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[Anarya]

On the main DA2 page.

It has Varric (and his voice!)! It has Pirate Girl! We know what Pirate Girl's name is (Isabela) Yes, it IS that Isabela!

What's up with Cassandra's hair??

Featuring (clearly for the first time!)

Varric! With his crossbow, Bianca.


Cassandra! (change your hair back!)


Isabela!


Discuss and squee.

Modifié par Anarya, 26 octobre 2010 - 05:03 .

[Sheryl Chee]

It's actually Isabela with one L. It causes confusion. I blame myself for giving her the unconventional spelling.

[John Epler]

You should see the alternate takes of that knife throw.

It's amazing what sorts of things one finds to toss at an enemy. A pair of boots. A dwarf...

Modifié par JohnEpler, 26 octobre 2010 - 04:39 .

[Sheryl Chee]

Anarya wrote...

Hm, will update with correction. Is it, in fact, THE Isabela? She of the infamous Pearl threesome?

Yes. And I wrote her. Sort of. In many, many ways, she writes herself.

[John Epler]

leonia42 wrote...

JohnEpler wrote...

You should see the alternate takes of that knife throw.

It's amazing what sorts of things one finds to toss at an enemy. A pair of boots. A dwarf...

Dwarf tossing confirmed!

One morning, Mike came into the office and told Frank (the guy who did that knife throw) 'let's try a different dagger for the throw'. So Frank started trying new daggers, and we convinced him to try everything from a two-handed maul to a full-sized dwarf.

That was a strange morning.

[John Epler]

Dave of Canada wrote...

JohnEpler wrote...

One morning, Mike came into the office and told Frank (the guy who did that knife throw) 'let's try a different dagger for the throw'. So Frank started trying new daggers, and we convinced him to try everything from a two-handed maul to a full-sized dwarf.

That was a strange morning.

I want to see this dwarf toss. Is it something that was done for silliness like the Alistair / Darkspawn love scene or is it actually in the game?

Mostly, the product of a long couple of months, lots of tiredness and it being a Friday.

Sadly, it is not in the final game.

[David Gaider]

KhorinShizucor wrote...
I actually didn't quite like Isabela from Origins.

You didn't actually get to know much about her, to be honest.

Her looks are different but will her voice be the same?

We considered keeping her looking as she did, but considering she was a pretty minor character in DAO it seems a bit self-limiting to keep her with the same look when we could do amazing things with a redesign. I think she looks great (and she was always Rivaini and dark-skinned, as I recall the lighting in the Pearl just made it difficult to tell).

As for the voice, it's a different voice actress but she sounds much the same as she did.

I guess the question would be: why not make it a whole new character, then? I suppose it's because we like Isabela, and we like the story that her being that Isabela brings into the mix. At any rate, Sheryl did a pretty awesome job on her.

Modifié par David Gaider, 26 octobre 2010 - 04:49 .

[David Gaider]

Herr Uhl wrote...
Getting pigeon-holed into writhing the bisexual foreign LI?

If by "pigeon-holed" you mean Sheryl bouncing up and down in her chair going "Oh, me! Let me write her! Me me me!"

[John Epler]

Varric's voice is soothing and melodious. I've been handling most of the cinematic design duties for him, and it's like:



'God, what a stressful day.' *listens to ten minutes of Varric*



'What a beautiful, beautiful day.'

[David Gaider]

Anarya wrote...
Well it's not entirely in our heads. It's based mostly on what Mary Kirby says about him in the Varric thread(s).

Not entirely in your heads, no. Oddly enough you guys have managed to hit the nail on the head with very little evidence needed to back it up. Which is weird. You've probably still built Varric up to be something he isn't, but I guess we'll see.

[David Gaider]

pixieface wrote...
This. Maybe it was because she was too cocky, I dunno. Hopefully I can do some sort of rivalry with her if I don't like her anymore this go around. 

I think it's very possible some people might not like her in DA2, for sure. As you point out, though, that's what the rivalry system is for.

[David Gaider]

the_one_54321 wrote...

shepard_lives wrote...
You can be a complete **** to your companions and get bonuses and new dialogue for it.

So it's like the romance/friendship thing except in reverse? That sound AWESOME!!

Essentially what it boils down to is this: in Origins if you didn't get along with a companion you got nothing. No dialogue, no interaction and no gameplay benefits. So what we've done is added a "rivalry path" which is the friendship path in reverse. As approval goes down you get interactions where you argue with the companion, and this is the path where you could ultimately convince them they need to change.

Thus taking a stance with a companion that is argumentative is a legitimate way to develop your relationship with them, and there's no need to hunt for the approval bonuses in every instance.

[David Gaider]

RinpocheSchnozberry wrote...
Does that apply to all companions?  I can't imagine my blood mage convincing Wynne to convert to apostasy very easily.

There is a rivalry path for all characters, yes. And by "convince them to change" I don't mean you can convince them of anything... rather you might be able to convince them to change regarding their central "issue". If Morrigan had a rivalry path, for instance, it might revolve around you telling her that helping people can be a way to get what she wants, and thus afterwards she wouldn't complain whenever you went out of your way to help people. She would still have the same personality and outlook on life.

[David Gaider]

DarthCaine wrote...
But what happens if you stay neutral ? (say you get +10 approval in one dialogue and -10 in another).
The way I see it, the only way to develop your relationship is to either get max approval or min approval, there's no middle ground.

If you never go down the rivalry or friendship paths you will never get those interactions. You will still get plenty of interaction with the companion by way of their personal quests, which is where a lot of their development comes into play, but you won't end up being a close friend or rival if you play the middle ground-- which is appropriate, I think.

DarthCaine wrote...
BioWare seems to be getting a lot of stuff
from Alpha Protocol. The framed narrative, the
professional/suave/aggressive personalities, the "rivalry" path (as in
you get bonuses even when people dislike you)

We had these things in DA2 prior to Alpha Protocal coming out, but I think that game did those things quite well (though I'm not sure I was sold on simply picking the stance without even getting a paraphrase). Chalk it up to great minds thinking alike, I guess.

Modifié par David Gaider, 26 octobre 2010 - 06:18 .

[David Gaider]

Brockololly wrote...
I'm just wondering though, if you unintentionally can end up getting stuck in the middle, even if you're trying to get someone maxed out friendly or rival? Since there aren't as many gifts to sort of "correct" the approval, how will it work exactly, if say you're headed down the rival path with a companion, but the next couple conversations net you "friendly" approval?So you end up more towards the middle. But eventually run out of dialogue chances or whatever to get them maxed out to one end or the other?

I'd say that'd be pretty hard, unless you were being deliberately schizophrenic. Even so, if it did happen it's no different than doing the same in Origins. Here, however, you have the extra option of dialogue should approval go down. We can't guarantee that you'll end up developing a relationship with a follower, there are simply more options for doing so.

 

And say you do get into an argument with a rival companion and you convince them to change their ways- do they still stay rival or do they switch to friendly?

Should you get to the "end stage" of the friendship or rivalry path it stays there afterwards. And it's probably worth pointing out that rivalry is still based on respect-- so having someone at full rivalry, one who you've argued with and ultimately changed, still means you have a fully-developed relationship... just one of a slightly different character than if you'd taken the friendship path.

[David Gaider]

Brockololly wrote...
Ok, so is the approval system still -100 to +100 then? I'm just thinking for example, in Origins, my Warden got a bunch of negative approval from Morrigan at the start, but as the game progressed, it was more often than not positive approval. What I'm wondering is that if say, getting to -10 or -20 hits some trigger that starts a rivalry, at which point it would be impossible, given the limited number of dialogue opportunities or gifts, to be able to turn that relationship into a friendship through the natural course of conversation and so on?

That has more to do with whether there are enough triggers in the game associated with approval. If not, then no-- you won't be able to reverse course. Ideally there would be.

 

David Gaider wrote...
So, if you max out someone's rival/friendship it won't matter what you do, they'll still be friendly/rival? So if Leliana was maxed out friendly in the new system, it wouldn't matter if you defiled the Ashes, she'd still be friends with you?

That was a reaction to a specific instance, which we could still do exactly the same way.

It's probably worth noting that friendship/rivalry has very little to do with how "nice" you are to a follower. We don't generally change approval based on the tone you take with them, but instead it's based on your alignment regarding their issues. So you'll see friendship/rivalry changes based more on the decisions you make in dialogue (and especially during their personal quests) as opposed to how nicely/rudely you spoke to them.

And I think that's enough of rivalry/friendship talk in this thread. If someone really has questions, I suggest a new thread rather than dragging this one off topic.

[David Gaider]

Upsettingshorts wrote...
Once you voice the protagonist and the person theyre talking to, it's become a simulated conversation and no longer talking head theater.  I like the dialogue wheel and its paraphrasing a lot - and think the addition of visual cues about tone is a great step forward - because it accomplishes a conversational feel.  If I know what my character is precisely going to say before he says it, it feels like he or she is repeating themselves as I've been exposed to the line twice.  I want to hear or read it once.

That's where we sit, as well. I don't doubt there's people who are stuck on the necessity of knowing exactly what they're going to say, but for us we just can't get around the fact that the player actually reads the line in their heads before they hear it spoken out loud-- so, for them, it's repetition.

This is the same reason why we have rules about what can go in the paraphrase as opposed to the actual line. We avoid things like repeating words and phrases between the paraphrase and the actual line, and making it so that the actual line logically follows the paraphrase and if they had both been spoken out loud they could go together logically (ie. paraphrase "What do you mean?" with actual line "I thought everyone avoided this part of town." The actual line works fine on its own, but had both been spoken out loud they would flow together naturally.)

Does this mean it's objectively better? No, of course not. There's pros and cons for every system, and no matter what you do you're giving up something in order to get something else. In this case, however, we felt the benefit of more cinemetic conversation was worth the added ambiguity-- and hopefully the icons help ameliorate that.

Upsettingshorts wrote...
Yeah, but then there's that whole
thing about how every time a forumite calls for a toggle a developer
kicks a puppy in the face. Which you either have to take as an honest
representation of how difficult it would be to implement, or choose to
view as just an excuse for not doing it. I tend to believe them when
they say it isn't that simple.

It's "punts a kitten through a plate glass window", but yes.

Having a toggle isn't a solution when it changes the way we intend the game to be played. We don't allow players to give themselves what we think is a sub-optimal experience just because they liked that feature better in another game. Toggles can be great as options, but only in select cases.

But, as mentioned, that's something for another one of those "why I like/don't like conversation wheels" threads.

Modifié par David Gaider, 26 octobre 2010 - 07:53 .

[David Gaider]

Dave of Canada wrote...
It establishes visuals, a bit of plot and expectations. It explains a little bit of the framed narrative to uninformed masses. While it might not give value to those who expect gameplay, it's still a valuable trailer for those who were comparing visuals to pictures from ages ago and such.

There is gameplay in there, as you're seeing in-game shots of combat.

If by gameplay someone wants to see a walkthrough of the game in progress, as in a still shot of the screen while someone plays it along with all clicking and GUI menus visible and such, that's something else completely. I have no idea if we're planning something like that. Maybe, but I suspect that's of select interest. Mike would be the person to ask.

Modifié par David Gaider, 26 octobre 2010 - 08:14 .

[John Epler]

Estel78 wrote...

I hope they are still tweaking facial expressions because there are non in some instances (for instance, Isabela in pretty much all scenes has that dead neutral look). That's one of my pet peeves. They need to get more emotions in those faces, not making them look like puppets, it's detriment to the story they wanna tell. I know there are a lot of dialogs in an RPG but is it really that difficult to implement a system where the engine kinda morphs faces so they don't have to animate every face by hand? So you'd have like 5 emotional stances (happy, sad, angry) and the animator would just have to set a flag, like at seconds 5 to 12 character X makes a sad face.

I can shed a little light here.

The 'default' way we handle facial expressions is to set an emotion for every line. We have something like 5 base 'emotions', and each has 3 variants - light, normal and heavy. So someone might be angry, but only slightly angry - we call that stern. Heavy anger is referred to as rage, and etc. for most emotions. I think it might be 6, not 5, but I digress.

When we go through a conversation, we set flags on every line, then generate the FaceFX. What this does is match facial curves to phonemes so we get a more-or-less 'realistic' look to the conversations. Occasionally, we'll miss a line, but for the most part the emotional range in DA2 is pretty well-represented on the face. The emotions are generally quite accurate - you can look at someone who has 'rage' set and they'll look pretty danged angry.

Us Cinematic Designers can then go in and add custom work to the FaceFX. However, with the number of lines in the game, this is only really done for very specific moments - we trust to the automated system to do it the rest of the time. Sometimes, this stuff isn't done until fairly late in the process, so you might notice a little bit of blank-face on what's been released so far.

[John Epler]

Urazz wrote...

Is it wrong that I hate Bioware right now? They are already gonna get my money for this game. Now they release this new trailer to torture me some more.

What do they want with all this torture? My soul?

You probably should've read the user agreement for this site a little more carefully, I'm thinking.