[quote]In Exile wrote...
And I disputed you actually know what you're saying in DA:O.
Beyond that, not being able to predict how people react to most of the things you say is, again, ridiculous. [/quote]
You know the words you're saying. If they're your words, you would expect to know them, right?
Of course you can
predict how people will react, but in DA2, you
know. You're never wrong. That, to me, is ridiculous.
[quote]
Pragmatics and expression (and situational context!) modulate text to a tremendous degree, and showing text only is miserable at conveying accurate information. [/quote]
Yes, you do have a point with that example. That is the one advantage that I do recognize about being able to distinguish the tone you want to convey. The thing is, I just think when it gets to the point where there is
never a misunderstanding, and all you have to do to seduce someone is click the heart, it takes far too much of the thought out of it.
[quote]
If you want to talk about how conversation
really works, then surprises come from someone getting your meaning and then not doing with it what you expected, not someone pretending like you're saying something else. In the former case, they're acting in a way you didn't predicted. In the latter case, they're just unhinged. [/quote]
But typically, the whole reason they don't do what you expected is
because they misinterpreted your meaning. My girlfriend was in our uni's bookstore a while back, looking to buy a carrying bag for a laptop. The guy showed her one, and she remarked that she was looking for something with more of a professional look. The guy got totally rude with her and made some rude remarks. She was very "diplomatic" in her tone, and nothing she said reflected on him in any negative light whatsoever. He didn't make that case, he just sells it. And yet, he took offense, and reacted in a way she didn't predict.
On the other hand, I've had similar experiences with salespeople who don't give a rat's ass what you say about what they're selling, even if you're inelegantly blunt about it. After all, you're not remarking on their sales skills, and you're not intimately familiar with how attached they are to their product.
I should remark that neither place operates on commision. Two similar situations, two different results. The first guy acted in a way she didn't predict, but that was because he mistook her meaning. Perhaps he was very passionate about that bag, and thought that her comment somehow reflected badly on him for liking something that someone didn't think looked very professional. None of which did she actually say, nor did her tone suggest so. Maybe he was just having a bad day. Those are all things you can't predict. Just choosing your words and your tone is not enough to be certain of an outcome.
Are you honestly telling me you've never experienced a conversation that involved outside factors you could neither predict nor control?
[quote]
I didn't stoop to insults - I stooped to sarcasm and snark, and would have happily avoided doing so if you seemed interested in a discussion as opposed to saying things like "I'd like to ask you to take off your top hat and pull an elephant out of it, because you're obviously a pretty badass magician," because if what I said was offensive, then for that line alone I deserve an apology. [/quote]
Nah, you're right, I did provoke that. Though to be fair, I was reacting to your accusation that I'm bad at conversation. Or did I mistake that? I perceived an aggressive and annoyed tone, is that what you intended? Was my reaction what you predicted?
I'll apologize when you do.
[quote]
If someone really likes you, they gloss over your screw ups. It's called the halo effect. It's a general phenomenon that has to do with social perception, whereby positive traits influence the perception of negative behaviour.[/quote]
I'm familiar with the concept of rose tinted glasses. That only goes so far though, and I can think of many examples to the contrary. I spend a lot of time working out, and I had a friend who did so too. Girls would be initially attracted to him because of his body, and assume that he was strong and in control of things. Sadly, they would eventually find out that he was pretty submissive and not the ambitious go-getter they originally thought.
Have you never heard of coming on to strong, or moving too quickly, or failing to make a move, etc? Regardless of how attracted someone is to you, you are by no means immune to doing wrong.
DA2 went through all the trouble of allowing you to build a dominant personality, and giving you additional dialogue options based on that. I find it odd that it wouldn't play a bigger role in romances. I haven't played in a long time, but from what I remember, you just click the heart icon and do personal quests. Beyond that, none of the love interests react in any significant way to how your personality develops as they get to know you more. There might be the occasional rivalry point or something, but it seems like a pretty big missed opportunity to me.
[quote]
Yes, it's shocking that DA2 isn't a dating simulator. [/quote]
I don't expect that, just to think about what you say and have the possibility of screwing up.
[quote]
Whether or not flirting is always succesful is a different issue from having 4 different flirting options for varried success. [/quote]
How is it different? Having 4 options means you can succeed or fail in different measures. Having one means you can succeed. Even two would be a vast improvement.
[quote]
Not having body language is unnatural - it leads to your character looking like an automaton. If mentally inventing content is what you consider RP, then you can as easily imagine that Hawke just does something entirely different. [/quote]
I realize the absence of body language is a detriment to RPing. However, none of Hawke's body language was anything close to what I intended to RP. Inventing body language is much easier than forgetting old body language,
then inventing new body language, especially when the old body language severely affected your ability to take the conversation seriously from that point on.
[quote]
But it's not ridiculous to just watch the Warden stare dumbstruck at Alistair and imagine her being sauve and seducing him? I think any kind of imagined content (be it mannerisms, tone, etc.) is a level of mental gymnastic inappropriate for a game. But somehow there is this arbitrary cut-off that DA:O makes and DA2 doesn't, and I personally don't get it.[/quote]
I agree that you shouldn't really have to invent body language when playing a modern, graphical game. But in this case, I would prefer it. The arbitrary cut-off is what I mentioned earlier, when the body language given to me contradicts what I intended so much that I strongly suspect I wasn't the target audience for this game.
[quote]
Whereas I disgree that a video-game ever allows for more personalities that the game gives you, which is to say 3-4 if you're lucky. [/quote]
I think it can be any number, though that is definitely better suited to more open world games like TES that don't rely as much on a pre-determined protagonist and cinematics/dialogue. Skyrim might change that, who knows.
[quote]
But that isn't an issue with the icons - it's an issue with the fact that characters don't react to what you say but rather what you pick. What we need to do to improve the dialogue is not lose the icons, but write better paraphrases (like DX:HR). Bioware currently has an in-house rule to have no words in the paraphrase and spoken line match up. That's stupid.[/quote]
Yes, that is stupid. I'm not sure how that would be enough to solve the problem, though. If I still don't have to think about what to say, I'm not very interested.
Modifié par Anomaly-, 16 octobre 2011 - 11:39 .
Retour en haut
