272 réponses à ce sujet

[TEWR]

nedpepper wrote...

Mr.House wrote...

Zanallen wrote...

tmp7704 wrote...

The warden sense seems to have range of couple hundred meters, tops.

Yeah, there really is no upside to becoming a warden, is there? The only good thing I can think of is an immunity to the blight; one that only lasts until said warden succombs to the taint and dies.

Unless you get lucky like Laruis, then you become a mindless ghoul who the darkspawn can't sense :innocent:

Actually, every Warden who does not die in the Deep Roads on their calling end up like Larius.  What's interestng is that the Warden's ASSUME their calling comrades are dead.  But as Gaider showed us in The Calling, that may not be the case.  Wardens essentially become a kind of darkspawn.

With this in mind...I look at Origins and think my poor Warden was railroaded and lied to.  There is no happy ending for any of your Wardens unless Avernus can figure out how to reverse the effects of the Joining.

You know, if only they could remember that they were supposed to kill the Darkspawn when they became Ghouls. Since the Darkspawn wouldn't be able to sense them anymore, they could do a lot of damage to the Darkspawn.

[NedPepper]

Joy Divison wrote...

Mr.House wrote...

My Hawkes goal was simple. Get rich,. get powerful, party, have sex and just enjoy life.

That's the OP's point.  You created satisfying internal motivations that were independent of the game itself.

But you actually CAN do that within the confines of Dragon Age 2...until Act 3, and as we all know, that's when the wheels fell off.  Even those of us who really like Dragon Age 2 know that Act 3 went into the realm of just being ridiculous and a poor attempt at trying to create a war sans logic.

[NedPepper]

DuskWarden wrote...

nightscrawl wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

I agree that there wasn't much of a reason to care about the Blight if you didn't already care about it, but I don't think many people really felt that way.

DAII however is much worse imo. Why should I do Petrice's quest when I say no? Because the plot demanded it? No, that doesn't fly with me.

I'll quote Petrice herself... "You must need coin. Everyone here does."

So even if you dislike Petrice or don't care about the saarebas you presumably need the coin for the expedition. The NPCs certainly don't know that a careful player can amass over 100g before going to the Deep Roads. Yes, I agree that the excuse of needing coin is perhaps a lame one to justify making you do this quest to continue on with the game, but as I mentioned above, story based games need to have some mandatory quests or there is no plot. Petrice and the Qunari are the climax of Act 2, so you have to have the background.

And if you don't think that some plot based quests should be mandatory, how would you solve the problem in a game franchise like Dragon Age of telling a story where it cannot be presumed that the player has done the quests where the plot is set up and important background information is given?

The problem is that Petrice is such a ****, most players I suspect would want to just walk away - but we can't. There are numerous occasions when I wanted to just kill her, not least when we are forced to watch her walk away after the Qunari are executed. Why couldn't Hawke have done a Genitive style murder knife at that point? The lack of choice is extremely disappointing. 

Probably because murdering a Chantry sister would have opened up a whole new can of worms.  You'd be viewed a murderer without proper evidence.  Anders blows up the chantry and look what happens.  If you were to kill Petrice, the game would have had to branch into something else.  Remember, you're a bum in Lowtown.  Kililng Petrice would have probably had Hawke with his head in a noose and killed before Act 2 could ever begin.  I found threatening Petrice was good enough.

[NedPepper]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

nedpepper wrote...

Mr.House wrote...

Zanallen wrote...

tmp7704 wrote...

The warden sense seems to have range of couple hundred meters, tops.

Yeah, there really is no upside to becoming a warden, is there? The only good thing I can think of is an immunity to the blight; one that only lasts until said warden succombs to the taint and dies.

Unless you get lucky like Laruis, then you become a mindless ghoul who the darkspawn can't sense :innocent:

Actually, every Warden who does not die in the Deep Roads on their calling end up like Larius.  What's interestng is that the Warden's ASSUME their calling comrades are dead.  But as Gaider showed us in The Calling, that may not be the case.  Wardens essentially become a kind of darkspawn.

With this in mind...I look at Origins and think my poor Warden was railroaded and lied to.  There is no happy ending for any of your Wardens unless Avernus can figure out how to reverse the effects of the Joining.

You know, if only they could remember that they were supposed to kill the Darkspawn when they became Ghouls. Since the Darkspawn wouldn't be able to sense them anymore, they could do a lot of damage to the Darkspawn.

Yeah, it'd deflate those darkspawn numbers.  But I think the point of it is that Wardens ultimately fall under the same spell as darkspawn and go mad hearing the pull of the Old Gods.  Being a Warden is a thankless and tragic endeavor.  David Gaider has gone to great lengths to show that.  The reality is that Alistair in Origins romanticizes the Wardens in that sweet naive way of his, but he really doesn't understand the reality of the Wardens and how brutal they can be. 

[tmp7704]

nedpepper wrote...

Probably because murdering a Chantry sister would have opened up a whole new can of worms.  You'd be viewed a murderer without proper evidence.  Anders blows up the chantry and look what happens.

Anders claims responsibility for his deed in front of the knight-commander of Kirkwall. In contrast, Hawke's meeting with Petrice is supposedly in the middle of the night with no witnesses (ones that'd be left alive, anyway)  In other words, no reason Hawke should get even connected to it, nevermind singled out as the murderer.

[Joy Divison]

nedpepper wrote...

Joy Divison wrote...

Mr.House wrote...

My Hawkes goal was simple. Get rich,. get powerful, party, have sex and just enjoy life.

That's the OP's point.  You created satisfying internal motivations that were independent of the game itself.

But you actually CAN do that within the confines of Dragon Age 2...until Act 3, and as we all know, that's when the wheels fell off.  Even those of us who really like Dragon Age 2 know that Act 3 went into the realm of just being ridiculous and a poor attempt at trying to create a war sans logic.

I'm not saying it's good or bad.  I'm just saying the poster is confirming the OP's point.

[Morroian]

DuskWarden wrote...

Morroian wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

For me, looking at all those quests makes me go "So... which one should I do first?", and imo that's a fatal design flaw of DAII, however much it references another game.

Problem with that is it implies games like Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas and presumably Skyrim are fatally flawed.

No. Games like that, the whole point is to create your own character however you want, and actually role play that character, do whatever quests you feel like doing and explore the world. In Dragon Age 2 we are limited to a single option for the protaganist, 

No we're not, there is room for a fairly wide range of role playing, just not as wide as DAO or those other games. And what you describe is exactly what Act 1 was.

[TheRealJayDee]

In Exile wrote...

From an omniscient POV protecting anything is stupid, because killing the archdemon ends the blight full stop. And you need Grey Wardens. Staying in Ferelden at all is idiotic beyond measure in the omniscient sense, because only three people in the entire country can kill the archdemon. Whereas in Orlais, you have hundreds of Wardens.

But I wanted to avoid the omniscient POV precisely because the matter is in-character.

2) Killing Loghain's guards (lol at that, btw, using them as if they're a threat) and finding the Wardens and telling them about the blight is 100% less stupid than:

a) Invading a tower filled with abominations, including a Pride abomination (who according to the codex could threaten all of Thedas)... with 4 people.
Venturing down into the heard of the deep roads, fighting hundreds of darkspawn alone... with 3 other people.
c) Fighting an army of werewolves alone... with 3 people.

You talk about things being sucidal... but the Ferelden plan is beyond stupid.
 

Your character doesn't know anything about either situation a), or c) when making the decision to try to use the treaties. Only you, the player, do. When making the decision to gather the armies the option is not to invade an abomination filled tower, but to travel to the Circle tower and hope they will respect their old promises.

Ignoring the treaties and fleeing the country will most likely doom Ferelden, you said so yourself. Losing Ferelden means losing Ferelden's army, potential allies in form of the elves, dwarves and the Fereldan Circle plus Templars. As well as everything each of the possible Wardens ever possesed and everyone they ever knew. 
The treaties provide an off chance to maybe stop the Darkspawn before they completely destroy your home. What would it help to leave Ferelden? Orlais and other nearby countries should begin to suspect that there is a Blight going on pretty soon, by the hordes of Fereldan refugees alone or at least after Ferelden has fallen. Your Warden has nothing to offer them to help when he arrives. He can tell the Orlesian Wardens there's a Blight going on a little sooner before they find out themselves. There is not that much special about your Warden besides the treaties and the people who accompany him. 
 
You could even say that it's your destiny to follow the path the game takes, and your Warden only ever survived Ostagar because Flemeth knew he would and probably wouldn't have rescued him otherwise.

So it's true, you're not able to play a Warden who decides to just accept the loss of Ferelden for the chance of defeating the Darkspawn in some bigger-picture war, in which he will most likely not play a role of any significance and which will definitely leave huge parts of the world he knows and beyond in burning ruins. I guess that's something you must live with. I played some extremely different Wardens and had little problem finding a motivation for them to try to save Ferelden.

[culletron1]

nerdage wrote...
But the motivation of stopping the blight (the major theme of the game) carries you through almost all the necessary quests the exception being the Origin, the rest are at your own discretion. The motivation of rising to power (the major theme of DA2) doesn't give me any reason to do quite a lot of the stuff presented to me.

100% absolutely agree with this... For the life of me I just couldn't care less about what hawke was doing. It felt like a bad GTA game but without the cool sandbox to play in... 

I never felt any urgency or need to do anything... 

[culletron1]

Morroian wrote...

DuskWarden wrote...

Morroian wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

For me, looking at all those quests makes me go "So... which one should I do first?", and imo that's a fatal design flaw of DAII, however much it references another game.

Problem with that is it implies games like Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas and presumably Skyrim are fatally flawed.

No. Games like that, the whole point is to create your own character however you want, and actually role play that character, do whatever quests you feel like doing and explore the world. In Dragon Age 2 we are limited to a single option for the protaganist, 

No we're not, there is room for a fairly wide range of role playing, just not as wide as DAO or those other games. And what you describe is exactly what Act 1 was.

For me the difference is that Skyrim, FO3 etc give you a really cool world to play in where there is a very high level of immersion even if you are just going around doing menial tasks...

DA2 gave us kirkwall to play in... 

[Flashing Steel]

In Exile wrote...

[snip]

Of course, this wouldn't be a problem if you could turn down quests (main quests, that is). But they're mandatory. They were mandatory in DA:O (had to get the elves, even if you thought they were useless/too much of a pain!), with the difference being that players just bought into the plot on the box better. But this is bad design.

To put all of my cards on the table, I've said before I was of the opinion that many of DA2's flaws were the result of excessive praise for DA:O. 

Edit:

In replying to a poster, I realized that DA2 did have a unifying theme, of sorts: How did Hawke become Champion, and what was the role of Hawke in whatever Cassandra wanted?

If "I have to do this because the game tells me it will stop the Blight!" is good enough, then "I have to do to this because the game tells me it's how Hawke became Champion!" has to be equally good. 

I agree that there isn't really any motivation in either game, but then i find myself asking 'why did i feel more involved in DA:O?' I think despite both games having mandatory main quests, DA:O provided breif respite through the use of branching storylines. For instance, the point you raise about needing to recruit the elves even if you dont like them. In actual fact you dont, although yes you cannot say 'lets not build this army' you can choose to kill all the elves and take the werewolves instead. This approach gives the PC some wiggle room at least, which for me certainly improved role play. Also it made me want to play through these quests because i was interested in what decisions i would be able to make. i suppose that served as my motivation.

Modifié par Flashing Steel, 24 octobre 2011 - 02:52 .

[ttt223]

In Exile,

I think there are two main issues you have with Bioware’s “But thou must”: (1) giving the character in-game motivations to RP, especially if the character could have motivations separate from the main plot and (2) dealing with players trying to pursue options outside of what is available. 

With both, there are obviously zot limitations and so any solution would have to work within that context.

My proposed solution is to allow the PC one or two long term goals that are tied into the main plot, but separate from it.  For example, in DA:O the human and dwarf nobles could try to take the crown for themselves, the dwarf commoner could take over the Orzammar crime syndicates, and the elves could extract concessions for the elves to support the landsmeet.  DA2 could have done this by letting Hawke have a profession other than errand boy.  When Varric asks you whether you want to be a businessperson, politician, or whatever, the game should have let you pursue those.

I think for these to work (in a Bioware-style game) they would have to be tied in to the main quest so that to achieve the ancillary goals, the character could plausibly believe they would have to go along with the main plot. 

CRPG’s by definition limit what the PC can do, so even the above would still result in “But thou musts”.  But you might have a few more options than “I, [the PC], want to [do the main plot].”

[Sylvius the Mad]

In Exile wrote...

Of course, this wouldn't be a problem if you could turn down quests (main quests, that is). But they're mandatory.

I dispute that the main quests are mandatory.  The game gets a lot shorter if you won't do some of them, and DA2's heavily gated structure means that this happens pretty abruptly, but you absolutely can turn down main quests.

My single DA2 playthrough ended because I turned down a main quest.  I refused to respond to a letter from Meredith, and the game soon left me with nothing else to do.

I don't really see a problem with that.

[naledgeborn]

^ Lol. I wouldn't even know how to respond to that if I wanted to. BioWare should hire you.

[ttt223]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I dispute that the main quests are mandatory.  The game gets a lot shorter if you won't do some of them

It would be interesting to see the world progress if the PC doesn't finish a main quest.  A game designed around this could even allow for some other "failure" states when attempting to complete the quest.

[ReallyRue]

I have to admit, it was kind of annoying in DA2 when it gave you an option to accept or refusea quest, but the game wouldn't let you progress if you didn't do the quest even after refusing. If I have to do it, why give me the illusion of an option to turn it down?

[bigSarg]

I didn't care about anything in DA2, if it would have been me I would have left Kirkwall after I lost my family, after that there is no real reason to stay and the whole rest of the game seems pointless. Even though I didn't have a choice on stopping the blight in DA:O I was still motivated to do so, for friends and family and to beat the s**t out of Howe, I didn't do it for everyone I just did it for the people I cared about or revenge depending on the backstory of my character.

[Sylvius the Mad]

ReallyRue wrote...

I have to admit, it was kind of annoying in DA2 when it gave you an option to accept or refusea quest, but the game wouldn't let you progress if you didn't do the quest even after refusing. If I have to do it, why give me the illusion of an option to turn it down?

I suspect cleaning up things like this - even to the point of rewriting the quests completely - is something that BioWare typically does as part of a longer production schedule.

[aries1001]

I played as a Dalisf elf becoming a Dalish Warden. And Duncan had to drag me kicking and screaming into the -ehm- order? of the Grey Wardens. Why should I, a Dalish Elf, care about mortal men and their Blights? I'd rather stayed at home with my clan. But such was not my destiny - at least not in the DA:O game. Duncan used the right of conscription to get my Dalish Elf into the wardens.

I think, there's a dialogue in Witch Hunt? where you meet an elf, if you're a Dalish Warden, she asks you if you would rather have been with your clan to being a Warden, I always choose yes to this question. However, there has been some very nice benefits to this; I get treated with respect and sometimes a bit of fear wherever I go. Because I've seen as Warden, not an Elf.

As for stopping the Blight, why should you care, as a Warden? Because if you do not, all of Thedas will be destroyed. If you do not stop the Blight as a Dalish Warden, a Human Noble or even a Dwarf, there will be no more aravels, no more hallas, no more keepers, no more Paragons to remember. To me, that's a very strong motivation.

Hawke's motivation in DA2 is more personal, I find. The story could indeed have explained it better, I feel. However, we follow Hawke as she rises to no, not power, in Kirkwall, but from a poor refugee to a rich champion, because of her own actions during the game. Hawke finds out something about her family's past during DA2. I think this is the main motivation for Hawke during the game, although the game do not explain this very well. Along the way, some other stuff happens such as the mage/templar conflict. And Hawke gets dragged into this, willingly or unwillingly...

[Morroian]

ttt223 wrote...

My proposed solution is to allow the PC one or two long term goals that are tied into the main plot, but separate from it.  For example, in DA:O the human and dwarf nobles could try to take the crown for themselves, the dwarf commoner could take over the Orzammar crime syndicates, and the elves could extract concessions for the elves to support the landsmeet. 

Most of that is later in the game in DAO, hardly a driver for much of the game.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Morroian wrote...

ttt223 wrote...

My proposed solution is to allow the PC one or two long term goals that are tied into the main plot, but separate from it.  For example, in DA:O the human and dwarf nobles could try to take the crown for themselves, the dwarf commoner could take over the Orzammar crime syndicates, and the elves could extract concessions for the elves to support the landsmeet. 

Most of that is later in the game in DAO, hardly a driver for much of the game.

I don't think that's true at all.  Those motivations could reasonably stem directly from the Origins themselves.  A Dwarf Noble may well reach Ostagar preoccupied with Bhelen's treachery, for example.  That Warden would likely head directly back to Orzammar after Lothering.

[ttt223]

Morroian wrote...

Most of that is later in the game in DAO, hardly a driver for much of the game.

Well sure.  DA:O and DA2 were clearly not designed with this in mind.  Any examples from those games would necessarily be tacked-on.  Ideally, the entire game/narrative/etc. would be built around this mechanic.

[TheAwesomologist]

bigSarg wrote...

I didn't care about anything in DA2, if it would have been me I would have left Kirkwall after I lost my family, after that there is no real reason to stay and the whole rest of the game seems pointless. Even though I didn't have a choice on stopping the blight in DA:O I was still motivated to do so, for friends and family and to beat the s**t out of Howe, I didn't do it for everyone I just did it for the people I cared about or revenge depending on the backstory of my character.

I have a save game where my Hawke does leave Kirkwall right after his mother dies. Some Mage build using Spirit Healer that sucks horribly. Anyways I think I originally went to the Wounded Coast for something but I can't remember what, but the save is near the entrance over looking the beach where sometimes companions say something nice about the beach. I like to think that Hawke is either waiting for a ship to leave this god-forsaken land or contemplating jumping from the cliff because nothing he ever does in life matters.

[Joy Divison]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

In Exile wrote...

Of course, this wouldn't be a problem if you could turn down quests (main quests, that is). But they're mandatory.

I dispute that the main quests are mandatory.  The game gets a lot shorter if you won't do some of them, and DA2's heavily gated structure means that this happens pretty abruptly, but you absolutely can turn down main quests.

My single DA2 playthrough ended because I turned down a main quest.  I refused to respond to a letter from Meredith, and the game soon left me with nothing else to do.

I don't really see a problem with that.

That's some hardcore RP!

[Cobra's_back]

In Exile wrote...


But let's say that you RP your character to only care about the issues in the origin, and have no opinion on the blight at all. Then there's absolutely no in-character reason to go with Duncan, to perform the Joining (other than Duncan threatening to kill you in both cases) or to go after the treaties. While DA:O is about ending the blight, you don't have to have to create a PC for the Origin that cares about this at all. If you don't, then DA:O fails in the same way DA2 fails to provide motivation. 

It comes down to this: it seems that Bioware expects players to invent the motivation to do things. This is, from what I've seen in their games, a core design philosophy of freedom. Remember, DA2 was supposed to be more 'free' than DA:O in that it lacked a primary antagonist. Well, that lack of unification just brought out this design element in detail: Bioware does not create in-character motivations. 

Of course, this wouldn't be a problem if you could turn down quests (main quests, that is). But they're mandatory. They were mandatory in DA:O (had to get the elves, even if you thought they were useless/too much of a pain!), with the difference being that players just bought into the plot on the box better. But this is bad design.

To put all of my cards on the table, I've said before I was of the opinion that many of DA2's flaws were the result of excessive praise for DA:O. 

Edit:

In replying to a poster, I realized that DA2 did have a unifying theme, of sorts: How did Hawke become Champion, and what was the role of Hawke in whatever Cassandra wanted?

If "I have to do this because the game tells me it will stop the Blight!" is good enough, then "I have to do to this because the game tells me it's how Hawke became Champion!" has to be equally good. 

Interesting point but this is not why I like DAO more than DA2. I found Ander, Fenris, and Merrill to be annoying. It was a drag for me to deal with them. Their quests are long and I didn’t even like them. I didn’t care for the story in DA2. I actually liked the combat in DA2 more DAO because I play it on the Xbox 360. I don’t play DA2 because the story and these companions really bug me.
Loghain is a wonderful bad guy. The Cousland story was enough to get me excited about hunting down Howe. The battle of Ostagar motivated me to want to fight the blight. I actually enjoyed the cut scene for Ostagar. I really enjoyed the DAO story and cared about some of the characters. I also enjoyed the books “The Stone Throne” and “The Calling”.
The final battle in DAO was fun for me. I really didn't care for the battle with the crazy lady or nutty mages in DA2. 


 If I play a game it is because I like it. No one can get me to play a game I find irritating. I'm also sure that many liked DA2 because they played it and enjoyed it. Everyone has their likes and dislikes. We are different.