405 réponses à ce sujet

[Amioran]

Seb Hanlon wrote...

Now, I'm not a writer, and I can't speak for our writing team -- but one of my favourite writer-types, John Rogers (the guy behind Leverage and the abortive Global Frequency pilot), points out that

"You don't really understand an antagonist until you understand why he's a protagonist in his own version of the world." (source)

Moustache-twirling, Snidely Whiplash evil-for-evil's-sake characters are fun for a while, but they don't really make sense -- it's rare, bordering on nonexistent, for someone to see themselves as the villain in their own story. Personally, for the PC to go about acting like a cartoon villain being eeeee-vuhl doesn't really make sense to me.

This is a good point Seb, and one that has been debated many years in the past by many authors. In cinema the pow of the protagonist as a fundamental role to understand a side of his/her world and to explain the motivations has been done by Goudard, for example. Other writers, as Lautreamont, wrote books on the anti-hero being an hero in his/her own way (see "The chants of Maldoror", for example). There are philosphies that take the side of the anti-hero for excellence, Lucifer, and these usually hate the pow of Chrisianity of Satan, considering the same just a banal character in that vision.

Namely, being evil for the sake of being evil is just another form of morality (Nietzsche wrote extensively about this, a thing that obviously Himler not Hitler understood), and morality should be outside the scheme of a pure evil character, elsewhere it just becomes "the banality of evil" as it has been said by Arendt. Blameless evil, without ambition, is just stupidity. A bad guy is always a "good guy" in a way, because pure evil without good doesn't exist in nature, and wanting to do evil for the sake of doing it just demonstrate the fundamental lack of a personal view, and therein a lack of character.

While naturally you can have people doing this usually they are just idiots, since as freedom without a course is wasted, so evil without a noble conception of the world becomes banality. All the greatest evil characters in story that were at the same time genial, had a personal pow of the world, and often times even fighted against what can be considered "evil" in the normal acknowledged use of the term.

Modifié par Amioran, 03 janvier 2011 - 12:19 .

[DaringMoosejaw]

The only people I know that debate 'dark heroic fantasy' as applied to Dragon Age are anonymous douchebags on the internet.

[Torowa]

For me, it works. I get what Woo is saying. To use a Song of Ice & Fire analogy, in the BW games to date my hero can run the gamut from Jaime Lannister all the way to Ned Stark or Ser Arthur Dayne, but never the Clegane brothers or Aerys Targaryen (all a little mentally damaged). Fine by me, that's a pretty wide space to act.

[iEthanol]

Mr Mxyzptlk wrote...


Is
that a trick like in Origins you dont save the world you save Ferelden
or in Mass Effect you dont save the world but the whole damn galaxy?
When we (or perhaps I) use the term "save the world" to describe a plot
it is usually an exaggeration to describe a plot where the main
character does something heroic (whether that be save the world or
rescue some old ladies kitten from a tree) for rather selfless reasons
and for the sake of being a hero, usually such plots and the main
characters themselves end up being rather shallow. For example, my human
noble (who was a selfish jerk) had no reason to save the world other
than the fact that he was pidgeonholed by the story into doing so, if he
had the choice he would have hightailed it to Kirkwall with Hawke and
get as far away from the blight as possible, sure the origin story gave
him a reason to try and get revenge on Howe (provided that he actually
cared about his family), but stick around and fight the Archdemon? No.
Hell even my main character, a heroic human mage had no reason to stick
around Ferelden, he had only been a Grey Warden for 1 day and all of a
sudden he and his rather sulky companion are expected to find a way to
defeat the blight alone?

Took the words right out of my mouth. I played an Elf Mage and I too saw it as being completely ridiculious that I was forced to save the world--- even though I did not care for it one bit. That's like starting a new job and being expected to the run the entire company the next day. Stale. Formulatic. Ridiculous. This is as best as I can describe one dimensional heroes. Although in Origins they tried to back this up with the origin story, in the end it did not justify saving the world. There should have been more tragedy happening as the story progressed. More logic behind the Warden's actions.

Hopefully Hawke has some greater force pushing him forward throughout the story.

TwistedComplex wrote...

Bioware won't make a purely evil
single player RPG game because being solely evil is boring.

Could your opinion have been any more subjective? Evil is not boring if done right. We've already given plenty of examples of how it can be incorporated in this topic. Tragic Villian. Rationalist. Villain for the sake of a greater good. etc. etc.

I said it before, I'll say it again.

Think of how many people you brutally slaughter in all Bioware games. Your hero could very well be the biggest mass murderer in his/her universe. Now imagine it was real life. Wouldn't there be some psychological whiplash to it all? You just got out of the chantry and you've killed your first human, elf, or beast and your entire body is covered in blood. Would you really just brush it off as being something so minor? What if you kill an enemy only to realize that it has a tragic story? Surely each and every person has a reason to be exist. There must be some driving force greater that 'oh it's just an enemy unit, click, right click, right click, and he's dead. On to the next one.".

I don't know about you, but all these seem like things to me that would potentially drive a person mad. And even if we don't go down that path, we could simply follow the one of a rationalist (as Mr Mxyzptlk described). No sane person would go in a battle against an ancient evil one day after recruitment.

Eh, at any rate I hope Hawke is a little more--- human. But judging from the fact that we saw him rip a demon in half with no emotional response I'm going to have to say he's also under the category of mass murdering psychopath who gets a murder anyone you want to pass while still being labeled a savior.

Modifié par iEthanol, 03 janvier 2011 - 04:36 .

[Skadi_the_Evil_Elf]

Loghain was actually a good example of an antogonist it would have been nice to have been able to side with (not talking about kicking his ass in Landsmeet, then forcing him to join you) but before all that. He's definitely not evil, though if he were allowed to continue his course as he did, the entire country would have been wiped out, thus you would have worked towards an "evil" outcome (total annihilation). Whether or not that's your stated goal is up to the individual character.



But Loghain was an antagonist that one could reasonably roleplay working with, for whatever motivation. It is also a case of someone who might do so, believing they are on the side of all that is good and right, but end up supporting a course that is completely fatal.

[Schneidend]

iEthanol wrote...

Took the words right out of my mouth. I played an Elf Mage and I too saw it as being completely ridiculious that I was forced to save the world--- even though I did not care for it one bit. That's like starting a new job and being expected to the run the entire company the next day. Stale. Formulatic. Ridiculous. This is as best as I can describe one dimensional heroes. Although in Origins they tried to back this up with the origin story, in the end it did not justify saving the world. There should have been more tragedy happening as the story progressed. More logic behind the Warden's actions.

The Darkspawn are a threat to the entire planet. It wouldn't matter where your elf mage went, because eventually that place would also be swarmed.

Your mage literally had nothing better to do.

[Anathemic]

Schneidend wrote...

iEthanol wrote...

Took the words right out of my mouth. I played an Elf Mage and I too saw it as being completely ridiculious that I was forced to save the world--- even though I did not care for it one bit. That's like starting a new job and being expected to the run the entire company the next day. Stale. Formulatic. Ridiculous. This is as best as I can describe one dimensional heroes. Although in Origins they tried to back this up with the origin story, in the end it did not justify saving the world. There should have been more tragedy happening as the story progressed. More logic behind the Warden's actions.

The Darkspawn are a threat to the entire planet. It wouldn't matter where your elf mage went, because eventually that place would also be swarmed.

Your mage literally had nothing better to do.

What Dragon Age is in space now?

[Schneidend]

Anathemic wrote...

What Dragon Age is in space now?

In that EVERYTHING is "in space," yes!

[iEthanol]

Schneidend wrote...

Your mage literally had nothing better to do.

Wrong. He could run and let those who are actually qualified to fight against the Dark Spawn--- like you know... the Wardens in Orlais who are sitting on their asses and doing nothing.


On a side note, a mix between Mass Effect and Dragon Age would be epic! Too many games focus on either ONLY a futuristic RPG or ONLY a fantasy medieval RPG. Why can't we get a mix of both?

Dragon Effect?

Modifié par iEthanol, 03 janvier 2011 - 05:40 .

[ObserverStatus]

Anathemic wrote...

Schneidend wrote...

iEthanol wrote...

Took the words right out of my mouth. I played an Elf Mage and I too saw it as being completely ridiculious that I was forced to save the world--- even though I did not care for it one bit. That's like starting a new job and being expected to the run the entire company the next day. Stale. Formulatic. Ridiculous. This is as best as I can describe one dimensional heroes. Although in Origins they tried to back this up with the origin story, in the end it did not justify saving the world. There should have been more tragedy happening as the story progressed. More logic behind the Warden's actions.

The Darkspawn are a threat to the entire planet. It wouldn't matter where your elf mage went, because eventually that place would also be swarmed.

Your mage literally had nothing better to do.

What Dragon Age is in space now?

He said planet, not solar system.  (assuming he means the dragon age planet, not ours)  Theoretically, they could get anywhere on the planet by expanding the deep roads.

Modifié par bobobo878, 03 janvier 2011 - 05:40 .

[Anathemic]

Schneidend wrote...

Anathemic wrote...

What Dragon Age is in space now?

In that EVERYTHING is "in space," yes!

Actually this might not be true, since Dragon Age is technically a universe, and in one's own universe there can be one world, 2 worlds, no worlds, star-world, anything.

[Anathemic]

bobobo878 wrote...

Anathemic wrote...

Schneidend wrote...

iEthanol wrote...

Took the words right out of my mouth. I played an Elf Mage and I too saw it as being completely ridiculious that I was forced to save the world--- even though I did not care for it one bit. That's like starting a new job and being expected to the run the entire company the next day. Stale. Formulatic. Ridiculous. This is as best as I can describe one dimensional heroes. Although in Origins they tried to back this up with the origin story, in the end it did not justify saving the world. There should have been more tragedy happening as the story progressed. More logic behind the Warden's actions.

The Darkspawn are a threat to the entire planet. It wouldn't matter where your elf mage went, because eventually that place would also be swarmed.

Your mage literally had nothing better to do.

What Dragon Age is in space now?

He said planet, not solar system.

But planet is deliberatly shrinking the term 'world' down to graet degree. When we talk about 'world' we talk about the grand scope of the universe in general, when we talk about 'planets' we shrink that scope down by a great degree and think 'hey its just a planet, there's more out there'

[YoziMaiden]

I think it would be a very boring game if you simply let the warden's in Orlais handle it. What would you spend the rest of the game doing?

[errant_knight]

This vision of 'dark non-heroic fantasy' sounds like the opposite of fun to me. Tragedy all over the place, consistant grimness.... That's really not Bioware's arena, nor would I stick around if it was. I'm playing for the adventure, the humor, the romance (in both meanings of the word). You know, fun. DA:O had just the right balance for me. It felt like I could really screw things up and hurt people if I wasn't careful, but had lots of humor and companionship to balance the angst.

[iEthanol]

YoziMaiden wrote...

I think it would be a very boring game if you simply let the warden's in Orlais handle it. What would you spend the rest of the game doing?

Jesus what's with you people and the word "boring". I think it would be boring if the character is evil, I think it would be boring if Orlais was left to handle it.

No, no it wont. Well, at least if a good enough writer is given the task to flesh out the story. Any idea, as simple as it may be, can be turned into storytelling brilliance when in the right hands.

Speaking of which, any news on who is writing DA2? Is it the same guy who did Awakening and the books? Hope not.

Modifié par iEthanol, 03 janvier 2011 - 05:44 .

[CoS Sarah Jinstar]

iEthanol wrote...

YoziMaiden wrote...

I think it would be a very boring game if you simply let the warden's in Orlais handle it. What would you spend the rest of the game doing?

Jesus what's with you people and the word "boring". I think it would be boring if the character is evil, I think it would be boring if Orlais was left to handle it.

No, no it wont. Well, at least if a good enough writer is given the task to flesh out the story. Any idea, as simple as it may be, can be turned into story telling brilliance in the right hands.

Speaking of which, any news on who is writing DA2? Is it the same guy who did Awakening and the books? Hope not.

You're going to be sad to know that its once again David Gaider as lead writer. My whole take is it's near impossible to play an evil character due to how the story line is written out. There are of course "evil" ways to go about handling specific quests in Origins, but unless one is Metagaming they really have no knowledge of that ahead of time.

To be honest both Origin and Awakening's story lines are fairly cliche standard fantasy.

[YoziMaiden]

I'm sorry it would be boring... essentially the game would be over. Unless of course for some reason you believe a whole other story should be written and coded for Grim Dark villains. Which I believe is asking too much . So I can assume the only thing a character would be doing after running away from the blight would be hiding from the darkspawn and drinking ale.

Would I play a game with an evil main character? Yes I would, but, I also believe asking for what would be a GIANT amount of additional content for a character who wants to ignore the main plot of the game is silly.

Modifié par YoziMaiden, 03 janvier 2011 - 05:49 .

[errant_knight]

iEthanol wrote...

YoziMaiden wrote...

I think it would be a very boring game if you simply let the warden's in Orlais handle it. What would you spend the rest of the game doing?

Jesus what's with you people and the word "boring". I think it would be boring if the character is evil, I think it would be boring if Orlais was left to handle it.

No, no it wont. Well, at least if a good enough writer is given the task to flesh out the story. Any idea, as simple as it may be, can be turned into storytelling brilliance when in the right hands.

Speaking of which, any news on who is writing DA2? Is it the same guy who did Awakening and the books? Hope not.

Yes, they got rid of their head writer who's been with Bioware for years, the one who wrote DA:O, Awakening, and the books (and many other well loved games), and created characters so beloved that the forum errupts into verbal fisticuffs when one is slighted....

That's totally a lie. Of course David Gaider is writing it.

[SeanMurphy2]

iEthanol wrote...

Took the words right out of my mouth. I played an Elf Mage and I too saw
it as being completely ridiculious that I was forced to save the
world--- even though I did not care for it one bit. That's like starting
a new job and being expected to the run the entire company the next
day. Stale. Formulatic. Ridiculous. This is as best as I can describe
one dimensional heroes. Although in Origins they tried to back this up
with the origin story, in the end it did not justify saving the world.
There should have been more tragedy happening as the story progressed.
More logic behind the Warden's actions.

There is a overarching motivation to save Ferelden. But Bioware is not forcing a specific motivation on you.  Bioware is not telling you how your character feels and thinks.

Like being explicitly told that your character is resentful about being put in the mage tower, your character is trying to save her sister, you are some saintly paladin or your character hates the arch villain.

Saving Ferelden gives your character enough space to construct their own motivation.

It could be survival, doing it for Duncan, your companions care about saving ferelden, you want to make your mark on the world, you want to travel around having adventures, feel a duty, hate Loghain, deal with origin issues etc.

Modifié par SeanMurphy2, 03 janvier 2011 - 05:51 .

[Negix]

YoziMaiden wrote...

I'm sorry it would be boring... essentially the game would be over. Unless of course for some reason you believe a whole other story should be written and coded for Grim Dark villains. Which I believe is asking too much . So I can assume the only thing a character would be doing after running away from the blight would be hiding from the darkspawn and drinking ale.

Would I play a game with an evil main character? Yes I would, but, I also believe asking for what would be a GIANT amount of additional content for a character who wants to ignore the main plot of the game is silly.

it would be a very fun game.... winning drink contests, trying to get with leliana and morrigan at the same time, eating loads of pizza, inventing the pizza to eat loads of it, talking in a strange language noone understands. this game also has dozens of addons to increase your avatar/s appearance or actions he/she can do...

[iEthanol]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...



To be honest both Origin and Awakening's story lines are fairly cliche standard fantasy.

I concur. Thinking back every Bioware game stemps back to the same exact idea--- you join some super dooper secret heroes club. The club gets destroyed right when you join [what are the chances?] (and surprise, surprise, you're one of the few survivors) and then you go off to save the world. Marvelous.

I am actually looking forward to see how Hawke's story will flesh out. Considering he is not fighting an ancient evil nor joining any secret club... this will be Bioware's first take on something new. I can't help but feel that it will either be incredible or a complete wreck. I just just don't see any middle ground.

YoziMaiden wrote...

I'm sorry it would be boring...
essentially the game would be over. Unless of course for some reason
you believe a whole other story should be written and coded for Grim
Dark villains. Which I believe is asking too much . So I can assume
the only thing a character would be doing after running away from the
blight would be hiding from the darkspawn and drinking ale.

Would
I play a game with an evil main character? Yes I would, but, I also
believe asking for what would be a GIANT amount of additional content
for a character who wants to ignore the main plot of the game is
silly.

Once again,

"Any idea, as simple as it may be, can be turned into storytelling brilliance when in the right hands."

I can't make it any more simple for you.

[ErichHartmann]

iEthanol wrote...

Once again,

"Any idea, as simple as it may be, can be turned into storytelling brilliance when in the right hands."

I can't make it any more simple for you.

Write your own stories then if its so easy.

[iEthanol]

errant_knight wrote...

Yes, they got rid of their head
writer who's been with Bioware for years, the one who wrote DA:O,
Awakening, and the books (and many other well loved games), and created
characters so beloved that the forum errupts into verbal fisticuffs when
one is slighted....

That's totally a lie. Of course David Gaider is writing it.

Hehe

Well I don't know who the head writers are. All i remember is watching a preview of Awakening on gamespot and the Bioware rep was praising the fact that it was written by the same guy who did the novels. At the time I was excited. After finishing Awkening... not so much.

Modifié par iEthanol, 03 janvier 2011 - 06:04 .