372 réponses à ce sujet

[In Exile]

Addai67 wrote...
The DA writers are great, I never had problems in DAO. 

DA had the same problem with I Grey Wardens! It wasn't as noticeable as with SHEP SMASH SAREN! because of the lack of PC VO, but it wasn't any less on rails for the player.

So it's a mystery why there was this conclusion that the dialogue system was "broken" and hence we're now being forced to play Dragon Effect.

I don't think they ever decided it was broken. They most likely just got feedback that most players liked VO better. Replacing features isn't always about a feature being broken, just about a replacement feature being prefered.

[Ryzaki]

Really? Where did you see I <3 Grey Wardens railroading? 

Modifié par Ryzaki, 05 décembre 2010 - 11:59 .

[fchopin]

ziggehunderslash wrote...

fchopin wrote...

I have no problem with people who wish to use the icons but what is wrong with having an option for people that do not need any guidance?

You're asking for an option that substantially increases the potential for miscommunication?

And what is wrong with that if that is how i wish to play the game? It does not change your game, why are you trying to force me to play your way?

[In Exile]

Piecake wrote...
I agree, no system is perfect, and its impossible to have the PC to say exactly what you want to say and the way you want to say it, but indicating tone/sarcasm is a huge improvement for people who can't pretend that the NPCs are all idiots or simply disregard the npc's reaction

The bigger problem is that it creates contradictions in the story. Sure, Sten can be filed under different culture and Alistair might well actually be an idiot, but Morrigan certainly isn't. And if she acts like she needs to wear a bib at all times to keep the drool from getting on to her chest, that's a problem.

[upsettingshorts]

Addai67 wrote...

And how did you come to this conclusion?  How do you know it wasn't just a misunderstanding?  Misunderstandings do happen in the real world, yes.

I edited my above post in a way that might answer, but in case it doesn't, I'll put it another way:

cRPGs are scripted.  Misunderstandings in the real world, or indeed in a dynamic tabletop RPG setting, can be immediately corrected.  In a scripted artform where the choices and consequences were predetermined before I even laid eyes on them, anything that explicitly contradicts that conclusion is to put it bluntly, just making stuff up.  I do my roleplaying within the limited confines of what scripted cRPGs are in my view legitimately capable of, not what I imagine they simply allow through the ambiguities and doubt created as a result of limitations in the medium.

Dave provided a great example above that illustrates the same point pretty well.  And Piecake's wording is I think better in some ways than mine.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 06 décembre 2010 - 12:03 .

[In Exile]

Ryzaki wrote...

Really? Where did you see I <3 Grey Wardens railroading? 

The first is the sloth demon seduction. Each character gets what the sloth demon thinks is their central desire/goal, and you get the end of the blight as a Warden, even if you don't give a damn. There's no option to say that you hate the Wardens for what they did to you, particularly with Wynne. Your options are just "I will sacrifice my life!" or "I will use my status as a Warden for power!" but there isn't a "Tell these kidnapping psychopaths to shove it!" option. That's off the top of my head.

There's all of Awakening, but that's a whole other issue.

[upsettingshorts]

*high fives a fellow Warden hater, or at least, Warden really disliker*

[In Exile]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

*high fives a fellow Warden hater, or at least, Warden really disliker*

*high five*

Though at this point, we've agreed on so much I'm just not surprised when we find new things to agree on.

I just find their order to be terrible at their jobs. Putting aside their kidnapping, the debacle at Ostagar might have been avoided if Duncan was upfront with Loghain & Cailan re: what the Wardens can actually do. It's not like in this magic filled setting, what the Wardens actually do is that unbelievable.

[upsettingshorts]

Yep, argued the same thing myself. It's one thing - again, open for debate but not the issue here - to keep the secrets of their order from the populace they intend to recruit from. But the idea that a senior Warden would withhold vital intelligence from battlefield commanders, like Cailan and Loghain, strikes me as profoundly negligent.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 06 décembre 2010 - 12:13 .

[Maria Caliban]

scyphozoa wrote...

I feel like the english language is plenty complex enough to make textual cues clear.

This is backwards. It's the complexity and abstraction of language that leads to ambiguous meaning. The simplest (all artificial) languages are the clear ones.

[In Exile]

Upsettingshorts wrote...
Yep, argued the same thing myself. It's one thing - again, open for debate but not the issue here - to keep the secrets of their order from the populace they intend to recruit from. But the idea that a senior Warden would withhold vital intelligence from battlefield commanders, like Cailan and Loghain, strikes me as profoundly negligent.

It gets worse. What if Loghain plays along, and the Ferelden army meets the archdemon away from the Vanguard where the Wardens are, and Loghain sacrifices most of his forces to take down the archdemon? It amounts to a disaster, because most of the army is lost and the archdemon just regenerates.

The more I think about it, the more disastrous what Duncan does is.

[Ryzaki]

In Exile wrote...

Ryzaki wrote...

Really? Where did you see I <3 Grey Wardens railroading? 

The first is the sloth demon seduction. Each character gets what the sloth demon thinks is their central desire/goal, and you get the end of the blight as a Warden, even if you don't give a damn. There's no option to say that you hate the Wardens for what they did to you, particularly with Wynne. Your options are just "I will sacrifice my life!" or "I will use my status as a Warden for power!" but there isn't a "Tell these kidnapping psychopaths to shove it!" option. That's off the top of my head.

There's all of Awakening, but that's a whole other issue.

Ah. I just thought that was for resource reasons. And yes I found that part in the fade to be extremely meh. Plus you get some odd stuff if you take Hardened Alistair/Leliana there so the game was just being limited in that sense. Though there really should've been a "screw you all!" option. I agree.

And Awakening. Well the whole thing was a follow up on the Warden Commander ending so what did you expect?

Modifié par Ryzaki, 06 décembre 2010 - 12:17 .

[Maria Caliban]

In Exile wrote...

There's no option to say that you hate the Wardens for what they did to you, particularly with Wynne. Your options are just "I will sacrifice my life!" or "I will use my status as a Warden for power!" but there isn't a "Tell these kidnapping psychopaths to shove it!" option. That's off the top of my head.

And Dragon Age 2 will give you the ability to be a beneficent champion or a capricious ******, but you can't decide you hate Kirkwall and leave for the wilderness.

[In Exile]

Ryzaki wrote...
And Awakening. Well the whole thing was a follow up on the Warden Commander ending so what did you expect?

There was a Warden Commander ending? That actually makes a litlte more sense. I just thought they randomly decided you were named as Commander.

I still protest my chosen ending, expelling all Wardens from Ferelden forever (again, technically) and exposing their secrets wasn't an option. If people are too afraid to pay the cost of stopping the blight, they deserve to be overrun.

[upsettingshorts]

Maria Caliban wrote...

And Dragon Age 2 will give you the ability to be a beneficent champion or a capricious ******, but you can't decide you hate Kirkwall and leave for the wilderness.

Look at it this way, lets say that M/M and F/F romances couldn't be fit into the budget of the game.  It would still be worthwhile to include an option, somewhere, that allows the protagonist to indicate that they are gay, even if it means they go without a romance during the game.

Same thing with the Warden and same thing with Hawke.  Giving the player the option to throw up his or her hands in frustration or disgust at something they end up having to do anyway is cathartic, and it's just a line here or there. 

In Exile wrote...

I still protest my chosen ending, expelling all Wardens from Ferelden forever (again, technically) and exposing their secrets wasn't an option. If people are too afraid to pay the cost of stopping the blight, they deserve to be overrun.

Don't think I woulda gone quite that far though, at least in labeling that option just a line here or there.  That ending would have pretty serious consequences I imagine.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 06 décembre 2010 - 12:21 .

[In Exile]

Maria Caliban wrote...
And Dragon Age 2 will give you the ability to be a beneficent champion or a capricious ******, but you can't decide you hate Kirkwall and leave for the wilderness.

Hating the Wardens has nothing to do with stopping the Blight. I could very well believe that for the greater good/personal gain I ought to defeat the archdemon. But that doesn't mean I ought to be happy about an organization that gave me darkspawn AIDS and later demands that I sacrifice my soul and erase myself out of existence to stop the archdemon.

Put another way, Hawke (at last as far as we know) doesn't have to love Bethany to become Champion of Kirkwall.

[Ryzaki]

In Exile wrote...

Ryzaki wrote...
And Awakening. Well the whole thing was a follow up on the Warden Commander ending so what did you expect?

There was a Warden Commander ending? That actually makes a litlte more sense. I just thought they randomly decided you were named as Commander.

I still protest my chosen ending, expelling all Wardens from Ferelden forever (again, technically) and exposing their secrets wasn't an option. If people are too afraid to pay the cost of stopping the blight, they deserve to be overrun.

Yeah you went back to the Wardens and I believe became the Commander of the Fereldan Grey Wardens.

Honestly there should've been a "punch Duncan in the face" option.

[Ziggeh]

fchopin wrote...

And what is wrong with that if that is how i wish to play the game? It does not change your game, why are you trying to force me to play your way?

I'm not. I'm asking why you think an inherent flaw in the system is a postive thing.

[In Exile]

Upsettingshorts wrote...
Don't think I woulda gone quite that far though, at least in labeling that option just a line here or there.  That ending would have pretty serious consequences I imagine.

Well, that's just In_Exile's DA:O plot. Practically, Bioware can't get away with someone actively crusading against the Grey Warden's in-setting without it being a character under their control.

[AlanC9]

In Exile wrote...

The thing is, I have the same problem on the forums. When I say something like, Alpha Protocol is a buggy mess and about as fun as a root cannal, I'm being 100% facetious. Except none of the stuff that would normally indicate I'm exaggerating carries over on the forum, so it always turns out that one person takes me literally and I have a three page debate on how Alpha Protocol is somewhat more buggy than DA:O based on what we can reasonably infer from general reception.

It's maddening to be a sarcastic person with silent VO, because most people just do not say things the same way.

This reminds me of something I thought of when Sylvius was discussing this issue. Problems with full-text PC dialog typically come up when the player intends to use some form of irony. The reason we always see Alistair's conversation used as an example of the problem is twofold. First, Alistair talks this way himself, so trying to match him is natural. Second, some of the PC  responses in his convo really are supposed to be ironic. The problem is that the player can't know which ones.

Sylvius will never see this problem because he doesn't do irony in the first place. You and I have seen the problem because this sort of rhetoric is something we do ITRW.

Note for grammar pedants: I'm using irony in the broad, colloquial sense, not the strict meaning.

[Apollo Starflare]

In Exile wrote...

Ryzaki wrote...

Really? Where did you see I <3 Grey Wardens railroading? 

The first is the sloth demon seduction. Each character gets what the sloth demon thinks is their central desire/goal, and you get the end of the blight as a Warden, even if you don't give a damn. There's no option to say that you hate the Wardens for what they did to you, particularly with Wynne. Your options are just "I will sacrifice my life!" or "I will use my status as a Warden for power!" but there isn't a "Tell these kidnapping psychopaths to shove it!" option. That's off the top of my head.

There's all of Awakening, but that's a whole other issue.

Yeah this has bugged me as well. It's good to see some others who feel the same way. There were a handful of dialogue choices very early on (depending on Origin) where you could express displeasure at the way you ended up with the Warden's and their actions, but you are right that you are never really allowed to stick to that viewpoint. A couple of my characters wouldn't have wanted much to do with the Warden's if they could help it, or at the very least would have spoken out about them, but that wasn't possible within the dialogue choices available. A shame.

It's a case of doing something you don't want to do but know you have to, or working with someone you don't like for the greater good. And in DA2's case there is the whole destiny thing,

To be honest I've always liked the idea that Flemeth's line about there being 'men who struggle against destiny, only for it to swallow them whole' could be applied to a potential Hawke who rails against what his supposed 'destiny' is - only to be inevitably consumed by it anyway. The conclusion could be more or less the same, but the journey could be quite different (even if it was only through dialogue options and choices to reflect it).

[Piecake]

AlanC9 wrote...

In Exile wrote...

The thing is, I have the same problem on the forums. When I say something like, Alpha Protocol is a buggy mess and about as fun as a root cannal, I'm being 100% facetious. Except none of the stuff that would normally indicate I'm exaggerating carries over on the forum, so it always turns out that one person takes me literally and I have a three page debate on how Alpha Protocol is somewhat more buggy than DA:O based on what we can reasonably infer from general reception.

It's maddening to be a sarcastic person with silent VO, because most people just do not say things the same way.

This reminds me of something I thought of when Sylvius was discussing this issue. Problems with full-text PC dialog typically come up when the player intends to use some form of irony. The reason we always see Alistair's conversation used as an example of the problem is twofold. First, Alistair talks this way himself, so trying to match him is natural. Second, some of the PC  responses in his convo really are supposed to be ironic. The problem is that the player can't know which ones.

Sylvius will never see this problem because he doesn't do irony in the first place. You and I have seen the problem because this sort of rhetoric is something we do ITRW.

Note for grammar pedants: I'm using irony in the broad, colloquial sense, not the strict meaning.

Like when it rains on your wedding day *insert jokingly sarcastic icon here*

[Maria Caliban]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Look at it this way, lets say that M/M and F/F romances couldn't be fit into the budget of the game.  It would still be worthwhile to include an option, somewhere, that allows the protagonist to indicate that they are gay, even if it means they go without a romance during the game.

Unless it was a romance story or game, then it wouldn't be worthwhile. Some of my favorite games - Quest for Glory, Prince of Persia - only allow me to be a straight dude and I don't think reflects poorly on the game.

Being the Warden or the Champion of Kirkwall is an important part of the plot, not optional content. There are a few points where you can object to the Wardens, joining them, and their methods, but at the end of the day your PC accepts their role as Warden and wishes to stop the Blight as one.

In Exile wrote...

Maria Caliban wrote...
And Dragon Age 2 will give you the ability to be a beneficent champion or a capricious ******, but you can't decide you hate Kirkwall and leave for the wilderness.

Hating the Wardens has nothing to do with stopping the Blight.

And there are times in the beginning where you can talk about disliking the Wardens. You can play the role of a reluctant hero.

But later in the game, you accept the Wardens and your role in them. No option. How you go about being a Warden can vary, whether you mix your past and your Warden business can vary, but the PC considers themselves a Warden.

Likewise, in ME, you want to be a SPECTRE. Why is up to you, but it's something the PC wants.

If you desire an RPG where the developers won't hamper your ideal for the character, you need something a bit more open-ended like The Elder Scrolls, Diablo, or Fallout series.

In story-based RPGs, which is all that BioWare makes, there are limits to what PCs can express.

Modifié par Maria Caliban, 06 décembre 2010 - 12:50 .

[unspoken_demise]

fchopin wrote...
And what is wrong with having the option to turn off icons? It does not change the game for anyone who likes to use them.

Nothing is wrong with the option to turn off icons, in and of itself.

What I'm suggesting is that your  *reasoning* for desiring the option is wrong. Not wanting it because it's aesthetically problematic for you (for example), is wholly different than suggesting Bioware is guilty of something they are not.

[Sylvius the Mad]

In Exile wrote...

Guess that proves the superiority of literal content over tone?

I should put that in a signature.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 06 décembre 2010 - 12:53 .