txgoldrush wrote...
TNO and Geralt in the first Witcher are similiar. While he has a set oast, hi smotivations are determined by the player. The quest Identity is about the player shaping the new Geralt. In TW2 his motivations are far more set. And I did not this about the first Witcher, not only did it use a cliche thats been used way too many times, it was unnecessary. There could have been other ways to get around this.
To be fair, I was thinking more about W2.
txgoldrush wrote...
While they are all utitlized differently, they are still all set. You cannot change Nameless's sex or apperance for instance. He has a set past as well and the game revolves around this. The thing that isn't set is his current life.
Every character has set elements in their past. A Warden has their Origins, even Elder Scrolls ones live with the fact that they are criminals. Other games use things like pre-written traits and backgrounds to create their own.
The idea behind TNO is that he is set without being set. He has a set past, but it's not really
your past because you are a different TNO. There's a disconnect between past events and current ones. I'd say that while it's similar to Geralt, I'd draw the closest parallel to Revan. Not having a voice also helps this. If TNO were given a voice in general dialog, then he'd have a personality much more fleshed out. Making him more set, but without the voice, much more is left up to the discretion of the player - making it more blank slate.
PS:T is funny like that.
txgoldrush wrote...
This really does become a problem at the end, when there is one set ending, damnation.
But haven't you been praising DA 2 for this exact reason? That you are unable to change the inevitable?
In either case, PS:T is usually the exception to the rule, because of how creative it was and how well it was written. I wouldn't say that Dragon Age 2 is on the level of PS:T in sheer creativity and cliche subversion.
txgoldrush wrote...
And really, fully customizable characters have weakenesses. They have very little backstory, for one, and when they do, it lacks depth. I think Lonesome Road truly opened up a huge flaw in Fallout New Vegas's writing. The Courier himself/herself. The whole regular game, the character's past isn't an issue, but Lonesome Road gives the character a past. But its simply not fleshed out and unless he or she is amnesic, I shouldn't have to learn my charcters past from other characters. This caused the conflict with Ulysses deliver less of an impact. Had the character been far more fleshed out, then Lonesome Road would have worked.
There is tradeoff when having customizable character and that is the loss of depth, and giving a fully customizable character depth can only be used with a trick like amnesia. Revan for example. Set protagonists can be far deeper.
Moving the goalposts. All I said was that TNO is not directly comparable to someone like Hawke.
You're taking a game which skirts the edge of blank slate/set protagonists and trying to expand that into the idea that set protagonists are inherently better because that particular game had a good story. Which isn't close to what we were talking about.
But since you went on a tangent, I'll go on my own:
A set protagonist may be easier to provide a narrated story because a developer can control more elements of it, but narrated stories in video games are overrated. There are few video games that rival good books and films in pure narrative strength and the ones that do mostly do so by utilising core gameplay, level design, enemy design, exploration (either physical or philosophical) and other elements of
player interaction to provide a unique experience.
Case in point: Fallout 1. The game's "narrative" consists of two arcs: get water chip for Vault, confront The Master. And how are these two grand stories linked? An old guy going "BUT THOU MUST FACE THE MUTANTS, VAULT DWELLER!!"
Truly, a tour de force in "storytelling".
Yet it's celebrated as one of the best story driven RPGs ever, because it's story is not just the narrated one in text bubbles (or cinematics for today's RPGs), but told through almost every aspect of interaction. From how the towns are designed and look, to how you learn to fear Deathclaws, or dudes in PA because of combat. Then there's places like The Glow which are just brimming with atmosphere.
Note that PS:T also took many of these same ideals in it's design. Chris Avellone has stated on many an occasion that Fallout was one of the most influential games he's played and that parts of Fallout influenced aspects of PS:T.
I accept that not all games, or even RPGs recognise that. In fact, they are the minority and have been for quite some time. I also accept that for other people, a set protagonist leads to a better experience because they're interested in the narrated story, not a player-created one. But unless it lets the player drive the depth of the protagonist in specific and explicit terms, then I don't see it as a positive. It's something that is not possible in Dragon Age 2 because how the paraphrases and banter currently works (Mass Effect is barely an RPG as it is and doesn't count). If paraphrases had to stay, I've always advocated an explanatory thought process system.
So like "No problem with me." ("I agree to your plan, let's discuss the details.") becomes [Agree with x's plan].
The other way, is to completely dispel the illusion that it's somehow the "player's" character. Jensens and Geralts mostly fall under this. You can control what they do and make some broad motivations, but you'll never shake the fact that it's not your character,
not really. But this "it's your character, except when we make it ours" ethos is not something I'm a fan of.
YMMV of course.
Also, before you bring in JRPGs into the discussion, most if not all JRPGs have no such illusions of the protagonists being
your characters.
edit: I'll also mention that Origins was not a genre defining game or a star performer in the "gameplay/story segregation = crap" category or the "everything, not just cinematics tells the story dammit!" category. It's just that Origins was a good, solid game that was okay in these areas and was very enjoyable for me and that Dragon Age 2 runs off in the wrong direction in these areas culminating in some truly awful gameplay/story segregation, but not many people seem to really care. Which makes me nerdrage.
Modifié par mrcrusty, 05 octobre 2011 - 11:36 .
Retour en haut
No, I blame the enitre city, including Isabela, and even the Arishok himself. Its not just Aveline's, or Patrice's, or Isabela's fault. It was a failure from society as a whole.
