1502 réponses à ce sujet

[FieryDove]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

fchopin wrote...
What about having a toggle to show the full text of what our character will say? is there any chance of this happening?

I'll consider it.

Please x 1 million with 1 zillion brownies as bribe. I will start baking...today.

[b1322]

Giltspur wrote...

b1322 wrote...

I must admit that now I am really confused about the conversation system. Yesterday, I got the impression from Mike that there would be additional dialogues at least at camp or some homebase and that it would be possible for examble to kiss my LI anytime I wanted but now it doesnt sound like that will be likely either. I know Bioware cant tell us too much of how it is going to be but I would appreciate just a little hint so that I will know if I will buy da3 or not, because if the dialogues are going to be limited like in da2 again, then I definitely wont be buying it.
I am sorry if the questions seems repeated and if I am too thickheaded to understand it all 


Edit: And I dont mean party banter as part of the dialogues but actually dialogues.

I think they're drawing a distinction between how in Origins you could have an "interrogation" with a companion at camp or out in the middle of the field on a quest.  (And in Origins they had "talking head" scenes where it's just Alistair talking with whatever background he's currently in.)  

And so they decided they didn't want talking head scenes everyhwere but instead wanting cinematic ones.  That meant having those "interrogation" or "small talk" conversations out in the field was no longer practical because cinematic dialogues have to take the setting into account.  They have to be staged.  So they stage can't just be anywhere.

So their compromise is to allow you have to have the small talk/chat/(kiss the LI) scenes at the home base (be that someone's house like in DA2 or like Camp in DAO) or perhaps even some other staged area like when your camp moves to Denerim or Redcliffe in DAO.  So that's where the DAO-style small talk/interrogation stuff is.  But you wouldn't be able to do it just walking around anywhere.  When just walking around anywhere, they're hoping to have stuff done by ambient banter.

So it breaks down to

"DAO-style" chats/interrogations at a home base/camp done in a cinematic fashion instead of a talking head fashion.  <-- So it takes the get-to-your-companions approach of DAO and mixes it with the restriction to home base for chats of DA2 with the bonus of cinematic instead of talking head staging.

And in addition to that they're trying to add ambient banter that you can take part in out in the field.  But there seem to be technical issues that have to be solved--so it's no sure thing.  It's just something they want to do.

EDIT: Ninja'd.  By someone reputable even. 

Thank you for explaining this, it actually doesnt sound so bad.

[KennethAFTopp]

Come now, if Laidlaw ate that many brownies he would look like a broodmother that's not productive.

Modifié par KennethAFTopp, 06 août 2011 - 06:16 .

[Mike Laidlaw]

tmp7704 wrote...

Couldn't this be solved altrernatively by having a clicked-on companion answer with a sort of "now it's not good time, let's talk later" bark in places/situations which were deemed to be "wildly inappropriate times" ... instead of removing the ability entirely because it might happen at inappropriate time? I mean, this approach is... well, it's like throwing out the baby with the bathwater, really

What you have just proposed is a solution in which you do not have full dialogs anywhere, becuase they would be inappropriate to have anywhere. We are effectively, then, talking about the same thing.

Remember, that is what's being asked for: complete freedom to talk to my followers whenever and wherever I want. I am saying no to that. What you have just proposed also says no to that.

To take a step back, if I have a frustration with interacting with the community, it's probably along these lines:

Poster: "I want to be able to do EVERYTHING."
Dev: "We can't do everything."
Poster: "But you could do everything if you just did X"
Dev: "Then we could not do Y."
Poster: "I don't care about Y / I don't value Y as highly as X / X would make the game better for me"
Dev: "Understandable, but we've chosen to consider Y a priority. That said, we will be doing Q, which goes some way to X."
Poster "Q is not enough / Q is a dumb approach / Q is not X, and I really want X"
Dev: "Understandable, but in the interests of giving people an answer, we are going with Q."
Poster: "Not enough! You do not listen to your fans!"

Now, this hasn't happened here, necessarily, but it does happen rather a lot, and is probably the the single largest cause of friction on these boards, as the discussion tends to become more heated, more counterarguments are presented, the devs are accused of not listening because the arguments presented make perfect sense to the presentor, and so on.

In this discussion, for instance, there is a continuum from, let's say DAII "only when the story lets you" dialogs and Origins "Anywhere, even when I'm trying to position my guys before combat, oh and Sten is standing INSIDE Morrigan, oops." But many of the arguments are demanding that it be the latter because the latter is (to the poster) evidently far, far better, even if it damages other, related, parts of the game.

We have suggested several elements of compromise already, but the argument could theoretically go on forever, since it's effectively, a debate. And that's fine, but there are times when I or a dev might come in to say "We're going to do X, and we appreciate the feedback, but the decision is made." The goal, of course, is to inform you guys where we're headed, not to be big ogres who make arbitrary decisions.

Some people react very negatively to that kind of response, but what I have overwhelmingly heard in this thread is that people want clear, concise communication. Sometimes clear concise communication will result in a response you do not want to hear, and I certainly could do without the conflict that sometimes erupts over decisions, but I think that in the long run I'd rather you folks know what we're doing over waffling around and saying an endless stream of maybes.

[Mike Laidlaw]

Andaril78 wrote...
 And we have big problems with your banter system. Why? Because the PC is almost 100% of the time in the front BUT the party banter is behind you.
Thanks.

I'm aware of this problem, and we will be looking into it.

[KennethAFTopp]

I love loot, but in DAII I usually ended up downloading a mod to be able to use a single weapon throughout the game and the same more or less for armors, I was rather annoyed with the idea of a Champion Armors as if the developers didn't want you to decide the visual look of your Hawke.
Secondly the weapon design and overall loot system was very oddly applied.

[phaonica]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

Let me try to give an example to help explain. If we allow conversation with followers anywhere, we have to write and create conversations that work anywhere. This means Merril can never glance at her book. Fenris can never throw a wine bottle. "but you could just write additional conversations for at the camp or home or whatever?" is a logical reply, and it's true, we could. Except that we have finite resources, so we cannot just keep adding more and more content. Therefore we have to make a decision in the balance of how those follower conversations play out.

Since we have to make a choice, we have chosen to give them places where they can be more interactive than not.

Hm. Fair enough. I suppose being able to talk to my companions anywhere isn't as important to me as just wanting to have more player-initiated dialog with them. Though I wonder if you don't have the resources to add "anywhere" conversations, where the resources for adding more "camp" conversations comes from.

BTW, as complaintive as I can sound, I do appreciate you devs talking to us. <3

[rak72]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

phaonica wrote...

The main reason I've seen against the "talking heads" was that it makes cinematic cut scenes difficult because of camera clipping. Fair enough, but every single conversation doesn't have to be cinematic. If the devs say, yes every single conversation *does* need to be cinematic, then what's up with the ambient banter? There's no camerawork, no gestures, no nothing, and that seems to be working just fine. IMO, the banter has shown great improvement from DAO to Legacy, and there is no cinematography involved at all.

Exactly the point. Banter presents dialog in one way. Cinematic dialog presents it in another. The two are consistent in the quality of presentation they provide: one is completely interruptive to free play and a different "mode" for the game, the other is layered cleanly on top of gameplay with minimal interruption except the interruption you choose to create for yourself by pausing to listen.

Let me try to give an example to help explain. If we allow conversation with followers anywhere, we have to write and create conversations that work anywhere. This means Merril can never glance at her book. Fenris can never throw a wine bottle. "but you could just write additional conversations for at the camp or home or whatever?" is a logical reply, and it's true, we could. Except that we have finite resources, so we cannot just keep adding more and more content. Therefore we have to make a decision in the balance of how those follower conversations play out.

Since we have to make a choice, we have chosen to give them places where they can be more interactive than not.

Making games is very much like playing them. You WANT all the spells in the mage tree, but the game limits you from having them. We WANT to give you guys things like talking anywhere, because there are some very cool things you can do with it, but we have budgets and time constraints, so we cannot do everything. Thus, like you build your mage with complimentary spells and a mix of buffs and actives, we have to build our game with what we feel will be a complimentary set of features.

And there are no XP exploits in game development.

Not every conversation has to be with flying wine bottles and reference books.  People just want something that isn't nessacarily earth shattering, just makes them feel like part of the group.  For example you can just have a small conversation asking Isabella," exactly how big was your boat?" 

Like Tmp said, if the time isn't right, they can just say, "now isn't a good time", and don't have them go into their long speaches unless you are in camp. The banters with no input from the player are all nice, but they really don't cut it.

You seem to think the cinematics are more important to the players than just being able to have decent interactions, but I don't see any threads about the wonderful cinematics, I see the threads about feeling lonely & leftout of your traveling party.

[Wulfram]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

What you have just proposed is a solution in which you do not have full dialogs anywhere, becuase they would be inappropriate to have anywhere. We are effectively, then, talking about the same thing.

No, there's a pretty huge difference between "Not in a few places deemed wildly appropriate" and "Only in specific predefined places"

[Mike Laidlaw]

phaonica wrote...

Hm. Fair enough. I suppose being able to talk to my companions anywhere isn't as important to me as just wanting to have more player-initiated dialog with them. Though I wonder if you don't have the resources to add "anywhere" conversations, where the resources for adding more "camp" conversations comes from.

It's not so much adding new ones as saying "if we can have 10, where do we have them?"

And to be clear, nothing Dave or I have said rules out things like the Awakening dialogs out in the world. Those are totally possible.

[KennethAFTopp]

Dear Mr. Laidlaw why didn't DA2 have the Heroic Statistics list as in DA:O that was a fun little tidbit where you could see the different stats such as the toughest kill Shale had was a Mabari warhound or somesuch, the Damage output for Alastair in the group was 17% and so forth.

[b1322]

rak72 wrote...

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

phaonica wrote...

The main reason I've seen against the "talking heads" was that it makes cinematic cut scenes difficult because of camera clipping. Fair enough, but every single conversation doesn't have to be cinematic. If the devs say, yes every single conversation *does* need to be cinematic, then what's up with the ambient banter? There's no camerawork, no gestures, no nothing, and that seems to be working just fine. IMO, the banter has shown great improvement from DAO to Legacy, and there is no cinematography involved at all.

Exactly the point. Banter presents dialog in one way. Cinematic dialog presents it in another. The two are consistent in the quality of presentation they provide: one is completely interruptive to free play and a different "mode" for the game, the other is layered cleanly on top of gameplay with minimal interruption except the interruption you choose to create for yourself by pausing to listen.

Let me try to give an example to help explain. If we allow conversation with followers anywhere, we have to write and create conversations that work anywhere. This means Merril can never glance at her book. Fenris can never throw a wine bottle. "but you could just write additional conversations for at the camp or home or whatever?" is a logical reply, and it's true, we could. Except that we have finite resources, so we cannot just keep adding more and more content. Therefore we have to make a decision in the balance of how those follower conversations play out.

Since we have to make a choice, we have chosen to give them places where they can be more interactive than not.

Making games is very much like playing them. You WANT all the spells in the mage tree, but the game limits you from having them. We WANT to give you guys things like talking anywhere, because there are some very cool things you can do with it, but we have budgets and time constraints, so we cannot do everything. Thus, like you build your mage with complimentary spells and a mix of buffs and actives, we have to build our game with what we feel will be a complimentary set of features.

And there are no XP exploits in game development.

Not every conversation has to be with flying wine bottles and reference books.  People just want something that isn't nessacarily earth shattering, just makes them feel like part of the group.  For example you can just have a small conversation asking Isabella," exactly how big was your boat?" 

Like Tmp said, if the time isn't right, they can just say, "now isn't a good time", and don't have them go into their long speaches unless you are in camp. The banters with no input from the player are all nice, but they really don't cut it.

You seem to think the cinematics are more important to the players than just being able to have decent interactions, but I don't see any threads about the wonderful cinematics, I see the threads about feeling lonely & leftout of your traveling party.

Well said

[Giltspur]

Cutlass Jack wrote...

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

fchopin wrote...
What about having a toggle to show the full text of what our character will say? is there any chance of this happening?

I'll consider it.

Toggle is fine. But don't get rid of Paraphrasing. Nothing is duller than listening to someone read off a line you've already read.

That said, I do think the paraphrasing needed to be clearer. If I'm not mistaken, DA2 took the Paraphrase choice, then checked vs. Personality before deciding on which line to use. Which sometimes meant the results confused people. I think the actual paraphrases need to vary a little based on dominant personality so they're more accurate.

I'm totally on the toggle bandwagon, but I see your point about not wanting to read and then hear.  I kind of want a "best of both worlds".

There's a toggle "Show Full Dialogue on Mouseover".  You check it.  Or maybe there's hotkey you hold that turns on the text preview.  Either way.  Now imagine a scene.  There's Merrill.  You think you possibly saw Merrill doing something suspicious. You mouse over "Enough of This" with it's hammer/direct icon.  You look at the top of bottom of screen you see in italics (preview text) that says "We need to get going. I don't have time to talk about this."  and the player says to himself (not in game...just to himself out load in front of his pc, as in personal computer not player character)  "Aw crud, Hawke.  I was hoping you were going to say 'Enough games, Merrill.  What
are you hiding?" and you pick something else since you want to try and
get something out of Merrill as opposed to just moving on and ignoring
what happened.

It seems that keeps the paraphrase for when it's good but allows you some freedom to get more info when the paraphrase has you feelin' confused.

[ipgd]

rak72 wrote...

You seem to think the cinematics are more important to the players than just being able to have decent interactions, but I don't see any threads about the wonderful cinematics, I see the threads about feeling lonely & leftout of your traveling party.

That's because people who are happy with the cinematics don't feel as compelled to make threads as much as people who have negative complaints.

For the record, you do not actually speak for everyone. I personally prefer the use of cinematics over being able to discuss the Qun in the Deep Roads. I actually don't really get why people care about this that much, but I also have the capacity to recognize that my brain is not everyone else's brain and not everyone likes the things I like and as such I don't really feel compelled to put forth my preferences as majority opinion or fact.

[MerinTB]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...
Some people react very negatively to that kind of response, but what I have overwhelmingly heard in this thread is that people want clear, concise communication. Sometimes clear concise communication will result in a response you do not want to hear, and I certainly could do without the conflict that sometimes erupts over decisions, but I think that in the long run I'd rather you folks know what we're doing over waffling around and saying an endless stream of maybes.

Nononono.

Please continue with the clear, concise communication.

I'd rather know ahead of time, as much as I can, what changes I can expect and how things will play out.  I'd rather adjust ahead of time and accept it before playing the game (I had been prepared for much of the "different" in DA2 and as such that stuff didn't bother me nearly as much as it would have had I just stumbled upon it in game) OR, worse case scenario, decide that the game really isn't for me...

than have you (or any devs or PR people or whomever) trying to spin things so as to not make me upset.

I think what you outline above is actually the best thing you COULD be doing in regards to the forums.

[ademska]

rak72 wrote...

Not every conversation has to be with flying wine bottles and reference books.  People just want something that isn't nessacarily earth shattering, just makes them feel like part of the group.  For example you can just have a small conversation asking Isabella," exactly how big was your boat?" 

Like Tmp said, if the time isn't right, they can just say, "now isn't a good time", and don't have them go into their long speaches unless you are in camp. The banters with no input from the player are all nice, but they really don't cut it.

You seem to think the cinematics are more important to the players than just being able to have decent interactions, but I don't see any threads about the wonderful cinematics, I see the threads about feeling lonely & leftout of your traveling party.

or, since a talking-head cutscene that consists solely of, "Sorry, maybe later," is completely useless and not particularly immersive, we can just not do that.

you don't see threads about cinematics because it was a positive trait to da2, and people don't, as a whole, make threads to extol a single seamless virtue of a game.

now, a more reasonable and less entitled compromise would be:

if you wanted to ask isabela about her boat, to integrate traveling dialogue like banter dialogue. no cutaway to talking heads, just above-the-body floating text with accompanying voice acting. instead of merely clicking on a character and getting a single comment, perhaps a short set of dialogue could trigger.

[craigdolphin]

Mike, if anything I've written here suggests I think you're being arrogant the I apologize: that wasnot my intent nor is it my opinion.

I guess we'retalk around in circles a bit, so this will be my last post on this topic. I don't understand why some conversations can't be unstaged and available everywhere, while others can be fully staged and available only at certain places. I think that would be the ideal compromise.

My perception is that the design team has ruled this out almost solely because the unstaged dialogs would be less in line with the desire to make the game more cinematic in all conversations?

If so, then that's your right of course. I am tring to say that I think that this decision is having a much moreserious downside than you may have realized. I urge you to reconsider that balance as it currently serves only to undercut player agency and emotional connection with the companions IMO.

I offer this because you said that this is the time for feedback and constructive comments. This issue matters to me a lot. It was also one of my wife's two main criticism of DA2. It hasn't been shouted from the rooftops like some other critiques, so I offer it in hopes it will help make DA3 a product that we might enjoy.

I am not saying this in anger, but in an attempt to wrest back the 'heart' from dao and preserve it forthe future. If you still think it a low prioritymatter then that's fine. We can agree to disagree. I will just be sad if it means I no longer feel a sense of travelling withfriends nstead of combat stats as I didin da2

it makes the journey feel pretty lonely. But thanks for listening regardless. All the devs get kudos for their participation in this thread as far as I am concerned.

[Alex Kershaw]

Is the tactical view from Origins absolutely gone forever more or is it something yet to be decided on?

[ipgd]

Giltspur wrote...

I'm totally on the toggle bandwagon, but I see your point about not wanting to read and then hear.  I kind of want a "best of both worlds".

There's a toggle "Show Full Dialogue on Mouseover".  You check it.  Or maybe there's hotkey you hold that turns on the text preview.  Either way.  Now imagine a scene.  There's Merrill.  You think you possibly saw Merrill doing something suspicious. You mouse over "Enough of This" with it's hammer/direct icon.  You look at the top of bottom of screen you see in italics (preview text) that says "We need to get going. I don't have time to talk about this."  and the player says to himself (not in game...just to himself out load in front of his pc, as in personal computer not player character)  "Aw crud, Hawke.  I was hoping you were going to say 'Enough games, Merrill.  What
are you hiding?" and you pick something else since you want to try and
get something out of Merrill as opposed to just moving on and ignoring
what happened.

It seems that keeps the paraphrase for when it's good but allows you some freedom to get more info when the paraphrase has you feelin' confused.

I'd rather just have better paraphrases than some sort of toggle, really. What about us neurotic people who hate hearing the line we just read repeated back to us but would not be able to stop ourselves from compulsively mousing over anyway, huh !?!?!?!

I think this sort of thing would still just lead to people skipping through player VA, which I believe is the thing that originally brought on the need for paraphrases. It solves the problems for the people who want the full line, but not the problems that necessitated the use of paraphrases in the first place (which may not be personal problems for you, but still problems the developers have to deal with).

Modifié par ipgd, 06 août 2011 - 06:47 .

[dheer]

Cutlass Jack wrote...
Toggle is fine. But don't get rid of Paraphrasing. Nothing is duller than listening to someone read off a line you've already read. .

I don't know if I could disagree more. Getting rid of paraphrasing would be a heck of an improvement. Nothing was more jarring than trying pick what my character should say and then getting something completely different.

[tmp7704]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

What you have just proposed is a solution in which you do not have full dialogs anywhere, becuase they would be inappropriate to have anywhere. We are effectively, then, talking about the same thing.

Remember, that is what's being asked for: complete freedom to talk to my followers whenever and wherever I want. I am saying no to that. What you have just proposed also says no to that.

I think we're effectively talking about quite different things, actually.

I was under impression what you talked about was reasons why the game couldn't have "talking heads" simple dialogues which could be initiated outside of follower's base/camp etc... at all. My response to it was a suggestion how this strict limitation could be maybe loosened, to allow for such conversations to some degree.

Your mention of "full dialogs" though now leads me to believe this isn't actually what you had on mind.. so i guess that's that. Yes, i understand that you can't have the "look! we are having awesome cinematics" kind of presentation outside of the designated places, that's not what i was asking for.

[rak72]

ipgd wrote...

rak72 wrote...

You seem to think the cinematics are more important to the players than just being able to have decent interactions, but I don't see any threads about the wonderful cinematics, I see the threads about feeling lonely & leftout of your traveling party.

That's because people who are happy with the cinematics don't feel as compelled to make threads as much as people who have negative complaints.

For the record, you do not actually speak for everyone. I personally prefer the use of cinematics over being able to discuss the Qun in the Deep Roads. I actually don't really get why people care about this that much, but I also have the capacity to recognize that my brain is not everyone else's brain and not everyone likes the things I like and as such I don't really feel compelled to put forth my preferences as majority opinion or fact.

I don't see the word "Everyone" in my post.  If you like the cinematics, start a thread about it.  Everyone ... excuse me, as many people as possable, should give their opinions, no matter what they are, so the deveopers can get a sense of what the community would like to see.

[Sylvianus]

I think that there is not really to complain. And I also see the cinematics as something positive.

The important thing is the opportunity to speak when we want. No need to wait every five hours again. If you just to be at home to discuss, why not ? As it is an active approach to the initiative of the player ?

It allows in the same time a certain facility for the dev, respect their project, and at the same time it follows a certain logic.

Modifié par Sylvianus, 06 août 2011 - 06:49 .

[seraphymon]

I agree the paraprhasing was done horribly in DA2 in my opinion. My first instinct would be to get rid of it. but as a comprimise a toggle that gives a player more of a choice would seem to please more people, than just one way or the other.