351 réponses à ce sujet

[Funkjoker]

Zanallen wrote...

This is especially true if you played Darkspawn Chronicles were it is pretty much confirmed that, without your Warden, Alistair would have screwed everything up and lost.

I wouldn't say that. The player in-game is always a god unless the devs make it otherwise, however the majority of games cling to it. Harid critizised it a few posts back.

Alistair comes as far as the warden, but makes his own decisions. Furthermore, if Alistair was the playable Character in DC, he'd win.

If I was the Archdemon, the world would burn.

Modifié par Jean-Funk Van Damme, 13 juin 2011 - 08:00 .

[Guns]

T764 wrote...

I don't agree with with the claim that DAO had it's own identity, it's identity was the same "realistic dark fantasy" world as many other creations that make the same claim.

The DAO world would fit in with the D&D, Witcher and Elder Scrolls worlds with a minimal of change.

It's D&D without the D&D name.

And to Jean-Funk Van Damme, the jrpg stories maintain the same core because they are a story with a game tacked on, they are not about choice. Comparing a story intensive and linear jrpg to Origins is akin to comparing Origins to Oblivion. Jrpg's are closer to books or films than games.
Also many of the story cliches you complain about are at the core of the world of fantasy storytelling, without them you have GTA, a collection of people being muppets.

Edit: For naughty foul language.

Just because it had the same graphical style as D&D, Witcher, and Elder Scrolls doesn't mean it was a copy. It had its own unique story, world, characters and different gameplay than those. In fact pretty much the only similarity is graphics and boo hoo they're strived for realistic graphics. Better than Dragon Age 2's graphics that looks like they went to an art exhibit of hipster college kid who fail art school because "society doesn't get my passion". The more I think about it that kind of sounds like Bioware. They claim to have changed it because they wanted to make it unique and super hot, but in reality its just garbage. It was just embarrasing. Some of my friends, who knew that I played Dragon Age, downloaded the demo to DA2 and all told me how it sucked and I just had to sit there and nod. I'd rather it be classified with those good games than games with Dragon Age 2 graphics. Bioware needs to decide if they are making games for teens or for adults.

[Zanallen]

Bejos_ wrote...

You're confusing content and style, again. I give up.

Look, Matrix 1 is basically presented as a normal world with stylized combat with very little sci-fi. Matrix 2 ramps up the stylized combat to a new level while adding less realistic enemies (Albino twins who can turn to smoke?) and increasing the instances of sci-fi content. The virtual version of our world becomes more and more surreal. The third movie goes all out and changes the visual style into a dark, gritty scifi film. You have very little normal world content that you had in the first movie and instead it is all giant mechs and massive combat encounters. Both the style and the content change dramatically during the course of the three movies.

[Melness]

Guns wrote...
It had its own unique story, world, characters and different gameplay than those. In fact pretty much the only similarity is graphics and boo hoo they're strived for realistic graphics. 

You're missing the point. The graphics lacked a character of their own, you could look at an origins artwork and, without foreknowldge, mistake it for many other franchises out there, such as 'DnD'. What BioWare attempted was to make a style of its own.

Wether the new style is good or no, its an entirely different story.

[Funkjoker]

Harid wrote...

You aren't trained in the Dalish or the Dwarven Commoner Origin.  You are just. . .that damned good, so wrong again.

Furthermore you can't bring up a bunch of what ifs to prove your point.  The point is they aren't really any different.  If in Suikoden 2, your unit wasn't slaughtered en masse to set the precursor to war, you would probably have been on the opposing side for the entire game, and likely would not have seen combat.  If in Chrono Trigger your nerd of a friend made an invention that worked properly, you would not have gone on your adventure.  But that doesn't happen.  You can't speak of that happening as if it doesn't make you the chosen one.  You still are the chosen one, par for course in a Bioware title.

The Dalish instruct you with their ways and combat is one of them. You are regularily out to hunt.
DCO you fight for your survival. So you should have some skills. And yes, you are damn good, because you are the player.

The points per se may not be that different, but they all contribute to the credibility of the world.
In DAO you have four different armies helping you against the darkspawn. If it was a JRPG, the last dungeon you go trough would be high-lvl yellow darkspawn-monsters with the Archdemon in three forms at the end of it, without any ally army aiding you.

Modifié par Jean-Funk Van Damme, 13 juin 2011 - 07:55 .

[AngryFrozenWater]

Persephone wrote...

AngryFrozenWater wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

AngryFrozenWater wrote...

My main objection against the current DA2 combat isn't things like oversized weapons, but the jumping around the battlefield. It makes especially rogue characters hard to predict. You can position your companions on the battlefield, but they keep jumping to other areas in no-time. The same is true for the enemy side. I think that severely damages tactical gameplay. The flashy animations distract too much from the overview. The lack of a tactical view make things even worse. If Hawke is a rogue then I really feel like a frog and makes it hard to follow who is where. The waves of enemies popping up from thin air make the chaos complete.

I don't mind Rogues jumping 15 feet. I've done that before. Daggers don't weigh too much and considering Rogues wear light armor, or in Isabela's case just clothes, they don't have much weighing them down.

I do mind Warriors doing the speed dash to their enemies. That is unrealistic.

And some of the skills and talents are OTT. Mighty Blow should've just been the character slamming their weapon into the ground and creating a shockwave, or at most jumping 3 feet in the air, not 5-6 feet.

Ah. No, that isn't what I mean, sir. It's not the lack of realism that bothers me. It's the chaos it creates and characters become hard to follow on screen. It severely limits and damages tactical gameplay.

This I can understand. I am glad that Patch 1.03 slowed things down somewhat. I do love the fast pace, but DAII took it a bit too far with rogues IMHO. (Mage combat was spot on though) Where DAO was too slow & clunky for me, DAII (Esp. as a rogue) was too fast & hectic. Balancing it out more smoothly & giving the tactical cam back would solve all my issues. And keep the bloody mage combat from DAII!!!!

Thinking about this some more, Persephone... I do agree with most, however I didn't see you mention the jumping, but that still is a major part of the problem. I rather have none of that at all or have it limited by extreme long cooldowns.

Modifié par AngryFrozenWater, 13 juin 2011 - 07:58 .

[Bejos_]

Melness wrote...

Bejos_ wrote...

It would be interesting to have art critics give their opinions of both DA:O and DA2 independently, and as a franchise. I will bet $1000 that DA:O generally comes out a winner and that the "artist" (Bioware) is seen to have devalued the DA line by shifting their artstyle so much (and in such a sloppy, unfocused direction).

The Godfather 2 would not have been such a critical success if it did not follow so well in The Godfather's footsteps while simultaneously adding to the Godfather world.

Edit: Not that I'm comparing DA and The Godfather. The Godfather was boring.

Considering how pointless some 'art' out there can be, it would be a marginal improvement. To see some so called 'art critics' comparing two games but their opinion here would be pointless. What BioWare should do is find out wether the players like the new art direction or no, and not which side can best rationalize their concern.

If it was up to me, well, I'd opt for a middle ground. IMO, many things were improved since Origins while other not so much.

Agreed, The Godfather was boring. Especially when compared to DA.

I would not hold my breath for people to be able to rationalise their concerns over art. There are few enough people ITRW who can do that, that to expect otherwise of an online forum of gamers ... (And yes, I know very little about art; but even with what little I know, I know DA2 is a huge failure in the trail of DA:O.)

It's difficult to rationalise how an art style can add to or take away from your enjoyment of a game, anyway. And, for me, it's not so much about the art style. If they'd been blatant about where they were going with the franchise, and had really dedicated themselves to moving in this new direction, and had they not done such a horrible job on story, and relationships, and pretty much everything, I would have been fine with the game.

I can play a JRPG. I can even play a JRPG that is relationship-focused (although, really, that would probably take a way a lot of the enjoyment for me). What I can't play is an internally inconsistent slush pile of a mess, the anime-ness or non-anime-ness of the artstyle aside.

The artstyle should really be the least of the complaints. It's a bit like arguing about how an investigative reporter chooses to frame the news, rather than what information was left out of the piece or whether the piece went far enough in the right direction, or whether the piece focused on the right things.

[TEWR]

Harid wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

And what was so bad about SO4? I haven't played that yet sadly

These 2 characters and a dip**** main character i.e. basically why JRPGs get trolled by people.

What..... were...... those....


my God that's gotta be the worst voice acting I've ever heard. And the fact that what was chasing the girl in the second clip hardly looked menacing doesn't help the game either.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 13 juin 2011 - 08:00 .

[Wolfborn Son]

Jean-Funk Van Damme wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Suikoden
IV had you play as a soldier who went out on a few training missions
and ultimately bore a Rune that changed his life forever. For all of his
life he was a soldier, and then he becomes the hero.

I love the suikoden series. Unfortunately, there is no new game coming for the series atm :-(

And the evil guy from SII was really good!

The
problems is, no company has ever done such a thing -- setting out with a
HUGE party conquering the country in a good way. Good way, because
there's this stupid fate-thing again. It's more believable than stories
in other JRPGs, however, but the main chars and some others of him are
really lame.

If BioWare or CDRedProject ever did a suikoden, this
would be a hell of game for me. I'd like to build my castle and have
fun in it, while besieging enemy castles etc. and that as RPG and not
RTS. That would be really great ^.^

I'd love a Western-style Suikoden-ish game.  In fact, I think I could die happy.

Bejos_ wrote...

Wolfborn Son wrote...

T764 wrote...

So oversized and overstylised arms and armour are anime.
Warhammer is the most anime thing ever then.

 

Also, this.  Which is sort of ironic, considering the Warhammer setting pulls off "dark fantasy" far better than Dragon Age (and even the much worshipped Witcher) yet still cranks up all the much mangled aspects of DAII up even higher.  

Interesting, Son, that you decided to reply to this but didn't bother to include my reply to 764. One or two things do not an art style make. Put the OTT combat, the overstylised/overlarge equipment, characters' faces and the OTT animations together, and that makes a solid argument that DA2 is definitely anime-tinged, at the least.

Man, some people are so disingenuous. If you're going to be making arguments, at least have the decency to argue honestly.

My apologies.  I didn't see your response to him.  Of course, that doesn't change the fact that I don't really see that much "anime" or "JRPG" influence in DAII.   I won't deny that a lot of the game is over the top, sometimes insanely so.  That said, I see more "300" in it than I do "Final Fantasy".   In my eyes, the art and gameplay is still very much "Western".  But it isn't traditional at least as far as fantasy goes.

[Harid]

Jean-Funk Van Damme wrote...

Harid wrote...

You aren't trained in the Dalish or the Dwarven Commoner Origin.  You are just. . .that damned good, so wrong again.

Furthermore you can't bring up a bunch of what ifs to prove your point.  The point is they aren't really any different.  If in Suikoden 2, your unit wasn't slaughtered en masse to set the precursor to war, you would probably have been on the opposing side for the entire game, and likely would not have seen combat.  If in Chrono Trigger your nerd of a friend made an invention that worked properly, you would not have gone on your adventure.  But that doesn't happen.  You can't speak of that happening as if it doesn't make you the chosen one.  You still are the chosen one, par for course in a Bioware title.

The Dalish instruct you with their ways and combat is one of them. You are regularily out to hunt.
DCO you fight for your survival. So you should have some skills. And yes, you are damn good, because you are the player.

The points per se may not be that different, but they all contribute to the credibility of the world.
In DAO you have four different armies helping you against the darkspawn. If it was a JRPG, the last dungeon you go trough would be high-lvl yellow darkspawn-monsters with the Archdemon in three forms at the end of it, without any ally army aiding you.

You are missing my point.  The 'training' you get in those tales do not reflect how far you get as a Warden, it shows you to be the chosen one, just the same as the jrpgs you seem to disparage.  It's the same thing.  Especially the Dalish Elf Warden, (who wasn't even chosen for their skill), they were made a warden to save their lives, there are dozens of average wardens like that that go nowhere.

As for your second point. . .you can beat the Archdemon the same way you describe.  I know I did the first time.

And the Archdemon pretty much had 3 forms throughout the battle, which is just the same as a multi tiered ff boss.
First form was the start of the fight.

Second form was long distance war fare.

Third form was the same as the first but with constant reinforcements.

???

Modifié par Harid, 13 juin 2011 - 08:04 .

[Zanallen]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

What..... were...... those....


my God that's gotta be the worst voice acting I've ever heard. And the fact that what was chasing the girl in the second clip hardly looked menacing doesn't help the game either.

The game would have been so much better if you could have played as Crowe: www.youtube.com/watch

[T764]

@ Jean-Funk

The loss of the Grey Wardens is the cliche event designed to make you important, like becoming a spectre in ME1. Ostagar demeaned the strength and intelligence of the wardens so that you could be free of control.

The only jrpg i can recall where i start of unskilled is Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.
That particular story is very common in western fantasy too (wasn't there a D&D module designed to make a peasant a hero).

If i could kick idiots out of my party i would end up with to or three people travelling with me, regardless of where the game came from.

[Harid]

Zanallen wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

What..... were...... those....


my God that's gotta be the worst voice acting I've ever heard. And the fact that what was chasing the girl in the second clip hardly looked menacing doesn't help the game either.

The game would have been so much better if you could have played as Crowe: www.youtube.com/watch

I can't blame the voice actors, I blame the script and the voice direction.

Japan needs to realize that you can't have English  va's mimic JP voice actors, you need to let them do their own thing with the role.  We'd have so much better VA'ing if that was the case.  English voice actors CANNOT do that high pitched little girl voice that Japan seems to love,  it is impossible.  So because of that you get abominations like Sarah.

I dunno. ..what the **** Lymle was supposed to do.  Troll eardrums, I guess.

[Funkjoker]

Wolfborn Son wrote...

I'd love a Western-style Suikoden-ish game.  In fact, I think I could die happy.

lol. yeah, me too ^.^

Harid and T764, yeah, your points are valid. I see what you mean.

And the real point is, that BioWare executes these story events far better than the Asian. It's made believable and it works.

And to make it clear: Storywise, Kotor, ME, DA aren't very different from each other. Star maps, allies, some ueber-evil, anyone?

I think we have a conclusion here

[TEWR]

Harid wrote...

Zanallen wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

What..... were...... those....


my God that's gotta be the worst voice acting I've ever heard. And the fact that what was chasing the girl in the second clip hardly looked menacing doesn't help the game either.

The game would have been so much better if you could have played as Crowe: www.youtube.com/watch

I can't blame the voice actors, I blame the script and the voice direction.

Japan needs to realize that you can't have English  va's mimic JP voice actors, you need to let them do their own thing with the role.  We'd have so much better VA'ing if that was the case.  English voice actors CANNOT do that high pitched little girl voice that Japan seems to love,  it is impossible.  So because of that you get abominations like Sarah.

I dunno. ..what the **** Lymle was supposed to do.  Troll eardrums, I guess.

I agree. That's one of the reasons some other Japanese developed games are amazing. Like Kingdom Hearts. Nomura specifically picks certain people and they just voice the characters how they want.

SO3 was amazing in how it was handled for outside of Japan (imo). After hearing that..... abomination of voice acting, I'm wondering what the hell happened to Tri-Ace.

[Harid]

Jean-Funk Van Damme wrote...

Wolfborn Son wrote...

I'd love a Western-style Suikoden-ish game.  In fact, I think I could die happy.

lol. yeah, me too ^.^

Harid and T764, yeah, your points are valid. I see what you mean.

And the real point is, that BioWare executes these story events far better than the Asian. It's made believable and it works.

And to make it clear: Storywise, Kotor, ME, DA aren't very different from each other. Star maps, allies, some ueber-evil, anyone?

I think we have a conclusion here

Some one needs to whip out the Bioware storytelling chart.

One of the things I am afraid of, with DA2 failing is Bioware going back to that chart.  The problem is that if they do, they will soon find themselves in the same position those JRPG makers are, having to roll out Mass Effect game after Mass Effect game to keep afloat.

[TEWR]

Jean-Funk Van Damme wrote...

Wolfborn Son wrote...

I'd love a Western-style Suikoden-ish game.  In fact, I think I could die happy.

lol. yeah, me too ^.^

Harid and T764, yeah, your points are valid. I see what you mean.

And the real point is, that BioWare executes these story events far better than the Asian. It's made believable and it works.

And to make it clear: Storywise, Kotor, ME, DA aren't very different from each other. Star maps, allies, some ueber-evil, anyone?

I think we have a conclusion here

I wonder why Bioware doesn't make an open world video game.


If they made an open world Dragon Age where I could build a castle from scratch and have my own soldiers along with personal companions, I'd be happy.

The closest thing we got to that was Vigil's Keep.

[Zanallen]

Almost all Bioware games follow the game basic pattern. There is a flow chart lying around somewhere.

Here is an old one: media.photobucket.com/image/recent/jack_slack/biowaretropechart.jpg

There is probably a better one somewhere though.

Modifié par Zanallen, 13 juin 2011 - 08:20 .

[Funkjoker]

Harid wrote...

Some one needs to whip out the Bioware storytelling chart.

One of the things I am afraid of, with DA2 failing is Bioware going back to that chart.  The problem is that if they do, they will soon find themselves in the same position those JRPG makers are, having to roll out Mass Effect game after Mass Effect game to keep afloat.

Yeah, ME3: gathering allies and... well, you know the rest. But, as stated, the execution of this is well made and it sells. Your fear is valid.

[Bejos_]

Zanallen wrote...

Bejos_ wrote...

You're confusing content and style, again. I give up.

Look, Matrix 1 is basically presented as a normal world with stylized combat with very little sci-fi. Matrix 2 ramps up the stylized combat to a new level while adding less realistic enemies (Albino twins who can turn to smoke?) and increasing the instances of sci-fi content. The virtual version of our world becomes more and more surreal. The third movie goes all out and changes the visual style into a dark, gritty scifi film. You have very little normal world content that you had in the first movie and instead it is all giant mechs and massive combat encounters. Both the style and the content change dramatically during the course of the three movies.

Matrix 1 has very little sci-fi? The cookies, the navel bugs, the pills, the liquid mirrors, the fantastic combat, the telephones-as-modes-of-transportation, the artificial environment ... That's "very little sci-fi"?
Let's look at the Matrices, content aside.

The combat is pretty much the same throughout the trilogy. Sure, 3 is pretty much a live-action DBZ, but apart from that the fighting style and the way in which the fighting is filmed, remains essentially the same.
The colour scheme is essentially the same throughout the trilogy. There are greens, blues, reds, yellows and metals, all against stark blacks and whites. That's pretty much it. Despite this limited palette, the trilogy never feels bland.
There are persistent references to Alice in Wonderland, Greek mythology and philosophy, the Christian mythos, etc.
The wardrobe is pretty consistent throughout.
The world is internally consistent. This or that faction always has a problem with this or that person, or this or that group, or whatever. The rules that are set up in the first aren't destroyed in the second and third.
The octopodal or whatever robots (which can be likened to darkspawn ...) don't change their appearance. The look of the enemies doesn't change much between the movies.
Et cetera. Et cetera.

And this is from a trilogy that is considered by many to be a failure, specifically because 2 and 3 moved away from the core of what 1 was.

And DA2 is nowhere near as consistent in its style as The Matrix trilogy is.

This is what a consistent art style is about. It has very little to do with the content of the movies-- i.e. whether the characters are in the matrix or not, what kinds of robots there are, or the fact that the characters end up in the real world. The point is that it's shot in a very specific way, with specific lenses and specific pans and zooms, with specific special effects, with specific graphics, and that the world stays largely consistent, even though the story veers off and ends up disappointing.

Again, I'm talking about style, not content. (<--- I have no idea why this is bolded. I can't change it. I suppose it makes for good emphasis, though.)

[Harid]

Jean-Funk Van Damme wrote...

Harid wrote...

Some one needs to whip out the Bioware storytelling chart.

One of the things I am afraid of, with DA2 failing is Bioware going back to that chart.  The problem is that if they do, they will soon find themselves in the same position those JRPG makers are, having to roll out Mass Effect game after Mass Effect game to keep afloat.

Yeah, ME3: gathering allies and... well, you know the rest. But, as stated, the execution of this is well made and it sells. Your fear is valid.

I still have no idea why you are gathering allies in ME3.

I mean, the reapers are actually there.  Why the hell are you still dealing with infighting bull**** when galaxy destroyers are here destroying galaxies.  As much as I hate ID4, this game should be like ID4, you just going around wrecking ****. (Independence Day)

[Zanallen]

Harid wrote...

I still have no idea why you are gathering allies in ME3.

I mean, the reapers are actually there.  Why the hell are you still dealing with infighting bull**** when galaxy destroyers are here destroying galaxies.  As much as I hate ID4, this game should be like ID4, you just going around wrecking ****. (Independence Day)

I imagine that the individual races still don't believe the scope of the Reaper invasion and are more concerned with defending themselves than grouping together to defend the galaxy as a whole.

Modifié par Zanallen, 13 juin 2011 - 08:23 .

[TEWR]

Alistairlover94 wrote...

Zanallen wrote...

Almost all Bioware games follow the game basic pattern. There is a flow chart lying around somewhere.

But those cliches were done well. DA2's story is a barely coherent mess. It's just so disjointed.

While they may have been done well, I would love to play an open world DA game instead of a "Travel from Point A to B, back to A, over to F, back to B, and then to Point Zero."

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 13 juin 2011 - 08:24 .

[Harid]

Zanallen wrote...

Harid wrote...

I still have no idea why you are gathering allies in ME3.

I mean, the reapers are actually there.  Why the hell are you still dealing with infighting bull**** when galaxy destroyers are here destroying galaxies.  As much as I hate ID4, this game should be like ID4, you just going around wrecking ****. (Independence Day)

I imagine that the individual races still don't believe the scope of the Reaper invasion and are more concerned with defending themselves than grouping together to defend the galaxy as a whole.

But therein lies the trouble, places are already destroyed by the time reapers reach earth.  It would be foolish to deny help, and it's equally foolish that places that didn't have problems before are all of a sudden erupting into bedlam.  The galaxy is still open, and news is known on what these things are doing.  Furthermore it kind of aids to make ME2 pointless.

But I digress.  I don't want to side track this thread any further than it has been already.

Modifié par Harid, 13 juin 2011 - 08:26 .