Sacred_Fantasy wrote...
AAHook2 wrote...
The character...just disappointed me. I have no information to make decisions upon. I don't know what Hawke was like as a child. Hawke's name comes from her father, but I know nothing about this man. Nothing. What were the Hawkes doing before the Blight? What was their situation? Were they wealthy, poor...in political trouble, celebrated. Why do I care?
DA 2 is third person narrative. Hawke is third person character. You are not Hawke. BioWare character is Hawke. Emotional bonding such as care has minimal value compare to character interaction with the world. It's all about the story.
AAHook2 wrote...
In Origins I cared about my Warden. I cared about his companions. I cared about his story. Before his quest began, I knew something about his life. I knew what was at stake for him and it was part of the larger struggle of the narrative.
DA O is first person narrative. Warden is first person character. You are the warden. Emotional bonding is very high compare to character interaction with the world. It's all about journeying your fantasy personally.
AAHook2 wrote...
In Kirkwall, everything was disjointed. It all never came together and when the end came to try to bring some sort of structural breakdown, it just seemed like a decision at gunpoint. It was random and odd and I wasn't sure if I would care about everything that was asked of me at that point. Still, I was forced to make a decision. It felt unfair. I didn't feel like I came far or accomplished much of anything, or that what Hawke was doing was this monumental thing.
Cassandra is looking for Hawke because he or she is the only one to stop the world from tipping over on the brink of war. So Varric explains 10 years of events, and then I still have no idea how finding Hawke is supposed to stop a war. I'm not even exactly sure what this war is actually about. I have a general idea, but it is so indirect to what Varric has told, I'm not even sure what I think the war is about is actually what it's about.
There were some really nice bits of storytelling scattered about the game, but it simply never came together in a way that made sense or seemed complete.
Bioware took a big gamble by restructuring their narrative, and I think it was a poor decision. You can feel the momentum just swing. To turn so sharply away from the structure that the audience of the first game loved so much was rash and ultimately foolish, sad to say.
DA 2 make sense of third person storytelling. You are not meant to be active actor but rather as a puppet master who remotely control puppet called Hawke from afar either with controller or mouse and keyboard. The focus is about character interactivity with the story. And the story ONLY pinpoint most important event to Hawke in a manner of flashback.
Your point of view is irrelevant by third person player. And before you jump at me, I'm hardcore first person player.
Well, that's the shift isn't it? I understand this POV does effect the story. Still, you can take Alistair from Origins and essentially you learn about him as a character over a period of time even down to his childhood history from a third person POV. Or is this a 2nd person POV? He is telling you about himself via the Warden's conversations with him...Third person...
In any case, "care" is significant. Why read a story about a person you don't care about in some way? Why read a story about characters where key interactions and expostions are excluded? Basic storytelling relies on action and motivation resulting in consequence. If something happens about you are missing a key "why" in the action, you're left to poder that and it becomes a distraction. It's bad storytelling.
The fact that I know more about Alistair (a companion) and his history than I do about Hawke (the title's main protagonist) illustrates the point that the choice of narrative vehicle employed in Dragon Age 2 is flawed in comparison to Origins. If you're presenting a series that is supposed to build upon and coincide with each title, you expect the audience to follow some consistent line of storytelling. In transition from Origins to Dragon Age 2, BioWare decided not to do that. Why? What's the motovation? Change for the sake of? That's quite foolish. If the intent was to launch a new "Shepard-type" face of a series, I'd contend that Hawke is a disappointment. The point of Origins was to have the player build upon a character whose origin is established the elaborated upon throughout the game in an intriguing manner. What we had with Hawke was often uneven, disjointed and confusing by turns and altogether.
Take Alistair once more. In my playthrough of Origins he starts off as a new Warden, bastard son to the old King. He encounters a crisis which he needs help to resolve. He learns and grows, changes as this crisis unfolds to its resolution. His character is made clear; He's reluctant, hides behind sarcasm and humor, feels alone often and is scared to be alone. He has high feelings of personal loyalty to those who show him kindnesses, but can learn to respect people with strong personalities who try to do what is right, or at least what they can rationalize as being the right thing. He shies away from being the leader or the hero, yet he ended up as King of Ferelden in my game because he recognized that sacrificing what you want may be exactly what you need.
Now take Hawke. What do we know about Hawke based on what Varric tells us? We supposedly know what he/she did, but we are told up front that Varric as a source of information can be unreliable when it comes to the truth. This basically sets up a shaky framework from which we have to learn about the story in the entire game. What happens is that you get the feeling that what you are playing or seeing may not necessarily be true or real. It undermines the storytelling, and character development has that shadow of doubt which displaces the narrative. It really is convoluted when it doesn't have to be.
Again, why? Why did BioWare feel they needed to veer so sharply away from the storytelling structure that was so successful in the original game? It really is odd. I've read some interviews by the development team trying to explain what they were aiming for with this structure, but it ultimately comes out to it being a whim of the design and writing teams. It feels like they came across the idea of this structure and thought it was interesting, but didn't really sit down to full flesh out and examine the advantages AND limitations of doing the story this way.
If you think about it Dragon Age 2's structure is perfect for a murder mystery, where the case is well defined, there is evidence to pour over and a sort of dogged will to stick to one encompassing issue to resolve. But then Dragon Age 2 is all over the place with the plot. Side plots truly are side plots which often take the audience out of the main sorty line and jaggedly tries to reinsert them into some elusive main premise after the side plot is put aside for a time. Sure, the sidequests loosely have something to do with the main plot, but it's not put together in such a way that you can clearly see the pieces fitting together. It was uneven.
Regardless of what the POV means to the overall feel of the game and the story. There are some major questions to answer here in regards to the future of this title.
WAS this game meant to be an RPG? A Mystery? An action game? Bioware has to come to grips with the fact that the core audience has been confused about the studio's motivations and hence have had their character come into question.
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