91 réponses à ce sujet

[Nialos]

In time, we may indeed see the fruit of all our labor - every major choice taken into account with a repercussion. Until then? I'll still enjoy the story and the illusion of choice - better than not having a say at all, like in most stories.

[Cajeb]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Cajeb wrote...

Yes, yes we get it ultimately almost all choices in video games are an ilusion.The problem is DA2 made many of us aware of this illusion

Then don't metagame.

I don't. What now?

[Dark Specie]

Icy Magebane wrote...
All I'm saying is that this is a step backwards in the evolution of the genre.  This would have been acceptable if ME and DA:O had never happened, but they touched upon a brilliant game design that they now seem to have abandoned.  Only time will tell if any of this is true, of course...  I'll at least admit that perhaps they have surprises in store that we just haven't come to realize.

I don't think it's true, at least with ME. It's true that they've narrowed down a few things there, but assuming that they don't plan to continue beyond ME3, it has the potential to be fairly open and consequential regarding our choices. But we'll see.

But, yes, they do appear to have gotten cold feet here. A bit, at least...

jfp2004 wrote...
Most likely. I kind of understand the complaints regarding it, but on the other hand, it leaves everyone free to take the choice they think is most appropriate. You can always ignore a choice and take the one that's the most "story appropriate" in your eyes after all.

That's basically how I prefer things to be as well. But as DAO was marketed as a "Dark Low Fantasy"-game, I guess some felt that DAO didn't quite live up to this.

And yet, now that those whinners have stopped, there's instead others (like me  ) who are outraged that we can't save our mother, for example...

Nialos wrote...
I'd like to be wrong - I'd like it if they could handle every single choice a player made. But I don't think they can just yet. Not when they have to balance so many things besides the story alongside development.

Theorically, they can. But that would probably cost too much in effort and time for them to judge it a wise move...

[Cajeb]

The whole thing is I play Bioware games for the story, characters and choices. What drew me to Western RPG's in the first place was that I could often affect the ending. I love that I can choose one path or another and it will affect the game. DA2 changes this formula. Because of that it isn't a game that will stick with me.

[Dean_the_Young]

Cajeb wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Cajeb wrote...

Yes, yes we get it ultimately almost all choices in video games are an ilusion.The problem is DA2 made many of us aware of this illusion

Then don't metagame.

I don't. What now?

You won't be thinking in terms of making choices at all.

Metagaming includes a lack of awareness of other paths (or the lack of them). It is impossible for non-metagaming character thoughts to believe they have no 'real' choices: what they try and fail, simply fails.

[Brimleydower]

I hate-hate-HATE being given the option to "turn down" a quest, only to be brushed aside and forced into doing it anyways. The Shepherding Wolves quest is an example of this.

"Hey, lead this saarebas to freedom."

"No thanks, I'd rather not ****** off the qunari."

"You're the only one who can."

Really? Just wave the magic wand and pretend that I'm in the driving seat, eh?

[DJ Doc]

The Problem is that Bioware wants to tell a Story and some players want that story to be completely the other way around. Predetermination vs. Free Will so to speak but in this case it's sure that it is predetermination. I agree that it is a bit heavy handed in DA II but that I blame on EA for forcing Bioware to make games on budget 'cause well we all know The Old Republic will not be the Cash Cow EA was aiming for.

Oh well I'm getting off topic here...

[Dean_the_Young]

Dark Specie wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...
Did you help Anders? Then the Chantry explosion is something you yourself are in part culpable for. Did you send him away, like I did, years earlier? Than Anders ominous return carried an entirely different weight on the story. While that choice doesn't make a nice dramatic exportable decision flag to be bugged (or ignorred) in DA3, it certainly had far more effect in this game than a cameo in DA3 would have improved that game.

Because that's pretty much what these 'long-term' decisions mean: cameos in another game, not relevance in the present one. Feeling guilty because I killed the blood mage who was hunting the White Lilly killer, only for the White Lilly killer to kill Mother, mattered far more to the overall story than a thirty-second cameo that probably wouldn't have occured. Likewise, doing a favor for the corrupt magistrate protecting his son, and hearing later that he intervened on my family's behalf after the Templars found Bethany, was exactly the sort of 'consequence' we should be looking for.

What you speak of is IMO more about flexibility in-game, not direct consequence of choice - because no matter what we choose, the result is the same. You may not see it this way, as it seems to me that you only care that the game gives somw token attention to your choice (like, if you spare the blood amge who hunts th ekiller you mention, he accompanies you), but doesn't actually affect the outcome itself.

Ingame flexibility and recognition of your choices are the consequences that matter. They are, quite literally, the only choices that matter, or else otherwise you have no recognition of any choices being made.

Works of fiction are not real. There are no real choices, and no real consequences. An epilogue slide saying the Dwarven King did X is just as real a consequence as 'and the Champion slaughtered the mages and sparked a mage rebellion'. While I certainly miss the epilogue slides, DA2 wasn't lacking in the potential for them. Whether or not Hawk owned half a mine, and how that turned out, would be just as distinct a slide, and that quest line was far more relevant and recuring as it was.

Dean_the_Young wrote...
and it also lacked the 'long term big choices.'

Hah! Then what do you call the Spare or Kill the Architect choice?

Pretty much irrelevant. Killing him or not was never going to end the Awakened Dark Spawn menace, or the dark spawn menace in general. Awakened Disciples would exist regardless, and continue on... whatever it is they did regardless.

The Keep/Amaranthine decision would matter much more... if the Keep and city both weren't rebuilt regardless.

[sgreco1970]

I too am very disappointed with the choice factor in the game. Overall I really enjoyed the entire plotline but I do not at all feel it is a truly worthy successor to DAO. I hope they read all these posts and make sure DA3 is a better game.

[Cajeb]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Cajeb wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Cajeb wrote...

Yes, yes we get it ultimately almost all choices in video games are an ilusion.The problem is DA2 made many of us aware of this illusion

Then don't metagame.

I don't. What now?

You won't be thinking in terms of making choices at all.

Metagaming includes a lack of awareness of other paths (or the lack of them). It is impossible for non-metagaming character thoughts to believe they have no 'real' choices: what they try and fail, simply fails.

I don't think you understand that when I'm playing in character and the game becomes unrealistic, heavy handed, and rail roaded, it breaks immersion. I don't start metagaming at that point. It's not like I start choosing things based off of my OOC knowledge but my heart is no longer in the game since they have made it abundantly clear that my character does not have a choice.

[reddragon567]

This is a whole thing here.

With no epilogue, there's no closure on your impact on the world. No reason as your killing of innocent people or framing templars DO anything.

The epilogue was taken out for DLC. Which is kind-of sad in a way.

[Dean_the_Young]

Life is railroading. What you'd like to do, and what you can do, are always vastly different things.

Now, while I've heard many people dislike their lot in life, I've never heard a convincing argument that not having enough options was particularly immersion breaking.

DA2 certainly does have a more defined character scope in Hawke (none of the 'you can be super-duper evil or super-duper-nice' of DAO), but Hawke has always been a 'named' character with central personality facets since, well, we learned he had a real name and a backstory. Hawke is like Shepard: the roleplaying and choice takes place in tone and mid-grade decision making that leads to a point regardless.

Yes, Hawke was always going to be led through to the final delimma regardless. Just like Shepard fought Saren on the Citadel after losing a friend at Virmire, the Warden went through the landsmeet and fought the ArchDemon in Denerim rather than skipping town, and Revan beat Malak. In Fallout 3, you couldn't even choose a faction, but was certainly no less an RPG.

All non-freeflow RPG's will end up taking you to equivalent spots in the end. Probably the single greatest variation-ending RPG of recency I can think of is Fallout: Vegas, and even that rests on slightly differing variations of the same Dam map, and more than a few shared plot missions regardless.

[Cajeb]

The problem is there is no motivation for the final act. Yes the Warden fights the Archdemon no matter what but the character actually has a motivation. There is no motivation to be involved in this conflict or to choose a side and so when the game forces you down that route it isn't believable

[Dean_the_Young]

The Warden has no more driving motivation than the Champion. Less, really: no one could have stopped you had you disappeared in the middle of the night leading into the Final Battle, but Meredith more or less put your life on the line as well. Your own life, if nothing else, is the character's motivation for making a decision.

The Champion stays in Kirkwall for much the same reason the Warden stays in Ferelden: because that's the sort of person they are.

[Everwarden]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

 I've never heard a convincing argument that not having enough options was particularly immersion breaking.

It's immersion breaking when you don't have -reasonable- options. It didn't break immersion for me in Origins when I couldn't just flip the Darkspawn off and flee to Tevinter for lots of slave women and wine, because that's not a reasonable option to want. However, in the third act of DA2 it's entirely reasonable for a known apostate who dislikes the Chantry to refuse a mission from the templar commander. 

It also breaks immersion when you're forced to kill hordes of the people who you're siding with without even a dialogue option. I wanted to kill Meredith the entire game, but by the time I got there I was so out of the game world it just didn't matter anymore. 

[Cajeb]

No the Warden is there to stop a Blight for the good of all humanity. Where else can he go? He was turned into a Grey Warden, that is his purpose. Depending on your Origin Duncan saved your life. You could do it for him, you could do it for Alistair, your first friend. You can do it for all of Ferelden, for all the Grey Wardens, for revenge against Loghain, etc.

There is no motivation to get involved in the Kirkwall dilemma. Meredith doesn't put you life on the line until the very very end.

[Taleroth]

Everwarden wrote...

It also breaks immersion when you're forced to kill hordes of the people who you're siding with without even a dialogue option.