178 réponses à ce sujet

[Rockpopple]

I agree more could have been done to make Kirkwall feel more like a city, but it wasn't completely dead.

Walking around Kirkwall I heard guards talking to each other about the day, I heard folks selling their wares. I heard townsfolks complaining about each other (Hightownies complaining about Lowtownies and refugees, Darktowners complaining about everyone else) in ways that were context sensitive (For example, in Act II people complained more about the Qunari, and in Act III people spoke about the tension between Mages and the Templars). In the Docks area I heard prositutes trying to chat up some of my companions, and my companions responding! There were Templars looking out for Apostates, dock workers complaining about work, Chantry priests trying to spread the word - it was far from a lifeless state.

Yeah, it could have been better, but find me a game that can't do better in future iterations. As it was, Kirkwall was only 100x more lively than any other city/area in Origins... which I keep comparing it to because that was the last game the team behind DA II did, and the benchmark to ultimately supercede.

[Kimberly Shaw]

Rockpopple wrote...

 As it was, Kirkwall was only 100x more lively than any other city/area in Origins... .

Good lord man. You had me until then.  No, Kirkwall was not 100x more lively than any other city/area in Origins.  I'll refute this with one example, making your whole sentence illogical:

Denerim alienage versus Kirkwall alienage.

Oh look, I win.

[Rockpopple]

Hm. Sure, okay, you can just claim you win... or you could - I dunno, show your work?

In the Kirkwall Alienage - which was smaller than Denerims, I admit - I heard elves talking about their work to each other, their sick loved-ones and how much problems it brought them when working for the humans. I heard them complain a lot about humans, actually.

In the Denerim Alienage, I pretty much heard nothing from npcs there, unless something was happening plot-wise. When something was happening - plague, marriage, what have you, the place was surely lively, I'll give you that.

And as I've said, I found all the areas of Kirkwall to be lively in terms of npcs walking around and saying stuff than any of the areas in Origins.

So yeah, Kimberly, you might want to brush up on your debating skills. Protip: declaring a victory does not make it so. To paraphrase Morrigan.

[Paper420]

I lol'd hard on the first page

[Rockpopple]

Also, Kimberly, not a few posts back you said something to the effect of "I'm glad civility has come to this thread again". Then you respond to my post - which didn't attack anyone or anything - as "illogical" and then you take on an adversarial stance by declaring you "won" when there really wasn't anything to win over.

So who's contributing to any percieved "incivility" around here?

Just puttin' it out there.

[Kimberly Shaw]

Because to me, and anyone I've ever discussed, the alienage is so obviously lacking in Kirkwall that I've never seen anyone even try to validate it's merits on it's own, nevermind in relation to the vastly superiorly portrayed alienage in Denerim. The argument is self evident to me. Much like saying "the earth is round, discussion over" when someone declares all planets are flat.

But you did defend yourself so okay.

First I'm glad you "admit" the unrefutable fact that Kirkwall's alienage is smaller than Denerims. I'll hope you "admit" the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, or that the Earth is round! You don't need to "admit" facts are true, but I'm glad you do. Keep up the good work!

In Kirkwall, the alienage is one small lifeless square. There are a few elf NPCs standing around. They say the same things for 7 years and conversations outside of a quest are non-existant. We're supposed to think the elves live in a shanty town, but it's clean and crisp, and looks, other than a very large tree, to be exactly the same as the rest of Lowtown. Forgive me if I missed something but perhaps I am too subtle.

If you walk around the alienage in Denerim for the first time, there is great contrast to the market next to it. People are hacking and coughing from the plague. You can talk to starving people. You can talk to dying people. There are elven shops you can actually buy things from, and people you can have conversations with. You can meet fiesty Shianni. It's large and looks downtrodden and out of repair. The orphanage, in particular, feels extremely creepy and dangerous and has been praised as one of the best quests/zones in Origins. You say that the area feels less lively when there are no quests going on, but there are often quests going on there---they are reacting to events going on in the game. IMAGINE THAT. Lively!!!  And if you are a city elf, then everything opens up that much more (but is an unfair comparison, even though having Merrill doesn't open up anything with the alienage other than her roomhouse).

On the subject of debating...
Your post makes a completely meritless "Kirkwall is 100 times more lively" statement which is disgusting hyperbole and baseless. Denerim's market has merchants that talk to you as you pass, it has the ladies outside the chantry doing their banter and praising the Maker, and nobles grousing about commoners just the same. Maybe less, maybe more. But it is not 100 times less than Kirkwall. Using ridiculous hyperbole like that and then saying I'm not good at debating?

Good grief again.

Modifié par Kimberly Shaw, 19 avril 2011 - 05:27 .

[neppakyo]

Sorry Rockpoople, Kimberly Shaw wins.

[MonkeyLungs]

Sometimes reading this website I get the feeling that I am watching a math teacher telling students three plus three equals six, even though two students fervently disagree one claiming that three plus three equals five and the other seven.

[Rockpopple]

Well I guess since both Neppakyo and Kimberly say so, that must make it so!  Doubly! 

Again, Kimberly, bring it down a notch. I don't know why you're getting all huffy and sarcastic. Did I kick your cat? I have a differing opinion from yours, you're acting like I'm trying to steal your junk or something. Re-lax.

Of course the Alienage is smaller in Kirkwall. In Origins the Alienage had a huge subplot to it, so it needed to be bigger. There was no such plot in II, so how big did it need to be? 

If you missed elves walking around and talking in Kirkwall, I'm sorry, but I don't see how that's my problem. They are there, that's all I can say about that. Should there have been an evolution of the place during the 7 years? Absolutely. All of the areas of Kirkwall should have changed more in 7 years. I agree that was a big missed opportunity.

But since you keep bringing up the Alienage as your only support that my assertion that Kirkwall is more lively than the other areas in Origins (I admit, only 100x was an exaggeration. I thought that would have been understood when I said "only 100x". If it makes you feel better, no it's not 100x more lively. Maybe... twice as much more lively.) I can only assume that's all you have to go on.

In which case I stand by my assertion that the Kirkwall - in terns of non-plot-specific NPC characters talking and walking - was more lively than any other area in Origins.

But not 100 times.

Sorry? Kisses? 

Modifié par Rockpopple, 19 avril 2011 - 05:38 .

[AkiKishi]

I think they are very similiar. But again it's the fact that you are stuck in Kirkwall rather than going to other towns and hearing other similiar conversations. This makes DA2 appear worse and in the context of a city based game, it is not good when you look at the AC and W2 videos.

[Rockpopple]

Agreed.

[Kimberly Shaw]

In which case I stand by my assertion that the Kirkwall - in terns of non-plot-specific NPC characters talking and walking - was more lively than any other area in Origins.

Now that's a debateable statement and worthy of a much less dismissive response. Your initial hyperbole was so over the top in it's praise of DA2 and bashing of DAO that it caused me to use the alienage as a point-set-match-refute to your argument and yes, bring it up a notch.

Gross hyperbole makes you (and anyone who uses it on either the DA2 rocks/sucks camps) sound much less capable or intelligent than I know you are, and puts you on a level I deem beneath you from previous posts.

So consider it brought down a notch again. Apologies from me.

I brought up the alienage in particular because I feel it was a great part of Denerim, and very well used (in particular the Orphanage). And in Kirkwall, it wasn't used at all. There were a few quests in the alienage, by the way. Subplots they could be called  even in that they are not main quests, although, not huge subplots. That said, what subplots in DA2 were huge? Not really any of them.  The whole main quest is sort of subplots in a way (3 major subplots one in each act and tons of side quests/companion quests).

We were told by people that the alienage was squalid, but shown that it was clean and identical to the rest of Lowtown. Show, don't tell, right? In Denerim we are shown it is squalid and plague ridden. It's a big difference in the immersion.

And yikes, we (and many others) are way off topic to the original post.

Modifié par Kimberly Shaw, 19 avril 2011 - 05:48 .

[TUHD]

... *sighs* Already, can the pro-DA2 trolls turn their volume down? Thank you very much! I had hoped to see this being a good discussion topic, but instead thanks to Dubya, Persephone and Rockpopple this became an flamefest again...

On topic: hm. 22 unique maps and 18 re-hashed. Could be worse, could be way better too... but it's just the setting that makes it looks like far more (and since the maps just don't have any general liveliness to it, except some parts of certain maps)

Modifié par TUHD, 19 avril 2011 - 05:49 .

[Rockpopple]

TUHD - the irony of you calling anyone else a troll brings a smile to my face.

Don't ever change.

[Shamajotsi]

There's a dungeon template that has not been mentioned yet - the Damk Cave + Rotting cave, which looks somewhat similar in design as the dungeon from the Act II Sebastian Quest.

[MorrigansLove]

Denerim was more immersive than all of Kirkwall, imo.

[Kimberly Shaw]

Both cities could have used a lot more ambient sounds I think. Baldur's Gate and Athlatka did this so well in BG1 and BG2, although they were 2D games so ambient noise of the city was one of the only ways they could give you the feeling it was a hustly bustly city you were in. But they were well done!

[MorrigansLove]

I agree, I always loved how much detail was put into Athlatka to make it feel like a real city, and immersive. Especially if you used magic, where the Cowled wizards would come after you and try to kill you, it just made me feel like the city was... alive.

[Logikal1]

neppakyo wrote...

Sorry Rockpoople, Kimberly Shaw wins.

[Dragoonlordz]

Persephone wrote...

Sabriana wrote...

Persephone, one party camp does not carry the same weight as a dungeon/sewer/warehouse/house reused ad infinitum.

It's simply just as illogical. Yet nobody cared.

It doesn't carry much weight with me to begin with, but then, I am still all for more varied level design. 

The major difference is in scale and scope. DAO had only a couple. DA2 was blatent in a vastly increased amount. If your going to compare DAO map reuse to DA2 your only in the end going to point out that DA2 was a much, much bigger reuser of maps than DAO.

Bethany/Anders saving you from slitting your own throat if you are not a mage.

I tested all variations of this myself and nothing you do will get you killed. I went solo as a Rogue just to be sure and still did not die. Which was a shame because given how average I thought DA2 was (personal opinion) and how pointless being irrelevant to the overall events (based on the nonsense of the ending), figured my Hawke would have prefered suicide, it's not like would of affected the story/events at all in grand scheme of things Anders would still of done what he did, the Templars and Mages would still have been at each others throats.

Same thing as the party camp in DAO looking EXACTLY the same EVERYWHERE. Logic and RPGs obviously do not mix well. You can forgive one or both or none, based on what lets you "live" with DAO or DAII.

I can forgive a game for doing it once, the same cannot be said for a game doing well over a dozen times.

Modifié par Dragoonlordz, 19 avril 2011 - 10:41 .

[Dragoonlordz]

Dubya75 wrote...

But don't you realise Persephone, people are not interested in fair critisism. The wave of "bash DA2" have swept them all away! They're doing it for the sake of it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Getting back to the OP, it is really about the recycled environments which have been discussed in great detail, many times.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
To put things in perspective, go visit Redclife Village from time to time during a playthrough of Origins and see just how static things can be...it's definitely not something new.

If your going to rely on bashing DAO to get the upper hand you will fail.

For every DAO failure there is 2 or more DA2 failures. See the above post I made.

DAO timeline spanned a very short amount of time unlike the (decade which wasn't mathematically accurate) in DA2. Again its about scale and scope if your trying to compare DAO to DA2.

Modifié par Dragoonlordz, 19 avril 2011 - 10:43 .

[22nd MadJack]

I do not understand why they simply did not create a toolset ala NWN with some standard area 'blocks' and fit them together to create different areas. Simple yet better than this garbage.

[Dragoonlordz]

I prefered Denerim to Kirkwall, partly due to the graphic (style) and the fact I felt a lot more interaction between my character and the NPCs. Now that could be relative to size of Denerim being smaller, but if Denerim was the size of Kirkwall with everything else same for both Denerim and Kirkwall (maps and graphics style and NPC interactions being more per <insert measurment / s²) then Denerim was far superior to Kirkwall if was same size area.

Modifié par Dragoonlordz, 19 avril 2011 - 10:43 .

[andraip]

nr. of reused maps: too many

[Alex Kershaw]

Persephone wrote...

Can anyone explain why the Party Camp in DAO looked the very same, no matter if I left Denerim, the Brecilian Forest or Orzammar?

Yeah, thought so.

I do not like the re-used enviroments much. But that dead horse has been beaten more than Izzy's delightful ass. XD

Because you know a game's bad when you can't defend it on its own merits. Anyway, nobody expects the game to have no repeated locations - the party camp was used so often that it simply had to be one location. I've completed DAO 3 times and not once before you mentioning that did I ever consider the fact that the party camp was always the same. In Oblivion, the amount of content is huge but the chapels in every town look the same. Is that so bad? It's nowhere near as bad as doing 50 side quests in about 4 locations - DA2 takes resource repetition to a whole new level and saying that all games do it is a terrible defence.

Modifié par Alex Kershaw, 20 avril 2011 - 12:12 .