151 réponses à ce sujet

[The Hardest Thing In The World]

"Would that I could".



I like that attitude of Mike's. He keep saying he'd love to do this and that. It's just too bad time is never on anyone's side.

[dielveio]

Maybe IF there's some time and money to spare bioware could pack some of the best mods around and pack as DLC...

But I don't think this would happen...

[inclemency]

dielveio wrote...

Maybe IF there's some time and money to spare bioware could pack some of the best mods around and pack as DLC...
But I don't think this would happen...

I thought that was mention of that very thing back when there was talk of an updated toolset (maybe a couple of months ago). 

[The Hardest Thing In The World]

dielveio wrote...

Maybe IF there's some time and money to spare bioware could pack some of the best mods around and pack as DLC...
But I don't think this would happen...

I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen.

[Tezzajh]

The Hardest Thing In The World wrote...

dielveio wrote...

Maybe IF there's some time and money to spare bioware could pack some of the best mods around and pack as DLC...
But I don't think this would happen...

I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen.

thats a shame, especially as most of the work is done for them

[Mike Laidlaw]

The Hardest Thing In The World wrote...
I like that attitude of Mike's. He keep saying he'd love to do this and that. It's just too bad time is never on anyone's side.

In general, I absolutely love mods. Some people seemed to take my earlier comments as an attack on the modding community, when, in fact, I meant them as praise. People have lives, people have things to do, and yet some choose to prioritize adding content to Dragon Age. That is scary awesome.

[CoS Sarah Jinstar]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

The Hardest Thing In The World wrote...
I like that attitude of Mike's. He keep saying he'd love to do this and that. It's just too bad time is never on anyone's side.

In general, I absolutely love mods. Some people seemed to take my earlier comments as an attack on the modding community, when, in fact, I meant them as praise. People have lives, people have things to do, and yet some choose to prioritize adding content to Dragon Age. That is scary awesome.

Well lets hope that respect of the modder scene translates to you guys finding time to get a working toolset out post ship. Though I have a feeling that the move to a DLC heavy plan of doing things may hinder that happening unfortunately.

[AlanC9]

Nah. They'll just make the toolset itself a $40 DLC.

[TJPags]

Seriously, how many different epilogue slides were there in DAO? Think about that for a minute.



Alistair king, hardened. Alistair king, unhardened. Alistair king, hardened, married Anora. Alistair king hardened, married HNF. Alistair king, unhardened, married Anora. Alistair king, unhardened, married HNF. That's 6, just from making Alistair king - and doesn't include possible romances with CEF, DEF, DNF, DCF's.



Do you realize how many different possible cutscenes they'd have to make to cover all possible choices thoughout the game?



A game dev can't do that, they can't spend the time and money doing that for every possible option, and still have a game where there are so many different options. I think that's what <ike Laidlaw was saying, and it makes absolute perfect sense.



I'd rather an open choice game, then a fancy cutscene at the end. Spend time and money giving us good, choice fueled gameplay, rather than fancy cutscenes "wrapping up" all of my choices.



That said, while I don't even PLAY on the PC, releasing the toolset which allows people to make these mods is a great idea, even if done after the game itself releases. Let them make the spcial cutscenes that fit only one of several possible options. Seems a win-win for all involved.

[NamiraWilhelm]

Good Lord! That was spectacular! Some people are just plain awesome

That would have passed for something the actual creators made. Couldnt you enlist a load of modders to do this sort of thing for you? And pass it off as work experience   love it love it love it

Modifié par NamiraWilhelm, 24 octobre 2010 - 04:49 .

[Merilsell]

Saibh wrote...

I understand why they won't do it. But like Anarya says, I want to have my cake and eat it too. It's so much more gratifying to see a video epilogue over a bunch of paragraphs. Because of that, I felt a rush of disappointment when I ended my first playthrough. I should have felt more excited, but my feelings of accomplishment were diminished. I don't blame the devs at all, but this is something that I would love to see at the end of DA2.

Me too. I quite understand that they couldn't include an ending like this in the original game. Yet I was quite disappointed it ended that abruptly at my first playthrough. I thought that after opening the door to the parade, that I would actually see the crowd for the moment before the epilogue would start---similar to Jade empire-- but it was just BAM- epilogue. A pity, that.

And while I love this scene and the effort within to bits --because it's so emotional and fitting -- the HNF marriage is not my canon choice. Though within time, there will be different endings available from the awesome Dahlia Lynn. So off to the Wardens with my elf, heh.

Anyway what I found disappointing in DAO is the lack of recognition if Alistair does the sacrifice... It really lessened the emotional feeling of that choice. Even if your player has been the biggest ****** to him, he at least should have mentioned in some kind of way, because he gave his frikkin life to save Ferelden. (no Wynne 'Oops he's dead Jim' comment doesn't count) Sadly all the characters are too busy fawning over how awesome the "Hero of Ferelden" is to do that. Bleargh.

[Dave of Canada]

NamiraWilhelm wrote...

Good Lord! That was spectacular! Some people are just plain awesome

That would have passed for something the actual creators made. Couldnt you enlist a load of modders to do this sort of thing for you? And pass it off as work experience   love it love it love it

They'd still have to pay the modders (I doubt the modders would work that hard for free) and the modders would still have a deadline, they would also need to QA the mods. Let's also not forget that any line of dialogue, extra clothes and such would require time of it's own. It would still drain funding where it could be used elsewhere

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 24 octobre 2010 - 05:40 .

[NamiraWilhelm]

Twas said in jest, i wouldn't expect them to do all that. They went to the trouble of providing a toolset, so that was enough to ensure people will be making stuff like this.

[Tezzajh]

need toolset for xbox, halo got a forge mode so bioware could do something similiar

[tmp7704]

TJPags wrote...

Seriously, how many different epilogue slides were there in DAO? Think about that for a minute.

Alistair king, hardened. Alistair king, unhardened. Alistair king, hardened, married Anora. Alistair king hardened, married HNF. Alistair king, unhardened, married Anora. Alistair king, unhardened, married HNF. That's 6, just from making Alistair king - and doesn't include possible romances with CEF, DEF, DNF, DCF's.

Do you realize how many different possible cutscenes they'd have to make to cover all possible choices thoughout the game?

That's a bit disingenous when you consider there's no need for different cutscene for each of these variants. In this particular example you'd need one for married ruler and one for single. The rest is either minor variations or simple actor replacements, very much like it's done for the other cutscenes which are actually put in the game.

Granted it's still considerable work involved, but there's no need to blow it out of proportions.

[In Exile]

Well, the problem is tha Alistair might not actually marry anyone. Hardened Alistiar would marry Anora - so I suppose they could use a cut-scene for that? But then the issue is what gets cut to accomodate it. Chanter board quests?

[AlanC9]

Meaning that you could just sub in Anora, Alistair, and the PC in whatever combination is needed for the wedding scene? I guess so. But if the topic is an ending, like the topic says, then the amount of work needed is much greater since a wedding isn't relevant to most characters. And as In Exile says, there often won't be any wedding anyway.

I guess Chanter's Board, etc. quests would be the thing to go, since by definition sidequests are easy to cut because there are no dependency issues. Note that this would result in a shorter game;  the sidequests have a much better dev time/ play time ratio than the rest of the game, from what I can see.

Modifié par AlanC9, 24 octobre 2010 - 11:11 .

[Lord_Anthonior]

AlanC9 wrote...

Meaning that you could just sub in Anora, Alistair, and the PC in whatever combination is needed for the wedding scene? I guess so. But if the topic is an ending, like the topic says, then the amount of work needed is much greater since a wedding isn't relevant to most characters.

I agree with the relevance it isn't , besides one is having a marriage, other being paragon, others even forming a sort of family. Personaly, the text epilogue gives this game some air of literature, lore and leyend of what happened in the story of the land, it was improved in awakening with each place and each companion and I believe it will get even better in DA2. Besides we have only gone through the "Origins" what if there is still much more to go through in future instalments?

As for the cut scenes, I think this game doesn't really fits that way of ending for it would have to be many cutscenes for many origins and many characters as  Mr. Laidlaw mentioned Bann Teagan, that just wouldn't feel right for the game. I believe the resources used and worked on the game for every platform were very well distributed, I would however complain about endings in a game like for example "metal gear" were it is known for final cutscenes and less branching and choices.

[Estelindis]

Seb Hanlon wrote...

Kaiser Shepard wrote...

Mr. Laidlaw, could you kindly tell us why there wasn't a story-justified reason for allowing to import an Ultimate Sacrifice Warden into Awakening?

I'm not a writer, but I suspect an Ultimate Sacrifice warden being deceased at the time the events of Awakening take place may play a large part in this.

Personally, I have no problem with a lack of story justification for something that is not story-justifiable.  What I don't understand is why a dead Warden's *decisions* couldn't have been imported so that one could play a new Orlesian Warden in the world that the dead Warden had influenced. 

[TJPags]

tmp7704 wrote...

TJPags wrote...

Seriously, how many different epilogue slides were there in DAO? Think about that for a minute.

Alistair king, hardened. Alistair king, unhardened. Alistair king, hardened, married Anora. Alistair king hardened, married HNF. Alistair king, unhardened, married Anora. Alistair king, unhardened, married HNF. That's 6, just from making Alistair king - and doesn't include possible romances with CEF, DEF, DNF, DCF's.

Do you realize how many different possible cutscenes they'd have to make to cover all possible choices thoughout the game?

That's a bit disingenous when you consider there's no need for different cutscene for each of these variants. In this particular example you'd need one for married ruler and one for single. The rest is either minor variations or simple actor replacements, very much like it's done for the other cutscenes which are actually put in the game.

Granted it's still considerable work involved, but there's no need to blow it out of proportions.

My point was, you need - just for weddings- 3 cutscenes - Anora marries Alistair, Anora marries HNM, Alistair marries HNF.  Now, what about people who didn't play a HN, or did and still didn't marry someone or arrange a marriage?

Two more custscenes - crown Anora, crown Alistair.

What about people who want a "ride off into the sunset" ending?  More cuscenes - PC travels with his love Leliana; PC travels with HER love, Leliana; PC travels with Sten; PC travels with his friend, Leliana; PC travels with love interest Zevran (x2, of course), etc, etc, etc.

The number of ending cutscenes grows quickly, and each is only of import to a certain percentage of people.  I'd rather they focus on putting more meat INTO the game, then making a bunch of fancy endings, each of which fits for a small prcentage of people.

[TJPags]

Estelindis wrote...

Seb Hanlon wrote...

Kaiser Shepard wrote...

Mr. Laidlaw, could you kindly tell us why there wasn't a story-justified reason for allowing to import an Ultimate Sacrifice Warden into Awakening?

I'm not a writer, but I suspect an Ultimate Sacrifice warden being deceased at the time the events of Awakening take place may play a large part in this.

Personally, I have no problem with a lack of story justification for something that is not story-justifiable.  What I don't understand is why a dead Warden's *decisions* couldn't have been imported so that one could play a new Orlesian Warden in the world that the dead Warden had influenced. 

I never got that.

What decisions from DAO are really shown on screen in Awakening, other than who is king/queen?

[Sanguinerin]

Actually, is there a post anywhere about the "default storyline decisions" in Awakening? I'd love to see that. For instance, if I import an Orlesian Warden character into DA2, what DAO decisions were made? I know Alistair is the king, the Dark Ritual shouldn't have been done if there is no Warden, and one of the dwarves mentions who the king of Orzammar (I believe) is but I haven't played to that part yet on an Orlesian. Should we assume the same decisions were taken as in Darkspawn Chronicles (Alistair's decisions)? I've seen that his choices can be assumed based on the allies you face. Sorry, off-topic, I know.

Edit: I'll say something on-topic, too! Dahlia, the scene is truly gorgeous. I'll most likely download it when I'm home and actually have a decent connection. My school internet is terrible. I'm going to have to break out the female Human Noble origin.

I can't wait to see more work from you, as it is fanastically done!

Modifié par HallowedWarden, 25 octobre 2010 - 02:34 .

[cmessaz]

Well, as a fellow modder and part of DahliaLynn's QA team, I can tell you that the woman worked tirelessly on the scene and deserves a ton of credit. However, I do not fault Bioware for not including things like this. For one, just with the human noble, you have 2 possible scenarios for marrying Alistair, political or love. That would require 2 scenes really, as this one is too romantic for political. Now, considering Dahlia spent many months making this 1 scene, it's just not practical. Then they would need something special for Grey Warden Alistair, and M!Couslands who marry Anora, then the other origins and other love interests. While I do feel some things were lacking in the ending, I don't feel that they slacked off by not doing things like this. The rest of the game would have suffered and that would not be good. IMO.



If anything, this is a good argument for a toolset update for DA2, that I support 100 percent.



On another note, I have said it before and I will say it again, holy cow you have blown us away with this scene Dahlia. I know how hard you worked on it and congratulations, you deserve all this credit.

[upsettingshorts]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...
Well lets hope that respect of the modder scene translates to you guys finding time to get a working toolset out post ship. Though I have a feeling that the move to a DLC heavy plan of doing things may hinder that happening unfortunately.

Funny you should say that, but I think an updated toolkit is quite possibly the best potential example of what DLC can be.

No room in the budget for a free upgrade to the toolset and therefore none for DA:2 will exist at all?  Take the DLC route and charge for it, to ensure that it will exist.  Then the consumers have a choice on whether or not to put out $5 for it.  At least it will actually get made/updated.

Considering that I believe Bioware/EA could be well within their legal rights to shut down the modding community, not that it would be within their interests necessarily to do so, I think charging a small fee in order to gain tangible financial benefits from the continued use and expansion of what is their intellectual property by third parties is a smart idea.  Modders and mod users would gain the peace of mind that would result from the guaranteed existence of mod tools and moddability, and those who put in the work to see that such a toolset is developed and released would see a tangible profit for their labors.

Right now, if I put myself in their shoes - though I obviously don't know them - releasing a toolset upgrade seems almost like charity.  Perhaps in the form of enlightened self-interest but nonetheless not substantially rewarding.

TJPags wrote...

I never got that.

What decisions from DAO are really shown on screen in Awakening, other than who is king/queen?

The issue ultimately is continuity for players who wished to continue exerting influence over Thedas despite their Warden taking the Ultimate Sacrifice.   Why not import the actions of the sacrificial Warden of Origins and the Orlesian Warden of Awakenings into Dragon Age 2 and see the results of the actions those two people took?  The problem with the way Awakenings worked is that for the player to exert maximum influence on his or her imported save, they had to do it through one character, which facilitated either a Redeemer or Dark Promise endgame in Origins.  

It took that choice out of the player's hands.  That's the problem.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 25 octobre 2010 - 02:34 .

[Saibh]

TJPags wrote...

tmp7704 wrote...

TJPags wrote...

Seriously, how many different epilogue slides were there in DAO? Think about that for a minute.

Alistair king, hardened. Alistair king, unhardened. Alistair king, hardened, married Anora. Alistair king hardened, married HNF. Alistair king, unhardened, married Anora. Alistair king, unhardened, married HNF. That's 6, just from making Alistair king - and doesn't include possible romances with CEF, DEF, DNF, DCF's.

Do you realize how many different possible cutscenes they'd have to make to cover all possible choices thoughout the game?

That's a bit disingenous when you consider there's no need for different cutscene for each of these variants. In this particular example you'd need one for married ruler and one for single. The rest is either minor variations or simple actor replacements, very much like it's done for the other cutscenes which are actually put in the game.

Granted it's still considerable work involved, but there's no need to blow it out of proportions.

My point was, you need - just for weddings- 3 cutscenes - Anora marries Alistair, Anora marries HNM, Alistair marries HNF.  Now, what about people who didn't play a HN, or did and still didn't marry someone or arrange a marriage?

You assume that the cutscenes need to be that different. They don't--just replace Anora with the HNF or Alistair with the HNM. Set Anora to no smiling and possibly no kissing.

No one's saying it isn't hard (well...I'm not), but it's misleading to say that all of those are really three unique cutscenes. That's like saying they had to do a ton of work EDIT (I somehow omitted this part) for Morrigan's ritual because it concerned three different characters. No, they just replaced the models.

Two more custscenes - crown Anora, crown Alistair.

...That cutscene is in the game.

What about people who want a "ride off into the sunset" ending?  More cuscenes - PC travels with his love Leliana; PC travels with HER love, Leliana; PC travels with Sten; PC travels with his friend, Leliana; PC travels with love interest Zevran (x2, of course), etc, etc, etc.

The PC never seems to canonically travel with Sten. I guess Sten moves on without her/him, but there's no difference in the ending or Awakening's plot if that was the option you chose. Also, PC can't travel with Leliana if they're just friends. Zevran can stay with a friend PC, but that doesn't really warrant a cutscene.

And again, the cutscenes don't need to actually alter if gender is different. They just replace a female Warden with a male Warden or vice versa. So you have a cutscene with Leliana and a cutscene with Zevran. If they wanted to save for time and resources, a "ride off into the sunset" ending could be identical for Alistair, Zevran, and Leliana.

Also, if the cutscenes were voiced over, they wouldn't need to show everything--a cutscene of Bhelen or Harrowmont ruling could cover anything that happens with Dagna, Brother Burkel, etc. Hell, I'd just prefer to see my Warden's ending--I don't need everyone's.

Modifié par Saibh, 25 octobre 2010 - 02:45 .