147 réponses à ce sujet

[bsbcaer]

Maria Caliban wrote...

Wozearly wrote...

Returning to the original point, wouldn't it be frustrating to have the majority of characters survive and go through to the next game?

No.

Seriously, if your character is only interesting for one installment, they're a bad character.

James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, Captain Kirk, Spider-Man, Homer Simpson - how many times have these characters been featured in a story? And people continue to want to read stories with them in it.

Each of those characters listed have MUCH MUCH MUCH more depth (imho) as did any one of our Wardens...Those characters (maybe not so much Homer) are capable of carrying a franchise in a way I don't believe our warden is capable of

[Kaiser Mat]

Maria Caliban wrote...

On an utterly personal note:

Anyone who killed Morrigan is an **** and I hope BioWare ignores that choice like the bull**** it is.

She obviously didn't die if one were to stab her.

[Maria Caliban]

bsbcaer wrote...

Each of those characters listed have MUCH MUCH MUCH more depth (imho) as did any one of our Wardens...Those characters (maybe not so much Homer) are capable of carrying a franchise in a way I don't believe our warden is capable of

I wasn't talking about the Warden.

Modifié par Maria Caliban, 25 novembre 2010 - 01:25 .

[bsbcaer]

Maria Caliban wrote...
I wasn't talking about the Warden.

Sorry if I misinterpreted you, but it seemed as if you were championing the return of the Warden as the main protaganist (pardon the sp, but I hate spelling that word for the second game seeing how he/she was in the first game....

Seriously, if your character is only interesting for one installment, they're a bad character.

James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, Captain Kirk, Spider-Man, Homer Simpson - how many times have these characters been featured in a story? And people continue to want to read stories with them in it.

[Maria Caliban]

I see.

I was responding to this:

Wozearly wrote...

Returning to the original point, wouldn't it be frustrating to have the majority of characters survive and go through to the next game? Lets face it...there's not a lot more that, say, Alistair can intruige us with about his past (unless he has some deep, dark, terrible secret) and we've already seen a lot of his world view.

The idea that the companions would only be interesting for one game or that it would be frustrating for the majority of them to survive.

All my BG, KotOR, Jade Empire, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age: Origins companions survived. And it's not as though I only find characters interesting because they have 'dark secrets.'

That said, sure, I guess you could apply that to Warden or Hawke appearing in more than one game. If the PC in DA 3 were Commander Shepard, I wouldn't much care either. They're more player buckets than actual characters.

Modifié par Maria Caliban, 25 novembre 2010 - 02:23 .

[bsbcaer]

Maria Caliban wrote...

I see.

I was responding to this:

Wozearly wrote...

Returning to the original point, wouldn't it be frustrating to have the majority of characters survive and go through to the next game? Lets face it...there's not a lot more that, say, Alistair can intruige us with about his past (unless he has some deep, dark, terrible secret) and we've already seen a lot of his world view.

The idea that the companions would only be interesting for one game or that it would be frustrating for the majority of them to survive.

All my BG, KotOR, Jade Empire, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age: Origins companions survived. And it's not as though I only find characters interesting because they have 'dark secrets.'

That said, sure, I guess you could apply that to Warden or Hawke appearing in more than one game. If the PC in DA 3 were Commander Shepard, I wouldn't much care either. They're more player buckets than actual characters.

I guess my confusion arose more from the examples you chose to give (which tended to be more the prime character in each universe you were discussing, although that could certainly be argued with)....It may have been clearer had you used M, Dr. Watson, Dr. McCoy, Aunt May, and Marge Simpson (characters that are a large part of their universe, but not central to it...hard to imagine Aunt May for example carrying a comic series on her shoulders   Anyways, that's neither here nor there.  I actually have no problems with returning characters provided that they actually add something to the story (eg. Tali in ME2) than someone whose return was less-well executed (ie. Garrus).  I guess this is why Im not that upset that Nathaniel Howe should be appearing in the early parts of the game as it has the opportunity to fill in some of his story gaps left open in DA:A

[Chuvvy]

Plotline deaths are interesting.

[crimzontearz]

Maria Caliban wrote...

On an utterly personal note:

Anyone who killed Morrigan is an **** and I hope BioWare ignores that choice like the bull**** it is.

I never liked having morrigan around because....well let's face it she disliked EVERYTHING I did.....and yet....a part of me always wanted her around because she was....well Morrigan

anyways

since when does she die? doesn't she fall back into the Eluvian and disappear?

[In Exile]

Dragon Age:Origins was, until a few months before release, Dragon Age. So for all anyone knows now, there will be some lame subtitle, like Origins, added to the game.

[Rykoth]

I'm pretty sure Dragon Age: Origins was called Origins for a reason, and not just for the human-dwarf-elf origin stories.



It was - and correct me Mr. Gaider if I am wrong.... the origin of the entire series. As in: here is the essential backstory for why Thedas is as it is today. Thus, the Warden is basically a "Prologue" character. Yes, he's important, yeah, he's cool, no matter if he's a Cousland, Aeducan, or a wandering Dalish. But the point is, the Warden is the star of the Origin tale, as is Alistair, and Morrigan, and Leliana etc.



If anything though, I woulda called DA2 simply "Dragon Age," or, if you go in the realm of each game being a different tale, "Dragon Age: The Rise to Power."



While playing the Warden would be fun again, IMO it depends on your ending. My human nobles for instance, I'm not sure I'd want to play again. They essentially have a "happier ever after" kind of air to them. My Dalish? Why not, he's a wanderer, no matter if he returns home for a time. So being that it would be situational, it makes little sense.

[crimzontearz]

Rykoth wrote...

I'm pretty sure Dragon Age: Origins was called Origins for a reason, and not just for the human-dwarf-elf origin stories.

It was - and correct me Mr. Gaider if I am wrong.... the origin of the entire series. As in: here is the essential backstory for why Thedas is as it is today. Thus, the Warden is basically a "Prologue" character. Yes, he's important, yeah, he's cool, no matter if he's a Cousland, Aeducan, or a wandering Dalish. But the point is, the Warden is the star of the Origin tale, as is Alistair, and Morrigan, and Leliana etc.

If anything though, I woulda called DA2 simply "Dragon Age," or, if you go in the realm of each game being a different tale, "Dragon Age: The Rise to Power."

While playing the Warden would be fun again, IMO it depends on your ending. My human nobles for instance, I'm not sure I'd want to play again. They essentially have a "happier ever after" kind of air to them. My Dalish? Why not, he's a wanderer, no matter if he returns home for a time. So being that it would be situational, it makes little sense.

dunno........the subtitle did not appear until a little late in the developement cycle

[ejoslin]

I will find it interesting to see how they handle characters who may end up dead, but who may end up in a position of a great deal of power. Alistair is one; he's easily substituted by Anora for those games he's not king. Another, however, is Zevran, who can end up dead, or end up leader of the Crows -- or will Antiva never be touched upon? Or will the epilogues be discarded (most likely).



Leliana isn't so difficult because she never rises to a high leadership position.

[crimzontearz]

ejoslin wrote...

I will find it interesting to see how they handle characters who may end up dead, but who may end up in a position of a great deal of power. Alistair is one; he's easily substituted by Anora for those games he's not king. Another, however, is Zevran, who can end up dead, or end up leader of the Crows -- or will Antiva never be touched upon? Or will the epilogues be discarded (most likely).

Leliana isn't so difficult because she never rises to a high leadership position.

well she can be the mistress of a king, sure not much political power but.....

anyways

rule of thumbs seems to say "if they can die they'll come back as a cameo....unless Bioware REALLY wants them in"

I would love to see Loghain come back.....even tho I always kill him because otherwise he costs me Alistair

[ejoslin]

crimzontearz wrote...

ejoslin wrote...

I will find it interesting to see how they handle characters who may end up dead, but who may end up in a position of a great deal of power. Alistair is one; he's easily substituted by Anora for those games he's not king. Another, however, is Zevran, who can end up dead, or end up leader of the Crows -- or will Antiva never be touched upon? Or will the epilogues be discarded (most likely).

Leliana isn't so difficult because she never rises to a high leadership position.

well she can be the mistress of a king, sure not much political power but.....

anyways

rule of thumbs seems to say "if they can die they'll come back as a cameo....unless Bioware REALLY wants them in"

I would love to see Loghain come back.....even tho I always kill him because otherwise he costs me Alistair

Hmmm, mistress to a queen/king is not at all in the same category -- Zevran can also end up the paramour of royalty, as can a female warden for that matter, but I doubt that will be taken into consideration beyond rumors, if at all. I was speaking of a high level of power independent of the warden.  King of Ferelden.  Leader of the Crows.  How do you handle Antiva and the Crows if Zevran may or may not be leader?  Have a cameo if he is, or just ignore the epilogue cards that say that's what happened to him?

Or maybe Antiva and the crows won't play a part in the future of the series.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Rykoth wrote...

I'm pretty sure Dragon Age: Origins was called Origins for a reason, and not just for the human-dwarf-elf origin stories.

It was marketing boilerplate.

That's all the name ever is.

[soteria]

Seriously, if your character is only interesting for one installment, they're a bad character.

James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, Captain Kirk, Spider-Man, Homer Simpson - how many times have these characters been featured in a story? And people continue to want to read stories with them in it.

True, but there's another side to it as well. I don't think Honor Harrington was a bad character, but I got tired of reading about her after a while. Salvatore has some interesting characters, too, but I wish he would have let some of them stay dead after he killed them. In both cases I'd say a contributing factor in my declining interest was just too many stories focusing on the same characters who always magically came back virtually unscathed. I'm just saying you can destroy a good character by sticking with them for too long or being dishonest with plot death.

[upsettingshorts]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
It was marketing boilerplate.

That's all the name ever is.

Sir Humphrey Appleby always puts the difficult bits in the title, it does less harm there than in the actual content of the text.

[Sylvius the Mad]

bsbcaer wrote...

Each of those characters listed have MUCH MUCH MUCH more depth (imho) as did any one of our Wardens...Those characters (maybe not so much Homer) are capable of carrying a franchise in a way I don't believe our warden is capable of

Expecting the protagonist to carry the franchise when the protagonist's character can't be known to the designers is folly.

The franchise needs to be carried by the setting.  Much like The Lord of the Rings is.

Design the setting.  Then write games within those boundaries.

[crimzontearz]

ejoslin wrote...

crimzontearz wrote...

ejoslin wrote...

I will find it interesting to see how they handle characters who may end up dead, but who may end up in a position of a great deal of power. Alistair is one; he's easily substituted by Anora for those games he's not king. Another, however, is Zevran, who can end up dead, or end up leader of the Crows -- or will Antiva never be touched upon? Or will the epilogues be discarded (most likely).

Leliana isn't so difficult because she never rises to a high leadership position.

well she can be the mistress of a king, sure not much political power but.....

anyways

rule of thumbs seems to say "if they can die they'll come back as a cameo....unless Bioware REALLY wants them in"

I would love to see Loghain come back.....even tho I always kill him because otherwise he costs me Alistair

Hmmm, mistress to a queen/king is not at all in the same category -- Zevran can also end up the paramour of royalty, as can a female warden for that matter, but I doubt that will be taken into consideration beyond rumors, if at all. I was speaking of a high level of power independent of the warden.  King of Ferelden.  Leader of the Crows.  How do you handle Antiva and the Crows if Zevran may or may not be leader?  Have a cameo if he is, or just ignore the epilogue cards that say that's what happened to him?

Or maybe Antiva and the crows won't play a part in the future of the series.

isn't that how Wrex was handled? Cameo if he lived and became leader of the Urdnot clan, totally not there and replaced by Wreav if he  bit the dust on Virmire.

Modifié par crimzontearz, 25 novembre 2010 - 10:07 .

[MightySword]

crimzontearz wrote...
isn't that how Wrex was handled? Cameo if he lived and became leader of the Urdnot clan, totally not there and replaced by Wreav if he  bit the dust on Virmire.

For the most part I expect this is what will happen. I think there is another face of the problem that people are forgetting. Remember when ME2 was released and it sent half the forum screaming because people were afraiding they will be missing content depend on the state of their ME's save, or whether they have one to begin with? After the dust settle though, for the most part it doesn't matter anyway aside maybe giving you a cozzy fuzzy feeling if you happen to have the right choice. I don't think the developers will risk differentiate people's experience in the sequence base on the experience of their previous installament. You might not like it, but I'm sure one of the requirement the writers have for their work (devs can correct me if I'm wrong), is that they have to ensure new game can still bring in new players without alienate them, having something that only make sense to those who played the game before is not a smart business sense.



Most of the time game contents got cut, so usually it's a safe assumption what in the final product is what the developers think best (in their opinion at leat) and I think it's their interest that most players will be able to experience all the contents regardless the reason, if they have to miss something, it's better be something insignificant. Let say the developers put a lot of resource to make big emotional quest in ME2 if Wrex survive,  however the people who killed him on Virmire won't have access to it. From a resource point of view, that's not efficient. So a Cameo exprience is a good compromise really.


Back to the point of continuety, I'm pretty cool about it and I agree people should treat each installament separetly. I play another medium that frequently present multiple path for me to choose, but there is always one that's treat as a "canon" path. For example, the SRPG Sword of Eternity has "7" paths each with their own conclusive ending. However if you gonna pick up Sword of Eternity 2, then it picked one path from the previous game and continue from there. People who didn't like or favor the previous path may have some fit, but to me the choice is pretty obvious. Would I like to have just one single path for the previous game? Nope, having 7 paths to chose from was totally awesome and what made it good. Would like I like NOT to have the second game at all? Certainly not. The other option is to have 7 different game for the second iteration ... which hardly realistic.


There is, IMO, one solution to this, and it using DLC. I have always prefer to have thing that enhance the core game rather then adding some non-related extension. It would be nice if DLC can provide us with additional choices of an existing scenario instead of just some extra stuff to do that has absolutely nothing to do with the main game. For example, they can release DA2 with the same cameo set up like ME2, but later provide the "what if" type of DLC that let people explore the difference between say ... if Alistair was king, what if Alistair died ...etc... To me it sure gonna beat something like return to Ostega

Modifié par MightySword, 25 novembre 2010 - 11:25 .

[IRMcGhee]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
It was marketing boilerplate.

That's all the name ever is.

Sir Humphrey Appleby always puts the difficult bits in the title, it does less harm there than in the actual content of the text.

+10 for getting a "Yes, Minister" quote in.

[bsbcaer]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

bsbcaer wrote...

Each of those characters listed have MUCH MUCH MUCH more depth (imho) as did any one of our Wardens...Those characters (maybe not so much Homer) are capable of carrying a franchise in a way I don't believe our warden is capable of

Expecting the protagonist to carry the franchise when the protagonist's character can't be known to the designers is folly.

The franchise needs to be carried by the setting.  Much like The Lord of the Rings is.

Design the setting.  Then write games within those boundaries.

hey, Im just going off the characters that maria listed...Of the five, I'd say that 1 was written within the confines of the setting (Kirk).  Two certainly had their settings already established within the events of the real world at the time (Holmes and Bond), so they didn't need a setting designed, so they needed to carry the franchise.  Peter Parker/Spider Man was written within an established universe (Marvel), so it required a strong character. 

Going back to the game, I'd say that if we look at DA:O as establishing the setting, then it makes sense to tell a story within some of the boundaries of the setting. 

Going back again to my original point, however, I still believe that the Warden is not a strong enough character to carry the series (and it could be argued that the Warden was barely strong enough to carry the story based on how they designed him/her)

[GameBoyish]

Mary Kirby wrote...

ShrinkingFish wrote...

Something I posted got a response from a dev! AND it was Mary!

*fangasm* *die happy*

If my posts are murdering fans, I... guess I better work on my nefarious cackle some more.

Or you could just recreate DAT SMIRK


Best part about Varric? His chest hair makes him resistant to plotline death.
:waiting for his LI status confirmation: