7 réponses à ce sujet

[FeriIuce]

So, I've finished the game today after about 27-28 hours of play and I can now definitively say that DA:O was better than DA2. That is not to say that DA2 is not a great game. It most certainly is, but it has completely butchered the main element of what made DA:O such a compelling experience: The companions and their characterization.

In origins I spent a huge amount of time in camp simply talking to my companions, and over the course of my ~30 hours of play I actually felt like I'd got to know and care about those characters. I was literally heartbroken when morrigan left me in the end to run off to wherever she went, and the moment in the camp where leliana starts singing her beautiful song is the most vivid gaming memory I have. I very nearly burst out in tears when I heard it the first time.

Skip forward to DA2 (and awakening). This element has now completely disappeared. I can now only talk to my companions when I get a quest that specifically tells me to go talk to them, and they mostly feel like strangers just tagging along. They could be replaced with random mercenaries and you wouldn't really notice it that much.
When your mother die you dont really react emotionally at all either. You pretty much go "Well, that sucks I guess" and move on.
The L.I. Substories are even worse as far as I can tell. I chose Merril as my L.I, and all taht consisted of was basically me telling her she was sweet and pretty a few times, then suddenly she showed up in my house, jumped on me and then moved in. She then got a new armor and that was the last I heard of that untill the very end before the fight with meredith. Even aveline's romance with the guard guy was fleshed out more than that.

Overall I'm just very disappointed with their decision to butcher the main element of DA:O in such a way. The combat is a lot better than DA:O, and the story is also quite interesting, but while I did enjoy the game, I just sat back at the end and felt like something was missing.

Well, with that rant out of the way. Here's hoping that bioware learns from their mistakes and that DA3 will have both great combat and great character interaction.

[David Gaider]

You know, what's interesting about this is that there's actually almost as much dialogue per follower in DA2 as there was in DAO (barring perhaps Alistair and Morrigan specifically, considering their larger roles in the story). The primary difference is that in DA2 it's spread out. We took a lot of that dialogue you had before at the camp and deliberately put more of it into their personal quests and the intermittent dialogues you have at the follower's base-- that's where you get to ask them their questions, as they come up in context.

My impression is that some people miss being able to get all the dialogue at once. I think there's an urge to get an immediate response for interaction-- click-reward-click-reward, etc. --until they feel they've gotten to know the character and then move onto the rest of the game, even if there's not a lot of dialogue after that point outside of triggered moments.

Maybe that's better, I don't know. It's simply an interesting perception, but whether it's caused by some people simply missing dialogue or because the first act is so long and there's only one major dialogue for a follower there after you recruit them... or something else, I can't really say. I imagine it varies, and the fact that someone feels less connected certainly speaks for itself, but it's not from lack of dialogue. Not everyone feels the same way, of course, but we'll definitely look at the various reactions and tweak it some more. There are indeed some things we tried in DA2 that I don't think we'll try again, but I'm still willing to give it some time to mull over.

[Mike Laidlaw]

Brockololly wrote...

Maybe not get all the dialogue at once, but having the simple reactivity of clicking on the companion and having awesome dialogue happen. At least initially when you first recruit or meet them- I felt like in Act 1 you get the companions but really have no clue who they are for a good long time. And yet you take them around and they're gaining rivalry/friendship, but since you don't know them that well its sort of confusing as to why they're approving/disapproving.

Thats where I liked Origins, just being able to recruit, say, Morrigan and then ask her 20 questions in Lothering to get to know her. And from that point on, you had a foundation of who she was as a character so the banters sort of fleshed out what you had already figured out. So maybe from that point on, if you had more banters in the later acts and reactivity to events with more open ended questioning in the early part, that might help.

Very interesting analysis, and well worth considering. I think the companions are an investment, but there are probably some ways to keep the later-game depth while offering some more specifically establishing information out front. Hmm hmmm. Food for thought.

Thanks, Brock!

[David Gaider]

_Loc_N_lol_ wrote...
An interesting point. I think the structure of the interacitons (home-base or quest-specific only) is interesting, but most companions could use a more lengthy introduction. I think that's the problem, before entrusting someone with watching my back on a regular basis, I'd like to get to know them a little more, sooner rather than later.

Yes, when the writers talked about how things ended up, one of our own observations was that Act 1 ended up being considerably longer than was intended-- so players went a fair length of time after that first dialogue without anything extensive. Front-loading the conversations a bit more, rather than having the sole post-recruitment dialogue, would probably have worked a little better insofar as getting to know characters went.

We'll have to decide if it was worthwhile having all the companion quests. That's where a good deal of the word budget for companions went in comparison (remember in DAO you had one very short quest, if anything at all). From a writing perspective it's a much better way to get to know a companion, but perhaps it simply didn't come soon enough (the first personal quest starts in Act 2, after all) or perhaps that's not what some people want. Perhaps what they want is to ask their companions a bunch of questions, instead? Whether or not I think that's a less desireable way to approach it, if many people felt less connected it might have to be considered.

Regardless, I know that many will take the standard "well, why not do both?" approach to an answer. Yes, ideally you'd want to have lots of personal quests, be able to talk to companions whenever you wanted and ask them lots of questions, etc. etc. That's simply not practical, however. This is not the "talk to companions" game, and thus only so much of our resources can be devoted to it.

[John Epler]

To address a (seemingly minor) quibble -

So long as you can adjust your eye size and shape, it is difficult-to-impossible to get a good looking 'cry' on the main character. We actually gave it a few shots, and nothing that came together really looked good. I wouldn't mind getting the opportunity to do it on a future project, but it could end up with some really weird stuff going on.

[John Epler]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

JohnEpler wrote...

To address a (seemingly minor) quibble -

So long as you can adjust your eye size and shape, it is difficult-to-impossible to get a good looking 'cry' on the main
character. We actually gave it a few shots, and nothing that came together really looked good. I wouldn't mind getting the opportunity to do it on a future project, but it could end up with some really weird stuff going on.

How about watery/red eyes? Is that something that just would come off as odd looking?

TheOneAndOni wrote...

I think this is a pretty legitimate criticism. Even in Mass Effect, you can engage your crewmates in conversations about the latest mission and/or get to know them...it does seem like a glaring omission frankly.

In ME1-2 your crew, whether you take them on the mission or not, are still present on the ship and are aware of the events that took place and can comment on them - having likely read the mission reports or heard from others what was going on, if not listened in in real time (like Joker).

In DA2, companions you don't take with you are off doing their own thing, living their own lives.  I don't really think they're comparable.  That isn't to say interactions couldn't be improved, but I think they ought to be improved in ways that specifically address the "they live elsewhere and have their own objectives and priorities beyond the protagonist" thing - because I like that.

Red eyes would be okay, as that's just a texture change. Watery eyes, however, require a VFX, and those are -very- difficult to make both A) look good and change shape properly. That's not to say it can't be done, just that it's one of those things where the time and resources spent are way out of whack compared to what you're actually gaining.

The best I was able to do was combine a sad emotion with a smile to get that 'sad but trying to put on a brave face'. I don't know if it worked as well as I'd like, and it's certainly something I'm going to be trying to perfect for any future projects, whether DA or ME related. FaceFX is a harsh mistress.

[John Epler]

Camilladilla wrote...

JohnEpler wrote...
The best I was able to do was combine a sad emotion with a smile to get that 'sad but trying to put on a brave face'. I don't know if it worked as well as I'd like, and it's certainly something I'm going to be trying to perfect for any future projects, whether DA or ME related. FaceFX is a harsh mistress.

Actually that brave face Hawke put on when I chose the "Don't I always" option combined with Boulton's stellar acting during Leandra's death scene nearly broke my heart.

That wasn't me! That was the talented Mr. Samuel Irwin.

I did it for a couple of earlier scenes. Late, late Act One. I don't want to spoil them, but if you've finished Act One you likely know what I mean.

[David Gaider]

If Bioware didn't have the assets to create the ideal RPG (If we define an ideal RPG as one which all aspects of an RPG are ideally met which they clearly aren't regardless of how different our aspects of an RPG may be) then why go about creating it at all?

What kind of a question is that? It's never ideal-- do you think everyone agrees that DAO was ideal? I highly doubt it. We do the best we can with the resources at hand, and create the kind of game we believe in. Whether that meets someone's ideal of what they think an RPG should be isn't all that relevant. All one needs to do is visit your average "what is an RPG?" thread to see that opinions on the genre cover an entire spectrum.

If we allocate our resources differently in the future, we will do so with the intent of improving the experience-- but shifting the resources around will inevitably mean that they come from somewhere else. That was true in DAO just as it's true now.

Is there any way for us to see the budget you were given as well as the total budget that includes what EA spent on marketing as well?

No. What would you even do with such information? As near as I can tell, the average fan believes our budget should be infinite.