191 réponses à ce sujet

[Luridel]

I think, for instance, that we became a bit fixated on the icons presenting "tone" and thus missed an opportunity to have them express emotion: a happy or sad icon, for instance, that would be permission of a sort from the player for us to have the PC react to something in a more emotional way (whereas normally we avoid going too far in that direction out of a sense of not wanting to impede on the player's territory).

I really, really do like this idea.

I think the only time the paraphrases made me want to run into a brick wall was responding to Viscount Dumar after his son's death. The good/diplomatic top option involved saying something negative about the Qunari, although my Hawke was well on the way to earning their respect and starting to support them. The middle option? At least it can't get any worse. Tonight, anyway. It's pretty late. Aaaaugh. No political-bias-free 'I'm sorry about your son's death' option.

[Foolsfolly]

David Gaider wrote...

krissyjf wrote...
I certainly was really hoping it wasn't the plan, but I kept reading in the various forums and boards that this might be( or might have been) the original plan to do just 3 games ( thus I started with "if") . Are you saying that this never was the plan? Because you would make me extremely happy if this isn't the case!

We've never said DA was intended as a trilogy, nor that DA was ever intended to follow a single character. In fact, I do believe we've said the opposite. I'm pretty certain that some people are referencing discussions about Mass Effect and assuming they also apply to DA.

As for what someone said about having so many unanswered questions-- yes, I definitely agree that you wouldn't want to keep posing questions without ever answering them. That would eventually get tiresome. I suppose it would be incumbent upon us, then, to start answering a few. Not on forums, of course, but in an actual game. That would be ideal.

Sometimes, sir, you make me laugh. A healthy from the stomach kind of laugh.

[David Gaider]

Torax wrote...
After thinking about it though. The allowing to highlight and see more of what is said could be a slippery slope if it's a long conversation with more than one talking. Would some then dislike not knowing the response they were given that is not shown? I'm guessing some that would already not like knowing now may also hate not being able to see the response from the companion to.

More than that. It takes out the fun of playing again to see what else is said. Like a surprise. You'd know in your first game everything you'd say. You'd just not be able to hear it.

Possibly, but if it's, say, something that only pops up after hovering over the option for a certain length of time it'd be the player's own doing if they "ruined the surprise", so to speak. I do agree that it might be a slippery slope in terms of expectations-- but if it wasn't that difficult to implement, I wouldn't see the harm. Those people who can't get past the paraphrases/voiced PC on a philisophical level will probably never be entirely happy, but if we can put in something to make it easier for them without impeding our intent it might still be okay.

It's a suggestion I saw on these forums, anyhow, that I've brought up with the team. We'll see if it's something we can actually do. In the meantime, refining the paraphrases and the icons would be more my department.

[Torax]

That or have it an option to turn on or off in the interface for pc version. If that is a capability. Something to consider.

[David Gaider]

forcythera wrote...
I think the only time the paraphrases made me want to run into a brick wall was responding to Viscount Dumar after his son's death. The good/diplomatic top option involved saying something negative about the Qunari, although my Hawke was well on the way to earning their respect and starting to support them. The middle option? At least it can't get any worse. Tonight, anyway. It's pretty late. Aaaaugh. No political-bias-free 'I'm sorry about your son's death' option.

Occasionally we run into a bit of a conundrum when it comes to the split between a "choice wheel" and a "personality wheel". The latter just has flavor options-- the three tones plus the possibility of up to two extras (ignoring investigates). The former, meanwhile, is intended for use when actual choices are needed... but we do occasionally use it as a sort of personality wheel when the intent is to express opinions sans tone. That, however, seems to muddy the waters a bit... not just for the player but for the writer-- as a choice line would automatically change depending on the dominant tone.

Thus we're often forced to include opinions on the personality wheel, essentially picking which choices to present and matching them as closely to a tone as we can (not unlike Origins, incidentally, as there you would also simply have whichever opinions we chose to include). I can't help but feel there's a better way to do this, however, without it becoming incredibly cumbersome to write.

At any rate, it's something the writing team has been smacking our heads against lately with the post-mortems. In case you're interested in hearing about the sorts of things we discuss.

[Kajan451]

David Gaider wrote...

Serpieri Nei wrote...
Well, its clear that choices made in the first game simply don't mater.

Because if not every choice matters, that means none of them do. Clearly.

Although, you most certainly tried to be sarcastic about this, the irony is quit on your part in this case, because you are quite right.

For all i care, it makes no differance if no choice matters or if only a random few do. Even though my choice of a red t-shirt might not matter in the overall scheme of things, you can be quite sure people wouldn't be indifferent to me wearing a redshirt 90% of my time when they suddenly start to rant about how evil red t-shirt wearing people are, and talking to me about how i am not one of those red t-shirt wearing lunatics.

My choice to pick the Bloodmage Speciality shouldn't be swept under the rug whenever i am dealing with a Templar or some other Bloodmage, leaving me little choice but to fling the same "bloodmagic is evil" line into their faces... or having templar complain to me about how "we" are different from those evil mages, while i am standing right next to them wearing a fancy robe and a staff... and been slinging spells all day around.

So yeah, you might consider it differently about how some choices are insignificant enough to matter.. but as far as i am concerned, either choices matter or they don't. There is no gray area in which i am content if only a random amount of them is accounted for. What you might consider insignificant could be very significant to me and my ability to accept the plausibility of the story.

[VeoLu]

David Gaider wrote...

VeoLu wrote...
I am in favour of Hawke having a voice, however, just in the future hope it' fits better to the emotional pretense.

Personally, I wouldn't mind adding some different icons. I think, for instance, that we became a bit fixated on the icons presenting "tone" and thus missed an opportunity to have them express emotion: a happy or sad icon, for instance, that would be permission of a sort from the player for us to have the PC react to something in a more emotional way (whereas normally we avoid going too far in that direction out of a sense of not wanting to impede on the player's territory).

As far as the paraphrases themselves go, I don't think we'll be getting rid of them anytime soon. I do think, however, that we can and should work on refining our rules for their use (coupled with the use of better icons). I wouldn't mind seeing an option for a player to hover over a response and get some pop-up text of the resulting wording-- but that might be something that only works for the PC, and not really my forte anyhow since it involves GUI magic. But I'd be in favor of it, even if it's just for those people who will never get past their mental block regarding the paraphrases.

I must be more of a fan than I thought, I was so giggly when I saw 'THE' DG had responded to something written by little ol' me.

Moving on, I was merely trying to outline that some of the dialogue being said didn't really deliver the (what I would call a summary) text that was given. And throughout the later portion of the game, it even felt more like 'sarcasm' was pretty much the "I don't side with either of you" option or neutrally being an ass. Sometimes it even felt like sarcasm was more diplomatic than the presumed 'diplomatic' choice, though it didn't deliver those results/reactions.

I suppose it could have been intended, and the icons DO feel more like they're throwing me off. I thought about it, and if they were removed altogether, it may not have confused me as much as it did. I reckon if they were removed altogether though, you'd have even more accusations of "Dragon Effect" going on.

I will admit, I went into the game thinking of the dialogue wheel exactly like ME, and to put them on the same scale now just isn't right.

Modifié par VeoLu, 10 avril 2011 - 05:54 .

[Brockololly]

David Gaider wrote...
Personally, I wouldn't mind adding some different icons. I think, for instance, that we became a bit fixated on the icons presenting "tone" and thus missed an opportunity to have them express emotion: a happy or sad icon, for instance, that would be permission of a sort from the player for us to have the PC react to something in a more emotional way (whereas normally we avoid going too far in that direction out of a sense of not wanting to impede on the player's territory).

I think the (potential) issue with that sort of thing is how far out the "emotion" would play out. As it would happen in DA2 where you select one paraphrase or icon, Hawke says his/her bit  but then Hawke comes back and does something else unprompted that went beyond a simple follow up- or was colored in such a way that left you facepalming.

The end game in particular, I think when you're trying to settle matters after Anders goes all Terrorist, I recall Hawke rattled off a bit on something like justifying why they should side with either faction- and he just kept talking, while I'm like "Ummm shut up now Hawke." Maybe that was tied to the dominant personality, I'm not sure. Or Hawke's speech at the end- I hated how he just launched into that all by himself. If the voiced PC is going to give speeches, I'd much rather they be ME style where they're broken up in chunks to allow for player input.

David Gaider wrote...
As far as the paraphrases themselves go, I don't think we'll be getting rid of them anytime soon. I do think, however, that we can and should work on refining our rules for their use (coupled with the use of better icons). I wouldn't mind seeing an option for a player to hover over a response and get some pop-up text of the resulting wording-- but that might be something that only works for the PC, and not really my forte anyhow since it involves GUI magic. But I'd be in favor of it, even if it's just for those people who will never get past their mental block regarding the paraphrases.

Eh... I really thought there were too many icons as is in DA2. I mean, really, how is a diamond indicitive of cunning? Not to mention some were defined rather broadly. Or something like the "lie" icon- without any non combat skills or stats tied to that sort of skill, how are you supposed to know it's chance of success? It definitely got to the point where I stopped caring halfway through and just went Alpha Protocol style and just quickly flicked through based almost solely on the icons- which for me at least takes a good chunk of fun out of the actual text of the dialogue itself.

But if that parpahrase/icon combined with the dialogue wheel and voiced PC is to become BioWare's  Universal Sacred Cow, well meh. My objections go beyond the implementation into how many resources the whole voiced PC /cinematic everything approach sucks up when they might be used elsewhere, but  so it goes I guess.

In that case, the best of a bad situation would be to maybe mouse over or right click the dialogue response to expland it into full text. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is doing something similar in that they have a more vague Intent based paraphrase, which can be expanded out into the full text. One of the issues with only having it show up via hovering or actively clicking however is that impedes the ability to sort of quickly compare and contrast the various full text options at a glance, like you can do in Origins where they're all laid out for you.

David Gaider wrote...
Possibly, but if it's, say, something that only pops up after hovering over the  option for a certain length of time it'd be the player's own doing if  they "ruined the surprise", so to speak. I do agree that it might be a  slippery slope in terms of expectations-- but if it wasn't that  difficult to implement, I wouldn't see the harm. Those people who can't  get past the paraphrases/voiced PC on a philisophical level will  probably never be entirely happy, but if we can put in something to make it easier for them without impeding our intent it might still be okay.

I don't think there is much of a surprise to be ruined, seeing as you should know what the PC is going to say, not just the vague gist of things. The surprise should come from the NPC's reaction to what specifically the PC said, IMO.

Modifié par Brockololly, 10 avril 2011 - 06:01 .

[Foolsfolly]

David Gaider wrote...

forcythera wrote...
I think the only time the paraphrases made me want to run into a brick wall was responding to Viscount Dumar after his son's death. The good/diplomatic top option involved saying something negative about the Qunari, although my Hawke was well on the way to earning their respect and starting to support them. The middle option? At least it can't get any worse. Tonight, anyway. It's pretty late. Aaaaugh. No political-bias-free 'I'm sorry about your son's death' option.

Occasionally we run into a bit of a conundrum when it comes to the split between a "choice wheel" and a "personality wheel". The latter just has flavor options-- the three tones plus the possibility of up to two extras (ignoring investigates). The former, meanwhile, is intended for use when actual choices are needed... but we do occasionally use it as a sort of personality wheel when the intent is to express opinions sans tone. That, however, seems to muddy the waters a bit... not just for the player but for the writer-- as a choice line would automatically change depending on the dominant tone.

Thus we're often forced to include opinions on the personality wheel, essentially picking which choices to present and matching them as closely to a tone as we can (not unlike Origins, incidentally, as there you would also simply have whichever opinions we chose to include). I can't help but feel there's a better way to do this, however, without it becoming incredibly cumbersome to write.

At any rate, it's something the writing team has been smacking our heads against lately with the post-mortems. In case you're interested in hearing about the sorts of things we discuss.

Who isn't interested? We're still hanging around the story forum of a game we've all beaten to our fill.

[Torax]

Brockololly wrote...

David Gaider wrote...
Possibly, but if it's, say, something that only pops up after hovering over the  option for a certain length of time it'd be the player's own doing if  they "ruined the surprise", so to speak. I do agree that it might be a  slippery slope in terms of expectations-- but if it wasn't that  difficult to implement, I wouldn't see the harm. Those people who can't  get past the paraphrases/voiced PC on a philisophical level will  probably never be entirely happy, but if we can put in something to make it easier for them without impeding our intent it might still be okay.

I don't think there is much of a surprise to be ruined, seeing as you should know what the PC is going to say, not just the vague gist of things. The surprise should come from the NPC's reaction to what specifically the PC said, IMO.

To be fair. His response was probably in part to the replay value for those that would wish to not read the paraphrase at all to be surprised in their next play through. If I could read every piece of dialogue from my character in the first play through? What am I playing it again for. I'd basically know the entire story in one sitting. Part of the fun with shepard was seeing for example every result for Tali's trial. If I knew every speach the first time. I'd have less reason to play it again if I decided on my first play through that 1 of the 3 seemed good to me.

Was just pointing out a drawback that some players could find who are less bothered with the current Paraphrasing, assuming a hovering full version was added without a toggle off in the Interface options maybe. So it's the player's decision to have it or not. Granted it's all still just a concept that would first have to be something easy to implement to be considered worth it to even add.

Modifié par Torax, 10 avril 2011 - 06:03 .

[Luridel]

David Gaider wrote...

forcythera wrote...
I think the only time the paraphrases made me want to run into a brick wall was responding to Viscount Dumar after his son's death. The good/diplomatic top option involved saying something negative about the Qunari, although my Hawke was well on the way to earning their respect and starting to support them. The middle option? At least it can't get any worse. Tonight, anyway. It's pretty late. Aaaaugh. No political-bias-free 'I'm sorry about your son's death' option.

Occasionally we run into a bit of a conundrum when it comes to the split between a "choice wheel" and a "personality wheel". The latter just has flavor options-- the three tones plus the possibility of up to two extras (ignoring investigates). The former, meanwhile, is intended for use when actual choices are needed... but we do occasionally use it as a sort of personality wheel when the intent is to express opinions sans tone. That, however, seems to muddy the waters a bit... not just for the player but for the writer-- as a choice line would automatically change depending on the dominant tone.

Thus we're often forced to include opinions on the personality wheel, essentially picking which choices to present and matching them as closely to a tone as we can (not unlike Origins, incidentally, as there you would also simply have whichever opinions we chose to include). I can't help but feel there's a better way to do this, however, without it becoming incredibly cumbersome to write.

At any rate, it's something the writing team has been smacking our heads against lately with the post-mortems. In case you're interested in hearing about the sorts of things we discuss.

Oh, it's definitely interesting. I'd been playing a predominantly (almost entirely) diplomatic PC up to that point, who had been trying to help the Qunari and the Viscount come to terms with each other and reconcile their differences. I'm fairly certain that to do this, I had been selecting primarily good/diplomatic options with both the Viscount and the Arishok. It felt like my diplomatic Hawke had no choice but to go against her previous point of view if she wanted to try and console the Viscount about Saemus' death.

[David Gaider]

Brockololly wrote...
I think the (potential) issue with that sort of thing is how far out the "emotion" would play out. As it would happen in DA2 where you select one paraphrase or icon, Hawke says his/her bit  but then Hawke comes back and does something else unprompted that went beyond a simple follow up- or was colored in such a way that left you facepalming.

The end game in particular, I think when you're trying to settle matters after Anders goes all Terrorist, I recall Hawke rattled off a bit on something like justifying why they should side with either faction- and he just kept talking, while I'm like "Ummm shut up now Hawke." Maybe that was tied to the dominant personality, I'm not sure. Or Hawke's speech at the end- I hated how he just launched into that all by himself. If the voiced PC is going to give speeches, I'd much rather they be ME style where they're broken up in chunks to allow for player input.

To be honest, I don't think there's much middle ground to be had with this. One of the advantages of a voiced PC is having them participate in the scene, after all, and attempts to try and appease people who are fundamentally opposed to the idea tend to weaken that advantage. I'm not suggesting it's always a good idea-- you don't want to take away player agency either-- but in some respects it's better to just own the style you've chosen rather than trying to have it both ways and ending up with the disadvantages of both as well.

So that's not ever something I'm going to opt to do-- which isn't to say that how we do it couldn't use some refining, definitely. Using a voiced PC properly isn't easy, and while it offers strengths the unvoiced PC doesn't have, it also has its own inherent weaknesses. Our efforts will be to mitigate those as much as we can without simultaneously surrendering the advantages for the sake of players who would really just rather have it be the other way anyhow.

David Gaider wrote...
Eh... I really thought there were too many icons as is in DA2. I mean, really, how is a diamond indicitive of cunning? Not to mention some were defined rather broadly. Or something like the "lie" icon- without any non combat skills or stats tied to that sort of skill, how are you supposed to know if it's chance of success?

There was no "chance of success". The tones were there to indicate your intent, not indicate the use of an ability or a skill. If the Lie icon appeared, it meant the PC would attempt to deceive, nothing more.

As for too many icons, I agree-- at least on the front of our attempt to try and further split the main triad of tones up further into "sub-tones". I don't think that was really intuitive for either the player or the writer. If there are icons, they should be pretty clear-- which a sad or happy icon would be, I think. I certainly don't think we need more nuance.

Modifié par David Gaider, 10 avril 2011 - 06:11 .

[Brockololly]

Torax wrote...
To be fair. His response was probably in part to the replay value for those that would wish to not read the paraphrase at all to be surprised in their next play through. If I could read every piece of dialogue from my character in the first play through? What am I playing it again for. I'd basically know the entire story in one sitting. Part of the fun with shepard was seeing for example every result for Tali's trial. If I knew every speach the first time. I'd have less reason to play it again if I decided on my first play through that 1 of the 3 seemed good to me.

In Origins at least the fun for me came from being able to see every ful text option for my PC, knowing that was the full text of what could be said in that given exhange with the NPC. Thus, I could see the totality of the complete jackass response to the snarky one to the saintly response. The fun there is being able to see all those responses and knowing what your PC is going to say and thus being surprised at how the NPC's respond.

So long as the angry dialogue gives a different response from the NPC as the nice response, you're not losing any of the surprise, from my point of view.

With something like Shep and Tali's trial, you'd have to keep full text broken up into chunks such that you didn't see the whole thing. I don't care about the NPC's reaction- that should be kept away from the player- thats where your surprise should be, I think, not from being surprised by what the PC says. So again, even if you saw the full text of Shepard's speech, so long as the Quarians reacted to each differently or reacted to the substance of each speech appropriately, then nothing would be lost I don't think.

[Paeyne]

I have only one burning unanswered question I would like to see answered.

Does Cullen continue with the Right of Annulment (or attempt to) after Meridith's demise?

If Hawke sides with the mages the answer could be reasonably no.  I doubt the Templars would want to deal with Hawke.  Although, after Orsino's stunt there is no guarantee of that.

If Hawke sides with the Templars there is a possibility that they may continue the purge.

I am just curious as to the state of the Kirkwall Circle after the games events.

[Torax]

Brockololly wrote...

Torax wrote...
To be fair. His response was probably in part to the replay value for those that would wish to not read the paraphrase at all to be surprised in their next play through. If I could read every piece of dialogue from my character in the first play through? What am I playing it again for. I'd basically know the entire story in one sitting. Part of the fun with shepard was seeing for example every result for Tali's trial. If I knew every speach the first time. I'd have less reason to play it again if I decided on my first play through that 1 of the 3 seemed good to me.

In Origins at least the fun for me came from being able to see every ful text option for my PC, knowing that was the full text of what could be said in that given exhange with the NPC. Thus, I could see the totality of the complete jackass response to the snarky one to the saintly response. The fun there is being able to see all those responses and knowing what your PC is going to say and thus being surprised at how the NPC's respond.

So long as the angry dialogue gives a different response from the NPC as the nice response, you're not losing any of the surprise, from my point of view.

With something like Shep and Tali's trial, you'd have to keep full text broken up into chunks such that you didn't see the whole thing. I don't care about the NPC's reaction- that should be kept away from the player- thats where your surprise should be, I think, not from being surprised by what the PC says. So again, even if you saw the full text of Shepard's speech, so long as the Quarians reacted to each differently or reacted to the substance of each speech appropriately, then nothing would be lost I don't think.

I understand. I'm just saying if an option like that implemented. That if it's possible leaving a check box to remove it. Since odds are the console versions wouldn't have it anyway if it was harder to implement for them. So it would allow the pc player to get that same experience if they desired. Make sense?

[Brockololly]

David Gaider wrote...
To be honest, I don't think there's much middle ground to be had with this. One of the advantages of a voiced PC is having them participate in the scene, after all, and attempts to try and appease people who are fundamentally opposed to the idea tend to weaken that advantage. I'm not suggesting it's always a good idea-- you don't want to take away player agency either-- but in some respects it's better to just own the style you've chosen rather than trying to have it both ways and ending up with the disadvantages of both as well.

Sure, but at least that last speech bugged me as it seems like HAwke just went on and on for a solid 30 seconds or so with no input. Thats likely because I really didn't play as only one "tone" consistently, so when it came time to have Hawke give his speech, hearing it all snarky all the way throughout, when I was mixing up the tones per the situations, made the last speech feel out of character. Basically, there were points in Act 3 especially where agency definitely felt stripped away from me. As an example of an ME speech with  player input, this is what I'm talking about as I'm sure you're aware.

David Gaider wrote...

There was no "chance of success". The tones were there to indicate your intent, not indicate the use of an ability or a skill. If the Lie icon appeared, it meant the PC would attempt to deceive, nothing more.

Fair enough...but dammit man, get some non combat skills and DIALOGUE CHECKS in the game! Persuade checks and speech checks were sorely missing and would liven up the dialogue a great deal. I mean, when you're engaged in dialogue as much as you are in a BioWare game, that should be another avenue of tangible player progression and character customization. What I'd give to see a Fallout style robust non combat skill system in a DA game^_^

Torax wrote...
I understand. I'm
just saying if an option like that implemented. That if it's possible
leaving a check box to remove it. Since odds are the console versions
wouldn't have it anyway if it was harder to implement for them. So it
would allow the pc player to get that same experience if they desired.
Make sense?

Yeah, that makes sense.

Modifié par Brockololly, 10 avril 2011 - 06:37 .

[VeoLu]

Brockololly wrote...

In Origins at least the fun for me came from being able to see every ful text option for my PC, knowing that was the full text of what could be said in that given exhange with the NPC. Thus, I could see the totality of the complete jackass response to the snarky one to the saintly response. The fun there is being able to see all those responses and knowing what your PC is going to say and thus being surprised at how the NPC's respond.

So long as the angry dialogue gives a different response from the NPC as the nice response, you're not losing any of the surprise, from my point of view.

With something like Shep and Tali's trial, you'd have to keep full text broken up into chunks such that you didn't see the whole thing. I don't care about the NPC's reaction- that should be kept away from the player- thats where your surprise should be, I think, not from being surprised by what the PC says. So again, even if you saw the full text of Shepard's speech, so long as the Quarians reacted to each differently or reacted to the substance of each speech appropriately, then nothing would be lost I don't think.

Both systems are successful in regards to DA2 and Origins. A lot of the people playing origins though, hated the fact that there was no emotion, no voice. Scenes that would have been made better by adding a little emotion or voice feel a little dull, and having 6 words of a sentence while your party member chats up a storm feels pretty uninvolving. To me, anyway.

In fact, the whole "Silent Hero" thing is getting rather tired. Whether or not it works is simply a matter of preference at this point, it seems. People who are opposed to the PC speaking aren't going to agree with it either way.  It just goes back to the old "You aren't letting it be MY character" arguments.

I'm not about to sit here and try and pick apart everything you say, of course, you're entitled to it. It'd just be good if everyone could see it from both sides. It isn't possible to please everyone.

Modifié par VeoLu, 10 avril 2011 - 06:45 .

[Foolsfolly]

Both systems are successful in regards to DA2 and Origins. A lot of the people playing origins though, hated the fact that there was no emotion, no voice. Scenes that would have been made better by adding a little emotion or voice feel a little dull, and having 6 words of a sentence while your party member chats up a storm feels pretty uninvolving. To me, anyway.

It never feels like the Companions are talking to the character The Warden, it always feels like they're talking through the character to the player. It was especially bad in Origins because they were explaining so many things that should have been common knowledge to anyone inside that universe. So the Warden felt extremely bland and only there as a player avatar.

I don't see Hawke as just a player avatar, Hawke feels more like a character. Not a purely defined character since there's three different personalities and then there's the possibility the player just mixes the choices whenever they feel like it.

That's how I felt, at any rate. Some people like the voiceless thing because they can project whatever they want. I find that mostly limited since it's not like you're coming up with the lines in either case. It's still whatever BioWare writes. But I prefer the voiced protagonist. They feel more apart of the universe rather than a part of me interacting with that universe.

It's a small thing but I think it's an important thing.

[DeathStride]

David Gaider wrote...
We've never said DA was intended as a trilogy, nor that DA was ever intended to follow a single character. In fact, I do believe we've said the opposite. I'm pretty certain that some people are referencing discussions about Mass Effect and assuming they also apply to DA.

As for what someone said about having so many unanswered questions-- yes, I definitely agree that you wouldn't want to keep posing questions without ever answering them. That would eventually get tiresome. I suppose it would be incumbent upon us, then, to start answering a few. Not on forums, of course, but in an actual game. That would be ideal.

I do so like the sound of that.

[Yrkoon]

David Gaider wrote...

As for what someone said about having so many unanswered questions-- yes, I definitely agree that you wouldn't want to keep posing questions without ever answering them. That would eventually get tiresome. I suppose it would be incumbent upon us, then, to start answering a few. Not on forums, of course, but in an actual game. That would be ideal.

 Oh yes.  Agreed.  And just hearing you say this makes me feel really good.

The  "always leave them wanting more" schtick  in story writing can only be used so many  times before it loses its "suspense" value and and starts generating  the complete opposite of its intended effect:  Apathy.

So far, Dragon Age is a fantastic franchise, story wise at least, but huge lingering  plot questions  were raised at the end  of  Witch Hunt, followed by   more huge lingering questions after DA2.    The optimist in me believes that this is all a build up to some  future DA title which will answer these questions, but if we don't get those questions answered in a future DA title, then all that suspense-building will have been for Naught...  I'll just move on to a different story, one that, you know.... delivers.

Modifié par Yrkoon, 10 avril 2011 - 08:04 .

[Yrkoon]

Foolsfolly wrote...

It never feels like the Companions are talking to the character The Warden, it always feels like they're talking through the character to the player. It was especially bad in Origins because they were explaining so many things that should have been common knowledge to anyone inside that universe. So the Warden felt extremely bland and only there as a player avatar.

That is exactly what it felt like.  But I don't see that as a bad thing.  I always "get into" my characters in RPGs.  They *are* me, so a game that feels like the NPC is really talking through the monitor screen to me is.... satisfying.

[VeoLu]

Foolsfolly wrote...

It never feels like the Companions are talking to the character The Warden, it always feels like they're talking through the character to the player. It was especially bad in Origins because they were explaining so many things that should have been common knowledge to anyone inside that universe. So the Warden felt extremely bland and only there as a player avatar.

I don't see Hawke as just a player avatar, Hawke feels more like a character. Not a purely defined character since there's three different personalities and then there's the possibility the player just mixes the choices whenever they feel like it.

That's how I felt, at any rate. Some people like the voiceless thing because they can project whatever they want. I find that mostly limited since it's not like you're coming up with the lines in either case. It's still whatever BioWare writes. But I prefer the voiced protagonist. They feel more apart of the universe rather than a part of me interacting with that universe.

It's a small thing but I think it's an important thing.

I can respect that. I've never felt that involved in the game myself, to actually feel like Leliana is really singing to me, or Alistair is really declaring his love.

Apologies, that may sound condescending, but was not my intent lol.

I think it is agreeable that BW attempted to find the median between the two, but I doubt many will see it as I do.

[Xewaka]

David Gaider wrote...
As far as the paraphrases themselves go, I don't think we'll be getting rid of them anytime soon. I do think, however, that we can and should work on refining our rules for their use (coupled with the use of better icons). I wouldn't mind seeing an option for a player to hover over a response and get some pop-up text of the resulting wording-- but that might be something that only works for the PC, and not really my forte anyhow since it involves GUI magic. But I'd be in favor of it, even if it's just for those people who will never get past their mental block regarding the paraphrases.

David Gaider wrote...

Torax wrote...
After thinking about it though. The allowing to highlight and see more of what is said could be a slippery slope if it's a long conversation with more than one talking. Would some then dislike not knowing the response they were given that is not shown? I'm guessing some that would already not like knowing now may also hate not being able to see the response from the companion to.
More than that. It takes out the fun of playing again to see what else is said. Like a surprise. You'd know in your first game everything you'd say. You'd just not be able to hear it.

Possibly, but if it's, say, something that only pops up after hovering over the option for a certain length of time it'd be the player's own doing if they "ruined the surprise", so to speak. I do agree that it might be a slippery slope in terms of expectations-- but if it wasn't that difficult to implement, I wouldn't see the harm. Those people who can't get past the paraphrases/voiced PC on a philisophical level will probably never be entirely happy, but if we can put in something to make it easier for them without impeding our intent it might still be okay.
It's a suggestion I saw on these forums, anyhow, that I've brought up with the team. We'll see if it's something we can actually do. In the meantime, refining the paraphrases and the icons would be more my department.

I think I was one of the individuals who suggested the dropdown of subtitles on hover over text. I find it the best compromise solution, as it allows people who subvocalize text and would have their experience diminished by the full text options to enjoy the game while also allowing the folks who want to know what their character will say to have and indication of such a thing.
I'd also like to ask you to clarify why asking for something as basic as "knowing what my character will say" somehow constitutes a mental block, considering that "sorta kinda getting the gist of something barely related to what my character will say, maybe" is not the same as "knowing what my character will say".

Modifié par Xewaka, 10 avril 2011 - 08:34 .

[Torax]

Xewaka wrote...

David Gaider wrote...
As far as the paraphrases themselves go, I don't think we'll be getting rid of them anytime soon. I do think, however, that we can and should work on refining our rules for their use (coupled with the use of better icons). I wouldn't mind seeing an option for a player to hover over a response and get some pop-up text of the resulting wording-- but that might be something that only works for the PC, and not really my forte anyhow since it involves GUI magic. But I'd be in favor of it, even if it's just for those people who will never get past their mental block regarding the paraphrases.

David Gaider wrote...

Torax wrote...
After thinking about it though. The allowing to highlight and see more of what is said could be a slippery slope if it's a long conversation with more than one talking. Would some then dislike not knowing the response they were given that is not shown? I'm guessing some that would already not like knowing now may also hate not being able to see the response from the companion to.
More than that. It takes out the fun of playing again to see what else is said. Like a surprise. You'd know in your first game everything you'd say. You'd just not be able to hear it.

Possibly, but if it's, say, something that only pops up after hovering over the option for a certain length of time it'd be the player's own doing if they "ruined the surprise", so to speak. I do agree that it might be a slippery slope in terms of expectations-- but if it wasn't that difficult to implement, I wouldn't see the harm. Those people who can't get past the paraphrases/voiced PC on a philisophical level will probably never be entirely happy, but if we can put in something to make it easier for them without impeding our intent it might still be okay.
It's a suggestion I saw on these forums, anyhow, that I've brought up with the team. We'll see if it's something we can actually do. In the meantime, refining the paraphrases and the icons would be more my department.

I think I was one of the individuals who suggested the dropdown of subtitles on hover over text. I find it the best compromise solution, as it allows people who subvocalize text and would have their experience diminished by the full text options to enjoy the game while also allowing the folks who want to know what their character will say to have and indication of such a thing.
I'd also like to ask you to clarify why asking for something as basic as "knowing what my character will say" somehow constitutes a mental block, considering that "sorta kinda getting the gist of something barely related to what my character will say, maybe" is not the same as "knowing what my character will say".

The mental blocking is probably refering to all the people who can't get past the fact that their character is speaking words they wouldn't or not saying what they would have wanted them to say. Make sense? The ones who wouldn't be happy no matter what the character is saying since it's not the words they had their head. Some can be like that. Or basically they want to treat it like Origins where the only thing stated is the paraphrase and nothing more.