1502 réponses à ce sujet

[ipgd]

seraphymon wrote...

No offense, but i dont think the person was implying anything. Your assuming he did, but its all how you take what the person says. To me he is merly stating certain facts or observations. If people love something they would still mention it somewhere. Maybe not to the extent of a full blown thread, but in certain topics or reviews. There is no doubt there are people that love it. To me his argument is sound without speaking for everyone, and to me  doesnt come off as such.

Considering the level of hyperbolic ****** culture that surrounds the BSN it's generally counterproductive to take anything as indicative of anything around here.

[Ianamus]

ademska wrote...

how is this any different from the system in Origins? you're still relying on a finite script in both cases - the only difference between DAO and DA2 is that DA2's inter-party conversations were improved to give the team a more cohesive, interacting feel.

these are videogames, not tabletop games, and your options are always going to be limited.

Origins had a finite scrip, but I was always satisfied with the options given. I remember Zevran telling me about growing up in the brothel, Leliana telling me about Orlais, and being able to ask Wynne about how she got sent to the circle.

All I can remember Merrill telling me about is the mirror, somebody getting mugged outside her house, and some references to my elf warden. I never got to ask her about the trip from Ferelden, or how she became interested in Blood Magic. I just wanted more backstory explained through dialogue, rather than the codex entires on the characters and banter I missed and only found later online. 

I've never played a table-top game, so I have no idea what they're like. 

phaonica wrote...

I almost think that if a lot of the "investigate" options in companion conversations could be accessed as separate player-initiated conversations, it might work better. Then it'd be more like small talk and less like quest-dictated info-dump.

I know I didn't explain that well, let me try again:

Right now, say in DA2 you have a quest in your journal that Hawke thinks s/he should visit Isabella. So you go to the Hanged Man and have a single cinematic conversation with Isabella that includes several "investigate" question options, such as asking about her ship or Hayder or whatever. Once you leave this conversation, you can no longer ask her any of those questions. You have to ask them all at once in this one conversation.

What if, instead, the investigate questions (and associated cinematic conversations) were still available whenever you clicked on Isabella (until you actually asked them, of course)? It's exactly the same amount of information, except now instead of getting it all at once, you can ask these questions whenever you want (just not wherever, which ultimately, I'm okay with).

I like this idea, and it would have improved things. It would at least let me ask them things at my own pace. 

Modifié par EJ107, 06 août 2011 - 07:56 .

[Fallstar]

I am in the camp who preferred Origins to DA:2, but still liked DA:2 - it was a great game, head and shoulders above most modern rpgs - if you need a bit of persepctive go play two worlds.

And respect to Mr. Laidlaw for posting so much on this thread. It is really cool to actually have devs posting on the forums.

[TEWR]

All I can remember Merrill telling me about is the mirror, and some references to my elf warden. I never got to ask her about the trip from Ferelden, or how she became interested in Blood Magic. I just wanted more backstory explained through dialogue, rather than the codex on the characters and banter I missed and only found later online.

She says in banter the details of her trip and talks to Hawke upon meeting him about what he thought of Ferelden and Kirkwall.

As for blood magic and why she used it, she explained that as being due to the mirror shard needing to be cleansed. If she had buckets of lyrium lying around she could've used that, but she didn't, so she used her only other option. And it worked. The shard isn't tainted anymore.

[rak72]

I'm not going to keep going back and forth with you about it, ipgd. It seems like your assuming a lot of things about everyone here based on your experiences with BSN. I like companion interactions, a lot of other people do too. You like cinematic, that is wonderful. If other people like them too, super, let their voices be heard. No "hyperbole" intended.

[Wulfram]

I didn't like the Awakening system at all. It felt very artificial.

[Kothoses Rothenkisal]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

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 ../../../images/forum/emoticons/blushing.png

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.

I think to be honest that aslong as the commentary and discussion from both sides is kept relatively informal but in a good respectful tone that sometimes just knowing something has been set can be a good thing.  If its hugely unpopular people will be able to find a way to let you know and then atleast it is a design choice made knowing that in the way its described it has some negativity attached.

That said if you confirm a feature I think part of the time the issues are simply that people do not understand the implications of it, other times its that its not fully explained, I know a few games where feature sets have been announced that I have hated the sound of and it turned out they worked very well, and there are a lot of games where they announce things I like the sound of and end up hating.

Irrespective of popularity of choices, I think its great that you can come in here and make statements and people discuss them rationality without resorting to overly emotive responses, 33 pages of it and barely any trolling posts speaks highly of what "can" be done, lets hope that the people posting in this thread take that mentality into the rest of the forum threads that would be amazing.

[Ianamus]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

She says in banter the details of her trip and talks to Hawke upon meeting him about what he thought of Ferelden and Kirkwall.

As for blood magic and why she used it, she explained that as being due to the mirror shard needing to be cleansed. If she had buckets of lyrium lying around she could've used that, but she didn't, so she used her only other option. And it worked. The shard isn't tainted anymore.

That's the problem. I shouldn't have to rely on a specific banter to answer questions I could just ask the character themselves. I wondred for ages whether or not Merrill had actually learnt it from a demon or just from practice, and I didn't find out until I stumbled upon the Anders-Merrill banter on the dragon age wiki. 

In Origins banter added to the characters, but we didn't really learn anything (usually) that we couldn't ask the characters about ourselves. I think that an easy solution to the companion conversations in DA2 would have been to make questions like this avaliable at any time, but with no special cinematic animations.

Modifié par EJ107, 06 août 2011 - 08:08 .

[Giltspur]

Brockololly wrote...

But Origins more or less allowed freedom to talk wherever and I think people are curious as to what the rationale on the developer's side was why that system wasn't either tweaked and built on to fix the problems in it, instead of more or less ditching it completely and perceiving that enabling of player agency through dialogue at the expense of cinematics as something to be avoided in the future?

Thats my confusion with a great many of DA2's changes: Origins established that it was possible to have certain features or do certain things and come DA2, many of those features or systems were not tweaked or built on, but ditched for something completely different.

So as a developer, what do you think is the advantage of DA2 style cinematics over the freedom of a DAO-like system for the player? What prompted such a fundamental shift and why do you think it works better than DAO's system for the end user experience?

I think Origins was built on though.  When I played Origins I remembered thinking that these conversations with Morrigan would be cooler if they were staged in some particular setting.  Maybe I'm off in a forest with her as opposed to hanging out 35 yards from Oghren and Schmooples. Or it would be cool if I'd had one of these conversations about Duncan with Alistair while Alistair was holding something like a rememberance for Duncan while placing the shield you gifted to him somewhere.

Maybe Bioware thought something like that and ended up with "Cinematic dialogue".  But that introduced problems.  Still, they were building upon.  But building upon wasn't "Origins and more" it was "An improvement here and a regression there for an overall net gain...hopefully".  Now I don't think it was in fact a net gain in DA2.  And I"ll say why in upcoming paragraph.  But I still think it could be a net gain in DA3 and is worth purusing.  At any rate, I should clarify why I don't think they can't do "DAO and more".  DAO mostly used "talking heads".  Talking heads go anywhere.  They can be in camp with a tent in the background.  They can in Lothering with a hut in the background.  They can be in a cave with a dead, bloody spider corpse in the background.  And that's fine.  But if you want to stage it, then you have to have a stage.  So "chat anywhere" means staging that conversation on a hill, in front a tree, on flat land, with a goat, on a boat and...well, it isn't pratical anymore.   So the choices are 1) staged somewhere or 2) talking head anywhere.  I'll take "staged somewhere" because I think staging in DA2 was a good thing by itself and that the problem with DA2 wasn't that. 

So what was the problem with DA2?  Well, I liked how in Origins I could go up to Morrigan and talk to her about, for example, shapeshifting or Flemeth or if she's ever visited a city before.  I find out her opinions on Flemeth.  I find out that she doesn't understand eye contact.  I find out some generalizations she makes about men.  I feel like I"m getting to know her.  And while I felt like I got to know my companions in DA2, certainly Aveline and Isabela, over time, I still missed the DAO camp chats.  The homebase chats in DA2 were too streamlined to replicate that.  It was just one quest and one topic.  So it didn't feel like sitting down and having a conversation.  You know, you don't go to a friend's place, say fifteen words and then head out.  But in DA2 you do. So its homebase conversations at times paled in comparison to DAO's camp chats.

What I care about is being able to ask Morrigan about shapeshifting.  But what I don't care about is if I get to see Morrigan's bobbing head (talking head) talk about shapeshifting in front of a tent or in front of a hut or in front of dead, bloody spider corpse. 

So being able to talk to Morrigan about shapeshifting isn't a DAO or DA2 thing.  What's at stake is whether I want "bobbing head Morrigan" anywhere or "staged Morrigan" somewhere.  As long as I get to learn about Morrigan and have the same psychological depth, I'll take the latter.  (Bioware has already effectively said they want to bring back the sorts of topics people miss...that's why I'm focusing on cinematic/staging-vs-anywhere aspect.)

If that happens, the "anywhen but not anywhere" (staged/cinematic conversations in a set place) could achieve that best-of-DAO-and-best-of-DA2 goal that everyone is shooting for.

Modifié par Giltspur, 06 août 2011 - 08:08 .

[element eater]

Zjarcal wrote...Maker no! I don't want a set protagonist that will complain about everything. 

i just dont want a set protagonist

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
She says in banter the details of her trip and talks to Hawke upon meeting him about what he thought of Ferelden and Kirkwall. .

 and that is major issue information shouldnt have to be gained by eaves dropping on other people
companion conversation in da2 lacked any kind of depth and felt like little more then a sytstem for which hawke was assigned missions.

Modifié par element eater, 06 août 2011 - 08:14 .

[Aeowyn]

A mix of DAO, DAA and DA2 conversation would be interesting to see, although I understand that it's difficult to implement.
While I like the "being able to speak to companions anywhere" - system, the downside with that was that you ran out of dialogue very quickly, and then you spent half the game not having anything else to talk about apart from the generic "Tell me about the Grey Wardens, Alistair" or "Tell me another story, Leliana".
The DA2 conversation system helped with that by setting a limit to the amount of dialogue you could have with the companions in every act, but the travelling around to the companion's homes was very tiring. It worked better in ME2 where they were all on the same ship.
While the DAA system did feel artificial, it still gave a nice touch of having conversations whilst being out on the field. But like Phaonica pointed out, the markers were easy to miss, and I remember that I missed quite a few conversations because of that on my first playthrough.

Also, I have a small remark about the friendship/rivalry system. While I like the idea of it better than DAO's approval system, it felt that in DA2 the points on both sides were more spread out to quests rather than conversations. Being able to have limited conversations with my companions made it more difficult for me to get enough friendship/rivalry points through conversations, and considering what happens at the end of the game, I felt pressured to get full bars on either side unless I felt like getting betrayed/having to kill off my companions. Because of this I felt forced to bring certain characters with me to certain quests in order to fill up the bars, and sometimes it was a bit annoying.

Is the friendship/rivlary system something you're going to bring over to DA3?

Modifié par Aeowyn, 06 août 2011 - 08:26 .

[Sylvianus]

They made ​​a decision and they have already real ideas, inspired a little from feedback.

More that 15 pages that the discussion returns to exactly the same point, this point that is over since a long time. They repeated that a decision was made. Except to suggest something, I don't see what is the point to remain exactly on the same point.

It's worth it ? You want to scare them or what ?

Modifié par Sylvianus, 06 août 2011 - 08:18 .

[Dormiglione]

Mike Laidlaw 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.

Generally: Any time? Yes. Any where? No.

This would be a great improvement compared to the conversation system in DA2.

[TEWR]

EJ107 wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

She says in banter the details of her trip and talks to Hawke upon meeting him about what he thought of Ferelden and Kirkwall.

As for blood magic and why she used it, she explained that as being due to the mirror shard needing to be cleansed. If she had buckets of lyrium lying around she could've used that, but she didn't, so she used her only other option. And it worked. The shard isn't tainted anymore.

That's the problem. I shouldn't have to rely on a specific banter to answer questions I could just ask the character themselves. I wondred for ages whether or not Merrill had actually learnt it from a demon or just from practice, and I didn't find out until I stumbled upon the Anders-Merrill banter on the dragon age wiki. 

In Origins banter added to the characters, but we didn't really learn anything (usually) that we couldn't ask the characters about ourselves. I think that an easy solution to the companion conversations in DA2 would have been to make questions like this avaliable at any time, but with no special cinematic animations.

I admit it was upsetting to find out about the details through banter with Isabela and not between Hawke and Merrill.

However, the blood magic thing is something she tells the player when you ask her in her Act 2 quest. You don't have to rely on banter for that one.

Though I did like asking her about her life with the clan and her previous life with them when they weren't such pricks.

As for Origins banter, I remember that you found out a lot about Sten through eavesdropping and then bringing it up with him in conversation. I think the series should do that if you have to eavesdrop to find out things.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 06 août 2011 - 08:36 .

[b1322]

Dormiglione wrote...

Mike Laidlaw 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.

Generally: Any time? Yes. Any where? No.

This would be a great improvement compared to the conversation system in DA2.

Yes I think so too, I am curious though how much dialogue we will get and I am not so excited about da3 anymore. To me, what made origins so great was the ability to talk with the other companions whenever I wanted to combined with the romances, it made the game a different and special kind of game which stood out from the rest of the games out there. Now, it seems like they are going in the more "ordinary" kind of game direction, just my opinion.

[Sylvianus]

Dormiglione wrote...

Mike Laidlaw 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.

Generally: Any time? Yes. Any where? No.

This would be a great improvement compared to the conversation system in DA2.

This system will work fine for me.

It allows a certain logic, a certain freedom, a certain facility. ( fixed location, cinematics )

[thegoldfinch]

axl99 wrote...

Would it be possible to have scripted events where a follower actually asks to talk to you? A bit KOTOR-ish but you get the idea.

I was thinking about that the other day. KotOR did a lot of things that stuck with me. Maybe it was nostalgia, maybe it was good design. I need to play it again knowing what I know now. I do know that companions getting fidgety and awkward when they had something on their mind was cute. Someone earlier suggested barks for when they specifically want to talk to you in a private setting and, as long as that particular bark does not loop continuously until you initiate the conversation they are referring to, I would not mind it at all. Companions already did something like that in DA2, like when Varric suggests Hawke go speak to Bartrand when the player has enough money for the expedition.

I have to wonder about the quantity of the KotOR dialogue versus that of DA2. A niggling feeling tells me it's about the same. Though, something I remember being very special is that almost every time I leveled up in KotOR I got a new chance to speak to a companion. It was like a reward on top of already being awarded more skill points. I always got so excited to hear a new story from Candypants or Jolee. I would ideally like to see that in combination with this:

phaonica wrote...
I almost think that if a lot of the "investigate" options in companion conversations could be accessed as separate player-initiated conversations, it might work better. Then it'd be more like small talk and less like quest-dictated info-dump.

Exactly. You feel pressured to ask everything at once if you're only given one shot to ask everything you want to. And once you start dumping a lot of information on people, the natural response is for your eyes to glaze over and for your thoughts to drift to lunch. Drawing it out seems like the right idea.

ipgd wrote...
Just because they didn't set out to do so doesn't mean they can't refine their methodology. Player VA in general is a relatively new thing for Bioware's games, and something they can conceivably improve. There's a difference between a concept that is completely unworkable on a fundamental level and one that is just not executed as well as it could be, and I am of the opinion that paraphrases fall in the latter category.

I agree. I like the paraphrases and having a voice but they were sometimes unclear. A problem I had in particular was that I wanted to play a serious, no-nonsense character. With the red fist, I tended to get a mixture of rude, agressive, and the seriousness I desired. The gavel was specifically supposed to be serious if my memory is not being janky today, but the dialogue also sometimes came out as rude anyway. I think a specific response needs to be tied to one specific icon. Variances result in surprises and surprises in this department are not desireable.

phaonica wrote...
In the interest in giving feedback on out in the world Awakening dialog, the only trouble I had with it is that there seemed like there was a lot of companion character building that I missed because I didn't take them on a particular mission with me. If I didn't take a character with me, I might miss a conversation that gave them more depth, and then the cycle of me not taking them along and never knowing them just continued. If there is going to be location-specific cinematic conversations in the world, could there please be some kind of in game hint that you might want to take the correct character along on the mission with you?

I wouldn't have a problem with Awakenings type dialogue because it does make sense that a character would want to comment on a landmark or environment that is personal to them. I just wouldn't want to see the return of weird, nonsensical places to put dialogue. Like the infamous click on the bill board and get Oghren talking about his rash. I mean, that was funny, but... what.

Giltspur wrote...
The homebase chats in DA2 were too streamlined to replicate that.  It was just one quest and one topic.  So it didn't feel like sitting down and having a conversation.  You know, you don't go to a friend's place, say fifteen words and then head out.  But in DA2 you do. So its homebase conversations at times paled in comparison to DAO's camp chats.

So being able to talk to Morrigan about shapeshifting isn't a DAO or DA2 thing.  What's at stake is whether I want "bobbing head Morrigan" anywhere or "staged Morrigan" somewhere.  As long as I get to learn about Morrigan and have the same psychological depth, I'll take the latter.  (Bioware has already effectively said they want to bring back the sorts of topics people miss...that's why I'm focusing on cinematic/staging-vs-anywhere aspect.)

If that happens, the "anywhen but not anywhere" (staged/cinematic conversations in a set place) could achieve that best-of-DAO-and-best-of-DA2 goal that everyone is shooting for.

You hit the nail on the head, my friend. Well said.

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.

Thank you for taking the time.  I honestly don't know of another developer that does this sort of thing. It's cool.

Modifié par pixieface, 06 août 2011 - 08:33 .

[Wulfram]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

However, the blood magic thing is something she tells the player when you ask her in her Act 2 quest. You don't have to rely on banter for that one.

But you do have to wait until Act 2, which is problematic in itself.  It's rather an elephant in the room, so Hawke shouldn't ignore it for 3 years.

[erynnar]

ipgd wrote...

seraphymon wrote...

No offense, but i dont think the person was implying anything. Your assuming he did, but its all how you take what the person says. To me he is merly stating certain facts or observations. If people love something they would still mention it somewhere. Maybe not to the extent of a full blown thread, but in certain topics or reviews. There is no doubt there are people that love it. To me his argument is sound without speaking for everyone, and to me  doesnt come off as such.

Considering the level of hyperbolic ****** culture that surrounds the BSN it's generally counterproductive to take anything as indicative of anything around here.

I tend to take what you read as more contributing to the "******" culture as you so delightfully put it. You denegrate and assume. I didn't take what he said that way either. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. You certainly don't improve the conversation yourself. 

I myself, prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt, unless they state it in such a derogatory manner. I thank you for that. At least with you I know your being belitting on purpose. Saves the guess work.

[TEWR]

You find out she got help from a demon in Act 1. You just don't know why she turned to blood magic then, which is understandable because the reasoning behind her blood magic is something she won't just reveal to a human she just met and doesn't know if she can trust.

Again, I admit it's something that should be talked about on some level. If asked, then a the very least she should've said "I'd rather not talk about it..." and you can press the issue which would cause her to not speak about it at all and earn rivalry after the quest is over with or you could say "Alright. I understand. I don't like it, but I understand"

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 06 août 2011 - 08:42 .

[Giltspur]

Aeowyn wrote...

Also, I have a small remark about the friendship/rivalry system. While I like the idea of it better than DAO's approval system, it felt that in DA2 the points on both sides were more spread out to quests rather than conversations. Being able to have limited conversations with my companions made it more difficult for me to get enough friendship/rivalry points through conversations, and considering what happens at the end of the game, I felt pressured to get full bars on either side unless I felt like getting betrayed/having to kill off my companions. Because of this I felt forced to bring certain characters with me to certain quests in order to fill up the bars, and sometimes it was a bit annoying.

Is the friendship/rivlary system something you're going to bring over to DA3?

Yeah, I pretty much felt the same way about F/R.

I like the idea of F/R  If I have a criticism of it, it's that it encourages you to max a meter.  It seems like "in between" relationships can be very interesting and the meter can cause you to do unnatural things in hope of "unlocking" things.  Rather than writing a lot, I think it would be cool if you have had friend/rivalry points on separate issues rather than overall for the character and overall relationships points (friendship points + rivalry points) for the character and then just hide all of it from the player.  In general, I think getting F for freeing slaves and R for freeing mages for Fenris and thus having a relationship that game treats as inferior to full rival or full friend is suboptimal since I think a mixed relationship is just as compelling.  (I'm guessing that meters have been there because the game favors maxing things and wanted to give transparency on that.  But if there's no favoritism for extremes, than the transparency isn't needed.  And then it would feel easier to act naturally rather than chase meters.)

Modifié par Giltspur, 06 août 2011 - 08:42 .

[erynnar]

Giltspur wrote...

Brockololly wrote...

But Origins more or less allowed freedom to talk wherever and I think people are curious as to what the rationale on the developer's side was why that system wasn't either tweaked and built on to fix the problems in it, instead of more or less ditching it completely and perceiving that enabling of player agency through dialogue at the expense of cinematics as something to be avoided in the future?

Thats my confusion with a great many of DA2's changes: Origins established that it was possible to have certain features or do certain things and come DA2, many of those features or systems were not tweaked or built on, but ditched for something completely different.

So as a developer, what do you think is the advantage of DA2 style cinematics over the freedom of a DAO-like system for the player? What prompted such a fundamental shift and why do you think it works better than DAO's system for the end user experience?

I think Origins was built on though.  When I played Origins I remembered thinking that these conversations with Morrigan would be cooler if they were staged in some particular setting.  Maybe I'm off in a forest with her as opposed to hanging out 35 yards from Oghren and Schmooples. Or it would be cool if I'd had one of these conversations about Duncan with Alistair while Alistair was holding something like a rememberance for Duncan while placing the shield you gifted to him somewhere.

Maybe Bioware thought something like that and ended up with "Cinematic dialogue".  But that introduced problems.  Still, they were building upon.  But building upon wasn't "Origins and more" it was "An improvement here and a regression there for an overall net gain...hopefully".  Now I don't think it was in fact a net gain in DA2.  And I"ll say why in upcoming paragraph.  But I still think it could be a net gain in DA3 and is worth purusing.  At any rate, I should clarify why I don't think they can't do "DAO and more".  DAO mostly used "talking heads".  Talking heads go anywhere.  They can be in camp with a tent in the background.  They can in Lothering with a hut in the background.  They can be in a cave with a dead, bloody spider corpse in the background.  And that's fine.  But if you want to stage it, then you have to have a stage.  So "chat anywhere" means staging that conversation on a hill, in front a tree, on flat land, with a goat, on a boat and...well, it isn't pratical anymore.   So the choices are 1) staged somewhere or 2) talking head anywhere.  I'll take "staged somewhere" because I think staging in DA2 was a good thing by itself and that the problem with DA2 wasn't that. 

So what was the problem with DA2?  Well, I liked how in Origins I could go up to Morrigan and talk to her about, for example, shapeshifting or Flemeth or if she's ever visited a city before.  I find out her opinions on Flemeth.  I find out that she doesn't understand eye contact.  I find out some generalizations she makes about men.  I feel like I"m getting to know her.  And while I felt like I got to know my companions in DA2, certainly Aveline and Isabela, over time, I still missed the DAO camp chats.  The homebase chats in DA2 were too streamlined to replicate that.  It was just one quest and one topic.  So it didn't feel like sitting down and having a conversation.  You know, you don't go to a friend's place, say fifteen words and then head out.  But in DA2 you do. So its homebase conversations at times paled in comparison to DAO's camp chats.

What I care about is being able to ask Morrigan about shapeshifting.  But what I don't care about is if I get to see Morrigan's bobbing head (talking head) talk about shapeshifting in front of a tent or in front of a hut or in front of dead, bloody spider corpse. 

So being able to talk to Morrigan about shapeshifting isn't a DAO or DA2 thing.  What's at stake is whether I want "bobbing head Morrigan" anywhere or "staged Morrigan" somewhere.  As long as I get to learn about Morrigan and have the same psychological depth, I'll take the latter.  (Bioware has already effectively said they want to bring back the sorts of topics people miss...that's why I'm focusing on cinematic/staging-vs-anywhere aspect.)

If that happens, the "anywhen but not anywhere" (staged/cinematic conversations in a set place) could achieve that best-of-DAO-and-best-of-DA2 goal that everyone is shooting for.

Now the anywhen might be the best of DAO and DA2. I do miss being able to talk to them about a variety.  I agree, I don't go to a friends house say a few sentences and leave. I would like to feel closer to the companions and feel they are close to my protagonist.

[Ianamus]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

I admit it was upsetting to find out about the details through banter with Isabela and not between Hawke and Merrill.

However, the blood magic thing is something she tells the player when you ask her in her Act 2 quest. You don't have to rely on banter for that one.

Though I did like asking her about her life with the clan and her previous life with them when they weren't such pricks.

As for Origins banter, I remember that you found out a lot about Sten through eavesdropping and then bringing it up with him in conversation. I think the series should do that if you have to eavesdrop to find out things.

I'm sorry that I keep highlighting bits of your responses, but your bringing up exactly why I preferred Origins dialogue. Once you heard a particular banter you could talk to the character about it, learn more. In Dragon age 2 the banter was it. After Merrill told Anders that no spirits are 'good' I wanted to ask him how he felt about that, and whether it changed his opinion on Justice, but It was never really brought up again. 

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

You find out she got help from a demon in Act 1. You just don't know why she turned to blood magic then, which is understandable because the reasoning behind her blood magic is something she won't just reveal to a human she just met and doesn't know if she can trust.

Again, I admit it's something that should be talked about on some level. If asked, then a the very least she should've said "I'd rather not talk about it..." and you can press the issue which would cause her to not speak about it at all and earn rivalry after the quest is over with or you could say "Alright. I understand. I don't like it, but I understand"

I liked the way that conversation options in Origins were linked to friendship. They wouldn't tell you things until you became friendly with them. Friendship/rivalry was never really utilised in that way. 

Modifié par EJ107, 06 août 2011 - 08:46 .

[phaonica]

pixieface wrote...

I agree. I like the paraphrases and having a voice but they were sometimes unclear. A problem I had in particular was that I wanted to play a serious, no-nonsense character. With the red fist, I tended to get a mixture of rude, agressive, and the seriousness I desired. The gavel was specifically supposed to be serious if my memory is not being janky today, but the dialogue also sometimes came out as rude anyway. I think a specific response needs to be tied to one specific icon. Variances result in surprises and surprises in this department are not desireable.

I wonder if the dialog choices would be more intuitive if tied to actions instead of tones. For example, instead of 'diplomatic' and 'sarcastic' our option icons would be more like: agree, disagree politely, disagree agressively, insult, joke, comfort, etc.

[TEWR]

All I care about is being able to kiss my LI when I want. Bioware I better be able to kiss Merrill in the expansion whenever I want.

or you and I are going to rumble.