260 réponses à ce sujet

[Sidney]

Brockololly wrote...

The thing is, I did  think after finishing Origins the first time "You know it might be neat to see a DA game more in the vein of ME's style one day." But I was more thinking that would be DA6 or 7, once they wanted to sort of reboot the franchise or something. To just sort of ditch the traditional cRPG heritage DAO was going for after only one game seems a bit ...forced? I'd have rather seen a more BG2 style sequel, where instead of shaking up everything, you sort of build off of the fundamentals of the first game and basically add more content and depth to everything, not streamline and strip stuff away while changing the style. Maybe its not that drastic but the marketing and the limited stuff released thus far makes it seem that way.

Thing is other than the VO there's really nothing substantive being changed - and I know that creates lots of hyperventilating. Combat is being changed to eliminate the ponderous movements - and we all saw and know what they are talking about. Maybe issuing the Enemy>Attacking Wynne>Attack command will actually accomplish something now.

I'm not seeing them ditch the traditional CRPG angle here. Fixed backgrounds were part of "traditional" things like BG1/2, PST, FO1/2, KoTOR and JE so this notion that you had total background freedom in tradition is a myth. DAO was the abberation in terms of allowing that sort of freedom. Fixed races were part of PST, FO, KoTOR and JE so it isn't always about being able to be anything you want "traditionally" either - only BG1/2 allowed that and that choice was totally cosmetic because it meant nothing in the game.

[Sidney]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

The problem I had with ME1-2's implementation of the Dialogue Wheel system is how incredibly restrictive and arbitrary the Paragon/Renegade system feels to me. I get a lot more enjoyment out of it when I cheat myself the ability to use both. 

Even that is just the Persuade/Intimidate options from DAO to me. The problem is people associate them soley with good and evil but in game mechanics in both ME games they are skills you learn AND morality stands so their appearance and use is a bit wonky in some ways but they've never seemed restrictive.

[upsettingshorts]

Their implementation isn't restrictive, but the fact I must acquire bad-ass points in order to act like a bad-ass is, to me, quite arbitrary.

I haven't heard anything that says that in DA:2 I must accumulate Sarcasm points in order to be sarcastic, so - so far so good.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 09 octobre 2010 - 08:54 .

[Meltemph]

Ya, it seems more like they are taking a Growlanser 2 approach to personality(just much more refined).

[CoS Sarah Jinstar]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Their implementation isn't restrictive, but the fact I must acquire bad-ass points in order to act like a bad-ass is, to me, quite arbitrary.

I haven't heard anything that says that in DA:2 I must accumulate Sarcasm points in order to be sarcastic, so - so far so good.

I heard they were going to refer to it as Sidney points in game for the sarcastic selections.

[Lurklen]

 I just love how crochety and stuck in their ways (many)gamers are. It's all " What are you? Why would you? I liked things the way they used to be!" "Progress? I'll give you progress upside the head you little." And it's always the same conversations, on the forums for the last game so many of the same complaints were being thrown around.

I remember when we found out there wasn't going to be a voiced protaganist a lot of people were really upset because mass effect had had one and now DAO wasn't going to and Bioware was changing things OMG!! I'm just as guilty I get annoyed when the Devs make a decision I wouldn't have, but I still think it's funny how set in our ways we get. 
 I for one am excited to see what bioware is going to do. I mean the worst that happens for us is a game we thought would be good isn't. The stakes are much much higher for Bioware, their going to have put so much time and money and effort into this game. It seems to me they wouldn't be making it this way if they didn't think it was going to be successful. And on that front they have a really good track record.

[AtreiyaN7]

What?! A positive thread?! THE WORLD IS ENDING!!!! It is, however, a nice change of pace. So before the fire & brimstone start raining down, I'll enjoy it for a few minutes.

[In Exile]

Brockololly wrote...

The thing is, I did  think after finishing Origins the first time "You know it might be neat to see a DA game more in the vein of ME's style one day."

As it turns out, I had the same thought. Just... before DA:O came out. Don't get m

But I was more thinking that would be DA6 or 7, once they wanted to sort of reboot the franchise or something. To just sort of ditch the traditional cRPG heritage DAO was going for after only one game seems a bit ...forced? I'd have rather seen a more BG2 style sequel, where instead of shaking up everything, you sort of build off of the fundamentals of the first game and basically add more content and depth to everything, not streamline and strip stuff away while changing the style. Maybe its not that drastic but the marketing and the limited stuff released thus far makes it seem that way.

I don't think we can comment on anything of significance save the VO. It is hard to judge DA based only on gameplay videos or secondhand commentary from expos, and given how strong the criticism was for DA:O being streamlined as an RPG and abandoning BG/BG2 while it was being developed (the MMO combat, the absence of inventory tetris, etc.) I am not sure how much weight I want to give to the reviewers.

To me, the significant distinction between DA and ME is the gameplay. So long as Bioware does not remove party control, tactical combat, detailed statistics, etc. then DA will not have fundamentally been altered for me.

I suppose I simply cannot see VO as a negative, so that colours my perception. But even VO aside, there are so many more features to DA that make it an RPG versus an RPG-lite like ME1 and ME2, that it hard to dismiss this sequel out of hand.

It just seems to me that not cloning DA, and instead introducing VO and the narrative, and changing up the protagonist, etc. all seems to be not what a soulless multimedia conglomerate bent only on safe profit would do.

There are certainly things I'm interested about (story, characters, rivalry system) but there seem to be a whole lot of changes that I don't necessarily see as being straight up improvements, but at best a lateral sidestep or even a step back. We'll see...

Right, but that comes down to personal tastes. I mentioned in another thread that if you had, say, me or Sylvius design a sequel to DA2 you would have two games that could not possibly be more far apart, despite us starting with the same potential product.

[In Exile]

Juneya wrote...
...the what?
WHERE?! I hadn't head about this at all, and now I'm super excited, link please! (pretty please? )

EDIT: *obligatory post in which I bash DA2, bash bashers of DA2, bash the bashers bashing bashers of DA2, or make a snarky comment to make myself sound witty and intellectual*

A page or so back, someone linked to comments that David Gaidner made about the new system. Essentially, here is the breakdown:

Hawke will essentially have three personality 'variants' so to speak, to cover three major areas of interaction: ruthless, noble and sacrastic. This is not exactly like stances in Alpha Protocol because they are not designed to be diametrically opposed from one another - they are just the ways Bioware operationalized personality for the game.

The dominant personality system, as I called it, basically works as follows: you have two types of choices you can make in game: action choices, where you make a significant choice that leads to a divergent path, or a flavour choice. In Origins, a flavour choice might be an interaction with Alistair, where you (for example) either choose to deride the Grey Wardens, praise their virtue, or mock them as irrelevant. When you pick one of these options, you add a score to your personality tracker. So suppose you consistently pick the sarcastic choice. You are then faced with the situation at the Circle Tower: Wynne asks you to support her in saving the mages (this is an action choice). Based on the choices thus far, Hawke might respond differently. Ruthless Hawke will express his choice in a more ruthless way, while Sarcastic Hawke will be more mocking.

These extend to other aspects of the game. For example, the voice sets. Each personality has its own, so when you click to have Hawke loot, for example, you will get a different response based on personality. As well, Hawke now participants in party banter based on his personality. Again, with the three dimensions.

[Bootsykk]

In Exile wrote...

Juneya wrote...
...the what?
WHERE?! I hadn't head about this at all, and now I'm super excited, link please! (pretty please? )

EDIT: *obligatory post in which I bash DA2, bash bashers of DA2, bash the bashers bashing bashers of DA2, or make a snarky comment to make myself sound witty and intellectual*

A page or so back, someone linked to comments that David Gaidner made about the new system. Essentially, here is the breakdown:

Hawke will essentially have three personality 'variants' so to speak, to cover three major areas of interaction: ruthless, noble and sacrastic. This is not exactly like stances in Alpha Protocol because they are not designed to be diametrically opposed from one another - they are just the ways Bioware operationalized personality for the game.

The dominant personality system, as I called it, basically works as follows: you have two types of choices you can make in game: action choices, where you make a significant choice that leads to a divergent path, or a flavour choice. In Origins, a flavour choice might be an interaction with Alistair, where you (for example) either choose to deride the Grey Wardens, praise their virtue, or mock them as irrelevant. When you pick one of these options, you add a score to your personality tracker. So suppose you consistently pick the sarcastic choice. You are then faced with the situation at the Circle Tower: Wynne asks you to support her in saving the mages (this is an action choice). Based on the choices thus far, Hawke might respond differently. Ruthless Hawke will express his choice in a more ruthless way, while Sarcastic Hawke will be more mocking.

These extend to other aspects of the game. For example, the voice sets. Each personality has its own, so when you click to have Hawke loot, for example, you will get a different response based on personality. As well, Hawke now participants in party banter based on his personality. Again, with the three dimensions.

I had not actually heard about the second part with the banter. That sounds absolutely AMAZING. Though I hope that he isn't involved in too much of it...

And I didn't quite understand the way the action choice was explained in the article, nor how you explained it xD
Do you mean either...
a., Wynne asks for your support, and based on the "personality" that you built, Hawke will decide what to do? Such as saying, "Of course I'll help!" or telling Wynne to screw off and slaughter some mages (without the players input)? or...
b., Wynne asks for your support, and you are given the choice to help or not, then based on that choice Hawke will carry it out in his own way?

...or am I reading too much into this, and you meant that the hypothetical action itself was supporting Wynne?

[Lurklen]

I think it's more a matter of tone, if you've built up a sarcastic persona then the line will be delivered like that. At least that what I'm givin to understand.

[In Exile]

Juneya wrote...

I had not actually heard about the second part with the banter. That sounds absolutely AMAZING. Though I hope that he isn't involved in too much of it...

Can't say, obviously. I think it's more that Hawke gets the last word, but that's just conjecture on my part.

And I didn't quite understand the way the action choice was explained in the article, nor how you explained it xD
Do you mean either...

Article? That was an example I came up with, so it is probably unclear because I didn't explain it well.

a., Wynne asks for your support, and based on the "personality" that you built, Hawke will decide what to do? Such as saying, "Of course I'll help!" or telling Wynne to screw off and slaughter some mages (without the players input)? or...
b., Wynne asks for your support, and you are given the choice to help or not, then based on that choice Hawke will carry it out in his own way?

No to both a and b. All that happens is that you can choose to help or not, and what personality determines is how Hawke says he will hurt or help, if I understand what David explained correctly.

Bioware will never take agency away from the player. It is just a matter of how Hawke will express himself.

The basic idea as I understand is that they want to avoid the boring, lifeless neutral Shepard and have a more animated and living figure.

Modifié par In Exile, 09 octobre 2010 - 11:18 .

[Xewaka]

Sidney wrote...

I keep hearing people say that but either I have incredible guessing skills, people who say these things have a real problem of some ilk with reading  or there were issues in localization that caused problems because I really never had this problem of not know what Shep was gonna say. I think the only "Oh god no" moment was the flirty tone FemShep took with Jacob one time. Can you give examples of where the wheel causes you this kind of issue - if it is so common it should be easy to peg a few of them.

Horizon comes to mind. It was the most jarring problem I had with the paraphrasing. Mostly because I attempted to explain things and Shepard went into full idiot.
After Horizon I simply zoned out the wheel and hit either high or low depending on wether I want the paragon or the renegade points for charm/intimidate. It's not as if Shepard is my character, after all; it's just the guy I control.

Might be a localization thing, though. English is not a friendly language to translate into latin tongues.

]I'll probably hit a similar point on DA: 2 when I'll simply go into full sarcasm mode. Then again, I play cRPGs more for the story, metaplot, lore and gameplay tinkering (character sheet development) than for proper roleplay. I have a pen and paper campaign for that.

Modifié par Xewaka, 09 octobre 2010 - 11:44 .

[Sidney]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Their implementation isn't restrictive, but the fact I must acquire bad-ass points in order to act like a bad-ass is, to me, quite arbitrary.

I haven't heard anything that says that in DA:2 I must accumulate Sarcasm points in order to be sarcastic, so - so far so good.

You had to add Intimidate skills to intimidate people in DAO so similar effect but does it make sense, not really. I assumed the the "points" reflected that you had the "street cred" to threaten people and have them buy it but that is my trying to find logic for what likely has no logic.

[Addai]

Lurklen wrote...

I think it's more a matter of tone, if you've built up a sarcastic persona then the line will be delivered like that. At least that what I'm givin to understand.

Persona is carried a lot in the type of voice used, though.  I know the devs have said they are trying to have the VAs use a wide range, but some voices are just.. ugh.  And to be forced to use one and only one- major bummer.

[Withidread]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

Just to note, it's nice to see a thread that's positive. As I've said before, I totally understand the concerns around DA2. It's different, and different could be a bad thing. It could also be a good thing, and I'm glad some folks are excited by the changes.

Laidlaw, the only thing keeping me from pre-ordering at this point is the lack of a special/collector's edition announcement. Soon as that's happened, I'll melt some plastic...So Hawke can melt faces.

(Sorry, couldn't resist that one)

[Absafraginlootly]

[quote]nightcobra8928 wrote...

[quote]Tiax Rules All wrote...

nope

http://www.eurogamer...oice-simplified[/quote]


[quote]David Gaider wrote...

[quote]Brockololly wrote...
The whole tracking of dialogue choices sounds interesting- I just hope that just because maybe you choose a sarcastic choice a bunch early on that doesn't mean that maybe an angry choice or something gets locked off later on.[/quote]

Nope. You can "switch" your dominant personality if you pick different responses enough. Tracking personality affects those times when a line is forced (so the line used might use your dominant tone) or when you're selecting a choice that isn't reflective of tone ("I'll help you" isn't reflective of tone-- so in that case you're not adding to your personality tracking but the response you see could vary according to your dominant personality. In that case a roguish player might see "Sure, why not? It's not like I had anything else to do.")

I say "might" and "could" because we don't use dominant personality in every situation-- sometimes a neutral tone will do just fine, but this is our way of allowing the player to choose the tone they favor and inject some personality into the PC without having a whole list of options every time you need to make a choice.

Having a dominant tone also comes up in other situations, but we'll get to that.[/quote]

And:

[quote]David Gaider wrote...

[quote]Brockololly wrote...
Sounds interesting- is there some metric to tell what your "dominant tone" is? Or would that be too much like paragon/renegade points?
[/quote]

A metric? You mean like an on-screen "personality meter"? No-- tracking personality choices occurs under the hood, so to speak.[/quote]

Also:

[quote]David Gaider wrote...

[quote]Oblivious wrote...
Not that worried about the tone since I'm sure I won't be the only smartass their first 5 playthroughs but I am curious as to how the tone translates into other responses. For example, if a good character takes a response that has them threaten someone and cut off a limb would the character do it all in a nice, soothing manner? Or would he shout it like a bad character would usually do? Or, and this is the most important one, if a smartass were to select that option would he make a joke and "laugh out loud"?[/quote]

What you'd need to understand is there are two types of player responses that you're being asked for: one is the "personality choice" -- picture those times in Origins where you're not really making a story decision (take/refuse a quest, decide which path in a quest to follow, etc.) but simply selecting how you say something. In Origins we called that flavor and they didn't affect anything. Here we track it and have it affect the other responses-- the "action choice". If you're taking/refusing a quest or deciding on a path, we're not generally assigning a tone to that response. We offer you options (and possibly different motivations for those options) but how you say them will depend on the personality choices you've been picking. Not all the time, of course, but often enough that you'll notice.

So you may be talking to someone where your personality choices are threaten/negotiate/joke... but as soon as you're offered an action choice it isn't with a tone. The action choice might, I suppose, be to threaten them if that leads to an action-- and thus you could indeed threaten them in a joking manner, yes.

Clear as mud, I'm sure. The icons are present on lines to offer some context to the player, as otherwise paraphrases could lead to some surprises, but as I said before the idea is to allow the player to craft her own personality.
[/quote]

Continuing with:

[quote]David Gaider wrote...

[quote]Brockololly wrote...
The personality tracking thing sounds interesting, but I'm somewhat worried it may railroad you into playing as a certain type of character. Like if my guy is sarcastic most of the time but say there is a certain instance he doesn't want to jokingly threaten somebody, but actually slam some heads, that angry action wouldn't be available? I guess it comes down to the devs determining the significance of the scene as to when its ok for the personality to dictate things versus when the full range of options should be open.[/quote]

Right. Whenever you're presented personality options, you're always going to get them all. It's when you get the action options that you will see the personality pop up-- but even then, we're going to take the situation into account. If something sad just happened we're not going to have you cracking wise (as a for instance). If there's a question in our heads of motivation (as in it's not clear from the paraphrase why the player is taking an action, in situations where the motivation could be really different even if the action is the same) then we'll list those action options separately.

Ultimately, though, it's down to the writing. Trust us? [/quote]

Then:

[quote]David Gaider wrote...

[quote]Wolverfrog wrote...
Dominant personality? You mean I can't role-play as a schizophrenic this time around?

Damn you Bioware![/quote]
I assume you're joking, but I'll just add that you can be as much a schizophrenic as you like-- when the personality choices come up you can veer from one to the other as much as you like. 

The idea behind the entire thing is that while it's okay for Sheperd to have a single personality (Sheperd is, after all, a soldier as much as anything else) we figured giving players more options for Dragon Age was appropriate.[/quote]

And finally:

[quote]David Gaider wrote...

[quote]term8 wrote...
All of Mr.Gaider's posts on this thread have me really really excited about the new dialog system. the pc voice actors must have had to record a record number of lines for this game.[/quote]
Sweet Jesus, you have no idea.[/quote]
[/quote]

 Ok, all worries gone, this is going to be made of awesome.

[Mage One]

I have to agree that I like a lot of what I'm seeing, and I really don't mind that it's different at all. In fact, that strikes me as a pretty bit plus.



I've been a huge fan of Bioware since the Baldur's Gate games. I fact, BG II still stands as my favorite RPG, and perhaps game, of all time. That said, while I enjoyed DA:O, I was disillusioned by just how much it felt like Baldur's Gate. My initial impression after a few hours play was that they took BG and crossbred it with an MMO's interface and graphics, then (engine-wise) proceeded to do little else. The effect felt less to me like a spiritual successor and more like a younger more tech savvy sibling using the same story-pacing formula (opening, free roaming section consisting of separate story sections to adventure in, close.) they've used since KotOR. (A game I also really liked.) I'm not saying what they put together was a bad game, but it was disappointing. It was nothing new. After all these years they were telling me this was the update to my favorite RPG of all time, and it had very little in the way of innovation. It did nothing to solve the structural and narrative problems their games have been suffering for years (while still being good games) that, oddly, the Mass Effect series seemed to be trying to fix. DA:O was fun, but in the end I felt like I bought a serving of updated nostalgia with a new (and good) story.



This is why I feel so odd when I read or watch what their plans for DA2 are. It feels like they've decided to completely discard so much of what they stuck with for the first game. It also looks like they're addressing several of the problems they've faced and trying very interesting things as solutions. To me, it feels like they're finally building the spiritual successor I've been hearing about for years now, but, oddly, they're building it as the sequel to a game whose systems have an updated fan base. I'm not sure that's wise. Frankly, I can understand why fans, having played and enjoyed DA:O might be apprehensive about the changes. Perhaps instead this is how they should have built the first game. Regardless, I have to admit I'm not the biggest fan of the new visual direction, but there is so much more it seems they're doing right that I'm almost certain to check DA2 out, whereas DA:O I only bought at the urging of my friends. (None of whom, incidentally, ever played through the BG series.)

[Morrigans God son]

DA:O - Warden.

DA2 - Hawke.

DA3 - Bongo ( The next greatest. )

DA4 - Pikachu ( Even greater than Bongo. )

DA5 - Jesus.



All this jumping from one character to the next, will get real old real quickly.

[upsettingshorts]

Morrigans God son wrote...

All this jumping from one character to the next, will get real old real quickly.

You should get a better grip, you're sliding down that slippery slope at breakneck speed.

[Wrath of Bong]

Merced256 wrote...

Morrigans God son wrote...

Is this guy joking? Or is he just a ME fan?

A member of the BDF; which is to say hes dangerous, blind faith can lead to bad things.

Hey, I'm just recommending things to Bioware to be more mainstream and get them more sales. If they didn't want more sales, they wouldn't have join up with EA. I don't have blind faith to... MUST DESTROY THOSE WHO OPPOSE BIOWARE!!! ...As I mentioned, these are my own thoughts and don't have blind faith to any company.

Regarding the dialogue system, we know that three types of dialogue choices that was reported are false (not surprising since it's coming from IGN). However, they did mentioned instead of words, the choices will be icons instead like i.e. badass response is red fist. Now it's easy to mistake to whoever it was reported that "Dragon Age 2 conversation choices down to three" but the icons is much harder, seeing as all the guy has to do is look the dialogue wheel and those icons. So, my question are we going to have icons in place of text in the dialogue wheel?

[Addai]

Sidney wrote...

Brockololly wrote...

The thing is, I did  think after finishing Origins the first time "You know it might be neat to see a DA game more in the vein of ME's style one day." But I was more thinking that would be DA6 or 7, once they wanted to sort of reboot the franchise or something. To just sort of ditch the traditional cRPG heritage DAO was going for after only one game seems a bit ...forced? I'd have rather seen a more BG2 style sequel, where instead of shaking up everything, you sort of build off of the fundamentals of the first game and basically add more content and depth to everything, not streamline and strip stuff away while changing the style. Maybe its not that drastic but the marketing and the limited stuff released thus far makes it seem that way.

Thing is other than the VO there's really nothing substantive being changed - and I know that creates lots of hyperventilating. Combat is being changed to eliminate the ponderous movements - and we all saw and know what they are talking about. Maybe issuing the Enemy>Attacking Wynne>Attack command will actually accomplish something now.

The combination of VO plus paraphrase plus lack of origins cuts down a great deal on roleplay.  Then there is the fact that the marketing has said they no longer consider it a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate shows that it's a departure.

[Addai]

scyphozoa wrote...

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

Just to note, it's nice to see a thread that's positive. As I've said before, I totally understand the concerns around DA2. It's different, and different could be a bad thing. It could also be a good thing, and I'm glad some folks are excited by the changes.

yeah, despite all the criticism and complaints, i think they are a very vocal minority. there are a lot of us who are very excited for DA2 even if we are not so persistent in reminding you of our opinions. 

I don't post in here very often, and when I do come in I see mostly "name your Hawke" and "what sort of romance" threads.  So it seems to me that not only is there a good mix, a lot of the discussion is from people who plan to play the game and are enthused about it.

[upsettingshorts]

Addai67 wrote...
it's a departure.

Good.

Baldur's Gate II came out ten years ago, I don't think it's unreasonable to believe it might be time to move on.  

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 10 octobre 2010 - 01:47 .

[Addai]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Addai67 wrote...
it's a departure.

Good.

Baldur's Gate II came out ten years ago, I don't think it's unreasonable to believe it might be time to move on.  

But DAO has not been out nearly as long, and we didn't even get DLCs in the spirit of DAO.  I was hoping for more.  I'd pay for more.