Sylvius the Mad wrote...
The capabilities were inevitable. their use was never mandatory.
You can't just ignore one design choice because its convenient to do so. One design choice drives another. If having the detailed rendering creates a problem, the ideal solution is to eliminate the detailed rendering. Creating a new problem to mask the old one just makes things worse.
If it's only a problem to 20% of the consumerbase, with the rest seeing it as advancement or indifferent, it's not a problem to BioWare.
The desired outcome isn't reelvant. What matters is the desired expression. If I'm controlling the character, I want him to say things that suit him. Whether those things produce the outcome he wants (after all, it's his preferences that matter, not mine) should be decided by the game, not by me.
How odd. So even if the outcomes were all the same, regardless of dialogue choice, as long as the dialogue choice is fully elucidated, you're fine? Curious.
I insist that the previous games implied no tone.
I don't really want to pull out my "implication doesn't exist" essay.
Well, that's a good thing. You're wrong on both counts to me, so I wouldn't read them.
The DA2 system has nothing at all to do with the basics of interpersonal communication. The old system mimicked interpersonal communication brilliantly.
Except intonation of the delivered lines and usually facial expressions. The latter forms an entire core of non-verbal communication, and the former holds more weight than the words themselves, depending on the society you're in.
If the consumers want to roleplay a character, then they want the old system.
I think the consumers have already spoken. If the current method weren't favored, the old method would be outselling it.
It's the expectations of the investors that have changed. 15 years ago, games were highly profitable selling 200,000 copies.
Doesn't invalidate my point. Expectations have still changed, and the companies and technology must change to accomodate. You just happen to prefer the old system. BW may lose you because of it, but they will gain more in return.
Just look at the most notorious aspects of DA2 - it's not the VO, it's not the dialogue wheel, they're the repeated environments and the meandering story. If VO (or lack thereof) was important to BW's target audience, there would be just as much an outcry about it as there was when ME1 was released (which has since become one of the best Sci-Fi RPGs on many a list).
How many times did you play the game? Naturally if you play a character that BioWare foresaw then the cutscenes will work. But if you play repeatedly with the specific intent of playing significantly different characters, the game is guaranteed to fail.
The game has always failed like that. It doesn't matter which one you're talking about, there are restrictions due to budget and time. You couldn't be homosexual in Baldur's Gate, you couldn't play a Tiefling in NWN, your dialogue choices were
always limited to what the authors chose - regardless of the game.
As technology improves, it will accomodate (as best it can) the desires of the user. When A.I.-like programs are developed that can simulate complex situations on the fly, I'll be more than happy to play it and do something drastically different than the vanilla story.
Until then, if you're trying to say that DA2 is a bad RPG because its scope is limited by the imagination of the team working on it, I don't know what to tell you but - Yeah, that's how it works for every game ever made until it's modded by the community.
The characters and story hit my character emotionally. Playing my character invests me intellectually. That's all an RPG can ever do, and that's all I want from it. But if I'm not controlling the character, then I have no idea how he's reacting to the characters and story.
You have my sympathies.
I despise action combat. Having player reflexes determine in-game outcomes is antithetical to the RPG. Under no circumstances is that acceptable (one of many reasons I cannot stand ME2). But I take your point. For that experience, I can play Alpha Centauri (which is a brilliant game, and I replay it fairly often).
Good luck.
Retour en haut
