180 réponses à ce sujet

[Aireoth]

It wasn't an RPG, DAO was, thus cognitive dissidence. It kept elements of the RPG genre, much the same as ME did, but DA2 and the ME series are more Action games with a side of RPG Lite. Don't get me wrong, I love action games, shooters, adventure, strategy, pretty much everything, I am a grand gamer, and spend way to much time/money on it (I should just get a job in the industry).

What I think most people are upset about and are having a hard time expressing is the loss of the RPG in the game. We where expecting another RPG, not a new Action game. You can argue that it is an RPG but most elements of that system are gone (skill/stat checks, non-combat skill/stat progression, art of conversation and manipulation) and replaced by click here to talk until we fight.

[Morroian]

Cutlass Jack wrote...

There is really no difference whatsoever between the Dwarven backgrounds and Hawkes. Hawke has much emotional weight for being against magic based on what it did to his family.

This.

I'm working on a warrior Hawke at the moment who will be exactly like this. And not only the affect on his family but looking at what all the blood mages do throughout the game.

[Morroian]

Visanideth wrote...

I think it's an issue of accessibility and gratification.

Let's make a quick comparison:

- DA:O allowed you to create your character
- Once your character was created, the dialogue options in the entire game were "fixed" (the way you played the game, aside from stacking points in Persuasion, didn't alter your options)
- you could go from ruthless to clowny in the same dialogue with no consequence or continuity
- the only factor influencing dialogue was your Origin story, ie character generation

DA2 has:

- dynamic conversations that evolve depending on how you play your character
- different events depending on the personality you developed for him
- different lines of conversation triggered by the same wheel entry depending on how you played your character till then (same dialogue, aggressive option, an aggressive character may get a different answer from a sarcastic one

Now, it's obvious that in terms of roleplay integration DA2 is miles ahead, not only DA:O but also the competition. The personality you give your character is completely woven in the narrative and gameplay.
Still people feel "chained" by playing Hawke and not "their" character.

The problem is that even if DA2 gives you more freedom and a much, much deeper system of roleplay interaction with characters and events, most players aren't willing to sink that deep. It's a too complex system for most, and it's actually a lot more immediate and acceptable to them to have a character the world doesn't react to, because it allows them to make him exactly what they want.

Basically, the Warden didn't exist in the game. Aside from his race, every NPC in the game reacted to all Wardens across thousands of different playthrough in the same way. By not existing, it could be anything the player wanted.

I think in the mind of many it's a case of "less is more". I violently disagree, and think that the "Hawke system" is the best thing Bioware did in years, but on this point I think I'm in the minority. It's a lot of effort and quality programming that is gonna be wasted on a huge part of the fanbase because they would rather not have a main character and play pretend with their fantasy than having an entire game working around the idea of roleplaying a character they didn't generate.

Fantastic post, articulating what I feel are the strengths of the game. Its just a pity BW didn't have more time to polish the game and create more environments.

[Scnew]

Hawke just isn't a very interesting character.  He doesn't really have any motivation most of the time, and it doesn't even really make sense why he does some of the things he does. 

[Aireoth]

I honestly didn't find the dialogue any more dynamic then DAO, you could still sass someone then be polite to them, and it didn't effect the outcome at all.

[Merced652]

planed scaped wrote...

I have been playing fantasy RPG's since 1997 and I love and much prefer voiced protagonists.

zomg!

1997? Come on bro, thats like a business advertising established 2007. 

[Morroian]

Aireoth wrote...

It wasn't an RPG, DAO was, thus cognitive dissidence. It kept elements of the RPG genre, much the same as ME did, but DA2 and the ME series are more Action games with a side of RPG Lite. Don't get me wrong, I love action games, shooters, adventure, strategy, pretty much everything, I am a grand gamer, and spend way to much time/money on it (I should just get a job in the industry).

What I think most people are upset about and are having a hard time expressing is the loss of the RPG in the game. We where expecting another RPG, not a new Action game. You can argue that it is an RPG but most elements of that system are gone (skill/stat checks, non-combat skill/stat progression, art of conversation and manipulation) and replaced by click here to talk until we fight.

Non combat skills are just a trope and persuasion is still there and in a form that I argue is more based around role playing than simply sticking points in a coercion stat and having highlighted options come up. You don't actually have to do anything under the DAO system except put points in a skill, after that the game holds your hand.

As for role playing in general the game is about creating, defining and role playing Hawke in how she/he responds to events around him/her and the companions. The game has no persistent plot throughout the whole game because it is about Hawke and how Hawke responds to events unfolding in Kirkwall. The Qunari and the templar/mage conflict are almost just a backdrop. Yet its not just an adventure game because you do get to define and role play Hawke, just as much as you did the Warden. If you don't do that its because you personally don't find the system immersive or you're playing the game wrong.

This is not to deny the issues in the game like the OTT re-use of areas or the lack of nuance in Act 3. But they don't stop the players from being able to define and role play Hawke.

Modifié par Morroian, 30 mars 2011 - 10:05 .

[Pyrate_d]

I don't think that the pre-created hero is necessarily a bad thing. I didn't mind playing as Shepard, but I disliked playing as Hawke. I think that this is due to motivations.

ME1 didn't motivate me at the starting--in the first 3 areas I felt pretty bored and somewhat directionless. Virmire was just incredibly well done though, and from Virmire onward, the story came alive and motivated me to play.

In DA2, there just wasn't a point like Virmire. I think they wanted the player to be motivated to improve the Hawke family's situation, but there wasn't nearly enough shown about the Hawke family (what was life like in Lothering?) to make it work.

I can already hear the people saying "you won't be happy without a SAVE THE WORLD PLOT to motivate you!" They're missing the point. Having a squadmate die on Virmire was just as motivating as discovering what was actually going on. DA2 had nothing like this.

Modifié par Pyrate_d, 30 mars 2011 - 10:06 .

[Nazo]

Merced652 wrote...

planed scaped wrote...

I have been playing fantasy RPG's since 1997 and I love and much prefer voiced protagonists.

zomg!

1997? Come on bro, thats like a business advertising established 2007. 

So you need to have been playing rpgs for a long time to have opinions worth listening to? I've been playing since Wizardry I on the apple IIe, and I like voiced protagonists. So I guess I win?

Although I should say *well voiced* protagonists, not just voice == better.

[Zhijn]

I like both ways (not that way!), what does that make me? =(

Modifié par Zhijn, 30 mars 2011 - 10:16 .

[Acet]

ME had more origins then DA2. You could be spacer, colonist, earthborn + ruthless, hero, sole survivor. I'm fine with playing human, but I'd prefer to have a choice for my human's origin.

[Acet]

DA2 = 1 origin, 2 status options (mage, non-mange)

[AedenHawke]

 One of the few reasons I play Dragon age and Mass effect, being able to make how I want my player to look, act like how I would act in that situation, wear armor that make me look good .  I do prefer making my own character.

[Nukenin]

Mavkiel wrote...

I have nothing against the character, nor the plot. The game however really was to short. The game breaking and quest breaking bugs also ruined my enjoyment.

Introducing characters with, "Remember me, we worked on job x together". Is also a big immersion killer. No, I dont remember them, because I never met the bloody person before. They pulled that at least three times.

Tell me about it!  I never met that Leandra chick before.  My mother?  Right!  And then that Bethany lass who insisted she was my little sister.  And that Carver bloke, supposed little brother.

I never met those grifters before in my life, and they're passing themselves off as my family?!?  I rage-delete the game every time.

[Cutlass Jack]

Funny. I found running into people I 'met' on my year working to enhance my immersion, not kill it at all. I loved it. It went a long way towards making Hawke feel like a part of his new home and that he's actually busy living a life between adventures.

[Abispa]

One the problems of having too many options (like DA:O and Neverwinter Nights) is that eventually the character is going have to have essentially the same adventure. Outside of the opening half hour, every Warden adventure presented the same challenges to each character. There is no way my Dwarf exile should have had the same obstacles as a my Elven ranger, but I didn't get mad because I understand the limitation of the video game RPG format.

I have beaten this game four times, and each of my Hawkes are different. Mage who wants everyone to love her, blood mage who is ticked off at the world, tough talking male knight who always starts a fight on the side of the little guy, and the rogue who is sick of her sister and all mages in general and hunts down apostates for Meredith.

One thing that Bioware did VERY well with this game is that all my Hawkes feel different thanks to the way the spoken lines reflect your choices and the way the story unfolds depending the choices I made. I REALLY like how my mage-hating character actually comes out justified in her position, when I originally thought she'd wind up being an evil character.

Modifié par Abispa, 31 mars 2011 - 02:43 .

[Sidney]

Abispa wrote...

One the problems of having too many options (like DA:O and Neverwinter Nights) is that eventually the character is going have to have essentially the same adventure.

Depth vs breadth. Other than the intro segment all the Warden's are exactly the same other than a couple of lines of dialog that don't go anywhere. DAO really did something unique with all those starting options but really in the end it didn't matter in the rest of the game.

Are there "fantasy" RPG'ers or more to the point enough to matter? Did people eschew FO just because of the "sci-fi" setting for example other than some other reason?

In the end most cRPG characters have some sort of  "background" and other limits. The Nameless One in PST,  the Bhaalspawn in BG1/2, Revan in KoTOR, The Vault Dweller (FO 1 and 2) for example are all one race/one background type characters in worlds where you could do more. I think most RPG'ers of all stripes liked/loved those games.  Hawke is no more limited than those characters in terms of being "your own".

[Blue Face Beast]

Cutlass Jack wrote...

cindercatz wrote...

You're missing the point I think, at least of my post. I understand and applaud what they did with the dialogue wheel. What they did with the set protagonist is another matter. The main thrust of the plot and everything Hawke does, including the Qunari, is either you go pro-mage or anti-mage. Hawke, the set character, has an apostate sister and was raised by an apostate father who was a decent dad, and that's canon. Now, stuck with that origin, the only answer that set character can ever make is "pro-mage", with a little wiggle room for blood magic. The only way for me to really take advantage of that nice wheel convo system is to *not* roleplay. Yeah I can change my tone, my demeanor, which is great, but the second I decide that all of a sudden the templars are right or the Qunari are fully respectable, I've broken my character and my suspension of disbelief.

Is that any different than in Origins, where every bit of the Dwarf Noble's background screams to back Harrowmont? While the background of the Dwarf Commoner screams to back Bhelen? Yet clearly people have found motivation to go the opposite path.

While there's certainly heavy background reason to go pro-mage in DA2, there is also motivation to back the Templars within the actual story itself. I'll avoid spoilers here, but one of the worst moments in your life during act II shows exactly what happens when you give mages free reign. Not to mention all the other moments of blood mages doing Very Bad Things. So not that hard from a roleplaying standpoint for Hawke to begin to think maybe the chantry is right on some things. My Hawke had serious doubts by the end of act II, even though I was a very pro-mage rogue at the beginning.

Of course I would be negligent if I didn't mention that some Templars also do Very Bad Things. There is evidence to support both sides despite the weight of your backstory. No suspension of disbelief required.

Man, you make a very convincing speech, i got to give you that.

I myself have a very hard time finding exactly what is wrong with this game. I know there is something in it that bothers me but i can't specificly point exactly what it is.

Like you said, on my first playthrough i kinda also had the conviction that i was becoming a mage supporter because most templars i met were acting like Gestapo fanatics... But again, during act 2, the more i was going on and the more mages i was interacting with, Anders becoming more and more crazy, what happened to mother and all that blood mage crap all around even affecting other party member like Merryl, i started to hate mages.

But suddenly i realize that all the world seem to have gone FUBAR and i hate both templars and mages equally. I seem to be stucked in a plot i dont want to be part of anymore because it seems like a no win situation. I like mages, i hate mages, i hate templars, i like templars... I do not want to pick a side, i want to be on both side, i just want to give up and GTFO of this crazy town.

I think im becoming mad and the only companions with me who seem to have some common sense are Varric and Aveline, i realize all the others are all freakin crazy and lunatics to a degree, cant be relied upon and im expecting any of them to betray me anytime soon! Wow, what a tragic story! The Champion of Kirkwall? No thanks, i really wish i had passed on that. 

Serously, back in the Deep Roads, Varric and i shoudl have just stacked the treasure, ran away to Orlais or wherever and never come back to that crazy Kirkwall timebomb  

[MelfinaofOutlawStar]

Ponendus wrote...

The thing that confuses me about DA2, is that it uses practically the same formula as Mass Effect, the cinematic, framed narrative, preset protagonist style. There is no doubt that Mass Effect was wildly popular with the RPG crowd and the sci-fi crowd (or at least I think it was).

So, assuming all this negativity on the forums is actually representative of how most people feel about the game, why didn't it work for DA2? Is it because those that are a fan of the 'fantasy' genre prefer to make their own character? Or because they prefer a more open world experience? Is it as simple as that? Does anyone else know why this formula may not have worked as well?

Because they changed the game. Mass Effect was tweaked but remained what is was. Dragon Age was a fantasy role playing game and then became Mass Effect. I like Mass Effect. I like Origins. No reason to buy the same concept in a different skin.

[Visanideth]

Dragoonlordz wrote...


If you ever posted anything on these forums which wasn't passive/aggressive and argumentative from the offset in reply to everyone else's comments I would probably die of shock tbh. <_<

I'm not much for circle-jerking - if I answer to something, it's usually to confront it because I disagree. I really can't see anything passive aggressive in my posts really... I'm not trying to instigate a fight or pose as a victim, I'm simply poking at all the "DA2 sucks because this this and that... and DA:O was so much better!".

If people should be allowed to criticize DA2 (and they should), it should be allowed to criticize DA:O, no?

Also, I think people needs to be shaken out of their rose-tinted memories over DA:O. In this very thread your memory is making up stuff about the game to fit your exaggerated vision of the game. I'm trying to make you snap out of it .

[fn_outlaw]

Who said that outside of the origin stories, the game was the same for everyone? There was much more choice in Origins. I won't even mention them. Have you played the game? I have a different experience everytime I play...yeah, in the end, you MUST fight the archdemon, but its the journey to get there that makes it unique. I don't spend hours of my day, just fighting the AD, that's barely a footnote in the entire game. It's all about the journey, man...

The original NWN wasn't too choice friendly, that's true...

I could honestly care less about what choices I have in creating a character, so long as I can forge this person's personality as I go. Changes are so subtle in DA2 that it's easy to miss any change that corresponds to a specific choice. I have noticed that Hawke's dialog/inflection changes depending on how often you specifically select a mood, but it's subtle. The kind of thing you would only notice on a subsequent playthrough and only if you're chosing a specific path (funny, nice, mean).

I think this divide we're experiencing is merely a difference of taste. You can say that this game is >>>> that game, but it's all just a matter of opinion.

For example, does anyone remember how buggy Origins was on release day? There are still user made fixes for certain things that Bioware never patched (looking at you, Awakening)...

A lot of the problem with DA2 in comparison, is that the differences are subtle in each playthrough.

[Sononabestia]

As stated above, it's not a problem of character.. Hawke was really well built, and the dialogue options weren't bad at all.
The problem isn't the main character: it is the side characters. Companions aside, people don't just wanna chitchat with you, everybody you talk with either offers you a service or gives you a quest. That felt like playing World of Warcraft, not an RPG.. And yes, I know it's Varric's story and he might have focused on fights and important choices, but then it's not Dragon Age anymore.. All the other characters were rather flat; also, I want to add that half of the people you speak with are blood mages.. The Templars must be terrible at what they are doing in the Free Marches! In Ferelden you really didn't meet so many blood mages!
Also, the framed storytelling method leads to a thing. You can't change the events. That's something any good RPGer would like to do, but in facts in DA2, everything happens anyway (example: what happens to Leandra). Another big problem is that sometimes, choices just felt forced (finale: I wanted to just take mah party, become a viscount and defend the fortress with the city guard).
Last thing: Act 1 was beautiful, with you wandering around and actually able to make your choices (sareebas quest for example); Act 2.. Again, some stuff just appeared too forced to happen.. Been there done that feeling.. Meeting at the end Orsino and Meredith (you wonder who the **** they were before just to find out that they are the super leaders of the city in the 3rd Act).. Act 3 was fail.

[Dark83]

fn_outlaw wrote...

Who said that outside of the origin stories, the game was the same for everyone? There was much more choice in Origins. I won't even mention them. Have you played the game? I have a different experience everytime I play...yeah, in the end, you MUST fight the archdemon, but its the journey to get there that makes it unique.

As a completionist and min/maxer, everything outside of the origins was the game.

I might even argue that the binary choice in Act 3 has as much an affect as the choices in DAO, which was purely on the basis of which army joined me. For at least the mage tower and the dwarves, the sequence is exactly the same, only affecting who you fight. In turn, it only affects who is dispatched with you in the final fight. The main quest line doesn't change. This is the same as the KotOR games, in fact - it's Bioware's signature, more or less. Heck, you can even see BG2 in that light. Each individual choice gives an illusion of choice, but had no actual consequences beyond that of the stronghold.

If we go to the minor quest lines, then how we dealt with (for example) the barmaid in DAO is as influential on the gameworld as how we dealt with the dreamer in DA2.

Aireoth wrote...

I honestly didn't find the dialogue any
more dynamic then DAO, you could still sass someone then be polite to them, and it didn't effect the outcome at all.

I think you missed
something.
If you're consistantly snarky, Hawke's lines and tone of the conversation change.

In both games all dialog options are open, and the outcomes end up more or less the same, but in DA2 which tone you consistantly take changes the actual conversation.


As an aside, I stil have Wizardry 8 installed. Six talking protagonists FTW.

[fn_outlaw]

So, what you're telling me is that, in DA2, you're allowed to choose who rules Kirkwall. But, given that can be construed as a "superficial" choice unless you play awakening, I will elaborate on the end result. You get to chose which armies fight with you, who defeats the AD, how the AD is defeated (2 options, that I know of). Since similar claims cannot be made of DA2...

Unfortuneately, the AD must be defeated, it is an eventuality that is unavoidable, but the game doesn't end with the AD's death. It, at least, shows the effects of choices you made durring the game...whereas,
Da2, doesn't. It does, however, show you just how superficial the in-game choices are.

Modifié par fn_outlaw, 31 mars 2011 - 03:30 .

[ReinaHW]

DA2 could have done with a good build up at the beginning, it was too sudden of a start and left you wondering who Hawke and Hawke's family were, having them just running from the Darkspawn without a build up before hand took away any feeling for that part of the game.

It would have been nice if the game had started off, after Varric is introduced in the intro, with opening in Lothering before the Darkspawn attack and it begins with a Templer looking at Bethany, clearly suspicious about her.
Bethany is looking back at him, trying not to let her unease get to her, so she approaches the Templer saying "Do you mind not staring at me?" "Sorry miss" Or something of that nature or Bethany having an argument with the templer. That's where either Carver or Hawke comes in, nothing too blunt though, but something like "Bethany, just ignore him, mother doesn't want us to pick fights with the Templer's"

After defusing a potential fight you get a character development angle where you learn the basics at first about the Hawke family and what's happening at that time, and the threat of the Darkspawn.
After an origins like opening where you learn about the basic background, the Darkspawn attack begins with scouts running into the village reporting that the Darkspawn are approaching.
While the Templer's run to the Chantry to get the clergy there to safety, Lothering's few remaining defenders try to hold off against the Darkspawn, but are cut down after a brutal fight.

Seeing that they don't have a chance Hawke insists with their family that they have to leave, so cutting their way out as best as possible they run from the village with as many survivours as they can rescue and then the game progresses to the point we saw in DA2 itself, with the survivours running for safety as Lothering burns.

Sadly though we didn't get a build up and it opened very poorly, it took time to really form a connection to Hawke because of the lack of a build up.