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[MorrigansLove]

It was moronic in ME2, and it is even more moronic in DA. [childish argument removed...]

[EDIT: Do not edit a Moderator comment.]

Modifié par Stanley Woo, 08 septembre 2011 - 05:34 .

[hoorayforicecream]

bEVEsthda wrote...

Except for Bioware wants, you wants, (and those are reasons of sorts, of course) I really don't think I've seen any reason. What's it to you and David Gaider, what my party members look like in my game?

Because it limits the kind of characters they can create. As an example, most of the characters in Planescape: Torment would be impossible to create with default bodies. The reason they look the way they do is very important to their character and story. By forcing everything to be built from default bodies, you ignore the possibility of characters like these, as well as Shale, Dog, or Varric.

The ability to create visually interesting and distinct characters is valuable to Bioware, which is why they are moving in this direction. You may not see the value, but that does not mean it isn't there. Not everybody plays Magic the Gathering, but that doesn't mean a Black Lotus card isn't worth hundreds of dollars. It just means it isn't worth hundreds to everybody.

[PsychoBlonde]

ipgd wrote...

Not to mention, I want Bioware to take companion bodies way further than they actually have. You don't think it would be strange to have Sten magically size down to human height if you switched him from a hypothetical iconic armor model to a generic one? Because I want height differentials within races, I want hugely fat characters who could never fit into a set of armor in the first place, I want child characters, I want characters who are missing limbs, etc. They've been relatively conservative with diverging from the default body models even with the direction ME2 and DA2 took, but I want a system where it would necessarily be extremely jarring for a character's body to morph into a generic default.

You and me both.  All the children in the game being the same age and wearing the same clothes regardless of economic status?  Lame.  I know there are limits, but still, lame.  The male elven courtesan wearing the same clothes as dockworkers?  Lame.

That's one of the areas where MMO's have an advantage over single-player games.  They can delegate their writing to chimpanzees and make FOUR HUNDRED BILLION suits of clothes.

[Zanallen]

Wulfram wrote...

Zanallen wrote...

Don't forget the different body builds and sizes. A very important part about Wolverine is that he is short and burly. He is a small, vicious man...Like a wolverine is a small vicious animal. Cyclops is taller and less heavily muscled. Having swappable armors would require these two very different men to have the same generic body.

They managed to make all the armour equippable by 7 highly distinct builds in Origins.

Yes. Generic Human Male. Generic Human Female. Generic Elf Male. Generic Elf Female. Generic Dwarf Male. Generic Dwarf Female. Generic Male Qunari. To have 100% visual customization through armor and unique bodies for companions you would need generics for the PC, and I assume the various NPCs, plus one for each companion.

[filetemo]

you can't make a character iconic if you only use them for a single game. What made iconic Leliana ,Alistair and Morrigan were their personalities.
Those we remembered and cared for. I can't remember which armor Alistair used in the end game, but I remember his epic catchprhases.
I remember Merrill green outfit but can't remember why she wanted to enter the mirror or why I had to slain the entire elven clan.

And Mr.Woo, comic book characters look iconic because it's a visual medium. In videogames characters talk, move and gesture. Besides, with most cutscenes being "talking heads", what makes a character iconic is what he says, not the outfit he wears. Give us 15 outfits for every companion, and his/her outfit selection will tell us a bit about them. One does nothing.

[bEVEsthda]

ishmaeltheforsaken wrote...

ipgd wrote...

Fandango9641 wrote...

What’s with that and how on earth do you know what is ‘prohibitively resource intensive’ anyway?

Because I know how the armor fitting works and it's incredibly time consuming and tedious?

Here, Ish. Come tell this guy how time consuming and tedious it is with your sick modding messiah credentials.

It's very time-consuming and tedious.

You know what would be awesome? If there were, like, some magic button that just fitted a mesh to the body shape and proportion I want. That would be totes awesome.

There is no such button. Going from human to elf is actually simpler than going from Hawke to Isabela. In general, the actual shape is close enough that I can get away with just modifying proportions (which still has to be done by hand around the elf body, because, hey, no magic button).

Giving armor more room in the chest around an otherwise similar body shape/size would require hand-deformation of specific polys. And it has to be symmetrical.

Do this for every companion. For ever armor set. It becomes prohibitively resource intensive. It's the reason why Origins only had a single mesh for any given armor weight. They had to make each mesh three times so it would fit on any of three races.

This situation is not neccessarily true for the developers themselves. It depends on how original things are built from the ground up. But apparently something like that is indeed the case now.

[Morroian]

Tommy6860 wrote...

For example, it broke immersion for my rogue Hawke to be able to put on any various sets of rogue armors and change her looks, yet I couldn't change Isa's, though she's a rogue.

No offence but I can't see how it would break immersion, breaking immersion is usually due to some jarring event. You know from the beginning you can't change her outfit, do you suddenly forget you can't in the middle of a game?

[Sylvius the Mad]

Morroian wrote...

Tommy6860 wrote...

For example, it broke immersion for my rogue Hawke to be able to put on any various sets of rogue armors and change her looks, yet I couldn't change Isa's, though she's a rogue.

No offence but I can't see how it would break immersion, breaking immersion is usually due to some jarring event. You know from the beginning you can't change her outfit, do you suddenly forget you can't in the middle of a game?

If you're immersed, you're not aware it's a game.  There's no in-game reason why Isabela and Hawke should be bound by different clothing rules.

[Sylvius the Mad]

hoorayforicecream wrote...

The ability to create visually interesting and distinct characters is valuable to Bioware, which is why they are moving in this direction. You may not see the value, but that does not mean it isn't there.

I'd prefer a lower fantasy, so making everyone human (even dropping elves and dwarves from the setting entirely) wouldn't bother me.  I just want the logic to work.

[Quinnzel]

A while back I had a thought that the 'iconic' looks to the companions were an addition to BioWare telling the story of Thedas, and the Dragon Age, an aid to a continous, evolving world. The idea I had was, say you meet Isabela in DragonAge 6, set 20 years after DA2. Now despite her hair being greyer, her penchant for wearing pants now, and looking a little older (MILF Izzy anyone?), you can instantly tell it's Izzy. The headband could be a different pattern & colour, she could have added a little more armour to her suit, and hey, she lost a bet with Sarcastic Garrett and now has a tattoo of a Hawke on her back. With small additions to her attire (beads, a captain Jack Sparrow hat) you have an idea of the adventures she's had during those 20 years. And because of the importing of save files, romances et cetera, she's wearing a a black corset and other indications of the players choice.

The iconic look is kept, but with additions to show the advance of time, changes based on how the player played the game back in DA2 (say she was taken by the Qunari, and now proudly boasts a Qunari horn on her belt, taken during her escape) you can instantly see both the character you knew and loved (many, many times) and the evolution of the world of Thedas, affected by your choices and the march of time (and plot!)

T'was a good idea I thought.

Modifié par Quinnzel, 07 septembre 2011 - 11:16 .

[Morroian]

filetemo wrote...

And Mr.Woo, comic book characters look iconic because it's a visual medium. In videogames characters talk, move and gesture. Besides, with most cutscenes being "talking heads", what makes a character iconic is what he says, not the outfit

The cut scenes are not just talking heads, every cut scene (or at least most) in DA2 is a cinematic cut scene, and yes it is visual.

[mesmerizedish]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Morroian wrote...

Tommy6860 wrote...

For example, it broke immersion for my rogue Hawke to be able to put on any various sets of rogue armors and change her looks, yet I couldn't change Isa's, though she's a rogue.

No offence but I can't see how it would break immersion, breaking immersion is usually due to some jarring event. You know from the beginning you can't change her outfit, do you suddenly forget you can't in the middle of a game?

If you're immersed, you're not aware it's a game.  There's no in-game reason why Isabela and Hawke should be bound by different clothing rules.

They're not bound by different clothing rules. They both wear what they want to wear. The discrepancy is that you, as the player, decide what Hawke wears, while you don't decide what Isabela wears.

If you're immersed, and you're not aware it's a game, then it's a little unreasonable to think you should have control over more than the character designated as yours.

[ipgd]

Wulfram wrote...

They managed to make all the armour equippable by 7 highly distinct builds in Origins.

DAO has 6 distinct armor models, and 7 distinct race/sex models: human male, human female, elf male, elf female, dwarf male, dwarf female, qunari male.

If DA3 allowed the player to choose between human, elf and dwarf again, and gave all nine companions unique body models, they would have 15 "race" models: human male, human female, elf male, elf female, dwarf male, dwarf female, companion 1, companion 2, companion 3, companion 4, companion 5, companion 6, companion 7, companion 8, companion 9. Every one of those would require someone to manually resize the armor mesh and check to make sure it works with the animations. This would either amount to more than twice as much time spent fitting armors as DAO (and taking resources away from another area to do it), or reducing the available armor meshes to something even lower than 6.

This is a big reason why DA2 had so many more armor meshes than DAO did.

[Wulfram]

Zanallen wrote...

Wulfram wrote...

Zanallen wrote...

Don't forget the different body builds and sizes. A very important part about Wolverine is that he is short and burly. He is a small, vicious man...Like a wolverine is a small vicious animal. Cyclops is taller and less heavily muscled. Having swappable armors would require these two very different men to have the same generic body.

They managed to make all the armour equippable by 7 highly distinct builds in Origins.

Yes. Generic Human Male. Generic Human Female. Generic Elf Male. Generic Elf Female. Generic Dwarf Male. Generic Dwarf Female. Generic Male Qunari. To have 100% visual customization through armor and unique bodies for companions you would need generics for the PC, and I assume the various NPCs, plus one for each companion.

All you'd need for DA2 is

Generic Human Mage (M!Hawke, Carver, Sebastian), Skinny Human Male (Anders), Generic Human Female (F!Hawke, Aveline, Bethany). Busty Human Female (Isabela, Exaggerated Bethany), Generic Elf Male (Fenris, in terms of body shape), Generic Elf Female (Merrill), Male Dwarf (Varric)

And I only put Anders seperate because people keep insisting.

[Morroian]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Morroian wrote...

Tommy6860 wrote...

For example, it broke immersion for my rogue Hawke to be able to put on any various sets of rogue armors and change her looks, yet I couldn't change Isa's, though she's a rogue.

No offence but I can't see how it would break immersion, breaking immersion is usually due to some jarring event. You know from the beginning you can't change her outfit, do you suddenly forget you can't in the middle of a game?

If you're immersed, you're not aware it's a game.  There's no in-game reason why Isabela and Hawke should be bound by different clothing rules.

OK I guess I'm just completely unable to lose myself in a game that way, especially a 3rd person game where the figures I'm playing are not me.

[PsychoBlonde]

Tommy6860 wrote...

FieryDove wrote...

PsychoBlonde wrote...

  I'd find this to be more fun when playing with the characters that had the same class as the PC, also, because they always wound up feeling like PC 2.0 to me, only they suck because they can't get a second specialization tree and all the awesome stuff that comes with it.

That's not to say that the Origins model where the NPC's had ALL the options for their class was bad either.  Just, if they're going to stick more with the talent trees, I'd rather have more uniqueness per companion.

That would need a lot of work. With all this resource talk going around I don't see it.

It was not that good as-is trying to pidgeon hole companions as it worked in DA2 for many. People who wanted a healer or at least some healing took Anders. Many would have preferred Merril I think given that choice. As it stands only players that can access mods can fix things like that.

I would much prefer to have companions in my party I like than feeling forced to take because of set/rigid roles.

Just my random thoughts.

This^. I cannot say how many times who I would rather have had in my party, but couldn't because of said pidgeon holed companions. IF I wanted or felt an affinity to a certain companion of a certain class, I would rather be able to build that character as you so describe fo the needs of battles, outsiode of character interaction..

I just took whoever I wanted regardless of what I was playing.  Never had problems with it, just had to adjust my style in some fights.  Wait--I had trouble with it once, fighting the rock wraith boss in the deep roads when everyone still had crap gear.  So I turned the difficulty down, got it done, and moved on.

The only time I took Anders along thinking "I'll need a healer" was on the High Dragon fight in my rogue playthrough, and he wound up dying to the first fireball salvo, so I just solo'd the stupid dragon with my rogue PC and the dog.

But, as I said, the Origins model where everybody of the same class could be essentially the same wasn't BAD.  It's just if they're going to individualize, I'd rather they went ALL THE WAY.

[bEVEsthda]

hoorayforicecream wrote...

bEVEsthda wrote...

Except for Bioware wants, you wants, (and those are reasons of sorts, of course) I really don't think I've seen any reason. What's it to you and David Gaider, what my party members look like in my game?

Because it limits the kind of characters they can create. As an example, most of the characters in Planescape: Torment would be impossible to create with default bodies. The reason they look the way they do is very important to their character and story. By forcing everything to be built from default bodies, you ignore the possibility of characters like these, as well as Shale, Dog, or Varric.

I have commented this point many times. My position is still the same. 1: While it may currently be true for how Bioware are doing things, it's not an absolute truth. 2: In the sense that Bioware have this difficulty, I accept this reason. Unique body -> iconic looks, by resource management.

The ability to create visually interesting and distinct characters is valuable to Bioware, which is why they are moving in this direction. You may not see the value, but that does not mean it isn't there. Not everybody plays Magic the Gathering, but that doesn't mean a Black Lotus card isn't worth hundreds of dollars. It just means it isn't worth hundreds to everybody.

And this is worrying (to me and others with similar taste). Because it suggests a great deal about the characters they intend to populate our Dragon Age world with, doesn't it?

Modifié par bEVEsthda, 07 septembre 2011 - 11:17 .

[MorrigansLove]

Morroian wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Morroian wrote...

Tommy6860 wrote...

For example, it broke immersion for my rogue Hawke to be able to put on any various sets of rogue armors and change her looks, yet I couldn't change Isa's, though she's a rogue.

No offence but I can't see how it would break immersion, breaking immersion is usually due to some jarring event. You know from the beginning you can't change her outfit, do you suddenly forget you can't in the middle of a game?

If you're immersed, you're not aware it's a game.  There's no in-game reason why Isabela and Hawke should be bound by different clothing rules.

OK I guess I'm just completely unable to lose myself in a game that way, especially a 3rd person game where the figures I'm playing are not me.

That's the dumbest thing I've ever even read. And I've read the Harry Potter books.

[filetemo]

Morroian wrote...

filetemo wrote...

And Mr.Woo, comic book characters look iconic because it's a visual medium. In videogames characters talk, move and gesture. Besides, with most cutscenes being "talking heads", what makes a character iconic is what he says, not the outfit

The cut scenes are not just talking heads, every cut scene (or at least most) in DA2 is a cinematic cut scene, and yes it is visual.

John Epler himself stated that there's two types of cutscenes, the cinematic ones were they spend time creating and the talking heads type, were you are given quests or explanations, and those are given less time and resources

"ah, yes, "resources", the amount of time and money a developer spends creating a game feature, we have dismissed that claim"

sorry, had to say it.

70% of DA2 cutscenes are talking heads type, with camera changes to give the sense of movement to the scene

[hoorayforicecream]

bEVEsthda wrote...

And this is worrying (to me and others with similar tastes). Because it suggests a great deal about the characters they intend to populate our Dragon Age world with, doesn't it?

It doesn't matter. You're being disingenuous by saying you haven't seen any reason for doing so. You have seen them. You just don't care to acknowledge them, and by doing so you aren't arguing in good faith. You're just plugging your ears and repeating yourself, and while that is a kind of feedback, it doesn't give anyone much reason to listen to you past the first post.

[ipgd]

bEVEsthda wrote...

And this is worrying (to me and others with similar taste). Because it suggests a great deal about the characters they intend to populate our Dragon Age world with, doesn't it?

Why? Seriously, Woo was making an analogy. The writers are not going to put Superman in the game. They're going to use this design latitude in the same way they have in ME2 and DA2 -- to add an extra dimension to the same kind of characterization they've been working with for years.

Wulfram wrote...

All you'd need for DA2 is

Generic Human Mage (M!Hawke, Carver, Sebastian), Skinny Human Male (Anders), Generic Human Female (F!Hawke, Aveline, Bethany). Busty Human Female (Isabela, Exaggerated Bethany), Generic Elf Male (Fenris, in terms of body shape), Generic Elf Female (Merrill), Male Dwarf (Varric)

And I only put Anders seperate because people keep insisting.

DA2 has more armor meshes than DAO does. Factor that in on top of dealing with the characters' unique armors and that's a lot more resources than DAO required.

Modifié par ipgd, 07 septembre 2011 - 11:24 .

[FieryDove]

PsychoBlonde wrote...

I just took whoever I wanted regardless of what I was playing.  Never had problems with it, just had to adjust my style in some fights.  Wait--I had trouble with it once, fighting the rock wraith boss in the deep roads when everyone still had crap gear.  So I turned the difficulty down, got it done, and moved on.

The only time I took Anders along thinking "I'll need a healer" was on the High Dragon fight in my rogue playthrough, and he wound up dying to the first fireball salvo, so I just solo'd the stupid dragon with my rogue PC and the dog.

But, as I said, the Origins model where everybody of the same class could be essentially the same wasn't BAD.  It's just if they're going to individualize, I'd rather they went ALL THE WAY.

During the HD fight I would have loved to equip bows to everyone and just move around and ping when needed. Nope couldn't do it. If I have a problem with a fight I would rather solve it myself with companions I like on the difficulty I enjoy. If I can't...then it's an issue for me.

I hope you get what you want fully set in stone companions. For myself well, I didn't like the restrictions in DA2 on companions, all the way would just be worse for me.

Modifié par FieryDove, 07 septembre 2011 - 11:27 .

[DamnThoseDisplayNames]

For me the whole issue really seems like some kind of forced out-of-nowhere decision. I can't clearly imagine designer coming into room and saying: "You know what *also* sucked in DA:O? Armor. There was just to much of it! ..we don't need it!". It can be done with saving money or effort in mind, or for creating different experience overall, when only protagonist would be customizable, but I really don't buy "make them more distinct and memorable" thing. That just does't work as a motive when you create a game, because usually any change shout be handled out with a "what would it add to the *gameplay*?" way of thinking. Will that change make game more complex, more entertaining, would't players be bored to always see their characters in the same costume or not?
Ugh. That's just too close to all regular bs we get, "distinct and memorable", "fastpaced cleaner gameplay", "atmosphere", "epic", "less difficult to get into".. ugh.

DA2 has more armor meshes than DAO does.

Who the **** cared.

Modifié par DamnThoseDisplayNames, 07 septembre 2011 - 11:26 .

[PsychoBlonde]

Morroian wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Morroian wrote...

Tommy6860 wrote...

For example, it broke immersion for my rogue Hawke to be able to put on any various sets of rogue armors and change her looks, yet I couldn't change Isa's, though she's a rogue.

No offence but I can't see how it would break immersion, breaking immersion is usually due to some jarring event. You know from the beginning you can't change her outfit, do you suddenly forget you can't in the middle of a game?

If you're immersed, you're not aware it's a game.  There's no in-game reason why Isabela and Hawke should be bound by different clothing rules.

OK I guess I'm just completely unable to lose myself in a game that way, especially a 3rd person game where the figures I'm playing are not me.

I'd say if anybody actually CAN lose themselves in a game that way, they need psychological help.  Immersion does not mean that you FORGET it's a game.  It means that you're sufficiently into it that you feel more or less "present" in the game world--that game objects can affect "you" and that you can affect them.  Just because you refer to the PC occasionally as "I" (which most people who play RPG's do) in saying "I did this" does not mean that, in your mind, you're thinking that *you* were jumping around swinging a sword and shouting curses.  Your "presence" was.

I'm one of those people who's prone to dodge physically while I'm playing shooters and having my sword-fighting characters warm up a bit by swinging and jumping around before a fight.  I get quite immersed, and I enjoy it.  But stuff that's immersion-breaking for me doesn't bother other people at all.  I have the same experience with movies and books.  Some stuff utterly wrecks my suspension of disbelief, other things, I can tolerate.  (More things break it for me as I get older and know better.)  It's different for everyone.

I don't find inabilty to change clothing particularly immersion-breaking, or the ability to change clothes particularly immersion-inducing.  If I can change looks, it bugs me if there isn't one that I like sufficiently to be happy with it, and having something bugging me about the game does reduce my immersion a bit, but it's a secondary consequence, not a primary.  I do LIKE being able to change looks because it's nifty, just as I LIKE being able to play a female because I prefer it.  But I have games where the male protagonist wears the same outfit throughout.  They have other things I like.

[ipgd]

DamnThoseDisplayNames wrote...

I can't clearly imagine designer coming into room and saying: "You know what *also* sucked in DA:O? Armor. There was just to much of it! ..we don't need it!".

You might be able to imagine how that discussion went if you listened to any of the many, many reasons we've explained over the past fifty dozen threads about this instead of... ignoring them and attacking weird tangential straw men.

DA2 has more armor meshes than DAO does.

Who the **** cared.

Uh, in the context of someone implying that doing unique companion body models with a swappable armor system in DA2 wouldn't be significantly more resource intensive than how it was handled in DAO? DA2 has more armor meshes than DAO did. Therefor, it would demand more time and money spent on refitting armor to each body model than DAO would.