the ME games for DA2. Makes absolutely no sense.

Because as I've argued before, the flaw was in the implementation, not in the concept itself. The DA2 team can see how badly it was used in ME, and they can specifically try to avoid making those same mistakes.

Either way its going to use paraphrasing which essentially leaves the player guessing, lessening the ability of directly being able to provide input without knowing how its going to be delivered. The whole thing is a terrible system to begin with.  My views don't stray far from how Sylvius feels about it to be completely honest with you.

[SirOccam]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

Either way its going to use paraphrasing which essentially leaves the player guessing, lessening the ability of directly being able to provide input without knowing how its going to be delivered. The whole thing is a terrible system to begin with.  My views don't stray far from how Sylvius feels about it to be completely honest with you.

Alright. I can respect that.

I like the idea of a voiced protagonist, because I feel like it will make it feel like the protagonist feel more "present," more connected with the world around him. I found the silent, blank-faced stare distracting and immersion-breaking, but I can see why others wouldn't like feeling like they didn't have total control over their character. I guess I just have a higher tolerance for giving up some of that control to the writers and designers.

So for the voice to happen, I can see how that would lead to the dialogue wheel and paraphrasing, and that's a price I'm willing to pay I guess. I think it will be a worthwhile sacrifice in the end. But for what it's worth, I hope you guys are pleasantly surprised by the system and are able to get some enjoyment out of it.

[andar91]

SirOccam wrote...

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

Either way its going to use paraphrasing which essentially leaves the player guessing, lessening the ability of directly being able to provide input without knowing how its going to be delivered. The whole thing is a terrible system to begin with.  My views don't stray far from how Sylvius feels about it to be completely honest with you.

Alright. I can respect that.

I like the idea of a voiced protagonist, because I feel like it will make it feel like the protagonist feel more "present," more connected with the world around him. I found the silent, blank-faced stare distracting and immersion-breaking, but I can see why others wouldn't like feeling like they didn't have total control over their character. I guess I just have a higher tolerance for giving up some of that control to the writers and designers.

So for the voice to happen, I can see how that would lead to the dialogue wheel and paraphrasing, and that's a price I'm willing to pay I guess. I think it will be a worthwhile sacrifice in the end. But for what it's worth, I hope you guys are pleasantly surprised by the system and are able to get some enjoyment out of it.

I also don't have a big problem with giving up some control over my characters.  As long as the story is good and the dialogue is written well, I'll enjoy it.  I just downloaded Mass Effect off Steam a few days ago and I'm enjoying the dialogue system for the most part.  Granted, I've played for about half an hour total.  But I think that this is why I can play a game like, say, Final Fantasy or Uncharted 2 and love the story.  You don't have any control over what the characters are doing, but the narrative is good so it's like watching a really good, interactive (in terms of gameplay) movie.  With DA2, the interactivity goes up even more since the story is affected by our choices, but we (hopefully) can still have the cinematic experience.

[Sylvius the Mad]

SirOccam wrote...

The only way for you, perhaps, but then you are very particular about how you roleplay.

I refuse to accept that my desire to have some predictable level of control over how my character behaves is unusual.

That's not "complete," though. Printed text can only convey so much.

Printed text can convey all teh detail available to printed text.

And printed text is all there is in a game like DAO.

Tone, body language, etc. all play meaningful parts in communication.

I don't dispute this, but DAO's dialogue options don't contain any.

Leave out any one (or all) of them and your understanding is not complete, by definition. That doesn't mean what we have can't be sufficient. You draw that "sufficiency" line somewhere between ME and DAO...I draw it below ME.

No, you're missing the point.  ME's dialogue contains tone and body language.  DAO's does not.  As such, my character is not constrained by the tone or body language assigned by BioWare.

I'm thinking of "hidden" and "not there" as the same in this instance.

That would be wrong.

"Hidden" and "not there" are very different.

And in DAO, these features are "not there".

I agree that the player doesn't have access to it, in any case, but not that the game wasn't designed with it in place.

Whether the lines were written with intent or tone in the writer's mind has absolutely nothing to do with whether that intent or tone exists within the game.

When it comes to Mass Effect...apparently so.

Had BioWare made this clear in advance, I never would have played ME.

That's unfortunate that no one helped you. Personally I chose based on the paraphrase first, location second. I took them both into account. If something sounded good but was in the renegade spot, I thought "it's probably going to be something d*ckish."

But you couldn't have known about the d*ckish problem until after you'd played part of the game.

I'm suddenly heartened by Mike Laidlaw's desire to make DA2 accessible, because the problem with ME's dialogue was that it was inaccessible.

As it happened, my first attempt to play ME involved a Shepard who didn't believe tone carried any meaning, so I chose dialogue solely based on the paraphrase option (I designed this character primarily because I didn't  find the description of the paragon/renegade distinction in the manual at all informative), and that was a complete horrorshow right from the first lines Shepard uttered (his voice was too authoritative).

Well that just about sums up everything perfectly. Because you were unable to do something, that means anyone who felt they could were just deluding themselves. Nice.

It's not just that I didn't manage it.  It's that what I was trying to do was demonstrably impossible.

So yes, anyone else who tried to do what I was trying to do - which was roleplay - would necessarily have failed.  If they define roleplaying differently, then for all I know it's possible they ate a ham sandwich.

If things were different they wouldn't be the same.

[Sylvius the Mad]

SirOccam wrote...

Because as I've argued before, the flaw was in the implementation, not in the concept itself. The DA2 team can see how badly it was used in ME, and they can specifically try to avoid making those same mistakes.

I'll agreethat DA2 will be a far more valuable data point in determining the viability of the voice+wheel design.  ME is one data point, and one data point is not a pattern.

ME2 was a second data point, but it was related to the first one (the same team, plus some desire for continuity).

DA2 is an entirely new piece of information.  DA2's success or failure will be important news either way.

[AlanC9]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
As it happened, my first attempt to play ME involved a Shepard who didn't believe tone carried any meaning, so I chose dialogue solely based on the paraphrase option (I designed this character primarily because I didn't  find the description of the paragon/renegade distinction in the manual at all informative), and that was a complete horrorshow right from the first lines Shepard uttered (his voice was too authoritative).

A Shepard who didn't believe tone carried any meaning? Isn't that on the autism spectrum?

Modifié par AlanC9, 02 octobre 2010 - 04:34 .

[SirOccam]

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

[quote]SirOccam wrote...

The only way for you, perhaps, but then you are very particular about how you roleplay.[/quote]
I refuse to accept that my desire to have some predictable level of control over how my character behaves is unusual.[/quote]
Then by all means, refuse to accept it. But don't expect me or anyone else to accept that we're "doing it wrong" because we don't share your ideas.

[quote][quote]That's not "complete," though. Printed text can only convey so much.[/quote]
Printed text can convey all teh detail available to printed text.

And printed text is all there is in a game like DAO.[/quote]
And yet there is more to communication than the words themselves. So we don't have a "complete" understanding. We only understand as much as we are able to, given what we have to work with.

[quote][quote]Tone, body language, etc. all play meaningful parts in communication.[/quote]
I don't dispute this, but DAO's dialogue options don't contain any.[/quote]
Yes, exactly right. And that is why we don't have a complete understanding. The game doesn't support those things. They exist only within our imaginations, and the game cannot react to them.

[quote][quote]Leave out any one (or all) of them and your understanding is not complete, by definition. That doesn't mean what we have can't be sufficient. You draw that "sufficiency" line somewhere between ME and DAO...I draw it below ME.[/quote]
No, you're missing the point.  ME's dialogue contains tone and body language.  DAO's does not.  As such, my character is not constrained by the tone or body language assigned by BioWare.[/quote]
That's only because you view them as constraints.

[quote][quote]That's unfortunate that no one helped you. Personally I chose based on the paraphrase first, location second. I took them both into account. If something sounded good but was in the renegade spot, I thought "it's probably going to be something d*ckish."[/quote]
But you couldn't have known about the d*ckish problem until after you'd played part of the game.[/quote]
But that's true for a lot of things. Obviously some understanding of the game and its setting is beneficial for the purposes of creating a compelling character. That doesn't necessarily mean metagaming.

[quote]As it happened, my first attempt to play ME involved a Shepard who didn't believe tone carried any meaning, so I chose dialogue solely based on the paraphrase option (I designed this character primarily because I didn't  find the description of the paragon/renegade distinction in the manual at all informative), and that was a complete horrorshow right from the first lines Shepard uttered (his voice was too authoritative).[/quote]
I don't understand these examples you keep bringing up. This, the Ilos thing, the Mordin thing...you apparently make some Shepards who make some exceedingly arbitrary decisions, and then when you are faced with the consequences of those actions, you complain. Isn't that exactly how a game with even the remotest sense of consistency is supposed to play? Those consequences seem like perfectly logical ones.

You reap what you sow. If you make a Shepard who refuses to believe tone carries meaning, then you're going to run into problems communicating. It's kind of a no-brainer. if you make a Shepard who ignores the advice of her teammates because she doesn't like being bossed around, then sooner or later some of that advice is going to turn out to have been good advice, and something bad will happen as a result of having ignored it. Choosing to hoof it through Ilos was a pretty poor tactical decision, so of course you ended up failing. I don't even know what happens as a result of not recruiting Mordin, but I'm sure it wasn't good, considering he's supposed to be some kind of genius who is your best chance for figuring out a way to counter the Collectors' abilities. If Shepard were to skip recruiting him because she wants to spite Miranda, then she deserves whatever the consequences are.

[quote][quote]Well that just about sums up everything perfectly. Because you were unable to do something, that means anyone who felt they could were just deluding themselves. Nice.[/quote]
It's not just that I didn't manage it.  It's that what I was trying to do was demonstrably impossible.

So yes, anyone else who tried to do what I was trying to do - which was roleplay - would necessarily have failed.  If they define roleplaying differently, then for all I know it's possible they ate a ham sandwich.[/quote]
I assure you, a LOT of us define roleplaying differently. The evidence is abundant all throughout these forums. You're pretty much known for it around here.

[quote]If things were different they wouldn't be the same.[/quote]
Between this and "text conveys what details are available to text", I'd say you've got this whole tautology thing down.

Modifié par SirOccam, 02 octobre 2010 - 05:00 .

[CoS Sarah Jinstar]

AlanC9 wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
As it happened, my first attempt to play ME involved a Shepard who didn't believe tone carried any meaning, so I chose dialogue solely based on the paraphrase option (I designed this character primarily because I didn't  find the description of the paragon/renegade distinction in the manual at all informative), and that was a complete horrorshow right from the first lines Shepard uttered (his voice was too authoritative).

A Shepard who didn't believe tone carried any meaning? Isn't that on the autism spectrum?

For someone who routinely accuses me of pointless snark on a regular basis, I think this would certainly quailfy.

What's funny is some of you have actually agree with Sylvius that Mass Effect indeed offers less roleplaying freedom than DAO, (which it most certainly does) Yet still find the need to argue with him about it.

[SirOccam]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
As it happened, my first attempt to play ME involved a Shepard who didn't believe tone carried any meaning, so I chose dialogue solely based on the paraphrase option (I designed this character primarily because I didn't  find the description of the paragon/renegade distinction in the manual at all informative), and that was a complete horrorshow right from the first lines Shepard uttered (his voice was too authoritative).

A Shepard who didn't believe tone carried any meaning? Isn't that on the autism spectrum?

For someone who routinely accuses me of pointless snark on a regular basis, I think this would certainly quailfy.

What's funny is some of you have actually agree with Sylvius that Mass Effect indeed offers less roleplaying freedom than DAO, (which it most certainly does) Yet still find the need to argue with him about it.

That's because he's not content with saying it offers "less" RP freedom. He's saying RP is impossible in Mass Effect, and anyone who says they did RP is wrong.

[CoS Sarah Jinstar]

SirOccam wrote...

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
As it happened, my first attempt to play ME involved a Shepard who didn't believe tone carried any meaning, so I chose dialogue solely based on the paraphrase option (I designed this character primarily because I didn't  find the description of the paragon/renegade distinction in the manual at all informative), and that was a complete horrorshow right from the first lines Shepard uttered (his voice was too authoritative).

A Shepard who didn't believe tone carried any meaning? Isn't that on the autism spectrum?

For someone who routinely accuses me of pointless snark on a regular basis, I think this would certainly quailfy.

What's funny is some of you have actually agree with Sylvius that Mass Effect indeed offers less roleplaying freedom than DAO, (which it most certainly does) Yet still find the need to argue with him about it.

That's because he's not content with saying it offers "less" RP freedom. He's saying RP is impossible in Mass Effect, and anyone who says they did RP is wrong.

Well its not easy, that's for sure, like I've said a few times, its really hard to role play a character when you have to guess at every bit of dialog in the game. At that point it becomes somewhat pointless and not much fun.

[Sylvius the Mad]

[quote]SirOccam wrote...

Then by all means, refuse to accept it. But don't expect me or anyone else to accept that we're "doing it wrong" because we don't share your ideas.[/quote]
So you don't want a predictable level of control over your character?
[quote]And yet there is more to communication than the words themselves.[/quote]
Not in DAO.  The words are the sum total of the Warden's pre-written expression.
[quote]So we don't have a "complete" understanding.[/quote]
What does that even mean?  You're sasying that completeness requires an understanding not only of all the content, but of extra content that doesn't exist.

If you know how to understand non-existent content, let me know.
[quote]We only understand as much as we are able to, given what we have to work with.[/quote]
That's certainly the best we can do, yes.
[quote]Yes, exactly right. And that is why we don't have a complete understanding. The game doesn't support those things. They exist only within our imaginations, and the game cannot react to them.[/quote]
I still don't know what you mean by "complete".  There is no tone in the Warden's lines.  Understanding that tone, therefore, is impossible.

Your "complete" understanding is unattainable (and nonsensical).
[quote]That's only because you view them as constraints.[/quote]
They're demonstrably contraints.  They limit Shepard's range of expression.

You cannot reasonably deny this.
[quote]But that's true for a lot of things. Obviously some understanding of the game and its setting is beneficial for the purposes of creating a compelling character.[/quote]
This is true.  I have created characters based on a specific in-game event.  I want to see what sort of character would choose, for example, to accept Vaughn's money, and then based on that I build the rest of the character's personality to keep him consistent.
[quote]That doesn't necessarily mean metagaming.[/quote]
Not at all.  The problem in ME, though, is that keeping that character consistent is impossible without perfect foreknowledge, and possibly impossible even with perfect foreknowledge.
[quote]I don't understand these examples you keep bringing up. This, the Ilos thing, the Mordin thing...you apparently make some Shepards who make some exceedingly arbitrary decisions, and then when you are faced with the consequences of those actions, you complain.[/quote]
Isn't every character design fundamentally arbitary?  That's how people work.  Why does one person dislike bananas?  Ultimately there's no justification for how pople are - they're just like that.
[quote]Isn't that exactly how a game with even the remotest sense of consistency is supposed to play? Those consequences seem like perfectly logical ones.[/quote]
I agree.  I was quite pleased that Ilos worked out as it did, for example.

My point there was that there's no way for the player to know when the game is trying to tell him something rather than simply the characters speaking to each other in character.
[quote]You reap what you sow. If you make a Shepard who refuses to believe tone carries meaning, then you're going to run into problems communicating.[/quote]
This had nothing to do with communication.  It had to do with expression and behaviour.  Shepard didn't behave in a way that was consistent with his personality.

I don't even believe that communication is a thing.  There's expression and interpretation.  Positing an extra level beyond that and calling it "communication" is unjustified.  It fails Occam's Razor (something I would expect SirOccam to notice).
[quote]I assure you, a LOT of us define roleplaying differently.[/quote]
Many people claim they define roleplaying differently, but I have yet to see those definitions.

What's yours?  Presumably you've formalised it already, given that you're so sure that it's different from mine.

[Sylvius the Mad]

AlanC9 wrote...

A Shepard who didn't believe tone carried any meaning? Isn't that on the autism spectrum?

Autistic people are generally aware that tone carries meaning.  They just can't discern it.

SirOccam wrote...

He's saying RP is impossible in Mass Effect, and anyone who says they did RP is wrong.

I've advanced a definition of roleplaying that ME clearly fails to meet.

If you have another, I'd love to see it.

[addiction21]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...


Well its not easy, that's for sure, like I've said a few times, its really hard to role play a character when you have to guess at every bit of dialog in the game. At that point it becomes somewhat pointless and not much fun.

Like in DAO? By your own standards you were in the dark as much with the wheel in ME as you were in DAO. Sure you know the exact wording but have no idea on how it is going to be said (tone, inflection, body language that will be used upon its delivary) and only discover that upon the response.

[Sylvius the Mad]

addiction21 wrote...

Like in DAO? By your own standards you were in the dark as much with the wheel in ME as you were in DAO. Sure you know the exact wording but have no idea on how it is going to be said (tone, inflection, body language that will be used upon its delivary) and only discover that upon the response.

Untrue.

In DAO the Warden delivers the line however you would like.  This is left for you to decide.

And based on that, your interpretation of the NPCs' reactions will likely vary based on how your PC said that particular line.

Plus, any misunderstandings can be dealt with off-screen (just like eating and sleeping).

[CoS Sarah Jinstar]

addiction21 wrote...

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...


Well its not easy, that's for sure, like I've said a few times, its really hard to role play a character when you have to guess at every bit of dialog in the game. At that point it becomes somewhat pointless and not much fun.

Like in DAO? By your own standards you were in the dark as much with the wheel in ME as you were in DAO. Sure you know the exact wording but have no idea on how it is going to be said (tone, inflection, body language that will be used upon its delivary) and only discover that upon the response.

Sure I do, I choose it for myself, because I'm roleplaying MY character, rather than being handheld and having it done for me by Bioware's writters.

[SirOccam]

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

[quote]SirOccam wrote...

Then by all means, refuse to accept it. But don't expect me or anyone else to accept that we're "doing it wrong" because we don't share your ideas.[/quote]
So you don't want a predictable level of control over your character?[/quote]
Of course I do. The issue here is that I thought ME was predictable "enough" and you didn't.

[quote][quote]And yet there is more to communication than the words themselves.[/quote]
Not in DAO.  The words are the sum total of the Warden's pre-written expression.
[quote]So we don't have a "complete" understanding.[/quote]
What does that even mean?  You're sasying that completeness requires an understanding not only of all the content, but of extra content that doesn't exist.

If you know how to understand non-existent content, let me know.[/quote]
Communication is a concept. It exists both inside and out of Dragon Age: Origins. The problem is that video games are all limited to some extent, and in DAO one such limitation is that you are able to control some parts of communication and not others. You can choose what to say, and see every word, but you are limited to the choices they provide you. That's a limitation. You can preview the words, but you can't express a tone or use body language. Those are two more limitations. It doesn't mean that in the Dragon Age universe there's no such thing as tone or body language. You can see NPCs using them all the time. It's only the PC that is limited in those respects.

Mass Effect had an additional limitation in that you couldn't even see the full line of what your character was going to say.

[quote][quote]Yes, exactly right. And that is why we don't have a complete understanding. The game doesn't support those things. They exist only within our imaginations, and the game cannot react to them.[/quote]
I still don't know what you mean by "complete".  There is no tone in the Warden's lines.  Understanding that tone, therefore, is impossible.

Your "complete" understanding is unattainable (and nonsensical).[/quote]
A complete understanding of communication would be access to and control of tone, body language, and diction. You only have partial control of the latter, and no control of the first two. That is why it's incomplete.

[quote][quote]That's only because you view them as constraints.[/quote]
They're demonstrably contraints.  They limit Shepard's range of expression.

You cannot reasonably deny this.[/quote]
I see the ability to use tone and body language, even if you don't have full control over it, as less constraining than not having the ability at all. Mass Effect at least restores those components of communication back to the PC, albeit in an imperfect way.

I understand your point of view on this issue. You'd rather they not be there so you can fill in the blanks in your head. I simply find such things monotonous and uninteresting. If it's not going to have any effect on the game, then it's not important enough to me. This way, they can have an effect on the game.

[quote][quote]But that's true for a lot of things. Obviously some understanding of the game and its setting is beneficial for the purposes of creating a compelling character.[/quote]
This is true.  I have created characters based on a specific in-game event.  I want to see what sort of character would choose, for example, to accept Vaughn's money, and then based on that I build the rest of the character's personality to keep him consistent.
[quote]That doesn't necessarily mean metagaming.[/quote]
Not at all.  The problem in ME, though, is that keeping that character consistent is impossible without perfect foreknowledge, and possibly impossible even with perfect foreknowledge.[/quote]
I guess I just have a more flexible idea of my characters' personalities. I think we've been over this before, but I'm not averse to changing my character's design if I come up against an obstacle. It's more important to me to keep the feel and flow of the story. If I came up with an idea that required a whole bunch of finagling to try to "make it work," then I'd rather just scrap it. That kind of thing is just going to throw me out of the story.

[quote][quote]I don't understand these examples you keep bringing up. This, the Ilos thing, the Mordin thing...you apparently make some Shepards who make some exceedingly arbitrary decisions, and then when you are faced with the consequences of those actions, you complain.[/quote]
Isn't every character design fundamentally arbitary?  That's how people work.  Why does one person dislike bananas?  Ultimately there's no justification for how pople are - they're just like that.[/quote]
Fundamentally, sure. But take the "tone doesn't carry meaning" thing. That just seems like such a pointless obstacle to place in your own path. Why would anyone believe that? It seems like it has no other function than to make the game more awkward and inconvenient.

[quote][quote]Isn't that exactly how a game with even the remotest sense of consistency is supposed to play? Those consequences seem like perfectly logical ones.[/quote]
I agree.  I was quite pleased that Ilos worked out as it did, for example.

My point there was that there's no way for the player to know when the game is trying to tell him something rather than simply the characters speaking to each other in character.[/quote]
So just treat it as characters speaking to each other all the time. Isn't that what you said you did anyway? I don't think the Ilos example is even something that needed to be told to the player, or rather, it works both ways. Shep ignores the studied advice of her squadmates at her own peril.

[quote][quote]You reap what you sow. If you make a Shepard who refuses to believe tone carries meaning, then you're going to run into problems communicating.[/quote]
This had nothing to do with communication.  It had to do with expression and behaviour.  Shepard didn't behave in a way that was consistent with his personality.

I don't even believe that communication is a thing.  There's expression and interpretation.  Positing an extra level beyond that and calling it "communication" is unjustified.  It fails Occam's Razor (something I would expect SirOccam to notice).[/quote]
Well, communication IS a thing. It's not an extra level beyond expression and interpretation. It's what you call the system in its entirety. It's the interchange of ideas, and that includes both the expression of the speaker and the interpretation of the listener. It's not making anything more complex, needlessly or otherwise. It's just a name for something that would otherwise not have one. If you're saying we should start calling everything by their component parts now, then I'm afraid you've lost me.

And anyway, what we're really talking about is just expression. Tone is a part of expression, and thus a part of communication. So is body language. Someone who willingly ignores tone is going to have problems communicating, because he or she is crippling her own ability to "express." Therefore he or she might evoke interpretations he or she didn't intend to, interpretations that might have been avoided if he or she had considered the tone of his or her words.

[quote][quote]I assure you, a LOT of us define roleplaying differently.[/quote]
Many people claim they define roleplaying differently, but I have yet to see those definitions.

What's yours?  Presumably you've formalised it already, given that you're so sure that it's different from mine.[/quote]Well we've been trading essay-length posts on this very subject for quite some time now, so I figured it would be pretty apparent by now. I know it's different from yours or else such posts would never have been created in the first place, by either of us.

I wouldn't know where to begin formalizing it. I suppose on a fundamental level it's similar to yours. Taking on a persona and making decisions on your character's behalf in accordance with the personality you've invented. This is where we start to diverge, though. I will yield to the game MUCH more readily than you will. I see the game as a story. An interactive one, and one in which I am given varying degrees of freedom, but a story--THEIR story--nonetheless. I am given the opportunity to shape and mold that story, but only within the bounds of what the game offers. The sandbox has walls.

It would be easier to speak in examples. Take the dialogue in DAO, for instance. If the tone of a line is pretty clear from context or certain words or other clues, then I'll imagine it with that tone. Well first off let me point out that this right here is a huge divergence between our opinions...you say the tone doesn't exist, I say it does but the game's limitations sometimes prevent us from sensing it. Anyway, if the tone isn't very clear...I'll just kind of assume it was more or less neutral, but that might change based on how they respond. If they get offended, I'd consider revising my opinion of how I meant it. Maybe I meant it as a cutting remark in the first place. Or maybe they just misinterpreted. It depends on the circumstances, but if it makes for a more compelling scene, then hell yes I'll do it.

I guess I see my role as helping to create the story, but only inasmuch as the game allows me to. I am much more lenient and flexible in that regard. If I decide my character is a shapeshifter like Flemeth but it becomes clear that it's not going to be supported by the game, then I'd rather scrap that idea and start over, or just edit on the fly, rather than try to come up with a way to make it work. I don't WANT to come up with a unique idea that never has any tangible effect on the game. That is just plain boring. If I have to be less unique in order to get more support from the game, then I will do so in a heartbeat.

I don't know how you'd define the differences in our philosophies. Somehow you're both more restrictive and way less restrictive on yourself. something of an extremist, in my opinion. You place restrictions on yourself that I see not as invalid, but as unnecessary, like sticking to your initial character design no matter what. And in other places, you take liberties I never would, like insisting characters have completely different personalities between different playthroughs.

You place much more importance on what you get out of a story, even if much of it is solely in your head. I prefer to see and hear the game react to my choices and behaviour. I'm sure there are many other examples.

[Anarya]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

addiction21 wrote...

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...


Well its not easy, that's for sure, like I've said a few times, its really hard to role play a character when you have to guess at every bit of dialog in the game. At that point it becomes somewhat pointless and not much fun.

Like in DAO? By your own standards you were in the dark as much with the wheel in ME as you were in DAO. Sure you know the exact wording but have no idea on how it is going to be said (tone, inflection, body language that will be used upon its delivary) and only discover that upon the response.

Sure I do, I choose it for myself, because I'm roleplaying MY character, rather than being handheld and having it done for me by Bioware's writters.

You're really still "being handheld" by the writers in a game like Origins whether you have a voiced PC or not. The writers have a tone in mind when they write the dialogue options for your PC, and they put it down in notes for the NPC and companion voice actors to react to (you can read these in the toolset). There were several instances where I chose a particular line and I intended it with a very different tone than I apparently delivered it in, judging by the way the person I was talking to reacted to the line. I mean I suppose you could just roleplay that you're bad at expressing yourself and therefore get misinterpreted all the time but that just seems frustrating to me.

[SirOccam]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

addiction21 wrote...

Like in DAO? By your own standards you were in the dark as much with the wheel in ME as you were in DAO. Sure you know the exact wording but have no idea on how it is going to be said (tone, inflection, body language that will be used upon its delivary) and only discover that upon the response.

Untrue.

In DAO the Warden delivers the line however you would like.  This is left for you to decide.

And based on that, your interpretation of the NPCs' reactions will likely vary based on how your PC said that particular line.

Plus, any misunderstandings can be dealt with off-screen (just like eating and sleeping).

Okay this right here is a perfect example of the difference between our views on roleplaying in these types of games.

I do not believe the Warden delivers the lines however we like. I believe he delivers them however the writer intended them to be delivered. We can try to discern the tone based on context and the response it evokes. I'm not saying this to start up this argument again, but just as an example.

Another example is the idea of dealing with things off-screen. I make allowances for some of it (like eating and sleeping), but if there was a huge misunderstanding, then going "oh, they got it all straightened out later on" is just exceedingly distasteful to me. Clinging to an interpretation of your Warden's lines that was clearly not borne out by the game, then fixing it by assuming they got it straightened out later seems kind of insane to me when you could just change how it was said.

Player: "I'm going to say this next line as a joke."
PC: *says line*
NPC: "How dare you!"
Player: "Oh! Uh...well later in the camp they have a heart-to-heart and hug it out."

That's just...bleh. I can't think of any cases in DAO where a misunderstanding of that magnitude occurred, but if it had, I'd rather reload. Or at the very least, I'd think "okay, maybe he was kind of pissed because of _______ so he snapped at him. I'll make it up with a gift." At least that way, I'm dealing with it from within the bounds of the game.

[SirOccam]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

SirOccam wrote...

He's saying RP is impossible in Mass Effect, and anyone who says they did RP is wrong.

I've advanced a definition of roleplaying that ME clearly fails to meet.

Exactly. It fails to meet your definition of roleplaying. It doesn't fail to meet mine.

[SirOccam]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

SirOccam wrote...

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

What's funny is some of you have actually agree with Sylvius that Mass Effect indeed offers less roleplaying freedom than DAO, (which it most certainly does) Yet still find the need to argue with him about it.

That's because he's not content with saying it offers "less" RP freedom. He's saying RP is impossible in Mass Effect, and anyone who says they did RP is wrong.

Well its not easy, that's for sure, like I've said a few times, its really hard to role play a character when you have to guess at every bit of dialog in the game. At that point it becomes somewhat pointless and not much fun.

I am totally with you. It's not easy. Not compared to DAO. But it's not impossible.