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[Nomen Mendax]

Here's Zack Snyder on games and movies:

"I’m still waiting for that game that is transcendent — an awesome movie and an awesome game and an awesome graphic novel,” he said. “No one’s cracked it! It would be nice if it had been cracked once at least.” The reason for that, really, is the fundamental disconnect between the activity of playing a game and the passivity of watching a movie.
...
It’s the interactivity. The outcome is not predetermined,” he continued. “Movies work on a slightly different level. You want to give up control in the movie, you want to be taken for a ride. You don’t get to decide. You are surprised emotionally by what’s happening. So it’s a quite different set of rules, but people tend to think they’re the same thing and they’re just not"

http://spinoff.comic...t-doesnt-exist/

He's not talking about DA2 but he makes some interesting points that relate to DA2, some of Mike Laidlaw's comments about wanting to be surprised by conversation choices and my (very) negative reaction to the conversation system in DA2.

I think Snyder seems to get what Laidlaw doesn't, when I'm playing my character I don't want to give up control, I want to be in charge of what they say, rather than being taken for a ride.

[edit: formatting]

Modifié par Nomen Mendax, 25 mars 2011 - 03:10 .

[errant_knight]

I agree entirely. Surprise is the last thing I want from my own words. Absolutely the last thing. It's even worse when I'm surprised and have to watch from an outside POV.

[Maria Caliban]

Nomen Mendax wrote...

Here's Zack Snyder on games and movies:

"I’m still waiting for that game that is transcendent — an awesome movie
and an awesome game and an awesome graphic novel,” he said. “No one’s
cracked it! It would be nice if it had been cracked once at least.”

Strange, I've never heard a book critic go "I'm waiting for the transcendent novel - one that's an awesome movie and an awesome novel and an awesome movie."

Nor do film critic ever praise a movie by saying it's a game, a novel, and a film.

[Cutlass Jack]

Sucker Punch seems to be taking a huge beatdown in the reviews. I think like DA2 there will ultimately be a huge distance between what the creator was trying for and how much the audience gets on board with it.

[Nomen Mendax]

Maria Caliban wrote...

Nomen Mendax wrote...

Here's Zack Snyder on games and movies:

"I’m still waiting for that game that is transcendent — an awesome movie and an awesome game and an awesome graphic novel,” he said. “No one’s cracked it! It would be nice if it had been cracked once at least.”

Strange, I've never heard a book critic go "I'm waiting for the transcendent novel - one that's an awesome movie and an awesome novel and an awesome movie."

Nor do film critic ever praise a movie by saying it's a game, a novel, and a film.

I agree with you on that, and just to be clear, I'm not terribly interested in properties that cross over to multiple media but I did feel his comments about the difference between games and movies related to some of my criticisms of DA2's game play.

[Matroska]

He's talking more about gameplay in general, not things like dialogue choices in DA2. If he meant surprises were bad in games, which is the way you've forced an interpretation, then he'd be saying that the game should reveal all plot point immediately and tell you what all the levels are. If you take his words too literally and too far in the direction you appear to be, he's basically against stories in games altogether.

Besides, when you talk to someone do you actually script every word out before you say it? I really hope you don't, for the sake of the people who have to talk to you. Instead you tend to have a mood or stance in mind, you talk more instinctively and "on the fly" rather than making up 6 different sentences in your head, choosing the best and then repeating it verbatim.

I know that sometimes what Hawke says doesn't even seem to make sense on the mood/stance level but that was also a problem in DA:O. You'd interpret one meaning in the sentences laid out in front of you (again, these are also "someone elses words", not ones of your own design), click on it and then the other person would take it in a different way altogether. Oddly, Mass Effect seems to have a much closer link between what you choose and what Shepard says, even without the icon system. I agree that too often you'd choose something like "Just get on with it!" and Hawke would say "Are all elves this lazy?", thus introducing racism into a comment that was just meant to sound impatient.

[keginkc]

I think Zach Snyder would be the last person I'd look to for advice. Style over substance. His movies don't have any heart or brains, but they sure do look purty. Hopefully he doesn't destroy Superman.

[Nomen Mendax]

Teclo wrote...

He's talking more about gameplay in general, not things like dialogue choices in DA2. If he meant surprises were bad in games, which is the way you've forced an interpretation, then he'd be saying that the game should reveal all plot point immediately and tell you what all the levels are. If you take his words too literally and too far in the direction you appear to be, he's basically against stories in games altogether.

Besides, when you talk to someone do you actually script every word out before you say it? I really hope you don't, for the sake of the people who have to talk to you. Instead you tend to have a mood or stance in mind, you talk more instinctively and "on the fly" rather than making up 6 different sentences in your head, choosing the best and then repeating it verbatim.

I know that sometimes what Hawke says doesn't even seem to make sense on the mood/stance level but that was also a problem in DA:O. You'd interpret one meaning in the sentences laid out in front of you (again, these are also "someone elses words", not ones of your own design), click on it and then the other person would take it in a different way altogether. Oddly, Mass Effect seems to have a much closer link between what you choose and what Shepard says, even without the icon system. I agree that too often you'd choose something like "Just get on with it!" and Hawke would say "Are all elves this lazy?", thus introducing racism into a comment that was just meant to sound impatient.

I don't really agree with you about my interpretation of what Snyder is saying, and I think you are missing the point about being surprised by the game.  I do want interesting and unexpected things to happen in a game like DA2 but I don't want to be surprised by my own character's actions.   Just to make this clear (I hope) I don't mind being surprised by the results of my character's actions, but I want to know what I'm deciding to do when I select an option. 

I think a lot of this comes down to how you play this kind of game.  For me, perhaps because of playing a lot of pen and paper games, I view the protaganist as my character in the same way that I play a character in pen and paper games.  Being surprised by dialogue choices is therefore a complete imersion breaker, whereas having limited choices isn't since I still know what my character is going to say.

Modifié par Nomen Mendax, 25 mars 2011 - 04:00 .

[sonofalich]

Nomen Mendax wrote...

Here's Zack Snyder on games and movies:

"I’m still waiting for that game that is transcendent — an awesome movie and an awesome game and an awesome graphic novel,” he said. “No one’s cracked it! It would be nice if it had been cracked once at least.” The reason for that, really, is the fundamental disconnect between the activity of playing a game and the passivity of watching a movie.
...
It’s the interactivity. The outcome is not predetermined,” he continued. “Movies work on a slightly different level. You want to give up control in the movie, you want to be taken for a ride. You don’t get to decide. You are surprised emotionally by what’s happening. So it’s a quite different set of rules, but people tend to think they’re the same thing and they’re just not"

http://spinoff.comic...t-doesnt-exist/

He's not talking about DA2 but he makes some interesting points that relate to DA2, some of Mike Laidlaw's comments about wanting to be surprised by conversation choices and my (very) negative reaction to the conversation system in DA2.

I think Snyder seems to get what Laidlaw doesn't, when I'm playing my character I don't want to give up control, I want to be in charge of what they say, rather than being taken for a ride.

[edit: formatting]

for anyone who followed the Metal Gear series up to MGS4, that game is just that. Heavy Rain, like Fahrehnheit before it, breaks that mold between game and movie so this Zack Snyder is talking out of his ass.

[ZombiePowered]

Nomen Mendax wrote...

I don't really agree with you about my interpretation of what Snyder is saying, and I think you are missing the point about being surprised by the game.  I do want interesting and unexpected things to happen in a game like DA2 but I don't want to be surprised by my own character's actions.   Just to make this clear (I hope) I don't mind being surprised by the results of my character's actions, but I want to know what I'm deciding to do when I select an option. 

I think a lot of this comes down to how you play this kind of game.  For me, perhaps because of playing a lot of pen and paper games, I view the protaganist as my character in the same way that I play a character in pen and paper games.  Being surprised by dialogue choices is therefore a complete imersion breaker, whereas having limited choices isn't since I still know what my character is going to say.

Well, this is a practicality issue. The same thing is present in every RPG where you choose the dialogue. Writers can't accout for every possible way a player would respond in a conversation. There were instances in Origins where the Warden apparently meant something in an entirely different way than I did, and in ME2 I found myself doing renegade options like punching that reporter in the face without knowing  that I was going to punch her in the face. It's just an inherent problem with games right now: you can't make the player capable of doing anything and everything. It would take a major leap in technology for this to be possible.

[Arius23]

Maria Caliban wrote...

Nomen Mendax wrote...

Here's Zack Snyder on games and movies:

"I’m still waiting for that game that is transcendent — an awesome movie
and an awesome game and an awesome graphic novel,” he said. “No one’s
cracked it! It would be nice if it had been cracked once at least.”

Strange, I've never heard a book critic go "I'm waiting for the transcendent novel - one that's an awesome movie and an awesome novel and an awesome movie."

Nor do film critic ever praise a movie by saying it's a game, a novel, and a film.

Unless that critic is Uwe Boll

Modifié par Arius23, 25 mars 2011 - 04:16 .

[Nomen Mendax]

ZombiePowered wrote...

Well, this is a practicality issue. The same thing is present in every RPG where you choose the dialogue. Writers can't accout for every possible way a player would respond in a conversation. There were instances in Origins where the Warden apparently meant something in an entirely different way than I did, and in ME2 I found myself doing renegade options like punching that reporter in the face without knowing  that I was going to punch her in the face. It's just an inherent problem with games right now: you can't make the player capable of doing anything and everything. It would take a major leap in technology for this to be possible.

I'm well aware of the limitations of CRPGs but I'd maintain that the dialogue wheel with intentionally ambiguous paraphrases is a step backwards.  I may be mis-reading what Mike Laidlaw said in his interview but he appears to think that being surprised by what your character says is a good thing (and it may well be for some people). 

In other words it seems to be intentional with ME2 and DA2 to make your dialogue choices part of a cinematic experience where the player doesn't know what his/her character is going to say (or do in the case of ME2).  This is not where I want CRPGs to go.