63 réponses à ce sujet

[David Gaider]

craigdolphin wrote...
Seriously David, what you wrote suggests to me that you're looking to restore that opportunity to initiate dialog as I'm hoping for: at least to a limited degree. If so, then great. My level of pessimism would be markedly reduced if so.

I would imagine that having fully cinematographic dialogs in hubs/locations, mixed with some player-initiated (talking head) conversations, and NPC-initiated banter would be a perfect mix. Am I engaging in wishful thinking/interpretation here?

It depends. The problem, at least in part, is that we use terms that we are familiar with but which you might not be.

For us, cinematic dialogue is the "full dialogue" that Mike refers to. You speak to someone and the camera zooms in to the type of dialogue you're familiar with: you get the conversation wheel, the camera angles, the animatics, etc. Ambient dialogue is the sort where people are speaking, but you're still fully in control of your character. Party banter is ambient, as are many one-line interactions (or "barks", as we call them).

The technical hurdle I referred to is that ambient dialogue doesn't offer the possibility of player interaction. If we can solve that hurdle, then we can use ambient dialogue to a greater degree as regular (if non-vital) communication. If not, we still intend to have it play more organically (a la Legacy). Regardless of how that breaks down, you're correct to a degree: fully cinematic dialogue would happen in a hub (or at least a location that we know for sure is where you'll be-- Alistair speaking to the PC outside of Redcliffe is an example of this sort of use), and more of it would be player-initiated. If it's dialogue that can literally happen anywhere, like Mike said it's not going to be cinematic.

[David Gaider]

ishmaeltheforsaken wrote...
I understand that we're not always at home. But, as they've said, they want their cinematic dialogue, and that's not going to happen "out in the world." I know you say scrap the cinematics altogether, which would solve the problem, but I don't think they'll do that :innocent:

Cinematic dialogue can happen "out in the world" if it's a place where we can be certain of the location. It won't be wherever and whenver the player feels like, however. That's simply not on the table. If we can make ambient dialogue more interactive, like I said, that will allow interactive dialogue to a degree-- but that is by no means guaranteed.

[David Gaider]

Dormiglione wrote...
Sure the cam was somehow in a fixed position when you had a conversation in the middle of the deep road. I can only speak for myself, i liked the possibility to talk whenever i wanted with my companions, i didnt care about the position of the cam. In DAO i felt connected to my companions, because i could talk to them.

I don't doubt you felt connected to the DAO companions. I'm not as certain that it's solely because you could talk to them anywhere, but I imagine anyone's mileage will vary on that account.

In DA2 there is just a bubble over the head of a companion and when i click on it, i get often the same response that has nothing to do with the location we are, the quest we are doing and so on like such one "do i need a bath?".

In DA2 the followers both had location-specific and quest specific barks, as well as generic ones. You would receive a random bark when you clicked on them. As I've mentioned elsewhere in this thread, the idea with regards to this sort of dialogue would be to move to more reactive ambient dialogue as in Legacy-- and possibly something more complicated, if we can swing it. It won't be fully cinematic dialogue, however.

I dont understand why the conversation options have changed so much between DAO and DA2. In my opinion DAO conversation options are much better than the conversation in DA2.

The technical issues have been brought up elsewhere in this thread. We're not interested in talking-head dialogue and have chosen to raise the bar on our cinematic presentation whenever we use it. As I mentioned previously, there are ways to arrange the interaction with the party members which could potentially provide more agency-- but if you believe you absolutely require the ability to talk to a party member with full dialogue anywhere in the game, that's not on the table. Sorry.

[Mike Laidlaw]

craigdolphin wrote...
I hope the devs really can find a new way to allow anywhere interactive conversation happen, or else reevaluate taking talking heads off the table completely. That decision is hurting far more tHan it helps IMHO

There are more limitations at work than just presentation. Like everything, there are pros and cons to every decision, and while it would be lovely to have talk-anywhere dialogs whereever and whenever we want, it would also be wildly inappropriate at times, and also cause potential interruptions in gameplay when you mean to click on an item and are instead launched into a dialog with follower X.

Are there ways to make it work or work better? Yes. Is it something we will pursue? No. And no, this is not "bioware being arrogant," it is us making a conscious decision to implement a feature in a way we think is best for the game with a full understanding of the systems at play. Dragon Age already delivers tons of dialog outside of the staged conversations, and we feel that ambient banter is a much better way to do so (especially if certain improvements come through), so that we can put extra effort into the followers when they are in known positions.

While I do not expect everyone to agree with the decision, it is made, and in the spirit of the thread, we are being candid an honest about it so that you guys can focus on other areas of feedback.

[Mike Laidlaw]

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.

[Mike Laidlaw]

Alex Kershaw wrote...

I'm surprised that the feedback on this thread seems to have an emphasis towards the gameplay - while I preferred DAO's combat, I don't think tending towards an action approach is necessarily a bad thing; look at Mass Effect 2 and The Witcher 2 - both having action combat. I am surprised that I haven't read anything in this thread about going back to a game on a grand scale as opposed to a single city - is that just implied? I assume at this stage that must already be decided on?

Feedback of that sort is pretty much game-specific. The concerns about scale are well presented (and not well presented in some cases!), and well known, but it's not a really fertile ground for discussion at this point, as we will not be making DA II again, and we will not talk about the scope/plans/story of future products. So, we can acknowledge your concerns and....then we're done. For now.

[Mike Laidlaw]

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.

[Mike Laidlaw]

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.

[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.

[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.

[Luke Barrett]

Dormiglione wrote...

if 30 characters are not enough, why not use 40 characters? It shouldnt be a problem to use 40 character during a conversation where the "action" stand still.

The character limit is so it fits on screen when playing in lower resolutions.

Modifié par Luke Barrett, 07 août 2011 - 06:18 .

[Luke Barrett]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

PC games stopped supporting 640*480 years ago. When are consoles going to do that?

My guess is nextgen consoles? Send an email to Mr. Iwata over at Nintendo and ask him to start that trend with Wii-U

Personally I agree but as PC gamers we're raised on a platform where you have to constantly upgrade to keep up. Not everyone is used to - and okay with - that.

[John Epler]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

So... it begins....

"Oh, the devs stopped commenting on these posts, maybe mine will be overlooked"

I know I'm not the only one who's ever felt that way. I've been on Bioware forums for YEARS. Everyone goes through that feeling at some point.

Is it bad I feel this way a lot? Because I think some of the things I've suggested have been pretty good ideas, but I feel as if only the fans are really looking at it.

I can certainly understand why one might feel this way. If you're seeing the developers replying to other people but not yourself, there's a certain amount of 'well I guess they're not reading my posts'. And while that's not true (I spend far too much time on these forums, to the point where my fiance often makes pointed remarks that I might bring my work home a little too much), it's never fun to think that you spent a ton of time and effort bringing up a point, only to have it disregarded.

But as a rule, if you're making a good, constructive point - someone's probably read it. If you spend enough time on the forums as a developer, you begin to get a sense of what threads are the most likely to have interesting discussions, or which posters are most likely to make solid, well-considered points. Many of those people gravitate to my friends list - not all of them are there, of course, so I still have to do a little leg work, but I was once a fan too. I know how much passion people have for the games they play, and I know that we don't have a monopoly on good ideas. There's a lot of noise out there, sure, but there's enough signal that I try to keep an eye on the forum as often as I can.

So the short of it is - no, you're not ignored. Are we going to implement or comment on each and every idea out there? No, for a variety of reasons. But we wouldn't keep interacting with the community to this extent if we didn't feel you guys had ideas worth seeing.