109 réponses à ce sujet

[Ulicus]

FedericoV wrote...

So, if I understand, you're saying that it's nice to play an RPG without any kind of significant choice and consequence like DA2 because Bioware do not know how to expand on a feature they have decided to use (choices/consequences that carries over between games creating a continuity for each player) and/or have not the guts to tell the player base: sorry guys, but we cannot create a coherent game if we try to keep each choice/playthrough you made in consideration so we have to estabilish a canon, just like we did between BG 1 and 2.

No. What I'm saying is that NO choice made in one game that carries over to a sequel can ever be significant in any truly meaningful fashion. The most you'll ever get is a sidequest or a cameo out of it. Whether or not you did the Dark Ritual, or didn't, won't matter. The OGB will never threaten the entire world or become a messiah vital to the plots of future games... because he might not exist.

FedericoV wrote...
Having said that, in ME2 the choices of ME1 has zero impact, but at least the game has many RP opportunities on its own. DA2 has not any kind of proper roleplaying at all. There is zero interaction with the story. In that regard, DA2 is like the IWD of the DA franchise (as the Vault Dweller has said in his very interesting review of DA2).

I'm confused, here. In what way can you more directly impact the plot of ME2 than you can DA2? In what way can you more clearly RP Shepard than you can Hawke? I suppose there's whether or not you keep the Collector Base... but I don't recall saving/killing the Council making that much of a difference in ME2, overall.

FedericoV wrote...

Most important, the fun in DA:O's C&C was not the prospect of continuity for me. Those choices were fun on their own while I played and experience them and that's all. Yep, they could have even done more and that's what I hoped for DA2.

That's a fair position to take.

FedericoV wrote...

Saying that DA:O's choice has zero impact on your game because choices do not carry over and do not create a  significant continuity it's simply a wrong way to look at the issue. And saying that they do not change the nature of your game and that DA:O (a game were in the game final you could decide to sacrifice yourself for the common good or to create an abomination out of selfishness) and DA2 (a game were you have zero impact on the story) are the same, it's simply another form of denial.

But the only impact the final sacrifice has on the story is who becomes Warden-Commander of Ferelden.

FedericoV wrote...

Btw, I would not have a problem if Bioware would have decided to estabilish a canon. I was one of the few supporters of the canon option because I see the implication of the "no canon" direction (ie: no impact on the game and no continuity).

I was in the same camp, yeah. I thought it was much better to go with certain choices as canon and show how wildly different the world became because of them than it was to make all choices equally viable and thus render them effectively meaningless.

It's one of the reasons I loved the Legacy of Kain games. In the first game, Kain (voiced by Loghain Mac Tir, himself, yay Simon Templeman!) is given a choice to save the world or condemn it. In the sequel, they assume he took the latter option, and thus we can see just how important a decision it was. I never felt that the other ending was "invalidated"-- just that the sequels didn't follow on from it.

Heh. Makes me wonder if BioWare could have done alternate universe games if they'd wanted. The first sequel could have been set after the Dark Ritual ending and the second sequel could have been set after the Ultimate Sacrifice one. That'd have been interesting. (And given yet another meaning to "Origins" )

FedericoV wrote...
Bioware has decided to take the most difficult way to please the crowd (displeasing everyone in the process), now they have to deal with it. Not our business as players.

Judging by DA2 it seems they've taken a middle ground. The player can define themselves and interpersonal relationships, but the world is going to end up in more or less the exact same state regardless.

The fact it doesn't bother me doesn't mean I'm in "denial".

I mean, honestly, from where I'm sitting, the "lack of consequences" in DA2 seems to be a direct result of the majority of the fanbase wanting all their choices to be able to carry over from game to game. *shrug*

Modifié par Ulicus, 28 avril 2011 - 12:34 .

[FedericoV]

Ulicus wrote...

No. What I'm saying is that NO choice made in one game that carries over to a sequel can ever be significant in any truly meaningful fashion. The most you'll ever get is a sidequest or a cameo out of it.

We agree on that.

Whether or not you did the Dark Ritual, or didn't, won't matter. The OGB will never threaten the entire world or become a messiah vital to the plots of future games... because he might not exist.

But for me the significance of the Dark Ritual/Werewolf/Sacred Urn/Orzhammar quests were not their possible implications in the DA franchise as a whole or their "geo-political" scope. Its significance was that they were interesting and fun situation to play while I experienced DA:O and how they changed the nature of the game while I played them. You know, I hated DA:O's combat/mechanic/encounter design with a passion and the nice C&C were the only reason I could finish the game.

In what way can you more clearly RP Shepard than you can Hawke? I suppose there's whether or not you keep the Collector Base... but I don't recall saving/killing the Council making that much of a difference in ME2, overall.

In ME2 you can kill your entire crew (and kill yourself in the process) with your choices. I think it was a dramatic way to impact the story since the companions were the story at the end. There were a lot of conflict in the crew and it was really hard (and rewarding) to keep anyone happy. I was so happy to see Subject Zero and the entire Normandy Crew surviving the suicide mission becuase I have to work for it and it was not a decision of the writers. 

Imho, there is more roleplaying in the Renegade/Paragon Sheppard than in the Diplomatic/Smart/Angry Hawke because playing Shepard you see the effect of your choices and the gaming world (even if in a limited way) reacts to them. I mean, for example: the infamous Subject Zero/Miranda showdown. You have to be really really Paragon to convince them. While in DA2 there are not such situation and it's all based on a friendship/rivalry system that has not a lot to do with your charachter and that is open to any kind of exploit in terms of metagaming. It's just another form of "Morrigain disapprooves + 5" that is gained questing and that asks some effort on your part to go wrong. So, in Hawke's case the world does not give a s_hit for who you are (if not for the scripted events decided by the writers).

But the only impact the final sacrifice has on the story is who becomes Warden-Commander of Ferelden.

No, the impact of the final sacrifice is a) if you survive or not if the archdemon is really death or not c) who is the ruler of ferelden and only d) who is the new warden-commander. Wich are really big things in the context of the DA:O.

I was in the same camp, yeah. I thought it was much better to go with certain choices as canon and show how wildly different the world became because of them than it was to make all choices equally viable and thus render them effectively meaningless.

We agree even on the canon thing. I completely support your view.

The fact it doesn't bother me doesn't mean I'm in "denial".
I mean, honestly, from where I'm sitting, the "lack of consequences" in DA2 seems to be a direct result of the majority of the fanbase wanting all their choices to be able to carry over from game to game. *shrug*

I would like to share your view but it's not that simple. If the issue was fanfic, they could have leaved choice on the personal level (family and friends). They have completely removed C&C even on the private aspect of Hawke life if not for the Isabella situation at the end of Act. 2 (wich imho, is not a choice at all since in the moment that Isabella is present, it would be a nonsense to sacrifice her).

[SilentK]

Hmmm... I think that Feynriel, Ella and a couple of other people I've meet along the road are very interested in the Champion. Grace comes to mind as well. For me I guess it's about the journey. How do I feel that my Hawke end up coming to the decision to support either the mages or templars and what impact has the previous encounters taught her. In one play through Feynriel was made tranquil at his own request, poor guy. For the current Hawke is in Tevinter and I don't know if that will come back in a good or bad way come DA3.

I don't know, I feel that all my Hawkes have been very different characters and that has made playing them fun. Don't know if that's enough of a rpg for others but I'm happy =)

[ajm317]

FedericoV wrote...

In ME2 you can kill your entire crew (and kill yourself in the process) with your choices. I think it was a dramatic way to impact the story since the companions were the story at the end. There were a lot of conflict in the crew and it was really hard (and rewarding) to keep anyone happy. I was so happy to see Subject Zero and the entire Normandy Crew surviving the suicide mission becuase I have to work for it and it was not a decision of the writers. 

While I actually thought the suicide mission was pretty cool, I really just felt like it was a good ending/bad ending thing.  Like if you beat Sonic without getting all the Chaos Emeralds you get the crappy ending.

Imho, there is more roleplaying in the Renegade/Paragon Sheppard than in the Diplomatic/Smart/Angry Hawke because playing Shepard you see the effect of your choices and the gaming world (even if in a limited way) reacts to them. I mean, for example: the infamous Subject Zero/Miranda showdown. You have to be really really Paragon to convince them.

You can also talk them down if you're renegade.

Modifié par ajm317, 28 avril 2011 - 10:03 .

[FedericoV]

ajm317 wrote...

While I actually thought the suicide mission was pretty cool, I really just felt like it was a good ending/bad ending thing.  Like if you beat Sonic without getting all the Chaos Emeralds you get the crappy ending.

Probably you are right. But it works and it's rewarding imho. Moreover, two ending with many possible iteration are still more than one ending with a single meaningfull iteration (Anders).

You can also talk them down if you're renegade.

Yep, you're right. But (and correct me if I'm wrong) it was very easy playing a renegade charachter and very hard playing Paragon. And it played out quite differently considering your "kind" of Shepard.

PS: I thought about the greek tragedy/destiny thing after we chatted on the forums. Well, it could even work in the context of the game, but it should be something like the Aedipus story (the profecy/destiny that fullfills itself becasue of the action you have taken to avoid such fate). 

Modifié par FedericoV, 28 avril 2011 - 10:24 .

[Ulicus]

FedericoV wrote...

But for me the significance of the Dark Ritual/Werewolf/Sacred Urn/Orzhammar quests were not their possible implications in the DA franchise as a whole or their "geo-political" scope. Its significance was that they were interesting and fun situation to play while I experienced DA:O and how they changed the nature of the game while I played them.

Yeah, you said as much already. Like I said: that's fair.

FedericoV wrote...
In ME2 you can kill your entire crew (and kill yourself in the process) with your choices. I think it was a dramatic way to impact the story since the companions were the story at the end. There were a lot of conflict in the crew and it was really hard (and rewarding) to keep anyone happy. I was so happy to see Subject Zero and the entire Normandy Crew surviving the suicide mission becuase I have to work for it and it was not a decision of the writers. 

Imho, there is more roleplaying in the Renegade/Paragon Sheppard than in the Diplomatic/Smart/Angry Hawke because playing Shepard you see the effect of your choices and the gaming world (even if in a limited way) reacts to them. I mean, for example: the infamous Subject Zero/Miranda showdown. You have to be really really Paragon to convince them. While in DA2 there are not such situation and it's all based on a friendship/rivalry system that has not a lot to do with your charachter and that is open to any kind of exploit in terms of metagaming. It's just another form of "Morrigain disapprooves + 5" that is gained questing and that asks some effort on your part to go wrong. So, in Hawke's case the world does not give a s_hit for who you are (if not for the scripted events decided by the writers).

While you have a point RE: the squadmate deaths (which in truth I'd forgotten all about), I found the Paragon/Renegade system -- and the bars being tied to persuade -- in ME2 terribly, terribly constricting. If you chose to play a more "nuanced" Shep you were punished more than once for having not stuck strictly to one alignment. How is that conductive to roleplaying?

I mean, this was partially true of ME1 as well, but at least with that game I could keep doing NG+ until I had maxed out persuade and intimidate! 

I never felt punished like that in either of the Dragon Age titles. Both provided a better role-playing experience for me than ME2.

FedericoV wrote...
No, the impact of the final sacrifice is a) if you survive or not if the archdemon is really death or not c) who is the ruler of ferelden and only d) who is the new warden-commander. Wich are really big things in the context of the DA:O.

But not in the context of the franchise, which is what I'm talking about. And, come on dude, (a) and (d) are the same.

[Pandaman102]

Why do people keep comparing DA2's lack of consequences to ME2's lack of consequences? We've known from the start that ME was planned to be a trilogy, ME2's lack of apparent consequences was quite logically explained as a decision to prevent the starting state of ME3 from being too complicated, and ME3's announcement has reaffirmed the claim that the decisions from the first two-thirds of the overall story will have big impacts on the finale.

DA2, on the other hand, is a self-contained story about Hawke. It quite clearly isn't a continuation of DA:O's story (which is fine), none of the developers have even hinted the lack of story consequences was a decision to make importing to DA3 easier - and that would only make sense if Hawke was the planned protagonist of DA3 (which, again, none of the dev team have hinted at and wouldn't make any sense given the "one character, one game" format we've seen so far).

If you want to compare anything of DA2 to the ME trilogy, it would be to compare DA2's second act to ME2 - and that's clearly unfair given the differences in development time, but it's fair given the relevance to overall story.

Modifié par Pandaman102, 29 avril 2011 - 02:20 .

[FedericoV]

Ulicus wrote...

While you have a point RE: the squadmate deaths (which in truth I'd forgotten all about), I found the Paragon/Renegade system -- and the bars being tied to persuade -- in ME2 terribly, terribly constricting. If you chose to play a more "nuanced" Shep you were punished more than once for having not stuck strictly to one alignment. How is that conductive to roleplaying?

I mean, this was partially true of ME1 as well, but at least with that game I could keep doing NG+ until I had maxed out persuade and intimidate! 

I think the devs does not want Sheppard to be nuanced and that they wanted dialogues to have a cinematic spin. They do not wanted to allow metagaming to have the best outcome in any dialogue scene. And they wanted to improve the importance of the Paragon/Renegade system that was mostly useless in ME.

So, they make some choice that while restrictive as a whole, works really well in the context of the game they wanted to made. The storytelling is so fluid that the restriction in the dialogue system do not harm roleplaying at the end (imho). Moreover, in ME the premise is that you play the role of Sheppard and not of a generic space marine.

I never felt punished like that in either of the Dragon Age titles. Both provided a better role-playing experience for me than ME2.

Personally I never felt punished by a system if it does not allow me to freeform my charachter. I don't believe that roleplaying is freeforming. Quite the opposite. I think that limitations and restriction helps to express your version of the charachter. In P&P for example, I allways thoght that the best gaming experiences I've had were using charachters made by the GM and that it was more interesting and easy to roleplay in a given framework than in the void.

And mind, I do not think that in a single player videogame, to roleplay is to express opinions or a personality. It is so if it influences the game you are playing in a significant way (plot, storytelling, joinable or not joinable npc, setting, etc.). If they are just opinions... well, in many cases they are just a waste of time and resources. "Opinion are like assh*les" to quote a famous line of Fallout 2 .

I feel free too to express opinions and such with Hawke too. But the game does not give a sh*t about my opinions and my personality so at a point I stopped to care. You know, I was a Blood Mage and have an abomination and another elf blood mage as friends and no one seems to care... Form the middle of act 2 I just choosen the sarcastic reply waiting for the funny joke and for the inevitable battle at the end of the quest. Because, what's the point to "create your version" of Hawke if it does not change the course of game? It's like speaking to a mirror.

FedericoV wrote...
But not in the context of the franchise, which is what I'm talking about. And, come on dude, (a) and (d) are the same.

I'm not sure that they are the same. I imagine that your previos choice do matter in that regard but honestly I do not know (just to show you how much I care about continuity in the DA universe outside singular games... you know, it's not like finding out who are the parents of Jon Snow in ASoIaF ).

[DeadInHell]

I just finished the game for the first time, as I waited for the patch so that I could finish the game without the companion bugs that were standing in the way.

As a fan of many Bioware games, the story and pacing of Dragon Age II are just extremely dissapointing. There were a lot of great quests, some great characters and conversations, and the Origins cameos were at least appreciated. But...there was no story. Nothing really happens. You flee the blight, you go to kirkwall, you do lots of quests of varying size and nothing main story worthy really ever takes shape. None of the questions left from DA:O or even the questions introduced in this game are ever answered. The entire game seems like nothing more than a setup for yet another sequel. It's just getting frustrating.

In the past these "to be continued" endings came on the heels of some major resolution. Mass Effect, for example, was a complete story with a definite end, but obviously part of a greater whole. Dragon Age II certainly feels like part of a greater whole, but the story doesn't really stand on its own. The story hardly feels like it even warranted its own game, or needed to be told for any reason other than to introduce us to Hawke. Pieces of the story could have been developed into something great, but all of the interesting story elements have apparently been reserved for future titles. Instead of actually being able to delve into the things in the game that were interesting, such as Flemeth and her plans, the primeval ruins, the eluvian, the whereabouts of the warden and more importantly Morrigan and the importance of the child/your decision in witch hunt. Seeing as how Flemeth's image is currently sitting opposite Hawke in the background of this page as I type my post, I don't think it's a stretch to have expected her to actually play a role in the main game, not just be a marketing ploy. The Qunari are made a major story element but even the resolution of that story thread ends with nothing more than "we'll be back...in the...sequel...". We got only the smallest possible inkling of an insight into the Seekers in the final cutscene, which sets us up for the "real" story that may or may not even be addressed in Dragon Age 3 if this installment is any indication. Even the Champion himself seems to be of little consequence. I know that the Champion is important, and that his tale must be told, but only because Bioware has been telling me so in the game's promo material. Compared to the Hero of Ferelden, the Champion seemed to have a pretty minimal legacy within DA2. 

It really just seems like this game is the result of the Dragon Age series stalling for time. And that sucks, because I love this universe they've established and few games carry the amount of potential that Bioware's do. As it stands, the game feels unfinished (the technical issues, and egregious re-use of interiors and dungeons don't help this feeling). It failed to establish a meaningful cohesive narrative, added more mysterious plot threads while resolving none from the previous game, and ultimately felt like a glorified Prologue to what I imagine will be Dragon Age 3.

I do like the character of Hawke, and this game really should have been something immense, but the story just didn't materialize. Maybe coming DLC will give us a more fitting resolution to Hawke's adventures, and a better look into all those things that we actually wanted to see in the main game, but that really should not be the best thing I can say about the ending of a game. I fear Bioware is becoming too reliant on DLC to add closure to their games, allowing them to simply end 2/3rds of the way through and drop the final bit of the story on us for an extra charge several months down the road.

If major DLC is planned for this game, not just item packs, stores, or unrelated adventures, give us an Act 4. Give us resolution, let us actually act as Champion and take part in something meaningful. It won't change the fact that this game feels like an introduction to a future purchase, but at least it would make it something slightly closer to a whole.

Modifié par BeLikeHan, 29 avril 2011 - 10:20 .

[man giraffedog000]

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