443 réponses à ce sujet

[upsettingshorts]

Anyone who quotes Ivanova is okay in my book. Well, they have to be because Ivanova is God. And I don't want to invoke Her wrath.

[SmokePants]

Humans are my go-to, because the other races are simply malformed humans.

I'm not sure how much replay value the other origin stories added. Sure, I played through the respective hours of unique content and then got to Ostagar and had no desire to continue with the stubby and pointy characters.

Modifié par SmokePants, 14 novembre 2010 - 11:41 .

[In Exile]

darkrose wrote...
For me, playing an elf means actually playing a character who's experiences in some way reflect my own. When the blacksmith in Redcliffe said, "You didn't sound like an elf through the door" I died laughing, because if I had a dollar for every time I've gone to a job interview and had someone stare because I don't "sound black" on the phone I could retire comfortably. It wasn't perfect, but Bioware did an excellent job with making the City Elf origin a fairly realistic look at being an ethnic minority, and I'm very sorry to see that gone.

Okay, with that, I think Bioware did a good job. Though I personally project my own ethnic minority on the City Elf. I think someone else felt the elves fit very well with his experience as a Native American.

The feel of the shtetl alienage was very authentic, too.

[Morroian]

Dhraiauvessillus wrote...

In DAO the race had a big impact on the plot.

Not it didn't. Beyond the origin it barely had no impact, sure there were race differences on some attributes but that didn't affect the story much at all.

[upsettingshorts]

That's a stance I can respect if not realistically understand. As your run of the mill Anglo-American white guy I've only been exposed to the sense of being a minority once, the two weeks I spent in Tokyo during which I saw three other white guys. It was enough for me to realize there was a perceivable internal difference, but not enough for me to claim to be able to relate.

Anyway, I'm firmly in the pro-VO camp for different reasons unrelated to character race choices, even though those aren't a big deal to me either.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 14 novembre 2010 - 11:50 .

[Bryy_Miller]

Morroian wrote...

Dhraiauvessillus wrote...

In DAO the race had a big impact on the plot.

Not it didn't. Beyond the origin it barely had no impact, sure there were race differences on some attributes but that didn't affect the story much at all.

Well, it both did and did not. Regarding the bookends of the game itself - the Origin and the Ending - it did. The boons matter. I'm also assuming whatever race you are when you saved the land, and/or became the king's mistress, will matter for that race (or in the Magi's case, class or class AND race) in the future. But, yes, during the second act, it really only affected a few lines of dialogue and/or events, which in turn affected nothing. It was atmospheric at best.

Modifié par Bryy_Miller, 15 novembre 2010 - 12:04 .

[Hollingdale]

Am I the only one who dislikes both elves and dwarfes because they are essentially nothing but extra stereotypical versions of humans anyway?



Good riddance I say. All that time and money spent on making different Origins will be so much more useful elsewhere.

[Ziggeh]

I've been thinking about why I always play a non human if the choice is offered. It seems it comes down to this: I am not one for roleplay. I don't want to fill in the gaps in the story, artfully placed or not, and in having to be introduced to the culture of the non human species I feel I will adopt at least some sense of personality in reaction to it. Being essentially familiar with human interaction, I rarely get this sense from a human backstory. I see humans as the vanilla ice cream option at the counter, and if I'm going to be spending any time with the character, I need at least strawberry.

Don't get me wrong, I get the potential of roleplaying to add syrup and sprinkles, it's just that if I'm putting them on myself, I don't want to be dictated to, or contradicted. Perhaps an effect of having grown up on Pratchettesque fantasy, I find it very hard to place myself in the heroic mindset, and very few games give you the option to run away. If I'm going to roleplay, I'm going to go all the way and make my own story. I find roleplaying games very limiting to actual roleplay.

And I get that the nature of the games asks me to make decisions based on how I feel my character will act, but I tend to make those decisions based on what I think is right, or what's interesting, or most often, how he/she has acted thus far. What fits the current narrative.

Where was I going with this. Ah yeah, third person narrative. See, you aren't "limited to humans", you're limited to an human. You're playing Hawke, and while presumably you'll have a decent amount of control over who he is, he does seem to be a person, with a birthplace and a family and what is sounding like a personal narrative.

Obviously, for me this is the ideal, but I can understand the dissapointment at the loss of the more open choice of Origins, despite my belief that it is was somewhat at odds with the nature of the story driven game.

[Shadow Wing]

Cazlee wrote...

It's more about getting Hawke exposure to the different religions (elf gods mythology vs. the maker/andraste mythology vs. paragons) and cultures (caste system vs. alienage, quanari mages vs. human mages vs. dalish mages) so that Hawke won't be making all of his or her decisions based on the typical human upbringing.

Yeah, I'm hoping that they will develop the character that way instead of being just a one sided character with just human tendecies. Still as most people will agree its not a game breaker, I'm still quite excited about the game expecially now that I've seen some more content.

[DarthCaine]

Meh, I could go without the very minor dialogue changes if you choose a different race. It made barely any difference in the game. I'd rather have a voiced protagonist

[Maria Caliban]

ishmaeltheforsaken wrote...

I'm pretty over it... I still don't understand the rationale... I think it would be perfectly believable to still have one voice per gender.

It's not just the voice over. In order for the story to work, Hawke needs to be a human. You can't just stick an elf in and have it work like you could with the Warden.

[Jarek_Cousland]

I like playing as an elf as much as anybody else.


(<<<<<<<see avatar lulzz<<<<<<<)


but only playing human doesnt bother me, a cool character is a cool character regardless of race. Unless its a Hanhar.....Big stupid jellyfish......<_<

Modifié par Jarek_Cousland, 15 novembre 2010 - 12:05 .

[Stick668]

ziggehunderslash wrote...

Perhaps an effect of having grown up on Pratchettesque fantasy, I find it very hard to place myself in the heroic mindset, and very few games give you the option to run away. If I'm going to roleplay, I'm going to go all the way and make my own story. I find roleplaying games very limiting to actual roleplay.

Heh. There's a thought:

"Achievement Unlocked: Rincewind. (Run away from all possible combat situations and still end up saving the world.)"

Further riffing on your ideas, not necessarily directed "at" you:

By roleplaying games, do you mean computer-based roleplaying games? If so, I heartily agree.

But that's part and parcel of the limited nature of the cRPG, isn't it?

There's no human gamemaster, no improvisational element, no adaptability beyond the - limited! - tangle of scripted contingencies and flags. And I think the sooner one bites the bullet and accepts this, the more fun one will be able to have. 

Even in the best example of cRPG-emulating-PnP, that is Neverwinter Nights One, user-made campaign mode, one or preferably several human dungeon masters running the show, doing dialogue on the fly, adapting to players and so on...

Even there one is limited by the impossibility of handwaving entire areas or characters into existance. Unlike in PnP, all in-game assets must be made beforehand.

The inability or unwillingness to recognize this distinction...

"The cRPG is not a pen & paper roleplaying game with graphics and quicker diceroll resolutions. It's a thing unto itself with its own set of drawbacks and benefits."

... seems to me to be the main cause of furor on this and other cRPG dev forums.

Want to play "your" character? Well, you can't. That is, "not possible" as opposed to "we're mean and hate all you cherish and hold dear". You will always be limited by the writing and design of others. You will always have a pre-defined set of options. That this set can be narrow or broad doesn't change the nature of the beast. Your freedom is limited. It's not your sandbox. 

But, good news! If you stop expecting things the medium is simply incapable of, it's quite easy to enjoy a cRPG for what it is. It may never live up the platonic ideal of a game in your head, but then again what does?

Modifié par Stick668, 15 novembre 2010 - 12:34 .

[In Exile]

Stick668 wrote...

Want to play "your" character? Well, you can't. That is, "not possible" as opposed to "we're mean and hate all you cherish and hold dear". You will always be limited by the writing and design of others. You will always have a pre-defined set of options. That this set can be narrow or broad doesn't change the nature of the beast. Your freedom is limited. It's not your sandbox. 

But, good news! If you stop expecting things the medium is simply incapable of, it's quite easy to enjoy a cRPG for what it is. It may never live up the platonic ideal of a game in your head, but then again what does?

There are two ways that people seem to respond to this. Some, like myself, just accept the fact it is impossible and focus on getting as much reactivity from the world re: characters and dialogue. Others simply invent a game. You can read about it in the New Vegas thread - people talk about what a rich RPG it is despite having absolutely no defining features or reactions on the part of the PC because they can invent these.

So this is where you will have your break in the audience. Bioware wants to deliver a sense of connection to the world. This is why you had predefined backgrounds of increasing types.

[Ziggeh]

Stick668 wrote...

By roleplaying games, do you mean computer-based roleplaying games? If so, I heartily agree.

Specifically, yes, I've never tried a tabletop, but I suspect I would find making concessions to other peoples roleplaying rather frustrating too.

As you went on to detail, I don't believe that computer rpgs are conducive to what I would consider roleplaying. There is certainly a balance to be struck, because if you take to that to it's logical extent it might as well just be a film: entirely linear, but when it comes to trade offs between "openess" (I'm not sure "choice" is appropriate in this scale) and story, I am definitely bias on side of story because that's the area I believe to be powerful, memorable and loved.

And while I can understand wishful thinking for open rpgs, because clearly there is an audience for that, I think for the large part people are asking for it in isolation, as if the trade off was not there.

Modifié par ziggehunderslash, 15 novembre 2010 - 03:22 .

[Ulous]

ziggehunderslash wrote...



I've never tried a tabletop

I'm glad you said table top, I once called them a "board game" on another forum and was met with copious amounts of flame.

[maxernst]

Maria Caliban wrote...

ishmaeltheforsaken wrote...

I'm pretty over it... I still don't understand the rationale... I think it would be perfectly believable to still have one voice per gender.

It's not just the voice over. In order for the story to work, Hawke needs to be a human. You can't just stick an elf in and have it work like you could with the Warden.

I think that's more to the point.  In a way, they're a little boxed in by the gameworld they've created.  It matters what race you are in Thedas, much more so than in the Forgotten Realms, and if you're going to be a leader in a human city, you pretty much have to be human. While I think this is a good thing--it makes the world much more plausible and enriched the experience of playing as different races in DA:O--it does mean that certain stories won't work for a non-human character.  DA:O was able to have non-human characters but it railroaded you into becoming a Grey Warden with a deus ex machina in every origin story.

As far as voiceover, I don't mind the voiced protagonist that much.  I'd prefer a choice of voices, but I realize that's probably impractical for reasons of budget and disk space.  I'm more concerned with the paraphrasing.  I resolved a mission in ME1 in way I didn't intend to because the paraphrasing didn't adequately convey what Shepard would do.  And I prefer the dialogue presentation in DA:O where the camera generally focuses on the person you're speaking to over the more cinematic style in the ME games which I find very distancing.

[Skellimancer]

Why would anyone want to be an Elf? they are only good as footstools.

[Blessed Silence]

Never bothered me at all, so I don't know what the big deal is.



I mean, sure you had about what .. an hour worth of different Origin stories then all just melded together with an occasional different way to be spoken to or side story?



If they made the ENTIRE story different for each Origin I can see about complaining.



Besides, I think playing a good and evil Hawke is enough for me just as I did for Shepard. Nothing like punching out people and slamming them against a wall.

[Talon_Wu]

Does anyone else remember the kerfuffle on the old Dragon Age boards when the Human Commoner origin was cut? I can't help but think that DA2's "Rise to Power" idea started about that time, and that's why it got the axe. Maybe that origin was even planned for Lothering, and we're seeing an expansion of that idea in DA2.

Anyway, I don't see the sense in getting all worked up about DA2 being human-centric. I enjoyed the different Origins in the first game, and DA2 isn't going to change that. If I want to play as an Elf, I'll break out DAO again. There will hopefully be plenty of opportunities to play Hawke differently, and BioWare has a great track record of hiring excellent voice actors. It will be a different experience, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Game-breaking bugs and unknown gameplay mechanics, though? Those scare me.

[Crimson Invictus]

Talon_Wu wrote...
Anyway, I don't see the sense in getting all worked up about ....

You could use that line in 90% of threads here and it would be perfectly applicable.

[Shadow Wing]

Here an interesting thought, I think almost everyone agrees that the main reasons for having a human-only character was first due to whatever story they have planned for the game would only suit a human not to mentioned it would mean a deeper story since they don't have to plan for other characters, secondly as someone mentioned, economics play a roll as well since having 6 different characters would mean having to hire 6 different voices however does that mean that it is possible for future DA games to have a elf only or dwarves only protagonist? Do you think Bioware would risk that or would it always be a human-only character from now on?

[Weiser_Cain]

If by 'deeper' you mean story on rails then yeah. Bioware has lost it's way. If this is the future of things then ME3 will be my last Bioware game.

[Sir JK]

I'm actually glad the writers took this decision. Not because I think race choices are bad, au contraire I like having multiple races. A lot. But I want it to matter, to have relevance, to be more than a hair colour.



If I choose an elf I want to play as an elf. I want the story to reflect that I am an elf.

I want guards to approach me and almost arrest me for wearing "stolen" weapons and that I'd have to prove I bought them for my own money. I want to be directed to service-entrances or being barred access alltogether. I want to starve. I want to be spit at or pitied. I want to have to chase alley cats down the alleys for dinner or struggling to find a site where our Halla's can rest. I want the story to expand on themes such as prejudice, belonging, home, communities, traditions, poverty and desperation. I want to have the character be forced to make difficult choices and swallow their pride to go on. I don't just want to see it, I want to be knee-deep in it. I want to experience it.



Because if I cannot experience that. I never really chose to be an elf, now did I?



In short. If I choose that my character is an elf, then I want to be an elf.

[Weiser_Cain]

You do know that that sort of stuff did happen in DA? And now there's zero chance that it'll happen in part 2.