309 réponses à ce sujet

[Zjarcal]

leonia42 wrote...

Meh, I don't pick the Mage Tower choice due to metagaming knowledge so much as I pick it so I don't get a lecture at camp from Alistair later on.

Also, on the subject of The Amber Spyglass, oh man the ending.. I cried.

Ah, that is metagaming knowledge. Or did you know Alistair was gonna yell at you before you made the choice?

[Dave of Canada]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

Granted aparently no one actually wants to role play in CRPG's anymore aparently to begin with, because it takes a little bit of effort on their part.

Cute how you thinly covered in an insult in there.

[SirOccam]

leonia42 wrote...

Also, on the subject of The Amber Spyglass, oh man the ending.. I cried.

Me too, and I never (well, rarely) cry at anything. That's not to sound macho or anything, just I don't get moved very easily (I wish I did).

Simply looking at this picture is almost enough to do it now that I know what it means (and yes, that's the real one). God, I'm getting all verklempt right now just typing about it.

Okay, sorry for the OT. *takes a break to go do something manly*

[Leonia]

Zjarcal wrote...

leonia42 wrote...

Meh, I don't pick the Mage Tower choice due to metagaming knowledge so much as I pick it so I don't get a lecture at camp from Alistair later on.

Also, on the subject of The Amber Spyglass, oh man the ending.. I cried.

Ah, that is metagaming knowledge. Or did you know Alistair was gonna yell at you before you made the choice?

Y'know, I sort of did a /facepalm after I hit the submit button. Kind of not what I meant. I meant that I didn't expect to get any gameplay advantage from the choice. But nevermind, poor example of not metagaming, you're right. 'Tis very hard to play subsequent playthroughs without metagaming, even unintentionally.

[Zjarcal]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...
Or you actually role play your player character, not metagame, and it isn't an issue in the first place. Granted aparently no one actually wants to role play in CRPG's anymore aparently to begin with, because it takes a little bit of effort on their part.

I don't think Bioware or anyone else is ever going to come up with a solution for that, there's only so many outcomes they can put into the game for quest solutions, and I'm sorry but some of them will at times offer a happy solution to the quest.

Who says that people don't want to role play anymore?

And it's not about there being happy solutions, it's about making any possible happy solution a logical one.

[Meltemph]

I want all or most of my "moral choices" to be hard ones, where the consequences must have a heavy weight to them.

[Zjarcal]

leonia42 wrote...

Zjarcal wrote...

leonia42 wrote...

Meh, I don't pick the Mage Tower choice due to metagaming knowledge so much as I pick it so I don't get a lecture at camp from Alistair later on.

Also, on the subject of The Amber Spyglass, oh man the ending.. I cried.

Ah, that is metagaming knowledge. Or did you know Alistair was gonna yell at you before you made the choice?

Y'know, I sort of did a /facepalm after I hit the submit button. Kind of not what I meant. I meant that I didn't expect to get any gameplay advantage from the choice. But nevermind, poor example of not metagaming, you're right. 'Tis very hard to play subsequent playthroughs without metagaming, even unintentionally.

LOL!

And for what it's worth, wanting to avoid Alistair's yelling is a noble cause, as it is annoying as hell.

Alistair: "You killed Connor!"

W: "Didn't you suggest that while we were in the Caslte?"

Alistair: "Bla, bla, bla, you're a horrible person!"

W: Talk to the hand.

Modifié par Zjarcal, 07 octobre 2010 - 03:10 .

[SirOccam]

Dave of Canada wrote...

leonia42 wrote...

Also, on the subject of The Amber Spyglass, oh man the ending.. I cried.

Now I'm interesting in knowing the ending... argh! *I haven't read the series at all and most likely will never read it*

You just have to. It's not that long, and it's amazing. Better yet, listen to the audiobook...it's done by a full cast and Pullman himself narrates. It's fantastic. But whatever the medium, I highly, highly recommend it. Don't be fooled by any "Young Adult" tags you may see around either. It's powerful stuff.

[Dave of Canada]

leonia42 wrote...

'Tis very hard to play subsequent playthroughs without metagaming, even unintentionally.

Pretty much. You have to catch the idiot ball IRL in those situations.

[lv12medic]

Dave of Canada wrote...

Provided it's difficult enough than just going "Sup. Let's do this." then I might be fine with it. Provided it's not simply something like...
"Hawke, we have to save those miners!"
The miners are unimportant, we need to seal the Darkspawn! [kills all the miners]

Blow up the mine, who cares about the Darkspawn? We need to save them! [save the miners but Darkspawn invade the surface in the epilogue and kill more people]

Let's dig a hole that will take a few days to dig and get them out of there! [saves the miners, no darkspawn. Everybody is happy.]

You should at least have collected a shovel or two for the hole option to appear and then you have to dig the hole.

---
With my "consequences" thing that I was pushing, maybe a few miners died because you took too long to dig them out however you were able to save most of them.

Heh... I read this and the first thing I thought of was the end of the Good, Bad, and the Ugly, seeing a shovel stick in the ground and hear someone say "Start digging."

Anyways, back to your regularly scheduled forum discussion.:innocent:

[Addai]

Dave of Canada wrote...

One of the things I loved about Dragon Age is there was often times the harsh and difficult choices between two morally grey points, such as killing Isolde or Connor. You ponder on these choices, you sit there and cry as you're about to pick that one importa- Wait a minute. What's with the "Go to the Mage Tower" option?

Third options are the options that present the best alternative for everybody, such as the one mentioned above or curing the werewolves. I could mention a few others from Mass Effect as well but I won't bother. I'm curious how the community feels about this, in Dragon Age 2 do you want more of these third options or would you prefer them removed completely? What is your reasoning?

Myself I'd remove them, I love to have these tough decisions that people would argue for days on the forums about what one is the right and wrong choice. You wouldn't be able to walk away into the sunset with a smile on your face.

Thoughts?

(husband)

Having a few forced choices can make for good drama, but I would not have lots of them.   Having lots of forced choices makes the game seem more artificial, fake, cliche etc..   Even the Alistair vs. Loghain one in the game seems that way to me.

[Leonia]

SirOccam wrote...

Dave of Canada wrote...

leonia42 wrote...

Also, on the subject of The Amber Spyglass, oh man the ending.. I cried.

Now I'm interesting in knowing the ending... argh! *I haven't read the series at all and most likely will never read it*

You
just have to. It's not that long, and it's amazing. Better yet, listen
to the audiobook...it's done by a full cast and Pullman himself
narrates. It's fantastic. But whatever the medium, I highly, highly
recommend it. Don't be fooled by any "Young Adult" tags you may see
around either. It's powerful stuff.

Young adult? Man, if I had actually read that when I was a "young adult" I wouldn't have understood most of it, certainly wouldn't have appreciated the last scene of the last book nearly as much. I'll have to try getting the audiobooks, that sounds awesome (bummer that the first movie tanked so bad and we are unlikely to see the other 2 made into films).

Ahem, stay on target, Leo, stay on target..

It sounds like the devs acknowledge that the Redcliffe Third Option wasn't really executed well (or maybe that's just me gathering that from what Lukas said) so hopefully that means we'll have some better options with harsher consequences to play around with in DA 2. Yay!

Modifié par leonia42, 07 octobre 2010 - 03:18 .

[SteveGarbage]

Dave of Canada wrote...

Myself I'd remove them, I love to have these tough decisions that people would argue for days on the forums about what one is the right and wrong choice. You wouldn't be able to walk away into the sunset with a smile on your face.

Thoughts?

There are certain situations when it's nice to not have a cut and dry "good" solution - like Bhelen vs. Harrowmont. However, you don't want to overdo it otherwise you have a pretty depressing game where no matter what you do everything goes to crap.

I think choices like the how to handle Connor situation are good with the additional choices because they display a progression of choices. You can take the short, easy path and kill Connor. You can take the slightly more difficult path by sacrificing Isolde and killing the demon. Or you can go the distance and save the mages to get their help to save Connor.

Not every choice is soup or salad. There are some choices that are TV dinner, make a sandwich or make a full meal, if you follow me. If you eliminate that third option in a lot of situations you eliminate reasonable alternatives and then the game actually loses realism.

And let's face it, no matter how far RPG games advance and how good story telling gets, in video games there will always be your input into it and it will reflect a certain amount of meta-gaming because you have to decide on the kind of character you want to play because the game isn't capable of doing it. So instinctively you have to decide if you want to play the devout to the Chantry female city elf rogue who decides that experimenting with Leliana isn't a bad idea or the exiled male dwarf noble who spits on all things Chantry related - the churches the mages, all of it. The same goes for other games - Heavy Rain is a good example. When playing, I had to consciously decide if as Ethan I would do whatever it took no matter the cost to try to rescue my son, or if there were limits to what I would do even if it cost my boy my life.

Having the options is good because it opens a wider variety to the players. The meta-gaming is a natural part of it. With the Connor decision, you may decide that going to get the mages is the best. Or you (the player) may make a meta-gaming decision that there's no way you could reasonably get to the tower and back before Connor gets at it again so you decide to sacrifice Isolde. The more choices the better. Let the player fill in the personality and characteristics that that game can't track well outside the Fourth Wall.

Interesting topic to broach, Dave, if I may say so.

Modifié par SteveGarbage, 07 octobre 2010 - 03:15 .

[phaonica]

I think there should be some times where doing the "good" thing leads to bad consequences, or doing the "bad" thing leads to the best outcome. Not all the time, obviously, but that kind of choice is what a 'moral dilemma' is, after all. If a choice is too clear-cut from a moral standpoint, then it's not part of a conflict.

[HTTP 404]

silentassassin264 wrote...

HTTP 404 wrote...

If the OP is talking about the Ace in the Hole option that is waaay better than other choices then yes. please remove. I hate short selling myself just to have a new experience through a playthrough.

Example: in ME2
I incited the crowd during Talis trial instead of choosing "blue" or "red" and Kal Reeger and Veetor spoke out for Tali. Never had known that was possible due to always choosing the "best" answer which was blue or red OR top or bottom. incite the crowd was neither, it was a middle option.

But that is the type of third option that I like.  You don't just automatically get that option.  You have to give Veetor to Tali and save Kal'Reeger.   That leaves to a logically build up of character witnesses to save Tali at the trial.  But if you could out of the blue (without adequate persuasion) rally the random crowd of Quarians to your side, that would be ridiculous just like pulling a "Go to the Mage Tower" at Redcliffe.  It is just that I don't believe that they would consistently only put in good third options like the rally the crowd in ME2.

Im not against the third option per se but the Ace in the Hole option.  what bugged me about the "middle option" is that it hardly is ever more beneficial than the Persuasive options.  The example I gave was a really nice exception to the rule that should be the rule.

[In Exile]

Reaverwind wrote...
All 3 choices for Redcliffe actually had a net positive result: stopping an Abomination terrorizing the area. The problem with the 3rd choice was that it was also the no-brainer easy choice. With that there, you have to do some meta-gaming to justify the other choices - and that annoys me to no end.

Really? I think you have to meta-game to justify the happy ending choice. You're essentially abandoning Redcliffe for at least several days to an out of control child abomination who has just tried to murder and entire village, a village which (potentially) only survived due to your intervention and (potentially) does not have the manpower to survive another assault. You have a token force left in the castle that can be mind-controlled, and that is the only thing that stands between Connor and Redcliffe.

No, I think the 3rd option is attractive only because we know it will always work out, and that is the meta-game choice. The reasonable, choice, IMO, is the blood magic ritual. Isolde is a mother; nothing more horrible than asking her to watch her child die. Saving Connor's life, allowing Isolde to do right for her mistake, and reasonably preventing more harm... probably the best choice given uncertain information.

[Brockololly]

Addai67 wrote...
Having a few forced choices can make for good drama, but I would not have lots of them.   Having lots of forced choices makes the game seem more artificial, fake, cliche etc..   Even the Alistair vs. Loghain one in the game seems that way to me.

Bingo.

If you have too many dire this or that situations it gets tiresome as its taking away choice from the character which most RPGs are lacking in compared to older ones anyway.

As far as the example of the Mage's Tower goes- there should have been some consequence of leaving Redcliffe to go get the mages. But I wouldn't say they should have cut out that choice alltogether. My first time through I had done the mage's tower first and then went to Redcliffe. So when the chance came up, I figured that was a risk my PC was willing to take. I thought something bad might happen, but my PC went straight to the Tower and right back.

Perhaps the Mage's Tower solution should have been a bit like ME2 with the crew and the collectors. So say if you've already cleared out the Mage Tower and choose to head right back and go directly back to Redcliffe afterwards, you can still get the "happy" ending we get in Origins. But maybe if you go and have to finish the quest and come back you find out that Isolde or Teagan is dead. Or if you leave and really make side trips then everybody dies and you're forced to kill Connor anyway.

Really I think you limit those sorts of Plot Hammer moments to only a couple times in the gam, otherwise, especially in an RPG where its supposed to be about player choice, it further rips away agency.

[Barrendall]

Not having that third option I feels limits the game. I too don't think that every choice has to end hunky-dory but in my experience life doesn't just have option A or option B. It's kind of nice to see that ingame as well.

[marshalleck]

Bioware doesn't really do anything dark. There's always a good guy out. I'm sure there will be plenty of Best Possible Outcomes For Everyone in DA2.

Modifié par marshalleck, 07 octobre 2010 - 03:22 .

[In Exile]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...
Or you actually role play your player character, not metagame, and it isn't an issue in the first place. Granted aparently no one actually wants to role play in CRPG's anymore aparently to begin with, because it takes a little bit of effort on their part.

To be fair, it is hard to enjoy playing a role (which requires a mental separation between you as the player and the character) when the options are so clearly labelled idiot ball and save everyone. There is a kind of player satisfaction from that choice that is taken away because you, as the player, know the consequence is automatic happy ending. And I'm not even speaking from the perspective of replaying. Knowing that Bioware does not make the third option potentially as dangerous as the other two means that the second you see it, you lose tension.

[Brockololly]

phaonica wrote...

I think there should be some times where doing the "good" thing leads to bad consequences, or doing the "bad" thing leads to the best outcome. Not all the time, obviously, but that kind of choice is what a 'moral dilemma' is, after all. If a choice is too clear-cut from a moral standpoint, then it's not part of a conflict.

Isn't that basically Behlen and Harrowmont? I get what you're saying, but the problem is those sorts of things turn in to GOTCHA! moments if you;re not careful. The thing with stuff like that is that the player needs to be given a decent amount of information before trying to make a decision. Just pulling the rug out from underneath the player for some shock moment is cheap and again, its just the writers wielding the Plot Hammer.

Complicated choices are good, but you should always be given enough information to at least be able to intuit a possible bad or good outcome, even if that outcome isn't clear from the start.

[In Exile]

Zjarcal wrote...
LOL!

And for what it's worth, wanting to avoid Alistair's yelling is a noble cause, as it is annoying as hell.

Alistair: "You killed Connor!"

W: "Didn't you suggest that while we were in the Caslte?"

Alistair: "Bla, bla, bla, you're a horrible person!"

W: Talk to the hand.

The absurdity of that whole situation is you can't call Alistair out for being so stupidly selfish about the whole thing. He wanted everyone to live just as much to pay back a father-figure he idolizes as he did to actually save everyone, and he can't even appreciate that his choice could very well mean 50 more people die instead of 1.

That is one thing that frustrated me in DA to no end. Your companions will stand up for their beliefs, but you don't always have the chance to defend yours. Particularly with Morrigan or Alistair (there is a brilliant moment with Sten at Haven, though).

[Dave of Canada]

Brockololly wrote...


Isn't that basically Behlen and Harrowmont?

Well, the Bhelen / Harrowmont choice isn't really a "GOTCHA!" moment. You knew that Harrowmont was a traditionalist and was an extremely kind man to everybody, of course he'd be pushed around and enforce dwarven traditionilism.

[In Exile]

Brockololly wrote...

Really I think you limit those sorts of Plot Hammer moments to only a couple times in the gam, otherwise, especially in an RPG where its supposed to be about player choice, it further rips away agency.

Springing the dark ritual on you does that anyway. And it's not the fact that there is a ritual - but the fact that you are essentially a worthless chess piece that gets played around with that's the shot. It's a very hard scene to do right, and in a game that venerates the hero so strongly (which is how Bioware approaches RPGs), to have such a powerful moment of manipulation where any revenge or payoff for the hero is very daring, and IMO, fell flat.

[Ortaya Alevli]

In Exile wrote...

The absurdity of that whole situation is you can't call Alistair out for being so stupidly selfish about the whole thing. He wanted everyone to live just as much to pay back a father-figure he idolizes as he did to actually save everyone, and he can't even appreciate that his choice could very well mean 50 more people die instead of 1.

You can. But it  takes a few extra points in Cunning.